This week’s Ecosophian offering is the monthly open post to field questions and encourage discussion among my readers. All the standard rules apply (no profanity, no sales pitches, no trolling, no rudeness, no paid propagandizing, no long screeds proclaiming the infallible truth of fill in the blank, no endless rehashes of questions I’ve already answered) but since there’s no topic, nothing is off topic — with two exceptions.
First, there’s a dedicated (more or less) open post on my Dreamwidth journal on the ongoing virus panic and related issues, so anything Covid-themed should go there instead.
Second, I’ve had various people try to launch discussions about AIs — that is to say, large language models (LLMs) and the utilities they power — on this and my other forums. The initial statements and their followup comments always end up reading as though they were written by LLMs — that is, long strings of words superficially resembling meaningful sentences but not actually communicating anything. That’s neither useful nor entertaining. Thus I’ve decided to ban further discussion of this latest wet dream of the lumpen-internetariat here.
With that said, have at it!
What are some of the limits of the scientific method?
So what do you think will come of the situation in France where Macron is refusing to step down in favor of the Leftist coalition that won the surprise election he recently called? I’m wondering because historically, the French are not the sort to take that sort of thing passively lying down.
Hello JMG,
I call this we are in a befogged August. I have been impatiently waiting for today’s Wednesday to come 🚑🚀. What’s been going through my mind?
I just proof-read this and it’s pretty long.🤦🏼♀️I apologize. Please forgive. Sorry🙏.
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I glued myself to the TV during the Republican National Convention (RNC), Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July. I doubt I missed much. I found it interesting, intelligent, neutral yet edifying, particularly the ‘everyday people’ speeches. Three weeks later, I TRIED to watch the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Chicago, Illinois, but couldn’t watch but ten minutes,—dumbed-down speeches, meaningless twaddle, deadening fluff. The DNC concluded Thursday, 22 Aug 2024.
I was born and raised into a working-class Democrat family, upstate New York. My mother, nurse. My father, merchant marine. My first Presidential election was November 1972. I lived in Dana Point, Orange County, Southern California, in summer 1972. Laughably, as a 19-year old straight long blonde-haired hippie in bell-bottom jeans, I canvassed the mean streets of San Clemente—a bordering town—the summer 1972 (San Clemente was where then-US President Richard Nixon had his cliffside mansion). A lot of people slammed the door in my face🚪.
Fast-forward to 2010. Until 2023, I still called myself a Democrat. A habit I developed after leaving home was I learned to listen (not altogether successfully). I had an ear out👂🏼early 2010. For the next twelve years, I listened non-judgmentally to whatever. What I started hearing was, from my listening-post between 2010 to 2023, the Democratic Party had grown into something NOT at all what it used to be in 1972,—in fact, Democrats had morphed into the opposite. Whoa, heavy sh_t‼️I was shocked,—I could hardly believe it. I was in denial for years. But I kept listening, trusting no-one. I accumulated disparate facts about how Democrats behaved overtly,—and as much as I could fathom, how they were behaving behind the scenes.
Sometime late 2022/early 2023, a lightbulb went off in my head. I had been a sucker. I turned on my heel and switched to being a Tramp supporter (“egads”). By 2022, I had undergone over ten years of personal querying of what the Democratic Party had turned itself into, which by 2022, according to what I witnessed, it was NOT anything like it was in 1972 or, for that matter, not like the 1960s.
WTF?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFKJ) (Jr.’s father was the original RFK) explained the Democratic Party’s about-face perfectly, in his speech on 23 Aug 2024, when he announced he was suspending his campaign and endorsing Tramp. RFKJ said it better than I ever could.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, and I quote:
“… back then [1960, age 6], the Democrats were the champions of the Constitution, of civil rights. The Democrats stood against authoritarianism, against censorship, against colonialism, and unjust wars. We were the party of labor, of the working class. The Democrats were the party of government transparency, and the champion of the environment. Our party was the bulwark against big money interests and corporate power. True to its name, it was the party of democracy.
As you know, I left that party in October, because it had departed so dramatically from the core values I grew up with. It had become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big Pharma, big Tech, big Ag, and big money.”
[pharmaceuticals, technology, agriculture, money]
I agree: The Democratic party *HAS* become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big Pharma, big Tech, big Ag, and big money.
This last week, I noticed that Republicans and Tramp,—if one listens, I mean truly gives them a chance,—actually make sense. They are sensible.
On the other hand, Democrats aren’t making sense at all. After the closing of the Democratic National Convention, Democratic speakers have been in a tizzy,—they assert things that are jibberish—gone bonkers. Democratic writers are writing the most cockamamie-est and bombastic things I have hardly ever seen.
Democrats have been outed:
What used to be 1972 Democrats are 2024 Republicans. What used to be 1972 Republicans are 2024 Demoncrats.
Somehow, the parties have switched names. I know not how, or exactly the year, but they have. I wasn’t looking. I am not the only one who has noticed the transformation. I think it be (sic) group-think.
Even my own husband is lamb-to-the-slaughter by Demoncrats. He defends the party he grew up with, and doesn’t believe me that Democrats have done an about-face. He is close-minded🙉. In November, I may be there to comfort him (or I may not) when his world falls out from under him🥺😩🤯; I think Tramp will win.
Along with J D Vance (a ‘might’ in his own right) and RFKJ, they are a trio. We need entertainment these next couple months. Demoncrats may call this trio “The Three Stooges,” but as Tramp would say, “Who cares?” They be Laurel and Hardy. Or Abbott and Costello. Who’s on First [Base]?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=u3XaiKL5npNpdIa7
Among thinkers (“I think I am, I think I am“), I, for one, need to pass the next two months with jocularity. Tramp is the best-ever standup comedian. Just watch his rallies on UTub (I know you don’t watch videos, but others might). Demoncrats have no sense of humor; Republicans do. Demoncrats have diarrhea-of-the-mouth about Tramp”; they can’t stop talking about him.
If and when Tramp wins, it will be a good thing.
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For those wondering whether, or not, this melding of RFKJ+Tramp DAMAGES KomodoDragon Harris. It does.
Is it a fatal blow to Demoncrats? Time will tell.
Full disclosure. I have komodo dragons on the brain. It occurred to me that Demoncrats are like having a full-grown komodo dragon loose in your own house, chasing you. First, one shuts the hell up until one figures out what one is up against. Second, one runs like hell. Third, one realizes one needs to raise oneself up by several feet, high enough where the komodo dragon can’t reach you (full-grown ‘heavy’ komodo dragons *cannot* climb, however, ‘light’ younguns can).
We are dealing with Komodo Harris. Outsmart the komodo dragon and her kind.
I welcome autumn🍂. I saw the first leaves falling in the rain today. Nights are longer🌑.
God bless🙏.
💨Northwind Grandma💨🤔🙇🏼♀️👩🏼🏫📚🦎
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
70-something
JMG,
You briefly said some things about this on the covid blog, but wondering if you might be willing to say a bit more about what you think the possible effects of RFK supporting Trump’s candidancy might be?
Thanks,
Jacques
Hey there! Would you be willing to be video interviewed about conspiracy theories?
JMG,
Why did you think aircraft was created in ancient times?
https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/32942.html
Kurt Schmidt,
One limit of the scientific method is that some scientific experiments are getting very costly and there will come a time when society won’t be able to fund them. This has implications for science – if scientists can no longer replicate their experiments due to lack of funding, society might begin to question whether the theories are actually true.
For example, somebody mentioned on the recent Magic Monday on the Ecosophia Dreamwidth that there are debates over whether to fund a new particle collider for whenever the LHC shuts down or whether the funds are better used elsewhere in society, and it looks increasingly likely that a new particle collider won’t be funded by anybody. So I don’t expect belief in the standard model of particle physics to survive into the future due to funding cuts to particle physics experiments, since they will no longer be able to replicate the experiments that they did in the 2010s and early 2020s.
Dear Mr. Greer,
Thank you for all the great work that you do. I have a question about your 2020 book The King in Orange. I greatly enjoyed reading this book recently and fully agreed with everything said about salary class privilege leading up the election of Trump in 2016. By the year 2024, however, it seems that a lot of that salary class privilege has eroded away due to higher inflation, taxes, crime, and a general decline in standard of living in the West. To consider just one example, in states like Illinois a lot of salary class homeowners are set to lose their homes because the real estate bubble has become so overinflated that the state is demanding outrageous property taxes even for very small houses. In one recent news story, a man who bought a fairly small house in some suburb of Chicago in 2006 for a little over $100,000 is now being charged some $30,000 per year in property taxes because the state claims (laughably) that that little house is worth a million dollars. The cost of living has risen so high that people paradoxically find that despite making more money than ever before, they are unable to save any of it because the cost of rent, health care, insurance, taxes, food, and gas continue to rise. In The King in Orange, you also noted that interest rates are a great way to measure how much power each class has. Interest rates were kept as low as basically zero for a long time to allow the salary class to borrow cheaply to finance their home and brand new car purchases etc. but now they’ve risen back up to the point that extremely few people from the salary class are able to buy homes these days, as mortgage applications have basically dropped down to an all-time low and most of the homes that do sell at these exorbitant prices are being bought up with cash by investors from China. If I may ask your opinion, do you think that the salary class has fallen into this state of decline over the past four years because the US is so bankrupt and the global supply chain problems have been so badly damaged (largely due to Peak Oil) that they can no longer actually afford to guarantee these millions of people a standard of living higher than that of emperors in pre-modern times? Or do you think that the Democrats under the Biden administration have become so lazy, incompetent, and dysfunctional that they no longer even bother to take the time to make sure that they can take care of a voter base which they simply take for granted will support them every election no matter what happens?
hi john, what would you say are the 3 most sacred/spiritual physical geographic locations on earth? thank you.
Kurt, it can only be used on things that can meaningfully be reduced to quantitative measurements; it can only be used on things that occur often enough to have a respectable sample size; and it can only be used in situations where it really is possible to control all the variables. Attempts to apply it to phenomena that don’t meet all three of those limitations are responsible for much of the junk science currently infesting our world. (Most of the rest is the result of financial corruption, to which the scientific method as currently practiced is also hideously vulnerable.)
Mister N, Macron’s a crazed fan of Napoleon, and I think all along he’s dreamed of seizing power and ruling as an emperor. Unfortunately he lacks the charisma of either Napoleon. It’ll be interesting to see if the French still have the élan that sent a whole series of failed monarchs packing in the 19th century.
Northwind, thank you for this! I went through a similar transformation in a slightly slower and more roundabout way, first by watching the Democrats praise Obama for every single thing they abused Dubya for doing, and push through a series of policies (the bank bailout, followed by Obamacare) that benefited the insanely rich at the expense of everyone else; second by going back through the historical literature of liberalism and conservatism; and finally, by watching the merry mayhem unleashed when the King in Orange rose up from the cloudy depths and a very large number of Democrats quite literally went batshale crazy, uttering the most impressively absurd gibberish I’ve heard since I stopped working in nursing homes with a significant population of schizophrenics. I cheerfully admit that there are many candidates for President who would do better than the Orange One, but the Democratic Party isn’t running any of them.
Jacques, I noted in that post that it made me slightly hopeful. I have no idea how things will turn out, but it’s at least possible that RFK Jr., as the price of his support, will be able to get the federal bureaucracy to back off on its unrelenting persecution of alternative health care, so that alternative modalities will be more readily available to people who want to use them. On the far end of the spectrum is the winsome image of RFK Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services, with the power to fire the legions of pharmaceutical-industry shills who infest the bureaucracy; I don’t expect that to happen, but in the immortal words of Wowbagger the Indefinitely Prolonged, “A being can dream.”
Devyn, sure. Put through a comment marked NOT FOR POSTING with an email address where you can be reached, and I’ll be in touch.
Richard, there’s quite a bit of evidence scattered across Asia. Just to start with, take a look at this Persian carving —
— and imagine it as a child’s drawing of a man in an old-fashioned monoplane:
There are quite a number of texts in Chinese and Indian sources talking about flying machines in very realistic terms; the Chinese texts say that the machines come from somewhere off west of China, the Indian texts say they come from somewhere northwest of India. There’s much more which you can find if you look for it, and it all suggests the survival, in a community somewhere in central Asia, of basic aviation technology from one of the high civilizations of the Ice Age.
Chad, that’s an excellent point, of course. What’s been happening is that as the global economic basis for US empire breaks down the salary class is being sacrificed from the bottom up, and the ruling elite (Democrats and RINO Republicans alike) are trying to use various gimmicks to keep themselves in power anyway. The erosion of civil rights in the US and the acceleration of election fraud (US elections have always been riddled with graft and fraud, but it’s become much worse of late) is part of that same pattern. Like all empires, ours is falling, and its current rulers — well, they’re not any more competent than your average ruling elite in an age of decadence and decline. Even a much more capable ruling class would be in desperate shape just now, however, because empire is always a self-terminating phenomenon and the costs are outrunning the benefits in the usual way.
R, I have no idea. I haven’t been to all the sacred and spiritual locations on the planet and so have no basis to judge.
Greetings fellow practitioners of the occult arts, and a hearty and heartfelt thank you to our host JMG!
Just wanted to share that I am (slowly – it’s dense and so am I😉) reading the book by Marilynne Robinson called READING GENESIS.
Has anyone else read it and if so, any thoughts to share?
She’s clearly a Christian apologist, and attempts to position the pagan gods and myths and neighboring cultures in contrast to the God of Abraham. I found it interesting.
Best to all
Jill C (YogaandtheTarot)
Response to Siliconguy last night, # 216, on the subject of primogeniture. By the late 18th/early19thC, the institution had become outdated. You will recall the Bennett entail, leaving the 5 girls essentially unmarriageable within their own class.
There is a rational basis for the institution in times of high insecurity and short lifespans. In a system in which eldest son inherits everything, he also takes on total responsibility for his mother, siblings, and the household. Household meant all the servants, crafts persons, serfs, war band and their families. Day to day management was the responsibility of his mother or wife, but it was up to him to see that everyone was fed, clothed and kept usefully employed. The theory is that when the pater dies, usually in middle age, 40s-50s, the heir is old enough and well trained enough to take on the responsibility.
At the high end of the social scale, as in royal and high noble families, food was plentiful and living conditions were such that most children did survive. Plantagenets and Capets had huge families, 10 or more offspring per wife. Much of the civil instability in medieval England and France had its origin in the efforts of various royal dukes, counts and earls to expand their domains and influence. Wars of the Roses is only one example.
I live in Canada, and have been watching the rise of medically assisted suicides with some concern, but it has recently turned even more Kafkaesque. I have a DNR, which I have had for years, but now in order to keep it I will need to get regular psychiatric evaluations done to make sure I am not suicidal, and also get regular checkups to ensure I do not have any life threatening medical conditions. Apparently, there is concern about people committing suicide and using a DNR to prevent them from getting care, or people with DNRs deciding against regular medical treatments. Then there is also the issue of the fact that a single family member can unilaterally override a DNR, which has been the case for years.
Aside from “Death can only be permitted under the care of those in white coats” I cannot think of any possible justification for this insanity….
Re: limits of science
The LHC mentioned by the anonymous commentator is only the tip of the iceberg. A lot of science today depends on fossil fuels and as a result its costs are going to increase significantly when the supply of fossil fuels shrink. Think electronics, climate science, astronomy, molecular biology, etc. Without fossil fuels most of the science in those fields simply won’t be possible.
What do you think will happen to Judaism if Zionism ever fails as an ideology in the future?
Limits of the scientific method?
The first one that comes to mind is measurement. If you can’t measure it it’s pretty much inaccessible to the scientific method. Scientists have built endless gadgets to measure matter, energy and forces so they could figure out what was going on. If you can’t measure it, think back to the life force debate, then it’s hard to apply the scientific measurement.
The other limit was alluded to in #7. Once you have it figured out you are done, whether it be thermodynamics or quantum mechanics. Science makes a transition to Engineering like happened with transistors. Or airplanes. Why do airplanes look the same now as in the 1960s? Because the physics of aerodynamics has not changed.
The materials of the airplane have changed, materials science is not a completed science. The modeling of alloy behavior is nowhere near accurate. A trivial amount of palladium greatly improves the corrosion of titanium for unknown reasons. A trivial of amount of arsenic greatly reduces dezincification of brass. Why? Shrug. Chloride stress cracking of austenitic stainless steel is still a mystery despite it costing a fortune over the years and being a personal pain in my butt for most of my career.
So there is a lot left to figure out, but the periodic table is done. Fluid mechanics is done. Quantum mechanics is mostly done, although they may have to upset the entire apple cart to explain the odder behavior of neutrinos. On the other hand the ‘crisis in cosmology’ is not done, they now have three or four answers that don’t agree. The James Webb telescope really has upset that particular apple cart.
At this link is the full list of all of the requests for prayer that have recently appeared at ecosophia.net and ecosophia.dreamwidth.org, as well as in the comments of the prayer list posts. 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 and/or in the comments at the current prayer list post.
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This week I would like to bring special attention to the following prayer requests.
May Falling Tree Woman’s son’s girlfriend’s mother Bridget in Devon UK, who has recently started to sit up and converse after more than six weeks of bedridden tracheotomy following a life-threatening fall from a horse, be blessed and healed and returned to full health.
May Corey Benton, whose throat tumor has grown around an artery and won’t be treated surgically, be healed of throat cancer.
May Heather’s brother in law, Patrick, who is dying of cancer and has dementia, go gentle into that good light. And may his wife Maggie, who is ill herself, find the strength and peace she needs for her situation. (Update on Patrick’s condition here)
May Neptune’s Dolphins’ husband David, who lost one toe to a staph infection last year and now faces further toe amputations due to diabetic ulcers in his left foot, be blessed and healed, and may the infection leave his body for good.
May Rebecca, who has just been laid off from her job and is the sole provider for her family, quickly discover a viable means to continue to support her family; may she and her family be blessed and sustained in their journey forward.
May Kyle’s friend Amanda, who though in her early thirties is undergoing various difficult treatments for brain cancer, make a full recovery; and may her body and spirit heal with grace.
Tyler A’s wife Monika’s pregnancy is high risk, and has now successfully entered the third trimester; may Monika and baby Isabelle both be blessed with good health and a smooth delivery.
Lp9’s hometown, East Palestine, Ohio, for the safety and welfare of their people, animals and all living beings in and around East Palestine, and to improve the natural environment there to the benefit of all.
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Guidelines for how long prayer requests stay on the list, how to word requests, how to be added to the weekly email list, how to improve the chances of your prayer being answered, and several other common questions and issues, are to be found at the Ecosophia Prayer List FAQ.
If there are any among you who might wish to join me in a bit of astrological timing, I pray each week for the health of all those with health problems on the list on the astrological hour of the Sun on Sundays, bearing in mind the Sun’s rulerships of heart, brain, and vital energies. If this appeals to you, I invite you to join me.
The current elites seem to be in a state of hubristic delirium. They believe themselves to be world leaders and to even have powers over nature itself.
I think the Late Bronze Age ruling class was in similar state… until warriors broke into their palaces and slaughtered them all. History could well be heading for a repeat performance 🎭.
I’m doing this prediction on the basis that the capacity of the current system to mobilize military power in its support is now in free fall. The sorts of people the current regime is mobilizing as its cat’s paws are not the sort of people that will submit forever.
Consider how the Persians and the Romans were using Arab tribes against each other during their struggles and what happened when the Arabs realized they were holding the whip hand.
What is going to stop, say the Azov battalion if they decide to march on Brussels? What forces do the regime have that will not do nothing or join them? It was only Prigozhin’s decision that stopped the advance of Wagner on Moscow. Next time there will be no such decision.
@Mr Nobody. The “leftist” (opinions vary) coalition didn’t win the French parliamentary elections in July. Considered as a group, the four parties that make it up gained more seats than any other group, but way, way short of even a tenuous majority. In addition, the group is hopelessly divided on most important issues (uncritical support for Israel vs. uncritical support for Hamas, pro vs. anti-nuclear and many others.) This group–the Nouveau Front Populaire– considers that Macron should ask them to nominate a Prime Minister, who would then try to cobble together a coalition involving other groiups. Most analysts believe this impossible because the numbers don’t add up. In the interim, the government has resigned, but is still continuing to deal with “current issues” since somebody has to. Macron is clearly hoping to spin this situation out as long as possible, but even if he were to give up tomorrow, it’s not certain that there is a solution. Fun fact, the individual party with the most seats is Le Pen’s National Assembly, whose candidates took 37% of the vote, but were squeezed out of anything up to a hundred seats by squalid deals between Macron’s gang and the NFP.
If anyone is interested, my essay next week will be partly devoted to this issue as an example of systems not functioning any more.
I saw Kimberley’s entry in the latest Magic Monday suggesting to recite the Pledge of Allegiance dailyand have been trying it over the last couple of days. I don’t know what it is about; perhaps it is related to the fact that I used to say it in school when I was a small child. But both times so far I’ve found it unaccountably powerful and… inspiring. It just feels *good*. There is still power there. A whole lot of it, actually, it feels to me. JMG, is it possible that there is a reservoir from the millions who used to say it daily, and it feels so powerful because it has generally been going unused for so long?
Anyway, to those who feel at all attracted to the notion. I recommend giving it a try. Great idea, Kimberley.
Entered in both the ” we used to be able to do this” and the “for some reason I am not surprised” categories;
“The US Department of Defense decided last month to press on with the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program, even though its estimated cost has almost doubled from the original $78 billion. Replacing the aging Minuteman III missiles has no alternative, the Pentagon said. It could be “five years or more before work starts” on modernizing some 450 existing silos for the new missiles, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing a recent town meeting in Kimball, Nebraska. The community of less than 3,000 residents is surrounded by “one of the biggest missile fields” in the world. “There are a lot of unknowns here, and I understand the frustration,” Brigadier-General Colin Connor told residents earlier this month.
Minuteman III missiles entered service in the early 1970s and were supposed to be replaced after a decade. Washington finally greenlit the Sentinel program in 2020, awarding the initial $13.3 billion contract to Northrop Grumman, after Boeing dropped out. The Sentinel project manager, Colonel Charles Clegg, was sacked in June for unspecified reasons. Along with the new missiles, which are still on the drawing board, the project envisions modernizing the 50-year-old silos and command centers. Construction involves, among other things, laying down thousands of kilometers of fiber-optic cables. However, shutting down the silos or the command facilities is impossible, because the nuclear doctrine requires them to be available at a moment’s notice. Some silos may also need to be rebuilt from scratch.
The scale, scope and complexity of the Sentinel project is “something we haven’t attempted as a nation for over 60 years,” Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante told reporters last month, insisting that it had to be done nonetheless. The US Air Force is looking for ways to reduce the project’s complexity, but it might take up to 18 months to decide on the changes, LaPlante said, hoping for sometime in early 2025.”
The last two Minuteman boosters they tried to test blew up. Solid rocket motors do have best by date.
What effect do you think this year’s solar eclipse has had (and will have?) on American cultural and political struggles?
Dear JMG,
I have a question regarding the Blessing Walk in the MOE training. If it is not possible to go somewhere with people every day (I live outside of town in a rural area and cannot afford gas to drive to the nearby towns daily to walk where people are) what would be a good rough idea on how long to practice Phase One of the Blessing Walk before moving on to Phase Two? Or would that depend too heavily on how many days a month I would get to practice? Or if this question is one without a firm answer I understand that. Thanks much either way!
Hello JMG,
I just read Ecotechnic Future and was really impressed with the example of industrial society being like R style and sustainable societies (small farming community is an easy example to imagine) as being like a K style climax species. It makes a lot of sense to me and i wanted to try and use this idea of energy as a driver for growth and longevity to explain the current birth rate and get your critique. you have talked to this phenomenon before but this explanation is more specific to our time and to energy.
first lets call the growth phase with very good Energy return on investment (E-ROI)the Cheap Oil Age.
second lets call the other end of the slope where energy slowly gets more expensive (lower E-ROI), the Decline Age.
also core to this explanation is that i would argue that as population grows, energy use Per Capita increase EXPONETIALLY. A few examples to argue this point. The first guy to show up chooses the “best” land. like next to a river or to jobs, and it is “best” because it is close to all the resources and extracting those resources is low energy as a function of proximity. As you add more people they tend to settle into “worse” spots defined as being far away from water bodies, or jobs, or whatever the resource is. These “worse” spots are worse simply because they are high energy since its takes more to get to the resources. This makes an added person use MORE energy than the current average since they will either occupy a “worse” spot, or force someone else to.
If we look at birth rate as a proxy for growth, and compare that to energy use, During the Cheap Oil Age we should expect high birth rate among industrial society. Just like a freshly burned forest floor, its the weeds that do best. we saw this historically.
More interesting is that as we enter the decline Age it makes sense that we see birth rate go low among R style first world nations BEFORE third world nations as the high energy cost does not effect low energy economies as much. For a couple reasons this is true. 1. they still have yet to exploit high economic low energy input returns like say simple tractors, so even high energy cost does not yet impede growth. 2. they are not as much or even yet in a population overshoot so every next added person is not as high of an energy cost.
i did some simple research and if you look at a map of energy use per capita and birth rate, this explanation seems to hold.
i invite you critique of this argument! thanks! And wow i loved Ecotechnic Future 🙂
Northwind, et al, a few random observations:
Trump himself is increasingly showing age and, I think, ill health. No way am I going to take a chance on Vance becoming president. On such evidence as I have seen, I think he is a power hungry low functioning sociopath and wind-up right wing grievance Ken doll. I am not aware that he has shown any talent or even ability for administration.
As for Harris, as I told my daughter, we have had mediocre presidents before. So far, she has shown that she does understand how to conduct herself in public, how to rise to an occasion, and willingness to listen to staffers who do know what they are doing. She is not a great orator, her public speaking talents are no more than adequate, but I don’t think a president needs to be Demosthenes. Nor is she in any way an original thinker, and again, we don’t need Einstein running countries, we need him teaching at a university. I don’t blame her for not doing interviews; I have not seen a capable high level interviewer since Charlaine Hunter-Gault retired. Why should Harris lend herself to helping some Fox or MSNBC Babe of the Month enhance her resume?
In 2020, Bernie Sanders promised a roomful of Iowa farmers that he would appoint an Atty. Gen. who would enforce the anti trust laws against agribiz, and a Sec. of Ag. who would be sympathetic to proprietors of small and medium sized farms. I will consider voting for Trump if and when I hear a similar pledge from him. Which won’t happen: Project 2025 comes down squarely on the side of biotech and mega farming.
The only breath of sandal anyone has found against Harris is a yearlong liaison with Willie Brown, when she was single and he had been separated from his former wife for about a decade. Having raised two girls on my own, after my husband died when the youngest was 3, with no dates, romances or social life of any kind, I am not going to be lectured at about “morality” by people whose standard bearer is a guy who married three vapid trophies and by many accounts, cheated on all three. Make that two vapid trophies, #2 at least seems to have a sense of humor about the whole menage. Furthermore, out of the 4 grownup Trump offspring, the one he didn’t raise is the only one who resembles an ordinary human being.
I read Not the Future We Ordered, after you featured it on your Magic Monday post. As usual, you packed plenty of food for thought into it.
1. You spend some time in the book discussing the mythic role of Zeus/Jupiter in Greco-Roman cultures, merrily smiting away at the Titans and establishing unimpeachable order.
It strikes me that in many cases, this is the Right’s favored approach. Certainly when it comes to gender dynamics, I’ve seen any number of reactionary voices yelling, in so many words, “the women are out of control, we must smite them and bring them back into good order.” This doesn’t strike me as overly workable, to put it mildly.
Then it struck me that the feminists may be operating according to their own dysfunctional myth. I haven’t figured out what that might be, but certainly their approach to the current situation leaves something to be desired.
So: A binary, two toxic myths at odds with each other. We await the arrival of a third myth, to transcend the two and hopefully restore healthy relations between the two halves of the species.
2. In your discussion of the five stages of grief, as applied to peak oil theory, you describe how people will likely be tempted to blame peak oil on a cabal of evil ruling elites, and the spread of the feeling that the elites are opposed to one’s well-being and the well-being of everything one values.
Eleven years after your books was published, it certainly seems to me that we have a ruling elite that is… well, I know you don’t care for the term ‘evil.’ Will ‘malignantly incompetent’ work? They certainly appear to be opposed to my well-being and everything I value, and I expect them to use concepts like peak oil to solidify their own power.
It’s just that getting rid of them will not actually solve the root problem of peak oil.
@Anonymous,
I’m also in Canada and have watching the MAID (medical assistance in dying/euthanasia) expansions with increasing alarm, horror, and opposition. The effect on DNRs is not something I’d learned about – I wonder how it is related to the ongoing efforts to offer MAID to people who have have only mental health issues. There doesn’t seem to be many practical safeguards against killing people who are suicidal within those who currently qualify due to illness or disability. There’s also been one really nasty case of a suicidal person coming to medical people asking for help to not kill herself, and having MAID suggested to her, which she didn’t even qualify for. Whole thing was illegal.
Most of the abuses and nasty stuff isn’t being covered by CBC – you’ll find info on people trying to expand MAID or force catholic hospitals to offer it there, but not 90% of the abuses of power and people choosing death because of lack of access to care, poverty etc. Or the numbers of deaths by MAID, which was over 15,000 people in Canada in 2023, according to the best estimate I’ve seen.
The following group is a good place to find the stuff the media won’t tell you, and get involved in opposing MAID/the expansions/the abuses if you want to do that. https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2024/08/veterans-affairs-canada-tried-to-cover.html
JMG,
I used to think that this whole woke DEI thing ( once it got a head of steam) was being pushed down from above. But in my wife’s recent experience this may not exactly be the case. My wife is a fourth generation, half Japanese half Korean woman who grew up in Hawaii ( this is relevant to my story). She manages a large county administered water and wastewater district outside of Portland. Up until recently the county government here was made up of part time farmers and businessmen, so it was fairly traditional in nature ( as opposed to Portland).
Recently this agency got some new administrative employees to fill positions vacated by retirements. Several of these employees came from the city of Portland, or other Portland institutions. Almost immediately upon arrival they began agitating for massive changes in the districts hiring and human resource policies to better reflect “DEI” values. These included the usual ridiculous changes in vocabulary along with DEI “loyalty oaths” in job descriptions. Looking at my wife ( minority woman of color with an Ivy league education) they assumed she would immediately jump on board. When she did not, they immediately started looking for forms of leverage to coerce her to do their bidding. Most of their success in doing this other places ( in my opinion) is because most institutional leaders are weak and got their positions by going along with the status quo. Especially white males who fear being cancelled or driven from power with claims of misogyny or bigotry.
My wife has spent most of her working life in treatment plants, where most of her co-workers were union operators and maintenance people, so she does not share this point of view. She is also well aware ( unlike these office people) that most of the districts employees are blue collar men who operate its 4 treatment plants, pump stations and miles of sewer lines.
These “wokesters” , who are all caucasian women ,seem flabbergasted that my wife has no interest in making any of their changes. I think they are having a hard time realizing that their normal levers of power don’t work on my wife.
It is also very apparent that they view this whole DEI thing as part of the religion of progress. Just yesterday their leader came to my wife and said they had showed the districts policies to their ” trusted advisors” back in Portland and they were “horribly behind the times”. In other words, they viewed them as the inevitable march of progress, and anyone who was not on board was living in the past.
So I think that the growth of this DEI stuff has been spread outward from a network of non profit groups, funded by guilt ridden tech billionaires with cadres (. like the cultural revolution in China) of woke activists who use canceling and bully tactics to intimidate weak leaders In corporations, public institutions and universities. But like the cultural revolution such things have a rapid expiration date.
@Northwind Grandma: The reason I’m voting for Trump and the Republicans is, I’m not even ashamed to admit, pure old-fashioned working-class spite-voting. I’m a Taurus Sun, and when Joe Biden tried to force the clot-shot on me, he declared war on Ferdinand’s Peaceful Meadow. One does not make war on the Peaceful Meadow without serious consequences for so doing! And besides, there’s also a practical reason. The SCOTUS justices who struck down Biden’s attempt at a vaccine-mandate were pretty much all put there by Republican Presidents, and justices of that type are more likely to be confirmed by a Republican Senate, so voting Republican, on the Federal level at least, is a justifiable act of self-protection. And there is the fact that I do believe that Donald Trump really does care about this country to the extent that he cares about anything or anybody other than himself. We can only hope that this is enough.
Are you following the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France? From Spengler’s POV, where does free speech fit into the seasons of a civilization? Other platforms that tolerate similar unspeakable vileness have been left alone probably because they will bow the knee to censorship by various forces.
@Northwind Grandma (#3):
The Republican and Democratic parties have done an ideological do-di-do several times within the last century and a half. One of my great-grandfathers, out in California would register his party affiliation as Republican some years, as Socialist in others., more or less half and half. He saw only minor differences between those two parties’ programs, but a major difference between either of them and the program of the Democrats.
In my own ‘teen years, again out in California, the Democrats were seen as the party of the Old South with all its inherited privileges, whereas the Republicans were the party of progressive Northerners and Westerners. Then in the 1960s the so-called “Southern Strategy” of Nixon and Goldwater led to the Old South switching its party loyalty from hard-line Democratic to hard-line Republican, which flipped the Republican party rightwards, and the Democratic party leftwards. Now, half a century later, the two parties seem to be flipping leftwards vs. rightwards once again..
This is why I now favor the view that the two parties are in reality two faces of a single Uniparty, each side of which uses hot-button fear of the other side to highten political anxiety and thus funnel ever greater amounts of donor cash into party hands. Notice how most of the hot-button issues emphasized there days are predicaments that have no clear and painless solution, not problems that there is a real hope of solving. I suspect that the party operatives are fully aware of how theis works to their mutual advantage.
And so the grift keeps on going ……
Jill, you’re welcome. I haven’t read it, of course. Anyone else?
Anonymous, one of the pervasive features of a society in end stage bureaucratic thrombosis is that the laws no longer make any sense at all. They’ve become so complex, so contradictory, and so confusing that they benefit nobody but the endlessly proliferating class of those who make them, interpret them, enforce them, and provide ways around them. None of it is justifiable, nor does it needs to be; rulemaking becomes its own end, until eventually the society collapses under the burden.
Mark, that’s hardly a new thing. Judaism pups ideologies focusing on control of that corner of West Asia every millennium or two, and they follow a life cycle that goes all the way back to the kingdom founded by Saul in the 11th century BC: the political entity establishes itself, and becomes militarily and politically strong; its strength leads to arrogance, and its leadership ends up trying to play an outsized role in the politics of the region; in due time, since the Jewish homeland is never more than a tiny sliver of land wedged between much more populous and productive regions, that leads to blowback, the conquest of the Jewish political entity by a larger hostile power, and yet another diaspora. That’s what happened to the original kingdoms of Israel and Judea, it’s what happened to the kingdom founded by the Maccabees, and we’re most of the way through the same cycle now. In another century or two the Jewish community in exile will have added a new day of mourning to the calendar, representing the fall of modern Israel, and settle back down to the normal rhythms of diasporic existence.
Quin, thanks for this as always.
MonSeulDesire, trust me, you’re far from the only person thinking in those terms. I expect to live to see the conquest of western Europe by Muslim armies and the first waves of mass migration out of sub-Saharan Africa into the increasingly depopulated regions of the Old and New Worlds alike.
Aurelien, I’ll look forward to reading what you have to say about that.
Quin, there’s a lot of power in those simple words. I suspect also that it’s been put to use magically in the present situation, and that Kimberly’s responding to that intuitively.
Siliconguy, I’m tending more and more to accept the claim that productive economic activity is increasingly impossible to carry out in a neoliberal society, since the entire economy has been reworked to pump wealth out of productive activities into parasitic ones. Large-scale projects like these, or the humiliating failure of the latest US spacecraft, are among the harbingers of that.
Raen, since I have bills to pay like everyone else, I reserve that for paying subscribers to my Patreon or SubscribeStar platforms, where I post astrological forecasts of politics and economics based on solar ingresses, eclipses, and outer planet conjunctions:
https://www.subscribestar.com/john-michael-greer
https://www.patreon.com/johnmichaelgreer
JD, it really depends on personal factors. I’d say, though, that once you’re comfortable doing any phase without having to refer to notes, you can proceed to the next phase.
Alex, that seems quite plausible to me. I’d encourage you to write it up as an essay with graphs, and post it somewhere, then link to it on one of these open posts — I think people interested in the future of industrial society will want to see it.
Cliff, nicely done! (1) Yes, that’s quite reasonable; the Roman image of Jove knocking the world into order is hardwired into Western cultures. Many feminists, and people on the left generally, have done the usual thing and embraced the flip side of that same narrative; that’s why the most rigid defenders of the status quo in today’s Western societies, people who literally won’t let themselves think a thought that hasn’t been preapproved by government bureaucracies and the corporate media, so reliably insist that they’re the rebels. It’s also why Fifty Shades of Grey was such a runaway bestseller among feminist women; since they’ve identified themselves as the rebellious powers whose destiny is to be spanked by Jove, it titillates them to imagine the spanking in erotic terms. (2) Oh, granted. Keep in mind that the ruling elite is also influenced by the process of projection. I think one of the reasons they’re so malignantly incompetent is precisely that that’s the role they’re assigned in the narrative of our time, and what psychologists call the Pygmalion effect is causing them to be sucked into playing the part.
Clay, no argument there. The basic agenda is being pushed from above, but the pushing works because it’s been possible to recruit cadres lower down who can use various kinds of wokery to gain power for themselves in bureaucratic institutions. Upwardly mobile white women in particular have found that the woke thing is a very useful addition to the toolkit they use to climb the bureaucratic pyramid. If the upper classes decide that wokery has served its purpose and shut it down, they’re going to face frantic pushback from the (mostly) female cadres who have used it so successfully.
Bradley, yes, I’ve been following it. Much of what’s happening right now is a struggle between the new entrepreneurial magnates and the old financial and resource establishment; Durov was unwise to get anywhere within reach of Europe, where the older faction has its greatest control. I don’t expect him to get out alive unless he hands over Telegram to the forces of reaction. As for free speech, it’s a useful safety valve for any society that feels confident of its strength; when it gets shut down, you can tell that the rulers are in a state of panic.
Twas pulling out of the local post office parking lot the other day, when I noticed a decal on the left side of the rear window of a nearby car – which read: EVOLVE … which was, um, ‘balanced’ on the opposite side with another decal – a BIDEN/HARRIS campaign sticker. Talk about a lack of self-awarenss!! Evolve into what? a morlock? ..a parasite? ..beyond meatsack, what? Gonna be avoiding such addled virtue-signaled drivers like the moneypox! “Ooo, Ooo”.
There’s a lot of governments in the West these days that seem to be doing more and more censorship by any other name. Canada and the UK stick out immediately to me, but I’m sure you can think of plenty more. Given that freedom of speech acts as a safety valve, I’m increasingly assuming that some western european country, the UK, Canada or maybe the USA is going to have a flat-out revolution outside the electoral system. And it’s probably going to completely blindside and panic the elites in similar nations when it does, and may set off attempts at copycat revolutions and panicked crackdowns ala the arab spring. The results of such things are unpredictable and very messy, but a large-scale uprising that cannot be quickly put down seems increasingly a matter of when and where, not if.
Does this seem likely to you?
Also, if the country that one lives in turns out to go kablooie, how to cope?
>This is why I now favor the view that the two parties are in reality two faces of a single Uniparty
Even in countries that had one communist party, it was often split into progressive and hardliner factions. Here, the hardliner and progressive factions have just been rebranded as Republican and Democrat.
Six of one, half-dozen of the other.
Thanks Quin! I am delighted people are joining me in the Pledge to say the Pledge. I envision the American flag while I say it but I have also envisioned the goddess Columbia thanks to Christophe’s brilliant suggestion. I have been saying the Pledge several times a day. Whenever I receive a political spam text on my smartphone, I say the Pledge and hit the delete button just as I utter the final words “for all”.
For more information on what we are talking about with the Pledge to say the Pledge, here is my post on it.
https://kimberlysteele.dreamwidth.org/126490.html
Here is my polytheist adaptation of the Pledge of Allegiance:
I pledge allegiance to the United States of America
And to the republic for which it stands
One nation, under gods, indestructible,
With liberty and justice for all.
>virtue-signaled drivers
When ever anyone mentions virtue signaling, I often think about dogs and what the world would be like if they could call each other such good boys.
Yes, you are. Yes you are.
” there’s a lot of power in those simple words. I suspect also that it’s been put to use magically in the present situation”
Since Kimberley posted about the Pledge of Allegiance on MM, I’ve recited it twice after my prayers in a SOP space. Each time when I got to the word “liberty” I felt the word “unity” come to mind instead. This could just be down to the hope for continued unity and somehow an end, or at least dampening, to the divisiveness (RFK Jr. “Heal the Divide” was one of the things I liked about his campaign.) But I’ve also wondered/intuited this morning that there might be something else at work. Your quote seemed to confirm it.
I want Liberty too, for the record.
@Robert Mathiesen (comment #31)
“And so the grift keeps on going ……”
We have been hoping for some time that someone with moral fiber would emerge to offer a true alternative to the vulture with blue and red wings..
Thus it is has been pretty devastating to morale (and for us, the last straw with regard to hope in electoral politics as ‘solution’) to learn that even the RFK Jr. campaign has been a most murky grift from the get-go. Led by a (*cough*) “ex-” (*cough*) cee-eye-aye agent, no less.
Which is a large part of the reason no one dares to speak up about what has been going on behind the scenes in that campaign — she is a piece of work, to say the least.
Where do you see the trajectory of American style religion and spirituality heading? Consider the entire spectrum from techno-triumphalism to large venue evangelicalism.
JMG,
Have you ever written about Swami Vivekananda outside of comments threads (which I turned up on google searches)? What was his relation if any to the Theosophy movement?
I came across him in an account of L Frank Baum and the Chicago World’s Fair. I know Baum, his wife, and mother in law were Theosophists or Theosophist-friendly anyway, and wondered if there was a connection.
@Mary Bennet ,
I must respectfully disagree with you analysis of Trump vs Harris. As readers of this blog know, the only thing that really matters, at this point, is the speed and shape of the collapse of the American Empire. No matter who is president, collapse is baked in to the cake but how it happens can make a lot of difference to the inhabitants of the US.
The Joe Biden regime has been the most destructive in American history with respect to pushing the empire off the cliff. From the humiliating collapse of the U.S. in Afghanistan, to the fully brain dead final stage of the Ukraine war along with the foolish financial sanctions on Russia, Biden and his crew ( or handlers) and that includes Harris has accelerated us down the slope of collapse like Thelma and Louise in a convertible.
I see no reason to believe that Harris is not part and parcel of this band of geopolitical nitwits. I see no reason to believe that she has the slightest amount of independence from this doomed cadre. So it is hardly a benefit that she gets along with her staffers and others if they are driving her off the cliff.
While Trump is no Marcus Aurelius, he has shown he as at least willing to get along with our geopolitical competitors ( his adds showing himself shaking hands with Lil Kim are interesting). If he can slow down the slide in to the valley, even a little bit it hardly matters if he is crass, talks mean to wokesters and offends the sensibilities of the cat ladies. Vance, while not everyone’s cup of tea, also shows the same reluctance to enter in to foreign entanglements. The fact that Trump brought both Tulsi and RFK in to his campaign shows an open-mindedness that is sorely lacking in the dems.
Thinking about the (not at all surprising) admissions from Mark Zuckerberg this week that the US govt used Meta as a censorship arm over the past few years to get around first amendment restrictions, what do you think will happen in the west when almost nobody believes their respective governments’ propaganda any more, especially given that the main source of alternative information are heavily-censored social media sites? What precedents are there for societies in similar situations?
Even as fewer and fewer people buy into the propaganda, there wll always be a minority that do, no matter what. Do you have any thoughts on why?
Polecat, I wish I could apologize to Darwin for the steaming muck that’s been made of his simple, elegant concept. “Evolve” means nothing more or less than “adapt to changing circumstances” — it certainly doesn’t mean what the people who stick that on their bumpers think it means.
Pygmycory, it’s a real possibility, not least because the capacity of most Western nations to muster an effective military response to crisis is getting remarkably feeble these days. It wouldn’t surprise me, for that matter, if certain large nations elsewhere in the world were to give that process a good hefty shove. If yours is the nation, it all depends on where you are and whether it turns into a rural insurgency. The crucial point is to keep your head down and get away from the fighting if you possibly can.
Eagle Fang, I’m pretty sure that at least one group is doing workings based on that and other emblems of traditional American patriotism. I haven’t been contacted by anybody along those lines — if they’re doing it, they’ve got the brains to keep it quiet — but the energies are apparent.
Ian, that’s a subject for a book, and not a short one, rather than a brief response to a comment on an open post! I’d point out to start with that techno-triumphalism and large venue evangelicalism aren’t two different things — they’re simply different ways of branding the same social impulse. (One calls its imminently expected savior Jesus, the other calls it supercomputers with general artificial intelligence; the differences in practice are minor.) The major trends at work just now are, first, the end of our civilization’s age of reason as rational materialism disproves itself in practice; second, and linked to that, the rise of the Second Religiosity as proclaimed a century ago by Oswald Spengler, bringing a great many Americans back toward traditional religious forms; third, the equally predictable proliferation of new religious movements on a small scale, beginning the process that will eventually birth the religious and mythic framework of America’s deindustrial dark ages. There’s much more going on as well, but those are the trends I consider most important.
Joel, I haven’t. Since his religion isn’t mine, I haven’t really looked into him.
Sam, information always gets through. In Iran under the Shah, dissidents evaded rigid press censorship and the brutal activities of the SAVAK secret police by copying sermons by Khomeini and others onto cassette tapes and passing those from hand to hand. The more savage the censorship and the more drastically the official version differs from the reality people see around them, the bigger the market for alternatives. As for why some people believe the official version no matter what, the reasons for that are complex and mostly personal.
On the US presidential race: what horrible choices we get! I would favor a candidate or party that manages to distance itself from the power of the neo-conservatives and the Israel lobby. But how likely is that to happen with either major party? The neocons came into their own with Dubya in the early 2000s. Unfortunately they didn’t go away when Obama took over. I read John Bolton’s book about Trump, and Bolton’s main frustration seemed to be with Trumps waffling w/r/t the neocons. Ukraine seem to be a neocon/Victoria Nuland project. (Nuland is gone now, at least, and I wonder what the story was there).
Backing away from the major war that we seem intent on getting into would be a great beginning.
So maybe there’s hope for Trump, with all his embarrassing flaws. Too bad that Tulsi Gabbard and Kennedy Jr. are not available for protest votes.
JMG,
I know the next 5th Wednesday will be in October, but I’m thinking that I might suggest that you write on what our next set of elites might be. You’ve mentioned the new entrepreneurial magnates, but I can’t see tech ones as anything but a temporary phenomenon since we are likely at peak internet. What happens in a post imperial world, since for someone like Elon Musk, their wealth is currently derived from the imperial tribute that the imperial center still commands?
Dear JMG,
With due respect, I think your explanation of the limits of the scientific method incorrectly assumes that quantitation is necessary. My take on the scientific method is much broader. Something like this:
1) Observe whatever it is. Develop any kind of model (quantitative, qualitative, spiritual, or whatever) that both explains your observations and makes predictions that you haven’t yet observed.
2) Test if the predictions are accurate. The test might be an experiment, or it might just be more observation. If initial predictions are accurate, repeat with additional predictions.
3) If predictions are not accurate, modify your model so it predicts accurately.
Iterate 2, 3. If the model is good, fewer and fewer modifications will be required as you proceed. If the model is no good, the necessary modifications will increase in number and complexity. Once you have a model that appears good to you, make the final step, which is:
4) Put your model out into the world, to allow others to either reproduce it, or to dispute it. This might mean publishing it, but for most of us most of the time it means just sharing our ideas (the model) with others and seeing what they think.
This is something that we all do, even without being taught. This is what babies do when they drop everything they can get hold of off the table: they are testing their (mental) model of what we call gravity. I believe this is how most people think much of the time, even if we don’t explicitly recognize the steps or call it the scientific method.
This process may be faster and feel more sciencey with quantitative phenomena than otherwise, but it is in no way limited to such.
I remember when people once thought that Obama would be this great reformer of The System(tm) and I said something like “No lone gunman is going to come out of the woodwork to shoot him. Because of that, he will change nothing that matters. He is not a threat to The System(tm)”. Remember all that Hopey Changey stuff? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I would say a similar thing about Kamala. You’ll never ever see a lone gunman come out of the woodwork for her. She’s not a threat to The System(tm).
Now, where have we seen lone gunmen come out of the woodwork for?
—
On a puzzling note, the media puppets of late have begun to question the wisdom of Kamala as president. I thought they were all supposed to be the jet engines making that particular brick fly? Why are they suddenly refusing to make her fly? Because she doesn’t have any aerodynamic properties of her own, that’s for sure.
@Phutatorius: You can still vote for RFK Jr. in all but ten states, as far as I know. You will have to check your state.
Funny that with all the lawfare the DNC threw at him to keep him off the ballot in so many states, now some of those states don’t want to let him off the ballot since he decided to withdraw from the swing states.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/several-states-refuse-remove-rfk-jrs-name-ballots-hurting-trump
I think he is off the ballot so far officially in: AZ, TX, GA, FL, SC, PA and OH… while Michigan, Wisconsin and Colorado, where he wanted to be removed, are now wanting to keep him on.
I think IIRC you are in California, where you could still vote for him. He in fact encouraged people in those states where they could to still vote for him in the off chance he could win a contingent election. Also the 5% vote he would need to run as an Independent again in 2028 without collecting tons of signatures. So it is still viable IMO.
kallieneira asked me a question over on the Frugal Fridays thread’ I promised to do what I can in the way of answer today.
The question was:
you put up an intriguing idea on an open post a while back about food security and introducing legislation now that would circumvent certain opportunistic behaviors in times of scarcity.
Could you reprise this please, and any more detail would be appreciated. I understand the gist but am obtuse enough not to be able to parse it in such a way as to make a useful suggestion to local council or my state government.
First, IDK what or what might not be relevant for Australians. Howsomever, considering that alliance with a certain East Asian power tends to involve a steady stream of immigrants from said power, who do tend to have all the arrogance and wedowhatwewantism which characterizes overseas citizens of powerful nations…see for example The Ugly American and Brits during the Raj
It used to be said in I think it was NYC, that the Irish had the police, and the Italians had the firefighters. In other words, newly arrived and 2nd generation sons of those communities got shoehorned into those two sources of well paid jobs in preference to anyone else.
IDK about Australia, but here in the USA, doing for yourself is bitterly opposed by both major political factions. Complaints range from your homemade whatever looks gruungy (trans. you didn’t go to the dress shop my cousin owns.), to farmworkers neeed those jobs (trans. the immigrant vote is the source of my political career.) One particularly heartrending example: back in about 2009 or so, an African American woman in an OK town lost her employment. She did have a yard, some unspecified health problems and a good knowledge of herbs. So she grew herbs, treated her own health issues and made a living selling herbs and maybe some herbal products, I am not sure about that last. A neighbor complained, and the city govt. came down on her. One would think self styled libertarians would have been on her side: responsible for her own health problems, check; not accessing public assistance, check; figuring out a legal (she thought) way to support herself, check. Some dufus told me online that, while he understood the “libertarian model” blah blah blah meaning he was all for self reliance right up until some Big Important Company might lose money. Note: when you hear the word ‘model’ used about anything other than toy airplanes, look to see who is lying.
To that I add that as the lower level and most conceited and least competent PMC officials lose their jobs, income and importance, they are going to be looking around for something, anything to be in charge of.
My fears are two, one that some family, let us say the Bennett and Greer tribes might show up in a town newly devasted by loss of the last retail stores and promise: We can get enough hardware and tools and furnishings from our sources, grow and raise enough food for everyone here, but, well you do understand we need to have a monopoly. Everyone will have to buy from us and no competition allowed or we take our road show to the next town.
My other fear is that the former coordinator of City Council agenda will be able to pull enough strings and call in enough favors to get herself appointed Farm Market Administrator, over the heads of all the citizens whose labor built up the market in the first place.
In the USA there is now a whole section of the legal profession who represent nonprofits. Possibly it might be a good idea now to carve out exemptions for locally funded and supported nonprofits such that city, county and state govts. cannot assert control over them. Something of the sort could be perhaps sold to City Councils as excessive beaurocracy we can’t afford.
I am old enough to remember when every third family had some sort of garden and grocers didn’t think they were a threat. We were also thinner, better looking without plastic surgery, and healthier. Maybe a public health argument could be effective with local govts.?
In the USA, right to grow vegetables in your own yard, and the larger principle of right to rely on oneself are increasingly under attack. For an example look over on you tube for reports about the Amish farmer who had part of his farm operation shut down. Employees of the Penn. Dept. of Ag. were quoted as saying things like “We own food.”
I am afraid this is the best I can do. Kallieneira. Many Americans are still entranced by the wonders of Our Mass Consumption Society and, I fear, believe that our parents worked hard so we could have lives of high consumption leisure. Anything which even looks like a threat to those beliefs must be Communism!. The left is not much use because any truly helpful proposal will be immediately shot down by their foundation donors.
I have been attempting to change habits of late, working to define and work towards goals, and foster discipline in myself. I have certainly found interesting the interaction of habit, intention, incentive and will. Based upon your previous recommendations, I have been working to incorporate discursive meditation into my schedule and feel it valuable and instructive. I wonder if you had any further advice on how to improve focus and align habits with intention?
JMG,
What are your thoughts on the conspiracy theory that the Apollo moon landings were faked?
There are huge problems at Fermilab right now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxTCeyG3OvM
Back in 2016 you made confident and correct predictions about the outcome of the US presidential election. So far I haven’t seen any from you for this year’s election. Too difficult to call?
@Joel Jones (#41):
Baum and his wife Maud (the youngest daughter of the redoubtable Matilda Joslyn Gage) both joined the Theosophical Society in 1892, while they were living at Chicage. Gage herself had joined the Society at Rochester, NY, in 1885.
See John Algeo, “A Notable Theosophist: L. Frank Baum,” The American Theosophist, 74 (1986), 270-273, which sheds some light on Baum’s own occult interests beyond Theosophy, too. (You can find Algeo’s article reprinted online at:
https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/sp-1469793668 )
One can find traces of Theosophy and other esoteric teachings throughout the Oz books, but they are relatively slight and hard to spot.
Swami Vivekananda was not a Theosophist, but was a genuine Hindu, who was an invited speaker at the World’s Parliament of Religons at Chicago in 1893. He was one of the chief disciples of the exremely influential Hindu mystic Ramakrishna. He was also the founder of the first two gatherings, in San Francisco and in New York, of what soon became the Vedanta Society. He was every bit as significant in the history of esoteric religion in the US as was H. P. Blavatsky.
Since the Baums were living in Chicago at the time, it seems likely that they attended the Parliament of Religions and heard Vivekananda speak there in person.
“Kurt, it can only be used on things that can meaningfully be reduced to quantitative measurements; it can only be used on things that occur often enough to have a respectable sample size; and it can only be used in situations where it really is possible to control all the variables. …”
I’d say what you are describing are examples of the scientific method applied to practical, physical problems, not the scientific method itself. During the C19-debacle I spent some time thinking about what the basic principle of the scientific method might be. I came up with some kind of trinity – observation, logic and honesty as the necessary link between the two. You observe something – and it doesn’t matter whether this something has a physical reality or if you are observing your thoughts, for example – you use logic to derive conclusions from what you have observed and you need enough honesty to asses the limits and validity of your observations and reasoning.
In that model – where has the scientific methods it’s limits? If you try to apply it to things you can’t perceive. Or you try to apply it to phenomena, where your logical skills fail. Or you dive into problems where it’s impossible for you to maintain your honesty for some reason and you start fooling yourself. But is there a true limit? All of the three, perception, reasoning and honesty can be subjected to training and isn’t occult training doing exactly this? Maybe there’s an equivalent of the scientific method on the astral, mental, spiritual plane and beyond? Maybe the “scientific trinity” or whatever the basic principle of the scientific method may be is derived from an equivalent principle on the higher planes?
Granted, actual Science looks much different than what I have described but then it’s only an application and I suspect that large parts of the Scientific community unknowingly and increasingly engage in some kind of idol worship where they confuse the manifestation (Science, the institution) with its underlying principle (science, the method). It might be necessary to ask the question if many branches of science (like building large particle accelerators or large space telescopes or like manipulating living organisms to do whatever you want or possibly something entirely else) have reached a dead end. And maybe it would be very wise to realize that “primitive” cultures, “superstitious” occultists and others in fact do manifest and apply the scientific method and get valid results with it.
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
https://www.librarything.com/work/52583 is a nice book on the scientific method. It’s a rather confusing notion, really. One of the remarkable paradoxes of modern times is the great success of science in contrast with the total mess of philosophy of science. The more you try to figure out what scientists do and why it has been so successful, the murkier it gets.
A deeper paradox: the whole scientific – technical – progress locomotive looks to be pushing us right over the cliff, while it is science that gives us such a clear picture of that process of ecological overshoot.
Our blinkered vision of what science is, or should be, or can be, seems to be a major factor in our inabililty to face reality. It has generated a blinkered vision of reality, where e.g. somehow rockets to Mars seem like part of our salvation.
Here’s a bit of my attempt to re-vision science: https://interdependentscience.blogspot.com/2022/11/non-euclidean-science.html
I hope this is early enough in the cycle to get noticed by the moms here!
I’ve been putting a lot of effort into getting back in shape recently, mostly focusing on postpartum strength-building; it’s been going very well, but I have some diastasis recti (abdominal muscle splitting) that I’m trying to figure out how to heal. I’ve avoided planks and double leg lifts, as those cause my stomach to bulge, and focused on squats and deep core stuff… but it’s going slow, if it’s going at all :/ Has anyone here had success healing this condition? I remember fondly the good old days when I could plank and leg lift all day long, lol. I’d like to get there again! All advice welcome 🙂
Hi JMG. Do you have any advice for someone that has a particular affinity with a deity associated with a specific place and culture, who then emigrates to another country? Should I try to maintain the previous relationship or give it up and try to cultivate a new relationship with a different deity more suited to my new home? Specifically, I grew up in the dark beech and fir forests of southern Germany, and feel closely connected to that landscape, including its various gods, but am now living in the dry sclerophyll forests of Australia. I respect the local aboriginal culture and its interpretation of the land, but it is utterly alien to me. However, over the last 20 years I have come to develop a strong connection with the land here and am feeling the first stirrings of gods and other beings that seem not to fit within either aboriginal or European culture. Is it my connection to the deities of southern Germany manifesting here in a different guise, or is it something new? I’m keen for some advice on next steps. Thanks
This arrived triumphantly in my in box today, from the architectural hype electronic trade magazine that sends me a constant stream of architectural hype.
“UK-based tire company plans to build the first carbon-neutral tire factory in the U.S.”
https://www.bdcnetwork.com/uk-based-tire-company-plans-build-first-carbon-neutral-tire-factory-us?utm_source=BDC+Daily+5+Newsletter&utm_medium=newsletter&oly_enc_id=0795B7370567F9U
“ENSO, which makes tires for electric vehicles, will build a $500 million campus, powered entirely by renewable energy, that will produce five million EV tires annually by 2027 and 20 million at full capacity.”
I confess that I barely read it. The mere title pegged my BS meter. The primary energy source is several giant wind turbines, as portrayed in the illustration. They have solemnly promised not to purchase energy offsets. Since the wind blows except when it doesn’t, powering a factory is inconsistent with the whims of nature. Hence the factory must be grid connected and use the grid’s energy inertia (great word, I just made it up) to maintain the consistent operation required by the business model of “factory”.
A skim of the article revealed a list of various financial stakeholders but no clue about the actual energy budget. Also, no clue about where the factory could be sighted that is both a good wind site and a good factory site, and additionally for sale at a reasonable price. It really isn’t possible to run modern industrial civilization off wind and solar power without a considerable subsidy from hydropower and hidden fossil fuel subsidies.
My first guess is that it is a racket. What do you think?
Sorry to harp on RFK Jr. but I thought he gave an eloquent send up of the idea of carbon counting and all that jazz on Tucker Carlson, and said the environmentalists had lost sight of habitat and the like when they became infatuated with carbon point schemes, in effect becoming reductionists, quantifying nature.
Car-bon neutral tires sounds proposterous!
Hi JMG and all – Can I tell you about my latest synchronicity? This one has me a little weirded out. Last night I was reading Civilizations in Transition by Carl Jung, specifically the essay “Rise of a New World”. In the essay Jung says “- America should not be ashamed of her Babbitts”. Then, this morning, while I was reading the comment section on The Automatic Earth, commenter Dr. D, who’s daily rant is some of my favorite reading referenced “Babbitt” too!!! WTH? Sinclair Lewis’ fictional character is mostly forgotten, but two references from two sources in less than 14 hrs? Why Babbitt?
JMG, esteemed commentariat,
this (via mass e-mail sent by self-declared “christian” gurus) just in:
Matthew Fox: Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
They are pushing a narrative of “antichrist vs. Black Madonna”
You can’t make this s*** up.
The email includes instructions on how to use “great prayer of the Prophet Mohammed”,
“invoke the diamond white light “, and thirdly, “put yourself totally under the protection of the Black Madonna”
..what in the world is going on??
(Curiously, I felt drawn to re-read _The Last Battle_ (CSL) and did so just the other day..)
Dana,
There is also the January 6th protester who died whose name was Ashli Babbitt.
Anon – I forgot about her, thanks!
Phutatorius, granted. One of the bleak ironies of democracy is that the officials we get are no better than the people who elect them.
John, bring that up in early October and we’ll see who votes for it!
Yves, if your model was correct science wouldn’t have had to be invented 400 years ago. The scientific method is primarily not a method of inquiry, but a method of communication about inquiry. How can other people check your work? That’s the core question that organized science was devised to answer. That what makes quantitative measurement essential, and kept science from taking off until Galileo and his peers made quantity central to the process. Aristotle was perfectly capable of coming up with a model and seeing if it seemed to work, but since he had no way to define his results precisely all people could do was accept or reject his abstractions. When Galileo made the revolutionary leap of thinking about speed as a quantity rather than a quality, that changed decisively.
Other Owen, there’s that!
Selkirk, you might consider affirmations, if you’re not yet using them:
https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/64539.html
Anonymous, one of the problems with modern conspiracy culture is that it’s so busy trying not to be fooled that it believes absurdities. No conspiracy like that could have happened without word getting out — not with tens of thousands of engineers working on every detail of the landings, amateur radio operators listening in on radio communications (and thus knowing when the capsule was above their horizon), and so on at vast length. No, my take is that the insistence that the Moon landings were faked is a desperate attempt to pretend that progress hasn’t shifted into reverse. If we landed on the Moon in 1969 but the rest of Man’s Future In Space didn’t happen as predicted — and if course it didn’t — it’s impossible to keep pretending that we are still progressing; pretending that those bootprints never got on the Moon is a great coping mechanism for those who can’t bear to let go of the delusion of progress.
Anonymous, good. The sooner funds stop being wasted on the dead ends of high-energy physics, and get redirected to sciences that have some chance of helping humanity deal with its planetary home, the better.
Luddite, my prediction in 2016 was anything but confident. I thought a Trump victory was more likely than any of the other alternatives, but noted that there were plenty of variables in play that could redefine things. Here’s what I wrote:
“Granted, there are plenty of twists and turns ahead as America stumbles through its long, unwieldy, and gaudily corrupt election process. It’s possible that the GOP will find some way to keep Trump from gettng the nomination, in which case whoever gets the Republican nod will lose by a landslide as the GOP end of the 80% stays home. It’s possible that given enough election fraud—anyone who thinks this is purely a GOP habit should read Seymour Hersh’s The Dark Side of Camelot, which details how Joe Kennedy bought the 1960 election for his son—Clinton might still squeak through and get into the White House. It’s even possible that Sanders will claw his way over the barriers raised against him by the Democrat establishment and win the race.
“At this point, though, little though I like to say this, the most likely outcome of the 2016 election is the inauguration of Donald Trump as President in January 2017.”
https://thearchdruidreport-archive.200605.xyz/2016/01/down-ratholes-of-future.html
At this point the range of confounding variables is even more extreme. An election in which one party tries to throw the other party’s candidate in prison, replaces its nominee with a person for whom not one person cast a vote in the primaries, and may have colluded in an assassination attempt is not a normal election year, and the gods themselves know what will happen between now and January 20, when the next president is to be sworn in.
Nachtgurke, see my response to Yves above.
Jim, thanks for this! It needs some serious revisioning.
Mark, let the gods take the lead. Don’t try to decide for them — let the process unfold the way they want it to unfold. They know what they’re doing!
Raphanus, that sounds to me like a world-class scam, right up there with Mars One and the pond scum Ponzi scheme aka algal biodiesel, which turned out to be economically viable only if the laws of thermodynamics were suspended for its benefit.
Eagle Fang, he’s done some impressively forthright speeches of late. I hope they have an effect.
Dana, have you read Babbitt? If not, I’d consider that a suggestion that you do so.
Phi, okay, that made me choke on my tea. Matthew Fox — MATTHEW FOX!!! — is yelling about the Antichrist and insisting that his political enemies are evil incarnate? The guy who made such a fuss about how Christianity had to abandon its moral dualism? I don’t think I’ve heard anything so funny in the last five years. At the same time, there’s a deeper dimension here. Fox is being sucked back into the traditional Christian metaphors he thought he’d rejected; if you want a perfect example of the Second Religiosity on the hoof, here it is.
Headline from Bloomberg Businessweek: “Losing your job used to be shameful. Now it’s a whole identity.” First sentence, “There’s a whole class of ‘layoff influencers now…”
Did I send you Kaiser’s new take on the elections? http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/
“The Trump Campaign”
@ JMG – It appears for the rest of the century we are looking at a situation that’s basically a mirror image of the baby boom and turbulence of the 70s and 70s. what impacts do you think the rapid aging, and baby bust, will have on America’s collective psychology?
@shinjuki
If you look at bodybuilders today you will notice that they have weird bulging abs with a spilt down the middle. This is caused by the growth hormone that they take, their organs grow too pushing out the muscles. Bodybuilders have been taking steroids for many decades, yet this issue with their abs is quite recent. One solution in the past was doing Stomach Vacuum exercises. It will strengthen/tighten your core and abdominal muscles and shrink your waist. Look up the exercise and try it for yourself, I’m quite positive that it should help, just be careful if you fell any sharp pain.
Do your best!
Hi JMG,
I think you’re probably familiar with “The Ethical Skeptic,” who has done great statistical analysis of the effects of the Covid response, including the injections, the suppression of early treatment, etc.
Have you ever read his Exothermic Core Mantle Decoupling Dzhanibekov Oscillation (ECDO) essays? They are fascinating.
https://theethicalskeptic.com/2024/05/23/master-exothermic-core-mantle-decoupling-dzhanibekov-oscillation-theory/
Hi JMG,
Hope you are doing well. I’ve been enjoying your posts on the Ring Cycle, and the blog as a whole. It’s one of those things which make me look forward to Wednesdays.
Perhaps it comes across as absurd but I feel the need to apologize for not posting comments on these blog entries lately. I have reached the point where I feel I need to speak less and listen more. I do write quite a bit, in fact more than ever before, but I post less and less online. I am trying to develop my thoughts and way of thinking more before I resume sharing them with the world.
“On the far end of the spectrum is the winsome image of RFK Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services, with the power to fire the legions of pharmaceutical-industry shills who infest the bureaucracy;”
You are a mind-reader! I said exactly this to my Dad yesterday.
As a possibility. Buts it’s nice to know I’m still radical…;)
John–
A small but significant piece of evidence of the bureaucratic administrative state run amok: as a professional in the energy industry, I receive numerous emails re various industry conferences and in one recent such email, the keynote speaker was highlighted as (wait for it) an Associate Principle Deputy Under Secretary of Energy.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Shinjuki # 58
Katy Bowman is a writer and biomechanist who has a book called Diastasis Recti- it is very helpful. She sees DR (and most other things) as a whole-body issue, and has thought a lot about bodies and how we move. Her website has free info, it is how I originally found her when I was looking for solutions to pelvic floor issues, and her books are definitely worth reading. Whenever she publishes something new, I automatically buy it…which only happens with a few authors for me.
Robert Mathiesen (#55)
Swami Vivekananda wasn’t simply a Hindu — he was a (re) convert to the Hindu way of life. He has previously gone through a quite westernized education (although he was quite a brilliant student, and studied Hindu scriptures as well, and had a family background that included very learned relatives).
This has a major impact on his reception of, and transmission of, the teachings of his guru, Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna was a very different character, much more part of the wilder side of Hindu tradition. Vivekananda, like many other Indians who were educated in a sophisticated, more or less Unitarian/progressive, style, received and transmitted Hinduism as an enlightened spirituality , enlightened, unsuperstitious, and so on. This is one of the reasons he did so well in America — where Ramakrishna would have had a very different reception. Vivekananda could speak the language of philosophized (Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, Transcendentalism, etc); Ramakrishna could testify to devotional practices that led to ecstatic religious experiences in several traditions.
What many Americans (and Europeans) wanted was a spirituality that was philosophical, pure (free of archaic and primitive “accretions”), and so on. What urbanized, cosmpolitan Indians wanted was an Indian religion that could hold its own, or do better than, the sophisticated, cosmopolitan, teachings of enlightened British (and European ) liberal religion. This was Indian religion as Vivekananda received and transmitted it.
He was a nice young man.
It was for later generations, on both sides, to rediscover the delights of the scandalous, archaic, even monstrous, side of Indian religions, which for a century or so had been excluded from polite conversation. Imagine, if you will, someone from some modernized, cosmopolitan country coming to the US and finding, beneath the skin of that polite “religion on which all men can agree”, the cauldron of country and urban religion boiling over with snake handlers, racial mythologizers, patriarchal polygamists, spellcasters, and so on.
LeGrand
I now have a book mostly written, and would like to know if you have any advice for how to break into print, because most of what I’ve seen when I tried searching claims it is impossible without an agent; which has made it harder to figure out what steps I should take given I do not want one and would rather deal with publishers myself.
I am assessing what I can say to bolster why people should pay attention to me, I am scoping out publishers (both seeing if they have anything similar and if they are accepting submissions), and since my project has transformed into a series (I have the one book mostly written, two more in outline, and another I know I’ll need to do research for), I am looking into how to make it clear I know what I’m talking about with the field in general. I am also planning on editing, a lot, before I submit anything to the publisher.
Do you have any other advice for getting past the hurdle of publishing my first book?
“Anonymous, one of the problems with modern conspiracy culture is that it’s so busy trying not to be fooled that it believes absurdities. No conspiracy like that could have happened without word getting out — not with tens of thousands of engineers working on every detail of the landings, amateur radio operators listening in on radio communications (and thus knowing when the capsule was above their horizon), and so on at vast length. No, my take is that the insistence that the Moon landings were faked is a desperate attempt to pretend that progress hasn’t shifted into reverse. If we landed on the Moon in 1969 but the rest of Man’s Future In Space didn’t happen as predicted — and if course it didn’t — it’s impossible to keep pretending that we are still progressing; pretending that those bootprints never got on the Moon is a great coping mechanism for those who can’t bear to let go of the delusion of progress.”
I think there’s another factor at work as well. I recently read a book on the cultural history of television that went to great lengths to discuss the way in which various parts of the footage of the moon landing, including the landing itself, were created. Part of this process included NASA partnering with CBS News Studio in order to be able to simulate parts that there was no way to film; and at the time this was widely discussed. Further, as everyone at the time knew, this was necessary, because there was no way to get the cameras into positions to be able to film a lot of the moon landing.
The thing that struck me about it is that this was erased from the popular imagination, and quite a few later books gloss over the entire thing. In fact, quite a lot of the arguments against the conspiracy theory do not look at the question of who could verify it, but rather try to explain why the footage could not have been faked, which is a ridiculous line of argument when it is a matter of public record that at least some of the footage was created here on Earth; and that there was no way to get the footage otherwise.
However, it still allows for Progress: sure, we didn’t get our destiny in space, but at least we know the skills for faking television have gotten better…..
Clay Dennis @ 42, From where I am standing, the only two accomplishments of the Trump presidency were a tax cut for the rich and repudiating the treaty with Iran. Oh, and moving our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe that Israel still conducts government business from Tel Aviv. And, of special interest to me, the same old pro-GMO, pro-biotech, pro-agribiz farm policy. I would also like someone to explain why Trump could not have gotten us out of Afghanistan and Syria, instead of whining about how “messy” was the eventual withdrawal.
It amazes me that people who have been indulging themselves in emotional voting–remember rich boy GWB as regular guy a fella could have a beer with?–for decades can’t understand that others might decide to do the same. For my part, and I think I am not altogether alone in this, I have had it up to the eyeballs with presidents whose conduct makes them an international embarrassment. From Clinton through Bush to Trump, I am done with clowns presuming to represent me. I can understand irreverence, but there must be some sort of happy medium between the fancy dinner party with an array of utensils one hasn’t a notion how to use, and a food fight. The people who think a food fight is fun are generally not the people who have to do the clean-up.
Should Harris win, which is by no means certain, I don’t expect her to be a great president, but at this point, I think she might do less harm than an ailing Trump succeeded by Vance. It would not surprise me to learn that the plan is to help Trump to his grave and then have Vance implement Project 2025 in its’ entirety. The only vote I am certain about at this point is AGAINST the congress critter who attended the disgraceful Netanyahoo speech, bouncing up and down like a jack in the box.
Hi everyone.
Does anyone have any guidance on how to attune oneself to the spirits of a certain place? I live in Brisbane and there is little information I can find about spirits specific to this area.
Cheers.
In your reply to Chad you said an “empire is always a self-terminating phenomenon”, and this makes me wonder why we keep trying to build them in the first place.
Our repeated attempts and failures makes me think there must be an important lesson to learn from these empire states – our personal karma compels us to repeat behaviour until we understand it’s follies, so wouldn’t our collective karma act in the same manor?
Have we been building and collapsing under the weight of the same empire time and time again, and if so, what are we failing to learn from this?
Or has each one been an improvement from the last?
( to add to this feeling, I’ve been given a message from a dream about how the modern mega-city is humanities current “level” of evolution; and how we must evolve through it in order to move beyond it, but I think I’ll save a more detailed description/discussion of this specific dream for next MM))
I’d covet your prayers, ecosophians. My wife is having potentially serious health issues recently and if you’re a pray-er I would love it if you could pray for her health.
(We are finding out the hard way that running a farm is all good fun until someone gets sick!)
Patricia M, thank you for both of these!
Ben, it depends on what else happens. If we get significant population contraction in a period otherwise stable, the sharp drop in real estate values and thus in the cost of living could lead to a boom in small farms and a sort of New Pioneer era in which the post-Boomer generations cast aside the very mixed legacy of my generation and do something more useful. If it happens while this country is in crisis, the United States as a cultural and political entity probably won’t survive the shock.
Crest, I haven’t kept up with it, but yes. That same theory was being proposed by Charles Hapgood most of a century ago; the evidence for it is slight, though not nonexistent, and so I suspend judgment.
Hobbyist, good heavens, don’t worry about it. Do what you need to do.
Grover, I suspect a lot of people are thinking in those terms just now. Here’s hoping!
David BTL, that may just beat the Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief. 😉
Anonymous, I’ve written several posts about that:
https://www.ecosophia.net/writing-as-microcosm-part-one-publish-and-perish/
https://www.ecosophia.net/writing-as-microcosm-4-a-conversation-with-the-world/
https://www.ecosophia.net/lenocracy-in-extremis-the-case-of-publishing/
The very short form is that the crap you’ve seen about how you have to get an agent, you have to submit to the huge corporate publishers, blah blah blah, is manipulative garbage. I’ve never had an agent and mostly work with small to midsized presses, and I have more than 80 books in print and make quite a respectable income from my keyboard — more than a lot of people who are published by the big boys. What you need to do is to identify publishers that publish books like yours, go to their websites, find out what their submission requirements are, and follow those exactly, to the last tiny detail. (Those requirements are there for good reasons. One of them is that people who can’t be bothered to read and follow straightforward instructions are usually flakes more generally, and will be more trouble than they’re worth to a publisher.) Then choose one publisher — just one at a time — and submit your manuscript. Rinse and repeat — it will probably take you several tries to find a home for your project. In the meantime, keep writing.
Russell, well, what kind of magic do you know how to do?
Littlebug, empires happen because at first, they’re immensely profitable. You conquer a country and strip it of wealth, and your nation prospers mightily. It’s only in the long run that the downside cuts in, and by then the generation of the original empire builders is long dead. There’s no improvement, and no lesson to be learned, because humanity doesn’t evolve collectively; each individual soul goes through the experiences of the human level, learns from them, and goes on, leaving room for more souls to rise up to the human level from animal incarnations.
Bofur, positive energy incoming.
Greetings AdJMG!
FYI
Lt. Col. Stephen Murray is a fan of your conspiracy book. I was shocked when on a podcast he mentioned your name. He also is interested in astrology , which fundamentalists send him hate mail over. lol
Hi JMG,
Thanks for pointing me towards magic as the field that my question relates to. I have only ever dipped my toe into magic thus far (via the Druid Magic Handbook :-)).
Now for something completely different.
The poet Denise Levertov (1923-1997) may not be completely forgotten — a British/American poet who eventually moved to Seattle, where she died .
What is not so well known is that her father, Paul Levertoff (1878-1954), started life as a scion of a Hasidic family who eventually, in the course of his extensive rabbinic education, converted to Christianity, and eventually became an Anglican priest. He was convinced that there were deep resonances between Hasidic and Christian spirituality. He had all the usual rabbinical languages, as well as other languages both learned and vernacular (including of course English). He wrote prolifically in several languages. Among other things, he was the translator for two of the volumes in the Sperling and Simon translation of the Zohar.
One encyclopedia describes him as an “apostate and theologian”, which, combined with his role as a precursor of what eventually became “Messianic Judaism”, means that a good deal of his work has been downplayed or forgotten. Nonetheless, what is interesting is that he was learned in Hasidic and Kabbalistic texts and traditions, that he was an Anglican priest living in Ilford, and that he had a strong interest in Christian mysticism. He seems exactly like the kind of figure who could have had something to say to people like A. H. Lee, Charles Williams, or AE Waite. Certainly Waite knew of the Soncino Press translation of the Zohar, although Levertoff’s role is not clearly stated in that edition.
In general, Anglophone esotericists of that period don’t seem to have been aware that there was a living Kabbalistic tradition. That the tradition might have been accessible in London in the person of a highly cultivated clergyman should have excited some interest, and one would think that Anglican clergymen with esoteric interests might heave heard rumors about him. Either a great deal remains to be discovered, or there is a Levertoff-sized hole in the history of Kabbalistic esotericism in England!
@Shinjuki:
You need this book:
https://www.nutritiousmovement.com/product/diastasis-recti-the-whole-body-solution-to-abdominal-weakness-and-separation/
Katy Bowman is my go-to for all things involved in postpartum recovery. I had DR as well as an umbilical hernia and some prolapse issues after my kids were born, and this book felt like it saved my life. She has some clear explanations, easy-to-understand exercises that don’t require a lot of equipment, and *they work*.
Best wishes on the recovery side– after kids, I have always wondered why people make such a big deal about childbirth, when postpartum is the hardest part!
Trump was recently shot by an assassin on a sloped roof about 100 yards from where he was speaking. This while supposedly under SS protection. This reminded me of my old 911 conspiracy lore about a 5th plane which was identified as potential threat, while it turned out to not be a threat, there was controversy over the US national guard response. It took the guard about 2 hours to scramble a jet to interdict the threat. When questioned in congress the commander said something to the effect of “protecting the continental united states is not the job of the US military” (I can’t find the article and it has been to long for me to remember exact quote).
Anyway, my question, if we get into a twilights last gleaming scenario, and the chinese or whoever manages to sink a significant portion of the US fleet, barring nuclear weapons, does the united states have defenses in place capable of preventing fleet from parking itself off the west coast and carrying out airstrikes on essential infrastructure? (Maybe bases with antiship ballistic missiles). I would assume there would have to be some, but I’ve assumed a lot of things. Is this a potential guns of Singapore scenario?
The scientific method needs repeatable, controllable, accessible phenomena to study.. I have personal experience of or know reliable people who have experienced marked physical poltergeist phenomena, miraculous impossible healings, accurate prophetic dreams, knowing things from hundreds of miles away, second sight and so on. The peculiarities of some UFO observations fall into this category too. None of these happenings are amenable to repeated and controlled study. At best you can collect eyewitness accounts and physical evidence (before and after medical records for instance) and recognize the veracity of these accounts and realize weird stuff happens whether you like it or not and accept scientific materialism only deals with part of reality because of the limits of its tools.
DaShui, interesting. Most respectable and semi-respectable thinkers who borrow my ideas are careful not to mention where they got them — and not unreasonably, under the circumstances. Nor do I mind; that the ideas penetrate inward from the fringes where I release them is the thing that matters to me.
Russell, the practices in The Druid Magic Handbook, if you work your way through them step by step, will give you all the skills you need for that.
LeGrand, hmm! Most interesting.
Dagnarus, the US response to a naval assault on any of its coasts would involve air- and ground-launched antiship missiles, and the US is busy stockpiling those. How well the LSRAM (the current US antiship missile) will stand up in actual combat conditions is unknown, of course, but at least an attempt is being made to get plenty of them into service.
Thanks Robert! (#55)
I have trouble picturing what Hinduism meant to Americans in 1900, without thinking of post 1960s American interpretations of Hinduism like Yogaville near me in Virginia.
I’ll check out the Baum article.
Talking politics and more broadly mass culture. I am going to preface this as “I should know better” but… is anyone else sort of weirded out by how quickly large portions of people lined up behind Harris/Waltz and a little bit with JD Vance? This is more focused at the Harris/Waltz side but it was mere hours after they were picked that I saw people talking lovingly about them. As those they are the only choice that could ever be made. That behavior just creeps me out. It is adoration simply because of the position rather than their merits. The kind of folk where you can see the blind delusion/crazy in their eyes. Weird if you will. 😉
I mean with Trump, whatever you think of him, his popularity grew organically over a long period. It has gained some odd flavors along the way, but the overall flow is understandable .
Maybe it is because we have our version of Fathers day this weekend and seeing people tripping over themselves to try and celebrate this day of ego stroking and that I am just seeing many folks being lead around like puppets. One of those moments when you realize “I should know better”. More broadly seeing folks that just flow into the main stream, I mean surely it cannot be that all these people in unison felt that Lebron or Taylor Swift are the peak of their culture? That as it stands today, we are not going to get out of our own way. Deep down I know the answer to this and it reminds me of that old line of – inside every pessimist is a disappointed idealist. To see many as the song chopsticks played on Mozarts piano (or keeping in the recent theme of Wager). You know what we can do as a society but we are too short sighted to go any further.
As always just focus on the fact that the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. And the tides flows of change are slow, unpredictable but fun to watch regardless.
Hey Russell
I also live in the Brisbane area, so maybe if you wanted to we could try and meet up? I have not met another fellow Ecosophia commenter before so it would be an interesting thing to do.
Those of us who pray with the Ecosophia Prayer List have been praying on behalf of Tyler and Monika and their baby Isabelle for some time now, and so I’d happy to announce that Isabelle has been delivered safe and sound— though her bowels haven’t started moving properly yet. Tyler has invited those who feel so inclined offer a prayer for newborn Isabelle:
May Tyler and Monika’s newborn baby Isabelle be able to poop before medical intervention is necessary, and may she be free of colic going forward.
Hey JMG
On the subject of the population decline, I recently found this rather interesting substack article by Johann Kurtz which explains it via Status, rather than resource decline. Essentially, he thinks that due to various socio-economic reasons being a parent, especially a mother, has become a ‘Low-Status” state, which discourages most people from parenthood. While I still agree with you concerning the role “The long descent” plays in the population crash, I do think this status theory explains a fair bit of it as well.
https://becomingnoble.substack.com/p/its-embarrassing-to-be-a-stay-at
JMG and all,
I was thinking about some of the points brought up in last week’s essay regarding Marxist radicalism and how it ends in mass graves and police states because people don’t behave the way theory says they ought to. It got me thinking about managerialism more broadly and how it seems like the more fantastical one’s ideal society is the more brutally authoritarian one becomes. It’s no secret that a lot of sillycon valley types admire the PRC despite their nominal free-market orientation. I suspect that the reason they admire the CCP is because of that Marxist willingness to shoot people who don’t play along with absurdities.
Tech types want us to live in a future borrowed from pulp science fiction but since that is not possible in the world in which we live (nor is it one that people outside the science fiction fandom really want) I can see them fantasizing about shooting those who don’t play along. Instead of fantasizing about everyone living commune life like Marxists do they’re fantasizing about everyone living Martian colony life or using the Metaverse or whatever the tech du jour is.
Does this seem at all plausible?
Cheers,
JZ
Dear John,
How do you think the Long Descent and population decline will affect the urbanization trend that has been going on for more than a century? If we take Japan (and Italy) as examples, it seems that as population declines and economic stagnation ensues, economic opportunity concentrates in cities. Young people from rural areas leave their rural hometowns to move into cities. This causes rural towns to shrivel and eventually become abandoned. So the urbanization trend continues even as the population shrinks, leaving in its wake a depopulated countryside. In Japan young people were moving to Tokyo, and for a while Tokyo was one of the only places in the country with an above-replacement birth rate. But even Tokyo’s birth rate fell with time, and cities will not hold out as bastions of growth forever. It’s a way to make the collapse less brutal, as population and economic activity increases, just concentrate it in one place to compensate.
In summary, here’s how I think depopulation and the Long descent will affect urbanization:
1) People will move from low-population areas to high-population areas as the total population shrinks.
2) Many rural areas and suburban areas will become abandoned, and suburban sprawl will no longer be produced.
Let me know what you think, if I am wrong, and why. I am very curious about what you think
Hi Joel @89
You might like a book AMERICAN VEDA How Indian Spirituality Changed the West by Philip Goldberg.
I’d read it years ago and remember it being a good read!
Best
Jill C
@ Anonymous (#13) Re: DNRs
I live in a country where dying quietly at home is not an officially recognized option, and if it happens there will usually be a criminal investigation. I think that when my time comes, I will just crawl off into the woods. Forcing people to die in a hospital room, attached to machines, is the final insult from a system that dehumanizes people at every stage along the ay.
@ JMG “laws no longer make any sense at all. They’ve become so complex, so contradictory…”
It was joke political group ‘The Rhinoceros Party’ in Canada that had a pledge to make the legal system so complex that nobody could find the loop holes anymore. Mind you they also had the proposal to raise higher education by building taller schools. So I don’t think it was a great plan. 😉
But I did like their idea of lottery winners being appointed to the Senate of Canada. Would keep things fresh.
@ Anonymus “One limit of the scientific method is that some scientific experiments are getting very costly and there will come a time when society won’t be able to fund them. ”
I saw it proposed honestly that in order to test string theory, they would need a particle accelerator bigger than the orbit of Jupiter. At that point it isn’t science, it is philosophy in mathematical drag at best!
And that is completely disregarding the logistics of materials and energy to do this. Same sort of thinking that makes folks consider Dyson Spheres as practical, just a continuation of the narrative of progress.
@ Ian. Another more silly example of second religiosity is the amount of people that are practically worshiping the Marvel universe of comics and films. I was at a dinner once with someone who started talking about it, it was all “They gave me moral guidance”, “It got me through hard times”, “My life would be meaningless without it”.
They were completely speechless, couldn’t comprehend when I said “I haven’t seen or read any of them.”.
You could replace Marvel/Iron Man/Super ‘Someone’ (I don’t know) with Jesus and it would all sound the same as Christian true believers.
@ Anonymous RE : Moon Landing
Something many forget about the moon landing is that it was a military show of might. A message to the USSR “If we can put a man on the moon, we can put a nuke anywhere.”. The USSR had every reason to prove it false but came up with nothing.
How to fix the retracted scientific papers problem, part of the crisis in replication as they like to call it.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02747-1
Highlights;
“Article retractions have been growing steadily over the past few decades, soaring to a record-breaking figure of nearly 14,000 last year, compared with less than 1,000 per year before 2009 ”
[the root cause IMHO]
“Publications and citations are important currency in academia….A researcher’s performance metrics — including the number of papers published, citations acquired and peer-review reports submitted — can all serve to build a reputation and visibility, leading to invitations to speak at conferences, review manuscripts, guest-edit special issues and join editorial boards. This can give more weight to job or promotion applications, be key to attracting funding and lead to more citations, all of which can build a high-profile career. Institutions generally seem happy to host scientists who publish a lot, are highly cited and attract funding.”
Calling a published paper a currency is pretty accurate. You’ve got to publish something or your research position will be cancelled and then you are on the street. Add to that an excess of research elite and the steady decline in things left to find out (particularly useful as in profitable things) and the end result is pretty predictable.
And that isn’t helping this
“In fact, undergraduate enrollment is currently down about 8.5% from 2010.”
https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/college-enrollment-decline/
Population up, college students down, as are the public school students. The wailing from the local school district is epic. The jazz choir is cancelled and a group of students volunteered to pull weeds from the playground because the district can’t afford the grounds crew. Where are the administrators you ask? I don’t know, but I have my suspicions.
Kimberley,
Dissensus is the spice of life and all that, but if the goal is add strength to the manifestation in this material world of America’s greatest ideals through the vehicle of the Pledge of Allegiance, then in my opinion it would be better to stick to the original wording.
Fellow ecosophians, friends, readers of this blog. I am happy to announce that the Hermitix podcast recently published a new interview with JMG. The main topic of discussion is the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. I thought it was an extremely interesting and educational episode.
The interview can be found here:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/09Dp5xWvPYpheRLpmtw3gD
Additionally, for those who prefer reading to listening, I’ve made a transcript of the podcast:
https://hermeticism.dreamwidth.org/4951.html
I have been following this site for a long time.
As some may know I am from Malaysia and of Chinese ethnicity.
I am going to win against the current of most people in this blog.
I have lived and worked in the US and follow American politics closely. I cannot say Trump winning the election will be good news for the US or the world. He will try to start another trade war which will destroy the economy of small countries like Malaysia. (Trump probably does not even know where Malaysia is). The problem is the trade war will not stop imports. American manufacturing is not competitive anymore. Tariffs will increase the prices of goods but even then American manufactured goods will still be more expensive. America still has the R&D advantage – partly because of immigrant scientists and engineers. Once the door closes to immigrants (as Trump wants), the level of US R&D will decline. The US is currently benefitting from the brain drain of the rest of the world. This will be the decline of the US Empire. Walls do not stop migration. As a Chinese, I know that. The Great Wall did little to stop the immigrants (and conquerors) from coming to China.
Everything the US does affects other countries, so I believe the whole world should be able to vote in US Elections. Whoever sits in the White House is of interest to the rest of the world. Everyone in the world has a stake in the US elections even if we cannot vote.
A couple of musings I thought I’d run by JMG and the commentariat.
First – I am very disappointed at the state of contemporary electric vehicle offerings. Not the cost or range or performance of them or other car review magazine criterion, mind you, but how conventional and uncreative they are. So many players now in the electric car manufacturing space, from boring old stalwarts to hot new startups, and they are all offering two- and three-box designs that are largely a holdover from internal combustion-driven platforms. With the fake grille in front of the non-existent radiator and all.
I think this belies the claim of your modern tech overlords that we’re in a particularly creative and innovative age. Heck, the GM Hy-Wire concept of 2002 (among other examples) already took a stab at the idea of designing a vehicle platform with the flexibility given by drive-by-wire technology and being unconstrained by an internal combustion drivetrain. So, compared to twenty years ago, we’re already behind. Elon Musk’s obsession with rockets (and all his other projects) even seems rather 1950’s retro to me.
Second – my wife and I are both computer programmers. Recently, she lamented the fact that there are many date-handling programming libraries for any given programming platform, and none are particularly good (i.e. they’re all somewhat awkward to use in some way). “I just wanted to get the difference between two given dates”, she complained.
I replied, you see, what’s a calendar? It’s a way to plotting the movement of heavenly bodies relative to each other, with many different applications, from religion, to agriculture, to military, to finance, among other things. These applications overlap and often contradict for various (often arbitrary) reasons. So now, you have computer programmers, taking the calendar: a mystical, ritual, liturgical thing, trying to pretend that it’s somehow this rational, logical thing because numbers*, and of course you’d end up with a mess of some sort. 🙂
*As if numbers themselves aren’t mystical ritual objects before they are rational logical ones. GDP numbers are mythological claims, and corporate quarterly earnings projections are nothing if not some elaborate (if rather boring, and often ineffective) form of liturgy.
Hi J.L.Mc12 and all,
My email is cookr1808@gmail.com. I put out a message last month seeing who was interested in a Ecosophia Meet Up, but forgot this month! Email me and we’ll see what we can organise.
Russell
Reincarnation, JMG. What decides your next life? Your higher self, your god(s), or the universe? Or something else?
Also, what do you make of the Miracle of the Sun at Fátima, Portugal, in 1917?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun
Lately, I have been reading Stephan Skinner’s books and listening to his podcasts. I have two questions regarding the material. Firstly, what is the nature of the spirits that are summoned? Are they the dead, non-human spirits, the thought forms of the summoner, or something else. The second question is, do these spirits “manifest” via/through the summoner’s mind (I have been reading Butler as well)?
Also, I hope that you will start a commentary on “The secret teachings of all ages”, one of these days.
Thanks.
Michael Gray,
These cultural achievements require the strong cohesion of empires, and right now, our empire is the opposite of cohesive – it is falling apart and its cohesion is crashing through the floor at the moment. One of the consequences of declining cohesion is that the subjects of the empire are no longer going to care about making new cultural creations for the American empire, or for the European empires which collapsed a century ago.
Apparently heat destroys quantum entanglement in quantum spin systems at high enough temperatures, which is a big blow for the hopes of quantum computing at room temperature:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/computer-scientists-prove-that-heat-destroys-entanglement-20240828/
Hello JMG,
I would guess that I am not the only one of your European readers to be chilled by your reply #32 to MonSeulDesire, where you expect a Muslim conquest of western Europe and the first wave of Volkswanderung by 2050 or thereabouts. I have been aware for some years that Europe’s days were numbered, but had expected the sort of denoument you describe to arrive around the end of this century and be something for my grandchildren to worry about.
EU birthrates are already below 1.5 and falling, and I suspect that of what might be called the native west European cohort are well below that, with recent and first-generation immigrant populations being above replacement level. I could envisage by 2050 the total EU population of the latter group being higher than the former. In terms of resistance to such an invasion and the extent of resulting carnage though, things could be more complicated than an Arab army overunning countries ready to welcome them. A large proportion of the immigrants originate from eastern Europe, non-Muslim countries of Asia and nominally Christian countries of sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. They might be no more inclined to welcome them than the remaining native Europeans.
In terms of resistance by European militaries to a full-scale invasion and given their likely worsening conventional weakness, I wonder if we would have a Line Omega situation where use of nuclear weapons would be considered as an invasion progressed.
I am 63 and if it does come to that, one silver lining might be seeing the horror on the faces of the woke brigade and whatever is left of the EU bureaucracy as whatever approximation of Sharia law the invaders desire, is imposed across Europe. Other than that I guess, the wisest move for young and capable people is to get out before other parts of the world close their doors to legal migration.
Here’s a vision from German-speaking soothsayer Egon Fischer about the upcoming US election:
The first timeline has a probability of occurrence of about 40%. In the vision of this timeline, I saw Trump sitting on a throne, the crown crooked on his head and he seemed very battered. Next to the throne, I saw Vice President J.D. Vance, who made a very unhappy face.
The second timeline also has a probability of occurrence of about 40%. In the vision of this timeline, I also saw Trump sitting on a throne, but he did NOT have a crown on. Trump seemed tired but somewhat relieved. Next to the throne I saw Vice President J.D. Vance, he had a crown on and seemed very active, strong and committed. Then there was a very big difference between the two visions. In the first timeline, where Trump had the crown on, the whole picture with Trump and Vance was small, in the second timeline, where Vance had the crown on, Trump and Vance was much bigger.
In the third timeline, which has a probability of about 20%, I almost didn’t see the throne at all because the light was so dim. I always saw only shadows scurrying past in front of and behind the throne.
The final timeline-vision is the most difficult to interpret (I find the first two fairly self-explanatory), so here is what my intuition and reason are telling me about it: The third timeline is one where the globalist Democrats steal another election, but they will be in such disarray after doing so that their political effectiveness will be virtually nil going forward. If Egon’s spirit-world colleagues are to be believed, they have a twenty-five percent chance at best at successfully stealing the election. I have no doubt that there will be another systematic attempt at stealing this election in the five crucial states (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia), but if they are likely to not succeed, that means the Trump real margin of victory will be “too big to rig”. That will be something to see should it pan out that way, won’t it?
Since the current state of Western politics came up, I would like to point towards the upcoming elections in some Eastern German states, for example, Thuringia; the establishment parties CDU, SPD, FDP, which together make up the current government of Germany, are in danger of massive losses and the oppoition parties AfD and BSW (the Sahra Wagenknecht party) may win large majorities, according to one source even absolute majorities in the mentioned German states. The mood in Germany, especially in Eastern Germany, is anger about the last knife attacks in Solingen and other cities and the uncontrolled mass immigration of Muslim men (of course all according to what I’ve read). The elections will take place next Sunday. The interesting thing, the website of GMX, an email service, which counts as mainstream site, mentioned these things and factors. It was mentioned, too, that Eastern Germans reportedly tend to have a finer sensorium for political propaganda than Western Germans due to the experiences of older East German generations in the former GDR.
In my somewhat limited reading on studies of non-“science” subjects, there are multiple examples of numbered lists of things that are related to other lists of things with the same number of objects.
A specific example: the 4 cardinal directions related to the 4 “elements”, or related to the four suits of the Tarot.
Another example: the alchemists list of 7 metals, related to the list of 7 planets visible to the naked eye.
Is this a belief in a genuine relationship, or a metaphorical relationship, or a mnemonic device that assigns one object to another on a different list?
There are, of course, jokes in this form that assign the Seven Deadly Sins to different internet social media platforms, which are are based on a metaphorical similarity. (If I recall correctly, a popular dating site is associated with Lust.)
Hi John Michael,
Is it my imagination, or do many of the current events signal the end of the worlds reserve currency status of your country? It’s not going away any time soon, but the death by a thousand cuts is a long painful drawn out process.
Don’t you think it interesting that at this very moment in history, your leaders are looking elsewhere, and busying themselves with other matters? I’m really struggling to come to terms with that, and of course your country’s fall, will also be ours to share.
Cheers
Chris
I find that the ecosophia family of blogs is a never ending source of fascinating and useful links, and so I want to express extreme gratitude for whichever commenter, on whichever thread it was, posted this.
https://carmemartorell.cat/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/The-REALMS-of-the-PSYCHE-in-Acupuncture-Meridians-ENG-122023.pdf
I have carefully read it through once, and expect to go back to it often. So, many, many thanks.
Also, there was a discussion a few weeks ago about the TCM view of dreams. While I had nothing new to offer that discussion, I was definitely doubtful of the proposition that the Chinese medical and philosophical classics would have an entirely negative view of dreams.
I was therefore interested in what this paper had to say on the subject… starting at the bottom of page 8 of the document, where it begins to unpack the ancient concept of Wei Qi and its characteristic movements, and continuing into page 9, where the author says:
QUOTE
“During the reclined posture at night, when its presence is less needed in the limbs, Wei Qi enters [into the interior of the body] through the eyes (accompanied by Liver blood) to initiate 25 circuits through the KE (inhibition) cycle of the Five Movements.
“Eyssalet reflects that, when falling asleep, the blood, ‘returning to the liver’ (Suwen 10), flows inward, thus granting the ability to see, to contemplate within oneself.
“The Secret of the Golden Flower (2) tells us: The Hun, during the day, resides in the eyes; during the night it resides in the Liver. When it resides in the eyes, one sees. When it resides in the Liver, then one can dream. What we call dreams are the journeys of the Shen, which traverses the 9 heavens and the 9 lands in the blink of an eye.”
END QUOTE
I just wanted to add something to that discussion, and also, once again, express my thanks for the link!
@ Mary Bennet,
“Correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe that Israel still conducts government business from Tel Aviv. ”
Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office is in Jerusalem: https://www.gov.il/en/departments/prime_ministers_office/govil-landing-page
The Knesset (Israel’s parliament) meets in Jerusalem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knesset
Hi JMG,
Regarding your comment to MonSeulDesir about future waves of migration out of sub-Saharan Africa: I don’t understand, logistically, how large waves of such migrants could reach the Americas. Hundreds of African migrants die each year simply trying to cross from Western Morocco to the Canary Islands. Do you foresee governments and/or NGOs footing the bill for their air travel, or some other future change in the logistics of the Atlantic crossing that would allow for large waves of migration?
Thanks!
Trump Buddha
Since the Trump Buddha has arrived in our home, weird things are happening. My husband decided to start attending church, and continue to make offerings to the Buddha. My brain has decided that I remember Japanese again from when I went to Japanese high school. I lost the language years ago.
Not only that, but the clocks seem to be putting off odd sorts of numbers such as 1234, 1111,1212, and the like. Is there something that is trying to reach us?
Meanwhile, I have been having Trump dreams of him winning the election. I haven’t a clue about that other than it is outside of my brain.
About the U.S. election and Harris.
I have been having problems with seeing and hearing what I am told.
They speak of a groundswell for Harris, but on social media, the only active people posting memes are the Trump folks. The Harris people burst forth with the cat lady meme and have been quiet since. One friend of mine who was apolitical has gone all Trump all the time. Meanwhile, the usual suspects at Patheos Pagan seem to be going through the motions of being for Harris. They seemed to be fearful rather than joyful – sort of planting their flag on their hill to die on.
I was told the Democratic Convention was joyful. What was shown on the news was every single speaker screaming about Trump and how he must be destroyed. What joy is that? Meanwhile, I get lectured about income inequality, etc by people who have at least three houses and a lot of money to burn. My take away is that the Convention was the last stand of the old guard.
I have been watching the talking heads on various stations and they all seem very reluctant to be for Harris. They do praise all the old-timers at the DNC.
My feeling is that all these people want the good old days of 2015 back again. They want to rewrite the past of 2016, when they were shattered. They have presented Harris as the woman Obama, complete with the same artist doing Hope, etc. It is all a bit pathetic to see everyone trying to redo the past, rather than look to the future.
So am I being lied to because these media people and the rest are lying to themselves? Meanwhile, they can’t seem to get enough of Trump being Trump, although they complain about him.
This summer I visited a meditation camp of a 52 old spiritual teacher woman, a woman from Austria learned in India and around the world with tribal elders, a photo model also in her youth.
The camp had around 15 guests camping in the garden of her private house in a northern valley of the alps, a rainful, touristic and ecologically relatively sound region.
I’ve been skeptic for a time there, but everything turns out well for everyone and there are no humiliations and no clinging from the side of the teacher.
Some very interesting older spiritual people were there also from Holland, eccentric figures but the kind who have endured life phases without money, have creatively and with a lot of independence
made their way still. Those I bonded with well. Others were with an exception also nice, but a younger, more hip and urban crowd, more PMC typical. I was okay with them too but was more at easy with the older dutch people.
One day, a guest came, a 50 year old woman from the area with two 22 year old younger women in tow. The older woman is a deeply spiritual person, she keeps sheep, ducks, chickens, kept goats also, has three huge dogs, and has profound knowledge of herbalism, diet, ecology, and a profound though very very heavy and difficult life experience. She is also a skilled smith and crafts woman.
We became friends quickly, and the woman invited me to go on a walk the next day.
At first, I sat there apart from the others of the camp when she and her two friends came, I was eating and in general wanted a little distance from the circle at that point, too much for me a little esp as there was a 30 year old very inane woman from a rich family in another very wealthy spot of Austria, with whom I felt not at ease and she not with me.
So I sat there and saw the three guests, heavily pierced and tatooed the three women, and surmised they may be hipsters from the city, people who are very shallow and draining to deal with.
Therefore I lowered my head and tried to be inconspicuous, so as not to have to make an effort greeting them. The woman and her two friends behind her immedeatly approached me.
I had sticky fingers from eating and said so to her, she however ignored my comment and took my hand and greeted me, explaining they came from the forest, where they spent time.
The two women behind her grinned.
Later she told me that me sitting apart from the others and being introverted raised their curiosity especially, therefore they approached me quickly.
I went for a walk with the woman and her dogs, we visited a smithy with a wild looking woman and her kids and a little man, the smith who also keeps a small farming shop with their
natural products they have. I was very amazed and told the woman so thereafter.
She told me they learned from the same gifted but horrible master smith. She broke two disks in her spine and worked despite extreme pain caring for her two kids alone back then, drinking a bottle of whisky and smoking weed in the evening to kill the pain.
Eventually and due to her strong head, she managed to retire at 47 with a very low state pension. On the first day of retirement all the pain of the spine left suddenly, since then she is fine, and does not drink.
She told me about the horrific abuse and violence of her childhood, the chaos and wild life of her adolescence and adult life, and I told her about myself.
I visited her three times then this summer, and every time thereafter everyone commented that I have such a vital and serenely happy vibe about me, the people at the meditation camp, the people in the office where I work, friends and so on.
The last time was in a cabin in the lower mountainous forests with her, my spiritual friend who came in the seventies as a refugee toddler from Uruguay to Austria, and a guest, an especially agreeable man of 33 years, a former social worker fallen on hard times, unemployed with a problem of drinking, yet a tall, confident and strong figure, a metal subculture man with a huge beard, and also a great personality, and also the young women came, one being on the verge of going into a relationship with him.
People did smoke but we didn’t drink, it was a deep, personality building time we all had.
The two younger women are from rural or industrial city lower class backgrounds, each now working as post delivery women.
The old women, a true witch of the forest, teaches the young women. Apparently their leaves have greatly improved, they ditched netflix, junkfood drug abuse, shallow friendships and are eager
to learn about nature, spirits, diet and other things.
Once we also visited a waterfall in the mountains where the old women let the young women scream loudly, to free the emotion.
The more introverted of the young women can see the dead and spirits, but is scared. The older witch received the message from the spirit world that “her purpose is to be there for the women”,
and apparently the meditation teacher received the same independently.
The other young woman lives in a former farming estate repurposed for rental living, and apparently has a “goblin” in her apartment. Things vanish and turn up in unlikely places, books fall out of the shelf, weird stuff happening. This young woman is however not afraid and put up an offering of milk and berries for the Goblin.
Once they inadvertly locked to introverted woman in her apartment alone, she was sleeping over, and the Goblin took pleasure in spooking her. She saw his face in the wood, a hand of light coming from the wall grabbed at her, and seemingly had great fun in goofing around with her.
Apparently, what the old witch says and I would take from JMG and this forum, she has had an experience of a shamanic calling recently. Inexplicably, the door of her apartment fell shut, locked out the dog, and she started seeing wild visual patterns (she is creative and very visual), and received something strong, from the spirit world.
The door fell shut and locked out the dog, the witch teacher said, because she needed to receive this alone.
The witch also told me her daughter saw the spirit of an old man in a room of a place they rented often, asking her to “put him somewhere else in the house” because he annoyed her.
The young women start to receive clear messages from the spirit world since working with the witch (since 1 and 4 years respectively I think), and apparently those always turn out very well.
The social worker with us in the cabin, a great guy as I said and love interest to one of the young women, she only had met him once heavily on drugs at a festival a yearago, but got the message to contact him, did so, and I can attest that was great for everyone.
For him especially, that was a total surprise invitation he could not remotely have expected, and you could see him beaming with joy there.
I have truly made many interesting and spiritual experiences this summer.
In fact, it was an ascending ladder, first the pop-spirituality of the PMC, woke types, some things good others however really bad, up to more and more down to earth, special experiences.
Hi JMG and readers,
I have a question regarding to the Enneagram system of personality. From the point of view of occult, is it a credible tool to help accomplish the Moon path (personal development) ? I’m all ears for any relevant information about its origin and applications.
Thank you,
From that spiritual Yoga circle I visit, there is a japanese middle aged woman, a very caring and child like type. She used to be in international marketing until her health broke down, now she does chinese medicine and meditation, a rather sober personality.
The Yoga teacher and independently a quite remarkably weird old egyptian bedouin spiritualist said I should move out from where I live in Vienna for two reasons: the draining and negative
energy of the big city and increasingly at that it seems, and the dark and heavily burdened history of my whole dwelling near the center of Vienna, and I am 36 years old.
Yes I know, grow up and find your own and all that, but you know, so far renting is extremely costly in Vienna, and it could only get crappier from where I am, there.
The japanese woman passed an offer to me, in a town adjacent to Vienna near where she lives also. Theres a house with a beautiful garden bordering a ravine and a very healthy forest,
with an 80 year old man, an eccentric who was english teacher, textbook publisher, marketing man and artist, with a passion for Jazz and classical music and long biking trips,
and nature and gardening. At the base of the slope where the house is, there is an indeed lovely apartment border by the garden on one side and the slope on the other, and upstairs is his
artistic and beautiful living.
He said I can rent in, a minimum of 12 months contract, and if I help him with the garden we can reach an agreement there ([…]).
I already did, it was great and rewarding in every sense, he is also very strong for an 80 year old. Talks a lot like old people do, though interesting stuff from his life.
Now I have the offer to sign in to the contract, next week.
I’d be living peripherally, but this being Austria, with very proper access to public transit, an option to commute by bike to either the railway or to my work (that would be ~1h 30 min then), in a quiet and rather quaint area. Peripheral yes, though not so that I could not do stuff in the city of Vienna, if *I choose to do so*, and as it is of now, my government admin job stands, and I have two days of remote working granted.
Yes I know, never rely on that infinitely. I don’t, first thing comes to mind is simply cleaning for others, as I know to do that and I have become proficient in physical health in my years, enduring enough to work, experienced enough to remedy myself should my joints or spine complain. Unlike many others in the office, mind you. It’s not a criticism or sneer what I mean by that,
just a fact.
So – there is a leap of faith option for me. Also, I have a friend in the area there, proficient in crafting and many things, I have many alternative options where to sleep or even in an emergency stay, and as is at this time, the crisis rolls on, yes, but I am still above average well cushioned in existential terms, a valuable thing in our time.
I think I will go for this option, in fact apart from finally signing the contract, I have already voiced my agreement, and the old man seems also to be happy to find such a tenant.
Would he easily find another tenant who both can help him and give a hand for proper work, and is also intellectual and eccentric enough that he feels at ease?
No. Why? Because to move that area you need money, and – those kinds of people want whole house or a fancy new big apartment for themselves, and they arent remotely interested in doing
non-white collar chores. All others in our time have no money, stable job, intellectual literacy, the old man would not entrust this with anyone.
I am nervous, afraid really, of such a big step, such a leap and obligation to stay for one year at least, but the other options I have is stay where I am, and both the big city and my history
here gnaw at my nerves, drain my energy, unbalance my emotion, and due to the very good experiences this summer (3 weeks of countryside adventures), I can tell the difference,
between me shining and people commenting on it begninly, and me internally raging, despising what surrounds me, being sick of it, brooding darkly quickly.
There other option would be to move somewhere else in Vienna but rest assured with a few exceptions it can only get worse, my commute to work much longer as well for nothing.
Maybe a spiritual path in life demands commitment. The japanese woman and the Yoga teacher assured they see that the option with the old man will soothe my soul, relieve pain and allow
be a rest finally, from harrowing years, such as *most* of my time here in the center of the city was.
There is one moon landing conspiracy theory which says that that humans cannot survive the radiation from the two Van Allen belts around Earth without a thick layer of lead on the Apollo spaceships to absorb the radiation, which the Apollo spaceships never had, and thus the Apollo 11 spaceships and onwards just traveled in low Earth orbit.
If the Van Allen belt theory is true, that theory would just be more evidence that the Plutonian dream that humans will conquer the stars will never happen (since they will die before they leave the van Allen belts), and the increased speculation over the moon landing conspiracy theories would be a sign of Pluto’s declining influence on society.
I have also visited the farmers and foresters in the middle mountain range that is the bohemian mass, and found warmth and cordial feelings there, beautiful walks in the forests and land, also a load of work for the cabin I own, that has become 100 years old this year, since ever passed down in my family, despite nobody being related in family terms to the region.
This was different from the spiritual experiences in the northern alps, but I like both equally, the rugged small mountains where the next village even if theoretically close is worlds away is also nice. The climate in the alps was still rainy and all green there, but in the bohemian mass, the climate is now like in easternmost Austria, scorchingly hot, very dry.
That used to be very different there just 20 years ago still.
My stay there wasn’t spiritual apart from my personal little energetic exercising, but emotionally touching and beautiful.
Tears almost welled in my eyes saying good bye to everyone and the land.
By the way several people from the country entirely independently of each other said there is the traditional signs in nature of a strong witner coming to Austria this year. The bets are on!
Coming back my informatics cousin called, aged 38. He used to be a small violent criminal, then a cook, where he himnself said that informatics isn’t a healthy job, no he does it himself, is all about career and computering. His health has deteriorated hard in these years: now he is untrained, overweight, has a hurting ankle, takes anti-depressant medication, eats junk food, plays video games and drinks in his free time.
He raged at my, I should grow up, pursue more corporate careering, stop mingling with “strange folk” (and worse), stop doing “strange things” (like somatics, impluse dancing, energetic exercising and all of that). It was difficult talking to him, it has happened before this year in June. I defended my values and position.
My mother, whom denies that anything bad can come from modern life and electronic devices, accused me of being unempathic to him, because I tell him what he needs to do if he wants to
get a grip on his health, that I show off my health and all those things.
My cousin was also drunk on the phone I think and in the end I noticed what maybe behind this he was on about: since last year in June, I did not visit my family in Salzburg where also he lives,
and retreated in my own friends and very small closest family life her (my father and step mother, are sometimes during the year residing here, but far away in Germany or on travels otherwise).
Well, last year was a catastrophe for me. My beloved grand mother sick, demented and lonely, she died this January and I did my best to be there for her, my former job going down the drain
and them firing me in June (but that was a boon, actually, the time up to the point however not!), and spectacular misadventures in social lives, sometimes with people pursuing all typical decadent
diversions aggressively and some of them even bringing me in danger (for example by provoking young chechens who approached me in a friendly way spontaneuously),
my health broke down heavily, I had a horrible time, a stressful time, a hopeless and desperate inner life.
Since then, I have recovered my health and spirits. In my office job, almost everyone else got ill this summer like people do in winter, all kinds of things including corona, but I didn’t, this time.
This was a hard time for me until the beginning of this year, really, and I took my time to recover, reorder my life, I took chances and opportunities, this time things unfolded increasingly
lightfully, chance was at my side in many occasions, and I intend to continue my path, as I can.
My cousin feels neglected, he needs our family more than I do, he is clearly not happy, and he angers at my ways he cannot understand.
Since my conscious spiritual path beginning in 2017, did I make bad experiences, meet weird and derailed people (though often highly competent in ways), make weird and strange experiences,
wander further from what is the center of my society, sometimes choose reclusiveness?
Yes, I did of course. But was it worth something? Yes, it was! I have become so much more conscious and self-empowered with my well being, much better with people too.
It all started because conventional, pleasure seeking life, turned me into a wreck back then, hell I couldn’t walk a hundred meters anymore before succumbing to pain, the great doctors
of course saying it was either a mystery or nothing to worry about, and I can tell you, I made the experience in the big city, being clearly run down, physically impaired, sick, and
you can guess, I was shoved and pushed around, treated like dirt, I got a taste of what the fallen of our society must put up with everyday but without a materially secure background like mine.
“Seven years ago you still made sense and did normal things, since then you have become weird and you do weird stuff and you meet weird people!” My cousin accused.
Yes I did normal things. Rest assured I tried A LOT to fit in to wider society (though not at everything still…)
“Normal Life” has never worked for me. The harder I tried, the heavier it backfired on me! I am not made for this.
I am not happy either about many, many things how my life was, about getting old this way often feeling lost and hopeless, soon to be “old iron”, an old weirdo at 36.
But life unfolds all the same whether I want or not, and all I can do, and what I do, is seize my chances, I struggle on, and maybe I’ll find a little relief too these days.
This weekend, I go to Bavaria with my spiritual originately Uruguayan friend who turns fifty next year, to the retreat of a russian man who learned from Sai Baba himself. Yes, Sai Baba is controversial and my friend who entered spirituality unwittingly by staying in his Ashram due to his then girlfriend sees it so too, he was an ambiguous figure, but definitely on a much higher level.
We shall see, my last days of holiday this year, a last summer time adventure.
I bid the gods they may give me the chance to walk on a path of light, of an ethical life, grant me a chance to clean out the Karmic baggage I got with into this life.
I have, I know that, been a strongly dark and sometimes malevolent character when I came to this world and after, but also a lightful person to many as well. The Yoga teacher says I have a dark imprint from my past lives, but that my soul has chosen it wants to ascend to the light side of it.
My best is my effort of this.
JMG,
This election season will obviously be a chaotic one. The only peaceful ( but unlikely) outcome would be an honest popular landslide victory for the democrats. But in the more likely scenario of a Trump victory do you see the democrats sending out their Antifa Brownshirts once again to foment urban violence and disorder? Will the police and officials of the blue cities be caught flat footed again? Or will the response be more strong and effective. If not will the losers willfully consign their core political strongholds ( Portland, Seattle, Oakland) to the dustbin of history out of spite?
Or will they dispatch their woke jihadis in the to the red cities ( as is more logical), and almost surely meet up with a more forceful and violent response from local law enforcement. It might even be likely in such a scenario that red state citizens would rise up to put down Pelosi’s goon squads in a dramatic fashion. I think such a thing could be the trigger for more unrest than even the Vietnam War.
I imagine Tim Walz flying over the street battles in the waning days of the Biden administration . He and his wife order the plane to fly low and slow so he and his wife can crank open the windows and smell the burning tires.
@Mister Nobody: Err…
Macron was elected as president, by over 50% of the electorate who voted, to serve a term that ends in 2027;
the NPF (left alliance) did NOT “win” the election… the outcome was basically one third NPF, one third centrists including Macron’s Ensemble, and one third conservatives including Le Pen’s extreme-right wing RN.
Incidentally, the RN had what amounted to a radical-left, unfunded, economic policy programme that, if the RN had won a majority of seats, would have immediately led to a fall in the Euro, and a plummeting of the CAC40. It would have made the UK’s Truss Tory (Conservative) debacle look like a teddy bears’ picnic!
The French electorate have spoken… and they don’t want any of the platforms offered by the three groupings, so the politicians have to get together, talk, agree a compromise programme, and form a government from the parliament the people have chosen.
Now, like the UK and the US, France’s politicians are not used to working with others, hence the ridiculous grandstanding, particularly from the left and right. In fact, this is the first time this scenario has ever happened in the Fifth Republic, so it’s not going to be easy. But most other European countries manage to get by, with the politicians working with each other… the representatives their electorates have chosen. We can but hope that sense, and some hard work, rather than vacuous posturing, prevails.
Hi JMG, I’m interested in the airplanes that the ancient Chinese and Indians saw. Is any more known what kind of planes they were? I’d love to know if they use some kind of fuel or just the wind?
@Foxhands: I’ve had good luck with the Enneagram as a tool for understanding the mask of personality (and help seeing it as a mask, a collection of habits and tendencies). It is very helpful in interpersonal relationships -such as marriage, family. I think of it as another tool in an eclectic toolkit. It has been claimed to have both ancient Christian monastic origins and Sufi origins. Combined with journaling, self-reflection and other work, it can help a person break out of the trance of their personality.
When you see certain habitual patterns as just patterns and not your real self -that is what I think the enneagram excels at as a tool.
JMG, I don’t know if you’re continuing to follow Naomi Wolf, but I think you might enjoy her latest essay on Substack “The Thing I Most Feared to Write”. Thanks for introducing her to us a while back BTW!
JMG,
I saw in this week’s Magic Monday, Kimberly Steele’s idea of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. This thought sparked from reading that.
I am a classical music lover. One of my favorite pieces is the Liberty Bell March composed by John Philip Sousa.
This piece is heavily loaded with magical symbolism linked to the founding of USA and the POTUS.
1. Sousa named the march after the Liberty Bell, an iconic symbol of American Independence.
2. It is played by the United States Marine Corps Band, who are uniquely named “The President’s Own”. They have apparently played this piece in the Presidential inaugurations of 1993, 2005, 2009, 2013 and 2017 (This last bit is from wikipedia. I could not verify it).
3. The bell used by Marine band in their performances is from SS John Philip Sousa, a Liberty Class ship from WW2 period.
4. Bells are associated with freedom and peace in nonreligious settings. In religious settings, both Christian and Eastern, they are linked to piety and devotion.
An interesting trivia about this piece: This was used by Monty Python as the opening music for their iconic Flying Circus show.
I wonder if more people played or listened to this piece on a regular basis, it will stir up some positive energies?
Anonymuz
“Is it my imagination, or do many of the current events signal the end of the world’s reserve currency status of your country? It’s not going away any time soon, but the death by a thousand cuts is a long painful drawn out process.”
Not John Michael, but reserve currency status is going away for the USD. “Joe Biden’s” greatest mistake may well be weaponizing the dollar to sanction Russia. If the Russian’s dollar denominated assets can be effectively stolen then anyone’s can and everyone suddenly realized that. If the BRICs can build an alternative is an open question, but they are already trading with each other in their own currencies without routing it through the USD. A reserve currency is a convenience for trade, it’s not a requirement.
Having the reserve currency lets the US export a lot of inflation, so as the USD falls out of favor fewer dollars will be overseas so the US will see consistently higher inflation unless Congress actually balances the budget, and what it would take for that to happen boggles the mind.
Hello John and kommentariat. I have a story thet happened to me a few days ago. One of my nephews was watching a children video (sorry Mr. Greer, I know you don’t like videos); I was with him watching it, too. It was a videogames video.
There were a lot of dolls (“Evil dolls” according my nephew words) running around the screen, and they were being “killed” by the main player in the videogame, but the dolls (whose name is by the way a sort of eyed potato named “Pou”-sic-) apparently were tireless: they kept on going through a door, running again against the player point of view.
The funny thing was that I told my nephew (age 7 years old) that maybe the dolls were immortals; he answered me: “No, they are dying and being reborn again endlessly”.
Well, JMG, here’s a true believer in reincarnation, I’ve commented in the past that this boy had already told to me his beliefs about it…
Calendars.
Currently, the society wide calendar is imposed by the public schools and colleges, mandated to have so many days of instruction, and starts just before harvest kicks off. Inconvenient! It also ends after spring planting is done. Keep the young workforce out of the fields! That is the most powerful and most artificial calendar.
Then there’s an overlay of the Jan 1 based calendar, but that hardly effects anything except dates: not beginnings, not endings, just “School starts August 18.” Naming things is powerful, but it has no other power (which is probably one reason why New Years Resolutions fail so reliably).
As Christians, we get the liturgical calendar, which is harder to follow because the public education calendar tromps all over it, but which starts four Sundays before the commemeration of the Birth of Christ, making every year a different length. And it lines up in some locations nicely with the fourth calendar I’ve identified: the calendar of natural seasons.
The calendar of natural seasons varies from location to location, the time to sow, the time to harvest, the time to gather, the time to hunt, the time to butcher.
The fifth calendar is the astrological calendar: the movement of the planets and stars, and you’d think the second calendar (the dating calendar) would at least tie into the astrological calendar, since it uses the length of the orbit of the earth to figure out it’s number of days in a year, but Jan 1 does not seem to tie to any particular astrological happening so far as I can see.
The Christian calendar and the natural seasons calendar tie into each other very nicely in places where the great fasting season of Lent and the late winter early spring natural seasons line up: Don’t use dairy when there are new animals needing to nurse, don’t use eggs when you need your hens to be setting, etc. Not so much in my location-the season for young animals (if you aren’t using heated structures and processed feeds) is solidly after Easter.
(There are other calendars, religious, tied to their faiths, about which I know varying amounts except that they are as violated by the first calendar as mine is.)
The first calendar, the school calendar, being entirely artificial and progressive, will go away as progress fails, and be replaced by something or somethings else.
Is anyone else interested in calendars, what would go into functional calendars based on local seasons and usable in a pluralistic faith environment, without violating holy days and at least somewhat tied to the astrological year, and what it would take, if it’s even doable, to have a unified functional calendar across a climate range as big as these United States? I currently suspect functional is too much to ask, and the best we can have is a matched dating system.
Michael, I’m not surprised at all. We live in a culture of instant celebrity, where the masses habitually project their desires, fantasies, and hatreds on whatever figures are presented to them by the media. Harris and Vance are simply the two latest targets for that sort of collective hallucination. One of these days a very large number of people are going to follow some such figure straight over a cliff — one more good reason to distance yourself as much as possible from the mass mind.
Quin, delighted to hear this!
J.L.Mc12, it’s certainly a multifactorial thing, and the contempt for motherhood projected and enforced by the system is certainly part of that.
John, I think that’s a very useful generalization. It would seem to suggest that the less exotic the world you want to create, the fewer mass graves you’ll generate — and that metric might be worth keeping in mind.
Enjoyer, yes, exactly — it’s a standard part of the process. Think about western Europe in the very late Roman and post-Roman eras, where you had shrunken cities more or less carrying on an imitation of business as usual while the countryside collapsed into widespread depopulation and the forests grew back. Later on, the cities lost the ability to support themselves and the urban populations (by then used to raising their own food) scattered into defensible villages or strip what’s left of the cities for building stone to make little walled towns. I forget which post-Roman city in France ended up moving into the old city Coliseum — that became the new city, with a nice round wall protecting it and most of the doors bricked up.
Michael, funny. They were definitely ahead of their time. 😉
Siliconguy, thanks for this.
Felix, so noted, but please realize that American citizens have to think about their own interests. You might look at the history of trade barriers — every country that has ever built a strong manufacturing economy did it using tariffs and trade barriers, including the US, so if the US ever wants a manufacturing economy again, that’s how we have to do it. The US dollar is on the brink of losing its status as global reserve currency; when that happens, and it’s going to happen at this point no matter what, the US will no longer be able to import goods and services to anything like the extent it does today. To my mind, therefore, Trump’s policies make a great deal more sense for Americans than those of the current political establishment. As for immigration, Trump has said he’s very much in favor of legal immigration — his wife is a legal immigrant, remember. It’s the mass illegal immigration he wants to shut down.
Carlos, that point about electric cars is very telling — thank you! I may use it, with attribution, in a future post — and your point about dates and calendars is equally telling, and rather funny.
Batstrel, your karma and the destiny of your soul determine what your next life will be. Karma, because the actions of one life have consequences for good and ill that will play out in other lives; destiny, because each soul has its own unique trajectory; each of us is striving to become some specific thing, which is unique to that soul, and while the striving won’t be fulfilled for long ages it still guides the soul toward lives where it can develop the necessary strengths and skills to fulfill its ultimate destiny. As for that business at Fatima, it was a miracle, of course; those happen in every religion. Miracles are something that gods and goddesses can do.
Kevin, there are many, many different kinds of spirits out there, including the three categories you’ve listed and about 3.5 godzillion more. How do they manifest? That depends entirely on what kind of magical working you’re doing, of course. I haven’t read Skinner’s books on evocation — not my cup of tea — so I won’t speculate on what he’s doing. As for Hall’s book, suggest it next time there’s a 5th Wednesday!
Anonymous, one of the things that true believers in progress never seem to get through their heads is that a very large share of what science discovers can be summed up as “You can’t do that.”
Robert M, I’m not at all happy about what I foresee. If things follow the usual pattern, what will happen is that in at least some European countries, increasing conflict between ethnic groups, classes, and political factions will shred the capacity of governments to maintain a functional defense; remember that the Arabs invaded Spain and the Saxons arrived in Britain on account of civil war in both nations. In Britain, since the immigrant population is so diverse, it’s quite possible that internecine struggles among competing ethnic and religious immigrant groups could bring about a period of rapid decline, especially once the Western financial order collapses and London can’t prop up the rest of the national economy with the skim-off from money laundering and similar financial services. The upside is that, as depopulation sets in, barriers against legal immigration are likely to decline, and Europeans who want to flee are likely to have places to go; the Russian government’s already encouraging conservative Christians from North America to move to Russia, since their population is contracting and there are plenty of jobs going unfilled.
Mister N, thanks for this. Interesting!
Booklover, I’m going to be watching that election very carefully.
Sylvia, it’s complex! One of the core themes in Western occult thought is the teaching that numbers are qualities, not just quantities — oneness, twoness, threeness, and so on have their own meanings and energies, and these are magically effective. Every group of seven, then, shares in sevenness, and sorts itself out more or less into familiar patterns. That said, it can very readily turn into a simple mnemonic measure, and it can also become highly absurd, as when somebody assigns the seven dwarfs from “Snow White” to the seven planets, or the seven deadly sins!
Chris, I’m convinced of it. The US is backing itself into a corner; I expect to see runaway inflation and a default on our federal debt at some point in the not infinitely distant future, though I’m not fool enough to set a date for it. (Isaac Newton thought he could time the market, and lost a lot of money — and I’m not as smart as Isaac Newton.) Once we default, I expect to see things improve sharply for most Americans; prices will collapse in real terms, though not necessarily in nominal ones, once we no longer have a vast mass of financial hallucinations propped up by what’s left of our national economy…but getting there will be harsh, and most people from the middle class on up are going to lose a lot.
Scotlyn, interesting. Thanks for this.
Balowulf, as Africa shakes of European neocolonialism I expect to see a sharp increase of wealth, especially but not only in resource-rich West Africa, and a collapse in Europe’s wealth — now that the EU has done everything in its power to turn Russia into an implacable enemy, Africa is (with Russian help) turning against pro-European governments, and the US is in freefall, the foundations of European prosperity are crumbling out from underneath it. That rebalancing means, among other things, that African governments and NGOs will be able to afford ships for the narrow crossing from West Africa to Brazil, or the cross-Mediterranean routes, or the not much more challenging trip across the central Atlantic to the Caribbean and North America. Air travel is going to price itself out of the market for most people in the decades ahead — compare the comfortable conditions in airliners fifty years ago to the cattle-car conditions now if you want to see the shrinking margins of profitability in an age of resource depletion — so sea travel is the wave of the future, and — as we know from history — you can get a lot of people from point A to point B via the ocean between them given a little capital for shipbuilding.
Neptunesdolphin, good heavens. I’m impressed. If any of my readers don’t know what we’re talking about:
They’re very popular all over Asia; people buy them and burn incense to them to make their businesses great again, and so on. I didn’t know until just now that bare-bellied Trump Hotei statues have also become popular:
You rub the belly to get good luck. Strange days…
Curt, interesting. Thanks for this.
Foxhands, I’ve never studied the Enneagram, so don’t have an opinion. Anyone else?
Mark, there’s a good article on that here:
https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/apollo-11-van-allen-radiation-belts-translunar-injection/
The short form is that the van Allen belts are a problem, but not an unmanageable one. The Apollo space flight trajectory was angled so it would get the astronauts through the belts with the lowest possible exposure, and the belts themselves aren’t as deadly as conspiracy culture has cracked them up to be — that’s why satellites can go through them without having their electronics fried, which high radiation will do.
Clay, I’m not at all sure the situation is quite that dire. If the Democrats were minded to play the riot card again, I’d expect them to have already deployed their BLM and Antifa paramilitaries in Virginia and Texas to try to counter the removal of dead voters from the rolls in both states; I also wouldn’t expect to see Harris frantically adopting Trump policies, which will alienate the extremist wing of her party. Of course I could be wrong, but it looks as though something has shifted considerably.
Boccaccio, since all we have is an odd assortment of very old legends, that’s a tall order. I’m guessing from the descriptions in the legends that they were powered monoplanes; a couple of the Chinese sources claim they used mercury to fly, but there’s no explanation how that worked — and it could simply have been a reflection of the fact that mercury was the magical substance par excellence in Chinese legend.
Steven, I’ll check it out.
Anonymuz, good question. Why not make the experiment?
Siliconguy (if I may), the US could balance its budget quite readily by the simple expedients of defaulting on its debts, the way Russia did in 1998, and then following the Constitution and returning the powers not specifically enumerated in it to the states. I know that would be pretty drastic, not to say apocalyptic, for the bureaucrats inside the Beltway, but we can’t afford them any more anyway and they might as well be given an incentive to find honest work.
Chuaquin, glad to hear it. It really does make much more sense of life if you know you’ve been here before and will be here again.
BoysMom, I’m in favor of going back to stone circles, so we can let the sun’s shadow tell us when it’s time to plant and harvest. Here’s my Druid desk calendar.
😉
Here cometh yet another blow to the working class. One more move toward impoverishing ALL American workers, independent contractors, and employees, that is, those who happen to be alive today:
Bosses Are Finding Ways to Pay Workers Less
After a tumble in pay for white-collar job openings, wages for new hires in many blue-collar sectors are now falling.
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/salary-workers-pay-cuts-2024-54101d66
With this kind of sh_t going on, Americans may not be alive tomorrow. And ignoramuses have the gall to wonder why there are so many suicides. And the Bittens/Komodo Harris’ set wonder why people are using DNRs (Do Not Resusitate) as one way to leave this rotten-to-the-core world behind. People suicide when pain gets too much—it doesn’t matter what kind of pain, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. Pain is pain, and sometimes overflows over the top with no possibility for remedy.
And KomodoDragon Harris, lizard-brain as she is, along with her geriatric Bitten clown-boss, the boss who does what he is told by some unknown entity, invites more indigents from around the world so that powers-that-be may continue to shaft “northern European-ancestry Americans” (aka “whites”). This is part of Demoncrats’ strategy. Komodo Harris is against whites. She denies she is part white. (According to her, she is merely black and asian. She leaves out ‘’white.” [I am having difficulty not saying something crass.]
Komodo needs to make sure she, and her kind, at least for the moment, remains on top.❓Time to bodily r-e-v-o-l-t❓The USA is not working.
💨Northwind Grandma💨🤮🦎
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
Hi JMG,
Thank you very much for the detailed response. A couple of questions I have that might push back on some of your points:
1. By and large, societies in Sub-Saharan Africa were not wealthy prior to European colonization, so why should we assume that they would become so after shaking off that colonization? As for Russian (or Chinese) involvement, wouldn’t this simply represent a new colonial master? Why wouldn’t the Russians or Chinese simply strip the place of available resources, leaving the African masses in poverty, as European powers did before them?
2. If we assume this region does become comparatively wealthy in the coming decades, wouldn’t that remove the incentive for mass migration to what would become comparatively poorer regions of Europe and the Americas?
Very much appreciate your insights, thanks!
Weilong #97
> I will just crawl off into the woods
Me too‼️You read my mind‼️“Way to go,” literally.
During a snowstorm (if you have those), wrap in a white blanket, find a thicket.
💨Northwind Grandma💨🌨️❄️🧊
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
It would be interesting to see if the sub-Saharan African immigrants – that JMG predicts will migrate to Western Europe – will end up protecting Europe from Arab Muslim invaders. Though judging by the European right I don’t know if Europeans would necessarily prefer sub-Saharan African rule over Muslim rule.
Felix Cheah @ 102, I have, at this point no intention of voting for Trump, if only because he is non compos mentis. He may mask his accelerating decline a bit better than Biden does his, but it is real enough.
However, be that as it may, I do object to the notion that the USA exists to serve the interests of a group of peripatetic internationalists who have little or no loyalty to any particular country, especially not the one in which they were born. If you dislike foreign influence in Malasia, you need to take that up with the elites who made the deals which allow that influence to flourish.
I do know where Malasia is, and I can see on a map that it is very fortunately situated in terms of both geography and climate. BTW, I believe a brilliant novel I read, Crocodile Fury, is set in Malasia.
Walls may not stop all migration, just as laws don’t stop all sociopathic behavior, what they do is make back and forth travel difficult. And that means, once arrived past the wall in Destiny Nation, the immigrant must conduct him or herself with a due regard for local customs, mores and culture. In China, those who made it past the Great Wall, even conquerors, had no choice but to become Chinese.
As for losing R&D capacity, we used to grow our own engineers, scientists and builders, and the largest impediment to us doing so again is that very same internationalist upper class, citizens of the world if you please, which is promoting and financing mass migrations and stifling the aspirations of ordinary citizens worldwide.
Some of you like ambient music. And some of you like guitars. Here is a mix I made featuring ambient guitars. Somewhere Between the Twang and the Gong: https://bndcmpr.co/e2c8c66e
Plus some other sounds too, including, harp.
In Shortwave Radio News, on Sunday 1st September 2024 at 0900/1300 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then at 2000 UTC on 6160 kHz and 3975 kHz, beaming to Europe, we will be presenting Skybird Drive-in Radio via Shortwave Gold. We’ve got the matinee and evening spots booked for you so there’s no need to arrive early. Make yourself a tasty snack (hot dogs, tacos, ice cream, a burger or perhaps some popcorn?) and turn on the shortwave radio. Then imagine you’re in a cadillac, tilt your seat back and enjoy all sorts of cinema related tunes as you would in an outdoor experience (until you’re listening to the radio outdoors). Enjoy the evening’s programme!
It beams to North America via WRMI on Wednesday 4th September 2024 at 0200 UTC on 9395 kHz Do please remember to replace speakers when you leave. Here’s our trailer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlELB-NqL-U&t=1s
Also, when the Muslims do invade Europe, I wouldn’t be surprised if Europeans also end up escaping west towards North America and taking over parts of the East Coast from Americans and Canadians.
Mister Nobody #110
> Here’s a vision from German-speaking soothsayer Egon Fischer about the upcoming US election.
Thank you for posting this comment‼️
💨Northwind Grandma💨😌🫨😏
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
I had the pleasure of meeting another new farmer in my area who happens to have a day job at NASA. I couldn’t help but ask him if the settle-on-Mars-mania is really a lot of hype, given the problem of radiation exposure and his reply was – there is no plan (at NASA) to work toward human settlement of Mars for that very reason. At most, they will work toward a small team of scientists who will spend the entire time in a cave on the surface (not sure if that cave has been identified). In addition, he noted the extreme expense of energy required to power it (considering the one-year of transit outbound, and 1 year back) and required to keep humans and any other living organisms needed to support them alive, and put that forward as a hard-stop as well. So, yeah, the media slurps the idea up and spews it out, but those actually working on it… they’re not drinking that koolaid.
@Quin,
Good news! Isabelle has finally pooped, so there is no bowel obstruction! Our midwife suggested some probiotics and showed us a tummy massage that should help keep things moving without getting the hospital involved, too. Praise be.
>Second – my wife and I are both computer programmers. Recently, she lamented the fact that there are many date-handling programming libraries for any given programming platform, and none are particularly good (i.e. they’re all somewhat awkward to use in some way). “I just wanted to get the difference between two given dates”, she complained.
I’ll just leave this here.
https://gist.github.com/timvisee/fcda9bbdff88d45cc9061606b4b923ca
I am completely dismayed at the people who say
“Switching from a fossil fuel powered civilization to a renewable powered civilization
is not a problem….
barely an inconvenience.”
It is like saying you can turn an animal that consumes stored energy from food
into a plant that taps into the flow of solar energy to power itself.
These are two very different types of organisms. Both the structure and behavior of plants and animals are fundamentally different. And that fact seems to slip by the renewable advocates.
( you turn an animal into a plant by killing the animal, having scavengers eat its dead body then plants can grow in what remains. LOL I realized that it is the same expectation you have for industrial civilization.)
>Forcing people to die in a hospital room, attached to machines, is the final insult from a system that dehumanizes people at every stage along the ay.
Don’t worry, by the time you’d be shoved into a hospital, it won’t be there. It’ll be gone. That also goes for all the other times when you’ll need one – it won’t be there. Already hospitals are relying on poorly trained, hard to communicate immigrants to fill in the gaps and they can’t completely fill them in even so. At some point most of them are going to collapse.
There may be one hospital left that serves the billionaires but the rest of us will either DIY or die.
Wasn’t there a recent discussion on the similarities between Buddhism and Celtic beliefs? Coincidentally, I happened to drive past a place that unites them both, the Anadaire Celtic Buddhist Center in Vermont.
https://www.celticbuddhism.org/
Considering how much the current King of England supports Keir Starmer and the current regime and their woke ideology, I wonder if Britain will end up as a republic whenever the current regime falls.
Hi JMG,
I haven’t noticed any discussion here of Putin’s recent decree opening up a simplified route to acquiring residence in Russia for people from ‘liberal’ countries who don’t share their country’s values and would like to move to ‘traditional’ Russia. I’ve spoken to a couple of firms which help westerners acquire Russian visas and they say they’re overwhelmed with enquiries, even though the list of eligible countries hasn’t been published yet. Add that to Rod Dreher’s observation of a small but steady stream of Europeans and Americans moving to Hungary and, well, it looks like something may be afoot. I wonder how many will end up making the move? On the other hand, I also expect lots of western countries to rapidly pass laws forbidding their citizens to travel to Russia, so who knows?
You may find it interesting that you were mentioned in a blog post on Verso Books’ site, in which the interpretation of Iolo Morganwg’s radicalism and revivalist Bardism by conservatives is discussed. Overall, I think it’s intended to be a critique of a conservative, anti-trans Druid whose name is unfamiliar to me, but I thought I’d mention it.
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/anti-woke-druids-and-radical-bards
Mr Greer,
Thank you again for your presence. I am enjoying the Ring cycle posts. Reading the explanation of the politics behind the Ring cycle was intriguing. I had faint knowledge of the revolutions of 1848-49. I was taught that these revolutions were in response to the rise of industrialization, but my educators failed to explain the ideological reasons people chose to rebel- something which you were able to explain very well. I never expected the idea of Romantic economics, though I had heard of Romanticism in my English classes in high school. I suppose the idea of Romantic economics was quickly forgotten as soon as the revolutionaries were run out of town!
This brings me to an aside interesting digression about why certain critical information is remembered in history, and why other critical information becomes lost to time. Is there a simple explanation for the method by which humans choose to preserve certain histories and knowledge and discard other important information?
The question I want to ask is about the tension between Classical thought and Romantic thought in Western civilization. I am very curious to investigate this tension of ideas, and how they have shaped our civilization. Can you provide sources for further reading on this subject? I love following links down the rabbit hole. Anything historical, contemporary, etc. I am sketching out a play in my mind on the subject, so anything helps!
It seems to me like the city of San Francisco has been habitated by both sides of the Classical/Romantic tension over the past 100 years- the knockoff romantic Hippie movement in the 60’s, and the contemporary tech scene, who seem to hold Classical values very closely.
Ok, then we are talking about entirely different things. In my view, maybe Science was invented only 400 years ago but the method (!) of inquiry that produces results that can possibly be subjected to communication protocols certainly not. Personally, I think the vision of the scientific method you are presenting here is a quite harmful one that has created a lot of dead ends both for “non-believers” and those on the other side. And it’s especially harmful for those who are sitting on the fence and are in need of orientation, as I once was and maybe still am. For years, I was an active physicist. I worked in laboratories with a lot of fancy equipment, I wrote those pieces of communication called “papers” for scientific journals, I saw the big particle accelerator some are talking about with my own eyes because I worked at and for CERN and I knew a lot of people in the scientific community working there and elsewhere, meeting them on conferences, meetings, etc. It was a lot of fun, but in the end it was not satisfying because something was missing in this world and in my life. So I changed my profession and began “dabbling” with occultism, a path on which your work is helping me a lot. But the “scientific method”, the mode of thinking and inquiry? Not much changed since my days as a physicist except that the subjects of my inquiry are different now. But getting there and understanding that this is possible was a very difficult and painful process because this narrow definition of science (and reason, etc.) is precisely what is creating the large chasm between science as we now it and occultism/spirituality as we know it. It’s one of the root causes for all those fruitless skeptic-vs-believer-debates. It’s a binary that just maybe can be resolved by adding a broader view on what the scientific method might be. Of course everybody is free to disagree with me, but it still baffles me why one would want to entertain such a narrow view on a powerful tool. But asking the other way round – what name would you give the “trinity” of observation, logic and honesty that I and in slightly different words Yves proposed as core of the scientific method?
Greetings,
Nachtgurke
Hi JMG,
You seem to know your way around a good bit of history, so I thought I would ask for your recommendations on some history books. What are your top choices for: Best magical history book? Best American history book? And one more history book that you think is definitely worth reading?
Thank you,
RMS
Re revamping old weapon systems #21
Apart from upgrading the old missile silos, they are now re-engining the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. Along with improvements to radar, communications, controls, etc, the B-52H, which first flew in 1960, might still be flying in 2060. Imagine that… WW3 or 4 fought with 100-year-old aircraft.
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2023/01/09/how-to-re-engine-a-b-52-and-make-a-new-bomber-fleet/
The druid desk calendar is very cute and awesome, but can you actually tell the date with it when it is sitting on your desk?
JMG@#133, you ponder which now-French city “… ended up moving into the old city Coliseum — that became the new city, with a nice round wall protecting it and most of the doors bricked up.” I think the one you’re talking about (it’s just about 70 KM downstream on the Loire from where my wife grew up) was called “Caesarodunum” and now is called Tours; see:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tours_Amphitheatre
There are some great online resources (and likely print resources, though I don’t have any yet) which list the Roman cities, roads, aqueducts, infrastructure, and so forth in that part of what we now call France. The city my wife grew up near was called Blesum and is now called Blois, something I learned from those resources. Fascinating stuff!
“The 4 D’s of Disinformation:
Dismiss―Distort―Distract―Dismay”
―The Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Lab 360, 2019
Watch out for the four D’s… they are in constant use by propaganda machines and have been subconsciously taken up by our fellow citizens to get us on edge, accept what they say, and discredit dissenting views.
It’s hard to think critically when the 4 D’s are being thrown at you. Remember, detach. Stay calm.
Using all four D’s together ends up being a tactic to lead to social fragmentation, because its hard to evalue if you can’t D-etach. This weakens our unity, public discourse, and ability to think clearly. Remember D-tach.
Hello Mr. Greer. I remember you making a comment on a previous post saying that if Democrats win the election by fraud this time around you will make arrangements to leave America as you fear that will result in domestic insurgency or civil war. I’ve had thoughts to do the same. What countries would you suggest I consider for options? Also, how quickly do you think such a situation of domestic insurgency or civil could arise in this country?
Ecosophian #101 – I listened to your interview with JMG and very much enjoyed it. I also really enjoyed your discussion of Frankenstein- I had read it years ago when I was in a Brit Lit phase, but I had forgotten a lot. I’d read it before becoming a parent, and I think I’d see things in the book very differently. I’ve worked hard to create these creatures, you see…and one of them is much taller than I am.
I can’t always keep up with your podcasts, but it is nice to be able to listen to them once in a while.
Hello Mr Greer,
I have a comparative religion question: is there any general observation that could be made about connections between spiritual attainment and physical health in different religious traditions?
In Christianity, according to my understanding, there is no particular significance to body condition. Saints and holy people can suffer from poor health – for example, Carlo Acutis, who died from leukemia at age 15, is in the process of being canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. Eastern religions explain ill health by bad karmic influences, and it is implied that a spiritually developed person would be burdened less by bodily imperfections. Practices such as yoga should ideally work on body, mind and spirit equally. In practice though, even accomplished Buddhists or Hindus can experience serious health issues, and this is not taken as a sign that their religious development is somehow deficient. Are there any specific teachings that deal with this topic, and could you give me some hints where I could learn more about it?
A separate question is an exercise one could do to become more aware of life energy – I think you mentioned it in a recent discussion. Would there be a link describing the exercise? I feel it would complement nicely my qigong practice. Thanks!
@Scotlyn Thanks for bringing up the topic of how TCM understands dreams, I was the one who asked the question in the previous discussion. I used to live in China for several years and had fantastic experience with TCM there, so I am now trying to learn more about it. But it is difficult to find reliable sources on the subject, and I am sure that a lot of what I have read about TCM on the internet is sheer nonsense. I am therefore very grateful for the existence of this forum where it is possible to learn more and correct some misapprehensions.
Given that the forthcoming American presidential election is understandably on many minds, I would like to share an article by the British historian of ideas John Gray on the possible aftermath:
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2024/08/how-america-resembles-the-dying-soviet-union
Interestingly, he does not believe that the outcome matters much, as the US is already on an irrevocable path away from the dying liberal order. He takes into account trends often discussed on Ecosophia that are otherwise not mentioned in polite society, so people here might find it worthwhile.
@Boysmom
I love observing cycles and how they might fit into the year. You may appreciate this recording of Serena Roney-Dougal’s information about the Celtic Lunar Calendar.
The Celtic Lunar Calendar recording is 2nd down on the the following link:
https://www.psi-researchcentre.co.uk/download.html
Hi JMG. Does completing the Great Work necessarily require making an independent income from your own skills (e.g., art, writing, a trade)? Does it preclude being someone’s employee, no matter how benign the arrangements, or is that just how it usually works out because of the control over your own time required?
@Mister Nobody (#110):
I’m somewhat inclined to interpret Egon Fischer’s third possibility in light of the very strong premonition that suddenly imposed itself on me, on the Thursday before the attempted assassination of Trump, that neither Trump nor Biden would (or could) be inaugurated as the next President in January.
Consider the following very dark, quite unlikely course of events. (Admittedly, it goes far beyond my strong premonition, yet it seems to me to be theoretically possible.)
(1) The Senate has certified that Trump won the election (whether he acutally did win it is irrelevant here), but Trump either dies or withdraws for reasons of health before Inauguration Day, while Vance, too, becomes unable (for whatever reason) to serve as President. (2) Meanwhile, the current Speaker of the House has just been removed from that office by vote of the newly elected House, and no new candidate for that office has as yet secured enough votes to win it. (3) Also, no new President Pro Tempore of the Senate has yet been chosen. (4) And all the remaining officials in the order of Presidential Succession are Cabinet members, who would have to have been chosen by the new President; but there has been no new President to make that choice officially.
In such a case, however unlikely it might be, I am pretty sure that governmental chaos would ensue, due to the absolute necessity of always having some person in a position to exercise the powers of the Presidency, and the absence of any clarity as to who that person might be. In that time of chaos all bets for the future of the country would be off.
I really hope it never comes to that!!! I wouldn’t even have thought about the possiblity, but for the strength of the sudden premonition which came to me on that Thursday not too long ago. Ugh!!!
The question of magical directions has arisen in comments and in magic mondays in the past. Readers may be interested in the free essay on this published by Josephine McCarthy on the Quareia.com website at https://www.quareia.com/s/Magic-and-the-directions-a-brief-history.pdf
Nachtgurke #135: There is not much value in getting tangled up in semantics. “Science” is a word that can be used to refer to a wide range of things. For sure, staking a claim to some particular way of drawing semantic boundaries, there can be some value in that. But understanding the territory apart from the boundaries is where the real juice is.
One good way to approach this is to look across history and across cultures, as much as possible, to see what people knew, how did they come to know it, how did they preserve that knowledge, etc. How did they understand the nature of knowledge? For example, in India there is a long tradition of epistemology, of how we come to know things. But from what I have seen, it tends to be in the nature of, “I know there is a fire, because I see smoke.” I have yet to see discussion of how it is that we come to know that smoke implies fire.
The remarkable fertility of modern science, the tradition of Galileo etc., is certainly worth examining. I think a lot of it comes from two factors: 1) maritime travel’s vastly expanded horizons… things are clearly not the way we thought they were; 2) the shattering of the institutional consensus with the Reformation etc. But surely also the printing press, and the rise of engraving as a way to faithfully reproduce complex detailed images.
How we come to understand the world, that is sure to change dramatically over the coming centuries. For example, nowadays electronic computing is pervasive and integral to how we come to know things. How much longer will chip fabs be able to stay in business?
There are two dimensions to the urgency to develop a new vision for science: 1) our style of science, elitist, reductionist, etc., is a large part of the cultural pattern that is driving us through overshoot into collapse. We cannot deal with collapse as long as we are blind to it. 2) science, of one form or another, i.e. a network of effective theories about how things work, that is fundamental to human existence, to agriculture, medicine, architecture, etc. Science is how we live. If we are to live well, we need good science.
A bit more in this direction: https://interdependentscience.blogspot.com/2022/01/science-without-progress.html
Hey Russell
Thanks for this, I will get in touch at some point today.
@Mary Bennet,
point of information. The country Malaysia contains a y.
Hey JMG
Have you heard that the Australian government is planning to limit the amount international student enrollments into Australian Universities? It’s been an open secret that many of these students don’t actually come to learn, just meet Visa requirements and/or work illegally. Unsurprisingly the Unis aren’t happy, since most of their funding comes from them.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/aug/27/albanese-government-international-student-cap-university
Northwind, as we move into end stage neoliberalism there’s no future in working for a business — only in working for yourself. A great many people have already figured that out and more will do so over the years immediately ahead.
Balowulf, I’d encourage you to do more reading in the history of West Africa. The empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, all based in that region, were extremely wealthy due partly to control of trans-Sahara trade routes and partly due to the considerable mineral wealth of the region. You might look up Mansa Musa’s famous pilgrimage to Mecca sometime as one slice-of-life example of that wealth. One of the reasons that Russia is so popular in West Africa these days is that it’s interested in trade partners, not colonies (as China is). As for the pressures for immigration, land hunger is the main force here; as depopulation accelerates in the New World and Europe, plenty of people in crowded Africa will be thinking of available acreage abroad, while African immigrant communities in many of the target nations will be interested in encouraging newcomers to strengthen their own position in the rising spiral of ethnic conflict. It’s an old and familiar story.
Mark, it’s quite plausible that Europe will end up more or less divided three ways, with African settlement along the western seaboards, Middle Eastern settlement in the middle, and the descendants of today’s Europeans (those that didn’t go overseas) falling back into eastern Europe to become part of an extended Russian sphere of influence.
Justin, thanks for this.
Mark, it’s quite possible that Europeans will be welcomed here by future conservative governments. There are a lot of half-empty mill towns across the Northeast that could accommodate European refugees, and I’ve already begun to hear enthusiastic discussions in the US populist scene of the prospect of inviting conservative Europeans to settle here.
Temporary, yep. I’ve heard the same thing from people a little more peripherally connected to the space program. The fantasy is popular but the physical and financial limits make it unworkable.
Tyler, huzzah! Keep us all posted and let us know if Isabelle or her mom need any further metaphysical help.
Dobbs, these people live in a La-La Land of their own devising in which you can have whatever you want if you just demand it loudly enough. Sense of entitlement, anyone?
Jon, hmm! Thanks for this.
Anonymous, the fall of the House of Windsor is a real possibility at this point. Nobody was going to throw Elizabeth off the throne, she was everybody’s grandmother, but now that she’s gone it’s quite another matter.
Bogatyr, yes, I’ve read about that. Putin is as usual ahead of the game; Russia needs immigrants right now, with its economy booming as it is and its own population contracting, and he’s come up with an ingenious way to attract a labor force from the industrial West while filtering out those who probably won’t fit in. If Western countries forbid travel to Russia, why, the Russia-bound will just have to go to India, which will do a booming business in plausibly deniable visas of the “Honest, officer, I was in Varanasi the whole time!” sort. As for the Verso Books thing, yes, I heard of that, and sent a link to the editor I work with at Unherd — he was as delighted as I was. First they ignore you…
M R, I wish there was a simple explanation for the process of historical remembering and forgetting. In reality, alas, it’s a complex and contested field in which various power blocs push their own agendas using the past as a pretext. As for reading material, a very good starting place is Kenneth Clarke’s The Romantic Rebellion, which primarily focuses on the arts but is a good general source.
Nachtgurke, there isn’t an English word, as far as I know, for that very broad set of human capacities. Wissenschaft does tolerably well, but it’s not as though most of us English speakers know any language but our own, and “science” is too useful as a label for the narrow tradition. Maybe some new moniker needs to be come up with.
RMS, I never know how to answer questions like that, because “best” always calls for the immediate counter, “best for what?” There isn’t a good one-volume history of Western magic, so it really depends on what era you have in mind; American history is even more of a fragmentary mess; and what is definitely worth reading depends on who’s doing the reading and what their interests are!
Pygmycory, nope. It was a joke.
Bryan, thanks for this.
Eagle Fang, we need four Ds of our own. How about detach (from popular culture), delete (mass media), debunk (official nonsense), and develop (your own knowledge base)?
Rodger, no, that’s overstating it. I noted that if the Democrats win this time, especially if there’s robust evidence of fraud, the chances of domestic insurgency or civil war will likely go up, and if either of these seems to be getting started I will make arrangements to leave the country. I’m not comfortable discussing my plans in any more detail; if you look into what requirements other countries have for long term residents, you should be able to figure out a location or two that will work well for you. As for speed, unless we get a color revolution — which can be spun up very quickly — it’ll take at least a few months for the initial crisis to blow up into a full-scale war. (Read histories of a few revolutions and civil wars to get an idea of the usual stages.) If you do your research now you should have no trouble getting out.
Soko, not as far as I know. Spiritual traditions vary across the spectrum from wholly uninterested in health to profoundly interested in it. As for the exercise, if you practice qigong it’s easy to add on. Stand in zhan zhuang for ten minutes or so, then lower your elbows and draw your hands inward, and hold them with palms cupped and facing each other, as though holding a ball a foot or so across. Hold that position for a little while, then move your palms toward and away from each other a little, moving slowly and paying attention to the sensation in your hands. Thank you for the Gray article!
Patrick, it isn’t a requirement, no, though it does make things a lot easier.
KAN, thanks for this.
J.L.Mc12, hmm! No, I hadn’t heard that; thank you for the heads up.
@Grover
My fantasy outcome for this election still involves RFKJr getting appointed to dismantle the CIA: “Hello. My name is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. You killed my father…”
But head of a health bureaucracy is a close second 😉
@Boysmom
One of my young relatives lived in a school district with so many Jewish kids that the families forced the nearby schools to close for major Jewish holidays. I’d bet that a sufficient concentration of Catholics, or other Christians, if they could be induced to organize, could force schools to schedule spring break for Holy Week, as it always used to.
Our own church community doesn’t share the same feast dates with the rest of Christendom, so we can’t exert that kind of influence, but… we still have families who prioritize the church calendar over the school calendar and are perfectly willing to tell the schools to stuff it, we will be taking off for Holy Week and the twelve major feasts (when they happen on a school day). They’re not missing much.
Hi JMG,
Excellent explanation! Thank you very much.
It occurred to me that these future West African governments may not even need a ton of shipbuilding capacity. I can imagine that, at some point, many of the disused ships of bankrupt cruise lines could be bought up and refurbished on the cheap.
Regarding calendars and telling the time, something Ernst Jünger (in Das Sanduhrbuch) wrote comes to mind: “Im Walde schlägt keine Uhr” [Roughly: In the forest no clock chimes].
With respect to date software, most of the complexity in the software comes from trying to deal with all the possible calendar systems (not everybody uses the Gregorian calendar!) and being capable of dealing with all the possible scenarios. Even for the Western calendar there are issues when you calculate dates that cross the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. Internationalism and its problems are not limited to politics! Likewise for time you need to take into account not just time zones but also different standards for presenting dates and times (ie. is it day-month-year or month-day-year). And then there are currencies and how to format numbers (commas or dots for the decimal point).
The mention of aircraft in ancient ledgends reminds me of the story of the ‘walls of Jericho’. I think Joshua witnessed the use of artillery. People will describe things they’ve never experienced (or imagined), in terms of things they have; a long tube, with or without a bell-mouth that emits a loud noise? A trumpet! The ‘trumpet’ emits a loud noise and the wall collapses? The projectile moves faster than the eye can see! Circling the walls several times? Selecting sites to emplace the guns and choosing the most likely weak points in the walls!
J.L.Mc12,
same here in Canada, with additional issues around schools scamming students who didn’t meet ability to support themselves financially requirements, and/or not actually offering education. And international students winding up homeless and in one infamous case, using food banks in such large numbers that the food bank couldn’t handle the demand and banned them.
The government is now restricting some lower quality schools ability to accept international students, and trying to lower numbers generally. Apparently, Canada is also getting a bad reputation, and applications are dropping as well, so they may actually get those lower numbers.
Martin #152: I wonder why we just don’t build new B-52s then. Or are they like 300 year old fine violins that have been repaired so many times that hardly any of the original wood remains?
Our own 4-Ds… Petfect!
Hi John Michael,
Thanks for your very clear answer. That’s my thinking as well, and I’m watching with a sense of, I dunno quite what the emotion is, but dread comes close, the constant political pressure to lower interest rates – especially in an election year. I suspect that they’ll do it too. What do you feel the likelihood of that change is? Anyway, that’s not a moral or ethical judgement either as to the policy choices, but more of a recognition that debt seems to have become something of a cultural addiction, and expanding the money supply inevitably leads to inflation. The annual interest payments for your goobermint are nearing the equivalent of the expense upon the military, and there’s something quite absurd about borrowing (printing) to pay for interest on earlier debt, let alone thoughts of repaying the original amount loaned. It’s like watching a wheel which gets spun faster and faster when you know the bearings will break sooner or later.
Over the next week or so, I’ll plant out quite a lot of sugar beets. They’ve got a 20% sugar content, and I’ll try and boil it down to produce some sugar when the plants are of a harvestable size sometime next year. The dreaded honeybee varroa mite is now established on this continent, and I give the honeybees here maybe three to five years left in their present incarnation. I’ve read a bit on that mite subject and I reckon it’ll be the occasional small wild hive which survive and adapt to the mite life cycle. After over a decade, there are a number of wild hives in the surrounding forest, but we’ll see how they go. The commercial bee keepers have weakened that species over the decades with err, innovations mostly to make life easier for them, like selecting for bees which don’t produce much propolis which is a goo produced by the bees to protect their living spaces from viruses and bacteria. Oh well. Pollination of some crops here will be err, interesting if the bees succumb, and I’m keeping an eye out to see what other insects are out and about at this time of year. What do you do? It’s bigger than any of us.
Cheers
Chris
If I may…
Supposedly, KomodoDragon Harris is doing (or did just do) her first interview. CNN is hyping the interview. Gray suit, light gray top, pearl necklace (hearsay worth over $50K, needs verification). Airing tonight, CNN, 9pm Eastern Time/8pm Central Time. State of Georgia, USA.
CNN is trying to breathe life into an inflatable dummy.
It appears the interview is behind a paywall. If one subscribes to CNN, one can view it. We shall see if the interview gets posted to UTub, making its viewing free. If the interview IS behind a paywall, why limit the audience?
I am waiting for a written transcript to become available for those of us “video challenged.”
💨Northwind Grandma💨🙋🏼♀️
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
I can’t speak to the Enneagram as a path of personal development, but as an indicator of basic personality traits I’ve found it to be spot-on.
Maybe this is a fifth Wednesday request, so not till October, but if not, I’m curious where you, JMG, see evidence of the second religiosity in the U.S.
Hello!
Thank you Kimberley for encouraging us to recite the Pledge. Today while out biking, I recited it to my 8 year old when we saw a flag. I told him, just like in the Ramona books! . . . he’s obsessed with Beverly Cleary stories now.
And, maybe related, I’ve noticed this year, in our corner of urban Maine, more American flags being flown at people’s houses than in years past. The BLM flags have dried up but still plenty of Pride flags. The, “In this house we believe . . “, signs, have also disappeared.
And JMG, related to your comment about the French city where everyone moved into the colosseum, that’s what happened in my grandfather’s home town in Umbria, Italy. A town of 100, it has a charming little piazza surrounded by homes. My cousin told me the piazza had been a small colosseum before the fall of the Empire.
Lastly, my other grandfather, an 1892 divinity grad of Harvard, met Vivekananda through family friends in Boston (Mrs. Ole Bull). His father was also the secretary of the Unitarian Society. He became entranced and went off to spend the summer in London studying/learning from the man. Supposedly he was also interested in a young lady over there too. Alas, we have no documentation of what he learned and thought about the experience. But I find it fascinating nonetheless.
He preached one sermon, hated it, went to work at a weather observatory, then became a pioneer in urban planning and zoning. Not sure what influence Vivekananda had on him.
Ellen in ME
John–
Having grown up in a scriptural tradition (various flavors of western Christianity, prima Protestant), I am struggling to get my footing as I travel a path quite bereft of structure, tradition, and scriptures. The deity with whom I have been in a relationship these past ten years has given occasional pointers, but no direct guidance and certainly no grand vision or structure as to what I am to do or read or study. On the one hand, it appears I have a degree of freedom to choose, but on the other I feel rather lost. In response to my bemoaning a lack of scripture, for example, I was given: “the text you are to study us the one within yourself.” I get the point, but that, of course, is not a text I can actually study, at least not in the usual sense. My lot seems to be that I yearn to be an acolyte in the temple, but my destiny is to encounter the divine in the wilderness. Would you have any suggestions? I could use some guidance.
For people thinking of bailing out of the US, here is a possible source of information.
https://nomadcapitalist.com/
There are also several retire abroad sites too.
Hi JMG,
You have previously mentioned that you would like to see more fantasy literature engaging with actual occultism, rather than Harry Potter magic. I was wondering if you were familiar at all with the manga series Berserk, by Kentaro Miura? I ran across it recently, and spotted more than a few real-world occultist ideas and references in the worldbuilding.
In the last few years Psilocybin has made huge strides in becoming accepted by the medical and scientific communities. Previously difficult to treat cases of PTSD, alcoholism, etc have shown demonstrative improvements in a singke large dose, and the curative effects have been long lasting. As a Druid, I’m curious what your thoughts are regarding this growing phenomenon, and if you have an opinion on the use of psychedelic assisted therapy as a force for healing?
@Chris at fernglade
I don’t think varroa will be as big an problem here in Aus as elsewhere. Our native flora is an absolute paradise for honey production, and the European honey bee has taken to it like the proverbial pig. There is such a huge and varied feral population that as you say some will adapt and move forward and will then pick any slack left by those who have succumbed.
Balowulf, that’s also a real possibility — not least when you remember how many ships these days fly the Liberian flag…
Bootstrapper, that makes a lot of sense!
Eagle Fang, by all means spread ’em around if you like.
Chris, it’s quite the spectacle to watch. Now that I’ve moved most of my books to a publisher that’s not based in the US, I can watch it with a little more equanimity; the British pound’s going to take it in the teeth too, but nothing like so drastically as the US dollar, and the difference will go a long way toward keeping me afloat. I already donate a lot to charities that help people in financial crises, but I plan on at least doubling those donations once things really heat up. As for sugar beets, sounds like a good idea. I hope you have plenty of wild pollinators in your part of the country!
Northwind, first reports I’ve heard of the interview is that she bombed. It was the usual word salad, and the interviewer actually asked her a few mildly tough questions, which she didn’t answer. It’ll be interesting to see what the Dems do if she keeps plunging (I almost wrote “going down,” but under the circumstances I’d prefer to avoid that phrase) in the polls…
Asdf, that’s a 5th Wednesday if you want any details. The very, very short form is the steady influx of new converts to Eastern Orthodoxy and the more traditional end of Catholicism.
Ellen, thank you for this! That’s the second interesting I’ve learned about Umbria. (The first is the famous Iguvine tablets, written in ancient Umbrian — a language related to Latin — which details a set of very old religious ceremonies invoking the Umbrian gods.)
David BTL, you’re in the standard predicament of someone who’s been caught up in a rising religious sensibility when the fading religious sensibility it will replace still has a strong hold on the collective imagination. Most of the world’s religions have never had scriptures; they may have various bundles of old stories, but those don’t have anything like the same authority and ambience of the prophetic religions of the Piscean age, each of which has its allegedly infallible scripture to brandish about. That sense of lostness you feel measures the gap between the old sensibility you’re abandoning and the new one that’s calling to you, and the temple in which you want to be an acolyte doesn’t exist yet. I’d encourage you to go toward the lostness, toward the wilderness; accept that you are walking a path that doesn’t yet have the sort of conveniences you’re used to, and offer up your feelings on the matter as a gift to the goddess you revere.
Siliconguy, thanks for this.
Strda221, no, I’m not familiar with it — thanks for the heads up!
Joshua, as with other pharmaceuticals, I’ll let other people be the guinea pigs on this one, and wait to see what the downsides and side effects turn out to be.
How will the religions in the Aquarian Age differ from the religions in the Piscean age?
JMG,
Very well. A book on the origins of hermetic qabalah? Or a book on major influencers of magical thought? A book that covers different magical orders and their goals (I know there are books that focus on one particular order, but maybe there’s one that provides an overview of several?)
Is there a magical reading list somewhere? I know there’s the monthly book club, but wonder if there’s an overall list of works about magic that you respect and would recommend. I’m interested in what made an impact on you, so much so that you would suggest it to others.
Thank you kindly for anything you might be able to offer.
RMS
Hey Pygmycory
That stuff about homeless and poor international students has been happening in Australia also, along with fake schools for visa scams.
Not only that, a lot of people complain about international students not bothering to learn English or do schoolwork, yet still getting passed by the Unis because they need/ want the money.
🩰💃Mister Nobody #110
> That will be something to see should it pan out that way, won’t it?
Yes, indeedy, it would. The song by Cher called, “If I Could Turn Back Time,” comes to mind:
https://youtu.be/9n3A_-HRFfc
Except I would call it “If I Could Speed Up Time.”
The next two month period is a L-O-N-G stretch. I wonder how the four candidates+spouses will hold up for that long. The main job of the eight of them is keeping their own morale up, keep balanced, stay well nourished, and get exercise. The forced way that KomodoDragon Harris acted at the whole Democratic National Convention,—like a high-school cheerleader,—every smile an open-mouth smile,—was so f—-king false. If she keeps up that fakery up, she will fall like a house of cards. Forced-false-fold-fall. No staying power. Collapse.
The four couples need to take proper rest periods—learning their way to how to advantageously bide their time. They need to stop acting like teenagers, and get quality sleep like the elders they are. September is a good month to get under control sleep deprivation I bet the eight of them are experiencing. October is the ON-MONTH, but September can be the half-time MONTH-OFF.
I really, really want to know happens in this mystery. I am bursting with curiosity? Who gets in? So many questions. But I can’t speed up time. But Cher’s a great song for me to acquire and listen to over and over. Be great for my morale.
I will buy Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” on album “36 Greatest Hits of Cher,” 2-CD set, which catches the really old early-1960s songs of Sonny and Cher which I still miss. Cher’s song, and Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” song, ought to keep my juices flowing for two months. I can picture myself dancing all over the house to those tunes for two months.
💨Northwind Grandma💨🩰💃
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
Chris #177: the North Island of NZ has had varroa for a good decade or more now and yet we currently have a glut of manuka honey. I am certainly not seeing any shortage of bees, so I wouldn’t worry too much – remember, nature is far more resilient than people give it credit for.
@Chris #177 – We tried out sugar beet last year and planted roughly a 16 m row. We used them to cook sugar beet syrup (a very thick, almost black, don’t know if they eat that in your part of the world) which you can nicely spread on a slice of bread or use to sweeten other dishes. It was and is very popular especially in rural parts of Germany where they produce a lot of sugar beet. Apple juice and plums are subjected to the same treatment if there’s a good harvest and in past times in every village the people took out a very big kettle every autumn and produce a large batch of plum syrup for the whole village.
As for the bees – European bee keepers are dealing with varroa mite for some time now. It makes things much more problematic but we still have bees and there are approaches where beekeepers manage to get along fairly well. Hint: Usually it’s necessary to refrain from squeezing out the last drop of honey and let the bees live a little more closely to what their usual way of living would be. It’s a pity that during the Nazi-reign they almost wiped out the native black honey bee and replaced it with the “carnica”-breed. Ever since, beekeepers are working to breed bees that are increasingly pacific and frequently you don’t even have to wear protective clothes when working on an open hive. I know first-hand stories of a beekeeper who still had plenty of the old black variety and it was impossible to come as close as 20 m to the hives without being attacked and driven away. I suppose it was a grave mistake to breed the aggressiveness out of the bees.
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
I guess at least from a German point of view, I have to disappoint you. We were told, “der Wissenschaft zu folgen”, just as you were ordered to “follow the science”. But I guess Wissenschaft and science both to well anyway. It reminds me of the people trying to learn OBEs and lucid dreaming to perform proof-experiments but when they finally master the skill they discover that their experiences are far to fascinating and valuable to waste them to prove anything to anybody.
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
@Jim #164 – Thanks a lot for your reply! I like that last sentence: “Science is how we live. If we are to live well, we need good science.” As for the blog post you linked – Thank you for this as well! I hope to find the time to read it this evening.
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
If Faustian culture follows a tumor logic, being essentially nothing except pure growth, pure progress and pure destruction, yet unable to replicate like a parasite or a virus, isn’t our Musk-mediated dream of colonising Mars a desperate attempt to become viral/parasitic, i.e. form a Faustian core capable of infecting a new host?
Hey JMG
I thought you would find that interesting. Quite a few interesting things are being done by the current Albanese/Labor government, such as their “Reining in” of the notoriously corrupt construction-workers union, the CMFEU.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/aug/19/cfmeu-administration-liberal-coalition-labor-bill-support
There’s also been some controversy about the possibility of adding questions concerning sexuality on the Census papers for 2026, which has become a bit of a “Storm in a Teacup” at the moment.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/aug/30/anthony-albanese-lgbtq-census-sexuality-question-australia-abs
All in all, alot on interesting stuff is happening down under.
Of late I have been reading about the Spanish civil war, it was a long time aborning, the fuse that finally lit it off seems to have been the 1936 elections in which the Popular Front won, the Nationalist didnt except the results and revolted and the army sided with em,.
Do you see any parallels with US elections come Nov? I cant imagine either side excepting the results come Nov. What then?
Anonymous #147, I think it’s worth remembering that King Charles’ worldview is Traditionalist (in the school of Guenon, Schuonn, etc), particularly in regards to nature, culture and art. Nowadays his long-standing spousal of organic agriculture and interfaith dialogue might be seen as “woke”/leftish, but these concepts originated in the Traditionalist school well before the term “woke” was invented to refer to the current set of extremists… Stammer, on the contrary, is not traditionalist… With the current and recent set of politicians in the UK might as well get Charles to disband parliament and rule as Absolute Monarch… What was that that Tolkien said when he was asked what’s the best form of government? An ineffectual monarchy, or something along the lines…
This thread of an African/Muslim invasion of Europe made me thing of the Moors in Spain… When the invasion happened the Spaniards took refuge in the mountainous north and, in due course (a few centuries!), reconquered Spain and made it Christian again. I wonder if we will see something alike in this hypothetical scenario, perhaps Western Europeans claiming back the West after a long sojourn with their Eastern brothers…
As a Brit, I could well see the House of Windsor and indeed the monarchy as a whole, falling within my lifetime. No details have been released via official channels on the type and prognosis of King Charles’s cancer, but he may well be gone by the end of the decade. His successor Prince William has been reported as having thrown to the ground and injured his brother Harry – well known across the pond, I understand – during an argument a few years ago about one or both wives. I regard him as a borderline psychopath or at the very least, what we over here refer to as A Nasty Piece Of Work. A scandal or general dissatisfaction with him combined with general civil unrest, could well precipitate the end.
Certainly, most people under 50 and a lot of those beyond, regard the monarchy as at best irrelevant and at worst, a major contribution to Britain’s worsening difficulty in accommodating itself to its real position in the world. Whether some sort of figurehead elected president – maybe after the Irish model – would work instead, I have no idea.
@Robert M: Your interpretation of that cryptic but hopefully unlikely final vision may in fact be a better one than mine, as the vision clearly portrays some kind of power-vacuum. Armchair observers such as myself tend to expect the upcoming election to resemble in some way the previous election, so of course it was easy for me to think “the Democrats will be even more obvious about stealing the election than they were last time, and this will necessarily blow a big hole in their political legitimacy that will plunge their regime into disarray” for my interpretation of the third vision. But even there, you have officials poised to hold onto the reigns of power and maintain a modicum of stability and continuity, however tenuous and contrived. The scenario of true chaos and uncertainty you laid out comports a lot more sensibly with Fischer’s final and least likely vision.
JMG: “Honest, officer, I was in Varanasi the whole time!” Hahaha, there’ll need to be a rapid-tanning service included in the service to make it credible!
Re: comments made by Northwind Grandma & others, it seems that suicide rates in the UK are at record levels. It says a very great deal about the kind of society we’ve become. What frightens me are the reports that large numbers of universities, as well as local government authorities, are facing bankruptcy in the near future. When that shoe drops, huge numbers of the PMCs will find themselves unemployed with no prospect of finding a new job with equivalent income or status. It’s going to be apocalyptic.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/29/suicide-rates-in-england-and-wales-reach-highest-level-since-1999
Hi JMG,
“Mark, let the gods take the lead. Don’t try to decide for them — let the process unfold the way they want it to unfold. They know what they’re doing!”
I’ve been thinking about this in relation to what I consider to be the latest doomsday cult, the Christian/Israeli Zionists who are trying to give their God the hurry up to get going with their end times fantasy.
It has been noted, that these 2 groups are essentially ‘using’ the other for their own purposes but, oh well!
Anyway, my point is, I don’t think Mr Abrahamic God is the kind that likes to be given the hurry up by impatient believers.
Thief in the night and all that…
Do you think that their actions could end up having serious blowback?
There is some talk that Israeli society is beginning to get a bit grumpy with each other.
Maybe that’s the beginning.
It’s just a speculation at this point.
I also remember, probably from Archdruid report days, you mentioned that the Evangelicals were on the wane, at least I think it was them.
Do you still think this?
Is there evidence that this is happening?
With regards to the US election, I don’t think much of any of them, but then I came to the conclusion about 30 years ago that politicians were all lying, criminal con artists, not worth voting for, to put it politely 😉.
There’s been a lot of shadow projection these past few years, but I’m also seeing a lot of the opposite, a kind of deifying of these people.
I’m reminded of another of your terms, ‘plaster saint ‘!
We also hear this term ‘white supremecist’ a lot, but I have to say the biggest perpetrators are bloody US politicians. They’re always banging on about how the US is the greatest this or that.
Gimme a break 😄 wait till the infamous JMG wealth pump is turned off! Then we’ll see that you’re just a bunch of plebs like the rest of us on this planet 😂.
A couple of things about the Dorothy Dunnett books, they are filled with French and Latin phrases, plus a few Italian and old English and Scottish ones.
I reckon you’ll like them.
There are actually 2 companion books that go with The Lymond Saga and the House of Niccolo series.
I am currently reading the Ring cycle books, and finding them to be a great and twisty tale!
My next book will be the Seymour Hersh book on the Kennedys.
You have no idea how many second hand books I get because of this blog…🤣
I could say more, but I need to do some piano practice.
I have zero innate talent , no past life musician in my timeline methinks!
Kimberly, I wish you were my neighbour!
Regards
Helen in Oz,
PS great news about pooping bubs ! 🙏🙏
#103 I saw an electric car drive past the other day and was shocked to see that on the back it had the styling on the trims that would be where the exhaust pipes would go.
One of the problems is that car manufacturers have ended up making electric cars too big, I think there are a couple of things driving this, firstly that they are/were expensive to produce, so it makes more economic sense to sell a big expensive car as a luxury product to make a bigger profit. Also, there is the effect of making the battery bigger and heavier to assuage range anxiety, which then can end up needing a bigger car to put it in, and therefore an even bigger battery.
I know the Chinese however do make quite a lot of small electric cars, in fact there is a company in London selling one which was marketed as British but on closer examination is a rebadged Chinese made vehicle. It is also called the Dogood Zero so very much marketed at the virtue-signallers.
@Mary #50, thank you for your reply.
I cannot fault your reasoning. Bennett and Greer might also make it uncomfortable for me to grow my own corn, whether or not I want to sell it.
And we are all aware of the power of the Health Institutions to decree the destruction of homestead flocks and herds if deemed able or likely to harbour the disease du jour.
There is always a way to show the thing you are doing is wrong. PMC officials in or out of work know how… witness the one hotel of three licensed premises that is currently open in my town. One of the others has been turned into a dress shop, the third has been under renovation for ten years and keeps running into red tape that postpones its reopening. Who has friends on Council?
Public health arguments (valid or otherwise) can cut both ways. While Australian farmers are endangered due to their high suicide rate, the state government again recently rejected appeals by farmers to cut daylight savings (which makes no sense on a farm), stating it was better for other people’s health (https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2024-07-25/farmers-want-daylight-saving-months-shortened/104125708).
We have *no* rights here. While we may be permitted to grow vegetables in our own yard, or collect rainwater, we are by no means free from the threat of the prohibitions under which some of your states suffer. After all, you guys have best practice, remember NYC in lockdown?
On top of that, there are the ubiquitous vigilantes who trap and kill others’ pet cats. Not that this makes sense in a place where rodent plagues are regular and devastating. But the poke-nose phenomenon is flourishing on this side of the Pacific.
Re: Africa, I’m not sure that there will be mass migrations.
Lately, I’ve been reading up on what’s happening in Africa, and it’s really rather hopeful. The foundations are being laid for what could be a huge economic burst. Russia & China in particular are helping to develop energy via nuclear & hydro; there is of course huge potential for renewables, which will also be China-led. The massive build-up of road, rail & port infrastructure, driven by China, is showing great promise, with China & Russia also putting great effort into training up local engineers, etc. Russian military assistance also seems to be making progress in counter-terrorism, meaning that more areas are able to develop in peace. Local innovation in areas such as AI-driven mobile financial services is bringing reliable banking to people across the continent for the first time, in their own languages. More and more governments are re-asserting control over their natural resources from western control, and intend to keep the value for their own people, All the pieces are falling into place for an African renaissance. I find it incredibly hopeful.
For Europe, a key question is what happens in Libya. If a strong government can exert control over the whole country then the flow of migrants to the Mediterranean will be stemmed, and the EU will be able to concentrate on those who have already arrived. Since Russia-backed Haftar in the east controls the oilfields my money’s on him.
Climate change remains the big question, but there’s a big difference between climate change impacting the poor, backward Africa of the past and climate change in a prosperous, technologically-advanced Africa backed up by Russia and China.
Interesting times ahead. Don’t write Africa off yet.
>and there’s something quite absurd about borrowing (printing) to pay for interest on earlier debt
Well, absurd isn’t quite the word I would use. Fraudulent, maybe. It is essentially, a Ponzi scheme when you start resorting to such tactics. And resorting to them was almost inevitable. It’s math.
The people who set all this up back in Bretton Woods knew that it would eventually blow up like this. They didn’t care. Because they knew they would be gone well before that would happen. I’ll Be Gone – You’ll Be Gone. IBG-YBG. They’re literally gone now. Pushing up daisies. Don’t bother getting mad at them.
It would be helpful if we had some adult in the room who was willing to understand this mess, face this mess and clean it up but instead all we have, are clowns. Do you want the earnest orange clown they tried to kill? Or do you want the boozy brown clown in a pantsuit? So many choices. Don’t forget to vote. And get super passionate about the clown that you identify with.
>In the last few years Psilocybin has made huge strides in becoming accepted by the medical and scientific communities. Previously difficult to treat cases of PTSD, alcoholism, etc have shown demonstrative improvements in a singke large dose, and the curative effects have been long lasting
You’re not asking the right question. The question is “Can we make the required profit margins off of this?”. Because we have to report gross margins to our investors and they demand a certain number from our reports. If those numbers don’t look good, they sell and walk away. And like most things in that part of the world, there’s no such thing as too big a number. Bigger numbers, are better numbers.
BTW, the answer to that question is no. There’s no money to be made there. So nothing will be done. At least in the official market. The black market, sure. And it’s not just that drug that people have to go to the black market for. People who have ADHD have to go to the black market these days too.
https://farside.link/invidious/watch?v=eRPeU1DYOWA
JMG #133: I ask to myself if my nephew belief in reincarnation won’t be erased by his “education” and other secularization trends in this society when he grows up…
Another topic…If you didn’t know yet, a Hungarian corporation tried to purchase the power (they made an offer) in a Spanish trade manufacturer some days ago, but it was forbidden to do it by the Spanish government, because…
“it entailed risks to national security, public order and public health, without elaborating further.”
However, local media said the veto was because of…
“Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s close ties to Russia.”
https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/TALGO-S-A-22148977/news/Hungary-s-Ganz-Mavag-withdraws-Talgo-offer-after-Spain-blocks-bid-47771994/
It looks like Hungary is the bad boy in the EU…
Dear Mr. Greer,
Since we’re discussing the future of Europe, what do you think about the short term? I know you said the West would drop Ukraine like a hot potato sometime soon, and as a healthy young man living in Europe I have powerful reasons to hope you’re right. Our elites, however, keep doubling down and seem to have backup ideas (Moldova, Caucasus) to develop when the failure at their Ukrainian adventure becomes apparent to everyone.
Mind you, accepting defeat as soon as possible would also be the rational thing to do since we can’t win, but I fear they’re too delusional and scared to think clearly at this point. What do you – and the commentariat – think are the most likely scenarios now?
By the way, thank you for providing the space for conversations about these, um, impolite topics. I’ve been following the problems related to the future of Europe and other issues for some years now and the cognitive dissonance between that and my everyday experience is driving me crazy. I need a good sanity check from time to time.
Greetings,
Miguel
@ LeGrand Cinq-Mars
Denise Levertov wrote one of my favourite poems:
Living
The fire in leaf and grass
so green it seems
each summer the last summer.
The wind blowing, the leaves
shivering in the sun,
each day the last day.
A red salamander
so cold and so
easy to catch, dreamily
moves his delicate feet
and long tail. I hold
my hand open for him to go.
Each minute the last minute.
Dear JMG,
Please could you elucidate the difference between druids and shamans.
Thank you very much
Larkrise
One of the most interesting things about this site for me, as an English person, is the prevalence of support for D. Trump. As far as I can see, his possible resurgence is about as terrifying as it gets (Project 25, Drill, baby, drill!, rampant narcissism, etc). While I can see all the faults of the Democrats, I am still astonished that the reaction against them leads people into the arms of the Republicans — it seems a bit as though one swerves away from the plague to embrace botulism. But since the Ecosophia commentariat is profoundly thoughtful, humane and out-of-the-box in its thinking, I restrain my knee-jerk prejudice and try to keep my eyes open with the matchsticks on offer here. Thank you all!
Hi John,
Some fascinating comments there.
In regard to the future of western Europe, within this generation or so, I concur with you.
I have written before that when you look at the number of Muslim babies born in France in 2022 in the biggest cities, you are looking at a substantial plurality in the biggest cities with parts of Paris hitting 50%.
https://rmx.news/france/over-1-in-5-newborns-given-islamic-first-name-in-france-last-year-almost-60-in-parisian-suburb/
Now, throw in the illegal young men (mainly from Muslim backgrounds), factor in the on-going flow of largely Muslim boys and young men into France and the on-going demographic shifts which will increase the number of Muslims born over the next 10 years or so, and after 2040 you are looking at approaching 50% of teenage boys/younger men in Paris, Lyon and other big cities being Muslim. Certainly by 2050 or so.
Its true that a substantial minority of young French Muslims are loyal to the Republic and its values but there will be a hard left/opportunistic element of non-Muslim youth who will align with the growing Islamist power.
Once you look at climate change, at some point in the 2030s/2040s parts of the MENA region will conclude they need to find more hospitable places to live for their people/tribes. Europe is the obvious choice.
So, my own prediction is at some point in the 2040s/2050s you will see a perfect storm of Muslim parties winning power (along with their “useful idiot” allies) in the big cities of western Europe and/or urban insurgencies emerging. And at the same time growing risk of actual armed invasions from jihadi inspired Muslim armies from north Africa and the Middle East.
@JMG and Russell re. attuning to local spirits
If I can piggy-back on this discussion, since I’ve been curious about this same thing for a while: I know about the methods in the DMH, but how about the (polytheistic) Golden Dawn system? Would it work to scry the place and listen in the same way, or possibly even use an adaptation of the Conjuration ceremony from the Druid/Konr grade? It’s a bit above my “pay grade” to try it yet, but the idea seems very appealing when and if get to that level.
@TemporaryReality #142
I had to smile at the idea of those Mars explorers on the cutting edge of Progress having to live in a literal cave. So much for going “from the caves to the stars”… 😉
And yes, I still don’t get how otherwise reasonable people seem to think settling on Mars is going to address our predicament in any way. It makes sense as a mythical or heroic gesture, to indulge our desire for exploration and adventure one more time before the industrial age ens, but as a practical solution to anything it seems self-evidently useless.
Hi everyone – I just wanted to update my current synchronicity stream, day 3. Last week I ordered a copy of “the Good, the Bad, and Me”, the autobiography of actor Eli Wallach. I can hear the groans now, FLUFF reading! After plowing through Carl Jung, you sometimes need a break. Anyway, I get the book in the mail yesterday, and after dinner and chores, settle into my reading corner for a little light amusement. I get to the part where Eli has joined the theatre group at college, and one of the plays they put on is – an adaption of the Sinclair Lewis novel “Dodsworth”. At this point I wasn’t even surprised at another Sinclair Lewis reference. I will take your advice JMG, and order something by Sinclair Lewis, -it seems like something is requesting it. P.S., In “The Good, the Bad and Me”, Eli tells about how his family were the only Jewish family in his neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. He was intrigued about the parades that his Italian Catholic neighbors put on for Columbus Day, and he asked his father why Jews didn’t have parades. His wise father answered – Their god loves parades, we have a different god.
Mr. Greer,
in response to your previous post and out of respect for you (otherwise I really wouldn’t bother) I will offer you a polite criticism of your views on politics and economy, or rather political economy. First and foremost, this is for your consideration, as I have no wish to publicly challenge or debate you, so if you prefer please leave this comment unpublished.
You have reiterated your views on left politics, specifically socialism and Marxism, and expanded upon them by placing them in the context of the classicism-romanticism opposition. Still, your views can be summed up very simply and easily: socialism is a joke (like expecting oceans to become lemonade) and Marxism is mass murder (just look at what happened in Cambodia). It almost seems like a caricature but you really portray it as that simple.
However, what immediately makes me suspicious about this is how well it fits the general capitalist propaganda. I mean it’s basically common knowledge, common sense. It is a story repeated ad nauseum. Any random American asked about socialism and communism would say the same thing, only without historical references.
That is not to say that your references are false, only maybe that they are selective. For example, mass murder is certainly not unique to the radical left governments (just look at what happened in Laos or Indonesia). And if socialism is so inept and doomed to failure, why did the American Empire repeatedly invested every effort to destroy it and prevent it, to not allow it any chance to even try? Just don’t say that it’s for democracy and human rights because just what happened in Chile proves that neither one is the reason.
The other side of political spectrum – the right, capitalist side – you don’t analyze so much. You do say that it is plutocracy led by corrupt elites which appropriate the riches of society leaving the vast majority at bare subsistence levels. However, you believe this elite to be clueless – due to a process of natural degeneration – and about to implode all by itself. However, you do not really see any alternative. So you don’t have a solution for what you describe that happened in revolutions of 1848 – since there was no alternative ready to the overthrown system and those who were in power, they simply came back and reinstated the old system. The same is bound to happen to the plutocratic, capitalist society when it implodes and those who run it if there is no alternative ready and waiting. What you actually mark as viable on the left side, like workers cooperatives, are not really alternatives but instead a marginal phenomena which fits into capitalist-plutocratic system without endangering it.
You say that the reason why left political economy can’t work is the human nature, which doesn’t change. Ok, greed is an integral part of human nature and it won’t go away, but so is compassion. Still, in our society, one is upheld and rewarded while the other is sneered at and shunned. I am not convinced that the society which upholds and rewards compassion is impossible. Why would it be? Can’t humans be also good, must they be exclusively evil? And if so why all the lies and violence which make sure that this plutocracy that we live in is conserved, even though it supposedly has no alternative?
Furthermore, it is interesting to note that while in literature your heart is completely on the romantic side – thus Tolkien produced the vast legendarium while SF only made Star Wars clichés – in political economy you completely reject romantic ideologies. It seems that for you literature is a matter of heart and feelings while politics and economy of real life belong in the realm of mind and logic. And mind and logic say that humans are above all greedy and are thus doomed to exist in the only possible world – plutocracy. Yes, the corrupt and clueless plutocratic elites say so but nevertheless it is the truth.
What you can’t forgive to the modern iteration of classical literature – the science fiction – is that it produced belief in progress and progress is an illusion, and a bad one because it gives hope to the people. So Tolkien’s illusion is preferable because it gives no false hope, it is a simple escapism, a l’art pour l’art. However, I would like to propose to you that au contraire – as an art for art it is Tolkien’s work and fantasy in general which are classicist. And science fiction, as literature of hope and belief is romantic literature par excellence.
In conclusion, I would just suggest that you should honestly admit to your audience that there really is no solution to our predicament, which is an eternal social Darwinism.
Kind regards,
eyrie
JMG – I’ve never read any Sinclair Lewis books that I recall, so I ordered a used copy of “Babbit” to give him a try.
Anonymous, we’ll have to wait and see, now won’t we? The nature of each age isn’t set in stone — it has a broad general character but how that plays out in each culture is heavily shaped by human choices. The Piscean faiths were all rooted in the dualism, emotionalism, self-sacrifice, and self-contradiction that comes from Pisces; the Aquarian faiths will similarly be rooted in the very different Aquarian character — abstract, independent, idealistic, self-cultivating — but how that will work out in practice will have to be seen.
RMS, there again, somebody’s going to have to write those. About the closest I can offer you is Frances Yates’s Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition or Marsha Keith Schuchard’s Restoring the Temple of Vision, which are about Renaissance and 17th century occultism respectively. I’ve had several people request a magical reading list, and I’m considering how best to present that.
Nachtgurke, that’s just sad. Oh well.
Michaelz, indeed it is. The difficulty is that we’re finding that deep space is well provided with disinfecting radiation.
J.L.Mc12, interesting indeed. I wonder if there’ll be another Governor General-mediated coup, as in 1975.
Steve, it’s possible that things could go that way, but the Democrats are showing a great deal of unexpected weakness this time around. Not sure what’s driving it, but Trump is pulling ahead in the polls and the Dem ticket doesn’t seem to be able to do anything without tripping over its collective feet.
Manuel, very likely. I wonder what Reconquista works out to in Russian?
Robert M, thanks for this. I had that impression, but it’s worth having it confirmed by someone who’s over there.
Bogatyr, Britain is in very bad shape across the board, and some writers are beginning to talk about the possibility of a full-on political and financial collapse there in the near term:
https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/the-coming-collapse-of-britain
So I don’t think you’re wrong.
Helen, the god of Abraham has a long, long track record of rolling his eyes and going about his business while various groups of his followers insist that the world is about to end. It usually ends in humiliation — which is of course appropriate; isn’t it a Christian teaching that their god expects them to be humble and contrite? Thanks for the further notes about Dunnett — that’s all the more interesting. BTW, “The Pooping Bubs” sounds like an English punk band…
Bogatyr, I expect Africa to rise dramatically in the centuries ahead. That’s one of the reasons I expect migrations. Ask yourself this: when did the biggest migrations from Europe take place? During its centuries of poverty and chaos, or during the period when it was rich and powerful?
Chuaquin, just write down anything he says about past life memories, and keep that somewhere. Later in life he’ll probably want to know.
Miguel, I expect NATO’s Ukraine project to collapse within the next year or so, and possibly much sooner than that. You’re right, though, that the EU will keep trying the same thing on some other front until the Russians parade down the Champs Elysées, as they did just over two hundred years ago:
The EU doesn’t have another choice. Like all empires, it has to expand or it goes under, since every empire is a wealth pump and can continue to function only as long as it finds new sources of wealth to exploit:
https://thearchdruidreport-archive.200605.xyz/2012/02/nature-of-empire.html
The entire grand strategy of Europe since the end of the Cold War has focused on eastward expansion, feeding one country after another into the hopper, with Russia — or more precisely the fragments of that huge country, once it’s been carved up by Western interests and provided with weak, vulnerable governments — as the ultimate prize. Since Europe has very few resources these days and is in the middle of a demographic implosion, it has no other choice; if it can’t expand, down it goes. How soon that will happen depends on how hard a line the rest of the world draws against Europe.
Larkrise, shamanism is a specific set of traditions, rooted in Siberia but also found in other regions (such as the Americas) settled from Siberia, which uses trance states and otherworld travel to mediate between the human community and the spirit world. What relation the ancient Druids may have had to this is anyone’s guess, because next to nothing survives of their teachings. Modern Druidry is a new religious movement that emerged in 18th century Britain out of a free mix of Celtic traditions, Western occultism, east and south Asian spiritual traditions, and sheer whimsy; somehow it turned into a viable alternative spirituality.
With regard to the King in Orange, thank you for facing that cognitive dissonance squarely instead of doing what so many people on your side of the political spectrum are doing these days, and dismissing the whole thing with shrieks of outrage. I encourage you to take part in the conversation and see how things unfold; it may take you to some new places.
Forecasting, exactly. I don’t see any viable path at this point that doesn’t lead to a Muslim takeover of much of western and central Europe well before 2100.
Kim, good! Yes, the Celtic/Heathen GD systems also provide you with all the tools you need for that.
Dana, ha! Thank you for this.
Eyrie, I appreciate the fact that you’re willing to set out your disagreements with me in a polite and intelligent fashion instead of simply flinging insults, as so many people on both ends of the political spectrum do. I’d point out, however, that you’ve misunderstood my point of view. First of all, I’ve written at great length about the problems with the economic system you call “capitalism” — rather an inaccurate way to talk about the corporate-bureaucratic system we have, in which capital plays a much smaller role than it did in actually capitalist periods. You might consider sometime reading my books The Wealth of Nature and Decline and Fall, which talk at some length about the massive flaws in the US imperial system and the role of violence and deceit in maintaining that (and every other) empire.
Second, you seem to think that since I consider greed to be inherent in human nature I must also believe that compassion can’t be just as inherent, and that’s neither true nor logically coherent. Human nature is mixed; it contains all the virtues and all the vices. All societies, by the way, try to promote virtues during their growth periods, and abandon that to promote vices instead when they pass the peak and begin to decline. What you’re proposing, in other words, is nothing new; you might have a look at how well it actually works.
Third, I had to shake my head at your last comment — it’s obvious that you haven’t read much of my writing, because I’ve been saying all along that there is no way to make a perfect society, that attempts to do this reliably cause vast amounts of misery and suffering, and that it’s dishonest to claim that this or that ideology can guarantee the better world to which so many people think they’re entitled. What’s more, because of our current point in the historical cycle, what we’re facing is not improvement, nor even business as usual, but a period of ragged decline one to three centuries long ending in a global dark age, in which human population will drop to maybe 5% of its current peak, chaos and violence will be widespread, and most of today’s cultural and scientific heritage will be lost.
That’s literally what I’ve been saying since I started blogging. Here’s a link to the first ever post I ever made on a blog, a guest post on one of the old peak oil blogs:
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2005-03-04/long-road-down-decline-and-deindustrial-future/
Thus you’re late to the party if you think that I have to say this to my readers. They all know that this is what I expect, and what I’m encouraging them to plan for. There is no brighter future ahead; the possibility of that was foreclosed many decades ago. There’s still much that can be done to weather the crises ahead, and even more to help the successor societies of the far future have as much as possible to work with, but ideologies that insist on dangling false hope in front of desperate people are anything but useful just now.
Dana, delighted to hear it!
Funny of the morning;
Kamala: “The climate crisis is real that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.”
Now W (Bush 2) also had a problem getting words out in the correct order. Which one is worse is probably debatable.
Less specifically, if the political parties weren’t so powermad would they realize the best strategy is to throw this election then deliberately crash the system causing the party in power to be wrecked for the long term and then the “it wasn’t our fault” party would have a free hand to sort things out the way they wanted after the post-crash election?
And for Larkrise, it’s not Trump that supports activists and teachers to brainwash children into volunteering for sterilization euphemistically called “transitioning “. It’s also the Democrats pushing hard for censorship. It’s the Democrats who opened the border to illegal immigration and flooded the country with fentanyl. And it’s the Democrats who have responded to the drug crime epidemic by attempting to disarm the honest while they give a stern finger wave to the gang bangers and turn them loose again. I hope that helps reduce your confusion.
And yes, a system that has given us a choice between the Narcissist and the Giggler has failed, we know that. A writer named Clair Wolf had a quote that stuck in my mind, “We are at an awkward time, it’s too late to work within the system, but it’s too early to just shoot the bastards.”
Steve Lovett, Mr. Nobody et al, for what it might be worth, I think the most likely outcome of this election to be a reelected Pr. Trump facing a Democratic congress in no mood to work with him. I suggest the most consequential aspect of this election is down ballot. Self styled progressives, especially in the non white communities are furious over the AIPAC + snobbish business interests’ intervention into Democratic Party primaries. By “snobbish business interests” I refer to the fact that Democratic Central Committee operative Mark Melman was able to secure funding from business folks who think former waitstaffers, nurses and educators shouldn’t be in Congress. An attitude which I think is un-American, disrespects our Constitution and hypocritical. Any American has the same right to run for public office as did Ronald Reagan.
Furthermore, I doubt I am alone in refusing to send back to congress anyone who failed to boycott the Netanyahoo road show. In my district, the person for I will not, nohow, be voting happens to be a Republican.
A little comment about books (yet another). This the open post or what ?
I recently read Manly P.’s ‘Self Unfoldment and Disciplines of Realization’ after you mentioned it in a comment. The title had grabbed my attention and when I researched it I felt it’d be a good fit for me. It is. Great book, often poetic, and overall both deep and very light, flowing. I’ll have pleasure coming back to it regularly, as with The Cosmic Doctrine.
I have also acquired two of René Le Forestier’s works. Now, I don’t remember if I encountered the name through another of your comments or my own research. I went with ‘Les Illuminés de Bavière et la Franc-Maçonnerie Allemande’ and ‘Les Plus Secrets Mystères de la Maçonnerie Dévoilés’. I only read the 2nd (and shortest) as of yet but it was still very much of interest.
Like many, my initial interactions with the concept of Masonry were through authors firmly in the French counter-revolutionary camp, so they’re always at best skeptics and at worse, critics, but you know how that goes. It was refreshing to have the topic given another treatment.
At last, a book authored by John Michael Greer has joined my bookshelf. The one on Pluto.
I discovered your work just several months after its release so I had totally missed on the grand opening. And any complementary explanation. So when people mentioned “the waning of Pluto” on Dreamwidth I thought “Goddamn, what” and I finally got curious enough. On my reading list. So much to study, so little time.
That’s it for this report. As always, with gratitude,
All the best.
Add Intel to the “we used to be able to do this” list.
“There are issues with the entire 13th/14th gen chip lines. Mobile or Desktop. Dont comment “Is mine affected????” Yes. It likely is.”
“Right now it is speculated that the CPUs have possible corrosion/oxidization of the vias (holes in the PCB filled with copper to pass electricity between layers of the PCB) that causes increased resistance and therefore instability when the CPU runs at its full potential.
The current fix for it: Turn down your ram to 4800MHz and turn your maximum boost multiplier to 53.
Yes. You have to neuter the CPU AND the RAM to make sure your PC remains stable.
Intel’s largest clients are seeing anywhere between 10% to 50% failure rates of the CPU, failure being unstable enough to cause repeated crashes. It’s so bad that some of intel’s clients are being FORCED to use AMD at this time. It’s that bad. Intel is already doing damage control for those clients, replacing CPU and paying for the labor to do so.”
And as a result,
“Intel’s disastrous second-quarter report has forced management to scramble for new strategies to rescue the sinking ship. With shares in freefall, sales plummeting, layoffs mounting, and the dividend suspended for the first time in decades, it’s obvious the struggling chipmaker needs a major overhaul.
On Thursday, CEO Gelsinger told investors at the Deutsche Bank Technology Conference, “It’s been a difficult few weeks.” He noted that management tried to project a “clear view” of its next steps during its earnings report. He continued, “Obviously, the market didn’t respond positively. We understand that.”
Shares are currently at 2013 lows. ”
Infinite money for stock buybacks and C-suite bonuses, no money for R&D or process modernization. Now they are shocked, shocked I say, that they have fallen behind.
To be fair they did recognize that they had fallen behind two years ago and implemented a process to catch up by 2025. It’s not going well.
Jmg, I agree that the democrats astro-turf campaign pushing Kamala seems to be losing steam since the convention. I think the democrats in their haste to place another president who would be compliant to the needs of the deep state and the party establishment made three significant political mistakes.
1) Incumbents are only easily reelected when their administration is successful and they are well liked. Picking the unpopular VP from a mediocre administration checks neither of those boxes.
2). They anointed a candidate that had historically been shown to be unlikeable by most people. A candidate that was unable to get even one vote in the California primary ( in her home state) should have been consigned to the dustbin of history, or some kind of hidden dirty work in the state department like the unlikeable Victoria Nueland. But their hubris and believe in their absolute control of the media caused them to make a very bad choice.
3) The failure to predict the morphing of the trump campaign following the addition of two powerful allies ( once democratic who had been made enemies by the hubris and megalomania of the democrat party). They still view the Trump campaign as a one trick pony of jingoistic ” America First” with country music and waving flags. But even before the addition of RFK jr and Tulsi it had begun to morph in to one with greater depth and nuance than before. Currently the combined power of these three have been churning out some of the best political adds ever. The latest one, a parody of Pharma adds with the mythical drug “independece” as an antidote to the disease. ” TDS” is brilliant, hard hitting and intelligent.
Plus all three of them can hit the speaking circuit and draw bigger crowds than Kamala without a colocated rap concert.
Among all these things they made the biggest mistake of all. Like the republicans with Sarah Palin, they picked a person would become less popular and likable they more you saw of them. Unlike Geoge W Bush, who looked like a putz on paper ( and was a putz in real life) but who many voters warmed up to and thought they would like to have a beer with. Even Joe Biden had a kind of folksy charm even as he declined. Instead the more you see of her, the more Kamala reminds you of someone you know and dislike.
J.L.Mc12,
sounds our countries have exactly the same problem, down to the fine details. I’m not really surprised, given that we share quite a lot of strengths and weaknesses more generally, from being resource-based economies to having stupidly high housing prices. Canada and Australia should probably pay more attention to and learn more from each other than we do – if we share problems/predicaments, we might share solutions/ways of ameliorating the mess as well.
Is there any chatter in the US about an economic depression this fall? It’s what I’ve started to hear, here in France.. From people with office jobs, not from ‘alternative’ people 😉 . Expectativeness for the POTUS election being one of the factors at play.
I’m not asking about what to expect for the future based on reasoning, that’s more than extensively being done here already. Just if you have heard actual gossip from people in their daily lives around you.
We haven’t seen the rush of people and the public transport paralysis that was promised for the Olympics, probably due to the high ticket and accommodation prices. There were still many people attending and gathering around the games, with really good spirits, and those games have been brilliantly organized, whatever one would have to say about some of the daring aesthetical choices for the opening ceremony. Also a lot of resources have been invested in making public transportation run smoothly.
@siliconguy, yes I do see what the Democrats are guilty of. Yet, though I could vote Republican if someone like Mitt Romney was in charge, — Trump? I don’t think I could be part of giving power to that man, for the cure may be even worse than the disease … where do Republicans who cannot bring themselves to vote for him end up?
I think the US is on the horns of a dilemma. Why is it always so binary? It’s ludicrously tribal and reductive, it seems; failed, as you suggest.
But not everyone agrees with you that it’s too early to shoot the bastards … what happens next is anybody’s guess …
Ted Gioia has an interesting “alternative tech” reading list out this week:
“Tech is destructive if it operates outside of core human values and holistic, empathetic thinking. Those STEM disciplines are useful, but only when they contribute to human flourishing.
Few things would do more to improve our culture and society than a shift in the tech worldview—away from grasping and control and the will to power. Imagine how much we would benefit if the tech community had different values, more compassionate, constructive, and centered on the users (not the makers) of all those devices and apps.
All that can start with a reading list
So I’m providing a very different canon. These book recommendations will be invaluable for anyone seeking a humanistic critique of technology, and a pathway to something better than command-and-control digital empires.
Each of these works offers a completely different way of thinking about tech and, in aggregate, set the foundation for a world where devices and machines enrich our lives, not dominate and desensitize them.”
His list starts with The Tempest, Frankenstein, and Faust… so I hope the tech titans listen and read some of these books. I was happy to see Homo Ludens on there by Johan Huizinga and Steps Towards and Ecology of Mind by Gregory Bateston.
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/my-alternative-tech-canon-26-mind
>So much for going “from the caves to the stars”
Everything goes in cycles =) From the caves to the stars to the caves to the stars…
Bogatyr wrote: “For Europe, a key question is what happens in Libya. If a strong government can exert control over the whole country then the flow of migrants to the Mediterranean will be stemmed… ”
It was our own vast stupidity that got rid of Gadaffi, and HRC was crowing triumphantly about it. Another reason to have left the donkey behind. But what if increasing the flow of migrants to Europe and keeping Libya weak were the whole point? Who benefits?
>to sort things out the way they wanted after the post-crash election
You seem to assume they have some grand vision of the future beyond blackmail, grifting and instant gratification. That their time window extends past next month.
I would argue they have no ability to sort things out anymore, if they ever did. Some family members asked out loud, is this the best they got? And I think it’s very likely the answer is yes. Yes, this is the best they can send. The very best.
Mary Bennett #224, I happen to live in Missouri’s 1st congressional district, the one where Cori Bush and Wesley Bell faced off in the Democratic primary. This is a heavily Democratic district and has a nonwhite majority, so the winner of the Demo primary will win the election. I’m registered as a Demo, though I’m dismayed by the flip between the parties. But here my best chance to make my vote count is to vote in the Demo primary – the Repubs don’t put up serious candidates, if they bother to put up a candidate at all.
The vast majority of the money spent on this campaign – you’ve probably seen the figure of $8.1 million or so thrown around for its cost – came from outside the area. I’m in complete agreement with you on keeping outside money out of campaigns. All that money did was flood our mailbox with mail for weeks on end. On multiple days there were four separate pieces of campaign literature in our mailbox for that one race alone, and there was never a day for over a month that we didn’t get at least one or two pieces of literature for that race. We don’t have a TV so I don’t know about ads there, but it was probably similar. My husband got so disgusted with the outside interference and its mud-slinging that he refused to vote for anyone for that office in the primary.
The district takes in both north St. Louis city and north St. Louis County, where I live. Bush’s base is in the city where she lives. Bell’s is in the county, where he lives and where he is our current county prosecutor. He’s done reasonably well in that role, unlike Bush in her role as our current US representative. When I saw some Bell signs in the city, I knew he’d win the primary. My sense is that he would have won without the outside money.
JMG et al,
What polling websites do you all track for the presidential election? I’ve been looking at 270towin the most, but it lazily calls a good portion of states toss ups. Maybe that’s for the best. When I look for other polls, most are head to head national popular vote polls that ignore the electoral college. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Mr. Greer,
I can’t recall which website I saw this (might have been the Automatic Earth), but .. if you’ll remember my musings a few posts back.. about the growing mythics of Orange de Julius, especially after surviving his near death experience with a bullet, that there would be an acolytitic follow-up.. well, I just about fell out of my chair some days ago, as I scrolled onto a screenshot of some individual donning a TRUMP mask, with .. get this .. a Square Golden Patch affixed to the right ear! What a hoot!!
Maybe my new calling is to hammer out precious squares of Phool’s Glod.. to be sold on street corners .. to the growing cadre of OMB supplicants.. as those mercantilists of yesteryear did with/to those hardluck 49ers. Humm.. does this sound like a *profitable bidness plan?
*asks .. with tongue firmly appressed to cheek ‘;]
JMG,
I’m not sure exactly how to word this, so please bear with me – I hope the gist comes through. What is the criteria, or whatever, for completing corporeal incarnations? Or, what does a person accomplish or fulfill that ends their time in physical existence? Fulfilling karma? Quota of lives? Self-mastery? Achieving enlightenment? It’s different for everybody? Stops asking silly questions? No one really knows?
Thank you,
WILL1000
Rod Dreher has also been following the adventures of Naomi and the numinous. He predicted she’ll become a Christian. I don’t know about that—she’s Jewish by birth and may not wish to upset her family—but I’ll predict she’ll grow more and more spiritually, and good on her.
—Princess Cutekitten
Hi John,
Read that UK article with interest.
It’s certainly true that more and more people are barely hanging in there financially.
Rising energy costs is going to tip more people over the edge this winter.
Whether we are on the brink of a collapse or will muddle through next few years remains to be seen (I suspect the latter) but it looks likely this new Labour government will become very unpopular soon.
Whether Reform or the Tories benefit from this is an interesting question.
In regard to Ukraine growing reports the frontline is collapsing.
Read an mainstream article saying whole Eastern front could collapse by September or October this year.
This could swing the US elections.
Siliconguy, has anyone yet come up with a Kamala text generator? Her word salads have a distinctive flavor to them and it shouldn’t be an insuperable issue to teach one of those programs to imitate it.
Thibault, delighted to hear it! That’s far and away my favorite of The Manly One’s books. I’ve read several of Le Forestier’s books and enjoyed them, but I’m not at all sure you’ll have heard of him here.
Siliconguy, good heavens. Why am I suddenly remembering what it’s like when you’re on a roller coaster and your car tips over the top of that first long climb?
Clay, those are all factors, certainly. The thing that fascinates me, though, is the deer-in-the-headlights quality of the Democratic leadership. They’re acting like boxers who took a hard punch to the head, staggering and lurching while their opponent dances around and throws jab after jab. The BLM and Antifa paramilitaries haven’t been deployed; the media are being handled so badly that even the big corporate conglomerates are beginning to toss hard questions at Harris, and she has no idea how to deal with them; crucial states are clearing dead voters and illegal immigrants off the voting rolls — 1 million in Texas alone — and the Democrats are doing nothing to stop the process; and a lot of top Dems look dreadful. Have you seen recent images of Harris? She looks sick, frightened, and old. I’m beginning to wonder if the situation is much, much worse than anybody realizes.
Neaj-Neiviv, I’ve heard some talk about that in the kind of economic-skeptic websites that are always predicting a crash, but not outside those circles. That seems a little odd to me, since the economy is doing very badly and stocks are spectacularly overinflated.
Justin, this is great to see. Gioia is becoming an extremely interesting thinker.
Luke, I don’t. The polls have been so wrong so often that I don’t follow them.
Polecat, it’s at least as good a business plan as the ones being floated by MBAs these days!
Will1000, according to the teachings I follow, it’s something a little more specific than that. Incarnate human beings currently have three bodies — a material body, made (obviously) of physical matter; an etheric body, made of the life force; and an astral body, made of the tenuous substance that gives shape to our dreams, emotions, thoughts, and imaginings. We are evolving a fourth, a mental body, which is made of the even subtler substance we experience (imperfectly) as meaning, value, purpose, and insight.
Souls become human once they evolve the ability to create what’s called a mental sheath, the first very rough sketch of a mental body; souls finish being human, wind up their last material incarnation, and go on to more interesting things once the mental sheath becomes a mental body. That shows itself in the capacity for reflective self-knowledge; the more you perceive your personality not as yourself, but simply as a set of habits of thought, feeling, and will through which you relate to the rest of existence, the closer your mental sheath is to mental body status.
Bad karma, which sets up obsessively self-defeating patterns of thought, feeling, and will, is a major barrier to that process, so you usually have to clean up your karma before you get there; self-mastery really helps; and the word “enlightenment” has many meanings, but some of the experiences it’s used to describe are also very helpful for furthering the maturation of the mental sheath into a body. Does that clarify things at all?
Your Kittenship, agreed. I wonder if she’ll cycle back around to a more observant form of Judaism in the longer run.
Forecasting, if the Ukrainian army can’t stop the Russian advance past Pokrovsk, into the regions of Ukraine that weren’t massively fortified during the eight years prior to the war, it may be all over very quickly — and in that case Harris is probably doomed and much of her party with her. How many other Western governments and economies will suffer the same sort of gut punch from that is another good question.
@Kan #173
I’m happy to tell you that it has been -1 days since I last encountered a bug in software calculating dates..
@JMG,
re “I’m beginning to wonder if the situation is much, much worse than anybody realizes.” do you mean the situation of the democratic party, or the situation of the USA or even the West more generally? I ask because I figure that as VP she might have knowledge of stuff the rest of us don’t have access to about things like the economic situation or the assorted wars the US is involved in.
Not wanting to be president of the USA right now seems pretty sensible, and if Harris decides to lose on purpose I’d find it hard to blame her for that – beyond wishing she’d gotten out of the way earlier so the democrats could put up a better candidate with coherent policies. Not that I’m sure they would have. They seem to be actively avoiding the people I think would do a good job.
The US “Pledge of Allegiance” is not so much a prayer, as a vow. To the extent you take a vow soulfully, it binds you. And words can be treacherous. I suggest anyone considering taking this vow to first meditate, very deeply, upon what they are vowing. Have you ever gotten married to someone who didn’t take the words quite so literally as you? How did that turn out?
I wouldn’t touch The Pledge of Allegiance unless I really understood, thoroughly, the price of the vow, the literal meaning of its constituent words, and what it is binding me to.
To begin with, liberty is the absence of domination by outside agency. Liberty in terms of this vow seems to mean freedom from government. Which government is that? It changes with every day, and generally in a bad way in terms of personal freedom and adherence to the Constitution. So, already, the pledge is sounding like something which only binds good people to bad people.
Justice has consequences, good or bad, in accordance with karma. The US has killed a lot of civilians around the world, largely for profit, since WW2. How many innocents has it harmed representing you? Are you prepared to take that on your soul as well?
The Republic? Do you mean the Constitution? Or the government?
And why “Indivisible”? Didn’t the states — themselves fictitious entities — join voluntarily? So why can’t they leave voluntarily? Why can’t I leave the country easily and voluntarily? Wasn’t the Revolutionary War fought under the spiritual principle that a free people have a right to leave a non-representative tyranny? Democracy means people, and aggregations of people geographically defined as states, should be able to leave voluntarily. No? So . . . Indivisible nullifies Liberty, and probably kneecaps Justice. And “justice for all”? Really? When has a government ever had that? So, One nation — do you mean the original 13 colonies, or all the rest of the land which has been taken by force? Under God? Which God?
Personally, I simply pray for justice for all — everybody paying up their karma, in full, with interest, lickety-split. And, yes, I’m trying to keep mindful of the “strawberry jam principle”. FWIW, I would prefer to see the US peacefully separated into many small, independent states. I think that would be best for humanity.
Maybe on that small scale, liberty, justice, and the Constitution will be possible again.
Hi JMG. I wondered if you have thoughts on the theories of Julius Evola? I have only recently come across his work, so I don’t know much about him. The reason I ask is because I’m starting to see people blaming the current fall of Western Civilization on the events of two millennia ago.
The idea—which is new to me and seems quite far out there to me as well—is that the conversion of Pagan Rome to Christian Roman Catholicism foredoomed the West to today’s current wokeness. I’m starting to see people take Paul’s injunction that there “is neither Jew nor Greek…” and claim that it inevitably leads to “I cannot define the word woman because I’m not a biologist.”
Are you familiar with this? Apparently this was a major theme in Evola’s book Pagan Imperialism.
As someone who tries to follow the Christian teachings, I don’t see anything in Christian teachings that inevitable leads to today’s mania (and in fact I find the suggestion disturbing), but perhaps I am blinded by my own bias.
I thought you might have an opinion since you are a historian of ideas. Additionally, as a polytheist, Evola’s injunction for the West to reject Christianity and return to Paganism might naturally appeal more to you than to me, so you may have come across it before.
JMG, Yes, for sure. Very helpful. (I added enlightenment since that seems to be a popular catchall term.) Basically, just to be sure, focusing on self-knowledge and self-mastery is the way to develop the mental body. I expect that is why you recommend discursive meditation so often as it is probably the best practice to develop self-knowledge – Take the time to notice and consider one’s habits of thought, feeling, and will.
Thank you for your time and patience, and for maintaining these forums.
WILL1000
Wer here
Well isn’t it always an interesting discusion up there in the comments.
Recently I’ve had a rather crazy dream (probably involving the fact that I decided to watch some videos about the ring cycle) People are asking me why I am watching some opera in pieces during the last 6 weeks…… ahem and I’ve had a bizzare dream last night ( it may some crazy to some people but here it goes:)
Joe bezos (with a cybernetic eye) was singing about comming to his cyber fortress which was build by slaves from 2 giant nations (India and China) “come to our amazon fortress where no grief and only migrant provided luxury awaits us and bask in our media controled glory”
Suddenly a chorus screamed from below:
“Blood of Earth Blood of Earth give us back what remains of Mother Earth’s blood
It was sacred and normal here down below
But cursed and producing noxious fumes It has become dug up at above”
Joe bezos screamed ” Cease this wailing noxious shale ghosts”
The choir responded ” false and faint hearted are those who roam above they claim to be gods but only stole Earth mother’s blood, Blood of Earth should remain with us down below, no noxious fumes or false claimes it would had here bestow”
I really had this bizzare dream after watching reading to a certain part of Reihngold with some characters slightly changed…
Hey pygmycory
A lot of people say that Canada and Australia are similar, So I agree that we should be learning from each other more than we do. Apart from the international student problem we also share problematic relations with the aboriginal people or our lands, and some form of legalised euthanasia (MAID/VAD) which we definitely should be problem solving together as well.
JMG,
I hope this is not inappropriate for here since there is crossover to your long-running Tuesday open posts. Concerning the deer-in-the-headlights quality of the Democratic leadership, I really wonder if what we are starting to see is the buildup of injuries from certain pharmaceutical products that the Democratic leadership seems to love to take. After all, Harris was originally able to become a Senator from California. Yes, she got that position in the land of fruits and nuts, and whatever she had didn’t work for the rest of us when she ran for President last time. But I wonder if there is even less there now than there was then?
Then, there is the possibility is this becoming true throughout the entire Democratic leadership. Interesting times.
Mr. Greer,
Thanks a lot for the answers! I would be very happy to learn more about views on the relationship between body condition and spiritual attainment according to different traditions, but I have now already received from you the information I needed at the moment. I really appreciate how your comments are always to the point even with vague questions, and how even brief answers help increase understanding of the matter under discussion.
Also, thank you for the exercise that sounds fascinating and simple, it will be a strong incentive to work up my zhan zhuang to the 10 minute mark!
Lifted in its entirety from a technical blog.
It’s unbelievable how many dynamic companies broke their streaks of engineer-CEOs for the first time in the 2000s, installing their first MBA/finance CEOs, who then promptly made fundamental strategic errors that nixed the company’s future, that are now becoming obvious.
“He/she was the first CEO not to come from an engineering background” is not something that happened once or twice, it looks like it was an economy-wide trend, not just in the U.S. but Japan too.
Boeing, Sony, IBM, Intel… we will probably find more examples as we research.
Intel is maybe the most egregious example. First non-engineer CEO manages to say no to Steve Jobs to the offer of manufacturing CPUs for the iPhone. Then of course Intel just totally drops the ball on ARM, GPUs, EUV… literally misses every single development in computing.
The irony is that many of these MBA/finance CEOs in fact succeeded at greatly increasing revenues, profits, and shareholder value—even while making fundamental strategic errors that would effectively kill the company in the future. And they were lauded for it at the time!
You would think having an MBA/finance CEO for a few years wouldn’t be that bad, surely inertia and some basic competence goes a long way… but no, the MBA/finance CEO immediately begins making catastrophic mistakes and vengefully purging any remnants of engineer-executives.
Boeing’s first MBA CEO immediately starts designing planes that fall out of the sky.
Intel’s first MBA CEO immediately forgoes the smartphone revolution on a silver platter.
Sony’s first MBA CEO decides that Sony doesn’t need to make new consumer electronics products anymore.
You would think that a company in the process of being murdered by its own CEO would see worse financial performance and lower stock valuations by investors, but in fact murdering a company seems to greatly increase profits and excite investor enthusiasm to unheard-of heights.
The apparent conclusion—uncomfortable if not unthinkable for free marketeers—is that MBA/finance thinking and decision-making is not just not helpful but actively hostile and destructive to running a successful, functional company.
How could that be? Well, if you accept there are such things as trade-offs between short-term profit vs. long-term viability, in the examples above we see MBA/finance dogma ruthlessly maximizing those trade-offs in favor of short-term profit. Including killing the company!
Maybe, as part of industrial policy to protect the American economy, the SEC should ban anyone with an MBA or CFA from being CEO of a publicly-traded company. They can be CFO or COO, but not CEO.
The core problem is that MBA/finance thinking teaches you to see every company not as a fragile organization of human beings with idiosyncratic skills and knowledge, competing against other such organizations, but as a financial product in a portfolio.
Me again. I’d love to argue but I can’t. He’s right.
In July, I bought (used; cut-rate) Richard Wagner’s “The Ring of the Nibelung Books,” set of 4 books. This is a graphic novel/comic book (DC Comics), set of four books. Me being ever the dingbat, the who did what to whom when and how is not clear reading words — I need illustrations. Operas themselves I experience as super-confusing.
The set says Roy Thomas as author; Gil Kane, Jim Woodring, and John Costranza as illustrators. 1989. Amazon B001NDAXLE. ISBN 9780932956200.
I have read the first of the four books, and highly recommend the volume set — graphic novel format is a fun way to learn. The set is very well produced. I need to re-read Book 1 because the story is so jam-packed with details, then move on to the remaining three books. I may re-post this recommendation on a Wednesday you focus on The Ring.
💨Northwind Grandma💨⚒️🎨🖌🎭🎵
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
Here’s a short report on the conditions in Woke Hell from my little corner of the Blue Zone in the Pacific Northwest:
Last night, I had supper with my daughters (14 and 20), and my younger, Lindsay, had just had her first day of high-school. My former wife and I had enrolled her in a private high school, at some hardship.
In every class, the teachers instructed the students introduce themselves and give their ‘preferred pronouns’. Lindsay introduced herself, but the idea of having to ritually spell out what pronouns to use stuck in her craw, so she disregarded that instruction. So the teachers, when addressing her, explicitly use her name to circumlocute using a pronoun at all (they can’t make gender ‘presumptions’ you know). Lindsay says all the teachers enthusiastically endorse the trans/DIE/anti-white/anti-conservative mindset and propagate it in their speech, values and expectations. Lindsay, who BTW considers herself Woke, was aghast and offended at how she perceived such values being pushed down everybody’s throat. I asked her if she would rather go to a public high school after all. She said “No, from what I hear, all the other schools around here are like this, maybe even worse”. I said, “Anyway, when I’m asked the pronoun question, I reply: ‘I don’t submit to the pronoun ritual. Feel free to use the conventional tacit assumptions of Standard English’. You just know they’re trying to make ordinary, normal people feel abnormal, and promote anyone else”. Lindsay: “If I say that, I’d get in trouble. Maybe even expelled”.
The subject went on a bit of a tangent as my older daughter, Jenny, and I discussed Putin’s decree to admit people to Russia who have conservative social values from Western countries, in effect as cultural refugees. Jenny and I have already had several conversations about this, as a pipe dream if not fantasy; e.g. last week she told me “Hey, if you go, take me with you!”. (Jenny has made it clear she feels our country is a sinking ship, far along in social and cultural decay, and she’s been researching what other countries might be better.) When Lindsay heard us talking this way, she was aghast, and said that Russia is a poverty-stricken, dystopian communist dictatorship, and that Putin is basically Hitler, Version 2.0. I replied “What? Russia is a culturally conservative, mixed capitalist/socialist, multi-party democracy, that is socially and economically doing better than the US, according to many non-MSM sources. What are you referring to?”. Lindsay then got upset and wouldn’t talk any more about the topic.
–Lunar Apprentice
Dear Mr. Greer,
I have been quietly following your work since the early days of The Archdruid Report and am a deep admirer of the depth and breadth of your colossal knowledge in so many different areas. However, this is my first time commenting or, rather in this case, asking a question of you.
After many years of life shared with our beloved cat Simba, his health quickly deteriorated and he had to be put down Monday last week. This deeply sad event devastated me and I intensely grieved our beloved companion and continue to do so to this day. In the afternoon of the very same day, in this atmosphere charged with intense emotion and sadness for the loss of our companion, while sitting idly beside me, my mobile phone suddenly erupted in flames and was completely destroyed in a matter of a few minutes, taking with it quite a bit of information.
I would like to submit the following question to you: with your vast knowledge of the occult, and its mysterious workings, would you say this was in some way linked to the loss of our beloved animal family member and my intense grieving of his disappearance or simply, and much more mundanely, the result of the inherently unstable nature of those lithium-ion batteries known to ignite spontaneously in all sorts of circumstances?
Your answer to this question, one way or the other, would certainly contribute to appease the pain and despair I’m experiencing right now.
Thank you so much in advance.
Kind regards,
African-at-heart
@J.L.Mc12, Pygmycory and others – international students getting passed because they bring in money is definitely a thing in Canada. So is the phenomenon of bogus colleges of which there seem to be in the hundreds in Canada. But the icing on the cake (so to speak) is the international students in Canada who are protesting their colleges because they failed their courses! And independent journalists who come along to interview them are shunned and called ‘racist’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfyPT2mPIeE
Lovely!
@Lunar
Russia is doing some serious PR right now to position themselves in the West as culturally conservative. Who knows? It might even have a grain of truth to it. But I have a hard time reconciling that with what I hear from expats: that it is still rife with postsoviet corruption, basically run by gangsters, and that it has some of the world’s highest rates of alcoholism and abortions.
Not saying it’s all a lie, only that Russia puts out propaganda just like everyone else, and probably that should be taken with a grain of salt.
Pygmycory, I’m not sure. I suspect the internal polling the Democrats are doing is looking pretty grim, since the public polls have to oversample Democratic voters by 5-10% to make the race look competitive, but there may be much more involved.
Blue Sun, I’m not an Evola fan. I’ve read a good many of his books, and I find them unconvincing; the “Tradition” he presents is simply a pastiche of late 19th and early 20th century European intellectual pop culture — if you know Nietzsche, Bachofen, and Weininger, in particular, you know where most of Evola’s ideas came from — and his notions of history are as garbled as those of your average wokester, just in the opposite direction. While I’m certainly in favor of encouraging people to worship pagan gods if they feel called to that, btw, I’m also in favor of encouraging people to worship the Christian trinity if that’s what works for them; as a polytheist, remember, I believe that everybody’s gods are valid.
Will1000, yes, self-knowledge, self-mastery, and reflection are the keys, and discursive meditation is the single most useful practice I know of to develop those capacities.
Wer, ha! I like that! Reading your account of your dream, I heard the music from that part of Das Rheingold playing in my mind. Bezos had better be careful with his cybernetic spear, though, because there’s no shortage of Siegfrieds who will break it for him.
John, that’s a possibility I’m considering, but there are others, of course.
Soko, ten minutes is a good goal for most practitioners. Back in the day, of course, a lot of people used to do it for up to two hours, but then they knew they might have to fight for their lives, so they had some extra incentive to do it that intensively, and in a slightly deeper stance than we do nowadays!
Siliconguy, I’m delighted that this is being discussed. Maybe the MBA, the most overvalued degree in today’s society, will be revalued at its proper worth. (Yes, that’s in negative numbers…)
Northwind, thanks for this! That makes two graphic novel versions — there’s another by P. Craig Russell that also looks pretty good.
Lunar, thanks for this. Lindsay’s at an age when suddenly moving to a new country and culture could be traumatic for her, you know.
African-at-heart, that’s a heck of a good question. I know — I’ve seen it happen — that intense emotion can cause weird things to happen to electronics. (I once worked in a copy shop with a young woman, a devout atheist, who would routinely have bizarre copy machine malfunctions happen when she was upset. She didn’t do anything physical to cause them, but toner powder got into places where it was physically impossible for it to reach.) But electronics are also very chancy all by themselves, and lithium batteries blow up. Condolences on the loss of Simba, btw; I know that can really hurt. I hope you pass through the grieving and out the other side into new happiness.
Gnat wrote: “And why “Indivisible”? Didn’t the states — themselves fictitious entities — join voluntarily? So why can’t they leave voluntarily? Why can’t I leave the country easily and voluntarily?”
Gnat: I have similar misgivings, but I recited it many times in public school many years ago. Were you the anonymous poster who drew attention, last magic Monday, in the discussion of The Pledge, to the novels “Twilights Last Gleaming” and “Retrotopia”? (I know that you’re not.)
Mr. Greer @ 241, responding to Siliconguy..
I was perusing a local reuse business, and .. after gleening a couple of used ‘treasures’, I was waiting to be rung-up when I noticed a quote on the counterplace chockboard. In all honesty, I can’t remember the quote ( it supposedly was attributed to one Dr. Seuss.. ) When said writing entered my meat computer via optic-nerve pathways, I immediately conjured-up an abreviated form of a KarmaKamelion word salad of epic Ceasar proportions..
..sorry for not writing it down on refined tree pulp for further precise recollection – twas hot and impatient whilst doing my consumerist duty at 21st century foraging, wishing to return to the polecat den..
>Yet, though I could vote Republican if someone like Mitt Romney was in charge
The Murican people were presented the “choice” of Romney vs. Obama and they decided the devil they knew was better than the devil they didn’t. And that there wasn’t enough difference between the two for Romney to merit consideration. I remember they were so alike, people were calling them Mittrack Obamney.
@African-at-heart,
Please accept my condolences for your loss. I, too, have been grieving (for my cat Nicodemus, who was put down last week).
I have created an affirmation that has helped me compose myself when the sadness is overwhelming:
“I release my sorrow and retain my love for Nicodemus.”
I start repeating it whenever the wave of sadness starts. (And, when I feel the wave has passed, I send all the love I can to Nicodemus.)
With your permission, I’d like to add Simba to my prayers.
@JMG,
In your reply to Will1000,
“the more you perceive your personality not as yourself, but simply as a set of habits of thought, feeling, and will through which you relate to the rest of existence, the closer your mental sheath is to mental body status”
One of the insights I received (rather forcefully) when I was studying The Book of Lambspring involved the black dragon pictured here https://www.compendiumnaturalis.net/Wordpress/wp-content/uploads/The_Book_of_Lambspring_Figure02_MsP2177-527×686.jpg
I have not been able to slay that little black dragon because I think he is cute.
But if my personality is not a body of some sort, but rather just a set of habits, does that mean that as I recognize when my thoughts/feelings/desires are habits rather than deliberate and conscious and then I try to replace them with deliberate and conscious thoughts/feelings/desires, that that effort is putrefying my personality?
Hi John Michael,
Very prudent of you to take action based on possible outcomes. Respect, and history is very much a guide here. It is a bit of a spectacle isn’t it? Just read an article penned by an economics professor who suggested that we shouldn’t worry about inflation and that the central banksters targets were dreamt up by some New Zealand dude. Sure, if the dude thinks that’s a good idea, although I remain unconvinced. It’s strange how these stories start to get floated around the place, and I’ve heard that one a few times now in the past two weeks.
Anyhoo, what I’m observing is that as wealth becomes more concentrated, is an overall narrowing of the activities within the country. Recently the last remaining polyethylene manufacturer appears to have shut up shop. A steel mill in Whyalla appears to have become operationally inconsistent with lots of shut downs. A nickel refinery may have closed up recently. And so it goes on. This process of decline has been going on for most of my life, and few folks seem alarmed, but it is not as if new productive activities are taking their place, no, we become ever more reliant on imports of stuff. It’s all so weird, and probably won’t end well. But as you’ve observed above, once the dust settles, things may get easier, especially for productive and enterprising types, but a whole lot of pain to get to that point. That’s really the silver lining, things will be on a more sustainable footing at some point in the future, because there’ll be no other choice.
It’s very possible that in the future, the sanctions nowadays will be on the other foot. Of course I have a theory that the sanctions in place right now are a face saving exercise.
Cheers
Chris
Perhaps having grown up and old in a monarchy has given me a different idea about politics from others. To me a republic looks like government of the people by the politicians for the politicians. As I glance around the world at various countries it seems to me that those with a constitutional monarchy fare a little better in terms of governance than republics.
It has always been fashionable to make fun of King Charles but as it happens, he has similar interests to mine and a similar attitude to many of these. No, certainly not the same. I also find it hard to dislike a man who laughs with his whole body. Therefore, it is easier for me to be sympathetic to him generally. Of course, an absolute monarchy is a horse of an entirely different colour. (The spelling almost gives it away, doesn’t it?)
I won’t be watching the US elections with any more interest than I would those of any other foreign country. I find it hard to watch our own and feel that it is what I have seen in the previous few years that counts, not a few vapid promises from those who would be statesmen and will never make it.
Dear JMG and all,
It looks like the elites are truly getting desperate as now the Brazilian Supreme Court (or rather, a sole Justice) has banned Twitter (aka “X”) from Brazil after Elon Mask “failed” to appoint a legal representative of the company in the country.
Now, first, I would like to invite the readers of this blog to look up the Justice in question, Alexandre de Moraes, and tell me what comic book super villain he reminds you of. Mmhm, I’m sure Jung would have a good laugh. The universe works in truly fascinating ways, no? 😉
In any case, I think we are witnessing the extreme logical end of the neoliberal order, and especially here in my country that is ruled under what can only be described as a “juristocracy”. It’s pretty funny in hindsight. Liberalism touted itself as the political ideology of freedom, of liberation of the individual from the “treachery” of history and destiny. Perhaps it is precisely because of this Faustian ideal that liberals find themselves justified in any sort of abuse of authority and trampling of relations of power. After all, they are the “good guys”, and as JMG so kindly showed to us in the form of “Stormtrooper Syndrome”, there is no way the “good guys” can lose, and because they can’t lose, that is, it’s literally inconceivable for them to lose, then any and all actions to achieve this goodness is fair and valid. The Brazilian Justice in question is a textbook case of Stormtrooper Syndrome. This is hardly the first time he has abused his powers (long story short, the 1988 constitution of Brazil effectively gave excess powers to the Judiciary without any checks from the other powers to stop them, resulting in the Supreme Court having a history of trampling over legislative and executive orders and decisions, and interpreting the constitution according to its whim), and a quick search will show you he and the High Electoral Court conspired and actively hindered Jair Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign in 2022. That is already on top of nullifying a good number of his decisions during his presidency (I suspect they wanted to get rid of Bolsonaro because he restricted NGO activities in the Amazon). All of this has been done under the pretense of “defending democracy” or “stopping misinformation” or “preventing the proliferation of dangerous, anti-democratic ideas”. The Brazilian oligarchy and juristocratic elite truly, honestly believes it is doing some kind of divine, Faustian work of defending the world from the barbarism of the masses.
This situation perfectly illustrates, at least from where I’m standing, the dangers of this Faustian, messianic “hero” complex. If you’re the hero, and find yourself destined to be the hero, then no matter what you do, every action can be deemed “heroic”. This complex effectively blocks the individual’s mind from any form of meditation or contemplation, effectively turning one into a psychotic sociopath.
Even in the realm of ideas, if an idea sounds too good to be true, then, well, it probably is. Bonus points if the side-effects are severe yet so easily dismissed.
Ah, and of course, it looks like our friends at Langley are very much involved in this whole affair: https://x.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1829413730918015157
Hi Nachtgurke, KAN, and Weeping Willow,
Thanks for your reports on the varroa situation from abroad.
Obviously I don’t have first hand experience with the mite, yet. But my understanding is that in order for the bee keepers to maintain their hives in the countries you’ve all mentioned, miticide strips have to be placed inside the hive. Let’s be honest with ourselves here, placing what is effectively an insecticide within a hive is probably not cool, but what else do you do? And the strips are only I believe 99% effective. The mites have a fast breeding cycle, so it is likely that they’ll adapt to the miticide chemicals sooner or later.
About the only effective approach is to house the bees in much smaller hives. The reasoning behind that, is that the bees swarm more frequently (reducing the bees stay within the hive) and thus the mites breeding cycle is shaken up. The thing is, smaller hives with more frequent swarming events probably doesn’t produce much in the way of surplus honey, but it’ll be the wild hives I reckon which survive this mite. They’ll eventually be the ones which repopulate. In the short term though, they’ll be almost wiped out, as has happened in many countries already. I read an account of a New Zealand bee keeper who remarked how the lack of wild hives made life slightly easier – bees of course happily rob other less strong hives.
I appreciate your confidence, but until I’ve seen the other side of this story when things reach a new equilibrium with the bees, I remain pessimistic. However, in this instance, I’d love to be proven wrong.
Cheers
Chris
Looking at comments you regularly receive people struggle with thevreality that nations, people, organizations, cultures, religions, themselves, and overall reality is always a mixture of varying degrees of the good, beautiful, bad, ugly, extraordinary, ordinary , strengths and weaknesses. As result the bad is over imagined or under imagined along with the good. You see this in the election where Trump or Harris are seen either as avatars of the good or the bad. Though it’s been my experience among the Trump supporters I know they see many of his faults and take the attitude FDR took about an unpleasant Latin American president “Yes, he is a son of a female dog but he is our son of a female dog” and see Trump imperfectly being the guy who will imperfectly support their interests. You also see this reluctance to see the mixture when a spiritual leader of some philosophy or religion is found to be hypocritical and falling short and people are shocked and surprised.. I am sure that if full information about, let’s say the Dalai Lama, was available we would see that admixture clearly, ditto for myself.
JMG,
The factor I suggested in regard to the Democrat’s apparent deer in the headlights affect is, of course, probably just one among many that are likely involved. That most of them can be considered self-inflicted wounds of one sort or another is a rather amusing, and probably historically common, irony. If they do lose to the orange one, there would something almost … Wagnerian … about it.
you know, when I was in university…
golly that makes me sound old. Anyway, when I was in university, if you failed a test or a course, the general reaction was to study harder next time. And possibly get tutoring if it was available and you could afford it.
Sure you might complain to friends, or complain to your professor that the TA wasn’t doing a decent job of teaching (international graduate student TAs whose english skills were absolutely incomprehensible to the students attempting to learn from them was an issue, along with one poor grad student suddenly stuck teaching a teaching a course when he clearly didn’t have a clue how to teach) or give the prof a bad report at the end of the class when feedback was asked for, but you didn’t hold protests on the lawn. I think we would have been far too embarrassed. We protested that way about plenty of other stuff, but never that.
I just watched the clip. Yelling at the reporters to go away and calling them racists is pretty weird and generally not a good idea if you want anyone outside your group to be sympathetic to you. Especially since the reporters seemed completely reasonable to me.
Random, good. Very good. But I’d describe it a little differently — the putrefactio belongs to the nigredo phase, in which the personality becomes experienced as separate from consciousness; the stage at which you begin replacing habits with choices is distillatio, and belongs to the albedo phase.
Chris, of course any time an economist says something, you’re best off assuming that he’s wrong. (If an economist says the sky is blue, go check.) But listening to the chorus of babblers insisting that inflation is just fine! makes me think forcefully of the old habit of whistling past the graveyard — especially when it’s being driven by frantic raking-off of wealth from productive activity. The aftermath won’t be pretty.
JillN, sensible of you to ignore our elections. The rest of the world will be able to do so in perfect comfort soon enough.
Thomas, yes, I’ve been watching that. It looks to me as though the neoliberal order is in a state of terminal panic, which is the flip side of the fantasy of Faustian hero; if you’ve convinced yourself that you’re the hero, and the rest of the world isn’t playing along, where does that leave you?
BeardTree, everyone I know personally who supports Trump says some variation on, “Yeah, he’s an epic jerk, but this is about policies, not personalities.” It intrigues me that this is so rare elsewhere.
John, oh, I dunno. It reminds me more of Greek tragedy, where the protagonist’s hubris, with mathematical exactness, becomes his nemesis.
Pygmycory, interesting. Yeah, that’s impressively self-defeating.
Siliconguy, about the MBA, in my view it’s not just the ‘education’ (a very expensive course of studies at that) and the outlandish ideas imparted, it’s also the personality type that the field attracts.
In brief, there’s a surplus of table pounding loons and ranting bullies that seem to think that their job function is to spread chaos, you know, to ‘move fast and break things’ as the famous saying goes. Or, alternatively, to ‘fail fast’ and I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean. Wikipedia gives a blathery answer but I think it comes down to take the money and run.
The company stock price is the focus of these lunatics, backed by Wall Street and blessed by academic theory of the world’s most renowned institutions of higher – cough – learning.
Why do they wreck perfectly good companies? Simply because, as Gordon Gekko said, they’re wreckable. Why are they allowed to do it? Well, because for one thing, Wall Street owns Washington. There’s nobody to stop them.
Wall Street insiders cash out and celebrate with all the loot as the firm’s stock price climbs and apparently, in power circles, that’s all that matters. The schnooks who listen to their balderdash get left sucking air when the company bites it. And that’s fine, that’s how things are supposed to work. You know, creative destruction.
JMG, Here is a scenario to explain why the democratic campaign effort seems to have collapsed after the convention, and why they all look clueless and dazed.
It is back during the election of 2020, and we are listening to a couple of DNC honchos. They are gleeful over their choice of Joe Biden and hope to keep him in power for 8 years. For them and most of the beltway grifters he is the perfect president, as he will allow the graft to flow as never before ( as long as his family gets a taste). They smile and chuckle about the choice of Harris for VP. No one will want to remove their cash cow with her waiting in the wings.
Then one of them has a small realization. What if Joe Goes totally senile before the second election? The other one looks gobsmacked and says ” In that case we are toast.” We ( will all leave town after the convention with our loot and head for our doom bunkers. We will leave the designated patsies in control ( Kamala, Tim, Mayor Pete, KJP, and Jake Sullivan) to take the blame while we sip chablis in the New Zealand.
Similarities between Canada and Australia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu5lPuaZ9Jo
There’s a lot of them.
This article won’t be anything new for JMG, but may interest some of his readers as it offers similar ideas from a slightly different perspective (in the same way that Catholicism and Sunni Islam do). I liked,
“Cassandras don’t do well, either in literature or in real life, because humans have a hard-to-shake intuition that to predict something is to cause it.”
which of course will explain some of the hostility to JMG over the years. Except I’d add that it depends on the plausibility of the prediction. If I say that the local kindergarteners are building a quark bomb that will destroy a continent, nobody gets upset, because it’s so obviously absurd. If I say we will not simply switch out fossil fuels for renewables and be able to continue with no changes at all, people get very upset, because it’s quite plausible.
I also enjoyed,
“contrary to what you heard, the United States and the Allies didn’t win World War 2. Georg Wilhelm Frederich Hegel did.”
Anyway, it’s a bit more meandering and less rigorous than JMG’s writings, but has some interesting and adjacent ideas.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-147314916
BeardTree, in a little over two hundred years we have had two great presidents, Lincoln and FDR, a few spectacularly bad ones, and the rest have ranged from mediocre to meant well to capable men who did the best they could. The pres. doesn’t have to be a hero or a saint. If the Republicans lose this year, it will because of Project 2025 and Vance and the Christian Taliban, not because voters don’t like Trump.
Republicans are doing the same thing that was done on the other side after passage of gay marriage. Rather than declare victory, hold a big party, and move on to other things, they just couldn’t let go. After gay marriage came pronouns, “gender fluid”, whatever that means, etc. Likewise, the Republicans could have declared victory after the Supreme Court invalidated Roe, congratulated themselves on lives saved and moved on. But no, the noses in everyone else’s bedroom crowd couldn’t stop there. Now it’s contraception and IVF which are under attack.
SLClaire, I have heard elsewhere that Bush was not a good congressperson, better activist than politician was how one commenter put it. But the AIPAC + snob money was deployed in many primaries throughout the country, not just the two recent ones. DSA and Justice Democrats have put a lot of time and money into encouraging ordinary folks to take an interest in their government, even entertain the notion that, horrors, their talents might be useful and their ideas worth hearing, only to see their efforts derailed by dual citizen billionaires and their upper-class allies.
What interests me about the Democratic ticket is the (long overdue) passing of the cold war mindset. Besides Ukraine and Gaza, about which the candidates are trying to say as little as possible, I have heard almost nothing about foreign policy. No triumphalist rule the world, we have to help those benighted victims of tyranny, indispensable nation rhetoric at all.
I doubt the interview with Ms. Whosit will do the ticket much damage. The same younger voters who dislike the legacy politicians seem to have no use for legacy media either. Me, I’ll take the word salad any day over blatant hypocrisy, name calling, and vulgar bombast.
Methylethyl @256 and JMG: Oh granted. I’m not arguing that Russia is paradise, just that in many respects, it’s better than the US by several important measures. I’ve been following Russian news for the past 12 years on a daily basis from a number of sources (not the MSM of course), and feel I have about as good a handle on the place as can be had without traveling there. At this point, I feel reasonably certain that the Russian government represents the will and interests of the Russian public better than the US government does for its public (granted, that’s a low bar nowadays)
When you speak of expats, are you speaking of expat Russians in the West, or expat Westerners in Russia? Most expat Russians left in the 90’s when things were just dreadful after the Soviet collapse. The 90’s was a gangster era under Yeltsin and his US handlers. I know some Russian expats who left in the 70’s and early 90s, and without exception they cannot detach their current views of the country from the traumatic times when they left. The few who departed after the beginning of the SMO were pro-Western to start with, and many (most IIRC) of those have since returned. Russia has been having net immigration since Putin assumed office, and that’s WITH their extremely difficult entry requirements. I suspect your sources are not current.
According to the World Bank, Russia has the 4th largest economy as measured by Purchasing Power Parity (the top 3 are China, the US, and IIRC India). It is self-sufficient in food, energy, minerals and basically all commodities. It is either independent in consumer goods and high tech, or trades for them with friendly states such as China.
I don’t have difficulty believing that Russia has substantially recovered its traditional conservative culture. They’ve jettisoned Communist ideology; it was never popular. The Russian elite is not pushing Woke. Quite the opposite. The Russian public certainly isn’t woke (for that matter neither is the Western public). What else might they be?
There was a horrific wave of premature death in the 90’s from alcohol and suicide comparable to the population loss of WWII, especially among men. Those were Yeltsin years. Divorce rates are similar to the US. I haven’t looked at abortion rates, though I understand they’ve declined from the 90’s. Certainly the Russian Orthodox Church opposes abortion, and that is reflected in the stance of many believers and in proposed legislation, just like here. Corruption remains a problem. I read that there are ‘sting’ operations to root out corrupt officials here and there, but this has only marginally reduced the problem. The hope that these operations would scare other corrupt officials to clean up their act doesn’t seem to have materialized, though things have improved vastly since the 90’s. Gangsterism in particular is history.
Volga Germans who left Russia for Germany in the 90’s are now returning to Russia; they don’t like what Germany has become, and think they can preserve their culture and values better in Russia. There are expat’s from the US who regularly post online, and they are happy to stay put. I don’t hear of many Western expats returning to the West, at least not on the scale of Russian expats returning to Russia.
JMG, yes, transplanting a 14 year-old to a new country and culture would be traumatic. I’m not entertaining it as a live option. Anyway, a divorced parent can’t simply up and take a minor child out of the US without the other parent’s permission, nor would I abandon Lindsay. Even if I were to leave with say, just my adult daughter, I wouldn’t be able to support Lindsay (and Ex) from Russia. As difficult as my life now is, I at least generate an income sufficient to support them per my divorce settlement. And Lindsay has mixed views on Russia; before the SMO, she had been lobbying her mother and me to send her there for either summer ballet camp, or horse camp; such was available for foreign students (and yes, she dug up all the details to enroll… too costly).
Should the prospect of civil war or social chaos seriously materialize in the US, I’d be making plans. I suppose in a way I already am.
–Lunar Apprentice
#228, #248
Perhaps you should form something very like the Commonwealth but without Great Britain in it, making it suffer the embarrasment of someone who’s just discovered their friends from their WhatsApp group have just formed another group that is just the same except their not in it. Having said that, the UK has managed to get very high housing costs itself, and although being a much more crowded smaller place, I suspect the reasoning is more economic/financial than simply a lack of land. Keir Starmer wants to get us on the assisted dying train here in the UK I believe.
#253 at least be consistent in your propaganda, if you’re critiquing Putin from a left-wing perspective don’t call him a Communist!
#264 I tend to think that a figurehead president on the Irish or German model would be a good idea for Great Britain in theory, however I don’t really trust the British electorate. I would worry we would get either President Tony Blair, or some celebrity host of a quiz show or someone off of reality TV. I’d vote for Sir Patrick Stewart, if he can keep the peace on the Romulan Neutral Zone then I’m sure he’ll manage Putin OK. Other than that I’ll stick with the King.
Hi Chris (#266),
the usual approach here is to treat the beehives with formic acid after the last honey of the year has been harvested. For that, a cloth soaked with roughly 40ml formic acid will be placed in the top of the hive so that the acid will evaporate and kill the mites. This is repeated three or four times every four days. The weather has to be warm and dry for this method to work, and if the weather is good, it works rather well. It’s hard on the bee’s, though. In winter, usually around the winter solstice, optimally after a period of frost, oxalic acid will be applied, either by dripping it on the bees directly or by evaporating it (which works better but takes longer). There are alternative approaches using other, less aggressive substances but I have yet to hear anything about how hey work. Oh and then many beekeepers cut away the larger drone combs because there you usually have the highest density of mite infestation. Warm winters are problematic because the bees don’t stop breeding and then the oxalic acid treatment has no chance to kill the last mites.
All in all – possibly all we’re doing here is breeding mites that are resistant against formic and oxalic acid… I don’t see how it can be otherwise although I haven’t yet heard any reports of this happening. There are breeding programs to breed mite resistant bees, too.
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
Hey JMG
I have some more good news also. After seeing another note on Substack encouraging people to bring back Classic techno-optimistic Sci-fi with its stories of Space travel and limitless human ambition, I have decided to do a post suggesting that rather than focusing on various “done to death” tropes to the exclusion of everything else such as Space travel and Robots, new Sci-Fi writers should try focusing on more original or, at least more neglected, Sci-Fi tropes. I will be adding a list of such lesser used ideas to my article as well, so that new writers have a place to start when they want to go back to writing Sc-Fi that genuinely explores new futures and tech instead of focusing on the old.
@ Chris of Fernglade farm.
Re varroa mite and bees – I have a feeling you’d like this beekeeper’s analytical approach to the subject, as he explains the meaning of a “natural” poison, and reviews the pros and cons… https://scientificbeekeeping.com/the-arsenal-natural-treatments-part-1/
Phutatorius asked what if increasing the flow of migrants to Europe and keeping Libya weak were the whole point?
I’ve seen this suggested a few times recently, but it seems to me that it’s retconning the narrative. At the time, iirc, it seemed to be much more about Gaddafi’s efforts to introduce a gold-based currency which would underpin African unity and trade – thereby de-dollarising the continent.
Wow! Some interesting subject matter on here to what I was pondering to mention.
In meditation I realized that mental associations, tendencies, interests, beliefs, seem as though part of a psychological clothing/armor almost as if by intention and nature covering something deeper, this can be seen clearly. So far as I have discovered they are part of the human organisms built in machinery developed overtime influenced by culture and outside factors. It’s as if the material human cacoons itself off with these things seemingly by outer influential factors. This is a very complex subject, lots involved. These mental garments of the rational mind, they pose quite the challenge, it’s as if the higher self is whispering through “Hey ugh I’ve seen you have found quite the knot there.”
As I have become familiar more with magic, which takes a long long time for me, I’m slow, far from an academic type. I have to sense and intuit through my practice and studies, I’m not that great of a memorization bank. Approaching this stuff at the start of middle age is daunting but I feel I must have faith. How will magic factor into eventual Self realization I’m unsure but I have to trust my intuition as it being part of my path.
Mr Greer, thanks for your answer about lists and numbers, I have some new things to think about when I see one of these lists.
To follow up on your example of the seven dwarfs, I’m going to agree that Disney’s Seven Dwarfs don’t relate to religious or magical concepts! It appears that the script writers and animators wanted to have a variety of looks and personalities for an entertaining animated movie.
However, in the original oral tradition of the “fairy tale” called Snow White… would the Seven Dwarfs be intended as an example of a magical or metaphorical ‘seven-ness’ that protects Snow White?
>Anyway, when I was in university, if you failed a test or a course, the general reaction was to study harder next time
As I understand it, these days students will then engage in negotiations with the teacher to get the grade changed. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll take it up with the teacher’s boss. And oftentimes, they’ll get it.
Valuable life lessons, I tell you, valuable life lessons we’re teaching those younguns. Not teaching them much else though.
@JMG,
Thank you!!!
I have been analyzing the alchemy texts mostly using Wirth’s Body/Soul/Spirit of the Body/Soul/Spirit (best overall description is here https://druidalchemist.com/splendor-solis-plate-8/, if anyone is interested), but have been revisiting them from a Greek perspective (based on this author https://www.greekmyths-interpretation.com/en/), who sees a person as having a supraconscious (Zeus, air), an unconscious (Hades, earth), a subconscious (Poseidon, water). And Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon all share the conscious. He sees the astral and etheric as together in the subconscious (at least, that is my interpretation of what he writes… he just refers to it as etheric, and maybe he intends the astral to be supraconscious, but then he adds descriptions so that doesn’t always fit, and gosh, alchemy would be easier if there was a standard vocabulary…) Regardless, awareness/discernment that the supraconscious is separate from the conscious, then pulling the subconscious into the conscious could be the first alchemical marriage. Then the work of pulling the unconscious into the conscious for the second alchemical marriage…
Now I have to go back and reread everything. 🙂 Thank you so much for the insight!!!
Random #262: Interesting that the Putrefaction drawing you linked differs from the one in “The Hermetic Museum.” For one thing the sun face on the warrior’s shield is an addition. And I find your comment and JMG’s response to it useful too. Are you familiar with the novel “Mercurius”?
No question, just a tongue-in-cheek comment in response to a discussion about calendars.
Where I live, in Eastern Ontario, I know what season I’m in by the following (with some overlap):
Icy roads season
Power outage season
Bloom-killing frost season
Brief respite
Black fly season
Mosquito season
Unbearable humidity season
Deer fly season
Ragweed allergies season
Second mosquito season
Crop-killing frost season
Brief respite
Snow shoveling season
Unbearable cold season
Your calendars sound lovely.
I’m in the process of reading Shepherds for Sale, and finding it interesting, well written, and that it has enough for me to start to follow up on it. It does look like there has been a massive effort on the part of certain factions aligned with the left to subvert Evangelical Christianity, chiefly but not only in the US. Assuming this is true (I haven’t finished the book, nor done all the follow-up to confirm), this would be one of those things that the gods curse people for; and taking the Bible at it’s word, something Jesus despises with a passion: not one iota of biblical law can ever be changed merely because it is inconvenient; and the method used, large sums of money, reminds me of the story of the merchants in the temple.
I’m not Christian, and have plenty of disagreements with the churches, but this strikes me as very, very wrong. I also now wonder if things have gotten so weird lately because Jesus cursed the people who are trying to subvert his churches…
Curt, I hope you circle back to read, so I do like hearing about Austria very much, although it has little to do with Ecosophia or the subjects, at the same time seems to have so much more to do with them than talks of politics or AI.
In “Germany” – Austria – I’m quite confused or bemused by what is “Normal” there vs what is “Eccentric.” Obviously that is clear to you, but whether in Austria, England, or here, isn’t it so that the “Eccentric” is also the “Normal”? That like being – I don’t know, a pilot or steam engineer or mathematician – there is ALWAYS a sub-line of people doing this, always has been for a thousand years, and therefore it IS a normal subset of possible occupations, just as being a professional mathematician or steam engineer is? And like a commercial pilot, just reflects the requirements of that job: travel, less routine, compensations that are lumpy and not strictly even?
And since as JMG has said, we DO have a 400 year tradition of the Occult here in the U.S. — that is to say, it’s a “Normal” occupation – what is your brother or family on about as it’s merely a career path like programming or any other. He wants to be a programmer, that’s weird, or to be a Rock Star, that’s really REALLY weird, or to be a person who does yoga, quite a bit less weird and a great deal better for your health.
It’s an Overton Window. Where does he, they, your family, society, peg the idea that an occupation that has ALWAYS been, and is still here now, is a “Strange” one? What makes it “Strange”? THEY do. That’s all. They SAY it’s strange. Paisley clothes everyone wears, they are “Normal” until they are out of fashion, then the exact same clothes become “Strange”. Are the clothes strange, or their unstable perception of them? One that seems always unsatisfied? THEY, the authorities DECIDED that it was strange because those people are harder to control, therefore they hate them. That’s all. That’s the Alpha and Omega of the whole thing.
What’s strange about joining a 5,000 year old tradition and begin with people you like better? That remove you from bad habits like drinking?
Hi John Michael,
Thanks for the sound advice.
Years ago you mentioned a bumper sticker you’d observed with the caption: “If you had enough, how would you know?” The astute sentence struck something of a chord, and perhaps it did with you as well? You could kind of twist the concept around a bit to suggest for the theoretical economist we spoke of: “If you were wrong, how would you know?” It’s an intriguing question isn’t it?
Far out, the Red Sea has become even more of a bit of a hotbed of drama. That’s the problem with import reliant cultures, they’re reliant on imports. I’d be happy to see more local manufacturing of stuff we actually need, not stuff we merely want. There’s a difference. The Red Sea dramas will be increasing costs for Western civilisation, no doubts about it.
Sometimes I get eerie insights, and that was the case only just then. Hmm. Interesting.
Anyway, how’s the readings going? I very much enjoy your political, social and economic astrological readings and look forward to them.
Cheers
Chris
Could JMG or any of the illustrious readers who frequent this place recommend books or documents about Hutterites, Amish, Mormons, Mennonites, Quakers, Afrikaners and other groups built on new moral foundations?
JMG I would like to improve my level of English but I need extra motivation to put the effort into this.
Do you think that knowing languages and even being able to translate documents can be a useful skill in the world we are entering ?(long descent)
Thanks
@Lunar
Being Orthodox, I meet a fair number of people from ex-Soviet countries. Some came over in the 90s, and others later. They all still have family back in Russia/Ukraine/Belarus/Romania/etc. that they keep in touch with, and visit sometimes. Yes, that’s going to result in some reporting bias. But it’s propaganda-free reporting bias 😉
@JMG, @Ecosophia readers
Well I wanted to share yet more interesting things I’ve been learning lately. Not the least of them is the topic of karmic shields.
Have you ever seen pictures of yogis with cremation ash smeared all over their bodies? Turns out there’s actually a practical reason for it. That ash, once the yogis’ guru – or possibly the yogi himself charges it – that is, initializes with prana in a certain way – he has just created what I call a ‘karma hazmat suit’. Sadhguru says it’s almost like having another person hanging around you always. The reason is that this prana-initiated ash collects the karma rather than you. In essence it’s to shield you from karma sticking to you. This greatly speeds up the dissolution of one’s own karma (both present and past life) and allows a certain lab-like cleanliness to be maintained for the subtle body so that you will be ready for transcendence sooner.
Sadhguru said, “If you smear the body it’s like having another layer of life around you – which is not you – hanging around. The idea of having this is that your passage through the world happens without you gathering all the karmic impressions. When I say impressions – everything that you see makes an impression upon you. There is a causal-making factory within you. Every little thing that you see – somebody’s anger, somebody’s greed, somebody’s desire, somebody’s lust, somebody’s hatefulness, somebody’s something. Everything that you see some way imprints itself upon you. Every day if you don’t do enough cleaning – one day you will see – you will become like that. This is what it means in which the environment in which you are living is molding human beings. Slowly you’re taking it in. Everyday you are taking in these impressions. After some time they become your quality.”
The initiated ash acts as a hazmat suit and it collects the karma rather than you. I suppose by the time someone is wanting to live decade after decade smeared with the ashes of a dead person on themself everyday is not somebody too concerned with what society is going to think of them. They’re too busy getting ready to level up for the next round.
Btw, the ash needs to be cremation ash of a person, not just any old ash from an animal or wood or burned trash. It needs to be from a recently cremated human. It also matters who’s ash you’re taking, how old they were when they died, the conditions of their death, etc. all of that matters into the making of the karmic shield. A guru typically does this for a disciple. But if the yogi is advanced enough they can probably do it themself.
I plan to put up one, possibly two new Sadhguru Exclusive transcripts on my blog within the next week. One will be about that Karmic Shield another one will be about exactly what Initiation is – hint: in eastern yoga the word initiation does not mean the same thing as it does in western tradition.
Also one other request. I’m looking for more Tarot and Oracle volunteers for improving my spread readings. I recently acquired the Transparent Oracle and would love to use it for several volunteer’s questions. I’d toss in a tarot reading as a freebie for that too.
If anyone is interested you can send me a message via my Dreamwidth blog:
https://happypanda.dreamwidth.org/
The interesting thing with the Transparent Oracle is that it’s, well, transparent so you can layer the circular cards on top of each other and you can get a good composite picture of the information to your question. Of course you can also lay them out individually too.
Should anyone wish to be one of my guinea pigs for me to practice with (I’m really hoping to start getting weekly guinea pigs) I also will take photos of the spreads and upload them to my blog linked to above so you can see the results of the spread for yourself. Also included would be the explanation from the surprisingly substantial book that came with the cards.
Here is a Youtube video of someone showing the circular cards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXyOT0dwdis
Anyway…cheers to the board and cheers to JMG. May you all have a wonderful week filled with joy.
Clay, you know, that’s certainly plausible.
Warburton, thanks for this. Yeah, I learned that one the hard way quite a few years ago, back in the early peak oil era. It sometimes helps to challenge that sort of thinking head on, but not always.
Lunar, fair enough.
J.L.Mc12, glad to hear it. Please post a link to the article when you put it up — and brace yourself for pushback. I suspect some people will be very, very irate about your suggestion.
Gaining, it’s precisely the awakening to the personality — the point at which you can see it because you no longer confuse it with yourself — that a vast amount of esoteric practices are meant to bring about. That is to say, you may be doing better than you think.
Sylvia, excellent! Yes, and in fact the original version was likely influenced by alchemical thought, since alchemy was so widespread a practice in medieval and Renaissance Germany, where the story comes from.
Random, you’re most welcome and thank you. Remind me — have you started work on your first book on spiritual alchemy?
Myriam, funny. Where does hockey season fit into that? 😉
Anonymous, a very good point.
Chris, thank you. I’ve got a stack of readings to do — Britain’s Libra ingress chart, two eclipses, and a first sketch of the upcoming US presidential inauguration chart — while I’m also preparing a talk for an upcoming occult conference, and keeping up with all the usual posting! It’s lively.
Achille, yes, being able to translate is very often a useful skill, though you have to have some sense of what languages are likely to be in demand. As for books, you might try Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History, a good lively bio of Mormon founder Joseph Smith.
Panda, I’ll look forward to what you have to say about initiation, since of course you’re correct — the South Asian traditions are very distinctive, as are the European and European-diaspora tradition, and their ways of initiation are not the same in form or attention. I have to say, btw, that practicing a daily banishing ritual to scrub off energetic impressions seems like a better option than smearing human remains all over myself!
#276 “Gangsterism in particular is history.” Lunar Apprentice do you know how that was accomplished? Authorities in the USA don’t seem to know how to deal with gangsterism, for many reasons, including lack of opportunity for young men, romantic appeal of extra legal lifestyles, and bribery+ intimidation of local officials.
#269 pygmycory I also watched the clip with great frustration. Nice doesn’t work with people playing an intimidation game. I would think that the Canadian people have every right to know what foreigners are up to in their country, and I think the reporter ought not to have backed down. I would want to know what made the protester think police would be sympathetic to him, and I thought the reporter ought to have asked what authority do you have to be issuing orders to others.
Natural succession is not allowed without government approval.
https://www.yoursourceone.com/columbia_basin/feds-finalize-plan-to-kill-hundreds-of-barred-owls-in-chelan-kittitas-and-okanogan-counties/article_54dc5c6e-6670-11ef-8a28-67972050149f.html
JMG, this is something I meant to ask you (and the commentariat) since you posted The Nibelung’s Ring: The Legends – is there a recognizable pattern/mechanism/whathaveyou according to which events get transformed into myths and legends? Something analogous to how languages evolve (vowel shifts, etc.)? If so, is there any literature about it? I’m fascinated by cultural memory and the techniques used to preserve knowledge (memories of historical events, as well as scientific facts like astonomical cycles, etc.) in the form of myths, and would love to learn more about how that happens. It seems to be a basic human instinct to do so.
Also, as for your comment to Will1000 about the end of human incarnation (#241), I remember a similar thread over at MM (https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/289713.html?thread=50145201#cmt50145201), where I wondered if enlightenment was actually possible or necessary to make that next step out of human form, or if you “only” need a fully formed mental body (I used the term enlightenment in the sense of evolved ethics, not in the sense of evolved self-reflection, if anyone is wondering, so no, it’s not a contradiction when JMG mentioned enlightenment here). Your comment here made me wonder: I had always assumed that the ability you had to develop was abstract thinking, so getting good at maths seemed to be the way to go (and considering my grades in school, I had already resigned myself to spending at least two more astrological ages in human form). People like Ramanujan seemed to confirm this hypothesis of mine, since he checked out of human incarnation pretty early in his (presumably last) life here.
But if recognizing that your ego is just a collection of habits, and stopping to identify with it is the ticket, then what about taking acting classes? Method acting makes you take on the personalities of your characters so you can truly embody them. Do this often enough, and I could magine that the day will come when you realize that your own personality is no more real than those you identified with when you “became” your characters. What do you think about this idea?
Chris (#178), I read that some beekeepers use etheric oils instead of pesticides against varroa mites with good results. I think it was thyme, but it’s been years since I read the article, so I could be wrong about which type of oil.
>because humans have a hard-to-shake intuition that to predict something is to cause it
That’s why if you really are a psychic, don’t talk to the cops. They’ll just blame you for it all. This has happened.
JMG, please tell us something about your relationships with spirits and deities. When and how did you first encounter them? How did you learn their names, assuming they have names? Do you have a favourite or do you revere, or commune with, several?
What do you make of those people who reckon they have been abducted and had encounters with ET’s, especially the women who believe that they were impregnated but then had their foetus stolen? Could there be something demonic going on?
I just discovered an interesting bit of grey market commerce that has a lot to say about the state of the empire and world economic trends.
Near us is one of the storage rental places that is a few blocks from a giant non-profit thrift store. This thrift store is part of a chain that is the dominant one in Oregon ( JMG you may know it, Goodwill Industries). This particular store is called the “bins” because it has all the cheapest merchandise that is not worth tagging and displaying in the more upscale stores. I had noticed that every week on the street next to the storage place, and close to the Goodwill there would be a curious thing. A large overseas shipping container with a Uhaul truck backed up tight too it. I also noticed that the same folks ( recent immigrants from Africa) had multiple outdoor storage units that they accessed frequently.
So yesterday my curiosity got the better of me and I stopped to asked one of them what was up as they loaded ( what looked to me like household junk) from the Uhaul in to the shipping container. The fellow with the best English smiled and told me ( with a bit of pride in his voice). They spend a few weeks collecting up household goods from the Goodwill, yard sales, estate sales etc. They stash it in rented storage units until they build up a shipping container load. Then they transfer it too a shipping container and send it off to some Central African country ( they didn’t say which one) for resale by their associates there. There is clearly enough of a difference in price between the US and Africa to make it a worthwhile venture.
What is interesting to me is that the last 4o year or the US becoming a massive consumer culture has resulted in a surplus of all kinds of used consumer goods ( thus the explosion in storage business’s) It has also driving down the value of these goods in the U.S to very near zero. Certainly to the point that they have much more value elsewhere in the world.
I think as the us empire collapses we may also see the increased phenomenon of other countries picking us clean of inexpensive used goods, with us having no purchasing power to compete.
On Scientific Method, it’s clearly a SUBSET of inquiry and method used always. We seem to be mixing the two ideas quite freely. Yes, science has inquiry and honesty and proof, but you also need numbers and open duplication.
Imagine a Science where you say, “Take this distillation and heat it.” “How much?” “Well sort of warmish, but definitely not hot.” “What distillation?” “Well, I get Cinnabar from Almadén which is red, but if you have sorta cinnabar that’s brown, well that’s different.”
Uh, no. That is NOT Science. All the Science we did over that expanse was made specifically BY drilling down into what “Cinnabar” was, its precise definition, to the molecule, and we did that by not fooling around with how much, how hot, but measuring PRECISE btus, now to the nanojoule and nanosecond, and having that be a VERY specific standardization, in both measurement, and in thought (talk).
Any Science where you “Kinda sorta” isn’t “Science” as we know it. Sweeping statements with fuzzy proofs are the domain of philosophy, and we see to be going back there lately.
I was doing a little poetry reading this morning, specifically Mary Oliver’s “Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches.” It struck me as speaking strongly to quite a few of the conversations we have here on this blog, so I wanted to share a piece of it with you.
“Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?
Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides
with perfect courtesy, to let you in!
Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass!
Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over the dark acorn of your heart!
No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaint
that something is missing from your life!
Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?
Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot
in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself
continually?
Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed
with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?
Well, there is time left —
fields everywhere invite you into them.”
There is more to the poem but this part really grabbed me this morning, so I decided to open the latch and share it with you.
JMG said: I have to say, btw, that practicing a daily banishing ritual to scrub off energetic impressions seems like a better option than smearing human remains all over myself!
That entire talk Sadhguru gave just underscored for me why banishing and invoking are a good pairing. It also helped me understand some of what is happening for anyone doing things like the Blessing Walk. Deliberately choosing how to shape yourself invariably will have a spill-over effect to everyone and everything around you after a while.
Interestingly he gave a talk saying that people who do classical hatha yoga regularly also develop a type of karmic shield around themselves. So that’s yet another way to determine how you want to be rather than just going along with the masses willy-nilly. I get the sense there are many ways to develop that karmic shield for aiding soul evolution.
Once the two lectures I mentioned earlier are transcribed I’m leaning toward transcribing some of his lectures on the dying process and especially the ones he gave of what happens after death.
Fun surprise fact: Did you know stray dogs (they must be non-domesticated. Pets completely lose this capability) are one of the very few animals who are able to detect when someone is dying? If you ever see a stray dog or pack of stray dogs on a street somewhere suddenly begin howling there’s a very good chance someone on that street is dying right then.
That’s why Kala Bhairava’s vahana (companion vehicle) is always depicted as a dog and why Kerberos the guardian at the entrance to the underworld is a dog. And for that matter, one of the ancient Egyptian’s deities (I forget the deity’s name) has the head of a dog.
Oh! Another super-fun fact! According to Sadhguru – the river Styx is real!!! Obviously it’s not a physical river (duh). But it is (direct quote) “a river of energy whose nature is neither that of life or death.” It’s something else entirely but every body who dies will eventually have to cross it. And depending on how thick is your subtle body shell – you will be greeted by – get this – an etheric dog who guards the way (!!!) and alerts the Enforcers (to use Italian Mob-terminology) – and you will either get to walk across a bridge over it with ease if you have a thin shell due to not accumulating too many ‘sins’ or successfully scrubbed them off from doing spiritual practices when still alive. Or you wade across it in the shallow end if your ‘sins’ weren’t that bad – or – for people like serial killers, mass murderers, Mao, Stalin, etc – made to swim across the deep sections where it will ‘strip’ you which is apparently a super-duper awful experience.
The ancient Egyptians were on to something with their talks of Kerberos and the river Styx. That same lecture talks about the Native American female deity Poketapowa (pronounced Po-keeta-pow-ah) – who I guess can sometimes also be encountered at the river Styx but you have to be super-duper ready to level up soul-wise to get that lucky to encounter her.
That would be an interesting transcript I think. Is anyone else interested in that one?
JMG, Ha! Reports of Canadians’ love of hockey have been greatly exaggerated. Like democrat polls, it depends who you ask…
Hi all–I’m looking for short Stoic maxims for use as “copybook headings” (handwriting practice)!
Remember “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”? (The Kipling poem about how old-fashioned maxims often turn out to be correct, even though we might wish it otherwise.) I’m looking for copybook headings for my homeschool, with the idea that the old-fashioned technique of using maxims for handwriting practice is good for both the hands and the soul. I’m especially interested in ones inspired by Stoic philosophy (think I have others covered).
Here are some maxims I’m considering:
A stitch in time saves nine.
All that glitters is not gold.
The burnt child fears the fire.
Actions speak louder than words.
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Necessity never made a good bargain.
Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.
To have may be taken from us, to have had, never.
Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
The cunning man steals a horse, the wise man lets it alone.
An open foe may prove a curse, but a pretended friend is worse.
One who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.
Can anyone suggest more, especially Stoic ones? Thanks!
JMG, thank you for your response.
I posted as Insufferable Mystic a bit back. The journey so far has been strange and interesting. I had a spontanious experience of the void around ten years back, thought I died in my sleep. This was long before I started to try and understand what’s behind this world of experience. Just these past seven or so years have I done meditation and slowly started to glide into magic the past four years, intermittant with another American mystics material that uses a more psychological approach, now in unison.
Looking back in retrospect don’t know why it happened, to this day I still don’t think that that experience of the void was full or final. I have had to try and find what I sensed would be a good system to start with, started with one system, won’t name it but it wasn’t compatible with me, then Celtic Golden Dawn have it but not yet ready, The Druid Magic Handbook, bingo. So far in the SOP as I have progressed finally reaching the 4th gate, all the other gates leading up to there I thought ahah something is going on with this. The 4th gate—earth—3 days in wammied me, at least I percieved it did, a subsequent realization of an old bagage got pulled up while at work so I could see it and process it. Interestingly enough, I have only a very small percentage of earth in my natal chart.
I bumped into a transcript of the First Sitdown Interview with KomodoDragon Harris and sidekick Walz. It is at:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/29/politics/harris-walz-interview-read-transcript/index.html
This is a URL-version, which can be removed at any time. I took screenshots. I would rather have been able to download a pdf (so I can keep it forever).
In the interviewer Dana Bash’s opening statement, she said to Harris:
“You have less time to make your case to voters than any candidate in modern American history.”
Huh?
So, it is TWO MONTHS before the election AND it is the computer age, yet a network newscaster flat out said, Harris, sorry you can’t spare even one hour telling Americans the most important message you could ever possibly make, which is to tell Americans,—in clear and definitive declarative sentences,—what ‘exactly’ you will do for them to make their lives better in the long-term.
O Jeez.
💨Northwind Grandma💨🎙️📰
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
Justin Patrick Moore
#231 August 30, 2024 at 1:51 p.m.
As a child, I wanted to be an engineer who was a designer of products, with a view to making them more comfortable and pleasant to use, as well as being more useful. In other words, I wanted tech to be focused on the customer more than on the economic bottom line. There are so many products in everyday use with thousands of models, that are extremely badly designed.
For example, perhaps trivially, there was no need to electrify the rolling up or down of car windows, but the parts are probably slightly cheaper and had the advantage of being completely out of the skillset of everyday people to repair. Appropriate tech would focus on product beauty, function, repairability and durability. As we move into what Kunstler calls “a world made by hand,” we will increasingly see that, I suspect. Another example is touch-screen controls for many automobile functions, which require you to take your eyes off the road to fiddle with the often fussy controls…as opposed to manual controls of radios, for example, which can be managed by feel. Another situation where repair call for complete replacement. Also, many computerized automated control systems in cars which may improve performance, but again, at what cost? It’s not always designed with the customer (ultimately) in mind. And on, and on. That’s just simple stuff on motor vehicles. You can surely come up with your own examples. Wood stoves have relatively recently been technologically “improved” to put them out of the control of the customer and into the control of regulatory agencies, at some considerable cost, another peeve of some of the commentariat.
Dear JMG,
Thank you for the detailed answer on the current conflicts in Europe and the link to that posts series. I’d never seen the EU as an empire in and of itself, but it fits the wealth pump model you discussed very well, sadly. It had occurred to me – well before Putin’s decree – that, given current and likely future events, learning some Russian may not be such a bad idea, however conventionally unwise it sounds. We’ll see.
Miguel
@Happy Panda #299: I’ve been studying similar material in the Greek philosophic tradition lately. The dog-gods of Egypt were Anubis (who is the guard-dog that discriminates) and Wepwawet (pronounced, I am told, more like “Upuat,” and who is the guide-dog that leads the way). You might also be interested in the final myth of Plutarch’s On the Face in the Moon (§§27-30), where he talks about the same phenomenon (especially in §28). In his myth, the “river” is the space between the earth (material life) and the moon (afterlife following the first death but preceding the second death), and those who were pure in life cross the gulf quickly and easily in it’s gentlest parts, while the impure only with great difficulty through it’s more turbulent parts.
JMG,
Upon reflection, you are quite correct. We should all pray that the overall situation stays at the Greek tragedy level and not escalate to a Götterdämmerung level. 🤔
I’m not in the USA, so I don’t have to decide who to vote for in that election. But I have to pick someone to vote for in BC’s provincial election on October 17, and I’m unhappy with all the parties on offer for one reason or another.
I’ll look into things more before making my decision, and get a better idea of who my local candidates are (we don’t vote for the premier directly, we vote for the candidate for our local riding and the party with the most ridings wins the election, forms the next government and the party leader becomes the new premier). But I’m seriously considering finding the silliest unwinnable party available and voting for them as a protest vote if none of the local candidates stick out as actively good. At least that shows that I do vote, and my vote is up for grabs if someone can put together a decent of policies and doesn’t have a history of doing stuff I’m angry about while in office. Or maybe I’ll find an independent that isn’t awful. That would be better.
Or a party I hate less may put up a decent candidate. The green party’s local one isn’t terrible – it’s more that the green party is keeping the NDP in power and I’m angry about the NDP’s actions during the pandemic re covid passports, treatment of healthcare workers and others who refused to get the jab, and their treatment of the church and other religions (going to a bar or a restaurant is legal and going to church isn’t? Seriously?) , consider their policies on drugs and homelessness a noxious failure (and the policies are shared by the greens) and I don’t want to keep them in power.
But BC United just imploded and I loathed the stupid-level austerity and corruption of the BC liberals they used to be anyway, and the BC Conservatives make me really nervous with regards to things like austerity and continued functioning of health and safety nets. I’m also worried they’ll go overboard on trying to reverse culture war stuff and end up being just plain cruel. The medical system is dangerously close to becoming completely unavailable already and I fear they will make this worse in pursuit of private options which most of us can’t afford and which are illegal in Canada. Plus while I’m unimpressed by the performance of left wing climate change policies to make real changes on the ground while avoiding harming ordinary people, I hate the idea of going around with our hands in our ears going ‘la la la’ while pretending it isn’t real.
So I’m just all-round grumpy at my local options right now.
@Achille: I can heartily recommend *On the Backroad to Heaven* by Kraybill and Bowman. It is a very good comprehensive survey of several anabaptist religious sects, including Hutterites, Mennonites, the Amish, and the church of the Brethren.
If you can track down a copy, you might also be interested in Brett Grainger’s memoir of growing up with the Plymouth Brethren: *In the World, but not of it*.
@Katsmama #158
To clarify, I’m not associated with the Hermitix podcast. I’m just a listener like you. I sometimes make transcriptions of the interviews I like.
Mary Bennet @295:
My answer to your question is pretty soft, so FWIW, my take is that prosperity and cracking down on organized crime is behind the improvement:
I understand that during the Yeltsin years, that kleptocratic oligarchs had largely assumed control and even ownership of much Russia industry and resources; e.g. about 40% of Russia’s oil production was looted and sold illegally. These oligarchs had Western sympathies and connections which in turn sheltered them from oversight by the comprador Yeltsin government.
When Putin assumed power, he took on the oligarchs, imprisoning some, pressuring others into exile, seizing assets of some, some died suspiciously, but mostly making deals with others that allowed them to hang on to their wealth in exchange for living within the law and committing to staying out of politics. One famous case of an oligarch trying to break his promise to stay out of politics was Khodorkovsky, who was imprisoned for a few years, and is now exiled.
I understand that a lot of gangsters, such as protection racketeers and traffickers, were the bottom of an organized crime hierarchy headed by the oligarchs, basically like the Mafia. These networks shrank in scope, size and visibility, where they didn’t disappear altogether, after Putin cracked down on the top. I picked up most of this info 15 years ago, and can’t source it now.
As for street gangs, gopniks, these also were a problem. I have never come across much info on them, but I specifically remember from 2007 an obscure American adventurer and blogger, whose name I can’t recall, who travelled to Russia to, among other things, check up on the status of the gopniks. He had earlier encountered some in the 90’s. He spent weeks traveling to the “bad” areas of Moscow and St. Petersburg looking for gopniks, and much to his surprise, couldn’t find any; they would have been identifiable by their clothing, tattoos and “vibes”. He concluded they were history. He observed that Russia in 2007 seemed more prosperous, secure and civilized than in the 90’s, and his take was that prosperity gave young men better options than gangster life. That 2007 blog post is the most recent thing I’ve come across about gopniks. The nearest thing I’m aware of now are thieves and pick-pockets at major airports like Sheremetyevo International Airport; if a foreigner lands there, he’d be smart to have a savvy Russian local meet him.
–Lunar Apprentice
JMG,
You described in the past how in today’s society, many people only seem to believe in two things – that either the world is progressing on forever or the world will end up in an apocalypse. I wonder if that binary comes from the dualism that is characteristic of the Piscean age.
Re: Russia, some thoughts of my own:
– The Yeltsin era saw Russia asset-stripped by oligarchs who transferred their money abroad, particularly to London. Everybody was out for what they could get, while judges, bureaucrats, police and other security forces were massively underpaid. Hence, gangsterism and corruption.
– These events were watched in horror by many in the military and intelligence services who had dedicated their lives to the security of the state and people.. As Yeltsin succumbed to his alcoholism, his camp needed a way to leave power without immediately being murdered. A deal was brokered to replace him with a representative of the security services in return for safety. Thus, a former KGB official became President of Russia.
– Putin dealt with the oligarchs and the gangsters using the tools available: the threat or actual use of state power. Mary Bennet #276 asks “how that was accomplished?” The oligarchs were told to stay out of politics; if they did, they could keep their wealth. If not, well, many found themselves leaving Russia in a hurry. Some weren’t fast enough and wound up in prison first. This brief Youtube video shows Putin laying down the law to some factory owners. https://youtu.be/3GsDLrUieJg?si=-bx0zQ197mAvQnpt Lower level gangsters were ‘dealt with’, often kinetically.
– Between 2000 and 2014 Russia had to concentrate more on guns than butter. Putin and his supporters had surely read Brzezinski’s ideas about breaking up Russia and appropriating its resources, using Ukraine and Georgia as vehicles. They would have known that Dick Cheney supported these policies; when Cheney as vice-president supervised the Iraq invasion, overthrowing the government and executing the head of state, I imagine a lot of minds became intensely focused in Moscow.
– Between 2008 and 2014 they observed NATO implementing policies which looked very similar to Brzezinski’s blueprint.
– Fast-forwarding to the 2022-present, skipping the Ukraine coup and the Minsk agreements etc, there’s been (it seems to me) a huge change in national consciousness in Russia because:
— Russian citizens perceive that the West desires their destruction as a nation
— Those oligarchs who took their wealth west are now running home to Russia, bringing their wealth back if it hasn’t been expropriated, and are investing it domestically.
— Western liberalism is discredited in Russia. I personally know Russian liberals, supporters of Navalny, who had gone into voluntary exile in the west. They found that after 2022 they had difficulty getting lawyers, accountants, etc to do work for them: the only thing that mattered was their nationality. Nobody cared that they had opposed Putin. I believe many like them have returned home, including many talented professionals.
— Corruption has been deep-rooted since Soviet times, and Putin hasn’t (I believe) had the leverage that would have been needed to change the culture. The SMO has changed that. Not only has the economic boom that it’s brought raised salaries so that corruption is no longer economically driven, it’s enabled the state to reframe corruption as unpatriotic and endangering the troops – and the Augean Stables are finally being cleaned.
Russians at all levels have, I suspect, decided that they want nothing more to do with the West, and are now focused on building national prosperity via the BRICS. The guns not butter policy worked, as is being seen on the battlefield. Russia’s economy is now based on local resources, and the butter is starting to appear in ordinary people’s lives as well.
As Lunar Apprentice pointed out, Russia still has many problems – but the trajectory is upwards, it seems, in contrast to the palpable decline of the west.
Obviously, it’s all much more complicated than can be addressed in a short comment!
@Ecosophia readers, @JMG
Addendum to the bit about Styx and crossing over. I forgot to add Sadhguru says that if one’s subtle body shell is too thick you bounce back from the river. I’ve surmised this might be the origin of the phrase for the ghost of a dead person not being able to ‘cross over’. Now I don’t know why exactly someone who’s a serial murderer might be given the chance to cross the river of strange energies (Styx) via the deep sectors while other dead people bounce back from it and remain stuck on our material plane for goodness-knows-how long. He didn’t go into that but he (and Master Nan Huai-Chin too) acknowledge that can and does happen.
However, even they – the stuck, often frustrated ghosts of deceased people, eventually – after a long while – will finally take rebirth but that may take several hundred to many thousands of years.
…[and] destiny, because each soul has its own unique trajectory; each of us is striving to become some specific thing, which is unique to that soul…
John, somehow I’ve managed to miss this point in all your previous blog posts on the subject of reincarnation. This helps explain examples like Mozart and countless others experiencing unusual birth circumstances or life circumstances. These never fit well with narratives of karmic lessons being necessarily corrective. If we all had to become musical maestros (or intuitive math prodigies, arctic survival experts, world leaders, etc.) before moving on, waiting our turns to be one of the handful per century, that would put severe bottlenecks in the process! But horses for courses is something we can and should understand.
Developments relating to my own unusual birth and life circumstances are weighing a bit heavily recently, but at the same time I can’t see them as remonstrative when they’ve brought so many amazing blessings. Striving to become some specific thing. Huh. Thank you for handing me a missing tessera when I really need it.
@Athaia (#297):
There’s a whole large field of academic scholarship on Oral Traditions, how they are created, how they are preserved, and how they develop over time. Just as with languages, so with oral traditions: it seems tat there is no simple set of forces that manifests everywhere and always, but a vast complex set of possiblities and mechanisms for change. There’s even an academic journal devoted to the field: Oral Traditions, published at Harvard: from 1986 up to now (38 volumes so far).
Some indigenous cultures have preserved bits and pieces of oral tradition about features in their landscape that have to have been handed down for many thousands of years. In Australia, several tribes have preserved informartion about various changes in their environment that geologists have determined happened 10,000 years or more in the past. In Oregon, a geologically correct tradition about the origin of Crater Lake tells what happened some 6 or 7 thousand years ago. And so forth …
Take a look at Albert Bates Lord’s books, <The Singer of Tales and <Epic Singers and Oral Tradition. Also Jan Vansina’s Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical \Methodology (1965).
On another note, in response to your comments about ego and self … You might ewznt to consider ways in which your “self” changes in different surroundings according to your desired activity there: people present one “self” to their parents, a quite different other self to people they are courting, yet other selves to their employers, to neigbors, to an inquisitive policeman, to a beggar encoubngtered on the street, and so forth and so on. My take on this is that all (or nearly all) of us contain a great multitude of such “selves,” which we activate or deactivate in different environments; to put is more bluntly, we all have “multiple personalities,” which generally coordinate well wth one another. So-called “multiple personality disorder” is just a rare special case where there is poor or no coordination between them. Solid research on this goes back to the late 1800s and some of it is still (IMHO) well worth studying.
@ LunarApprentice #253
Blessings on you and your family, if you will have them. 🙂
It strikes me that the “pronoun” conversation might be lightly deflected by saying something like… “if you are talking TO me, my favourite pronoun will be ‘you’… if you are talking ABOUT me, call me whatever you like, I won’t be there and I won’t care…”
” As for free speech, it’s a useful safety valve for any society that feels confident of its strength; when it gets shut down, you can tell that the rulers are in a state of panic.”
Interesting. Then do you expect free speech to blossom in China? At least for a while?
@Ecosophia Readers, @JMG
Well I seem to be on a roll today. I remembered something else I found fascinating to share with the forum and JMG.
This has to do specifically with Vishuddi chakra – that is, the throat chakra. The throat chakra is said to be the most difficult of all the thousands of chakras in the body and outside of it to get moving and sufficiently master.
The following info I pieced together from Sadhguru, Rajarshi Nandi and Ranveer (of the Beer Biceps youtube channel).
If you fully master Vishuddi but still want to act in the world, whether with direct disciples or muggles like me – that Vishuddi Master will have to mask they’re Vishuddi thoroughly. If not, the disciples and/or muggles will run away in terror.
I experienced this directly myself when Sadhguru for a split second dropped his mask of Vishuddi during a lecture and spoke two words in two separate registers, one much higher than the other and I immediately reacted in panic – from a flippin’ video! Not even in person and my knee jerk reaction was panic.
Then I recalled that Ranveer recounted interviewing a gentleman who said he saw 10 Big Foots (Sasquatch? Yeti?) traveling far up a mountain in the Himalayas but even from that distance as he watched all 10 with his binoculars he got the strong impression of extreme, deadly, malevolence rolling off them. He had no desire to get any closer or inquire any further as to what or whom this species was. He insisted they were definitely not human. Human-like but much too tall and lanky, the shortest he guessed to be around 10 feet (304.8 cm) tall.
Both he and Rajarshi Nandi admitted they had no idea why these ‘beings’ were giving off vibes of deadly malevolence and fierceness. The interviewee was quite adamant the strong, malevolent impression rolling off them was they would indeed kill you if you came near. Those beings – who or whatever they were – weren’t bluffing.
And I thought to myself right then (because I remembered one of Sadhguru’s talks about one of the many results of Vishuddi chakra mastery), “I bet all 10 of them were their species’ equivalent of yogis. Not only that, but they’re Vishuddi Masters to boot – the hardest and most difficult of all the chakras to master. All of 10 of them. They don’t interact with humans, don’t live anywhere near humans, don’t need to mask with each other and leave the mask down to drive everyone else away in terror from bothering them so why would they need to bother with doing it?”
It was then that I recalled Sadhguru saying that any yogi or yogini who needs to interact with more ordinary people (i.e. muggles like me) must master how to mask their vishuddi or there won’t be anyone around for the guru to teach as their disciples.
In fact, this is one way you might be tested for for leveling up to a more celestial abode or more advanced spiritual practices on your next go round. If a yogi or whomever drops the mask and you don’t flinch externally or internally – that’s a good test for seeing how far along that spiritual aspirant actually is. Sadhguru has said there are deities who absolutely will pull this kind of test on a spiritual seeker just to see if he/she is ready or not for more advanced practices. He said Kali is one of those deities who may opt to use that test, fyi.
I have speculated perhaps this is exactly what is going on with the phrase of calling this or that deity a “Fierce Deity”. Tibetan Buddhism, for example, has many such fierce deities. I’m guessing it’s a way to constantly test a monk or nun to see if they’re ready for something more.
Anyway…cheers to everyone on the board who made it this long through my latest musings.
Second quick addendum:
Wanted to clear up when Sadhguru dropped the mask he spoke those two words in two separate registers at the exact same moment. It wasn’t serial. It was spoken in parallel.
Bear in mind this is a capability latent within every human if they bother to train for it.
To hear about other amazing capabilities being born a human and taking up a spiritual path can lead to I give you Sadhguru’s youtube talk about Avadhanis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzlIfzj6xfo
Avadhanis: Accessing the Mind’s Incredible Capabilities
For books about Quakers, you might look for “The Friendly Persuasion” and “Except for Me and Thee” (fiction flavored by family history). Also see “The Quaker Reader.” They are by Jessamyn West. The Friendly Persuasion movie won five Academy Awards, and West wrote a reflective book, “To See the Dream,” about the months she spent in Hollywood as an adviser on the picture.
If you’d like to explore what Quaker founders have to say, look for
Excerpts from the Journal of George Fox
George Fox in Barbados
Some Fruits of Solitude by William Penn
The Penn Collection
Hi JMG & al.
A few months back, in a lively discussion of the problem of fraud in science, someone (I’m sorry, but I cannot find the reference) linked a YouTube video by science commentator Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder, “My Dream Died and Now I’m Here” about her experience with the standard research physicist career-path and how she eventually started her YouTube channel on science commentary.
What I didn’t have time to note 4 months ago, was that, within the first 24 hours, there were over 10,000 comments, which (at least the first 2000 that I skimmed through) agreed with her assessment of why academia is broken, that science is no longer honestly scientific, and many posters shared their own tales of disillusionment.
There are now over 35,000 such comments on that channel.
Bruce
Note: you don’t have to watch it, there are no graphics, you can just listen if you are curious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKiBlGDfRU8
It is about 13 minute long.
Siliconguy, it’s central to the modern industrial world’s delusions that only human beings — and only privileged ones at that — are allowed to cause changes. If anything else changes, it’s wrong and bad, and nature above all is supposed to shut up and do what privileged people tell her; when she doesn’t, they get bent out of shape and start trying to kill things. That’s what the whole invasive species business is about, for example.
Athaia, the study of comparative mythology hasn’t succeeded in establishing anything like as clear a set of processes as comparative linguistics, so as far as I know those mechanisms aren’t yet well understood. Have you read Hamlet’s Mill by any chance? That might be one useful way into the deeper places of myth. As for method acting, quite possibly, yes — intellectuals tend to think that everyone has to become an intellectual in order to transcend matter, which is frankly silly. The Hindu tradition is wiser here — it acknowledges that there are many different yogas that offer ways to liberation, and no two of them have the same requirements.
Other Owen, it has indeed. On the other hand, it’s happened more than once that somebody claimed to be a psychic and turned out to be the perp…
Batstrel, in my case it was a matter of simple prayer and invocation. As a Druid, I learned to invoke certain deities, and because I’m kind of a geek I took that seriously. In all but one case, I got no initial response at all; the one case was a deity who as far as I know hasn’t been noticed by the Neopagan scene, and when I called on her for the first time, I felt a clear if wordless “Why are you invoking me?” I explained that I was a Druid, initiated into such-and-such a tradition, that I’d been taught to do so, and that I would certainly stop at once if she wasn’t happy about being prayed to. The response I got was approximately “No, that’s fine. Carry on.”
So I did. Over time, a sense of their presence emerged, very quietly and unconfrontationally — just an awareness that they were present, and had been present all along. I don’t ask them for favors, btw — some of the prayers have the same sort of general requests you find in, for example, the Christian Lord’s Prayer, but that’s about it. I see it as purely a matter of building a relationship. I do sometimes get guidance from them — not a demand, but simply an intuitive sense that it would be a good idea to do this, or I should avoid doing that because it will cause problems I don’t expect — and I also get a certain number of absurd coincidences that benefit me, which seem to be their doing. I’m satisfied with the way the relationship is evolving, and they seem to be satisfied with it as well.
As for UFO phenomena, nah, they’re not demonic, they’re the beings that used to be called elves and fairies. You might read Jacques Vallee’s Passport to Magonia, which documents that very clearly.
Clay, I’m delighted to hear this! Decentralized, do-it-yourself recycling is always a good thing. 😉
DZanni, thank you. This is my point about quantification. You can do craft in that kinda-sorta way, but not what we call science.
Jen, thank you for this! That’s a fine poem.
Panda, I wasn’t aware that hatha yoga has the same effect, but it doesn’t surprise me at all. Birds have a reputation as heralds of death in Celtic tradition, btw; they’ll gather outside the house of someone who is dying. I’ve seen this happen.
Myriam, duly noted! 😉
Cary, here’s a good source:
http://stoicmaxims.com/
Gaining, I’ve noticed that there seems to be a very sharp division between people who are drawn to the classic Golden Dawn approach and people who are drawn to John Gilbert’s teachings, of which The Druid Magic Handbook is a development. If you’ve found something that works for you, excellent! Most people have trouble with one of the Gates, btw — push on through and that will become a source of strength in the future.
Northwind, that’s sad. Really sad.
Miguel, Russian’s a useful language to learn just now. There are others, of course.
John, I hope I’m correct…
Pygmycory, I know the feeling.
Anonymous, almost certainly, yes.
Walt, you’re welcome. That’s a core concept in the Western occult tradition; it’s not for nothing that the highest grade of initiation in the Golden Dawn system is titled Ipsissimus, literally “most completely oneself.”
Grover, the Chinese government is still too nervous to permit anything like that, and for good reason. China has a multimillennial habit of breaking up into anything up to a dozen competing statelets and a condition of ongoing civil war any time it’s under serious stress, and the old, cold men in Beijing are acutely aware of this.
Panda, I bet yetis spend days at a time practicing the projection of that sense of lethal malevolence. It would help keep them safe from humans with guns!
Ilona, thanks for this. Don’t worry about the formatting — it looks bad in the preview page but comes through just fine.
Renaissance, ouch. I think we are watching the death of modern science in real time.
JMG,
Then this progress and apocalypse binary and the Piscean age ties neatly to a comment I saw on last week’s post, that Christianity is also very dualist as well. Well, a part of Christianity is the fish symbolism throughout the tradition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthys
and many people have argued that Jesus’s own birth marked the beginning of the Piscean age.
Wanted to quickly say – thank you to all who responded to my question! I have bought the book recommended and can’t wait to read it! 🙂
JMG,
I also think one of the reasons why Tolkien’s books are popular anymore and why Hermann Hesse’s books aren’t is because Tolkien’s books represent faithfully the Piscean dualist vision of the world, while some of Hermann Hesse’s books, like the Glass Bead Game, are set far into the future, presumably when the Piscean age has already given way for the Aquarian age, and so are incomprehensible to today’s Piscean societies.
JMG, Yes, do-it -yourself recycling is good. But this phenomenon may shape the way the us empire collapses. Many people assume that upon collapse we will have plenty of used goods, tools, clothing and vehicles to recycle to soften the way down.
But what if as the value of the dollar approaches zero and the currency of many formerly third world countries rise ( due to profitable cooperation with the Brics nations) they could be in a position to outbid us for most of our existing stuff, low grade or not. In one giant extended garage sale we could find ourselves out bid on everything from old bikes, to yard furniture. A few year of that and anyone without an income in a useful currency, or the ability to make stuff for themselves could find themselves with the personal belongings of a homesteader.
This of course would be a kind of geopolitical Karma. As one of the main basis of the US empire for the last 60 years was making sure the people in third world countries had low value currencies so we could come in and scoop up their resources and labor intensive goods on the cheap because they were not able to bid against us.
I saw that video from Sabine Hossfelder a while back, and found myself empathizing with her a lot. And being somewhat glad/less disappointed that my own science career ended before I got very far.
@Phutatorius,
The images for Lambspring at The Hermetic Museum were from Waite’s translation, published in 1893. I do not know if the drawings were made specifically for his translation or if they were copied from an older document. The image I linked to is from a manuscript of a Lambspring published 1556. It has some significant differences between the 1893 version and another version I found online published 1607. I included the images of each of those editions at the top of each page on my blog where I posted my analysis, if you are curious to compare them. (Preface is here: https://druidalchemist.com/lambspring-preface/) Some of the symbols are consistent in all the editions; some are very different.
I have not read a book called Mercurius. I have looked online; is the author Patrick Harpur? It looks intriguing. I shall see if I can get it from my library. Thank you!
@JMG,
A book?!? No. I am working on my AODA Adept project, which is to develop an oracle based on spiritual alchemy. (So maybe a LWB is in my future… 😉 ) I’ve been doing readings on myself for over 6 months and they’ve been quite helpful, but I’ve been hesitant to beta test on people because, well, fear. I didn’t want to give a reading that led a person in the wrong direction.
But based on our conversation, since forcing people to think about their thoughts and emotions leads to Nigredo/Albedo, the oracle would be helping people regardless. So I guess it is time to beta test. 🙂
If anyone would like a Spiritual Alchemy oracle reading, my username at the top of the post should link to my email, or you can message me at Dreamwidth (https://randomactsofkarmasc.dreamwidth.org/), or you can message me through my website (https://druidalchemist.com/oracle/). Short version: the Omicron Oracle is designed to provide insight as to what stage of alchemy you are in (in terms of your thoughts and emotions/passions) and what types of actions would lead to a good outcome. You should have a situation in mind when you request a reading, but you do not have to tell me what the situation is. More details here https://druidalchemist.com/oracle/, but I do not have pages set up with Little White Book descriptions yet.
Hi Nachtgurke,
The local bull ants here have a neat trick. They’ll inject you with formic acid, and then just for good measure the entire skin area will sprayed with the same stuff. The ants are about an inch long and seriously aggressive. Over the years I’ve been stung a lot by them, and every time is like an acute chemical burn which lasts for days. It’s not fun, although I’m slowly acclimating to their worst! And there’s some good YouTube videos of daredevils deliberately getting themselves stung so you don’t have to take my word for it (definitely worth watching). It’s right up there on the pain scale, and those critters are just wandering around the farm. Yeah, nice.
Now, I like to get into the head-space of my enemies so as to gain a better understanding as to what I’m dealing with, and the bull ants fall into that category. So over the years I’ve made the farm an unpleasant place to be for the ants. It doesn’t involve chemicals, or sprays, or whatever, it just involves understanding the environment where the bitey insects will thrive (oh yeah, they have wicked mandibles), then doing something entirely different with it, that they won’t like.
The varroa mite is the exact same problem. Industrial scale bee keeping has created an environment which is perfect for the mites. So we get mites. So far all of the responses I’ve read here and elsewhere follow the same tired process for dealing with the mites: Poison the daylights out of them. Long term, it won’t work.
And to be frank, formic acid is a very potent chemical which I have first hand experience with. There is no way I would ever treat the bees, either the hive, or the insects themselves with that stuff. It is very, very, potent stuff.
The bees and bee keepers simply have to adapt to the new reality, the hard way. Few parasites are 100% effective for they’d be wiped out, and that would be it for them. There’s a harsh lesson in there for all of us.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Scotlyn,
Thanks for the link, but last I checked, oxalic acid will poison humans. There has to be a cost to the bees for applying that acid. Look at the equipment the guy is using in order to apply the stuff! There are quite a few edible plants which have to be treated properly before consumption because the leaves contain oxalic acid. Why ever would I use that stuff on the bees? Nah, the bees have to learn how to survive the mites, the hard way, even if the colony dies. It’s one of those weird situations where everyone seems to want things to go on as before, and there is no way that can possibly be. It’ll be the small wild colonies that adapt to this mite, and bee keeping will never be the same again. We blew it.
Cheers
Chris
Silly story about an entertainingly-answered prayer a couple of weeks or so ago.
I live in a basement suite, and it is sometimes invaded by unwanted critters of various sorts. In the space of a few days, I’d caught and removed a very hard to catch wild lizard (half an hour a yoghurt pot and furniture moving were involved), a dead and mummified salamander, had reason to fear invasion by rodents, and put my hand on a giant housespider in my bed in the dark. After removing and killing the dying spider I’d accidentally squashed, and putting a towel over the stain on the sheets I didn’t sleep on spider juice, I prayed to the Lord for a break in the unwanted guests.
The next morning, as I was getting breakfast, I found a baby lizard in the middle of my entryway, stuck of a piece of fluff and unable to run away fast. I should mention that I like lizards, and especially the baby ones are my favorite local wildlife. I’d always wanted to touch one, but it seemed mean because it would scare them so I had restrained myself. I carefully picked this one up and put it outside, admiring it. Then washed hands, and went to eat breakfast.
As I went to say grace, I remember what I’d prayed for the night before and dissolved into laughter, realizing I had been pranked. I could feel someone laughing with me as I got the joke, and thanked Him, still laughing.
And as of now, I haven’t had any notable animal intrusions since.
So apparently, Caliphonia’$ legislature has put forth a bill to ban voter registration for ALL denizens of little canada to the south! Just add guber-notorious-HairJell’$ sig. and ‘wallah’ – new age jacobinism – pacific-style – secured!
Hi John Michael,
I look forward to reading err, your readings. 🙂 Good to hear too.
The approach to problems such as the honeybee varroa mite by treating them as a fight to be won, sometimes neglects the reality that fights can also be lost. In many ways it reminds me of the demands that renewable energy systems make economic sense. Dunno, maybe I’m looking at the world from an odd perspective.
You asked about alternative pollinators, and I’m watching out for them. Usually when there is a surplus of food within an environment (like early spring flowers), something will learn to consume it. Nature does not waste.
Cheers
Chris
Incidentally, for your approval .. Tom Luongo put forth a podcast featuring Alex Krainer re. London’s possible impending financial imbrogio, as he groks it. Well worth a listen to. He also relates much of the same on his prior substack post. Note: tis a long read .. but I’m sure for the folks here would be no problem.. Apologies if this was mentioned upthread.
Anonymous, it’s quite a common thing on occult sources that Jesus was the savior-figure of the Piscean age. That puts a very interesting spin on Matthew 28:20. The King James version gives the last part of that verse as “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” That last clause in Greek, though, is ἕως τῆς συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος, heos tes synteleias tou aionos, “until the completion of the age.” That age is over now.
As for Hesse, granted, but you’d think that since there are a growing number of Aquarian minds these days, more people would find his works congenial.
Clay, sure, but remember that this would also allow American manufacturing — as that gets going again, as it’s already starting to do — to undercut everybody else on the planet. So we might lose a lot of stuff and in the process become a manufacturing power again.
Random, it is indeed — but you might someday think about something more extensive than an LWB. You’re actually thinking about the traditions, not just mouthing clichés — that’s uncommon, and deserves to be encouraged.
Chris, those bulldog ants sound like quite the annoyance. Yet another Australian animal out to get the human population. You guys really do have the world’s most vicious wildlife!
Polecat, they’ve got to do something to hold onto their one-party state!
Chris, no doubt your native pollinators haul stray hikers off into the bush to devour them. 😉
Polecat, glad to hear it.
JMG, definitely have been forging ahead. I did not know there was a divide, but given the options between the classic Golden Dawn and the Celtic/Druid version systems, I felt a cultural or ancestral gravitation towards the latter.
The system I tried before, which wasn’t Golden Dawn based, got my feet wet and tought me some things and it felt very effective, it’s just that the curriculum felt extremely decompressed and drawn out and incredibly voluminous, we’re talking three very thick volumes. I felt that I was going to be moving at a salted slugs pace, it seemeded a bit too paranoid as well. Didn’t feel that that was a good indication for me personally proceeding with it. I sense egregores surrounding a good number of things, didin’t feel like my bag but was worth trying, especially being free.
Mary Bennet said “Trump himself is increasingly showing age and, I think, ill health….As for Harris, as I told my daughter, we have had mediocre presidents before. So far, she has shown that she does understand how to conduct herself in public, how to rise to an occasion, and willingness to listen to staffers who do know what they are doing.”
@ Mary Bennet Many thanks for posting this! I feel something similar. I think Harris will do a competent job, and Trump will not.
Reading through this current Open Post, I’m struck by HOW MANY different ways we each perceive certain circumstances. I suspect the information flows some of you depend on are very different from the information flows that reach me.
I grew up in New York City. When became aware of Donald Trump during the 2016 election, I recognized him as a familiar New York type: a salesman, a persuader, someone who’s happy to present himself in different ways to appeal to each audience, and who stretches the facts quite a bit in order to close the deal.
During the election, and during President Trump’s term of office, there was quite a bit of discussion here about odd events manifesting to support him. That’s not the best language to use, but please forgive me since I don’t have time to go back and get the exact words. We all remember that odd things were happening during 2016.
Even though I personally didn’t support him, I could recognize that an energy was flowing through him. People who had real complaints that should be addressed perceived him as someone who would meet their needs. There was an emotional as well as a political connection. I recall watching Trump speeches while he was in office, and I could understand why he’d attracted so many supporters. He had a live connection with his audiences. He was thinking on his feet, like a standup comedian. He was often funny.
Nowadays, I see that he is tired, worn out, uncertain. Is that same energy still flowing through him? In recent days, his audiences seem bored. I see YouTube videos of people walking away while he’s still talking. I see many clips where his language slips, or he uses one name when he means another, or he seems to talk about five subjects at once. Hannibal Lector. Sharks. Electric boats. Do you understand what point he’s making? I don’t!! If someone loves Donald Trump, they’ll watch those clips and take the verbal glitches in stride. It doesn’t matter to them. However, for myself, he seems like an old man who’s groping for the right words.
If you’re aware of recent speeches you think I ought to watch, please post the URL. I don’t have hours to spare, but I will find 10 or 15 minutes if you think there is additional information I should be aware of.
Hey JMG
I am expecting a bit of fire once I publish it, but honestly I would not mind that happening so long as it gets more people interested in my work. My Substack is too quiet at the moment, and I hope this article will change that.
Now, on the subject of Australian ants, Bull ants are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of Ants that will annoy the average Australian.
For instance, there are some species of Bull ant, such as “Jack Jumpers”, that are capable of jumping or hopping like fleas and can cause allergic reactions similar to bee stings.
Then you have “Meat ants” who make large pebble-coated mounds that seem like cities, who have quite a painful bite and swarm towards anything that provokes them
Then there are “Green ants” who make nests in trees by sewing leaves together with silk, and respond to the body heat and scent of people who walk under their nest by raining down on them. They were eaten by the Aboriginals due to having a citrus flavour. There is also a similar type of ant that is black and shiny, who rapidly swarm if you slightly touch their nest and have a painful bite as the meat ant.
And of course, you have that foreign scourge, the “Fire ant”, which despite our government’s efforts is still spreading.
DZanni #301 – The kind of precision you talk about in science, that is a property of well established science, of those parts of science that have not changed significantly in many decades. Science covers a vast territory. Out in the frontier zone, scientists are pretty much stumbling. New types of instruments get designed and built, and they generally don’t work very well at first. Lots of science never gets past the bumbling stage – the research doesn’t attract much attention, and everybody just forgets about it before long. The stuff that captures interest in the community, people build improved versions of the new instruments and, step by step, the kinks get worked out. Once the science gets to the textbook level of stability, sure, it will have gotten quite precise.
All the precision instruments that people use today in science, those things didn’t descent from heaven fully formed. They all got invented along the way. Back with Newton and Boyle etc., they were really fumbling in the dark!
One up and coming intellectual I encourage JMG readers to check out is Rudyard Lynch. Very young guy (23) who posts a lot of YouTube videos (the kind that are meant to be listened to rather than watched) on his channel Whatifalthist and is increasingly appearing on more and more podcasts.
He focuses a lot on civilizational cycles, the decline of American and Western civilization, the strangeness and soullessness of our time, right vs left, and how young men today are fundamentally worse off than their forebears. It’s that last topic where I’ve learned the most from him, because hearing what young American men are going through from a young man’s mouth is pretty shocking, even though I’m only two decades older.
Financially, sexually, mentally, spiritually, it’s quite a bit worse than what I imagined. When he goes on podcasts and talks about a looming American crisis (either a civil war or insurgency) brought on by the revolt of young men, it’s funny because the people arguing against his view that such a crisis is looming do not debate him on the state of young men, but that such a crisis will not come to pass because widespread use of pornography, marijuana, psychotropic medication, and video games are effectively pacifying men.
The whole “God is dead” thing around the 1880s by Friedrich Nietzsche closely aligns with when John Michael Greer thinks the Age of Pisces ended and the Age of Aquarius began – in 1879. If Jesus is the savior accompanying the world during the Age of Pisces and Matthew 28:20 says that Jesus will only be there until the end of the Age of Pisces, then this has huge implications for the future of Christianity.
This is one of the reasons why I am skeptical that the Catholicism of the future is going to end up looking remotely like how it did in the Age of Pisces. Already, we see in the Catholic Church a gradual de-emphasizing of Jesus Christ himself among lay Catholics, and a growth of Marian devotion of various forms. In last month’s open post, there was a lot of discussion over how devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe is increasing among Latin Mass Catholics in America, and somebody shared an article where the author recommends European Catholics increase their devotion to the Lady of Walsingham in the UK or the Lady of Lourdes in France, in order to protect Europe against the Muslims. Naomi Wolf has a recent article where she talks about believing in magic after visiting a Catholic church in New Mexico with a shrine to Mary. In all these cases, it is Mary rather than Jesus who is accompanying the Catholics, or rather, whatever deities are identified as Mary, since the Virgin of Guadalupe was originally an Aztec earth goddess and the Mary that Naomi Wolf found was originally a Pueblo fertility goddess, and it is quite possible the same is true of the Marys at Walsingham and Lourdes. Thus, I find it likely that the Catholicism in the future will evolve to have Mary as the focal point of its Christianity, being backed up by the power of one or more deities identified as Mary, while Jesus himself falls away from the worship as his influence disappears at the end of the Age of Pisces.
The Protestants are in much worse shape, since they don’t really accept all the Mary stuff that the Catholics do to carry the religion into the Age of Aquarius. They had to acknowledge that “God is Dead” in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s and then pivot to supporting earthly causes like fighting the culture war in order to prevent their congregations from noticing. However, they noticed anyways that Jesus isn’t with them anymore at the end of the Age of Pisces, and now most Protestant denominations are everywhere in freefall. The one exception among historical Protestants may be the Anglicans but Anglicanism in the 21st century is based out of Africa and has already de facto declared independence from the Church of England, and so is going to evolve along its own path to wherever, as the Church of England declines into irrelevance.
The Heritage Foundation has developed a 920-page document outlining detailed policy options for President Trump if he’s elected this November, called Mandate for Leadership: the Conservative Promise. The Heritage Foundation is taking online applications from those who want to work for the next Trump White House.
If Trump’s elected he’ll decide which parts of the Heritage Foundation program should be put into effect. Key parts of his 2016 – 2020 program were based on external proposals, so it’s reasonable to look at Project 2025 to see what Heritage is proposing.
Recently I found a short document from Heritage which says they are calling for mass deportation of illegal immigrants. They recommend “arresting, detaining, and removing of immigration violators anywhere in the United States.” Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find additional information from them. (I bet it exists, but I can’t find it and I have run out of time.)
I did find this website
https://www.newamericaneconomy.org/issues/undocumented-immigrants/
which says
TOP INDUSTRIES BY UNDOCUMENTED SHARE OF WORKFORCE, 2018
Agriculture 13.7%
Construction 12.1%
Administrative Support 9.7%
Tourism, Hospitality Food Service 7.1%
General Services 6.2%
Costs of Deportation
More than eight out of 10 undocumented immigrants HAVE LIVED IN AMERICA FOR MORE THAN FIVE YEARS. Setting aside the question of whether policymakers have the political will to deport millions of individuals so well established in our society, studies indicate that any such effort would come at an enormous cost.
Key Stats
6.4 percent: Amount the labor force would shrink due to mass deportation.
$1.6 trillion: Estimated reduction of U.S. GDP as a result.
5.7 percent: Amount the U.S. economy would shrink due to mass deportation.
$400 billion: Direct cost to the federal government.
In other contexts, we’ve discussed the raspberry jam principle… I am wondering how it applies to political choices. If someone votes for Trump, how much responsibility do they have for the actions of his administration? What karma do we create for ourselves through our political choices?
I don’t know how long this Open Post will be available… if we don’t have time to discuss this now, I’m sure we’ll still be coping with these choices next month. Best wishes, good night!
@Robert Mathiesen (#320)
There is a very interesting therapeutic method that has been developed by Richard Schwartz called Internal Family Systems that is inherently based on us having multiple parts or personas. He applies family dynamics experience to these internal parts to look at situations where things are not well aligned or causing psychological disruption.
Interestingly behind all this is a constant ‘essential self’ which is a foundational factor to all of it.
His book ‘No bad parts’ is a good place to start.
MCB
JMG, I am curious. If you are not asking deities for favors, what are you talking to them about? I mean, I understand statements of gratitude could be another option, but why talk to them if not for please or thank you? Personally, I have never heard of anyone having an actual discussion with them. I mean maybe asking for advice, but that seems like please to me. Sincerely curious, Clark
Thank you for your reply, John Michael. Strangely enough, I’d just been thinking it was about time that I re-read Jacques Vallee’s “Passport to Magonia”. Though I don’t remember him writing anything about elves for fairies impregnating women. Surely this is impossible and is just a hallucination that the creatures insert into the minds of human women?
Nature spirits. In September 1978 I visited Norway on my own. One afternoon I was standing by the edge of a fjord, with nobody else around. Behind me a mountain rose up, its peak covered by clouds. I had the strange feeling that this mountain was alive and, as I inadequately tried to describe it later, churning out atmosphere. It emanated a very powerful and noticeable presence. I understood then where some of the ancients were coming from, and this despite my believing nothing like this at the time and being thoroughly atheist, and materialist in the philosophical sense.
A few years ago I was walking through the large woodlands in my little London borough. I approached one part and noticed two pale naked human figures lying down. Oh dear. A male and female at it, the male on top of the female. I’ll have to turn back, I thought. But then I thought, no, why should I? I will walk gingerly past them and they won’t notice me. As I approached, I noticed that the couple were actually just a fallen beech tree. I chuckled at my mistake, but just then I had the feeling that the trees and the wood were alive and looking at me. I was stopped in my tracks. This eerie feeling of being watched did not disappear, and it unnerved me badly, so I decided to go home. Though I knew my way around this large woodland perfectly well, having visited it several times over the years, in my panicked state I lost my way, and it then took me a few minutes to find my way out. Walking home, I thought to myself, how weird, but then I thought, well, of course the trees are alive! Strange experience though, and later I re-read E M Forster’s exquisite tale, “The Story of a Panic”, in which a group of English tourists encounter an emanation of Pan in the woods in Italy. Panic ensues.
Norman Finkelstein recently suggested that he believes the democrats didn’t actually want Kamala Harris. His Theory was that Biden had a moment of Lucidity after he was successfully couped, and decided on his own to endorse Kamala Harris out of spite. His evidence for this was that schumer, pelosi, and obama were the last to endorse her. It also explains to me why the original Resignation letter didn’t endorse Kamala. Given that Biden and his people obviously didn’t write it, you would expect it to endorse Kamala if the writers wanted it. It would make more sense if Joe endorsed Kamala out of spite. My alternate theory is that Kamala worked out what was going on when the Resignation letter came out, and bribed whoever controlled bidens twitter to endorse her. Does this make sense to you?
Dear Archidruid: time ago you warned us about the end of free speech in internet, and you proposed certain actions for maintaining the free speech by phisical chanels like flyers or similar things. Now, with the threat suffered for Telegram by the arrest of its founder, I fear that this moment has arrived and that the implementation of alternative chanels for the difusion and discusión of news can be not delayed. So that I ask you about guidance lines for implementation of these alternative chanels.
Will1000, JMG #241 & RandomActsOfKarma #286
“Regardless, awareness/discernment that the supraconscious is separate from the conscious, then pulling the subconscious into the conscious could be the first alchemical marriage. Then the work of pulling the unconscious into the conscious for the second alchemical marriage…”
It’s almost like looking at the world inside out… as a simplistic metaphor, the personality of incarnation is the culmination of limitation and illusion – from the One (divine) to the Two (sun and earth polarities) from which the Many arise and clay body is formed but what animates it is the divine spark so we are actually bigger on the inside but the set of habits we call ‘personality’ of the body is swamped by the world of sensation and sees itself as something it is not. It is not so much the centre as an extrusion hidden within the greater whole.
Then, the three cauldrons exercise of JMG’s Dolmen Arch strikes me as alchemical in that it seems to be activating the return journey [so to speak], where the marriage of the polarities is then taken to another level from the marriage of Two (Sun, Earth) [first alchemical marriage?] into the marriage of Three (Sun, Earth, Divine Spark) [second alchemical marriage?] which gives birth to the mental / light body?
I don’t know, but it does my noodle in to think that the material body is actually an experience of limitation that sits within the seeds of the higher bodies! Like a set of Matryoshka dolls but physical incarnation is the smallest doll without knowledge of the others! So here we sit, nested in the centre and it is only when we dissolve the illusion of incarnate personality habits as being an actual separate thing and who we are that true Will and Consciousness can unfold itself… Far out is actually Far in. Beautifully wild!
The last few weeks have been very reflective for me in looking at my practices and ideas and your discussion this week has given me even more to chew on. Thank you.
JMG,
Wikipedia says that, “In accordance with other prominent astrologers, Jung believes the ‘Age of Aquarius’ will be a dark and spiritually deficient time for humanity, mentioning that ‘it will no longer be possible to write off evil as the mere privation of good; its real existence will have to be recognized in the Age of Aquarius’.”
Do you think that Jung and/or Wikipedia is right about the upcoming Aquarian age?
Dear JMG and Commentariat:
I just saw that Tim Watkins, at Consciousness of Sheep, is posting a series on how:
“If, in the absence of some new and yet to be discovered high-density energy source, a loss of complexity is inevitable, and if this threatens the structures of government itself, the question is how might the state, and the professional-managerial class more broadly respond? It is to those issues that I will turn in the second part of this essay.”
It is interesting and timely reading! He points out (second essay) that monarchy is a form of government that is demonstrated to work in times of lower complexity: “ But a slimmed-down – and less accountable – state under the rule of a more engaged monarchy seems the most likely form of governance for a far less complex and material economy.”
As a related item, it has occurred to me that uncontrolled immigration could be repurposed (this may already be happening) by the Democrats/leftists (and their relatives in the EU and Canada). It has long been noticed that the natural sympathies of the Enforcer Class (police, military (officers, NCO’s, combat personnel, and the demographic segments from which they come) don’t align with those of the Democrats/leftist end of the PMC. Could this be a way to produce a large class (with a lot of young males) whose position is dependent on the Democrats/leftists, so they have their own trusted and dependable muscle (and better than that, on the cheap) on call?
If so, I could see it backfiring very badly, certainly in places like the EU and Britain; Islamic immigrants are probably even less sympathetic to leftist ideals than anyone else; wouldn’t be the first time the newly hired help took over the show.
And Northwind Grandma (#307), either Kamala Harris is too addle-pated to express anything in a coherent fashion in an hour, or that she actually has no intent of doing anything for Americans to make their lives better in the long-term. My thought is both statements are true.
Finally, I had vision of 10 years down the road of a senior Democrat saying: “We had to destroy Democracy to save it.” Not that the Republican half of the Uniparty is any better!
Cugel
An afterthought:
Putin’s (btw, is there a reason spellcheck thought I meant “Purim’s” ??!!) encouragement of “traditional” Europeans to immigrate to Russia is a historical Russian practice. Foreigners who brought new and current European scientific, technical, and military knowledge were welcome under the Czars. The natives were sometimes resentful, but lived with it.
Cugel
JMG,
Thank you! That makes plenty of sense to me. Although it seems like I’m seeing more Chinese commenters on the intertubes here lately.
Methylethyl,
“…prepare to die…I said HELLO! My name is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. You killed my father….”
Love it. And yeah, I could get behind that, too.
@Random 333: Many thanks for that link. I had no idea…. Waite didn’t do the translations; he just collected them. He gives details in his forward. And, yes, Mercurius is by Patrick Harpur. It’s quite a compendium of alchemical lore, and maybe it’s even a “genuinely philosophical novel.” I’m in the middle of a second reading.
I don’t want to do it but can somebody keep a good list of Magic books, etc as recommended and why? This question gets asked every 4 weeks. That shows standing demand for the answer.
@ JMG – I think your outline of the political economy makes a lot of sense. I was thinking more of the impact on art, science and culture. I look at the current landscape, dominated as it is by the Boomers, and I find the longer term prospects of American as a cohesive cultural unit, doubtful. Can a culture remain vibrant and attractive, even to its own population, if it’s thoroughly dominated by the tastes and interest of the elderly?
There have been many synchronicities involved in finding you and following you. You now mention Claire Wolf. I have exchanged words and comments with her on one of her blogs and personally. Reading her books and some of the books she recommended led to reading web sites related to many of those ideas. Thusly, I happened upon Low Tech magazine’s web site that contained a link to the discussion of The Glass Bead Game. This particular writer seemed interesting and I ended up reading backwards from that post to the beginning and have continued to read through the present. I understand why you ended your run with the Archdruid Report but not yet why you finished off the Well of Galabes. I think that you could have done much more there.
Now, if you would mention any connection to Harry Brown, I would have another link coming back around. n.b. Harry was a libertarian before there was a party that ran itself off the rails.
JMG, about the age of pisces…you say that age is over now, but a few sources place its end in about 100 to 200 years from now. Why the difference? Thanks.
Hi JMG,
I have been reading through your Weird of Hali series (somewhat slowly as I found I had a bit of a mental block in the timeless section of The Dreamlands – mentioning that not as a criticism, but because I thought it might amuse you) and something I keep wondering about, and I don’t believe I’ve heard you address is the use of “stair” where more typically people would use “stairs”. My guess is that it’s technically correct, but a more archaic way of referring to them, but I have a nagging feeling that it played a role as a deeper clue, and I wondered if you were willing to speak to it. I have noticed you seemed to be using sentences that slightly emulate the structure you taught us years back of Welsh (or perhaps Celtic?), where things seem more loosely associated than with clear cause and effect.
Additionally I have a bit of garden news. One of the things our garden has formed, more or less naturally, are a few hidden spots that look like they’d make good cubbies for larger animals. I’ve left them alone because I thought that I’d see what sorts of problems they even caused before I decided to deal with them., and I like the idea of encouraging it as a general ecosystem. Anyway, I could hear something rooting around in it a little over a month ago, and just let it be, although I kept an eye on the area, just in case. Sometime that week a cat started to approach our house, won over the rest of my family easily, who started feeding her, and she taught me there were a few more spots animals like her were making use of in the garden, revealing them as she ran up in the mornings, hoping for more food.
After a couple weeks of this we decided to let her, now Lulu, in, just preceding the first appearances of Phauz in my reading (which was interesting synchronicity), and then in little over a week realized she was pregnant. 5 kittens later I’m left thinking of Phauz and her flocks, as I do when I consider Lulu’s gaze. The kittens are just a couple days old as I type this, so haven’t opened their eyes yet. Mostly just reporting all this because this is the first time an animal has travelled indoors from the garden, and it seemed worthy of note!
Also worthy of note, I’m really enjoying your series. I sometimes struggle to think of things I would say it is like (which I mean as a compliment!), and thought the closest might be “Norstrilia”, if it was set in roughly present day. I’m also appreciating seeing how characters make sense of the economic realities they find themselves in. Where I’m at all groups seem to be conceiving of it as being directed by various powerful entities, but as a JMG reader, it just sounds like regular old unravelling to me. It answers some questions I think I was left with, possibly what a lot of your readers here ask about, which revolve around your best guesses as to what we might be in for in various stages of this process.
Thanks!
Johnny
Hi JMG – a bit more while I’m rambling,
It might be worth mentioning, the other garden update is that things are so far ahead of schedule I don’t quite know how to handle them and I’m mostly just hacking off excess growth. It’s so much a jungle this year that I don’t actually know how to contend with it properly and I’m expecting the supports to collapse any day now, so doing what I can to try to discourage that by just lopping off everything I can. It’s kind of a funny problem really.
I might have mentioned before that I was experimenting with Malabar spinach this year, which is a vined spinach that grows up poles/along strings (etc). It is almost unbelievably prolific, and has the admirable quality of being clone-able by replanting its shoots in the same fashion as you can with tomatoes. If any gardeners reading this haven’t tried it (seems to be more popular in Asia generally – I bought my seedlings in a Chinese grocery, and my neighbour from Malaysia grows it, and was generally surprised it was new to me) it’s well worth investigating, in my opinion, and will be a standard from now on. around here
I didn’t get a chance to respond last time to the person who pointed me towards their friend’s perennial Kale. I think the plants looked like they might be too large for me, but I did think the project was a great idea. In a related note, I mentioned last time that I had some “stalled” collards (among other things), they had bolted and were since more or less just sitting there – well they started growing again, putting out fresh new leaves that look just fine, even though there are tons of dried seed pods still attached to the plants.
Thanks!
Johnny
The power of selective breeding, also proving you can overdo anything if you are willing to work at it.
“In 2022, the federal government reported that, in samples seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration, average levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC—the psychoactive compound in weed that makes you feel high—had more than tripled compared with 25 years earlier, from 5 to 16 percent. That may understate how strong weed has gotten. Walk into any dispensary in the country, legal or not, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a single product advertising such a low THC level. Most strains claim to be at least 20 to 30 percent THC by weight; concentrated weed products designed for vaping can be labeled as up to 90 percent.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/high-potency-marijuana-regulation/679639/
Re Comment #32 to MonSeulDesir #18
Let’s say a wave of Muslims floods into Europe.
I was wondering how significantly different a European Islam might be?
Previously, you pointed out that, as people live on a land, they change and become more ‘of the land’ the longer they stay there, and I have observed the same thing: after living in a place, people all start looking like they are from that place, no matter where they came from. I have seen this myself, in different places. It isn’t the skin colour, or even the accent, there is something about people who live somewhere that they all have something ineffable about their manner that becomes similar.
I also can support the observation that, as Islam took over the ancient world, it somehow caused desertification of what were once lush and fertile areas, leaving them barren and impoverished, like, say Cyrenaica, or the Tigris-Euprates delta. When the Allies swept into Palestine in 1917, the place was dry, dusty, and impoverished. Those nasty Zionist “colonizers” have made it lush again, a place worth fighting over.
I wonder if Islam would turn Europe into an ecological disaster zone of a barren wasteland, or perhaps Europe would morph Islam into something not-very-Islamic, the way it did to Christianity? Christianity, as practised in Europe is very… ‘European’. That is, even though it originates from the exactly the same texts, it has become very different from Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Ethopian Coptic Christianity.
“I was wondering how significantly different a European Islam might be?”
More warlike. Imagine Islam backed by the European Wotan archetype and starting another round of the Wars of Religion. Europe might turn into a jihadi hotspot.
What say you, Masons?
https://skepticalinquirer.org/2014/01/the-bell-witch-poltergeist/
Joe Nickell isn’t as full of [unDruidly word] as most professional skeptics, but this is just plumb weird. Also it doesn’t account for a skeptical President Jackson having his hat snatched [if I remember correctly] by the Witch.
Dagnarus @ 352, the theory I read about the same events was that Biden waited to the very last minute before withdrawing from the presidential race and endorsing Harris deliberately to confuse and confound the Republicans. In support of that theory is the fact that Joe has always been known as a political knife fighter. Personally, I think he may have received some Very Bad News from his Dr. and then checked polls and decided to make the best of things. It has been suggested that use of the 25th amendment was mentioned. The separation of the announcement from the endorsement is easily explained; in the first he was speaking as President, but the endorsement was by Joe the private citizen. The Democrats know very well that they cannot win without vigorous and enthusiastic support from African American voters and activists and that that faction would accept no one but Harris. You can imagine for yourself the outrage had First Black Woman Vice President been overlooked. I did find his brief address to the nation a few days later to be very moving…”I revere the office of the Presidency, but I love my country more”. Trump would simply not be capable of saying anything of the kind, whether with sincerity or not.
I do believe, and have said before that it is past time for the Cold War generation to step aside, and that does include Mr. Trump. At a time when our country is no longer The Greatest, I think we do not need senile bombast in the White House.
Mark (#347),
Naomi Wolf isn’t Catholic, she’s a secular Jew.
If you’re interested in more information about Texas removing voters from its election lists, here are links to three news stories about it.
https://www.kxan.com/state-of-texas/state-of-texas-scrutiny-into-voter-rolls-brings-concern-of-chilling-effect/
https://www.votebeat.org/texas/2024/08/27/governor-greg-abbott-voter-roll-cleanup-suspense-list-noncitizens/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/us/texas-voter-rolls-abbott.html
According to the New York Times, “the numbers were in line with routine culling from the past.” According to KXAN, “the largest number of canceled registrations, more than 463,000, came from people on the state’s voter suspense list.” 2.2 million Texans, or about 12% of all registered voters, are currently on the “suspense” list, which means their counties do not know their address or think they moved. The news clips tell stories about a couple of people who were put on the suspense list due to errors. They need to provide proof of their current address before October 7 to get back on the regular registered voter list. After that, people who are on the suspense list by mistake can still vote, but they will need to provide additional information during the voting process.
@Clark,
sometimes I pray to God just to say hi and tell him about my day, or vent about some problem, and see if He can help me get a better perspective on things. Or talk about how great something was, and say thank you. I think He likes to be aknowledged, and have people talk to Him. Like any relationship, you have to maintain it, even if you don’t have something vitally important to talk about every time. I also think it’s rude to do nothing but ask for favors and ignore someone the rest of the time.
Chris, thank you for your push back. The patient, long term view you express both in #335 and in #336 is a more persuasive one. Life is full of change, and adapting TO change is what life is also very good at.
Can we adapt to change, and stay in the dance? That is for each of us to answer, for sure!
On a different, but related note, I am watching what is happening to the ash trees on this farm. Many (but not all) are afflicted with “ash die-back”. We are supposed to immediatly eradicate the affected trees. Instead we are letting them be. There is one tree just outside my window that blooms with health and has shown no sign of die-back. There are others within sight of the house that are affected. Some of the closest I’ve pruned a bit. But I’m watching (and talking to) alll of them. I notice every tree is doing its best to adapt and survive – they put out new shoots toward their bases, in hope of a different, healthier, tree emerging… and they put out LOTS more babies than normal, in the hope that some of what they have learned so far about the die-back fungus will be passed on to the young who might put it to better use. Let the process unfold as it will, is my view on this particular challenge.
The trees have their ways, and they are using them to the max. I watch, and hopefully, learn.
Be well, stay free!
Gaining, choosing a core system of magic is a very personal matter. I envy people these days who have so many choices! When I first started studying magic in the 1970s, my choices were Wicca, Aleister Crowley’s Thelemic system, and the Golden Dawn — for a teenager in the Seattle suburbs in those days, at least, that’s all there was. I did the Golden Dawn because that was the best fit, but left it for other things once the opportunity opened up.
J.L.Mc12, here in North America, Australia has a reputation from that. When word came out a while back that people in Australia had unknowingly been eating a fish unknown to science, the reaction I heard over and over again was, “Shouldn’t that be the other way around — a fish unknown to science was eating Australians?” 😉
Dennis, thanks for this. I think Lynch’s opponents need to learn some history; it didn’t take long at all in Germany in 1933 for a lot of young men who were up to their eyeballs in alcohol, pornography, drugs, and despair to slam to the other extreme…
Mark, that seems very reasonable to me. The forms can remain while the energy changes — the history of any relatively old religion shows shifts like this.
Ilona, did you notice that you didn’t look up the cost imposed by illegal immigrants to federal, state, and local government budgets? That’s the flipside of the same equation; the figure works out to $150 billion in direct costs, which doesn’t include a galaxy of indirect costs. Since GDP measures total expenditures irrespective of whether they benefit anybody or not — a catastrophic earthquake gives a huge boost to GDP, for example — the decline in GDP is not a fair measure of the cost/benefit ratio; direct costs are a better measure.
Clark, it baffles me that so many people think that all you can do with deities is flatter them or beg them for goodies. If you had old, wise, and kindly friends and had the chance to spend time with them, could you find topics for conversation? I hope so!
Batstrel, thank you for this! Five centuries ago everyone would have known exactly what happened to you in both cases; in the first, you encountered the kind of being that the ancient Greeks called an oread and the Japanese call Yama-no-kami (山の神), very roughly “mountain god;” in the second, you encountered a pair of faeries having a tryst, and so you ended up pixy-led, that is, confused and lost. It’s all classic stuff.
Dagnarus, it makes perfect sense.
Anselmo, the core of those responses are that they have to be dispersed and uncentralized. With that in mind, I’d encourage you to consider starting to access this blog and other alternative sites via a VPN or other secure method, and make arrangements to create a local or regional print newsletter — and I’d encourage anyone else similarly concerned to do the same thing.
Earthworm, I know, it’s a challenge — but in occult teaching, that’s exactly the situation we’re in.
Anonymous, not entirely. Jung was responding to an earlier round of the same silliness about the Age of Aquarius that’s still common — “Harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding,” and all the rest of that schlock. Jung was right to the extent that Aquarius was traditionally ruled by old harsh Saturn, and its current ruler is the equally malefic planet Uranus; it’s going to be an age of hard limits and sudden disasters, but Saturn is also the planet of philosophy and contemplation, and Uranus is the ruler of astrology and occultism, so it won’t be spiritually deficient by any means.
Cugel, I’m sorry to say that he’s probably right. As for the mass migration, it amazes me that nobody seems to recall what happened the last time a British government brought in a lot of illegal immigrants to prop up a failing system and its decadent elite class. Look up Hengist and Horsa sometimes if you’re not sure of the fine details.
Grover, interesting. It’s quite possible that the Chinese government is feeling a little more confident than I’d anticipated.
DZanni, I certainly don’t have the time for it either — I just got another set of page proofs, on top of everything else I have on my plate! — but I certainly grant that it would be helpful.
Ben, the answer is quite simply no. The proper term for a society dominated by the tastes and interests of the very old is “senile.”
Clarence, thank you for this. I wound up Well of Galabes because I had too much else to do. If I ever find myself with excess spare time again, I’ll consider restarting it. As for Harry Brown, no, that’s not a name that rings any bells.
Bruno, the exact date has been a matter of controversy for well over a century. I hold with the claim, widely circulated in the early 20th century, that the age of Pisces ended and the age of Aquarius began in late 1887. Look at what’s happened since then. The Piscean faith that dominated Western culture has all but crumpled; technology, ruled by Aquarius’s ruler Uranus, has come to the forefront; sexual minorities, another Uranus theme, have become publicly acceptable in many countries; occultism and astrology have both seem boom times, and so on. We’re in a Uranian era now, and it’s just going to get weirder, more unstable, and more encouraging for eccentric subcultures and fringe groups from here on in until the Aquarian age peaks after 2900 AD…
Johnny, it’s an older and slightly more formal usage that I prefer. It doesn’t have any more meaning than that. I’m pleased to hear about the garden and also the manifestation of Phauz, and delighted to hear that you’re enjoying my tentacle novels! Norstrilia is a high bar to reach, so thank you for that.
Siliconguy, well, there’s that!
Renaissance, oh, eventually, sure. That kind of adaptation takes generations, though. It’s not instant, and won’t prevent some very ugly scenes in the near to middle term.
Your Kittenship, that would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. You could doubtless apply that same logic to the songs of Taylor Swift and prove that she’s really a Masonic conspiracy. It fascinates me that Nickell is getting into Mason-hunting, though; I wonder if he’s drifting toward Catholicism without realizing it.
You recently mentioned Matthew Fox and his attempts at Second Religiosity furor.
In how far is bog-standard woke shrieking about evil incarnate any different? Aren’t they at the forefront of Second Religiosity, just somewhat unevenly (and un-charismatically) distributed?
(By the way: 20 years ago, every adult in this country could pronounce ‘manichäisches Weltbild’, knew that Dubya had it, that it was dangerous, and that they themselves didn’t have it. The term has since all but disappeared.)
@MCB (#349):
Thanks for your response. It’s good to hear that the concept of inherent multiple selves is still productive in modern thought.
That said, I confess I’m put off by the title of his book, “No Bad Parts.” In my own personal experience, there are definitely a few selves in me that I keep firmly locked away in a sort of internal dungeon, for my own safety and that of others. Those selves of mine are perpetually mindless and enraged, and they are not fit for human society.
Also, in myself I have not found anything like an “essential self,” if by that Schwartz means something different from what our host calls one’s individuality (which remains the same through all a person’s reincarnations).
I was not raised in Christianity, or indeed in any of the Abrahamic religions, but I have studied them deeply (in my capacity as a Medieval philologist). Much of what they teach does not resonate with me very deeply, but when I happened on Calvin’s (and Augustine’s) doctrine of an essential core of depravity or evil in every human being, something in me woke up and quietly cried out, “Yes! Yes! There are a few people out there in the past who have really grasped what we all are by nature.”
@shenjuki and all of those who responded to her.
I have DR myself, a result of the 55 year old me working out as if I was still 18. I was recovering from a stretched ACL, and was doing lots and lots of leg lifts. The next thing you know, I was starting to look like Sigourney Weaver’s roommate, with something trying to burst out of my gut. My GP referred me to a plastic surgeon, who wouldn’t even return my calls for over a year. During that year, it got worse, due to me helping people move, heavy lifting, etc. When the plastic surgeon finally saw me, they had the attitude of ‘why are you here?’. They scheduled me for a CT scan, and ignored me for another year. After two years, they are finally going to evaluate me, get me a CT scan, etc. The wholistic exercises that others have suggested might help me recover as well.
There is a must read(IMHO) comment from one “Willy” over at Ian Welch’s open comment thread.
https://www.ianwelsh.net/open-thread-266/#comments
It is easy to find, being the top of the list. This is what we are dealing with, at almost every level of employment.
Peter @371, one of many such who think they know it all about other people’s religions. I confess I do not the understand the affection for Wolf on this website.
Hi JMG. Wondered if you had any thoughts on the recent UK riots? For those who don’t know, a few hundred working class Brits rioted over a guy from a migrant community killing several English girls and also the grooming gangs (largely from migrant communities) that abuse countless British girls every year with little consequence. As expected, the establishment is trying to clamp down on internet posts while doing nothing about its migration policies and the growing problems they’re causing.
This video from Marshall Davis struck me as tangential to some of the comments this week. It also happens to be a good explanation for how religions evolve and bring about a second religiosity, focusing specifically on Christianity here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stEjqduY3rI For those not familiar with Marshall Davis, he is an ex Baptist preacher of 40 year, now a nondual Christian.
Here are the key points broken down from the transcript of the narrative in the video for those that don’t like videos. He has written some books, too:
1. Spiritual Awakening is Not Inherited:
– Stories of spiritual awakening are present in Genesis with Adam, Enoch, Abraham, and Jacob, but absent in the stories of Isaac, Joseph, and his siblings. This suggests that spiritual awakening does not necessarily run in families.
2. Isaac’s Lack of Spiritual Insight:
– Isaac, Abraham’s son, imitated his father’s actions (e.g., passing off his wife as his sister, re-digging wells) but did not experience the same spiritual reality. His life exemplifies following religious tradition without true spiritual understanding.
3. Difference Between Religion and True Spirituality:
– The narrative highlights the difference between ritualistic religion (repetition of traditions without understanding) and true spirituality (direct experience of the Divine). The statement “God has no grandchildren” emphasizes that each generation must have their own spiritual awakening.
4. Christianity: The Gospel of Jesus vs. the Gospel About Jesus:
– The gospel proclaimed by Jesus centered on the Kingdom of God and nondual awareness. In contrast, the gospel about Jesus, created by his disciples (particularly Paul), often lacked this deep understanding. Paul never met Jesus and claimed to have received his gospel directly from God, bypassing the original apostles.
5. The Institutionalization of Religion:
– Over time, spiritual movements often become institutionalized and lose their original spiritual insights. Early Christian figures like James and Paul overshadowed the Twelve Apostles, who were said to misunderstand Jesus’s teachings. Gnostic Christians, who claimed direct spiritual experiences, were later deemed heretical by the institutional church.
6. Religion’s Alignment with Power and Loss of Spirituality:
– The story of Joseph in Genesis marks a shift from spiritual narratives to political survival, reflecting a broader trend where religion aligns with power and material concerns, leading to a decline in spirituality. This pattern has recurred throughout history, with periods of spiritual decline following religious institutionalization.
7. Periods of Spiritual Decline and Awakening:
– History shows a cycle where spiritual movements are initially based on direct experiences of the Divine but later become rigid, dogmatic, and aligned with worldly power. This results in periods of spiritual decline. The speaker draws parallels with contemporary religious movements marked by legalism and fundamentalism.
8. The Need for Periodic Spiritual Revivals:
– True spiritual revivals emerge when there is a decline in spirituality and an increase in religious dogma. This is echoed in texts like the Bhagavad Gita, which states that awakening is due when unrighteousness prevails.
9. Moses and the Burning Bush as a Symbol of Awakening:
– After centuries of spiritual decline and bondage in Egypt, Moses’s encounter with the burning bush represents a major spiritual awakening, signaling the start of a new spiritual era for Israel. Future discussions will focus on Moses’s story as a pivotal example of awakening in the Bible.
For anyone homeschooling at the grade school to jr. high level, I would like to suggest a book I recently came across, The Field Guide to Geology, by David Lambert and the Diagram Group, Updated Edition, 1998. I am aware there have been new discoveries and theories proposed since that time, but for an introduction and overview, I think this the best I have seen. For myself, a fascinated but mostly ignorant of the field adult, I find it most illuminating. I didn’t know that March 21 and Sept. 21 are when the earth is tilted so that the sun is over the equator, pg. 15, with a clear diagram. This book is also noteworthy for its illustrations, which are either pencil or pen and ink drawings and diagrams, far more informative than photographs. Illustrations include reproductions of some superb engravings from the 19thC. which I consider a golden age for scientific illustration.
Robert Mathiesen (#320), thank you so much for the books and journal titles – something to add to my to-read list! I admit it’s not completely idle curiosity, I’m also writing post-apocalyptic fiction, so I really want to get an idea how to twist today’s facts for far-future mythologies.
As for the many selves, I’m not sure that the “faces we put on” for different people go so deep that they’d count as different personalities. I certainly behave differently when I’m dealing with clients than when I’m with family, for example, but behind those roles/masks, I feel I’m the same person(ality). Method acting (and maybe some forms of therapy, like the IFS that another commenter mentioned) seem to go deeper; as the case of Heath Ledger demonstrated, deep enough to be potentially dangerous. But also more effective, if you don’t fragment uncontrollably (as in the case of DID), or commit suicide (as in the case of Ledger).
JMG, Hamlet’s Mill is on my to-read pile (more like a mountain). I’m in the middle of moving, but as soon as I’ve settled into my new place, I’ll get to it (as well as to the practices you recommended during last MM).
One strange thing that’s happening lately is that I’m beginning to remember my dreams again. I’ve lived in this place for ten years, and felt incredibly stuck here, and in all that time, I barely remembered a dream (and before I moved here, I always had good dream recall). Ever since I signed the lease to my new apartment, my dream recall is increasing. Maybe the dream of last night is of interest for some here – for context, I’m not Christian, and would not identify as a polytheist, either – more like an agnostic in desperate need of a faith. So it’s doubly puzzling for me that last night, I dreamed that Jesus had returned to give a sermon – in the form of a newspaper article. Supposedly, he had come back because the end times are near (I don’t believe in the apocalypse, fwiw). Maybe it really is just the end of the (his) aeon.
Larkrise, politics are incredibly boring and very passing, not timeless at all and not worth anyone’s time. However, I’ll take you up on it as others have added this week as well. Donald Trump is a NYC Democrat. He has Bill Clinton’s political platform. He was invited to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. It was Bill Clinton who told him to run. All this stuff is just media, which seems to work better overseas than here for some reason. Example? Project 25. What is it? Oh some random conservative group (I think Heritage Fd) wrote it and emailed a copy to Trump. He has literally nothing to do with it, nor supports it, which he’s said many times. They just report it the opposite, every day. Is this new? No, the week before they jumped on “Trump’s Ukraine Solution” which was the same thing: some generals wrote it, emailed him a copy, and the media just said it’s his.
This has been going on for 10 years with him, and almost my entire life with everyone else.
If your people are reporting this about foreigners who don’t matter, imagine what they’re lying about ministers in your own country, where it does.
Since 25 is just a grab-bag of random conservative views, how many are there and can you name them? If not, what exactly have you become frightened of? That he would become Eisenhower?
Greetings!
Any thoughts on Martin Armstrong’s suggestion that RFK Jr should be Trump’s attorney general? Armstrong is pushing for that instead of the figure head health jobs since AG has more teeth. From my perspective, this appointment would be interesting, though may bring the appearance of the populists turning to the lawfare that the democrat party has pursued.
Thanks and be well,
Matt
Something just hit me regarding the death of the Internet:
A lot of social media etc. was bankrolled and kept “free” by (1) advertising, and (2) the sale of user data to advertisers, governments, etc. The problem with the latter is that this data has diminishing returns. Past a certain point, you already have as good a consumer profile as you’re going to need, so selling “more data” doesn’t really generate any more substantive value, and there are no real untapped markets you can access anymore. Pretty much everyone who is ever going to be on the Internet, already is.
So more and more things have to start getting paywalled, which in turn makes them harder to find in searches, which in turn makes the Internet as a whole less useful, which in turn…
Hi Chris,
I seriously intended to watch one of those videos, but then I saw the teaser-images and that was at this time of the day, that enough for me. When I read your blog, I sometimes envy you for being able to do such cool things as growing lemons, but there are times when I’m happy to live where the ants are rather small and the snakes are not that poisonous at all.
As for the bees and mites – I know beekeepers who are very skilled and are able to maintain comparably low loss rates in ordinary years (that is colony losses are below 20%). But for a small scale beekeeper as I once was, losing one or two out of four colonies every year is not sustainable. And that was one reason – among others – why I don’t keep bees anymore. I think you’re right that the mainstream approach to keep the mites in check won’t work in the long run. I don’t know in what state the land and the trees are, where you live, but here the conditions for small wild colonies to find a home are rather bad. Another very big problem is maybe, that food supply has become very unsteady throughout the year. There are weeks when there’s a huge honey yield and the bees breed like there’s no tomorrow and then, when the new bees are ready, supply drops close to zero within days and stays low for many weeks with almost no flight activity. Big lunch for the mites. The bees have been bred to breed like there’s no tomorrow, of course. As far as I know, in past times colonies were much smaller than today.
Oh well, it’s a complicated mess like so many others, and one we created entirely on our own. I guess it’s not only the bees who are going to learn it the hard way, but us, too.
But to finish on a lighter note – as I hinted above I am a regular (and happy) reader of your blog. And while we’re doing things very differently here for many reasons (an important reason being that parcels of land are very small and cluttered here and you have a few hundred square metres here and a few there) and our vegetable garden looks very different from yours, we still could successfully adopt some of your strategies for our needs. Just a small example, your low gradient path project convinced us to plan the ways through our garden very differently and that was a very good idea. Anyway, it’s getting late in the evening and some work’s still waiting…
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
HI JMG
Seeing the MSM here in Spain it seems that Harris will “crush” Trump in the elections because the polls show a massive “surge” in the preferences for Harris vs Trump after the DNC ( “Hope & Change” never fails). Do you think this trend is real?
Also do you think that the party that loses the elections in November will accept the results? or in other words: the (faulty) existing liberal democracies are also “self-terminating processes”?
Cheers
David
Peter,
It doesn’t matter what religion Naomi Wolf practices, since that is irrelevant to the point I’m trying to make. The fact is that there is a picture of the interior of a Catholic Church in New Mexico with a shrine to Mary, located front and center where traditionally some representation of Jesus Christ on a cross would have been located in a Catholic Church. I was referencing the Catholic laypeople who attend mass at that church every Sunday, and their relation to Mary.
The trend towards elevating Mary also isn’t just confined to the Catholic laity. Mary wasn’t officially the “Mother of the Church” until Pope Paul VI declared it as so in 1964. She wasn’t made “Empress of the Americas” by the Catholic Church until 1945. Relatively recent developments compared to the almost two millennia of Catholic history.
JMG,
Regarding your forecast of a global dark age starting in the next 100 to 300 years, do you imagine that any countries or regions will come through it more or less intact?
I’m wrestling with the notion that it will be truly global. On the one hand, the global south is turning away from the west both economically and politically (the BRICS, especially Russia) and might escape some of the more foolish mistakes of the Faustian west. On the other hand, everyone everywhere is using fossil fuels and has huge populations relative to 200 years ago. And there are unpredictable problems, the effects of environmental degradation and climatic instabilities will be unevenly distributed.
But I have to wonder if some of those places, like Russia, which have had lower population growth and still have abundant natural resources, especially coal, might transition to a steady state agrarian economy without going through a dark age. The problem is that I can see it both ways and I don’t have any good metrics for measuring this type of problem.
Hey JMG
That joke never gets old, though it is somewhat inaccurate as we don’t have that many dangerous fish beyond stonefish and sharks. in terms of aquatic danger you may also want to focus on the irukandji jellyfish, blue ring octopus, saltwater crocodiles, platypus, sea snakes, mud crabs, “thumb-splitters”, sea cones snails, and of course Rip tides, the silent killer that’s probably the biggest danger on the beach.
Actually, while we are still talking about Australia, what do you think of people who suggest that since China is already our biggest trading partner it is possible to prevent them from wanting to try and invade by just siding with them once the USA is unable to help us anymore? I’m uncertain about it myself, since though it may prevent war it would still open us to unwanted political changes.
If it’s true that the age of Pisces has already ended, then why are the second religiosity religions like Islam and Latin Mass Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy and Talmudic Judaism still very dualist and Piscean, and yet all growing at the same time?
@Phutatorius,
Thank you for the book recommendation. It is on my to-read list. 🙂
@earthworm,
I am not as far along in Dolman Arch as you, so have not yet done the three cauldrons exercise. I have saved your comment, though, so when I get that far, I can refer to it and comment back to you. 🙂
Re: “the material body is actually an experience of limitation”, you might find this article interesting: https://www.greekmyths-interpretation.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/The-Cycles-of-the-Mind.pdf The author considers human history in cycles of separation and fusion (I don’t think he ever quite says ‘solve et coagula’…) and that “the experience of limitation” is what we must do to fully individualize. (And then once we do, we have to work our way back to “fusion”.)
I very much like your phrase “the illusion of incarnate personality habits”. I think it describes the first Veil nicely.
Dear Mr. Greer,
Thank you very much for your reply to my question. The case you witnessed and described opens up all sorts of intriguing possibilities that, in a world truly interested in investigating the nature of reality, instead of the narrow areas allowed by institutional science, would no doubt be the focus of intense, open-minded scientific (for lack of a better word) enquiry.
Thank you very much as well for the very kind and understanding words of compassion, support and encouragement at this difficult moment of grieving.
Kind regards,
African-at-heart
@RandomActsOfKarma
I apologise for the belated reply but, despite my best effort, I still find it difficult to function properly after the loss of Simba.
Please accept my condolences for the loss of your beloved Nicodemus. Thank you very much for all the kindness and sympathy you have addressed to me. I am sure we both feel the same degree of sorrow and sadness for the loss of our beloved companions.
It would greatly help to console me that you add Simba to your prayers. Thank you for your generous and thoughtful offer.
Your affirmation is full of sensitivity and really captures your love and wish for wellbeing of your beloved Nicodemus. I hope it offers you some consolation in moments of intense sadness. May I have your permission to use and adapt it for my Simba?
By the way, I’ve just had to delete one attempted comment for profanity and angry rhetoric, and another that was a straightforward sales pitch. Please, folks, read the text above the comment box and remember that those rules will be enforced. Thank you!
Michaelz, no, not at all. The Second Religiosity isn’t a matter of shrieking emotional meltdowns. It’s a flight to familiar religious forums as a reaction against the social and psychological chaos of the twilight of the age of reason — the wokesters are examples, and purveyors, of that chaos. Thus the Second Religiosity is formal, almost eerily calm, and committed to moral and social stability.
Taylor, I’ve commented on that several times already. The British establishment is extremely weak right now by almost every imaginable metric, and it wouldn’t take too much at all to push Britain over the line into ungovernability and a relatively rapid period of steep decline. Thus the frenzied pushback from the ruling class, with 11-year-olds and grannies being arrested and slapped with criminal charges for such heinous crimes as posting memes and praying in public. The whole country could go up like a crêpe Suzette. Since the global financial system is addicted to rising real estate prices in the industrial nations, and importing immigrants en masse is an essential strategy to keep that Ponzi scheme running, I expect things to get considerably worse as time goes on.
Clark, it’s an intriguing set of ideas, but his historical timing is bad. One of the reasons every civilization has a Second Religiosity during its age of decline is that religious forms are powerful forces for social and psychological stability, and when the collapse of an age of reason leaves people floundering, those forms are what they turn to. Experiential religion is destabilizing, and stability is the great collective need in the opening centuries of the arc of decline.
Athaia, I hope the move goes well!
Matt, I’d rather see him in charge of Health and Human Services, as I think he’s got a better grasp of the field. One way or another, I hope that if Trump wins he puts someone into Justice who will clean house in a big way.
Brendhelm, excellent! You’ve overcome the greatest of all the enchantments of our modern industrial warlock-state, the one that makes it impossible for most people to recognize that “more” is not always “better.”
DFC, the polls that show Harris in the lead are systematically oversampling Democrats to get that result. It’s a very tight race but Trump’s currently in the lead. As for accepting the results, if the Democrats were going to try to overturn the government in the event of a GOP victory I’d expect them to have their BLM and Antifa paramilitaries active already, as they did in 2020; something has shifted. It may simply be that when the state of Georgia started arresting and charging the lawyers and organizers of Antifa, not just the shock troops, the whole thing fell apart because the people behind it didn’t want to risk prison — but one way or another, things have changed.
Team10tim, no dark age is equally distributed all through its geographical zone. When Rome fell, the level of collapse was far more drastic in Britain than it was in Italy, and far more drastic in Italy than in what’s now Turkey. There was some decline everywhere — but there’s a huge difference between economic contraction and political turmoil in a relatively stable urban region (the experience in what is now Turkey) and the complete collapse of urban life, a 95% decline in population, and the near-total erasure of the former culture and language (the experience in what is now England). So of course there will be places that get hit very hard and places that have a much less dire experience. I expect Russia in particular to come through this fairly well, for what it’s worth, as the warming climate will open vast acreages to farming across much of Siberia –I expect the Ob-Irtysh, Yenisei, and Lena watersheds to become enormously productive regions once the climate finishes changing and the Arctic Ocean is ice free. If you can keep producing huge amounts of food, your chances of thriving are always good…
J.L.Mc12, it all depends on what the Chinese government decides to do. I keep on thinking of Cordwainer Smith’s idea that Australia would be conquered and settled by the Chinese…
Thomas, because an astrological age doesn’t arrive like a switch being flipped. Centuries after the Piscean age began (which happened around 273 BC), temples to Jupiter and Minerva were still being built and were thronged with worshippers, especially during times of social disintegration; the Second Religiosity thrives, in fact, during a period when the life is trickling out of religious forms but the forms remain.
Jorge/African-at-heart, you’re most welcome. Thank you for contributing your comments to the discussion here — if there’s ever going to be a return to free inquiry over such issues, it’ll be conversations like these that help it happen.
RE: #390 @team10tim
You ask JMG whether any countries or regions are likely to come through the impending global dark age more or less intact. That strikes me as a really important question. I will propose it as a topic the next time we have fifth Wednesday coming up. More broadly, I might want to ask about the range of possible effects… how much variation among countries and regions.
Thank you so much for asking this question!
Re. the pointless fight against “invasive” species
A thought just hit me here. Isn’t it weird how all this crusading against the “wrong” species tends to be a project born of the Religion of Progress, while it also involves turning the clock back, ideally to 1492? For once the believers hold up the past as an ideal state to return to, even if it’s impossible in practice. You’d think they’d celebrate all the innovation and creative destruction on display in these ecosystems…
@Renaissance Man #367 and Anon #368 re. Islam in Europe
It’s an interesting question what a Europeanized Islam might look like, and in fact I’ve asked more or less the same here in earlier open posts. I agree that the result would probably be a very strange and unrecognizable variant of Islam to our eyes, but I’m not sure I’d necessarily agree it has to be so warlike. There’s still a sizeable minority of “native” Europeans with a tradition of freedom of speech and religion, plus second/third/fourth generation resident Muslims who might not welcome the new arrivals with open arms. Plus, I suspect many of these people would be more interested in their material wellbeing than the cause of Islam, no matter how much they’re Muslims on paper.
As for Wotan, maybe, but as a counterexample: the last time Islam ruled large parts of Western Europe, the result was one of the most tolerant and decent Islamic societies known to history, even if it obviously wasn’t utopia.
I also don’t buy the simplistic “Islam bad because desertification” narrative. Sad as it is, overexploiting and ruining their environments seems common to many (most?) settled societies, and IIRC Islam had quite a bit of emphasis on gardens and so on historically. And again, they controlled most of Spain for centuries, without turning it into a wasteland.
While I haven’t looked deeply into it, I’d suspect it’s more a combination of regular greed and mismanagement (ie. not funding maintenance of irrigation canals, which I seem to recall was an issue there) plus climate changes rather than religion. Islam is also dominant in places like Indonesia, which definitely aren’t deserts. (They’re destroying their rainforests at a heartbreaking pace, true, but so are Christian Kongo and Brazil.)
“Those nasty Zionist “colonizers” have made it lush again, a place worth fighting over.”
Because the Israelis are so uniquely virtuous, or because they happened to settle there just as the fossil fuel age was taking off in earnest, so they could use all that cheap, abundant energy for irrigation projects and other infrastructural works? Plus synthetic fertilizer and all the rest of it. Hardly a fair comparison, I’d say.
Hey JMG
True, it utterly depends on them. I like to think that if the Chinese government does conquer Australia, their rule will be brief, and they will mostly leave us be like how the Roman and Ottoman empire allowed some subject-states considerable freedom so long as they gave tribute, soldiers and taxes. One of the good things about the current Labor government is that they are a lot more diplomatic towards China, and less inclined to scaring people with “Yellow peril” compared to the LNP.
Catgirl Kulak is now talking about Wagner and the Nibelung’s Ring:
https://xcancel.com/FromKulak/status/1828591927815741619
https://www.anarchonomicon.com/p/bpd-alpha-widow-ultranationalism
@Athaia (#383) wrote:
“I’m not sure that the “faces we put on” for different people go so deep that they’d count as different personalities.”
I conjecture that this may differ from person to person, and tat it may correlate with other abilities of the given person. it may be, since I am wholly unable to think in sentences (but only in charts, diagrams, mechanisms, and so on), and thus cannot construct an inner verbal narrative about who “I” am, that I sense the differences between my various selves more keenly than people who can and do construct an inner story that defines who each one of them is. Are you able to think in sentences and compose inner narratives that tells who you are?
Kim A.
“As for Wotan, maybe, but as a counterexample: the last time Islam ruled large parts of Western Europe, the result was one of the most tolerant and decent Islamic societies known to history, even if it obviously wasn’t utopia.”
The last time Islam ruled large parts of Western Europe, it was in Iberia, and barely controlled southern France for a few years. It didn’t ever reach the Franco-Germanic core of European Faustian civilization around the Seine and the Rhine that I was thinking about here, an Islam rising at the core of European Faustian civilization.
Hey Russell
I just sent you another email, make sure it did not go into spam. Can’t wait to hear from you.
After breathless predictions of swarms of hurricanes exterminating the Southeast we have from USA Today.
“If no named storms form across the Atlantic waters by Monday, this would mark the first time in 27 years that not a single named tropical storm has developed in the basin from Aug. 21-Sept. 2.”
September could still manage something I suppose.
JMG, There is a much more obvious reason the Democrats have gone all ” deer in the headlights” in this election campaign. I have no proof of this, but I put it forth as a logical argument that fits the facts at hand.
The democrats ( or shadowy figures in control) planned on Trump being assassinated. If this had gone off as planned they would have kept Joe Biden as the nominee. There would have been no debate to embarrass him, and force his removal. They would have swapped Kamala in as their new sock-puppet after the election was over. Their internal polling told them Kamala was unelectable against trump so their only way to victory was to get rid of Trump and let Joe win again.
But when a stroke of fate saved Trump they were stuck with the debate and the aftermath gave them no choice but to switch Kamala in early, and hope they could arrange things behind the scenes and in the media so she could win. But they were not planning on this outcome, which is why they seem so stunned and unprepared at the prospect of actually running Kamala against Trump.
JMG, “…the polls that show Harris in the lead are systematically oversampling Democrats to get that result. It’s a very tight race but Trump’s currently in the lead.” How is this known? I have heard of fact checking, but is there a monitoring polling website somewhere.
Project 2025 is a mere email, one among thousands sent to the Trump team? Foundations which involve themselves in politics are important for at least two reasons. First they provide position papers which can be excerpted for speeches, sent out to compliant journalists and so on, and second, they have pipelines to funding. A foundation as powerful as Heritage does not send out random emails in a hey guys, look at this spirit.
“Word salad” is how you talk to social workers. The trick is to seem like a nice person while not giving away anything that can be used against you. It is a skill I, alas, have never mastered. I have other ways of dealing with PMC types. Similarly, TrumpWorld uses bombast, bragging, name calling and outrageous assertions to annoy the libs.
RE: #133 @JMG
Just a few straws in the wind.
You said, about the Democratic Party,“it looks as though something has shifted considerably.”
I’ll add a comment on that point, speaking as a lifelong Democrat. My relatives are all Ds; I met my first Republican when I went away to college.
I used to listen to NPR news programs, morning and evening. A few years ago, that changed.
I began listening to a podcast, The Bulwark, produced by never-Trump Republicans. Nowadays, I listen to the Bulwark first, and add other news sources if I have time. https://www.thebulwark.com/
The Democratic National Convention featured several Republican speakers. Kamala Harris
announced there will be a Republican in her Cabinet. I’m hoping Republicans who don’t feel at home in their former party will become part of a broad coalition. I’m hoping the Democratic party will become a centrist party, doing more to defend the border and to increase manufacturing within the United States.
I have no idea how many other people may lean in the same direction. But for what it’s worth,
I’m a lifelong Democrat and this is where I lean today.
Hi John Michael,
The cheeky scamps might just do that too. 🙂
Have to be brief this morning, the weather here is, feral… High winds are continuing to lash this corner of the continent (and also the island state of Tasmania). A big storm has blown up north from Antarctica and is smashin against a high pressure system to the north (so parts of the country are baking in heat). Incidentally the winds here have been blowing strongly for almost 10 days now, which is, well, that usually just doesn’t happen. Earlier this morning about 180,000 houses were without power, but that is now down to 100,000. The forecast for around here suggests “Snow possible above 700 metres”, looking outside though, that forecast makes no sense whatsoever. Oh well, exciting and fortunately the tall trees seem to be braced well for winds with origins in the south west.
Speak later!
Chris
“I’m hoping the Democratic party will become a centrist party,”
Hope is not plan. Based on events on the West Coast I see no evidence that the Democrats have any interest in being any closer to the center than Lenin.
It is interesting that neither Socialists nor Theocrats will leave you alone. Both insist that your life be micromanaged for the greater glory of The State/God.
Anyway Left and Right are really false dichotomies. The real action is on the Y axis, where anarchy is on the bottom and totalitarianism is on the top. It doesn’t matter whether the Religious Right or the Socialist Left is running the machine guns, you end up in the bottom of the ditch either way.
The way things are going JMG is going to have to ban politics from the blog (Except maybe on the fourth Wednesday) with the same tenacity as AI or nothing else will get discussed 😉
The whole China/Australia conflict thing is overblown. The Chinese have always had a large presence in Australia since the days of the Gold rush, Melbourne’s Chinatown is second only to San Fransisco in age and depth of cultural penetration (Melbourne is the oldest to be in one place).
A huge amount of rural and regional towns settled in the 19th century had Chinese ran vegetable market gardens (because many of the European settlers were urban industrial people from the UL and had little idea how to grow much of anything), and it was only with the reactionary times of the 1890s depression when Aus federated and the white Australia policy was introduced that they were ejected. It is fascinating to see old photos and paintings of these towns with Chinese language signs in places that are really our of the way in modern times.
Sydney and Melbourne both host enormous amount of Chinese and Chinese descended Australian people, and it always makes me laugh when tourists point out how many Asian people there are in the cities of Aus; they have always been a big (though variable through the different centuries) presence here since white settlement.
China doesn’t really need to conquer Aus to have access to our resources; the countries are tightly linked and any potential conflict seems to be due to foreign influence.
I don’t think the so-called “Chinese bureaucrats with historical memory” can make China make decisions that are not stupid. There are many reasons
1. The modern Chinese political system is constructed by Marxism, which is characterized by the need to continuously expand external influence in a Faustian way. This conflicts with the operation of traditional Confucian bureaucracy. In fact, if it wants to change, it can only Dismantling the entire system would inevitably lead to the end of Communist rule and the loss of power of Beijing’s rulers.
There is a saying in China:”亡黨不亡國，不亡黨亡國” （translate:If the party is destroyed, the country will not be destroyed; if the party is not destroyed, the country will be destroyed.）This contradiction can be explained, and most Chinese officials, including Xi Jinping, would rather choose a path that is beneficial to their own rule than to China’s future.
2. Path problem. The People’s Republic of China was founded on Mao Zedong-style expansion, in which territory was ideologically bound to ideological correctness, which in turn led to a different operating logic from the traditional Chinese dynasty – the rulers must Land “since ancient times” is included in the rule, otherwise it loses its “historical correctness” (a euphemism for the Mandate of Heaven, since the Communist Party refuses to use any words associated with ancient Chinese religions)
There are insufficient precedents in Chinese history for such conflicts and handling methods. In many cases, what Western analysts interpret as “full of patience” is actually “decision-making paralysis.”
3. It’s not that most Chinese rulers don’t understand history, but they don’t have enough decision-making power to reverse the trend when things develop to the point where the dynasty collapses.
For example, the best time for China to return to a non-communist system was 30 years ago. If China had abolished communism like the former Eastern European countries, many of the current conflicts could have been solved. However, they have produced the phenomenon of decision-making paralysis I mentioned above. in the end Deng Xiaoping decided to join the WTO and suppress contradictions through capitalism without denying Maoism.
With the collapse of international trade, Chinese-style capitalism is no longer able to suppress contradictions, and the chance for peace after the Cold War has long since disappeared. The only way for the Chinese Communist Party to maintain its dominance is through Mao Zedong-style territorial expansion. However, “historical experience” tells China’s decision-makers that if their gamble fails, they are likely to die violently (this is also what Mao Zedong might have dei if his attack on Tibet failed, but Mao won the bet)
Therefore, the Communists who were assimilated into China most likely adopted the usual decision-making of officials in ancient Chinese dynasties – do nothing until the country collapsed, and hope to survive until a new dynasty was established.
Because of the above reasons, I basically think that the lifespan of the People’s Republic of China will be shorter than the 200 years of an ordinary Chinese dynasty, because the entire country actually operates through expansion rather than stability. Once it gives up expansion, it will collapse in an instant like the Qin Empire. and Qin Shihuang was actually a person whom Mao Zedong admired, so I think Mao Zedong never wanted to establish a long-term stable political system from the beginning.
Thank you for your insights, JMG. You deserve this year’s Nobel Prize for Never Being Lost for an Answer. So I was pixy-led! A new concept for me. It happened on Croham Hurst, a wooded hill with an ancient barrow, in the London Borough of Croydon. Anyway, I googled “pixy-led” and found this on a blog:
https://britishfairies.wordpress.com
“I’ve observed (many times) how closely linked the faeries are to hills and mounds, especially ancient sites such as barrows and hill forts. It’s notable how frequently there is a coincidence between the two. ”
Bingo! Croham Hurst is also loved by local Conservative councillor Maria Gatland (née McGuire). She was born to a middle-class family in Dublin. In 1971 she was gun-running for the IRA! But she swapped sides and the British gave her a new identity. She came to England in 1972, married an Englishman, and joined the Conservative party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Gatland
“When the Conservative Party found out about her past she stepped down as a council cabinet member in early December 2008. At the same time Gatland was suspended by the party, but the following month, January 2009, she was accepted back to the Tory fold. She was subsequently re-elected as a councillor in the 2010 and 2014 local elections.”
@JMG “I will make arrangements to leave the country. I’m not comfortable discussing my plans in any more detail;”
That’s just because you don’t want others to know about your trebuchet to the moon. Or your plan to be a war lord and over throw Trinidad!
Sorry, I just like making up these ridiculous plans for you.
@ Larkrise “One of the most interesting things about this site for me, as an English person, is the prevalence of support for D. Trump”
While I am not in the US either so I don’t have a horse in this race, but it is fascinating to see just how fractured the messaging is on US politics.
A lot of the US mainstream media is firmly on the democrat side. Reddit for instance is almost completely consumed with that whole narrative, it is shame to see it happen but they had been moving that way for a long while now. They are currently going through digging up old school yard insults towards Trump. It is a technique that has failed repeatedly. And because of that hard support of the democrats, it looks like the Republican side of the media swings hard in the opposite direction.
Alas, it is those that build up their position rather than beating down the opposition are usually more successful. It is not often that a political campaign is won on “we aren’t them”. They usually provide good reasons to vote for them rather than just punching downwards. To build bridges instead of burning them.
The amount of people I am seeing saying “there has to be another way” is growing. Maybe in the next decade or so, the US political system may shift drastically into something wildly different that is more focused on the people rather than political and corporate lenocracy. One can hope but it will be a rough road through but there is possibility for taken a more sane path on the road of decline. It might be civil war, hopefully is isn’t.
@ JMG/Eyrie “I’ve written at great length about the problems with the economic system you call “capitalism””
While this is a generalization, I have noticed that when ever someone mentions “capitalism”, there is about a 98% chance that what you are about to hear is a bunch of ideological noise rather than actual input on the concept. Unfortunately it has been captured by the extreme sides of the arguments that means nuanced discussion is not present.
There is some genuinely interesting discussions of the benefits and flaws of the system, how to work with or against aspects but it is very rare to see nowadays without it being encrusted in the writers flavor of ideology.
@Siliconguy Regards to the Intel processor issue, it is funny to see that computer chips made in the 1970’s/80’s are still going like the day they were manufactured. So long as the power capacitors are in good shape, they may get another half century out of them.
It is something that many in the field don’t want to talk about but as you make the component smaller, they wear out quicker. While this Intel mistake was in part due to a manufacturing defect, it was brought about trying to push these things too far beyond what the physics can allow.
Intel used say their chips could last 100,000 hours (about 11.4 years). A few years back they (and other sin the industry) dropped that claim as the smaller transistors degrade from use much faster than they used too.
@African-at-heart/JMG, “I’ve seen it happen — that intense emotion can cause weird things to happen to electronics.”
Vaguely related, there is a great line about Animism. Most people don’t believe in it, yet when the printer plays up all of a sudden the printer has wronged them personally and it is alive and malicious.
Robert Mathieson #402, I find it fascinating that you think in graphs, diagrams etc. I cannot really see them. I could do those things while I was at school and needed to, but they mean nothing to me now. Definitely whole sentences all the way for me. Trouble is it takes a while to put together an idea. No short cuts for me.
Re Siliconguy #366 about the THC content in weed.
I don’t smoke the stuff myself, but recently I went to a small reggae festival, expecting a friendly and relaxed atmosphere.
That didn’t work out very well: there was a real dark vibe among the paople there, and not relaxed at all. It’s hard to describe, but it was like people on amphetamine without a way to express all that extra energy and being angry about that.
bk.
@ Chris/JMG RE : Economists
The old saying of, “Economists can tell you today why yesterdays prediction of tomorrow was wrong.” Do that every day and you see what it is all about.
@BeardTree/JMG “everyone I know personally who supports Trump says some variation on, “Yeah, he’s an epic jerk, but this is about policies, not personalities.””
Also for many that support Trump his personally isn’t just a bug but a feature. The featuring being that is gets under the skin of those that oppose him, leads them down needless paths. Petty, yes. But it works.
@Robert Mathiesen (#377)
I think that the individuality is probably a good equivalent. Schwartz uses the terms.of being ‘blended’ with parts, i.e. we become identified with a part and think of them as ‘us’. One definition of essential self is what remains as the essence when we are not blended with any parts. I think the IFS systems has a set of qualities (generally positive) that sort of give the idea of the underlying energy of being.
‘No Bad Parts’ is an interesting idea. He talks of types of parts which are exiles, protectors etc that act and react. IFS as therapy basically has a view that these are developed in childhood etc and are ‘burdened’ with some trauma or other. The problematic ones we exile and suppress (e.g. inner critics) whereas Schwartz would say that if you unburden them you can release them, and they lose their power.
My personal view is that many of these parts may well be inherited or ‘caught’ (like a subtle virus) and set up camp. It certainly seems necessary to be able to.mnaage them and see them for what they are.
Your comments make me.wonder if there is a potential esoteric dimension to this perspective as well and just therapeutic.
MCB
@dZanni
Greetings dZanni!
I am in Bavaria, after the retreat of the russian man learned in India, so I did not find time to look into ecosophia the past days. Luckily my companion has a laptop and there’s internet where we rent in for these few days.
To your questions: what makes the old man I may move to an “eccentric”? His lifestyle and interests, he is 80 years old, compared to the average person his age – his interest in art, his bohemian bike travels and mingling with Jazz musicians, he lived in California a few years in the seventies. Just not your average guy, markedly with different a different perspective on life, not sharing the interests others have of television, ordinary entertainment, and so on. A more easy going person than others certainly, as opposed to a stiff old entrepreneur for example.
My recounts may fit here to ecosophia in so far as it is about spirituality as such, which most people I have studied, worked with, or mingled with back in the day, would shun. In our time, and that is the constant topic here, the material mindset is the most prevalent, the world being a coincidence made up of atoms, consciousness being just an “emergent phenomenon” thereof as the AI and tech crowds like to propagate, as our host says, in reality Christian revelation with the serial numbers filed of.
Life force does not exist, beings above the material plane dont exist, technology will save us, the destiny of humanity is the march of progress, with ever more things natural being replaced by man made things, the stars a vehicle for our infinite expansion of population and industrial production, and so forth.
What people like my cousin or mother and step father rage about? There is a mix of several things. For example, I forgot to mention because it shows something, my Cousin said that wood crafting, building things of wood without nails and these things, are “irrelevant because it is 2024” – everything is irrelevant that has nothing to do with working with computers to him. Nature is irrelevant to him and inferior to what is man made.
My step father, who has retired from the pharmaceutical industry, shuns everything that has to do with health and healing and alternative medicine, it is all bogus, the doctors know best, the products of the medical-industrial complex are the only real thing all other approaches are not legitimate and should be banned.
My mother detests any idea that electronic devices and industrial food are bad for our health, and all the people warning about it are simply idiots.
These things have been discussed a lot on here, so I make just the same experience privately.
When it comes to my cousin, it also mixes with him hating “Hippies”, the PMC crowd really, and I understand that, because I dont like them either.
The gist of it is also, I choose to work part time in informatics or simple administration work, I could have pursued a career and earned more money had I wanted to, spent my time in front of the screen learning abstract stuff instead of learning all kinds of movement, breathing, visualization techniques.
So in short, there is no other legitimate health practice than what our medical complex is selling, spiritual development is unreal and something psychotic people pursue, there is no life force, and modern society is the pinnacle of what is good and proper, nature is just its vessel, and all other ideas are not only stupid, but also dangerous and should be banned.
“Occult” isn’t even a word most people here know or understand, and in any ways, just something borne of mental illness.
And it is understood in that way as well where I worked previously, where I studied, among many middle class people I met with. Not 100% so, it has to be said, as our host says, this ideology is also crumbling away already, but still.
I can’t entirely say what my recounted experiences here communicate to others on this forum, I just had the inner wish to write that down, but I think it reflects many discussions and topics here on ecosophia.
Lastly, the retreat here with the russian spiritual master was the most amazing thing I have seen in my time, the people middle class but not “Hippies”, inconspicuous people from all walks of life and not flamboyant actors like many inner city people these days overloaded with tatoos, piercings, and attitude.
My companion I came with also says, this is just a thing we cant really talk about with many people we know – they would not understand, and simply see this as crazy.
Hi Scotlyn,
Thank you so much for saying that. Lovely. Yes, rail against we may, adaption we probably all will! 🙂
Can we stay in the dance indeed? That’s a tough rhetorical question you’ve raised, and a person can only hope that they do. There are many ways to come unstuck aren’t there? All we can but do is our best.
Hmm, ash die back. Not good and for your information I grow a few varieties of ash trees down here with my favourite being the Claret Ash. A lovely tree. Appears it’s a fungus. I’ll tell you a story which you can make up your own mind about. Had a similar-ish fungi-ish critter attack one of the citrus trees. It’s the Phytophthora critter which is a fungi like oomycete. Nasty customer. Now if you know stuff about fungi, they prefer acidic soils in order to do their thing, and worldwide I’d have to suggest that soils are becoming on average more acidic, especially as they become less fertile with mineral imbalances. So I skeletonised the citrus tree, then surrounded the base of the tree with rocks and also a good supply of crushed flint rock with lime. The addition of all that raises the soil pH and it makes it an unpleasant place for the fungi-ish critters. And the tree recovered and now bears heaps of fruit. I got onto the problem early though.
The indigenous folks used to regularly burn the land – all of it, on a regular cycle depending upon the type of vegetation I believe grasslands were on a three year cycle and forests were on a fifteen year cycle. An interesting practice, which also serves to reduce the number and severity of such plant pathogens. Comparatively, forest management practices these days are done on the cheap – and the outcomes show.
Peace to you too.
Chris
>Something just hit me regarding the death of the Internet
I’ll just leave this here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory
I personally think it’s exaggerated but true. I remember asking myself way back in the mid-90s whether it was a good idea to let all the normies onto the internet, whether that would turn out OK or not. I think the answer on balance is leaning towards no. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
>After breathless predictions of swarms of hurricanes exterminating the Southeast
This year has been rather strange although one strange year does not make a trend (yet). But I’ve never seen humidity levels this low or rain this seldom in this part of the world. I think I saw under 40% one day, which is very very weird here. Usual values fluctuate around 60-70%, with 80-90% not being abnormal right after a rain. And it rains a lot. Grass only grows when it’s raining and usually you need to mow every week. Not this year. I think I’ve had to mow only half as much as usual.
Makes me think of JMGs prediction of climate change, where some latitudes start to dry out, while others thaw out. It could be that the southeast could start to dry out? I have no idea.
Hi Nachtgurke ,
Thanks! And I promise to keep the bull ants and poisonous snakes down here, although they both startle me from time to time. Do they really have to be so vicious? The local snakes (The Eastern Brown) were recently down graded from second deadliest on the planet to third position. Someone found a new deadly variety out in central Australia which usurped the second place. Hope the local snakes aren’t miffed about that loss of status? I’m right on the marginal edge for citrus trees, but they’re such an important late winter / early spring crop. There is no other fruit out there at that time of year, at least in this cold corner of the country.
Exactly! And that’s the problem spelled out in a nut shell. Like your experience, a 20% loss rate (at very best) for me is simply not sustainable.
I’ll tell you a funny story. Years and years ago when I got my first hive, I knew a local old bloke who had been keeping bees in the area for decades. He was quite the cheeky scamp, and so proud as punch I show him the new first hive and he takes a look around and bluntly says: “What do you expect the bees to eat?” Truthfully, I hadn’t much thought about it, and may have mumbled an incoherent reply. So now, there are flowers here growing all year around – and right now it’s 39’F outside, drizzling and windy. Now you have to set land aside for such plants, but here’s the thing, the flowers and shrubs all attract other forms of life, like wrens, robins and honeyeaters. They live here all year around, and it used to snow a day or two every winter, although hasn’t done so for three years now.
But yeah, it’s a complicated mess of human making. The bees are probably just trying to do their best, and we force changes to them, like the reduced propolis production, or the grafting process – holy carp, what were they thinking? Despite it all, the bees will survive, they just won’t ever be the same as they are now.
Thank you so much for reading the blog and even better for implementing some of the ideas. 🙂 The paths are good and useful aren’t they? And they sure beat trodding across muddy winter garden soil, or very wet grass. Plus did you know the plants benefit from the crushed flint rock with lime placed on the surfaces?
Cheers
Chris
Thanks for the link Random and I see what you mean about alchemy – not quite ‘solve et coagula’ but strong hint! Alas we are late in the cycle to discuss.
Did a quick scan looking for potential practicalities (haven’t read Spengler or Toynbee so not sure of author’s take on them) but do wonder if the author was ‘stuck in the material’ re separation and fusion and certain ‘perspectives/ideologies’ of our times?
Don’t know if things are as materially straight-forward as suggested, from the little I’ve read and thought about it the limits of human perception mean we’re lucky if we get a glimpse of more refined realms, but unlikely to see unity or perfection here. Still, this at the end sure reads like spiritual alchemy to me:
“These great cycles which seem to confine us endlessly in the meanders of the mind, could
make our heads spin or lead us to a deep despair if there weren’t this exit door that is the soul.
It has already been announced by the great beings who from time to time deliver a message of
hope to men and tell them the way. They all told us that the mind was not the ultimate stage of
maturation of man. That another state of being, that they named the inside fire, Agni, psyche,
soul, was waiting for us once we will have gone through the stages of maturation of the mind.
Because we are not destined to stay in the adolescent stage in which we are currently. Man
must meet his divine fiancée, his soul, and consume with her the marriage of heaven and
earth, matter and spirit. And this meeting can only happen if the man goes searching for his
fiancée.”
…but a bit disconnected from the main thesis!
It did remind me of the idea that mind is not born of the brain, rather, material body is actually within mind and that mind is within soul and that the mind and body are merely vehicles of limitation that the soul uses to experience inner (mind/emotions/feelings) and outer (body/sensation) worlds.
The vehicles are limited in what they can do but the illusion of separateness and individuality are a necessary prelude to making a phase shift to something different (from Hazrat Inayat Khan IIRC) also from JMG e.g. develop mental sheath to mental body and move beyond material incarnation.
I have found it helpful to hold different metaphors in mind to try and stop me falling into absolutism of a single metaphor; Dion Fortune’s Cosmic Doctrine and also Inayat Khan have been helpful.
Hazrat Inayat Khan on the path to manifestation:
“The soul which has passed through the angelic heavens in its descent to earth comes next into the sphere of the Jinn or Genius. This is the sphere of mind, and may be called the spiritual sphere, for it is mind and soul which make spirit. The souls who halt in this sphere, being attracted by its beauty, settle there; also the souls who have no power to go further into outer manifestation become the inhabitants of this sphere. Therefore there are three kinds of souls who touch this sphere on their way to manifestation: the souls who are attracted to this sphere, and who desire to remain there; the souls who are unable to go farther, and who have to settle there; and the souls who are continuing their journey towards the earth-plane, and who are there on their way to the earth.”
For myself, another metaphor is that humans are in the caterpillar stage, death is a period of pupation/synthesis, and what happens next (butterfly) depends on what the caterpillar ‘ate’ during time as caterpillar (the dream of being human) – similar to the way that JMG refers to being human as the prenatal state of the soul.
@ African-at-heart,
Yes, please adapt my affirmation for Simba. (That was my intent in sharing it; I apologize I didn’t communicate that clearly.)
I will add Simba to my prayers. Have you considered adding Simba to the Ecosophia prayer list? I’ve added Nicodemus and I can tell you that it has helped. I have felt Nicodemus’ presence a few times since he passed. The first two times (the two days after his passing), it felt as though he were coming for comfort. I sent him as much love as I know how to do. He then was added to the prayer list. Then a few days of not really feeling him. Then, two nights ago, he came again. He felt at peace. I still sent him lots of love, but this time, I could feel he was sending love back.
I still get sad, but it is getting easier to remember the happy memories, knowing that he is at peace. I hope you can get to that point soon, too. Take care.
@Earthworm,
I have not read anything from Hazrat Inayat Khan, but it seems like he is someone I am supposed to read. Any book/article in particular you recommend I start with?
Yes, I have learned that no one metaphor can help me understand everything. Some metaphors help with one part, but are inadequate for another. Have you read the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception by Max Heindel? He is one that has lots of stuff that doesn’t seem to fit with my current understanding, but some stuff is just mind-blowingly on point. This image https://rapeutation.com/towardone.1toward8ea1_small.gif shows his understanding of the body/soul/spirit/mind . It seems to align with Hazrat Inayat Khan in a way… you said he posits that mind and soul make spirit. Heindel thinks spirit makes body and soul, and eventually the conjunction of bodies and souls leads to mind. I will enjoy reading Khan to see what else he says.
And I think the ancient Greeks would have approved of your caterpillar metaphor, as butterflies were one of the symbols of Psyche. 🙂
Thank you so much for the meditation fodder!!!
@Michael Gray & @African-at-Heart, re: electronics
Okay, my fun story about Animism and printers. We have a network printer at work. I can usually print without any problems. One person consistently does, to the point that everything has to be reset. A few weeks back, he tried to print. It didn’t work. It was something rather urgent, so he emailed the file to me. I printed it to the network printer, absolutely no issues. He was relieved and infuriated at the same time. I told him he should be nicer to the printer. He said how? I said next time he needed to print something, to come get me first. He did.
I walked him over to the printer. I made him pet the printer. I made him say “Printer, I appreciate what you do for me. I am going to send a print job. Please print it for me.” He was beet red (because the rest of the office was watching, because he usually makes quite a scene when the printer does not work for him). And then he sent the print job. And it printed. The first time. No errors or issues or anything. He went to grab the papers. I said “not so fast!”. I made him publicly thank the printer. He did, begrudgingly.
Next time he tried to print, he had issues again and came to get me. Did you say nice things to the printer in advance? No? Well, then why should the printer print for you? Go say nice things and try again.
He really hates that TSW.
PS @Random #394
“I think it describes the first Veil nicely”
Inayat Khan on veils:
“There is a process to be seen both in the soul coming to earth and in its return. When coming to earth it adorns itself with the veils of the particular planes through which it passes; and on its return it unveils itself from the bodies it has adopted for its convenience in experiencing that particular plane. In this way there is a process of covering and uncovering. The soul, so to speak, throws off its garment on the same plane from which it borrowed it, when it has no more use for it.
“What is the nature and character of this manifestation? It is an interesting dream. What is this illusion caused by? By cover upon cover; the soul is covered by a thousand veils.”
I’ve been having a fascinating time considering patterns between metaphors – The words (this and previous post) from Hazrat Inayat Khan came from here:
http://www.hazrat-inayat-khan.org/php/views.php?h1=8&h2=7
@JillN (#415):
I used to earn my living as a professor, so I soon got really good at turning my non-verbal inner thoughts into verbal sentences for the sake of the students in my classes, most of whom actually did (seem to me to) think only in sentences and narratives. I usually also gave them a set of short paper handouts with the outlines, diagrams, images, mechanisms,charts, etc., that made up my own internal thought about the subject of the lecture(s), which seemed to help them follow my lectures.
I think that there are inherited biological differences at work here. For whatever it may be worth, my older son also tells me that he simply cannot think in sentences, no matter what, but only in the same ways that I do. He is a respected computer trouble-shooter.
Looking back, I am pretty sure that my father was the same way, too. He was a mechanical engineer and his hobby was the mechanisms and flight of antique airplanes from the First World War and earlier. My mother, however, thought in narratives (and sentences, of course), and the two of them could barely communicate with one another at all, no matter how much they wanted to and how hard they tried to.
My younger son, in contrast, is fully able to think in sentences and narratives, though he can also do my sort of thinking as needed. My wife thinks primarily in narraitives and sentences, too; but fortunately she can understand my non-verbal thought processes easily enough. My younger son otherwise mostly looks like my wife; my older son mostloy looks like me. So there are probably inherited clusters of biological traits at work here.
I find all this fascinating stuff! Thank you for helping satisfy my curiosity about how other people think.
@Chris #420 – well if you know anything at all about Donegal… it is that AcidSoils-R-Us… The land is dotted with old, abandoned, lime kilns, for heating and breaking up various limestones to “sweeten” the land. It is a long term project and who knows if it will come to fruition. We “win” small patches of just-sweetened-enough land for pastures and gardens, but the waterlogging of the soil keeps the acid-producing bacterial life active, and that is why such conditions are native here. That’s not to say that the modern practices are not making things worse!
Still, there are other indications that fire-management was once used here, too. And that is the evidence presented by the pyrophillic fundamental nature of the gorse plant. It is a prolific “volunteer” around here. Beautiful, fragrant, and fire-loving! Sadly, though, whatever the traditional practice was, it is much further away and more difficult to recover than the aboriginal one. I’ve been trying to piece together whatever lore I can find, but it’s slim pickings.
@MCB (#418):
Many thanks for shedding more light on Schwartz’s work and theories. I had wondered whether he had developed his approach as therapy to deal with trauma, and I think you have answered my unspoken question.
I am convinced that there is indeed an esoteric dimension to all these multiple selves. If you feel inclined to hear more about this, you might enjoy reading an essay I wrote on the subject, titled Microcosmographia Magica, which I have made available for free downloading at:
https://archive.org/details/microcosmographia-magica-bibliogr_202401
If you do read it, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts in response.
Mary @#407
“Similarly, TrumpWorld uses bombast, bragging, name calling and outrageous assertions to annoy the libs.”
Everyone’s welcome to their opinion but I’ll give you a few recent data points. I have donated a few dollars here and there to local politicians of both parties over the years which means that this year, they have given my phone number to both the RNC and DNC and whatever big fundraisers they all use. So I get a fundraising texts from both parties. I report them all as spam in the hopes of getting removed from lists, but so far, no luck. They keep coming.
Your assertion that TrumpWorld (which I’ll interpret as the whole machine in its various parts) uses namecalling and bombast is currently not accurate via the fundraising text industry.
The DNC and affiliates send me the most cringe texts telling me my donation of $5 will be used to “humiliate” the Orange Man or otherwise embarrass Republicans. They say horrible, mean spirited things and yes, name call, to get me stirred up to donate. Everything is negative.
By contrast, every single RNC affiliated text I have gotten has used the words “Peace” or “Unity” or been positive and hopeful about America in it’s messaging. Immediately after the shooting, the calls for donations using the term “Peace” increased. The DNC increased it’s hate and vitriol even more after that.
That’s the data from the field for what it’s worth. The difference is striking. The Dems are selling hate and the Republicans are selling peace and unity to the average person from my vantage point. (Also, I have learned my lesson to never give my real phone number to any politician. It’s now 867-5309),
Hi JMG
My question related to the acceptance of the elections’ results was more about the republicans-Trump, in the case they lose the elections, than the democrats; because now it seems that Trump and many many of his followers (probably in the hundreds thousands or even millions) think that God saved Trump to “save America and the World from the disaster”, so do you think if Trump and many of his supporters did not accept the defeat in 2020 now they will accept it in 2024, even after the failed and quite suspicious terrorist attack against him?
And, as you mention, there is a real possibility that Kamala wins really+legally in november.
I doubt Trump would concede the defeat and do nothing (dangerous), but in any case I am a foreigner and I cannot sense what is in the air in your country.
Cheers
David
Thanks JMG. I expected that as the long descent progressed there would be a growing desire to find scapegoats for the situation. (And as you have been screaming to the wilderness for decades, we could have followed a different path instead of pursuing scapegoats.)
It’s totally understandable to be upset about Western governments importing military-age invaders by the millions, taxing their own citizens to pay for their food and housing, and then jailing their citizens for protesting it. Clearly that’s madness.
And I understand why one would naturally seek some explanation of what underlies this madness. I just don’t think that the Pauline notion (that all people are equal under God) is it.
As I see it, Evola’s belief that if we had all stayed Pagan—or if we were all to suddenly convert to Paganism en masse—the problem of mass migration would disappear, is just another form of escapism. A way to justify not doing anything.
Come to think of it, another thing just dawned on me with regard to this issue.
When you think about it, it seems the West is embracing two opposite bad ideas at the same time, while ignoring the sensible middle ground.
Bear with me a moment. Imagine a spectrum between two ideas. If one end of the spectrum is completely destroying your neighbor, and the other end of the spectrum is giving everything away to your neighbor to your own detriment, we are looking at a spectrum bookended by two opposite, yet both terrible, ideas. (As you repeatedly point out, the opposite of one bad idea is usually another bad idea.)
Now here’s what I mean by saying the West is pursuing both ends at once: When I look at what’s happening today, I realize If you count modern Israel as part of the West (and I do), then that government is pursuing the strategy of genociding their neighboring nation (the one end of the spectrum). On the other hand, the rest of the West is pursuing the policy of taking in and subsidizing their neighbors, at the expense of their own people (the other end of the spectrum).
Nobody but nobody is pursuing the sensible “middle” idea of helping to build up their neighboring nation(s). This is something you’ve mentioned before—for example, for the US to help build up Mexico, which would be beneficial to both countries.
Imagine if the US did that! It would undermine the cartel’s power, would it not? And, on the other end, imagine if the modern Israeli state invested money into building up and stabilizing Palestine? It would undermine Hamas’s power, would it not?
To JMG #397 re: “Committed to moral and social stability.” That sound a lot like the national mood in my post-WWII grade school and junior high school days.
To Kim A. #399 re; Islamic Spain. Northern New Mexico’s historic system of irrigation comes directly through the Islamic countries via Spain, and is an excellent low-tech system of irrigation in a ht,dry climate. Look of the term “Acequia” for more details. It was when desert nomads invaded Islamic settlements that the desertification began, because they didn’t understand and didn’t maintain the canals. This from a UNM lecture on Spanish Colonial New Mexico.
@”Anonymous #401 – for more on that subject, check out the Sagas of the Icelanders. Icelandic women didn’t fight (pioneer society needed them more) but they were as strong, independent, and had as much agency as the men in many ways.
@Cary #305, as I’m feeling presumptuous today, I’ll nominate an aphorism of my own. I coined it decades ago (with slightly different wording) but it’s become more and more relevant since then. It’s this: “Be smarter than the tools you use.” That’s the milder form; “Don’t use tools that are smarter than you” also works. Originally it was mostly about being thoughtful and careful using ordinary tools. How times have changed!
@all gardeners: I always enjoy reading about your experiences, but I often find myself at a loss not knowing what region or climate zone you’re in, so it’s difficult to tell how applicable your discoveries and suggestions would be here. (Where’s here? Southern coastal New England. See what I mean?) You’ve probably mentioned it before but I don’t have it memorized, except that Fernglade is somewhere in Australia). Might I request reminders with your future updates?
@JMG re “core concept”: core, as in central but also concealed? (It’s occult philosophy, after all.) Anyhow, in my experience the work one is being trained for is rarely easier than the training, so I suppose regardless of one’s individual destiny the next stage doesn’t involve much lounging around on clouds. Every video gamer knows the levels only get harder. So, asking tongue in cheek, just how chock full of dilemmas, temptations, conflict, compromise, bewilderment, and heartbreak are the higher planes anyhow?
For what it’s worth: http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-trump-campaign.html
He thinks Trump’s heart is no longer in this campaign.
Something else occurred to me while I was reading Kimberly Steele’s blog about racism and mixed race people:
https://kimberlysteele.dreamwidth.org/122897.html
The whole obsession with trying to divide people into neat racial categories in America especially among the woke but also among the racist right-wing is probably a consequence of Piscean dualism that wouldn’t have anything else except for black and white.
Before we roll over into the next blog-post on Wednesday, I thought this would be a good time to point out that an obsession with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 (at least one of the Trump campaign’s policy-personnel was highly involved in formulating this impracticably reactionary set of government policy-proposals) seems to be a pretty reliable indicator of somebody who will likely be afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome for the rest of their life.
JMG, How does the Second Religiosity under the influence of Uranus change things? I would imagine that Uranus would encourage less institutionalized structure, but perhaps that would occur after the initial decline in several hundred years??
Quick thank you to all those who suggested things for my abdominal muscles! I have bought the book suggested, can’t wait for it to arrive 🙂
It looks like there’s some discussion of IFS going on in the comments above; since I have personal experience with it (my husband is working with it in therapy at the moment) I’ll throw in my 2 cents.
The weakest part of IFS is its founder. He’s a professor at Harvard… which should be explanation by itself… and, as a good liberal atheist, quite clearly perceives his own therapeutic system as a new religion. He thinks it will end war and racism! “LOL” is a bit too kind of a response to that delusion. It’s quite unfortunate, because the religious terminology he uses to describe it in his book is going to push away the exact population that most desperately needs what he’s created – “neither spiritual nor religious” moderns who are drowning in a medium they can’t even begin to describe.
For the sake of those unfortunates–and for the sake of spreading IFS as far as possible, to reach those in need–it should be put forth as a method, not a faith. So I will describe it below as such. (Those who are already religious will understand immediately that what he refers to as the “Self” is the soul, but that’s not how any discussion of this should start off.)
IFS is, in my opinion, the most successful attempt I’ve ever seen at translating the principles of Jungian archetypes/mental structures into an intuitive methods that can be easily picked up and used by laypeople.
How I would explain it in a secular way (and I have, to several others): Just as you have organs within your body that do different and essential tasks, similar essential structures exist within the human psyche. Unlike organs, they are not in a single physical location – they are an emergent property caused by multiple overlapping physical processes in the brain, and they are constructed over time in response to stimuli. They help to craft a personality that can survive in the unique situation it finds itself in.
For example: A young child is beaten by her drunk father, who is also her main caregiver. The mind can neither forget this experience completely – as it is essential information from the outside world – but it also cannot safely respond with the logical response of running away, as this would decrease her chance of survival even further. So this memory is kept, but another psychic structure is created by the mind to dull or even “hide” that memory from the waking mind. In IFS this memory is called the “Exile” and the psychic structure that “hides” it is called the “Protector”. Once that child grows up, she may find that in the presence of alcohol she has an unusual reaction – perhaps shutting down, perhaps irrational anger, perhaps an alcohol problem of her own. If she decides to use IFS to uncover the root cause of that reaction, she will interact with both psychic structures as if they are embodied ‘people’ inside her own mind. The Protector may appear as a schoolmarm, a wizard, or a very angry man (as some options among thousands) It will keep her from accessing the memory unless she can convince it to “step aside.” . The Exile often appears as a wounded child around the same age as the memory was made. If the IFS procedure is followed successfully, both the Exile and the Protector can be freed from their current psychological tasks and take up new and more positive ones.
My husband has been using this method with his therapist weekly for about 2 months now, and EVERY session has given him some sort of earth-shaking revelation about his past and his own thought processes. Nor is it just a flash in the pan either – I have watched his *personality* change along with this therapy. Happily, for the better! Certain habits of thought that were, quite literally, giving him anxiety have been easing or even disappearing. There’s still more to go, by both his and my estimation. But I am extremely grateful to have found this method. It gives me hope that he will be able to put his garbage medications (scientifically discredited, making him gain weight + shortening his lifespan) aside someday, and become a truly whole person.
The book written by the founder (“No Bad Parts”) contains all of his personal flaws, so I would recommend instead the much more useful and balanced “Self-Therapy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Wholeness and Healing Your Inner Child Using IFS, A New, Cutting-Edge Psychotherapy” by Jay Earley. I encourage anyone interested to give it a look!
JMG,
About the posts you made about America’s future high culture being Tamanous, well Tanamous seems very Aquarian / Uranian to me. The whole “each person has their own dance” and “no two dances are the same” correlate very much with the individualism and pluralism that the Aquarian age seems to embody.
“It is something that many in the field don’t want to talk about but as you make the component smaller, they wear out quicker.”
Oh yes, it’s called diffusion. The smaller the transistor the faster it can switch and the less power it takes. But diffusion, the migration of the atoms themselves is also faster. Diffusion is faster at higher temperatures, so if you run the chips at higher voltages to get a little more speed out of them they get hot, and diffusion is faster and oops.
The is a YouTube channel, Adrian’s Digital Workshop, where he resurrects vintage computers. Last week he had four terrible looking Commodore 64s and three of them still worked. One of them needed a new kernel ROM. The week before he had four Apple IIc computers scrounged from a barn and all four of those ran. Three of the floppy disk drives even worked after a bit of cleaning.
And on a completely different topic, the US just commandeered Maduro’s plane. It’s only piracy when they do it. We’re not even pretending to be something other than a thugacracy any more.
If I’m not mistaken, JMG’s position concerning power and politics in an oligarchical system, of which the USA has become, is that the state can still trump oligarchs when it needs to, and that perhaps that will be the direction of things in coming years as the Long Emergency unfolds. It would seem that we are entering a crackdown era of sorts where the state is attempting to reassert authority to rein in the excesses of certain tech oligarchs (who may or may not be fronts for either foreign influence or organized crime). There are quite a few recent pieces of evidence for this: 1/ Google lost an antitrust suit which will harm a key part of its business which relied on monopoly, 2/ the US Senate is trying to change or revoke Section 230 immunity (in some cases) that Big Tech has used for various kinds of editorial control or independence from political influence, 3/ Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes banned X in Brazil and subjected ban evaders to punitive fines, 4/ Telegram owner Pavel Durov was arrested in France owing to concerns about illegal activity on his platform. These are but a few of the not inconsequential trends seen in recent times.
I strongly suspect there is more going on concerning these stories than meets the eye (i.e. the headline), but it’s an interesting set of developments. And if the power of the state can be used to act against Big Tech successfully, as it appears to be the case, then it could also be used, at some future date, to do the same to some of the worst rackets in American life, such as the Medical-Industrial Complex, the higher education complex, or Big Ag/Chem. All of which will need to be addressed, and probably will be from a national security perspective as the Emergency drags on — that is, if the USA survives as a union at all (but this would likely still be pursued under the ambit of whatever confederations replace it if it doesn’t).
On science and scientific method as commented by many already. The “scientific method” is good for somethings and not for other things. It has a tendency towards myopia, seeing what you are searching for and has difficulties with complex systems and emergent properties. It is rarely as “objective” as it pretends to be, objectivity is really not possible.
The “problem” today is that science has gained prominence as the Truth or the only path to Insight, this is often referred to as scientism. Coincidentally I just wrote an article on the subject: https://gardenearth.substack.com/p/will-science-and-technology-save
Robert Mathiesen (#402): “Are you able to think in sentences and compose inner narratives that tells who you are?”
I definitely have a running commentary in my head; a mix of words (that I “hear”) and images. When I write, I most clearly “hear” my characters talking. Dialogue has always been the easiest for me to write, and I have no problem giving my characters distinct voices.
That wiring doesn’t create narratives that form my identity, though. In fact, I discovered astrology at the tender age of four (I could read when I was three years old), and was instantly fascinated by it, because it seemed to be a system that could tell me “who I am.” I don’t seem to have a strong sense of what qualities make up my personality; if anything, the feeling of “being me” as a consistent entity could at best be described as “a blob of consciousness that is identical to itself.” The Myers-Briggs test, if you believe in the validity of such system, gave me INFP as “my type,” and while I recognize a lot of the qualities of the type in myself, I don’t use that label as some kind of identity. The whole game of using any random thing (sexual orientation, political leanings, MBTI types, etc.) to become one’s identity seems alien to me.
I don’t think that makes me a candidate for the next step of our evolution, though; I rather think it’s an unfortunate result of enmeshment in my childhood.
@ MCB and Robert Mathiesen, if I remember correct IFS has later added the concept of ‘unattached burdens’. That is what most people would call demons.
For me Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit have been and remain accessible, knowable communicable Deity in the here and now in whom I live and move and have my being and I look forward to a more complete knowing after I leave this world along with knowing the angels and those who have gone on before me. Fortunately for me Jesus who was called the friend of sinners in his time here is one even now.
Commentariat (if it’s not too late in the cycle) – a sociological question: I spent some time this weekend with my brother-in-law, who was adopted. He has recently made contact with his birth mother, who gave him up 60 years ago, when she was 18. We talked a bit about his mixed feelings of meeting her, and her life since giving him up.
Does anyone know of any books which look at this element of recent history? It used to be that teens were sent away to give birth, and it was never spoken of again. I realize I could do a search, but I’m curious to know if any of you smart people know of a good book to start with.
The Regime is getting desperate! Thrash, thrash, thrash – flail, flail, flail! ….
Lincoln Project Demands Prosecution For Alleged RFK-Trump Endorsement Deal
https://armageddonprose.substack.com/p/lincoln-project-demands-prosecution
As the late Dr. Nancy Lord (J.D., M.D.) once said to me a quarter of a century ago: “Always remember, Michael, that every Evil Empire is at its most dangerous, at precisely the moment it begins to break up.”
We’re there – now!
Who am “I”?
I conceive of myself as a single entity that can move, make decisions, eat, sleep, etc, yet, when you break it down, “I” am a vast collective. My body is made up of 30 trillion cells, each with a similar DNA yet living different lives, eating, growing, sending and receiving messages, dying, and filling different niches in a giant organism. Then there’s the 40 trillion bacteria, viruses and fungi with completely different DNA living on and in me, and without whose services I would probably die.
So “I” am more like the management of a hugely diverse enterprise. And like most management, knows almost nothing about what goes on at the coal face, but expects that everyone will do their jobs properly despite my occasional stupid decisions.
Hello JMG, it’s getting late in the week but I am wondering about the latest developments in Germany. Maybe you or your German readers know this. In Dutch right-wing outlets there is talk that Germany is cracking down on muslim fundamentalism. Is this true? I know that in July the large Iran-associated IZH organisation was banned and closed down, and recently the Bavarian Ministry of Internal Affairs posted a video warning for the dangers of Salafism that was really…..dark (They removed it already, but for those inclined the 25 sec video can be seen here https://www.geenstijl.nl/5178371/beieren-minbin-islamvideo). Is there a shift in sentiment among the leadership or just coincidences?
PS In the recent Thüringen elections the youth, like in the Nederlands, voted strongly anti-immigration. AFD got 38% while left wing anti-immigration and anti-Ukraine war party BSW got 12% in the ages 18-24 (https://x.com/EuropeElects/status/1830318480652124460)
PPS It seems that a system that leads to proportional representation might work better in the current situation than a system where the winner in a certain locale takes all. Netherlands and Germany have proportional representation while France and the UK have the other option. In France and the UK the other parties conspired against anti-immigration parties and played the system such that the anti-immigration parties have no influence in policy whatsoever despite RN scoring 37% of the vote in France. In the Netherlands the right-wing party PVV is now part of the coalition that governs the country. Yes it took more than 7 months of difficult negotiations, but in the end they did manage to get a PVV-led coalition running. Germany will vote in 2025 but what happens after that will be the real test.
This was an article about the Amish and what we “English” can learn from them.
https://homesteadrebel.primalwoods.com/p/the-amish-and-what-we-english-can
In particular, the authour talks about assessing the role of this or that technology in our lives, and whether we feel it adds to or subtracts from our lives. I think that’s a good thing to do in general (I have left social media bar what is required for my small business, for example), but if we’re expecting an energy and systemic decline in the coming years and decades, it’s something that’s going to happen anyway, and it’s always easier to do something by choice rather than being forced to do it – as our host likes to say, collapse now and avoid the rush.
The authour also talks about how if you’re unable to farm, then some sort of small business can work well, as you can fill little gaps in the market, have more flexibility with your work, and so on. I particularly liked, “Please keep in mind that most of these businesses, successful business, are owned and operated by people with at most an eighth grade education; that’s a beauty of entrepreneurship, you don’t need “experience” before starting, and you don’t need a diploma as a door opener.”
The authour mentions in passing that “the Amish are growing”. This isn’t just their high birth rate, though. Basically they have to decide as adults whether to remain in. In the 1960s around 50% chose adult baptism. Now in the 2020s it’s 80-85%. Their way of life hasn’t changed, so something in the world of we “English” has changed in the last couple of generations which makes our world a less attractive place to live. Others may or may not agree with that, but it’s something worth thinking on. If you came from what’s basically an 18th-19th century village into the modern world, what would you love, and what would you loathe? Perhaps seek our more of what you love, and avoid what you loathe…?
@LeGrand Cinq-Mars (#75):
Thanks so much for the added information about Vivekananda. I had not known about his background. (He was peripheral — at best — to the esoteric currents that most interest me, so I hadn’t taken the time to look into him deeply.)
About the lack of hurricanes this year;
“Meteorologist Ryan Maue has offered his take on why tropical development activity remains depressed:
The Atlantic tropics are completely broken, unable to produce tropical storms even w/off the charts “climate fueled” oceans. Our models no longer work, forecasters can’t figure it out. This is not normal.”
My observation is that hurricanes are heat engines. Heat engines run on temperature differences. Is the upper atmosphere warmer? The Tonga volcano belched a huge load of water vapor into the lower stratosphere which warmed that up.
Longer term the polar regions are warming more than the tropics, so that differential is decreasing which might also decrease the energy available for a hurricane.
This might also be consistent with;
“U.S. electricity generation from wind turbines decreased for the first time since the mid-1990s in 2023 despite the addition of 6.2 gigawatts (GW) of new wind capacity last year. Data from our Power Plant Operations Report show that U.S. wind generation in 2023 totaled 425,235 gigawatthours (GWh), 2.1% less than the 434,297 GWh generated in 2022.”
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61943
It’s also consistent with the ice ages being being notably windier than today. The tropics were only slightly cooler than modern times, but the polar regions were notably colder of course.
Anyway, it’s time for new models. And not just for hurricanes. The local weather forecasts have been notably off this year. They could have just chanted ‘hot and dry’ every day and done better.
In the “we lose money on every kilogram, but we make up for it volume” category;
“Top polysilicon producers post losses in H1 2024 after price crunch”
https://www.pv-tech.org/top-polysilicon-producers-post-losses-h1-2024-after-price-crunch/
Someone is trying to drive someone else out of business. The real question is who has the deepest line of credit at the Chinese central bank?
It’s not limited to China, the CCP would love to be the world’s only supplier of solar panels.
Kim A, that’s true! And profoundly ironic.
J.L.Mc12, that’s always one possibility, of course.
Anon, heh heh heh. One of the real entertainments I have out here on the uttermost fringes is watching the ideas I set in motion go tiptoeing inwards.
Siliconguy, it astonishes me that nobody’s drawing the logical conclusion here. The north polar region is warming rapidly while the tropics are not — ergo, the temperature differentials that drive weather systems may be beginning to trickle away…
Clay, that’s at least as plausible as any of the other scenarios I’ve heard.
Mary, you need to read the fine print in the surveys. That’ll typically tell you their sampling bias. Go to the survey company’s website — the mass media won’t mention anything so vulgar. 😉
Ilona, so noted. I’m certainly pleased that, unlike many Democrats these days, you aren’t flinging hate speech at Republicans.
Chris, meanwhile up here we’re having picture-perfect early autumn weather, and so far our hurricane season has been a flop. We’ll see…
林龜儒, interesting. Well, we’ll see! If you’re right, I hope the next dynasty does the smart thing and brings back Confucian philosophy as its guiding ideology and the examination system for the bureaucracy. All things considered, that worked better than the available alternative.
Batstrel, well, certainly not if you ask me something about fairy behavior! Football, on the other hand, will leave me baffled. 😉
Michael, I don’t think I’d make a very good warlord, but by all means carry on!
DFC, I don’t know. I really don’t.
Blue Sun, I don’t think it’s a matter of Pagan vs. Christian ideas here. Plenty of Pagan ruling elites have brought in immigrant muscle to help prop up failing economies and hold the lower classes in check, only to be overthrown by their supposed servants! It’s a very old and familiar story. You’re right about the two bad ideas, though…
Patricia M, it wouldn’t surprise me to see a move back in that direction.
Walt, when I get there, I’ll see if I can find a way to let you know!
Clark, well, it’s been 25,950 years since the last time we were here, so it’s largely a matter of guesswork. I’d expect, though, to see a much richer crop of eccentric sects, weird gurus, and churches with a congregation of one in the years ahead, and eventually a vision of spirituality that is oriented toward eccentricity and personal quest. Then 2160 years from now, when we get to the age of Capricorn, people will fling up their hands in outrage and say, “Oh, for the gods’ sakes, can we please stop chasing moonbeams and get organized?
Anon, it’s a definite theme. The United States is a Uranian society, founded as Uranus was discovered, and so it’s likely to embody the Uranian/Aquarian energy very fully.
Deneb, I think you’re quite correct. Government by kleptocratic oligarchy is workable in an era of prosperity and minor wars; it’s a lethal liability in an age of economic crisis and major wars, and we’re entering the latter. We may see a lot of oligarchs being reined in hard.
Gunnar, thanks for this!
BeardTree, I’m glad to hear this. I know some people have that experience. As I noted in a post a while back, though —
https://www.ecosophia.net/death-god-speculation/
— I’ve spoken to a very large number of people who haven’t — who prayed their hearts out for many years, and found nothing but silence and emptiness where God was supposed to be. These are strange times, as always at a change of ages.
Michael, no question, they’re frantic. There are now Democrats denouncing the Constitution because it might give power to the people they hate.
Boccaccio, interesting. That could be another sign of panic…
Warburton, thanks for this.
Siliconguy, and thanks for both of these.
#254 @African at heart,
So sorry aout your pet passing over! Such a difficult time. The book, Blessing the Bridge was quite helpful. Also the movie, A Dog’s Purpose was helpful.
Regarding during computer devices going haywire during emotional moments – happens to me alot, although never the explosion of a phone!
@Random 427: A very cool story. Another skeptic/disbeliever was Gareth Knight. In “Experience of the Inner Worlds” he ridicules the notion of people talking to their cars. I tried to find the page, but it would take some time. My car is now 15 years old, and I make a point of touching it, thanking it, etc. I like the car and would hate to have to replace it. I wish I’d bought two of them back in 2009.
JMG: “The United States is a Uranian society, founded as Uranus was discovered, and so it’s likely to embody the Uranian/Aquarian energy very fully.”
Interesting, I had a think about what in these terms you could describe New Zealand as, its primary founding document being the Waitangi Treaty in 1840. This was of course just a few years before the discovery of Neptune (1846? – which pretty much coincides with the start of the New Zealand Wars). And the New Zealand Constitution Act (in the British parliament) giving NZ right of self-governance was in 1853. Then again the Statute of Westminster of 1931 (just around Pluto’s discovery?) was what gave NZ control over its foreign policy and essentially full independence. So perhaps New Zealand could be described as a Neptunian or Plutonian society? Doesn’t really fit on a quick glance IMHO.
Cary,
I liked your list, but one in particular jumped out at me:
“Necessity never made a good bargain.”
My brother and I word this one as “it’s only expensive if it’s an emergency.” Comes in handy to remember that one.
More generally, I always liked the tryptic “Cheap, fast, good – pick two.”
Dear JMG, in your answer to Team10tim in #397, you gave Turkey as an example, I read it, can you please give more information about Turkey, how does Turkey look from your perspective and what can you recommend to a literature student (in general) ?
@ Martin Bock #452
OR…
“I” am an egregore.
Random #426
“It seems to align with Hazrat Inayat Khan in a way… you said he posits that mind and soul make spirit. Heindel thinks spirit makes body and soul,…”
Ah yes; the trouble with words and definitions!
At the moment It’s not so much about whether things align or agree, it’s a bit like playing with a rubic’s cube of potential… the fact of thinking about stuff seems to open things – like the universe putting something in front of one to see whether we notice, pick up, discard or realise. The longer I’m here the stranger it gets! 😉
Probably behind a paywall (and I see Germany is in the US news a lot lately, including here) but Fortune has this headline “Germany in crisis: Intel and Volkswagen mull a multibillion-dollar withdrawal from the country”
“Germany’s economy has watched some of its largest companies vote with their feet and dollars since its manufacturing industry entered recession more than two years ago. Now, Volkswagen and Intel are poised to add more pain to the country’s coffers in what looks increasingly like a doom loop for the embattled country.
…
For the first time in its 87-year history, Volkswagen is considering shutting down plants in Germany, where it employs around 300,000 people, as the company ramps up efforts to save €10 billion in costs.
…
Reuters reports that Intel will consider pausing or halting plans for its €30 billion ($33 billion) factory in the east German city of Magdeburg as the semiconductor manufacturer looks for cost savings. Germany had committed €9.9 billion ($10.9 billion) to the project when it was announced in June last year.”
If those factories close their suppliers will close and there will indeed be a doom loop. This will require the printing of Free Public Money and create an opportunity for wheelbarrow manufacturers. No it won’t, why cart around a wheelbarrow of cash when you can use a secure Central Bank Digital Currency? Just keep your karma score where it needs to be and restrain your Hate to Party-approved targets at the scheduled two-minute window.
I wanted a peaceful and quiet retirement and I’m not likely to get it.
@ Earthworm,
Thank you for the link! And more to ponder on veils…
Thank you Scotlyn, my girls and I are always in need of divine blessing. A year ago when you wrote me privately, I was doing pretty badly, and I credit the intercessory prayers from you and others as yielding quite a boost for my medical practice. I would not have come forward on my own to seek prayers just for prosperity. Anyway, I recently signed a three-year lease for my clinic, and I’m working enough now such that I don’t have as much time and energy to participate in this blog as I used to.
As to your suggestion about responding to the pronoun question, well, my approach above was pretty snarky to be sure. I don’t use it when politeness is called for; e.g. I was a guest at house party several months back, and simply evaded the hostess’s query. I’m going to add your suggestion to my quiver.
–Lunar Apprentice
@earthworm,
Yes, thinking about things does open them up. Or opens my mind up. Probably both. 🙂
I like the idea of the universe scattering party favors (which could include little rubic’s cubes) everywhere, to see who picks them up and plays with them…
@Phutatorius,
I need to thank my car more often. I’ll make a point of doing that tomorrow!
@anonymous #439: Just don’t forget that the Piscean age began more than 2000 years ago (whatever the exact date) and that the “black” / “white” dichotomy is little more than 300 years old. Also that throughout the Americas, there was the third, the “red race”
Pondering further in the nature of “I”, if I am just a sentient assemblage of living organisms, any conceivable assemblage of living organisms might be aware of itself as an “I” — a tree, a forest, a city, a planet, a galaxy, a universe…
Shades of one of my favorite SF novels, Fred Hoyle’s “The Black Cloud”, featuring a sentient gas that envelopes Earth. I think ol’ Freddy was onto something there.
JMG wrote: “Batstrel, well, certainly not if you ask me something about fairy behavior! Football, on the other hand, will leave me baffled.”
I think you’re missing a trick there, JMG. With your connections, you could organise THE football match of the millennium: American Superheroes versus the Fairies. It could earn billions around the world. You’d be as famous as Donald Duck and Al Jolson rolled into one. I can just imagine you being filmed, sobbing with pride, as you transferred all the profits to the US treasury, so you could pay off most of the government’s debts and make the president promise only to do nice things in future. Go for it!
>it’s only expensive if it’s an emergency
Or the Wall Street saying is “You buy insurance when you can, not when you need to”
Hello Mr. Greer,
I was wondering on your thoughts on the efficacy courageous, violent, or high-risk actions as being means of engaging with theurgy? For example joining a War on some particular side.
Thanks,
Planasthai
Hi there. I read somewhere in one of your previous pieces of writing that all magical action is subject to an equal and opposite force, and that a skillful magician is one that knows how to direct the opposing force in such a way that it doesn’t impact something significant in the working. Could you give an example of what this would look like in practice? Maybe a money/abundance spell example since that was the scenario you listed in the original writing I believe. Thanks for your work!