This week’s Ecosophian offering is the monthly open post to field questions and encourage discussion among my readers. All the standard rules apply (no profanity, no sales pitches, no trolling, no rudeness, no paid propagandizing, no long screeds proclaiming the infallible truth of fill in the blank, no endless rehashes of questions I’ve already answered) but since there’s no topic, nothing is off topic — with two exceptions.
First, there’s a dedicated (more or less) open post on my Dreamwidth journal on the ongoing virus panic and related issues, so anything Covid-themed should go there instead.
Second, I’ve had various people try to launch discussions about AIs — that is to say, large language models (LLMs) and the utilities they power — on this and my other forums. The initial statements and their followup comments always end up reading as though they were written by LLMs — that is, long strings of words superficially resembling meaningful sentences but not actually communicating anything. That’s neither useful nor entertaining. Thus I’ve decided to ban further discussion of this latest wet dream of the lumpen-internetariat here.
Also, an announcement for those who will be coming to meet me in Glastonbury this coming June. Regular reader Guillem has set up a Dreamwidth page so that attendees can arrange travel and lodging together if they so wish. As a frugal and energy-saving project, this fits in with just about everything I discuss, and I encourage everyone to consider it. You can find it here:
https://glastonburyarrangements.dreamwidth.org/
With that said, have at it!
Hello JMG and Everybody,
Do you have any interest or opinion regarding the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him?
Inna
Hello all, it’s the Impatient Inpatient hete. Continue to need prayers, please.
Howdy,
Ecosophia has been something of an island of sanity and reasonableness in an otherwise uneven online alt-spirituality world. That unevenness applies just as much to online discussion/community of Heathenry as anything else, and so I have a combined offer and request:
Would anyone here with Heathen leanings of whatever strength or stripe who feels willing say “hello,” and do any of y’all know good online resources/communities/writers for Heathens? If everyone’s answer is “not really,” and if there’s sufficient interest, I might look into setting something up for Ecosophian Heathens (even if it’s just as simple as a regular open post on my dreamwidth).
To get the ball rolling, hi, I’m Jeff! I’ve always loved the Norse myths, and when I started groping my way toward spirituality, they seemed the obvious starting point. Since then, I’ve taken something of a winding path, and am currently in the middle of exploring JMG’s Druidic material, though through a Heathen lens. As for resources, though I don’t agree with any of these folks on all points, I’ve found them helpful to varying degrees, especially since they don’t all agree with one another: Galina Krasskova (https://krasskova.wordpress.com/), Nordic Animism (https://www.youtube.com/@NordicAnimism), Ocean Keltoi (https://www.youtube.com/@OceanKeltoi), Tom Rowsell (https://www.youtube.com/@Survivethejive), Scott T. Shell (https://www.youtube.com/@scottt.shellcontinentalger2464), and Eirik Westcoat (https://americanfutharch.com/).
Cheers, and my blessings to all who welcome them,
Jeff
Happy Astrological New Year!
At this link is the full list of all of the requests for prayer that have recently appeared at ecosophia.net and ecosophia.dreamwidth.org, as well as in the comments of the prayer list posts. Please feel free to add any or all of the requests to your own prayers.
If I missed anybody, or if you would like to add a prayer request for yourself or anyone who has given you consent (or for whom a relevant person holds power of consent) to the list, please feel free to leave a comment below and/or in the comments at the current prayer list post.
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This week I would like to bring special attention to the following prayer requests.
May Viktoria have a safe and healthy pregnancy, and may the baby be born safe, healthy and blessed. May Marko have the strength, wisdom and balance to face the challenges set before him. (picture)
May Liz and her baby be blessed and healthy during pregnancy, and may her husband Jay (sdi) have the grace and good humor to support his family even through times of stress and ill health.
May 1 Wanderer’s partner Cathy, who has bravely fought against cancer to the stage of remission, now be relieved of the unpleasant and painful side-effects from the follow-up hormonal treatment, together with the stress that this imposes on both parties, and may she quickly be able to resume a normal life.
May Ron M’s friend Paul fully recover from the debilitating illness that has rendered him bedridden as well as recover from the spiritual malaise/attack that he believes is manifesting the illness.
May Jennifer’s newborn daughter Eleanor be blessed with optimal growth and development; may her tongue tie revision surgery on Wednesday March 12th have been smooth and successful, and be followed by a full recovery.
May Mike Greco, who had a court date on the 14th of March, enjoy a prompt, just, and equitable settlement of the case.
May Cliff’s friend Jessica be blessed and soothed; may she discover the path out of her postpartum depression, and be supported in any of her efforts to progress along it; may the love between her and her child grow ever more profound, and may each day take her closer to an outlook of glad participation in the world, that she may deeply enjoy parenthood.
May Other Dave’s father Michael Orwig, who passed away on 2/24, make his transition to his soul’s next destination with comfort and grace; may his wife Allyn and the rest of his family be blessed and supported in this difficult time.
May Peter Evans in California, whose colon cancer has been responding well to treatment, be completely healed with ease, and make a rapid and total recovery.
May Debra Roberts, who has just been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer, be blessed and healed to the extent that providence allows. Healing work is also welcome.
May Jack H’s father John, whose aortic dissection is considered inoperable and likely fatal by his current doctors, be healed, and make a physical recovery to the full extent that providence allows, and be able to enjoy more time together with his loved ones.
May Goats and Roses’ son A, who had a serious concussion weeks ago and is still suffering from the effects, regain normal healthy brain function, and rebuild his physical strength back to normal, and regain his zest for life. And may Goats and Roses be granted strength and effectiveness in finding solutions to the medical and caregiving matters that need to be addressed, and the grief and strain of the situation.
May Kevin’s sister Cynthia be cured of the hallucinations and delusions that have afflicted her, and freed from emotional distress. May she be safely healed of the physical condition that has provoked her emotions; and may she be healed of the spiritual condition that brings her to be so unsettled by it. May she come to feel calm and secure in her physical body, regardless of its level of health.
May Linda from the Quest Bookshop of the Theosophical Society, who has developed a turbo cancer, be blessed and have a speedy and full recovery from cancer.
May Frank R. Hartman, who lost his house in the Altadena fire, and all who have been affected by the larger conflagration be blessed and healed.
May Corey Benton, who is currently in hospital and whose throat tumor has grown around an artery and won’t be treated surgically, be healed of throat cancer. Healing work is also welcome. [Note: Healing Hands should be fine, but if offering energy work which could potentially conflict with another, please first leave a note in comments or write to randomactsofkarmasc to double check that it’s safe]
May Open Space’s friend’s mother
Judith be blessed and healed for a complete recovery from cancer.
May Peter Van Erp’s friend Kate Bowden’s husband Russ Hobson and his family be enveloped with love as he follows his path forward with the glioblastoma (brain cancer) which has afflicted him.
May Scotlyn’s friend Fiona, who has been in hospital since early October with what is a diagnosis of ovarian cancer, be blessed and healed, and encouraged in ways that help her to maintain a positive mental and spiritual outlook.
May Jennifer and Josiah and their daughters Joanna and Eleanor be protected from all harmful and malicious influences, and may any connection to malign entities or hostile thought forms or projections be broken and their influence banished.
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Guidelines for how long prayer requests stay on the list, how to word requests, how to be added to the weekly email list, how to improve the chances of your prayer being answered, and several other common questions and issues, are to be found at the Ecosophia Prayer List FAQ.
If there are any among you who might wish to join me in a bit of astrological timing, I pray each week for the health of all those with health problems on the list on the astrological hour of the Sun on Sundays, bearing in mind the Sun’s rulerships of heart, brain, and vital energies. If this appeals to you, I invite you to join me.
JMG,
I understand that you’ve already commented extensively on these topics and may have nothing more to say, but wondering if you might say a bit more about what you’re currently thinking about things pertaining to the Ukraine war/situation, what with Trump now in office and European leaders talking tough.
Thanks,
Edward
Mr. Greer,
Hello. I have a question regarding your work as an astrologer. Have you ever drawn up a horoscope or chart or whatever it is (sorry, not sure of the right terminology) that indicated that the subject of the study never should have been born? Thanks in advance for your thoughts on the subject.
Dear Michael Greer,
I’m writing with the help of a translator, so please forgive me if my English doesn’t sound entirely natural.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on Art Berman’s recent article titled “Peak Oil: Requiem for a Failed Paradigm.” As you know, Berman was for years one of the most respected analysts supporting the peak oil theory, but in this piece he argues that the paradigm has failed. He claims the issue was never purely geological, but rather a complex interplay between energy, economics, debt, and public perception — and that markets have adapted in ways the original peak oil framework failed to anticipate.
What are your thoughts on the capitulation of people like Albert Mann? Have you ever considered the possibility that peak oil might have been a failed paradigm?
We did a do-it-yourself writers’ retreat in Ocean City last week. Writers’ retreats are normally appallingly expensive and if they’re in a major tourist destination, why are you paying thousands to sit in a hotel room to write?
So we went to OC in the off-season, taking advantage of the tens of thousands of short term vacation rentals going begging and an empty city.
Were am I going with this? T-shirt stands. OC is simply lined with them, each bursting with T-shirts. I don’t often make it to OC (a completely artificial town built on a sand bar) but when I do, I see what T-shirt stands sell. They’re hyper-competitive and must carry designs that sell.
I have never seen so many presidential T-shirt designs, ever, anywhere. Other than a few derogatory Biden shirts, they were all pro-Trump, in a huge array of styles.
Trump baring his chest to show off the Superman logo.
Trump baring his chest to show his manly pecs with a big tattoo saying “glory or death”
Trump’s pic from the shooting, with the tag line “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Trump’s manly pic with “Impeached, convicted, etc., etc.,” and “back for more!”
On and on and on.
My personal favorite:
Trump and Vance, text only : “Elect the Felon and the Hillbilly in 2024!”
He really is becoming an icon.
Hello JMG and all!
Just received The Cornelian Moon and can’t wait to read it (after my current book read has finished). Thank you JMG for this series.
Ok, just some info to share with anyone curious about Patañjali s Yoga Sūtras:
At joisyoga dot com, we have just started sutra study… it’s about a half hour daily – 5:55 am west coast, 8:55 am east- it’s free though donations welcome if you wish. Andrew (teacher) starts with opening prayers then 10 or 15 minute discussing sutra by sutra with lots of review…he also simultaneously coaches on Sanskrit pronunciation for anyone interested.
Just go to website and click on morning chanting.
ps his teacher died unexpectedly a short while ago so we always end session with a beautiful chant for souls that have passed.
Do you still follow the resources/peak oil scene?
I somehow do, and despite the U.S. achieving a record-high production of 13.6 million barrels per day, global output has remained stagnant since 2018. Even a minor decline in production could trigger severe economic and geopolitical crises. Back in the 1980s we were on a similar plateau, and economic and political turmoil, and it was around the world, and arguably it contributed to the Soviet Union’s collapse— that collapse took out some pressure and there was a short period of prosperity for the other survivors. A scenario that could potentially repeat if even a slight decline in oil production occurs. Who would be now on the menu Europe, US, India, Russia, China?
And this scenario could follow just from business as usual, without the double digits percents declines the oilmen are reporting about the fracking patch…
Do you plan an update at some point?
I made a more detailed comment about it here:
https://the-arcane-archivist.dreamwidth.org/582.html
JMG, I usually just lurk here but found something too intriguing not to share:
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-02-10-what-trump-could-learn-from-hitler-on-nih-funding/
For those who don’t want to go to the link, it’s an article titled “What Trump could learn from Hitler on NIH funding”. The portion of interest (and the only part of the article actually discussing the man in the mustache) is:
“Even Hitler did not trash German science.
Hitler did seek to turn science to his own ends, to promote research on eugenics, new technologies for blitzkrieg war, sick medical experiments, and more efficient ways for the mass killing of Jews. Yet civilian German science, long a mark of German pride, also thrived. During the Nazi era, German scientists and engineers invented the first electron microscope, industrial-scale production of artificial fiber, pharmaceuticals such as advanced sulfa drugs, artificial rubber, and much more.
Trump, in short, is even more nihilist than Hitler.”
It is fascinating how they simultaneously claim Trump is worse than Hitler (at least in the nihilism department) for simply pulling funding from universities while praising Hitler himself for promoting German science (let’s just ignore the defection of many great German scientists directly due to his policies).
All of this I’m sure is of interest as it seems to capture the exact moment of simultaneous love and hate for the man in the mustache as you so astutely pointed out a few months ago JMG.
Once again, thank you for putting in the time and effort to enlighten us, Archdruid.
I have formed something of a habit of discussing ideas that provoke thoughts in me when your open posts come round, and there is one that I have been pondering on for some time now. I would like to share it with everyone.
I live in India, and there are stray dogs in the streets here. When I was in college, I was fond of feeding them treats. I would buy a packet of biscuits and toss some towards the dogs, hoping to supplement their sparse scavenger diets.
I quickly realized that not all dogs were equally confident when it came to trusting and accepting treats from me. Usually, the bigger, muscular, and more well-groomed dogs were the most confident. They would traipse in calmly and accept their treat, and then look up at me with an expectation for more. The most harried, emaciated, wiry, and dirty dogs were the least confident. Many would jolt back from me the moment I called them or tossed them treats, stand at a distance, and then eye both me and the treat I threw at them (now lying on the street) with suspicion.
On one occasion, I came across three dogs together – a “well off” one and two emaciated ones. A canteen was nearby, so I purchased a Parle-G (some of the cheapest biscuits in India, ideal for college goers), ripped the pack open, called out to the dogs, and began to offer them the biscuits. The “well off” dog arrived immediately, and after receiving his treat he began to eat with contentment. I called out to the other two, but they came no closer. I tried very hard to woo them, because they clearly needed my compassion more than their well-off compatriot. But they would not approach, either because I terrified them or because their well-off compatriot held first dibs on the human by some canine pact I do not understand.
So I tossed the next two treats at the emaciated dogs. They promptly dodged away, and then the well-off dog, noticing the treats, swung in to claim them. I shooed him, scolded him, and told him (in human words) to leave the treats for the other two. He refused, and stared me down with a bold, challenging countenance. I kept trying to woo the other two, but they were absolutely scared doofy and did not approach me. So I had to just leave the treats there, and as I watched, the well-off dog chewed them comfortably, left, and only then did the other two approach. They then began to quarrel over the crumbs left behind. Even then they held no trust in me, because as I approached them with a piece of bread to supplement the meagre remains of my charity they ran off.
Years later, as I learnt about the boots problem, I recalled this incident. It dawned on me that the emaciated dogs may be suffering from what we humans call ‘poverty’ when it ails members of our species – they have little, so they can afford to lose little, so they do not dare to take risks, and hence they do not pursue opportunities. And this, in turn, keeps them from opportunities and keeps them ‘poor’.
At the time, I interpreted this as “dogs have a kind of economy!”. But with the maturity of the years, I have realized that I had probably stumbled upon the reverse of that – its not dogs who can be understood with economics, but humans who can be understood by ecology.
Trees rush upwards towards the sun with their branches, and downwards towards the water with their roots. Those that gain an early advantage in the race get the best resources, and can therefore reinforce their initial victories with this advantage. They grow taller and deeper with the sun and water. Likewise, bigger fish get first dibs on plankton and thereby get still bigger and stronger. This is the law of nature, and affects more than just animals and plants. When stars form in a nebula, for instance, their gravitational attraction forces compete over the fixed amount of hydrogen gas in the nebula. The bigger a star gets, the quicker it gets at sucking in the gas because of its higher mass and gravitation force.
So maybe class and caste, poverty and wealth, these are simply the humanity edition of the same essential, fundamental laws of the universe? Perhaps the do-gooders who try to challenge poverty and strive for equality are fighting an eternally losing battle? Maybe poverty and wealth exist as an unshakeable ecological necessity? Maybe we can only hold it off for a while during periods of immense upward social mobility, such as when we burn great gallons of oil. But like shadows rushing in as the lonely candle flickers and dies out, poverty will rush in to claim its prize the moment the external advantage weakens in supply.
So yes, I have been pondering (pessimistically) on the nature of poverty, and I have realized that it might just be the ecological distribution of resources among the members of a population of Homo sapiens. Even socialist countries, sooner or later, do develop poverty. I read in an article that the apparatchiks had immense birthday celebrations with dances and several guests, while the soviet working class had smaller birthday parties in schools with home-cooked treats. Maybe ideologies, laws, and constitutions are simply no match for a power as fundamental as poverty?
https://x.com/balajis/status/1904830270135820757 Balaji Srinivasan is one of the more interesting people on Twitter IMO. In this thread, he’s actually saying things very similar to what JMG has been saying for years — post-WW2 USA is history’s greatest empire, and the post-WW2 world order is set up so that the majority of monetary flows goes to the US.
But one crucial difference with JMG is that he thinks MAGA’s approach with tariffs, pulling back from the world, will result in basically something similar to the post-USSR collapse happening in the US. At the fall of the USSR, native Russians were 50.1% of the population, there was a “Soviet” identity that had been collapsing and finally dealt a death blow with the death of the union; white Americans are today about 47% of the US population. Soviet industrialization had fallen far behind that of the West and Western allies such as Japan. ( (older thread: https://x.com/balajis/status/1876571631369535778)
To be fair, a lot of this isn’t too different from what JMG has said — MAGA, whether intentionally or not is “collapsing now to avoid the rush”. The main difference is that he thinks this will result in chaos internally in the US and that even if the average American has benefited less from the monetary flows than in previous decades, it will get a lot worse if the empire is dismantled. For comparison, he points out that the Russian Federation today does have a majority Russian population and regained order after the chaotic 90s, but this came after Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine etc split off, and a lot of internal unrest in Chechnya, Dagestan etc. In the meantime, the hegemon role would likely be taken by China.
Overall, I quite appreciate a lot of what Balaji says — unlike many figures from the tech world, he doesn’t think AI will replace humans anytime soon, and also that AI + a few advances in military robotics in the US won’t be a substitute for a cohesive community. Actually a lot of what he says parallels what JMG has said, as far as I know, the main thing is whether the MAGA pull-back of empire will result in a huge decline in the US internally, if the monetary flows are much reduced.
I will take this opportunity to remind all that the 8th Annual Ecosophia Midsummer Potluck will be held June 21, 2025 at our house, behind the Charles Dexter Ward Mansion in Providence, RI. Only 87 days to go! Sign up here. I look forward to your presence, and once again, whomever comes from furthest is welcome to stay in our guest room.
Hello JMG!
Several months ago you wrote about the origin of werewolf stories – the historical phenomenon of semi-feral adolescent boys roaming around the outskirts of villages in packs at a certain stage in their social development. I would love to learn more about this history but I wasn’t able to find any other resources – are there books you would recommend on this subject? Thanks!
In the category of that which can’t continue won’t continue;
“Central Washington has quickly become a hotspot for data centers, as tech giants relentlessly pursue enhanced computing power to advance artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. According to a recent report by CBRE, this region leads the nation in the growth of wholesale secondary data center markets, boasting an impressive 246.4 megawatts of inventory—an increase of 84.2 megawatts from the previous year. Remarkably, only 0.4 megawatts of this capacity remains unused, underscoring the high demand in this locale.”
https://www.yoursourceone.com/columbia_basin/central-washington-emerges-as-one-of-the-fastest-growing-data-center-hubs-in-the-u/article_07cef178-f144-448c-931f-bc2a2a6873b0.html
Most of this is just cloud services and video servers. Where do they think they are getting more power for AI?
The utility is running a dedicated power line from the dam to the substation that feeds several of the data centers.
The other interesting side effect is; (From the Washington Post)
“More than a quarter of all computer programming jobs have vanished in the past two years, the worst downturn that industry has ever seen. Things are sufficiently abysmal that computer programming ranks among 10 hardest-hit occupations of 420-plus jobs for which we have data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. ”
The rest of the article is behind a paywall. The point is AI is replacing programmers. All that boilerplate code can be done by an AI. The orchard pruning crew across the road right now has more job security.
Unintended consequences strike again.
What are your thoughts on the question of consciousness being emanant from matter versus consciousness being pre-existing and being/causing the precipitation of matter/time/space from the field of possibility?
I’m thinking specifically in relation to Animism, humanity’s oldest spiritual belief system; it seems likely that many, if not most, of our collective ancestors believed all matter and patterns of organization of matter (mountains, rivers, wind, thunder, rain, etc.) were not only conscious but conscious in distinctly anthropomorphic ways. It is unfortunate that those ancient/primal experiences are now generally considered fanciful, childish or at least metaphoric by most anthropologists. “Of course rocks and trees, mountains and birds don’t ACTUALLY talk to people.” This self-blinding “rationalism” would seem to remove the obligation of respect (and the possibility of assistance!) from those Other Beings… It also makes for a very lonely existence if the only consciousness you acknowledge in the world is human.
Thoughts?
In mid-winter of this year (2025) I had a remarkable encounter with an Anna’s Hummingbird and was asked by friends to share it on the island online newspaper. Since it is uppermost in my mind in regard to Animism I am offering this link to the post:
https://theorcasonian.com/me-and-anna-down-in-the-backyard/
John,
I have been rereading Dark Age American and it has been very helpful for me in putting things into a larger context and healthier perspective. Recently I have been struggling to maintain my tranquility, my perspective. Your work has long been appreciated and is grounding for me. Thank you for your wisdom and for sharing it with us. The Wealth of Nature reread is next.
Much appreciated from Rangley, Maine.
Inna, yes, I’ve put some time into reading up on it. As you may know, every author has favorite words, phrases, and sentence structures. “Shakespeare’s” works have these, too, but they vary from one part of “his” work to another — for example, the vocabulary choices in the sonnets have next to nothing in common with the plays, and there are several clusters within the plays that have their own unique vocabulary and phrase choices not shared with other plays, to an extent found in no other writer, ever. Thus it’s clear that the works attributed to “Shakespeare” were the product of more than one author, and may include the work of anything up to a dozen writers of varying quality. The best thesis I’ve seen yet is that since plays in the Tudor era were considered very lowbrow stuff, the actor William Shakespeare was the front man for a circle of aristocrats who had enormous fun writing the plays. He probably revised the manuscripts based on his own experience of the stage to make them suitable for performance, and likely put in some of the jokes, but the bulk of the work was done by others.
Your Kittenship, positive energy en route!
Jeff, I hope it works out.
Quin, thank you for this as always.
Edward, we’re in the endgame. Trump is doing the sensible thing and backing away from a lost war, European leaders are melting down and preparing the ground for their own political destruction, and the Russians are methodically going about a war of attrition, the kind of war they excel in beyond any other modern nation.
Stephen, nope. If a soul shouldn’t come into incarnation, that soul does not come into incarnation. There are no accidents or mistakes in the cosmic process. Mind you, some souls that have a lot of bad karma may wish they hadn’t been born, but them’s the breaks; one way or another, we all have to work out our karma, and sometimes that really sucks.
XCO, your English is fine. Thanks for letting me know about this; I haven’t followed Berman for a long time, and I now know that peak oil is about to become relevant again. He’s right, to be sure, that the simplistic model of peak oil — “we reach the peak by 20xx, and then everything falls apart” — was never going to happen, but that was never the only game in town. I argued back during the heyday of the movement that politics and economics couldn’t be ignored, and that the supply of oil was going to bounce all over the place as supply constraints, demand destruction, and the effect of rising prices on the profitability of marginal sources came into play. What fascinates me is that Berman pays no attention to net energy issues, and the ways that the decline in net energy has functioned as a hidden tax on all economic activity, pushing large parts of the global economy into ragged declines. That’s huge, and it startles me that he misses it.
Teresa, fascinating. I was in DC in November, and was startled — in that most blue of blue cities — to see plenty of pro-Trump logo gear for sale.
Jill, many thanks for this!
Arcane, yep. I do indeed still follow energy issues, and plan on doing an update or two later this year, once Wagner is out of the way.
Parched, that’s hilarious. Telling, granted, but hilarious. Thank you!
Rajarshi, from an evolutionary perspective, it’s advantageous for every species of living thing to compete against other members of the same species for the available goodies, since this improves the genetics of the species overall — the more successful, after all, will reproduce disproportionately more than the less successful. What fascinates me, as someone who was very poor for many years, is that among dogs as among humans, a great deal of poverty is self-inflicted — attitudes like the ones you saw, and self-defeating habits, play a very large role in keeping the poor poor.
Alvin, er, you apparently missed my discussions of the decline and fall of the United States and the likelihood that it will break apart in the years ahead. My nonfiction book Decline and Fall and two of my novels, Twilight’s Last Gleaming and Retrotopia, both discuss that. I think it’s possible that the Trumpian revolution will prevent that by discarding our nomenklatura instead, but that’s still a bit of a long shot.
Peter, thanks for this as always,
Kevin, I wish. My werewolf theory is something I’ve put together gradually over close to half a century of reading and study. I may have to write a book on it one of these days.
Siliconguy, yep. Whee!
Ken, it seems to me that the whole dispute is based on a false assumption, one that George Berkeley pointed out a very long time ago. How do we even know of this thing called “matter”? Because of patterns of experience in consciousness. Is there anything to “matter” other than those patterns in consciousness? Not as far as we can tell. “Matter” is an abstraction assembled out of sensory data folded, spindled, and mutilated by the minds of observers; it might even be called a figment of our collective imagination. Since the only existence we ever actually encounter consists of patterns in consciousness, the fanciful notions of the anthropologists you mention — those who insist that their tribal prejudices determine what can or can’t speak to people — should be set aside as childish superstitions, and the sober testimony of animists taken seriously. Thank you also for the hummingbird encounter!
Tom, you’re most welcome and thank you.
JMG, what do you think of the current efforts of the Dems and their street thugs to vandalize Teslas in order to punish Elon for saving the tax payers money?
Yesterday I had a conversation with someone on the far left and they were smugly recounting their virtuous move to sell their Tesla and purchase instead something called a “Polestar”. It appears that Polestar is a money losing EV car company mostly owned by a Chinese Car company that has several suits against it for defrauding shareholders somehow.
Wow, sounds virtuous to me.
Re Glastonbury: probably someone’s already mentioned it, but just in case not &/or as a reminder:
Anyone going to Glastonbury in June should be making sure their passport is up to date *now*, and possibly requesting expedited service if acquisition / renewal is needed.
Also, there’s now a “visa” type thing required for visiting the UK, called an electronic travel authorisation (ETA). You can either apply by app (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-the-uk-eta-app) or at this website: https://apply-for-an-eta.homeoffice.gov.uk/apply/electronic-travel-authorisation/how-to-apply
FYI, and safe travels
Greetings all. I know this has been discussed before, both here and on your other blog, but I have been thinking about the apparent contraindication of Eastern energy work (specifically qigong, I believe) with Western practices. JMG, I believe it was you (and perhaps another reader) who discussed this specifically related to qi practices. Were you also practicing specifically “Western” energy practices at the time, or were there different paths (ritual magic, etc.) that just proved incompatible? Were you practicing any type of “banishing” rituals at the time? Do you think this is a bug or a feature, as it were?
I am looking at this through the frame of St. Symeon the New Theologian, who, in a tract on prayer practices (“The Three Methods of Prayer”), advises a breathing practice focused on the navel (which is awful close to the dantien). Although these Christian prayer practices lean much more heavily on invocation than any external, “mechanical” techniques per se, the idea of breath and its connection to spirit (spiritus, pneuma) seems to be analogous if not eqivalent to qi.
Thank you.
Axé
In response to Inna, an essay titled “Who Wrote Shakespeare’s Plays?” was posted just last week here:
https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-who-wrote-shakespeares-plays/
. . . and has generated 656 readers’ comments so far.
I am just a layperson, but I suspect that an Israel-Iran war is going to break out soon, and that would cut global oil supply and cause prices to shoot up.
Two things druidry regarding trees.
Summer solstice triggers synchronized beech tree reproduction across Europe.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240313135330.htm
Also, finally a competition I can get behind.
A summary of the Tree of the Year competition.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20dd6yk55yo
Here is an interesting link on how depopulated Europe and the Mediterranean were by 750 CE
https://x.com/Peter_Nimitz/status/1879767785246744592
After all the disastrous invasions, wars, climactic disasters and plagues, I have read that the whole of Italy alone had less people than just the city of Rome in 300.
Can you see anything like this by 200 years in the future?
@Kevin & JMG in regards to the werewolves, there’s a really interesting book that traces a similar theory called “The One-eyed God: Odin and the (Indo-) Germanic Männerbünde (Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph No. 36) ” by Kris Kershaw
In the population decline or demographic crisis, there doesn’t seem to be much news, except a few more middle income countries have reported a decline in birthrates (last stories I saw were Chile and Vietnam hitting around 1.2 to 1.3 children per woman). However, a few Open Posts ago, I saw some discussion of the possibility that we are not actually at 8 billion people (and probably will never know) due to inaccurate or dishonest governments inflating their numbers. Curious if anyone has any more information along these lines.
Other thoughts to discuss with population issues; if the US succeeds in reducing immigration, how does this accelerate population decline in the US? What are the implications worldwide? (Russia, I believe is actually already in a population decline.) Are we already seeing the effects of a population slowdown?
Final random thought, anyone think that US foreign policy is now inspired by the old story “Br’ayer Rabbit and the Briar Patch?”
JMG,
I just finished your book After Progress, and no sooner had I finished it then I saw blurbs for these two forthcoming books, courtesy of one erstwhile presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who interviews the authors on his podcast. Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress and How to Bring it Back, by Marc J. Dunkelman, and Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. I haven’t read them yet, but based on the publisher’s descriptions, it looks like we can still have our Star Trek/Jetsons future, we just need to tweak the existing political status quo a bit. Hooray!
Here’s a money quote from Yang’s podcast interview with Derek Thompson: “Trump is embodying the politics of scarcity,” Derek says. “The abundance agenda can be the antidote and define the next era of American liberalism, a liberalism that builds.”
Methinks I heard the concept of “scarcity industrialism” being talked about in polite company. It looks like your ideas are trickling in from the fringes and influencing the culture, even if that culture is still firmly ensconced within the conventional wisdom. Would this be considered denial, or bargaining, or both?
A while back, you were talking about how Donald Trump was energised by his opposition. Howard Lutnick talked about exactly that in a recent interview on CBS:
“What people don’t understand is that when people bring negative energy to Donald Trump they’re just charging his battery. Your energy around him comes to him…He never steps back. He just takes it like a centrifuge and hurls it back. He’s been that way always, this is not new. This is who he is. So those people who attack him think they’re attacking him, but they’re literally charging his battery. He just comes back bigger and stronger.”
Like the Cosmic Doctrine, opposing something just locks it into place. If the Democratic Party had ignored him to build their own vision like Dion Fortune would have suggested, he would have been a much smaller figure.
Hey JMG
I recently came across an interesting book in the Brisbane square library which may be of interest to you in regards to understanding how the legacy of the Industrial Revolution will affect the Earth Millenia from now, and how much of it could still be studied millennia from now.
It’s called “Future Fossils” by David Farrier, and it is essentially an account of his personal quest to discover how the material legacy of the modern world will show up on the geological record, or influence the way the Earth turns out in the millennia ahead. It’s full of useful references, interesting observations and great anecdotes. For example, he mentions that when our cities become part of the geological strata, it would most likely show up as a thin band of red iron-rich minerals, glass shards and iron pyrite along with possible fossils of everyday things such as chairs or machines.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45892252-footprints
JMG, thanks a lot for hosting this space again – I’m very much looking forward to this months topics. 🙂
I’ve got a few offers and a question to everybody today. The offers first:
1. Blessings: I perform a formal blessing each Wednesday, and appreciate signups, as they help me to practice: https://thehiddenthings.com/categories/weekly-blessings
2. MOE newbies and interested people: I’m currently putting up a Modern Order of Essenes online course. Everybody is welcome to join, and it doesn’t matter if you start out late! 🙂 https://thehiddenthings.com/topics/moe-course
3. MOE practitioners: There will be a Healer attunement this upcoming Sunday, but only if at least one person confirms: https://thehiddenthings.com/moe-healer-attunement-2025-03-30
….
And the question: I love to read good, thought-provoking stuff as much as time permits, and I’m wondering if you folks have any favourite online resources for occult/spiritual content…
Do you have any recommendations for worthwhile websites/online authors who write about occult/spiritual topics or related things? I don’t care if it’s about paganism, mesmerism, ritual magic or anything else, no matter how obscure, as long as the content is deep, well written, thought-provoking, and the writers know what they are writing about. No videos please, only written stuff – and I don’t mind longer articles/texts at all. Obviously, I already know about JMG’s blog. 😉 (And yes, I’ve noted Jeff Russell’s comment above…)
Suggestions much appreciated. Thanks! 🙂
Milkyway
The developments in the past few days made me realize the West is speedily going in the direction of ever more authoritairianism. It doesn’t matter if left or right are in power. The many transgressions of the Democrats have been talked about here and other places many times, but the Trump administration isn’t doing any better. People being deported without due process, judges baselessly slandered by the president, Musk’s X censoring the Turkish opposition, Gabbard straight out lying to the Senate that the Signal apps didn’t contain classified info, etc.
The media isn’t any better. Just as the left leaning media refused to mention Hunter’s laptop, the right leaning media refuse to report on Signal gate (ZH) or comes up with farfetched 5D-chess explanations (Jeff Childers). Each side lives in their own, mutually exclusive, information bubble.
As Gabbard and Ratcliffe have testified that the chat didn’t contain any classified info, The Atlantic has now published the whole chat (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/signal-group-chat-attack-plans-hegseth-goldberg/682176/). Which of course contains details like the timing of the strike that were shared before it happened. Sounds classified to me….
I must say it was a very interesting read, especially observing the quality (or rather lack of quality) of the discussion. Vance, Hegseth, Walz, Rubio, Gabbard, Witkoff – they all want to bomb the Houthi’s as if it would solve anything. The Houthi’s have been bombed for 10 years by Saudi Arabia. Do they really think the US will be able to stop them without groundforces? Only Vance had some doubts but they pertain the messaging. Also Israel is conspicuously absent in the discussion. The easiest way to make the Houthi’s stop closing the Red Sea is of course if the US would stop facilitating and covering for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The participants in the chat are looking to send the bill to Europe, claiming to do it mostly for the Europeans. What a gaslighting nonsense! If it wasn’t for Israel they wouldn’t lift a finger and Europe would be helped most by peace in West-Asia, not another war.
In the meantime the EU is doing just as bad or worse. This post is already long, so I’ll keep the examples to myself. Many to choose from…
JMG, how do you see this all? And how do you deal with this breaking of our shared worldview? Finding out the truth seems to get harder by the day. Same with the rise in authoritairianism. Is there something we can do on the individual level or can we only adapt to the maelstrom of collective events?
JMG, would you consider an essay or two about those “self-defeating habits you mentioned above? People voluntarily collapsing before the rush might benefit.
I wanted to bring up a phenomenon of American English I have been noticing for some time. A few decades ago, a kid home from school would have said something like “Mom, I was late to first period and Mr. Jones said why are you late? I told him I had to wait in line to use the bathroom, and he said I need to manage my time better.” Nowadays, and for quite some time, the kid is likely to say ” Mom, I was late first period, and Mr. Jones was like Why are you late? and I go I had to wait in line for the bathroom, and he was all You need to manage your time better.”
It is easy to sigh over ignorance of proper English, but it has recently occurred to me that in using locutions such as ‘was like’ and ‘goes’ and “was all’ as synonyms for ‘said’, what is being communicated is emotion and states of being. BTW, ‘go’ or ‘goes’ as a synonym for ‘says’ or ‘said’ is nearly always in the present tense, even when past events are being described. ‘Went’ still means left or departed. I wonder what anyone here makes of this phenomenon. Of course, I do know that languages change over time.
@Kevin O #15 “the historical phenomenon of semi-feral adolescent boys roaming around” IMO In My Observation – still happening, saw my two sons doing just that. And JMG’s The Carnelian Moon is a worthwhile read. Inspired me to be aware of my environment as I roam around.
JMG, so what you’re saying is that Shakespeare was the world’s first known shalepost?
XCO and JMG
I have heard that some of Art Berman’s turn around on peak oil depends on who is paying him. He sometimes appears to be saying peak and no peak at the same time.
I feel that the most honest discussion of the issue is probably at oilystuff.com, though peakoilbarrel.com is also good.
Stephen
Putting this out there for the non-Brits here. This interview with David Betz, a well-respected professor of War Studies at King’s College London, who has advised militaries and governments about civil conflicts (his speciality) went semi-viral a few weeks back. In this interview and others given shortly thereafter, Prof. Betz posits that social tensions compounded by the policies of HM government could lead to a civil war (Northern Ireland style, or worse) in the UK and elsewhere in the next few years.
As Europe’s multi-decade slump continues governments seem to be adopting more authoritarian and undemocratic measures to keep order over more restive populations and thereby undermine their legitimacy. Keir Starmer locking people up and threatening them with the police in the UK and attempts to ban or block popular anti-establishment right wing alternatives like AfD in Germany and Calin Georgescu in Romania (in the name of defending democracy), with the apparent blessing of the EU, serve as examples. In addition, David Betz points at the increasingly common practice of appeasing those demographics of the population they consider harder to control while coming down hard on others deemed more docile or less well-organised, in a “two-tier” system of legal application of the law as a significant risk factor too. UK-based or not it’s well worth a listen if you have a spare hour or so.
https://youtu.be/Gid48FgiHho?si=0pPwQ3mGS7orgQZY
On a more cheery note, Mr Greer, I was interested to see you were coming to England this June. You were the first person to open my eyes to the current situation in the world (I was very much a “normie” before), specifically in an old interview on YouTube you gave at the ASPO conference back in 2008, which the algorithm gods showed me and completely upended how I saw the world. I would profit far more from meeting you than you would profit from meeting me, but I would love to go along if schedule allows.
Some years ago a shipmate and myself were having a conversation re religion, says my shipmate, “ I dont believe in God, how can it be all these religions believe theirs is the only true way to God?” Only one can be right, and all the others wrong, seems unfair to all the ones who got it wrong.
“But what if, maybe God didnt really care, possibly He gave all diffrent people their own religion, I said, why not?”
Look when on a ship at sea you have loads of time to have all manner of peculiar conversations..
I find Buddhisim fascinating, Im not a Buhhdist mind you but I get the appeal.
Anyway it so happens my thoughts arent at all original, there having been a Muslim scholar by the name of Al Farabi who posited this notion, which being why wouldn’t God have given Christianity to some, Hinduisim to some, and Islam to some?
Im fair certain plenty of others have had the same thoughts.
Dear fellow ecosophians,
I have been commenting on JMG’s forums under the nickname Ecosophian for about a decade. Today, I am excited to share some good news with you. After what feels like years of hard work, my first book was released this past Tuesday!
The book is a translation of _The Solar Way_, the magnum opus of early 20th-century Russian occultist Nina Rudnikova, whose name has been largely forgotten until recently.
Our host, JMG, has been incredibly supportive throughout the writing process and has graciously provided a wonderful summary of the book, which I will share with you:
“One of the lost classics of Western occultism, this book sets out the way of esoteric initiation in 22 steps symbolized by the 22 arcana of the tarot.
It comes out of the same school of Hermetic occultism as Mouni Sadhu’s famous work _The Tarot_, but goes even more deeply into the philosophy of magic than Sadhu did, setting out the essential symbols and concepts of each step on the path of the initiate.
Among the many themes covered in this volume are:
– The nature of the macrocosm, or occult universe
– The nature of the microcosm, or individual human being
– The inner side of human evolution
– The spiritual hierarchies that influence the occult path
– The principles of occult initiation
– The training of the mind
– The rise and fall of religions and societies
– The role of gender in occultism
– The dangers of black magic
– The Path of Liberation
This work is an essential guide to students of Hermeticism, Martinism, and the Western occult way in general.”
And here I am speaking about the book on the Appleknocker Radio podcast (they also have podcasts with JMG!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVPf7IL8Gds
If you’re interested in the book, you can visit the publisher’s website:
https://spirit.aeonbooks.com/product/solar-way/95336
Thank you for your attention.
With best regards,
Yury Pankratov a.k.a. Ecosophian
XCO, JMG. I have a data point on peak oil which may be useful, or not useful. In the course of my professional career, occasionally I need to give lectures. I was asked to give a talk on climate change to some earnest, upset and despondent university students. So I showed them the planetary history of CO2, said that the planet will be fine, but no, us humans have seriously destabilised our living conditions, but that the planet might not care, and would shake it off. We however care. I then showed them the negative feedback loops on climate change, as in the Limits to Growth original and 2023 update, plus the fallacy that solar PV will save us on account of low EROEI.
I told them this was to assist them in not having false hope, but also not to put the weight of the world on their shoulders. Do good, in the context of your limited life. False hope can be as dangerous as depression. I think they liked it, I hope they did.
However, the interesting response, the one I was testing for, was that of the professor. She seemed horrified that in 30 years, no one had put it so bluntly before. She finished pleading that if you just keep working, we will keep reducing the warming scenarios (not listening of course to my message, that the extreme warming scenarios were always based on bogus numbers, and nothing to do with activist efforts). What I didn’t get was a strenuous denial of the limits to growth, but I also don’t think I’ll be getting a return invite. Just as when I did my masters on it, it still isn’t popular to talk about natural breaks on human behaviour.
I think the upper classes will deal with the next round of peak oil with a sullen, stubborn resentment, rather than any direct attacks. They no longer have much political power, not that I’m saying anyone else will be much better.
Hot off the press,
“Governor Ferguson Launches Initiative to Balance Data Center Growth with Sustainability in Washington”
“Governor Ferguson emphasized the importance of this endeavor, stating, “We must ensure Washington remains a leader in technology and sustainability — these experts will help us do that. This group will help us balance industry growth, tax revenue needs, energy constraints and sustainability.” The workgroup is expected to provide crucial insights into managing the expansion of data centers while maintaining environmental and economic stability.”
So we are saved? Snort, snicker, tee-hee.
Tax revenue is a hot issue. The legislature raised taxes including a carbon tax (part of the $3.80/gal at the pump), then they spent half again that, collected only two thirds of what they thought they would get, and now there is a big budget shortfall. So predictable.
Hi JMG. I think it was about nine months ago that I asked you for book recommendations on Ramon Llull. I read your suggestions and then started chasing down and reading the most promising sources from their bibliographies. This has already been such a fascinating journey and really, I have only begun. So, thank you for sparking my interest by mentioning Llull a long time ago and thank you for the assistance you have provided so far.
I am working on the first draft of the book I wish existed when I started, a practical manual that clearly explains the system and how to use it, and why one would want to.
I hope it is okay to share here that I have started a YouTube series (for those who do video) where I explain the Lullian Art in bite-sized chunks (usually 5-10 minutes per video). Last time I asked you a question about Llull here someone asked for more information and I felt bad that I couldn’t give them any beginner-friendly resources at the time.
Here’s a link to the playlist for anyone that is interested in learning about Ramon Llull’s medieval mental training and analysis system: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLThtsoFvIZV8e-h8acMmnDPUPlVflwqAq&si=ZKeqhXKP70LlvptN
JMG,
A couple weeks ago you recommended the book Savage Continent by Keith Lowe. I just picked it up from the library and am finding it disturbing (all the violence even after the war was officially over). Wow, humans can be awful to each other. It made me scared about what would happen were war and/or social breakdown to occur.
A question I have is do you think the things he writes about in the book indicate that under the surface of supposed European unity today there are still plenty of historical wounds and resentments that could/might come out in ugly ways in the right conditions?
Thanks,
Jacques
JMG,
Wondering if you might please make suggestions about how one might best make up for wrongdoing/sins in the past. I am seeing my life more clearly now and see times in the past when I have been harsh, critical, or otherwise unconscious and harmful toward others. Many of these people are no longer in my life. I am wondering what/if anything I can do to digest/face the karma of my actions now in a way that is as clean as possible.
Thanks,
Edward
Oh I’ve followed you for years since you wrote those books JMG :-), Retrotopia is one of my favorite fiction books by you . I think what I mean is that Balaji seems to think there’s a serious risk that the MAGA admin’s foreign trade policy will very quickly dismantle the mechanisms of empire and result rapidly in the US version of perestroika, and ensue in chaos internally. He thinks Kamala would have been worse, and would likely have started a nuclear war, but overall he seems to prefer a slower, more paced dismantling of the empire.
Maybe I misunderstood or misremembered your earlier writings but I thought you saw it as a more drawn out process lasting into the 2040s or so.
Granted, of course, as you just mentioned, you think a more optimistic scenario is possible, and I hope you are right.
Separately, I find it interesting how so many people commenting on Balaji’s posts want to deny that the US is an empire. Most of them seem to be libertarian-leaning, US citizens.
It seems that spirits are attracted to physical structures whether a house or mountain or cave or spring or maybe altar. The altar at the front of our church had a small door and an inner compartment. When I was a young lad I was very wary of that thing. I feared it. You did not pass in front without genuflecting. I was convinced that someone that I couldn’t see was always there and it bugged me no end that I couldn’t see them.
Every Sunday the priest would thank the “ladies in charge of the altar” and name them and I envied them. I wondered what the altar needed. And when it was time for communion the priest would open that small door and take a shiny chalice from the compartment and I would strain to see the inside.
But I chose a life whose object of worship was Mammon. I thought that learning the rituals and incantations of my particular line of work was being practical and rational. If you could have seen what I saw. What a joke.
Clay, it really shows just how desperately they want an excuse to be hateful. As I noted in my essay Hate is the New Sex, the rule of mandatory niceness in modern society has left many liberals frantic to let out the normal, healthy emotion of hate, and Musk is giving them an excuse.
Fra’ Lupo, yes, both I and the other people I know of who had this effect were doing Western energy work specifically, and also doing daily banishing rituals, when the trouble happened. I don’t know exactly what the incompatibility was, and I don’t propose to experiment and find out!
Patrick, it’s certainly a possibility.
Michael, thanks for these.
David, of course. I expect global population to bottom out at around 5% of its peak figure, though it may take 300-400 years to do it. As for your other attempted post, er, please, no low-effort “what do you think of this?” questions!
Isaac, hmm! Thank you for this.
Watchflinger, I don’t have further information, and would distrust any source I found. We’ll have to wait and see.
Gallifrey, no one is ever quite as fanatic as a true believer in a religion that is in the process of disproving itself. Have you read the famous sociology text When Prophecy Fails? These are classic examples of that sort of bargaining in action. (It’s not denial because they admit that progress isn’t working any more.)
Kfish, it’s one of the most obvious things about Trump, and I have no idea why so many people miss it.
J.L.Mc12, thank you for this! I’ve just put a hold on it at my local library.
Milkyway, I’m old-fashioned enough that I read these things called books. 😉 I’ll leave this question for others to answer.
Boccaccio, this is normal. Authoritarianism always becomes stronger in times of crisis, and as I’ve discussed before, what we’re facing is a whopper — the final crisis, most likely, of the Western world order. I wish that wasn’t the case, but here we are.
Mary, I’ll consider it. As for language, that’s an interesting shift and I’ll have to reflect on it.
Justin, nah, shaleposting was going on in Roman times. I grant that the Elizabethans were unusually good at it.
Stephen, ouch. I hope that’s not true.
Sam, a government that refuses to address glaring injustices and abuses can end up there, yes. The fact that most of the outdoor surveillance cameras in London have already been destroyed tells me that they may be very close to that point. I’ll look forward to seeing you if your schedule permits!
Steve, it’s a reasonable suggestion. If you believe that the Divine is omnipotent, then by definition human beings would have exactly as many religions as He wants them to have…
Ecosophian, delighted to hear it. I’m really looking forward to this one.
Peter, yeah, that sounds about right.
Siliconguy, ha! Asking how much data center growth you can have while still being sustainable is like asking how much wild sex you can have and still remain a virgin…
Industrial, delighted to hear it. Please keep me informed about the book!
Jacques, yes, very much so. As I noted in a post a few years ago, Europe’s temporary state of peace is ending and will likely be followed by another round of ghastly wars.
Edward, let your higher self take care of that. It will guide you into new situations where you’ll have the chance to make, or avoid, the same mistakes again. When you avoid doing so, you’ll outgrow that bit of karma.
Alvin, I think that sort of sudden dissolution is certainly a possibility. It remains to be seen whether or not Trump is our Gorbachev.
Smith, of course spirits are attracted to material objects. It’s simply a question of which spirits…
I’m finding the supplement section to Levi’s ritual quite fascinating, especially p.460-461 about “deeds before words: it is in this manner that one’s right to speak is established and proven.” I was quite taken by the sentences: “Christianity was still a mystery when the Caesars sensed that they were dethroned by the Christian Verb. A system which the world admires and the crowds applaud, can only be a brilliant assembly of sterile words; a system to which humanity is subjected to, in a manner of saying, despite itself, is a Verb. Power is demonstrated by results …”
In there lies a nice hubristic for assessing social movements and the like.
So, I have an idea that may be the stuff of madness, or an excellent way to monkeywrench the machinations of the priests of the god Progress.
So, as I type this, I’m actively building the power systems for the servers in data centers that will be the body of the great AI, avatar of the god progress. I’m not only a nonbeliever of this religion, I actively disdain this being, since it will be used by the oligarchic priesthood to take away jobs. I’m quite certain that the AI disaster will be the great flop – they will try and replace as many jobs as possible with AI, then when a real crisis hits, the AI will prove utterly inadequate to the task and there will be no qualified personnel left to fix the mess.
So, as for how this is relevant to you – I’ve rather wanted to play a trick on the priesthood of this false god progress. Would it be possible to invite trickster spirits into the machinery of this would-be consciousness? I’m thinking of perhaps drawing runes of Loki in hidden places along the bus duct where all the servers take their power and invoking him, just inviting him to play around and have fun. What could possibly go wrong? Everything, I hope!
Is this a terrible idea? If you dont completely disapprove of this, do you have any recommendations for any entities other than the god Loki to invoke, or any suggestions how to go about doing something like this?
A recent post by Egon Fischer has a piece which IMHO is worth contemplating [my translation below it]:
“In einem früheren Beitrag habe ich geschrieben, dass mein geistiger Begleiter mich darauf hingewiesen hat, dass man aufpassen muss, was man energetisiert, worauf man seine Aufmerksamkeit richtet. Er meinte damals sinngemäß: Pass auf, was du energetisierst. Man kann auch seine Vorstellung und Gedanken energetisieren und wenn man dies längere Zeit macht, landet man in einer mentalen Blase.”
[In an earlier post I wrote that my spiritual companion pointed out to me that you must pay attention to what you energise, to where you direct your attention. He suggested at the time as a general rule: pay attention to what you energise. You can also energise your imagination and thoughts and if you do this for a longer period, you end up in a mental bubble.]
He then went on to discuss the problems of being in that mental bubble where your thoughts are no longer congruent with your actual feelings.
A quick comment, and then I will return later. Diana Kordas on the Greek island of Samos has written an open letter to RFK Jr. about the dire situation facing agriculture and the natural environment on her island and in Greece in general. The people at Children’s Health Defence will draw RFK Jr.’s attention to it as soon as possible. She has given me permission in the meantime to distribute it. I have translated the Executive Summary into Japanese and Russian, and have posted the Japanese (and later today, will put up the Russian). They and the full letter in English can be accessed here: https://keitaimotanai.web.fc2.com/
@Princess Cutekitten, I’ve been praying each Sunday. Shall I make it more daily for you?
If the US breaks up into several entities, do you think relations between the new countries will be peaceful, or do you think wars will frequently break out in the decades to come?
Maybe the exact times the new countries are founded will make all the difference (their foundation charts).
(For this scenario, I’m assuming the dissolution of the Union itself is mostly peaceful, and that assumption might be wrong.)
Ecosophian (#41) —
Thanks for the heads-up. Oddly enough, back in 2023 I picked up a copy of an English translation by Charlotte Cowell, with the author’s name rendered “Roudnikova”, which suggests that Ms. Cowell came to know of the author through French sources. She has translated a number of more or less esoteric works (including several by G. O. Mebes). According to her Acedemia.edu entry (https://oxford.academia.edu/CharlotteCowell) she has her own publishing house (Shin Publications).
Interestingly, too, she seems to tie Rudnikova in with Olive Pixley, an occult writer whom some people may remember.
I look forward to seeing your book!
@31 Kfish
Liberals formed an addictive habit of hating Trump. To stop hating Trump, they need to redirect their hate to another target (or group). The anger and hate they’ve trained themselves to feel for years cannot be eazily dispelled– I know from experience. Elon is too close to Trump and the GOP for Musk Derangement Syndrome to supplant TDS.
Hi, I have a question regarding the LTG BAU model. Can you discern around us the rapid decline in industrial output that it predicts? I mean, we saw an initial dip in spring 2020, right on time (and this suspicious synchronicity caused me to be skeptical about the pandemic story), but it seems that since then production growth resumed. Or maybe I’m missing something?
I’m asking because I can’t wait to see the decline in pollution a decade or two from now…
Ken Wood #18 I had a similar experience, minus the nostril probes with two hummingbirds. Six months later I realized they were thanking me for the scarlet runner bean flowers…
Morning John,
Your latest Arial Moravec novel popped through my letter box yesterday, so I know what will keep me busy this weekend. Is there plans for any more?
Regards Averagejoe
WatchFlinger at #29 wrote:
“a few Open Posts ago, I saw some discussion of the possibility that we are not actually at 8 billion people (and probably will never know) due to inaccurate or dishonest governments inflating their numbers”
After I read that discussion, this research was mentioned in our local mainstream media, claiming that we are actually much more than 8 billion people.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56906-7
I haven’t actually read the paper, as it’s way above my head, but my first reaction was that this probably means that there is some truth in the idea that we are with less people than we think..
bk.
My son, after long heated argument and some pleading and attempts to control (home first ti mailbox/prepaid cards available in gas stations/web access everywhere/hard headed=no ‘control’ possible), ‘gave up’ synthetic weed-like on Ash Wednesday, but later got a previously ordered thc cartridge in the mail which he has since told me was the sketchiest one he had ever gotten but there it was. He used it and went into psychosis starting with a text to all his contacts at the peak of the lunar eclipse at 2:30-3am that his phone had been hacked. On the equinox he went to a behavioral health floor where he was for a couple days during which time he opened thich naht hahn’s Being Peace which I brought for him among other books, and he identified with the approach deeply and read the whole thing, came out of the fog and the paranoid fantasy and began teaching and sharing the book with other kids on the unit, realized a completely new ability to adopt other people’s perspective with empathy. Since he got home he has been staying with his dad a little while, his phone was locked up by his past paranoid self and he is engaging in activities like cleaning and sitting outside in the sun. I took him back to his juijitsu class and his teacher noticed both his new clarity of focus, his skill and his teaching energy and he was asked to challenge and won against everyone in the class and got his first stripe on his white belt. He couldn’t face down the karma with parental advice, had to have the experience, but he caught himself and took the right turn! Those synthetic drugs everywhere and so unbelievably available to the youth but so much more risky and foul than the plant forms… He has 0 Aries rising w his sun in Leo on the cusp of cancer and was born on a solar eclipse day himself. I posted very worried on the end of two posts back. Wanted to thank anyone who prayed for him with me and thank the gods prayer works and astrology happens! May the coming solar eclipse cement his gains as a solid platform to launch his next 15 years. Lord Have Mercy!
I recently came across this paper at work:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-54271-x
Its a paper from Nature, the acclaimed science journal that every STEM person dreams of being published in. It claims that using AI to automate writing and art creation is some 300+ times less carbon-emitting than doing it manually. As I will subsequently discuss, this paper is utterly bogus.
The discussion we were having is, that a digital artist will need to run their Photoshop (or equivalent) application for a length of time while they work on their project. This consumes more energy than using artificial intelligence needs to produce images. One of my interlocutors shared this paper, and as soon as I went through it my BS detector went ding-ding-ding.
The paper ‘calculates’ the carbon emission for writing an article or drawing a digital image, and then compares it with the power consumed by a massive transformer-based neural network to do the same. But here’s where the ‘calculation’ becomes unbearably wrong: it simply multiples the time taken to write an article or paint an image with the AVERAGE HOURLY RATE of carbon emission per person.
The average carbon emission, of course, is the annual average – the annual carbon footprint divided by the number of hours in a year. This includes the footprint from driving, from the production of appliances we buy, and from activities like cooking, and so on. Of course, no one is driving or watching TV while writing an article. Nor is someone cooking. And the purchases of blenders, microwave ovens, etc. should not even be factored into the calculation. In other words, the hourly rate of emission is much lower when writing or drawing art manually, even if someone is typing into a computer or painting into one.
What I find appalling (and scandalizing, as a STEM professional) is that this article was published in a hallowed journal like Nature. I have often heard STEM ‘skeptics’ proudly brag about the efficacy and reliability of the Peer Review system, at least on respectable journals. So for me, this article was a jolting reminder of how far we have fallen.
Also, on the topic of poverty, you are absolutely right about self-inflicted poverty. My college years were spent in campus dormitories (hostels) of my alma mater, a tier II Indian engineering college which has students from some of the most rural and impoverished parts of India. I got to meet people from a wide variety of backgrounds, and quickly learnt that folks from rural and impoverished backgrounds had extremely limited ambitions and dreams. While the more advantaged among us aspired to pursue post-graduate study and then work on the latest technologies, the less fortunate ones were happy to simply get placed in a job.
If I may ask because of the discussion between Fra’ Lupo und you about incompatibilities between Eastern and Westerways of energy work, does the energy work done in Tai Chi or Qi Gong happen to be asymmetrical? That might, in this case, be an explanation for the incompatibility.
>We must ensure Washington remains a leader in technology and sustainability
I sense someone wanting to have their cake and eat it too. Which usually ends up with them not having a cake or eating it either.
Dear JMG and commentariat:
It seems European governments have lost their minds. I saw the podcast of Dr. Betz’s talk and if I was in the government I’d be very worried. But PM Starmer in playing at being Churchill and there is talk about sending troops (that the British don’t have) to Ukraine. If he thinks he’s unpopular now, how about a military disaster?
On the other hand, what the US government thinks dropping a few more bombs on the Houthis is going to do is puzzling, beyond saying “Look, we’re doing something!”
This won’t end well.
By the way, Aurelian’s last two posts, especially The Man Who Almost Woke Up from last week, are very interesting . That one covers a lot of topics and trends discussed here.
Cugel
JMG,
My last few posts have been about “skills”, mastery of them and their life/death.
So now I am going to ask “Culture or skills which comes first?”. I ask because I have seen cultures (in communities, towns, cities, states, countries, etc…) that do a better job at promoting mastery and preserving skills and many others that do not. I have seen attempts to transplant skills into cultures that didn’t take and I have seen attempts to transplant a culture into skills that also didn’t take.
I’ve been reading a lot lately, which has led me to once again reflect on reading a lot, and ‘informational glut’. A buzzwordy tech industry Substack post I stumbled across this morning has brought this reflection to a head. The writer quotes someone who ‘reads four or five books in a day’.
I recall that systems always have an informational layer, and it seems to me that if you have too much information in a system, that system is going to be overwhelmed in a particular way. Too much of one ‘stock’ flowing through a system is also a kind of overwhelm, such as too much water in a flood, but at least with a healthy informational layer, the system has useful information about what is happening and can adapt. But with an informational glut, the excess of information would seem to distort this, and the system then requires energy from elsewhere in the system for it to handle the informational excess.
I enjoy reading – which is a great reason in itself to read – but the example of the person who is reading four or five books a day makes me wonder at the point at which reading too much creates more problems than it solves.
That article talks about ‘hyperlegibility’: being so legible with one’s writing so that more people are able to read it so that more people actually do read it. And share it, as I’ve unfortunately done… the article is essentially suggesting doing to information what fast food companies do to raw ingredients.
In any case, this is in stark contrast to some occult or spiritual texts, which are sometimes ‘hyperillegible’ so that you read it over and over until you have a deeper, more experiential, sense of the various meanings in the text (or the meanings you have chosen to assign to it).
I know you read a lot. How do you know when you’re being overcome by an informational glut? I recently tried an ‘information fast’ which brought about some useful effects but didn’t entirely feel like the most appropriate solution. This will likely depend on the person, but is there a point where one has enough knowledge, from some sort of standpoint, that more information isn’t necessarily the single thing required to make good choices and make sense of the world?
(Disclaimer: this entire comment might be a way for me to justify not looking for some of the interesting-sounding book titles this comment thread has already introduced! 🙂 )
As a American though I tend conservative and was happy to see Trump elected I do agree with Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet who said “a plague on both their houses” when speaking of the rival clans, the Montagues and Capulets. My own preferred society, not to happen soon in this present system, would be Chestertonian distributism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism combined with a conscious living in balance with the earth. Not on the Trumpian agenda or his opponents.
From the model of my parents I learned to live responsibly in the here and now where I actually have some control and volition and not worry about big picture things I have no control over beyond periodically making marks on paper that I mail in (voting) and deal with stuff as it comes into my personal sphere. I also realize no matter what source I go to, the source will have partial, incomplete information so I hold my opinions lightly and don’t get all riled up and aim to be friendly with everyone.
It seems to me that sometime in the next 20 years or so. we will be hitting resource limits and the dream of endless tech progress and economic growth and settling Mars will hit a wall and painful adjustments will begin.
Jeff Russell @3, you’ve already named Galina Krasskova, so I’ll nominate Wyrd Designs https://wyrddesigns.wordpress.com/ . She posts infrequently, but her information/lore seems to be very good. I will keep my eyes open for more information about your group!
That said, I should maybe introduce myself too. Hi, I’m Sister Crow (not to be confused with the Mister Crow who posts on Dreamwidth!). I’ve been following JMG’s work since the article about him in Pangaia (around 2012 or so?). Since early childhood I’ve loved mythology, magic, and fantasy–I remember reading the M volume of the World Book Encyclopedia in 2nd grade and being captivated by a photo of a statue of Athena: not only a Goddess but a Goddess of wisdom, amazing! Seeking a Goddess-focused religion, I became Dianic in high school and practiced it for a couple decades, though it felt less sufficient as the years went on. Eventually I met Brigid and did a hard turn into hard polytheism. Because the only material on Gaelic polytheism I could find was from ADF, I began practicing Druidry from JMG’s books. At some point Thor introduced Himself, so I began worshiping the Aesir as well as the Tuatha de Danann. Just this month I decided to take up Golden Dawn work (also from JMG’s books), so my practices are perhaps even more mixed than usual for this group!
JMG, there is another phenomenon of American which do personally much dislike, my opinion only, that is the refusal to pronounce any word which has more than two syllables. ‘Secretary of Defense’ becomes Sec Def, for example. I am afraid I do not take a benign view of the habit of not paying attention to anything which does not sound like an advertising jingle. To me, it is akin to the truly annoying and, IMO, rude habit of assigning people nicknames without their permission. I think a person’s name is what they say it is.
Kfish and JMG, I surely agree that hatred is a normal human emotion and I would go further and say that some things should be hated. I think the best way, at least in private life, to deal with deliberately provocative people is to ignore them and live your own life without seeking their permission. If they then want to come after you, they have to expend energy to do so, and they are clearly the bully for all to see.
I have been absent since my husband is getting cataract surgery (both eyes) and I am his seeing-eye squirrel. He has ADD and is nearly blind. Prayers are welcome for his surgery and healing.
—-
About Trump Derangement Syndrome which is now morphed into Elon Musk DS. I have watched the anti-Trump post their stuff on social media. I was wondering if they would split off into pet causes. Only one has, who has been reporting on transexuals being threatened. He is very passionate about that.
However, all the other causes – immigrants, etc have been curiously absent until the Democratic machine pops out with meme of the day. I have watched the meme machine start with a democratic sign or alt-fed workers or some such, and then like sheep, everyone posts the same meme.
Not only that, but class warfare is one of the old memes that is being trotted out. Watch out for DOGE, they are destroying the usual suspects – Social Security, etc (Think of the starving old people!) A lot of those memes have been panicking my “little buddies.”
Two things I have noticed. One, the age of the TDS and EMDS sufferers are over 50 and mostly female college educated. The people who are happy with Trump are under 30 and mostly male (various levels of education). The TDS folks will probably die off.
Two, the Trump is a Nazi (dictator meme) is making the rounds again. There are standard statements that everyone makes under duress such as when found drunk – “I only had two beers!” “I have proof of them emailing me, but my phone just got busted…..”.
Anyway, in during the first term, it was “my grandmother was alive in Germany, and she saw Hitler… blah, blah, blah” – ends with Trump equals Hitler. Now it is, “this is what my high school (college) history professor said about rising dictators, etc.” ending with Trump equals Putin.
As for burning Teslas, a guy in my neighborhood drives a Tesla truck. Ugly thing. However, no one remarks on that, just that they think the truck won’t take the hills of W.Va.
Just an addendum, one could say Musk has Nazi tendencies since most of his children are screened for eugenics. He is an advocate of smart breeding. However, no one with EMDS ever mentions that. Just Teslas being swatzicars, etc, In other words, just memes and no actual thinking.
As you know I do read Neo-Pagan blogs, which are obviously all TDS in spades, not to mention extreme paranoia. One question, is this a result of that hexing they were doing? Paranoia comes back in spades.
Last question, why are they all obsessed with Star Trek? I have encountered various discussions of how we need to be like Star Trek or we need to keep the flame burning during these dark times. What’s with Star Trek? Why not Star Wars? or some other science fiction or action adventure like the Avengers or something?
One Conservative pointed out to the group of Neo-Pagans, that the Federation could be run on conservative principles such as the Prime Directive – Mind Your Own Business. Everyone decided to tell him he was “unsafe” and “disturbing.”
@Peter Wilson #42–
That sounds like a very helpful lecture on Carbon, and a good strategy–to do what we can, and try to chart a course between depression and false hope. Have you or someone posted a YouTube of the lecture, or is there a link on-line to the text?
@JMG re: Pacific NorthWest Changer Myths
You mentioned a myth of Coyote the Changer and the name of the book with the story of how the Changer travels from the sea to a mountain top, defeating each dangerous beast and changing them– One attacked him with a board, so he attached the board to its posterior and named it ‘Beaver,’ for example;
Could you re-post the name of that reference book? I am having trouble finding it through our library system;
For the interested, I have found these references:
Hines DH. Tales of the Okanogans. Washington; Galleon Press 1976. ISBN 0-87770-173-3
“Thirty-eight tales traditional to Okanogan Indians living in the border area of Washington State and Canada.
Mourning Dove (Humishuma). Coyote Stories. Caldwell, Idaho. Caxton Printers, 1933. ISBN 0-8032-3145-8. Also; University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books 1990.
This reads like the ‘Jack Tales’ anthology, and gives a good feeling for the character of Coyote.
King, Thomas. Coyote Tales. Toronto, On. Groundwood Books / Anansi Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1-55498-833-4. Contains two stories, ‘Coyote sings to the moon,’ and ‘Coyote’s new suit.’ King’s very engaging style made these a pleasure to read. They would be suitable for reading aloud to young children (Not all coyote stories are).
I have a few small children, and one common complaint about other people with small children are that Baby Boomer grandparents, specifically white ones, are, at the same time, absent, entitled, and not especially good at grandparenting. I thought it was only my parents at first, but speaking to many other parents around my age, we all have same complaint.
They’re never available when we need them. They complain about us never being available when they’re available. They promise to retire and then don’t, or retire and then never visit. They freak out over basic things like crying children. They leave as soon as the kids act up a little bit.
And, growing up, I remember my parents receiving a lot of help from their own parents. Every Friday was dinner at Grandma’s. Grandmas and Great Aunts stepping up to baby sit. Grandpas taking the kids to school and extracurricular activities. And all this stuff. And then, when we ask for a little help, “We never got help growing up.”
I think it’s contributing a lot to people not having kids even if they have the money to have kids, because even if you have the money, with the lack of help, you don’t the time, unless you have enough money to hire foreign nannies. The foreign families (mostly Indian where I live) are also shocked by the complete absence of intergenerational help that white American families have become accustomed to with this generation of grandparents.
Shakespeare is pretty obviously a writer’s room for 1,000 reasons, but AI can chunk apart and more or less prove it by writer style now. You’d think that would be obvious since his name is “Wanker” in Tudor English. I mean OBVIOUSLY. Will may not have even been literate. Or a live human being. It was probably an elaborate put-on most people at the time knew was a joke. Even right now there are obvious ghost writers and names in Hollywood credits that are stand-ins for “Anonymous” yet everyone denies it.
The language tic is quite obviously the narrative media. If I’m talking to YOU, I’m talking to YOU. What the kidlings are doing is the “Quote words,” Comma, He SAID, format. He was LIKE (that is open quote “….) I was Like “…Open quote/close quote.” Like is w weird twist that means, “Said”. Because ALL media right now is Sitcoms/Cartoons/Novels/Comics, and none of it is exposition, non-fiction, 300-page books.
Peak Oil is yet another level complicated, which as so many, particularly UK openly ignore though obvious: Russia is shut in. Iran is shut in. Half of Africa is shut in. Alaska is shut in. And if you open them all up completely you’re going to have another 50 years of oil, minimum. That is, there’s going to be a boatload of oil, BUT ENGLAND ISN’T GETTING ANY. So for them Peak Oil is both true and false. Maybe they shouldn’t have screwed Iran and Russia for 70 years straight and just bought it on market, it’s cheaper. Like how buying every barrel in Iraq would be half the price of our war there. …It was never about the oil, it was about DENYING it to others.
I finished reading The Carnelian Moon and loved it. A few comments – don’t post if it would be spoilers for those who haven’t read it, or delete the spoilers.
First, Ariel is growing up. In Witch, she was feebly fending off her mother. In Book, she told her mother to get real, and apparently, her mother hasn’t called since. But she still gloats at being able to do things that would freak her mother out. In Moon, that seems to be behind her. Adolescence is not a time nor a phase; it’s a *process.*
Second, the boy she thought was just using her, is not the right one for her. They are far too much alike, and he seems to be carrying more baggage than Portland International’s lost-and-found over the holidays.
Third – What are the local werewolves getting out of their shapeshifting? I could see it if they were next to the Adocentyn National Forest (if such exists)) to do a bit of discreet poaching, but not in a small urban park. Or is it, simply, reviving an ancient religion on our shores to keep it alive?
Oh, and what is the projected title of Book Four?
@KevinO #15 – Finn McCool’s Fianna started out that way. From what I understand, before Finn took them over, they were something less than a warband. I may be mistaken in that.
@Ken Wood #17 – at the dinner table, I had occasion to ask one of my tablemates (partly to get her off her current rant) “Suppose your cat talked to you and said “This cat food tastes like sawdust.” She promptly said “I’d get him better cat food. Then added, as if it were an imposition, “I feed him Fancy Feast. Fancy Feast!” Which unexpectedly did NOT leas to a discussion of the decline in quality of cat food over the past 20 years. But nobody disputed the conversation with her cat.
Hello Everyone
I am wondering what everyone is thinking about the war of words and trade that my country and Canada are engaged in lately. I understand Trump’s tariff stuff, he wants industry to restore to the US and leverage over Canada, but what is all the talk of the 51 state. Is he just trying to get negative energy sent his way or is he trying to damage the Canadian liberals. What dose everyone think and how do our Ecosophian Canadian friends see things from up there now.
Thanks Everyone
Hi JMG, thank you as always for this forum. About a month ago, I had what felt like a sudden energetic shift in my solar plexus. I experienced a feeling of increasing openness over a period of a few days, visualized in my body as what I can only describe as a spherical void, the depth of which feels intensely deep and open. This has been accompanied by a certain shift in consciousness, where I am much more aware of and can sense energetic flows in my body in a way I have never experienced before. A few days after this, I experienced a sudden and intense attack of fatigue and brain fog in my body, to the extent that I had to nap for the afternoon. I had felt fine up until this point, and after the nap I felt completely normal. The next day I found out that I was being let go from my job of 8 years, which I knew was a possibility beforehand, but it was still somewhat of a shock to get the news.
I have some questions about this I would appreciate your perspective on. One, does this sound like I had some sort of energy blockage clear in my solar plexus? And did I sense the coming news of losing my job moving down the inner planes into manifestation? And if so, is there a way to recognize this process happening the next time and constructively direct the energy in a way that doesn’t cause me to feel that intense fatigue and brain fog?
The Netherlands has energy distribution problems too, scroll down to see the maps.
https://www.pv-tech.org/iea-transparent-data-on-grid-capacity-critical-to-identify-bottlenecks/
The “dynamic line rating, which monitors and optimizes how much electricity can flow through the power lines” translates to when it’s cold we can run up the current in the lines because the heat can dissipate into the air. On a hot day they have to cut back current flow or the lines will get too hot.
Smaller safety margins are just fine, right?
As for the Shakespeare debate, the man had a production schedule to keep. I always envisioned him sitting in a pub brainstorming with friends around a pitcher of of beer. There was a similar scene in the movie Amadeus where Mozart was composing at the piano with a soprano softly singing the notes behind him (probably to see if she could actually do what he was writing) and several other people hanging around.
Jeff,
I have been involved in “heathenism” very informally since about 2015, before I knew anything about the occult. I was introduced to it by a blogger who has since gone offline. He was a practicing Hellenist and based on some of his writings I built a relationship with the Roman pantheon without knowing what I was doing. When, later on, I got more into occultism, divination/meditation reminded me of this and I have slowly moved back toward them. Though I come from a Northern European background myself, for some reason Roman polytheism has had most attraction for me. But this counts as heathenism. For a time I was conflicted because I thought I might return to the Christianity of my youth, but I’ve finally decided I had too many misgivings about that faith and there’s no reason to return to it when Roman polytheism and occultism can accomplish the same spiritual goals anyway.
Thus far, I have mostly worked within the Golden Section and Hermetic Rose traditions that JMG has laid out, and I’ve gone slowly because of some difficult life events in the past couple of years. Because of this I have had little time to look into much of the wider heathen community. Thanks for the guidance. For now, it will have to remain a project for another spring. However, I have happily kept in contact, from time to time, with the Ecosophians, at this website and some of its allies (e.g. Kimberly’s Dreamwidth) and I’d be happy to keep correspondence to whatever extent time allows with other practicing heathens. One thing I mentioned to Kimberly is that there is now, around this Ecosophian circle, an active community performing blessings, prayers and divination free of charge — this is proof of an active and growing egregore which can be of benefit to all of us and hopefully the wider society as well. It’s an exciting time!
Best,
Deneb
“For example, he mentions that when our cities become part of the geological strata, it would most likely show up as a thin band of red iron-rich minerals, glass shards and iron pyrite along with possible fossils of everyday things such as chairs or machines.”
A stainless steel kitchen sink should last quite well in a sedimentary deposit. It will make an interesting fossil.
As for the Houthis, the US has a long standing dislike of pirates. What’s happening there is not surprising. You can look up First Barbary War if you like. The phrase “to the shores of Tripoli” in the Marine’s Hymn is not an accident.
KAN, did you intend “hubristic” for “heuristic”? Either way, it’s a fine coinage — a heuristic based on the presence of hubris would indeed be useful in this context.
Paedrig, good gods. I’d encourage you to reflect on whether you’re comfortable with the karma of that action, which could lead to a great many deaths among other things — “what do you mean all those bridges and buildings just collapsed? They were designed by AI, which can’t make mistakes!” That said, it’s not my job to tell you what to do, or what not to do — and yes, it would be possible, and potentially rather easy, to do something like that.
KAN, good. That’s useful advice.
Patricia O, thank you for this.
Patrick, oh, there’ll be wars. I don’t think that the resulting nations will end up as bloodsoaked as Europe, say, but where there are nations with competing interests, there will be wars.
LeGrand (if I may), good heavens. I didn’t know Pixley had connections with the Russian Martinist scene!
Omer, I haven’t seen it yet. That’s the next great test the model has to face.
Averagejoe, the fourth volume, The House of the Crows, is already at the publisher; the fifth, The Sign of the Phoenix, is in process, and I have the next two, The Greater Key and The Marble Sphinx, in outline at present with a few scenes roughed out. Ariel has a long road still to walk.
AliceEm, I’m delighted to hear that your son came through the experience in good shape, and even more so that he learned and grew through the whole thing.
Rajarshi, yeah, that kind of propaganda masquerading as science has been far too common of late, and I’m not in the least surprised to learn that it was published in Nature. The WEF’s flacks are now claiming that growing vegetables at home using hand tools produces far more carbon pollution than having them grown in industrial farms and shipped thousands of miles by truck or plane; I assume they’re using the same sort of absurd pseudologic. If they really want to convince most people that science is a pack of lies, they’re going about it the right way.
Booklover, no, the taijiquan system I studied was very careful to keep things symmetrical.
Cugel, I know. It’s getting really weird in Europe these days.
GlassHammer, that’s a chicken-and-egg question. The point I’d make is that it’s a lot easier to learn a new skill than it is to learn a new culture!
Jbucks, it’s a real issue. I’ve never met anyone who could read 4-5 books a day and get anything significant from them. I put about an hour a day into reading these days, and if I’m reading something of importance I go slow and make sure I understand every paragraph before going on. That way I finish the book having learned something.
BeardTree, good. My measured enthusiasm for the Orange Julius isn’t based on any particular approval of his agenda, it’s purely because that agenda is leading him to get rid of things that we as a nation desperately need to get rid of — for example, a fantastically overinflated federal bureaucracy, a textbook case of global imperial overreach, and a regulatory state that’s choking the Main Street economy to death. I’m well aware that Trump’s presidency will bring plenty of problems of its own, for that matter; my take is simply that those problems are somewhat less lethal than the ones inflicted by what’s been business as usual until now.
Mary, of course it’s annoying, but American culture is what it is!
Neptunesdolphins, positive energy en route for your husband. Yes, I think the paranoia in the Neopagan scene is part of the blowback from their practice of evil magic; there will be more. As for the Star Trek thing, I have no idea. It was a dull show, anyway.
Emmanuel, nah, it wasn’t a Coyote story — he’s not the Changer in western Washington. It’s a story of Moon, or as he was called in the old language, Dukwibal. You’ll find it in Arthur Ballard’s Mythology of Southern Puget Sound.
Dennis, I wish I could say that this surprises me. My g-g-g-generation is turning out to have been pretty much a waste of oxygen, isn’t it?
Dzanni, there does seem to have been an actual actor from Stratford-on-Avon named William Shakspere — that’s how he spelled it most of the time — and he was literate enough to sign his will and to write a bad poem for his epitaph. Beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess.
Patricia M, thank you for this! Yes, Ariel’s growing up, and will continue to do so. Austin? Au contraire, the two of them are going to reconcile in a couple of books, begin dating, and eventually get married; yes, both of them have plenty of baggage, and that’s one of the things they’ll have to work through. As for the werewolves, yes, it’s an ancient religious tradition they’re trying to preserve. Books Four, Five, Six, and Seven will respectively be The House of the Crows, The Sign of the Phoenix, The Greater Key, and The Marble Sphinx.
Will, I’ll be interested to see what kind of responses you get.
Kwo, that sounds like a blockage being cleared, yes. There was some murky energy that had to be discharged, which is what caused the brain fog; a nap is often the best thing you can do in that case, and it’s just something you’ll have to put up with if it happens again. As for the job change, I suspect that’s more an effect than a cause; one consequence of changes in your spiritual condition is that your life very often changes in response.
Siliconguy, that doesn’t explain why he had the vocabulary of a dozen men, at least one of which was expert in English law and at least one of which had traveled extensively in Italy…
JMG, It seems that a future potential source of failure for the internet is the relative political venerability of the high energy use data centers. In a period when the Tech class is power they may be save from depredation. But political fortunes could turn and they could be looked at as handy sources of revenue for cash strapped local governments. Since they have very few employees, are stuck in place, and are perceived by far away billionaires that nobody likes there would be little pushback on cranking up taxes or fees sky high.
Or communties on the same grid could find themselves electricity starved in the future if Natural Gas power production meets resource depletion. People experiencing 6 hour brownouts and such would care little about the pleas of Google if they wanted the power to be stripped from the Data Centers and provided to the people.
Either of these scenarios could create a tipping point for a power hungry internet realm that has few good ways to scale things back.
@Steve Lovett (#40): The Septuagint, at least, hints that the Most High did indeed appoint different gods and religions to different peoples:
“When the Most High allotted each nation its heritage, when he separated out human beings, He set up the boundaries of the peoples after the number of the divine beings…” (Deuteronomy 32:8).
The late Michael Heiser has more in that vein, for any interested in considering the (IMHO strong) case for henotheism in Christianity.
@JMG and Booklover: Thank you. I guess that prompts the question: Is qi indeed equivalent to spiritus/ether/et al.? Are they different names for the same energy (I assume so), but just used in different ways? Would be interested to hear anyone else’s experiences, if they are willing to share. In one case, it seems as if the operator is cultivating their own energy (whatever we’d like to call it), whereas in other instances it seems as if the operator is invoking external forces/energies.
@Rajarshi
I have heard from a friend who visited India about the local hierarchy of the dogs, where the strongest get the best begging and scavenging grounds with the little ones offside in smaller backalleys.
The fact that two lower rank dogs where to afraid to take treats in front of the bigger dog seems a likely case of the promise of punishment for that from the bigger dog to the little ones.
They know each other and he knows where they live.
I’ve been given a cat and noticed, it seemed to me, he can see energy flowing.
I lay on the sofa with him beside me. I concentrated my focus on points in my belly and chest, but moved little outwardly I guess.
When I had a proper focus, for example under the navel, he immedeatly turned his gaze there.
The friend who gave him to me said cats read your thoughts or inner pictures and will often be found where you intended to go, before you.
My cat in the morning when I think of leaving to my commute often went to my shoes and played with the laces, digging into my shoes and being wild when I try to put them on, ostensibly to prevent me from going.
He can go outside or inside whenever he wants alone, so he is not afraid that he is locked inside or outside when I am away.
JMG,
You may have touched on this at some point in your years of writing, but I don’t recall, and since it is in the news with the (possible) discovery that there are structures under them… Do you have opinions on the nature and purpose of the great pyramids in Egypt?
AV
I’m starting to pray to the planetary gods. I feel called to worship something, am learning astrology,have been told they are safe to approach like this, and confirmed with divination this is a good process. The process I’ve come up with for this is a daily prayer each night before bed. First, I spend a moment to clear my mind and get everything ready; then I light some incense, recite the Orphic Hymn to invoke the god, then offer the incense to the god and ask that it hear my prayer. After that, I move to a more personal prayer. For instance, asking for advice on something related to the god’s domain, thanking the god for a blessing in my life, commenting on a part of the Orphic Hymn, or just saying what happens to be on my mind at that moment. Then I pause, wait and try to get a sense of any answer that might come; and then when it feels appropriate, thank the god for joining me, record anything that happened or that I felt during the prayer, and then put everything I sued for my prayers away.
a) How does this process sound to you? Is there any step you would add?
b) Right now my prayers mostly feel like me talking to myself while burning incense, with the occasional vague feeling of something present. Do you have advice beyond sticking with it to get better at hearing their responses?
JMG,
Yes, chicken or the egg problem.
Still, its fascinating to see what skills go from “try it” to “master it” based on the culture your in. And we can’t ignore “necessity” which is an ever present force dragging some skills way ahead while others not so much. (From what I have seen, the absence of “necessity” seems to be a major component of skill decay and death.)
John–
Usually, I’d ask this on a MM post on Dreamwidth, but as this is an open post week, I figured it’d be ok here as well.
Trying to get a sense of my future path as my life recalibrates to some recent changes. A shield chart on the question: “Will teaching at a small college be in my near future?” yielded a puzzling court
LW Laetitia
RW Rubeus
J Fortuna Minor
Via punctis leading to Via in the First Daughter
Reconciler = Rubeus
The issue of anger and deception in the RW troubles me the most. Am I deceiving myself? There are issues at my present work (anger, frustration) that are leading me to strongly consider early retirement (within the next 5 years) with an eye to a second career doing something else (like teaching). Similarly, Fortuna Minor in Judge could be instability (certainly a descriptor for the higher ed industry) or swiftness (things will line up quickly).
How would you read this?
Re: LeGrand Cinq-Mars #55
Thank you for your kind words. I am aware of Shin Publications’ translations.
I believe they found a reference to Rudnikova (as “Roudnikova”) in Valentin Tomberg’s _Meditations on the Tarot_.
I will have my own translations of Mebes’s works published in the coming years.
Also, I have a Substack where I publish my translations of Nina Rudnikova’s shorter works and other interesting essays.
If you’re interested:
https://substack.com/@russianesotericism
John Michael [#83]
Turns out the Pixley/Rudnikova paper was a bit disappointing: not establishing connections, but pointing out parallels. Interesting in its own way. Written in response to a request for something on Pixley or Rudnikova.
@neptunesdolphins re: #72 “Why Star Trek and not Star Wars?”
Answer to that one strikes me as fairly straightforward: Star Trek explicitly takes place in our future, with clear ties to Earth of the present: “it is our destiny.” Star Wars, on the other hand, reminds you at the start of each film that it takes place “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” Being a decade older and therefore able to influence more minds at an earlier date might have also played a role – the “core” boomers (1950-55 births) were still kids-to-teens when Star Trek came out, while already in their twenties when Star Wars did.
(That said, there is substantial Star Wars influence on thought processes – the Evil Empire, the plucky Resistance guaranteed to win, etc.).
Thank you JMG, that seems to fit my experience well since the blockage cleared. It’s been a cascade of mostly positive and welcome, but definitely drastic changes. I’ll buckle up for the ride!
Hi Mr. JMG,
It’s been a little bit since I’ve been on the blog. I’ve fallen behind on the Ring/Parsifal series, but I plan to catch up soon. In the meantime, I have been reading some other things, mainly a couple of plays from a Matthew Gasda. Mr. Gasda is a thirtysomething writer living in New York City, and he has acquired a micro-celebrity status online for writing a play called Dimes Square, a social-commentary on the New York art scene.
I had the pleasure of seeing one of his newest plays performed in San Francisco last week. This play is called Doomers, and its an unstructured social drama about the OpenAI funding brouhaha that occurred last year. Think of unstructured in the sense that the play does not really have a plot, but rather it is a bunch of characters conversing about the “ethics of AI” or “ethics of funding for their company,” instead of a linear plot.
Now, I am a genuine AI disbeliever, but those fun themes aside, I found the play to have a very interesting structure. I noticed that the characters related to each other in the manner that Russian nesting dolls relate to each other. In the play, there is an CEO-fellow who is the innermost doll, and then there are subsequent character layers extending out from there. There are two characters (who are sleeping together) as the next closest layer to the CEO, the “AI Ethicist” and the “Top Programmer.” Then a further layer of characters who embody parental themes and give advice to the CEO, and a final layer of outermost characters who are set in a separate scene occurring simultaneously as the first scene.
I tell all this to you because by my measure, this play is evidence that the Russian great culture has arrived in the United States. There are other rumblings about some recent oscar-winning movies that also draw on the Sobornost for structure and meaning. Food for thought!
Hi JMG,
As always, thank you very much for producing a couple of fine moderated forums. It’s always a pleasure to have almost all the insanity in today’s world left at the door, so to speak.
A while back you mentioned Ben Franklin’s autobiography on a short list of recommended reads, and I put it on my list and am now about halfway through. I can see how this book fits into a LESS approach to living, and am enjoying how he details the character and motivation in others as to whether or not he does business with them. I read this book back in high school in the late 1970s, and recall a rigorous daily schedule he kept to make the most use of his time, and that certainly reminds be of your prolific output of material.
Are there any other major takeaways from the Autobiography that you would note?
@neptunesdolphins; Star Trek is a beacon for a lot of people because it shows people from different ethnicities, cultures and backgrounds working together and respecting each other. It is a well known fact that when Nichelle Nichols who played Tenent Uhura considered leaving the series, Dr. Martin Luther King (yes, THAT Martin Luther King) asked her to keep working on the series because it was a weekly example of having an African American (and a woman) being in a position of power and responsibility, trusted and respected by those that worked with her. Star Trek appeal was never about the technology, but for the way it depicted people.
It is not a bad example to follow.
Whispers
To John and the commentariat on the Peak Oil conversation:
I think that the following paper is useful to study. I am not sure whether I’ve posted it here before, but I think it’s good to take a look at it either way. It views Peak Oil in terms of net energy rather than in terms of oil production. Essentially, before there is a peak in oil production, there is a peak and decline in the amount of energy from oil production that actually goes to society.
“Peak oil and the low-carbon energy transition: A net-energy perspective”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261921011673
It is also important to remember that societal decline and collapse is about much more than just peak oil. It is diminishing returns and rising costs to every kind of human activity over time.
Yes, the black box of the federal bureaucracy and it how it spends money hasn’t been opened and looked at since at least the 1930’s and 40’s. It seems that some people regard the federal bureaucracy as an independent fourth branch of the government filled with beneficient unbiased experts that know what is best and certainly not accountable to presidents.
I recently read through David Worrall’s (1992) “Radical Culture: Discourse, Resistance and Surveillance, 1790–1820”, largely because I was interested in his book on Blake’s visions (William Blake’s Visions: Art, Hallucinations, Synaesthesia) , but hadn’t yet been able to read a copy. Worrall refers back to Iain McCalman’s “Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840”, which is well worth reading as well., but has done a huge amount of archival work reading not only court records but intelligence records of the period.
Worrall’s book provides a very rich and detailed chronological survey of radical culture, insurrectionary attempts, and so, of great interest to anyone who is interested in William Blake. Worrall himself has some sort of materialist sympathies, occasionally remarking on “materialist metaphysics” (as distinguished from the naughtier sort that goes beyond the material), and a sweet-summer-child admiration for the possible outcomes of a Spencean revolution.
“Instead of an industrial economy, we could have had an agrarian society, even a ‘green’ one in the late-twentieth-century sense of the word. Instead of nineteenth-century imperialism, there might have been a self sufficient and equable nation decentralized into parishes , perhaps even into a welfare state, on a Paineite model, whose
clock could not be turned back by successive trimming and cutting. It did not have to be the way it
is now.”
Given that, as he shows, the radicals and revolutionaries were seriously interested in bringing in French intervention to help achieve their goals, one can only wonder about Britain’s fate as yet another Overseas Department.
At any rate, the interesting point is the way that the radical political culture overlapped with other marginal scenes (McCalman is more useful in this regard) — including marginal religious and esoteric scenes. And, as McCalman shows, the way that radical publishers and printers eventually re-found themselves as pornographers.
This this ties into the social history of esotericism, since several writers of more or less pornographic texts also wrote on esoteric subjects, including Edward Sellon, and of course Richard Burton. The “priapic interpretation” of ancient religion, and esoteric themes in general, found a home in this setting.
Prominent among these was Leonard Smithers, “publisher to the Decadents”, who had a line in more or less pornographic texts, and whose affair with Althaea Gyles was part of the turmoil surrounding Crowley’s passage through the Golden Dawn.
The full story of the overlap of the 19th-century occult and pornographic worlds has yet to be elucidated, but it’s worth remembering that people like Arthur Machen also had connections with this scene, though I do not think he published with Smithers.
A decade or so ago there was an attempt in Britain to filter the internet for radical, pornographic and esoteric content — could the inclusion of the last have had something to do with this 19th-century history?
A long haired young man with a YouTube channel called Eurodollar University is earnestly, fiercely saying we need a collapse so we can have a Recovery. There hasn’t been a true Recovery since the Global Financial Crisis. I’d like to introduce him to the concepts of peak oil and catabolic collapse, but I think the effort would be dismissed as ravings of an old lady(I’m 73). Once upon a time pouring money into the economy would have caused a boom. No longer. Money is watered down, no longer backed by a growing supply of Black Gold.
JMG (and Commentariat),
In your response to Rajarshi you mentioned that the WEF is now claiming that growing vegetables at home using hand tools produces far more carbon pollution than having them grown industrially. I am positive that this is a wet dream of theirs, and that they greatly help to support the study that published last year that claimed that. However, I could find nothing that directly linked that idea to anything they have published, like that “you will own nothing’ smoking gun. If anyone has a link to any such claim made by them directly, could you provide that link in a comment here?
Clay, that’s extremely likely. I could also see sabotage becoming a real issue, especially if AI gets used in exploitive and authoritarian ways, as doubtless it will be.
Fra’ Lupo, my experience working with eastern and western systems is that qi = ether, full stop, end of sentence. Of course some systems work with the body’s own etheric supply, others draw in ether from outside, and still others do both; there’s also a lot of variation in which energy centers they use — there are a great many of them, probably several hundred, and each system of practice takes a small selection of those and uses them, with different effects.
Curt, cats see the etheric plane as clearly as they do the material plane, so yes, they can see energy, and anything reflected in your etheric body, such as your intentions and emotions.
AV, nope. I wasn’t there when they were in use!
Anonymous, that’s classic, and increasingly common these days. As for the response, it takes a while to pick up the sensitivity to perceive any deity. Keep at it!
GlassHammer, granted.
David BTL, I’d say that it’s more a passing fancy than anything else. Take your time and let the transformations you’re in play out (way of points ending in Via), and you’ll get a clearer idea of what you should do.
LeGrand, well, that’s disappointing! Stil, worth knowing.
Mrdobner, hmm. We’ll see.
Drhooves, I’d have to reread it — it’s been twenty years!
Enjoyer, it’s a good paper. Of course nearly everybody ignored it, as it doesn’t fit into the two canned narratives about the future that structure almost everyone’s thinking — if it’s not perpetual progress or overnight apocalypse, most people aren’t interested.
BeardTree, and they’re very well paid to think so, or at least to say that they think so.
LeGrand, fun. I’ll have to give those a read.
Rebecca, you’re probably wise not to try to explain things to him. Very few people can embrace that clarity yet.
John, hmm! I thought I had something bookmarked on that subject, but I can’t find it. Anyone else?
@ jbucks #67
If I may 🙂
I would note that, in very much the same way as one is never nourished by the food one EATS, but only by the food one DIGESTS, one’s mind can not be nourished by the books one can EAT, so much as by by the books one’s mind can DIGEST.
(And of course, JMG’s prescribed method of discursive meditation, is an effective tool for DIGESTING book content – as well as other types of content).
@will b
If Trump is trying to damage the Liberals by threatening annexation, it’s backfiring badly. Since the trade war and the threats started, the Liberals have abruptly risen in popularity while the Conservatives have dropped. I have never seen so many Canada flags outside of Canada day. And a lot of people are boycotting US products and travel. There’s also been a somewhat-belated realization that we need to stand on our own two feel militarily a bit more if we don’t want to get pushed around like this, and that being Canadian is in fact meaningful and worth keeping.
Right now expressing support for Trump is likely to make you very unpopular, very fast. I’m in coastal BC. The situation probably varies a bit depending on what part of the country you’re in. It sounds like the East is absolutely enraged, along with coastal BC, while Alberta is trying to calm things down. It’s weird seeing Premier Smith trying to do diplomacy. She’s got a reputation for being the opposite. I’m not sure her efforts are working terribly well.
There’s a lot of anger at Trump, so he’s certainly getting negative energy sent his way.
I’m saying this as someone who actively dislikes the Liberal party and has no plans to vote for Carney or the local Liberal candidate in the upcoming election. I am very unwilling to vote for a career banker who is up to his eyebrows in the WEF globalist idiocy, and has already put in place policies likely to inflate the housing market still further – until it crashes. But then I look at the others, and I’m finding myself going ‘I hate all my options, this completely stinks’ again. Voting is definitely going to be a case of holding my nose and feeling guilty, whatever less-bad option I pick.
@Rajarshi @JMG regarding Carbon output.
I am sure we have all meet the kind of people that would write those kinds of “studies”. It is starting with a conclusion and works backwards to that. They would have all manner of word play, statistical narrow boundry stats at hand and a conviction that they are right! No matter what is presented to them. They would argue a fire is cold as hold their hand in it. But cannot see the broader picture either because their pay check is dependent on that or they have an ego to size of the Pacific ocean. Probably both.
In the book The lost language of plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner, he goes on for a few chapters about how things like this are used to depict a world that just doesn’t exsist. As he said “All mathematicians I have meet seem like control freaks”, and this extends to a lot of other academic types. They are separately trying to shove the world into boxes for which they cannot fit.
Also JMG, I keep pushing that carbon emissions from home grown plants into the rubbish bin, but you keep dragging it out! You did once say you where the dumpster diver of forgotten philosophies, occastionally something else comes along. 😉
@ kebin o #15 and Beardtree #36: Adolescent boys roaming round in groups. Funnily enough young male horses do this too! They form ‘batchelor groups’ and spar with and annoy/hassle each other pretty much constantly ( but have a lot less personal space and a much flatter pecking order than mares) Watching them at the stud I used to work at reminded me of lads you see hanging out on street corners!
@neptunesdolphins
When I see a bunch of different social media/MSM sources all saying the same thing at once, suddenly, I just assume it’s because they’re being paid to. Enough real-life examples of this have come to light over the last several years to reveal a well-trod path from sources of funding with agendas to promote, to “influencers” who will say anything for a buck. See, for example, the latest scandal with influencer personalities getting caught taking money to shill for soda companies, in the wake of RFKJ talking about making sodas not eligible for food stamp purchase.
Mainly commenting to respond to others, but since I’m here, I’ll just say that as a Scandinavian I’ve been watching the (Danish) freakout over Greenland with amusement. And in general, I’ve enjoyed seeing our elites seethe on the sidelines lately as they plaintively insist that Trump and/or the Russians have to listen to them and care about their opinions on anything.
On previous open posts I’ve been talking about how Norway seems to be sloughing off some of its absurd wealth. While this will obviously bring a lot of pain, lately I’ve also been seeing it hopeful terms: maybe it’s better for us to become a normal country again, like we were up to the 80s, rather than this glittering bubble of privilege. You’ve written about the Western world’s “thirty-year vacation from reality” before, and I think that vacation was especially strong here. Of course the coming realignment will bring a lot of misery, and I won’t romanticize that, but I also suspect it’ll be good for us in many ways to have to (re-)learn that abstract “rights” and good intentions can’t substitute for physical reality.
@Jeff Russel #3
Hello again. 🙂 Sounds like a good idea, and I for one would be happy to become a regular at your open post. I’d also like to see more good Heathen spaces online, especially but not only from a Scandinavian/European perspective. Wish I could add to your list, but I think you have a better overview of the field than I do anyway. Outside of the ones you mention, I lurked a bit on the Reddit Heathen sub before I turned my back on that site completely. As might be expected, it’s mostly beginner stuff and very much oriented towards the American Team Blue mentality, with the occasional good post. So yes, I’d very much like to see a bigger Heathen online sphere. I’ve even toyed with the idea of trying a blog of my own, but we’ll see.
I think I’ll save most of the introductory stuff for when/if your proposed hangout gets started, but in short, as a Norwegian I naturally grew up with the Norse myths and always saw it as my “default paganism”.
Even back when I was a Dawkins-style atheist, I remember having a lot of fondness for Heathens and thinking it would have been amazing if the Heathen Gods actually did exist and could be worshipped, even if I thought those who did were obviously wrong. Still, I envied them rather than looking down on them. Getting to that point has been “a long, strange journey”, as our host might say, and in no small part due to his influence.
Religion is still kind of awkward to me, and my entry point has been more through ceremonial magic so far, but I’m trying. JMG and Sven Erikson’s original Heathen Golden Dawn rituals were my gateway to that whole scene, and after some years of various false starts and meanderings I’m now working the new Heathen GD and hope to do the Thrall grade initiation in early summer. On a related note, I still haven’t quite given up hope to see an Order of the Heathen GD eventually. Who knows, maybe your new open post could attract some interested practitioners.
@Rajarshi #12
At the risk of coming across as all neo-primitivist, I think there’s one major flaw to your reasoning here: for the vast, vast majority of our history we were hunter-gatherers, and this concept of “poverty” doesn’t really apply there. So I’d say it’s really a product of (sedentary, agrarian) civilization, which is of course fairly recent in historical terms.
Hello Mr. Greer. My name is Jonathan. Perhaps a year or two ago, a weekly post of yours introduced me to verse. It inspired me to write a very terrible poem, which I am sorry for subjecting you to; yet it also introduced me to poetry, a blessing I didn’t know until you demonstrated a few lines of verse. I have been reading Gerard Manley Hopkins: though he is difficult, I adore his poetry more than almost anything else I’ve ever read. Without you, I would not have had the inclination to study a poet. And now, your most recent posts introduces me to classical music. Thank you very much for sharing everything you do; though I don’t comment often, I read every weekly post, and just wanted to let you know that Wednesday is always a decent day, at least for the half hour your post takes to read.
I hope you are in good health and will continue to post for years.
Hey JMG
I’m glad to hear this, as I am certain that you’ll find much of interest in it. One of the very interesting things the book introduced me to is the work of a paleoclimatologist called William F. Ruddiman.
Ruddiman is famous for his rather controversial hypothesis that even before the Industrial Revolution, humanity has been producing enough carbon dioxide and methane gas via agriculture over the past 8000 years to disrupt the ice age cycle, preventing or at least dampening it. If this is true, then it is possible that for as long as humanity continues doing agriculture an ice age will be put off indefinitely. I think this will be even more likely if using methane gas derived from agricultural waste becomes a common energy source for ecotechnic civilisation.
https://humansandnature.org/william-ruddiman-and-the-ruddiman-hypothesis/
@JMG #49 – what you’re saying is that the current crisis is a Megacrisis, similar to the Fall of Rome (and, no, Byzantium was NOT Roman; it was totally Greek.) I think the 15th Century War of the Roses was another. Even though on the surface, our times resemble those of Julius Caesar.
@John of the Red Hook and JMG
Urban agriculture vs conventional farming study, showing 6x greater co2 emissons from UA: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-023-00023-3.epdf?sharing_token=Zsn_WtKGttWsz-B3AVDI8dRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0N-LlYQ9vCYuIp_pfSiuAlXN2XJuWJ-VQnh367xpQ_Y_vwtV_gmzH5pk5cNoarxeLxFQCyRProBx5Xa0YXgxzPXkC9J8B0a7KCvxNf7gP2L9nj75Ckn_7_ccAYTTkIO_kvHyitXa1TWYSdkSf5yH2uc-zTXazaeiZXzqBOXGzuZv45K224cm3nE-YXNiFmtv7w%3D&
Would be interested to here what you all make of it!
Good day to JMG and all the commenters!
I’d like to point out that the cost of living might have some effect on birth rates? The 1950s seems to be the mental template a lot of people have, and in those days a (white) man could bring home enough money to support his (white) family in a reasonable suburban style. (Your mileage may vary if your family was not that sort of family, or if the man in question wasn’t employable or the parents didn’t stay married.)
That single family starter home is harder to come by these days, and as a result women are making different decisions about children, and possibly also different decisions about marriage and men.
In any case, the current USAian (apparent) plan to remove any sort of support or safety net for families and children would seem suggest that reproduction is only an option for the rich?
So, I’m questioning the people who are blaming unhelpful grandparents for a declining birthrate, rather than low wages, expensive housing, and men who are addicted to video games.
Each family is different, and their decisions about children and parenting will reflect their economic and social conditions.
@JMG re: Ariel Moravec – Thanks for this! She really hasn’t met any boys in her age group so far, except Orion Jackson (ooh, how her Mom would freak at a working class boy!) who is 2 years younger – in adolescence, older girl and younger boy is a deal-killer, I think. But she does need friends her own age who accept her as she is. And looking forward to Book 4 and beyond.
@Jeff Russell (#3) and commenters thereon:
Also of considerable interest is Winifred Hodge Rose’s Heather Soul Lore website:
ww.heathensoullore.net
When I first read the Long Descent, it was funny how my mind genuinely strained to comprehend a future that wasn’t apocalypse or utopia. Even after I understood it on an intellectual level, my emotions still characterized it as an apocalypse in the sense of an imminent event that would change everything. It took a bit for me to realize that it is a process that is much longer than my lifetime and that there will be no clear point when the Long Descent has “happened.”
Clau Dennis @ 21, I fail to see how the sending of money and materiel to Israel and bombing Yemen from an aircraft carrier stationed on the other side of the globe is saving us money. Someone remind me how much it costs to operate a carrier group.
As for Teslas, the decision what to buy or not buy is rarely if ever rational, as our advertising industry and business class know very well. You put your product out there and you takes your chances. If I get insulted in the local cafe, I am not eating there again, no matter how excellent the fare. I am not aware that anyone has an obligation to purchase, own or continue owning any particular make of auto. And, what about those of us who don’t drive and own no auto at all? Are we unpatriotic subversives?
Ecosophian (#92)
—
Thanks for the link to your Substack . I will be taking a look over the next day or two. A quick glance looks very interesting.
Siliconguy (et al) –
I saw the article on the drawdown in “computer programmer” jobs. That’s the click-bait headline. In the article, there is a graph showing that a new occupation was created just as the “programmer” occupation rolled over: “software developer”. Members of that occupation continued to grow. They’re the same thing, under different labels. As for AI, back in the 1960s, one of the first successful AI projects eliminated programmers by allowing scientists and engineers to express their computational needs in (a restricted form of) English and mathematics, and let the computer write the program. The project was “Fortran”.
Re: Home gardening and carbon footprint.
Tangentially related, but still quite a relevant data point. As the eggs crisis reaches Europe, prices have started to soar here too. Few days ago the local MSM reacted to this, as the synchronized opinion team they are, by publishing articles reminding -or teaching- us that we aren’t allowed to have unregistered chickens or any other cattle for self-supply.
Last year the government approved a law that limits the number of animals we’re allowed to have at home for self-supply and forces us to declare them to authorities. I don’t know further details as my circumstances don’t allow me to have animals but I suspect each egg would become worth its weight in gold. Also, infringements entail 3000 euro fines. For context, typical salaries are slightly above 1000 euro/month here, even lower in rural areas.
Of course this isn’t meant to keep us dependent on the multinational companies lawmakers and journalists work for, though. They claim this is a necessary measure to protect us from **drum roll** the next “pandemic”, as uncontrolled chickens are a menace to public health.
Michael, one curious detail of my college education is that I attended two different universities a decade apart, taking different courses of study, and in both, I got to witness blatant experimental fraud being carried out by prestigious researchers and condoned by university authorities. Why, yes, I’ve known people like the ones you described. The rot in science goes back quite some years.
BorealBear, here’s hoping! Absurd amounts of unearned wealth are almost always disastrous to the character of individuals and nations alike.
Jonathan, I’m delighted to hear this! Thank you.
J.L.Mc12, it would surprise me if CO2 emissions from agriculture would keep ice ages off indefinitely, if only because the Earth is a homeostatic mechanism and artificially heightened levels of CO2 will eventually encourage life forms to draw more heavily on the CO2 supply. It’s true, though, that 8000 years is not much in evolutionary terms.
Patricia M, why, yes, that’s what I’ve been saying all along, of course.
Free Rain, it’s unquestionably true that if you take the most extreme, energy-gobbling forms of urban agriculture, compare them to conventional farming, leave out a whole series of knock-on costs from the latter, and massage the numbers in the usual way, you can get those results. You can also get any other result you happen to fancy. The phrase “replicability crisis” may be relevant here, and so is that old saying about lies, damned lies, and statistics…
Sylvia, and of course that’s also a factor. Unhelpful grandparents, however, are another. I recall how much help my paternal grandparents and their siblings gave my parents in raising me and my sister, and I’ve seen just how little help most Boomer grandparents are willing to provide; it strikes me as dubious to insist that this can’t have an effect.
Patricia M, one of Ariel’s odd features — which I shared when I was her age — is that she has an easy time making friends who are much older than she is. There are reasons for that, which will become clear as we proceed. But she and Cassie are developing a strong friendship, and there will be others.
Enjoyer, it really is a challenge to most people these days!
Miguel, it really is getting pretty blatant at this point…
@john red hook again! Last one for now I promise! It doesnt seem this study was directly linked to the WEF. But the scientists involved seem to exist in the same deluded (IMHO) ‘tech will save the world’ bubble as the WEF gaggle. But seeing as science manages to totally exclude observer bias this has nothing to do with it of course
Hi John Michael,
It’s funny the difference a few weeks makes. What was being laughed off in the media as big talk – the Greenland grab – is now being taken more seriously.
As a long term strategy, it’s genius. Out of curiosity, were people complaining about the Alaska purchase all those long years ago?
Came across an interesting article the other day which highlights the intersection of declining returns and increasing costs. Apparently up in the north west of this continent which during the dry season is quite hot and arid, the miners are extracting ground water supplies to dampen down the dust, among other uses. Here’s the thing though, what looks to be taking place is that the underlying aquifer is in decline and so the miners are having to consider using desalinated water (taking sea water, removing the salt, then probably adding back calcium and magnesium I believe) – a very expensive and energy intensive source of water. The funny thing about all of this, is that in the future there’ll probably be heaps of ore left to mine, but nobody can afford to do so and turn a profit.
Pilbara traditional owners push back on Rio Tinto, state government water extraction from sacred sites.
And my underlying belief is that the massive expansion of debt in the west has allowed for a while, economic activities to continue which may have otherwise have ceased. Of course there are end points, or at least diminishing returns to all such policies. We seem to be at, nearing, or past that point. What’s your take on this matter?
The heavy rain last week has kicked off the growth in the ferns, and you’ll be happy to note, also the mosses. The rain up north of the country seems slightly crazy.
Cheers
Chris
@Methyethly #109 “When I see a bunch of different social media/MSM sources all saying the same thing at once, suddenly, I just assume it’s because they’re being paid to.”
That is probably a big part of it but never underestimate just how much some folks will cling together on some things for the sake of virtue signaling or attaining power for oneself. Starts off as astroturfing but eventually the folks will flock.
Back in 2016, it was a few days after Trump got elected and there was a large “”F$#% TRUMP” rally in the middle of the city. Blocking everyone from just going about there day. This is in Melbourne Australia! As far as I know, we didn’t have anything to do with him and it achieved nothing. And it is something that I see time and time again around the world. Movements that sweep across the west. mostly originating in the US. Some folks are just in on that stream of information from where ever and they will act on it even if only mostly symbolically. They are just waiting for instruction from various media sources rather than thinking things through.
Some movements are paid to get started but amplified by those that are influenced by it. It is the same way some conspiracies start, they are done either as a joke, or to try and highlight some silly factor of some conspiracies, or intentionally created for cover. Given enough time, those that are serious about it and take these at face value will take over the movement and it will become perpetual. But I am no expert on that. If only there was someone here that had written a book about 100 conspiracies of history in chronological order, complete with artworks to accompany them? 😉
Free Rain,
I believe that was the study that I was referring to, if not there are now two of them out there. The references to WEF only appears, as far as I find, in certain overwrought right-wing sites which reference this study. I’m looking for a reference by WEF itself promoting this. I suspect until this idea gains some real traction, let’s pray it doesn’t, the WEF will remain silent. I think they may have learned a lesson or two.
I don’t find the Simulation Hypothesis compelling, but if you take it as a thought experiment (“These images are intended to train the mind…”) I think it can illuminate some ideas.
For example, the main argument for the Simulation hypothesis argues not that we are in the simulation, one level distant from the base reality, but that we are in a simulation within a simulation within a simulation… on to the Nth level; this multiplication of realities is where the argument gets its probabilistic force.
I think a little reflection shows that the various levels of the simulation, while all unreal compared to the base reality, are in a sense not all equally unreal: the (N+1)th level simulation is unreal in comparison to the Nth level, which is unreal in comparison to the (N-1)th level, and so on, creating a hierarchy unrealness. We can also get a sense of this from another thought experiment: the characters in a fictional story are unreal, but what happens to them usually (exceptions exist) matters more to me than what happens to characters in a fictional story-within-a-story.
Then it hit me: isn’t this kind of how the planes work? Each plane is a kind of “experience machine” for the plane below it, plopping you into one possible instantiation of the energies of that plane. The lower the plane, the less real it is compared with the “base reality” of the One/Solar Logos/etc. The main difference is the purpose: instead of being an escape from a more real world into a fantasy, it’s more like a schoolroom preparing us for the real world.
It also accords with the sense I’ve had for some time now that what happens on the physical plane is simply less important than the goings-on of the planes above. Of course, it’s critically important to us still incarnated here, for the same reason that the War of the Ring is more important to Frodo than the Korean War.
Another random thought: there’s been attempts to distinguish the Axial Age religions from other religions, but it seems to me that the real distinguishing factor is that all and only the Axial religions posit a permanent state of happiness (however each one conceives of that) as an attainable goal for everyone or almost everyone, provided they do/believe the right things.
You might see some aspects of this in pre-Axial religions but it seems like it was reserved for the truly exceptional. And with the emergence of the post-Axial religions, it seems like we’re seen a backing away from that idea, to more humble promises of a better future existence for the virtuous/faithful, but not by any means a perfect one. To an extent I think that’s because we now crave meaning more than bliss.
@ Miguel “Few days ago the local MSM reacted to this, as the synchronized opinion team they are, by publishing articles reminding -or teaching- us that we aren’t allowed to have unregistered chickens or any other cattle for self-supply.”
I have absolutely no knowledge of any of my friends 60 chickens and 10 Quail. That sound in the morning? That is just their dog they taught to sound like a rooster.
@Clay “It seems that a future potential source of failure for the internet is the relative political venerability of the high energy use data centers.”
A lot of the smarter folks who have been following this have figured out were the rubber meets the road. They need loads of data centers. Data centers need power. These companies are getting into the power supply business. It is only a matter of time until they get into the water business and that is where a lot of people will start to take issue.
I saw it is estimated a single AI prompt uses 500ml of water (sounds about right from my back of the napkin figures), and the water they do use gets contaminated with all kinds of corrosion resistant chemicals to ensure longevity of the generator system/center cooling. That adds up quick and once the water supply is impacted, many will notice. The flip side of this, recently Microsoft started very quietly backing away from their data center ambitions and commitments as they realized they over estimated the future demands. I suspect this will happen with a lot of these big internet companies. This is a part of what Ed Zitron has called ‘the rot economy’ or ‘the rot com bubble’. That computing and the internet is mostly a solved technology, there is no more runway for new ideas and they cannot let the shareholders or the larger population figure this out. If they do then the bottom of the bucket for the industry will fall out. If it does however, that is not a huge issue long term as some sanity can return to the space. Make computing and the internet boring, it is a reasonable tool not a sci-fi machine to lump ambitions of progress on.
@Will O:
“how do our Ecosophian Canadian friends see things from up there now”
Pretty bummed. As little as three months ago polls had a Conservative superwave in the election, and now, as pygmy points out, Trump’s antics have resurrected the Liberal party from the dead, and almost everyone has already forgotten that Justin Trudeau ever existed or was Prime Minister.
Not that the CPC is all that great either but with a supermajority they would have been able to get some stuff done.
So yeah. I’m pretty bummed and soured on anything outside my immediate sphere these days. Thanks Donny.
There’s a lot more one could say but I don’t have the interest in the internet, right now.
Mary Bennet@119,
I don’t think my observation of street thugs vandalizing Teslas was in any way supportive of Trump rekindling Biden’s war in the middle east and especially the barbaric bombing of Yemen. You could. not find an American born person more opposed to Biden or Trumps’s policies in the Middle East than myself. In fact, I admire and respect the Houthis for their toughness, integrity and nearly limitless courage. But blaming these foolish foreign policies on the Tech Guy Trump rounded up to cut the federal debt is a bit of a stretch.
The person I was taking to about the EV switch was without a doubt someone who only bought the Tesla when it was the flavor of the day in virtue signaling. What I was chuckling at was that they though switching to a car brand which scammed its investors and is a stalking horse for Chinese car companies is somehow more virtuous than what they had.
I’m watching a DVD of the Walkure for the first time as I write this, traditional staged by the Metropolitan Opera in 1989. Tomorrow it goes back to the library in exchange for Siegfried, and maybe Savage Continent.
Despite the power of the Ring, Alberich cannot defy Wotan, and loses it. Even with the Ring, Wotan cannot defy his own pledge, and so gives it up, while scheming to recover it.
Is it only a coincidence that the largest manufacturer of armaments in Germany is Rheinmetall? And that metal is unable to bend the East to its will?
@Siliconguy #82. The US may have been against piracy when our merchants were the victims, but the Colonial ports of North America were well known for their ready acceptance of goods that fell off the stern of a passing Spanish ship. We Rhode Islanders know that the Revolution began not by throwing tea into the harbor, but with the burning of HMS Gaspee, tasked with collecting taxes in. Narragansett Bay. In fact, the US government continues the practice of piracy today, with the seizure of tankers alleged to be carrying Iranian oil.
Hey JMG
That is true, it may not be indefinite. But there is an irony in the idea that via human effort, we are encouraging the climate that I recall you saying encourages the supremacy of reptilian and avian forms of life over mammals, possibly leading to the re-evolution of dinosaur-like creatures.
@Free Rain I’m sad to hear that it’s like in the UK as well as in the US, and yes, the people I know who are like that are all from the middle and middle class-aspiring classes. It certainly could be a case that they were raised with a philosophy of “you can have your cake and eat it too,” and not just in the case of being absent grandparents, but also in things like taking on unsustainably large debt and not worrying about it on both a national and personal level.
@Sylvia Those other factors are certainly important, but among people who do have the money to have kids, energy and time become limiting factors. It’s really hard to raise even a medium-sized family (3-4 kids) these days, and even having your parents over and playing with your children a lot gives the other adults more time to do things (like cook food, clean the house, take care of sick children, help with homework, or earn more money doing work). Some people have enough money to hire live-in nannies or au pairs (I tried to get an au pair but I cannot since my wife doesn’t speak English natively), but nothing beats grandparents. We’re extremely jealous of the Indian families around here, as their custom is that one set of grandparents will help with the family for six months and another pair will come in for the next six months after a child is born.
And there’s also a relationship between low wages, expensive housing, and dudes playing video games. That is, if a guy can see that’s there’s no way he’ll ever be able to afford a house at the wage he’s being paid, a common response is to sit back, do the bare minimum, and get the sense of achievement that men inherently need via videogames. Men need to feel a sense of achievement, and modern life robs most men of that chance by not giving them meaningful work that affords them the ability to buy land, build up their property, marry a woman and start a family. Once you get a taste of that, as a man, video games become less fun because what you achieve in-game only matters in that limited context of the game. Unfortunately, most men don’t even get a taste these days.
Chris, yes, there were — Alaska was called “Seward’s folly,” after William Seward, the US Secretary of State who negotiated it. A majority of ordinary people supported it, even before gold was discovered there, but there were newspapers and politicians who denounced it, mostly because they were Democrats and the administration that did it was Republican. If this sounds familiar to you, welcome to US politics. As for debt, bingo — the mass production of debt is the gimmick that’s being used to try to manufacture the illusion of economic growth when the real economy of nonfinancial goods and services is stagnant or contracting.
Slithy, er, to my mind “unreal” is like “pregnant” or “dead” — it permits of no degrees; you can’t be slightly dead or only a little bit pregnant! From a traditional occult perspective, all the planes are equally real or equally unreal. As for the religions of the Axial Age, hmm — I’ll have to think about that.
Peter, ha! Rheinmetall indeed. But will the Russians snatch it from Germany’s hand?
J.L.Mc12, oh, I’m quite confident that saurian life will regain its former place in ten million years or so anyway, only to be elbowed aside after another hundred million years or so by a new cold spell and a new resurgence of mammal or mammal-like creatures. Gaia seems to like to change her vertebrates from time to time.
@Sylvia
I’ve spent some time overseas in two “less developed” countries which still boast a birthrate right at replacement level (where it appears stable), and I’m very much inclined to believe the “grandparents” explanation, based on what I saw there. These people were *way* poorer materially than the US, but extended family is foundational for them, and pregnant ladies/new moms are treated with a great deal of solicitude and respect. “It’s the grandparents” is oversimplified. But the lack of support from extended family networks here is HUGE. I don’t think most Americans would know how to tolerate having a couple dozen relatives all up in their business all the time, but it is gigantic plus if you are having babies and caring for small children.
I think that’s the single biggest factor, but once you throw in a host of subsidiary things like happy-motoring culture (where you can’t go anywhere with your baby without lugging 60 pounds of equipment, maneuvering an unhappy small person into a safety cage, driving somewhere, repeating the process to go home again, and nothing you need is in walking distance), the hostility of modern life to the mere presence of babies and small children in public places, the desperate isolation of caring for infants and small children at home, the expense of all that required-but-unnecessary equipment, the lack of social approval for stay-at-home parents, the lack of home enterprises as viable ways to support a family, the sneering attitude of the US middle class toward families with more than two children, the C-section rate (a limiting factor for number of subsequent children), and half a dozen other things… eh, that might be enough to push the maybes over the edge into “no we can’t have more”.
But I think all those things pale in comparison to the lack of family/community support. Hardly anybody decides against a third child because they’d have to buy a bigger car. I think probably a lot of people decide against a third child after struggling through a brutal postpartum recovery with a side of postpartum depression, for months, alone at home all day, trying to take care of an infant *and* a preschooler, when they can barely care for themselves. I don’t have the data to back it up, but my best guess about falling birthrates here is not, primarily, people not having any children– spinster aunts and bachelor uncles have been common enough through history. I reckon it’s people having one or two, and calling it quits, who in another place and time would happily have five or ten.
It’s anecdotal, but being religious I know quite a lot of families with four or more children, and I don’t think it’s coincidence that the overwhelming majority of them have *very* involved and supportive grandparents who provide significant financial and practical support. I’m so envious! I couldn’t even persuade my relatives to cook a meal or wash a few dishes when my babies were born, and some of these ladies have moms who come over and run the whole household for a month whenever a grandchild is born.
“humanity has been producing enough carbon dioxide and methane gas via agriculture over the past 8000 years to disrupt the ice age cycle, preventing or at least dampening it.”
If I recall, it was the domestication of rice that was blamed. All those flooded paddies put out a lot of methane. In a related note, the gardening style that the study was complaining about is some sort of English thing using raised beds filled with trucked in compost. They have the same possible issue, methane from anaerobic digestion.
David Archer made a similar argument that the CO2 levels now present would be enough to abort the next glaciation due to start in 3000 years. The book’s title is The Long Thaw. Check the library.
Clay Dennis, it is all one administration, and the president has responsibility for whatever decisions are made in his name. The most expensive and wasteful of human activities is war, especially in the modern world.
So far, this administration appears to be contemplating wars against Iran, Panama, Canada (!), and tiny, sane and peaceful Denmark (for control of Greenland). Maybe someone is jealous because the Danes have better governance and a higher standard of living overall than we do. I can see sound reasons for a closer alliance with the rest of North America, but that is what diplomacy is for. Except diplomacy is boring, it takes too long, and win/win is for losers, in the minds of people who are drunk on their own emotional highs. And besides, you have to rely on diplomats, dull, uncharismatic people who don’t make you feel like a champ and are always whining about what the Panamanians or Danes or Greenlanders think. As if anyone cares.
@Dennis #74, #135
It’s funny to see those comments, my wife and I are in a very similar boat with the utter disinterest in providing actual help with the grandchildren. We will sometimes not see my parents for a month or more. They live a mile and half down the road. I have the same experience of remembering just how much intergenerational help there was when I was a child and what a contrast it is currently. Time is by far the thing that we most need. We homeschool our older children, I work full time, the wife works part time from home, we produce a good deal of our own food, and we feed the family almost entirely home cooked meals. We hear a lot of platitudes about what a good of job we’re doing and how seriously we take raising our children, but actual support from the our boomer parents ranges from token to non-existent.
HV
@JMG
In that scenario, with the continents being apart, it would be likely that some continents (i.e. a temperate/subtropical Antarctica) won’t get the wave of the future and have mammal/bird dominated ecosystems.
@113 Patricia M
I think it’s a mistake to assume that Caesarism in Faustian civilization had to match the development of Roman Caesarism. The West chose an economic system of endless growth and “progress” that shortened the life expectency of Faustian civilization, so the Western led world order will likely collapse before the formation of Caesarism.
You sounded a bit under the weather on the Hermitix podcast that was released today. Hope you feel better soon.
So, I have been mulling a bit on the subject of carbon.
Organic chemistry is BOTH the chemistry of carbon, in all of its transformations AND the chemistry of organisms. Even though it is, to a degree, possible for carbon to exist in the absense of organisms, and some organic compounds can be poisonous to organisms, the wondrous processes that we know as “life” include the trick of speeding up organic chemical transformations of carbon by many orders of magnitude.
The etymological roots of the word “carbon” include Fr – “charbone” (coined or first recorded in the work of Lavoisier, a chemist), Latin “carbonem” (nominative “carbo”) “a coal, glowing coal; charcoal,” and PIE root *ker- (3) “heat, fire.”.
Now, there is a movement building, whose stated aim is to “reduce carbon” or even to “zero carbon”. The mythology of Prometheus, and similar fire-stealing heroes, comes to mind. Imagine if some AI-minded HAL type engine decided its dedicated purpose was to further this aim. Would it be able to distinguish between “zeroing” carbon, and “zeroing” carbon based life? Is fire itself (as contained within, symbolised by, a glowing coal that is the living cell) that which will be “zeroed” – because of people being careless about what they wish for?
Our very breaths, as living, carbon-based, and carbon-trading, organisms, may soon be forbidden, if we do not take care.
Hi John,
In regard to the Islamification of the UK, a Muslim activist has announced plans to try and gain control of Birmingham, the UK biggest largest city, with a blatantly sectarian Muslim agenda.
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/controversial-lawyer-akhmed-yakoob-announces-30860329?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Currently around one third of Birmingham is Muslim (and in some areas much higher). If the Islamists manage to win power and actually sort out some of the challenges facing Birmingham, even non-Muslim voters might go along with a creeping islamification agenda in due course.
Couple of random neurons fired reading this thread. I watched a documentary last night about the NXIVM sex cult that was taken down a few years ago. It occurred to me that the WEF is pretty much a cult like NXIVM. If you read WEF’s website, it’s a lot of articles about some vague notions of saving the world and social gobbledygook that doesn’t really make any sense. I looked back at some of the NXIVM footage and it was the same kind of message. Not really saying anything, but promising some kind of enlightenment if you just put in the work. Maybe both were just clubs for rich weirdos.
@MichaelGray 130
Loved your observation, “That computing and the internet is mostly a solved technology, there is no more runway for new ideas… If it does however, that is not a huge issue long term as some sanity can return to the space. Make computing and the internet boring, it is a reasonable tool not a sci-fi machine to lump ambitions of progress on.” I’ve been thinking a lot lately that society at large is trying to solve all of our social problems with software. For example, human resources software if you are in the workforce trying to reduce all workplace friction into something that can be turned into numbers, or dating apps trying to get people a better social life. Seems to not work and maybe computers should just be there for banks and research universities to crunch numbers.
Hi JMG and everyone,
Can anyone give me some examples of countries/ethnic groups who have successfully combined people from vastly differing backgrounds to form a united identity? I think some empires like the Achaemenids achieved this to some extent, but I was thinking on a smaller scale.
The background is that I’m interested to imagine what Australia (and in particular South-East QLD) might be like at the end of the century.
Reading JMG’s “future fiction” like the “The Hall of the Homeless Gods” always gets me thinking along these lines. 🙂
Hey JMG
Speaking of the return of prehistoric creatures in new forms, have you noticed the commotion around these genetically engineered “wooly mice” a team of scientists created recently?
They essentially managed to alter certain mouse genes to produce effects similar to equivalent Wooly Mammoth genes, thus producing a bred of mice that are cold-adapted in a similar way. I hope that they have the decency to mass produce them as pets, so they can inevitably escape and go feral. It would add to the biodiversity that the world has lost.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/03/wooly-mice-a-test-run-for-mammoth-gene-editing/
For those interested in healing (though it has far wider applicability), I recommend Benebell Wen’s latest post on nine precepts for preventive spiritual care from a Chinese treatise of about 400BC. Each of the nine could in itself serve as a theme for meditation.
Mention of Samos brought back memories, if JMG will allow an old man to reminisce.
Around 50 years ago, backpacking around Europe with a group of friends, we found ourselves on the island of Samos. In the youth hostel we met a pair of friendly Californians and soon had a party going. Around 9pm we got thrown out for being too noisy. Wandering around looking for a place to stay we found everything closed. Even at the local monastery, where we had been told we could always find a bed, we were turned away by a bad-tempered monk.
Finally we found a suitable open spot in the local cemetery, spread out our sleeping bags, and lay down to sleep.
After a while one of the Americans complained, “There’s bugs.”
“There are no bugs. Go to sleep.” we told him.
A bit later, “I’m telling you guys. There’s bugs in this place.”
“Shut up and let us sleep.”
Next thing there was a wild scream. I happened to be lying near him and still have the image imprinted on my brain. A figure, silhouetted against the starlight, flapping his sleeping bag with a shower of tiny little things fountaining up to the sky.
In the morning we found he had put his sleeping bag on the entrance to an ant colony. That was the most excitement on Samos, which I remember as dry and dusty. It’s the closest Greek island to Turkey. In fact, you can see the Turkish coastline in the distance.
Wandering around, we found a lone fig tree with lots of little black figs on the shore of a bay. We South Africans tucked in and gorged ourselves. Free food! But the two Californians refused to touch them. This surprised me because my mother would dose me with California Syrup of Figs as a child, so I naturally assumed California was covered in fig trees which the locals ate from. Years later I learned that the California Fig-Syrup Co. was involved in a celebrated court case which revealed its true non-figgy nature.
Other than that, we watched a fisherman wading in the shallows pull out an octopus, bash it repeatedly on the rocks, and turn it inside out. Thus do we treat our fellow sentient creatures. Sigh. And that’s about all I remember of Samos.
@Will O:
@Bofur
@JMG
‘The Polls’ have been easing us in slowly to the understanding that Carney, a wolf in sheeps clothing (a globalist moth in canadian goose feathers), is taking the lead. This is a good way to condition a population towards accepting a leader that is against their national interest. Exposure, in increments, to polling numbers indicaing a certain candidate is gaining popularity also mutes the suspicion of a surprise win/st*len election. We have a great example of this kind of manipulative polling in the recent U.S elections. There has been a resurgence of national identity, albeit heavily guided by Liberal interests. Our state funded media will continue to shape hearts and minds. We need a deeper change in consciousness to expose these crimes for what they are.
To John and Ken on the subject of Consciousness and Emergentism
The evolution of consciousness makes absolutely zero sense from a materialist perspective. In materialism, consciousness is just a weird byproduct of some kinds of physical systems, which has no causal efficacy on the physical world. So why did it evolve to exist in the first place? Why did it need to ’emerge?’ Consciousness would provide no evolutionary advantage. In a materialist world, creatures with no consciousness or inner life at all would have just as much a survival advantage. It would make much more sense in a materialist world for consciousness just to never even exist. This is why some materialists have moved to the position that consciousness is just some kind of ‘illusion’ and it literally doesn’t exist, which is the only idea even dumber than flat earth.
I think it makes much more sense to put consciousness in the primary position and to see the universe as a conscious reality which is continuous with our own conscious minds. The materialist position takes mind, the only thing we directly know, and makes it a weird anomaly for no reason. It makes much more sense to think of the cosmos as mental in nature.
“The stuff of the world is mind-stuff… The mind-stuff of the world is, of course, something more general than our individual conscious minds…. The mind-stuff is not spread in space and time; these are part of the cyclic scheme ultimately derived out of it … It is difficult for the matter-of-fact physicist to accept the view that the substratum of everything is of mental character. But no one can deny that mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience, and all else is remote inference.” – Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World
I am not sure, if this topic is too close to the discussion of AI but I just came across the concept of “Q-Day.” Quantum Day is the point at which someone builds a quantum computer that can crack the most widely used forms of encryption. Banks, hospitals, emails, police records, power stations, all the information would be exposed, creating quite a bit of chaos. Do you think this is a legitimate concern?
I am distressed to hear that about Boomer grandparents. I’m a boomer grandma and in 2012, when my oldest daughter’s husband committed suicide and her son was in Kindergarten, she asked me to come and help her. It was easy for me, I have never owned a house so picking up and moving was easy. I have lived with her since then and do all the cooking and laundry and took her son for all his appointments, etc., as she worked so much. He graduates from high school this May and I will be moving to PA to be close to my youngest daughter who has three children, the oldest is 9, almost 10. I intend to fully help her out, I love all my grandchildren very much. The thing that really bugs me about boomer grandparents is don’t they think about their kids and grandkids at all, with so many of them living profligate lifestyles that use up scarce resources, increasing debt, etc. they will tell you how much they love their grandchildren, blah blah blah, then don’t help them out, as one commenter above explained. My grandparents lived only about a mile and a half from us, us on out small farm, they on theirs. One of my earliest memories is putting my younger sister in our little red wagon and pulling her to our grandparents house. I was maybe three or four. And I can still see Grandma calling my mother on her old fashioned phone, the kind where you held up the ear piece to your ear and spoke into the mouthpiece attached to the wall, and asking my mom, “Ethel, do you happen to know where Heather and Sarah are? They walked all the way here!!” My mom had no clue, she thought we were just outside playing. And both my grandparents laughed and laughed.
Weird question for you, JMG, specific to the occult dimensions of storytelling. I have heard you, and many other writers of fiction, describe how a story seems to have a will of its own; the way sculptors talk about removing the stone to reveal the form beneath. I think you described the Hali series almost downloading itself into your brain, and how your characters often make choices and take paths that surprise you. There’s a particular animated series (I won’t bore you with specifics, as I know you don’t do video; for any of the commentariat interested, the name is Arcane) that has provided me with many themes for meditation; I regard the first “season” of 9 episodes (3 story arcs of 3 episodes each) as one of the finest pieces of storytelling I’ve encountered. I understand that it took 6 years to make. The second “season” was also 3 story arcs of 3 episodes, and was the final “season.”
It felt…rushed.
(I suspect the original intent was 3 seasons, each containing 3 arcs, comprised of 3 episodes each.)
My understanding is that economics and the real world had to be served — hundreds of people working on a huge project, all of whom have to eat and pay rent — and, the main storytellers have other projects and other stories they wish to tell. Taking a decade or more to complete their original vision likely exceeded their reach, and completing something is preferable to not finishing at all.
I can see where certain threads of the story either got dropped or compressed, and I feel like I have some grasp of what the story’s will might have been (as much as it’s possible…after all, it wasn’t my story).
My question…and I suppose I’m asking for your musings on this as a storyteller…is what the ramifications on the inner planes might be when a powerful story makes itself known to a storyteller, who then, for whatever reasons, kind of backs away from the “will of the story” after beginning it in good faith? Does the story’s will merely shrug, and express itself elsewhere?
I believe that storytelling is the oldest and perhaps most important of all human technologies, and my meditations around Arcane seem to be synching up in a fascinating way with your Wagner essays.
@Gallifrey (30) — this Derek Thompson? https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-wrongest-man/618475/ that didn’t age well, and quite frankly makes me “trust” him less (and verify way way more) 🙂
@jmg and all — my 4 chickens are going strong after 2 years — the 2 barred rocks had a rough molt last fall and egg production fell (and there was some bullying and changes in the pecking order) but all is now good and most days I get 4 eggs — no sign of bird flu……. even though it supposedly everywhere.
@ miguel (122) that is crazy, chickens being a health menace — anecdotally, when people find out I keep chickens they always ask “do you sell them”?, not “are they contagious”. crazy times.
Hi John,
As a secondary point from my previous post (note a typo – meant to say Birmingham is the 2nd largest city in the UK), this article is highly concerning for Europeans.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/fall-europe
– Most countries within Western Europe will see their native young become a minority well before 2050.
– Islam will politically control much of Western Europe before 2050 as a result of rapidly declining native demographics, coupled with rapidly expanding Islamic demographics and single-minded bloc voting for Islamic political parties.
Also an interesting story, we were recently in Morocco and got chatting to a highly educated man who commented how Europe seemed to be in terminal decline (he referenced the US pulling out, its weak economy and terrible demographics). We had a conversation on why Europeans (at least the natives) hardly have children anymore and I noted that without children the culture dies.
We agreed that given current rates it seems Europe is in terminal decline. Obviously I didn’t mention the Islamic dynamic but the obvious conclusion, as you rightly say, is at some point Muslim demographics in western European cities will take control.
Fun morning headline,
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/26/europe/european-union-stockpile-member-states-intl-latam/index.html
“EU urges citizens to stockpile 72 hours’ worth of supplies amid war risk”
“The Commission’s European Preparedness Union Strategy says citizens across the continent should adopt practical measures to ensure they are ready in case of an emergency. This includes having enough essential supplies to last them for a minimum of three days, the document says. “In the case of extreme disruptions, the initial period is the most critical,” it says.”
That’s 71 hours and 40 minutes more supplies than anyone in a city will actually need.
So is it virtue signaling or is it the Great Reset that will leave Europeans of the correct social class in charge of the world again? I should stockpile popcorn.
Hi,
I continue to closely monitor the growing risk of European wars, particularly in eastern Europe and this got my attention:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/03/20/romania-us-ukraine-russia-election-george-simion-nato-vance/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJTnGFleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHTtio_dWZutwplVdo1_m79Ej1BZmXGT9td8ImQadz1RdEfJ3_XIdcv6dHA_aem_DZ16nMGpZepSWrfTshSWhw
“The party has in the past called for restoring the Romanian state “within its natural borders”, through claiming territories including the regions of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and Transcarpathia in Western Ukraine.
As such, Mr Simion has a tense relationship with Kyiv, having been banned from entering the country over security concerns as well as promoting “unionist ideology questioning the legitimacy of Ukraine’s borders” and “narratives alleging the violation of rights for Romania’s ethnic minority in Ukraine”.”
Now, throw in Hungary, where the ruling party openly talks about expanding Hungary’s borders. Throw in Bosnia, which is a ticking timebomb which experts are warning could explode at anypoint:
https://militairespectator.nl/artikelen/situation-bosnia-getting-worse-day
f Bosnia were to fall apart, the consequences would be devastating: ‘Any partition would trigger a domino effect in the Balkans that no one would be able to control,’ the political scientist warns in an interview with the Militaire Spectator.
Any partition would trigger a domino effect in the Balkans that no one would be able to control. We are talking about potentially violent conflicts in Bosnia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia itself. Belgrade seems to have forgotten that Serbia is a multi-ethnic state. If Dodik wanted the Serbian annexation of RS, the Bosniaks in Sandzak in Serbia would, likewise, seek to be annexed to Sarajevo.
So, to summarise, I can very easily see former Yugoslavia region exploding into renewed violence at any point now, bringing in Russian and Turkish forces into the mix.
Slightly longer term, I can also see a re-armed Romania, Hungary and Poland all electing (or re-electing) ultra-nationalists who dream of expanding the borders (depending on what happens to Ukraine, something similar there as well).
Greece is at perpetual risk of going to war against an increasingly autocratic Türkiye. And we haven’t even mentioned the Russians!
It seems to be a whole arc of eastern and south-eastern Europe could be in flames of savage wars within 10 to 15 years, potentially dragging in countries in central Europe as well (Germany, Austria and Italy).
At the same time, as discussed in separate posts on this thread, Islamic forces are starting to organise and get elected in the big cities where large minorities of Muslims live (already happening in Birmingham) as western Europe faces the growing horror of Islamification within 50 years.
@Michael Gray:
Indeed, the world is full of dupes willing to parrot anything the paid promoters tell them to. My MIL wears her Ukraine flag pin everywhere, like it’s a religious token. Does she know anything about Ukraine other than what CNN told her? Nah. But it’s what all the boomer ladies in her set do, so she does too.
In the world of internet news/commentary/socialmedia though, I have a sort of un-scientific system for sorting out shills from reliable sources: as soon as a group of accounts starts in saying the same thing with the same phrasing/buzzwords, at the same time, I mute/block all of them. *Even if I agree with what they’re saying*. Over time this tends to narrow down content to real actual people who are not getting paid to say things off a list. I still run into the braindead parrots, but those accounts don’t post any thoughtful or original content anyway, and are easy to sort out and ignore: people who mindlessly repeat, without any critical impulse, don’t themselves produce anything of interest.
More war preps, what a morning.
“Denmark Moves to Women’s Mandatory Military Service Sooner Than Expected”
“Denmark decided to extend the military draft to young women starting in the coming months, two years earlier than initially planned. Danish women who turn 18 after July 2025 will be required to register for the health screening and subsequent draft. At the same time, the standard service period will also be increased from 4 to 11 months.”
The article didn’t mention it, but I’m pretty sure pregnant women will be exempted from reporting for duty if their number does come up. Low birth rate problem solved at a stroke of a pen without overt coercion.
@Watchflinger:
If we had a bit of real, organic population decline (i.e. boomers dying off from old age, and *not* being replaced by mass migration), it’d free up a lot of affordable housing, so that families with kids could afford to live somewhere again. That’d probably even result in a little boost to the birthrate, and a shift to a younger, more dynamic population.
It would, of course, also collapse real estate prices, and at least a few big investment firms as a consequence. All to the good if you ask me 🙂
Will O #78
To follow up on Pygmycory’s and Bofur’s comments, the situation here in Toronto is pretty much what they described: a lot of anger and a definite backlash. Air Canada and Westjet have both said that flight reservations to the US are down by 40%, auto trips through the border are also down (this would be both one day shopping trips and longer tourist trips) but I don’t remember the amount. As far as I know, Saskatchewan is the only province that has not pulled all American liquor off the shelves. Stores have signs up that indicate Canadian products and encourage shoppers to buy Canadian. Hockey fans boo the American anthem at NHL games played in Canada. In all my 82 years, I have never seen so much anti-American sentiment and this doesn’t come just from the tariffs but even more from the 51st state comments, not just from Trump but also from his lackies.
I remember the 1979 Iranian Revolution and several American Embassy staff managed to get to the Canadian Embassy and were given Canadian passports and made it out of Iran. On 9-11 when all the US airports were closed, overseas flights were re-directed to Canada (and maybe some to Mexico probably). That put an enormous burden on our air traffic control and on the airports. The musical play “Come From Away” is about the influx of planes landing in Gander, Newfoundland. Bush thanked almost every country in the world but never said a word about Canada. We sent troops to Afghanistan in support of the US. The first four Canadian soldiers killed were by a trigger-happy American pilot who dropped bombs on them. When a Canadian journalist asked Bush about this, he replied that he had already spoken to Chretien and walked away. Apparently Canadian lives do Not matter–not to Americans anyway. We were still mourning our murdered soldiers when the Olympics started. In the final medal round of Women’s Hockey between the US and Canada, Canada won the gold even though the referees constantly penalized the Canadians. My husband and I watched that game and were disgusted by the refereeing. Later it became known that the American team had walked on the Canadian flag before the game.
There was a lot of bitterness and anger over these incidences but it faded in time. This time is different. Even if Trump were to fall dead tomorrow and Vance became president and dropped the entire 51st state thing, the hostility would still continue. I don’t see this ending any time soon. Not for years and maybe even longer.
Sabine has a good video up on the multiple failures of the current cosmological models. They never should have launched that last space telescope.
“Cosmology Crises are only Getting Worse”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WBfeKz1SG0k
Summary,
1) the Hubble constant has two different values depending on how it’s measured, and the difference is getting worse and the measurements get better.
2) the Cosmological principle that on large scales the universe is uniform appears to be completely wrong as there are gigantic galaxy clusters and equally gigantic voids.
3) galaxies that formed early in the universe grew too big too soon (or the universe is older than thought which sort of links back to #1.)
4) the tendency of matter to clump up is less now than it used to be.
She did not cover the effects of burning all those cosmology textbooks on greenhouse gas emissions. 🙂
There is also this, “Dark Energy Might Be Changing – This Is What It Means For Our Understanding Of The Cosmos” The article is paywalled unfortunately.
The gist is that different satellite (DES, Dark Energy Survey) got results that don’t match expectations. If true unlimited expansion is off the table and the oscillating universe looks more viable, (and I’m extrapolating here) then a big bang from a singularity isn’t needed. A paper I read long ago suggested two galactic masses per proton volume would satisfy the math without needing an actual singularity.
Very interesting on the Shakespeare/Shakspere authorship question. A family member of mine is obsessed by this and has spent a great many hours, over several years, in the Reading Room at the British Library researching who might have written all the works attributed to Shakespeare, but which seem to have been written by someone else.
A couple of things he’s mentioned recently are that a Professor Sandra Clark was involved in writing several dictionaries (https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/series/arden-shakespeare-dictionaries/), divided by subject, on Shakespearean language with titles such as ‘Shakespeare and Animals’, ‘Shakespeare and Science’, ‘Shakespeare and London’, ‘Shakespeare and Domestic Life’ and so on. My brother met with Prof Clark and asked her why, since Shakespeare appeared to have an intimate knowledge on Italy and Italian culture, and about a third of the plays being set in Italy, there is no dictionary about Shakespeare and Italy. How could he have absorbed so much information about Italian geography, history, culture and literature without ever having been there? It’s now going to be suggested to the publisher Bloomsbury that they look into writing such a dictionary, if they can find suitable researchers and an editor.
You may know, JMG, of Mark Twain’s essay on the subject of authorship: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2431/2431-h/2431-h.htm
There is also this: https://hardthinking.com/2012/01/27/shakespeare-authorship-short-version/ which is very interesting in making the case that Shakespeare did not write the plays or poems.
Yet the orthodoxy will have it no other way, Shakespeare wrote it all, and the tills ring constantly in shops and buildings all over Stratford-upon-Avon as fortunes are made in keeping that orthodoxy embedded.
Finally, as an aside, Shakespeare’s parents were respectable enough in their way; he came “Of good farmer-class parents who could not read, could not write, could not sign their names” according to Twain. At the time they tried to claim elite status in order to use the Arden family coat of arms, which was denied to them because they were from the wrong branch of the Arden family and couldn’t claim kinship with them. Coincidentally, the Arden coat of arms was allowed to be used by the secondary school I went to, which is near to where the Arden family lived, at Arden Hall in the English Midlands.
I was recently in Nairobi, Kenya to visit my kid who’s teaching there. My other kid loves bookstores and wanted to visit one there. In the corner of the shop, I found a copy of JMG’s Conspiracy Book. In Nairobi! I though you’d want to know about your global influence.
Then I read the Conspiracy Book and enjoyed it.
I’ve also written about one of your topics — the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. I dig into the specifics of their prejudices, and found that in the non-Southern states like Indiana and Oregon, the Klan was primarily anti-immigration, while also being a Protestant temperance revival movement . Here’s a link: https://medium.com/@terryjbrennan/the-second-ku-klux-klan-a1d3e92aecf7.
@JMG: That makes sense. Even doing that more concentrated practice I find much of a book fades in memory as time goes on.
@Scotlyn: That also makes a lot of sense! I like the idea of discursive meditation as a digestion aid!
Y’all realize that when the baby boomers die they are no longer available for baby sitting?
My personal family situation involved 3 living grandparents, all of which were over 8 hrs away. So, not useful for regular child care!
MichaelGrey: That computing and the internet is mostly a solved technology, there is no more runway for new ideas and they cannot let the shareholders or the larger population figure this out. If they do then the bottom of the bucket for the industry will fall out. If it does however, that is not a huge issue long term as some sanity can return to the space. Make computing and the internet boring, it is a reasonable tool not a sci-fi machine to lump ambitions of progress on.
I respectfully disagree. Both computing and the internet can progress significantly in theory. I am sure you are aware of Metcalf’s law, which states that the value of a network increases as a function of the square of the number of users/devices. Perhaps you are not seeing or reading about new ideas, but that does not mean that none exist or that none will materialize. Incidentally, you may also not approve of it when it does materialize. I still for the life of me can’t understand why people put so much time and effort into posting on Facebook or Instagram, but those types of idiocies made 3G useful, if I recall).
As for sanity returning–honestly, that will happen as soon as the amount of stupid money flowing into the space disappears. Given the amount of loose money sloshing around, don’t hold your breath (or, I suppose, hope for a new “new thing” that gets people to take their money from the current sector and put it into a new stupid area–I would guess Quantum anything is going to be it, but nuclear fusion, robotics, and DNA-something-or-other are also strong contenders).
As an aside, computing as a technology has just been astounding–the fact that there are any gains to be made ~80 years after its invention, and the fact that these gains can be made on a regular basis, is pretty astounding. But the time is probably ripe for a new type of technology to provide a broad basis for propelling the general economy forward.
And fwiw, yes, I am acutely aware of and concerned about hard energy and ecological limits, and if not addressed, they will really bite. However, if there turns out to be a way to resolve them, I think it is safe to say that computers and communications will continue to improve over the foreseeable future (or, stated differently, they will continue to improve until we hit hard energy and ecological limits)
Patrick, that’s an interesting question, but I don’t expect to be around to see the answer!
KVD, that was recorded when I was dealing with the approaching first anniversary of my wife’s death, and yeah, I wasn’t at my best. I’ve dealt with it and am back on my feet.
Scotlyn, hmm! That makes a great deal of sense, as biophobia is a pervasive presence in Western cultures. What’s the outcry that sends the deepest shivers down the spines of horror movie watchers? “It’s alive!!!”
Forecasting, no surprises there. My prediction remains what it is: by 2050 or so, most of Western Europe will consist of overtly Muslim states, and the Christian minority — and it will be a minority by then, as a Muslim takeover is usually followed by a fair amount of conversion — may not be treated especially well. Yes, I know the Quran mandates tolerance of Christians and Jews; I also know how spottily that has been enforced in the Dar al-Islam down through the centuries.
Watchflinger, fascinating. I’ll have to revisit the WEF and see how it measures up on the cult scale.
Russell, every empire does this — the definition of an empire is that it unites many previously independent nations under a single national identity. The unity that results is always contested and fragile, but sometimes it can build considerable strength; the number of regions once in the empire that considered themselves Roman even after Rome fell is not small. On a smaller scale, look at the construction of nations such as Britain and France as examples.
J.L.Mc12, somehow I missed that. I hope they win the Ig Nobel this year!
KAN, thanks for this. Wen’s a very capable practitioner.
Martin, thanks for this. Weirdly, last weekend I got asked to take on the challenge of reviving a Pythagorean initiatory society, in which wine from Samos is an important feature of the regular banquets. I have a bottle…
Ian, thanks for the data points.
Enjoyer, exactly. The eliminative materialists — the folks who think that consciousness doesn’t exist and matter is the only reality — are like people who start from the assumption that the world is carried through space on the back of a giant turtle, and then end up arguing that the turtle is real but the world is not!
Caroline, I have no idea. If people are worried about it, though, I have a great idea: take the records off the computers, put them in paper in file cabinets, and hire some file clerks. Instant non-hackable database!
Heather, I’m delighted to hear that not everybody in my generation is a dork. Thank you.
Raab, in that case the pattern that’s trying to express itself will find another writer and possibly another medium. I haven’t yet had that happen — all the stories of mine that pushed themselves on me got written in full — but it doesn’t feel as though once they settle on me as their vehicle, they’re stuck with me; they could find someone else if they have to, and change the details in order to get the pattern out.
Jerry, yay for the chickens!
Forecasting, yes, I saw that. I don’t think it’s overstating the seriousness of the situation.
Siliconguy, talk about planning for the last war! They’re still stuck in the Cold War, when the existential struggle they’re facing will be fought in different ways and with different weapons.
Forecasting, yep. This is exactly what I predicted here a few years back. Bismarck’s famous comment hasn’t lost any of its relevance:
Annette (if I may), good! The sooner Canadians remember that they’re an independent nation and not a minor satrapy ruled from Washington DC, the better.
Siliconguy, I wonder if they’re starting to feel sympathy for those astronomers before Copernicus who were tearing out their hair trying to get the Ptolemaic model to work, and finding more and more problems with every improvement in the data…
Bacon, thanks for this. It’s a fascinating issue, and one I don’t expect to see resolved in my lifetime.
Tom, thanks for both these! Yes, the Klan in its 1920s manifestation was as hostile to immigrants and Catholics as it was to black people. That’s why it expanded so dramatically outside the old Confederacy.
Sylvia, well, most of them don’t seem to be much more useful while they’re still on this side of the grass, so…
Siliconguy #163: Sabine has a good video up on the multiple failures of the current cosmological models. They never should have launched that last space telescope.
No–this is exactly why they should have launched the last telescope!! Crating tools that generate new data to conclusively show that our understanding of the universe is wrong (or at least incomplete) is just about the only useful thing we have done over the last 20 years and is far, far more useful than arguing about how many quantum bits can dance on the head of a super-cooled hard drive!
J.L.Mc12:
regarding the notion that our actions are creating a climate that is more susceptible to reptilian life, it strikes me that that is exactly the sort of thing that would fit right in line with the notion that our civilization is controlled by reptilian overlords.
The urban gardening “high-carbon” piece assumes purchase of all new stuff. Garden surveys, on the other hand, typically quote food quality, money savings on food, and health as reasons for gardening:
https://www.farmanddairy.com/news/gardening-boom-one-3-u-s-households-now-growing-food/189850.html 36 million households in 2008 to 42 million in 2013. That’s a 17 percent increase and represents the highest level of food gardening in more than a decade, according to a special National Gardening Association report, Garden to Table. https://garden.org/special/pdf/2014-NGA-Garden-to-Table.pdf Detailed 2014 survey Reason #1 Better tasting, #2 Save money, #3 better quality, #4 food safety, #5 Feel productive; 1/3 HH growing food… https://gardenpals.com/gardening-statistics/ 21 study paywalled, The 2021 National Gardening Association study found that 42% of gardeners increased their gardening activities due to the Covid pandemic, while only 9% gardened less. (1). Mental health a major reason.
Regenerative Ag organizations ( Documentary Kiss The Soil) have reasonably good data suggesting this healthier version of ag (more cover crops/varieties/rotations plus negligible tillage/industrial fertilizers/pesticides), could reverse rising carbon after about 20 years. Media seems to cover the technofixes more. Associated health and environmental damage from BigAg/BigFood is getting attention, especially beyond the mainstream media. Sygenta has a regenerative ag program now, using an expanded definition to favor computer-assisted and monetized precision tracking.
@163 Siliconguy
I hope that there is a paradigm shift in cosmology soon. Then I can buy a pop science book about the new model and try to make some sense of the new theories as a layperson. Then again, the old guard who devoted their life to studying the Big Bang and its epicycles (dark matter & dark energy) might retain the power to censor the new paradigm until they retire or die off.
Forecasting, no surprises there. My prediction remains what it is: by 2050 or so, most of Western Europe will consist of overtly Muslim states, and the Christian minority — and it will be a minority by then, as a Muslim takeover is usually followed by a fair amount of conversion — may not be treated especially well. Yes, I know the Quran mandates tolerance of Christians and Jews; I also know how spottily that has been enforced in the Dar al-Islam down through the centuries.
Your comment has been rattling around in my head for the last hour or so.
I am not smart enough to figure out whether Europe will become majority Muslim or whether this is a good or bad thing. However, if this turns out to be the actual outcome, would it reduce the probability of an intra-European war, or would it make no real difference?
I was watching a Breaking Points presentation this morning. All three participants were using the “was like” formulation, so I suppose that is now part of our changing language. What interests me about it is that something rather different than “he/she said” is being communicated.
Another linguistic habit I very much deplore is the replacement of the verb ‘to think’ with another verb, ‘to feel’. As in we feel like you don’t like us. I believe that this particular formulation is a means of avoiding responsibility for what one does think, say or even decide. I would go so far as to say, that if you hear this “I or we feel like…” coming from a supervisor, you had best get that resume updated.
Grandparents not helping is all of a sudden a social problem? That sounds like a ginned up fake issue to me. Boomers selfishly clinging to land and houses they bought with money they earned, when us RE alphas could be developing and making the big bucks.
I am in a bad way. I am at the limits of my own power, and desperate for relief. I am at odds with myself, and thus seemingly impotent. I feel that some force must act from outside of me, like smacking an old tv to get it working again. I am terrified of truly being alive – of healing, and so avoid it.
I have tried several things, but my “at odds-ness” and fear prevents me from truly helping myself. Ive tried so hard. I dont know what to do.
In this, my extremity, what do you advise?
Haha, funny analogy with the flying turtle, I wholeheartedly agree. They first try to reduce reality to some made-up substance, then when that fails, just claim that the made-up substance is the only thing that is real and that there’s nothing to reduce!
By the way, have you heard of Donald Hoffman? He’s a cognitive psychologist. He argues that we can’t trust that what we perceive bears any resemblance to reality. Obviously, Kant figured this out a long time ago but Hoffman brings in arguments taken from evolution and cognitive psychology to justify it. He argues that evolution actually has the motivation to hide all parts of reality except those that are directly important for survival. Donald Hoffman proposes what he calls ‘conscious realism,’ which entails that consciousness “causes brain activity and creates all objects and properties of the physical world.” A good book of his to start with would be “The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes.”
Russell Cook,
I think Hawaii, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico,India, parts of California, etc. are doing a pretty good job of it. South Africa is certainly trying very hard. I don’t think SEQ is doing too bad of a job of it either, or Sydney. Historicaly the Byzantine and Ottoman empires were not bad. Maritime and trading cultures tend to be more inclusive than a lot of inland cultures. Probably no place is or was perfect, but lack of perfection shouldn’t blind one to good.
Stephen
@Raab (#154) on the power of stories:
Take a look at Terry Pratchett’s Theory of Narrative Casusality, which I think ought to be taken quite seriously by esotericists, occultists and magicians. You can download and read his own exposition of it at:
https://archive.org/details/pratchett-2000-briggs-lecture
My own view of reality is that the entire physical world, organic life included, is a secondary phenomenon, produced from/by an underlying non-physical “Something” which our ordinary bodily senses cannot perceive (and about which, in consequence, we have no adequate vocabulary to talk), That Something cannot be situated in time and/or space, does not consist of matter and/or energy, and even lies outside the dichotomy between “exists” and “exists not,” for all these things are part of the mere physical world.
Despite our lack of any truly adequate words, meanings and concepts to describe that Something, such words as “conscious,” “living” and “fiery” vaguely point towards it. And the things that we puny humans call “stories” can often reflect a small part of that same Something. When a story does, it seems to write itself at times.
Pratchett seems to me to have some inkling of all this with his Theory of Narrative Causality.
JMG, One of the things I find interesting in the discussions of room for improvement in computer technology and the internet is a lack of awareness of whether or not any of these things provide any benefit to ordinary people.
I recently did an ad-hoc survey of everyone I knew who had been adults before the common use of the internet and cell phones. I asked that if there was a magic button they could push and erase both things from the planet forever, would they push it. The answer with only one exception was yes, the world was a better place before those things which I agree with.
We went to the moon without either, built the Empire State Building, all the great dams , the Boeing 747 and created the middle class. Since widespread use of these communications and computing technologies virtually every objective measure of life has decreased. Movies are worse, publishing is worse, music is worse, dating and family creation are worse, social isolation is worse, educational outcomes are worse, etc. etc.
Yes this is obviously one of the main illusions for those who believe in the religion of progress. “Look people live in tents but we have AI picture art.” But my guess is when this last trope collapses in a heap we might be ready to let go.
“MichaelGrey: That computing and the internet is mostly a solved technology, there is no more runway for new ideas and they cannot let the shareholders or the larger population figure this out. If they do then the bottom of the bucket for the industry will fall out.”
That is why the rush to AI is going on. All the new processors have a neural processing unit. Your old processor does not. In advertising CPUs GHz and cores has been replaced by TOPS, trillions of operations per second. (The NPU calculations can run in parallel.)
As Windows 11 suddenly made a large group of older PCs obsolete, the “need” for AI will make a huge number of ‘we thought they were new enough’ PCs obsolete, or so they hope. Apple has a long standing policy of abandoning their machines after seven years. It may be even worse for them as the stingy so and sos sold a lot of their M1, M2, and M3 machines with 8 GB of memory which isn’t really enough. When the new AI equipped operating system shipped every Mac suddenly came with 16 GB. By the way, the M series Macs do not have upgradeable memory.
As for Q day, it’s theoretically possible. If it does happen it’s back to paper bills and checks. The postal service will be saved. You could defeat Quantum with a one-time pad but the logistics of that are intimidating to say the least.
Lazy, that seems about right to me. Thank you for the studies — I’ll deploy those as needed.
Semi-Four, it’ll have no effect. Muslim nations go to war against each other about as often as Christian nations, and it’s quite possible that there will be a period of bitter warfare while the various new Islamic republics of Europe sort out a pecking order.
Anonymous, no, the problem is that you aren’t applying your own power. Your terror of being truly alive and of healing is your problem, and nobody else can solve it for you. You and you alone can walk that lonesome valley, as the old song puts it. Accept that your conscious identity as you currently imagine it cannot deal with this, and place it in the hands of your true and deeper self, the real you that you’ve been hiding from all along. Then let things unfold. There is no other way.
Enjoyer, yes, but I haven’t read him yet. I’ll have to remedy that at some point.
Clay, you’ll get no argument from me. That’s why I don’t own a cell phone and don’t use any features of the internet except for the handful I find necessary or useful for my career.
@Ian #150:
“We have a great example of this kind of manipulative polling in the recent U.S election”
I have heard rumour that the polls are faked, in the manner of the Harris polls. During an ordinary year I would dismiss this as hopium, but this year? Not so certain.
@Annette #162
Yours is a very good comment and I agree with it. I have not (by a long shot) reached your esteemed age, but I have also never seen Canadians so united as they are now.
“ I don’t see this ending any time soon. Not for years and maybe even longer. “
Yes, forever is a long time, but I do sense that events have transpired, and things been said, that cannot easily be undone or taken back.
>However, if this turns out to be the actual outcome, would it reduce the probability of an intra-European war, or would it make no real difference?
And to that question I would add another. If Europe does go muslim, will they go Sunni or Shi’ite? As far as the question of them going muslim in the first place, I invite you to answer it for yourself. Take a train ride from, say, Rotterdam to oh, say, Munich. As you look out the window on the trip, count the number of mosques you see. Count the number of churches. Compare the two.
@Sylvia re: babysitting
One of the boneheaded things the boomers were prone to, was having children late, and discouraging their own offspring from having children young. Result: sadly few of them, even if they were willing, were in any condition to help out with infants or small children (where the need is greatest). My own mother was close by when mine were young, and there’s no way I would have entrusted anybody under five to her care. She couldn’t possibly keep up. I would definitely have heard from the police about my child being found wandering down the road in a diaper…
But also: they moved away from their families, and their kids did likewise, scattering kin networks to the four winds. My own grandparents, when I was a kid, lived 8 hours and 5 hours away. We only saw them on holidays.
@the commentariat: re: family trends more generally:
In contrast to the boomer/neoliberal infinite workforce mobility/family alienation/anti-localism model…
Since 2020 I am seeing a trend in the opposite direction, at least among my own social set (religious, lower-middle and working-class): whole families (3 generations, including adult siblings and their families) moving sometimes quite long distances, in order to settle near each other. This includes, just off the top of my head: grandparents, their adult children, and their spouses and kids, all researching and finding a reasonably affordable place with jobs (our area), and then all helping each other move there; family with several kids combining forces with out-of-town grandma to afford a house with a MIL-suite for all of them; local family purchasing a small acreage outside of town (smallscale farm) and then helping their grown children purchase lots/houses nearby so they could all be handy to share childcare. I think these sorts of arrangements, and the forward-thinking families now engaging in them, are… the future.
I’m curious if anybody else is seeing movement in that direction.
>EU urges citizens to stockpile 72 hours’ worth of supplies amid war risk
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at that. Like 3 days of extra food will matter if they start WW3.
>the Hubble constant has two different values depending on how it’s measured
Perhaps. Just maybe. It’s not a constant? I do like Sabine. She’s such a grumpy German.
@ Forecasting and Mr Greer
I agree with you and it may be the reason why I wake up sad some mornings, although the sadness dissipates when I get up.
My present sentiment is that the Transformer rules this world, and he certainly doesn’t care about our feelings.
Besides, I’ve come to the conclusion many years ago that the human population of this planet will be somewhere between one and two billion souls at the end of the century, or maybe much less, if the global population declines by as much as 95%, as some people think, because food production will decrease sharply due to depleted natural resources. The decades ahead will be terrible.
Things we can hardly imagine may happen. For instance, on a less tragic note, the Emirates may become English-speaking countries:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/weng.12507
This may be the effect of a weakness of Arabic speaking nations in general. In all of them, literary Arabic is the official language, and it is also the language of education, the press, politics, etc, but people speak dialects, which are as different from the official, literary language than modern Italian is from late Latin (I know a little literary Arabic and Moroccan dialectal Arabic). Think of France before the 15th century, when the people spoke some dialect of French in their daily lives but Latin was used in courts and official documents. I have Moroccan in-laws; they all understand literary Arabic (which they learn at school, hear on the radio and read in books and newspapers) but most of them seldom, if ever, speak it.
@Mary B 175: “Our changing language” is a nice way of putting it. I’d call it our degenerating language. Languages can be debased, vocabularies reduced, and thinking clouded and corrupted as a result. In Orwell’s “1984” the process is deliberate: He calls it “Newspeak.” I’ve ranted about it often enough.
I should probably remember my childhood lesson of not taking a second cookie until everyone else has one, but…
This is the question I was actually here to ask:
If the result of various sorts of international and economic chaos is to make manufactured goods more expensive and less available to those who need them, then which of the following is best?
A) making my own home made equivalent for my family and friends, not intending to get cash payment.
B) making my home made goods and using them for barter.
C) making my home made goods and selling for cash, which will continue to pay the electric bills and whatnot.
I worry that female-coded crafting has a tendency to be under priced relative to the effort and cost of materials. (ex. “I’ll give you $50 to make a king-sized crochet lace bedspread.”)
Regarding your predictions on Islamization, it would not surprise me if (similarly to other groups of “barbarians” in the past) they gain power and esteem by promising to some “old Westerners” to topple the power structures of other groups of “Westerners” from which they have been estranged. For example, I can really see Islam gaining a populist appeal by promising to go after old elites, universities, corporate structures such that they may actually see support from many non-Muslims in efforts to “cleanse” the old structures.
I have recently read a book entitled “The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In” by Hugh Kennedy (https://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Great_Arab_Conquests.html?id=DWRKDgAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y). Towards the end, Kennedy actually reads many accounts of the newly conquered subjects of the new Islamic empire. Within the territories of the old Eastern Roman Empire (Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, etc), many “Rum” Christians saw the Arabs as a curse from God caused by being forced to tolerate “heretics” like Monophysites and Jews. They often hoped that someday a great new Roman emperor would liberate them.
In the old territories of Sassanian Persia, we have less sources. Unlike with Christianity, Zoroastrianism had no complex network of monasteries where events were recorded and at the verge of the Islamic conquests, much of the population outside of the elites was becoming faiths other than Zoroastrian. For example, it is estimated that roughly half of the population of the capital Ctesiphon was Nestorian Christian and Jewish. Hence, this period is often called the “Centuries of Silence” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Centuries_of_Silence). Some of the few sources lament the decline of a lavish, splendid lifestyle (especially of the elites) embodied in the old class system in favour of the austere style brought by the Muslim Arabs.
I read that Myanmar is asking for blood donations to help the victims of the earthquake. What would you reckon to be the potential effects of receiving transfused blood, JMG, in occult terms? I have never given nor received blood, nor do I intend to.
Hi John Michael,
The ever rising debt is an odd story of subterfuge.
From what I understand of the fiercely independent Greenland folks, is that they all require subsidising from the Denmark treasury. All of them. This perhaps suggests that the underlying economic reality for that large island, is that they are at best an expensive outpost. If I may cheekily suggest, being independent means just what it says. Being subsidised on the other hand, well there’s a lot of that going on across the world right now.
It’s been remarked upon elsewhere that pride is the devil.
Do you reckon there’s a good chance the big island will become a territory of the US? I’m thinking it might just happen.
Hi Michael Gray,
A lot of IT projects these days seem to be pushing costs downwards onto unsuspecting customers. Not a fan, and the person on the unpleasant end of that story ends up doing the administrative tasks which companies (and other entities) used to have to do. Not a fan.
Cheers
Chris
To John and the Commentariat:
I am looking for some life advice from you all. My wife and I are heading into our mid-twenties, and we are soon going to be seriously considering whether to have children. When we got married a few years ago, both of us agreed that we would only have two children at most. But now we are starting to reconsider whether to have children at all.
It’s become more and more apparent throughout our marriage that things are going to hell very fast, and I don’t know whether I want to condemn a child to live through all that. Also, human population growth is directly linked with economic growth, which is responsible for harming the living world. We’re trying our best to live pretty simple, low-impact lives, and having children is one of the biggest impacts we could possibly have on natural systems. On the other hand, fertility rates are starting to decline, and perhaps we could teach our kids to live low-impact lives. Not having any children feels like giving up on the future, in a way.
JMG,
Is there any significance to a new moon occuring on March 29th at 10:57 and a partial solar eclipe also on the 29th between 09:56 and 12:14?
New Moon: 29 Mar 2025, 10:57
https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/phases/uk/oxford
Global Event: Partial Solar Eclipse
Local Type: Partial Solar Eclipse, in United Kingdom
Start of Partial: Sat, 29 Mar 2025, 09:56 GMT
End of Partial: Sat, 29 Mar 2025, 12:14 GMT
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/uk?iso=20250329
Hey JMG
I think they may get more than a “Ig Nobel” for their work considering how much fanfare there is over bringing back mammoths, which was the motivation for their experiment.
Out of curiosity, would you like to see more work like this being done in the future? More scientists making odd variants of standard animals like wooly mice and glowing cats instead of AI and failed attempts at Fusion Power?
@ian Duncombe #150: I wouldn’t be happy about Carney winning the election, but your comment made me wonder. You are suspicious of both polls and official election outcomes. Is there any hypothetical evidence that would make you believe the Liberal Party actually won?
The electoral map is so divided that outside of four or five big cities and the North you would rarely set foot in a Liberal riding (and somebody living in a big city would rarely meet conservatives), so it is hard to just rely on one’s own ears and eyes.
Clay @ 180. I could not agree more. One of the most positive uses for AI that I have read about, was discussed on the Great Simplification recently. Audrey Tang was interviewed, and included examples of using AI to assist with community problem solving. This was used successfully in Taiwan (and elsewhere, even a few US communities), and at least some of the software is open access. He also discussed helpful methods to break screen addiction and soften partisanship. His well thought out explanations made me appreciate how important imagination is going forward. He talks about the importance of including people of different age groups in discussions, within a reasonable sized group, focusing on a shared problem. Instead of going for likes and retweets, algos encourage listening and engagement in discussion. Sorry no transcript, but he did mention looking up dynamic fascilitation, good enough ancestor and people power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXgne-9F7uU
@Enjoyer #151:
I came to the same conclusions you did in my university days. The idea that consciousness is a by-product of the random collisions of atoms and molecules always struck me as the philosophical equivalent of the old stage magicians’ “Indian Rope Trick.”
That is why I rejected Darwinism 20 years before I became a Christian. Darwin’s scheme contains a multitude of untestable assumptions and blatant non-sequiturs that a clever schoolboy could see through. You don’t have to be a religious person at all to see this.
For years, I have contemplated writing an essay whose working title would be “Darwinism Is An Ideology, Not A Scientific Theory.” I will probably never write it, because anyone with a modicum of spiritual awareness does not need me to explain these things, and hard-core materialist ideologues would only respond with ad hominem invective and kindergarten name-calling, for which I have no patience.
At my age, I am happy to have honest discussions and answer sincere questions, but I have no time for back-and-forth contentious disputes. As St. Paul put it “Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not for disputes over opinions.” (Rom. 14:1)
Methylethyl, I haven’t, but then I may not run in the right circles. I’d gladly walk a hundred miles in tight shoes to keep distance from what’s left of my family…
Horzabky, it would be a fine bit of historical irony if the Arabic world, having rescued most of what survived from ancient Greek literature, were to do the same trick again with English literature!
Sylvia, it really depends on your circumstances and the circles of people you know. Me, I’d do A, and then B, and consider C after that, but your mileage may vary.
David, that’s exactly what I’d expect.
Batstrel, it’s complex. Any blood transfusion creates a link between the two people involved, which lasts until the blood has been cleared away by the recipient’s body. At the same time, it does save lives, and giving blood is thus an act of charity with considerable karmic benefits.
Chris, I know that Trump wants it, which means the circle of movers and shakers that are backing him wants it. Partly that’s the minerals and partly it’s the strategic value of bases to defend against Europe — either the EU, in the unlikely chance that gets its act together, or the future Islamic republics of western Europe. My guess is that it’s going to happen.
Enjoyer, the choice has to be yours, but I’d encourage the two of you to consider having children. The future will have its ups and downs, but it’s not going to be a hellhole by any means, and with fertility rates dropping hard, your kids will be coming of age in a less crowded world. I’d give them the chance — and if they grow up knowing how to get by on less, they’ll be well prepared for the future ahead of us.
Earthworm, solar eclipses always happen at the new moon, just as lunar eclipses always happen at the full moon. I’ve just posted a set of predictions for the solar eclipse on my Patreon and SubscribeStar sites.
J.L.Mc12, no, I’d rather see scientists put more effort into understanding nature and less into monkeying with it!
@Enjoyer #193:
Here is my $0.02 worth, from an Orthodox Christian perspective.
My advice to any married couple would be, “Leave the matter in God’s hands. If you are meant to be parents, you will be, and if not, you won’t conceive.”
By extension, if you are meant to be married, you will find a spouse, and if you are not meant to be married (as I apparently was not!), then you will remain a spinster or a bachelor.
Also, beware contraception. Here is an e-book about contraception which contains useful information. Most of the book focuses on Church teachings, but in Chapters 2 to 5 and Chapter 8, the drawbacks and side effects of contraceptives are discussed in detail:
https://www.orthodoxtalks.com/on-contraceptives/
As far as I am concerned, God knows how many people need to be on Earth at any given time. Adopting such an attitude will relieve one of many vain worries.
I hope this helps.
Same “bad way” anonymous as above.
That makes sense. This is not my first life pursuing my own spiritual development, and there has been a tension between my individuality and personality since childhood, along with the terror mentioned above. (The mundane circumstances of my childhood helped highlight the trouble considerably, for which i suspect i have karma to thank).
This tension was manageable for most of my life, and i didn’t quite realize what it was. Then I completed the dolmen arch some years ago, and it brought the tension and terror into sharp relief. Sharp enough that i haven’t really touched spirituality since completing the course. I see the path forward, but haven’t yet been able to muster the courage.
The specific hurdle is that to move along with my healing, I’ve got a debt of grief i need to pay myself. I suspect this debt extends into previous lifetimes, though I’ve got plenty of unprocessed childhood trauma in this life. There is a neglected and abused child in me, and that child is thoroughly terrified of the healing process. As I pursue establishing my individuality, it is clear that first i need to heal this rift, but then the child pushes back, and i find myself in a numb stalemate.
Is there something specific you can recommend i do to help shift the balance? Either mundane/generic or within the Dolmen Arch tradition?
Any advice is much appreciated. Thank you
Our old buddy and jolly raconteur, JHK, has just posted.
Bedlam, Pending
https://www.kunstler.com/p/bedlam-pending
“You understand, all these lawsuit shenanigans with select federal judges from Woke-crazed districts like Boston, San Francisco, Rhode Island, and the DC Beltway are aimed at provoking a second civil war. The objective is to burden Mr. Trump with so many restrictions on the executive that the country can’t be governed without declaring a national emergency.”
He concludes:
“So, if the SCOTUS upholds the arrogation of executive powers and prerogatives by federal district judges, don’t expect Mr. Trump to roll over for that decision. It may come to pass, as per all the above, that he will be constrained to declare a national emergency to vacate the Deep State actors who are trying to make it impossible for him to govern, establishing special tribunals to disarm them. This, of course, will be seen by the Deep State and the Democratic Party as casus belli, an excuse to declare war against the president. We seem to be headed in that direction. There will be friction, heat, and light.”
If that happens, that will be a true Rubicon moment, which will make the Constitution effectively a dead letter, and propelling us to Spengler’s Caesarism.
Sylvia, I suggest you should do all three, in the order you listed.
Anything you make for yourself and family is something that you and they do not need to buy, leaving cash for bills, and can be made according to your own taste. Vegetables and fruits not normally found on grocery shelves, clothing the styles you prefer that fit the size you are right now today, furniture from solid wood which lasts more than a month are some examples. Fancy from the store is no longer of better quality than made at home. $200. Pendelton shirts match plaids only across the front; I match plaids all the way around a garment, and I am not unusual in that.
Barter helps you make friends and allies. Both get something they need and no one is out any cash.
Selling for cash can then be undertaken when you have perfected your skills and established a reputation for good work. Customers willing to pay what your efforts are worth will come to you. I had people bringing me sewing jobs because of the items I made for our school’s fundraising auctions.
JMG,
You have often projected that one of the first big artifices of the empire to fall will be the higher education industrial complex. It appears that Trump is accelerating its demise by eliminating the department of education and cutting federal grants to many colleges. I was a bit shocked to see that for one DC area university federal funding made up 40% of its total revenues
I figured the fall of academia would be more organic. But it appears that becoming the breeding ground of woke ideology and anti-trump sentiment was a bad bet.
JMG #169: “Last weekend I got asked to take on the challenge of reviving a Pythagorean initiatory society, in which wine from Samos is an important feature of the regular banquets.” Did you use Pythagorean cups?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_cup
Methylethyl #137 regarding child-rearing support from grandparents in less-developed countries: I used to be addicted to reading advice columns, and a lot of the letters were from women complaining about mean and/or annoying mothers-in-law, or women criticizing their daughters-in-law. And of course, women don’t always get on well with their own mothers or daughters. Is this less of a problem in the less-developed countries you’ve lived in? Or do they just accept the annoying behavior as a tradeoff, figuring it’s worth the free child care? Also, even relatively young grandparents aren’t necessarily trustworthy caregivers – if there’s a history of child abuse, drug abuse, or alcoholism in the family, parents may not want to leave their children with relatives.
Siliconguy #160 on Denmark extending the military draft to women: “I’m pretty sure pregnant women will be exempted from reporting for duty if their number does come up. Low birth rate problem solved at a stroke of a pen without overt coercion.” That wouldn’t surprise me: I recall a female US Army sergeant (stationed in Germany) saying that women in her unit were getting pregnant in order to get out of being sent to Saudi Arabia.
Interesting point not obvious on a paper map, even the polar projection here,
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Map_of_the_Arctic_region_showing_the_Northeast_Passage%2C_the_Northern_Sea_Route_and_Northwest_Passage%2C_and_bathymetry.png
From the former Thule Air base, (now called Pituffik Space Base) to a considerable part of the Northern Sea route is 1800 miles. I thought there would be a choke point at Severnaya Zemlya, which there is but it’s not materially closer than other portions of the route. The B2 has a 6000 mile range and of course it could use standoff missiles as well.
As for the Northwest Passage, if you don’t hold Greenland or at least have friendly relations with it, the Passage will be closed. That is really all you need to know about why Greenland matters. The Nunavut coast isn’t exactly well defended either.
“With a population of 36,858 as of the 2021 Canadian census (up from 35,944 in 2016) consisting mostly of Inuit, and a land mass almost as large as Mexico, Nunavut’s land area of 1,836,993.78 km2 (709,267.26 sq mi)[2] has a population density of 0.022/km2 (0.056/sq mi).”
@Ecosophy Enjoyer
If you haven’t got any major health problems, why not go for it? No parent in history has the luxury of making the world his kid inherits perfect for him… and honestly that wouldn’t be good for the kids anyway. I know a few who had the road paved for them (whatever you do, don’t give them a trust fund!), and… things aren’t going well for them in adulthood. The world we’re heading into looks like a challenge for sure, but I feel like I’m raising my children to meet that challenge.
Things are changing, for sure. It’s not gonna be a smooth ride. But I see a lot of hope in it. I look back on my great-grandparents, who somehow raised eleven kids on half an income through the Great Depression. By all rational metrics, it was Not A Good Time to have kids. And yet, they all grew up to be kind, functional, hardworking, resourceful people we all loved, and who revered their parents almost as saints. None of that was easy, but not only was it worthwhile, the ones old enough to remember it all looked back on the hard times with a certain fondness. It was a challenge they’d faced together, and they’d been victorious.
And also, kids are great, they will lay bare all your weaknesses (I realize that’s lousy PR, but trust me it’s a good thing), and help you reach your own adult potential in ways you can’t even imagine before kids. There’s a certain magic in seeing what you and your partner’s genes can produce– like you, but also someone totally new and unique. And, you know, don’t wait forever. In your twenties is a *great* time to have kids. It gets physically harder to keep up, later. Still worth it, but… gosh how many of us ‘old’ parents wish we’d started earlier?
If I had it to do over again, the only thing I’d change is: I’d have given more thought to social support networks beforehand: the early years are the hardest, and for mothers in particular, living near family (provided they’re actually helpful), or being an active part of a local community with other parents, can make a huge difference.
Yes, it’s a challenge, no the world won’t be perfect, but it’s a *good* challenge. Doing hard things is what makes us grow.
RE The Islamization of Europe: I guarantee when Germany, France and the UK start handing out draft notices (What do they call them in Europe? Conscription letters?) and lot of Muslims will decide that Pakistan and Syria aren’t that bad.
@EcosophyEnjoyer #193 I regret not having children.
@Lazy Gardner #197 Software, AI or not, is the wrong tool to solve social problems.
@Bofur
I am definitley not a polling expert. Though I think I am familiar with the process of exposure – easing people into accepting situations that they would otherwise find very uncomfortable. Its a process that can treat anxiety, that is exposure therapy. The way the polling is asdvertised to us, this easing in from all media types, from ‘Carney is gaining’ to ‘Carney is overtaking’ to ‘Carney is leading’. Do Canadians collecitvely have this significant of a short term memory problem?
@Aldarion
That is a good question highlighting the evergrowing and longstanding trust issue with government and crisis of democracy developing in this country. We do have charter rights.. what I see as consistent violations of 2(a) and 2(b) – including the full court press on freedom of concious in particular comes to mind in answering. A hypothetical situation that would allow me to trust that our elections were fair, after this obvious polling effort to condition? I hate to say better polls though what would that look like? Development of independent pre and post election polls by a disinterested third party. Full disclosure of questions asked, sample sizes, regions canvassed. Completed as transactions added into a encrypted blockchain where everyone can see the results in the international community. Either that or Mark dons a hair shirt from now until June to show penance for the behavior of his party over the last 9 years.
Clay, on your internet hypothesis, it’s also true of computing in general. The best things in computing were created before the mass internet. The C language, Linux, git, and a lot of other things. I put this down to the lack of distractions basically. A post-internet computing or at least, post-mass bandwidth computing would be a great thing to aim for. It would be of course a salvage exercise.
The thing about boomer grandparents – so many of them are so emotionally immature that it’s hard to have them around your kids even when they do want to help. They seem to think that grandkids only exist to fulfill their own emotional gratification and that it’s a grandparent’s role to spoil the grandkids. I can’t leave my kids with their grandparents without the kids being filled with lollies, chocolates, ice cream, copious amounts of television, unrestricted access to the internet and so on. We’re a culture that’s bloated with old people, but no elders. No wise people to steward the next generation.
JMG, if this is more of a question for Magic Monday, I totally understand if it gets fed to Fido.
Have you noticed any shift downwards of the intense stuff headed our way on the astral plane? If I remember correctly, once it hits the middle layer we’ll see it here, in the sense that many of us will turn abruptly from one way to viewing and approaching the world, to another. The example you gave, I believe, was how with the covid craziness, people who did not trust the medical industrial complex suddenly flipped and were all in on getting the shots, vaccine passports, mandates, and the rest.
However that energy shows itself this time, thank you for all of the years of good advice: tend to your spiritual practice, contribute to the wellbeing of your family and friends as appropriate, learn useful skills, pay off those bills, and keep a deep pantry.
Thanks as always,
OtterGirl
Can you see old buildings like universities/financial headquarters/etc being converted for new purposes in the future Islamic states? What will become of historic structures more broadly?
Will Arabic/Turkish/Persian become lingua francas in Northwest Europe?
Re Michael Martin #198
I don’t know what you mean by Darwinism. If you mean the concept of evolution, I regret to say that I disagree with you. I think evolution/natural selection is the best explanation we have for the diversity of life. I am not an atheist or materialist though, I believe that all life is a manifestation of the Divine and that the evolution of ecosystems expresses the telos and order of the Divine. So I guess I would count as a believer in theistic evolution. I’m not a Christian but I respect the Christian religion. I’ve found it hard to understand hardcore creationists/young earthers, though.
Re John #199
Thanks John, this helps me feel better about it. Perhaps I can raise the kind of people that the world will need in the future. I also think having kids would teach me a lot of important lessons as well. I feel like my wife and I have a lot of love to give to kids, which is why we haven’t totally given up on the idea.
Re methylethyl #200
Thanks methylethyl. I haven’t been hesitant because it’s a challenge, I agree with you that it will be a good challenge for me and that they will teach me a lot. There have been other really bad times to have kids- WWI, WWII, the Black Death, The Bronze Age Collapse, etc. etc. etc. I also think that if I worked hard I could raise kids that are well-adjusted and ready to deal with the world. As for community and family support- I’m planning on living for a few years in my hometown raising the kids with my family before I move out to the 3 acre property I own.
Ecosophy Enjoyer, speaking as a father of two: totally worth it, and do it in your 20s, sooner than later, don’t wait. I started in my 30s and it’s harder, just in terms of energy. The future belongs to those who turn up.
Anonymous, I have two suggestions. The first is the Octagon Society exercises, which you can find here. They are specifically designed to help you grapple with past trauma. The second is regular therapeutic massage, which I have personally found very helpful in dealing with grief from this and other lives. I would also encourage you, once you have those in process, to consider doing as the Dolmen Arch course suggests and begin the whole course a second time from the beginning. It’s a good general maxim that the only way out is through…
Michael, interesting. I note that Congress, which has authority over the federal judiciary under the Constitution, has begun to talk about exercising that authority. The possibility that the DC federal courts could be abolished by Congress is a real one…
Clay, the entire structure of higher “education” has metastasized to the extent it has only because of vast handouts from the federal government. Taking away the feed trough is the inevitable blowback, and I’ll be delighted when it happens.
Yavanna, nope. I’ll have to suggest that, though!
Siliconguy, a good point.
Watchflinger, did you mean to put through five copies of this comment? I deleted four of them.
Ottergirl, this is an open post, and since you didn’t ask about Covid or AI, it’s a legitimate one; Fido has gotten plenty of puppy snacks, so he can do without yours. (For some reason I’m getting deluged these days by spam from Turkish gambling sites; it all goes straight to Fido, since I’ve taught the spam filter to recognize Türkçe.) I’ve been busy enough of late that I haven’t had time to keep a close eye on the astral, but I think it’s closer but not there yet.
David, it’s too early to say with either of these.
Enjoyer, I hope you go ahead and have children, for whatever that’s worth.
Hey JMG
I suppose that would be the better option, though I confess that I feel that the world would be a bit richer with a few escaped genetically modified animals roaming in it.
On the subject of Trump, have you heard that there are people in Australia who want to boycott American products in poorly thought-out retaliation for his tariffs on Australia imports, particularly steel and aluminium? They seem unaware that it is Americans rather than Australians who will be paying the tariffs, and that China is a bigger buyer of our stuff than America is. On a somewhat related note, the Labor party is attempting to revitalise our manufacturing industry with their “Future made in Australia” programme, which intends to get more people in construction and engineering, and focus on encouraging the manufacturing of renewable energy technologies. I feel that Trumps “America first” policies are rubbing off on Australia.
Since (I suspect) a lot of our psychological dysfunction here in the West is from our massive store of unearned petroleum wealth, is there a belief system or philosophy you’d recommend for dealing with unearned wealth? The stereotype of trust fund babies is not a flattering one; how does one avoid that fate?
@Will O (#78) here’s another Canadian’s perspective on the whole situation regarding Trump, the tariffs, the 51st state, etc. I can’t claim to know what Trump is really up to. Given that his rationale for imposing tariffs specifically on Canadian goods has varied from day to day – one day it is fentanyl, the next day it’s letting terrorists across the border, and the third day it’s the trade imbalance – I believe that it is none of the stated reasons. I hope that it has to do with Canada falling into the clutches of the People’s Republic of China and/or the European globalist cabal – which Trump is determined to put a stop to, but I can’t say for sure. Some other dissidents share my beliefs. What I can confidently say is that Trump is a gambler who does not show his cards… or the cards of his that can be seen are deliberately let slip to mislead the viewer.
In terms of Canada’s reaction, it is a sorry sight to see. The masses who in 2021 were chanting in unison “safe and effective” and in 2022 were chanting “slava Ukraine” are now suddenly super-patriots who are fighting the Evil Orange One by buying French’s ketchup instead of Heinz ketchup (because the latter stopped using Canadian tomatoes a few years ago). *Sigh*. Meanwhile, the leaders of the main political parties are trying to out-do each other in terms of telling their followers what a bad@ss they will be in standing up to Trump. Canada has caught the TDS virus big-time. Lots of rage and unhinged negative emotional energy being sent to His Trumpness. *Sigh*. However, there is a kernel of patriotism in many Canadians’ hearts (of which they are usually ashamed because patriotism is, you know, so American) which has been allowed to sprout. We’ll see what comes of it because few people (especially in the big urban centres) can now define what Canada IS. I do hope that this mass of unfocused energy constellates properly and productively because the time is long overdue for Canada to wear some big boy pants.
The national propaganda networks have been trying to prop up the bankster-turned-unelected Prime Minister Carney (or ‘the Dark Lord of Finance’ as he was called by the English when he was the Governor of the Bank of England) while he ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ at the podium and sneers and snaps at and demeans the media who dare to ask him questions. Meanwhile, independent media show that the leader of the Conservative opposition party is drawing record-setting crowds at his rallies across the country (even in areas which are Liberal strongholds), multiple times the size of Carney’s rallies. But the ‘polls’ currently show the party of the bankster ahead of the party of the populist (after the latter had a lead of 25+ points a couple months ago) – a bit like the bump in US polls shortly after unelected Que Mala Harris replaced Sleepy Joe. And the party led by the Khalistani terrorist Jagmeet Singh (NDP) is in freefall. Here in Canada, there has been a lot of concern about foreign nations’ interference in our recent federal elections: well, right now there is major interference (of an orange nature) from south of our border. We’ll see what ultimately comes of this huge mess.
Pythagorean cup?
I prefer Klein steins. The down side is they are impossible to clean.
https://www.kleinbottle.com/drinking_mug_klein_bottle.htm
Hi JMG,
What’s going on with all the fear of a coming war with the “white Christian nationalists”? Some woke-types I know are extremely concerned about this. I’m not sure what to say to them—is there some basis in reality for this fear or have they simply settled on a convincing antichrist? Does “white Christian nationalist” actually mean “person who disagrees with me”? Thanks for any clarity on this.
” The second is regular therapeutic massage, which I have personally found very helpful in dealing with grief from this and other lives. ”
Oh great… didn’t realise that I’d be dealing with grief from other lives as well when I finally get far enough down the line.
I read some the comments above about Islam and Islamization and it brought to mind an old question I’ve had about the origins of that religion. Someone said that the beginnings lay with dissident Christians which sounds logical because there’s enough in Christianity that doesn’t sound logical.
But I wonder how much documentary evidence we have from that time. Are there ancient texts showing evolution of Islamic thinking like records of debates and disputations about religious doctrine that point to Islamic origins?
The other thing is when in history are we talking about? I read another guy that said that Islam arose pretty much contemporaneously with the rise of Christianity. In other words our timelines are wrong.
And I wonder if the Koran was written in pieces over centuries or generations and then assembled at some point into one book something like what happened with the Old and New Testaments.
My sense is that Mohamed was a historical personage but how many other minds and hands were involved in the founding?
You’ve mentioned a suspicion roughly to the effect that that parapsychologists aren’t getting sufficiently large results because they’re trying the wrong things. That being the case, how hard do you think it would be to come up a list of not-already-tried paradigms of parapsychology experimentation:
– such that if scientists were to attempt to openly perform and replicate a line of parapsychology experiments according to each of those paradigms, you would more-or-less expect experimental results to keep coming in at a more-or-less consistent above-chance level, given more-or-less consistent humanly-producible conditions internal to the experiment, even after a couple decades had gone by and increasing popular media attention had been attracted,
– so that therefore, if all of these paradigms of experimentation taken together were to nonetheless instead have their ability to achieve above-chance results evanesce after a decade or three — even if we could somehow also know that there hadn’t been any material parties consciously working in bad faith to cause experimental results to be falsified in a negative direction or cause positive experimental results to be suppressed — you would find that outcome quite surprising (less than 1 in 20 odds), and
– such that each paradigm on the list is at least as well-controlled, when it comes to potential fudging of, or vitiation of experimental-condition blinding from, any otherwise inherently necessary elements of subjectivity, as, say, the way the ganzfeld (mild sensory deprivation scrying) experimental paradigm requires the percipient or a condition-blinded third party to judge which of several possible scrying target conditions most closely matches the percipient’s recorded scrying report?
I didn’t want to ask this question in a Magic Monday discussion, because doing so seemed like it would go against the spirit in which you were offering your time there: I would be quite surprised if you came up with a list of experimental paradigms whose eventual fizzling of positive results I would myself find at all surprising, and so this is more like the opening step of an argument. (In my head, it’s not an argument, so much as the first step of a half-despondent plea that happens to involve a perspective that is apparently not at all standard or even intuitively recognizable for some reason — so that it takes extra argument-like steps to show how the perspective could even reasonably exist. But it’s not like I can prove that I intended to go somewhere else, with this, than an argument as such.)
I have been thinking for a long time of making a practice of voting (at least pro forma), every month where there was a fifth Wednesday, for you to write about another question that this one chains into, having to do with moral evaluations about moral evaluations about persons in a position of public trust. But (despite many drafts) I could never figure out how to explain why that other topic might be important, in a way that wouldn’t just produce an inoculation effect instead somehow. Breaking it down into this initial question seems like a good first step. I could fall back to the plan of trying to vote for you to discuss whether such a list would be possible, but since that topic might well never win, and it would take up a lot of effort and attention to answer even if it did, first I wanted to see what your answer might be in a less consequential context like this.
Thanks John. We probably will have children, having none would feel too much like giving up, and I feel like I have a lot of love to share with my future kids. I think that if I don’t have any, I’ll always end up wondering what could have been. Thanks for the encouragement and for the advice, and I’ll keep you posted.
I’m hoping to get help tracking down a literary missing link: I’m very interested in the ‘Plateu of Leng’, particularly anything that could educate me on the nature of its libraries. Lovecraft wrote about Leng in the Dream-Quest of Uknown Kadath, apparently Robert E. Howard mentioned it as well, though I don’t know which of the latter’s stories make reference to it. I’m reasonably confident ‘Leng’ is an alternate transliteration of the ‘kingdom of Ling’ from the Epic of Gesar Khan, though I’d be interested in counterevidence to that assumption.
Anyway, I’m wondering where Lovecraft and Howard might have encountered the name. The best guess I’ve encountered is that Leng comes out of the theosophical society’s writings, given Blavatsky’s fascination with Tibet, but ‘part of the theosophical society’s writings’ does not narrow it down nearly as much as I’d like! Any leads?
Milkyway, I recommend Gordon White of Rune Soup – he’s most well known for his podcast, but he also blogs. I believe this is currently the best place to find his writings: https://runesoup.substack.com/. I find Gordon White and John Michael Greer extremely complementary to one another. Two sharp-eyed people describing the same mountain from clearly distinct perspectives.
Paedrig (#51): I don’t know if I want to be encouraging this, because it is very questionable whether the delegated authority to install and maintain power cabling extends ethically to the delegated authority to include religious-or-otherwise ritual components in with the cabling, or alternatively whether this even could be a laws-of-war sort of situation in any way that mattered. But some obvious alternatives with much less downside risk than Loki (“the Ever-Contrary”) would be:
– Padmasambhava, to expel delusory self-concepts. (Not only in the clerisy of progress, but also [argument involving technical details of forbidden topic redacted].)
– Avalokiteshvara, to potentially give the truth to whatever conveniently legitimizing false beliefs about improving human long-term well-being we may have. And also because [second argument involving forbidden topic redacted].
– Morpheus, on a propitiatory basis, to arrange for us and our machines to have more beneficial dreams and confabulated illusions.
– Hermes, for any number of purposes (you might have to negotiate this attentively!), including wealth redistribution and exploiting loopholes in a legitimating ideology to confute exploitative purposes of powerful ideologues.
– Eris, on a propitiatory basis, except how could just one person follow through on the consistent self-deflation required to stay on her good side, on behalf of so many others? But maybe it could just be a little incremental propitiation.
– Demeter, on a propitiatory basis, because this is another case where we’re separating ourselves from nature by tying ourselves vulnerably to a different, only-sometimes more pliable facet of nature. What would be the equivalents of droughts and famines? Do we really want to know? But you’d probably need to cultivate substantially different personal character to pull this off.
– Hephaistos, because of one mythological connection with the idea of nonliving things that could move or speak independently.
– St. Michael, because of a different mythological connection with the idea of nonliving things that could move or speak independently, and because this might have many other benefits because of many other features of the situation.
However, I would only guess #2-#5 to not have issues with implied profanation associated with being so near the data cables. Athena is scarcely worth mentioning for this reason, despite how one might otherwise associate her with determined cold execution on the implications that a novel premise concerning the order of society might have.
Padmasambhava might be replaceable with Kali for this purpose.
But this is all speculation.
Also I think at some point I must have lost (well, purposefully passed over tbf) the plot of your original proposal to make this into an act of sabotage. We are all, in however varyingly relevant senses, in this together. Why not strengthen the connection between the legitimating goals of an ideology and the facts on the ground, so that it can be either the connection of the legitimation with the unconscious exploitative purposes that breaks if it has to (so that the goals can be achieved), or the connection between the goals and the legitimization (if the goals can’t be achieved)? Really, an electrical power system is potentially a decent casting metaphor and stabilizing focus for this, since it’s literally made of connections that supply power, and you have the ground wire, like, right there. Just avoid using any life-force-charged emotions, since life force supposedly has adverse reactions to strong electrical currents, at least in metals.
There’s a book by David Spangler called “Techno-Elementals” that you may want to read before you try anything, although your practice presumably isn’t at the level where you can get their input on anything.
@Ken Wood,
What an experience! I was glad to see in the comments below, too, that hummngbirds can be helped to overwinter in cold climates with a heated feeder, and I hope your Anna has been able to get by.
I am very much an animist, and find it a much less lonely world–and if you are attuned to it, there are these sorts of experiences that build a sense of connection with the spiritual aspects of Nature and the living beings within it.
I’ve had some amazing experiences at mid-winter this year, similar to yours. I described one in January on the open post. I perform misogi, in my case standing under a waterfall in a thin, short kimono. (I have my own sacred waterfall in a basalt grotto just below the Fuji Faith gyoba (literally “ascetic place” but basically their meeting hall.) Every time I perform misogi there I feel a deep connection to the spirits, and there is always something special. I frequently receive Divine messages there.
I’ve also been practicing overtone singing, which is a much longer story. In January, a wren was attracted by my singing and we caroled at each other–completely out of season for this bird. Since then a family of them shows up after I’ve finished chanting under the waterfall, and we carol at each other a few minutes, including in a blizzard in March (which was wonderful–I’d been hoping to do a misogi in the snow).
I think having a human being show up capable of producing bird-like singing is quite an attraction to them. I had an even more unusual experience just a few days ago. Both of our remaining frog species made it through hibernation, thank Heavens, and the green tree frog Hyla japonica, likes to hide out in pipes which offer cover while amplifying their voices. I was fiddling around in the greenhouse while practicing overtone singing, and came out in the garden. One of these frogs apparently anticipated how my song was going to proceed, because at the end of each line, it added a hearty “Gyp! Gyp!” perfectly timed, then fell silent for the next phrase. It repeated this several times until I’d finished the song.
These frogs sing to attract mates, with prolonged streams of gyps. I know they are attuned to hearing these as well. It was the rhythm and timing that was so amazing. We connected on that level.
@JMG #216 Sorry, had a glitch on my end!
JMG 199 “I’ve just posted a set of predictions for the solar eclipse on my Patreon and SubscribeStar sites.”
Subscribing to look at that I saw you said:
“All this suggests that the world is in for a wild ride.”
Realise this is about nations rather than individuals, but the lead up to the 29th has been particularly intense in terms of personal practice.
It is interesting to see what you said about the UK:
“This is not a fortunate placement, since a weak Saturn here predicts an attempt to maintain the status quo by inadequate means.”
There is a feeling of not so quiet desperation in the attempts at narrative control here in the UK and in the supermarket yesterday I saw that the front page of the Sun (IIRC), Charles Windsor is not doing so well and they had a headline referring to his doctors instructions – interesting timing given what else you said in your post!
Either that or they needed an excuse for him to disappear into a bunker somewhere while they poke the Russians again.
Perhaps Perfidious Albion is about to reap some blowback (I figure the Russians have long memories). Certainly the demise of Charles could likely be tinder for a bonfire. The propaganda here is very very over the top in terms of Russophobia and whipping up negative emotional states… Putin Derangement Syndrome to go alongside TDS (Trump) and MDS (Musk).
Starmer like them all is just a puppet, anonymous military saying he ‘had got ahead of himself’ re boots on the ground in Ukraine, but before that, it was interesting to see C Windsor doing a photo op with V Zelensky.
All in all – it seems the centre will not hold – they are still putting out stuff about the Russians being weak and disorganised (says the country whose army would fit into Wembley stadium and still have plenty of space) and the projection is so far off the scale it’s like having vertigo.
If the current King knows he is on a countdown to exiting stage right, this could be about to get very peculiar. The cognitive dissonance and stupidity in the UK is getting so strong it has a noticeable odour… and lets just say it isn’t roses.
@Sam says:
“We’re a culture that’s bloated with old people, but no elders.”
I heard someone say “We have Olders but not Elders” and I agree with that.
Ecosophy Enjoyer, if you both want to have children, and can, then I strongly recommend it. Don’t let fear or worry about the future turn you off. We had three, each with their own particular needs and it certainly wasn’t always easy, but it was a wonderful trip. Kids grow up in the world they grow up in, not in the one we did or the one we hope might come. With your love and support they can adapt and thrive in whatever circumstances they find themselves in. Help them figure out who they are and to become that, and don’t try to mold them into what you think they should be, and they should be fine. Good luck!
@Paedrig, I’d like to make an argument, as a member of the clergy for the church of progress*, why you should absolutely do this. First, let me suggest that 90% of the things you dislike about the religion of progress are the result of it being a state religion, subject to the kind of subversive reimaginings any other religion would also be subject to in the same situation. There might be enough to object to in the remaining 10% that you’d still never want to engage with it, but I doubt you’d be having thoughts of spiritual sabotage if this server was owned by, say, a Scientologist or a Dudeist.
The thing is, trickster spirits are very much part of Progress as a living religion, and aliveness is the only thing that makes it unwieldy to the technocrats that would use it to unbeautiful ends. Every religion must of course stratify somewhat if it’s to become the framework of a civilization, but I don’t think Progress is at a point where that would be healthy yet. My own estimation, based on linguistic markers, is that Progress is just about turning 300 this year – very youthful for a religion if one discounts the majority that never make it out of the cradle. Which is why I think offering a prayer to the Tricksters That Inspire Madmen is very much appropriate right now. If Faustian civilization is to make it through the current set of crises it needs a connection to living divinities, not dusty icons like Star Trek and certainly not guru-figures like Fauci. There’s plenty of time to stratify if we make it into the next century with something resembling an intact canon – so if you feel compelled to pray, pray with a will! And if you wish to build a shrine at your place of work, is that not your right?
I’m not sure about invoking Loki specifically because the Etruscan pantheon was not itself very technologically minded – the Aesir went to the dwarves for tools or weapons and the giants for walls if I recall correctly. Though the fact Loki was usually the one who paid the price on behalf of the Aesir for all these good things they got from Elsewhere might make him more appropriate than my first thought suggested. Probably not a bad option if you have a good relationship already, but far from the only one. If you’re up for it, I am convinced that the term ‘Enlightenment’ was a very open acknowledgement of that movement’s patron Archangel – they don’t call it Faustian civilization for nothing. If you don’t want to call on Abrahamic figures, Prometheus is an obvious one as well, or Changer if you want someone more local. And who can forget that smiling Egyptian frog that was chatting with the faithful back in 2016?
Perhaps more seriously, if the goal is to help the current state of things move past the ugly grind and squirm of a Piscean age, a Magian pseudomorphosis, and an age of relative material plenty all ending at once, you could try to make the servers a better conduit for people searching for their Tamanous. ‘Muse’, ‘Geni’, and ‘Wahrer Wille’ are all good synonyms for that concept as well, depending on what culture’s symbolic language you’re most familiar with.
I leave you with an alternative set of instructions by the incomparable Leslie Fish if you just want to frac shale up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DodPzphdXZo
*I mean this quite literally. I am a professional engineer and was motivated to attain that certification in large part because I wanted free reign to build my own weird inventions without society telling me I wasn’t allowed. I accept the assertion that the belief in Progress is a religion but I see Progress as one deity in a pantheon – an unusually human-friendly one, but not one that gives us things for free. The belief that she must is exactly the kind of food for vegetables we wouldn’t have to deal with if Progress weren’t a state religion.
@enjoyer your objections to having children seem to be external rather than internal. You’re worried about the current and future state of the world. That’s something you have no control over. Consider this: you’re a Frenchman in 1890. Belle Epoque. Life’s never been better, and everyone expects things to be great in the future ahead. Yet, if you had children at that time, they would face WWI by the time they reached their twenties. On the other hand, suppose you’re living in the 1930’s. Economic depression, a big war coming, everything seems to be bleak. Yet, in just 20 years, you’d be living during one of greatest economic boom of all times. And your children would be enjoying it. My point is, you don’t know exactly what the future is going to look like. Don’t let it stop you.
@Yavanna:
Dysfunctional family is an interesting question. What I observed, both overseas and in my own childhood (I grew up in a smallish town with tons of relatives), is that large, tight-knit kin networks are protective, when it comes to dysfunctional parents especially. Like, if ‘family’ means just parents and grandparents, one bad apple can ruin the whole barrel very quickly. But if ‘family’ is everybody from your grandparents’ siblings all the way down to second and third cousins, plus a handful of honorary aunties and grandparents, then you get a buffer against dysfunction in the immediate family. My parents were very far from perfect, but I was surrounded by other relatives who loved and looked out for me. I found models for healthy family relationships in the households of older relatives and neighborhood friends, *because* those people were kind and tolerant enough to *not* cut ties with us just because they might disapprove of my parents. It’s like the difference between climbing a fraying rope ladder, and climbing a huge rope net with a couple of fraying bits in it.
Re the polar centred map posted by Silicon Guy #206,
I note that it marks three different “poles” – labelled “North Pole” “North Magnetic Pole” and “Pole of Inaccessibility”.
And now I’m wondering what on earth is a “Pole of Inaccessibility”… and would welcome enlightenment from any quarter on this score. 🙂
J.L.Mc12, good. The more countries ditch the globalist fantasy and focus on local industries, the better a chance we’ve got of seeing knowledge and technical skill get through the disruptions ahead.
Kfish, that’s an excellent question to which I don’t know the answer. Anyone else?
Siliconguy, nah, since they have no inside, all you have to do is clean the outside! 😉
Eriadne, it’s what Jung called “projection” — the people who are making these claims hate and fear working class white people, but their self-image insists that they’re the good, loving, and brave people who don’t hate or fear anyone, so they project their hatred and fear onto its objects. It’s the same mechanism that drove persecution of witches and Jews back in the day.
Sam, you already are. This life is a manifestation of your karma from previous lives, and the grief you’re feeling now is all tangled up with grief from those other lives. The same is true of every other emotion. When you get to the point that you can sort out present emotions from the equivalent feelings from past lives, you’ll have come a very long way indeed.
Smith, interesting. That’s not a subject I’ve studied at all, so I don’t have anything to add to it; maybe someone else has a comment.
Anonymous, er, say what? I don’t remember ever saying that about parapsychology. The problem with parapsychology is that, like most genuinely complex phenomena, psychism does not lend itself to experimental testing because it’s literally impossible to control the variables, and any attempt to do so stifles the phenomenon itself. What we know about psychism is that it’s intimately linked to complex subjective states in which emotion often plays a large role; replicating those states is hard, to say the least, and honestly duplicating the emotional charge is much harder. There also seem to be external states that influence psychism, and these vary over time in ways we can only roughly anticipate through symbolic time-mapping processes like astrology. So we’re very much in the condition of people trying to understand the physics of motion in Aristotle’s time, when there were no quantitative time measurements worth mentioning (the minute was not invented until the late Middle Ages!) and nobody had yet thought of treating velocity as a quantity…
Enjoyer, you might also consider asking the prayer list for blessings for successful conception, a healthy pregnancy, and a safe birth. That’s scored some very good successes.
Eucyclos, the baleful Plateau of Leng showed up in Lovecraft’s fiction first, as far as I know, in “The Hound,” which he wrote in 1922 and published in 1924. I know of no Theosophical reference to it, and a quick search finds nothing. Lovecraft had a weird habit of picking up on real items about which he had no way of knowing; the Necronomicon, his supreme tome of sinister magic, is basically a lightly fictionalized version of the Picatrix — both were written by medieval Arab sorcerers, contain incantations to call down archaic powers from the stars, had a long and lively history in medieval and Renaissance Europe, etc. — but there is apparently no evidence that Lovecraft ever heard of the Picatrix…
Earthworm, many thanks for this. I really have to wonder what the British ruling elite is smoking; it doesn’t seem to be good for their mental health.
Scotlyn, a Pole of Inaccessibility is the point in any geographical region that’s hardest to reach. In the Arctic Ocean, it’s the point furthest from land in any direction. There’s another in the south Pacific, sometimes called Point Nemo, which is so far from land in every direction that if you’re there, the closest human beings are quite often aboard the International Space Station…