Yes, it’s Christmas, and most of you have better things to do today than read the internet. That said, 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.
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I’m delighted to report that another book of mine is available for preorder. The Astrology of Nations, my first book on mundane astrology, will be out shortly from REDFeather, an imprint of Schiffer Publishing. It’s a complete textbook of political and economic astrology, intended for anyone interested in practicing that art — the oldest of all branches of astrology and one that anybody interested in politics and economics might want to know. The book covers everything from basic principles to subtle points of interpretation, and also provides a wealth of case studies to show how it’s done. Interested? Preorders can be placed with the publisher here., or at my Bookshop store here.
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With that said, have at it!
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 Bill Rice (Will1000) in southern California, who suffered a painful back injury, be blessed and healed, and may he quickly recover full health and movement.
May David/Trubrujah’s 5 year old nephew Jayce, who is back home after chemotherapy for his leukemia, be healed quickly and fully, and may he, and mother Amanda, and their family find be aided with physical, mental, and emotional strength while they deal with this new life altering situation.
May Peter Van Erp’s friend Kate Bowden’s husband Russ Hobson and his family be enveloped with love as he follows his path forward with the glioblastoma (brain cancer) which has afflicted him.
May Daedalus/ARS receive guidance and finish his kundalini awakening, and overcome the neurological and qi and blood circulation problems that have kept him largely immobilised for several years; may the path toward achieving his life’s work be cleared of obstacles.
May baby Gigi, continue to gain weight and strength, and continue to heal from a possible medication overdose which her mother Elena received during pregnancy, and may Elena be blessed and healed from the continuing random tremors which ensued; may Gigi’s big brother Francis continue to be in excellent health and be blessed.
May Jennifer, whose pregnancy has entered its third trimester, have a safe and healthy pregnancy, may the delivery go smoothly, and may her baby be born healthy and blessed.
May Charlie the cat, who has been extremely sick and vomiting but whose owners can’t afford an expensive vet visit, be blessed, protected, and healed.
May Scotlyn’s friend Fiona, who has been in hospital since early October with what is a diagnosis of ovarian cancer, be blessed and healed, and encouraged in ways that help her to maintain a positive mental and spiritual outlook.
May Annette have a successful resolution for her kidney stones, and a safe and easy surgery to remove the big one blocking her left kidney.
May Peter Evans in California, who has been diagnosed with colon cancer, be completely healed with ease, and make a rapid and total recovery.
May Jennifer and Josiah, their daughter Joanna, and their unborn daughter be protected from all harmful and malicious influences, and may any connection to malign entities or hostile thought forms or projections be broken and their influence banished.
May Ram, who is facing major challenges both legal and emotional with a divorce and child custody dispute, be blessed with the clarity of thought, positive energy, and the inner strength to continue to improve the situation.
May FJay peacefully birth a healthy baby at home with her loved ones. May her postpartum period be restful and full of love and support. May her older child feel surrounded by her love as he adapts to life as a big brother and may her marriage be strengthened during this time.
May all living things who have suffered as a consequence of Hurricanes Helene and Milton be blessed, comforted, and healed.
May Giulia (Julia) in the Eastern suburbs of Cleveland Ohio be healed of recurring seizures and paralysis of her left side and other neurological problems associated with a cyst on the right side of her brain and with surgery to treat it.
May Corey Benton, whose throat tumor has grown around an artery and won’t be treated surgically, be healed of throat cancer.
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.
By the way, to all who have listings on the prayer list: any prayers older than 3 months which haven’t had an update in that time are coming off the list when the New Year rolls in. Please update old entries by then if you’d like to stay on the list into January.
I hope you are having a Merry Christmas where you are.
I was wondering what you think about messages #119 and #120 from the last post on Islam and Christianity respectively.
Thanks to you and your readers for your answers last month. Now this month’s question: What do you make of all the drone hysteria in the U.S. media this month?
Merry Christmas to all who mark it! Regardless, I hope any here have some time with loved ones and away from the lesser-wanted burdens of work this holiday season.
As for the open post, I’ve often run into the linked ideas of “the good, the beautiful, and the true” as having something to do with one another, however imperfectly. I’d like to look more deeply into this, and I figured I’d ask our resident historian of ideas what the background of this line of thinking is, and what sources might be worth looking into. Of course, I’d also welcome any suggestions from the commentariat.
Cheers, and my blessings to all who will have them!
Jeff
Quin, thanks for this as always.
David, I’m familiar with the history of that period — since we’re in a similar trajectory of decline and fall, it seemed sensible to get some background in what happened the last time around — so I nodded and went on. Since you didn’t ask any questions, I didn’t think a response was necessary.
Neon, the hysteria is more interesting than the drones. Drones of various kinds have been buzzing around the US for some years now; I’ve figured that they’re government-sponsored, since the corporate media has gone out of its way not to fuss about them. The questions in my mind are, first, why are they being publicly acknowledged now, and second, why is the government going out of its way to look so inept about it all? I don’t have specific answers in mind, but it’s entertaining to watch.
Jeff, that’s Plato’s great formula. His philosophy was founded on the claim that what we call abstract ideas are more real than the concrete instances of them we experience with our senses — the current scientific concept of laws of nature is descended directly from that thesis — and he argued that the highest of all these Forms or Ideas is Unity, from which we derive our perceptions of the good, the beautiful, and the true. You can find all this discussed in brilliant prose in his dialogue The Republic.
I have recently been reading articles on fossil fuels actually being generated deep in the earth rather than from ancient biological material. Is this just wishful thinking or can there be some truth in it.? Here is a typical example https://open.substack.com/pub/countmetalmind/p/fossil-fuel-the-great-hoax?r=7gcx1&utm_medium=ios
Happy Solstice. I love dark and cold so much, when the nights start getting shorter, I mourn. Nope, I have nothing “better” to do on Christmas eve and day, by design. Christmas offers me nothing valuable.
December twenty-fifth means time is less than a month until Trump’s inauguration. I am sitting on the edge of my seat—waiting—looking forward to it. Hoping for no mishaps.
As for how I am keeping sane until January 20th, I read. I just finished a love story book about a large female half-housecat/half-wild/part-warrior cat “Masha” and a male writer, a true story, a relationship of 20 years. Both are now deceased, he dying this last May. She predeceased him. Masha beat up a bear, and later, a fisher (related to weasel), surviving both attacks.
The book is “My Beloved Monster” by Caleb Carr.😫💧♥️Highly recommended.
💨Northwind Grandma💨📖🐈
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
@JMG #6 re: The Good, the Beautiful, and the True
Thank you! I was pretty sure it originated with Plato, but wasn’t sure which of his dialogues were the best to look to, or if any more recent work had taken it in distinctly different directions. Looks like I need to re-read the Republic!
Thanks again,
Jeff
Hello JMG, Happy Holidays to All 🎅🎁🎄🎄I had a question I would be glad if you could answer it. I think you had a post about Life Energy in Western Culture and if I remember correctly, in it, I think you talked about how priests should direct Spiritual energies outside of social counseling and you were talking about Pre-Reformation Rite books, can you please send the link to that post? I browsed through all 38 pages of your blog one by one but I didn’t notice it, I want to download and read the Rite books mentioned there, thank you.
Mr. O, that claim surfaces at regular intervals. Do you remember when the price of oil spiked to $120 a barrel in 2008? When that happened, a whole lot of oil wells in Pennsylvania and other parts of the US that had run nearly dry, and hadn’t been profitable to keep pumping when oil was $10 a barrel, were uncapped and put back into production. If oil really was spontaneously generated in the center of the earth in any quantity, those wells (some of which had been plugged for most of a century) would have been full again. They weren’t; they all had the same dregs left in them they’d had when they were capped. Thus the theory of abiogenic oil is wrong. Mind you, I expect to see it circulated ever more frantically as the limits to petroleum production squeeze harder — it’s so much easier to pretend that there must be infinite abundance somewhere than it is to deal with the hard reality of a finite world.
Northwind, and a happy solstice to you too!
Jeff, it’s worth a reread. Even if you disagree with it — or especially if you disagree with it! — it’s a fine kick in the pants to encourage serious thinking.
Yigit, I’m not at all sure which post of mine you’re talking about, as the life force has come up quite a bit in these essays. Is this the one you had in mind?
https://www.ecosophia.net/the-neckless-ones-a-historical-puzzle/
Dear Arch Druid:
I am puzled because in the recent floods suffered in Valencia (Spain) seems that the authorities have acted like they’ll be trying to increase the suffering of the survivors ,delaying the humanitarian aid without pretext and making difficult the work of the voluntaries. I know that in
the floods suffered in North Carolina and Germany have happened a similar think. And I ask you if you’ll have some explication for this.
Thanks.
@Jeff #5: You might also consider Plotinus’s moving essay on beauty (Enneads I vi) to be of interest, which agrees with Plato in the main but is, at least in my opinion, much more enchanting. (But then, as you know, I’m not such a huge fan of Plato!)
Mr. O, What I have heard about the abiotic origin of oil theory is that is began with some Russian scientists telling Stalin what Stalin wanted to hear. He had ordered them to Find Oil!–the territory of the former USSR does have some, quite a bit, I gather–which they did, and then dressed up their presentation with flattering rhetoric degenerate Westerners have it all wrong etc. etc. It was American oilmen who found the oil in Kazakhstan after the fall of the USSR, BTW.
Regarding the drones, it looks to me like a setup for disrupting the inauguration either with a drone scare or a drone attack – their ineptitude needs to be demonstrated beforehand so they can wash their hands later and say they did all they could.
I just read the Illuminatus! Trilogy for the first time last week and would like to thank everyone who recommended it.
42 -> 4+2 = 6 = 2 x 3 -> 23
42 -> 4 x 2 = 8 = 2^3 -> 23
A recipe is not a path.
Hello Jeff and All!
Merry Christmas to any and all who celebrate today!
Ok: riffing on the True, the Good and the Beautiful
From the Upanishads: Satyum Jnanam Anandam Truth, Knowledge, Bliss
Buddhism: the Buddha, the Sanga, the Dharma
Human perspectives: “I”, “us”, “it”
Feeling, Thinking, Actualizing
The Self, Our Souls, Spirit
Catholic Trinity: the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit
Yoga: Sattva, Rajas, Tamas…
Thanks for sparking some merry riffing fun today Jeff and JMG!
North wind Grandma- I loved Carr’s book The Alienist (he lived around the corner from me in the East Village when he wrote that – an interesting dude for sure) and I’ll def read this new book on your recommendation. Thank you !
Best
Jill C. yogaandthetarot
What do you think of this message on the subject of empires?:
https://x.com/BiruniKhorasan/status/1779106477413687659
Hello JMG,
This question pertains the hard saturn aspects in a birthchart, more specifically Sun-Saturn. A lot of the research I have done online suggests that alot of the German Pessimists like Arthur Schopenhauer, Otto Weiniger and Peter Wessel Zapffe had Sun-Saturn conjunctions, and the only one to avoid “the void” so to speak seems to be Robert Anton Wilson. A lot of superfical say it suggests bad karma, paracelsus says it is purification, or they suggest it shows discipline. Is it the ‘reversion’ of Saturn against a processive Sun? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Happy Solstice,
Planasthai
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all!
JMG, have you ever written about or discussed Jack Parsons at all? He seems like a fascinating figure—not one I think I’d want to follow the example of (unsurprisingly I presume this is likely to be the case with all thelemites, for the reasons you’ve gone over with Crowley and how his life turned out) but he’s nevertheless just so interesting and mysterious that I can’t help but want to learn more about him and see what other esoteric writers think of him and his ideas.
Yes JMG that’s exactly what I was talking about, thank you so much!!!
There was a time in México, I learned this year, where by presidential decree Santa Claus was replaced by Quetzalcóatl to give gifts to poor children at a time were the Nationalist Revolutionary Party was trying to imbibe local culture in the face of globalized culture. It is said that as a man Quetzalcóatl was a blond bearded man and they used that representation to try to get close to a Santa figure. However, that story is false, which is probably why it failed. It was introduced by friars that were trying to justify indigenous presence and belief –since it was a time where social norms and policy had to face theological scrutiny. Given that Quetzalcóatl didn’t receive human sacrifice, there were attempts even to put him as a saint, particularly St. Thomas, in order to make sense of things and use it as an entry point to conversion (Christians did that a lot). That belief is still held up to this day, but even though it is false, and today it would probably be riddled with loud notes about decolonization, most likely in shrill terms, it makes for a great story. And I, personally, do not feel offended by that, nor were people back then. That wasn’t a thing yet.
What I find most interesting is that people would send letters to the newspapers saying things like: “Are we going to lay down Quetzalcóatl in the Bethlehem manger and pray in Náhuatl?” and, heh, that is exactly what some people are doing right now. Though it isn’t Quetzalcóatl, it would be Huitzilopochtli that is reborn at this time of the year. That would probably be hailed by some willy nilly today (the decree and sentiment of replacing consumer culture and Christianity with indigenous-like things I mean) but at the time there was a quite a bit of resistance, because this was a move from the political party in power to try to unify culture. Mexico being culturally megadiverse, people were upset, didn’t like it and saw it as a form of control. It makes for an interesting read and to me it also shows how complex these things can be, contrary to what the louder and less thoughtful side of the decolonialization camp would want us to belief. Just because something looks indigenous, or even if it actually is, doesn’t imply that it is a good idea. In fact, I would consider it somewhat rude to not get informed about things first before trying to quench guilt. Maybe there are also political agendas behind that, and it makes it a ripe situation for manipulation of people’s good will and the trivialization of meaningful traditions and teachings. Having said all that though, I would love to see Santa being replaced by Quetzalcóatl, though those things can’t come from a presidential decree or an ideological agenda. Politics don’t dictate culture, it is the other way around. Its people that by embracing things, with their own volition and genuine intent, that become part of a culture.
Here is a pic:
https://imgur.com/a/ZbEOBNX
Here is an article in english about it. (I think it has ads, given that some sections where ads would be appear oddly formatted in my browser, but it doesn’t prevent you from visiting with an adblocker)
Dear John,
Thank you for the celestial enlightenment you’ve brought to us. I can’t wait for your new book.
I will always have you and your dear circle of friends, passed on or present, in my dreams and prayers and
I am glad to have the opportunity to thank you for sharing your knowledge. I wish you an everlasting flame for your secret fire.
The tale of Gilligans Space Station continues.
“NASA has delayed the launch of SpaceX Crew-10 to late March 2025 to allow time for processing a new Dragon spacecraft, extending the stay of astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on the ISS to about nine months. ”
As for abiotic oil, no. The carbon isotope ratio matches organic life. Furthermore. It’s too hot for long chain hydrocarbons to be stable in the upper mantle.
After looking at the basic rituals in your Hermetic and Druid writings I decided to devise one of my own. It seems efficacious as I feel blessed, relaxed and energized afterwards. Studying other systems can help someone sort out, discover, express what their own personal heartfelt approach is. Let Freedom Ring!
To all my fellow Christians here, a very merry Christmas to you all.
To all our pagan friends, May your solstice have been a blessed one.
and Happy Holidays to anyone not in the first two groups 😊
Will O
I think I forgot the link! https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/when-quetzalcoatl-took-over-christmas/
Mr. O #7: I, too, have heard that argument. Growing up as I did in Texas, and working for 12 years in Houston (Oil-Patch), I never heard anyone who takes that seriously.
However, let us suppose this is correct. What of it? If we use up oil faster than the earth supposedly regenerates it, how does that help us?
JMG – Have you seen Dave Collum’s 2024 Year in Review (Part 1)? I find reading his take on finance and culture to be bleakly confirming of many tales shared in this space. Here’s a link.
https://peakprosperity.com/2024-year-in-review-what-is-a-fact/
While I appreciate his skepticism and pessimism regarding financial assets (and I believe you do, too), he doesn’t give more than a few hints about prudent steps folks like us can protect ourselves. (You’ve inspired me to look for community involvement through skill building.)
Michael Lind on the role of Al Gore in spoiling environmentalism:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/beyond-green-energy-policy
Did you vote for Nader in 2000 out of curiosity?
@Jeff Russel,
Merry Christmas to you as well! I don’t have much to comment on re “the good, the beautiful, and the true” , besides I think that it’s good to contemplate them. I will say also thought, that a couple times of year I like to watch “The good, the bad, and the ugly”. 😉
Best,
Dean
Merry Christmas! Can we do UFO’s, aliens and orbs?
@JMG #11 re: Republic as a Spur to Thinking
Agreed! Digging into Plato’s dialogues more seriously has demonstrated the value of the dialogue as a format for stimulating thinking rather than passive consumption.
As for agreeing/disagreeing, two things have struck me forcibly since reading it the first time (embarrassingly, only a year or two ago): 1) everyone’s insistence that it’s straightforwardly a work of political philosophy, when Socrates says quite explicitly it’s a model for the human soul (which is not to say Plato didn’t necessarily intend it as a work of political philosophy as well, just not <em<only that), and 2) that the most famous work of western philosophy has a lengthy description of metempsychosis right there in the text. Before reading it, I had a vague idea that Platonists had been influenced by Pythagoreans and that metempsychosis had a role in the religious/philosophical views of the school, but I had no idea that it was right out there in the open. After reading it, I’m amused by the knots the political-philosophy-insisters tie themselves into trying to figure out what Plato could possibly have meant by the Myth of Er, what secret allegorical meaning is hidden there? Again, not saying there isn’t allegorical significance to it, but the idea that maybe he was just saying something about how he thought the human soul worked, in a dialogue about how to properly order the human soul, never seems to cross their minds.
Anyhow, cheers again!
Jeff
Hello JMG,
Wondering your thoughts on the recent murder of the healthcare CEO. Comments online are quite un-sympathetic for the CEO. A popular comedian Bill Burr even called the CEO a gangster that got wacked suggesting his murder was deserved. Do you see this as a reaction to living standards? Or caused by some cultural shift? There is some sympathy from the left leaning mainstream news stations.
re: The Good, the Beautiful, and the True
I have long been intrigued and impressed with the Dinè practice of The Beauty Way, which I translate more as harmony or tao, rather than being solely ‘beauty’ in a western esthetic sense. Recently I have begun to wonder about the western concept and practice(s) of Justice and how The Beauty Way and Justice might actually be different cultural views of essentially the same concept; the restoration of harmony and balance to the World.
Any thoughts about different names and faces for the same experience or concept? And what about the human perception of beauty, which seems to be remarkably universal. Is our sense of Beauty simply utilitarian; like color vision for fruit eating primates? Why are rainbows beautiful to everyone? What do we actually mean when we refer to “Justice”? Clearly it’s not simply sanitized (karma free?) vengeance…
Greetings and blessings,
JMG, have you (or anybody reading this) seriously looked into abiogenic hydrocarbon hypothesis – https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2008RG000270 ? Has it been scientifically (in a true sense) discredited? Or maybe the opposite – some new supporting evidence has been found since 2008? Do people interested in peak oil discuss it?
Season’s greetings John.
I’m curious as to why there’s such a long delay between the election of a new President and his inauguration. The current regime is behaving like a bad tennant who’s received an eviction notice and is intent on trashing the house before they leave. During a transition here in Australia, the outgoing administration goes into “caretaker” mode. They can’t pass any new laws, or make any administrative changes. Why doesn’t the U.S. have a similar arrangement?
What is your take on epistemological warfare in the west, in specifically language usage?
I remember reading the beginning of a English translation of ‘on war’, and it seemed the sentence structure was made to force people to think and hold ideas in their mind over a longer attention span. (Or it could just be me, having a hard time reading it.) I am thinking that there something changing about language structure over time that is reflective of how people learn and become intelligent, beyond the obvious of media changes with tik-tok/Social media brain-rot and the like.
Do Wi-Fi hotspots count as liminal places? Why or why not?
A very merry Christmas to all those who celebrate it!
What is your take on the sasquatch, JMG? And the Loch Ness monster? Are these in some sense real, do you think?
Today , in the bottom of an old record crate I found an old Christmas record from the 1960’s. After playing it I came to the realization that while American Industrial and organizational power peaked about 1969 with the moon landing, American social and artistic culture peaked a bit earlier, with the “Charlie Brown Christmas Special”. Listening to the soundtrack now it is hard to believe that a kids holiday cartoon with such a subtle and nuanced soundtrack and non commercial message was ever popular on main stream television.
Hi John Michael,
Well, that may be true, but in the future – where things are intense (a repo man film reference!) – it’s Boxing day. 🙂 I now rest my case and make the claim that yakking away on the interweb as an activity is back on the table. This is of course unlike the food on the table yesterday which was enjoyed with friends! That stuff now resides in my guts. Actually, it was quite hot down here yesterday so I did not over indulge. A fun day.
I’ll be very interested to read your take on the short term economic future. It’s hard not to notice that the bond yields to maturity, which I guess represent the underlying risk and cost of the borrowings, now exceed the coupon rates. And that is playing out across the west. It’s like the existing and previous policy makers have run out of new ideas. And so now we have change as the US moves back to its original isolationist stance. There are reasonable grounds for changing tack, and it’s not lost on me that this end game began in the mid to late 1970’s. To be honest, it’s an impressive achievement that things have run on for as long as they have.
I’m thinking that there is a very possible risk of default on sovereign debts in the future, and maybe the higher bond yields reflect that growing sense risk or nervousness? What’s your take on that?
The thing with ever increasing debt, is that’s only sustainable (as if anything ever increasing is) if the future covers the cost of the borrowing and returns the original capital. To devalue the currency as a way of performing that same feat, will have other different consequences. And trust is one of those things which is hard won, and easily lost – it being a perception thing.
Oh well, this is not how I’d have arrange things.
Cheers
Chris
Jeff Russell, you do know, I presume, that The Republic is an account of a conversation which really did take place. Two Socrates’ interlocutors, Agathon and Glaucon, IIRC, were brothers of Plato. No doubt, the original conversation would have been enhanced and extended by Plato. The Symposium was also a for real event. Never let it be said that philosophy is dull.
Anselmo, yes, that’s exactly what the official response to the floods in North Carolina looked like, too, and I’m at a loss to explain it. Governments that do such things get overthrown.
KNZ, ha! Very Discordian.
David R, he’s right, of course. For that matter, the British Empire was larger and, in the context of the time, more powerful than the American Empire.
Planasthai, I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking. Combine Solar and Saturnine energies in a birth chart and yes, you typically get deep thought combined with a depressive tendency; how that works out in practice depends on the rest of the chart. It’s simply one of the possible interactions of planetary energies in a natal chart.
Alex, I read a bio of him a couple of decades ago, but I don’t find Thelema interesting at all and Parsons did nothing to change that. If he interests you, though, there are several good bios and I think most of his occult writings are available these days.
Augusto, funny. The thought of Santa in an Aztec outfit decorated with quetzal feathers is in its own way rather charming.
Fereshteh, thank you!
Siliconguy, I hope the station holds together long enough. Word is it’s got serious structural problems.
BeardTree, glad to hear it.
Will O, thank you.
Lathechuck, no, I hadn’t; thanks for this.
David R, nope. Nader is a grifter.
Candy, er, what did you want to do with them? Hang them on the tree? 😉
Jeff, good. Sometimes the most important things are hidden in plain sight.
Alex, the US economic system these days is a scam rum by the very rich, for their own benefit, at the expense of everyone else. What’s more, most people are well aware of this. That’s an exceptionally dangerous situation, and if the rich don’t back off and stop exploiting everyone else so callously, Brian Thompson’s assassination will only be the first of many.
Phil, yes, and in fact somebody asked about this already today. You’ll find my answer in comment #11.
Paul, it used to be much longer — presidents weren’t inaugurated until April. Keep in mind that ours isn’t a parliamentary system; the incoming president has a lot of organizational work to do, putting together his team of subordinates and negotiating with the incoming Congress. In the past, outgoing presidents generally did go into caretaker mode, but that went out the window in 2017 and has just gotten worse since then. Laws may need to be passed to regulate it.
Eruption, the use of language is always contested among competing interests. Older works do have longer and more complex sentences, and thus richer thought, but that’s normal in the decline of a civilization — Latin became much simpler and more stupid as Rome declined.
Moonwolf8, depends on your definition of “liminal spaces,” of course.
Robert K, thank you and likewise!
Batstrel, I have no idea. People certainly see them from time to time.
Clay, that’s Vince Guaraldi’s music — fine mid-20th century instrumental jazz. You’re right that the peak of our culture, at least in that cycle, was probably right around then.
Chris, there’s no way the US can repay its sovereign debt, so either default or hyperinflation is in the cards. My guess is that it’ll be worked out via a series of technical defaults and renegotiations, while the US government cuts its expenses below its income by slashing its payroll in much the same way that Argentina’s new president Milei has done. That’s going to set off economic tsunamis around the world, to be sure.
David Ritz A 300, don’t forget that Lind is an ardent proponent of suburbia, considers it a wonderful living arrangement. There are important things we could and should have been doing a generation ago and should still be doing which he does not mention. Some of those, I am sure you can think of others, are enhancing and extending public transportation, stop the subsidies to industrial agriculture, which is a major contributor to global warming and pollution in general, grow and make what we need here, and shut down the 5,000 mile supply chains.
My son-in-law gave me Kin Stanley Robinson’s “The Ministry of the Future” for Christmas, I think because I recommended Robinson’s “40 days of rain” and the rest of the trilogy to him.
I’m reading in now, and my gut reaction is to feel sick. Not at what Mother Nature is doing, but at all these top level people haring off after the gods-know-what, and those below resorting to terrorism and assassinations…..and then some solutions right out of the Romantic Era…and…shakes head.
Meanwhile, Christmas resulted in loads of gifts – but both the electric teakettle and the teapot I wanted were both family-size, and high-end. I keep wanting to say “I a a small person without much physical strength, and there is only one of me. I don’t need an 8-cup tea kettle and teapot.” And yet, they’re trying so hard…..
KNZ, my guess, it is just that, about the drones is this is a military op to remind the incoming administration that their oaths are taken to remind Mr. Trump and his grey eminence sponsor/sidekick, that the oath to defend and protect the Constitution is not an oath of personal loyalty, especially not to some foreign born rich guy.
I like to track what I think of as watershed events. I think some call them inflection points. I believe we have seen no fewer that three these last weeks. One is, of course, the fall of Syria. from which I fear, nothing good can come. Another is the assassination mentioned by Alex above, and I think a third is the reopening of Notre Dame, which, may have reminded the French of who they are.
I suggest that what has our betters so upset about the assassination is that the alleged perp is himself a child of relative privilege. What happens when the upper servants and the security staff decide they should have the goodies? As the trial proceeds, look for frantic attempts not to make a martyr of him. The response noted by Alex above has all but ensured that he won’t be suicided in jail.
Dear Mr. Greer,
Thank you for the work that you do. I read your book The King in Orange this summer before the election and agreed with everything you said about the state of socioeconomic classes and political parties in the era leading up the election of 2016. However, I feel that something has changed in the past few years that might explain why the Democrats failed so miserably. This change is what might called the emergence of “hybrid class members.” Whereas before 2020 someone from the salary class was firmly in that one class and could therefore align themselves with the Democrat Party and its policies which disadvantaged the other three classes at their expense, since Biden took office things are not quite so simple anymore. I have personally noticed that a lot of people with salary class jobs also have to work second or third jobs in the wage class (i.e., retail etc.) or the new “gig” class (i.e., driving for a ride share service) in order to avoid something as basic as homelessness or to have the luxury of eating three meals per day. Not so long ago, public school teachers and lab workers at hospitals did not have to bag groceries or stock shelves late into the night after clocking out just to barely survive but the Biden administration let the inflation get so far out of control that a lot of people found themselves in the wage class while simultaneously remaining in the salary class. A lot of people making a hundred thousand dollars a year these days complain that they still have to live in little apartments like they did when they were in college because the housing bubble had to cause every home to be supposedly “worth a million dollars,” leaving the majority of salary class workers priced out of the housing market in just the same way that members of the wage class have been for decades now.
Likewise, I wonder if the Democrats miscalculated their chances of victory by failing to see that a lot of people who are technically to be counted as being “in the salary class” are also simultaneously in another class like the wage or gig class and that they could not count on all these people to turn out for them and carry Kamala to a(n undeserved) second term. One pollster went as far as to argue that this election was only decided by one extremely basic demographic criterion. No longer could race, gender etc. be reliable predictive indicators for how one would vote. Only one very simple question could be asked: whether one were currently “living pay check to pay check.” If the answer was yes, as it is for the vast majority of Americans now, one was overwhelmingly likely to vote for Trump. Do you think this means that that the very distinction among the wage class, salary class etc. is losing the kind of meaningfulness it once had as far as predicting elections goes?
@Ken Wood #35 re: Other Views of “The Good, the Beautiful, and the True”
Thanks for this! I wasn’t familiar with the Dinè tradition at all, but I’m not surprised to hear about a certain amount of resonance. It’s precisely the idea that different folks in different times and places have sensed “something,” expressed in however different ways, that I’m interested in exploring, on the idea that that suggests there’s something real and important about whatever that “something” (Unity, Tao, et cetera) might be, or however imperfectly we might perceive and/or enact it.
@Mary Bennet #44 re: Plato’s Dialogues
Thank you, yes, I did know that the various dialogues are all meant to be based on real conversations, and I think it rather likely they really were, though it’s my impression scholars have and do vary on how much “fidelity” they have to the specific conversations involved, and that it might vary from dialogue to dialogue (I know that one school of thought generally thinks they’re closer to transliterations earlier on, like Apology, and with maybe more “authorial interpretation” for the later dialogues). I tend to assume they were approached in the same vein writers like Herodotus and Thucydides approached recording historically-attested speeches: they and their audiences expected it to stick to the same main points and general outline, but to have the language polished with the benefit of time and thought, with a certain amount of dramatic license for readability and excitement. All that said, however much was reporting versus invention, Plato certainly captured the feeling of active conversations with thoughtful interlocutors, which helps stimulate similar thought processes when reading.
Thanks again to both of you for your thoughts!
Jeff
@Clay #42, I am old enough to remember the sixties well. There was a creative ferment bubbling at that time in all arenas and a common yet diverse American culture. A lively peak we have fallen away from. We are running on the remaining fumes and structures from the past. Hopefully we will have a revitalization.
Can you see China as a superpower even in a de-industrial world where rare earths no longer have the same value?:
https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2024/08/mine-the-tech-gap-why-chinas-rare-earth-dominance-persists/
@Batstrel #41 IMO because of the now decades long ubiquity of the cell phone and its video and picture taking ability, that to my mind is evidence for non presence of the Sasquatch in a continuous physical material sense in the NW USA.. Though as Shakespeare said in the play Hamlet “ There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” The non-material can manifest in peculiar ways and perhaps this is what is behind the Sasquatch phenomena, and for that matter UFO’s.
Greetings all!
A friend told me they subscribe to the Epoch Times and found it to be relatively balanced. What do people here know about it? We’d like to subscribe to some newspaper; is this one worth it?
I’m also wanting to learn more about the occult/pre-Christian origins of Catholicism as I’ve been attending a local Mass on and off recently. Any suggestions on books/podcasts? I feel such a read could shed some light on what is going on in the Mass. I was raised mainline Protestant, drifted away and now find the Catholic Mass more reverent and full of life (so many young families and babies, lots of immigrants) than the local geriatric Protestant churches.
Thanks everyone and enjoy the holidays and New Year!
Ellen in ME
Speaking of wannabe political leaders who would likely disappoint, I very much agree with your old post on Sen. Sanders’s candidacy (https://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-08-13/the-war-against-change/), too many people looked up to the guy with the exact same messianic fantasies as Obama eight years earlier. At best, I viewed the guy as a “protest candidate” against a Hillary coronation akin to Eugene McCarthy in 1968. Yet that in itself is no reason to singularly attribute Chosen One qualities to one guy even though one held those same views about the fellow (then) in the White House eight years ago.
Patricia M, I know the feeling. I consider it a blessing that I don’t get gifts from what family I have left these days, as they inevitably got the wrong thing.
Chad, that’s an important issue. The one thing that any ruling class must do, above everything else, is to make sure that the overseer class — the class that actually enforces the edicts of the ruling elite — is more or less happy. Ignore and abuse them and they’re going to stop obeying you, and everything goes to bits in short order thereafter. Not just the Biden regime but the entire corporate bureaucratic-managerial class has lost track of that. Thus I expect to see an abrupt series of transformations in the years immediately ahead, as the overseer class shifts its loyalties to a new elite and the old elite (and the more feckless elements of the old overseer class) end up out on their collective ear.
David R, it was a superpower back before anyone used rare earths for anything but pottery glazes…
Ellen, I wouldn’t call the Epoch Times balanced, but it’s a nice counterweight to the mainstream media. As for the pagan origins of Christianity, Claude Lecouteaux’s book Christian Mythology: Revelation of Pagan Origins might be worth a look.
David R, messianic fantasies directed toward politicians are always stupid, and inevitably lead to disappointment. I’m not sure why so many people have trouble grasping that!