This week’s Ecosophian offering is the monthly open post to field questions and encourage discussion among my readers. All the standard rules apply (no profanity, no sales pitches, no trolling, no rudeness, no paid propagandizing, no long screeds proclaiming the infallible truth of fill in the blank, no endless rehashes of questions I’ve already answered) but since there’s no topic, nothing is off topic — with two exceptions.
First, there’s a dedicated (more or less) open post on my Dreamwidth journal on the ongoing virus panic and related issues, so anything Covid-themed should go there instead.
Second, I’ve had various people try to launch discussions about AIs — that is to say, large language models (LLMs) and the utilities they power — on this and my other forums. The initial statements and their follow-up comments always end up reading as though they were written by LLMs — that is, long strings of words superficially resembling meaningful sentences but not actually communicating anything. That’s neither useful nor entertaining. Thus I’ve decided to ban further discussion of this latest wet dream of the lumpen-internetariat here, and have extended that ban to LLM-generated content of all kinds.
With that said, have at it!
I saw this cool book on emblems, as in alchemical and other traditions, and using them for divination and meditation today. It’s going on my reading stack soon.
Symbolarum: The Secret Wisdom of Emblems by Mandy Aftel.
“The emblem book, which reached the peak of its popularity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, presented mysterious allegorical images–rather like those we now find on tarot cards–alongside Latin mottoes. A learned text explained the connection between image and motto, and the lessons each emblem held for the reader’s life. Drawing on sources such as medieval bestiaries and Aesop’s fables, emblem books reflected an enchanted view of nature in which our human lives were intertwined with plants, animals, the moon and the stars. World-renowned natural perfumer Mandy Aftel first encountered emblem books in the course of her researches into antique botanical illustrations, and quickly became entranced. Here she presents one hundred emblems from perhaps the finest emblem book, the Symbolorum et Emblematum of Camerarius, originally published in four parts between 1590 and 1604. Aftel has sensitively tinted in watercolor the bewitching circular engravings of the Symbolorum, in which giant hands reach from the sky; lions, bears, and unicorns gambol; and distant spires beckon. The mottoes and explanatory texts are given in translation from the original Latin, along with Aftel’s own commentary. An illustrated introduction illuminates the history and magic of emblem book.”–Provided by publisher.
Since surrealism has become a topic of discussion here on Ecosophia the past year or so, as one of the headwaters of Situationism, and its connection to the occult, I thought I would share my latest feature article for Igloo.
https://igloomag.com/features/babs-santini-the-formless-irregular
It is a review of the book The Formless Irregular by Babs Santini… “A definitive, full-color celebration of the elusive visionary Babs Santini—whose surreal, erotically charged collages shaped the visual world of Nurse With Wound and its avant-garde circle—The Formless Irregular spans five decades of radical image-making that transforms waste, dreams, and noise into haunting, darkly humorous art.”
Santini, aka Steve Stapleton of Nurse With Wound has incorporated numerous surrealist techniques both into his music as Nurse With Wound and the visual work he does as Babs Santini, his artistic alter-ego. In figuring out a way to approach the book which is huge, I settled on an A to Z of surrealist and Dadaist techniques, how those relate to the work. It is also a bit of an A to Z of various things that relate to the Nurse With Wound cannon.
Steve Stapleton remains one of my favorite living artists in both the visual medium (where he had his training) and in sound where he had another kind of training in the seventies as a roadie for various krautrock bonds and his extensive collection of out-there records.
He is also a close collaborator with Current 93, which gives some of these images a gnostic edge.
Hello Mr. Greer,
I saw a repost of your views on Jesus Christ, and have a two-fold question. What are your thoughts on Jewish, Islamic and in general abrahamic eschatology and messianism? My second point relates to the first in that there is a distinction made between Athens (masculine, knowledge, individual) and Jerusalem (feminine, revelation, masses) － what do you think of this framing, and in terms of social organisation which do you adhere to, if any？
Hi JMG,
Welp, it looks like Spanberger and a group in Portland are trying to invoke Kek, in imitation of 2016. It was part of their State of the Swamp protest. I can’t see this working out so well for them. If you are using a god of darkness as a means to regain control, I only see immense blowback.
Justin, thanks for this! A good reference on emblem books, aside from its other advantages, will be very useful for a current book project of mine. As for Santini aka Stapleton, hmm. I’ll give his work a look/listen when circumstances permit.
Planasthai, I consider messianism in all its forms a mistake. It’s a typical Piscean distortion of spirituality to think that you should wait for the arrival of the One Perfect Person to solve the world’s problems, instead of realizing that the world you experience is largely a consequence of your own actions and inactions and doing something about those. As for Abrahamic eschatology, I’ve written an entire book titled Apocalypse Not, now on its way to republication, about what I call the “apocalypse meme” — arguably the most disastrous idea in all of human history. With regard to the false dichotomy between “Athens” and “Jerusalem,” I don’t find it useful; like most forced binaries, it obscures far more than it reveals.
Jon, the frog god is going to have so much fun with them! But then it’s a consistent bad habit of decadent elites to think that they can tell the gods what to do…
Probably a babbling incoherent mess of thoughts, but something that has been on my mind lately is a burgeoning trend of decluttering, flea markets, yard sales and finding residual value in the leftovers of a high material production society. I recently built a house and moved to a rural area and realized how much STUFF I have even though I live pretty light. Even so, a big project I want to pursue is gathering up STUFF and having a yard sale or taking it to a flea market. In the little town near where I live there are a few impromptu daily flea markets sprouting up in the older shopping center parking lots; mostly low or working class older folks and some basement dwelling types selling old furniture, sports memorabilia and Pokemon cards.
Second, looking up information on yard sales and decluttering, there seems to be a cluster of videos and articles from around 5 years ago about clearing STUFF out. It’s mostly recently retired people (and mostly women) giving some saccharine advice about Facebook Marketplace and how their kids don’t want their elder parents’ STUFF and how to deal with the emotions of throwing away things that seem important or useful. Oh boy and the unused greeting cards! Makes me wonder about hoarding as a psychological problem similar to an overeating disorder that is unique to a culture and society that seems like it is post-scarcity.
I wonder if the elderly and working class can find some kind of economic stability developing a new economy of trading used goods and if this reuse or repurposing can help build a comfortable life while still reducing actual material consumption and perhaps create community along the way, like an old medieval fair. Obviously, selling used items or repurposing them has been around forever, but would it help create a viable economy or society?
Thanks to JMG’s writing about catabolic collapse and the job of the main character in “Star’s Reach” I perhaps have a more focused lens to see this “junk swapping” phenomenon in its correct context.
I would like to ask both our host his opinion on the matter and the commetariat to chime in if they have been noticing it. And if I may suggest this as a topic to vote on in an upcoming post, let’s call it the “Flea market” or “junk swapping economy.”
Thanks, God bless all, and if you are Catholic, please pray for me. I’ve decided to join the Catholic Church and embrace it fully and am starting the education process currently.
Hi John,
I have been reading Cayce, Steiner, and other “prophets”. And it seems that while they were quite accurate about current events, they were way off about the future. I was going to ask about this, but see a lot of posts on divination, which I need take a look at.
Instead, would you consider a post about Gurdjieff’s system. Especially his cosmology, and the transformation of impressions.
Hi JMG, just a follow up on the Blizzard of 2026.
While you missed this one by being in Maryland, it is quite possible to get a crippling blizzard in the DC area. And the heads up on that is — the DC area normally gets so little snow that there is not much capability to deal with a big storm. During the great “Snowmaggedon” storm of 2010:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_5%E2%80%936,_2010_North_American_blizzard
a large snow plow got stuck on the street in front of our house and sat there for 12 hours til they brought in something big enough to dig it out (this in a wealthy suburb inside the beltway). And while there was a large grocery store I could easily walk to, it was cleaned out of almost anything useful to purchase.
And another heads up — the panic ahead of a major snow event in the DC area is something to behold.
I think there is a very real chance that Canada is about to turn into a full blown police state. There are a number of problematic bills before parliament, but I want to focus on three of them that are especially dangerous: Bill C-2, Bill C-8, and C-9. Any one of them, if passed in their current forms, will essentially overnight turn the country into a police state; while the combination of the three will essentially end all civil liberties in the country.
Bill C-2 makes it a lot easier for the government to monitor essentially all financial transactions in the country; makes it much harder to use cash; allows the government to search mail without a warrant, and to use illegally obtained material for investigations; and makes crossing the border (even to leave the country) an awful lot more invasive and more difficult. Bill C-8 strips away all privacy and free speech rights for anything done on any computer system, and makes it possible for the government to issue orders in complete secrecy ordering anyone who provides any computer service to spy on any, or all, of their users.
Bill C-9 is a little more subtle, but it removes most of the key checks on the government abusing the hate speech laws. They are already uncomfortably broad, but there are several extra steps that need to be followed before the government is allowed to bring charges. Getting rid of those will do a pretty good job of stripping away what remains of our free speech rights.
I’m bringing these up because I know there are a number of Canadians here, and I have not seen nearly as much discussion of these bills as I think they warrant. I also think it’s probably worth forming a plan to leave the country, if you are able to do so, and have not already made one.
The esoteric implications of the geology of Glastonbury Tor.
Round about the middle of 2025, I had the pleasure of attending the weekend in Glastonbury that had been organised to coincide with JMG’s visit to the UK. From recollection it was the Friday that we went round the ruins of the abbey, then up to the White Springs. After which, JMG and several hardy souls climbed to Tor itself. I left them too it, it had been a long drive over from my lair on the south coast and for entirely unconnected reasons my knee was hurting.
The springs are a slightly eery place. A Victorian brick structure – originally a water pumping house – has been built over some natural caves and in 2012 the entire site was taken over by a slightly mysterious group who converted it to a temple. Inside there are some pools fed by springs and various pieces of artwork. I splashed some of the water on my face and hands and took a few slightly suspicious sips. As it happened, on the Sunday morning of the weekend someone had to drop out of the speaker schedule and instead we were treated to a fascinating talk of the geology of the Tor itself. It sparked an idea in me because on that first evening I experienced something quite extraordinary. Something that I’ve not recounted to anyone until today.
I’m writing about it now because this last weekend I stopped off in Glastonbury while on my way to pick up some raw deer skins from Devon. I’m in the process of retraining as a bookbinder and I want to see if I can make vellum the medieval way. It’s an endangered craft in the UK but real vellum – not the plasiticised paper substitute – is in high demand by both artists and calligraphers. Naturally, I’m interested although it’s a gruesome and rather smelly process. Glastonbury is a natural layover point and it has a great many bookshops which is all the excuse I really need. If you’ve never been, I can give you a flavour of the place by recounting the following conversation I overheard whilst browsing in an occult bookshop between the man behind the counter and the Mayor of Glastonbury who had wandered in out of the rain.
“Have you seen Jesus today? I’m looking for him.”
“Which one?”
“The Welsh Jesus, not the one from Wells.”
“No, sorry, I have seen one of the two Lokis though.”
In any case – on that particular Friday I went back to my room and since it was past time, meditated. Usually this process leaves me relaxed an cheerful because the particular style I follow is designed to stop thought. Since my day job requires entirely too much thought already I find it ideal although of course it is completely distinct from the discursive meditation JMG has frequently written about.
I gradually became aware of a remarkable sensation which I can only describe as a golden glow surrounding me – as if I’d been temporarily transformed into a low power incandescent light bulb. Not that you could see anything I think. I was by myself and had my eyes closed so its a poor analogy at best. My knee stopped hurting and for 20 minutes I basked. Can’t think of a better verb. I felt absolutely fabulous – all the more so because it was completely unexpected. A gift.
Was it the resinous atmosphere of Glastonbury? Was it the water? I had no idea and of course no way of finding out, but the lecture on Sunday offered a clue.
The Tor is something of a geological anomaly rising high above the lower swampy Somerset levels like a natural island. It’s visible from miles away and in case anyone failed to notice it, a ruined stone tower perches on top. The geology is stratified. Layers of sand, clay, and limestone alternate and the whole thing rests on a structure of ammonite marl – that is a layer of mudstone thickly studded with crushed Ammonite shells.
Rain water trickles down through these layers and emerges in the White Spring having been thoroughly filtered. Thousands of gallons a day and during rainy periods far more than that.
Nobody seems to have commented on the fact that whereas sand and clay are effectively mineral inorganic materials, limestone has an organic origin as does ammonite marl. Wilhelm Reich would have been delighted – in effect the Tor is probably the largest natural Orgone accumulator on the planet. With a built in water supply!
And so, this last weekend I was in a position to see if I could repeat the experience. After I’d visited the bookstore, heroically limiting myself to just a few dozen purchases, I went up to the White Springs again. This time with an empty water bottle.
That evening, back in the hotel I meditated and although it was perfectly easy, useful, and relaxing there was no repeat of the _glow_. Was I disappointed? perhaps a little. It really had been wonderful but perhaps lightening doesn’t strike twice.
And then that night I had the best night’s unbroken sleep I’ve managed for several months and this has repeated for the last several days. That’s unprecedented for me.
As a side note, this coming Friday represents my third attempt to retire from my day job and start my bookbinding and publishing career. I have been unexpectedly held back since December and so various promises of books from me to others have not progressed as far as I’d like. There has been some progress however and some emails with updates will be going out shortly.
Hi JMG,
Can you tell me when the next entry in your Ariel Moravec series is scheduled to come out? I haven’t yet seen any reference to it online, yet. Thanks!
Speaking of Jesus Christ, in 1 Corinthians 15:45 (written about 20 years after the departure of Jesus) Jesus is termed “a life giving spirit” which fits the usual Christian understanding of Jesus AND the undoubted spiritual effects stemming from the Jesus phenomena in JMG’s understanding of the Jesus thing, even though he doesn’t accept the classic view. Jesus has certainly been “a life giving spirit” for me. The strong peaceful experience for me fits the traditional viewpoint and I am not threatened or bothered by other takes on Jesus as being in friendly relationship with people is more fun unless they are ornery and not safe then I keep a friendly distance.
Hi JMG,
Just listened to you on the Plant Cunning podcast. I really enjoyed the discussion! Can I enquire what style of Tai Chi you are learning? I can recomment a very good Chinese martials arts teacher in DC, he teaches everything, but his specialty is chinese straight sword.
Also, what a time to be alive! “Normies” i know are now talking to me about how elites are eating babies after the Epstein document dump. Do you think there is anything to the allegations of occult rituals and sacrifice?
Hello Mr. Greer,
You have mentioned in your podcasts and writings that a person who exhibits talent in a particular area studied that material in a past life. I was curious to know how far back you think this extends. I understand that according to reincarnation if I study music in this life, I will have aptitude for it in my next life. But will that be true two lifetimes from now? What about 12? Or is it a use it or lose it thing? If I study a lot of music in life number four, do other stuff for lives 5 through 16, and then come back to music in life 17, will I have forgotten most of what I learned or will I retain it?
IDK what the frog symbol means to Spanberger, et al, but for me, frogs and other amphibians are the early warning system for ecological distress from poisons. Amphibians “breath”, not air, but moisture, I hope I have that right, through their skins. I tend to think that the presence of toads and frogs in my yard shows that that patch of earth has accepted me.
Spanberger is a smart lady. She gave a decent, workwoman like speech in which, if I read her intentions right, she declined to audition for the 2028 Democratic nomination, intending instead to build her reputation by taking care of business in Virginia. As a state gov., she won’t need all that lovely dual-citizen, Zio-con money, and if she ever does decide to get into national politics, she won’t owe that faction a thing.
Watchflinger, welcome to the Church in which all are welcome at God’s table. Best wishes for your spiritual journey.
“The amount of power being sought by new datacentre projects in Great Britain would exceed the national current peak electricity consumption, according to an industry watchdog.
Ofgem said about 140 proposed datacentre schemes, driven by use of artificial intelligence, could require 50 gigawatts of electricity – 5GW more than the country’s current peak demand.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/23/new-datacentres-risk-doubling-uk-electricity-use-ofgem-peak-demand
I hope their wind turbines do better than ours. Due to a long streak of really calm days I pulled the data from the BPA and found it was not my imagination. From Jan 14 to 27 the output of the wind turbines never exceeded 10% of the name plate rating. On Jan 13 they made 11.5% of nameplate. Jan 28 came in at 10.6%. Solar ran about 17% of nameplate for the month.
The good news was that from mid-January to mid February my power use was 1900 kWh instead of 2700 kWh like last year. The warm winter has been pleasant, but the consequence is that it’s raining instead of snowing and the mountain snowpack is really low.
In a recent Magic Monday, the topic of godless paganism came up and you mentioned that the folks were entryists.
Can you expand on that.
I experienced John Halstead of godless paganism first hand. He came into Polytheist spaces and complained that we were not welcoming to him and his cohort since we all worshiped archetypes. I ended up doing hand to hand combat with him until I realized he wanted the last word. So I gave it to him.
The Polytheist movement at the time was infiltrated with people who wanted to turn it to political Maxism. That part fell apart, but there are still a dedicated group of Polytheists still doing what they do best.
What I did notice that the godless pagan types did enter paganism, but they seem to have left when people refused to leave Patheos after it was bought out by a Christian group. However, they must have gone into pagan groups like ADF since that and other similar groups are more and more political in their bent. Now, it seems that Progressive Witches and Pagans are all about politics and fitting the religion into their political lens.
Meanwhile, there is/was a moment to brand certain Polytheists nazis and fascists, complete with do not read lists, and a naughty list of nazi pagan sites. It is still buzzing around but more people seem to back off from the Gods smiting xyz person for being a fascist.
Was this a process of entryism or simply a progression of Neo-Pagans moving to less spirituality. I left ADF when it became very political, but I could not place any individual as an entryist.
—
Halstead btw had a metal breakdown, recovered, and still blogging – low key stuff. Mark Green the other godless pagan went on to form atheopaganism, which he boasts has 5000 members world wide.
Hello JMG and All!
I am excited to announce my book Yoga, Magic and Tarot: An Esoteric Manual of Eastern Philosophy and Western Occultism is available for pre-order from everyone’s favorite publisher, Aeon. There is a 20% discount code for you until 11-30-26. Use code YOGA20.
This never would have happened without all of you and our most esteemed host, JMG. I am so grateful. Thank you.
Warmest regards always
Jill C Yogaandthetarot
https://spirit.aeonbooks.co.uk/product/yoga-magic-and-the-tarot/95448
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Yoga, Magic and the Tarot : An Esoteric Manual of Eastern Philosophy and Western Occultism – Jill Camera – Aeon Spirit
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Speaking of data centers, there is a new power line going in from Wanapum dam to Quincy (Washington State). The new load is all data centers of course.
“Once complete, the upgrades are expected to increase available transmission capacity into Quincy from approximately 372 megawatts to about 750 megawatts — effectively doubling the area’s capacity to serve new and existing load.”
And on the climate change front, Wisconsin is doing well. It’s also worth mentioning the lowest point is Lake Michigan so sea level rise won’t be bothering them.
” A new report by the Weiss Energy Policy Institute analyzed 130 years of Wisconsin climate data and found that as atmospheric CO2 rose 45%, Wisconsin experienced 63% fewer days over 90°F, heatwaves 71% shorter in duration, powerful tornadoes down 70%, and significant drought decline since 1894. This isn’t just absence of evidence, it’s negative correlation. As CO2 increased, climate extremes decreased.”
https://www.weissenergy.org/uploads/b/8f73f530-1264-11ef-92ea-53aa1763991e/Wisconsin%20Energy%20Policy%20Innovating%20within%20the%20regulated%20monopoly%20and%20dismatling%20the%20climate%20case%20against%20hydrocarbons_OTg1MT.pdf
I had the pleasure of collaborating with JMG to create a Blasting Trident of Paracelsus. Feedback on its use has been good, and I’m offering the same items to others who wish to own one. These items are handcrafted and ship from Canada.
Photos and a detailed description of the trident are on my blacksmithing website, https://reforgedironworks.com/product/blasting-trident-of-paracelsus/
Any questions can be sent to info-at-reforgedironworks-dot-com or posted here.
Thank you,
Tim PW
About godless paganism, it seems that the people wanted the benefits of spirituality without the god stuff. I noted that Atheopaganism has all sorts of rituals that nearly approach the mystic, but then stops.
I wonder if the current crop of Neo-Pagans are moving in that direction. I noted that many were previously interested in theological topics have jumped on the anti-Trump train. It seems that the politics have become the religion. Now as Jonathan Turley observed in his new book – it is the age of rage. He cites more rage from the left than the right. (But personally, I noted it also from the right as well.) The rage is showing up in Neo-Pagan blogs such as the Wild Hunt.
I am also struck by how everyone is in different tribes now, with different information. I heard that ICE has concentration camps and kidnaps U.S. citizens from Progressive folks. I have heard how we are under Sharia Law from the Steve Bannon folks. I guess, the middle is missing between the two camps on pro-Trump and anti-Trump. Is part of the problem is that we all have our own facts and refuse to meet in the middle. Am I making any sense?
One last post and I’ll take a break from power vs Augmented Idiocy.
“Grant PUD increased the fee required to remain in the waiting list, prompting customers and prospective customers to reassess and “right-size” their power requests.”
“Commissioners heard Feb. 17 that the utility’s Large Power Solutions group has significantly reduced the amount of requested power in its connection “queue,” cutting it from 2,191 megawatts to 692 megawatts following a recent “queue-cleansing” effort.”
“The results showed 43% of applications remained unchanged, 20% were resized, 17% were canceled, and 20% were eliminated due to lack of payment or response.”
So 37% complete vapor at least when asked to put money on the table. I heard something in the news about making data centers build their own power plants on site. That’s an obvious solution to the problem. Since small power plants tend to be less efficient then big ones that will create its own issues.
Looks like Twilight’s Last Gleaming plot rhymes with today events, at least some of it, it could be Crete it could be Diego Garcia. Some people say that the Iranian missiles can reach both. The dopamine addicted people that are following these feeds now are saying this is the “calm before the storm”. We shall see.
Some ar making fun of how a t-shirt disabled an aircraft carrier. I won’t repost here the news with the shale problems Ford aircraft carrier is facing.
JMG, I’d be fascinated to hear your thoughts on the distinction between science fiction and fantasy. I recall an essay by Philip K. Dick in which he suggested that you could argue the film Alien is fantasy, if you believe it’s impossible for a creature like that to exist; but if you believe it could exist, then Alien is science fiction.
I’m in rapture over your novels The Fires of Shalsha and Journey Star, but they feature interstellar travel, which you’ve since come to regard—correctly, I believe—as impossible. If we grant that science fiction is fiction that portrays events as consistent with the known (or at least plausibly extrapolated) laws of nature, while fantasy is fiction that departs from those laws, then would you say fantasy is the more accurate way to categorize Shalsha and Journey Star?
Re-read your “How It Could Happen” series from back in 2012 on the old blog; seems uncomfortably prescient vis-a-vis the current Iran situation. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Likudnik/neocon faction has gone pants-crapping insane. I’m eerily reminded of Jan Matthys riding out from Munster with twelve Anabaptist followers to attack the armies of Count Franz von Waldeck. Quos Dei vult perdere, prius dementat?
@ Watchflinger #6
I have a positive data point to throw at this. We have a local Internet group (on Faceplant? I dunno) that my wife is part of called “The Free Site”. Folks will post an item that is useful/valuable/desirable that they no longer want and are willing to part with for free. Alternatively people will post an ISO (in search of) and someone will go dig around in their garage and pull out said item tolerably often. No money is exchanged and people are not using it to “shadow advertise” things. The group is absolutely booming. We use it extensively both to find items we need (especially kid related items) and also have given away a number of things. There are a lot of very generous people about who are happy to help out the community just for the sake of it.
I spend a lot of life being swamped in data points about how crappy things have become but the Free Site has really been a nice point on the other side of the scale locally.
HV
John,
I’ve been playing tabletop roleplaying games since I quit video games a couple years ago. I’m sure we all remember when the fundies decried Dungeons and Dragons as satanic and occult. But lately as I’ve been playing D&D alongside studying the occult, I’ve realized that maybe some occult elements are involved in D&D, funnily enough! Hear me out!
D&D games tend to create a sort of egregore over time. The Dungeon Master is the one who plans the game, but as the group becomes immersed in the game it begins to take on a life of its own and in a good D&D group it can feel very real. The Dungeon Master loses control and things just seem to unfold on their own. Furthermore, D&D games use random chance with the dice, which is similar to divination. Agency is outsourced to the universe, and if you already believe that there’s more to tarot that random chance and wishful thinking, it’s not too far of a stretch to think something similar might be happening with D&D. Finally, D&D trains the faculties of the imagination and the will in all the participants. I think that at its best, D&D can act as a sort of ritual of imagination that brings the group close together in a very special way.
The book looks really neat… I look forward to reading it myself. Best of luck with that writing project…
As for Nurse With Wound, and knowing your own tastes to a degree, I would perhaps suggest starting with the song Two Shaves and a Shine from the album An Awkward Pause:
https://nursewithwound1.bandcamp.com/track/two-shaves-and-a-shine
My personal favorite albums, beyond the ones above are Soliloquy for Lililth, Rock and Roll Station, Sugar Fish Drink, Large Ladies with Cake in the Oven, and Simple Headphone Mind, among all the rest.
Also, I saw this counter curse for your meme collection:
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hXPx!,w_371,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe11cf977-038b-4b0f-a00e-c9cd0da9f42a_946x1072.jpeg
I do have a question for Jon G (#4 above):
I am curious where you discovered “a group in Portland are trying to invoke Kek”? I don’t disbelieve you, but, living in a suburb of that esteemed city. I would like to keep an eye on what people are up to so that I can stay out of the way.
I’ve been trying to decide whether this should be on Magic Monday or open post. Since it’s not really a question, but just an invitation to discussion, if anybody is interested. I’ve been reading several books that are more or less Christian, lately; books by Rudolf Steiner, Boris Mouravieff, Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight. It’s the last of these I want to discuss here; his “Experience of the Inner Worlds.” He is quite clear that he’s written it for unambiguously committed Christians. Clearly, I’m not one of those. JMG’s comment above, that ” I consider messianism in all its forms a mistake,” is a sentiment with which I agree — and that becomes a little bit of a stumbling block regarding Christianity. The first thing that struck me when I first read it years ago was that Knight has described someone just like my own mother on p. 120. It’s an uncanny resemblance, really. Beyond that, the exercises he provides in the early chapters, the sphere of light and the flaming sword have much in common with the sphere of protection, which I practice daily. Further on, however, he warns that “We are about to embark on the study of magic, and this differs in many respects from mysticism.” From that point (Ch VII) on he concentrates on the “tree of life” and the Hebrew alphabet. He sets up a cube with a Hebrew letter on each side. That connects quite easily, in my mind, with the six elemental symbols used in the sphere of protection. He also gets into the Picatrix and its three tiered Universe, which puts me in mind of the three principles in “The Way of the Golden Section.”
A second topic but not entirely unrelated; I’ve also been re-reading JMG’s “A World Full of Gods” along with “From Yahweh to Zion” by Laurent Guyenot. The early chapters of the latter book, especially chapter 2, and JMG’s book complement each other quite nicely. Again, there’s not really a question here, but just an invitation to discussion should anybody be interested. (I have a busy reading schedule these days.)
Watchflinger – you said “Second, looking up information on yard sales and decluttering, there seems to be a cluster of videos and articles from around 5 years ago about clearing STUFF out.” What that makes me wonder is, if there’s an emphasis in the spiritual world right now encouraging people to get it to whoever needs it more than you do. One person’s junk, is another’s treasure. And even our treasure can, at some point, be junk, if we are hoarding it. Or even just not passing it on, especially if one of the reasons we have it to start with, is someone “passing it on”.
JMG – Thanks for the Isaac Hill (and thanks, too, Isaac) podcast on Plant Cunning. What a hopeful vision – the Kali Yuga as collective initiation via the nadir. Appareciate your stalwarness in all things seemingly dire.
Hi JMG,
My husband and I just want to offer another thank you for the ever-entertaining and ever-useful Cosmic Oom. It is the best and funniest password generator ever!
OtterGirl
@William, yes, I’ve been following that, and signing such petitions as I can find against them. It doesn’t feel like anywhere near enough. I want to find more ways to do something about this. Any suggestions for practical things I can do? I’m serious. The hate speech one concerns me especially as it looks to remove protections from religious free speech in particular.
I am in the process of acquiring a Canadian passport, though since I’d lose my source of income if I left and other countries are unlikely to want a disabled person as a new member, my options would be very limited. I have dual citizenship in Britain so I could go there and they couldn’t stop me, and I’d have relatives who might help but A) I’d need a british passport for that since they now just started insisting that dual citizens must travel using a british passport, even if non british citizens with a canadian passport can visit just fine unless they’re also british citizens and B) Britain isn’t exactly a shining example of free speech either right now.
I think I’m probably best off staying in Canada, short of civil war in my specific location, or a government going completely nuts and deciding to turn MAiD into ‘lets murder every single non economically productive person in the country’.
But getting my passports for both nations seems like a good idea. Because sometimes events in the long tail happen.
JMG in post #5 said: I consider messianism in all its forms a mistake. It’s a typical Piscean distortion of spirituality to think that you should wait for the arrival of the One Perfect Person to solve the world’s problems, instead of realizing that the world you experience is largely a consequence of your own actions and inactions and doing something about those.
I think that for thousands of years millions of people have reinterpreted the messiah story in accordance with what they thought, or believed, or wanted to believe. I also think that people’s perception of reality is based largely, if not entirely, upon their own thoughts, emotions, and actions; and that understanding and working to understand these aspects of the self is probably man’s highest good.
That being said, I find the messiah concept highly useful. Not in terms of waiting for the One Perfect Person but in terms of doing my best to become the Best One Perfect Person that I can be. Not perfect in the sense of “having no flaws”. Perfect in the sense of doing the best with what I have to work with in the present moment. I believe that everyone needs help doing this. I know I do.
So if I can grab a piece of the messiah story and understand it in a way that helps me to become better I am definitely going to do it. I do the same with any belief system that I discover. I believe the flaw is in uncritically accepting the prepackaged story. Because, even within a particular religion, the story seems to vary considerable from person to person.
Hi JMG,
It’s been a while since I’ve commented here, but I’ve still been reading everything you’ve been posting, and I’ve been appreciating all your work as always. I’m reaching out because I’ve been finding all this Epstein files stuff really quite upsetting. I think I’ve followed a lot of these threads as conspiracy theories, but seeing it all vomited up in a way that I can’t hand wave away is feeling like some sort of psychic attack. It feels like the whole endeavour was designed to degrade humanity to such a degree that even to hear about it pulls you down. At any rate, I am struggling with this and was wondering what advice you might have for those of us who are. I guess I was naive about the dark potential of human beings and of our society in general, even though I never would have thought I was prior.
I think I am seeing the positive threads in what is happening right now, the way people are on this and doing the work to bring this to light and to bring justice, both through official and unofficial channels, but still it is a lot, and I’m torn between wanting to keep up with the information before it can be squashed, and a desire to retain a general sense of hope about us and the world. I don’t want to hokd a view that is false, so it feels I want to know the truth, but I am finding it very difficult all the same.
I hope you and your readers are well, and I apologize if I missed anything from you on this subject asking us to stay away from it in the comments.
Thanks,
Johnny
@22 Neptunesdolphin
The problem about meeting in the middle is that the Epstein files show that the old middle is either outdated or the product of a lie. If the document dumps hinting at infant cannibalism are true, this means that historical claims of what many people have been trained to think of as “blood libel” have to be taken seriously. If the documents were fabricated as a psy-op, well, we still can’t trust mainstrean narratives because media outlets have blown their credibility. Now, what we have to inform us are our own experiences, and political”infotainment” of varying degrees of falsehood. This is a time of dissensus.
Re: Atheist neopagans
How do the gods you have relationships with generally respond to open minded non belief– them going through rituals hoping that the gods exist after all? That might be better for them than politics-in-religious-guise.
@Johnny
I would say, keep the Epstein files info at a distance. We should know the broad outlines, but really are better off not knowing most of the details (since we are powerless to do anything about it unless a civil war breaks out.
Watchflinger, that’s an important sign, and one I’ve been watching as well. In some ways it’s a good sign, in that it shows that at least some people are beginning to extract themselves from the spell of consumerism — but it’s also a warning sign of economic stress. In my recent move, btw, I had to confront all the stuff that had piled up since my last move 8 1/2 years ago, and I’m still in the process of paring down.
Kevin, I know very little about Gurdjieff’s system. The Fourth Way is its own thing, largely unconnected to the Western esoteric tradition, and I haven’t studied it so don’t really have anything to say about it.
Cyclone, I was in Cumberland, MD in 2010, and well remember the spectacular blizzard that year. I’m well aware that DC can get heavy snow — I’m just glad to have missed out on this example of the species.
William, I wish I could say I was surprised. If I lived in Canada I’d be making plans to leave, fast.
Andy, thanks for this. Glastonbury is one of my favorite places on the planet, and the earth energies there are part of the reason why.
Chronojourner, The House of the Crows, Ariel’s fourth adventure, is due out in April.
BeardTree, if that’s your experience, go ye forth and follow. One of my long-term projects is synthesizing my reflections on the Divine from A World Full of Gods with some more general philosophical reflections, developing something I call “apophatic polytheism.” Basically, the point is that as finite human beings we can know so little about the Divine that all we really have to go on is personal experience guided by tradition, which is itself simply the residue of lots of personal experiences in the past. Thus it’s a waste of time to critique anyone else’s religious beliefs (though of course their behavior is subject to critique on the same basis as all other human behavior).
Crj, my current teacher does Cheng Man-ching’s version of Yang style taiji — he was a student of Robert W. Smith, Cheng’s first Western student — and also teaches a straight sword form. Since the classes are an easy walk from my apartment, I plan on staying with him for the foreseeable future. It’s been seventeen years since I last took taiji classes and I’m basically having to relearn everything from scratch. Down the road, though, we’ll see. As for the business about occult rituals and sacrifice, it’s quite common for decadent elite classes whose grip on power is weakening to dabble in occultism to try to regain control. When they do this, the kind of occultism they take up is always corrupt and debased — being decadent and self-indulgent, they can’t achieve genuine magical power, and so turn to sacrifice and other vile activities. You might look into the Affair of the Poisons in 17th-century France to get another snapshot of the disgusting behavior that too often results.
Stephen, I’ve never seen this discussed in the literature.
Siliconguy, one of the reasons I’ve come to think that a fair amount of the “AI” business is deliberate scammery is that it should be obvious to everyone that all those data centers can never get the power they require.
Neptunesdolphins, you’ve just done a better job of explaining entryism than I could. It’s precisely the process by which people join groups to take them over and hijack them for unrelated purposes — for example, turning a Pagan religious group into a front for socialist politics. Entryists who are any good make sure to camouflage themselves — but look at their actions and you can usually tell. I haven’t met Halstead or Green, but my read on them both is that they’re political activists pretending to be Pagans.
Jill, glad to hear it!
Siliconguy, thanks for the data points.
Tim, glad to see this, too. I’ve received three tridents so far, and all three of them are good solid workmanlike pieces, yours very much included — and the trident of Paracelsus is a classic magical tool in the European tradition that deserves much more attention than it’s gotten.
Neptunesdolphins, the avant-garde cycles back and forth from mostly spiritual to mostly political. It was primarily spiritual from the twilight of Sixties radicalism to the first election of Donald Trump; now it’s going hard in a political direction. I expect to see most of those political Pagans ditch the Paganism in the years ahead and center their lives on political activism. Yes, you’re making sense; this is part of what I talked about in my post late last year about cognitive collapse.
Siliconguy, thanks for this also. That’s another argument for scammery…
Archivist, yeah, I’m watching that situation closely. I really didn’t intend that novel as a manual!
Frank, it’s impossible to draw a line between the two. Synchronistically enough, I’m reading a classic Andre Norton novel right now, Judgment on Janus, which splits the difference straight down the middle — it’s a fantasy story in an SF setting. Rather than having a hard criterion, I’d say they’re two overlapping genres; what differentiates them is that science fiction takes its imagery and identity from technologies, real or imagined, and fantasy takes its imagery and identity from magic, real or imagined. Thus I consider my two Eridan novels to be science fiction, since all the imagery and identity relies on supposed technologies — interstellar colony ships, an alien planet with its own biology, and the neurological effects of a native plant. Whether or not the technologies are possible doesn’t matter that much — otherwise you’d have to retroactively recategorize any SF novel that depends on technologies later research finds to be impossible!
RaabSilco, oddly enough, that comparison had occurred to me also. I’d also point to the equally giddy delusions of those European politicians who are insisting that their countries should go to war with Russia and defeat it. In the twilight of corporate-bureaucratic globalism, a lot of allegedly serious thinkers have taken the short route to the loony bin.
Nephite, you’ll be amused to know that occultists have been discussing that for decades. Tabletop RPGs at their best are wonderful training for the imagination, and approximate a sort of group pathworking.
Justin, oh my. Whoever came up with that is either very well informed about magic or simply naturally wise. That would work, you know…
Phutatorius, delighted to hear both of these.
Celadon, we were born to face this time. Chin up and on we go!
OtterGirl, ha! I didn’t think of that use for it, but it ought to work well.
Point, if that works for you, by all means. My opinion is simply my opinion.
Johnny, it’s really revolting stuff. I haven’t followed it closely, because I’m aware of just how vile human beings can be, partly via reading and partly from a quiet evening many years ago when I was working in a nursing home and one of my coworkers, a guy from Cambodia, talked about what he experienced under the Khmer Rouge. (He came from an extended family of nearly forty people; he and his sister were the only two survivors.) I don’t recommend getting too obsessive about it; you may be right about the degrading intent — demons do that, by all accounts.
Hi Derinoglade,
Here is their website: https://www.portlandfrogbrigade.com/
Of all the animals they could have chosen, it was the frog. Perhaps it is part of a meme warfare campaign. I suspect Kek had something to do with it.
At this page is the full list of all of the non-faith-specific requests for prayer that have recently appeared at ecosophia.net and ecosophia.dreamwidth.org, as well as in the comments of the prayer list posts (printable version here, current to 2/19). Please feel free to add any or all of the requests to your own prayers.
We have finally published another book!
This one has been in the works since 2012.
If you’re a Dorothy L. Sayers fan, it’s the “Complete, Annotated Clouds of Witness.”
We can do this because the book is in the public domain in the U.S.
As always, Bill added hundreds of footnotes, maps, period illustrations, and extensive essays to explain what you’re reading. Since “Clouds” was published in 1926 as a contemporary, there’s lots to explain.
Learn more at https://peschelpress.com/the-complete-annotated-clouds-of-witness/
The trade paperback is available. The eBook is coming.
Eventually — expect this to take a decade or more — Bill will annotate all of Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels, short stories, AND “The Documents of the Case,” AND the Montague Egg stories. Eventually.
HippeViking #27 That’s an interesting point and good to see that people are trading up for things they need. An economy does not necessarily have to have money flowing for value to be added. But, I also hear complaints about people spending all day on FacePalm Marketplace searching for deals on things they don’t really need (Like a horse trailer for someone with no horses!) It also made me think about how now manufactured goods are made and concentrated in one place, and perhaps the used-goods market will start distributing them locally again.
Celadon #32 I never considered the spiritual aspect of it, just the economic aspect and the idea of used goods being a form of capital or “raw materials” in some sense.
JMG #37 I agree that it’s a good sign of the waning power of materialism and that it’s also a sign of economic stress. I found one of those automatic kiosks to sell my old cell phones to, so I’ll get a few bucks out of it. I’m sure you’ll pair down your material possessions as will I after our respective moves. I’m more focusing on getting a little cash as I find money to be more useful than things right now.
@Phutatorius: “He sets up a cube with a Hebrew letter on each side. That connects quite easily, in my mind, with the six elemental symbols used in the sphere of protection.”
Minus the Hebrew letter part, were you eavesdropping on my morning meditation?
A World Full of Gods might be my favorite JMG nonfiction book. I would welcome a long essay or short book or whatever on “apophatic paganism.”
Hey JMG,
1) I’ve been thinking a little (emphasis on little) about technologies that will gradually fade through the decline. In the comments of a recent post, you got into an, ahem, stern discussion about cars. Now, I for my part would welcome a gradual return to equestrian transport. But approaching the question from the point of view of somebody writing a story set some (as of yet undetermined) way into the decline, I’m wondering whether motorised transport wouldn’t provide a big military advantage. If competently employed, the speed advantage would mean that you can get your troops into whatever situations arise much quicker than if you’re going by horseback.
Could you imagine alcohol being used as fuels for such purposes? I did some very cursory research and the sources I found seem to be divided into “no, don’t ever put alcohol into an engine, that couldn’t possibly work” and “sure, we used to run tractors that way in .” I imagine it wouldn’t be an efficient enough source for personal travel, but could a warlord (reasonably) decide to expend, say, ten percent of his potato harvest for fuel and thus the chance to conquer the neighbouring territories?
2) I realise this is an odd question, but: as you’ve repeatedly stated that Gandalf was a big influence on you and your style, do you smoke? I’d consider the pipe a pretty essential part of Gandalf’s style.
The reason I ask is that, for a couple of months now, I’ve had the theory that tobacco itself actually isn’t carcinogenic, contrary to the medical establishment’s claims, just the chemical fertilizers and pesticides sprayed onto the plants. That would explain why “[p]rior to the early 20th century, lung cancer was a rare disease, accounting for 10% to 15% of all cancers and less than 140 cases per year in the United States,”¹ despite the fact that people smoked in the 19th century too. I’m curious what your take is on that.
Thank you for giving us this space and your wisdom every month (well, the wisdom more often, but you know what I mean).
—David P.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5342645/
So I visited my mother (87) in Delaware and stayed over because of the snow.
On Sunday, I took her to St. Paul’s, the Episcopal church in her town.
The bishop was there, so she really wanted to go.
Some observations about the state of the Episcopal church in my mother’s small town.
Less than 30 people showed up, including the bishop.
The weather may have discouraged people although the real snow wasn’t expected to hit until the afternoon.
I’m 65 and I’d guess that I was one of the youngest people in the room. The bishop was younger than me. Maybe two or three others were my age or younger. Everyone else was easily 70 plus. The crowd skewed female, too. About 2/3 to 1/3.
Covid damaged this parish and it still hasn’t recovered. One of the REALLY awful things to come from the Covid shutdowns was St Paul lost its organist and thus, live music. Instead, someone had the bright idea to install a giant TV screen off to the LEFT of the altar. Instead of an organist and us singing hymns from the hymnal, the TV screen shows vacuous, generic, spiritual imagery, with the words on the screen AND, to discourage people from singing, a soundtrack of professional musicians. Nobody sings. You can’t compete with Dolly Parton singing a hymn you don’t recognize.
The church service is also projected up on the screen rather than parishioners following along in the Book of Common Prayer. It was weird, unpleasant, and off-putting. Everyone faced the TV screen and not the celebrant at the altar!
The bishop’s sermon was good, though.
Each time I visit St Paul’s, I wonder how long the Episcopal Church will hang on. This church isn’t showing many signs of life.
Howdy,
I finished listening to your latest appearance on the Plant Cunning Podcast this morning, which I thoroughly enjoyed, btw, and it left me with a question: do the Amish make extensive use of the intensive organic agricultural techniques developed in the 20th century? I would assume that whatever they do is technically “organic” (unless some decided that chemical fertilizers were acceptable where tractors were not), but I have no sense of how much they’ve been influenced by the movement we usually we mean when we say “organic agriculture.”
Incidentally, your mention of the Amish as a fallback reminded me of a science fiction book I read years ago, Fitzpatrick’s War by Theodore Judson. It takes place in the far future where America somehow collapsed, and the Amish were left the only ones standing by having enough food and enough children in the aftermath. So, a few hundred years later, the society is nominally Amish-ish, and there are still pockets, just like in our society, but the rest of the country has reached a level of technology something like the early 20th century, and an ambitious man wants to conquer the world.
Anyway, I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s a reasonably fun read and maps onto cyclical notions of history pretty well, though with one wrinkle that would be a major spoiler to share.
Cheers,
Jeff
I’ve been trying to make my own whole wheat crackers for health reasons, using whole wheat flour, water and a bit of olive oil. So far I think I’ve made hardtack. But I’m not planning a long sea voyage. How to you make whole wheat crackers more “toothsome”? I’m sure there are recipes and people here who don’t mind sharing.
Archdruid
It was good to “see” you recently on Isaac’s Plant Cunning podcast thing with AC, even though I couldnt see you and they said you used a phone to call in but no images or photos or videos allowed. Nice! You have a distinctive voice with the giggle. that suffices I suppose. I have been on the show just once to talk about Hoodoo and Vodou just as obscure as anything else, in these times. Salut
@ Johhny: If I may butt in with some book recommendations on the seamier stuff, here goes: I have a small collection and I recommend taking all this stuff in small doses (what you contemplate you imitate). The top of the list is Nick Bryant’s “The Franklin Scandal” and John DeCamp’s “The Franklin Coverup.” I prefer the Nick Bryant book. Then there is Maury Terry’s “The Ultimate Evil,” about Son of Sam. (I know JMG dislikes this book very much.) Small doses, like I said. Whitney Webb’s two volume set “One Nation Under Blackmail” is about Epstein & Maxwell/Hoch. Further down the list are the four very strange novels (if they are novels) by Homer Van Meter. Like I said, small doses — and with a healthy skepticism.
Somebody asked about Gurdjieff. I have some experience in that area. That long post about Glastonbury (which was excellent, btw) mentioned an overheard conversation in a bookstore bantering about God. It occurred to me that maybe those two individuals did this daily as a sort of game. In Gurdjieff’s “Meetings With Remarkable Men” he talks about his father having similar daily bantering conversations about God with one of his friends.
Many thanks for the thoughtful reply, JMG! I appreciate the way you frame the distinction around imagery and identity rather than scientific plausibility. I also love the “split the difference” example of Judgment on Janus. It’s a perfect illustration of how fluid the boundary can be.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’d like to highlight the Modern Order of Essenes, a system of spiritual healing which JMG received from his teacher John Gilbert. The MOE contains different spiritual healing modalities, as well as an extensive range of accompanying material.
It is available through JMG’s dreamwidth journal ( https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/tag/modern+order+of+essenes ). Alternatively, if you should prefer a more guided approach, I’ve re-structured the material into an online course format. The course is available for free via my website: https://thehiddenthings.com/topics/moe-course . We’re currently in the depths of the Master grade, but it stays open and available, and you can start out with Unit 1 at any time!
The MOE has done me a world of good, and I’ve heard form others who have also profited immensely from it – thus I’d love for it to become more widespread! 🙂
Secondly, in case anybody here should be interested, I’ve started to publish an essay series about fermentation. The main topic is how to use fermentation and its concepts to deal with challenges in your life (and in yourself), but there are also going to be copious amounts of tasty recipes. The first installment can be found here: https://thehiddenthings.com/a-trip-to-a-mysterious-place , and the link to the second essay is at the bottom of the first.
@Andy #10, that exchange between the Mayor and the store owner is hilarious! Thanks for sharing. 😀 With a Jesus from Wells and a Welsh Jesus walking around in the same place, misunderstandings seem to be inevitable… 😉
@JMG, thanks for hosting the Open Post again, and I’m looking forward to this month’s topics!
I hope everybody here has gotten past last Friday’s conjunction in good spirit, good form and good health, 🙂
Milkyway
Dear Mr Greer,
You have mentioned in the past how the whole Hali series came to you quite suddenly and how you wrote it in short order. I was curious about some of the details of the writing process. Could you see the whole story in your mind and you just had to write it down? Or was it more just a concept that you saw and then you still had to fill in the details? I find the different approaches to writing, plotting vs pantsing, fascinating and I’d love more details as to how one of my favourite series came into existence.
JMG,
Just as you moved in, your local vicinity had a good example of catabolic collapse. DC Water was transporting sewage long distances in a big concrete pipe that was built in the 1960’s. Such pipes have a design life of about 50 years which it exceeded. It was scheduled to be replaced at some point in the future.
As you have heard from the news that pipe collapsed spilling millions of gallons of sewage in to the Potomac.
My wife was friends with the previous leader of DC water. He left a few years ago because he wanted to put most of the agencies money in to upgrading and repairing old infrastructure, but the politicians wanted flashy new projects. So they replaced him with a flashy political guy who gave them new projects and hip DEI hiring and outsourcing projects , a massive spill is the result.
That is the problem with all of our local infrastructure. We have roads, sewers, and bridges that need a long term outlook but the decisions are made by politicians with a horizon that extends to the next election.
JMG,
You mentioned not too long ago your trials with your phone company as you prepared to move. That made me curious about what kind of phone system you use. I get by with just a basic flip phone, but ideally would prefer to have just a landline, as I did for so many years. However, I feel forced to have a flip phone (that can receive texts) as so many services I use insist on using texts in order to send me a six-digit security code to look at my accounts and whatnot online. (I’m in my 60s now, and miss a simpler time . . . .).
I wish I could say I’m surprised by what’s happening too. I’ve made plans to leave Canada in a hurry (I will be out of the country within 48 hours of Bill C-2 passing, because I’m concerned about how hard it could be to get out of the country once it takes effect); otherwise, I have a job lined up overseas starting in a couple months, and will be leaving and never looking back; at this point I’m starting to think I want to renounce my Canadian citizenship entirely.
Even when I was living in Hawaii I didn’t want to do that, because Canada is home to me, and I really did not like the idea of saying “I can’t return home”; but it’s starting to become clear to me that Canada is about to go into some very dangerous places, and cutting ties entirely might be necessary.
Pygmycory,
I’ve been trying to get my MP to fight this madness, I’ve tried raising the issue with my provincial government, and I’ve even tried to convince members of the senate I can contact there’s a problem here; all to no avail, and at this point I don’t think there’s an answer here. The political class is not going to listen; short of convincing the Bloc, NDP, and Conservatives to force an election here, I don’t see a way out. Even then, I’m not sure it would matter: far too many Canadians seem to prefer an outright police state over “caving to Donald Trump”.
I would get the British passport, and I think being prepared to flee to the UK might be a good idea: it has some pretty serious problems too, but the combination of bills being put forward in the current parliament here look to me to be a lot worse.
On a different note:
I think that we need to have a Lovecraft-themed haiku contest
I just found out about parts of another bill before Canada’s Parliament, C-15, which would instantly destroy the rule of law in Canada: namely, the amendments to the Red Tape Reduction Act, which allow the cabinet to exempt any individual or organization from nearly any law, in secret. All in all, this is looking like a very bad time for Canada…
I wrote a mini-manifesto (1000 words) on the ubiquity and potential of hybrid speciation, free on substack for the week.
This is a powerful tool for all aspiring green wizards
https://recombinationnation.substack.com/p/on-the-discontinuation-of-species
Hi JMG, thank you!
I’ll keep your suggestion in mind, and add to that that I will probably start doing the SOP. My youngest just turned 7 and I’d been waiting, just to be extra cautious about it all.. I might use some aphorisms too to see if that can help steer my thinking a little.
I really appreciated your post last week, and was meaning to write you then to mention that my aphorism experiment is still yielding big results – I’ll recap as I can’t imagine you will remember this, but basically I tried them after your post about them years ago, found them amazingly effective, and so did some journalling to try to get at some of my bigger issues (not just minor habits I was looking to form), hit upon a limiting belief which seemed ripe for reversing in an aphorism, so did, and have been frankly amazed at how much has changed as a result, across pretty much every aspect of my life.
Anyway, it might be a useful tool here again to focus my attention a little. The bright threads I see in the current situation (to not just add to the darkness!) is that clearly this has been going on in some form all through my life, but things are just now in a state where power is actually failing a bit in the face of a population that is disgruntled (as a result of decline no doubt) which is why it’s all bubbling to the surface. It feels to me like either the existing system can deal satisfactory justice to all parties involved, or it can’t, in which case I think we’ll see people taking matters into their own hands. I don’t think this can be swept under the rug, or forgotten, no matter what they try to do. I know the second option is likely to have massive downsides, but I guess we will see how it all plays out.
Thanks again, as always,
Johnny
@Phutatorious: Maury Terry!!!
You might be interested in the YouTuber Manny Grossman who thoroughly debunked Terry’s book… after originally setting out to prove it was true. I followed his channell closely. He ended up getting a lot of contacts and doing a lot of leg work… had some help from retired Yonkers detectives and the like. Anyway, in the course of his work he helped get some unacknowledged Son of Sam victims recognized.
It was really interesting because he was a true believer in Terry’s book when he started out.
—
Got some new English blends to try from a ham radio and pipe friend I mst for dinner last night. We swapped blends. I am really enjoying Rober McConnell scottish blend.
Hello Mr Greer and commentariat,
I am learning tarot, and reading up on Jungian psychology. Both are open to using astrology, so I am interested into learning about this topic and hope to find or develop some practical applications from the study. However, I am not sure what my exact birth time is, so I would want to work with general principles rather than with a personal horoscope. In Harvey & Harvey’s Principles of Astrology there was an aside about how one could, for example, overcome a disbalance of Mars energy by wearing red and eating spicy food. I would like to learn more about this offshoot of astrological thinking as it appears to be a quite active approach (and one not necessarily dependent on knowing birth time), but I am only finding discussions on natal charts when I search the literature. Does anyone know any useful resources? Many thanks!
Phutatorius,
hardtack often got dipped in tea or soup to soften it. this may be neccessary if you’ve made a modern equivalent of hardtack, or if you’re familiar with Terry Pratchett ‘Dwarf bread’, which was a weapon if you were in danger or a food if you were hungry.
Hello All!
Phutatorious #31 brought this up about mysticism and magic, and it was an inquiry from last MM, so since this is my day of shameless self-promotion (personally designated:-) here is a portion of my ideas about the topic from my forthcoming book. It is based on my readings of Dion Fortune and her ideas about it, and the comparison between Bhakta yogis (as mystics) and Raja yogis (as magicians).
“The pure direct experience of the Divine is called mysticism. In mysticism, anything and everything that stands in the way of union with the Divine – the body, the mind, the ego, the material world, etc. is looked upon as something to be eschewed, eliminated and/or named illusory. Nothing else is real or matters but the Divine and your relationship to the Divine. Even intellectual endeavors become an obstruction to the direct love and experience of the Divine.
In magic, the magician uses everything and anything in their quest for Divine wisdom: invocations, sigils, amulets, crystals, incenses, implements, mental symbols, talismans, mantras, utterances, performance rituals and more. These tools work as an extension of the magician’s mind and body, as well as reminders and mental points of focus for procedures. Mages use their body, mind, intellect, and ego as equipment to experience Divine Mind. And look upon these tools as gifts coming from the Divine source to use for protection, growth and wisdom. And to facilitate the experience of relationship with Divine Mind.
As with all distinctions, there is often overlap. In fact, we will come to see that one part of an occultist’s three-fold- way is a type of mysticism. And many a mystic borrow a few of the magician’s tricks!”
Hello JMG and commentariat:
I’d like to write about a topic I noticed some time ago and seems to have gone under the mainstream media and public opinion until today, IMHO, it’s more important than we usually have thought.
First, I can point it’s a common place within vegan/animalist ideology (acritically accepted by the woke left until today), that bees are “exploited” by beekeepers to make honey, so you mustn’t eat honey and blah blah blah.
Meanwhile, in the real world, modern and old style agriculture alike depend completely of domestic bees to pollinate fruit trees and a heck of orchard vegetables (only grains and a few vegetables are pollinated by wind). Indeed, in many countries peasants pay beekepers to put their hives near or within their lands in flowers season. Of course, domestic bees aren’t the only one insects which catch pollen from some flowers and lead it into another flowers. There are many species within the insects who pollinate flowers: wild bees, bumblebees, butterflies and even some kind of flies. However, the elephant in the room is (according some scientists studies) that insects number has been dwindling since decades ago due to some causes (for example the abuse of insecticides, cough), so they aren’t able today to pollinate every wild and domestic flowers. In addition to this, there’s a second elephant in the room: nowadays world has much more areas used for agriculture than a century ago, due to the world population growth in last Industrial Era times. So there are more fruit trees and vegetables than ever in human history: indeed, more flowers to be pollinated to become apples, for example. Bees and beekeepers are busy like never before to help agriculture every year.
It’s ironic the human “explotation” of these insects is so necessary for getting vegetal food for humans (including vegans and vegetarians too). A “little” contradiction which the usual zealots cannot or don’t want to realize it. Honey made by bees is an interesting product of bees work, but I think isn’t the real main and “strategical” aspect of going on taking care of hives, today and I hope in the future.
Hey JMG and Commentariat
Since it’s an open post, I thought I would share my latest Substack article that I published yesterday. It’s about an old book on the history of mazes and labyrinths that I found on Internet Archive, and while it’s something of a review, it is also my first “picture compilation” article. I often see Substack articles that just show collections of photos or of art, so I thought I would give it a shot by posting some of the designs from this book that I thought were the most interesting.
https://jlmc12.substack.com/p/mazes-and-labyrinths
@William,
that’s grim hearing, but thank you.
@Watchflinger #44
Oh, I hear you about wasting time on the webs and searching for deals on stuff you don’t really need. As for trades, that isn’t what the site I was referring to does at all. There is no trading, no exchange at all. It is purely uni-directional. Things are freely given away without expectation of reciprocation other than, perhaps, hopefully having someone willing to send a needed item your way when it comes up.
As far as chasing deals, there are definitely items passed around on that site that are more about stuff people want but I would say a bulk of it is in things that people need (no not in the Maslow sense of air and food) but that they couldn’t afford or would struggle to otherwise.
Anyway, as JMG mentioned above I think that it is a sign of the extremely poor state of the actual economy for a lot of folks. At the same time I see it as a tiny tidbit pointing in the direction of something I expect to happen which is people being forced by circumstance to start depending on one another again. I think that dependence can only arise organically through hardship and only an organic emergence of it will last. So, in that sense I see it as hopeful.
And yes, I know we are rabbit-holing way off from your original query about a secondary goods economy emerging.
HV
Regarding the State of the Swamp rally – The decadent elites seem to have jumped right into a dabble-fest of depraved occultism without even noticing what they are doing in a way that looks more than a little like an attempt to propitiate the other side’s patron. Okay, that’s par… anyway – One might expect a little comedy and a bit of chaos flowing from His Grace Kek’s role as Raiser Up of the Light. I’m gonna go kick the Red State bushes here in the Rust Belt to see how many people have noticed what the rally-goers didn’t. (Office pools wouldn’t surprise me.)
If there’s one thing to take away from all the AI power requirements, it’s to marvel at how efficient these biological systems are at doing the same thing, with much less power and with better quality.
ALTHOUGH – the reason the tractor curbstomped the horsey, was the tractor only required a fraction of the resources that a horsey did. The tractor only ate when it moved, the horsey eats and eats and eats. Plus you have to wash it and pet it and tell it you love it. You don’t have to do that with a tractor.
But with these AI machines, that’s absolutely no longer true (unh, it’s not truuuu). They’re the horsies now. They eat and eat and eat and require all this petting and washing and god-knows-what-else.
I think we’ve gone past the point of diminishing returns and are on negative returns. This can’t last for long.
>I just found out about parts of another bill before Canada’s Parliament, C-15, which would instantly destroy the rule of law in Canada: namely, the amendments to the Red Tape Reduction Act, which allow the cabinet to exempt any individual or organization from nearly any law, in secret.
It’s not the Red Tape Reduction Act, it’s the Canada Hates You Act. Hostile and Malicious.
>Each time I visit St Paul’s, I wonder how long the Episcopal Church will hang on. This church isn’t showing many signs of life.
Curious, what is the ratio of female to male parishioners in the pews? I’m going to guess it’s mostly female.
Hi John Michael,
Here’s a data point from this week which may be of interest to you and the readers. As a gift to Sandra, I bought a box of Lindt Assorted chocolates. The box weight suggests 333g / 11.75oz, and being someone who rarely indulges in the brown tasty stuff derived from the Cocoa plant, I was shocked by the price. Did I read that correctly? Turns out I did, for the box was AU$34, which with a bit of quick maths, equates to AU$100/kg. And serious people suggest that inflation is a temporary matter which is getting under control! How are things in your part of the world?
I’m reminded of the Milton Friedman quote regarding inflation that it is “always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,” caused solely by the money supply increasing faster than output. Even our friends in Japan are discovering the limits to monetary adventurism. My best guess is that soon they will begin unloading their US treasury reserves, slowly of course, much as the land of stuff has apparently been doing since 2016. Thus the economic ructions in your country, which is fast catching up to that story with the rest of the West.
Food inflation is where the lies really get challenged by the population. The rest of the story, like asset price bubbles, people seem OK with that. But food, that’s different.
Cheers
Chris
>I guess I was naive about the dark potential of human beings and of our society in general, even though I never would have thought I was prior.
This, is who we are. We are the kind of people who will look away and tolerate such behavior. Would you look away if it happened in broad daylight as you were walking down the street? Am I making you angry? Why are you more angry at me than at what they did?
This, is who we are.
I wonder if Trump is still going to pardon Ghislane?
If I were king, there would be a rule. Upon penalty of death, every 12 calendar months, prove that you ate one bacon cheeseburger completely and washed it down with a whole bottle of beer. We’re here to help (low cost tickets) you move to somewhere else if you can’t (or won’t) prove this. Stick around and it’s off with your head.
I think that would get rid of about 90% of the religious fanatics out there. It’s that last 10% that worries me though.
Addendum to #46:
Ah, the joys of processing comments as HTML. That was supposed to say “we used to run tractors that way in <former soviet country>.” Hopefully it works now.
—David P.
Watchflinger # 6:
I think hoarding things is one of the several basic tendences of human beings since its origin as species, but only when modern consumerist capitalist was suggested to the people, especially in the West rich countries, as the one and only possible lifestyle, this tendence grew to absurd levels. Fast obsolescence products and limitless consumerism explains the storage rooms business too. And the industrial overproduction, which fuels the CO2 emissions growth, a big part of world pollution and the peak everything…It wouldn’t be strange during the Long Descent a new culture could thrive based in second hand things, due to the excess of things that have been made by the Industrial times.
You’ve also written you’re going to be a Catholic. I’m a Christian in my own way, but I also wish you good luck, sincerely. Best wishes for you…
————————-
Neptunedolphin # 21:
Well, when I thought I had seen everything to be puzzled by it, I discover (thank you) the Atheopaganism thing…My personal opinion about these guys is they maybe thought “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” (Politheism
against Monotheisms, especially Christianism), but they didn’t want to accept Paganism as real polytheism (cough cough). So they made up that idea of no-gods Paganism, I guess nearer to the woke business than real polytheism…
Ecoprayer, thanks for this as always.
Teresa, delighted to hear it.
Watchflinger, understood. I’m fine financially, but I could use less clutter!
David, (1) motorized transport will remain in use for military purposes, and some other high-value things, long after individual cars drop out of use. Remember that ordinary car and truck transport is only an option if your society can also afford to invest in roads and a network of fuel stations. That said, it’s not often remembered that the Wehrmacht still used plenty of horses, especially to pull artillery, when it invaded France in 1940:
Alcohol’s much lower in energy density than gasoline; yes, you can run an internal combustion engine on it, but you’d be better off planting oilseed crops and using the oil in diesel engines. (2) No, I don’t smoke anything at all. My father smoked cheap cigarettes around me all through my childhood, and the secondhand smoke left me with weak lungs and a lifelong distaste for tobacco.
Teresa, that doesn’t surprise me at all. Synchronistically enough, I’ve attended a few services at a local Episcopalian church here in Silver Spring, a quiet little parish church that makes a point of saying that everyone is welcome irrespective of belief. (It struck me as a good way to meet people, and of all the branches of mainstream Christianity I find the Anglican tradition most congenial.) Most of the attendees are older than I am and yeah, men are very much in the minority. There are no TV screens, thank the gods — I’d have walked out if there was one — just a sparsely attended Wednesday daytime service.
Jeff, not that I know of. They use a less intensive organic agriculture of older vintage. BTW, if you like that kind of science fiction, pick up Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow sometime — another post-collapse Amish America, from one of the classic Golden Age authors in the genre.
Phutatorius, I’ll look forward to hearing what others have to offer.
Aidawedo, my only phone is a land line. Glad you enjoyed it.
Phutatorius (if I may), I dislike it because it’s very poorly researched and blatantly inaccurate in some places.
Frank, Andre Norton is my go-to writer for science fiction/fantasy fusion. She melded the two constantly, and created some wonderful stories in the process.
Milkyway, it can also be found hosted on the Order of Spiritual Alchemy website, which is easier to use than my Dreamwidth journal version.
CrayonElite, thank you! I didn’t get the whole Weird of Hali in a single download — what I got was the first novel, The Weird of Hali: Innsmouth, all vividly clear in my mind; I didn’t have to fill in much of anything, it was just a matter of writing it down. (I wrote the first draft, 68,000 words of it, in eight weeks, which is faster than I’ve written anything else, ever.) As I revised that — it didn’t need much — I had the sense that there was at least one sequel; Kingsport duly came together, less a download than a matter of following hints in the original inspiration. The third book, Chorazin, was another matter: I had a very general idea of what it was supposed to be, but I had to work through repeated drafts to get it to come out right. By then I had a fairly good idea of what Dreamlands and Providence should be, and they were fairly easy to write.
The great challenge was the sixth book. That was originally going to be The Weird of Hali: Hyperborea; I was going to send Owen to Greenland, and Justin et al. had to go there on a rescue expedition. I went through six complete drafts and it just wouldn’t work. I finally realized that there was too much story to fit in the frame of the Weird. I set it aside, because I had a story about a young composer and a shoggoth that demanded to be written. The Shoggoth Concerto came together very quickly, and it’s still my favorite of my tentacle novels. By the time it was finished I’d figured out that the best thing to do was to move Justin, Belinda, and the rest of them to Brooklyn, and Red Hook came together fairly quickly thereafter.
By the time I’d finished Chorazin I’d already seen very clearly how the series had to end. That was partly the internal dynamics of the story and partly a response to one of the great literary disappointments of my younger days. I’d fallen in love with Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising young-adult fantasies, until the last volume, Silver on the Tree, came out; like a lot of young-adult fantasies in those years, it ended with all the magic packing up and going away forever. (“Okay, kiddies, you’ve had your playtime, now it’s time to grow up, forget about magic, and become obedient little corporate-materialist drones.”) I’ve only ever read the last book once, it upset me that much, and I promised myself back then that if I ever did a fantasy that juxtaposed magic with the modern world, that kind of cheap dismissive ending was not going to happen. So it didn’t. Quite the contrary!
But I wrote the first draft of the next-to-last chapter of Arkham when Chorazin was still in process, and revised it several times thereafter. I didn’t have any further downloads; I considered the options, decided that the last volume should tie up a lot of loose ends, and had enormous fun doing it. I’d finished The Nyogtha Variations before then — The Shoggoth Concerto made nearly everything in its sequel easy to work out — and then I turned back to the work I’d done on Greenland, found a main character who was even more of a dweeb than Justin Martense, restocked the story with new characters more generally, and A Voyage to Hyperborea unfolded from there. Once that was done, I realized I still had a few loose ends from the series to weave in; once I realized that Asenath Merrill was the right person to do the weaving, and decided on which pieces of Mythos fiction I was going to rewrite to make that happen, The Seal of Yueh Lao followed promptly.
As a general rule, btw, I don’t plot much in advance. I work out an initial situation and then sit down and start writing. Very often, the way the story goes is a complete surprise to me. (I had no idea that Brecken and Sho were going to end up in a relationship, for example, until it happened.)
Clay, it’s a perfect example of catabolic collapse, since that’s what happens when the available resources won’t cover adequate maintenance of existing capital as well as new projects. I may use it for a discussion of that process in an upcoming post.
Lacking, I use only a land line, and so I don’t look at my accounts online. Do you remember keeping a detailed check register, and checking it against the bank statements once a month? That’s what I do. It still works perfectly well.
William, understood. If Canada does go full police-state, it’ll be an anti-American police state, and it’s quite possible that some equivalent of War Plan Red would come into play in fairly short order. So you might be able to return to the US territories north of the 49th parallel after a few years…
Degringolade, hmm. Were you going to offer one?
Shane, thanks for this.
Johnny, delighted to hear about the aphorisms! As for the broader issue, focusing attention is a really good idea right now. I’d say tessat-ni-Halka shol ielindat, “the way of the Halka is clarity of awareness,” but I’m not sure how many people would get that. 😉
Soko, if you don’t have the birth time, cast the horoscope for dawn, with the sun exactly on the ascendant. That’s called a solar chart, and it was commonly used back in the day for people whose birth time was unknown. It isn’t as good as an exact natal chart but it works tolerably well. As for the use of planetary symbolism, hmm — I don’t know of any introductory work on that, and I’d like to. Anyone else?
Chuaquin, yeah, that’s typical. The sort of moral posturing common among so many groups these days leaves no space for practical realities like that.
J.L.Mc12, thanks for this.
Rhydlyd, I hear the distant sound of laughter on the breeze: “Kek kek kek…”
Other Owen, excellent! Yes, and the only reason tractors were more economical than horses for a while is that there was all that cheap petroleum to power them. If you have to provide that energy from current solar input, the horse is more efficient; it may need petting and so on, but it can thrive on much less expensive fuel than tractors, and manufactures its own replacement.
Chris, yep. Food inflation was probably the single most important reason Trump won so easily in 2024; it’s less extreme now, but everything still costs more.
@JMG,
“Milkyway, it can also be found hosted on the Order of Spiritual Alchemy website, which is easier to use than my Dreamwidth journal version.”
Har! I’m even linking to the pdf’s in the course, as they have all the material so conveniently in one place… and then promptly forgot to mention them here. 😉 The nice addon to your dreamwidth MOE posts are the comment sections, though!
Hello JMG!
As I am experiencing my natal/transiting Uranus opposition, I am at a bit of a crossroads careerwise and have been seriously considering editing as my next move. What is your advice for someone who has zero field experience on how to break into the industry? Publishing would obviously be ideal but other avenues such as technical or or any other kind of editing of interest are options as well.
Phutatorius @ 49, find a cookie recipe you like, and leave out the sugar. I would probably start with a shortbread cookie. It can help to add one egg. You didn’t say if you are trying for vegan. You might also try an oatmeal cookie. Bitman’s How to Bake Anything (the “big brown” among his books) has a recipe for unleavened oatcakes which takes 3 hours. Lots of that is resting time. Those are probably as close as any of us will come to the oatcake the youngest son took with him, and of curse shared with the first hungry person he saw.
Johnny et. al. for many years, decades, Americans have believed, taken it for granted, that wealth and success are signs of superior virtue. Now, we are finding out that is not true. Many more of us believed that famous academics were, just had to be, among the best and most virtuous of people. Secular saints. We are now painfully finding out that also is not true.
My own personal view about L’affaire Epstein is summed up in the saying Fiat Justicia, Ruat Caelum. Let there be justice though the heavens fall. As a society, I think we need to excise this cancer on the body politic before it kills us. I understand West Germany prosecuted and jailed some tens of thousands of members of the previous regime. There is precedent.
@Stephen D
This is purely anecdotal, but all of the lives talents seem to be the case for myself but the learnt thing from the previous life sort of just becomes intuitive.
“Nephite, you’ll be amused to know that occultists have been discussing that for decades. Tabletop RPGs at their best are wonderful training for the imagination, and approximate a sort of group pathworking.”
Wow! I haven’t done pathworking yet, but from the descriptions I’ve read in Paths of Wisdom it does indeed sound similar. Also, I’m curious. Do you know of good online places to communicate with other occultists? Preferably older blogs and forums as the new stuff (reddit, 4chan, etc) are full of spam and low-effort discussions.
Hi JMG! Wanted to share the below with you and everyone else.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/this-too-shall-151563336
@ JMG: I wont’ disagree with you about the Maury Terry book. I divide it into two parts. I think his thesis that David Berkowitz was not acting alone is pretty well supported. I think that his wider thesis about a frightening nationwide conspiracy is much less so. All in all, it makes me think of Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” and Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown.” Both fiction, of course.
@ Jon #3 RE : Kek. To quote William Blake “The fool who persists in their folly shall eventually become wise” … maybe… they have been very persistent and I have yet to see any form of wisdom arise. I will most likely be dead a buried before that comes along.
@ William #9 RE : Canada. I have found it so strange (yet predictable) the state of Canada nowadays. So many folks there are becoming the thing they fear the most. You aren’t alone. I’m in Australia, we are seeing the exact same thing here and Europe seems to desperate to follow along. But here is the quiet art of all this non-sense. I used to deal with someone who are a intermediary for negotiations between the US and China, also deeply worked developing back doors in computer security systems for the NSA. He was a funny let blunt fellow. As he said, there is no computer system they do not have a back door to, they just don’t want others to know the details.
The thing he always pointed out was, your government already is doing all these things, the only reason they make it a law/public is so that they can use it in a law court. They already are checking mail and computer systems, building the dossier, they are just getting the legal system in line to weaponize it.
Alas that now very famous Ben Franklin quote applies yet again “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
How do the beliefs and practices of “trailer trash” Wicca differ from the Wicca practiced by the Wiccans who went full Magical Resistance vs Trump?
About hoarding, so called. Done right, that is with planning and intention, it can be a good tactic. I bought cast iron pans 2nd hand for years. Now the good ones are all but impossible to find, and I have parceled some of mine out among my two girls. For years, many of us sewists bought fabrics on sale and notions, patterns, etc. at yard sales and thrift stores. Since the closing of Joan’s we have been happily sewing from our stashes.
I find it somewhat bleakly amusing to note that attention on the dread mental illness, hoarding, began about the time retail chains were closing. hmm.
@JMG
“if you don’t have the birth time, cast the horoscope for dawn, with the sun exactly on the ascendant.”
Given astrology’s literally Mercurial nature, it wouldn’t surprise me a solar chart works if and only if the birth time is unknown, and stops working if the birth time is ever discovered.
@Watchflinger,
I’m Anglican rather than Catholic, but welcome to Christianity. Glad to have you. I’m not a superfan of taking denomination lines too seriously compared to whom we worship.
Mr. Greer… have you ever read S. M. Stirling’s work, namely, the ‘Novels of the Change’ series? I personally find them rather plausible, and engaging. A recurved bow for your thoughts..
Has anyone heard from David Trammel? Looks like the green wizards site has been down for a while…
John:
I didn’t even have to write it, H.P. Did it all by himself, I just lifted it
The Shunned House
Fungus-ridden earth
ignoring the flame-thrower
vaporous corpse-light,
Just a thought
@Chris #74 RE: Food Prices. I always reminded of a rare talk by energy buff Vaclav Smil from 2015. He said then that 2015 would be the cheapest food would ever be as a percentage of ones income and that it would be all down hill from there. While I’m not sure about that being the exact year as it probably started a fair bit earlier, I think he got the overall trend spot on.
Smil is usually worth listening to as he probably understand the relationship of energy and civilisations better than anybody else in this world. I also appreciate that is once told Bill Gates directly that he was an idiot with his dreams of future energy systems and growth.
@ David #46 RE : Smoking. My father always said “What would kill you quicker. Sitting in a garage for 24 hours smoking, or sitting there with a car running?” I know it is a silly comparison in terms of mechanisms but there might be a deeper part to this. I suspect that having cars and trucks endlessly burning gasoline and diesel around us all the time has got to be contributing to lung issues a fair bit. Swapped out the pipe and replaced it with a tail pipe.
Maybe he has stumbled onto some kind of wisdom through his humor. He doesn’t have a phone of any kind, barely touched a computer and has never directly interacted with the internet and yet always comes up with a different perspective on things. Perks of living the slow life. He always says “If it is an emergency, send a letter.”. His whole perspective reminds me of the Wendell Berry essay “Why I am not going to buy a computer”. The final lines of that I think really resonate with today. “Finally, it seems to me that none of my correspondents recognizes the innovativeness of my essay. If the use of a computer is a new idea, then a newer idea is not to use one.” Use that logic on people advocating for AI everywhere, I’m sure their heads will turn inside out. 😉
Lately I have been thinking a lot about the relationship between our individual souls, and the greater universal/divine soul. Christianity, for instance, places a hard barrier between the two. Other spiritual traditions say they are similar in kind but different in degree. Still others say they are exactly the same thing.
Seems to me like this is the core question at the heart of any greater questioning. What is the relationship between my little soul and the greater one? And yet, it seems to get little attention.
I’ve been finding myself thinking of the middle and last lines of this poem a lot lately, and I just ran across the whole thing in a book I’m reading:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
the falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
the ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
It feels like it fits the current time.
Something that always struck me about the nature of Earth’s recovery from damage:
Most of the common metrics we use to measure things like pollution, ecosystem damage, etc. are in an environment in which we are continuing to pollute, cause damage, etc. To what extent can we truly know how long it will take the Earth system to truly heal if we’re trying to make the measurements while still pouring salt in the wound?
Milkyway, so noted! I just like to make sure the OSA gets some attention too.
Jane, if you don’t have a recent English degree from a university it’s hard to get a position with a publisher. You might be able to find writers, however, who will pay you to edit their work, and in that case you can build up a clientele and eventually attract a steady job. BTW, I replaced the phrase that Dreamwidth deleted. You can use some kinds of brackets but not others, and it’s usually best to avoid them altogether.
Nephite, I wish I did! These days a lot of serious occultists stay away from internet forums altogether.
Jeff, thanks for this. I like the tee shirt!
Phutatorius, it’s quite possible that he’s correct about Berkowitz, though the arguments he uses include a lot of thorough nonsense — I mean, really, is it meaningful to try to draw a connection between a book by Eliphas Levi that includes a spirit named Berkael and Berkowitz’s last name? He does that kind of thing far too often to retain much plausibility. More generally, though, the book’s a sustained attempt to start a mass panic over occultism by smearing it with the worst crimes Terry can think of. I think of it as the most recent equivalent of Kramer and Sprenger’s Malleus Maleficarum.
Anon, most of the trailer trash Wiccans I know actually believe in the existence of the Goddess and the God. Most of the “Magic Resistance” types I’ve met don’t.
Mary, an excellent point. As usual, there’s a good middle ground between two unhealthy extremes.
Slithy, well, my solar chart — which I’ve cast and delineated — gives pretty good information, though not as good as my actual natal chart. Mercury may be unusually merciful with me or something.
Polecat, nope. I haven’t gotten around to it, and after the one online onversation I had with Stirling — he was outraged by Star’s Reach; science fiction is supposed to be about “what if,” but asking “what if we’re not going to the stars after all?” was apparently too much for him — I really wasn’t inspired to do so.
Temporary, I haven’t, for whatever that’s worth.
Degringolade, nice. I don’t have any limericks, but I did notice some time ago that the famous couplet from Alhazred makes a fine pair of lines for a villanelle:
That is not dead which can eternal lie
Beneath cold stone or far, forgotten sea,
And with strange eons even death may die.
Those Great Old Ones who dwelt beyond the sky
Shall bear their age-long slumber patiently:
That is not dead which can eternal lie.
The fate of mortal things has passed them by.
Until time has an end, they yet shall be,
And with strange eons even death may die.
They need not fear the ages as they fly,
Nor count them up in hours of reverie:
That is not dead which can eternal lie.
Those who cast down their fanes with dreadful cry,
And willed that they were dead, failed utterly,
And with strange eons even death may die.
Until those cold bright hieroglyphs on high
Come right at last and set the Old Ones free,
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange eons even death may die.
Zachary, depends on what you read. A lot of Western occult literature discusses that in great detail.
Pygmycory, that’s not the whole poem. Here you are:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming
Brendhelm, a valid point. In those situations where nature has been left strictly alone, she recovers very fast.
@William (#59):
I’d wager that if you look hard enough, you’ll find there is one more bill proposed to round out the ones you have spotted:, a bill which allows the government to suspend an individual defendant’s right of trial by jury, and also right of appeal, whenever it chooses to. (Something not too dissimilar is being floated in the UK already.) That’s the only thing lacking to make Canada into a complete police state.
Here is Manny Grossman’s channel debunking a wide berth of Maury Terry’s arguments through his own solid research and files he was given.
https://youtube.com/@mannygrossman?si=N7tm_5Q91gwPfqcP
I think, from this, Berkowitz acted alone, and that he played Terry like many other psychopaths do, for his own enjoyment.
I do agree with Phutarious, that as fiction, it would be good, but I wish it was just a sordid pulp novel. He got a lot of people into a frenzy.
Watchflinger, thank you for bringing up this topic.
I have long wondered if the craze for minimalism was a psyop designed to strip us of any resources we might be tempted to store up and thus be independent. It’s to the point where proponents I know feel morally superior and incredibly virtuous, and make a big show of getting rid of things. And then rush out and buy something whenever they need it.
My very thrifty grandparents would have thought them nuts.
Mr. Greer, that’s rather interesting. I haven’t read any of his other works. Outraged?? Humm… interesting that authors can be so um, stuck in their ways, as to not to consider other writer’s avenues towards plot, story, etc.. Still, I do find the above series plausible, and enjoyable to read, because of the storyline being set in a PNW post-collapse/rebuild environment.
Thinking back on your articles about harry potter magic vs real Magick.
I realised. What is called magic in fiction is in actual fact what Biblical Miracles actually are in addition to their symbolic value. In terms of spectacle quite grand and flashy indeed. Needing only to follow the instructions of God like in Egypt.
And some Biblical miracles are sometimes far more permanent compared the effects of Magick. I think one that was particular was the Pillar of Fire and Cloud that manifested for a long time and led the Israelites for 40 years in the wilderness.
Although assuming Christian Cosmology is true. Materiality and it’s consistency is a permanent miracle. Which is obviously leveraged by technology made possible by natural regularities.
I did not know that. Thank you.
@JMG
“well, my solar chart — which I’ve cast and delineated — gives pretty good information, though not as good as my actual natal chart.”
Fascinating. Do you dilineate solar charts with the same techniques as proper natal charts or are there any differences in technique? For example, on a podcast I once heard that some astrologers do solar charts (but not regular birth charts) with whole-sign houses because the house placements aren’t in the right place anyway.
@ Justin 101: I couldn’t quite bring myself to watch that “Yo, yo, yo” etc. video. I tried, briefly. It doesn’t even give you a clue about how long it’s gonna go on. I’m not as much against videos as JMG, but still, there are limits to what I’m willing to sit still for. Berkowitz converted to Christianity in prison. I know, that doesn’t exactly make an honest man of him, and who am I to gauge whether his conversion was authentic or not compared to, say, that of the late Scott Adams? Anyway, I’ll try to shut up about the late Maury Terry.
Michael Gray (87),
I know enough about computers to know how hard it is to actually have a secure system. As a result, I take it for granted that CSIS has access to everything I do online. There is still a world of difference between that and giving it to prosecutors; or allowing border security to hold people trying to leave the country based on what they say online. There’s also a huge problem with stripping away the ability to have any privacy, whatsoever, on any computer, whether or not it is meant to be connected to the internet. Under the current text of Bill C-8, it would be entirely legal for the government to issue an order telling Dell (the company that made my laptop) that they need to make a backdoor into the laptop, that must continue to work short of taking out any and all transmitters from the device. Even that becomes dubious unless you do it yourself if the bill passes as currently written, because they can order anyone who offers that service to lie and say they took the transmitter out, whether they did or not.
Robert Mathiesen (100),
I think there’s a good chance this will be covered by Bill C-15. It permits the government to exempt itself from the laws, and it would not surprise me if one of the first uses of the new law was to exempt the government from the requirement for jury trials, either for certain people or for certain crimes. All in all, it is a much neater solution that the British one: the government isn’t getting rid of jury trials, but instead it is able to just quietly remove jury trials on a case by case basis, all without needing to let anyone know it’s doing it.
I’ll vouch for the bees being put to work. I have cherry, apple, and pear orchards nearby and they do indeed import lots of bees for pollination duty.
“A recent USDA report quantified the value of pollination services in 2024 at over $400 million, above the $361.5 million in revenue from honey.”
https://www.thepacker.com/news/industry/bees-more-valuable-pollination-honey
There are other bees are intentionally used for pollination as well.
https://agr.wa.gov/about-wsda/blog-posts?article=42925
On a related topic, veganism is a very odd religion. If you don’t milk the cows on schedule they get very grumpy. chickens lay eggs whether they are fertilized or not. Why would you let high grade protein go to waste? If you want to eat only free range eggs I can understand that.
The other really odd thing to me is many of the vegans are also pro-choice.
Dear Mr. Greer,
Did you hear about the recent study which found that in a direct competition between a human freelancer and an LLM for specific paid jobs, the LLM performed worse than the human over 96 percent of time? The 3 percent success was only in creating convincing images. At every other task, the LLM failed quite badly, sometimes not even turning in usable files. I understand that you don’t accept questions about LLMs as such, but my question is instead about whether you think this study will expose the current bubble for the scam that it really is. Already, if you look at the comments section for any news about LLMs, not a single person in the comment section has anything positive to say about them. People have caught on that they can’t actually do people’s jobs very well, that they are being used as an excuse to outsource jobs to India and other cheaper countries, and that their use of energy and water is causing costs to rise higher for everyone else. No one at this point believes in the media’s lies except the media themselves.
With all the talk about Canada’s descent into a police state dystopia, it is worth mentioning that our old buddy. Jim Kunstler, just quoted Democrat bigwig Susan Rice as saying “We’re coming after you when we’re back in power. ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.'”
https://www.kunstler.com/p/a-campaign-of-bad-faith-and-ill-will
Make of that what you will …
Hi JMG,
I recently wrote an article where I quoted some wisdom your late wife shared with Dana O’Driscoll about the nature of Nature. It’s an article I wrote for Substack called “This is Not Health Advice”.
https://kimberlysteele.substack.com/p/this-is-not-health-advice
Hi JMG, i recently stumbled upon a site that offers a very different vision to yours. They both stem from peak oil, but it argues that the complexity of supply chains will make our downslope blisteringly fast. https://un-denial.com/2025/11/30/the-cactus-lens-a-clearer-view/. What do you think?
They also responded to some of your comments from a QNA a while back, yoh said:
A.) How can we have modernity without the scale of market size that we currently have to enable the mining, processing, distribution then manufacturing of the huge range of parts that go into making every aspect of modernity?
We can’t. It really is as simple as that. Modernity, as Dr. Richard Duncan used to say, was a transient pulse waveform a one-time, self-terminating affair.
B.) How do we make the machines that make the final product machines in a scale down world?
That asks the question the wrong way around. The right way around is “what kind of final products can we afford to have, given all the constraints on producing them in a deindustrializing world?”
The answer won’t be clear for several centuries, but it’s unlikely that any technology invented since 1900 or so will be included.
C.) How is it possible to maintain complexity, such as a thorium reactor and all the machines it powers on only a small scale?
I’m not a specialist in this technology, of course.
I’m open to the possibility that it can be done, but I want to see an affordable example first.
As we’ve seen over and over again, every nuclear technology is cheap, clean, and safe until somebody actually builds it…
D.) Where do the materials come from after many cycles where entropy and dissipation have worked their magic over many cycles of recycling?
Oh, in the long run say, another 10,000 years we’ll have to go to entirely renewable resources, and that will involve sweeping changes in everything; for example, some future society may cultivate chemosynthetic iron-fixing bacteria (the kind that currently produce bog iron) to keep it supplied with iron. Our immediate descendants won’t have to worry about that, though. Given the scale of population contraction we can expect (around 95% worldwide) and the gargantuan supplies of metal and other materials that have been hauled up from deep within the earth and stored in what will soon be urban ruins, our descendants for the next thousand years or so will have all the metal they can dream of using.
And they replied
Where JMG says it’s asking the question the wrong way around, is incorrect. We are not planning anything about contraction as a species, every machine is becoming more complex allowing for more automation and hence cheaper costs. Once we go down there will not be the investment capital, energy nor materials, nor co-ordination to build any new machines to make anything.
He has once again used how we have done things on the way up, as in using more energy, materials and larger expanding markets; to think that some similar type of planning will occur during the collapse phase. It’s wishful thinking not close to reality.
Realistically, when food is not arriving in cities, who is going to be sitting around talking about what machines they are going to build and what level they can acquire, when there is no energy, nor materials in the appropriate form to do any of it??
Note: feel free to not approve my other message, I accidentally shared it too early
@Phutatorious on whole wheat crackers: the ones I’ve made most often were what I called pie crust crackers. I just made a batch of savory pie crust such as you’d make for a meat pie, rolled it out, then cut it into little rectangles and baked it on a cookie sheet. Crumbly but yummy.
The flour type is an important consideration. The pie crust crackers are technically a pastry; they come out best when made with a low-gluten flour. In the US, low-gluten flour might be called cake flour, pastry flour or, most likely with whole wheat, soft wheat flour. If all you can get is high-gluten flour (known as bread flour or hard wheat flour) you might be better off with a yeasted recipe. I have seen those in books but I’ve never tried.
Mr. JMG,
I have a question related to your most recent blog post, “The Laws of Co-Creation”. In this post, you note that the Universe is largely an uncaring thing. While I agree with this assessment, I have trouble characterizing Jung’s idea of a Synchronicity.
I’ve had a number of synchronicities occur to me over the past year, most notably when I recognized a poet in a corner store while on a walk. He ended up pitching me the idea of doing a MFA at his university. I applied and was admitted, although I would not have done this if I did not have a chance encounter with him in a corner store. How do you characterize synchronicities? What figures, if any, are behind their occurrence?
I have a question about a currency/sociopolitical/religious faction I thought up for a postindustrial fiction setting with a realistic magic system.
The faction started out as a libertarian community that idealized a society with zero slavery but found it constantly hiding in arrangements like debt and employment, so they made it very explicit and transactional: every member of the community is their own central bank, and the currency takes the form of small clay discs with a number and a thumbprint. Anyone can mint their own money, but anyone can redeem money for hours of slave labor with the issuing party. And of course there are rules limiting what slaves can be compelled to do, like no forcing sunshine to mint more hours and no demanding a specific slave. As for what happens when someone dies with their currency unredeemed, there are three likely outcomes. One, their heirs buy back the currency they minted in life and destroy it, ensuring free passage to the afterlife. Two, the temple/government office accumulates your currency and destroys/cashes in some or all of it in new years rituals where the dead are charged with ensuring the community’s prosperity. Three, someone nefarious uses it illegally to get occulted help ensuring their personal prosperity.
So my question is, based on that description, does this have the makings of a healthy it an unhealthy society over the long term?
@JMG #79 re: Amish Organic Agriculture and De-Industrial Fiction
Thanks for this, that was what I assumed, but didn’t know off hand or how easily to check: that the Amish used “traditional” methods that were “organic” because everything back then was, but hadn’t experimented with things out of the permaculture or integrative agriculture or the like. It’d be nice if there were more cross-over, as that would help ensure the survivability of such agricultural techniques, as well as the craftsmanship/procedural knowhow of the Amish (overly simplified example of what I mean: it seems there are organic farmers who know how to really efficiently compost and combine crops with different nutritional needs on the same space, but couldn’t work a horse plow or raise a barn to save their lives, and there are Amish who are master farmers, could run a farm every day for 50 years, but only know how to grow wheat or corn and raise cows, pigs and chickens in fairly traditional ways, with no idea of what their waste could be doing for the soil, or the kind of ecological interdependencies they could be fostering).
Thank you also for the fiction recommendation, it’s on the list! (I’ve just finished reading through all of Raymond Chandler’s published books, after reading the entire Jack O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin series, and now I’m reading a hopelessly contemporary fantasy book that is clearly the novelization of the author’s fairly shallow “fantasy Europe” D&D campaign setting, but is clever enough and has enough interesting elements to make me stick with it (The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman). Can’t really recommend it unless you just love “crime noir, but in a D&D fantasy setting.”)
One last thought on “fallback communities” I forgot to mention in my previous post. Similar to your observation on hobbyist communities, it has struck me that historical re-enactors, especially the big, organized groups, like Colonial Williamsburg, might prove to be great boons to the deindustrial future. Obviously, it’s a tourist attraction, but the actual participants are even more dedicated craftsmen and women than you find at Renaissance Faires or the like. If you didn’t ever make it down that way in your previous stay in the mid-Atlantic, you might consider checking it out. As a fourth-grader taking Virginian history, visiting the re-enactment locations of Williamsburg and Jamestown was absolutely delightful, and these days, I have even more respect for the craftsmanship on display there.
One last thing on that thread: I was looking for non-fossil-oil-burning lamps to use on my altar, and I stumbled on Townsends (https://www.townsends.us/), which makes ~18th century stuff for re-enactors and hobbyists at a rather nice value, and I think it was through them that I found a series of videos of re-enactors doing things like baking their own bricks to build a hearth, shaping wood to build a house and so forth. So, for anyone looking to pick up a few de-industrial tools and/or the skills to use them, you may find it useful.
(Oh, and should anyone be curious, I found their Redware oil lamp, with a string wick, wonderful as an altar light, if a bit pricey, but I consider it an investment against the cost of future candles: https://www.townsends.us/collections/lamps-lanterns-lighting/products/redware-grease-lamp-lantern-p4142-p-864. You can use regular kitchen twine as a wick and the vegetable oil of your choice as the fuel, but I have found it more effective (less smoky, mostly) to unwind a few strands of twine and re-twist into a looser single or double, rather triple or quadruple, strand, and use with castor or linseed oil, rather than canola or the like).
Cheers,
Jeff
If you’ll forgive me a second, less well-focused topic so early in the week, I was looking over some of the MM posts I didn’t have a chance to respond to later in the day, specifically to do with the political aspects of alternative spirituality (in this case, commentary on “white trash Wiccans” and the PMC abandoning Wicca, yoga, Zen, and whatever else, and possibly retreating to traditional Christianity as part of the Second Religiosity).
What struck me about all this was your other observation, drawn from Toynbee, I believe, that the “avant garde,” the trend-setting part of society, tends to cycle between religious and political periods – roughly 20-30 years of being religiously focused followed by 20-30 years of politically focused, if I remember right.
At any rate, I’m working on the following assumptions, which I take to be summaries of what I’ve read here, but welcome correction anywhere I’m mistaken:
1) American society overall is undergoing/has recently undergone a shift from the “culturally animating” questions that the smartest, hottest people care about, being religious to being political (shift of the religious/secular cycle)
2) American society is in the early stages of recognizing the chaos from the ways we’ve been used to doing things collapsing, and is seeking order in traditional religious forms (Spengler’s Second Religiosity)
3) Some of America’s sensitives are sensing the shift to more political frames of reference, but are experiencing more personal issues of spirituality, and are looking for a reconciliation (early forces of the Age of Aquarius? early stirrings of the American Great Culture? Getting mixed up between 1. and 2. above?)
So, what I’m trying to work out is how to reconcile the above. Maybe it would be easier with something concrete. We have a “trailer trash Wiccan” who genuinely believes in the God and the Goddess and has gotten a lot of out monthly rituals with the coven. On the other hand, the Coven has been getting more and more political, in ways our practitioner doesn’t agree with, day-to-day life argues against caring much about the coven or its doings, and our man-witch is left wondering how much he cares about witchcraft versus finding like-minded thinkers or voters, but he’s had some pretty startling experiences of the God and/or Goddess. Though made up off the top of my head, this doesn’t feel inconsistent with stuff I’ve been hearing, and I’m wondering how to fit together the various cyclical models.
For what it’s worth, my tentative understanding is that some folks who joined religions are starting to only see the political side of it, and are being supported in it, which will be held up for a while. On the other hand, those who are serious about their religions are being *forced* to care about the political, and those who manage to maintain faith after having to deal with that, will help to shape their religions going forward. Maybe that’s a “hedging your bets” kind of answer, but it makes sense to me.
At any rate, I’d be interested to hear what others think. I, after all, have a certain vested interest in frequent and easy correspondence.
Cheers,
Jeff
JMG # 79:
Indeed, I think vegan/animalist propaganda against beekeepers lives in a parallel universe, where its zealots don’t notice or don’t want to notice, for example, that human made hives give free housing to bees (in the natural world, bees have to compete for finding a shallow tree to live); and during the hardest winters, beekeepers feed their bees with water and diluted sugar (at least in the north of my country they do that help). What a strange form of explotation…
——————————
Michael G. # 87 (and others):
I don’t know very much about Australia and Canada real situation today, but I see according your opinions, they aren’t very free nor safe nor happy countries, in the political sense. Well, I see totalitarian tendences here in Europe, too. The woke left tends to commit censorship against dissidents, and the (far) right, in the countries where has reached power, tends to do the same against “non patriotic” people. I’m afraid our elites envy secretly (or less secretly every day which passes) the hard style censorship in the Chinese government style.
——————————
Pygmycory # 91:
I agree. I don’t like sectarianism so I like more to see what we’ve got in common like Christians than what things separe us. I was raised as a Catholic, but now I’m a Christian in my own way. Sometimes I’ve gone to Anglican services in ecumenical acts, and I have no problem with them in my town. Nice people…
——————————-
Brendhelm and JMG # 99:
Natural recovery is faster than we usually think. Look how is the Chernobyl forbidden zone nowadays, with ruins surrounded by high trees and wildlife thriving there, in spite if evident high radiactivity levels. And there’s a lot of depopulated villages in my country since the ‘60s and ‘70s in which plants are even taller than houses ruins. Ecological sucession in 40-50 years can change an urban scenary into woods (depending of the local climate).
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Siliconguy # 109:
Of course, no argument here. Domestic bees are essential to secure complete pollination and make crops happen every year (excepting a few plants like wheat and another grains which are pollinated by wind).
@ Phutatorius #49
I’ve not made crackers, but I have made damper, which is flour, water, and a bit of salt. It’s not very nice but it’s eatable. The trick, said the recipe, is to stir the mixture very vigorously to incorporate as much air as possible.
@pygmycory
RE: Passports. I’m also dual British-Canadian but living on the British side and had to go the whole 2 passports route a while back. About 8-10 years ago the Canadian government changed the rules for dual citizens (I believe under pressure from the US). I used to be able to cross into Canada with my British passport & Canadian citizenship card, but that no longer applies. If I want to visit family, I need my Canuck passport to enter Canada and my British one to get back home. I would also urge you to sort it out sooner rather than later. Passport officials don’t move quickly, and while things are better than they used to be, you are going to have a few hoops to jump through to get that passport. Once you’ve got that passport, renewals are pretty straight forward and can even be done online now with a digital photo (am going through that process now too).
Beyond that, I’m not sure that you will find Britain much better than Canada on the free speech front. We’ve seen a number of cases of overreach with the hate speech laws recently and there doesn’t seem to be any likely decline in that under the current enforcement profile. I have repeatedly flip flopped on which country is better to live in (I’ve tried both) and come to the conclusion that neither offers a brilliant option.
JMG (and others, who mentioned Twilight’s Last Gleaming), We already went through part of the novel last month, when the Iranians used Chinese technology to shutdown Starlink terminals of the CIA-inserted “protesters”. The protest stopped receiving instructions from Langley, and the protest ended soon after that.
I am eagerly waiting to see what else matches the novel and whether Iranian/Chinese boats show up in Diego Garcia.
. . . on the other hand, I have made shortbread which turned out rock hard. Google told me it was from over-working the mix, which activates the gluten.
Conclusion: I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Mr Greer, thank you for introducing the concept of solar chart, it is good to know that I can still work with astrology in a personalised way despite not being sure of my exact time of birth. If I ever stumble upon something interesting about working with astrology in non-horoscope related ways, I will share here.
@pygmycory #97 Joni Mitchell adapted Yeats’ poem The Second Coming into a song called Slouching Towards Bethlehem, it is appropriately epic in scope and worth checking out!
To David P #46, JMG, and commentariat:
The Germans used “wood gas” for light trucks and cars in WW2, and also would run in new tank engines.
However, large scale motorized transport, as JMG noted, needs good roads. Also, spare parts, mechanics, reliable fuel supply and lots of it, a way to transport the fuel, etc. etc.
The future is … dragoons, in their original role as mounted infantry. In fact, the Soviet Union had plenty of cavalry in WW2, and as JMG noted, horse transport was the main form in both the German and Soviet armies. In the June 1944 offensive used cavalry-tank groups to break through the Pripet marshes.
Or look up the Konarmiya under General Budenny in the Russo-Polish War in 1920. A large cavalry army (no infantry) and the Red Army’s strike force.
Cugel (the exponent of dragoons)
> I really didn’t intend that novel as a manual!
If the war goes through, they better pray that this is a manual, I entertain the thought that this could be way, way worse, Iran could be an order of magnitude more dangerous than Tanzania, actually I would venture to say that US could not have found a country to attack that is more dangerous, the fact that it doesn’t have nukes makes it more dangerous conventionally, because Iran could humiliate US conventionally without US or lsreaI be able to respond with nukes, using nukes there could be seen as a threat by both Russia and China. The close proximity between Iran and Russia and China, also makes it dangerous. Also its own indigenous weapon industry is a danger in itself.
We shall see. Hope better angels prevail. But who knows, I am also reading the “How it could happen” series and first part is called Hubris. And when there is hubris better angels cannot prevail.
pygmycory #91
I used to go to a high Anglican church (very Catholic in ritual/mass) and decided that I’d just throw my lot in with the biggest kid on the block! But seriously, thank you for the well wishes.
Brendhelm #98
I actually think the world will heal quite quickly. I lived on a farm as a kid and saw a fallow field turn back into a forest in real time (about 20 years). And it seems like when places are abandoned, they grow back quite quickly. Now, I can’t speak to the cleansing out of pollution, but it seems like the earth takes care of itself in time. Mammals may think in decades, but the earth has eons to do what it wants to do
Myriam #102
Interesting take. At this point, I can’t read or watch anything without assuming that someone is trying to manipulate me into their own worldview or trying to sell me something!
@William (#108):
Ah, you’re surely right about that; I didn’t think it through enough. Ugh! (Leave ASAP, methinks.)
Please excuse me if this is a bit unfocused, I am still trying to figure this out, but David P.’s comment spurred me on.
I have been attending a farmers night course and I am having a strange time of it. The best I can compare it to is the one story you told of your experience in collage, where a professor went of the rails because you mentioned that the reason behind religions might be, that there are actual beings behind the ceremonies and traditions, and the religion is just how we get in touch with them.
I am having a similar experience with, well most of the subjects. On the one hand there are very useful skills being addressed, oculation of fruit trees, beer brewing, soil composition… I am profiting a lot, but when we get to visit some of the modern farms, I am well not aghast, but perplexed maybe. For instance the animal husbandry guy is beaming about his meat chickens. But here is the thing, they are all genetic hybrids, produced in a genetics lab in Germany. And I do mean this quite literally, to 100 % all chicken meat on our countries shelves is produced in a 3 stage genetic hybridization process. If one doubts, please do google “ross 308”. These chickens are literally not viable as a species, since if they ever reach adult stage, their hearts give up to shear exertion of having to support so much flesh. And I am sitting there and thinking how 80 years ago chicken meat industry was mostly nonexistent. For small meat husbandry rabbits and turkeys were used. To mention turkeys, they are not viable as a meat industry in our country due to regulatory constrains on production, but not import. But back to rabbits, I went and reread a small household rabbit husbandry manual and found the answer in it. A rabbit builds meat mass on up to 80 % grass and hey feed. But the modern meat chicken builds mass much more effectively, but 100 % on corn, wheat and soy, all intensive farming products, that can be mass cultivated with diesel tractors. Massive 400 ps caterpillar drive machines with 12+ shear plows behind them.
A rabbit is extensive arming animal, the chicken an intensive farming animal. One NEEDS massive amounts of diesel, the other can grase on next to nothing.
I am sitting there in the lecture hall, and when the animal husbandry guy is beaming about his efficient chickens, I am thinking: “But they are brittle”
I dare say nothing, since my point has been so conditioned by this forums discussions over the last 15+ years, that whereas for me for instance peak oil is obvious, the others do not even register it. There is no arguing this. The result is only pain.
I have a feeling, a intuition, that I there is a reason I am doing this course, either trough it or with its results, I am to do something, but right now I do not know what to do, but sit and be silent.
I have applied the impression of that collage course on religion to some effect, but how did you set your goals and attitudes back in your collage days. It seems I could use some perspective.
Also may I ask your opinion on the future of modern farming?
Best regards,
V
@Phutatorius and all: No worries… I find the whole Maury Terry thing fascinating. And I certainly don’t expect you to watch the videos… You would have to go back to the beginning. I only got into this thing during the pandemic, and I listened to them more than watched them while I was at work. I didn’t do it on otherwise time I could be doing something else, but I followed along as I could while working.
I must say, when he was first investigating the idea of a cult in Untermeyer Park and related ideas, that’s what got me into it… but I had a lot skepticism. It was interesting to see him, a true believer in the book, change as his mind as he interviewed and talked to people, as he got files from the police and files and papers from Maury Terry. He even talked to one of the living victims who didn’t die, and that person was a believer in the cult theory and he went to visit Berkowitz and forgave him… so I think Berkowitz really gets off on winding people up, including Terry when they communicated. But I don’t know if Berkie is a real Christian or not, that’s between him and his God.
There were some other cool things in the series such as Grossman exonerating basically the Carr family who Terry thought connected to the “cult” and it seems who Berkowitz just had some kind of strange obsession with.
I know you to be a very discerning individual and reader… but I have encountered too many people who are not as discerning (especially in these days of cognitive collapse) … and they are of the mind that “I read it in a book, so it must be true.” That’s what gets me about people like Terry and Whitney Webb… they make some interesting connections and have some wild ideas, that can be appealing to people on a level, but not true in the actual way they are connected.
There were lots of anti-occult and conspiracy types watching Grossman’s videos when he first started, but when he started realizing it was mostly hogwash, and started pointing out the facts to why it wasn’t true, people started turning on him. That in itself was an education.
(Disclaimer: Although I know JMG has his own different blog to write about COVID pandemics, I think my following comment is more about some worrying political and mediatic tendences in a heck of “democratic” countries, than about the Covidian thing by itself. I hope you understand it, John).
In his book “Ecofascism”, the spanish politologist Carlos Taibo warns the readers about a possible near future fascism with a green face. This idea is controverted, and on the other hand, Taibo doesn’t go beyond his selective blindness in front of hard facts which deny his degrowth/woke leftism. For example, he thinks everybody who reject “illegal” migration (not legal), must be a far right voter or even worse, a fascist (cough cough).
However, I think he’s right in a thing, in which I’ve found a common ground with him. There’s a chapter of his essay about the political side of the creepy COVID pandemics times, and its effects until today. According Taibo, the pandemics was a general test for the future fascism, during an infectious disease which killed less people globally than tuberculosis in the Third World in a “normal” year, for example.
The infamous role played by the “reason of State”(overactued freedoms and rights restrictions in western democracies); the open censorship commited by MSM against every dissident view (even the most rational!); the willing serfdom of average people accepting to lose for a while their rights; the “balcony police”, who pointed too happily their fake criminals neighbors for small infractions; and finally the pandemics vedette: an idealized and authoritarian Science (hiding under its angelical “fig leaf” the huge public money transfer into the Big Pharma business pockets).
It’s interesting how Mr. Taibo points his criticism against the official version of pandemics and the most bizarre conspiracy theories alike. He also suggest our political-mediatic-economic elites envy shamefully the Chinese dictatorship “crisis management”. I think the negative tendences after the pandemics episode have grown and worsened until today, so I can easily connect this situation in the West with the current attacks against real
democratic freedoms (last example here: the sad government iniciatives commited in Canada, according what I’ve read in another previous comments).
Taibo finished that chapter of his essay admiting that (with a heck of luck), maybe we’ll know the true reality of the pandemics in a far future…
It’s very interesting I don’t share a part of this university teacher thoughts about nowadays reality and the future, but I see day after day how real citizens rights are limited slowly. Another cause of this freedom eroding I can easily point is the current war between Russia and Ukraine (EU/NATO), which has been the perfect subterfuge to allow the “happy” European MSM serfdom to the NATO/UE biased official version, closing the “Overton window” to the democratic debate. However, this is a topic who may deserve several books to depict it.
Greetings JMG,
For the next 500 years, what I see as really sustainable sources of energy are: hydro power, small wind turbines, geothermal (heating
And maybe enhanced for electricity) , solar water heating . What do you think ?
Thank you,
I practice Hellenistic astrology, and the Sunrise chart looks surprisingly like a technique I use: it’s one example of an alternative house system. The ascendant is only one of the many points which can be used to mark where to find the first house, and the Sun is a fairly common one. If I understand it correctly, this is pretty close to what a sunrise chart is doing, just with the additional step of converting the birth time into sunrise, instead of just rotating the chart as I would. It is quite interesting to me to see such a similarity, especially since until now, I had thought that the alternative house systems had completely died out.
Chuaquin:
Neptunedolphin # 21:
Well, when I thought I had seen everything to be puzzled by it, I discover (thank you) the Atheopaganism thing…My personal opinion about these guys is they maybe thought “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” (Politheism
against Monotheisms, especially Christianism), but they didn’t want to accept Paganism as real polytheism (cough cough). So they made up that idea of no-gods Paganism, I guess nearer to the woke business than real polytheism…
—-
About the no-gods Paganism, they are all focused on nature and scientific materialism but shy away from divinity. And yes to the woke business, since they are also political . I was raised by militant Atheists, and these folks are not Atheists. They say they are but there is nothing atheistic about their beliefs in the mystical experiences. They simply want to be over the divine, not reject it entirely. That is how I knew they were fakers who wanted religion without the god stuff.
——–
About trailer trash Wiccans, the ones I know are devout. They have altars to the Lord and Lady. They do see only two Deities, but they do practice the Wheel of the Year. I went to a croning of a friend (where she was made a Crone). It was low key, but everyone called the Watchtowers, prayed that the Lady would embrace her, and that the Lord watch over her. Everyone was in street clothes, except my friend who had a crown of ivy. Several people did wear handmade headdresses of flowers and feathers. But nothing fancier.
It’s as if the universe wants me to find this stuff…
File under Ritual Satanic Abuse / Vatican II Panic:
The Devil in Rome by Rachel Mastogiacomo–
“A Story of Survival, Truth, and Unshakable Catholic Faith
The Devil in Rome is a searing first-person account of a young woman’s entanglement with a charismatic Catholic priest whose hidden double life led her into psychological manipulation and satanic ritual abuse. Told with courage and deep faith, Rachel’s story lifts the veil on a dark undercurrent of clerical corruption and occult influence within the Church, while offering a powerful witness to resilience, spiritual warfare, and the healing she found through Christ and the Traditional Latin Mass.”
Here is an article about the book by her husband:
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/challenging-the-devil
He raises some allegations about Luciferian ceremonies in the Vatican…
I imagine there are some priests doing weird stuff -I mean, if there history is anything to go by we know this already. Whether it is fiddling kiddies or doing some grimoire work on the side… some of those girmoires were named after popes for a reason…
But this also seems to be a book of agitprop to cajole Catholics into the Traditionalist fold. Others would know about that much more than me though. Again, not saying stuff didn’t happen.
That’s the interesting thing with Maury Terry and Manny Grossman’s investigation. They both uncovered some sick stuff that was happening… but Grossman showed, at least in the stuff connected to The Ultimate Evil, that it wasn’t all connected or part of some grand conspiracy by an organized Satanic cult… just some sick people doing sick stuff, that was later connected to Berkowitz by Terry.
Michael Martin @ 111, I followed the link you posted. My personal opinion, typical JHK screed, long on vitriol and conservagrouch talking points and short on discernable fact. That said, Ms. Rice would be well advised to be careful what she wishes for. I have no special channel into Democratic party planning, but, based on easily observable trends, I very much doubt that Ms. Rice would be part of any future Democratic administration. The relatively young women and men who are winning elections lately ain’t taking prisoners. Wishful thinking, maybe, but I doubt that the bevies of entitled incompetents such as Clinton, Rice, Powers, Tanden, et al will be welcome anywhere near a future Democratic White House.
Taking up just one of JHK’s talking points: welfare fraud has been rampant for literally decades and has been known and ignored during all that time. Democrats run the welfare agencies like they used to run big city patronage machines. Republicans look the other way, because all that free federal money gets spent supporting the real estate and businesses their constituents own.
Wer here
Well recently a few crazy articles appeared in the Polish MSM. First one is about the fact tnhat Hungary is preparing on repeling an Ukrainian attack on it’s energy sector, after Budaphest refused to pay money to Ukraine the ukrainian SBU started sending “russian” drones with ukrainian flags to Hungary (they also attempt to interfiere with the upcoming elections hoping to get rid of Orban) Anti Russian nonse again you know the drill and of course the impending war with Iran…
Iran got a lot of weapons from China and Russia in recent weeks and now openly proclaiming that they will not shoot down their nuclear program and Israel declared they will keep attacking them regardless an agreement is made or not…
Us troops had evacuated from a few bases in the region (those closes to Iran and in range of Iranian missiles etc)
The difference is that in case of Venezuela were Maduro was betrayed and handled over to delta force there will be a long war. How long will the USA Israel keep this up? Last time pro Israeli people predicted that Iran will collapse in 2 days after the attack in June 2025 took place then the same people predicted Iran will collapse in January 2026 due to a civil war (which our dear Mossad friends attempted to start with riots and failed) and look what has happened. Russia and China had a vested long term interest in the region and are not leaving It will be a mess without a doubt…
Well Russian spokeperson Lavrov declared that the US Ukrainian side failed to meet any of the criteria discussed in Anchorage last year so I don’t know about any people who were predicting a “deal” beetween Russia and the US.
Basically the Us is going bankrupt and trying desperatelly attack as many people as It can before it happens….
WE live in a mad world and I almost forgot START 5 treaty left the chat nuclear rearmanent here we come.
Pardon me if this has been asked before.
Would you mind updating us on Twilight’s Last Gleaming as it pertains to today’s headlines?
(for context, I am a femme-presenting man who has renounced trans ideology.)
Watchfinger: That’s great! I’m not Catholic or even a believer at all, but I’ve come to believe that the decline of Christianity as a force for social cohesion is not a good thing. I wish I believed – I’d go find a church too. I wish you well on your Catholic journey!
William: Maybe you already know this, but there’s a former school trustee here in BC who’s been fined $750,000 for opposing “sexual orientation and gender identity resources in schools”. That comports really well with what you’re saying and is scary to me. He’s fighting it of course and I hope he wins, but that they even went there–!
JMG: What do you think life would be like in what is presently Canada after a completed War Plan Red scenario?
Also, how did transgenderism gain the power over the society it has now? I’m Canadian so I may be seeing one of the worst (and most embarrassing!) examples, but how did something that’s so at odds with the way I’m sure most people feel at bottom–that everyone is their birth sex and anything else is pretending; how did such a thing become so elevated that people face serious legal and social penalties for gainsaying it? Has our consciousness been changed in accordance with someone’s will? If so, whose? Is this some kind of new religousity that I recall you writing about in previous years? To me, it seems to be quite a stark change from norms that I remember from the first half of my life (b. 1971) with no real hint that anything like this was coming. Is it simply a lower point on a slippery slope, the top of which is.. well I don’t want to define a point, but is it purely a matter of moral decay? Is it the building of a captive political constituency? What has happened here? If you’ve already written about that, I’d greatly appreciate a link, even if I have to strain the fatty muscle between my ears to see what it has to do with transgenderism. Thank you!
A poetic riff on themes from the post… (subject to later revision).
—
Trailer trash Wiccans & Latter Day Amish Jakob Boehmians
sit around the campfire taking slugs from the jug
while another packs her pipe with a Kentucky fired tobacco plug
talking about how to pull the rug out from under the Mayor
of the little drug mule town down in Southeast Ohio
it’s been awhile since they came together under the stars to talk.
chalk it up to the necessity of dirt bag politics making allies
of those who under the stars do naked frolic,
and those full dressed in the barn burnish Bible verses
varnished in the vernacual of Pennsylvania Dutch.
In this moment of kicking out the fentanyl freaks,
the wheelers and dealers and Tylenol stealers,
it isn’t so much about the purity of belief
as it is the relief of getting someone else elected
even if its just another empty promise about people protected.
Immanence and provenance, personal gnosis or words from prophets
haven’t mattered much when the frackers come for profits
when the water turns slick with chemicals leaking from the faucets
and the farm land where pagan and Christian toil equally soiled
forget that one goes to Pan, the other to Pantocrator.
Coming to meet in the place of mothers feeding children
and in the care of the sick, those brought down by pesticides bedridden.
Then the rabbi and his family come along to sing a song from an ancient psalm
to share the oil of gladness, that all of them can know
whether they cast the runes, or know because the good Lord tells them so.
There is no qualm about the specific details of their doctrines
only signatures that show the fruit grown from seeds sown.
From the barbarism of reflection to the torn threads of communal dejection;
to mutually assured construction an injunction for all faiths and their protection.
@118 Jeff Russell
My interpretation is that the 40 yr political/spiritual cycle governs the alternative scene in America, while the Second Religiosity will be mainstream. So the mainstream will be Christian; and the counterculture will be politically radical.
@justin
Most (not all, some is still hidden) of this sort of stuff has been out there, if you have been willing to look for it. That’s really what has allowed these people to frolic freely – every time, people look away for whatever reasons. Ignorance is bliss, I guess. Do whatever feels good.
You see what has happened when even a brief spotlight has been shined on them.
>On a related topic, veganism is a very odd religion.
I suspect most of them are city dwellers. You don’t find too many atheists in foxholes, you don’t find too many vegans out in the country either.
Mary B @ 136: “My personal opinion, typical JHK screed, long on vitriol and conservagrouch talking points and short on discernable fact.”
A nice choice of words there. It’s been all too true of him lately. Old age setting in? I wish he’d open up the Overton Window more often — maybe some bats would fly out.
JMG et al,
I have a personal definition of “fnord” that I think is close to the “textbook” definition. In my words, a fnord is any memetic or situational happening that acts as a receptacle for the projection of negative meaning eg. anxiety, fear, etc. It’s up for debate in my mind whether that should include positive meaning. I haven’t actually read Robert Anton Wilson’s novels yet but have read a lot of his nonfiction. Anyway, does this definition. make sense? Do you have any advice on “seeing the fnords”?
Some wag on the internet made a suggestion wrt AI/LLMs, every time you see the word AI or LLM, replace it with “cocaine” and see how hilarious it is.
—
>American society is in the early stages of recognizing the chaos from the ways we’ve been used to doing things collapsing, and is seeking order in traditional religious forms
Nah, they aren’t. I don’t think they can, actually. But I do think that you are right in the broad outline. I’m calling it “Reset to Factory Settings”, where the current arrangement of things collapses and what’s left picks up the pieces to start forward again. That would be all those who have isolated themselves from the chaos, as you named it and aren’t completely dependent on some of these electronic devices to survive. I like to think of them as “The Amish” but that’s just a pejorative term.
I’m not saying whether this is a good or bad thing, I’m just saying this is what’s likely to happen. Everybody likes to think the future is just like the present, only moar so.
@Milkyway
Don’t worry about sounding like a broken record, it is favourable if you repeat the offer of the Modern Order of Essenes!
After all, some may have missed it, or forgotten where to look after that.
@the_arcane_archivist
Simplicius76 on substack says also this time, the US govt inner circle actually tries to avoid war as much as possible, but also to appease Israel, a thin line to straddle.
– On satanic ritual –
As our host is an example, freemasonry does not equal satansim. But a lot of satanist symbolism in entertainment and public spectacle has been mixed up with masonry symbolism recently.
Eyes Wide Shut, very interesting, allegedly Kubrick became paranoid while producing this film, and died shortly after its release.
Let’s not forget- when child abductor, abuser and murderer Marc Dutroux was put on trial, twenty seven witnesses died under mysterious circumstances! There were mass protests in Belgium back then.
Some esoteric commentators on Youtube rejoice – they say, now all these crimes will be put out into the open, punishment awaits!
If it is an elite with waning power – maybe!
I for one, ever both fascinated and disgusted by gruesome stories, appreciate the public sentiment I see brewing in this present time – people get very distrusting of our establishment, and are ready to believe things are not like they seem!
Very good, for that.
I knew that Crowley follower, great manipulator, who introduced me to satanism and told me about sex orgies on lsd with his then girlfriend, them in their twenties, and his teacher, who earned money by manipulating young women into prostitution, a member of OTO. Apparently, the same who drugged and then hypnotized another friend of mine (whom the Crowley fan hated passionately), though this story is still shrouded in mystery.
– Stories from Austria –
Apart from horrific sexual abuse stories of young girls by young migrant boys in Vienna, the nephew of my Cousin’s husband’s mother was brutally beaten and mugged at the railways station by migrant minors. Only by chance the police arrived, and apparently, to them, that wasn’t anything unusual, so she told me at least.
He does not find a job as a trained social worker in Vienna; would have been unthinkable some years ago!
The markings on the roads in Lower Austria, a friend tells me, are already so faded you barely see them. Also, the Lower Austria provincial government tries to force pointless construction projects on citizens, forcing them to give up property AND making them pay. So much for the plan, but that is still illegal, unlikely they get through with this, but it shows the desperation.
– Europe –
Slovakia accesses its emergency reserve of oil, because Ukraine has disabled the druzhba pipeline. Hungary has upcoming elections, the EU trying to get rid of Orban, who is already in open political conflict with Ukraine. In Poland, apparently, an anti EU government is forming.
There are many low level electricity outtages in Germany, just under the radar of national news. Many other signs of collapse too, open mafia executions on the streets of Berlin for example, failing escalators on railway stations, a lot of failing systems at the airports…
In Austrian government, there are already many plans to cut fundings.
European gas storages including Austria are very low, although another ship has arrived in Germany, prolonging business.
The friend of mine in Lower Austria said, a RAM component for a PC he wanted to buy rose from 400€ to 1600€ since last year.
All my life electronics became cheaper. Ostensibly, there’s an inflection point.
Finally, I looked for Fran Drescher’s wikipedia page on Google. “Does Fran Drescher have a child?” Google suggested as a question to click on. Well? I thought. As far as I know not.
The answer was, no, BECAUSE, at the age of 42 her ovaries where removed due to cancer. So that’s why Fran Drescher has no children!
I wish the Heritage Foundation would really get its foot in the door in Europe more quickly…
It makes sense that serious occultists are avoiding the internet. After all, in the Long Descent you did say that the internet would become a thing to be “endured rather than enjoyed.” You saw crappification coming from a mile away.
@Watchflinger,
oops. Anyway, I hope you find deep meaning and connection to the Lord in your choice of Catholicism.
Where you come from actually sounds like where I am right now – currently attending an anglo-catholic church. I’ve gotten sucked into doing art restoration type stuff for them, which has been really interesting, and serving at the alter, which I’ve never done before and has quite the learning curve with how high church things are here, even at a friday low mass. It’s kind of fascinating, and what with coming early to set stuff up and waiting around for things to start I’m finding myself doing a lot of hanging out with priests lately. Fortunately both of them are people I like and respect.
I’m doing a lot of extra reading and contemplation over lent rather than trying to give up a food. I’m not sure where I’m going right now, but the journey is surprisingly exciting for being surrounded by books. And if you’d asked me a year ago if I’d be doing any of these things I’d be staring at you in confusion. I didn’t plan any of this.
“Some wag on the internet made a suggestion wrt AI/LLMs, every time you see the word AI or LLM, replace it with “cocaine” and see how hilarious it is.”
Cocaine = Actually Indians
Polecat, Star’s Reach got that reaction from several SF writers — I fielded some intemperate rants from David Brin, for example, though that was as much because I talked about hard thermodynamic limits as anything else. Science fiction from the 1930s through the 1970s could handle a dizzying range of futures, including quite a few that dealt with issues of the kind that interest me, but all that got shoved into the memory hole in the 1980s when SF got sucked into the Grand March of Progress fantasy, stopped asking hard questions about the future, and resigned itself to churning out endless dreary rehashes of the whole “We’re going to the STARZZZ!!!” hogwash. There’s a reason why nobody talks about great SF writers like Edgar Pangborn any more…
Info, you may be right that Biblical miracles have helped shape the current fad for fake magic, but there’s also another source: technology. Most Harry Potter pseudomagic does what technology does, just without the drawbacks and the high bills at the gas station.
Slithy, I use exactly the same techniques for solar charts as for conventional natal charts, since solar charts are meant to be a second-best substitute for natal charts.
Siliconguy, plenty of vegans are fine with people being killed (if they’ve been labeled “bad people” by the corporate media, that is), just not cute little animals. It’s all a game of abstractions.
Chad, do you have a link for that study? I want to use it in an upcoming post. I’d argue that there’s a very powerful reason why LLMs are being deployed, and it has nothing to do with how well they work. More on this in due time!
Michael, of course! The bureaucratic-managerial class has its back to the wall, and so it’s turned vicious.
Kimberly, thanks for this. Lots of memories in that passage…
Jeffrey, yes, I’ve heard that claim about supply chains rehashed over and over again since the 1970s; you can find it in the pages of Roberto Vacca’s The Coming Dark Age. Vacca insisted the collapse would happen by 1985. Of course he was wrong; so were the people who insisted that the same thing would happen as a result of the Y2K problem, or as soon as petroleum broke US$70 a barrel, or as soon as there was a sufficiently sharp downturn in the stock market, or…well, I could go on for paragraphs. People love their imaginary overnight catastrophes, and can come up with endless reasons why it’s going to happen this time for certain; the mere facts that the same rhetoric has been deployed over and over again, and yielded one false prediction after another, never seem to trouble them.
In point of fact, while the complexity of the more lavishly marketed technologies keeps going up, more and more people are stepping off that treadmill. These days, for example, when I tell people I don’t have a cell phone, I don’t get angry diatribes any more, as I did a decade ago; now most people look wistful and a little jealous, and more and more often the response I get is, “You too? Cool!” and we talk about how we handle life with only a land line. Vinyl records are back, and of course printed books shrugged off the challenge from e-books years ago, shoving the latter into niche markets. Similarly, we’re already seeing the rise of an under-the-table local food production economy — look for distribution points for raw milk if you want to tap into this. All of this is a normal response to the slow tightening of thermodynamic limits. We’re going to see a lot more of it in the years ahead as we continue sliding down the slope of the Long Descent — and of course all the way along, there’ll be people waiting in vain for the sudden collapse our cultural obsessions lead so many of us to expect.
M.R., of course synchronicities happen. That doesn’t mean that the universe in all its vastness is responsible for them. In the occult view of things, it’s a busy cosmos with many realms, levels, and planes of consciousness and life. One or more (probably many more) of these is responsible for the odd events we call synchronicities. In the case of life-changing events like the one you describe, it’s probably your own higher self, but other beings can also get involved.
Christopher, I have no idea — you’d have to run the experiment to find out. If I had to guess, I’d guess that it would start out well and end up a complete mess once people figured out how to game the system, as of course they would. Humans gonna human…
Jeff, serious reenactors are indeed a useful resource. In terms of politics and religion, well, what usually happens when things switch one way or the other is that you have a flurry of entryism, trying to force religious organizations to become political factions or vice versa; some succumb, others throw out the entryists, and still others break up, and new religious groups or political factions get formed to preserve the unfashionable focus. Meanwhile big new political groups (or religious ones) get formed to pursue the fashionable focus, and away we go.
Chuaquin, yeah, it’s all a matter of abstractions. The real world isn’t welcome to offer an opinion.
A Reader, yep. Interesting to watch.
Soko, glad that it’s helpful.
Cugel, yes indeed — that’s why I put dragoons into my novel Retrotopia!
Archivist, we’ll see. The neocons desperately want a war, but plenty of other interests don’t, and it remains to be seen what will be worked out.
Vitranc, I had that run-in with the comparative religion professor during my second stint in college, 1991-1993, when I already had a good sense of how corrupt and dishonest the academic industry had become. I finished my degree because it was an efficient way to get fluent in Latin and learn a few other things I needed. I assumed the professors were more interested in pushing ideologies than in exploring the subjects that interested me, and so I saw myself as being in enemy territory and acted accordingly. As for the future of farming, the big corporate farms will become ever more complex, expensive, rickety, and inefficient, while a second, “shadow economy” of small local producers picks up the slack for most people. It’s the same situation as in the Soviet Union in its latter years, when most of the food people actually ate came from little local gardens, while the big communal farms lurched along a trajectory composed of equal parts ideological correctness, practical failure, and extreme corruption.
Chuaquin, interesting. I think he’s right, not least because the green movement I once admired so greatly has been coopted by corporate money and elitist ideologies, to the extent that you get “green” advocates insisting with a straight face that people shouldn’t be allowed to grow food in their own backyards because it’s bad for the climate. But it could come as easily from the left as from the right, which I don’t think he’s likely to grasp.
Tony, the most important sources of energy in the absence of highly concentrated fossil fuels are human and animal muscle. Everything else is likely to be secondary to that. Wind, water, and thermal solar will also make a significant contribution; I’d be surprised if geothermal does much, because outside of a very few contexts (such as natural hot springs) it’s very resource-intensive to put in place.
William, you won’t find solar charts in modern astrology, as far as I know. It was a technique used in the late 19th and early 20th century, before psychological astrology of the Dane Rudhyar variety swept everything else aside. That older tradition is what I practice, though.
Justin, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see Trad Catholics embracing the whole range of traditions of their faith, including whipping up people into a frenzy about devil worship among those they hate. Oh well.
Wer, it’s a crazed time, no question. We’ll see what happens.
DougT, Twilight’s Last Gleaming is a novel. Unless we get a president named Jameson Weed, I don’t recommend treating it as anything else.
Cynthia, if War Plan Red were to be executed in 2027, let’s say, the Canadian military would be crushed in a matter of days, but guerrilla resistance would continue in some areas for a very long time. Those areas that were not too upset about being freed from Ottawa’s grip, such as Alberta, would become US states in short order and life would more or less revert to normal. Other areas where resistance continues would remain territories under military rule, and there would be plenty of atrocities on both sides. As for transgender ideology, I see it as a product of the same cultural forces that drive the whole transhumanist thing — a furious insistence that mere biology can be allowed to place no limits on the human ego.
Justin, thank you for this.
Luke, that’s a pretty good definition. In Illuminatus!, the fnords are always negative. In terms of learning how to see the fnords, it requires the ability to remain fully aware as you read or take in media. When you spot something that’s meant to upset you, for manipulative purposes, you’ve just seen one.
Other Owen, ha! I like that. As for the reset button, I think it’s more than that. A lot of people are actively turning toward sources of perceived meaning and stability, especially but not only to churches, as a way to deal with the chaos of their times. The rising tide of young men joining Freemasonry is one measure of that; the even larger influx of (mostly) young men into traditional forms of Christianity is another.
Curt, thank you for the data points.
Nephite, it was hard to miss. It’s even harder to miss now.
@ other owen #73
It’s about two-thirds female to one-third male.
Definitely not a fifty/fifty split.
That church is dying by inches.
For decades, the minister is one who retired from someplace bigger and is now serving part time.
Christ Church, the Episcopal church in nearby Dover, DE, is doing better but they also skew old.
Stephen T Chang’s Books Complete Systeme of Self Healing – Internal Exercises and Tao of Sexology are recommendable books.
As always, focus is the primary necessity, without nothing goes.
JMG,
I would much rather not see my home turned into a war zone! It’s also disturbing to me because my escape plan is to move back to the US, and if there is such a war, I will probably end up facing a lot of issues because of my origin. This is probably a good reason to seriously consider renouncing my Canadian citizenship as soon as I get out of the country too….
David P (#46)
I think there’s a good case for it being sugars that are added to processed tobacco that make it more dangerous than traditionally prepared versions. Sugars make it more addictive, make it easier to draw smoke into the lungs, and burning sugars create a lot of dangerous compounds. Put all three together, and you have a very toxic stew indeed.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3296517/
Robert Mathiesen (128),
I hadn’t even thought through the implications for jury trials until you mentioned it: there are just too many ways that giving the government the ability to make laws in secret can be abused! Even though technically it lacks the ability to “make” laws, the ability to strip away laws can have much the same effect….
I currently plan to be out of the country by the end of March, and have a job lined up as well as a place to stay; I am also tracking bills C-2 and C-15, and have everything ready so I will be able to catch a last minute flight out of the country should either pass before then. None of the other bills I see are so concerning that I think I need to be ready to flee the next day, but either of those two have the potential to make actually getting out of the country much more challenging, and so they warrant getting out ahead.
Cynthia (139),
I have heard of crazy things like what’s happening to that poor trustee, but I don’t think I’ve heard that one. This is the main reason why I’m so troubled by Bill C-9: if the hate speech laws are already open to this kind of abuse, with the protections that are about to be stripped away, then I’m quite concerned about what it will look like without these protections.
I wish I had a better answer than “It’s probably time to go somewhere else”, because I know it’s out of reach for a lot of people, and I also know that it means leaving behind a lot of people, and I hate the idea of not knowing when or if I will be able to go home, or what will be left after.
@Gavin,
I’m working on the Canadian passport actively, and should hopefully take it in to the passport place early next month. I plan to worry about the british passport once I’ve got the Canadian one sorted out.
At the moment yes, neither Canada nor the UK is winning any human rights prizes with regard to censorship and freedom generally. Not any fair ones, anyway. And yeah, europe has a lot of the same issues. I think a lot of countries are having similar problems at the moment. It’s certainly dangerous, especially if it gets worse. At the moment, I don’t think its hitting most people yet – what’s hitting people is cancel culture type behavior. Not legal. Thus far.
I do worry about the new Canadian bills – the government has been shoving anti freedom bill after freedom bill at parliament and the senate but so far they keep getting shot down or the worst bits ripped out. It’s been happening so long and so often they’ve all blurred together in my mind and I have trouble keeping them straight. This latest raft of three is really worrying though.
@Phutatorious on whole wheat crackers
I have a delicate gut which led me to experimenting with fermenting my “bread” (which is not really bread), and can make a soft cracker with it if I want. Unlike regular sourdough bread where you add some fresh flour to knead the dough (with a couple more hours of rising), I let the whole thing get very well fermented before baking.
I start with around 4 cups of organic whole flour ( I like Red Fife – different flours will yield different results)
enough water to make the mixture pourable (I use filtered water)
sourdough starter (or just let the wild bacteria work – this will take many batches to get just right)
let it sit and bubble for 24 hours in a warm place. Take some out for the next batch.
At that point I do various things with it. I don’t add fresh flour because that defeats the purpose of fermenting it well. If I add nuts and seeds I ferment another 12 hours.
I then add a tablespoon or so of natural baking soda. The reason I do this is the reaction between the soda and the acidity of the ferment. It takes the soured edge off the batter. I let it sit for a few minutes, stir a couple times to encourage it, and wait for the initial explosion to subside. There will be enough reaction still left to produce small bubbles in the baked “bread”. Be careful not to add too much or you will get that awful soda taste. It varies depending on how soured the batter becomes.
I then add either 1 egg or 2, depending on what I am making, stirring well.
Then I add any spices or herbs I want, depending on sweet or savoury, salt, pre-soaked dried fruit, a sweetener, whatever.
I pour this into glass baking pans that have been well greased with our lard rendered from our pigs, and bake. I keep the depth around 1/2 – 3/4 of an inch. Once baked I can slice this in two, and add toppings, nut butters, apple butter, jam, etc.
For crackers I would add with the egg: salt, pepper, any dried herbs for flavour to suit (or none). Pour the batter thinly in a glass baking pan ( I worry about the metal pans: I can’t tell which ones are not good). If it’s very thin, it will be crispy, if it’s a little thicker it will be softer. Bake until you’re happy.
This makes good croutons too.
I have no idea if this message will get to the recipient, and our kind host would be completely within his rights to not allow the comment to be published:
Hey Siliconguy (#’s 16, 19, 23, 109), give me a shout via comment over at my place, I would love to follow up with you about the state of the BPA and power up here in the PNW.
https://degringolade.dreamwidth.org/
“In those situations where nature has been left strictly alone, she recovers very fast.”
A great example of this is Chernobyl. Below is a link to an article with pictures of beautiful animals thriving in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone today. The author seems amazed and states that “the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone presents a profound paradox”. Personally, I see the situation not as a paradox, but as a logical sequence: people leave – nature thrives.
https://www.animalsaroundtheglobe.com/13-creatures-living-in-chernobyl-today-5-330203/
Kurt @ 147: Actually, IIRC, Kubrick died before completing “Eyes Wide Shut.” That was one of the criticisms of the film; that it wasn’t quite all Kubrick or quite as Kubrick would have wanted it. Personally, I found the end quite lame: “Let’s go F___.” I mentioned Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” as an inspiration for the film because I like that story so much. There is a “missing link” that I did not mention. The movie is said to have been inspired by a French novel titled, “Dream Story.” I read it. Yes, it’s as close to the movie as many novels are to their cinematic adaptations. But still, I like to think that “Dream Story” itself was inspired by “Young Goodman Brown.” It’s not implausible; the French were fans of Edgar Allen Poe. Hawthorne wrote at times in the Poe-esque fashion. I’m thinking especially of his story “Rapuchini’s Daughter.” So it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine them as fans of Hawthorne as well as Poe.
YouTube is getting pretty crazy these days. On one hand, I see a Catholic video about the five best ways to prevent demons from interfering with your life.
Step two is avoiding occult practices, and I roll my eyes and worry about future witch-hunts. Then, right next to that video, the algorithm recommends Top Ten Demons to Summon for Beginners.
Another possible magic meme for your collection John, this one by way of the Simulacra:
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/0042921978_10.jpg
In enemy territory, foraging for useful skills. All hail to the fourth virtue I guess and I get to have a beer brewing course, plus some legal benefits along the way. Not to mention will and individuality training. Opportunities abound.
It is interesting how the end of the Soviet union is shaping my worldview of late. I already made some life and home decisions based on a research of the Soviet union and Yugoslavia in the 80s and 90s.
There is of course another dimension, this looks like the fall of the USSR with the 1970 USA on top of it. My current problem for my own peace of mind is, that it is quite hard for me to instinctively gauge the tame frame.
I did once map the Saturn-Neptune conjunctions of 1989 on a timescale until the economic troubles really set in for the normal folks, 1992. This gave some estimation on potential short term effects.
So right now I am gathering social node resources that can be applied both in a struggling officiak economy and have the potential for gift economy.
In a rich dose of irony, I took a break from reading this blog last week to focus on personal affairs, since New Thought had been the post subject I was least interested in of the three that had been chosen two months ago. Catching up this week, I realize I had fallen exactly into the misguided pattern your article described. As I recall, I myself on this very blog admitted earlier this month that my problems lie in a feeling of stuckness and an inability to take meaningful focused action towards my goals, and wouldn’t you know it, New Thought seems to offer an antidote to those exact issues!
In the end, the subject I was least interested in turns out to have the most promising prospects for my personal development. By contrast, I didn’t need to be convinced to study Buddhism or Stoicism in my earlier years, which only reinforces this point. As someone who generally prides himself on seeking out dissenting perspectives, it feels a little embarrassing to catch myself flat-footed like this, but I’m choosing to simply take it as a lesson for the future.
All that is to say, I’ve begun the Burks Hamner New Thought correspondence course this week, and I look forward to seeing where it will take me 🙂 Apologies for the late comment to this effect, but since this is the Open Post, I suppose it is still technically on-topic.
One question as I begin: is it okay to read ahead or would you say the course is best experienced week by week for the first time through? I find I’m rather curious to see where this is all going, but I’m willing to be patient if it will offer a better experience.
William: I’m going to be weathering whatever happens in place, but I don’t envy those who are leaving; both things are less than ideal for different reasons. I get your feelings about that. For what it’s worth, I think you will be able to come home again, but…
JMG: I think that scenario for War Plan Red is quite feasible. I think the best that can be hoped for is that the thing is as bloodless as possible. As much as I hate to say it, if it comes down to a choice between becoming a totalitarian nation with a strong dependency on China, and a US takeover: O Canada^L^L^L^L^L^L Say Can You See.
Canadians in general: I know that’s awful and I’m sorry. The better thing would be if we changed political course and chose not to be the type of neighbor that the US would be compelled to take over. But the kind of commentary I see by individual Canadians towards Americans in general elsewhere makes me feel not very hopeful about that. Do you see that as well? It’s like we think they’re the devil’s own minions. This isn’t Rick Mercer’s “Talking to Americans” anymore, this is seriously insulting stuff. I think there’s been a certain amount of mild anti-Americanism as part of our identity since the United Empire Loyalists, and it’d be a good idea to ask ourselves honestly, why that, especially now that it’s not so mild. Or maybe it’s just me that sees that.
Sort of on the topic of “apophatic paganism” ….I can’t wait to read your elaboration of this concept.
One thing I really want to see come back into style is epistemic humility. By that I mean the admission that there is just so much out there they we do not know and there’s things we’ll never know by the way of ordinary human consciousness. Of course the dogmatist who buys into one or another absolutist claim about the nature of reality will peg epistemic humility as being “relativism” or “skepticism” or whatnot. It seems there are certain kinds of people who can’t get out of bed in the morning without a firm believe in one of those absolutist metaphysical assertions.
And I say all of this as a Platonist of sorts. I do seem to recall Plotinus telling us to shut up already about the Absolute.
Thank you JMG,
I am curious what impacts you see on the
Middle class and society, on the current step we are on in the long descent?
In Europe I see people very stressed with work, under pressure with economics, also tense social relations, unstable families, unpleasant shop keepers, often very demanding clients and bosses/sometimes abusive ( and of course lots of chaos in politics).
On the positive side, some people are looking at alternives to consumerism, people are doing good things most of the day like doing a good job, taking care of kids etc. I see there is also more personal discipline to pay attention and being focused (an improvement in mindless entertainment in my opinion).
Any observations in the US for the past few years ?
USPS will now be postmarking our mail when it LEAVES the post office, not when it arrives. Anyone who mails their utility, credit card, mortgage or other payments needs to be aware of this policy change. Used to be, you could take your payment to the PO, if there still is one anywhere near you, have it registered, I think that was the term, for an extra 50 cents, and then make a copy of the outside of your envelope.
Online comment has been about the effect this could have on voting by mail, but I think the real intention is two fold. One is to give companies yet another excuse to impose late fees–you all do understand that fees is where they make their profit, I hope. The other is to herd us stubborn holdouts into doing all our transactions online. Yet another reason NOT to use credit cards, and, when possible, pay utility bills in person and DON’T leave without the receipt. I usually combine bill paying with other business.
In other news, the president has issued some kind of executive order because national security, to increase the production of glyphosate (round-up). Payoff to agribiz and the chemical industry, would be my guess.
Hi JMG. Curious about your assessment of how Trump’s foreign policy has changed from his first presidency to this one. He seemed somewhat weary of military interventionism in his first term, but now has basically become a neocon on steroids. (Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Gaza, etc) In particular the Israel lobby seems to be getting everything it wants. Also, generally what do you think the long-term effects of these foreign military interventions will be?
In my opinion, Rudolf Steiner managed to see the future quite clearly; for example, the prophecy about the “incarnation of Ahriman” is quite accurate (those interested can read more here https://www.anthroposophie.net/Ahriman/ahriman.htm
or directly in Steiner’s lecture https://wn.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Lectures/GA191/English/AP1993/19191101p01.html).
There are several problems with the visions of seers and clairvoyants. The first is that people who are clairvoyant or seers are still limited beings. That their limitations are much broader than those of someone who believes only the material world exists is another matter. Second, translating extrasensory visions into human language is difficult because human language already struggles to describe the sensory world; it is very limited. Imagine the extrasensory world—try telling a blind salamander in Texas that the sky is blue. And the third problem is communication: will the other person understand? Even so, Rudolf Stainer did a great job as a prophet. He was wrong about some things, which is perfectly normal; he is still a limited being. Rudolf Stainer wasn’t a god, as far as I understand. And there’s another problem: is it appropriate for a clairvoyant to say certain things? The problem of prudence. Even so, I have the utmost respect for Rudolf Stainer.
To be honest, the aforementioned prophecy, and the two types of evil according to Stainer (Luciferian and Ahrimanic), are very evident today. Donald Trump is an example of Luciferian evil, and it’s quite easy to see. For Trump, the policies to try (try, not avoid, because many things are already inevitable) to rescue the USA are merely a tool to gain power, and that can be seen in his behavior. What is Lucifer? False light, at least that’s what I learned. It needs some light to be able to cause shock. When you’re in the dark and someone shines a flashlight directly in another person’s face and eyes, that other person experiences a momentary shock from the light—exactly that kind of shock. It blinds you.
The second type of evil, according to Stainer, is quite simple: the current Prime Minister of Israel. Elon Musk and the transhumanist movement also fall into this category, as does Stalin.
According to some anthroposophical circles (https://www.anthroposophie.net/Ahriman/ahriman.htm m. This site has two charts or diagrams in the “god and evil” section, important to understand the rest of the comment) in our time two beings will incarnate, the one mentioned above and another one they call “Sorat” which we could rather call “the antichrist” and the two evils mentioned above work for this third one.
Before continuing, I want to clarify something: the Bible, like other sacred scriptures, should be understood as esoteric books, not as exoteric or historical books (or materially physical books, to name a few categories). To consider the Bible as an exoteric book is, to the best of my knowledge, to profane the sacred scriptures. For example, the Ark of the Covenant is not a box where things were placed; the Ark of the Covenant is something internal.
This clarification is necessary because what communism, for example, has done is take the timeline of the apocalypse and interpret it in its own terms. Another example is the 1000-year Reich, or, for example, Nuremberg Christianity, which Malcolm Kyyun describes here: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2026/02/the-rise-and-fall-of-nuremberg-christianity/
“Nuremberg Christianity, like its rivals and predecessors, comes with its own assortment of sacred days and collective rites; it has its own list of saints and holy martyrs. Centrally, it is built around its own interpretation of the Passion and the redemption of humanity through the blood of the sacrificial lamb. Like its rivals and predecessors, it divides the world into a “before” and “after,” drawing what is essentially a metaphysical and transcendental line between the world before and after the coming of the faith. Through a blood sacrifice of unprecedented proportions, the path toward grace was once again pried open: by availing themselves of the blood of the innocent lamb, humans have been given access to forms of enlightenment and redemption that did not and could not exist before. What makes this belief system so effective, furthermore, is that it replicates a feature of a much earlier period of Christianity: rather than perceiving itself as a discrete “religion” competing with other “religions,” it simply views itself as the correct and truthful way to understand the world.”
“Thus, Nuremberg Christianity is a dying belief system, and there are almost no prospects for halting its rapid collapse. In theory, it could try to move away from relying on the Holocaust and find other groups and causes to center. But the problem is that the kind of grace it offers has now been revealed to be false: the blood of Anne Frank did not actually possess the power to cleanse the stained garments of humanity from sin. Finding a substitute is almost certainly going to be pointless: if her blood can’t do it, then no blood can.”
And there are other gems in Malcolm’s writing, but the kind of influence that makes that kind of secular Western faith exist must be something quite harmful, although now we are beginning to understand why the crisis of the rules-based international order is quite catastrophic for the West, because it is a crisis of faith.
What does this have to do with the influence of the Antichrist? First, JMG in his book “Apocalypse Not” has described this influence, and these Western secular faiths (emphasis on Western; in reality, they should be called pseudo-secular; compare them with Hindu Jainism or Buddhism, then Western secularism is a pseudo-secularism) are probably a result of this influence.
There are also the prophecies of Mother Shipton, and I also quote a post by Simon Sheridan where he quotes Carl Jung and writes that what began with the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago was the age of the Antichrist (you can read it here: https://simonsheridan.me/covid-19/the-coronapocalypse-part-37-finale/).
Much can be said about Mother Shipton, but let’s get to something more specific. She said:
“Three times shall lovely sunny France Be led to play a bloody dance Before the people shall be free Three tyrant rulers shall she see.
Three rulers in succession be Each springs from different dynasty. Then when the fiercest strife is done England and France shall be as one.”
What does this mean? As far as some have been able to interpret it, and considering the historical context in which she lived, and the Thirty Years’ War of the 17th century that devastated the Holy Roman Empire, only a few temporal parallels remain: Napoleon Bonaparte, Hitler, and our own time, a few years in our future. If we add the prophecies of Nostradamus, who speaks of the third Antichrist (I know this from secondhand readings), and Rudolf Stainer, the picture becomes clearer. Let me explain.
We can already see some of the results of the French Revolution (the first being Napoleon). A few weeks ago (or months, I don’t remember exactly) on this blog, someone commented that the phrase “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” has a lot to do with political systems for managing an industrial economy: “Liberty” for Anglo-Saxon industrialism, “Equality” for Soviet industrialism, and “Fraternity” for Nazi German industrialism. These political systems are what we could call the 666 of politics because, let’s just say, they have very little in common with equality, liberty, and fraternity. Let me explain.
Anglo-Saxon industrialism, with its levels of labor exploitation of the working classes, that level of psychological (through advertising) and labor torture, China’s 996 system meaning 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, 6 days a week, labor exploitation in Bangladesh or generally in Southeast Asia like Korea, ask in general about Latin America, specifically in the USA, mentioned that advertising (a very degraded type of thaumaturgy) has done a lot of damage to the brains of many by exploiting their desires (gaslighting, with slogans like “the poor are poor because they want to be”). JMG has written that Anglo-Saxon industrialism, also called capitalism, has turned greed into something useful and, in the process, turned many places into a hell like Mordor (Las Vegas), and it did this in the name of freedom and also democracy. Here is the first 6
Soviet industrialism, simply put, turned terror and fear into something useful. After all, one of the problems of pre-revolutionary Russia was how to build industry and, incidentally, become a great power. After the Holodomor, Stalin’s purges, and World War II, Russia was a world power, after levels of human suffering… Soviet Russia did it in the name of equality and communism. Here in second 6
German fascist industrialism, when one reads and tries to understand the German fascist worldview, which boils down to a struggle of races where the strongest survives, and if you don’t conquer or eliminate the other (where have I heard that before? It was the corporate struggle of capitalism), your race will be the one conquered or eliminated. Therefore, your race must be the best, and all of that culminated in the ideas of the Aryan race and the Thousand-Year Reich. In short, it turned pride into something useful. After all, the Nazi war machine was incredible. If Nazi Germany had had oil wells as large as those in Saudi Arabia, the Germans would have conquered a good part of the world, it’s that simple. I must mention that the human suffering caused by the Nazis was incredible, as was their genocidal zeal, and all this in the name of fraternity; fraternity with your own race. Here’s the other 6.
These three political systems, the dark triad, the 666 of current politics, can be classified as having a great spiritual (and common-sense) poverty. This is one of the results of the French Revolution, which resulted in the incarnation of Napoleon. At least from my perspective. I must mention that the Anglo-Saxon system is linked to Lucifer, the Soviet system to Ahiriman, and the fascist system combines the two previous ones and is linked, obviously, as you know.
These three political systems have likely prepared for the incarnation of Ahriman, or perhaps two incarnations. The level of spiritual and material devastation left by these three systems is incredible. Lucifer incarnated 5,000 years ago, according to Rudolf Steiner. These prophecies are about to come into effect in our time. In some sub-trace blogs, I’ve read that Ahriman today is a young man between 27 and 35 years old who lives in Europe (the blog specifically mentioned France) or the United States, in the West. This is only a reference and doesn’t have to be an exact description.
And here’s where the last part comes in, Malcolm Kyeyen writes in the article I cited earlier:
“Once again, the West stands at the cusp of a generational crisis of faith. The post-1945 church is dying, and it might soon disappear entirely. Like the Catholic Church at the cusp of the Reformation, Nuremberg Christianity has succumbed to hypocrisy and contradiction and can no longer offer enough of a credible outlet for channeling belief. The Holocaust has died; it has bled to death underneath our bombs. But the need for faith has not gone away; the thirst still exists, and it will be slaked one way or another. Will we set out in search of even newer fountains for our souls unclean, or will the crises of coming decades compel many of us to return to older ones? It is too early to tell.”
Indeed, our time is more like the turbulent times of the Protestant Reformation than the French Revolution or the wars of the 20th century, with the difference that in the 16th century religion was true, or at least there was a greater understanding of it. Today, what we have in many places is a spiritually degraded humanity, except in some areas like parts of India that have clung to their traditions. The West is bankrupt in many ways, so what awaits the West are wars of faith that will make the religious wars of the 16th century seem tame—massacres that will leave us speechless. And considering Rudolf Steiner’s prophecies, it’s a good idea to prepare, for example, by reading about how the inhabitants of the Holy Roman Empire survived the Thirty Years’ War. Given that the human population is declining, some estimate that in 70-80 years (by 2100) it should reach 2 billion, perhaps only half of its peak. Another billion (or more) deaths caused by wars in the next 70-80 years is possible.
Comments and criticisms are welcome.
@JMG
First off, since I don’t think I’ve had a chance to say it yet: congrats on your move, and I hope you’ll find your new home congenial.
In a response above, you wrote: “I assumed the professors were more interested in pushing ideologies than in exploring the subjects that interested me, and so I saw myself as being in enemy territory and acted accordingly.”
It’s kind of depressing to hear it was like that even back in the early 90s, but again, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. These days I’ve been taking college courses again myself, as a mid-life pivot into teaching. Thankfully it’s mostly self-study and exams, with occasional weeks on campus (don’t know if that model is a thing in the US?). In any case, my experience there has felt very much like your sentiments from the 90s so far. The ideological capture and political correctness are very thoroughgoing these days, certainly much worse than the last time I was in contact with academia back in the late 2000s. Then again, that was a much better institution than the one I’m at now, and a field that wasn’t as susceptible to PMC silliness. Anyway, there’s a “research wall” on campus with print-outs of new academic papers from staff, and the titles and abstracts of these things really have to be seen to be believed. Your old posts about “the barbarism of reflection” come to mind here for sure.
To the wider commentariat:
Apropos of both Andy’s comment about Glastonbury and the discussion about serious occultists avoiding internet forums one of the most enjoyable things about the Ecosophia meetup for me was being in a group where you could talk about occultism, divination, the SoP and the Golden Dawn without anyone batting an eye. It felt like everyone had a personal practice, and it was a lot of fun to hear about them all. As a former materialist who’s still fairly new to serious spiritual work compared to many in the commentariat here, it was so refreshing to meet others who treated it as a normal and worthwhile thing to do, since I haven’t told a single soul in my “real” life I’m into these practices. And in fact, they’d probably consider me crazy if I did. So yes, having some kind of organized community would be very nice, even a virtual one. That’s also one reason I’ve been floating the idea of a more formalized Order of the Heathen Golden Dawn on here a few times…(and I’m still very much open to that if anyone’s interested)
Re. upcoming Canadian laws
Ouch. I’m sorry to hear that, and it does indeed seem like things are pretty dire for the classical Western freedoms in Canada these days. I knew they went hard on Covidian authoritarianism, but I’m still disappointed to hear they’ve gone this far now. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. For those of you planning on relocating, I wish you best of luck.
@ Lacking Clever User Name #56
“(I’m in my 60s now, and miss a simpler time . . . .).”
Yeah, tell me about it. I’m turning 40 in a few months, but I still find myself missing the pre-smartphone era more and more with every passing year. I’m kind of jealous of those of you who got to live much of your adult lives back in the analog era. I still think the 2000s was an ideal middle ground: all the actually good things the internet can do were possible, without all the obnoxious parts that came with smartphones, social media and LLMs. As for landlines, I’d love to have one, but they physically removed all the infrastructure here a while back, so it’s not even possible anymore.
JMG,
I was raised Catholic but in my adult life have been quite drawn to earth-based/animistic traditions as well as to hermeticism and Zen Buddhism. I am finding my heart drawn in some ways back to the Catholic church of my youth, though I am still keenly interested in the eclectic, esoteric traditions mentioned previously.
I do not take the figure/story of Christ literally/historically (no offense intended to those here who do), yet do see the whole thing as richly mythic mystery and drama. While some people use the word “myth” as a pejorative putdown, for me it indicates deep, meaningful stories that touch the psyche/soul.
My question is this: Could you please explain what you see (from your positions outside the Christian/Catholic traditions) as some of the mythic/imaginal aspects of the Christ story and the Catholic/Christian tradition?
Thanks,
Edward
Thank you to those who have provided input regarding cracker recipes. To clarify, I’m trying to adopt an anti-inflammation diet, thus eliminating many pre-packaged foods that I like. In no way am I trying to go vegan or vegetarian. I’m experimenting with simple cracker recipes; asking myself what would happen if I add some baking soda or some egg, and so forth. I’m already intending to add some flavorings like garlic powder. Garlic is good for fighting inflammation, and I like garlic. I’m using parchment paper over the baking pan to avoid having to grease the pan. And I’m making small batches. I think I could even do a small batch in a cast-iron skillet.
A Reader # 122:
Yes, Chinese hi tech toys used by Iranian regime to cut bluntly the “democratic” CIA infiltrated protests are a good example of how non western technology can equal the game, or at least make it more difficult for the apparently almighty western toys…I think China could give the West more unpleasant surprises like that you remembered in your comment, soon or later.
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Cugel # 125:
German “wood gas” vehicles were known and used in Spain during the ‘40s and first ‘50s too, due to lack of oil fuels in a regime isolated by its evident help to the Nazis in WW2 (Franco). Cars, trucks and buses were fueled by a system named here as “gasógeno”. It worked but according what told me my grandpa: you had to find enough wood to burn (not always easy); fuel usually lasted not very much km (so you had to recharge it with more wood); and finally you had to wait for a while after charging the wood until it was burning hot enough to start moving the engine. It wasn’t an easy system to work with it; indeed a crappy technology according my grandpa opinion.
By the way, lack of enough oil fuels after Spanish Civil War allowed the survival of animal traction (more mules than horses) here until last ‘60s. During our last civil war (1936-1939), there were some chivalry units and a lot of mule traction artillery and logistics (there weren’t helicopters nor Jeeps yet), especially in mountain war.
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The Arcane…# 126:
I’m quite skeptic about a blunt and direct and massive US attack against Iran in the short term. American armies are too scattered and dispersed globally. If the US government really wants to strike Iran in that way, it should retreat troops from another corners of the world, weakening the global grip. Another option could be trying a beheading strike against Tehran regime high spheres. However, Iran isn’t Venezuela (there are a lot of clergy and secular guys eager to play their country saviors), so a decapitation tactic is at least dubious. Maybe a massive air strike to weaken the regime, but I think Iran regime won’t fall without boots on the ground…local cannon fodder? Who knows?
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(“to be continued”)
Hello JMG (and commentariat),
What do you think of ranked choice voting?
William, tell any red-hatted MAGA type that you left Canada to get away from government overreach and you love living in the USA, and they’ll take you to their rather furry hearts. Yes, renouncing Canadian citizenship and starting the naturalization process here might be wise, too.
Degringolade, it’s an open post and that means this sort of thing is fine.
Inna, that’s one of the really good examples! I wrote about that and one of the other fine examples, Ascension Island, in a post a while back:
https://www.ecosophia.net/the-laughter-of-wolves/
Dennis, avoiding occult practices is a good idea for most people. Magic is not for everyone — and the kind of clueless dabbling in magic exemplified by that latter video is Exhibit A when it comes to explaining why.
Justin, thanks for this.
Vitranc, I’m fairly sure at this point that Trump is our Gorbachev, trying to reform a system that may be past saving. I may be wrong, but that’s what it looks like from here. The fact that there’s a serious effort under way right now to call a constitutional convention in the US, backed by 28 states so far (it needs 38), has me wondering how long the US as currently constituted is going to be around.
Untitled-1, delighted to hear it! Do give each lesson a week of work, but you can read ahead if you want.
Cynthia, I hope it doesn’t happen, but yeah, if it does, I hope it’s relatively bloodless.
Corax, I agree wholeheartedly. Grant the hypothesis that a divine reality actually exists — that words like “God” and “gods” do really stand for something real. Grant that this reality is genuinely transcendent — it’s not simply something on the human level. Given those two postulates, our chances of being able to use human reason to make any sense of the divine reality is right up there with the chance that the dust mites in Mozart’s wig would have been able to understand his music. That being the case, it makes sense to draw on personal experience and tradition, which is simply the collected personal experience of the past, to guide our relationship with the divine reality, but it makes no sense at all to claim we have knowledge we can’t have — much less to be jerks about it.
Tony, most of the middle classes will be suffering a drastic descent in status in the years ahead, here and in most other places; the metastatic growth of office jobs and other middle-class economic niches is shifting hard into reverse. Those middle class people I know who have brains are getting themselves retrained in hands-on jobs of various kinds. I’ll be discussing this in more detail in an upcoming post.
Mary, true enough. I find that it works well to mail payments a week or more in advance. (Yes, I pay my bills by mail.) Paying in person is also a good option, and one I should look into.
Coffee, Trump doesn’t really have a foreign policy. He’s the front man for a ramshackle coalition of populist rebels, sheep-dipped neocons, and Silicon Valley kleptocrats whose one shared interest is in opposing the total dysfunction of the corporate-bureaucratic state. His administration has stopped some wars, started others, and generally shaken up the global system good and hard, but its main focus is here at home.
Zarcayce, I also have very great respect for Steiner. I wrote about him in a post a while back:
https://www.ecosophia.net/the-perils-of-the-pioneer/
His work is extraordinarily rich, and as long as it’s remembered that he was a pioneer in a challenging field and made his share of mistakes, close study of his work
BorealBear, by all accounts it’s much worse now than it was when I last darkened the door of a university. I know a scholar, a very successful one with tenure and plenty of publications, who has started a school of herbalism with her sister — she’s convinced, and I think rightly, that the entire university system in the US is on the brink of a frightful collapse because it no longer actually teaches anything to anybody.
Edward, the traditional biography of Christ is all but indistinguishable from dozens of other Middle Eastern dying-and-arising deities — Tammuz, Attis, Adonis, Osiris, and the list goes on. From the wondrous birth to the miraculous healings to the sacrificial death, resurrection, and ascension, it’s all fine mythic stuff. I don’t think most of it happened, but as Sallustius wrote, myths are things that never happened but always are. I’ve published an essay on this, in several forms:
https://unherd.com/2023/12/what-pagans-can-learn-from-christianity/
Jennifer, it seems to me that however good it looks in theory, in practice it’s yet another gimmick to allow organized pressure groups to frustrate the will of the majority.
Hey JMG
On the subject of Solar Charts, could you increase their accuracy if the subject knew if they were born before or after midday? You could cast the chart from Dawn for the former, and cast from midday for the latter. If they were born at evening you could cast at sunset I suppose.
Hey JMG
Have you heard about the latest incident in Cuba? Apparently some Cuban exiles came to a Cuban shore with a speedboat and got into a gunfight with the native coastguards. Its thought that the latest oil embargo motivated them in some way.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/25/cuba-says-border-guards-killed-four-gunmen-on-us-registered-speedboat
“most of the middle classes will be suffering a drastic descent in status in the years ahead, here and in most other places; the metastatic growth of office jobs and other middle-class economic niches is shifting hard into reverse. Those middle class people I know who have brains are getting themselves retrained in hands-on jobs of various kinds.”
For somebody looking to exit the corporate world, will astrology be a good skill to retrain in?
Vitranc #129
“I have a feeling, a intuition, that I there is a reason I am doing this course, either trough it or with its results, I am to do something, but right now I do not know what to do, but sit and be silent.”
Back when I was a young lass some 45 years ago, I got an agriculture degree in Livestock Management. Back then, one message they gave over and over again across many different courses was, ‘get big or get out’. They were teaching Big Ag. That was never my goal and didn’t fit my plans at all. But just because they’re being idiots about the future of farming doesn’t mean there isn’t anything good scattered among the idiot stuff.
After 45 years, what did I learn that I still use to this day? Plenty. Animal nutrition- how to formulate a ration for your beasts that will give them what they neeed. Forage crops- which pasture plants have what nutrients and will do well in which conditions. Animal diseases- how to identify a disease when it turns up, and what can be done about it. Animal breeding- how to choose a good strong sire and select mates that will complement the sire’s strengths.
So in amongst the garbage will be some gems. You’re right about not arguing- they won’t get it at all and it would be a useless waste of your energy. But try turning a fresh eye on it. You’re like a detective, trying to find the bits of useful knowledge, asking ‘which parts of this knowledge could I still use without fossil fuels?’
@William and fellow Canucks: yes, virtually each of the Bills that the current federal government has drafted is draconian on its own and put together the picture is positively Orwellian. Even though the official opposition (Conservatives) are the “right cheek” of the same corrupt butt, I must give kudos to the many Conservative MPs who have been fighting the most egregious portions of these bills day and night with all their might, using every legal tool at their disposal, for months while these bills are under review in committee. And they have had some important “wins”.
My understanding is that in recent days the Liberals backed down on the portion of C-15 that was to exempt Cabinet and parties identified by them from every Canadian law (except the Criminal Code): the pressure was simply too much. Small gains, I know. In the short term the only saving grace would be if a snap election were to be called: regardless of the outcome, all bills that are under review are put into the dumpster and must begin again from square one if the newly elected regime wants to continue pressing with them.
As for leaving Canada, that is not an option for everyone, yours truly included. Eventually the horrors must stop and the survivors will rebuild – hopefully I or my descendants will be among them. Yes, if these bills get passed as laws, things will get nasty; possibly quite quickly. If in the future I am conspicuously absent from commenting in JMG’s forums for a month or more, unless Canada’s internet access has been cut off, one can fairly assume that I am either in hiding, in prison, or dead.
Vitranc # 129:
Oops, the future of modern farming: In the short form, I think in the long term it hasn’t future. Maybe during the Long Descent some tractors can survive in countries with a relative easy access to oil or modest amounts of biofuels (which need a heck of land to be harvested) yet, (in the biggest farms), but I only see a long lasting future returning to animal traction (a painful and horrible idea for the Faustian “progressive” minds) and more human hands working in the rural areas. How can it be done such changes in a civilized and gradual way is a mystery for me, yet (seeing how nowadays political and economical elites are so blind and reckless when they think or pretend to think about real future).
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Neptune…# 134:
According your description of “Atheopaganism” or non-gods Pagans, they want religion but not the politically incorrect belief in real gods. Well, this attitude seems to me like to want cooking an omelette without using eggs…Of course, even there must be made up a “vegan omelette”, but an omelette without eggs isn’t a real omelette anymore, me think.
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Wer # 137:
Slovakia and even in a bigger way Hungary are the flies in the EU soup (Russophobe speeches and plans). Those countries are able to prevent more money and another help for the Kiev regime, at least for a while, thanks to their veto. I’m afraid those two countries will suffer soon “color revolutions” attempts or another “soft” coups d’état against their governments…or the equally dirty electoral frauds. However, those ugly actions by NATO/UE can have unhappy effects in the future, too. By the way, childish Ukrainian drone provocations against Hungarians don’t show any real power, but probably desperation…
The Iranian thing: in general terms, no arguments here.
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The Other Owen:
I’ve got the same impression as you wrote it. Indeed, here country people is mainly social and politically conservative, so correlatively they reject the woke left agenda (in which veganism is a travel fellow). Vegan freaks can be found usually here within the medium and high class urban people, me think.
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Curt # 147:
Simplicius often is right in his views about current geopolitical mess, so we can think it’s very possible the US is now trying to find an unstable equilibrium between obeying the Zionist lobby according its traditional serfdom, and avoiding big scale war. An impossible task in the long term me think.
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JMG # 151:
When some people fall into a full abstraction mode, completelely detached from real world, maybe they’re near to a disease named by psychiatrists…schyzophrenia?
*******
Mr. Taibo fear of fascism:
Of course he’s been selective blinded by his own ideological biases, but I propose you to replace the terms Fascism and Ecofascism by the more neutral term: Totalitarism. Let’s see how it’s better to be accepted like a future “elephant in the room” coming from the far left or far right wing…
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Phutatorius # 159:
I’m a big Kubrick movies fan, and I agree. “Eyes Wide Shut” wasn’t his best movie. I don’t like to believe in conspiracy theories, but it’s true Kubrick died before finishing his movie. I also think Kubrick played with fire, to some extent, when he depicted the famous orgy scenes (IMHO he mocked the elites filming that half-onirical half-true scenes). Maybe he knew he had not very much life time ahead and wanted to do a final joke…
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Edward # 171:
I think Jesus, a man from Nazareth, was a historical person (real). However, I share without big problems your view of Christ according s mythical sense (in the good sense of the term, I mean). Of course, I’m
a fringe Christian, so mainstream Christians, and even more, the Traditionalists, are probably to be upset with your idea of Christ…
>I’m fairly sure at this point that Trump is our Gorbachev
I’m wondering who is setting themselves up to become Yeltsin though. I’m thinking Massie may be setting himself up to take the collapse to the face. There’s going to be a question asked at some point and the question will go something like this – “Who is left who has not disgraced themselves and has enough knowledge of how to fly what’s left of the plane?”
Someone is going to become Yeltsin. Hopefully someone without a drinking problem.
@Ron #180, if you should ever end up being conspiciously absent for a month or more, would you accept prayers or blessings sent your way?
Chauquin 181: I only believe in the conspiracy theories that happen to be true.
On Kubrick’s movies:
Dr. Strangelove: I was so scared by it at the time I failed to realize how funny it was.
Lolita: I watched it with a girlfriend who expected something really salacious. At a point in the movie, she turned to me and said, “you know, this movie is really sad.” I thought, “Yeah, she gets it!”
Full Metal Jacket: two movies for the price of one. A pretty brutal take on the VietNam war.
A Clockwork Orange: this movie really sucked!
Barry Lyndon: I liked just about everything about it. That scene where Barry’s cousin tried to seduce him hit very close to home for me. And poor Barry’s relationship with his mom also hit close to home. I tried reading Thackeray’s novel. The scene where Barry’s cousin tried to seduce him didn’t exist in the novel. I couldn’t finish it.
Eyes Wide Shut: “Young Goodman Brown” gives the narrative frame work for this in a compact little story. (I think I’m belaboring that point a little too frequently this week.)
@JMG
Great! Discipline shouldn’t be a problem for me at this point, I’ll give a week to each lesson as-intended, but will read ahead to my curiosity’s content 🙂 Thank you very much!
JMG,
The ultimate sign that the end of the empire is near arrived on my doorstep today. In my mail I found one of those flyers with advertisements for fences, restaurants and tree trimming, but today there was an ad for something I have never seen before. A company called ” Stool Time” is offering to pick up the dog poop from your yard for a fee. This of course involves some sort of monthly contract.
I don’t think I need to elaborate on why this signals the ultimate Wiley coyote end point in the consumer driven economy. If I remember right in a book on the Great Depression by Galbraith or someone like him they describe the point where they knew the stock market collapse was inevitable when the shoe shine boys were giving out stock tips. If I am around to write a book about the rise and fall of the American empire I will say that the day the fall of the empire was inevitable was when people had to hire services to pick up the dog poop in their back yard.
Phutatorious- you might want to experiment with sourdough crackers. When you just mix whole wheat flour with water, the bran will slice the gluten, which is what makes the bubbles that hold either air or carbon dioxide. Even in a cracker, you want some bubbles. Fermenting the flour and water softens the bran and you can get better texture. King Arthur Flour has instructions for crackers on their website. Some people get obsessed with sourdough (it is I, I am the obsessed) and get very picky about measurements and ratios, but in my opinion, homemade bread is worth the work and time. No matter how the bread or crackers or waffles come out, my kids and I gobble them up.
Ranked choice voting came about because voters got fed up with organized minorities inserting themselves and their unpopular agendas into general elections. A flat earth, the Rapture is tomorrow party might be able to organize its’ followers to win a primary, but it has no business in a general election. Can the new system be gamed? Sure, any system can and will be. Sensible businessmen know how much employee thieving they can tolerate. Effective politicians know when to stop with the finagling and influence peddling, right before they offend the non-ideologues. Americans will tolerate an unbelievable amount of grift and graft, but from time to time, as with the welfare fraud in Minnesota, the grifters go too far and the fraud gets too blatant to be tolerated.
Spending a little time reading the Quran. Whew. So far, what a mess. Not a fan of self proclaimed messengers from god, I wanted to get an idea of what was behind so much mischief in the world. It seems to be a simple message, which is, of course, easy to take in a lot of incredibly bloody directions.
I share your opposition to Messianism, and I personally distrust anyone who claims to speak for someone else. Sharing the good news is one thing. Separating someone from their head or life is another.
Anyway, I will probably discontinue this, or at least back burner it. I’ve gotten about as far as I did with the Book Of Mormon. My oppositional defiance is hard to resist.
Mr. Greer,
Here is the link to the study about LLMs’ 96% failure rate compared to human freelancers: https://www.remotelabor.ai/paper.pdf
In addition, here’s a YouTube video on it by Cold Fusion that provides a great commentary: https://youtu.be/z3kaLM8Oj4o?si=oPZd88nvwwUHd5B-
Re: Trump predicted to ultimately be a failure
To think: just one year ago, many were feeling optimistic about the Trump administration and the future of America.
Ireland has been using ranked choice since 1921, Australia since 1948. Not much difference in the politics compared to places like the United Kingdom that don’t use ranked choice.
Crackers,
Bobs Red Mill has a good recipe for rye crackers and several other bread type things.
https://www.bobsredmill.com/recipes/how-to-make/rye-crackers
My daughter has found the left over steeping grains from beer brewing make excellent additives to the bread. I drain the grains after I’m done and freeze them until she wants to bake.
True. Technology does shape how people conceive of magic. What they also miss out aside from what is already said.
Is that technology also is very socially mediated. At least if you don’t want rudimental crude tools you made yourself. The supply chain required for anything made nowadays is an epic in itself.
In other words. The more powerful the Communion that more advanced the tech is up to a point. Including all necessary resources and natural laws made existent in creation. And the possible travel and abilities to make the manufacture happen.
Google “Jesus appearing nowadays in dreams and visions”. Has been fairly common among Muslims in countries like Iran that oppose Christian evangelism. I myself know a number of people (non-Muslim) who have had these encounters. Two of them Jews who converted as a result. The traditional understanding of these encounters (and mine) is that they are Jesus of Nazareth manifesting post resurrection and post ascension as also is written of in Acts and Paul’s letters and Revelation in the New Testament. JMG has his own different, non traditional, polytheistic interpretation of this present day phenomena.
for Degringolade;
Visions of Darkness
My mind prefers peacefulness
Hail to the Sleeper
J.L.Mc12, I have no idea. It would be an interesting experiment, though I don’t have enough skill with natal charts to do it myself. As for the Cuban incident, yes, I heard about it.
Anon, possibly, but move fast and get some training in at least one side gig. It’s going to be a jungle as former bureaucrats scramble for jobs.
Chuaquin, a case could be made! As for totalitarianism, I really am going to have to do a post on that word one of these days.
Other Owen, DeSantis is pretty clearly maneuvering himself with that in mind.
Untitled-1, you’re most welcome.
Clay, funny. True, but funny.
Mary, maybe so, but I haven’t seen any sign that ranked choice actually improved anything.
John, well, I’m no fan either. I finished the Book of Mormon, but that was mostly by considering it a 19th century lost race novel.
Chad, got it and thank you.
Patrick, I’m feeling quite optimistic. The US dodged a bullet when Trump did. The fact that he won’t fulfil his followers’ daydreams doesn’t change the fact that he seems to be getting us through a tough elite replacement cycle without civil war.
Anon, the UK uses the equally problematic “first past the post” system, in which even the smallest plurality is enough. I favor the primary-then-runoff approach, where the winner really does have to get the majority of votes in the final election.
Info, a valid point. Thank you.
BeardTree, of course. Gods do that quite reliably.
@Patrick H. #141 re: Political/Religious Cycles
Thanks for this! Seems to jive pretty well with JMG’s answer, and gives me some food for thought.
Cheers,
Jeff
@Phutatorius #49 Re: whole wheat crackers
I make very good crackers using whole spelt flour (you can probably substitute with wheat), oat flakes, sesame and sunflower seeds:
I mix 1/4 cup sunflower seeds, 1/3 cup sesame, 1/2 cup quaker oats, 1/2 cup whole spelt flour, 1/2 spoon salt and a bit of pepper. Mix in 3 tablespoons olive oil and then 1 cup water. Let sit for an hour or so and then if necessary add some water or flour to get a creamy texture that I can spread in a thin, even layer on baking paper. Bake for 40 minutes on 170º celsius. Usually some parts are starting to get burned while others are not completely ready, so I break it down and return the softer parts to the oven for a few more minutes. It’s possible to cut it mid-baking with a knife to get cleaner-cut crackers, but I don’t bother, they’re usually all devoured pretty quickly anyway. Hope it’s useful!
JMG, thanks for that! Coukd you maybe address some of the points that they mentioned; the ones that seem the most rehashed or interesting to you? Im new to the “field”, I guess, so I don’t really have the knowledge of failed predictions or of systems that you do.
Or if you have any other posts on the blog going through failed “fast collapse” predictions, I’d love to be pointed in their direction! Thank you!
@JMG
OK, this has me wondering, because I am long over thinking of the Trump as face value. All there is on face value is trolling, the real thing is going on behind the scenes, and there is incredible op-sec going on. It seems the USA is preparing for a fortress America. Ironically adopting some Russian geopolitical views, and setting up a neutral zone and resource base around itself. Now it is clear other countries are going to oppose this, example China, which finds itself in much the ame position as imperial Japan in the 40s. So I thought that the cause of potential failure might be external to US, but I did not know the US was so brittle from the inside. Not before an external cause.
To combine this with your reply to Patrick; I have some trouble conceiving how a “constitutional convention” and “how long the US as currently constituted is going to be around” has you feeling “optimistic” about the elite replacement cycle.
@Mother Balance
Yes, thank you. This is exactly what I see. “go big or get out”, not to mention, that in order to get big now a days it would require signing a big morgage, for which you would need several big supplier contracts and then with this build big modern barn, that requires constant inputs of feed, electricity work and rare minerals to function more or less like a low grade IC unit for the animals inside. Brittle is the word I would use. Not to mention what this does to the farmer.
But as you say, knowing what pH levels in the soil do to clay-humus bridges, and which nutrients are processed by which micro-flora in the soil, at what levels. That I like. And I have given some before sleep time to JMGs “in enemy territory” advice.
@Chuaquin
I agree, there is not a future in the long run. Certainly not from the perspective of lets say 200 ears down the road. But we live right now, and the transition is important for anyone trying to navigate today. The way I could se it is that your suggestion of biofuels is going to get pushed where ever possible, and is only going to take away from the previous production of a farm. This is one of several sources of inefficiency of the systemic option. In the mean while people are going to start to notice guys like my neighbors, who still run a robust self suficiency operation and sell the surplus. They are poor by todays standards, but they remain warm and feed i the lights go out. Then over the years people might notice and copy them. But granted not all will and there will be some falloff.
If you don’t mind it, I’d like to ask you all a philosophical question with big effects in everyday life:
Do you think human being is good or bad, according its human nature?
First idea was supported by Rousseau and others; second idea, by Hobbes and his followers. It’s interesting to grasp that mainly the utopia lovers and the mainstream economists supports the first and second view of human nature.
Of course, it’s not a blunt binary choice, because you can choose a middle ground, indeed I think there are mixed views about this topic. Even there’s been thinkers who doubt it exists a monolithic and perpetual human nature. My personal view? Maybe I’ll tell you in another comment.
Chaquin and V
Yeah that intensive form of Ag doesnt have a future in the long term but the old saying the market can stay irrational longer than we can all remain solvent is worth keeping in mind. I’m gathering governments will end doing all sorts of rationing and straight out cutting to keep Ag, energy and the military going on a slow descent, as without them the government won’t exist. Plenty will be sacrificed along the way, and I expect the focus will be on grain at the expense of everything else eventually because of its portability.
Long term it must be remembered too that draught horses themselves were a power step up from the original oxen and required more inputs in terms of feed and management. If things go really bad even they may be too expensive to maintain. Without this horsepower, many places may become too difficult to pull a plough through, and many that a farmed now will be difficult to plough without a tractor.
Go long on pastoralism. Animals on range require far less inputs than anything else and already the biggest profits are to be had there of you time it right. But in the future you will need a big stick/gun.
Phutatorius # 184:
Thank you for giving me your opinion about some Kubrick movies. I’m a not very objective fan of his works, because I think Kubrick was a genius to film a different kind of movie each time he started directing one. I’ll say for example, that Dr. Strangelove was compared with another movie about a possible WW3 beginning named “Failsafe” during the ‘60s methink. And Kubrick movie is IMHO better than this another movie; in the short form Dr. Strangelove smart use of dark humor makes the grim perspective of the beginning of a nuclear war more fit to be understood by its audience (with more wry criticism).
By the way, I also tend to believe in conspiracy theories when they’re tested with real evidences.
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BeardTree # 195:
Muslims relation with Jesus isn’t the same as orthodoxal Jews have (who directly reject Jesus teachings evidently as a kind of Jew heresy). Islamic world sees Jesus as a mere Prophet, not a Son of God; but some Sufis have some fondness for him, respecting at the same time Muhammad teachings. So I guess the muslim people who say they’ve dreamt of had visions of Jesus, can to some extent, integrate their experience within their Islamic beliefs system without problems, avoiding to be baptized into Christianism, me think.
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JMG # 197:
Of course, totalitarianism needs a complete post. I agree. Let’s wait until you can write it in a near future. Thanks on advance!
JMG (no. 197), on the Book of Mormon:
https://wheatandtares.org/2022/04/22/guest-post-is-the-book-of-mormon-set-in-a-parallel-timeline/
John ONeil (no. 189), I’ve heard atheists say the same thing about the Bible. Any human tradition is going to be a grab-bag of good and bad. (Okay, there might be a few religious groups with no positives at all coughcoughScientologycoughcough ) What people select from that grab-bag reveals a lot about who they are. We are dealing with idealistic symbols.
Clay Dennis (no. 186), we already have dog walkers. Seems like a natural progression.
JMG (no. 175) “Yes, renouncing Canadian citizenship and starting the naturalization process here might be wise, too.”
Goodness, I have to ask–WHY would this be wise? Why not keep both citizenships? And certainly it would be foolish to renounce before having another citizenship, becoming stateless.
The historical Jesus (insofar as we can reconstruct him) would have been steeped in Jewish apocalypticism, something few moderns can relate to. To begin with, it is a worldview created to appeal to Jews living under foreign occupation. JMG dislikes all the stuff about prophecies and messiahs, but shares the characteristic apocalyptic interest in spiritual entities and cosmological secrets.
In some ways, the Islamic view of Christ is more realistic than the prevailing Christian ones.
Hi JMG,
I wonder whether you think the British monarchy is in serious danger.
The Epstein files have brought much to light. (The royal formerly known as ptince) Andrew being the main focus and possibly scapegoat for the rest of the family notwithstanding, the king is in trouble also due to apparent mentions in said files, his best friend, Jimmy Savile, favourite uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten etc., continue to follow him around with the result that his popularity (and that of the monarchy in general)is plummeting even amongst normally die-hard monarchists. There are those who suggest that all this is coming to light now in order to get rid of the monarchy altogether and hence be able to completely rewrite the English constitution. That would then lead, say, to the joyful prospect of a President Tony Blair as head of the UK.
My question, though, is whether you think Charles made a fundamental error by changing his title as head of the Anglican Church from “Defender of the Faith” to “Defender of Faith” thereby annulling the British crown’s link with God?
Wer here
Well the situation in my part of Europe is deteriorating quickly. First of all The Ukrainians had shut down the pipeline that goes through their territory in order to cause fuel shortages in Hungary Slovakia and Poland and therefore cause public anger towards their countries respective goverments. In Hungary there will be an election soon and the fact that Orban is on good terms with Trump and Putin drives the local liberals absolutely livid, for example causing an energy crisis by shutting down the pipeline and have Ukrainians attack their territory with drones (and blame it on Russia) is just one method of causing public outrage in an attempt to get rid of the increasingly anti EU goverments. To those who do not know The current president of Poland was elected to office mainly after his opponent ( an avid Eurocrat) proclaimed that he will sign the Migration Pact which would send millions of refugees to Poland (with all of the predictable results like modern Paris and London) The local liberals openly demanded that people took to the streets and quote “kill white Catholic Fascists” Because publicly demanding the murder of your political opponents is a sign of good “DeMoCraCy ” People don’t vote for the left why? Because being culturaly enriched by force and having your country to pay money for the idiocy in Ukraine is getting people sick. So the people on the left are embracing now literally terrorist ideas…
Wer here
There is a meme floating around Poland right now “China shuts down Twitter- China bad”
Eu shuts down Twitter – freedom and democracy . JMG You don’t have to comment on this particular comment but I myself am allergic to double standards and hypocrisy.
@JMG regarding War Plan Red, I am convinced that the globalist cabal has installed Carney as prime minister in order to turn Canada into a battering ram against the current anti-globalist US government, just like Ukraine has been used by the same cabal as a battering ram against Russia. Same stupid idea; same stupid (and horrific) result, though Canada’s bleeding will be (and has been) economic rather than physical. Though I love my country dearly I’d rather the USA annex it than live under globalist tyranny – also, I think that it would be a ridiculously easy coup if The Orange One willed it so.
I used to worry about mixing and matching my relationships to the different goddesses and gods from different pantheons that I have felt drawn or that have called to me, or indeed appeared in dreams and visions. I am getting more comfortable with the idea that I don’t have to be a polytheistic purist as some in that scene seem to be. The various Celtic, Hellenistic & Heathen polytheists reconstructionists being the most vocal, from what I have read and looked at in the past. There is some poo-pooing of those with the eclectic approach. What I think is good about reconstructionism is looking to the past for inspiration. What I don’t find appealing about it personally, is it doesn’t seem to leave as much room for the continuation of these connections and what they might be doing in the present and where that might lead in the future. It is a similar thing to how I feel about aspects of Christianity and other messianic / prophetic religions: why did these faiths, so focused on scripture, stop revealing new scriptures to the mystics of their faith in the present time? New books have been revealed to other kinds of people in recent times: The Book of the Law, the Cosmic Doctrine, the Stanzas of Dzyan.
We can use the traditions of the past as a guide, but the process never seems to be finished, and who knows where things will go in time as more is revealed? The deities continue to work with and draw those who feel called, like someone hearing a distant syrinx played over the next rise of a rugged and lonely hill, to keep on walking towards that sound.
Not knowing exactly where it is all going is part of the mystery. In the meantime I get to explore various stories and lore from Wales, Ireland Egypt, Greece, India and beyond, all adding to a rich tapestry of experience.
The powers of this land, too, seem to be calling. Coyotes howl in the wind and make appearances on the urban streets of my neighborhood. Hawks circle above my home when get back from work, signaling the transition to spring, just as the crows leave their autumn and winter haunts in the industrial wasteland sector of the city where I work. They too have stories to tell, and I’ll need to leave them some tobacco somewhere in the grove.
John O’Neal/JMG, I’ve read the Quran too, in English translation. I’ve been told by a native Arabic speaker that in Arabic, the poetry of the language is incredibly beautiful. And occasionally I’ve heard it played in the street – it’s sung/chanted rather than spoken – and I admit that it has a mesmerising quality (I now know where that word comes from, having read last week’s post!).
However in English translation, you get none of that – just the raw (sometimes ugly) meanings. I wonder if the Quran could be considered a work of magic, in it’s hypnotic quality, it’s “glamour”, it’s hold over people. Evil magic too, given what it’s believers are prepared to do. Demonic even. (Just saying this makes me feel afraid, given what happened to a certain author who dared suggest the same).
I was just watching a podcast with Douglas Rushkoff and Mitch Horowitz talking about magic. It sounded a bit wacky compared with the way you write about magic. They discussed making contact with archangels like Ganesh and Anael (sp?), and how when they made contact, the things they asked for suddenly appeared — like, “I want my daughter’s healthcare bill to be approved” and then ding, the insurance company texts approval. Or pointing at a fly and making it die (“the entities were in the room ensuring it would happen” because he was doing it in the classroom to prove a point). Stuff like that. You discuss magic as a form of mental persuasion to affect the behaviors and perceptions of others, not as interdimensional spirits guiding us and answering our invocations. The Rushkoff/Horowitz type of discussion was how magic was presented to me in pop-culture books and new-age lit when I was a teenager, and why I never took it seriously. Is the term “magic” widely misused, or are there different interpretations, or is what I’m describing linked to your understanding of magic? Relatedly, my first introduction to magic as a serious, non-new-agey practice was through Ricky Jay. I wonder if you thought of him seriously as a scholar of magical practice or if he was more of an entertainer.
There has been another interesting turn – or couple of turns – In UK politics in the last couple of weeks. In a by-election in Manchester yesterday, the Greens won by a big margin with the ruling Labour Party a fairly distant third, even though they had controlled the area since 1931. The newish right-wing party Reform led by Nigel Farage had been expected to win until a couple of weeks ago, but have now taken in so many people from the last Tory government that they are now practically the Tory Party mk2. It’s assumed many who would have voted for them simply stayed at home. While Reform fielded a candidate who turned out to be an incompetent goon, the Greens put up someone who had a real job – she was a plumber who also just qualified as a plasterer – which may have helped in spite of her indulging in hippie-dancing on camera at times. They also have a weirdly charismatic leader in Zack Polanski who I have mentioned here before.
Meanwhile, an MP by the name of Rupert Lowe who was thrown out of Reform by Farage a few months ago, has now set up his own party called Restore Britain which refuses to tack to the centre or compromise in any way, as Farage has repeatedly done recently. It’s now at about 10% in the polls. The two traditional big parties, Labour and Tories, are both languishing at 15-18% in the polls and the leaders of both – including PM Keir Starmer – are plainly doomed. In England there are now 6 parties at between 10 and 25%, while in Wales and Scotland where there will be elections in May, nationalist parties are ahead of all of them. What this means if it persists to the next general election under our first-past-the-post system, only the gods know. Combine that with the fallout from an obvious defeat for the West in Ukraine which is likely coming in the next 12 months and some, such as Aurelian who sometimes comments here, are suggesting that the political system itself could fall to pieces here, in France and maybe Germany. So interesting times ahead for political geeks like me, but they maybe too interesting in other ways.
JMG:
Jeff, serious reenactors are indeed a useful resource. In terms of politics and religion, well, what usually happens when things switch one way or the other is that you have a flurry of entryism, trying to force religious organizations to become political factions or vice versa; some succumb, others throw out the entryists, and still others break up, and new religious groups or political factions get formed to preserve the unfashionable focus. Meanwhile big new political groups (or religious ones) get formed to pursue the fashionable focus, and away we go.
——
From my experience, Nova Roma which focuses on re-inventing Rome for modern times has its own problems but entryists isn’t one of them.
However, I did witness a local No.Va. group that was split apart over politics. What happened was that the founders were more laidback in how they did things. People liked that, and flourished. A couple, on the make, popped in and waited until the founders moved, and established another coven to go with the original one. That couple staged a coup and proceeded to tear the group apart. The founders showed back up and forced them out. The group did split. My husband was worried that because of his Trump proclivities that he would not be welcomed as a guest – the founders quickly assured him, they didn’t care about that. The other group did, and they walked.
However, in a very strange twist, the couple who were dedicated Pagans for years CONVERTED to fundamentalist Christianity. The group they formed limps along without them.
—
Since the DC area is heavily political, a great many people are more into the Resistance. They also tend to be older white females who are upper class. One of them actually wrote about H. Clinton being a Goddess. What I have noticed among these Magic Resistance types that they have made Goddesses out of certain politicians such as Karmala Harris, and other women. It seems to be focused on the evil Mr. Trump must be destroyed or women will be subject to the evil Patriarchy.
That is the local folks – one of whom did that Magic Weather working in Minn. against which resulted in the blizzard here. That person is a Pagan Monastic. (We used to compare notes on our Monasticism. She is very devout to her Gods. She still is, but apparently her Gods have certain political proclivities.)
>DeSantis is pretty clearly maneuvering himself with that in mind
It couldn’t happen to a more deserving person then, IMHO. However, I wonder if he’s Epstein clean? So many politicians are going to turn out to be disgraced.
>For somebody looking to exit the corporate world, will astrology be a good skill to retrain in?
Funny how nobody wants to take up the offer from that billboard offering lineman apprenticeships – “LEARN WHILE YOU EARN” they promise. Nah, they all want to find some way of sitting at a desk all day. Then again, being up a power pole in the middle of winter can be less than fun, I imagine.
If you’re young enough and technical enough, I hear the Navy is desperate for people to run their nuclear reactors on their submarines. They’re even taking ditzy girls that can’t fix airplanes properly from what I’ve heard.
>Jesus appearing nowadays in dreams and visions
If a hooman walked up to you and said “Hi, I’m Jesus!”, you’d probably look at him funny and keep walking. But some higher order being floats up to you in a dream and says “Hi, I’m Jesus!” and you just believe it without question. Why that has to be Jesus! Because, well, shut up. Shut up, I told you. Just because. Lalalala, I can’t hear you.
You know, if I ever become a higher order being, I’m going to spend a good chunk of time trolling people like that, to see if I can get them to change their religion and stuff. I’m guessing higher order beings get bored too and they don’t really have pot or video games. Gotta span the hyperdimensional distances somehow.
I noticed a long time ago that the tech companies are insanely overvalued in the stock markets. This always seemed very odd to me, but it just hit me this morning there is a simple explanation, once you remember who, or rather, what, is doing the trading. Most trades these days are not done by humans, but instead by extremely advanced computer programs. While a systematic policy of “overvalue the company that wrote the code” would get caught, a more subtle “overvalue tech stocks” would be easy enough to code. It might even emerge organically, because the people who write these programs are not a random sample: by definition, anyone who writes computer code is someone who is far more computer savvy than your standard person, which almost always means a computerphile!
What’s worse is that part of being a good trader is knowing how the market will evolve, so anyone who tries to break from this consensus will be punished. The result is a self-reinforcing feedback loop which ensures that the tech companies remain overvalued, because efforts to knock them down will be thwarted by the huge number of computers which run most trades these days.
While I don’t have any direct evidence here, it makes sense, and it would also provide an explanation for how and why the tech companies have been able to redirect such a large fraction of the world’s economy to suit their needs, which has also always struck me as rather odd.
Turns out that in mathematics Georg Cantor stole Richard Dedekind’s work on infinities in 1874 and passed it off as his own:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-man-who-stole-infinity-20260225/
@Zarcayce
I worked in IT industry and I saw that with each decade it attracts people even more ahrimanic, if Epstein files are any revelation it seem it it a club, looking at the world it my be a swarm of some sort.
AI and not only LLMs looks to me more and more as a profoundly ahrimanic force, people noticed from the begining with earlier image models. Now that it becomes more devious looks that recent models is a joining of luciferian and ahrimanic forces…
JMG,
Meditated a bit on the crazy, absurd success of KPOP Demon Hunters I mentioned in an earlier post. As you said, it’s absurd enough to be meaningful.
Two theories: First, an entire generation of children in the United States and beyond is now exposed to the idea of demons closer to what they actually are. In the movie, when the barrier that keeps out demons from our world goes down, everyone starts getting demonic voices in their head filled with negative, self-destructive thoughts designed to break up friendships and encourage dependence solely on them. They’re also exposed to the idea of erecting spiritual barriers to keep demons out.
Second, Pandora’s Box. In the movie, the girl band tries to seal the barrier (called the Honmoon) perfectly to keep the demon’s out for good. And in the concert where this is supposed to happen, thanks to interference from the demon boy band, the plan backfires and the barrier is completely destroyed, unleashing demons to freely attach themselves to people and get inside their heads, severing the connection that people had to the girl bands and to each other. Given the occult lore behind Pandora’s Box, this might be an echo of what happened, with a large group of people trying to create a perfect barrier to what was then a smaller problem, accidentally destroying what was in place and severing the connections we had.
Chrii’ghath f’thulnagr h’ee
Nafl-ylg ph’jithar h’ee sveth-kar
Yrhath f’-dreshúl va-keth
If I may jump in on the Kubrick discussion…
A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick was probably his best, considering how great the soundtrack by Wendy Carlos remains. Her version of Ode to Joy using Robert Moog’s vocoder pairs well with a dystopian future of ultra violence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFimuAwCE0A
I thought the book by Burgess was rather brilliant as well.
The first time I took LSD at this old hippies house, Full Metal Jacket came on the TV… and he quickly turned it off. We weren’t to watch that while tripping. I never did end up watching that particular film…we went to the Labor Day fireworks instead, but when we got there, there were so many people we had to turn around and go back to his house. That was one of the first times I really got to see a patch of grass start to breathe…
What I think is interesting about Kubrick is his use of file cards to meticulously create his films. Zettelkasten fans would be proud. That method of note taking is way too tedious for my style of writing, but I think its interesting. He’s not really a favorite filmmaker of mine though.
I talk about Wendy Carlos and the vocoder, and John C. Clarke and the time he went to Bell Labs and heard the first singing computer in my book The Radio Phonics Laboratory if anyone is interested in how all these crazy scientist first wanted to start making machines that could speak.
“If you’re young enough and technical enough, I hear the Navy is desperate for people to run their nuclear reactors on their submarines. ”
Hey, it worked for me, certainly better than an investment in Market Financial Solutions of the UK.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/4558063-barclays-santander-wells-fargo-in-street-lenders-exposed-to-failed-uk-based-mfs—report
“Barclays had about £600M tied up in the matter, a judge overseeing the MFS insolvency case reportedly said at the hearing.
Meanwhile, Atlas was involved as a senior creditor and is pursuing all legal avenues to maximize recoveries on £400M of exposure, a spokesperson told Bloomberg.”
Jeffrey, thanks, but I’ll pass. You can easily research fast-collapse claims if you want to. Better still, take notes on the fast-collapse claims being made now, and then watch what actually happens.
Vitranc, I’m optimistic because the US as currently constituted doesn’t work very well, and it’s long overdue for an upgrade. If the convention does what its current promoters suggest — impose balanced budgets on the federal government, put term limits on senators and representatives, and correct a few other abuses — it’ll have accomplished a great deal. If it spins out of control the way the one did in Twilight’s Last Gleaming and the US breaks up into several smaller countries, that also has its advantages. At this point, anything that gets us out of the empire business and refocused on domestic concerns is a good thing, and nearly all the changes now under way are headed in that direction.
Chuaquin, depends on what you mean by “good” and “bad,” of course. From my perspective, those are value judgments rooted in human cultural constructs — the rules each society has evolved over time to help people live together more or less amicably — and they vary from place to place and from time to time. By the standards of some people in the Amazon, for example, people in your culture and mine are horribly immoral because we don’t share our wives with travelers as an ordinary part of hospitality, and appallingly disrespectful because we don’t preserve the mummified heads of respected enemies as trophies!
Ambrose, I have a Japanese stepfamily, and so have a much clearer idea than most what happened to people from hostile countries the last time the US got into a war that threatened its own soil. Look up Executive Order 9066 sometime if you don’t know what I’m talking about. As for Jesus, all the evidence I know of suggests that then as now, apocalyptic frenzy was a passionate interest of one section of the population but not of all. We have no way of knowing how the historical Jesus related to that belief system.
Hereward, I agree the British monarchy is in deep trouble. If Charles does the sensible thing and dies soon, William might be able to pull it out of its power dive — the monarchy has been through serious crises of popularity before, and survived due to a young and popular monarch taking over from an old and despised one. As for that change of phrasing, it seems to be Charles’s destiny to make one disastrous mistake after another with the best of intentions, and yes, that’s one of them.
Wer, many thanks for the data points.
Ron, even when the British Empire was the world’s greatest power, most people recognized that a US invasion of Canada would be effectively unstoppable. Now? I suspect most of Alberta, just to start with, would turn out waving the Stars and Stripes to welcome the American tanks. I hope it doesn’t happen, but Carney might just play his hand badly enough to make it inevitable.
Justin, ancient polytheists weren’t purists. The Roman cavalry adopted the Celtic goddes Epona as their divine patron, which is why you find temples to her in Egypt; Greek merchants made offerings to the gods of every country they visited; the Persian god Mithras had a pan-Roman following. Religious purism is a disease of dogmatic prophetic religions; among traditional or neo-traditional polytheisms, it had (and should have) no place at all.
Michael, I always roll my eyes when I encounter stories like that. You hear them all the time from a certain self-publicizing segment of the occult scene, but if you ask for a demonstration in real time you won’t get one. Of course it’s worth remembering that Horowitz is a Satanist, and Satan is the Father of what?
Robert, fascinating. It really is shaping up to be a wild ride on your side of the pond, and yes, it’s not impossible that the British political system could collapse completely. At this point I’m not even sure it would take much of a push to make that happen.
Neptunesdolphins, none of that surprises me at all. Thank you for the data points!
Other Owen, I haven’t heard him referenced at all, and you’d think that the Democrats would be all over that if he was implicated.
William, good heavens. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Anon, have you ever heard Tom Lehrer’s song “Lobachevsky”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL4vWJbwmqM
A sample:
“Plagiarize!
Let no one else’s work evade your eyes.
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don’t shade your eyes,
Go out and plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize,
Only be sure always to call it please, ‘research’.”
Lehrer was a mathematician before he made it in the musical comedy field, and he knew whereof he spoke.
Dennis, fascinating. In that case it may do some serious good.
Cthulhu, now that’s real poetry. Iâ! Iâ!
Hi JMG,
Given the size and scale of the U.S. military buildup in the Middle East, and the certainty that Israel will kick off the festivities if nobody else does first, what possible path does the Trump admin possess to avoid wrecking itself on a disastrous and unpopular war against Iran? I haven’t seen anybody present a credible scenario for how this disaster is avoided, have you? Well, other than the Fox News fantaxy that a quick and decisive “shock and awe” campaign (with no ground forces behind it) can somehow collapse the regime in Tehran…
Thanks!
@202 Chuaquin
JMG’s view, which is partly laid out in his essay “Hate Is the New Sex,” makes more sense in my opinion than the Hobbes/Rousseau binary. Humans have a desire to express the inherent tendencies in our nature, and if we try to repress some of them, they eventually show themselves in a more powerful, perhaps distorted form. While JMG was comparing the represssed lust of the Victorian English with the repressed hatred of the PMC, one can repress positive traits as well.
My view is that we start out, in pre-human incarnations and our evolutionary ancestors, as morally blind and instinctive (even obedient, loyal dogs lack the understanding to qualify their behavior as virtuous). As we gain understanding, we develop the capacity for deliberate evil and true virtue.
Ron M @ 210, if parts of Canada joining the USA ever does become a possibility, I cannot overemphasize the importance of making sure you Canadians do receive proper representation in both houses of Congress. Pro joiners should start planning now. No territory larger than Texas should settle for only two senators. You may not be aware that membership in the House is limited BY LAW to 435 members plus 6 non voting watchers from DC and the territories. That law was passed in the 1920s in order to restrict the political power of immigrants who were settling in the big cities. Both parties will welcome Canadians with public celebration while behind the scenes fighting tooth and nail to avoid any kind of expansion of the other side’s power base.
This hypothetical, but not I think unreal, scenario gets even more complicated. Statehood for Canadian territories will undoubtedly provoke Puerto Rico to demand the same for itself, with DC and Virgin Islands following shortly thereafter. Republicans are adamantly opposed to that, nor will Democrats be overjoyed about having to deal with new states which have Midwest type conservative populations. The Dems. already resent the amount of attention they have to give to the Breadbasket, and the high urbanite part of the party hates having to have anything to do with farm policy.
Phutatorius – re making crackers, I’m wondering if you’re not rolling the dough thin enough.
This is the cracker recipe I use and they turn out really well. I use sesame seeds for the seedy ones.
350 g plain flour plus extra for rolling
1 tsp salt
60 ml olive oil
200 ml water
For seedy crackers:
4-6 tbsp mixed seeds e.g. fennel, cumin, sesame, flax
water for brushing the dough
Preheat the oven to 220C/200 Fan/Gas 7
Cut a piece of baking parchment to fit a shallow baking tray.
Stir together in a large bowl the flour and the salt.
Stir the olive oil into the water.
Tip all of the liquid into the flour and stir to bring together, eventually using your hands to form a dough.
Working with a quarter of the dough at a time (cover the rest with the upturned bowl to prevent it drying out).
Dust the work top and a rolling pin with a little flour and roll the dough out to the approximate shape of the parchment,1-2 mm thick. Cut off any excess if you want the edges to be neat. Roll the dough onto the rolling pin for ease of transferring it to the parchment-lined baking tray.
For Plain Crackers
Prick the dough all over with a fork to stop it rising too much.
For Seedy Crackers [I use a little extra salt and roll it in]
Brush the dough with a little water, prick it all over with a fork, then sprinkle over the seeds. Take your rolling pin & lightly roll it over the seeds so that they stick to the dough.
Using a knife or pizza wheel, mark out the dough into squares or rectangles: you don’t need to cut all the way through the dough.
Lift the parchment paper onto the baking tray & put it in the preheated oven. Cook until crisp and golden (10-15 min).
Check after the first 5 minutes: crackers at the edge of the tray may cook very quickly.
If you haven’t rolled the dough thinly enough, you may need to turn the crackers over and bake for a further 2-3 minutes to ensure they’re crisp all the way through.
Transfer the crackers to a wire rack until cool enough to handle. Break into individual crackers along the marks you cut.
Crackers will keep fresh up to 2 weeks but they probably won’t last that long.
@Chuaquin @204
According to what I have read these dreams and visions Muslims have of Jesus commonly result in conversion to Christianity and at times severe persecution for converting. The Jesus they expereince is more than a prophet.
>If the convention does what its current promoters suggest
It won’t. I suspect there’s a high probability it will turn into a clownshow, as all sorts of critters come out of the woodwork with their pet theories about reality and how the world should work.
>If it spins out of control
Very high probability of this happening, if it were allowed to proceed.
I suspect like with MN, you’d see phone calls getting made and all sorts of people flipping and slopping like freshly caught fishies to suppress it. Then again, maybe those people will be so distracted by other things, they won’t have any bandwidth to respond. Or care.
>while behind the scenes fighting tooth and nail to avoid any kind of expansion of the other side’s power base.
Did you know back when Mexico declared independence, several of the northern states wanted to join the US? They were turned away for that very reason you mentioned.
I find it amusing that poopcruises are not just for civilians anymore – the US Navy is joining this fine tradition.
The original poopcruise:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Sunrise
Poopcruise 2: Electric Boogaloo
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/17/nx-s1-5680167/major-plumbing-headache-haunts-13-billion-u-s-carrier-off-the-coast-of-venezuela
>I noticed a long time ago that the tech companies are insanely overvalued in the stock markets
Perhaps, just maybe, hear me out – it’s not really a market. It looks sort of like one, and all sorts of people are there to tell you it is one – but perhaps, just maybe (they’re only kidding). There are neglected corners of it that sort of still function like it used to but all the headline stuff – not a market, not really.
Well, if its not a market, what is it then? I’m not going to tell you, partly because I’m not entirely sure myself.
Ambrose #205 I am not an atheist, and I will call the bible a mess too. I agree with you about the grab bag of symbols. I negotiate with the christian bible text better because it’s part of my cultural background, but I don’t think it’s a manual for living, or the word of god. The Quran purports to be the word of god delivered through a messenger. I am reading it to understand the world better, not to be a convert. #206 I see the Islamic view of Christ that way as well.
Sidaway #212 That is a good point! I tried to choose the best translation I could, but you are right. I’m sure the original language texts are a different experience. There has to be things of use in any text, or it would never be adopted.
I’m not looking for answers. Just questions.
I read the Bible as an atheist to debunk it, and read the Qu’ran & Book of Mormon as well.
The Old Testament/Tanakh & Qu’ran are filled with horrible stuff, with the Qu’ran being worse. I find the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament to be overrated (and less entertaining than the mythical/historical parts of the Old Testament) but not terrible. The Book of Mormon is obviously fraudulent* and very poorly written.
*In the histories (a bad imitation of Kings & Chronicles in the Bible), there are two main groups at war (the good, white Nephites and the evil Lamanites cursed by God to have dark skin) and any truce between the two sides is described as an age of prosperity where the population booms and the Nephites spread across the land, even when the peace only lasts 18 months.
Re: Jesus appearing in dreams and visions to Muslims: I agree with the Other Owen: probably an impostor even if he’s benevolent.
Around here, if someone walked up and said he was Jesus, the follow on question would have to be “Maria’s, Anita’s, Susan’s, or Lucy’s Jesus?”
I took the Mayor in the Bookstore tale perfectly straight, as there are folks around here naming their sons Loki as well.
I haven’t yet met any families with both names, but would not be at all surprised to meet a toddler Jesus Loki, with his first name for his grandpa and his middle for his daddy . . .
@Beardtree
Oh. I had thought that the accounts were from practicing Muslims who experienced a Jesus in line or at least not contradicting their own beliefs.
@JMG
Re: Jesus’ apocalyptic views
Paul of Tarsus had apocalyptic views, and he converted to the religion not long after it was founded. The friction between him and the Jerusalem church was from Paul being Gentile-inclusive, not from Paul thinking the end of the world would happen in his lifetime. That makes it likely that the historical Jesus bought into apocalyptic views.
The last MM inspired me to read the Gospel of Thomas, and there are a coupke apocalyptic sayings even in there.
Hi JMG, I’m not sure if my previous post was deleted because I included a link to my subtrack where I have a monologue with an LLM.
If so, I’m not sending this message to insist; I just don’t know if I ended up submitting the post with the links.
I transcribed that conversation to the subtrack because I don’t currently have a computer, and it would be very difficult for me to write an article with all the scientists and experiments I mention using my phone.
Re. #9 –
It’s not just Canada. There are bills (House bill 2236 and Senate Bill 2151) making their way through the Hawaii legislature that seem like they’re trying to accomplish the same thing here. Full disclosure – I haven’t actually read them. Are there readers in Hawaii who could comment?
Re. #29 –
In the Seattle area we have an internet group called Trash Nothing that does the same thing.
@jmg (and all) — I know you don’t watch youtube — but I am having fun watching Candace Owens. She is now doing a segment on Erika Kirk (wife of the late Charlie Kirk). And in the latest episode she is covering Aleister Crowley and the rumor he was Barbara Bush’s dad — and the occult stuff he was practicing. Seems like others on this blog who follow your occult writings may be interested (I normally don’t follow your occult writings that closely) and see how factually on point this is (here is a link for others https://youtu.be/1IY2oD-_xVA?list=PLPW2eH9z9CUt4vIcDk4IJTfW6mxpcJ7Ir&t=334)
I see from google that you have written about him — I’ll get up to speed that way as well.
Interesting times….
John ONeil @189 & Sidaway @212, regarding the Quran: After the events of 9/11, I went to my local library and checked out a copy with the thought of “I should know something about this.” After reading several chapters, I became more and more repulsed by the tone of it. I flipped to the front, and noticed it was marked as “A gift from the people of Saudi Arabia.” Hah, that’s the problem; I’ve got a version/translation that is corrupted by the zealotry that flows from The Magic Kingdom (as some have called SA.) Only later did I learn that, unlike the Bible, there ARE no versions of the Quran, as that is expressly prohibited. Ooops, being raised as a christian I expected the Quran to be accepting of a multiplicity of versions. Hah. Nope.
After additional study, I concluded that Submit is a massive collection of rituals expressly intended to put practitioners into a particular state of mind I regard as undesirable. The rigid five-times-daily prayer ritual, yikes, with its glances to left and right to view the… beings there. No thanks; I’ll stick with my dog-eared New English Bible and my collection of dozens of other tomes, while communing with those beings dwelling in this vast Western landscape who are bemusedly if reluctantly willing to acknowledge my presence.
Hello Mr Greer,
Some time ago you have shared an essay encouraging the readers to use divination tools not only for psychological exploration (which is also worthwhile) but for straightforward future prediction. That motivated me to finally act on my interest in tarot, get a deck and start learning. After some satisfactory progress, I would like to ask if you could point me to a resource where I would find a, shall we say, metaphysics of fortune telling, and ideas on how to use divination methods productively for self-development.
I believe this is important as prophecies can be incorrectly interpreted (Croesus was famously spurred on to war by a prophecy that a great empire would fall, not realising that it would be his own), accurate but not helpful (the case of Cassandra, or any Greek tragedy you’d care to mention), or just plain wrong as already discussed in this thread. If I remember correctly, John Gilbert belonged to an order which asked of its members to learn two different divination techniques, so I assume there would be some guidance on how to apply the skills in practice.
And a personal anecdote that I am aware will not be as fascinating to the readers as it is to me, but please indulge me as I do not have people to discuss matters occult with in daily life! As I am still very much learning tarot, I do not yet have confidence to try to really predict outcomes using the cards. I made an exception last week though – I have sent out an email and wanted to know when I would receive a reply. I drew the following cards: La Lune, Le Soleil, Le Jugement (it was a Marseille tarot) and my interpretation was that I would get the answer within 24 hours. I hadn’t, and was disappointed that the cards appeared to be wrong. The answer did arrive within six days and it occurred to me that the cards were not wrong and my interpretation was not too off, it is just a matter of tarot not offering answers in hyper-specific detail. Anyway, I found this quite encouraging.
Some commentarists in this JMG blog have shown their concern about democratic quality decline in Canada and the UK, and in continental Europe too. I think it’s sadly possible some western countries won’t be really democratic anymore in a not very far future. I see from Spain a worrying tendence here too, the slow but relentless political life degradation, as one of the several causes of spanish democracy decline (I won’t point every of that causes because this isn’t my main topic in my current comment). I only want to guess political life degeneration maybe started during the 2008 economical crisis, but it worsened since COVID pandemic and Ukraine war. However, I’ll be cautious enough to not predict how and when my country wouldn’t be democratic anymore.
By the way, I remember a book I read last month related with this topic. I recommend you to read it.
“Prophet Chant”, written by Paul Lynch, is a dystopian novel which is a dark mix between Kafka and Orwell. (Disclaimer: some spoiler now).
It’s an story about a middle class Irish family in a context of change from democracy to totalitarianism. Everything starts when a party which looks like loosely a far right wing populist one (nationalism and a lot of flags), wins general elections (like Hitler or Chávez did in real world). Soon the exception law is implemented by the new Irish government, with the economic trouble and/or terrorism subterfuge. This trick allows govt to rule Ireland without real opposition. Then, it goes slowly toward an one only party regime. They start to control journalists and judges using fear (selective arrests); soon they prosecute more and more who could oppose their regime (bye bye “Habeas corpus”). The party members infiltrate the education system and private corporations. It’s interesting to point this tendence happens not only in fascist and far right dictatorships, but also in far left ones (Commies). I won’t tell you more about this political fiction novel because I think it deserves to be read without previous ideas.
Finally, after I finished to read it, I thought its author message/teaching could be that fighting against a real dictatorship is harder and more difficult than we usually think from our armchair democratic mind, and the way toward tyranny could be faster and easier than we can think it.
“Ireland has been using ranked choice since 1921”
The Irish system is called a “Single, Transferable, Ballot” – it is one vote, but if candidate number 1 is eliminated it can transfer to candidate number 2 on the same ballot, and so on down the line, until a count is finished. Some counts can go to 15 or 16 transfers before all candidates are selected.
It is what it is, and it does NOT lead to BETTER political outcomes, just to different strategic calculations for candidates who decide to run, and constituents who want to run them.
On the other hand, the counting process, which I have been present* at for at least 3 elections (both local and national), is extremely exciting, and a better day out than ANY sporting match you care to mention! 🙂
* I no longer canvass for any political candidate, but there was a time when I canvassed for one local independent politician, and as a result got recruited to his election “tally” team. Every political candidate on the ballot is entitled to put up a tally team of their own to independently watch the count and keep it honest.** There is a photo here which illustrates the set up – https://www.alamy.com/dublin-ireland-9th-february-2020-votes-being-counted-at-the-rds-count-centre-in-dublin-for-the-irish-general-election-credit-doreen-kennedy-image342827581.html . On the right hand side, sitting at the table, with ballot papers in front of them, are the official (paid) election counters. On the left side, standing higgledy piggledy trying to get a visual count by squinting at the ballots as the official counters sort them into piles, and keep our own “tally”, are all of the teams put there by the election candidates to keep the thing fair and transparent. That was me. It was high-energy stuff, and very exciting, and because so MANY people all over the country are directly involved in the count at this level, with all of its thrills and spills, Irish people somehow never took to voting by “machine”… https://www.irishtimes.com/news/rise-and-fall-of-irish-e-voting-a-brief-but-expensive-history-1.751993
** I do believe the COUNT is as honest as any count anywhere can be. You CAN cheat in Irish elections, but you have to do it at other stages of the process, not at the actual count, which is essentially a national spectator sport.
@ Chuaquin #202
All of the above, plus ever so many more aspects, bugs and features… 🙂
Hi, JMG
Recently an occultist whose work I used to follow back during the whole kek saga back in 2016-2017 has been on a downward spiral. A decade ago he was completely reasonable and had a reasonable grasp on occult philosophy and how magic works. But over the last year he has had a spectacular meltdown losing nearly everything, becoming an alcoholic, and being in and out of jail for domestic battery. All the while he’s been making a spectacle online about how he has dark powers going so far as to take credit for the deaths of multiple people saying that the demon who he has a pact with was responsible. His situation to me echoes a lot of what happened to Crowley in his later years. I’m curious what is it that makes certain occultists crash and burn like this?
Vitranc # 201:
When I’ve suggested biofuels will probably be used to “feed” some tractors in the biggest farms, indeed I wasn’t liking nor wishing it, but accepting it’s going to happen in a wry and realist mood. Of course, biofuels will need large parts of land to be harvested as vegetal oil, so don’t count those areas for human food crops. Which could be a paradox if/when climate change and another problems related with the Long Descent lead to some famine situation (food for engines but not for people?). Animal traction needs time to grow and a lot of land to be feed, but at least they “in exchange” make also their “brown gold”(manure) as fertilizer: mineral phosphates won’t last forever…
Transition won’t be easy, I think it’s going to depend of governments and people attitudes and behavior.
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Pumpkinscone # 203:
Your view on agriculture future could happen, but I also think people (and governments) sometimes can be more irrational and absurd than we are eager to accept. Well, we’ll see (at least during the first times of the Long Descent in near future).
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Wer # 208:
I understand Kiev regime decision of cutting its pipelines with its west neighbors as another puerile tantrum (like the drones “comedy”), which shows more desperation than real strength. Its evident “reason” for punishing Hungary and the another East Europe countries with that rough blackmail, is that they don’t support reckless and blind EU politics of unending economical help to Ukraine. Of course, acts have effects, not always predictable by people who do them…
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Dennis Michael S. # 222:
KPOP Demon Hunters has arrived to my town, too. Indeed, this evening (local time), I’ve seen a poster book about them between serious novels, in a neighbourhood bookstore. I was there with a friend, who asked me what the heck was that book…(We aren’t young enough to notice fast new children and teens fashions).
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Justin P. # 224:
I respect your opinion about Kubrick work, but everyone has an opinion…I think every movie Kubrick filmed is IMHO a master work. It’s evident I’m a Kubrick fan, but I won’t try to convince you from my personal fondness for his genius.
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(To be continued)
the_arcane_archivist #221 says:
“@Zarcayce
I worked in IT industry and I saw that with each decade it attracts people even more ahrimanic, if Epstein files are any revelation it seem it it a club, looking at the world it my be a swarm of some sort.
AI and not only LLMs looks to me more and more as a profoundly ahrimanic force, people noticed from the begining with earlier image models. Now that it becomes more devious looks that recent models is a joining of luciferian and ahrimanic forces…”
Both Lucifer and Ahriman are vassals of the Antichrist (Sorat), I am surprised that many people are surprised by the scandal of the island of the “unmentionable one” where many parties of the high Western elites were held.
In a society where pornography (a type of Ahrimanic evil) is one of the main internet content sources, where online prostitution (OnlyFans) is considered female empowerment (Luciferianism), in a spiritually broken society, where a good number of individuals can be described as biological robots who only want to satisfy their desires (even if these desires are quite depraved), and corporations (who only want to make record profits and don’t think about the consequences) sell them anything to satisfy their desires… it’s quite normal that the elites are like the ones described in the recent scandal.
They have a hive mind, but it’s not as if one particular person is leading them; they simply come together because similar people attract each other.
Regarding the topic of LLMs (which are not AI), I don’t see how the two evils can work together; the only thing I can think of is chatbots that act as people like girlfriends, boyfriends, etc. I don’t really see it, perhaps you could explain the issue further?
JMG # 226:
I want to comment about the fast collapse topic: I’ve seen online since near 20 years ago some warnings about an incoming fast collapse (usually made by the old peak oilers and more recent by degrowth supporters). The 2008 economy crisis, the 2020 pandemic, the 2022 Russian invasion against Ukraine: every big event has been pointed as the beginning of the end of the world (a fast collapse with or without WW3!). Of course, those predictions have failed as contrafactual thoughts. I’m quite fed up of that failed predictions. However, fast collapse believers are tough and stubborn, so the show will probably go on…In real world, things have been getting worse slowly, so you can guess easily we’re living a decline.
******
Good and bad human nature: I understand your view is broader than mine, because Rousseau and Hobbes opposite ideas about human beings and good/evil are evidently within the western world. Of course, the world is bigger than the West, but until today its culture (including philosophy/ethics) has been hegemonic over another cultures. This isn’t a moralistic view, but a descriptive one. So until
the Long Descent makes finally the West countries bite the dust, I think it’s interesting to debate this old argued topic within our culture.
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Patrick H. # 228:
Your view (and JMG view too) is interesting because it seems to go beyond rigid binary ethics, but I wonder how and when we can point a human tendence is or isn’t repressed. I mean, a minimal self repression can be necessary to live together (my freedom ends when it starts your freedom and so on…).
I also want to say I think deliberate evil exists, but it happens much less than mere ignorance (so to some extent, Buddhist philosophy can be right warning about ignorance as source of problems for human beings).
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Beardtree # 231:
An interesting fact I didn’t know. Of course, if they see Jesus as an overhuman person, and then they’re baptized, they soon will get in trouble with Islamic law. For example, they could be accused of aposthasy and eventually get killed.
I’ve remembered another strange Christian “interference” within Muslim world some decades ago. In the ‘60s, some Egyptian people (paradoxically a lot of them were muslim) said they had seen a woman appearing and disappearing in Egypt. She was soon identified as Saint Mary. However, there wasn’t a Christian conversions wave toward the Catholic, Orthodox nor Coptic Churches. By the way, muslim people recognize Mary as Jesus mother, though of course they don’t worship her.
@JMG: “If Charles does the sensible thing and dies soon, William might be able to pull it out of its power dive …”
An alternative is the one King Juan Carlos of Spain took when he was discredited by scandals. He abdicated to his son (now King Felipe VI).
Hey JMG
I found this odd Substack some time ago, which I thought of sharing but keep forgetting about.
Its main theme is the tracing the supposed Neanderthal origins of certain myths and religious beliefs, and also trying to piece together a Neanderthal religious worldview.
https://www.milbel.com/
JMG (no. 226) “I have a Japanese stepfamily, and so have a much clearer idea than most what happened to people from hostile countries the last time the US got into a war that threatened its own soil.”
But….Canadians? This sounds like something straight out of South Park. (You may not have seen the movie, which featured such a war, as well as anti-Canadian hysteria. Or the “Canadian Bacon” comedy movie with Alan Alda and John Candy.) War with Canada is a remote possibility, even under Trump. In any case, Canadians “walk among us undetected,” as the latter movie quipped, and are not a distinct ethno-racial group the way Japanese-Americans were. The Japanese-Americans were not imprisoned for their passport nationality–they were American citizens. To advise someone to give up the opportunities represented by a first-tier passport / citizenship, on the basis of frankly .outlandish speculation, seems irresponsible. This would mean giving up a clear benefit (Canadian citizenship) over a very remote threat. But perhaps you are being guided by some premonition.
“As for Jesus, all the evidence I know of suggests that then as now, apocalyptic frenzy was a passionate interest of one section of the population but not of all. We have no way of knowing how the historical Jesus related to that belief system.”
One of the few things scholars agree on–because his followers wouldn’t have made this up–was that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, an apocalyptic prophet. This was awkward because it places Jesus in a subordinate role to John, and also suggests that Jesus had sins in need of forgiveness (an implication the gospel writers have to explain away). Jesus’s public preaching seems to attract the same enthusiasms (all four gospels mention crowds), and there is even the “Little Apocalypse” ( Matt. 24 -25, Mk 13, Lk 21). His followers were apocalyptics as well, so calling Jesus an apocalyptic is one of the safest things we can say about him. Now what was the content of his message? In brief, he seems to have expected the immanent appearance of certain celestial figures (the Son of Man, the messiah) and the destruction of the Roman regime along with its Jewish collaborators. Whether he thought of himself, or of John, as the messiah (or a messiah, he might have expected more than one) is unclear; it may have been a secret. Jesus also seems to have taken the reality of angels, demons, and the devil or Belial, for granted, and even performed exorcisms. A focus on such supernatural entities is another characteristic feature of apocalypticism.
PS. But sure, apocalypticism was by no means a universal belief among early first-century Jews. We can read Jesus’s contests with the Pharisees in this light. They emphasized everyday Jewish observance, and were apparently mistrustful of the popularity of figures like John.
Jerry, that’s too funny. There used to be various people parading around the occult scene claiming to be Crowley’s illegitimate brats, but I don’t think Barbara Bush was one of them. As for Owen, based on what I’ve read of her writing, I don’t think she would recognize a genuine fact about occultism if it bit her on the rump. I’m no fan of Crowley — the guy was a world-class dork — but it would be nice if Owen could get her facts right and not just fling the usual tired mass media accusations around.
Soko, John Gilbert had a very good way of teaching people how to interpret divinations. He had them cast lots of them, write down their predictions, and then pay close attention to what they got right and what they got wrong. Six months or a year of that will teach you everything you need to know about how to interpret divinations — especially if you may predictions in public and get to eat crow when some of them are wrong.
Chuaquin, it sounds like a good lively novel.
Anon, occultism is risky stuff. If you have any tendency to mental imbalance and aren’t very, very careful, you can spin out of control all too easily. The crucial factor is ethics. If you maintain a high ethical standard your chances of running off the rails are small.
Chuaquin, exactly. All this time that the fast-collapse people have been waiting for the world to crash to ruin overnight, we’ve been declining in the usual ragged way, and they never notice.
Michael, that would also be a smart move, but I can’t see Charles doing it. He had to wait so long to get the throne in the first place, it seems unlikely to me that he’d give it up.
J.L.Mc12, since we don’t have any living Neanderthals to interview, it’s all out on the far end of speculation. That said, interesting.
Ambrose, war is war. As for Jesus, yes, I’m aware of all that. We still don’t know. I’ve argued that the “little Apocalypse” was a prediction, a very accurate one, of what was about to happen to Judea at the hands of the Romans, but I know the preterist view of apocalyptic doesn’t get a lot of respect these days.
@Chuaquin:
I like Kubrick A LOT… he just isn’t my favorite director. That’s all I meant.
Clockwork Orange remains a favorite.
Crowley got around, might not have been too picky, but I dont think he sired anyone in the Bush clan. It’s more harsh to Crowley than to Barbara though… still, people think what they wilt.
JMG (no. 226) ” Horowitz is a Satanist, and Satan is the Father of what?”
Romantic rebellion.
Cthulhu (no. 223): Viking clap.
The Other Owen (no. 218) “But some higher order being floats up to you in a dream and says “Hi, I’m Jesus!” and you just believe it without question.”
There is an Islamic tradition to the effect that if you dream of a prophet (including Jesus), it must be a true appearance of that prophet. Because God would never allow them to be counterfeited.
John – looks like you’re not the only one warning about the dangers of mindfulness meditation.
This quote stood out –
“There is a wider problem in that meditation deals with unusual states of consciousness, and we don’t have psychological theories of the mind to help us understand these states.”
Oh boy
https://www.sciencealert.com/meditation-and-mindfulness-have-a-dark-side-we-rarely-talk-about
>Recently an occultist whose work I used to follow back during the whole kek saga back in 2016-2017 has been on a downward spiral. A decade ago he was completely reasonable and had a reasonable grasp on occult philosophy and how magic works. But over the last year he has had a spectacular meltdown
He’s a public figure, you know, you can name him – Styxenhammer666. I remember watching his gardening videos. Guess he doesn’t garden too much anymore.
JerryD @ 243, you went there so I guess I can as well. I don’t understand Mrs. Kirk. She has two toddlers, ages 2 and 4, who recently lost their father and now it would appear they don’t have a mother “in the home” either. Sure, none of my business, except for that her faction has never been shy about sticking their noses into other peoples’ bedrooms and private lives.
I read the Qu’ran (in translation) some years back. My initial impression was of someone who’d heard some of the old and new testament stories via the children’s game telephone. One person whispers a sentence to another and another, and it’s usually pretty garbled by the time it gets to the other end.
Looking back, I also noticed the emphasis on justice/vengeance over foregiveness, and how christians and moslems in the years immediately after their founder spread in very different ways: one practiced heavily via the lower classes, women and slaves through word of mouth and letters in defiance of authority, and the other via conquest through strength of arms.
Given the latter, I will say that I find calling Islam the religion of peace to be historically inaccurate. If the violence had come starting many centuries after the religion was founded, that’s one thing, but when it starts right away like that…
Re: fast collapse people
Maybe many of them do notice that the secularized apocalypse isn’t happening, and quietly drop out of the scene?
@BoysMom (#238):
Jesus is a very common given name for males in the Spanish-speaking world, and occasionally given elsewhere (including the USA).
FWIW, one of the top CIA men was named James Jesus Angleton. I heard about him early on because he was a close friend (IIRC, also a fishing buddy) of one of the senior professors, W. Freeman Twaddell, at Brown when I joined its faculty in 1967.
Twaddell had had a lot to do with the establishment at Brown of new departments and programs for world politics, for linguistics, and for strategic foreign languages — e.g. Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic — which had not been traditionally taught at Ivy-League universities, but were crucial for the work of CIA analysts. All this was with the enthusiastic support of the highest levels of University administration.
(During WW2 and long afterwards Brown was practically an unofficial branch of the OSS and its successor, the CIA. One of the University’s presidents, Barnaby Keeney, actually took a year’s leave-of-absence from Brown to work on some CIA project a few years before I came there — we never heard just what sort of project it was.)
Phutatorius #49 (hope you’re still reading)
You need a riser for crackers–baking soda or baking powder. Here is a recipe I made years ago.
Water Crackers
2 cups flour (I used whole wheat. It works)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 salt
2/3 cup water
1/3 cup oil
In medium bowl mix well flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in water and oil until smooth dough forms. Divide in half; cover; let stand at least 10 minutes.
Place half of dough on lightly oiled 17×14 inch baking sheet; flatten into 4-inch square. Roll out on baking sheet to 16×12 inch rectangle. Cut in 2 inch squares; prick all over with fork.
Bake in preheated 400 F oven for about 8 minutes or until crackers are dry and golden but not overbrowned.
Remove to racks to cool. Repeat with remaining dough.
For herbed crackers add 1 1/2 teaspoon dried herbs (sage, thyme, oregano, chives, etc) to dry ingredients.
I’ve seen the Barbara Bush/Crowley thing before. Viewing their two photos side by side reveals a striking resemblance. I was interested enough a few years ago to check on the travels of Pauline Pierce in 1924-25 as well as Crowley’s whereabouts at around the same time: Paris. I decided that the “April Fools Joke” was not all that preposterous. And the reports by the Bush family of Barbara’s personality show her as quite a “beast.” All told, it’s an amusing crackpot theory.
This morning I was pondering similarities between Hamlet and (here I go again) Young Goodman Brown. I won’t call Hamlet the original conspiracy theorist, but maybe he is the archtypical conspiracy theorist. He had the poor judgement to act on his theory, after using the play-within-the-play to test his mom. It didn’t work out so well. Fortinbras (Strong Arm) was the one who benefitted.
I’ve recently read the Book of John and the book of Acts. Even though I was raised Methodist, I had never read what comes between the four Gospels and Revelations. I’m setting out to remedy that now. That’s a pretty good sea story at the end of Acts. Patrick O’brien might have been taking notes. It impresses me how easily people were able to “believe” in the new religion; a miracle and a sermon seemed to be all that it took.
JPM: Do watch “Full Metal Jacket.” And read “Dispatches” by Michael Herr. And for VietNam fans, I’d recommend “The Quiet American” by Graham Greene. Graham Greene has never disappointed me.
@JMG: Have you ever considered a novel in the occult western category? I think it’s just waiting for some enterprising author to exploit it.
Another one from our old buddy, Jim Kunstler:
https://www.kunstler.com/p/the-man-who-might-wreck-the-country
“We don’t have an explanation from Senate Majority Leader John Thune as to why he will not do what is within his power to do: pass election reform, known as the SAVE Act, by changing the filibuster procedure. ….
“It’s well-understood that at least 80-percent of people polled want the SAVE Act passed.
“There is no debating position that reasonably argues against it. ”
I agree with Kunstler, and not because I have any great love for Trump. Like our host, I see the current contest as two (or more) factions of billionaires duking it out with each other for supremacy, with no higher principle involved.
Rather, I note that the provisions of the SAVE Act have long been standard procedure in Australia, New Zealand and nearly every European country. For that matter, many “third world” countries have more honest and transparent election systems than the U.S. does. I simply think it would be awfully nice if the U.S. would join the rest of the civilized world and clean up its election systems.
@Michael Martin #269
“We don’t have an explanation from Senate Majority Leader John Thune as to why he will not do what is within his power to do: pass election reform, known as the SAVE Act, by changing the filibuster procedure”
My guess is that there are republicans in at least some states gaming the present system in their favor and who don’t want to lose that ability.
My thanks to those who have posted tips on cracker baking. Yes, I’m still reading. I hope I’m not being too boring with my posts. I’ll be experimenting with some of the recipes over the next few weeks.
Robert M: I read that James Jesus Angleton was very close to Israel, and is much honored there.
California is now requiring age verification in all computer operating systems by 2027:
https://xcancel.com/LundukeJournal/status/2026783141298360692
Ambrose, I wish. The Satanists I’ve met — and as an occult teacher and occasional organizational head I had to deal with quite a few — didn’t have the least trace of genuine Romantic sentiment. They simply embrace a belief system that encourages them to be jerks — the kind of people who smile and nod, then stab you in the back, trash everything that matters to you, and laugh at you and say, “It’s all your fault — you trusted me.”
John, this is good to hear. Meditation’s a very valuable thing when it’s done in moderation and combined with practices that keep the mind alert and effective, but like any other good thing, it can become toxic when mishandled or done in excess. As people figure that out, there’ll be fewer psychological casualties.
Patrick, no doubt some of them do. Others simply move the goalposts a decade or so down the line.
Phutatorius, hmm. Hasn’t that been done already?
Michael, of course Jim’s not going to get an explanation, because the reason isn’t one anybody in politics wants to admit. Both sides cheat preposterously at the voting booth. If that gets stopped, scores of political careers will come to a sudden stop at the next election, and the people who get in instead may not be so amenable to the gargantuan levels of graft that are standard practice all over the US these days.
@JMG
Re: Preposterous election fraud
I’m suspicious of the fact that every election on the national level is so close, that each party always get about half the votes. I suspect some of the election rigging is to keep the nation gridlocked to keep the status quo in place. If a presidental candidate got even 55-60% of the vote, he would be widely recognized as having a mandate to push through his agenda to radically reform the country.
Yuck
“Biological computers, or “wetware” use living cells (such as brain organoids) or biological molecules (DNA/proteins) to perform computations, offering a highly energy-efficient and adaptable alternative to traditional silicon-based computing. Current and future possibilities for this technology include revolutionary advances in AI training, medical diagnostics, and data storage”
Also
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2517389-human-brain-cells-on-a-chip-learned-to-play-doom-in-a-week/
In my world view this ups the possibility of bad actors from the spirit world infesting AI. Note the demons going into the pigs in the Gospels. Apparently biological based computers would use far less energy than present LLMs. Of course there are technological obstacles to get worked out before widespread use. But there are several tech companies busy working on this potential technology.
@Milkyway (#83) – why yes, in the event that I disappear, I would appreciate prayers/blessings. Thank you for being so thoughtful!
@Mary Bennett (#229) – thanks for this information about USA Congress and the rules that bind it. There is quite a bit of discussion about Congress scenarios among Canadians who either desire that the USA swallows us or imagine that the USA may swallow us whenever it decides to do so. Not as though I would be invited to the table to determine the ultimate result!
@Chuaquin (#252) regarding Muslims and Mary. Not only do they acknowledge her as being the mother of Jesus, but more so, they believe that she is the feminine ideal who has never been equalled by any woman on earth. Not exactly worship, but about as close to it as Islam permits. Oddly enough, there are major Muslim sects who believe that when the End Times come, it will be Jesus who returns to earth, not Mohammed – strange, but true!
AI has reinvented middle management. 🙄
“Perplexity has introduced “Computer,” a new tool that allows users to assign tasks and see them carried out by a system that coordinates multiple agents running various models. The company claims that Computer, currently available to Perplexity Max subscribers, is “a system that creates and executes entire workflows” and “capable of running for hours or even months.””
JMG,
With regards to solar charts, I sometimes forget that you’re also old fashioned with your choice of astrological system. In my defense though, from the perspective of someone using a 2000ish year old system, a couple centuries is not that big a difference! 😉
As for my concerns in the US, I’m not concerned about the people, so much as the government: I’ve been looking into what details I can find about the Canadian preparations for a war with the US, and some of them apparently involve attempting to weaponize Canadians living in the US. I hope that going on record with “I’ve renounced my Canadian citizenship” will alleviate at least some of this.
Cynthia (164),
I wish you the best. I think I would also be planning to weather the storm in place if I wasn’t a fairly young dual citizen who has lived in my other country before, and therefore in a very good position to get out well before the fighting breaks out. As for the anti-Americanism, I am sorry to say it has always struck me as being somewhat vicious: it’s just that until recently the American government was willing to give Canada whatever would keep us from complaining too much.
Ron M (180),
I wish you the best of luck with whatever happens. As for the crazy bill that allows the government to exempt anyone from anything, the version that was sent to the senate still had that. I hope the senate is going to flex its muscles here and vote it down, but I’m not going to hold my breath…
Ambrose (205&255),
Canada does not allow anyone to give up citizenship without proof of already having another; and in my case, I am an American citizen already. I would think far longer about it if it meant becoming stateless, but if things get as ugly as I expect them to, I think being stateless could be preferable to being a Canadian in the US.
My biggest concern is driven by the fact that the Canadian government is apparently already planning for how to fight a war with the US, and part of those plans being reported is planning to weaponize the roughly 800,000 Canadians living in the United States, plus the unknown number who would be in the US when the fighting broke out. There is also a law still on the books from World War II that allows for conscription of Canadian citizens, including those abroad; and while in the event of a war between Canada and the US, the US would not allow it to be enforced in their soil, I would much rather avoid getting caught in that mess. I’m thus thinking that there’s a decent chance that there will be restrictions placed on Canadian citizens who are living in the US should war break out.
So yes, if a war breaks out, it’ll be a very good thing for any dual citizen, especially those of us who will be in the US, to have renounced their citizenship; and if the Canadian military is war-gaming this, then I think it has a non-negligible chance of happening.
Epstein scandal and another conspiracy theories:
Like I’ve written before, when some conspiracy theories are checked with real evidences, then I believe in them.
I remember a bizarre case which happened in Argentina some years ago. A controverted and mediatic nun, Sister Marta, famous by her opinions and public acts, denounced in the MSM she had been noticed about a satanist cult (sic) which hijacked, molested and eventually killed teen girls in rituals. Their members, according that nun, could be high class people. Of course, Marta was accused of being a conspiracy theory nutty. However, some time after, police discovered that several business men and local Argentinian politicians had commited a lot of crimes, organized in a secret group apparently satanical. They not only commited hijackings, rape and murders, but also they trafficked drugs. So the crazy nun eventually was right.
Michael Martin # 253:
Indeed, Juan Carlos abdication in favor of his son (actually King Felipe VI) was IMHO a very smart action, I recognize it, after the scandals about old spanish king (though I’m not a Monarchist). It would be a model for the troubled British Crown.
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JMG # 257:
“Prophet Chant” IMHO is a good dystopical novel according its story, but I warn you Paul Lynch wrote it in an idiosyncratic way, without using paragraphs (it’s strange for reading it at the beginning, but I soon accepted this writing style). Another fact in favor of this novel is its author depicts a Fascist-like regime, but I think he isn’t a sectarianist not manichean in his view (the “good guys” aren’t perfect neither, for example).
*******
Fast collapse vs decline:
Well, decline is a hard fact. I was raised during my childhood in the ‘80s by my middle-low class parents. Only my father worked outside home, and we never had money problems. Nowadays, married couples work both husband and wife, and everyday you can see more and more people leaving the middle class status to fall into the low class (they can barely pay their mortgage and monthly food), in spite of apparent good economic times here. Food inflation and outlet cheap shops boom are a hard fact too.
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Justin P. # 258:
OK, it’s too evident Kubrick was my favorite director, though I won’t say like a bigger fan of him said time ago, that “Kubrick is a god for me”, he he…
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After having read some comments about the Quran, I admit I’ve never has patience enough to read it as a whole, but I read somewhere that Muhammad in his teachings never condemned openly homosexuality in his book. So the prosecution against gay men in muslim countries hasn’t a real Quranic base. Is it right this idea?
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Robert M. # 266:
Yes, indeed some men I’ve met as friends during my life were named “Jesus”…Another related name here with the Nazareth man is “Manuel”, which is our spanish version of “Emmanuel”, the another name of Jesus according Gospels. Well, there are a lot of Manuels in my town (“Manolo” for their friends).
Wer here
Well A predictable war has broken out, remember that day when trump proclaimed that we wants “talks” with Iran while he had already ordered an attack (or more likely Netanyahu ordered him to attack) this time however Iran knew and started preparing for a long war, the same thing like before they launch missiles they return fire, the question how long the US can keep firing back they have a limited supply of missiles while Iran is launching a lot of cheap easy replaceable missiles at their territory. In Venezuela Maduro was basically handled over to the delta force. They attempted to do the same in Iran on January 8th this year and it did not work out…
The Iranians are more likely bid for an drawn out war with missile attacks every day or two, for a long time knowing that Israel doesn’t have enough for a long war.
Hi JMG and everyone,
I just wanted to share a story from talking to my 3 year old daughter today. I was talking about a family friend, and how his wife had died at a relatively young age. She replied, “Yeah, and I went to see here, and when she died, I cried”. I gently told her that, in fact, she hadn’t been born at that time, and she immediately came back with: “Yeah, but that was when my consciousness was everywhere”. Amongst other things, it seems to suggest that she has absorbed the idea from our conversations about life, death and reincarnation that we have an existence before we are born. Anyhow, I hope this anecdote is interesting to someone :-).
Wer here
Recently President macron had proclaimed that “free speech is BS” and the UK is preparing an Soviet style ID check and spyware for everyone… yay Freedom and democracy is surging everywhere in Europe…..
On that matter Hungarian party Fidesz news sites had been under cyberattacks for some time and people say they can no longer acess the.
Just think about this
“Ukraine shuts down pipelines causing low reserves of oil in Hungary”
“Ukraine threatens attacks on Hungarian energy infrastructure”
“Victor Orban political party news sites are being blocked by meta and istagram”
“Eu leaders express grave concern over the state of democracy in Hungary”
They only thing that is missing are the “peaceful democratic” protesters in Budaphest burning don buildings and shooting people in the street……
@Zarcayce
>”Regarding the topic of LLMs (which are not AI), I don’t see how the two evils can work together; the only thing I can think of is chatbots that act as people like girlfriends, boyfriends, etc. I don’t really see it, perhaps you could explain the issue further?”
IT is subtly ahrimanic, that’s why too much electronic stuff weakens us humans. Internet is even more ahrimanic. The trainings sets behind these models are ahrimanic and not only because they are mostly from Internet. So it makes sense that these LLM models are ahrimanic.
What I am saying is that the validation sets and some of the directives are Luciferian as is the entire hype and the economic machinations and scams. In this sense I am saying that in these models Luciferian and Ahrimanic forces join hands.
“… the kind of people who smile and nod, then stab you in the back, trash everything that matters to you, and laugh at you and say, “It’s all your fault — you trusted me.””
The last bit, the “you trusted me” is the real kicker, isn’t it? It is the bully who says “look what you made me do to you!”
When people discuss their [conspiracy?] theories about people in power setting out to harm individuals and/or society at large, they often speak of how different schemes will be “prefigured” – example the Event 201 tabletop simulation of a pandemic that occurred in 2019. The argument is that schemes are pre-figured publicly in order to obtain a sort of “tacit consent” – ie “you didn’t stop us, you didn’t tell us not to, therefore it is your fault.”
I believe there is quite a bit of meditation material here. I think I am going to set aside a few sessions to work through concepts such as consent, trust, and etc, and how they relate to the ethics which you mention above as “essential guardrails”.
“Mayday! Mayday! We’re stinking!”
“Don’t you mean sinking?”
“No, stinking. Sierra tango inking.”
Bryan #244
“Submit” – I like that – I shall call it that more often 🙂
Yes you’re right only one “true” Quran exists (the Arabic one) but there are many English translations (or “interpretations”) – the tone varies according to the worldview of the translator. I can imagine the Saudi one being quite uncompromising. Others attempt to be more gentle (eg. the Ahmadiyya sect version) but ultimately there’s no hiding the hellfire and militancy of it.
I’m not sure what the true origin of the Quran is. Either the Prophet (pbuh) was a first-class con man, or it actually *was* revealed – in which case you have to wonder about the nature of the Being who revealed it. On a power trip, definitely.
Look up “the Satanic verses” – not the novel, but the legend the book’s title refers to. It’s interesting. Shows the whole thing up as a house of cards, which is why it can’t be spoken of.
I’m not really a close follower of the British royal family but,
#253 I’m not confident that Charles would stay out of public discourse in the event that he were to abdicate, which I doubt he would to be honest in almost any circumstances.
I’m also not sure things are really improved very much by William taking the throne. He seems these days to have lost his personality and just seems absorbed into the institution, with him and Kate seeming to do things a bit differently stylistically appearing more ‘modern’ whatever that means, but this is all superficial. At least Charles had some individuality, with espousing organic farming before it was cool.
@anonymous
California is joining with Microsoft to declare 2026 to be Year of The Linux Desktop.
>There is an Islamic tradition to the effect that if you dream of a prophet (including Jesus), it must be a true appearance of that prophet. Because God would never allow them to be counterfeited.
If I was a higher order being and I became aware of that fact, oh boy. What you should be asking isn’t that “Jesus” is visiting devout muslims but that he isn’t pestering them in their dreams 8/7, as soon as they fall asleep. Hi, I’m Jesus, let’s convert to Christianity today!
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Oh Internet, always finding the edge cases. You know perfectly well what I meant. If I started claiming to be Jesus Christ (there, that should cut down on some of those edge cases you wags), you’d start looking at me funny and digitally distancing yourself from me. I don’t see any of you wanting to take up that claim to the Crown of Thorns either. Anyone out there want to step up and claim to be the Christ? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
f you were in His sandals, would you want to come back right now?
Patrick, that seems like a reasonable suspicion to me. Keeping the vote very close also makes it easier to avoid following through on campaign promises, which is also very convenient for the status quo.
BeardTree, yeah, that strikes me as a horribly bad idea, too. I wonder at what point they start harvesting brains for that purpose, possibly via a Canadian-style mass euthanasia program.
Siliconguy, yep. And each step in that direction also renders more of middle management redundant, which is no doubt part of the point of it all.
William, I wonder who in Canada was stupid enough to think of that. Internment camps are probably the least ghastly response the US government might turn to.
Chuaquin, that’s just it. Some crazy theories are right. That doesn’t justify the claim that all of them are true, but it does mean that some can be. As for decline, yep — I see it all around me here in the US, too.
Wer, well, we’ll see! The fog of war right now is at pea-soup thickness.
Russell, nice. I hope you’re writing these things down — she’ll want to know about them when she’s older and her consciousness is more focused on the material plane.
Wer, and those will doubtless be arriving soon.
Scotlyn, hmm. Yeah, I could see that.
Mawkernewek, so noted!
‘Epic Fail’ is the phrase that comes to mind not ‘Epic Fury’. As for Israel’s feeble ‘Roar of the Lion’, my bet is on Iran’s ‘Truthful Promise’.
Since I have close family in Tehran and the UAE, I can’t really be neutral in all this; I want America to get an ‘ass whuppin’ (and I don’t think I’m going to be disappointed).
The Quran was heavily modified during the Abbasid Caliphate.
Originally during the Umayyad Caliphate the Muslim holy site was in Petra, the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate, all the mosques constructed at the time pointed towards Petra, and the Quran talked about Muhammad being in Petra. Then towards the end of the Umayyad Caliphate, anti-Umayyad rebels, who were based out of the Arabian Peninsula and Mesopotamia and who would eventually become the Abbasids, sacked Petra and moved all the Muslim holy stuff from Petra to the current location at Mecca, and redesigned all their mosques to point at Mecca. Then the Abbasids rewrote the Quran to have Muhammad be at Mecca instead of Petra.
@Beardtree
As Christianity is undergoing a revival in America, maybe– if the development of human brain cell computer technology is slow-going– concerned citizens can launch a political movement to ban such technology/research.
We here
In order to display the amount of illogical and 5 second attention spam of the local MSM media in Poland it is good to take a look how the news media is presenting the beginning today war:
At first in the morning it was applause at trump for attacking Iran and claiming that the ayatollah old guy (can’t write his name) is dead (he was supposed to die or escape his country 40 times in a row) and that quote “Iran id finished” now the same news channels are proclaiming with shock and horror that there are explosions in every US base in the region and no fly zones everywhere and that grasp Burj Khalifa was evacuated….
This is the quality of news reporting in Polish MSM in modern day and they wonder why almost nobody is watching them now…..
@Russell Cook (#282):
Your daughter may have, as you say, “absorbed the idea from our conversations about life, death and reincarnation that we have an existence before we are born. ”
Alternatively, she may simply still remember how “she” truly existed before she was conceived by you and your wife.
My own take on the universe is that consciousness came first, before everything else that is and that is not. It existed even before our universe of matter and energy, placed in time and space, came into existence, and that consciousness still is there in each and every individual part of that universe. This is not, for me, a hypothesis worked out logically, but a memory of a mystical experience of several hours’ duration that was given to me twice, 70 years ago, when I was only 13 years old.
I suspect that your daughter will grow up to be a very insightful young woman, and will have deep and unusual conversations on some future forum like this one. In your place, I would encourage her to figure out how to pass as”normal” while not actually becoming “normal.”
Jane #81
Sorry it took so long for me to get to this. I’m a freelance copyeditor. This is one of those “how do I get experience when no one will hire me because I don’t have experience” questions. The avenue I took decades ago–get a crummy proofreading job with a low-paying small publisher–may not be open now, although proofreading will probably always be an easier entry point than copyediting (much less developmental editing). JMG’s advice about seeking direct connections with writers may be good. I’m sure there are online sites where people can make those connections. Since I work for publishers, I haven’t looked for such things.
I wish I could be more optimistic about the publishing field, but, like JMG, I think the big publishers at least are going to be seeing serious decline in the coming years. But if you have the science or math background to do technical editing, that’s a real plus. There are editing courses you can take. Whether that will actually lead to employment, I don’t know.
JMG and all: There may be a major decline in jobs for editors, of course, because of the big bad LLMs. I’m currently working on my 2nd job in a row that I think was written with the assistance of “AI.” I’m becoming familiar with the style that it produces, which seems consistent and predictable (based on my little sample of 2). And it’s not good. It’s the worst of academic writing: endlessly repetitive, with a series of empty phrases and buzzwords, and an overused sentence structure of “not this, but that,” e.g., “Felt safety is not the absence of all distress. Instead, it’s the presence of sufficient internal and relational security…” (Why would anyone assume that it’s the absence of all distress? The thing seems to set up this little strawman so it can knock it down in the next phrase or sentence.) There are also some obscure sentences that have me scratching my head and writing queries to the author for clarification. In fact I’m writing more queries than usual! Of course any author can write something obscure, but isn’t AI supposed to fix that? If it can’t make writing better, why use it?
This is making me fear that people will assume that AI will organize their thinking and improve it for them, leading to more sloppiness and confusion. Because my reading makes it obvious that there’s no understanding in this LLM. The grammar is (almost) all clean and pretty, but the meaning isn’t more clear and certainly not more creative. And meaning is where the rubber hits the road.
The writing style is vague and bland and sanitized of anything like an individual voice. It’s hard to keep my attention on the meaning because it’s such dull and wordy reading. So in trying to improve this, I’m ending up doing a heavy edit. But AI was supposed to reduce the amount of editing needed.
So I told the production editor of my current book that I thought this was written with AI. He sent me their tentative policy, which, to my dismay, allows authors to use it for “grammar, spelling, references, and providing assistance on English usage” without even disclosing that. It can also be used to “create content” if that’s disclosed. So they are embracing the beast. He says the policy is still under review.
So it occurs to me, why should I try to improve it? Shouldn’t they see how weak their books will be if this is allowed? At any rate he’ll see how much editing I’m doing.
Republicans in the Senate don’t want to change the filibuster procedure because they intend to use it in the event that they become the minority next November. Furthermore, Republican senators know very well that their constituents expect no less from them. Those senators do expect to be still in office long after the present administration has left the scene. I am skeptical about reports of the president’s failing health, unless the kind of techniques that kept Kissinger and John Rockefeller alive two extra decades are being withheld from him, but the possibility of his demise in office does have to be factored into their planning.
pygmycory, at the time of Christ’s earthly mission, there were a bewildering multiplicity of sects, cults and various kinds of observances throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. No contemporaneous society could reasonably be described as secular, and out and out atheists were few and far between. We still do not, and probably never will have, a complete accounting of the various sects, unless one exists in another language which is being ignored in English language scholarship. So, the early followers of Christ were simply yet another new sect, one among many. with a special appeal to slaves, women and others outside the elite.
I’ve been reflecting a lot on some things, and I also wanted to share some things I’ve discovered (for critique or commentary). I wrote some things in the previous comment (number #169), as I mentioned, the world population must decrease, either to 2 billion or more by around 2100. I mentioned some prophecies and realized there are some observations to make.
First, I realized that the peak oil movement needs clairvoyants. In my life, I’ve never read or heard about the spiritual consequences of using oil, coal, and natural gas. The technical analyses are fine, but what about the spiritual consequences? If we analyze Rudolf Steiner’s teachings, some of the prophecies and teachings that can already be considered fulfilled, the likely incarnation of Ahriman will be accompanied by a large consumption of fuels like gas, coal, and oil. This isn’t arbitrary from my perspective. Or perhaps it’s too obvious. I have quite a few questions about this.
Second, no one asked for my opinion, it’s true, I hope I don’t offend anyone.
Years ago, a book called “From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life” by the historian of ideas Jacques Barzun was published in 2000. It was from this book that I drew the conclusion that our time has more similarities (obviously with very marked differences) with the Protestant Reformation than with other revolutions, long before Malcolm’s publication. You have to read the last chapter of his book to understand why, chapter XXVIII, “Popular Life and Times.” I could talk a lot about this book, but let’s summarize and focus.
For Jacques Barzun, a revolution is “the violent transfer of power and property in the name of an idea.” By property, he refers to real wealth. Another characteristic is that a revolution changes the culture, the zeitgeist. Compare the period before the French Revolution of 1789 and the period afterward; revolutions are periods of time measured in decades, both in the antecedents before the violent outbreak and in their consequences.
Just look at the Russian Revolution, the publication date of Marx’s writings, the year of the Russian Revolution, and the year of the Ethiopian Revolution.
With this in mind, Jacques Barzun identified four revolutions, two of which are quite well-known. The first is still remembered, and these are:
1. The Protestant Reformation, which divided Christianity with figures like Luther and Calvin. It also had protagonists such as Erasmus of Rotterdam and Rabelais with his novels about Gargantua and Pantagruel. One of its consequences was the prolonged sectarian warfare, for example, the Münster Rebellion in 1534, the Wars of Religion in France, and the Huguenot Rebellions.
2. The Revolution of the Monarchs, the absolute monarchy: one revolution leads to another. The prolonged sectarian war hastened the Revolution of the Monarchs. Jacques Barzun says:
“Their dual idea was that of ‘monarch and nation,’ and their dual objective was stability and peace. Sects had challenged or broken with authority everywhere; some means had to be found to restore order by using a new loyalty and a new symbol. That symbol was the monarch.”
You can read Chapter X of Barzun’s book. It was a violent revolution, marked by the siege of La Rochelle by Cardinal Richelieu. This revolution can be considered to have taken place after the Thirty Years’ War with Louis XIV, and one of its main promoters was Richelieu.
3. The French Revolution, little to add
4. The Russian Revolution.
If you notice, between each revolutionary upheaval there are, on average, 125 years, which in our case would be the year 2042, although I highly doubt the system will reach that date. Perhaps Jacques Barzun foresaw this revolution in the growing separatism, cultural decline, and the weakness of nation-states (which could be described as the loss of faith in institutions). Jacques failed to study the oil, gas, and coal crisis and the breakdown of faith in progress.
What do pre-revolutionary times look like? Does anyone remember the 2022 Freedom Convoy in Canada? (Western governments were lucky; if Putin had delayed his invasion by about three years to 2025, this Convoy would have likely been a major uprising with serious repercussions.) If you’re participating in discussions about COVID vaccines, you’re a revolutionary.
If the Protestant Reformation is any guide, when faith in progress and its institutions crumbles, figures like Luther (who was anticlerical) will emerge as anti-scientific figures, not against science and the scientific method. I imagine that could also happen with schools of economics (faith in economic progress) and schools of political science (faith in social progress), and nation-states will lose a lot of power. Syria is the example, a divided and fragmented country, and that will probably be the future of many countries. Obviously, each nation has its nuances and particularities that will differentiate it from Syria, but Syria is an example of fragmentation.
Add to that what I’ve said about Rudolf Stainer and other prophecies, and the outlook is quite bleak.
Comments and criticisms are welcome 🤗.
Ron M. # 276:
I can say honestly my knowledge about Islam religion is light, but a bit higher than average commonplaces among citizens here (dilettante pro?). So I didn’t know Mary high status within Muslim believers. However, I knew Islamic belief in Jesus as a prophet before Muhammad was born, thanks to a book named “El Islam cristianizado”, which I think it hasn’t any English translation yet. Its author paradoxically was a Spanish Catholic priest (Asín y Palacios) who found puzzling similar ideas and beliefs between Christianism and Islamic Sufi orders. A controverted theory which sure isn’t well accepted for the usual zealots within Muslim and Christian religions.
The Iranian government has no reason to hold back now. Could get ugly. As regards the Iranian people rising up as Trump is calling for unless a substantial portion of the security/military apparatus becomes disobedient to the government as happened in Romania no uprising will succeed. I am horrified.
We are at war with Iran as of 2 am this morning. Sorry, JMG, I am not able to see this as part of a fighting retreat. You do remain one of the few public intellectuals I still respect, but this event looks to me like payoff to Bibi for God knows what favors in return. Can China quietly surrounding Taiwan with its’ entire navy be far away?
Speaking of wars, does anyone here have any insight into or knowledge about the new war between Pakistan and Afghanistan? Last I noticed, those two were Islamic allies. Shows how much I know.
Kubrick might be just a touch too British for me.
My favorite directors are American:
Lloyd Kauffman (Toxic Avenger,Citizen Toxie, Class of Nuke’em High, Sgt Kabuki Man NYPD, etc)
Richard Linklater (Slackers, Boyhood, Waking Life, Dazed & Confused, the Before trilogy…)
David Lynch… John Hughes… John Capenter.
Hello JMG, you might not like this question: do you think there will be humanoid robots helping people in their home in the next 20 years , produced with what remains of industry and resources ?
Thank you.
For some reason I thought Kubrick was British… I was wrong… other points still stand.
The reason I like A Clockwork Orange is I have a genuine love for novels and stories about juvenile delinquents. Sol Yurick’s The Warriors, Harlan Ellison’s Rumble/Web of the City, Lawrence Block’s A Diet of Treacle, J.G. Ballard’s Running Wild, Peter Hoeg’s Borderliners…
True crime about gangs, & some gangster rap…
I am just a nerd, but I find these modern war bands if the street fascinating.
Lists, lists, lists
JMG Post
Hi everyone,
Well today I have some new things I’ve been discovering I wanted to share. The first are specific predictions for 2026 – 2030 for most continents. I’ve been watching Craig Hamilton-Parker and thanks to him I discovered Vinita Dube Pande and India’s ancient oracle Naadi Leaves.
1. First some uplifting news. The Rishis and Sages from higher planes will begin to incarnate and return to the world. Earth is into the second half of Kali Yuga and is now on its way back up to a better age. To use an Ancient Greek way of talking about it earth is rising from an Iron Age (Kali Yuga) to a Bronze Age (Dwapara Yuga) when spiritual teachings and higher levels of consciousness will become more widespread even among the muggle populations.
2. The Naadi Leaves are a many centuries, some say thousands, year old oracle system that’s been passed down for many generations in India. Every 300 years or so the Naadi leaves are re-scribed onto fresh leaves and preserved by certain families who act as guardians or caretakers of these leaves. The answers to a questioner’s questions were written hundreds (possibly thousands) of years ago.
When you go to one of these Naadi caretakers he or she will do a system of divination that tells which leaf to pull from storage that contains the answers to the five questions. Vinita and several other people cross-check many different questioner’s leaf answers and have compiled a list of future predictions from these hundreds of Naadi questioners who’ve shared their answers across the world.
3. Probably the most interesting prediction to me across many Naadi questioners’ answers is that 2026 marks the beginning of various small ‘war actions’ that will eventually escalate into what the Naadi leaves called a “Four Nations War” among the planet’s biggest geopolitical powers all the way out to the end of 2030. The war actions taken in 2026 will be small overall but historians will look back and see that such-and-such action by so-and-so Great Power was the trigger that escalated to larger scale wars of 2027 – 2030.
4. Russia and China, for reasons the Naadi leaves don’t say, will join together to take on the U.S.
Anyway, by 2028 according to the Naadi leaves the following global powers will all begin escalating into hot – and expensive – wars in various zones around the planet all the way out to the end of 2030.
These 4-5 nations were mentioned symbolically since some of them didn’t even exist several hundred/thousand years ago
a. U.S.A. – “one who rules the seas”
b. China – “one who rules the land of the dragon”
c. Russia – “one that rises from the land of snow”
d. Europe – “One that sits upon the ruins of Empire”
(like…literally sits on them…as in Roman Empire ruins are spread across the length and breadth of everything accounted as European)
e. India – “One who lights the lamp of dharma”
It won’t be like WW2 though. There won’t be one single cause you can point to like pointing to the Axis powers of WW2 and saying, “hey! they started it”. The coming escalating wars will all be a bunch of hodge-podge, disparate tit-for-tat military disputes finally boiling over but no unifying underlying cause to point to as The One True Grievence that sparked it all.
5. Another thing perked up my ears. Because of the escalating hodge-podge war actions by all the geopolitical great powers – according to the Naadi leaves and also CH-P’s meditation oracle visions – the 2028 U.S. presidential elections will be suspended* and the reason given will be that the U.S. is under direct attack from other great powers – thus Trump gives himself a brief 3rd term. So the U.S. will hold its next presidential elections, not in 2028 but in 2030.
*which according to the Naadi leaves may indeed be the case – the leaves insist prayer has a strong chance of greatly reducing how severe these direct attacks and mother nature calamities end up being but won’t be able to stop the trajectory to war now completely. Too few people have taken up daily prayer and rituals to stop the escalation now but the Naadis insist daily prayer and rituals/pujas and things like the Blessing Walk can and will greatly reduce their severity to the point of saving a great many lives all over the world. Daily prayer – according to the Naadis – can and will save many, many people’s lives that otherwise will die over the next 5 years without such action.
Sadhguru himself said had all the people who had received Shakti Chalana Kriya intiation from him been lengthening their daily practice out to 1.5 – 2 hours per day the actual physical atmosphere of the planet would be in much better condition than it currently is and each Shakti Chalana practicioner would have built an aura that would bestow well-being on countless other non-spiritual/non-initiated people around them every day and I think this by itself may have been enough to reduced the trajectory to the 4 Nations War to a minor blip since he’s initiated hundreds of thousands into that one practice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeMlqIKnKMg
The return to incarnation of the rishis and sages is no small thing as even handfuls of these Great Beings’ initiates and disciples’ daily practices have knock-on effects of uplifting all life around them wherever they go.
Anyway, I think Ecosophia’s wanna-be sages and mages need to martial for a spiritual “war” very similar to how Dion Fortune had her apprentices do rituals for uplifting and strengthening Britain throughout WW2.
6. The Naadi leaves don’t say if Trump dies in office or he’s finally convinced to step down but the next presidential election will be in 2030, not 2028. Oh…and the next president after Trump, according to the Naadis, will be a non-caucasian Republican. There was some musing between Craig and Vinita that maybe this currently unknown Republican may be the U.S.’s first hispanic president. The Naadi leaves themselves don’t say.
7. Here’s another prediction from the Naadi leaves. Cyber War is coming for 2026. Craig Hamilton-Parker feels it could begin as soon as March but this cyber warfare will be damaging to the entire global economy according to the Naadi leaves. The global payment processors and banking and finance industries in particular will be targeted and a lot of ordinary people expecting their regularly scheduled paychecks being deposited to their account won’t get them. Possibly won’t get them for many months. As a result a lot of people and businesses in many countries, including major corporations, may go bankrupt. If nothing else it’s going to teach the world hard lessons about being lax on IT security. I suspect one permanent fallout is that many middle class citizens may lose faith in online paycheck depositing and may start demanding old-fashioned paychecks in an envelope again.
Every continent will be hit by this cyber war. The Naadi leaves say China will be the most damaged country of all by this cyber war but no country that uses the internet for money transactions, deposits and record keeping will be immune. It will be damaging enough to force many countries to revert to older ways of paying for things.
Craig Hamilton-Parker advises his listeners to back up their computers and if possible to set aside enough money you can actually get your physical hands on to see you through this cyber war. And always get a physical receipt to keep as it may be the only proof you have that you actually paid for something.
Online payment systems in particular will be targeted by these non-gov/Dark Web actors. If the Naadi leaves are right this won’t be a small inconvenient blip since some companies will be forced into bankruptcy because of it though prayer may shorten the cyber war and greatly reduce its impact.
8. Another prediction by the Naadi leaves. If India decides to change its name to Bharat or some variant of that name (like Bharatham) that’s a signal flare going off that India is going to disintigrate from within in a grand civil war that will draw in most citizens, classes and ethnic groups that will culminate into a Mahabharata War 2.0. Except this time there won’t be a Krishna to help out according to the Naadis.
Vinita said the Naadis said being re-named Bharat is ultimately not good. The reason for switching to Bharat is that it harkens back to a reknown, wise sage whose name was Bharat. Unfortunately, the Naadis stress it also harkens back to a grand, civil war that killed a large percentage of ordinary Indians at that time – and it will do the same again.
The Naadis say as long as India sticks with its current name the nation will be fine. The Long Descent will eventually come for India too and it may break apart over time simply due to accelerating population decline. But that decline will be much easier and more manageable according to the Naadis if it keeps being named after a geography feature. If it switches officially to Bharat or some variant of that name Indians need to get ready – internal, polarizing rebellions will keep hammering the country till later in the century it culminates into a grand, schisming Mahabharata War 2.0. and India as a united country disintigrates into several smaller ones (ie. just like what’s coming for the U.S., China and the EU).
I don’t remember which CH-P video discusses the Naadi predictions about India or the coming Cyber War but it’s one of his 2026 uploads.
So people can go watch all this stuff on their own and draw their own conclusions:
A.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtX0MJjmqDg
Here’s Craig Hamilton-Parker interviewing Vinita:
Headline:
2026 Predictions: Naadi Warns of a Four-Nation War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2aHqqYxMFY
B.
CH-P again interviews Vinita about the Naadi Predictions (many of which agree with his own visions and astrological alignments too)
Headline:
2027–2030 Naadi Predictions: Global Conflict, Transformation & the Arrival of Avatars
More discussions about compiled Naadi reveals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=622eooJjHwc
Headline: 2026 Prophecy: Japan Gas Cloud, USA–China War & Shock Global Events
C.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLUQQ4NevGA
Headline:
Psychic Predictions: The Next President of the USA Revealed. War Ahead! Aliens and more
CH-P interviews Vinita again.
And one final thing:
take all of this I’m submitting with a big pinch of salt. Freewill (and Prayers) still count!
And here is a link to Vinita’s Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/@VinitaDubeyPande/videos
Again so people can nose around on their own.
JMG, today morning I read about the war between Iran, the United States and Israel. I had then a look at the Capricorn Ingress horoscope for Tel Aviv, and there was Mars, peregrine and without aspects, straight on the cusp of the seventh house. The moon was, likewise, in the seventh house, peregrine and out of orb of a conjunction to Mars.
@ Scotlyn #285
> The last bit, the “you trusted me” is the real kicker, isn’t it? It is the bully who says “look what you made me do to you!”
Golda Meir, Israel’s first female Prime Minister, is often quoted as saying, “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.”
@ Beardtree #275
> Biological computers, or “wetware” use living cells (such as brain organoids)
You could have an in-between phase, where a Neuralink chip implanted in your brain communicates directly with an AI. I imagine Elon Musk is already planning to do something like that with himself and Grok. It would be interesting to see who dominates who.
The Strait of Hormuz has been closed:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/irans-revolutionary-guards-tell-ships-passage-through-strait-hormuz-not-allowed-2026-02-28/
https://caspianpost.com/iran/iran-closes-strait-of-hormuz-halting-ship-traffic
Quick insight I had today.
The core practices of occultism – meditation, divination, journaling, scrying – are all examples of Jung’s transcendent function in action, or are at least ways to spring it into action.
@310 Anon
China isn’t going to be happy about that.
@Martin Back #307 I could be classified as a Christian druid as I find all the transhuman AI going to outer space and leaving earthly, biological limits behind abhorrent. There is an embedded in creation, biology, our given humanity, the earth as our home, the Spirit reality to explore and know – a better living high technology instead of the cold deadness of outer space and electronic virtual reality empowered by the flow of electronic money. But that primal building the Tower of Babel urge still drives many people.
Mary Bennet,
Pakistan and Afghanistan have been on and off at war with each other since 2024:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan%E2%80%93Pakistan_clashes_(2024%E2%80%93present)
So, it appears WW3 may have just been started in a desperate attempt to distract everyone from the horrifying revelations in the epstein files. I have 2 questions, for our host and the commentariat.
First, given the descriptions of the alleged acts of the epstein class, do you believe that there is an occult dimension to their activities? The elements of cannibalism and ritual human sacrifice of children seems to me to be some sort of karmically disastrous arrangement between a nonphysical entity who feeds on pain, despair, and human life force, and has offered a small circle immense wealth and power in exchange. It would certainly explain how such intellectial dwarfs managed to get so rich and powerful… Do you have any thoughts on the matter, as to whether this could be a pact of some sort, or some sort of terrible ritual, or is it merely an elaborate system of perversion and blackmail?
Whether its had occult dimensions or not, it seems the karmic bill for these dark acts has come due. This war with Iran couldn’t have been launched at a worse time or under worse circumstances. Conservative families I know are actively encouraging their children to not join the military – not because of fear of death, but fear being damned for fighting on the side of such evil. I can’t imagine anyone being willing to die for such a cause. Allegedly the sailor on the USS Gerald Ford started flushing mopheads down the toilets and flooded the ship in an effort to get out of combat. My question is – do you see a parfect storm brewing that could lead to a Tiwlight’s Last Gleaming scenario? Will the American Empire split apart exactly at the 250th anniversery of the founding of the republic that became the current empire?
You thoughts are always appreciated to navigate these wild waters
JPM @ 306: I did see “Slackers” back in the day for some unknown reason. But these days I’m more into juvenile deliquescence.
@ Martin Back #309
Exactly! Exactly! I have always found that statement of hers to be a most egregious statement of the terms of engagement her nation envisaged with its near neighbours. It states plainly “if you kill us, it will be your fault; if we kill you, it will also be your fault; whatever results from our engagement will always be your fault, we will never find fault within ourselves.”
The idea that anyone can be “forced” to kill children is simply absurd on its face.
PS – I do believe, Martin that I misspelled your name as Martin Bock, a few weeks ago, for which I apologise. I think something like your connection to South Africa, and South Africa’s connection to the springbok, is what led me to that misspelling. Be well, stay free! 🙂
@Tengu #292,
Would you mind sharing your preferred news sources for this conflict, or for the region in general (besides personal accounts, of course – I mean online news sources, blogs, …)? Thanks!
@Tony A #304,
Not JMG, but a different perspective: I used to be involved with the field of humanoid robotics research at a university. This was quite a few years ago, but I highly doubt that things have changed so much… From my experience, whenever you see very impressive demonstrations of what a humanoid robot can do, they are carefully choreographed and/or the environment is carefully controlled. But real life is neither choreographed nor controlled:
For example, it is changing all the time (ask any parents whose kids own legos!). There are a lot of constraints which need to be modelled, and thought of in the first place (the mug goes upside down into the dishwasher, but upside up when it’s full of hot coffee etc). There are fragile beings around which must not be harmed in any way, or your company is toast (not just humans, but also curious puppies and opinionated cats). Stuff will happen (or be asked of the robot) which nobody thought about during development and testing. Etc etc – and all of this on top of the more “obvious” problems, e.g. motion control, sensors, … (for example, even reliably “recognizing” a simple object like a glass under any and all circumstances isn’t as trivial as it sounds).
That’s to say, even assuming humanity keeps making progress in this area, for a company to actually produce a humanoid robot which will work reasonably well in any random household for any task a human could reliably and easily perform there is, in my opinion, quite a stretch. (Let alone to produce enough of them, for a small enough price, and with reasonable requirements for maintenance, repairs, …, for them to become widespread.)
Just my two cents – and I might of course be too pessimistic (or too optimistic? 😀 )…
Milkyway
#309 it could be that instead of building robot bodies for AI to interact with the world, humans could become meat robots for their AI overlords.
There was something in an episode of Red Dwarf where the robot Kryten quips something like the advantage humans have over robots is humans can be manufactured using unskilled labour.
Wer # 281:
US and Israel attacks against Iran follow a well known narrative (war escalation). Of course, regime change by a “color revolution”(=“soft” coup d’état) hasn’t worked: theocratical regime is stronger than they thought. Iran isn’t ruled by a “charismatic” fake socialist like Venezuela, who can be hijacked “cleanly” using a few commandos. I guess Zionist&Trump hope is to weaken enough the regime with aerial/Navy power for trying to start a civil war like it worked (after more than a decade) in Syria. Good luck with that idea…We’ll see.
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JMG # 291:
No argument here. In addition to the Argentinian nun story, I can write she played with fire with her denounciations (she could have been accused of difamation, for example), and her bosses in the Catholic Church weren’t very happy about her mediatic fame…
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Wer # 295:
Thanks for telling us the Polish official view of the Iran thing. If I can help you to comfort yourself, I’ll tell you Spanish MSM aren’t much better than yours. For example, a Iranian expat guy who lives here gets his minute of fame telling us in MSM that the regime has bombed a girls school (with tens of dead), not the “democracy champions”(ahem). Of course, you can trust in a person who evidently (as exiled) hates Iran regime is telling you a truth, not a biased opinion…If you don’t mind my advice: Please don’t pay much attention to MSM.
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Zarcayce # 299:
Barzun theory about revolutions seems very interesting, methink…if you see it as a work hypothesis better than a full guide to explain everything. Models and theories are ideas which can be related with real world, but never 100%. The map isn’t the territory, though I admit a good map (even in these GPS times) can help you and eventually “save your life”.
——————-
(To be continued)
@Chuaquin,
I don’t remember well enough to say. I also wasn’t reading for that specific thing.
It also seems like Global Weirding is well under way. The quick move from extreme cold to spring-esque glory seems like an example.
@JMG: Regarding occult westerns. I have been trying to think of some. Maybe Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” series? I haven’t read it. What else?
Hey JMG and Beardtree
When I first heard of these brain “organoids” being used to perform computer tasks, I immediately thought of the “great brains” from Olaf Stapledon’s “Last and first men”. I recall that it didn’t end well for their creators, or even themselves eventually. I should re-read that book in the future.
But nonetheless, the idea of using brain-cells to create “Wetware” computers does intrigue me a bit. You see, theoretically it would have lower energy consumption than an electronic computer, but I wonder if that would still be true if you take into account the “life-support” systems needed to keep the wetware functional. I’m not sure about how easy it would be to keep such things “alive” in general. But, if you could get over such hurdles, you would have a device that doesn’t really require understanding of programming, since I assume that with the right techniques a brain-based device would be able to learn with the right prompts, the problem or task required of it.
It also would be far more likely to develop consciousness in a way that people would appreciate, which would have its own pros and cons. What would happen if someone truly did build a “Great brain”? If you made human brain cells develop in multiple and connected artificial “skulls” to create a brain far larger and more distributed or specialised than a normal human, what kind of mind would be created? Would it be equivalent to a very smart human, or become something more eldritch?
Also, finally, would it be possible for a sufficiently advanced ecotechnic civilisation to develop, that could make such a thing a reality? It hinges entirely upon how easy it would be to manufacture the kinds of medical and scientific instruments and infrastructure that would allow such a project to exist while only relying on renewable energy sources. It would be trivial for our civilisation, but for the future it will be more of a challenge, I think.
>But cocaine was supposed to reduce the amount of editing needed. So I told the production editor of my current book that I thought this was written with cocaine. He sent me their tentative policy, which, to my dismay, allows authors to use it for “grammar, spelling, references, and providing assistance on English usage” without even disclosing that. It can also be used to “create content” if that’s disclosed. So they are embracing the beast.
Yes. EMBRACE THE BEAST, I say.
As far as that prophecy goes, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it’s going to be Russia, China and Murica in a threeway. Europe doesn’t matter. They have no manufacturing capacity, no energy and most importantly, no will. Their young men would rather fight their own government (from having been kicked around for two decades) and the immigrants don’t want to.
And if it’s going to be Russia+China vs Murica, I can’t help but think of the South before the Civil War. Very good military but absolutely dependent on imports for everything. All the North had to do to win was to blockade effectively. What you should be asking isn’t that the South lost, it’s how did they hold on for five years. Oh and Germany in WW1? Dependent on imports. Great military. Got their face handed to them.
Anyways, care to think of another country that’s absolutely dependent on imports for everything? Globalization so good.
>So, it appears WW3 may have just been started in a desperate attempt to distract everyone
Not yet. But it is a distraction, that’s for sure. My rule of thumb for “Is it WW3 yet?” is this. Pull up your favorite GPS-based nav aid. Does it still get GPS signals? Then it ain’t WW3 yet. I guarantee you, either #1 or #2 on the other side’s to-do list when WW3 starts is “Take out the GPS system”. Or the military may decide (because it’s their system and they’ve been nice about letting everyone else using it) that they’re just going to rugpull all the civilians because things have gotten serious. I’m also sure that would be #1 or #2 on their list.
One way or another.
Tengu, duly noted. As for how it’ll turn out, I recall a lot of people insisting that the last round of missile attacks on Iran would inevitably turn into a disaster for the US and Israel; we’ll see.
Anon, do you have any evidence for this interesting theory? If so, I’d like to see it; a link or two would be adequate.
Wer, that is to say, your media is no better than ours. Gotcha.
Zarcayce, well, do you have a copy of Steiner’s How to Know Higher Worlds? The best way for the peak oil movement to get some clairvoyants is for peak oilers to study Steiner’s very solid set of instructions for achieving seership. As for Barzun’s theory of revolutions, that’s very plausible; certainly the collapse of faith in progress, science, technology, the mechanisms of representative democracy, and the other central institutions of modern life is well advanced, and far from unjustified.
BeardTree, at this point much depends on whether the US has suborned any large part of the security apparatus in advance with cash payments and/or promises of power and graft if they take over and install a US-friendly government. We’ll have to see.
Mary, it’s early days yet and we have no way to tell what’s actually going on. I’ll reserve judgment until the rubble stops bouncing. As for Pakistan and Afghanistan, keep in mind that the mere fact that their populations belong to the same religion does nothing to prevent national and ethnic grievances from dividing them. Both of the nations that fought the Hundred Years War were Christian, you know!
Tony, it seems unlikely to me. At most, the rich will have them as one more expensive form of conspicuous consumption. Human domestic servants making a comeback, now, seems much more likely to me.
Panda, so noted.
Booklover, interesting. I admit the outbreak of hostilities surprised me, but then the revival of classic mundane astrology is still in its very early days and there’s a lot we don’t know.
Anon, no surprises there.
Luke, excellent. Yes, and if this suggests common ground between Jung and occultism, you’re on the right track.
Paedrig, I’m sorry to say that it could well be a hideously debased form of occultism. First of all, it’s far from rare for decadent elite classes that are losing their grip on power to turn to occult practices, and being decadent they’re unable to gain genuine spiritual power through self-mastery and self-knowledge, so instead they routinely turn to this sort of ghastly stuff. There’s doubtless a lot of perversion and blackmail involved, but it could be an attempt to evoke demonic spirits. As for the war, we don’t yet know if it’s going to turn into a boots-on-the-ground scenario. If it does, yes, things could go spiraling out of control very quickly, but if it’s another case where they fire a lot of missiles and then declare victory, the bill may not come due quite yet.
Luke, no argument there. Today it’s 64°F and sunny in Washington DC; two weeks ago it was barely over freezing and there was plenty of snow on the ground.
Phutatorius, when I was in my teens Heavy Metal magazine had a comic titled “Tex Arcana” which was an over-the-top occult Western, with the eponymous Tex facing down vampires, were-coyotes, and more. I also read the first volume of King’s Dark Tower series, which is somewhat along those lines. I’d assumed that if that was already popular then, there must be plenty of it now. I find on looking it up online, that while “weird Western” is a genre — basically weird tales of the classic type set in the Old West — there isn’t much that uses actual occultism. Hmm. I’ve actually published a short story that counts — “Caught to the Death,” a story of witchcraft in a sort of early 20th century neo-Gnostic Western setting, some elements of which got picked up and reused in the first of my Ariel Moravec stories. Hmm again…
J.L.Mc12, me, I thought of “the Head” in CS Lewis’s That Hideous Strength. I don’t think that’s going to be economically viable as the Long Descent picks up speed. Mind training for living human beings? Quite another matter — and I have a book on the Renaissance systems of mind training more than half done at this point.
Hi JMG
May be at the end Trump is more a Crassus 2.0 than a Caesar 2.0, he, like Crassus, is also a real state speculator and I think it’s likely he’ll lose his fortune also in Persia (in fact, as you know, Crassus 1.0 lost fortune & life fighting Persians).
(OK, they were Parthians, not Persians, but they were their cousins)
Cheers
David
Mary B. # 302:
It’s so evident the long lasting US government(s) serfdom to Israeli lobby (it doesn’t matter which party rules the USA), that I can think the lead role in this attack against Iran is probably Israeli govt. Which is in a tantrum after having witnessed how its country was hit a time ago by Iranian missiles, in spite of its “infallible” Iron Dome air defenses (rettaliation).
I didn’t know nothing about a war between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Maybe an attempt to weaken or put an end to the Taliban regime? I only will say Afghans know well how to fight a guerrilla war in their country mountains: We’ll see.
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Justin P. # 303:
Well, it’s true Kubrick lived for a lot of years in the UK, but I see him as an American director. He really was born and started his career in the USA (oops, I’ve seen you corrected your mistake in # 305). In his filming style, he maybe had some European movies influence, but indeed he was deeply American. By the way, I share your fondness for D. Lynch and J. Carpenter.
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Happy Panda # 307:
I don’t want to argue wether those predictions must be believed or not, but I’ve payed attention to the supposed future US election suspension in 2028 and a Trump mandate until 2030. I don’t know what says American Constitution and another laws about it, but I’m aware some countries have legally forbidden to elect their rulers during war times. For example, Ukraine. Is there the same legal prohibition for the USA?
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Anonymous # 310:
Hormuz blockade affects Iranian economy , but I think it damages the western economies too. More the EU countries than USA in their Iranian oil trading. If the crude oil goes up too much expensive as soon as the war could last too much time, EU would suffer even more. It isn’t clear how this mess will affect Chinese economics, but it maybe can be comfortable to some extent with its Russian origin oil flow; or maybe China is going to ask Putin more oil as preventive safety to replace Iranian oil…Too many complex and not well known aspects to have the full picture yet, methink.
@Happy Panda, thanks for writing that out. I found it an interesting read and I like that the predictions are quite specific. That makes them verifyable.
Joseph Tittel has another prediction about Trump. He has repeatedly said Trump will die in May or June 2027. Lake C HP he has a good batting average so I will be interested to see if one of them is right.
Charles Eisenatein had published a piece about the Iran war at his substack. His perspective jives well with Sadhguru’s although he is coming from a very different angle. You may find it an interesting read: https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/p/the-iran-war-power-and-blowback
John T. Sladek, a long-dead SF writer/satirist, wrote a couple of novels on self-reproducing AI robots whose processors/memory were DNA based for the miniaturization. Of course they ran amuck and tried to take over the world. This was back in the 60s. One was titled “Mechasm” in the US and “The Reproductive System” in the UK. The other was titled “Bugs.” Both were very comic. He was a strict materialist. He also did a pretty lame non-fiction book titled “The New Apocrypha” which leveled cheap shots at all things occult. His day job was as a technical writer in Minneapolis. Eventually he died. All this talk about AI robots gets me thinking about those old, very funny novels.
Pugmycory # 321:
It’s a pity, but don’t worry, I’m going to find in my town library a reliable book about that topic, next week.
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I’m seeing around me (online, in streets and in part of MSM here), a “feminist” justification of the current Israeli-American attacks against Iran. Indeed it’s the same rehashed commonplace which was used when Bush Jr. decided to put boots in the Afghan ground, during his “war against terrorism”, more than 20 years ago.
In the short form, I’ll say that, according this justification, Iranian women are so oppressed by evil male leaders, that the West head state (USA) has the right and the duty for attacking that patriarchal and misogynist regime.
Objection 1: Women suffer oppression in a more or less way in every muslim country, including the most friendly to the US. Indeed, Arabian Peninsula Monarchies are equally or worse than Iranian theocrats with their female population, but the USA won’t bomb them…
Objection 2: Every massive bombing kills more or less civilian as collateral damages, between them there can be women. It’s a radical and strange way to free them of patriarchy.
Objection 3: To be born as a man in a muslim country isn’t a visa for everlasting happiness, especially for poor or gay men. You need some money to be married with a woman in Conservative Islamic countries, for example.
I think this fake feminist justification is at least dishonest. I also realize that this “opportunist feminism” is a bizarre coalition between some apparent feminists and the far right wing, whose foreign politics speech is evidently Zionist, at least in Spain now. Strange travel fellows!
I could see Ariel and her grandpa getting hired to go out west some time…looking forward to their next adventure.
I havent read Joe Lansdale yet, but he is considered the master of the weird western these days, and a fine mystery writer as well in his other series/ works.
The Dark Tower series gets really going in the 2nd and 3rd installments, but my favorite is book 4, Wizard and Glass, which is as fine a western, romance, abd fantasy as I ever read.
@JMG
In the alternative Saturn-Neptune conjunction chart time, the conjunction was in the eleventh house over Washington, DC, and Mars was conjunct the midheaven. And a reddit post pointed out that Mars & Uranus are squaring each other– IIRC, they were squaring each other around the time the Twelve Day War broke out last year.
Also, there might be something to the claim that unified Jewish states are subject to the Curse of the Eighth Decade?
JMG,
There’s this book by archaeologist Dan GIbson titled “Let The Stones Speak” where Gibson documents the archaeological evidence that Petra was the original holy site for Islam:
https://nabataea.net/shop/history/let-the-stones-speak/
The book is available for free in pdf form.
In 2017 Gibson also wrote a paper titled “Supporting Evidence that Petra was the original Holy City of Mecca” on the same topic:
https://almuslih.org/wp-content/uploads/Library/Gibson,%20D%20-%20Supporting%20Evidence.pdf
I should correct myself that Dan Gibson is a historian and not an archaeologist.
Just in case I don’t make it I want to say thank you for the assistance in making significant progress during this incarnation that would have otherwise been impossible. That said the Eclipse is directly overhead of Honolulu and since we are separated from the mainland by a few thousand miles, I was wondering if the rules of mundane political astrology can also be applied on the state level and how that might work. Aloha.
“Or the military may decide (because it’s their system and they’ve been nice about letting everyone else using it) that they’re just going to rugpull all the civilians because things have gotten serious. I’m also sure that would be #1 or #2 on their list.”
That is extremely likely. Also remember that when the system first came up civilian accuracy was much worse than military accuracy. If you suddenly find your car thinks it is some miles away from where you know you are that is another clue to fill the canteens and such. All sides will be jamming or spoofing the other side’s GPS for all they are worth.
Hey JMG
I must admit that your plan is definitely more cost-effective and budget friendly!
But since I’ve just mentioned Stapledon and his Great Brains, I have wondered why no one I’m aware of has written any short stories or novels set in the universe of “Last and first men”, as has been done with Lovecraft’s works. His novel offers quite a huge canvas for writers to play with, billions of years of history and general outlines of what happened in it, that leaves much room for other authors to fill in details.
I’ve thought for a while now that a short story or novel could be written about the Great Brains in Stapledon’s story, that could explore much of the issues we currently have with “intellectual yet idiots”, managerial rule, AI, centralised governance, the increasingly worthless academic institutions, and everything else that involves the problems of letting experts dictate what should happen, and how others should live. It may be something I will write in the future.
to Pointwithinacircle #35,
Since the idea of a messiah entered western culture through Judaism, you might be interested in a later development from this, the Thirty-Six Secret Saints.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadikim_Nistarim
Lamedvovnik (Yiddish: למד־װאָװניק), is the Yiddish term for one of the 36 humble righteous ones or Tzadikim mentioned in kabbalah or Jewish mysticism. According to this teaching, at any given time there are at least 36 holy persons in the world who are Tzadikim. These holy people are hidden; i.e., nobody knows who they are. According to some versions of the story, they themselves may not know who they are. For the sake of these 36 hidden saints, God preserves the world even if the rest of humanity has degenerated to the level of total barbarism. This is similar to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Hebrew Bible, where God told Abraham that he would spare the city of Sodom if there was a quorum of at least 10 righteous men. Since nobody knows who the Lamedvovniks are, not even themselves, every Jew should act as if he or she might be one of them; i.e., lead a holy and humble life and pray for the sake of fellow human beings. It is also said that one of these 36 could potentially be the Jewish Messiah if the world is ready for them to reveal themselves. Otherwise, they live and die as an ordinary person.
@J.L.Mc23 #324: I worked for years with cell culture in a lab, specifically culture of brain cells (neurons and glia), and I can tell you cell culture is a very high input and high energy undertaking. Organoid culture is even more demanding.
>I’ll reserve judgment until the rubble stops bouncing
https://xcancel.com/AsraNomani/status/2027809401071894698
I think I’m going to reserve judgement too. For different reasons.
I am a long-time lurker. I wanted to congratulate you on your recent move. I had one question, and I hope you will forgive me if it has already been asked: Have you had an opportunity to visit the place in NoVa where every question has an answer? 🙂
@Boccaccio (#331):
Joseph Tittel has another prediction about Trump. He has repeatedly said Trump will die in May or June 2027. Lake C HP he has a good batting average so I will be interested to see if one of them is right.
Tittle may be correct. Just to clarify – as I recall, the Naadis don’t mention Trump by name as having a 3rd mini-term. All they mention is that the next presidential election will be in 2030, not 2028.
So my own speculation is there could be a scenario where Trump dies in office due to poor health, J.D. Vance briefly becomes president and he then suspends the 2028 elections with the blessing of the Senate because of direct war attacks on the mainland. I rewatched portions of that first Vinita interview and she did say the U.S. mainland may be attacked. Or at least it will as of the current trajectory.
If enough people take up prayer and beneficial rituals the Naadis say that scenario could yet change and the attacks be more minor and offshore albeit still humiliating to U.S. elites.
It’s Craig Hamilton-Parker himself, not the Naadis, who keeps saying he feels Trump may have a 3rd term. Though he admits he’s been wrong in the past and will be again in the future. And Sadhguru and other yogis I listen to all insist it is absolutely impossible for a 100% accuracy rate. Nobody, not even Enlightened Beings can have a 100% prophecy accuracy rate and they don’t try. The Naadis keep saying prayer and rituals will go a very long way to greatly reducing the severity of all the coming global problems. They stressed over and over in many people’s leaves that prayer is very important right now. It will turn the amplitude of the coming wars way down. Prayers and rituals will save many lives – possibly even the lives of people reading Ecosophia right now.
No matter what – having the next presidential election in 2030 instead of the scheduled 2028 could be the U.S.’s Saturn-ending at least according to the old mundane natal chart of 1776 in my opinion. Even moreso if Russia and China kick the U.S.’s butt in a hot war that finally makes explicit the U.S. is a paper tiger.
Unlike Other Owen though I don’t think Europeans will get out of fighting in these escalating wars or the Naadis wouldn’t include them. I very much think Europe may also get it’s teeth kicked in hard by Russia and possibly China too.
Martin Armstrong’s Socrates program keeps predicting all the EU countries are going to go into a 1930s style Great Depression over the next 5 years as it rushes to shore up their militaries. Fast, Good, Cheap…I think they’ll try to go for the first, hope for the second and sacrifice the third.
China already let the EU know it’s in a proxy war in Ukraine with them and the Chinese Defector scandal is surely known to European intel agencies by now so Europe knows about China’s extensive color revolution plans to finance throughout all of Europe – especially the plans taking the fight directly into Western Europe so fighting won’t be near Chinese borders or threaten Russia’s oil and gas regions which they know European elites are just enough loony and unhinged to try doing.
Anyway, In 2030 I hypothesize a new U.S. mundane natal chart might be interesting to cast.
For the record some people on Youtube I watch who do tarot divination say the cards are indicating Trump dies in office as well due to poor health – especially something about poor heart health.
He may take a permanent dirt nap but even so U.S. presidential elections may still be suspended. As I recall from Vinita’s reply the 2030 U.S. president is currently an unknown but whom will come out of nowhere and deliver a surprise win of the presidency (of a nation whose time and currency will have come and gone I’d add).
Nobody but nobody will care about who is the U.S. president in 2030 except maybe Canadians and Mexicans and even they may not care anymore by then. That’s how much a has-been I suspect the U.S. is about to become. Western Europe will also become a has-been Power too I think.
Vedic Astrologers are saying Eastern Europe and especially the rest of Asia will be on a longer term rise. Abhigya Anand says Vedic Astrological charts show as Eastern Europe and Asia rise in long term prosperity, Western Europe will decline.
So cheer up Wer!
Vedic Astrology is predicting great things over the longer term for Eastern Europe! Prosperity is going to shift to Eastern Europe and Asia while Western Europe and North America go into decline. Abhigya Anand says it will be particularly noticeable the prosperity shift has begun by the mid 2040s so younger Eastern Europeans will live to see all their countries rise in status, wealth and power.
Sidways (no. 212), I recall reading somewhere that the Arabic style of the Qur’an is a close match for the surviving fragments of pre-Islamic magical spells.
Jerry D. (no. 243), if Crowley really did father Barbara Bush, do people think that would make her evil too or something? Is that the idea?
Bryan Allen (no. 244), if it’s any comfort, hardly any Muslims do the five prayers. Many (perhaps most) don’t do any of them, except on special occasions. Interestingly, the tradition of five prayers is not actually in the Qur’an. There was an earlier tradition of three prayers, that Jesus and the early Christians apparently followed. Also, the Qur’an text was standardized by the Umayyads. A few older recensions do survive, I remember researchers studying some from Timbuktu in Mali..
pygmycory (no, 264) “My initial impression was of someone who’d heard some of the old and new testament stories via the children’s game telephone.”
Okay, that’s fair. But a lot of the New Testament and patristic writings read this way, too. The oral culture was much more robust then, and literacy more of a niche skill, like accounting.
“I also noticed the emphasis on justice/vengeance over foregiveness, and how christians and moslems in the years immediately after their founder spread in very different ways: one practiced heavily via the lower classes, women and slaves through word of mouth and letters in defiance of authority, and the other via conquest through strength of arms.”
Imagine that you living in late antiquity, and outraged at the injustices you see around you. (The Qur’an protests eloquently against female infanticide, for instance.) Would that justify rising up to establish a new order? Would it matter whether the rebellion is likely to succeed (recall that Jesus was executed for rebellion), or whether the new order was likely to develop its own, similar issues down the line? (Dune fans perk up.)
Don’t think of these religions simply as the creations of Great Men. Think of them as idealistic symbols projected onto history centuries later. (We can’t help but create such symbols.) It seems that neither Jesus nor Muhammad, for example, thought of what they were doing as “a new religion.”
Robert Mathiesen (no. 266), Indiana University (Bloomington) developed an impressive range of “less commonly-taught” languages, under similar (Cold War) circumstances. Unfortunately, the new president–an appointee of Indiana’s Trumpist governor–has decided that the university ought to get rid of programs that don’t prepare graduates for jobs in Indiana, and to that end has eliminated *every* foreign-language department. (I understand that they will still teach a few major foreign languages–they are still required for some majors–but they will be combined into a single department.)
JMG (no. 273) I admit to not knowing very many Satanists, who are in my experience mainly teenage head-bangers.
William (no. 278), if you move abroad, you may (possibly, maybe, eventually) be drafted with a Canadian passport, but you will definitely be taxed by the American government. Check out the Isaac Brock Society. Anyway, the US-Canada war thing strikes me as extremely farfetched. (Is this something that JMG has prophesied somewhere?) If it ever happened, the Canadian government would be in no position to draft its expatriates. But what do I know, I don’t practice divination.
Trump is looking more like a Commodus to me, with his eventual non-Anglo successor in 2030 a Septimius Severus.
Commodus ruled for 7 of 12 years starting in 180, he was usurped for 5 years by Cleander between 185 and 190, and he died by assassination in 192 kicking off the Year of the Five Emperors. Septimius Severus the eventual victor in 193 was an ethnic minority Arab from Roman Syria rather than an ethnic Roman like the pre-193 Roman Emperors.
DFC, people have noticed the Crassus parallel for a while now, of course. Still — I know it’s probably getting boring to hear this, but the words are required — we’ll see.
Phutatorius, Sladek was also (under the pseudonym James Vogh) the author of two deliberately bogus books on astrology, The Cosmic Factor and Arachne Rising: The Search for the Thirteenth Sign of the Zodiac. They’re amusing reading but even for their genre they’re not very good.
Justin, nah, the true Western novel requires a setting in the past — not necessarily the Old West per se, but before the Second World War, certainly. The chronological distance is important. Besides, Ariel’s a city girl. If I do an occult Western it’ll have some suitably Western characters, a setting in the early 20th century, and all the other furnishings of the genre.
Patrick, that Mars-Uranus square has been challenging for me, not least because (like every other 63-year-old) I’ve been dealing with Uranus square natal Uranus over the last few years. Yes, I should have given it more weight in my predictions than I did.
Anonymous, thanks for this. I’ll download it and have a look.
KVD, eclipses pass over many places without causing mass death. It’s true, however, that Hawai’i may be hit more forcefully by the eclipse than other places.
J.L.Mc12, that’s an interesting question. There are a vast number of really colorful settings, long out of copyright, that could be used for the kind of thing Lovecraft’s friends and admirers have done. I’m not sure why they’ve been neglected.
Other Owen, by all means. It’ll be interesting of the Trump administration has the FBI follow up on that, and makes some arrests for treason…
George, ha! Other than the fact that it won’t exist for a few centuries, that would be a good plan. (And thank you for being enough of a fan of one of my favorite writing projects to ask that.)
Ambrose, be glad. I haven’t been so fortunate.
Anon, well — yeah, those words again — we’ll see.
Hey Aldarion
I thought that would be the case, and it’s good to hear my hunch confirmed by someone who has firsthand experience in the field. But I must ask for more details, since I want to get a better understanding of the challenges involved, and I assume that JMG and some other members of the commentariat would as well.
Specifically, what is the most energy intensive aspects of Cell-culture? How would hypothetical Wetware computers compare to their silicon counterparts in terms of energy and resource consumption? What would need to happen to make wetware competitive with normal computers? And how feasible would it be for an ecotechnic civilisation to pick up where we left off?
Hey JMG
My immediate assumption is that Lovecraft had much communication with other writers, along with fans I think, and seemed to encourage the creation of the “Cthulhu Mythos” early on. The other authors didn’t. But even then, such a thing should not have stopped anyone. It certainly hasn’t stopped most fanfic writers. On the flip side, there’s a fair amount of fiction set in ERB’s “John Carter” and “Tarzan” setting. And “Planet of the apes” or some of Asimov’s stories.
Ali Khamenei is dead:
https://apnews.com/article/iran-khamenei-supreme-leader-nuclear-protests-military-487aa76fd32f398f2ca37d316e543760
Sideaway (no. 287) This is another version of the “liar, lunatic, or Lord” trichotomy. Muslims don’t have the option of a fourth L, legend, that Bart Ehrmann proposes for Christians, but couldn’t the Prophet Muhammad just have been very religious? And predisposed to interpret his spiritual experiences (which a lot of people have) in a certain way?
The Other Owen (no. 290), just making conversation. No, I don’t take such apparitions–or such claimants–terribly seriously. There was this one guy on Reddit who gave me pause, though. I wish I had saved the link. He said he had been asking himself why he shouldn’t just look out for no. 1, etc., and dreamed that Buddha came and asked him questions. The thing is, the quality of those questions was eerily high, almost Socratic. Me, I dreamed of Chris Chan once, and Chris Chan claims to be the reincarnation of Jesus, so I guess that makes me some sort of Uwaysi.
Anonymous (nos. 293, 336-337), I’ve seen accounts like these on YouTube (the Petra theory), but they are generally rejected by scholars.
Tony A. (no. 304), why do they have to be humanoid?
Paedrig (no. 315) It’s not WW3 until Taiwan gets there!
Anonymous @ Septimus Severus was born in Leptis Magna, ruins of which can still be seen in present day Libya, into what is usually described as a distinguished Punic family, in other words, probably descended from Carthaginians. Granted, Carthage was founded by Phoenicians from Tyre, about a thousand years before the future emperor was born. If you want to make that into “Syrian Arab”, I have to wonder about your motives.
Re: USA cancelling 2028 elections
The United States held presidential elections in 1864 (Civil War) & 1944 (WWII) and in both elections the incumbent president won easily. I’m sure the 1864 election was de facto rigged, because Southern secessionists in reconquered areas were probably not allowed to vote and elsewhere people probably publically supported Lincoln so as to not get accused of being a rebel sympathsizer. So there is no good excuse for US elections to be suspended by an overseas war, and even for an unlikely civil war the election can be rigged. The US is separated from the Old World by wide oceans, making the prospect ground invasion from a geopolitical rival far-fetched.
The hazards of different cultures and language translations,
“Iranian state media confirms the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and announces 40 days of mourning, 7 days of public holiday”
Well which is it was my first thought.
The traditional quid pro quo (since kings quit leading their armies in person) of not directly killing the leaders may have just ended.
@Chuaquin (#330):
I don’t want to argue wether those predictions must be believed or not, but I’ve payed attention to the supposed future US election suspension in 2028 and a Trump mandate until 2030. I don’t know what says American Constitution and another laws about it, but I’m aware some countries have legally forbidden to elect their rulers during war times. For example, Ukraine. Is there the same legal prohibition for the USA?i>
I was unsure of your question myself so I had to look it up. From what I have read only Congress can authorize post-poning a Federal election which historically it has refused to do even when there was a civil war going on inside its own borders.
However, declaration of Martial Law makes it more murky and what I read said suspending a Federal election could be legal if Martial Law is declared.
One website I went to put it like this:
The COVID-19 pandemic, civil unrest, and natural disasters have raised questions about the possibility of postponing a presidential election, especially in the context of martial law. While the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly address this scenario, it grants Congress the authority to choose the timing of general elections and set deadlines for the election process. States can also play a role in delaying elections, but the power to postpone a presidential election solely rests with Congress. The Constitution requires the selection of a president and vice president by a specific date, and Congress cannot postpone elections indefinitely due to the term limits of representatives and senators.
my note: putting it as ‘term limits’ of reps and senators was poor phrasing in my opinion. I only wish the U.S. had term limits on all these F’n Career Politicians! Thumbs down with being a politician as an actual lifelong career choice! These bozos need to be shipped off to decades long blue collar jobs like working the docks, garbage collectors, logging or something like that.
Anyway…what that site is referring to is the Constitutionally mandated cycle of holding elections for the House of Representatives every 2 years and elections for the Senate every 6. Presidential elections are in the middle at every 4 years.
*****
The site goes on to say:
In the case of martial law, the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has broad powers during wartime, but there is no explicit provision for postponing elections. Historical precedents, such as Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War, offer insights into the potential application of martial law. However, the complex interplay between federal and state laws, as well as judicial challenges, adds further complexity to the question of whether a presidential election can be postponed due to martial law.
Which, if the mainland is under attack as the Naadi leaves say the U.S. will be I could see Martial Law being declared and a reluctant and scared Congress going along with it. And if even the various special interest opposition groups go along with a declaration of Martial Law that might give some indication of how dire the need is for the Ecosophia readership to begin daily prayers and/or rituals for well-being.
@JMG #328 reply to Tengu:
This is in no way similar to June 13, 12 days war, there it was an understanding between US and Iran for a limited strike face saving, now that they killed Sayed Khamenei, this war could last for centuries if you are familiar with Shia version of Islam and their Imam Hussein martyrdom following.
And Shia is not only Iran is across the region.
Even in the unlikely case they regime change that will lead to civil war. Also this has ripple effects around ME and choke oil.
What if Iran declares war to United States and US has to implement draft and increase taxes.
Trump turns 80 this year, he certainly could fail to wake up any given day. Then there all the Islamic fundamentalists he just annoyed.
As for cancelling elections in the U.S., in 1864 with a civil war in progress the election went off on schedule. In 1944 with a war in progress the election went off on schedule.
Now if the plutonium powered noisemakers are in play at anytime in the six months before the elections then they may well be pointless as which radioactive rat is sitting on the top of the rubble pile won’t matter. Those survivors will have better things to worry about, water being the tough one for me. (The uncontaminated ground water is 300 ft down.)
Oh…a few other things I will mention.
1. One of the things Vinita says the Naadi leaves are predicting is a lot of food shortages in the U.S. sometime in 2028. Like…possibly leading to famine for some people or at least that’s the impression I got though neither Vinita nor Craig said that directly. But she did stress the Naadi leaves were telling their questioners to begin stocking up now on longterm food storage and foods that have a naturally long shelf life so they’ll be prepared for the coming food shortages. I’ll do that myself. I figure if it turns out to be a nothingburger due to lots of prayers and rituals the stored food will still be good and will eventually get eaten anyway.
The Naadi leaves told Vinita she personally would begin organic farming on a larger scale and then distribute the produce to needy, lower and middle class families yet still end up frustrated that many people coming to her for help would still go away hungry. The need was greater than her upscaled gardening operation could supply.
2. Also the Naadis say some kind of deadly epidemic will sweep the U.S. – possibly due to biological warfare – with a much higher death rate among all ages than even Covid was at its worst. Covid turned out mostly to be a nothingburger except for people who were imunocompromised but the Naadi leaves say this next U.S. epidemic (epidemic, not pandemic) will have a death rate nobody will dispute.
As a result the U.S. will go into a second hard lockdown – which will also strain food deliveries and leave grocery store shelves bare. Likely other countries will stop accepting flights in and out of the U.S. too so international flights and merchant marine docks may be light as other countries will try to quarantine the U.S. from their own populace.
There’s also a possibility the U.S. will not only have Martial Law by that time but food rationing as well. And it may be because the bad news hits just keep on coming one after another over the next few years. All that may be what gets enough people in Congress to authorize Martial Law.
I suspect that after the epidemic and food shortages have passed organic gardening will become an explosive industry for seed sellers, fruit tree sellers, roto-tiller sellers and saving and trading seeds will take off among the middle classes. Kind of like how my maternal grandfather always saved razor blades though he never used them after being scarred by a scarcity of them when he was a boy during the Great Depression.
The hard times for the U.S. will be in the 2020s. Hard times for China will be in the 2030s. I don’t know what decade will be hard times for Europe or India.
Hi John Michael,
Following along as usual, and hoping that your Western could draw upon the rich tapestry of the old Kung Fu series as inspiration. I loved that show.
We’ve been pummelled by some whacky weather this week. Talk about global weirding, and on Friday a particularly nasty freak hail storm smashed the place up and destroyed the tender annual plants and stripped about half of the canopy from the forest and fruit trees. Tell ya what, being pelted by golf ball sized chunks of ice all moving at high speed, is not a fun experience. Still, I can replant for winter crops now, and the huge quantity of organic matter on the ground now will spur on a surge of fertility.
Have to laugh, I’m beginning to believe that I live in a very dangerous location. Check this impressive list of events I’ve enjoyed over the years:
– 5.9 earthquake
– Minor tornado
– Super cell storms
– Droughts
– Close calls with bushfires
– Minor Landslide
– Deer invasions
And there may have been some other stuff. 🙂 Nice to have been tested when I can simply head to the local stores and replace the broken things. Plus the place gets more resilient as lessons get incorporated into the systems.
Right now, there is a weird super massive tropical low which has slowly moved from north to south across the continent over a week and then some, and has delivered some extraordinary rainfall in otherwise arid areas. It’s petering out tomorrow, and oh goodie, will make a special guest appearance here. Something to look forward to.
Thought you might be interested from an ecological and global weirding perspective. Here’s just one area the storm is delivering some mighty rainfall totals: Growing expectations Lake Eyre could reach full capacity for first time in decades. The lake is below sea level, so won’t flow away, but will evaporate and/or sink into the Great Artesian Basin.
By the way, another fun fact which I hope you’ll enjoy: The mosses here are the first plants to recover from the dry when it rains. Clever plants, and I believe that the tallest variety in the world grow around here.
It was a hot and dry summer here, but with this recent rain, that is no longer the case. Strange days indeed.
Cheers
Chris
Wer here
Well we known the reason now why the IRGC is going all out the death of their ayatollah, they no longer have a reason to pull their punches. The next ayatollah will be chosen shortly and there will be an escalation, meanwhile people are making crazy occult claims that the Al aksa mosque will be destroyed by the Israelis and all out war to destroy Arab countries will be started by them is there any merit to this nonsense at all….
I am asking because the entire wolrd has descended to loony tunes cartoon. Also someone mentioned horoscopes in their comments and told me to cheer up. Well it is a touchy subject to me as an Catholic and i can’t say I belive in this in my opinion the Eu will destroy Hungary and Slovakia and instal there a puppet. They are actively try to interviene in Hungarian elections right now, and if Orban wins they might use their Ukrainian “friends” to destroy the power grid in Hungary and cause chaos in that region to couip orban out of office because oh boy oh boy they hate him really with an passion….
Wer here
One more thing that is interesting the old ayatollah guy people were claiming that he was sick and apparently he did not want to go to the bunker, and those people in Iran are crazy about martyrdom maybe he wanted to go that way so he could become a symbol to the people in Iran and elsewhere (prefereable to him over siting in a bunker and wasting away) Trump and Netanyahu might have made a giant mistake.
Previous attacks on Iran didn’t assassinate the Shia’s foremost spiritual leader. Shia Islam was founded on defeat and martyrdom, so it has learnt to empower itself through grief and loss. When injustice and murder are inflicted on the Shia they become stronger not weaker.
Paedrig #315, which side of evil are you referring to? The side that beats women to death for not wearing a hijab?
Anonymous # 336:
Petra as original muslim religion holy center is a very puzzling theory, but if that author backs it with enough evidences, it could be true.
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Ambrose # 345:
Within the Muslim people, the theorical compulsory 5 prayers per day are usually relaxed due to life circumstances. I read a comic/photo book named in Spanish “El fotógrafo”, a non fiction work whose main character was a French journalist who was in Afghanistan war in 1986 with a medical NGO. During his travel, he asked to an Afghan guy how many times he prayed in a day. The soldier answered him an average of two, by luck three in a quiet day. I guess he thought Allah and Muhammad would understand and pardoned him (he wasn’t a Wahabbite, but a Mujaidin). Indeed, he was fighting a kind of Yihad against godless Soviets…
I’m reading now “Democracy’s Discontent”, written by Michael J. Sandel, an American politics philosopher. In his essay, he depicts and explain how the USA politics have become so tensioned and polarized nowadays. I think these problems can be seen in Europe too, though of course with different local “flavors” and people.
It’s interesting this book was published first in 1996, but an actual re-publishing was made before Trump second mandate. So he actualizes his essay with a new introduction and more pages at the end for times since Bill Clinton era until Biden presidency (including the pandemic).
I see his political view is a mild leftism (so you can guess he doesn’t like Trump); on the other hand, according what I’ve read by now, he’s honest enough to blame some “Democrats” for supporting bad politics in the long term sense for democracy.
His criticism against Trump goes beyond usual leftist commonplaces, methink. For example, he points Trumpian politics aren’t the cause of the real democracy decline in the USA. Indeed, Trump success is the effect of reckless politics which started during first ‘90s (oh, happy ‘90s!). In the short form, after the USSR collapse, everybody thought in a naïve optimist mood, that we were going to see the final liberal (in the European sense) tryumph of denocracy, thanks to the globalization and the “end of History”. Happiness for everybody! Of course, we were wrong. Clinton era was in part responsible of the nowadays mess and unrest roots. “Neoliberal” Globalism has winners and losers around the world, and within the USA too. Some of the losers (or their children) are now Trump supporters.
I think it’s a provocative theory, which defy not only the Trumpian voters, but the “Democrats” rehashed claims against nowadays US President, so Sandel bypass actual boring bipartisan political debate to go beyond it. We need seriously rethink political life in every country, avoiding the friend/enemy “dialectics”, me think.
I don’t like very much to pay too attention to the MSM actual news. Indeed, I think “info-addiction” is a toxic danger for our mental health. However, I can’t avoid to see them sometimed, when everybody talks about it. So I’ve just known the US-Israeli couple has managed to kill Iranian Big Boss. Of course, Jamenei death has been cheered by the usual online Zionist hooligans and western MSM, and even more, as the beginning of the end of the theocratic regime.
I won’t cry for that death, but I can point it’s dangerous to mistake propaganda with real world. Of course, Jamenei was an iconic man in Iran, so I guess the psychological strike against his followers must be big. However, if Iran regime has plenty of somebody, it has a heck of Shii clergy and secular leaders, eager to fill the power void soon. So the war isn’t really decided yet, thought the western propaganda (which maybe follows literally the Mossad textbooks), says the opposite. I think it’s a risk to be intoxicated by your own propagandistic narrative.
By the way, some years ago I met online a guy who supposedly was Israeli. When I asked him what he thought about Muslims, he answered me: “Every Arabs are cowards, especially Iranians”. I remembered him that Iranians aren’t Arabs, but Persians. He answered me: “OK, Arabs, Persians…for me, they’re the same s**t”. I won’t say every Israeli citizen think the same as this guy thought, but I guess that stereotyped feeling is very spread in Israel.
@Zarcayce #299
Too funny.
Guess what I’m reading these days ? Yes, that would be Barzun’s “From Dawn To Decadence”
And I’m lovin’ it, too.
Jason Patrick Moore #211
Crows like tobacco? Do tell.
Today, around fifty crows congregated in the trees around my house. They were doing some sort exercises during twilight in 20 degree F. weather. Then they took off to parts unknown. With light snow accumulating to a grand 0.0125 inch. —Our ‘mystery dome’ is holding.—
I have been racking my brain trying to figure out if I can come up with some sort of treats for the crows . I draw the line at dead mice. But I don’t enough about crows to pull off any such intra-species thing.
💨🐦⬛🚬🔥Northwind Grandma
Dane County, Wisconsin , USA
>Unlike Other Owen though I don’t think Europeans will get out of fighting in these escalating wars
I think you misunderstand me a bit. I agree, they won’t get out of fighting. But like a scrawny guy with noodle arms – their participation in the fight will. not. matter. One way or the other, whoever they side with. It won’t matter.
>That is extremely likely. Also remember that when the system first came up civilian accuracy was much worse than military accuracy. If you suddenly find your car thinks it is some miles away from where you know you are that is another clue to fill the canteens and such. All sides will be jamming or spoofing the other side’s GPS for all they are worth.
The WAAS system is also satellite based these days and it’s likely to get taken out with all the other GPS satellites, if I had to guess. My guess is you’ll either have it all or you’ll have none. Digital systems are like that.
I remember using a paper map to navigate to California back in 1995. I still keep a paper map in the truck, even though I don’t need it.
But hey, like Gary Larson drew long ago, there’s always a bright side to everything.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/cc/35/a3/cc35a35746a3c18b2e6864037f3532d8.jpg
With the Ayahtollha’s martyrdom rallying massive crouds throughout the Shiite world, I cannot see this ending any way but disastrously for what many are now calling the Epstein Empire (aka the west). I personally suspect the man may have knowingly chosen to put himself in harms way to be martyred, to unite and rally his people. The fact our mad emperor thought that this would break, rather than rally the people of Iran shows that he’s been watching too many hollywood myths – beat the ‘bad guy’ and the heroes win and the movie ends, right?
My question is this. Have you done a horoscope for this war? Possibly cross referencing it with the charts of the USA and Iran to get a feel for how the stars shine upon this war for each side? I understand that would be on your patreon. I’m probably going to subscribe to it once more. Did you see anything like this coming in any of your charts? Now I regret ever letting my subscription to your political astrology service lapse…
Karen,
Widespread use of AI to produce poor writing might increase the market for editing. Though on the other hand, it could simply lower the quality of most writing.
My experience as a translator was more the latter. Not so much that it produces bad translation but that it eliminates the better translation that makes writing more smoothly readable and that eliminates inappropriate ambiguity.
Other Owen #325
Cocaine! Thanks, I did laugh out loud.
It’s nice to have a place to vent about it, also a place to work out my thoughts in writing about it. Take that, cocaine!
Fair enough… its your writing of course, and I’ll be happy to follow where the awen flows with your words.
I do think there are some great westerns set post WWII – the Raylan Givens novels by Elmore Leonard following the exploits of a Lexington, KY marshall follow many of the tropes of a western, but are set in KY mostly, and taking place in the 90s.
Leonard wrote standard westerns too of course.
Speaking of TWL – The first reports from Iran showed the Iranian in the street pretty happy – until the report of civilian casualties came out, especially the girls’ school that was near one of the military targets, and then – Twilight’s Last Gleaming’s attack on South Sudan time.
Speaking of Ariel Moravec, I’ve been seeing streaks of Retropia throughout the two later books. For instance, the 19th century costume Austin Wronsky was wearing at the bookstore, and the racial attitudes of the Harshaw clan – or was the state Adocentyn is in, once part of the Confederacy?
Decline & Fall report from my retirement village: they’re pouring huge sums of money into remodeling and new building, but this week’s newsletter was a very fain photocopy, and some of the things served in the local dining hall can only be explained by buying cheap and adding chile.
And there’s a retirement village in Texas which is just a collection of tiny houses, and very rich seniors are selling their mansions in order to move in there. (No further details given, except that they were developing a community life, bless them. There’s something to be said about privileged old ladies’ organizing skills!
I’ve got some different topics to comment during this Sunday:
First, I’d like to say we don’t really know every hard facts which are conditioning the current war in Iran, beyond the competing Spectacles (let’s call them the West and the Eurasian axis) evidently simetrically opposed. I think caution is a good advice for everybody. Between the many problematic doubts I’ve got, I want to point especially today two “mysterious equations”. First “x”, how much real strength have the couple USA/Israel for the next days or weeks, beyond their apparent almighty power?. Second “x”, what’s the real supposed weakness of the Iranian regime beyond western propaganda? (in which near every Iranian serf wants the Sha return) (?). By the way, I’ve been told there could be some active Commies in Iran fighting “illegally” against the regime, though I guess the Iranian Communists don’t like the Monarchists, nor seeing their country attacked and eventually invaded by the western/Zionist axis…Don’t take too seriously this information (fog of war…).
It’s also interesting that Khamenei didn’t wanted to leave his home in spite of evident risk (according some local sources). Well, if you realize the Big Boss was 86 years old, you can do the math (the term “martyrdom” is popular within the Shii speeches…). “Si non é vero é ben trovato.”
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I’ve read some comment about the Quran. Well, I’ve just remembered some Houellebecq words, somewhere from his controverted work. He compared the Quranic recitation with a war rap/hip hop, methinks. OK, this French novelist is very biased against Arabs/Islam (his black beast), but I think his comparation is dark and funny alike. Indeed, muslim way of reading its holy book is between the normal speaking way and the chant: maybe a poetic recitation.
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I’ve written before it isn’t easy to be a poor man in Muslim countries, because for example men need to pay more or less money to their future wives families. There could be some correlation between the many young single muslim men (unemployed or with crappy jobs), and the plenty of cannon fodder who join the several Islamist terrorist groups in the Muslim world and its western diaspora…
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Last Friday I read my town main newspaper while I had a coffee in a bar, and I saw in a small corner of a page the following title: “Russia and Ukraine exchange more than 1,000 soldiers”. According serious sources, Kiev gave 35 Russian corpses to the Russians, and Moscow returned 1,000 Ukrainian corpses to Ukraine. Do the math. They’ve dealt these dead soldiers exchanges before and often (oh surprise) there are quite more Ukrainian corpses than Russian bodies in return for being buried. So…do you bet which army could win the war in the long term and which one not?
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Finally, I want to tell you a spiritual story I heard during a conference held by a Catholic priest (I warn you, it could be a real story or an apocryphal one:”Si non é vero é ben trovato”). During the Pol Pot terror regime in Cambodia, a man like many others was punished by the dictatorship to forced works, in a concentration camp in the country. His life was a hell, so he tried to survive in his physical and mental levels. He had been raised as a Buddhist, so he tried to imagine a quiet Buddha in his mind to relief himself. Soon he realized during his visualizations, a foreign man with a beard appeared instead of Buddha; he felt quiet and in peace looking at him. Of course, he was Jesus. Eventually, the man was free when Pol Pot regime ended, and not much time after he asked to be baptized as a Christian.
Chuaqui #320 says:
“Zarcayce #299:
Barzun’s theory about revolutions seems very interesting, I think…if you see it as a working hypothesis, better than a full guide to explain everything. Models and theories are ideas that can be related to the real world, but never 100%. The map isn’t the territory, though I admit a good map (even in these GPS times) can help you and eventually “save your life.”
We must consider that Barzun knew his own limitations. For Barzun, what is a historian? SOMEONE WHO TELLS STORIES. Let me explain; I imagine you’ve read children’s stories, exactly, with the difference that historians tell stories for (almost always) adults.
Historians tell narratives, stories, myths. The problem is that the word “myth” has lost its original meaning for many people. A myth is a story (or, if you prefer, a mental model) through which people make sense of the world. My problem with the phrase “mental model” is that a myth is more than just a mental model. A myth is full of symbolism, meaning, and emotions. Consider the myth of progress, and a myth always reflects a reality.
For example, the myth of progress contains something real. The problem is that a myth can become overloaded with other elements, and its true meaning (which is always there) is obscured by this information overload, as is the case with the myth of progress.
Spengler and Toynbee are myth-makers; they tell stories. The problem with myths is finding where they are applicable.
A very crude example is observing how a tree grows and trying to describe a stone in those terms; it’s inappropriate. A stone cannot grow like a tree.
For example, the myth of progress is inappropriate in sociology and economics, and in science it is overloaded with other meanings that are irrelevant.
And we must always keep in mind that the human mind is a limited ability, like our hands; try to fly with your hands.
Jaque wrote in his author’s note:
“On this question of personality, William James concluded after much reflection that philosophers do not give us transcripts of the world; philosophers give us worldviews. Similarly, historians give us views of the past. Good ones are not merely plausible; they rest on a solid foundation of facts that no one disputes. There is nothing personal in the facts themselves, but there is in their selection and association. It is through this patterning and the meaning ascribed to them that such a view is transmitted. And this, in any case, is what every historian adds to general knowledge. If we read more than one historian, there is a good chance that we will get ever closer to the true complexity of the facts. Anyone who desires an absolute version of what happened must access the mind of God.”
Jacques said in the book’s prologue:
“These are not historical ‘forces’ or ’causes,’ but rather names given to the desires, attitudes, or purposes that underlie events and movements, some embodied in enduring institutions. Pointing to this thematic unity and continuity does not mean proposing a new philosophy of history in the tradition of Marx, Spengler, or Toynbee. For them, history moved, driven by a single force, toward a single goal. I remain a historian, that is, a storyteller who attempts to unravel the intricate web woven by the actions of men, women, and adolescents (we must not forget the latter), whose desires are the driving force of history. Material conditions interfere, unexpected results occur, and there can never be a single outcome.”
Jacques Barzun wrote at the end of his book:
“A contemporary document, undated and anonymous, displays the best of popular thought and character and is perfect for concluding our review. Its title is:
Let us end with a prologue:
‘The careful historian, before venturing to predict the course of history, murmurs to himself, “Schedel.” It is not a magic word; it is the name of a learned German figure who, in 1493—note the date—compiled and published the Liber Chronicorum. The book announced that the sixth of the seven ages of humanity was drawing to a close and included some blank pages to record anything of interest that might occur before the final days. As we know, what followed was the opening of the New World and all the innovations that this engendered; which can hardly be considered an end. With this risk in mind, I want to set down what seems to me possible, plausible, or probable to happen. when our own era comes to an end.”
“No one has the capacity to define the configuration and color of the next era; if it could be defined, it wouldn’t be new. But we can speculate about the nature of the interval between us and the true tomorrow. Within the historian dwells a conspirator with an incurable tendency to set trends and risk being penalized for reading the future. Let us speak in the past tense of the State in transition, as if we were a chronicler looking back from the year 2300. As the wise old Disraeli pointed out, ‘We cannot be mistaken, for we have studied the past, and our ability to discover the future after it has already occurred is well known.’”
What can I say?
Just one last comment: in the future, I wouldn’t be surprised if history becomes a divinatory discipline, like geomancy or astrology. Perhaps it would be called historymancy? Maybe that’s what it would be called, but it would be the discipline that attempts to use writings that recount the past to try to read the future. It’s an idea; maybe it will work.
JMG, regarding clairvoyance and the lack of clairvoyants at peak oil, can a restless mind like mine help me? It’s played tricks on me before.
@Milkyway
For the Middle East I prefer the Lebanese news service Al Mayadeen English.
@JMG
Cheng Man-Ching Tai Chi is what I practice, but I’ve reintroduced the (shoulder hunched) bear style posture from the Yang 108 step because CMC’s very upright stance is great for chi gung but not so good for combat.
In Tai Chi sword it’s vital to have a chi circuit with the eye’s chi beam focussed on the very tip of the longsword (or on the top arch of a broadsword) which then circulates back through the arm, torso and head. It’s the same with all Tai Chi movements, one should constantly look at one’s own moving hand, foot etc.
@anonymous #346: Trajan was born in Hispania, as was Hadrian. It is hard to speak of somebody as an “ethnic Roman” at any point in time (Rome was populated by refugees and criminals from various places, according to Livy), but especially in Imperial times when Roman citizenship was being granted to people all over the empire. AFAIK, no contemporary claimed either Trajan or Hadrian or Septimius Severus were somehow less legitimate Romans.
@J.L.Mc12: Cell cultures lack the benefits of thermoregulation, blood circulation, liver metabolism and immune defence that our body provides to all its cells (even those in the brain). All of these have to be artificially substituted. The way this is currently done is by maintaining cultures in incubators at exactly 37 C and 5.0% CO2, which is already quite energy-intensive. Each culture is a single or double layer of cells, so much less than one mm thick, but is covered with about 1 cm of culture medium containing (especially for neuronal culture) several dozen highly purified ingredients. The large amount of medium is meant to compensate for lack of circulation. Flasks containing these cultures then need to be taken out of the incubator regularly (every 2-3 days), and medium needs to be exchanged in a sterile environment. That means a sterile hood, sterile pipettes, sterile gloves, sterile mask etc. – a huge expense in plastics and sterilization equipment.
For organoids, the lack of blood circulation is even more of a problem. Passive diffusion, which is enough for single cell layers, wouldn’t furnish enough oxygen to the center of the organoids, and if left alone, they would disintegrate into thin layers. So the culture medium containing the organoids needs to be continually agitated within the incubators. Sterility needs to be extreme, since a single contamination event over the months that an organoid grows and develops might trash the entire contents of the incubator, up to several dozens of precious flasks. I think some labs have moved to using robots to change the culture medium so as to avoid contamination by humans.
Non-neuronal cells are also sometimes grown in suspension, which requires big, expensive reactors with controlled flow rates.
Over time, and with stronger resource constraints, I believe that energy and reagent consumption might be reduced somewhat. But having to make up for the lack of an immune system, thermoregulation and metabolic control will always require a lot of artificial effort.
Note:
JMG, go ahead and post my earlier submission – the one about food scarcity and U.S. lockdowns. I’m thinking now maybe it would be good to alert people about those things after all.
I will just say this…
The whole thing about a second epidemic sweeping America may or may not happen. Whatever this calamity of fire, earth and air may be Vinita and Craig don’t know. Vinita speculated it may be another virus as different, newer questioner’s naadi answers has led her to think there might be a successful biological weapons attack on the U.S. that will kill a lot of people in the mainland 48 states. If she’s right my state won’t be protected from it since I live in one of those 48.
I know I’ve read some news reports of various Chinese nationals being arrested and charged with trying to import deadly (like category 4 – highest threat) biological agents into the U.S. and spread it into the country’s food supply. Or at least those were the charges against the Chinese nationals they arrested. Of course who knows how many years it will take to bring these people to a trial, hear all the evidence, etc to find out if that’s what they were doing.
@ JMG
“The words are required – we’ll see.”
“Those words again – we’ll see.”
These are your answers to two speculative comments on the theme of possible “rhymes” between current and past historical scenarios.
Still, I am at a loss to understand this response. What “words” are required? This is too cryptic for me.
Thank you in advance for any light you can throw. 🙂
it’s worse than anyone thought, not only did the US lack a day 2 plan, they used LLMs so they don’t have a mental picture of what they were trying to achieve. Even a local produce manager has a mental picture of what is trying to achieve. That’s how bad it is.
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-strikes-2026/card/u-s-strikes-in-middle-east-use-anthropic-
hours-after-trump-ban-ozNO0iClZpfpL7K7ElJ2
(article is behind paywall)
Re: Petra as Mekka
I have read Gibson’s linked paper with interest. While I am in no position to judge the exact arguments for Petra, other people (whom he cites) have pointed out before that the first mosques’ prayer niches don’t point to Mekka. The explanation I have read before is that they pointed to Jerusalem; for most places, the direction to Jerusalem is rather similar to the direction to Petra. Patricia Crone collected in Hagarism the (lack of) evidence for the current site of Mekka playing an important role in early Islam. Most of the stories and place names point to Northern Arabia, vaguely in the area of modern Jordan. Incidentally, as Crone and others have argues, this means Islam developed in much closer contact with Christian and Jewish (and possibly other monotheistic) communities than in the traditional account.
Hello Boysmum #238
I did know a Spanish guy in Spain named Jesus as a matter of fact, but in the UK it’s a very rare name as is Loki. Four in a town the size of Glastonbury is more than coincidental. The subtext to the discussion was that there are several inhabitants in Glastonbury claiming to be the originals, so to speak. As a matter of fact one of the Jesus’s was described as rather cantankerous. There was a certain amount of eye rolling going on.
Andy
@Wer #361
There’s actually some truth in that, besides not going into the bunker he actually didn’t make a secret about it, people reported on it one week ago:
https://xcancel.com/ejmalrai/status/2025297885923860748
J.L.Mc12, Lovecraft certainly did encourage others to share his fictive cosmos. On the other hand, there’s probably more Sherlock Holmes fanfic than any other kind, and Doyle and his heirs fought tooth and nail to keep that from happening, so I don’t know that that’s enough of an explanation by itself.
Siliconguy, I know. The question is what happens next.
Archivist, it’s quite possible that the Trump administration is hoping that Iran will do that. The US tends to pull together, even after periods of stark political division, when major wars arrive.
Chris, I watched Kung Fu a lot back in the day, too. As for your list of calamities, that sounds like something a Biblical prophet would call down on evildoers. Well, except for the deer invasion. That has me imagining deer in flak jackets and steel helmets, marching onto your farm under orders from their commander, General “Buck” Stagg… 😉
Chuaquin, interesting. I may give it a look.
Paedrig, nope. I don’t do event horoscopes. On the other hand, my recent eclipse charts could well be taken as referring to this.
Justin, hmm! I didn’t know that Leonard wrote Westerns — I’ve always thought of him as one of the great noir mystery writers. I’ll have to check that out.
Patricia, the Harshaw family’s attitudes can be found all over white America, though of course they haven’t been universal for a while now; I saw them in oh-so-liberal Seattle, for example.
Tengu, interesting. Well, I’m not especially interested in combat, so for now at least I’ll let my spine extend gently upwards.
Scotlyn, er, the two words you’re asking about are “we’ll” and “see.” I thought I made that tolerably clear.
Achille (offlist), just stop, okay? Nothing you write using LLMs will be put through. No, I don’t care if you don’t want to type it on your smartphone; everyone else here somehow manages to get by. If you keep trying to put LLM material through you will be banned. ‘Nuf said!
Ah… *light dawns*
Thank you. 🙂
>Widespread use of cocaine to produce poor writing might increase the market for editing. Though on the other hand, it could simply lower the quality of most writing.
Nuh uh. Cocaine is AWESOME.
@aldarion #380
Makes you wonder how biological systems manage to do the impossible, culture cells for pennies in a sterile environment.
I for no reason googled for Fran Drescher’s Wikipedia site. But Google proposed some questions on Fran Drescher with answers. “Does Fran Drescher have a child?” was the first of questions.
I think I remember she didn’t.
The answer Google gave was clearly generated on cocaine, as we say here:
“Answer: No, Fran Drescher has no children. Reason: Fran Drescher has no children because at 42 her ovaries were removed.”
Patrick “I’m sure the 1864 election was de facto rigged, because Southern secessionists in reconquered areas were probably not allowed to vote and elsewhere people probably publically supported Lincoln so as to not get accused of being a rebel sympathsizer. ”
Actually, the 1864 election was contested quite vigorously. In early 1864, Lincoln was widely expected to lose. Even he thought so. His opponent was one of his generals, one of the pusillanimous ones, who most likely would have called off the war. Lincoln only won because the tide of war visibly shifted in the North’s favor.
The US also held mid-term elections in 1942 during WW2 and in 1918 just before the end of WW1 and during the Spanish flu pandemic. (Actually, Kansas flu would be more accurate.)
And a presidential election in 1812 during the War of 1812, under technically much more primitive conditions than nowadays.
@351 Ambrose
Every religion has figures that make different claims, and a liar/lunatic/”correct” argument can be made for any of them. If the person you’re trying to convince doesn’t regard that figure as an authority, the argument can even backfire.
Years ago, on the Internet I read a claim that the Prophet Muhammad did not exist, and Islam was originally a Judeo-Christian theological reformist movement, probably not even Arabic at first. Islam was the result of later legendary development from the people who thought that Jesus must not have claimed to be God, or he’d have gone to Hell. Some dissendent scholars even wrote a book on it in the 1970s which I don’t even remember the title of. Spengler made a similar claim in The Decline of the West.
@371 Paedrig
While I am not an astrologer, in the March 2026 Washington, D.C. ingress chart, Uranus is in the house of institutions & hidden enemies ruling the tenth house of executive government. Jupiter rules the house of foreign relations, suggesting an opportunity for peace, but it is afflicted by Venus the ruler of the twelfth house. Maybe Iran has sleeper agents which will carry out terrorist attacks and frustrate peace negotiations if the war doesn’t come to end before the spring equinox (since Jupiter is conjunct the ascendant in Tehran’s December ingress chart, that might even happen or the common people might want it even if the political class opposes it). But Jupiter is trining Mars, and that may mean that the military strength of the two sides might make one side or the other want to negotiate a ceasefire.
@JMG #387
I don’t doubt that they believed that, or they believed what text aggregated ChatGPT or Claude or whatever LLM they asked.
I was more curious about your opinion on this.
Yup, that is how Leonard got his start, writing for the western oriented pulps. The Library of America has collected four of his western novels and eight of his short stories in the genre into a single volume. 3:10 to Yuma was one of his short stories. So I guess when he wanted to write about a marshal in a contemporary setting, he already had the skill and background in that style. Then he just added a bit of crime writing, set the stories between Florida, Harlan County and Lexington, and let it rip between the outlaws and the guy with the star badge. As in any of his writing, the dialogue is awesome.
https://www.loa.org/books/577-westerns/
Hi Northwind Grandma,
The Crows themselves don’t like the tobacco per se. Yet, the animal spirits of the American landscape -crow, coyote, spider, hawk- do seem to appreciate leaving some out. I guess also the spirits of the land make themselves known to the flora and fauna of the land, and so that is what I meant by leaving some tobacco out for them -to the spirit aspect of the land.
I’ve been reading Charles De Lint, the great urban fantasy writer from Ottawa and he weaves a lot of Native American lore into his book. The one I finished recently was Somewhere to Be Flying and it has all this stuff about crows, coyote, jackdaws, raven, fox… it’s a story of the animal people set in the 1990s. Between that and some recent dreams and other inner encounters I’ve had with animal powers, its been on my mind.
I got your latest email btw, it all looks good, and I will get back to you this week.
Justin
‘a book on the Renaissance systems of mind training more than half done at this point.’
What types of mind training did they have back then that you’ll be including in this book?
I was going to bring up the old discussion about ‘mentats’ becoming a thing in the deindustrial future. Watching people using LLMs to ‘amplify’ their abilities over the past few months has had me thinking and feeling I really need to lean in the other direction.
JMG,
I talked with m youngest son yesterday. I asked him if his job in the video game industry was threatened by LLM’s. He said that in fact two aspects of his job are more important now. First is that they have determined that people do not want to play against a computer so they are redoubling efforts to detect and eliminate A.I. in any form of gameplay.
This fact also makes the large, in person tournaments that they hold around the world more attractive. Players know for certain that they are not playing against a machine when everyone is present in a big arena.
About the possibility of coming food shortages: Those of us who are already gardening might want to be teaching ourselves how to save seeds and propagate plants. Given the rapacious nature of our commercial class, homegrown and immigrant alike, and corruption of the electeds at every level, we may have to resort to various kinds of guerrilla gardening.
I, having no botanical training whatsoever, have IDed five different edible plants in my own yard, dandelion, nettle, which is truly a wondrous plant that also makes excellent mulch and fertilizing tea, burdock, an escaped Asian plant, horseradish, also escaped and source of delicious early spring greens, and plantain. Do please keep in mind that if you are not specifically trained in plant ID, you probably can’t tell the difference between Queen Anne’s Lace and either of two kinds of deadly hemlock, I know I can’t, and IMHO, all wild mushrooms should be avoided.
Some seed companies are now offering seeds for perennial vegetables, and many of those are rare enough that official and unofficial garden police won’t recognize them. Fedco has some for cold climates
>it’s worse than anyone thought, not only did the US lack a day 2 plan, they used cocaine so they don’t have a mental picture of what they were trying to achieve. Even a local produce manager has a mental picture of what is trying to achieve. That’s how bad it is.
*sniff* *wipes nose*
(try it, see how often swapping them out for cocaine fits)
David Kaiser’s latest column notes that Trump’s attack on Iran is pure Bush #2. For what that’s worth.
Northwind Grandma #368
In my experience, crows will delight in your leftover food scraps. Don’t throw food garbage in the bin, if you have any. Save it for a wee while and give it to them. Daily is good. Predictable is good. Non-meat stuff is good, though they like that, too. I experienced crow feeding while staying at a retreat center in northern Nova Scotia near Mt. Pleasant in Canada, where the sea freezes on the regular in wintertime. Waste not, want not!
@Ambrose #255,
During WWI Canada tossed people from the Austro-Hungarian, Ottman and German Empires into internment camps. Some people were kept locked up until 1920, well after the cessation of hostilities. Not for committing any crimes, mind you, just for having the status of “enemy aliens”.
It is notable that at that point, “German” was the largest non-British ethnicity outside of Quebec. The USA did it too, though obviously not until they got into the war later on, and I believe to a lesser extent. We both did it again in WWII to Germans and Italians whose immigration papers were suspiciously fresh. You don’t learn about this stuff (anywhere!) because it doesn’t fit into the race-grifting straightjacket the powers that be insist on squeezing our history into.
All that is to say– you don’t need racial profiling to round people up into camps. For that matter, when the British Empire pioneered concentration camps in South Africa, it was on the Boers, who might sound funny to British ears but don’t look substantially different. In most parts of the USA, Canadian accents sound funny. That’s good enough.
Arcane, I’m not talking about the results of cocaine use (hat tip to Other Owen). I’m talking about what’s happened over the course of American history. Did you know that the US was bitterly divided over both the world wars, until we entered them?
Justin, so noted! Not the only great writer of that generation to get started that way — John D. Macdonald wrote for all the pulp markets when he was young.
Jason, I’ll save my answer for the book, which (as noted) is more than halfway done. I’ll announce it as soon as it’s out — and yes, it’s about as close to genuine Mentat training as anything known to me.
Clay, hmm! This is very good to hear. The same thing is likely to do wonders for live music, literary readings, etc.
Mary, that’s valid, and relevant. A commenter over on the Dreamwidth journal who works for an independent farm store in Canada just mentioned that his store’s supplier will have no seed potatoes this year. None at all. Brace yourself.
Hello JMG, and Milkiway,
I have been following an experienced AI specialist, and he said that there is a trend now with LLMs to make specialized ones (ie to automate certain computer tasks like virtualization), because they make less mistakes than the generalist LLMs for professional tasks.
It might make more sense to have a few non-humanoid robots in the home: one as a smart house cleaner, one that can cook, etc.
Just a thought, I am not a specialist of this.
@JMG This is only if someone else fights the wars US funds both sides and then US to join in at the end with the victors and share the spoils kind of what Trump wants to do this now with Ukraine. Looks to me that that is not working anymore.
Hey Aldarion
What you have described definitely sounds quite difficult and energy intensive. I expected the need for a sterile environment and artificial blood flow, but I weirdly forgot about all the other bodily processes necessary to keeps cells alive, that would require artificial equivalents.
But you have forgotten my other 2 questions, which were how the energy and resource consumption of this cell culture of brain cells compares with standard computers, and whether you think a hypothetical “wetware / organoid computer” could be competitive with the normal variety in some way?
Well, the mini-war that the US and Israel have just resorted to as some sort of flimsy coping mechanism for the utter failure of their regime-change efforts this January has already turned into a fascinating study in how to score the most devastating of self goals. Naturally, the West is again dreaming of winning this war as a propaganda battle, just as it once imagined it would be able to pull off in the Ukraine. Alas, their favored media-saturating color-revolution playbook hasn’t been delivering too many goodies of late.
The Iranians, lacking much reach in global media, haven’t been so easily seduced by all the chimeric promises alluringly dangled of easy wins arising solely from control of the information space. Instead Iran is striking repeatedly at the West’s enormously bloated Achilles’ heel, the mountain of unpayable debts it is precariously propped up by. Closing the Hormus Straight to all US/Israel-friendly shipping, disrupting air travel far and wide by forcing the major airports in the region (several global hubs) to shutter, going after energy infrastructure which is the lifeblood of all the region’s economies, and destroying its enemies’ poorly guarded military assets nearby does not fall into the category of propaganda per se. In this easily foreseen but willfully misapprehended new hybrid, Iran is conducting economic warfare on the global economy by utilizing conventional missiles, rather than the West’s preferred sanctions and other economic levers. The UN is waxing apoplectic that anyone dare to not play (and thus inevitably lose) according to its own biased rulebook.
Interestingly, the Iranians are also able to leverage the Western markets’ sensitivity to propaganda back against them. Blocking oil deliveries by bombing a ship or two is nowhere near as destabilizing as sending global maritime insurers into a panic on the news. Pampered élites, finding themselves stranded in a war zone and panic calling their all the political flunkies in their rolodexes, is likely to change the global calculus is unpredictable ways as well. Dubai, the new global financial center for opaque money laundering, which helped crash the Rial over the New Year as part of the color revolution that wasn’t, is now learning that turnabout is fair play. Will the Iranians succeed in returning the favor and crashing the dirham by lighting a few more expat-filled hotels on fire?
This temporary tantrum by a couple of sore losers is likely to go down in the history books as a case study in hubris run rampant. What on earth were they thinking? Are there any worthwhile studies out there analyzing how hubris operates metaphysically? Why in some cases it manages to become the best catalyst for reassessment and self-awareness, as in the case of Irving Fisher? Why in other cases it feeds into a positive-feedback loop of doubling down as denial, panic, and delusion snowball into a blind inability to alter course or avert disaster? Without hubris, the Fool would never step off the cliff; without humility, he would never survive that first step of his journey.
Patrick H. # 354:
It’s a surprising fact for me the USA elections during its Civil War and WW2. So you point that even in an open war within the US borders, elections would be allowed by Law. Well, each country has its own laws about it. I’m not sure, but I think according the current Spanish Constitution and another laws, it’s forbidden to call this country for elections under the exception law or martial law (which can mean a war situation methink).
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Happy Panda # 356:
I see the US have a complex legal system, but if I’ve understood you well, USA Congress can delay general elections when it has serious motives to postpone them…but not too many times. Martial Law declaration can influence that hypothetical decision for delaying elections, but I understand Congress has the last word. However, of course Congress people mandate eventually will end, or, on the other hand, Congress could be influenced by outer powers and well, changing its members ideas (to say it in a soft way, ahem).
—————————
Wer # 361 and 362:
Of course, there’ll be soon a new Big Boss in Iran (even he can be in the power in this moment). There’s a lot of clergy in Iran to occupy void seat(s) in high spheres.
*********
It’s a dirty and ugly possibility the EU reckless elites try to get rid of Orban in Hungary, even with the infamous Kiev regime help, but I want to remember an old saying: “Don’t sell the bear skin before hunting it”. Nowadays Hungarian government has ruled that country for many years, so I think it must have much popular (and military/police) support, ahem…
I also have heard Khamenei has chosen a near suicidal option, probably to be remembered as a martyr. “Si non é vero é ben trovato”(a smart Italian saying!)
—————————————-
Athaia # 364:
I’m not going to defend the Iranian theocracy, but if you’re suggesting or justifying the US/Israel deadly attacks against Iran (with its civilian victims) in the name of oppressed women, I don’t agree. More when an hypothetical escalation could kill much more people, many of them women (with or without hijab).
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Zarcayce # 378:
I’m afraid you’ve got a very romantic idea of History. Although History isn’t as exact as the “hard sciences” like Physics or Chemistry (so it’s nearer to social sciences), I think when it’s well worked by its experts, can be more than myths and another stories. Historians can find more or less believable written sources, and they can guess what ideas had their writers. Archeology can help to know more exactly historical events.
————————————
Patricia M. # 403:
I don’t have to share every D. Kaiser opinions at 100%, but I’ve also heard he usually has good information sources and accurate views, so at least he deserves to be read (thanks).
———————
(To be continued)
To tie up a couple loose ends…
JMG: Recently, you’ll recall I was discussing my theory that the 6th plane soul-swarm is linked to Neptune-Saturn conjunctions in Aries — arriving a few centuries before the Bronze Age, reaching their zenith in the Axial Age, and finally departing around now. Anyway, I posted one link, but there’s another link confirming the time-frame, which I wanted to share:
https://gururattanablog.com/an-epic-new-world/
which is in addition to https://www.yasminboland.com/6000-years-later-saturn-and-neptune-meet-again/
ftr, I sense that I’m of this earth, for better or worse. When I read about places like the Kingdom of Heaven, New Jerusalem, Shangri-La, Pure Land, etc, despite their pleasant qualities, they always seemed a bit strange and alien to me. I for one bid those souls a bon voyage, and thanks for making things a little more interesting via their sacrifice.
There was a commenter asking about the Imperium Press substack, and its philosophy of authority & command. There seemed to be a misunderstanding there — he’s saying that authority cannot bind itself, and that there’s a fundamental choice between crowning your ancestral authorities & gods, versus crowning yourself. This is reflected in Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma: is it just because the gods say so, or do the gods say so because it’s just? This is far more than semantics, it’s a fundamental philosophical divide. The latter presumes that you are capable of knowing what is just, over and above the gods & ancestral authorities, which effectively crowns the individual. But since authority cannot be self-binding, that leads straight to Liberalism, do as thou wilt, wokeness and anarchy.
If, however, it is just because the gods say so, then you’re crowning the gods as authority, as it should be. Your role is to ascertain what their commands are, if they’re from a valid authority and are genuine (ie you’re not being deceived by an impersonator), and then to obey. Notably, commands differ depending on who you are, which culture/ethnicity you’re from, male or female, child or adult, and so on, which relates to the concept of svadharma.
There’s alot more to it, like Odinic and Tyrrhic, ie the creator and maintainer of order, but this is a basic introduction. The long and short of it is that obedience to proper authorities begets order, while obedience to one’s own whims begets dissolution.
I’ve read online some people who think there’s a relation between the Epstein ugly and dirty scandal and how Trump and Netanyahu hurried up to smash Iran. In the short form (if you haven’t heard it yet, which I doubt), Trump could be engaged in the Epstein thing, and the Israeli lobby/Mossad knew it too, so they blackmailed Trump with it, unless he helped Israel to destroy the Iranian regime.
Well, I think this story could became a good novel or movie, but without real evidences it has the risk of falling in the “conspiracy theories” cathegory. There can be another explanations for the US/Zionist agreement to commit these attacks. For example, it’s said the Israeli US lobby usually funds the two American parties to be sure Israel will be always supported by the US. I can guess that lobby could have reminded Trump recently how much money they’ve given to allow him his second mandate. Or maybe there’s another kind of deal, due to a previous favor, and so on.
We’ll know it some day, or maybe not.
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I’m afraid the current Middle East war encourages the usual fast collapse supporters to predict how near is the end of the world (one more time: very predictable…). Of course, I think we’re going possibly to harder times, but in the Long Decline way.
Karen #297 & JMG:
Thanks so much for the realism. At least I know what to expect and how to plan accordingly. My real passion is writing and was hoping editing could be my “day job” which perhaps eventually I can still work towards after gaining some real world experience and whatnot. I saw a Reddit post yesterday of an editor expressing their dismay about having to edit an entirely LLM-generated manuscript, and honestly I don’t see it catching on long term. It lacks that “it” factor in genuine human writing and book lovers can intuitively tell when it’s not. At best I think the whole LLM phenomenon will be built in to how we interface with computers (ex. verbal prompts versus point-click). Or perhaps I’m just massively coping lol.
@Other Owen the use of “cocaine” in place of LLM works, it totally works.
@ JMG
You said: “Archivist, it’s quite possible that the Trump administration is hoping that Iran will do that. The US tends to pull together, even after periods of stark political division, when major wars arrive.”
OK, a perfect plan: make a draft and send hundreds of thousands of soldiers to a country of 90 million inhabitants, extremely mountainous, with a culture associated with martyrdom, with a drone-centric military doctrine, in the midst of the Epstein scandal—what could go wrong?
All based on the same old script decades old lies that none believe for a second today, like “Iranian WMD”, “Iran a week to have the bomb”, “Iran next week will a ICBM that can target USA land”, and all the rest of shale and lies that Trump was denouncing from 20 years, but now are he’s spreading like hell. The “Peace President”
Of course your congress and senate will support Trump (or better we say Israel) unconditionally, of course, in this new “existential threat for the United States”, but I think the American people will oppose and see through the mountain of raw lies and, in fact, this could be the end of the “regime” in USA not in Iran.
Over time as the body of dead american soldiers start to arrive in USA from the ME, I see Trump in a very problematic situation, and I think the prospect for midterms elections is very gloomy for him. Now the iraqi militias are attacking US bases in Irak multiple times, and this is only the begining of the war.
I don’t thing this war was a good idea for Trump nor to kill Khamenei.
Cheers
David
Patrick H, (no. 295) Was it John Wansbrough’s “Qur’anic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation,” or Patricia Crone and Michael Cook’s “Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World”? (Both 1977)
These days all the youths are reading Christoph Luxenberg’s “The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran.” He thinks much Qur’anic phraseology is taken from from Syriac Christian liturgy, but was misinterpreted by Arabic speakers. Unfortunately, hardly anybody is in much of a position to evaluate this…
As for whether Muhammad ever existed, there’s evidence of him going back to the 7th century.
Hi John Michael,
Ah, yes, those pesky herbivores reminded me of Rommel and his naughty antics. Fortunately, my supply lines weren’t as over extended as the Germans, sorry I meant to type, err, deer… 😉 How good is the general’s quote: “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” A clever bloke that one, and a formidable leader.
The deer would strike hard, and then decamp. When a stag destroyed a fifteen year old olive tree by ring barking it, the future became all too clear. Two similarly aged apple trees were actually pulled over. Amazing creatures, total menaces. They’ve got no reason to be here now and there are consequences.
By the way, I see that you noted seed potato issues. Last year a small bag of those were around $15, and which seemed an uneconomic proposition to me. The hot and dry summer of the previous growing season produced a potato shortage nationally, even locally. We bought the seed potatoes anyway, and ramped up production. It was a very good season here, but summer was hotter and even drier, so my gut feeling suggests that it’ll be another bad year nationally for the tasty tuber.
And I must say, at one stage last year, we had to purchase potatoes, and when baking them, they smelled bad. Threw the lot into the worm farm. It’s an extraordinary achievement, to produce potatoes which smell bad when being cooked. That’s not right. Home grown potatoes by way of contrast, are amazing. I’m unsurprised by negative health outcomes in the population.
Cheers
Chris
>Watching people using cocaine to ‘amplify’ their abilities over the past few months has had me thinking and feeling I really need to lean in the other direction.
But you don’t know if you don’t like it, if you never try it. Just one little bump.
William: Thank you, I wish you the best as well. I’m pretty disturbed to hear that Canada is doing war scenarios about the US. I’m not a military person so I don’t have any special insights into that, but I don’t like the sound of it. And “weaponizing” Canadians living in the US? I’m trying to find a way to interpret that, that isn’t insane.
There’s something I see going on at this site called Quora, a question and answer site. I see lots of questions about what would happen if the US invaded, and usually someone answers by saying in high dudgeon that due to Article V of the NATO Treaty the mighty nations of Europe will come to our aid and put the dastardly Americans in their place. I’m a little skeptical that Europe could do much for us. There seems to be a lot of people putting stock in that though.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think trying to defend is a good idea anyway. If the US decides to take political control of Canada, it will. I don’t see why there has to be loss of life over it. Especially not a protracted period of guerilla actions. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Alberta. I just don’t think being part of the US would be so terrible. I don’t want it exactly, but I don’t not want it enough to have a war over it.
I’m pretty sure I remember a time when the anti-Americanism was more in the nature of razzing than anything, but I gather that I’m a little older than you (WIlliam) so I guess it morphed into something more serious in time for that to be what you’ve been seeing all along. I have a memory from when I was a single digit in years of seeing on TV that people in Detroit were displaying a huge banner saying “Thank You Canada” for the people of Windsor over something related to the 1979 Iran hostage thing. I still get a little emotional when I think about that and it formed my core understanding of what our relationship to the US was: it was one where that could happen.
I wonder if a lot of this is about the Ottawa establishment trying to resist an elite replacement?
Chuaquin #411
Zarcayce # 378:
I’m afraid you’ve got a very romantic idea of History. Although History isn’t as exact as the “hard sciences” like Physics or Chemistry (so it’s nearer to social sciences), I think when it’s well worked by its experts, can be more than myths and another stories. Historians can find more or less believable written sources, and they can guess what ideas had their writers. Archeology can help to know more exactly historical events.”
Romantic vision? Not at all, as you commented, YOU BELIEVE, it’s just that, a belief.
Reality is more complex, but simply put, there is no objective science. Science is just one way of perceiving reality, like any other. This is coming from someone who studied physics, chemistry, and mathematics (if any accreditation is necessary). I still remember the ICP-OES analyses and how the samples were treated with hydrofluoric acid.
de que sirve la arqueología, si lo que realmente importa son los modelos mentales(estado de conciencia) que estas civilizaciones tenían. Que tal va el esfuerzo pars,descifrar la escritura del rongo-rongo?
What I mean is that this idea of believing that science, which is really a set of different disciplines that sometimes have little in common, in fact, chemists can survive without physics and mathematics, in organic chemistry can survive without spectrometry methods, there are books on identifying organic compounds without the need for spectrometry, atomic theory was chemistry, not physics, it is due to the stoichiometric laws of chemistry.
I went off on a tangent; that idea of believing that science explains everything or can explain everything… is quite flawed.
J.L.Mc12, I didn’t forget your other questions, but I don’t feel prepared to answer them. The energy consumption of the cells themselves is the least part of the whole energy budget, it’s all the supporting systems that are energy intensive. Since I don’t know anybody who has used cells for computing, I don’t know how those energy budgets compare.
As for being competitive in a far future… It seems to be that artificial cell culture is among the most fragile processes of all. A culture powered by solar and wind energy, for example, would try to avoid building anything that absolutely depends on stable energy input for months or years without interruption.
@J.L.Mc12 and the wetware discussion in general.
A few points that I believe have been missing.
1) a human brain (or even the most humble flatworm brain) is not simply a pile of neurones. It is the complex result of hundreds of millions of years of evolution.
Neurones are probably just a contingent material that happened to be available to Gaia at the time. To the best of my knowledge there is nothing fundamentally different between neurones and solid state components
2) signal speed in neurones is ridiculously slow compared to circuitry. This means scalability problems.
3) the assumption that brains are first and foremost computing devices is a big one with no proof whatsoever.
Robert,
I do indeed live in a region of the US with a number of folks descended from Spanish speakers, many of whom do speak themselves. Also a bunch of Marvel fans.
Andy, I did realize that it was probably intended to indicate that the Jesuses and Lokis in fact believed themselves to be divine, but I was very amused by my base assumptions.
For those who are interested in synchronicities, a friend observed to me that this strike on Iran began on the eleventh day of the ninth month in the Muslim calendar, and also that it is 47 years since Iran declared war on the USA, and this is the 47th President.
Venezuela, Iran, Cuba next. Trump is on a roll, watch out world!
People who think America will get mired and US soldiers are going home in body bags en masse are mistaken. In the last short few days, Iran has turned most the ME against it anyway. It’s not like some big brotherhood over there.
Chuaquin, I don’t care about the motivations of Israel and the US. I don’t think women’s rights are on their agenda. But as long as the results are that a murderous theocratic dictatorship gets destroyed, I’m cheering them on.
Hey Aldarion and Dropbear
All of these statements from the both of you are understandable and credible to me, and you have made it clear that wetware is something of a dead-end “subsidy dumpster” technology. I feel a bit silly for not realising exactly how difficult making such a thing real would be, undoubtedly an effect of years of sci-fi exposure making it seem more credible than it should have. For all their faults, I would have like to have seen at least one “great brain” be created in reality, just to see what would happen. But it’s now more clear how unrealistic such a thing would be.
Out of curiosity, Aldarion, do you think that there is any application for this “organoid” technology that’s worth its expense? My understanding is that it is being examined as an alternative to live test-subjects for certain drug and disease trials.
I just read your Aries Ingress, JMG. Thanks for doing them, as an aspiring astrologer (7 years of study so far) they are an amazing bargain for 5-10 dollars a month. I’ve read Abu Ma’shar, Dorotheus, Firmicus, and many modern astrologers, but you’ve certainly convinced me that the 19th/early 20th century school is also worth looking at from your record of accuracy and grounded empiricism.
This chart is really interesting; it seems as though Trump’s economic policies may be bearing fruit, but that the scandals and pressure cooker nature of social media and modern decline are driving some intense, indiscriminate hatred of the ruling class among the population, for good reason. I would think the admin would be in pretty bad shape with Sun conjunct three malefics simultaneously, but the fact that the 4th is ruled by that same Sun makes me think that Trump has really lucked out that the Dems are bottoming out as we speak. An even slightly more competent opposition could turn Neptunian popular pressure, Saturnian frustration, and Martial anger into a wave of potent political energy.
Looking ahead, I note that the Libra Ingress of September 22, which covers the midterms, seems much more ambivalent. The Sun there isnt nearly as bad, cadent in the 6th but trine a strong-ish Uranus in the 2d house of the economy, and the chart ruler is a fallen Mars in the 4th squaring the Ascendant and Mercury. I’m really interested in the juxtaposition of a debilitated Mercury as chart ruler in the Aries Ingress, with the Libra Ingress’s prominent, Descendant-conjunct Mercury that both opposes the Ascendant and the ruler of the 10th (Saturn) and trines the ruler of the 4th (Moon) but then also squares the major debilitated planet IN the 4th. (Mars). As if this wasn’t tangled enough, Saturn the 10th ruler also trines Jupiter, and Moon the 4th ruler opposes Jupiter. It seems like some really mixed indications; Jupiter trine the ruler of the 10th should indicate great fortune for the head of state, but the ruler of the 10th opposed to such a prominent Mercury with the 4th ruler trining it would be bad news for the head of state. But it seems to be saying that Trump loses the communication/optics war, but also that the Democrats lose the communication war even harder? Perhaps Trump loses it, but the Republicans as a whole do better? This might be yet another indication of the steady outgrowing of Trump by the Trumpist movement. Trump ironically may benefit a lot from his movement not being as wholly dominated by him, as his own communication foibles may not be the deciding factor. Mars fallen in the 4th being the chart ruler makes me think that Democratic self-immolation, or maybe some big rural disaster is the main keystone of this period. Oh, and I forgot to mention, Mars is sextile the Sun. Maybe that means that Trump can capitalize on the Democratic failures.
I really need to do a sit down, long analysis of this chart, then compare it to JMG’s down the line. Any thoughts or critiques by anyone would be appreciated.
The Iranians are targeting Saudi oil refineries:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/saudi-aramco-shuts-ras-tanura-refinery-after-drone-strike-source-says-2026-03-02/
Cristophe # 410:
If the Hormuz blocking lasts enough time, the EU will suffer painful effects in its economy (in addition to its silly situation with Ukraine). China will be in economical problems too, but its dictatorial regime is well oiled, so it will be better prepared than EU countries to “control” possible social unrest. By the way, if/when China enters in economical recession due to Hormuz blockade (less oil available, ahem), the globalized world (USA included) would start suffering a world recession too: China is the world-industrial center. Everybody would be a loser.
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I’ve written before that according Ukrainian Law, it’s not possible to call people there for elections during a war. It’s the 4th year of war, so do the math…However, Russia had elections a time ago during the current war (oh surprise, Putin won them), so evidently Russian Law allows elections in war time.
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Wer: If the EU elites try to commit a “color revolution” or an electoral fraud against current Hungarian government, but they fail, what do you think would be their following step? If they’re desperate and reckless enough, they only could try a “hard” coup d’état o a direct military intervention…Well, I think we’ve had enough with one war in European ground (Ukraine).
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DFC # 415:
Indeed, the idea of starting a war to shut up dissenting and unify people around jingoism was what pushed in 1982 the Argentinian dictatorship for its crazy and reckless war against the UK. Well, you know well how finished the Malvinas/Falklands war: eventually, a defeated Argentina changed its government soon…
By the way, yes, Iran has far more population than Irak and its size it’s roughly twice as Spain area, for example, with a heck of deserts and mountains (yes: do the math).
I’m skeptical about the US/Zionist axis commiting a ground invasion against Iran, because black corpse bags would come back to the US soon…I bet after a brutal air bombing war, in not much weeks we’ll see Trump and Netanyahu singing “victory”(Spectacle must go on).
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In addition to my last comment about hypothetical Epstein-Iran mess connection, I can point its supporters have a naïve moralistic idea, me think. I don’t know if Trump is within Epstein “customers”, but even he was in it, his hypothetical sin/crime would be a very small problem when you compare it with the hundreds (or thousands) of dead Iranian civilians due to the current bombings. I’m talking of it according my ethical view.
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Zarcayce # 420:
Well, I wrote History isn’t a science as exact as hard sciences. So I recognize historians can’t know 100% what happened during the past. I think you’ve understood I’m a naïve scientificist, which isn’t my case. Hard sciences can explain A PART of reality, but not all me think. However, I also think they’re useful tools when you don’t idealize them. Between scientificism and postmodern theories against science objective value, there must be a middle ground, me think. Do you understand now my personal view?
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DT # 424:
Be careful, tryumphalism can be as dangerous as pessimism to see the real situation. Have you read a comment I wrote pointing we don’t really know the two main “X” hidden in this war? By the way, Trump efforts to show strength maybe aren’t equal to have the same real strength. I’d suggest you (if you don’t mind my advice) to have more calm, and wait…OK?
I’d like to share with you all an interesting fact about the Iranian regime. At least during Khomeini era, legal regime about loans was a 0% interest rate; because according the muslim doctrine, loans with interest rate were forbidden. I don’t know how really they were based in the Quran or Muhammad sayings, but the hard fact is Iranian banks loans were without an interest rate. Of course, illegal usura existed too in the real Iran (you made the law, you made the trick). I don’t know if this economical view has survived until today Iran, but it seems IMHO a different point of view about economical life. Well, of course I dislike Irani dictatorship, which indeed isn’t a paradise for civil rights and freedoms. However, to understand a thing isn’t the same as justifying it…
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I’m glad (ironically) our local (far) right guys in my country have realized how much women are oppressed…only in Muslim countries and their European diaspora. More fuel for cultural wars! I think this “selective feminism” is quite dishonest and fake (right wing people never complain the Catholic Church priesthood is an only-men club, cough…); but according another point of view (cynical or “realpolitik”), it could work to erode a bit more “the most feminist and progressive government”(President Sánchez said it) we’ve ever “enjoyed” in the history of Spain. What a paradox…
Apart from the bear style stance of the Yang school, all of Tai Chi requires an upright posture, as if there were a string on the top of your head pulling you upwards like a puppet. At the same time the overall method is ‘sinking’ which is a relaxed version of rooting your stance into the earth. The movements should be carried out as if you were moving through liquid concrete, so that the body imagines it is under great strain, whilst being completely relaxed. The chi follows the mind so you are actually doing imaginary body building, except that the effect is real and internal. In the distant past Tai Chi was practised extremely slowly, so that a single movement would take a couple of minutes. The great masters of former times who practiced in forests were said to make the surrounding trees bent forwards when they inhaled and bend backwards, as if from a great wind, when they exhaled. The mysterious inventor of Tai Chi created a very condensed encyclopaedia of chi gung, including all three types; spiritual, medical and martial. Every single movement is apparently a template for roughly a hundred styles of chi gung.
Hey JMG
That’s a good counterpoint. I’d consider the Tolkien estate as well, but they still have copyright protection rather than being public domain.
The only other explanation I could think of for why Stapledon’s novels don’t get the kind of treatment that Lovecraft’s do, is that his style is far more philosophical and “dry” than Lovecraft. The former is writes as if he’s literally writing a kind of “popular history” book of the future, rather than a novel. So that may have dampened the kind of enthusiasm that other authors, who try to be more engaging and stimulating, get as a matter of course. But even then, the universe Stapledon created has so much potential for more stories set in it, or at least some fanfic.
I’m sure that you mentioned reading “Last and first men” at some point in the past, so I should ask if you have any opinions on this novel? As much as I enjoy it, I do find find his insistence on civilisations spending thousands of years on some arbitrary scientific goal, often with a high and drawn out failure rate before eventually succeeding, to be hard to take seriously. For example, I reread the chapter that introduces the great brains, and it states that it took several thousand years of “tragic abortions” before the Third Men developed a successful prototype of the great brains. Could anyone really imagine a civilisation spending that much time trying to achieve some odd scientific goal, and failing continuously for so long until they even got a passable result? I think Stapledon got a bit fixated on having “vast expanses of time” being used in his novel, to the point that he makes it a bit ridiculous.
Looking forward to the future Mentat training manual!
Sorry, it seems that when using the translator, it copied incorrectly and I left a paragraph in Spanish, sorry hahaha
Next day 8 will be the International Women Day, so I’d like to write now about (woke) feminism, an ideology not very friendly for criticism (ahem). This year things have been getting interesting here. Since some weeks ago, Spanish MSM have told us last big political scandal: a high rank Police boss has been accused for several crimes against two policewomen (sexual harassment, abuse and eventually rape). Of course, I respect pressumption of innocence for everybody, according to the rule of law, but the supposed victims have shown some evidences to be watched by the Criminal Court…I see this scandal first as the last right wing opposition tactics to erode a bit more a weakened “leftist” government trapped by its own woke demagogy (opposition leader is asking for the “head” of the Minister responsible for the Police: very predictable!). However, beyond the evident low politics games, I can point a deeper teaching of this scandal.
According the last feminist wave (copied from the USA woke feminism) we’ve suffered…errr…enjoyed during this last decade, the Patriarchy must be abolished (it’s evil and it “evidently” exist). So their privileged members, the bad men, must be prosecuted and punished to protect poor women (perpetual victims of men during all the known History). This apparently radical feminism has been spreading the woke “culture of the suspicion” against every straight white man here, according its victimist and identitarian ideology, funded by our current Madrid govt (subsidies and public propaganda, for example-cough-). Every man could be a bad guy (“microagressions” paranoia).
Who can protect really the poor women from bad men? According nowadays woke doctrine: the govt and its bureaucracies, and of course the Police. MSM serfdom to the feminist woke agenda has worked well these years, too, creating social panic about gender violence (indeed, most murders are commited here by men who kill another men, not women!). Well, last political scandal has shown there’s at least one rotten apple within the cops. You can also see police members go on being mainly men today yet (in contrast with the civil bureaucracy feminization, policewomen keep being a minory today). And I can open a can of worms when I wonder how many policemen have been accused in my country by crimes against women (for example, gender violence). Maybe these crimes rate within male cops is equal or higher than non armed men (?).
I mean, I’ve seen a big contradiction between today feminists “fight against Patriarchy” using a tool (the State) which since it was born (as first state-towns) a lot of centuries ago, has been ruled usually by some men, and obeyed by male bureaucrats and soldiers…Even today police forces and armies have majority of men. I think woke feminism doesn’t notice or it doesn’t want to notice this elephant in the room. I guess why: maybe they think like the rest of woke leftism, that the state and its interventionism is always good, me think; in addition of how current feminism has been subsidized by our govt too. A last interesting fact: far right wing party (Vox) has much more male membership than female one, and according some statistics, young men tend to prefer voting to far right here…Do the math. The opposite of a bad idea…
Wer here
Well I don’t think trump has a clue what he got himself into….
He probably expected that people in Iran will rebel soon or something and nothing, remember the coup attempt in January of this year? Only that was stupid and harebrained and probably got a lot of Mossad agents in there killed (they would really be useful now) A lot of American died already something tells me those statistics are really flawed (CENTRECOM)
I believe trump expected an Venezuela style quick victory over Iran I honestly think so only know he is in a bad position.
DT: replying to your comment> I don’t think so the Middles East is a bunch of corrupt Third World countries completely dependent on outside forces to survive for example they don’t have a miliotary production at all they rely on the overpriced stuff from America, plus those countries in the Middle East have a lot submersivve elements in them Large portions of Iraq and Syria still have pro Iran militias there like Houthies. During attacks on American basses in the regions the local were cheering… The idea those people whom live in clans and are dependednt on the Us to guide them like children will somehow unite is just stupid in my eyes. Wven now they beg the US for protection while all of protection is being send to Israel.
The US is evacuating it’s fighters to Cyprus now. The British are leaving Cyprus It will be a long war…
In 2025 I’ve heard that Iran will collapse in 2 days the opposite happened they will prepare for a long war Russia and China will send some planes with stuff on top of that.
Two contrasting takes on the current war: that of James Howard Kunstler and that of Ron Unz. I feel like we’re all on the Pequod now and Cap’n Ahab is leading us on to …. we’ll see.
“chemists can survive without physics and mathematics”
As a person with a chemistry degree, no, chemists can not survive without physics and mathematics. PH and solubility products as well as kinetics are very mathematical. The whole business of electron clouds and bonding is physics based.
Spectroscopy isn’t absolutely necessary though it certainly made life easier. It extends our limited sense of color (one whole octave of frequencies) way into the ultraviolet and down deep into infrared.
@Chuaquin
“Curt # 147:
Simplicius often is right in his views about current geopolitical mess, so we can think it’s very possible the US is now trying to find an unstable equilibrium between obeying the Zionist lobby according its traditional serfdom, and avoiding big scale war. An impossible task in the long term me think.”
Let’s see whether the curious predictions Happy Panda presents rein in true.
Now on day three I get the notion that at least nervousness all around is on the rise.
Is a truce and quick end to this possible? Or do we see not only an exchange of rockets and drones (makes sense somehow with reclining demographics in the global north), but also the announced cyber war and sleeper cells getting ready in the West, including the cartels as “vector” to the “virus”?
I’ve we’re to believe the purported news of the palm leaf files, then its about 1939 here, as an analogy.
It could be this train is rolling, and a quick and harmless retreating is impossible by now. That’s what also Simplicius muses.
Athaia # 425:
OK, according your view, Iranian theocratic regime is the bad guy and the USA (Trump?) the good guys. Real world is more complex than this opinion, me think. OK, Iranian clergy has killed people (I know it: I agree), but you should also see how the equally murderous and antidemocratic Arab Peninsula kingdoms (beginning with Saudi Arabia) haven’t never been a problem for USA governments; indeed they’re good allies for the West, yet. Arab kingdom regimes aren’t better than Iran clergy repressing women and gay people rights, and every political dissident attempt. I’m afraid you and another western people have a double standard ethics about dictatorships, so I think it isn’t a very honest nor fair view.
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Anonymous # 428:
Yes, things are getting hotter…I wonder how much accuracy can have Iranian missiles (with national origin or “made in China”). Iran cannot win a conventional war against the obvious US&Israel aerial/naval supremacy…but it can fight an assimetrical war yet, which could damage USA serfs…err…allies in Middle East area. Let’s wait.
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Tengu # 431:
To be frank with you, Tai Chi has never appealled me, I’ve prefered more Yoga, which of course is another thing, but helps body and mind too. Do you think Tai Chi has any advantage over Yoga or not?
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Zarcayce # 434:
No problem, don’t worry…Indeed, I’m spanish: Saludos.
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Wer # 436:
Your opinion about Trump motives to attack Iran could be right (we’ll see), but I also think Trump needs to return some favor to the Israeli lobby, as work hypothesis. Indeed, Zionist lobbyst fund Republicans and Democrats alike in every elections…(cough).
Trump isn’t an automathic Netanyahu puppet, but I think his agenda is to some extent conditioned by Israel
own agenda (to get rid of Zionist main
enemy in Middle East: Iran).
Another Trump motive could be provoking Iran regime to close Hormuz streit to choke partly oil supply to China. There’s a little problem for this hypothetical strategy: if China begins to suffer an economical crisis and its industries start making less products, it’s a matter of time the rest of the world would suffer too (thanks to the globalization).
Of course, a “color revolution” was attempted in Iran in January, but it failed, possibly thanks to the Iranian regime supporters (which are more than western MSM want to accept) and Chinese help. So the war escalation to please Netanyahu government was unavoidable for Trump.
In a further comment I’ll write more about this war…
@J.L.Mc12 , as I was working in basic research, I have only really thought about basic research applications for brain organoids: investigating signaling pathways that might depend on three-dimensional organization of the cells. Research results, once established and reproducible by other labs, don’t need to be repeated all the time, so evaluating if costs are worth it is a bit different.
I think any drug tests in organoids would certainly have to be repeated in more realistic models if one wants any security at all.
For Scotlyn and Wer, explanations, that is speculations, for why attack Iran and why now range from Bibi blackmailed Trump through distraction from the Epstein Affair and Trump got bored with negotiations to Bibi threatened a nuclear strike if the US did not get on board. My guess would be some combination of all of the above.
Thus far it is unlikely that Iran will attack the continental US. Iranian elites have relatives who live here; some of their offspring are in university here; and they themselves know they might someday need a comfy bolt hole and hope to trade outdated insider info for an academic perch and nice suburban house. If the present admin had chosen to go after this kind of elite migration, the whole country would be cheering and the Rs would have nothing to worry about come the midterms. Many of the employers who knowingly and on purpose with malice aforethought underpay undocumented workers are themselves recent migrants. Were DOJ to go after them for not paying minimum wage, unsafe working conditions and so on, that would blow a gargantuan hole through the far left’s “American success story” narrative. If I were a Republican voter, I would be asking my representatives, instead of wasting millions on hiring an army of incompetent malcontents, hows about we enforce the laws we already have?
Athaia, people get the government they want. If what you want is fun, heart pounding excitement, (someone else’s) blood on the floor; if voters prefer emotion to reason, or believe what they feel is what is true, dictators and wannabes deliver for those voters. While I share the dismay you expressed above, I don’t think war will cure the disease. Judicious use of, again, immigration policy, might help. Well, Mr./Ms. former foreign minister, uh, you see, you might not be personally an abuser of women and underlings, or so you claim, but that accompanying hoard of relatives, in-laws, supernumeries and their relatives and hangers on do appear to us to be a pack of misogynistic theocrats and lazy cows and we don’t want them in our country.
As if we don’t have enough to worry about . . .
Why haven’t we detected alien civilizations? Two possible answers: either there aren’t any, or there are plenty but they don’t last long enough for us to detect them.
“The silence, the authors argue, is not a matter of our technology being too primitive. It is a genuine absence. Running the numbers, the team concluded that if intelligent life is common, technological civilizations must typically survive for no more than around 5,000 years. Not millions of years. Not even tens of thousands. Five thousand years, a figure that puts the entirety of recorded human history inside the danger zone.”
— https://phys.org/news/2026-03-civilizations.html
Elon, you better get a move on. Our time is running out.
Sidaway @287: thanks very much for your comments. Regarding “Submit”, hrrm hoom, don’tcha know, that’s what the word in essence translates to into American English from Arabic. Yeah, no vowels, a different way of approaching words and thoughts, thus many translate it as “submission” but as an active verb, well… treating it like a command (bleh!) fits. There’s no “-ity” or “ism” appended nor seemingly welcomed.
>In the short form (if you haven’t heard it yet, which I doubt), Trump could be engaged in the Epstein thing, and the Israeli lobby/Mossad knew it too, so they blackmailed Trump with it, unless he helped Israel to destroy the Iranian regime.
It’s a bit more complicated than that, you have it partly right. Let’s rewind the clock back to the late 90s. Trump, was a different sort of man, with a different sort of fortune. He was flat on his back broke and every media type seemed to take pleasure in snickering at his failures. They weren’t hateful or spiteful yet (that would come later), but they took fun in his misfortune. I vaguely was aware of him at the time, thought he was a clown that lived in some faraway mythical place called NYC, and that was the extent of it.
Now how did a guy that was flat broke, recover? Gentlemen, we have the money. We can make him stronger, faster, with more hair. Basically the Israeli mafia made him whole. They did him a favor and he never ever forgot it. Would you, if someone helped you out like that? If you do him a solid, he’s the kind of guy who will return it, as I understand it.
So no, he was never in the pocket of Putin. But other people’s pockets? Absolutely. Not a saint. But compared to the competition, man do they make him look like one at times.
As far as the Epstein scandal goes, I think they’re feeling their blackmail power drain away from them. Every name, every deed, that’s one less person they have control over. For a control freak, that must be a terrible feeling – to lose control like that, bleeding away, drip drip drip. Might make you freak out. Might make you want to use what power you still have left to do something bold and stupid, one last time. Something really ill-thought-out and off-the-cuff.
Wer here
Well Trump was making crazy comments about sending an land invasion to Iran.. Ok that doesn’t seem feasible at all
And sending someone else would end in disaster Iraq (with US and British weapons) had a giant army and it invaded Iran just a year after the Islamic Republic formed (they didn’t have any army or missiles then) and after a guering war they crashed Saddam’s army and Iraq’s army never recovered from this defeat. Saudi’s they had been fighting a war and failing a it with the Houthi’s and failed to capture Yemen despite trying since 2014 (despite the Houthi’s being small guerilla type’s). Israel failed to conquer Gaza a city the size of Maurioupol in Ukraine etc. UAE tried to grab a piece of Yemen and start a small country there they were attacked by Houthi’s and Saudi’s and run away in three days, Kuwait was conquered by a much weaker Saddam’s army in 1990 without a shot.
Not many Great warrior’s there aren’t they… take for example Dubai unless you are a rich oil sheik and live in a skyscraper you are probably scraping by in a shack on the desert somewhere. outher countries are worse off nationalistic pride is almost non existent and corruption and bribery is the way of life, democracy and human right don’t exist in many pro US middle East countries. Another recent example Sauid’s Kuwait Quatar were bombed heavily by Iran in three days and the response of their military generals? Run screaming to US for more “protection” instead of wanting to fight yourself because it is too hard….
Chuaquin, you said:
“Iran cannot win a conventional war against the obvious US&Israel aerial/naval supremacy…but it can fight an assimetrical war yet, which could damage USA serfs…err…allies in Middle East area”
What “win” means in this context?
what “to win” is for Trump? what is for Netanyahu?, to kill many thousands Iranians following the style of McNamara with the “body count”?, really they think this will work to put the mullahs on their knees and asking the Emperor to spare their lives?
What fantasy world do these people live in? They didn’t read history?, the Vietnam War, the 3 Afghanistan War, the Spanish Independence War (1808-1812)?
Yes they could many thousands even millions, but to make the people of a proud country “to surrender” is another thing.
This morning SoW Pete Hegseth said: “We didn’t start the war but under president Trump we are finishing it”, really the american people believe what these people say?, in what kind of paralell universe those people are living in?
The “regime” in DC is digging his own grave.
Cheers
David
Curt (#439):
I’ve we’re to believe the purported news of the palm leaf files, then its about 1939 here, as an analogy.
I agree. Craig Hamilton-Parker interviewed Vinita again and I remember she said newer Naadi questioners asked if it was still possible the Four Nations War could be avoided.
The Naadis replied that this Four Nations War is now, sadly, unavoidable. My note: I’m thinking it would more accurately really be called the Four Continental Great Powers War but I’ll stick with the title the Naadis use.
As late as Dec 2024 the Naadis said there was still the possibility this Four Nations War could yet have been completely avoided but not enough people around the planet have “gotten religion” yet and begun praying. The Leaves report the trajectory to this war karma-wise is now too overwhelming and “it is going to happen.” [Vinita’s words from the interview]. Historians will look back and say it officially began in 2027.
For the record this is precisely what Armstrong’s Socrates Pi-based algorythm program says is coming too. He’s been nearly shrieking in his daily op-eds over and over that the planet is cursed with the most bone-headed war mongers for global leaders ever (he especially has choice, expletative filled words for U.S. and European elites) and he’s being cursed to sit helplessly by and watch all of these global idiot leaders drag everybody else into WW3.
There is one bright side to this. Several Naadi Questioners asked if nuclear bombs are going to be used in this coming war. As I recall – I need to go back and re-watch to verify this – the Naadis have always replied no, they will not.
The Leaves reassured each Querant there are “guard rails in place” (Vinita’s words) to prevent it from happening. The Divine is aware of what is coming and I guess will not allow life on this planet to be eliminated which is what would happen if nuclear bombs were used in this now-unstoppable war.
The karma toward great-scale war is just too strong. Sadhguru has often said it is unbelievable how powerful Ignorance is. His quote: “Ignorance is very powerful.”
The next-best thing the Leaves keep saying is to encourage as many people as possible to begin praying. I keep saying it over and over mainly because the Leaves keep giving that answer to all Querants who ask what can they to do to help.
Prayer will save lives. It will have a big uplifting and life-affirming impact on Humanity’s Collective Mental Body and greatly reduce the severity of the coming war.
Many, many people will live who otherwise are going to die if not for prayer. Also anyone who knows how to do uplifting and life affirming rituals is encouraged by the Naadis to begin doing this too. Vinita herself has already begun doing Pujas (the sanskrit word for rituals) to scale back the amplitude of the coming war.
This is our 1939 and the new Dion Fortune (JMG) has provided some excellent instructions on how to do prayer, meditation and rituals that will help humanity throughout the coming wars.
The de-facto war between Iran, it’s proxies, vs Israel, the USA, and quite possibly a bunch of gulf states seems to be widening pretty fast. Not sure what Trump’s goal is. Not sure where events will go – wars are always a bit of a pandora’s box. Once you start, you can’t always control what happens, and you can easily end up in a situation no one wanted or expected. Like WW1 being the long, drawn-out meatgrinder that it was. ‘Over by Christmas’ yeah right.
Just thinking that while Trump’s short sharp military adventures have gone pretty well for him so far, if he keeps doing this, sooner or later he’ll bite off more than he can chew, and things will go sideways for the USA in a big way. And a bunch of other people who have the wrong friends, or are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
If you have been letting things like food and medication storage lapse, now might be a good time to go through your stuff and make sure you have essentials where you can. Especially for those in Europe, since I understand Iran has closed the straits of Hormuz, which will mess up shipping something fierce.
Just a little update on the current state of the Long decent. For all the talk of future ‘this and that’ plans, the mining industry has been talking about these limits for a very long time now.
“The world is running out of silver — and AI is accelerating the squeeze”
https://www.mining.com/sponsored-content/the-world-is-running-out-of-silver-and-ai-is-accelerating-the-squeeze/
@ Mary Bennet #
“Thus far it is unlikely that Iran will attack the continental US.”
This makes one wonder exactly WHAT this adventure does to advance American interests, no?
Curt # 439:
You’ve written about possible nervousness. I could agree. I don’t know if you’ve seen an online photo which shows Trump behind a window apparently yelling to another man (a diplomatic? a high rank civil servant?). I can’t verify if this photo is real or fake news, and in addition to this I’m unable to link nor copy online photos. But I bet some of you may have seen it today.
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I wonder what is thinking Putin in this moment about war against Iran. He seems to me very quiet during last days (if I’m not wrong). Even I could imagine him smiling. Why?
You’ll have noticed oil prices have going up an they could probably be higher next days, because Iran regime has blocked Hormuz (how many days more? Another “X” I can’t solve now). The more expensive’s oil, the more money will earn Russia, so Putin is going to be able to buy/make more weapons to send them against Ukraine. Bad news for the Kiev regime and its EU supporters (which in addition to this “small” problem will pay a more expensive oil).
In a comment before this one, I guessed one of the motives Trump had for this attacks could be to choke China economy provoking Iranians blockade of Hormuz. Well, it seems a collateral effect of this hypothetical geopolitical game is…helping indirectly Russia. (?)
How much time can pass until the western axis manages to reopen Hormuz?(another “X”).
By the way, it’s interesting how UK, France and German governments seem eager to help US&Israel., but Spain looks like quite reluctant to join this coallition made in a hurry, methink. We’ll see. Maybe Iran finally loses this war, but if the almighty couple needs such a help, I bet it couldn’t be an easy victory.
JMG
Concerning your theory on catabolic collapse, there’s an interesting idea that I’d like to hear your thoughts on. Today the US ISM Manufacturing PMI number came in today at 52.4 giving us two positive months of manufacturing growth and breaking the US economy out of the downturn since 2021. The ISM number crashed in 2019 only to rebound due to Covid stimulus money. Because the ISM tracks the production of real goods, I’ve seen some economists argue that the US in a practical sense (as in for the average American) has been in a deep recession since the end of 2018 and that due to both the Trump and Biden admins using Covid as an excuse to fudge the numbers, it only appeared on paper that the US hasn’t been. If that’s the case then the US is just now exiting a recession not about to enter one as most people think. This would mean the last 8 years have been a catabolic crisis. Does this sound plausible to you?
Isn’t this Iran thing all about diesel? Just like Venezuela was. And Russia is.
Mary B. # 442:
I take note of your hypothesis about why Trump started this “adventure” with his “friend” Netanyahu, but I also can point it’s another one between more online and street ideas. Who knows?
I’m a bit reluctanct to imagine Trump as a mere “victim” of Zionist game (he may win some advantage from this mess, methink), though bets keep open…
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Martin B. # 443:
I tend to think there’ve been and they’re now clever alien civilizations (the universe is so big…), but every cosmic smart species has going towards its own Long Descent (an universal fate?).
A third option is what the Chinese writer Cixin Liu (I hope I’ve written well his name) said a time ago: aliens really exists, but due to the Darwinist competition in which a “predator” civilization can “eat”(destroy) another civilization, every cautious aliens shut up (no radio emissions for example) to not be detected. So nobody but stupid humans say to the universe:”Hello, we’re here”.
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Wer # 446:
I think Trump threat of sending ground troops against Iran could be a mix between a tantrum and a distracting manoeuver (maybe he isn’t a military genius, but he’s a master in propagandistic phrases). So the Spectacle must go on.
In the real world, he perfectly knows that sending US ground troops against a country which has plenty of war drones is a perfect recipe for seeing black bags returning home soon. I mean, like we’ve been witnessing in Ukraine, drones are the biggest nowadays wars equalizator.
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DFC # 447:
Good questions…We can define “to win” according several ideas of victory. I’m not inside Trump brain so I can’t answer you in the short form.
However, military historians and analysts usually point battles and wars can end in two kinds of victories: a tactical and an strategical one. The best for an army is to win its enemy in the two ways; but sometimes you can see only a tactic victory without the strategic one, and also you can see a tactic defeat but a strategic victory for an army (classical example: Napoleon won tactically Borodino battle against Tzarist troops, but he ended losing the Russian campaign in the strategical long term, methink).
Of course, Pentagon and Israel strategists want to win in the two terms senses alike, but this is a big “X” by now.
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Pygmycory # 449:
Yes, Iranian regime blocked Hormuz for every western ship. I don’t know by sure wether they let pass it to Russian and Chinese ships or not. (?)
Of course, the western axis must be hurried to reopen that strait, especially the EU midgets (we don’t have big oil reserves, cough cough), and I guess Iran Navy could be destroyed soon as a whole. However, war drones can be hidden everywhere and Iran could have plenty of them, so do the math. Iran could keep Hormuz for a while threatening ships with drone attacks.
Thank you for your advice to European people. I’ll take note of it.
Cynthia Christie (no. 419) “’m pretty disturbed to hear that Canada is doing war scenarios about the US.”
Militaries have plans for everything, no matter how farfetched. If aliens land on Times Square, the US military has a plan for that (and not because they know anything about aliens, any more than we do).
Chuaquin (no. 430), “Islamic banking” is not all that weird. If interest can’t be charged, then a more investment-style arrangement can be substituted (so profit is shared rather than interest paid), or else amounts to be paid and revceived are written up in a contract without calling the difference “interest.” Yes, there are Qur’anic verses against interest, although these have to be interpreted. (e.g. is all interest forbidden, or only excessive interest?) The discussion has parallels in Christianity (prohibitions on usury.
It’s difficult to know really the “X” of the Iranian mess. Of course, we can see now the evident US&Israel aerial/naval supremacy, so we can bet Iran cannot win in the military aspect. Well, this military defeat can last more than the western warmongers would like to think: Iran is capable to launch missiles and drones against its Persian Gulf “brothers” , and the hurried up joining to the West axis by some European NATO members (by now: UK, Germany and France), could suggest us this war won’t finish tomorrow.
An eventual Zionist-USA military victory wouldn’t mean the automathical fall of the Iran regime, IMHO. In a technical sense, Iran can be defeated in the military aspect, and weakened in the economical one…but this future situation doesn’t equate in a 100% to the scenary in which political opposition gets the power then. Indeed, a paradoxical effect of the bombings could be, instead of demoralizing Iranian people and then getting rid of their theocracy, unifying population around its current government (according a hypothetical patriotic and religious wave). In addition to this, Iranian Commies hate the regime so they’re part of the political opposition, but they don’t like a possible return of a new Sha, like Monarchists want after clergy dictatorship ends. And Communists hate US and Israel too, so it wouldn’t be impossible they made a convenience alliance with Iran govt to prevent the Monarchism reached to power there.
I think current Iran regime can be ironically reinforced after the western attacks, in the political sense, in spite of having lost hypothetically the war. How much real support has the regime? I don’t know (X). How strong it controls MSM and social media?(Another X).
Western military victory and correlative Iranian defeat wouldn’t be the same as a political western victory against Iran. If the regime survives after the bombings, I could say the West axis would suffer a strategical defeat: the regime change goal to please Israel would fail.
I think US&Israel are very powerful yet, but not almighty. So better don’t sell the bear skin before hunting it.
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Not everything should be the Iran thing, so I want to comment you that I agree with a Kantian idea. Mr. Kant wrote we can’t know the outer world true and deep reality directly, unless we use our senses to pay attention to the phenomena born from this hidden reality, and then we can process them with our rational mind. I think he was right, because his view manages to avoid the idealist “solipsism” excesses and the scientificist materialism opposite extreme, to allow a not “totalitarian” empyrical science. We can know reality, but it’s bigger than our limited ways to catch him, methink. Of course, it’s my personal opinion.
Hi John Michael,
It occurs to me that, with the events in the the Gulf of Hormuz, our European friends might need to suck it up with the bear, and settle their many differences. Gas here is the key. You don’t need to be a long dead grand master genius of strategy, to realise that long supply lines are both a problem and risk, although it may help some to draw upon such knowledge.
There’s an old saying in relation to unruly dogs, ‘bring them to heel’.
The winds are changing, before our very eyes. Do you feel the change too?
Cheers
Chris
>asked if nuclear bombs are going to be used in this coming war.
My twisted sense of it – they have too much to lose still. When you need to worry is when they think they have little to lose or don’t care about the losses anymore.
My guess is they’ll get lobbed 70 years from now, at cities that are hives of dystopian derelict misery. It’ll take the news about a day to reach the countryside and most people will shrug their shoulders and go back to whatever they were doing.
Regarding um .. ‘recent events’ .. IMHO, talk stateside about Iran launching a nuke(s) towards the U.S. mainland is FANTASY. Were they to do such a thing, their formerly sovereign state would be turned into a Giant Ashtray in response. So, for America, all this supposed neocon spew about the fear of missiles raining on (pick your U.S location…) the ‘homeland’ is utter bs! As a sampling, I’ve read Kunstler’s blogpost.. as well as Conservative Treehouse… annnnd Jeff Childer’s…. and, to a one they’re All wanking-off over what a GREAT THING to Behold: Merikan kicking Persian Ass, because History starts in 1979-Yippykiyey! Same with the majority of ‘influencers’ on Rumble. Insane.
I wanted to tell Ecosophians despite my earlier posts for some reason I feel optimistic that this Four Nations War has a good chance of being much less dramatic overall than might seem from my posts.
I still remember Sadhguru and Sri Rohit Arya talking how sometimes a karmic culmination whose origin might be from god-knows-how-many-lifetimes or centuries ago can still pop up to throw everything up in the air again and even Enlightened Beings won’t see it coming. I recall Rajarshi Nandy saying if any Oracle has even 75% prediction accuracy that’s spectacularly good for an Oracle. Sri Rohit Arya insisted most yogis will never ever do predictions because the moment you look into the future to try to predict something it freezes one’s life energies to that timeline and there might have been a much better future had the yogi never looked.
So yeah…the Naadi Leaves have told some Querants this Four Nation War is happening but even so….when I remember what Siddhas, Rishis and Sages themselves keep reminding everyone about the nature of predicting things – some or – I hope – all of these predictions I’ve shared in this month’s Open Post will be 99% wrong.
Though I admit I want the prediction of the return of divine avatars, higher plane rishis and sages to Earth again over the next few decades to come true. 😛
I think the US government is foolish to think killing a few dozen leaders and destroying military facilities from the air and hacking the Iranian TV to deliver a message in Farsi from Trump encouraging an uprising will effect regime change. Perhaps there has been deeper background preparation and regime change will happen. Based on what I know of the Iranian system I agree with the following analysis.
“However, military analysts warn against the assumption that air strikes alone can trigger “regime change”. Michael Mulroy, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defence, told Al Jazeera Arabic that without “boots on the ground” or a fully armed organic uprising, the state’s deep security apparatus can survive simply by maintaining cohesion.
“You cannot facilitate regime change through air strikes alone,” Mulroy said. “If anyone is left alive to speak, the regime is still there.”
This resilience is rooted in Iran’s dual military structure. The government is protected not just by a regular army (Artesh), but also by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – a powerful parallel military force constitutionally tasked with protecting the velayat-e faqih system – the principle of the guardianship of the Islamic jurist.
Supporting them is the Basij, a vast paramilitary volunteer militia embedded in every neighbourhood, specifically trained to crush internal dissent and mobilise ideological loyalists.”
From https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/3/1/analysis-will-irans-establishment-collapse-after-the-killing-of-khamenei
The whole thing is worth reading. I doubt the above described regime will go easily especially with the oppression, torture, and death it has done – defeat would open it up to revenge or justice if you prefer.
Good day JMG, as I write this the next Lunar Eclipse/Blood moon will occur in a few hours. As interesting as that is, I just found out the next one after that will be on New Year Eve 2027 going into 2028.
You as an someone with a bit more knowledge of astrology than the average bear, do you believe this to be of any significance for that year ahead? Thank you in advance.
Ok… here is one final prediction I’m tossing out.
Izabela of Tarot by Izabela also does scrying. I’m submitting this post as a marker to see if her scry prediction comes true.
Specifically she said sometime in March the European-only branch of NATO is going to do something incredibly stupid militarily. So stupid, she says, the average European citizen will be amazed at how dumb their elites were in thinking it would work.
More importantly – and the reason I’m submitting it to track – she says this stupid move will sow the karmic seed for the eventual demise of NATO years later.
I’m guessing this bungled military move will be one of the many tit-for-tat military escalations this year that the Naadi leaves says is bringing “the one who sits on the ruins of Empire” ever closer to the Four Nations War next year.
Whatever bungled thing it is NATO is going to do in March she says the U.S. will not be involved in it at all. I’m guessing my country’s NATO branch will probably be too busy making it’s own bungled messes in the Middle East this month to help European elites with screwing up theirs.
Anyway, it will strictly be a mess created by European elites using the European-only branch of NATO.
Chuaquin, no, I didn’t say, nor do I believe, that the US is “the good guy.” There are no good guys in politics. There seems to be a consensus between several people here, though, that the US (and Israel, of course) are the bad guy pouncing on the plucky underdog Iran that has never done anything wrong to anyone, and I can’t help rolling my eyes at that notion of the US doing a Hulk with the zionist monkey riding on its shoulder. As I already said – and I won’t repeat myself a third time – I don’t care what the motivations of Israel and the US are. I’m absolutely sure they’re not about liberation the Iranian people, though I can assure you that the Iranians absolutely don’t want the Mullahs to stay in power (and I know that from Iranian acquaintances themselves, not from news sources or other internet outlets). The regime had no problems gunning down unarmed protesters by the thousands, so if they’re now bombed out of power, I’m not sorry for them at all.
It seems Spanish government doesn’t want to allow USA to use our air and naval bases to bomb Iran. Well, you know I don’t like our current govt woke agenda, but I support its geopolitical decision. It’s not our war. I also think there is a growing “anti-American” feeling within quite people here, even some right wing voters (who tends to be usually very pro-Israel). This feeling has its old roots in the 1898 defeat in Cuba by the US, and then the help which Franco dictatorship had from American govts during Cold War (ahem, anticommunism). It seems there are a relation between nationalism here and Antiamericanism wider than usual leftist rethoric.
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Pumpkin…# 454:
I don’t know well about diesel topic to answer you accurately, but I can say diesel is basic to move trucks, some trains and a lot of industrial vehicles, so with high oil prices, diesel is going to be expensive too (and food and other trade products too).
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Ambrose # 456:
Thank you for explaining me better that topic. By the way, I remember St. Thomas of Aquinas wrote against usury during Middle Age, and he was the basis for the Catholic Church official philosophy for some centuries. However, I suppose Rome ended giving up this principle. Nowadays, average Conservative Catholics seem much more concerned by the abortion sin than by the usury sin (cough).
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Chris # 458:
Your view about current European situation and near future strategy seems reasonable for me, though unfortunately I think EU elites are so reckless and puerile than we can’t expect nothing good of their current and future decisions…I wish I’m wrong, but I bet it’s the real situation here in Europe now.
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Beardtree # 462:
I think that analysis about Iran is quite right. Its regime won’t fall due to aerial bombings easily, but of course sending ground troops is very expensive in political terms for Trump. Nowadays war, like you can see in Ukraine, is a drone hell. And Iran regime has a heck of small and cheap (and probably deadly) drones.
Yesterday, I was drinking a coffee in the corner bar in my town, and suddenly I realized the “Epstein-Iran” connection theory had reached this quiet cafeteria. I heard an old man telling it to another one. Internet rules, so that idea of Trump being blackmailed to help Zionist desire to get rid of the Iran regime has been spreading here too. I bet some Antiamerican feeling has helped to make believe more and more people in that theory.
Of course, the fact that quite people think there’s a connection between Epstein scandal and war against Iran isn’t the same as believe it like an absolute truth. Indeed, a theory needs evidences for not being a conspiracy theory. However, I think the talk I heard during my coffee time yesterday was a “sign of times”.
@Mary, it’s not as simple as people getting the government they want, not even in a functioning democracy (if there is such a thing). Once a group seizes power and installs a dictatorship, the wishes of the population are ignored in the best case, and brutally crushed in most cases. The people back then weren’t a uniform block wishing for islamic theocracy. Some had put their hopes on socialism and had foolishly allied themselves with the fundamentalists in the erroneous belief that they’d come out on top after the shah was gone. Imagine their surprise! Anyway, I’m trying to find just one example where a population managed to throw off a murderous elite without foreign money, weapons, and intelligence, but so far, only the French seemed to have managed that, and that was a while ago.
About the Harshaw family – it came to me yesterday that my long-gone father-in-law was just that sort of person Jasper Harshaw was – he had a bad word for every sort of person, and when his son – my late ex-husband – was in the army, he was amazed to find out that many of those who his father has so scorned were perfectly intelligent. Pleasantly surprised.
The old man was really a nasty piece of work. I’m pleased to note that his two older sons were not, and my daughter is looking forward to a family reunion with them and their families sometime this month. Alas, my ex was the runt of the litter and more or less a scapegoat, and the scars it left on his soul were dreadful.
I do hope, as the series goes on, that Holly Harshaw finds a friend in Ariel Moravec.
And wouldn’t you know, as if by synchronicity or magic, the first book I have to catalog today at work is:
Sacred Wild: An Invitation to Connect with Spirits of the Land by Elyse Welles.
It features crows on the cover.
Since this is an open post I will take the liberty of sharing a thought provoking article posted on Unbecoming, written by Luc Lelièvre. He speaks about the Canadian experience with attempted domination, as well as Covid 19. The article is very long, but by reading the beginning, you will better understand what he is saying about Canada, which is much shorter and is nearer to the end. Given the discussion here and elsewhere about what Canadians are facing, this is very encouraging.
https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/the-anthropological-reversibility?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=355417&post_id=189498884&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=17bhkb&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
It also helps me understand why large popular resistance to the covid tyranny began in Canada with the Canadian Truckers. And why the authorities slammed so hard down on it.
>Though I admit I want the prediction of the return of divine avatars, higher plane rishis and sages to Earth again over the next few decades to come true.
Be careful what you wish for.
About the latest war of the Empire: What is missing in most comments on the net is any regard for the Iranian people. If the US succeeds in removing the ayatollah’s from power, the most likely outcome is the same as the removal of Saddam Hussain, Gadaffi and Assad: another failed state in West Asia.
Is it really worth it to cast 90 million people into a Hobbesian hell only to make it more difficult for China to get its oil? Madelein Albright says ‘yes’. I’m not denying the Iranian leaderhip is a religious tyranny, but recent history shows that life gets much worse after the Americans brought democracy. China in the meantime is quietly selling its brand “the friend that doesn’t bomb you”.
On the tactical level: Iran’s expansion of military action beyond Israel reflects imo a rational effort to seek deterrence through escalation control rather than a decisive victory. Trump claiming that his team was surprised by this makes me wonder what world they live in.
I don’t feel this is going as well as expected. 3 fighters shot down, Israel hit, escalation in Libanon, drones in Cyprus, Golfstates attacked, US bases bombed, attacks on US targets in Pakistan, Iraq. Gasprice in my country up +58% and counting, oilprice up, insurance companies canceling war-risk coverage for vessels in the Gulf, four tankers damaged, two seafarers killed, 150 ships stranded around the Strait of Hormuz. Iran refusing to negotiate.
The blame game has already started with WaPo claiming that Israel and Saudi-Arabia lobbied hard for the attack and S-A denying vehemently. Rubio is saying that Israel forced the US and Netanyahuo stated on Hannity tonight they struck Iran to save America from being blackmailed. Yeah right!
I’m also concerned about the demise of diplomacy. The Trump administration is using it as a ruse to launch surprise attacks on their opponents. They did it with Soleimani, they did it last June with Iran, they did it in September with Hamas in Qatar. This time they send Kushner and Witkoff to smile for the cameras in Geneva and let the Omani and Iranians believe progress was being made, only to launch another surprise attack. Total diplomatic treachery. America once railed at being “sneak attacked” by Japan and called it “a day of infamy which will live forever.” The US has become the very thing which it once despised.
His submission of the “No Immunity for Glyphosate Act” (H.R. 7601) bill to the US Congress, is one more reason for me to offer my sincere respect to US Congressman Thomas Massie.
He has clearly internalised the lessons that the US “National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (NCVIA)” has had to teach during the decades since that act rendered vaccine manufacturers legally immune from liability for their products.
Concerning the discussion on Magic Monday a couple weeks ago about the sword found in a pool, I stumbled across this information:
https://allthatsinteresting.com/truth-behind-excalibur
So, it was actually intended as an offering to the Celtic gods. Very interesting…
Other Owen responds @ 472: “>Though I admit I want the prediction of the return of divine avatars, higher plane rishis and sages to Earth again over the next few decades to come true. —- Be careful what you wish for.”
To me this does indeed sound like an alternative version of the second coming, so eagerly awaited by those pre-millennial dispensationalist Christians.
@Athaia @468, a possible example -The Romanian Revolution of 1989
https://enrs.eu/article/the-romanian-revolution
It seems to me that the Iranian regime set up a system to prevent a replay of that type of revolution in Iran. See the analysis I referred to in @462
Happy Panda # 464:
I’m a bit skeptic about predictions accuracy, but well I’ve read according Izabela, during March NATO will commit a really very stupid action, so then the average European will do a facepalm of shame, if I’ve understood you well. After having payed attention to the stupid and reckless NATO/EU recent history, according my personal intuition I could point two likely scenaries: first one, NATO threatens directly Slovakia and Hungary because they don’t follow European Russophobical doctrine, and second one, NATO sends directly and publicly troops to fight against Russia in Ukraine. First option is more absurd than the second one, because EU/NATO couple hasn’t spent yet their last silver bullet against Hungary “rebellion”. It’s most probably we see soon a Brussels attempt to make electoral fraud (coopting high rank justice for example) or worse, funding a “color revolution” in the 2014 Ukraine style. So I’ve got now as supreme stupid move by NATO its direct clash between its troops and Russian ones. Well, Ukrainian army hasn’t the plenty of cannon fodder it had, after 4 years of war, so this hypothetical madness isn’t too absurd.
I’m opened to more theories about which stupid action is depicted by this ominous prediction.
————————————
Athaia # 465:
I think you’re too sure most Iranians hate their government and, like part of propaganda media…errr…MSM here repeats, every Iranian wants the return of the Shas Monarchy and an improbable democracy. Well, Iran isn’t the best country to ask people what political ideas have, and then broadcast them in
statistics. So I don’t know how many Iranians support the regime yet. Maybe do you have better official sources than I have (your “evidence” seems weak to me), or you know what every Iranian thinks, cherry picking a few Iranians you’ve met.
By the way: what do you think will happen after an hypothetical regime change in Tehran?
An impoverished country thanks to the western bombings and the return to the Shas. Do you think it will be a democracy like ours? I doubt it. Sha regime wasn’t very happy for freedom. It’s a matter of time the theocrats would begin to attract the lower class people again.
————————————————
Athaia # 468:
I don’t know wether your selective concerning only about evil evily Iran regime is caused by a naïve attitude or someone more biased, but: would you mind to notice the Arab kingdoms (beginning with the Saud House) are equally ruthless dictatorships? Oh, but the West loves to trade with them.
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Bocaccio # 473:
The CIA/Mossad funded Iran protesters usually dream, after the fall of theocracy, with the return of the Shas Monarchy and western democracy. Of course, most of them didn’t live during the “old good days” of the last Sha. It’s not very believable a new Sha would accept a real democratic game, oh and Iranian Commies wouldn’t feel comfortable with such a Monarchy.
@ Boccaccio # 473
+1
(as they say)
This morning at 11 AM I’ve seen a gas station in my town with a long car queue to fill cars with gasoline. Everybody knows here if the war goes on for a while, oil prices will keep high.
On the other hand, I think at least in Spain we don’t have risk for oil/gas lack of enough supply. We’re supplied by another alternative countries like Algeria and Norway. Real supply trouble would start if there was a civil war in Algeria or this country had a war against Morocco (or vice versa).
————————————
I understand and support to some extent the Spanish government decision to not allow our airbases to the US&Israel war against Iran, more in a ethical view than political. I’m not naïve, so I think acts have consequences. According a “realpolitik” perspective, I bet our govt is now suffering hard pressures by Washington and Berlin and Brussels (maybe blackmail attempts in the worst case). It’s not absurd to think an escalation in this pressing. I’m afraid it isn’t absurd to think that in near future, CIA/Mossad could be tempted to attempt of regime change (Ukrainian style, cough), with Brussels complicity (cough). Western democracies crappification could be faster than we want to think…
Of course, I also think my country next govt should be elected in “clean” elections, but well, we’ll see (let’s pay attention to Hungary during next months before).
At this point the hot takes on the current war are flying fast and thick, and many of them are arguably overheated as well. It gets boring to type “well, we’ll just have to see how it comes out” over and over again, so if you posted something about how X or Y or Z is sure to happen as a result of the fighting, consider it said.
Arcane, is that what they teach you about the two world wars in your corner of the world? Interesting.
Xcalibur/djs, I also have no great interest in idealized otherworlds, whether they belong to the sixth Cosmic plane or not. As for the Imperium Press substack, this is another fine example of someone insisting that a spectrum can only consist of its two extremes. We all inevitably function on a continuum in which our own sense of justice interacts in complex ways with our sense of what appropriate authorities (gods, ancestors, or what have you) decree is just; even if you agree with the appropriate authorities, it’s you who are embracing the idea that what they say is right and true. The nature of human existence is always to be the reconciler between two irreconcilable worlds.
Jane, yesterday I had an email conversation with one of my publishers. He mentioned that he and another small press (which also publishes some of my books) are being bombarded with LLM-written manuscripts. It requires only a glance to recognize them as such, and they get a crisp rejection note saying “We publish people, not robots.” So I think you’re probably right.
Chris, when I lived in southern Oregon there was a very efficient local means for dealing with deer invasions; it involved taping a flashlight and a makeshift silencer to one of the smaller-caliber deer rifles and imitating Robin Hood. Quite a few deer ended up neatly butchered out in closed garages without benefit of license. The guy I knew who had connections in that scene noted that everybody involved in it donated venison to the local food bank, where no questions were asked. I know, it’s a very American response! As for potatoes, I know — I don’t eat potatoes from corporate farms any more, as there’s something wrong with them. Fortunately the farmers market here in Silver Spring has excellent locally grown organic potatoes.
Derpherder, excellent. Trump is walking a tightrope between the corporate-bureaucratic state on the one hand and his own followers on the other, the one angrily demanding that he change nothing, the other just as angrily demanding that he change everything. It’s an unenviable position to be in, and yes, hatred of the ruling classes is rising to pressure-cooker intensity. It really is his great good fortune that the Democrats have been so utterly unable to formulate an alternative that appeals to anybody but their own flunkies. I haven’t yet done the other ingresses for this year — I usually wait until a month or so before the date, so I can combine the astrology with some sense of where things are moving — but I’ll be interested to page back and review your prediction after I’ve made mine.
Anon, it’s a very curious strategy, since the US imports very little petroleum from there. I wonder if the Iranians are doing it out of pique because China won’t send troops or weapons.
Tengu, yep. I was at tai chi class yesterday evening and we spent a lot of time working on suspension of the head top and sinking the weight.
J.L.Mc12, I wasn’t greatly impressed by it, precisely because so much of it ignored the forces that move genuine history. As Tolkien wrote, sometimes disbelief has not so much to be suspended as hanged, drawn, and quartered!
Justin, it passed the 30,000-word mark day before yesterday. I’m digging through scholarly works on the art of memory and the Lullian art of combinations right now to flesh out two of the chapters. Fun stuff!
Martin, okay, good. They’re almost there. All they have to do is think through the impact of finite resources on advanced technology and they’ll figure out why it is that the kind of technological civilizations that we could detect with our technology last for less than 5000 years. I suspect it’s usually much less than that; ours became detectable from other stars only after 1900, and I doubt very much we’ll still be detectable much after 2100…
Michael, exactly. It’s not just peak oil, it’s peak everything.
Anonymous, the period from 2008 to 2024 in my analysis belonged to the first phase of a catabolic crisis — the phase in which increasingly frantic efforts are made to keep funding new ventures and maintenance budgets, despite inadequate resources. As of 2025 we entered the second phase, where catabolism begins in earnest — mass layoffs of bureaucrats are an example of this. That frees up resources for other uses and so makes a burst of renewed prosperity possible. My guess is that we have a lot more catabolism on its way — tomorrow’s post will talk about one of the mechanisms — and that will buy a period of relative prosperity before the jaws tighten once again.
Chris, the world is indeed changing. I wonder how many European governments will have to fall, however, before the EU finally abandons its fantasy of renewed global empire…
…and accepts that Europe’s future is as a subcontinent of little nations focused on their own affairs rather than trying to lord it over the planet.
Michael, nope. New Years Day is an arbitrary date; astrologically, the new year begins at the spring equinox.
Patricia, good. Yes, Ariel and Holly will have further interactions in novel #5, The Sign of the Phoenix, and their resulting friendship will become a plot engine in novel #6, The Marble Sphinx. I’ve also decided to violate one of the central rules of modern pop fiction by having the protagonist’s sidekick get into a successful relationship well before the protagonist does — Kyle Harshaw and Cassie Jackson are an item as of The House of the Crows, and though the course of true love never runs smooth (or at least not in novels), there are wedding bells in their future.
Justin, hmm! Glad to hear it.
Myriam, thanks for this.
Sister Crow, that makes a great deal of sense.
@JMG
Re: Catabolism
So this replaces the model in which the 1970s oil crisis was the first catabolism, Great Recession the second, Corona Panic plus resulting inflation the third?
Dear Archdruid:
I have translated your paper about the catabolic collapse into Spanish and would be happy to send it to you in wichever format you prefer.
I have contacted the online magazine “El Catoblepas” ( https://www.nodulo.org/ec/) regarding the posibility of publishing this translation. They informed me that you would need to request publication yourself in PDF signed by you, to be sent by email to (elcato@nodulo.org ).
“El Catoblepas” focuses about the philosophical discussion and its readership is therefore relatively specialized.
Greetings
JMG #481 “…and accepts that Europe’s future is as a subcontinent of little nations focused on their own affairs rather than trying to lord it over the planet.”
Seems like a good idea for empires all over the world, including ours.
Thank you for your clear and unemotional comments on the war. We shall indeed see.
@JMG: Where is that map in #481 from? I have never, ever seen anything like that in my life.
I admit I didn’t understand Other Owen’s admonition until I saw Phutatorius’s response and then it was like..*headslap* “oh! that’s why the alarm at the return of the sages!”
Yeah….I can see how that prediction could alarm a great many people. I forgot about that. Also I will admit it is not just the Abrahamaic religions who have some of these dire takes on sages returning. Hinduism has some takes on how bad things can get prior to the return of the Kalki Avatar too so it would not be correct to say this is some kind of worrying defect that only happens with Abrahaic religion believers.
I am not one of them but I can see how other people would be. I guess I should have thought things through better when I said that.
The reason I am excited rather than alarmed is what is predicted the sages will do. First, very few ‘normies’ like anyone who reads Ecosophia will ever meet these sages and rishis. Only select people will meet them.
Also, my understanding is that their disciples will be commisioned to do SELF-uplifting yoga practices that will often radiate good fortune auras of various kinds. Whether or not a normie will be able to benefit from these disciples’ variety of good fortune auras will be entirely up to that normie’s own subtle body makeup.
If your energy body is not capable of benefitting from whatever kind of good fortune the disciples are radiating then nothing will happen. You won’t be harmed. You just won’t receive any benefits either though someone next to you might.
Sadhguru likened it to the sun. The sun doesn’t care that life on earth benefits from what it does. The sun is just toodling along being the sun. Nonetheless all life on this planet benefits from it being itself. It will be the same way with these rishis and sages and their disciples.
They will not be here to convert, destroy or try to garner a mass following. Ragnarok, Armageddon, The Wild Hunt, [insert prophecied mega-destruction-here] is not predicted of their return. If you benefit from their return – great! If you don’t – that’s still fine. Your life will go on as normal.
The universe will not care if you benefit from their return or not. You would have to decide if you would like to follow anything they might teach or benefit from what they are radiating. It will never be forced on you or on society at large.
So that is why I am excited rather than alarmed that divine beings are going to slowly start returning. But I admit other people’s mileage may vary.
JMG # 481:
That map you’ve shown drawing how the EU should be in the future (according Brussels elite hottest imagination), which includes Canada and Russia, it seems to me a good example of Faustian “hybris”. Of course, it won’t never be real…
I’m skeptic about the fast falling of the Iranian regime due to western axis bombings. It could be (paradoxically) that government was reinforced thanks to the attacks. An interesting historical example of an air bombed country whose govt didn’t fall: Nazi Germany. Anglo-American massive air bombings against German cities during WW2 didn’t shorten the IV Reich end. Indeed, Germans kept fighting until Soviet tanks (ground armies) entered Berlin. Of course, fear and pain lead toward hate. And a hate well redirected by propaganda can help a government to survive for a while, if it has the control over MSM yet.
Maybe History doesn’t repeat, but it can rhyme.
——————————-
Political opposition here have expressed with a lot of media noise its disagreement with the Spanish government not engagement in the Iran war. Of course, they support the western axis without any doubt. Their main reason (or rationalization?) is how evily evil is the Iranian regime…avoiding selectively how many disgusting dictatorships have been supported and are supported now by the West because we controlled/control them (selective blindness).
Their second favorite topic is an old and rehashed commonplace within neoliberal and neocon guys: “Israel is the only one democracy of Middle East”. So we should support Israel against the Evil and blah blah blah…
It’s a pity their lack of imagination.
This justification to join the war (eventually sending ships and troops there), has a big Achilles Heel. Democracies can be parasytized by demagoges and in addition to this, their decisions not always are fair nor ethicals. A classic example: Democratic Athens condemned Socrates to drink the poison and die.
Modern example: western democracies have oppressed another countries in the past with colonialism, and yesterday and now have supported dictatorships which they liked to feed our lifestyle (economics rules).
In addition of this, Israel short history can be seen as the last colonial micro-empire, which has thrived with blood and hate. Of course, our right wing leaders do again their selective blindness to not notice Israel ugly and dirty side.
Chuaquin… err… okay, one last try.
1) I explicitly said that I learned about lack of love the Iranians have for their theocratic overlords from an Iranian acquaintance. You know, a person who has lived there, and still has family and friends in the home country. So no, I don’t get my information solely from the news. I’m not going to repeat that again, because from now on, I’ll assume that you haven’t overlooked this information, but are consciously putting words in my mouth.
2) I also never said, nor implied, that I think the US and Israel are punishing the Iranian regime for its atrocious behavior against its own population. Their motives are wholly geopolitical, they’re concerned with power, areas of influence, the usual. But since their actions coincidentally result in people being killed who brutally oppress their citizens and murder them over something as trivial as a piece of cloth, I am all for bombing the Iranian regime to shreds, and yes, I’m slightly irritated at the opinions expressed here that, having the choice between the US and Iran, decry *the US* as the evil empire! Last time I looked, the US government didn’t gun down protesters in the street by the thousands, not even the obnoxious ones in Minnesota.
No, I have no idea what would come after the regime fell. That’s for the Iranians to worry about.
3) But what about Saudia Arabia? Well, what about it? That question would only make sense if I thought the US is going around punishing oppressive regimes for being oppressive. Since I never said I do (because I don’t), this is actually not the compelling argument you think it is. If the US would start bombing the Saudis for reasons unrelated to their handling of civil liberties and human rights, I would feel just as sorry for them as I currently feel for the Mullahs in Teheran. But I wouldn’t think for a second that this was the US’s motive for bombing them, and I’m not going to repeat myself AGAIN just because you keep harping on it. I trust that everybody else has gotten it at this point.
John,
I’m so disappointed with Trump. It seemed like he campaigned to stop all the wars. Then I became a bit worried when he renamed the Department of Defense to the Department of War. I think the attack on Iran may be a long and costly struggle. Hopefully I’m wrong. I too wonder if there was some motivation to shift attention away from the Epstein files.
Last minute memes:
https://imgflip.com/i/alodxm
Regarding your conversation with Chris and the EU… I like your perceptive shifting description of Europe as the small peninsula off the edge of Western Asia, that lives in my head rent free!
As a conscription age resident of the UK, I’ve questioned leaving more than several times in recent years, but decided to stay put as loyalty to my family and this land I call home trumps anything else out there for me I expect.
It’s such a shame that the UK is dragging itself into all this foreseeable trouble, chasing lofty foreign policy goals that probably stem from a line of successive nepotistic aristocratic class snobbery in our upper echelons of the security services/MI6, most likely mingling with the Epstein class or others like it.
An interesting case study for a country in Africa taking a different tack in these times is Burkina Faso, whose people are energised and enthusiastic to turn their country away from its French influence, and chart a new course where (who’d a funk it?) they actually control the very resources that their land occupies… Crazy idea. It feels a bit different to previous anti-imperialist movements, in that I haven’t heard much about Marx from it, and a more sincere effort to protect him from being assassinated than ever before (people literally camping outside his residence volunteering as security)
One of their policy objectives is food security, which makes so much sense to me, and I’d love to see a UK that designs its agricultural sector to ensure food security for Brits. We really don’t utilise the fact that we are an island of rich soil very well, and it wasn’t long ago that it was commonplace to find most gardens with a small patch to grow vegetables in the back garden.
Given the Saudis are now experiencing how truly brittle their Las Vegas style city actually is when it comes to the nuts and bots of living i.e. food and water supply, I would expect nothing less than for the Governments and parties of the near future to run on providing their people with security of food and water, time to go back to basics.
@happy panda
If higher order beings show up again, they may not be as friendly or as enlightened as you think they’ll be.
Makes me wonder what cows think when they see that pickup truck with that strange being inside, wearing the cowboy hat, gliding by at the edge of their pasture. Maybe they even think he’s benevolent, when he enters their realm and drops off some palatable food, using his technology that’s beyond their comprehension. Do cows talk about it when they get abducted by that man with the cowboy hat?
moo.
“…chasing monsters and phantoms…”
(Trump in an early stump speech, saying what he would strive not to do)…
Well, it is true that the first casualty of war is truth, but the second is neutrality/moderation.
Killing the people who want to foster debate among those whose views differ (eg Mr Kirk), killing peacemakers and negotiators of many nations (especially mid-negotiation) has become a favourite tactic of late… and so, fewer and fewer people are left who either can, or will, help to chart a path of negotiation and reconciliation between conflicting interests.
Extremists are in the ascendancy, and places where people can explore differing viewpoints and scenarios with one another, are set to become even scarcer and harder to find.
If it is acceptable to you, JMG, I shall include the continued health of the ecosophia blogs, and of the excellently moderated comment spaces here, that we all profit from in so many ways, in my daily prayers.
May people of all views be able to continue meeting one another in freedom and respect in this place.
My blessings to all who will have them.
>He mentioned that he and another small press (which also publishes some of my books) are being bombarded with cocaine-written manuscripts. It requires only a glance to recognize them as such, and they get a crisp rejection note saying “We publish people, not cokeheads.”
Sorry, it was too tempting. The passage spoke to me. *sniff* *wipes nose*
I promise to knock it off when you go back to topical posts.
For those who care about events in Canada and have issues with Bill C9, also known as the ‘everything is hateful’ act, and its restrictions on freedom of speech generally, precrime provisions, and removal of the sincerely held religious belief defense, a petition:
https://citizengo.org/en-ca/fr/17427-reject-bill-c—-defend-canadians–free-speech—religious-freedoms?dr=24547837::0af1438eb9c7213511cf9116e1ecaf2f&utm_source=em&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_content=em_btn&utm_campaign=EN_CA-2026-01-21-Local-NA-GTO-17427-Bill_C9_Round_2.07_AA_Relaunch_3&mkt_tok=OTA3LU9EWS0wNTEAAAGgVHz0T_QnzpHSiokYpl1L0XIjnd_aRLQjQ557hp2x559OAYxR3xnj4r_Mx7CgT-7LpNz694erMYg-02o0lCELqAV208zsETSSEux4wPdzk4XJe6YOxuO8
Hi JMG
It seems your Commander (Lunatic?)-In-Chief has ordered US Navy ships to be ready to escort the tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. I’m not convinced at all they will, but if he does, destroying the US Navy warships would be easier for the Iranians than what appears in your essay TLG.
Yesterday, the State Department also urged all American citizens to urgently leave 14 countries across the Middle East—that’s one million Americans trapped in the conflict who weren’t given any warning.
This “Special Military Operation” (you know, it can’t be called a war) could end with the complete evacuation of US civilians and military personnel from the Middle East, and I don’t know if most of them will be eager to return.
Everything is happening according to “The Plan”
Cheers
David
Many times the potatoes in the store have been sprayed with an anti-sprouting agent. It’s not a surprise as my uneaten potatoes have been composted due to sprouting.
On a larger scale potato storage is in large buildings with controlled atmospheres. High CO2 and low oxygen along with temperature control.
If you want to grow potatoes from the store look for the organic ones. If they have been sprayed they are far more likely to rot than grow though I did get a couple to grow while in the course of finding all this out.
My private response, mentally, to the bombing of Iran is this: It was a very reckless thing to do; and it was even more recklessly carried out to the point of being sloppy. Example: we obviously didn’t know that one of the spots to be bombed was close to a school full of children.
Part One: Hubris……….
Peter (no. 491)., who’d have thought that a president who ran on a campaign of “He kept us out of war” would go back on his campaign promises?
JMG (no. 481), that’s not a map of the future EU–that’s a map of future world civlization!
I once saw a video showing EU enlargement over time, set to cheery music. The second verse began with Brexit, followed by the hypothetical future departure of other countries, one after another until only Bulgaria was left. Finally, Turkey joins. Nyuk nyuk.
Chuaquin (no. 478), my Iranian acquaintances have long assured me that everybody hates the mullahs (when two strangers share a taxi, they don’t talk about the weather or sports, they talk about how much they hate the government), but…the son of the Shah? No Iranian wants that! (except the son in question, presumably)
And now for something completely different: I just baked a new batch of whole wheat crackers. I added a half tsp of baking soda and a half tsp of garlic powder and some sesame seeds. The result is crackers that are not quite as hard and a bit tastier.
I’ve elaborated a little on my earlier Pequod metaphor: Bibi Netanyahu is Cap’n Ahab. D.J. Trump is Starbuck (1st mate). J.D. Vance is Stubb (2nd mate). And, Pete Hegseth is Flask (3rd mate). The white whale is the dreaded “other” or shadow.
@JMG “New Years Day is an arbitrary date; astrologically, the new year begins at the spring equinox.”
*slaps own forehead* Of course it does! Thank you. 🙂
Mr. Greer, All … what I get from all this, is a hot mess of a Jim Jones vibe … I can’t tell who’s drinking moarrr of the KoolAid – Trump and his merry band of pseudo-quasi ‘maga’ fanbois* … or Netanyahu and his new-age nazi cabinet and ‘settlers’.
*those supposed ‘patriotic’ warmongers who latched on to his skinsuit, within the recent couple of years… e.i. Maga in name only – NOT Maga, if you get my drift. He’s now thrown Tucker Carlson off the Maga Island in a fit of pique due to criticism of what appears to be a fubared conflagration.
@Athaia #490,
Getting a view in to the popularity of the regime in Iran by the attitudes of random Iranians in the West has the same problem as interviewing Cubans in Miami as to the goodness of the current Government in power in Havana. Those in Cuba who were in positions of power and influence in the Batista Regime and were run out of town by Castro hate the current government with no regard to its real goodness or evil.
The same is true of some Iranians in America. If they or their families had a position of power or influence in the Shah’s government and had to leave Iran after the revolution then they are angry and bitter. I had a neighbor a few years ago from Iran and he had mostly good things to say about the current government, and went back often to visit his family, but I had another neighbor who had been in the Shah’s Air Force and had to leave the country in a hurry and hated its current government.
It would be best to use a more objective lens, rather than “I hate the mullahs because my Iranian friend told me to hate the Mullahs.”
It is good to reflect on why the government of Iran became partially theocratic after the Shah fell. During his reign ( 1959-1979) the Shah and his secret police ( SAVIK) brutally murdered and suppressed any political opposition, with the full permission of his US overlords. This meant that the only people who could come to a position of influence with the people were those within the Islamic Clergy because the shah feared a backlash if he killed or tortured religious leaders. Thus when the Iranians rose up and threw out the Shah the religious leaders were the only ones in place to assume power in the vacuum the shaw left.
It is also good to note that for 45 years the government of Iran has had to deal with huge number of spys and troublemakers put in place by the CIA and Mossad for the purpose of destabilizing the country. The harshness necessary in dealing with such a threat can seem extreme to us in the west. But is probably necessary if the country is to stay independent from those trying to subjugate it.
I’m tired of submitting admittedly rather gloomy posts so I want to submit something different.
The following video got by me as it’s already a month old but I plan to listen to it tonight. For those whom don’t do video you can always click the Transcript link and just read it instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRVaBkLEkh0
Headline: Did China’s Former Premier Speak the Forbidden Truth About Its Population?
The CCP may have revised their population numbers even lower than 790 million. Looks like one of their Former Premiers is saying China has only 600 million people. Again, I admit I haven’t yet heard this podcast (though I’ll listen to it tonight) but I’m intrigued enough to submit to the link should anyone else want to listen.
Since there’s strong incentive for minor Chinese bureaucrats to inflate birth rates and ignore death rates I’m wondering if that 2018 Russian Intel paper saying China only has 500 million people may be right after all. Whatever the case it seems China does not have 1.4 billion people and likely never did.
Iranians hate the mullahs also because they believe the mullahs aren’t doing enough to protect Iran from Israel and America. The mullahs have issued a fatwa against Iran creating nuclear weapons, and Iranians want a nuclear weapon because they believe it is the only way to get proper deterrence against Israel and America (see North Korea).
Many Iranians also want Iran’s military to start launching attacks on Israel to stop Israel’s rampage in the Middle East, and they hate that the mullahs are peaceniks who hope that they can simply return to the Obama era JCPOA and refuse to do anything substantive with regards to reality in 2026.
So if Iranians do end up overthrowing the theocratic regime in Iran, you most likely won’t get a pro-western regime in place. Yes the regime will be significantly less theocratic and more cosmopolitan and liberal, but very likely you get an even more anti-American anti-Israeli militarily expansionist regime in Iran who will actually go to war against Israel and America to kick them out of the region, instead of the mullahs simply issuing fatwas against Israel and America and doing nothing else.
As the hot takes are still flying fast and thick, I’m going to continue to let them pass for now.
Patrick, not especially. I don’t consider either a model, simply an attempt to find common ground between the theory and the facts.
Anselmo, I’ve sent you an email. Any format I can read is fine.
John, agreed — the sooner the US gets out of the empire business, the better.
Aldarion, I forget where I spotted it. Have you seen all those maps about Russia being divided up into weak little nations? This is the logical next step.
Chuaquin, yep. Oh, and it also includes Alaska, just for fun.
Justin, funny. I recall an old joke about the dyslexic devil worshipper who sold his soul to Santa. Then there was the illiterate graffiti artist — I saw this myself in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood — who spraypainted HAIL SATIN on a brick wall. Somebody else spraypainted beneath it, NAH, RAYON IS MUCH NICER.
Tobes, West Africa had cities before western Europe did, and it’ll be good to see them shake off the last scraps of European neocolonialism and start shaping their own destinies. I’ve been watching Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali very closely for the last few years. In the meantime, yeah, the rest of us need to get back to basics too.
Scotlyn, you may certainly do so.
Other Owen, nah, it’s good. It does make perfect sense, doesn’t it?
Ambrose, hardly. I’m reminded of what Gandhi said when he was asked what he thought of Western civilization: “I think it would be a very good idea.”
Hi JMG,
I saw a mention of weird westerns/occult westerns in the comments and I’ve been working on just such a side project.
I won’t get bore you with specifics but I want to ask, do you happen to know of any books on the higher planes and their structure as formulated by 19th century mystics?
I heard somewhere that Andrew Jackson Davis wrote a lot about this and I came across a theosophical text about the astral, C. W. Leadbeater’s ‘The Astral Plane’.
The ideas I’m playing with are the notion that science and mysticism were moving in similar tracks in the 19th century; you have people like William Crookes and Alfred Wallace looking into spiritualism while revolutionizing physics and biology. All this somehow sits nicely with the notion of the American frontier. The Higher Planes as a frontier past the frontier if that makes any sense.
It was exciting to see other people thinking about the same period from an esoteric perspective as a good place to set interesting stories.
JZ
To the person who linked to the articles on Anthropological Reversibility (https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/anthropological-reversibility), thank you – they are very thought provoking and very much in sync with much that our host has said about collapse narratives.
Regarding “New Years Day is an arbitrary date”, I have seen one (mid-19th century) argument that the reason the Christian year starts on 1 Jan and not Christmas Day is that it was the day Christ was circumcised, marking his entry into the Jewish religion.
Apparently closing the Straits of Hormuz can severely disrupt fertilizer inputs, with huge negative impacts on agriculture:
https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2026/03/attack-on-iran-could-disrupt-global-fertilizer-markets/
I guess start preparing for food shortages.
Oh! I meant “civilization” in the sense of, like, the survivors. But maybe the future will favor some other latitude.
Did Iran cruelly massacre thousands of innocent protestors, or did they forcibly put down an American-backed uprising?
Recall that the “protestors” were well organized and coordinated with the help of 10,000 smuggled Starlink terminals. There was nothing spontaneous about the protests, and when Trump urged them to continue protesting, despite being gunned down, by promising “Help is on its way”, it seemed like a cynical attempt to keep pressure on the Iranian regime no matter how much Iranian blood was shed in the process.
“Help is on its way” should be remembered along with “Not one inch to the East” whenever a negotiation with America is under way.
Having said that, another saying applies to the Iranian conflict. “God is on the side of the big battalions” as Napoleon so sagely observed, and the US is the biggest of the big. Once the US has air superiority it’s game over. Even the much-maligned F-35 Lardbucket becomes deadly if no one’s shooting back.
When all this is over, will there be peace in the Middle East? Maybe a temporary suspension of hostilities, but lasting peace? No. That requires a change of heart, which needs more than bombing.
Chuaquin#488
I think that the agresion war against Iran is a previous step of a war with China in which the Spanishs would serve like cannon fodder. So that I think that would be interesting for us to reduce the links with the USA.
“…hot takes are still flying fast and thick, I’m going to continue to let them pass for now…”
If I may be so bold as to suggest opening a regular dreamwidth thread where these hot takes (presuming they meet all the other blog rules of courtesy and etc) can find an outlet, and people can discuss them with one another? It may provide a rich, and rare, channel for conversations of the moderate kind on a current, and compelling topic, such as we have been fortunate to enjoy, over the past 5 years, about the Covid mess. It may also be useful for unburdening the main blog of hot takes which are too ‘fog of war’ laden to develop considered opinions about.
Anyway, whatever you decide, may these blogs be blessed, and, across all societies, may the centre strengthen and hold fast.
@Scotlyn
If I were JMG, I would wait and see if the war with Iran won’t resolve within a few weeks before I dedicate special threads to it.
JMG 481: That’s a very good point regarding Imperium Press. Yes, it is a false dichotomy, probably brought on by a reactionary attitude towards Progressive Liberalism in its decadent state. As always, there’s a Middle Path, and gradations between extremes. Even if you accept ancestral authorities, you’re still playing a role in that acceptance like you said, so it’s not a pure binary.
Also, glad I’m not the only one put off by those cloud-worlds of genderless light-beings. Of course, such places may not be exclusive to the 6th plane by any means, but I speculate that many religious utopias were influenced by the now-departing soul-swarm and their dim memories of their homeland.
In light of the ongoing war, this seems to me to be one of the most significant posts I’ve ever seen. (I was pointed to it a commenter on The Moon of Alabama.)
https://no01.substack.com/cp/185980275?_x_tr_hist=true
(I hit Post before adding the link. Oops. Here it is now.)
First time posting here after a year or so of following your work. I’m relatively new to esotericism, and I’ve recently started working through your Doctrine of High Magic series, doing the recommended daily meditation, etc., but with a slight alteration – I’ve been using Meditations on the Tarot, rather than Levi’s text. Do you anticipate that this might cause any serious problems?
My reason for this has mostly to do with a lingering hesitancy about the safety of all things occult. I was born and raised in a fundamentalist Christian context (which I’ve since moved quite a ways beyond!). Meditations on the Tarot appealed to me because I understood it to be even more rooted in Christian symbolism than Levi’s work – which is a feature, not a bug, for me, as I retain quite a lot of admiration for Christianity despite the excesses of what I experienced as a child. And I’ve found our Unknown Friend’s writing to be incredibly resonant.
Anyway, I’d welcome a stern rebuke if this seems like a horrible mushing of separate approaches (or reassurance if the practice seems harmless).