This week’s Ecosophian offering is the monthly (well, more or less!) 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 — but since there’s no topic, nothing is off topic.
Before we proceed, a heads up to readers: my latest book, The King in Orange: The Magical and Occult Roots of Political Power, has now been released. Those of my readers who have been following my blogs since 2016 or so got to read the first drafts of some of the material in it, but I’ve tried to sum up the magical dimensions of the Trump years in as straightforward a narrative as the weirdness will permit. Those who like their opinions prechewed by the corporate media are not going to like this book, but then I never expected anything else — it’s already gotten a shrill and inaccurate denunciation in the pages of Publisher’s Weekly, which pleased me mightily. (If you’re not annoying the gatekeepers of the conventional wisdom, you’re doing something wrong.) If you haven’t ordered a copy already, why, you can get it in print or e-book formats here or here.
With that said, have at it!
Hello JMG,
I heard your recent conversation with Greg Carlwood on THC. What an inspiring conversation!
So, I’m halfway through my first reading of ‘The Long Descent’ and I’m wondering: what sort of agricultural jobs you think will be important in the near future? Of course a lot of agriculture will be but I’m thinking a lot about soil science as a means of regeneration.
I’m currently completing an associates degree at a community college and am dreading university debt because I come from a wage income family. Really just looking for advice to find a meaningful career in agriculture in the descent to come.
A question about the Wheel of the Year: each of the festivals are the points which divide a single year into 8 divisions. Is there a broader time scale greater than a single year that is traditionally used within that system?
This is a question for all, and is in response to some comments in an earlier post some months back.
A commenter wrote that they had a moment when they seemed to be offered a choice: whether to live or die. They chose to live (clearly!). Several other commenters followed indicating they’d had a similar experience — some variance on how the “offer” was given to them, but with the same decision made.
At the time I read that, it was a couple months after my husband died (long battle with cancer). I was still exhausted and directionless and dealing with serious pain and heart issues of my own. BUT, a short while before, I’d had that “offer” experience: I was dozing, and feeling like I was ready to let go of the world — didn’t seem like there was much point in going on. A warm sense of release came over me, and the sense that if I just “let go”, I would quietly drift away over the course of a few weeks. The lure of that peace and release was very strong and seemed to be a pull toward my left. .
Immediately, the “offer” was there, almost as if someone was telling me, “You can pick now”. I weighed my options for a few moments, and slowly turned my head toward living — actually turned my head slightly to the right. Decision made. Instantly, the sense of choice was gone, and I no longer felt the allure of the release. It seemed like a very important and critical moment — with no option to say, “No wait, I changed my mind…”
Clearly, I did live. My health is slowly improving. I marvel at that moment…and what might have happened if I turned toward the left.
So my question is: has something like this happened to you? If so, how do you understand or incorporate the event into your religious or spiritual base?
JMG, I pre-ordered The King in Orange, got it yesterday, and stayed up late reading. Great book! It brought up many things I had not thought about. I am a faithful reader of your blog, so the topics were familiar, but it was great to get even more depth in the book. I like the way the book is laid out too, with the star markers separating different thoughts and giving the reader a “rest beat” to think and then go on to the next. Thanks for your continued intelligent and thoughtful writing that makes my life richer.
For the entire commentariat — what is your experience with pressure to get the vaccine and share that status? For me, working for a large and lately, very woke, corporation, it is getting INTENSE. This week the CEO told all of us in a conference call that if we think we are going to get away with not sharing our vaccination status, we have another thing coming. According to him, we will soon not be allowed to shop, travel domestically, or do anything unless we have a vaccination and show proof that we have it. I am hoping that this is hyperbole and that he will soon be proven wrong. But is this experience common out there? I live in Virginia — a formerly conservative state that has lately gone totally woke. Florida is starting to look really good.
Finally, for whoever it was who mentioned/recommended books by Abigail Padgett — thank you! I just finished Blue and The Doll House Museum and really enjoyed them both.
@JMG and all: sorry for sounding like a broken record….. but more and more UFO stories… Now even on “60 minutes”! When it turns out to not be true — how can the TPTB salvage their credibility? Or does that even matter (i.e WMD and all sorts of other scandals)?
I was a young kid in the 70’s and saw the craze — in my opinion this has been turned to 11 (spinal tap ref).
thx!
For those of you who are interested in Americana and older ways of living, I would like to recommend a book I recently discovered: “American Frontier” by Elisabeth Peck. It’s a poetry book that was published in 1937. I don’t know anything about the author. I can’t even find her in Wikipedia. But the poems paint wonderfully vivid pictures of early American life. Imagine if the Foxfire articles had been written as poems. I found this book among the many many books my Grandma left behind, and I almost didn’t take it because the cover was torn. I’m sure glad I did.
If you like the old Foxfire books, I strongly encourage you to get on ABE and snag yourself a copy of this little gem!
Edit – The book even has a poem about Johnny Appleseed!
I’m interested to know how many of the commentators on this blog and who practice magic have tried to apply the scientific method to their magical practices?
How did you establish a control group or control events?
I’m very much a recovering scientific materialist and am interested to know how magicians discern between magic and psychological phenomena.
For example, when is something a spell and not an artifact of your own mind?
Paul Kingsnorth has a new blog post (https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/p/blanched-sun-blinded-man, subscription-only) where he’s talking about many of the same themes as our gracious host: the lost of enchantment, the myth of progress:
I’m taking an electrical program, and am learning how to do the math necessary to do electrical work. What I’ve found, however, is that most of it is being taught as “Here’s how to plug these things into a calculator”. This is concerning on many levels, especially as it appears that many of the instructors do not know how to do even basic math without a calculator.
I’m enjoying the program overall, but would like to supplement it with learning how to do the math behind electrical work without using a calculator or computer. The math involved will be trigonometry; algebra; exponents and roots; vectors; graphing; and complex numbers; and more will be coming later.
Thus, I’d like to ask if anyone who has done this sort of math before can suggest how to learn to do it without calculators, or if anyone knows any good textbooks written before calculators become ubiquitous. I will be learning how to do it all with a calculator, but I think there’s a good chance that getting a good calculator will become a lot harder very soon, and want to prepare for that.
I was thrilled to be able to support the publication of the essays which first introduced me to the great JMG! The first time I read them I thought wow, this guy is sharp, and I was right 🙂 proud to be an on-going supporter in all mediums available, and I’m also extremely heartened to see that the wind appears to be changing… hope springs eternal!
What is the worldview of the magician?
This will be the penultimate announcement for the 4th Annual Ecosophia Potluck, to be held this Juneteenth at the violet house behind the Mansion of Charles Dexter Ward. Please sign up here. JMG has informed me that: “I plan on having a couple of boxes of my books for sale at discount prices.”, in case you’ve been planning to buy some.
The bit in The Ecotechnic Future about how big home economics used to be piqued my interest and I found this: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=history_pubs. Similar to the soon-to-be equally lost world of trade training that Matthew Crawford eulogised in Shop Class as Soul Craft. And what physical education can be: https://www.strongfirst.com/strong-endurance-in-schools-to-strengthen-the-next-generation/. I actually had all three in school, but they were more time-filling than serious training (did discover I was good at rugby though).
A question for everyone: which old classes would you like to bring back into education, and what original ones would you introduce? Either in schools or adult education.
With JMG’s permission, I would like to request some help from the ecosophian community.
I am developing a real interest in the relationship between food and magic.
There seems to be a powerful connection that could be more fully explored.
JMG has recommended eating meat and cheese to help with psychic sensitivity.
We have heard from the guy who’s telepathic sensitivity jumped up after eating “fake meat”.
There are spiritual traditions dietary guides that impact the spiritual development of its practitioners.
I am starting to view eating as the most basic and fundamental way to communicate with the outside world. And from the world of science, we are starting to realize the importance of our gut biome in this most basic level of communication. The gut biome is in extensive chemical communication with the brain. (https://www.nature.com/collections/eccfeecfae )
I am especially interested in the experiences of people who are regular users of magic. (this community is the only one I know of). I have a kind of out there idea that I would love to get some feedback on.
I am very curious if the loss of magic and the rise of antibiotics and pesticides are connected.
The gut biomes of modern industrial people do not have the diversity that is seen in non industrial people. Therefore, the chemical communication between the gut and brain has been reduced / changed.
Have any of the regular magic users here taken a course of antibiotics lately?
Did you notice anything different about your magical practices after taking the antibiotics?
Or if you started taking probiotics or eating more fermented foods did that effect your practices?
I would be doing the experiment on myself but I am a complete beginner and not sure I would be able to tell if it had an effect.
Thanks for any help on this.
It’s looking like everyone who wishes to can carry a handgun in Texas soon. Honestly, those of us who want or need to carry already are at this point, so I don’t see any real changes from this rule. The bad guys who shouldn’t have guns will have them – same as it ever was, because they are not going to abide by a law anyway. OTOH, if everybody can, then the field is level within high crime zones, like all along our border with Mexico and in parts of the major cities.
I have been shot at several times along the border, by coyotes, while on my way to drilling rigs and just happening upon a bunch of them. That’s why they never enforce the “no handguns allowed” on drilling rigs in certain parts of the state. If you simply fire a shot the coyotes scatter out of sight and you can keep on driving.
I’m sure that the limited effects of this bill will come under fire (LOL) by the same bunch that wants everyone to have a permit for everything, but the truth is that those who want to carry a pistol have been able to do so for a long time already with the concealed carry license, so I don’t see this lack of permit requirement being anything other than a minor thing.
No big news in the oilpatch – still meandering around near the bottom of exploration activity. If the sanctions get dropped and Iran begins exporting unconstrained, then oil will take another tumble, and wipe out more companies that are on the edge of existence.
I did go to Mexico this last month, and interestingly, there are no shortages of anything, and lumber prices are the same as they have ever been. So I’m not so sure this “supply chain” stuff is real or not. I bought several sheets of plywood to use in a shop down there, and they were about $20 each instead of the $100 tag in some places in the US.
Enjoy spring, fellow Ecosophians…
I’m not much of a deep thinker like most of the folks commenting here, so I thought I’d share a little entertainment instead. A group of old school country music singers (emphasis on old) – Mel Tillis, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Reed and Bobby Bare – have put out a couple of albums under the title “Old Dogs”. One of the songs is a rendition of a Shel Silverstein poem. It’s available on YouTube (no video – just a picture of the album cover) if you search ‘Still Gonna Die – The Old Dogs’. Happy Open Post Week!
So you’re takin’ better care of your body,
Becoming more aware of your body.
Responding to your body’s needs.
Diets and nutrition and sleeping positions
Everything you hear and read about
and detoxifying your system and buying machines
that they advertise to help you exercise.
Herbs to revitalize you if you’re traumatized.
Soaps that will sanitize.
Sprays to deodorize.
Liquid to neutralize acids and pesticides.
Free weights to maximize your strength and muscle size.
Shots that will immunize.
Pills to re-energize you.
But remember, that for all your pain and gain
Eventually, the story ends the same…
You can quit smokin’, but you’re still gonna die.
Cut out cokin’, but you’re still gonna die.
Eliminate everything fatty or fried,
And you get real healthy, but you’re still gonna die.
Stop drinkin’ booze, you’re still gonna die.
Stay away from Kools, you’re still gonna die.
You can cut out coffee and never get high,
But you’re still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
You’re still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
Still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
You can even give aerobics one more try,
But when the music stops playin’, you’re still gonna die.
Put seat belts in your car, you’re still gonna die.
Cut nicotine and tar, you’re still gonna die.
You can exercise that cellulite off-a your thighs.
Get slimmer and trimmer, but you’re still gonna die.
Stop gettin’ a tan, you’re still gonna die.
You can eat a lot of oat bran but you’re still gonna die
You can search for UFO’s up in the sky
They might fly you to Mars where you’re still gonna die.
You’re still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
Still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
And all the Reeboks and Nikes and Adidas you buy
You can jog up to Heaven and you’re still gonna die.
Drink ginseng tonics, you’re still gonna die.
Try high colonics, you’re still gonna die.
You can have yourself frozen, suspended in time,
But when they do thaw you out, you’re still gonna die.
You can have safe sex, you’re still gonna die.
You can switch to Crest but you’re still gonna die.
You can get rid of stress, get a lot of rest,
Get an AIDS test, enroll in EST,
Move out west where it’s sunny and dry
And you’ll live to be a hundred but you’re still gonna die.
You’re still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
Still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
So you’d better have some fun ‘Fore you say bye-bye,
‘Cause you’re still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
Just got the “Orange Julius” book yesterday. Really great read!! As usual, the aristos are completely clueless.
This comment may be rather long; it’s for Patricia O. and any others interested in the effects of microwave and 5G. My interest in these topics began when I was a radar tech in the USAF in the late 1960s. I began collecting books and articles over the decades. I have John Steneck’s “The Microwave Debate” (1984) still on my bookshelf, along with some more popular titles. I checked out James C Lin’s “Microwave Auditory Effects and Application” (1970s) from my college library and read it carefully. After that it seemed like sources began to disappear or become classified. For a while I subscribed to “Microwave News” which was expensive back then. Years ago there was a self-published book, purportedly about directed energy weapons by Dorothy Burdick titled “Such Things Are Known.” I’ve never been able to lay hands on a copy.
I used to go the the library and read in IEEE magazines about the details of spread spectrum transmission. It seemed to me that with that technology there was no practical limit to what power density you could put into the public airwaves, at least until people’s (eye)balls began exploding. The word “regulation” is mighty unpopular around this blog, but I think there’s a place for it, especially in the area I’m discussing. The Europeans seem less regulation-averse than Americans. Good for them and may they keep it up.
Anyhow, I acquired a “Safe and Sound Pro II” broadband RF Meter a week ago and started making readings in and around my house and the surrounding area. The results are pretty sobering. My house, where I use wired devices only, have kept my landline and have a cellphone (but keep it in airplane mode 99% of the time) is pretty benign, with readings in the “slight” category, mostly. Once I step outside my house the reading goes up to “moderate,” and when I drive around town with the meter propped up against my dashboard, I see widely varying values up into the “extreme” (run for your life) category. In front of the city fire barn is one of those hot spots, and big intersections with cell towers are just as bad. I still use a microwave oven, but am trying to minimize its use. When I do use it, I now retreat to my bedroom while it’s running, which is as far away as I can get from it in my house. There, the reading is “slight” even with the microwave running.
We don’t have 5G yet in my area. JMG likes to talk about his “wry amusement” regarding this and that. My own “wry amusement” is about the concern over directed energy weapons and the so-called “Havana Syndrome.” I think back to what I read in “Microwave Auditory Effects and Applications.” It sounds to me like they’re describing 5G!
The utility companies have installed smart meters at my house; I didn’t have much control over that. They put out a big signal, but only briefly – from what I’ve observed. My attitude remains “prudent avoidance.” I’m trying not to buy wireless devices (printers, etc.) but that is getting to be more and more difficult.
I apologize for the length of this post; usually I’m not so long-winded.
No questions, just a general update! My cat Kiki is doing well after a bad scare — she had stopped eating and was throwing up everything, including water, so I started giving her tiny amounts of slippery elm mixed with water and kitty probiotic vitamin powder. It settled her stomach, but she was still sick.
I took her to the vet yesterday. She just got back last night and seems to be doing much, much better. My sincerest thanks to all of you who have been praying for her.
My music teaching business is back to wait-list only status for new openings with me; this is a complete turnaround from January of this year when I was worried about having to fold up and lose the commercial space. Because of demand, I am training a new voice teacher to take the overflow.
The donations for the subscription library have been wonderful. The collection is officially becoming impressive. I am confident that I have quite a few books the local Theosophical Society library in Wheaton does not, and that library has been closed ostensibly because of COVID for the last year and a half. They show no signs of reopening. I am hoping my library can at least partially fill the huge void that has been left by their decision to remain closed. For more information about the subscription library, I have written a post: https://kimberlysteele.dreamwidth.org/30714.html
My Speakeasy Illinois group on Facebook is up to 3200 members.
My baby trees (maple, pussy willow, white oak, Eastern cedar) are doing very well. Garden is quite lush after the rain last night. The little oak doesn’t have a name, so I plan on doing a special post about that later today. If you’d like to suggest a name for him/her in advance of that post, I have an Open Post up right now at my blog. http://kimberlysteele.dreamwidth.org
Dear JMG and commentariat,
It seems to me that a lot of people who were once attracted to occultism, spirituality, and magic have drifted away from these studies and practices in recent months. I’m curious if other folks have observed this and, if so what do you think is going on?
Over on your dreamwidth, we had an exchange about ADE, where I mentioned a bunch of articles on the topic seem to have gone missing. You found articles on the topic, but having read them over, I’ve realized there is a very important distinction between the ones I was looking at, and the ones you found: the ones I was looking at were cases where after vaccination against a coronavirus, ADE kicked in upon exposure to a related virus. This is a fairly major difference: if the vaccines induced ADE against Covid-19, we’d have seen it by now. I don’t see any way that this could be kept hidden, if it happened on a large scale. If, however, they induce ADE against closely related variants, then it’s possible that part of the reason for the much more deadly variants is ADE among people vaccinated, and possibly, depending on how much “spike protein shedding” occurs, those with contact with people who got vaccinated.
I’m still digging through my old print medical journals to see if I have anything on this topic, but so far no such luck.
https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/131994.html?thread=15616922#cmt15616922
It is looking like the Arab countries are going to jump on the hydrogen bandwagon based on this:
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Will-The-Worlds-Largest-Oil-Region-Become-A-Hydrogen-Hub.html
Here is a look at a Toyota racing hydrogen fueled car – please read it (it’s short) so you get a feel for hydrogen as a fuel:
https://asiatimes.com/2021/05/toyotas-hydrogen-race-car-aces-mt-fuji-enduro/
The only driver I see for this entire fiasco is the “Big Green Push” by some starry eyed folks with lots of money….
I got a couple questions for you JMG.
1) I’m well aware that I obtain book recommendations from you at a rate faster than I can read, but here goes another one (I write all these learning tracks down). Do you have a recommended course of reading for a bare minimum grasp of epistemology? I’m not looking to jump down that rabbit hole, but I want a serviceable understanding. My internal monologue wants to pressure me on how I know certain things, and I find that I don’t quite have the tools to answer the question at the moment. The only answer I have is personal experiment and experience. I’m also comfortable make a couple leaps from that base, namely historical precedent, and trust (not blind trust) in others who I suspect make similar experiments.
2) I see identification with self applied labels as a major problem of the modern mind. On that note, my unconscious gently reminds me of E-prime every now and again, which I think could correct some subconscious programming related to reification of labels if correctly applied. But I also think occultism (Golden Dawn) might do that too. What major problems do you see with E-prime as a tool for daily use?
I’ve been watching the reports of adverse reactions to the experimental mRNA gene therapy and I’m wondering if you think that the new illness that this morning’s eclipse portends is caused by these treatments or do you suspect we have yet to see this new illness?
I’ve been thinking about lead rooftops on cathedrals. If there is something to the telluric currents balancing the solar currents, then the local area of influence is important, the earth, the land, etc. As CS Lewis said, there are things you learn from a patch of sunlight in the woods, which you cannot learn from staring at the stars. Telluric energies are important – See Isaiah 24:
“Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.
2 And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.
3 The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word.
4 The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish.
5 The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.”
If evil influences come not merely “from below”, but from the “upper airs” (as the Medievals believed), then lead roofs could help protect the holy site and the shrine/relics, etc.? Thus intensifying the consecration energy loop of the things brought into the shielded site?
Just wondering if this rings a true chord or not. Plus they last forever and really keep out the rain.
Some New Maps announcements for everyone:
— If you haven’t already heard, the second (spring) issue is now available, with 5 great new stories. You can get your copy from the New Maps order page.
— If there’s a story you want to write for the summer issue, the time is coming close—submissions are due on June 15th. I’d love to see what the commentariat here has to write—I don’t comment as often as I once did here, but I’m a long-term lurker and endlessly impressed with the quality of ideas bandied around here.
— And if you have a letter for our quite animated letters section, please send that in by June 30th.
The summer issue is already looking promising—I’m looking forward to putting it together!
Nathanael Bonnell
Editor, New Maps
Dear JMG,
I recall you mentioning that the lunar eclipse that is happening today/tomorrow has something to say about a public health crisis occurring later this year. Can you say anything more about the eclipse and what it portends?
Tim
Just a reminder to everyone. We discuss many ‘how to adapt to strange and changing times’ techniques at http://greenwizards.com/
Our forums cover all sorts of topics.
If anyone here wants to contribute or lurk, we’d be delighted to have you.
We could use regular writers (ask David Trammel!) to write essays for the front page or shorter pieces for discussion in the forums.
Do you care about best practices in cooling your house naturally or serious thrift?
We’d love to have you over.
We were lucky to have clear skies in Oregon for the eclipse this morning. It felt ominously beautiful. The next year will be one of upheaval and plenty of surprises, I suspect.
I have decided to expand my “Grieving the End of Progress” blog posts into a book. The main premise will be that grieving is a natural human process, and that we are often willing to see past the denial, anger, bargaining, etc. to empathize with someone who is experiencing a loss. So perhaps if we are able to view the psychoses of our time as an outgrowth of grieving the end of progress, then we might be able to hold ourselves and each other more lightly, and begin to bridge divides and ultimately to reach a place of acceptance where we can work together to build resilient communities in an age of limits and decline. I’ve never written a book before, so I may ask for some advice here when I reach the stage of being ready to publish.
I’ve been contributing to discussions here and on JMG’s Dreamwidth regarding the covid vaccines, and I wanted to share a new movement that appeared within the last week. There is definitely a growing group of people – well apart from the usual anti-vaccination crowd – that is concerned with the way in which debilitating and sometimes fatal adverse reactions are being swept under the rug by the medical establishment, with the result that the affected people are being misdiagnosed or not taken seriously. If anyone here has suffered such a severe reaction (I remember someone describing one such and being diagnosed as “reflex syncope” last month), I would encourage adding your story.
https://www.c19vaxreactions.com/
Hello JMG! What ritual practices can be used to strengthen health/vitality/the etheric body?
– Kimari
@youngelephant, in regards to 2: E-Prime. It’s very dangerous because instead of clarifying and surfacing the inherent relationship it passivates everything and obscures the inference, which, you will note, is still here but muddier and often more ambiguous. As a result, it makes it more difficult to notice the labels and inherent references and thus to counteract them. It also increases the distance of attribution which serves to insulate people from statements they are making and divert attention from the statement of fact and the fact stated. This makes it much easier to slip factual assertions into thing because they’re yet one step further abstracted or distanced in terminology, making them more difficult to engage with. It’s dangerous shadow-play with language, I think.
#1 Marcos – some advice for you, if I may: try to find a farmer that is already putting the regenerative agricultural practices into use and see if you can learn from them. Academia really isn’t the place to go to learn what is truly cutting edge (i.e. appropriate for the future). I started out with a permaculture design course, which is a nice intro into a different way of thinking, but nothing replaces hard won experience. Learning from regenerative farmers around me helped a lot to get the skills.
All–
Your semi-regular energy news tidbit from your friendly, neighborhood amateur energy reporter:
Seems about right…
https://fee.org/articles/hawaii-is-replacing-its-last-coal-plant-with-a-giant-battery-powered-by-oil/
More nuclear fallout
https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article251639033.html
Nuclear forever, in other words
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/IAEA-launches-study-of-nuclear-renewable-hybrid-en
More coal generation expected this summer
https://www.euci.com/rising-natural-gas-prices-boost-coal-production-and-summer-coal-fired-generation/?x=58397w242282Sy&utm_campaign=051921_energize_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_source=energize
Not everyone’s on board with nukes
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/553927-white-house-environmental-justice-advisors-expresses-opposition-to
Shale in the news again
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Why-A-Shale-Comeback-Could-Be-Disastrous-For-Oil-Markets.html
The next sexy technology
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/ladwp-joins-at-scale-green-hydrogen-initiative-hydeal-la/2597094/
*
Re “green hydrogen,” I sat in on an industry trade group webinar a few weeks ago that discussed a pilot project of this technology–essentially, taking electricity from the grid and producing hydrogen form water by means of electrolysis, storing said hydrogen, and later firing/cofiring that hydrogen in a combustion turbine to produce electricity again. This is touted as a way to store intermittently produced renewable generation for later use via a longer-term (and higher capacity) mechanism than a traditional battery. One of the key problems is that your round-trip efficiency, the amount of energy injected back into the grid per unit energy withdrawn from the grid in the first place, is somewhere around 30%-40%. In other words, you’re losing 60%-70% of the energy in the process. In comparison, a traditional battery or a pumped-storage hydro facility has a round-trip efficiency of around 80%.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46756#:~:text=According%20to%20data%20from%20the,%2Dtrip%20efficiency%20of%2079%25.
But as we all here know very well, the sexiness of a technology is in no way related to its actual performance capabilities…
*
Separately, I was absolutely floored to see the Yahoo News article the other day openly discussing the coming world population decline. Again, we here all understand the basic shape of the future per the Limits to Growth projections, but I figured it was going to be denied by the Powers That Be and public awareness until it was right on top of us.
https://news.yahoo.com/long-slide-looms-world-population-114958574.html
An interesting article regarding Facebook censorship at
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-project-veritas-releases-internal-facebook-documents-detailing-campaign-to-censor-vaccine-concerns-on-platform
As I have gradually become more and more skeptical of the official Covid-19 narrative, I have posted links to various studies and articles that call this narrative into question. Remarkably, I found that almost none of these posts received any comments or “likes” (or even “angrys”). I assumed I must be becoming tiresome and people were ignoring my posts.
After having read the censorship article above, I became suspicious. So I ran a test consisting of two posts. The first pointed to an article publicizing a recent lawsuit in Alabama that seeks an injunction against vaccinating children under the age of 16. The second contained a link to the court document itself. In the first case, the reference to Covid-19 and the injunction against vaccinating minors was clear. In the second case, you had to follow the link to see what it was all about, so there was no reference to Covid-19 in the post itself.
I then went on my wife’s Facebook account to see the result. Guess what? The link to the article was nowhere to be seen, whereas the link to the court document in all its anonymity was right there at the top of her notifications.
I then went a step further. I Googled the article using the text of its first paragraph. Nada. I got nothing but glowing reports of how successful and safe the vaccines are. So I then went to another search engine — WebCrawler in this instance. There was the article, right at the top of the search results.
Understand that Google and Facebook — and I’m sure many other internet services — are conspiring to give you a highly slanted view of his pandemic and the manner in which it has been handled. There is something very wrong here both in the way the medical establishment has responded to the pandemic and in the reporting and censorship we have received from our media outlets. There is a red pill/blue pill situation developing here. Choose wisely.
Yesterday I had an exchange with someone on a comment site where the topic was the increasing awareness that the Batteries in EV’s make them as big a despoiler of the earth as fossil fuel cars. One of the crowd of (EV’s will save our future crowd ) popped up to proclain that this is not a problem as the “Solid State” batteries that are just around the corner will be so energy dense, cheap and clean that they will change the world and we will even have battery powered commercial air travel. He added in, ” One thing we know for absolute certain is that they will be much cleaner and less damaging to the earth than our current batteries”. I was kind of awestruck with this absolute belief in the religion of progress. This person had not even done enought research to learn tha the only solid state batteries that are close to even being viable in a lab setting use Lithium Powder, so they are just as damaging as the ones we have now. This belief that new new tech will solve our energy problems as well as our envvironmental problems with no real evidence seems like the real virus in our age.
Mollari #22: You wrote “…if the vaccines induced ADE against Covid-19, we’d have seen it by now.”.
That assumes Covid-19 is actually common out there. I’m not sure this is in fact the case. We already know that nearly 100% of the positive RT-PCR tests on the asymptomatic are false, so even many of the “symptomatic” cases may well be something else like influenza A, which is hardly even tested for any more. Covid symptoms are not unique to Covid by a long shot. It is very likely seasonal, like the flu, and this coming Autumn, if it comes roaring back, we’ll see then whether ADE happens on any significant scale.
—Lunar apprentice
#5 Jerry
I believe the US Defense Department is in terror of current generation Russian and Chinese technology, so they’ve got the whole propaganda apparatus working overtime to cover up testing. I don’t think it’s occurred to them that science itself could lose credibility if they push hard enough.
I’m half-way through Vallée’s latest book, and so-far he’s been critical of the American political and scientific establishments. If anything, it’s a return to the “control system” theory he was batting around back in Invisible College.
@Marcos
As someone who works in the agricultural field, I would encourage you to seek summer work at a small farm in your area and get a sense of what aspects of the work are most appealing to you. Formal education counts for less in farming than in other areas; soil science is valuable but don’t be surprised if you discover that what you learn in class conflicts with what works for a particular farmer with 50 years of experience. So be humble; I have watched a very intelligent friend struggle and ultimately get fired after being hired into a farm management role and then ignoring voices of long experience in favor of his own university “expertise,” sometimes with disastrous consequences in terms of yield and profitability.
There is big industrial farming, and small resilient farming. College will tend to prepare you for big industrial high-tech farming, where you are expected to master a specialty (weed management, plant disease management, soil fertility, plant breeding, etc.) and can earn a good salary with benefits. But I don’t expect many of these jobs to persist far into the Long Descent. Small farmers don’t earn big dollars but have plenty of respect and social capital in their communities, so it can be rewarding even if not financially enriching. On small farms, it’s less about mastering a specialty and more about bringing as many skills as possible. Those who can drive and repair a 50-year-old tractor, know basic carpentry and welding, can design and set up irrigation systems, are unfazed by 12-hour days in summer sun, can choose the best course of action in the face of unpredictable weather, and can respect and build camaraderie with people of all walks of life and ethnic backgrounds will quickly find themselves valued and ultimately indispensable.
“— it’s already gotten a shrill and inaccurate denunciation in the pages of Publisher’s Weekly, which pleased me mightily.”
Some denunciations are the best advertising campaign…Good luck, JMG!
jbucks, that would be very cool! I know that there are larger cosmic cycles that could probably be used. The Sun goes for a 12 year cycle for example and some traditions make use of it. I’m sure someone could do an adaptation for ceremonial Magic.
skyrider, I took a round of antibiotics recently. Magic in general had no effect but my body of meat was definitely not at its best.
Violet, I have seen the opposite thing! At a big tech company I was having a discussion with my boss about how Tuesday’s were considered the day of Mars and so it was a particularly good day to have our weekly sync ups because of discipline and that each day has a particular characteristic and he listened . I think casual interest is dropping off but judging by my lurking on Reddit, I see people interested in the real thing more so than a year ago. But it could be just me!
Your analysis of catabolic collapse discusses the need to tip into the dustbin some of the stuff society can no longer afford to maintain. What stuff would you recommend binning first, both on a societal level and on a personal level?
@Violet: For what it’s worth, my own occult studies and practices are currently gaining a lot of momentum. Although I don’t know a single person among friends, acquaintances and family who has any occult interest at all.
@Phutatorius: Hm! Do smart meters use 5g? Is there any further research, preferably peer reviewed, about this? Our power company quietly installed smart meters and I didn’t realize that this meant wireless transmission of data. I naively assumed it was just digital and someone would continue to manually read the meters. Looking at the power company’s website, they say the smart meter uses their own private wireless network, and a radio frequency that is not the same as what is used for cell phones or wifi.
Again, re: Mollari #22.
I’ve just come across another postulated pathway for mRNA-induced illness, see below, this involves s prion-like mechanism. May the gods forbid this, as it seems to be a worse scenario than autoimmune attack on the nervous system.
I for one will be vigilant for ADE-induced Guillain-Barre Syndrome, GBS, this Autumn (that would show up as focal paralysis of one body part or another, say hands in one person, legs in another etc…). But 90% of GBS cases heal after 3-12 months. If this prion thing is what happens, it will be irreversible and devastating, and show up as things like Parkinson’s disease, or ALS, or dementia. This would epidemiologically show up slowly, months to years after vaccination, and wouldn’t be an ADE type picture at all.
Do check out:
“COVID Vaccines May Bring Avalanche of Neurological Disease”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-vaccines-bring-avalanche-neurological-disease/5746001
I’m not familiar with the author who postulates this, but my impression is she is one sharp, knowledgable cookie.
—Lunar Apprentice.
Marcos, in the near to middle future, small intensive farms near cities supplying produce for local markets and restaurants are going to have plenty of business, and as transport becomes more problematic, they’ll boom. Also, if you can teach people how to garden you’ll have no shortage of students. Those are the things that come instantly to mind.
Jbucks, the eight-fold year wheel was invented by Ross Nichols and Gerald Gardner in a London pub in the early 1950s, and so it hasn’t really had time to develop that extensive of a body of lore. It could certainly be used on a larger scale, and you might consider experimenting with it to see if you can work out an effective way to do that.
Elkriver, fascinating. That hasn’t happened to me, but I note with some interest that a very similar experience plays an important role toward the end of Thomas Mann’s novel Buddenbrooks, so it’s clearly a thing.
Jean, you’re welcome. For what it’s worth, I’ve gotten no pressure at all, but then I’m well removed from the corporate world.
Jerry, the thing that fascinates me is that even hardcore UFO believers are finding all this implausible. Dr. Steven Greer, who’s as committed to the extraterrestrial hypothesis as anyone I know of, is criticizing the “fake disclosure.” Do you happen to know what the skeptics are saying, btw?
Materia, thanks for this!
Pinghangling, er, you may have an inaccurate notion of what magic is. Dion Fortune, whose work is central to my practice, defined magic as “the art and science of causing change in consciousness in accordance with will.” Trying to differentiate magic and psychological phenomena rather misses the point! When magic affects material reality it normally does so through conscious beings of various kinds, and those effects don’t violate the laws of material reality; they generally happen, in fact, by way of coincidence. Thus it’s always possible for a skeptic to dismiss them; mages don’t care, because they get the results they want anyway.
Kulibali, thanks for this. The one thing I’d add to Paul’s exploration is that cities, and the urban cultures that rise and fall with them, are a natural product, and their rhythm of centralization and collapse is as much a part of nature as the rise and fall of sunflowers. That has certain practical implications, which I’ll be discussing in some upcoming posts.
Mollari, here are a couple of hundred textbooks. Take your pick!
Erika, thank you!
Joshua, depends on the magician. Corporate culture has a uniform worldview; mages, being inhabitants of the fringes, don’t.
Peter, thanks for this. I have more than three banker’s boxes full of books, most but not all in English, and I’d like to get rid of them to clear some space in my closet; they’ll be for sale at very low prices (since I get them for free and my usual royalty amounts to around $1 per copy, I can afford this…)
Yorkshire, excellent! Thanks for this. The classes I’d like to see back again are civics classes — those used to teach students how the political process worked, what its basic concepts and structures are, and how to get involved if you wanted to do so. Given the stunning ignorance of basic political realities these days, I’d love to see that revived.
Skyrider, that’s fascinating. I haven’t taken antibiotics in decades, and I avoid meat produced with antibiotics as much as I can, so I don’t have any personal data for you, but I’ll be interested to see what others have experienced.
Oilman2, thanks for the data points. I’m pretty sure the shortages here are functions of the wheels coming off our economy…
Squirrelly, thanks for this!
Marlena13, thank you. Madame Defarge is teaching knitting classes at the public library here, and I’m quite sure I heard a tumbril in the distance…
Phutatorius, thanks for this. I may see if I can find a broadband RF meter one of these days.
Kimberly, glad to hear all of this!
Violet, yes, I’ve been seeing this also. Sales of occult and new age products have actually been dropping since 2007, but it really seems to be picking up at this point. This is normal; the latest cycle of pop-culture interest in occultism has run its course, and since most people don’t actually have their own opinions — they pick up what they think are their opinions from the collective culture of their time — they’re flocking away from occultism just as automatically as they once flocked toward it.
Mollari, interesting. That’s a valid point.
Oilman2, ha! Okay, I called another one. I’ve been saying for a while now that hydrogen was probably going to be the next green-energy boondoggle; think of it as the GreenTech of the 2020s… 😉
Youngelephant, 1) I picked up what I know of epistemology from Berkeley, Schopenhauer, and a random sample of mystical writings, mostly from India. If anyone else has a better suggestion, I’m all ears. 2) None at all. It could serve as a useful discipline for will training.
Misty, I have no idea and neither does anyone else! We’ll just have to wait and see.
Celadon, do you recall Paul’s comment in Ephesians? “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Lewis retranslated that last phrase, as I recall, “depraved hyperphysical beings at high altitudes” in his planetary trilogy…) So medieval Christians were well aware that noxious entities also exist above the earth. My guess, though, is that lead roofs were used for the more prosaic purpose of screening out solar and cosmic radiation so that the temple effect could function without interference. (It would be interesting to test Greek and Roman roofing tiles to see if they also screen out radiation effectively.)
Nathanael, thanks for this!
Tim, well, that’s one of the reports I’ve posted for my subscribers on SubscribeStar or Patreon, so not really, no.
@Marcos
If you want a meaningful career in agriculture in the long descent… is college the best route? All the really exciting things happening in regenerative agriculture– at least in the US– seem to be happening outside the schools. Have you thought about interning at a farm instead?
A family member is an agronomist, has spent his career doing soil testing and making recommendations to farmers… and there doesn’t seem to be much there that’s compatible with a long-descent outlook. They’re incompatible worldviews?
Teresa, and thanks for this also! I wish I had the free time to hang out there.
Mark, I’m delighted to hear this — write that book! Thank you for the website for people harmed by the vaccines; I’ll be discussing that in an upcoming post, among other places, but it needs to get plenty of attention.
Kimari, thousands of them, or quite possibly tens of thousands. What system of magic are you working with?
David BTL, many thanks for this. I hadn’t seen the Yahoo article — good heavens. That’s astounding.
Helix, yep. This is one of the reasons I have nothing to do with FacePlant.
Clay, oh yeah. I used to field identical comments from identical clueless goobers when I was mostly blogging on energy issues. I like to ask such people, “And how do you know this for certain?” The reactions can be very enlightening.
Chuaquin, thank you! I generally benefit from my enemies — and these days, to have a corporate drone denouncing you is very good publicity.
Gavin, it depends entirely on local circumstances. There is no one-size-fits-all solution; look at your own life, your own community, and your own country, and ask yourself what wastes more energy and resources than it’s worth. If you’re paying attention you’ll come up with a very long list.
It seems that I have reached a fork in the road, spiritually. This realization only came to me very recently. I am confused about which path I should take. What advice would you give to someone in such a position?
Best wishes, and I am intrigued by your new book.
In an interesting thread on Twitter, a reporter who’d been in the Middle East until a few years ago said he saw similarities between the region as it was then and Britain as it is now, and he quoted from the research paper summarised here:
https://www.res.org.uk/resources-page/explaining-the-islamic-revival-in-the-arab-world–evidence-from-egypt.html
It says that a population of young people brought up with high aspirations, who then found they lacked social mobility, can become interested in a religious revival as a way of coping. So another point to feed into your predictions of a coming religious revival in Western nations.
@ jmg RE: hydrogen
Hydrogen is in nearly everything, such as hydrocarbons. It’s hilarious that it’s ok to fractionate something to free hydrogen and just let the base material go as dross – which in many cases is O2 or carbon. I wonder if the next global warming case will be O2 increasing in our atmo?
If hydrogen was really a cheap energy source, it would have been harnessed by Big Oil long ago. Instead, it mainly serves as an energy transfer medium, is difficult to transport and store, and burns a LOT faster – which is why I linked to the recent race data in Japan…
Knew you would get a kick out of those articles…..hope I got that ‘toldyaso’ grin going for you…
@ Celadon & JMG RE: roof tiles
I can’t testify to roof tiles, but the old thick, galvanized tin used 60 or more years back completely shuts down EM transmissions. We used some of it to make a shed (recycled) and it had a very thick zinc coating, enough that we used a circular saw and carbide blade to cut it rather than shears. Once we got the building up, it was basically a dead zone under it.
Typically we get 1 bar worth of cell signal at the farm, enough to text with 2-3 min latency through the system. No voice possible.
Under that shed with the old, heavy tin roof, the single bar goes straight to “signal lost”. Step out from under it and poof! you get the single bar back. And this doesn’t happen under the roofs where we used new tin panels…
So, my guess would be ‘yes’ for the lead tiles…
David by the Lake, you sat in on a webinar about producing hydrogen from water by electrolysis, etc. Did the presenters happen to mention where, exactly, the water might come from? Maybe we will get ringside seats to the battle royal between the bottled water behemoths and the power producers over who gets first dibs.
About learning math, I do sometimes come across pre new math, pre computer arithmetic, algebra and trig textbooks in 2nd hand book stores. Buy now before the price goes up.
Subjects taught or not taught in schools; IMO, that misbegotten bastard social studies needs to be tossed in favor of separate instruction in geography, history and civics. Such instruction must begin with fact, which I define for this purpose as what we know to be true. Yes, that does mean children would have to memorize things like dates and names of natural features. Memorizing is an essential intellectual skill.
@JMG
I wonder what you think about this essay: https://robertstark.substack.com/p/new-pluralist-vision-for-california.The key paragraphs:
“In the future European Californians and Americans will likely embrace the mindset of a minority by adapting to the multi-cultural narrative which includes building up close knit communities and engaging in identity politics but in a sense of pluralism rather than the reactionary identity politics of “taking back America”.
This is a reality that both woke liberals and MAGA refuse to face and both sides will have to put aside their prejudices: the right will have to get over the idea of restoring America to an early point and the left will have to embrace Whiteness as part of diversity rather than something inherently at odds with it. It is an inevitable future of many groups lobbying for their interests and forming alliances under a multi-polar system.”
As a native minority European Californian, his vision – color conscious civic nationalism – makes perfect sense to me, but then again I never identified with America that strongly. Thoughts?
@ Jean RE: vaxxing pressure
I am seeing this with the larger corporate outfits in my business, all driven from the top down. For small to medium businesses – they run with the state guidelines, and here in Texas we have few left intact – so business is slowly going back to normal for those. But if you are going into a Halliburton or Schlumberger enclave, the mask is required and the employees do not shake hands. Instead of coffee stuff on a conference table, you have alcohol wipes and disinfectant spray. Conference rooms are used for face-2-face meetings so you can remain spaced out.
I have several big corporate friends who simply will not take a personal meeting – everything is done via MS Teams and remote. I do this because it nets me business and in my biz, it is hard times.
The vaxxing pressure is at full tilt across the spectrum, but this too will pass simply because the cost of compliance is too high – and people are slowly waking up to the fact that the CDC has done several 180 degree flipflops and manipulated their stats. I just can’t see getting a vax that does not prevent infection – like washing your car during a rain storm I reckon?
Anyway, the pressure is real, and it is all top-down. If “my body, my choice’ works for abortion rights types, then why not for vax rights?
@jbucks 43: Current smart meters aren’t using 5G, to my knowledge. But 5G isn’t the only issue. My broadband RF meter measures from 200Mhz ut to 8Ghz. That’s quite a broad coverage. Most cellphones, 2G, 3G, and 4G, wi-fi, smart meters, baby monitors, microwave ovens, and radar systems operate within that range. 5G will use parts of that spectrum and add frequencies that are even higher, in the millimeter wavelengths. “Spectrum” is an example of a commons that is being privatized as it is auctioned off to various telecoms, the military, and others. There’s still a little being used by radio amateurs (hams) but I think they will have to fight to keep it in the coming years.. Yeah, I’m an extra-class ham, too.
Okay… I was reading Lévi yesterday evening, very late at night. Just when I put the book down and go to sleep, at 4:23am my mother wakes me up and tells me: “You won’t believe this, there are two rabbits standing in front of the house, one black and one white” It’s getting a little strange in here.
Mark, you might look into producing nursery stock for at least some side money. I would be happy to pay for starts of OP vegetables, varieties selected for my specific climate and soil type. Also, those of us involved in growing heritage, as in not released in the last decade or so, ornamentals, are finding it increasingly difficult to feed our obsessions.
@Yorkshire
Civics! I went to a little church school, and they still did a rudimentary high-school civics class. But I understand the course used to be much more comprehensive, and when I began homeschooling my own kids, it opened up a whole new world of possibilities for the subject. Our current curricula starts civics in fourth grade, when we start reading Plutarch’s Lives to kind of give a grounding in what it means to *be* a citizen, and later tackles the ins and outs of how our particular government is supposed to function.
In addition, I think religion should be part of a well-rounded education(not that I trust the current public school system with that subject!). My tiny protestant church school had a fantastic system for teaching religion to the high schoolers: they foisted it off on whoever was the current assistant pastor. In practice, what this meant was that we were taught by young, enthusiastic, fresh-out-of-seminary guys who basically gave us a college-level Comparative Religion 101 course. And it turned out to be one of the single most useful, practical things I got out of my schooling. I wonder if you could get the same benefit from a good intro-to-philosophy course? It was good practice in examining one’s thinking and assumptions, by comparing them to other people’s assumptions and systems of thought.
I found the review by Publisher Weekly
it is short
“Greer (The Long Descent), a spirituality and ecology blogger at Ecosophia, makes an ardent if zany argument that magic plays a powerful role in politics. He defines magic broadly as “the art and science of causing changes in consciousness in accordance with will” and goes on to suggest salaried elites and corporate media have perpetuated the political status quo that oppresses hourly wage earners through a magic-inflected “ritual drama” of assigning blame. He trots out rehashed defenses of Trump supporters as being motivated by economic self-interest before suggesting users of online message boards used chaos magic to ensure Trump’s 2016 victory. (He also posits that anti-Trump magical resistance failed to adhere to appropriate protocols and faltered.) Amid the more outlandish claims, certain lines of thought, such as his comparison of the liberal fixation on hate speech with the harmful Victorian obsession with sexuality, have some promise. He closes with a discussion of the projected rise of a new mode of life through a process called “pseudomorphisis” that will gain ascendency in the 26th century. While Greer’s analyses are occasionally unusual enough to grab attention, anyone not already in his camp will remain unconvinced. (June)”
@Oilman2 #16
AFAIK, the supply chain problems are a reality worldwide, but they impact the local economies differently. Mexican companies, specially mid sized national companies, are very traditional. The cost structure is not there to support things like Just-in-time inventories (land is cheap, property tax is cheaper, companies own rather than rent facilities), so they don’t implement those until they are forced down their throats by a larger customer (usually part of an US supply chain themselves).
In your case it is possible that the supplier keeps a big inventory due to freight costs. Humidity increases both weight and volume of wood, so it is cheaper to procure one years worth of material during the dry season. The company will still have to replenish those inventories, but they will do so in a more stable and (hopefully) less panicky way.
@Amaranth Billious Centaur
You mean to explain the dangers of regular English in your comment right? If not you have confused me terribly because it describes regular English perfectly. If so, I agree whole heartily.
Dear JMG,
I met with a friend for the first time since August. She’d previously made good fodder for my working through Jungian Shadow issues, specifically her helplessness, and today I got confirmation I’d worked through it. Her helplessness did not bother me at all today. TSW.
But also TSW in a creepy way, I became so exhausted it alarmed me and I asked her to leave. I took a shower and did the cold water etheric wipe-down. Do you think she could have been draining me etherically, even if her Shadow-related decisions don’t bother me anymore?
It felt like I’d eaten a super heavy meal, was low on sleep and caffeine, like my body was telling me to shut down and sleep so it could try to repair itself. In truth I’d been well-enough rested when we met up, I’d only lightly snacked, and I’d had plenty of coffee. Sorry for the MM question on an Open Post, but this just happened and it was very startling!
Jean,
I faced intense pressure to get a vaccine ASAP from family members in March – as I explained my concerns about fertility to them (I hope to have another child soon, my second and last) they backed off, and I haven’t felt any pressure at all for weeks. My friends – the few I still keep in contact with after this dreadful past year – didn’t put any pressure on me at all. My job, which was awful in many other ways, was too unconcerned with community anything to put any pressure on anyone about vaccination or… anything, really. Even our training this year didn’t include any social justice buzzwords! And now I am unemployed, so blissfully free of all that for a while – hopefully until it all blows over.
Violet,
From my own limited perspective, it’s the type of person that’s interested in magic/the occult that is changing. I’d guess that a small but significant number of previous materialists are recognizing the limits of their own worldview and looking around for something more robust. The few who stumble upon a coherent system, such at the one JMG has helped put together publicize over his career, likely can find exactly what they need there. For those who were raised on the “liberal” side of things, the fact that it doesn’t appropriate from cultures that we don’t belong to is a plus (or maybe that’s just me, white and about 90% Celtic descent). I have deep respect for Shinto and the Indian polytheisms, etc, and long for my society to have access to something similar, but they’re not “for me”. My culture ripped all it inherited out by the root and will now have to regrow it. The awkward mish-mash of Neoplatonist ritual and half-remembered Celtic polytheism with an eye focused sharply on the relentless desecration of our natural world is so of-my-culture it almost hurts… in a good way! I am looking forward to playing my small role in helping this organic new-ish faith grow in my homeland, and would like to see it play a role in supporting our culture through the difficult decisions to come.
The few previous occultists (Wiccan) I have known well do seem to be backing away from the faith, despite being very involved earlier, and have been for a few years now. Under the cloak of anonymity of the Internet, I can call out my interpretation honestly. There was real and intense TDS among all of them, I suspect hexes were cast, and I see evidence of blowback in their lives/health. Also they were originally raised in the Evangelical Christian church – a horrible institution that seems to leave life-long spiritual damage in everyone I know who was touched by it. It might not have been possible for them to fully pull away from the expectations their early faith training pounded into them – the perfectibility of the world under God key among them. Of course they were polluted by the cult of progress, too. Trump carpet-bombed their entire worldview, and their faith could not provide an answer. I don’t know enough about Wicca specifically to say whether the fault was in them or in the faith; philosophically, I don’t find Goddess-worship to be any more balanced that God-worship, and intend to make sure all gender references are equal in my own practice. More importantly, the understanding that suffering comes to all, regardless of virtue; that we are not here on Earth to get what we want, but what we need – I suspect they threw that out along with the Evangelism and it left them unprepared.
Currently, what seems to have replaced it is depression, with a touch of “Why did I bring children into this fallen world?” Which is, of course, the “depression” stage of grief–as well as a form of longing for the void. Fortunately the individual I am thinking of is also tightly connected to their existing obligations, and has many close friends and loved ones, so I am not concerned. But I will be moving much closer to them soon, and hope that I can help them through this phase, and to reconnect with the better part of the world.
Anyway… I’m a bit under the weather from a cold, so have gone on a bit. But your question sparked some thoughts, so thanks for that! 🙂
Best,
VW
JMG, What do you think of the geopolitical drubbing that the new Biden Regime seems to be getting on the World Stage? The foreign policy establishment seemed determined to get the “orange man” out of office so they could return the empire to its rightfull control of world affairs in the way they see fit. But the last 6 months seem like they have been a disaster from the point of view of the Status Quo ( not from my point of view though). China gave Blinken a smack-down in Alaska and turned around gave Iran a big hug. Then (by some accounts) a failed coup attempt in Belarus that left the US with egg on its face and Putin in the drivers seat. Then Biden’s reversal on sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline due to pressure from Germany. And finally there was the failure of business as usual in the U.S’s forward operatiog base in the Middle East (Israel), which was handed a thumping PR reversal by the Palestinians. Do you think this portends an acceleration in the loss of US hegemony around the world?
@JMG: Ah, right, I knew that about Nichols and Gardner, and forgot. Thanks for the reminder.
@Augusto: Good idea about the 12 year solar cycle, I suppose you could also do the same thing for the other planets. For fun, I had calculated the station for the time of day, moon phase, and time of year in which I was born, and that led me to think that maybe, with longer cycles, you could end up with a form of Revival Druid astrology. Given about two or three thousand years of empirical data to test it, and we could be on to something. 🙂
But such a system would of course have to balance the solar/celestial with the telluric influence, which I haven’t thought through yet.
An entirely different question. I remember seeing mentions of Ecosophians gathering in person in the Pacific Northwest. If possible, does anyone have a link to that? I’ve been so isolated during this COVID mess… and large numbers of people here are clamoring to be able to wear masks indefinitely (!) despite wide-spread vaccination, collapsing case numbers and the CDC telling people to take them off, so it’s gonna be a while. I’d love to be able to meet and talk to people in person.
If there aren’t any, heck–I’ll do it myself. I’m in the western part of the Portland, OR metropolitan area. Anyone within driving distance want to go and hike somewhere, and maybe have a beer after? Let me know and I’ll post my number 🙂
Best,
VW
Jean @4, about the vaccine. I am retired. I did get the vaccine, with no ill effects so far, at the insistence of my daughters. I find myself a bit puzzled about the angry rhetoric about how it is an imposition to wear a face mask. I think it is a courtesy which costs me little. The low level employees who are tasked with enforcement don’t need their jobs made any more difficult than they already are. (Now if those same employees want to harass me, they can expect to see their own names made public along with mine, but that has nothing to do with masks.)
I have been for all my life since high school, fielding angry insistence from believers in progress, capitalism and the American Way–not, mind you, the American System, of which these minders of other people’s business never heard–that all women must, must purchase, use, avail ourselves of the entire panoply of mid century American femininity: the fashions, cosmetics, hair styling, etc. Those of us who refused were routinely subjected to levels of hazing and insult of which mask refusers have, I think, no notion. The mask enforcers, which don’t include me, might be annoying but they don’t claim to have been “just funning”.
I am genuinely puzzled here. How is vaccine compliance different from a company dress code? I have read stories about ill effects of the vaccine for some, but then I have also heard of women going blind from their eye makeup, not to mention the crippling long term effects of high heeled shoes.
I personally don’t care if someone else wants to mask or vaccinate; life is dangerous and the Good Lord doesn’t love fools. But, and, I could really have used and would have appreciated a similar forbearance from others about my deviances from cultural norms on ephemerals.
Recently, I stumbled across Peter Zeihan. He is a geopolitical strategist and author that speaks on global patterns and the way things are going according to real numbers and uses data to inform his views. One of the things that he talks about is how demographics affect markets, with large numbers of folks below 40 required to be consumers in order for the world to function. Countries that have more aging folks than youngsters are more in line to be exporters than consumers. One of his greatest take aways is that the global demographics dictate that the good ol’ days of globalism are going way, and he uses 2022 as the cut off regardless of Covid. AND we will never reach 9B people.
Another trend that he talks about is how the US has been backing away from policing the world for decades. Personally, I never realized how much global trade relies on safe ocean passage for cheap goods to be delivered to our front door (and the US was the one guaranteeing this since WW2.)
As the US backs away from policing the world and there are more old folk and fewer young folks, global trade will decrease/end.
Here is a link to one of his talks for agriculturist and includes way more info than I just mentioned which I think this group will appreciate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kch4Z1GpNOQ&t=1469s
@Jeffrey Our testing or other country testing?
@JMG — the only skepticism I hear is:
1) testing by other countries (I think Goldenhawk shared a link a few weeks ago)
2) this is a money grab for a new space race/force
This is very fun to watch 🙂
When the ‘knowledge economy’ ideology got into education, often learning specific things were replaced with vague platitudes about transferable skills, problem solving, and technology. This report about home economics in British schools (or domestic science when I was there) – https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1119574.pdf – manages to be unintentionally funny and tragic. It relates how after the National Curriculum merged the subject into Design and Technology, many home economics teachers wanted to continue teaching children how to cook, not ‘design food products’.
I was in high school in the 90s and remember stuff like that. Time that could have been spent cooking, spent designing or writing things. Or studying nutrition, but not to the level I later learned in the weight training world – the level that actually lets you affect your body. Same thing in technology class – sitting in a workshop with lathes along one wall, drawing things. And not even proper engineering drawings or draughtsmanship that would have been worthwhile. More like shallow aesthetic design.
@JMG: I think it would be pretty scary, if I lived in an apartment building, to have one of these RF meters; having no control at all over what the neighbors on the other side of the wall/floor/ceiling are doing. Maybe it’s better not to know.
Correction to my first post: it’s Nicholas Steneck, not John Steneck.
I read the review on Publishers Weekly. Judging by the tone I think she liked it!
You should check out Chad Haag, a Youtube philosopher who explores “forbidden texts”, he is a big fan of yours. He escaped to southern India to escape his student loan debt collectors. Speaking of which, Biden is refusing to include any student loan relief in the upcoming bills, I hate the college racket so much.
It looks like Exxon has just struck a “wokeberg” and is likely to make ‘Titanic’ changes…
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/change-coming-engine-no-1-wins-two-exxon-board-seats
I seem to remember BP doing something similar a decade back, and it did not work out so well for them.
I wonder how much ‘woke and change’ they can drive from the top before talent starts leaving? It’s not like there are a bunch of petroleum engineers emerging from the ‘woke’ college culture…
That’s quite ok with me, because these large outfits are very uneconomical on the back side of the oil curve anyway.
In the cases of people being given the option to die, the main question seems to be whether choosing death would result in suicide karma. If so the whole thing would be pointless, leaving you no better off than if you’d done it yourself.
With all the podcasts you’ve been interviewed on recently, do you think there is a need for more podcasters? I noticed a lot of the podcast hosts seem to be overseas. The knowledge and interest is definitely behind here in the USA.
JMG,
Would you say that a Jungian archetype, such as when he uses Wotan to explain the Nazi phenomenon, is equivalent to being possessed by a spirit in the occult sense? If so, how does occult theory explain why some people get possessed and others do not? My understanding is that in Nazi Germany a sizeable minority, maybe 20% really were possessed, the majority went along for the ride while another sizeable minority were horrified by what was happening. Are some people just more likely to be possessed in general or are each of us susceptible to possession by specific archetypes/spirits?
Hi! First point is less of a question, more of a data point, but it looks like your Twilight’s Last Gleaming just had a major plot point manifest on the material plane:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/world-most-exciting-oil-discovery-000000894.html?.tsrc=fin-srch
Second point is part question, part happy coincidence: I’ve attended numerous events at the Occult Bookstore here in Chicago, and it turns out they know you! They certainly have a high opinion of you, and I was wondering if it was mutual? Are they a good place for a young aspiring occultist to learn from?
Anyway, thanks as always for these!
Jean (#4), It’s very disturbing to hear of your experience at work and to imagine how widespread this may be. CJ Hopkins has a new (and viciously satiric) posting about ‘the new normal” in Germany (https://consentfactory.org/2021/05/25/greetings-from-new-normal-germany/) which doesn’t inspire optimism. I grew up in Virginia and it is amazing to observe the Wokist takeover there so I get how Florida might beckon. Good luck to you!
John–
I looked up that Publisher’s Weekly review and sheesh! What a job the review did on you. Nothing like throwing in the adjective “zany” to belittle a person’s argument.
It will be interesting to see how reviews such as this one operate as a nice thrust-block for you in terms of sales. (“Hey, look. This guy Greer is getting torn down by the Good Folks who despise people like me. Perhaps I should check him out…”)
@David, by the lake #34 – Read an interesting article a few weeks back by a retired bioweapons researcher. He pointed out that the mRNA Covid vaccines administered in the US induce the body to produce spike proteins, to which the body then develops antibodies. However, the body’s natural immunity to Covid-19 targets not the spike protein but the virus’s capsid instead, generating an entirely different antibody. Thus we have an interesting situation where vaccinated people have a unique antibody that is not shared by people who have not been vaccinated, even those who have had Covid-19 and recovered. He concluded by saying that this presents bioweapons developers with the holy grail — a feature in your enemy that is not shared by your own population. The Chinese vaccines use killed virus, and thus provokes the same immune response as does Covid-19 infection.
He concludes that there are probably some very interesting conversations going on in the Wuhan Institute of Virology these days. This could put that Yahoo News World Population Decline report into an entirely new light.
Hi JMG (and fellow readers),
David BTL is indeed right. The news articles concering the world population decline are picking up steam. Here are a few examples:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-05-25/south-korea-is-growing-old-fast-leaving-a-younger-generation-home-alone-and-chi
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57154574
https://www.insider.com/falling-birth-rate-hitting-italy-hard-warning-for-the-world-2021-5
Seems like the wind is indeed changing
– Spork –
Hello Mr. Greer ,
I listened to the THC podcast and found your term for the clerical class helpers “funkies “,very amusing and very spot on.Why do your think that a lot of the artistic funky class embrace Lovecraft so strongly.?A bit of it is definitely linked to the royalty free no trademark worries, but many of the woke and semi-woke educational funkies really are into Lovecraft and at the same time loathing him for his views. Is Lovecraft their shadow as the same way Trump is so many of the political classes shadow?
Dear JMG,
Before all, I’d like to simply thank you. Reading what you post always gets me thinking, and has pointed me in some very interesting directions – I’m now finishing working through Manly P. Hall’s self unfoldement by disciplines of realization, and though I’m enjoying it quite a bit, I feel the message doesn’t have the right shape for me.
When I finish it I’ll be starting working with the Druidry Handbook, that I think will aligns more with where I am in life. Skimming it, I found that I could complement the book by working with the seven spirals. I am planning on focusing on the magic spiral, and one of the books I’d like to use is Eliphas Levi’s Doctrine and Ritual.
So the question is, since it’s unadvisable to mix systems, would working with the two books would be ok, or should I focus in druidic/natural magic ones? Should it be the later, are there any books/authors you recommend?
Thanks in advance!
Dear Mr. Greer – So how far down Descent will we go, before we can shed the jumped up little bureaucrats (middle management? Human Resources?) that tamper in our lives an made them more difficult? Lew
So in continuing the discussion about Buddhism, suffering, and enlightenment, I’d like to direct attention to this lecture by Theravadan Buddhist monk Ajahn Brahm to his fellow monks on the subject of dukkha.
The lecture is a sobering one, and presents a paradox. In pretty much any of Brahm’s other lectures, he’s a cheerful fellow known for his jokes and humor. But the lecture I linked can be summarized thus:
Everything is awful. Even the good things are awful. Even the untold bliss of deep meditative states is awful. Even arhatship is awful, because actually consciousness is awful. Only in the state of parinirvana (nirvana after death) when conscious has ended for the last time will things finally not be awful.
(This is presumably different from nonexistence, but don’t ask how, because that’s one of the questions the Buddha wouldn’t answer.)
If I had any doubts about David Chapman’s characterization of Theravada’s vision of enlightenment as becoming a zombie who doesn’t feel anything, I don’t anymore.
Jean, I’m experiencing that pressure as well – at a small (around 20 staff) nonprofit, liberal, but not totally woke. We are currently starting to plan in-person gatherings, as we have been remote until now, and things are going to get even more dicey. Do you wear a mask if you’re not vaccinated? Or pretend to be vaccinated and not wear a mask? Are they going to require proof of vaccination from staff? What about board members (we’re discussing having our next board meeting in person)? I’m seeing lots of peer pressure among kids now too–“get vaccinated so we can hang out!”
@Marcos soil science, woot woot!
It’s worth enough training to get professional; in my area even the good organic farmers say they’re desperate for Agrologists again and soil scientists. There is still paperwork they need help with. The competition for what jobs there are is very low, because no one else thinks its sexy 😉
On the other hand, the future is low tech, so retro field sampling methods and classification will be key ag extension. And then build an old fashioned chemical and physical analysis laboratory (joking!… Not really). Find and hoard old textbooks from the heyday of the ’60’s, and Ag extension pamphlets.
My local society has lots of free resources, many will be Canadian and regional, but they provide international and general links as well…stuff you’d get in class but for free. http://www.prsss.ca/resources/
General ecological restoration courses, certification and resources : https://www.ser.org
JMG – I love that title and cover.
Working through the Art and Practice of High Magic. Slow going, but I’m trying to absorb it and read it deeply, and my ability to focus has gone from ‘extremely above average’ to ‘non-existent’ over the last year. Necromancy is a hard art, but so far is worth the effort!
@Jerry – I personally think it’s a complete fabrication by the US. They get an excuse to keep military funding high, whether through people interpreting it as UFOs or secret foreign tech, and the Russians and Chinese militaries get scared because they know it’s not them and suspect the US has some new toys they haven’t seen.
@skyrider – I haven’t seen much pressure myself, but my job is ‘work-from-home’ indefinitely for at least the next year. I’ve had a few conversations with family who want to make vaccination mandatory, but they are pretty responsive to the ‘bodily autonomy is sacrosanct’ argument. I did get it, for the record, but I’m not about to jump down the throats of those who decide not to.
@Mollari:
I was a math geek when I was in high school, and I haunted the used textbook stores near UC Berkeley. The best old math texts I ever found were by a man named George Albert Wentworth: College Algebra; Plane and Solid Geometry; and Plane and Spherical Trigonometry with tables of logarithms and trigonometric fiunctions. They were all published by Ginn & Co in Boston back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The publisher also issued a “Teacher’s Key” for the exercises in each volume. The Trig. book comes in various forms, with addeed material on gthe mathematics of either land surveying or [celestial] navigation.
All of them, and also the “Teacher’s Keys” for them, can be downloaded from http://www.archive.org.
@Phutatorius on Dorthoy Burdick’s book:
A very useful on-line resource called World Catalog (“WorldCat”) lists only two copies in any library anywhere in the world (both in the USA). I have just put in a request through my university library to borrow one or the other of those two copies. I should know in a week or two whether I’ll be able to get it. It’s only about 150 pages long.
James C Lin’s book seems to be much more widely available in libraries throughout the world.
JMG, you mentioned the summer solstice as a good time to launch a heroic fantasy, but it belatedly occurred to me to check and Mercury is retrograde from June 15-22. Should I move my launch 🚀 to the 23rd?
@ Darkest Yorkshire
Most of my family works in education in some way here in the US, so… I’d like to see extra-curricular American football replaced with PE or intramural rugby. (For those not in the know, is a teamwork building game with a position for everyone. Full disclosure: I played rugby.)
Old classes I’d like revisited – civics and history.
Other material I’d like added – outdoor education. State hunter safety courses are an amazing resource for anyone interested in this sort of thing.
And more other material – the dread tome Green Wizardry by our host pretty much covers my wish list for both liberal and vocational education.
Hi JMG and fellow Ecosophians,
I was wondering recently about the phenomenon of phantom limbs and how that relates to the occult view of bodies on different planes. Might one who loses a material body part still retain the other layers of the same part? Or perhaps it is not so much of a 1-1 correspondence across planes. For example, does one have the same sort of structures across planes, or is that too much of a projection of the material pattern onto the others?
I am curious to know your take on this.
Thank you for providing this forum for such a wide range of interesting topics.
Valete!
Mr Greer,
https://sputniknews.com/military/202105261082997727-game-changer-chinas-new-stealth-bomber-able-to-strike-targets-as-far-as-guam—report/
The last month, I have been having an ongoing discussion with an Australian friend about Australia’s security and the threat from China. My stated view was that while invading Australia with a ground force might be a little difficult due to its size, and the supply chains needed, the fact that Australia doesn’t have adequate refineries of it’s own and relies on Singapore mostly for its refined oil supply – and that can be blockaded fairly easily – makes Australia’s future a little dicey long term, if China increases it’s influence in that area.
It has been mostly a fun discussion, which neither of us have been taking very seriously. However, after seeing the above, (and also noting the last lunar eclipse which seems to affect the Pacific Ocean area overwhelmingly!!), I am wondering why China would make a bomber like that if they don’t have any intention of using it…..? I have always been of the opinion until now that China is a bit like North Korea and that it is bluffing most of the time. Anyway, Id be interested in hearing your own and everybody’s else’s opinion.
“Kimari, thousands of them, or quite possibly tens of thousands. What system of magic are you working with?”
Polytheistic ceremonial magic, based on your chapter in Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Ceremonial Magick. I focus on the Norse deities for workings.
– Kimari
P.S. I may or may not have Covid—I’m too sick to go to the dr and find out. It’s like flu with touches of a bad cold. I thought it was my chronic sinus problem acting up till I suddenly felt like I had flu. So that’s why I have been uncharacteristically quiet. I’m getting over it so should be back at it in a few days.
Sonkitten is fine; God willing, he’ll stay that way. I asked him if he wanted to go stay with his aunt and uncle, who both graciously volunteered as vaccination guinea pigs (so far, they’re fine) and he said very emphatically, “My place is here!!” (His drama queen attacks are hilarious. 😄). The point here is, if I DO have covid, then a lot of what we’ve been told about how contagious it is COULD also be lies. Or it could be true, and Sonkitten could just have unusually high resistance, or he could already have had it himself and mistaken it for a cold. It’s darn hard to navigate all this stuff when you can’t trust agencies that are charged with dealing with it!
Hey jmg
I have 2 bits of news which may interest you and the commentariat.
Firstly, it turns out that David brin agrees with you about UFOs, except he thinks that they are optical illusions generated by lasers.
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2021/05/more-marvels-from-space-starting-with.html?m=1
Secondly, this week a coal power plant in Queensland, Australia has blown up and caused a massive blackout since it was one of the big contributors.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-25/qld-widespread-power-outages-across-the-state/100164200
The mention of lead roofs reminded me of the curious remarks of Pliny the Elder about lead, in his Natural History, though I’m not sure whether they shed any light on the purpose of lead roofs:
‘…if [lead] is applied, too, in plates, to the region of the loins and kidneys, in consequence of its cold nature it will restrain the venereal passions, and put an end to libidinous dreams at night, attended with spontaneous emissions, and assuming all the form of a disease. The orator Calvus, it is said, effected a cure for himself by means of these plates, and so preserved his bodily energies for labour and study. The Emperor Nero—for so the gods willed it—could never sing to the full pitch of his voice, unless he had a plate of lead upon his chest; thus showing us one method of preserving the voice.’
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D34
Josh Rout
Hope you’re well JMG,
As far as magical practice in Golden Dawn goes, is it possible to swap meditations/pathworkings on the Spheres of the Tree of Life with planets/astrological themes? In my case, I’ve found it difficult to memorise all the spheres and paths, but because I’ve been studying astrology for a few years now, I feel much more confident with the symbolism of the latter. I’ve noticed there seems to be considerable overlap between the two, but I’m wondering whether it’s enough and whether conflating the two in magical practice would cause more trouble and confusion than it’s worth, especially if there are certain aspects of the Tree of Life that can’t be replaced by focusing on planetary or astrological themes.
I’m also most of the way through the King in Orange and I’m very interested by your predictions on the future great cultures in America and Russia. You mentioned at some point that you predict a great deal of contention between the American and Russian great cultures of the future, possibly in a similar sense to the tension between Faustian and Magian cultures in Europe and the Middle East from about 1000-1600 AD. Given the much greater geographical distance between America and Russia and the non-industrial technological base of the future, would it be possible that the future great cultures of these two regions would be largely isolated from each other for a very long time? I also wonder what you think might happen to Europe in the far future, if you have any predictions about that at all.
Hi JMG,
For the best time to apply for a new job, am I right in thinking that the day and hour of the Sun or of Jupiter would be auspicious?
Just thinking about astrological timing has started to make me more intentional about things. I now have more motivation to get the things done in a timely fashion!
From the Democratic Governors’ survey/gimme – straight out of the King in Orange! (print copy coming your way) – excerpt here, Question 2
“The sole focus…is to elect more Democratic governors…. which of the following critical aspects of our mission do you think we should prioritize?
1. Investing in cutting-edge tools and technology to better inform and persuade voters.
2. Putting communications experts on the ground to hold the GOP accountable, shape the narrative of races early on….
3. Using advanced data analytics to target the right voters in each race….
Question based off your comment to Violet – “ since most people don’t actually have their own opinions — they pick up what they think are their opinions from the collective culture of their time.” How does someone assess if he has his own mind? I’ve discovered in the process of doing LRM since October that my mind wasn’t as independent and free as I had thought.
Hello, I’m an avid reader and really enjoyed finally finishing the ecotechnic future. I’m writing to get a sense of your advice on increasing personal power esp with a regard to keeping bodily autonomy. It feels like a hot topic and I’m in a tricky place as I’m also reliant on the medical industry because my two daughters are type 1 diabetic so I’m tied to pharma but I’m very wary of the vaccine and most especially the pressure tied to them- so early on it doesn’t make sense and I see this gap between what would be sensible for health boards and governments in terms of risk and what they actually do and I’m worried about the implications for freedom etc.
What I’ve found is that I’m staying away from a lot of people as I find the topic so offensive I tend to avoid and there is more invasion of privacy than I would have expected when it comes to choice and health.
Is there advice or experience or a view that this threat to choice and sense will dissipate in the near to middle future.
I’ve lots more but will curtail at this thank you
One additional note for those concerned about the vaccine and their workplace, I just learned that apparently during a pandemic, it is legal for your employer to request your vaccination status and to maintain a list.
In dumbing down of American education news: Baltimore City schools will change all failing grades from this school year to “Not Complete” and advance all students to the next grade. Only high school students will have to retake the class to receive credit; all others simply move along.
I notice on Twitter you have been outed as a ecofascist yet again JMG.
https://twitter.com/azrael2393/status/1397185962720043009
He even uses the old Wildermuth article against you, not realising that Rhyd has moved on and agrees with you on many issues. I detect jealousy from someone who would like to have your magical chops, but is nowhere near.
I’ve seen some discussion forums restrict or close their political subforums and general forums with political content. Unpaid mods don’t want the extra work as members shout and attack more than discuss. That may be less of an issue at sites with paid membership.
To Elkriver (#3)
I was struggling with depression, and my mid-life crisis. My marriage, career, and health were going downhill. I had pretty much given up on life and resigned to drinking myself into an early grave.
Then, one morning when I woke up, I knew that I had turned a corner. It wasn’t a choice the way you describe. The best way I can put it is that there was a spark or ember of life deep inside, and I knew that it would grow and become vigorous again.
Since then, I have been able to make consistent effort to climb back up out of the hole that I was in. It is hard work, but I have the motivation now. Part of my spiritual journey is figuring out who it was that put that spark in me that morning.
Trend watching: https://news.yahoo.com/long-slide-looms-world-population-114958574.html
Re: hydrogen
It was my decision to become a hydrogen researcher thirteen years ago that led to me realizing the alternative energy scene was full of hot air. I could only go over the basics and challenges of a hydrogen energy economy so many times in so many presentations and still keep up the pretense that this was going to be an energy game-changer. It boggles my mind that people have been working on this for their entire careers and still believe in it somehow.
The five-minute version (and responding to some comments here):
The cool things about hydrogen are that it produces only water when burned, it can be turned directly into electricity without combustion via fuel cells, and it has a very high gravimetric energy density (power per unit weight). That’s about it. Also it really appeals to people who envision a Star Trek future for some reason.
The problems with hydrogen are:
1. It is an energy carrier, not an energy source. There is no meaningful amount of hydrogen to be found on Earth. We can strip it off of natural gas, in which case we might as well have just burned the gas, or we can make it from water using electrolysis (presumably with surplus renewable electricity). This would not use a meaningful amount of water, in terms of needing to worry about water wars/water shortages.
2. The round-trip efficiency of electricity-hydrogen-electricity is at best 30-40%, with the remainder of the energy lost as heat. This is extraordinarily poor compared to other methods of energy storage like batteries (~90%) or even pumping water or compressing air (60-80%). Also both electrolyzers and fuel cells require platinum or other expensive-metal catalysts.
3. Hydrogen does not plug into any existing infrastructure. Steel pipelines become brittle or leak if not constructed specifically for hydrogen use. A hydrogen economy would require construction of an entirely new infrastructure of pipelines, trucks, railcars, and fueling stations.
4. Hydrogen gas is exceedingly low density, and therefore requires huge volumes to store any meaningful amount of energy at ordinary pressures. The three proposed solutions to this all impose a steep energy cost, knocking down round-trip efficiencies by another 25-40%, as well as requiring additional complexity and embodied energy in components. These are A) compressing hydrogen to a pressure of 300-700 atmospheres and storing it in a very strong pressure vessel, B) liquefying hydrogen at extraordinarily low temperatures, in which case stored hydrogen is continually lost to boiling off, or C) embedding hydrogen in a solid state matrix, which is extremely expensive and also requires that the hydrogen have an exceptionally high purity and no water vapor, which adds additional steps/energy.
Do you think the Garden of Eden is a garbled memory of a real place and/or real time period? (btw I’ve read your books about Atlantis and the Secret of the Temple)
Sheriff, the advice I’d give is to relax, take the time you need, but if you can’t make up your mind, flip a coin and go with it. That you choose is more important than what you choose.
Aethon, that makes a lot of sense!
Oilman2, time to break out the popcorn. Thanks for the tin roof information — that’s worth knowing.
Brian, his image of pluralism sounds a lot like Yugoslavia right before the breakup. I don’t think this will end well.
Augusto, funny! Dr. Jung called; he wants to talk to you about this thing called synchronicity. 😉
Skyrider, that’s the one. Quite the spectacle, isn’t it?
CS2, the standard term for that is “psychic vampire.” Yes, that’s what it sounds like.
Clay, exactly. Trump’s foreign policy was predicated on accepting the reality that US global hegemony is ending and it’s time to declare victory and get out. That reality didn’t go away when Biden moved into the White House, and the senile kleptocracy Biden heads is finding out the hard way that the rest of the world is fully aware of this. The question in my mind is whether somebody is going to hand the Biden administration a major foreign-policy defeat along the lines of the one Jameson Weed faces in Twilight’s Last Gleaming. If that happens, it could get very hairy very fast.
Clark, thanks for this. I’ve read several of his essays; he’s got very worthwhile ideas.
Jerry, interesting. It’s popcorn time.
Yorkshire, the whole point was to make people dependent on the industrial machine. People who can cook their own food and machine their own spare parts might do something really shocking, like think their own thoughts…
Phutatorius, Faraday cages aren’t that hard to make.
Augusto, funny!
Michael, I don’t do video — little colored blobs jerking around on a glass screen just don’t do anything for me. Do you know if he’s got any essays?
Oilman2, oh, that’s going to work out so well. [/sarc]
Prizm, it’s a matter of supply and demand,and the demand seems to be ample.
Simon, it’s more complex than that. Human beings are microcosms of the macrocosm — that is to say, each of us is a miniature universe, and the archetypes are the reflections, in us, of the macrocosmic gods. The archetypes are also the basic elements of human thought, and so depending on the orientation of your mind, you’ll be more attuned to some than to some others.
Darkfeydreamer, (1) Fascinating. I really didn’t mean that book to be an instruction manual! (2) It’s quite mutual. I taught a weekend geomancy workshop there, and had a great time; I also bought two rare Manly P. Hall books and a volume of Nietzsche there. If it ever becomes safe to go back to Chicago I’ll look forward to visiting again — and yes, you can learn a lot from them. Say hi from me the next time you stop by.
David BTL, I was just as amused by the Amazon reviews. They’re all either 5 star or 1 star, and the 1 star’s a saliva-flecked rant. I expect sales to do very well.
Spork, good heavens. Thanks for this. Me, I’m breathing a big sigh of relief — the sooner world population begins a steady decline, the better for everyone.
Patrick, “funkies” is good, but I actually said “flunkies.” As for Lovecraft, though, exactly — they hate the man but they can’t stop thinking about his tentacled horrors. He is the Cthulhoid presence that haunts their dreams.
Fox, you can certainly read Lévi and practice the tarot meditation I have in mind while doing the work in The Druidry Handbook; as we proceed with the book, see if you can relate what Lévi says to the rituals and symbolism of Druidry.
Lew, depends on where you are. The post-Roman world had petty little bureaucrats in some places for quite some time; in others, they had their throats slit by Visigoths early on.
Slithy Toves, the sad thing is that he seemingly things that these intensely personal value judgments are objective statements about the world. A little basic philosophical education might spare him a lot of suffering…
Andrew001, keep at it! The further you go, the most interesting it gets.
Your Kittenship, that should be fine.
KidVrain, the etheric body has limbs that are basically identical to the material body, and according to many occult writers, phantom limbs are the limbs of the etheric body.
Naomi, unless Australia sets out to take its defense seriously, it’s going to be a Chinese protectorate within a century or so. That was a theme in science fiction back in the day; in Cordwainer Smith’s future history, Australia became Aojou Nambien, a single gargantuan Chinese city covering the entire continent…
Kimari, breathing exercises are central to etheric health in that end of occultism. Regular practice of the Middle Pillar will also strengthen your etheric body by induction — as the astral body becomes strong, the etheric body follows suit.
Your Kittenship, positive energy en route!
J.L.Mc12, thanks for both of these! It’s a cold day on Venus when Brin and I agree on much of anything, but guess what — we agree on this.
Joshua, fascinating!
Mr. White, nope. If you were following a recipe for baking a cake, would you decide that you can use half a cup of salt in place of half a cup of sugar? I hope not. Make some flash cards, memorize the spheres and paths, and do the thing right. As for America and Russia, in a post-global warming future, when the Arctic Ocean is blue water year round, the two countries won’t be separated by much, and tall ships can cover the distance easily. As for Europe, I expect it to be overrun by mass migrations of refugees from the Middle East and Africa, and descend into a long and bitter dark age.
Dylan, exactly.
Patricia M, oh, that’s just priceless. Don’t find out what the voters want and give it to them — find new ways to get them to accept what you want to give them…
Denis, it’s a long slow process of reflection, doubt, and inner maturation. Noticing that your thoughts are shaped by the collective consciousness is a crucial first step.
P.log, do you remember when plastic straws were the hot button issue du jour? Then everyone forgot about them. I expect that to happen with vaccination shortly.
Ip, Baltimore already has the worst public schools in the nation. This isn’t going to help!
Bridge, thanks for this. Just wait until the poor dear hears about The King in Orange…
Lunchbox, in a way, that’s a good sign. Fewer places for people to rant about politics might help cool things down a bit.
Patricia M, thanks for this.
BB. it’s quite possible, but I haven’t really looked into it.
Thanks to all who responded to my question on vax pressure — I think Oilman2 is right, big company, top down pressure.
@Mary #66, I would never advise anyone on the vax one way or another and I never had a problem with masks — I went all out and made that a fun fashion statement. I’ll miss the masks, to tell the truth. But I had COVID and so did my whole family. My daughter and son were sick for a couple of weeks. I was okay except for one night of chills and fever and a loss of energy for a couple of weeks. My husband didn’t get sick at all. None of us went to the doctor other than to get the test and be told, you’ve got it, it’s a virus, go home, and, hey, go to the hospital if you can’t breathe. We were all fine. Having had the virus, I can’t imagine why I would get a vaccination. Then we heard we had to get a COVID vaccination regardless of whether we had the virus or not??? But just today, the NYT reported that people who have had the virus have long term immunity — someone actually did a study instead of making stuff up and found that people who had the virus carry immunity in their bone marrow (along with other immunity) long term. My problem is the question being asked at my company is not “are you immune?” The question is “have you been vaccinated?” And vaccination appears to be the only acceptable response to keep jobs, shop, travel, etc. It makes no logical sense….
Dear Augusto, thank you for the data point!
Dear Jbucks, somehow I’m not surprised that the folks who practice occultism for its own sake would have more momentum with so many people bailing on it.
Dear JMG, thank you for the corroboration! It really seems that for a little while a lot of folks engaged in all sorts of occult practices — some far more robust than others! — as something akin to a fashion statement. It does make sense that basically spiritual practices now simply have become unfashionable. What I find so interesting is that this unfashionability seems to apply across the board: from the silliest practices to the most serious and all points in between. Frankly the awareness of the loss of mass-appeal is salutary for me: it puts paid to any delusions that we’re about to launch into some New Age of heightened consciousness.
Dear VW, to be very clear my notes aren’t of the variety of: “the pop culture occult practices fade while the traditional practices sustain!” it seems to me that both traditional and pop culture practices have become rapidly less fashionable. This is a crucial point: from my perspective it seems that interest wanes not only in the Wicca scene, but far more in general.
To Darkest Yorkshire (#14)
Japanese schools still teach ethics classes. These days it is a lot of watered down, wishy-washy nonsense about feelings and fairness. It seems that in the early 20th century, though, it was actually a pretty rigorous philosophical education (and those were the days when most folks only finished what we now call middle school). I’d be all for bringing that back.
Darkest Yorkshire #14:
I think a revival of real home economics classes would be fabulously useful. I might be part of the last cohort of middle-school girls who had genuine Home Ec classes, where we really learned to sew and practiced the basics of cooking. Those skills, particularly the sewing, have served me well over the years: I made all of my children’s clothing when they were young, make slipcovers and curtains, shirts for my husband and a large portion of my own clothes thus saving an awful lot of money over the years.
Given the current climate in the US I’m going to assume that Home Economics has been declared inherently racist, as is practically everything else these days.
Since I went to middle school during somewhat more traditionally-minded times I did not have the opportunity to take any shop classes (not sure if the 13 year-old me would have done so anyway), but now I regret my limited power tool and construction skills. My husband, a genuine pro at all things building, has started teaching me the basics, but alas he is not the most patient of teachers and gets cranky when he uses construction-guy lingo and I have no idea what he means.
I’ll second JMG’s recommendation for civics classes.
@IP #104, Did you hear that your employer can request your vaccination status or your immunity status? That matters to me, since I had the virus and don’t take anything from the medical industry unless there is a good reason….So for example, my daughter’s college accepts proof of immunity through a titer test or through vaccination records — that’s the policy. Are you hearing that vaccination is the only answer or are they inquiring about immunity (with multiple ways to prove immunity)? Thanks!
Marcos, as to pursuing a farming career… My two cents, based on over 40 years of farming and employing something way over a hundred young people in a similar place to you:
1. JMG is spot on (as usual) with his advice .I’ve been producing fresh vegetables for a small urban area for the last 15 years. The other kind of option is producing a transportable and non-perishable product out in the hinterlands (e.g. Northern Africa fed Imperial Rome by slave galley, Australia fed England by clipper ship, etc.). All the other commenters above were also spot on.
2. Beware of buzz words! Boy have I seen a lot of them come and go, or be degraded, in the last 4 decades. In my opinion, “Regenerative” is just the latest! What the (farmer’s favorite colorful curse) does that word even mean? And, according to who, exactly?
3. Definitely find the right farmer to work for. Its tough to do. Many young people are completely exploited by being promised some kind of “training”. Equally as common, there are lots of farms trying to offer educational opportunities which are essentially tied to doing the work. I do this, but its tough from my end. Despite years of experience at this and several layers of “flake filter”, I still get young people unwilling to do the work that needs to be done and totally blind to what I’m tying to teach them. Thankfully, these are outnumbered by those who “get it” and thrive.
4. Tying in with the above, learn to evaluate the tradeoffs every successful farm must make between economically “making it” in todays economic reality and and being founded and guided by principles that will serve it well during the “long descent”. …this sounds really cryptic, but would need a long essay to flesh out, give it some thought…
5. University education is not essential, but if someone has aptitude in that direction and some means to pay for it without accumulating debt, there are a few good options. U of Vermont and UC Davis both have farm training programs that seem good from second hand information I’ve heard. A degree in soil science is a great option – it is one of the last great, undiscovered countries.
Conversely, really embrace getting a farm job with the “right” farm as an educational endeavor. I’ve had a lot of people work for me who did that and are now successful farmers in their own right. My proudest achievement in this regard was a young man who came to work for me with zero farm experience. He was young, but already married with a couple small children. He had had a couple business ventures fail and was trying to find his way. A relative, who had “money”, had offered to pay to send him to graduate school, but he decided instead to pursue learning how to farm and convinced that relative to use that money to help support him while he did it. Well, he worked for me for 5 years, then broadened his experience for a couple more years and now, 12 years later has a thriving farm of his own. I proudly say its a case of the student surpassing the teacher
6. There are so much good reading out there…one currently on my mind and applicable here is Chris Smaje who has a blog and a new book both titled, “A small farm future”.
A few scattered thoughts sparked by your question, at the end of a log day of 12 hours in the sun (92 degrees and humid here today). Best of luck. And thanks JMG for providing a space for this.
@ Mary Bennett
Re green hydrogen and water supply
A very good point! As a matter of fact, no, that issue wasn’t mentioned. (Nor was the issue of those substantial conversion losses until I asked about them during the Q&A. The speaker immediately shifted to emphasizing that the efficiencies weren’t the point, the ability to store renewable energy was.)
JMG – Well, I just subscribed to your Patreon feed to find out more about the lunar eclipse. I’m looking forward to digging into the other chart analyses, too. Thank you!
JMG and community – I find myself bouncing back and forth between wanting to raise awareness of the weirdness going on with covid, its “vaccines”, etc. and just keeping my head down to avoid trouble for me and my family. I’ve written a number of draft flyers that could be posted on local community boards but have never gone as far posting them. I struggle with whether I’m abdicating my responsibility to speak up against this craziness, especially with a child that gov’t is now eying up for vaccination. What say you about my situation?
@youngelephant, no I was speaking of E-prime. The verb “to be” is a powerful and important concept in language, and to erase it will have serious negative consequences. While I concur that its power is one of the dangers, and that people most assuredly misuse it and can be controlled by mindless use of language, suggesting (as most E-primers do) that it is should be done away with outright is dangerous mental programming and likely to be worse than simply teaching people how to use it effectively and correctly.
I agree with JMG that to try going without it is certainly an interesting experiment and worthwhile, as is anything that makes you aware of why things exist by acting as if they did not for a time. I was speaking very broadly of the value of E-prime as a philosophy in light of its fans’ arguments for it to supplant standard English. But I believe that the embedded viewpoints and inherent wisdom embodied in much-evolved languages such as English contain a wealth of value, just as they do in other languages with similar rich tapestries of influence and heritage, and each has something well worth uncovering and mastering in the form in which it has traditionally and classically been best expressed.
We frequently talk about the necessity of finding something we each feel is worth saving and passing on through the times and I’ve been casting about for a while for something I could do. Considering my proclivities, I recognized that printing technologies were where I ought to turn. My letterpress daydream is impractical for me for several reasons and so I turned to the various duplicating methods that are smaller if not portable, cheaper, and more flexible. Yep, I’m talking about mimeographs (stencil duplicators), hectographs, and dittos (spirit duplicators).
I would like to invite anyone who is interested in such things (or at least in their potential output) to visit my new website that is up and running with the first part of a two-stage project: https://www.mimeographrevival.com. As I state in the introduction, as a site to collect and disseminate as much information about mimeographs (etc.) to whoever wants it, “Mimeograph Revival exists to aid in the rescue and restoration of our dwindling stock of mimeograph machines, to collect resources for their repair, to explore their historical importance, to make room in the collective imagination for their continued use, and to encourage inventors and tinkerers to add to the knowledge pool so that much-needed supplies and parts can once again be made available.”
I’ve got two machines in nearly-ready condition that I’ll be learning on and using and I am planning to have a catalog of items that (I hope) might be of interest to Ecosophia readers (and I’ll be putting out calls for submissions for some of the ideas I’ve already got). I’d love to hear ideas that anyone here might have as well, whether in this month’s post, by email (gmail account using my usee name here), or at Mimeograph Revival itself. The ideas bouncing around include an Amateur Press Association-style mailer/bundle (thanks Justin Patrick Moore for that tip!), serialized or short public domain works that should see print/circulation, homeschool resources, occult works and correspondence-course-type things, collections of art/poetry/stories, newsletters, and zines … really, there are lots of options.
I’m new though, and this is early days, but I’m excited to take this step and to invite you along with me.
***If I might step into my new role for a moment, I’d like to ask if any of Ecosophia’s Indian readers would be interested in helping me research whether or not a critical mimeograph tool is still manufactured in India (something I’ve not been able to ascertain). I would be extremely grateful for help.***
Greetings JMG, For open post I would like to extend thanks to Robert Matheison for some comments he made awhile ago concerning his former university and the current attitudes there…..something like being willing to throw students under the bus to protect themselves. At that time my daughter was planning to attend that university and we were working with them and one other before she made the final decision.
As we worked along we kept getting more and more warning signs that maybe it wasn’t the best move to rush off to one of these places……she wants to be an architect and all information available and “help” from staff could only provide rather fuzzy indications of what you “might” actually have by way of credentials after 4 years, 7 years or more. And their prices kept going up and up with every turn in the maze! Financial help in scholarships is basically not forthcoming even to the extremely qualified…..unless you are an insider of course. Nobody seemed to understand why she just didn’t take the loans?? So easy….in fact on their computer platforms one needs to be careful not to check any box accidentally leading to a lifetime of servitude…..it’s all very tricky and feels icky and underhanded.
Mr. Matheison’s post made the whole thing crystal clear that it’s only about the money and their prestige, which gave her the courage to just say no and take a year off.
On to Plan B (B is for better 🙂 We live in Mexico and she is a dual citizen. She in enrolled to begin the architecture program in August at a small, old, respected and respectable university in Merida, Yucatán where she was eligible for and received a 50% scholarship as valedictorian of her preparatory class which will continue each year if grades stay up, plus more scholarships. The first year curriculum does not include woke indoctrination classes and how to use a computer program to do x….rather it begins with math, geometry, history of architecture and so on with things that make sense. She is interested in “sustainable architecture “ where one doesn’t have to depend on air conditioning but rather one can open well placed windows in an attractive building. Her tuition will be $2,500 US dollars per academic year!!
She is not an isolated case either….the brightest kids I know here have dreamed for years of attending university in the US but they have all made new plans. A few are going to Europe and the rest are staying here in Mexico. The selections for higher education are quite varied and expanding every year. Parents perceive it as making economic sense to stay here and feel it’s much safer!
In regards to the discussion of shortages…..we’ve not experienced shortages of anything here, not even during our wild and woolly hurricane season last fall.
Thank you very much for this wonderful public space! SundaraYogaShala
JMG,
Got it. So, some people/societies are not receptive to a certain archetype, some are receptive but don’t get overwhelmed and some get overwhelmed. Are rituals such as the banishing ritual and sphere of protection partly about ensuring you don’t get overwhelmed by archetypes/spirits? And then would religion, in the very broad sense of the word, be partly about keeping a society’s relationship with the archetypes in balance?
@ Naomi
Not to mention that Australia has no strategic oil reserve. Well, our ‘reserve’ relies on our mates in the US giving us some of their oil when the time comes. What could go wrong? https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/taylor/media-releases/australia-boost-fuel-security-and-establish-national-oil-reserve
China is also throwing money around in the South Pacific including this plan which sounds like it won’t happen but similar plans come up quite often these days – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-05/chinese-company-plans-to-build-city-on-png-island-near-australia/13123698
Re the Eightfold year cycle–I have often thought that having a set of appropriate drinks and foods for the ritual itself would be nice. Some are obvious–May Wine for Beltane, for example. Most Wiccan Sabbats use wine for the drink offering, but some holidays seem to me to cry out for the hard stuff–maybe Applejack for Samhain or a milky liquer such as Irish Cream for Imbloc. Anyone have similar thought and suggestions? I’ll post mine after a bit more thought.
Continuing discussion from Dreamwidth on medical issues. I got a phone call from my HMO to schedule a phone appt. with my primary care physician. Told them I wanted in person and have appt. set up. But phone care–really? We have had it drummed into us for years that high blood pressure must be detected and treated, for example. How the blue blazes does your doctor take your blood pressure over the phone? Or weigh you, or listen to heart beat or lungs or any of the other things that are part of a normal physical? Not to mention being able to palpate your limb or other part that has a mysterious twinge or ache, observe your gait or notice that you are holding your arm at a weird angle that might mean something is wrong. We might as well go back to ancient Chinese medicine with the little china doll to point out where it hurts lest the male doctor see our lady bits.
Rita
Dear JMG and commentariat,
1) Do you know of banishing rituals besides the LBRP and variants and the SOP and variants?
2) Do you have a sense of the protocol for determining what’s an appropriate ritual for a specific person? For instance, it seems that some people get way better results from the LBRP or the SOP, some people get bad or no results from one or the other, and some people seem to get equally good results from both. Given all of the variables I’m not sure it’s possible to approach the problem scientifically. That said, I am very curious the esoteric science of various banishing rituals.
3) I’m very curious if people wish to share if they’ve found either the SOP or the LBRP or some other banishing ritual unworkable. In my own experience, I’ve found the SOP hasn’t worked adequately for my needs in times of really bad energy and left me open to all sorts of gunk that the LBRP can dispel no problem. That said, I’ve also found that without some variant of the Rose Cross Ritual the LBRP + Middle Pillar seemed quite hard on my energy body. I’m not sure how much I might generalize from these experiences, but they seem like possibly useful data points for helping to think about these practices in light of experience.
@ Elkriver (May 26, 11:20 am): re: being offered a choice of whether to live or die. In my case,
it wasn’t being offered a choice of whether to live or die, but rather to be materially very rich
(compared to other Americans) and being part of the ‘it’ social bracket – or – not. I chose ‘not’,
because the other choice (rich/socially-in) was a path devoid of spirituality, which as far as I’m
concerned is the same as death, in the form of existing jewel-bedecked bloated walking-talking
corpse – it also scared me – I didn’t want to be ‘that person’. The ‘not’ path, that I chose was
uncertain, full of challenges and great material losses (not to the point of poverty, still have way
too much stuff), but there have been greater opportunities for happiness and spiritual growth –
really a matter of choosing ‘life’ with all its storms and strife. I wish I could explain it better.
@ Jean (May 26, 11:20 am): re: vaccine coercion. I was coerced into getting the vaccine due to
family pressure. (Good thing I’m old). I did a divination beforehand which gave a very positive go ahead (much to my chagrin, the result was not even slightly ambiguous, which would have lead to me finding excuses keep postponing getting jabbed). I suffered only transient side effects. My theory is that some
people will actually benefit in some way, for some mysterious reasons, from being vaccinated
against COVID-19. But I am in no way sold on these vaccinations – inadequate testing, for starters.
But mainly because they might not provide adequate protection against COVID-19 after all.
Cui bono?
On CNN in the other room, (don’t judge me by my spouse), Chris “brother” Cuomo was discussing the “lab leak hypothesis” with their inhouse doctor Sanjay Gupta. Gupta just said that the speed which Covid-19 spread indicates that it probably already had long exposure to human cells, which argued against a natural jump from bats to humans. Orange Man redeemed!
This Magic Monday, you discussed the issue of Personalities, Individuality and Divine Spark. Some questions concerning this…
Our Personalities are trying to express our Individuality. How do we know what kind of Individuality we are supposed to express? That is, is there some (relatively speaking) “easy” way to find out, or does it take a long process of perhaps several life times to even pose the question, let alone finding out? Could natal astrology help here, for instance?
You said that we can´t go straight for the Divine Spark. In Hinduism and some forms of Buddhism, it seems that some people try to do this, however. Are they karmically ready to go, or are they actually on a collision course with their karma? I remember you said in a previous discussion that humans don´t yet have mental bodies, and therefore we can´t really transform ourselves this way, only hope and pray that maybe the gods will decide to communicate with us (a communication we can´t even understand fully).
Thank you.
jbucks, you might find a hindu text called the Surya Siddantha interesting where several relationships of the Earth, Sun and Moon are apparently explained, in particular the relationship between the diameter and the distance which turns out to be 108 for both the Earth and Sun and Earth and Moon.
Whether these cycles can be used in the same way the equinoxes and solstices are used, for example in the Mysteries of Merlin or for astrological calculations I don’t know but it would be interesting to look at it.
Sadhguru talks superficially about it here:
Rhythms of Earth, Cycles of Life
And here
Riding the Cycles
Mollari #10… the fundamental tool for calculation is a slide rule! For more accuracy, you’ll want tables of functions. Here’s a good one: https://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Mathematical-Functions-Formulas-Mathematics/dp/0486612724/
Hello Mr. Greer,
I was just wondering if you were starting your writing career right now would you pursue traditional publishing or self publishing?
Violet, the upside of the end of pop-culture occultism is that serious occultists will have a much easier time locating each other!
Tim, that’s a hard call. Have you considered learning a method of divination? That’s a useful resource in situations like this one.
Temporaryreality, huzzah! I hope this project thrives; it’s a fine bit of retro tech. If you ever find a cyclostyle in working condition, by the way, treasure it — the original Golden Dawn knowledge lectures were printed on one of those.
Simon, exactly. Those are among the things both practices do.
Violet, I don’t. Those, and various minor variants of them, are the banishing rituals that I know.
Great Khan of Potlucks, too funny.
Tidlösa, the personality must evolve the capacity to express the potentials of the Individuality. It’s not something you figure out intellectually, it’s something that you spend twenty or thirty or a hundred lives figuring out by trial and error, because that’s the only way to do it. As for Hindu and Buddhist traditions, I’m far from sure that they’re trying to do that — both faiths have a galaxy of different spiritual options, ranging from devotional mysticism through meditative transformation of the self and beyond, but it seems to me that — putting things in western occult terms — they’re either relating to gods or bodhisattvas, or developing their mental bodies so they can better express their Individualities, or doing both at once.
Stephen, I’d do what I did originally and split the difference. Publishing books with a small publisher is a very different experience from publishing with one of the big boys — it’s much closer to self-publishing in that you have much more influence over the final product and much more of a personal role in things, but you’ve got a publisher to handle the business end of things. That’s what I did, and I still mostly do that — I have some books from major publishers, but that happens when they seek me out. I don’t go looking for them.
Wesley (offlist), oh, for frack’s sake. If you want to keep on playing “gotcha!” games, go do it somewhere else.
Hi @vw re: #65
There is a small group meeting weekly in Bellingham. You can email me if you wish. Clicking my picture should take you to my contact details.
Hi Mollari,
I’d call up the local nursing homes and see if anyone there knows how to use a slide rule and is in a condition to be able to teach you how to do so. Life in a nursing home is pretty boring so if anyone fits the description, you’ll get takers. Also post on Nextdoor.com. Good luck!
Following some threads around and came across this book – Murdered Magicians: The Templars and Their Myths,1982 by Peter Partner. JMG and others, would this be a good read? Helpful at all for understanding the Doctrine of High Magic?
Hi John Michael,
“shrill and inaccurate denunciations” – respect! 🙂 When polite discourse can’t be had and the best they can manage is some sort of strange and incoherent braying noises, well, you know you’re onto something good! Hope you receive more shrill reviews. Let them bray!
We’re in lockdown again. The government here doesn’t seem to be particularly good at its job given they are appearing to attempt an eradication and quarantine response to the health subject which dares not be named. Oh well. The problem the government creates for itself is one of credibility and if they stuff up a basic response like quarantine, what is to say that any other more complicated response won’t also be stuffed up? It is human nature to see the world that way.
There used to be a TB sanatorium not too far from where I live up in the fresh mountain air.
I’m beginning to look at the future and genuinely wonder if as a society we might just send ourselves broke attempting to pursue the strategies currently being pursued in relation to this health matter? Mind you, the shut down of international tourism, arts, music, and events businesses has probably reduced the cost base – but it is not pretty for people in those industries (they’re often small businesses too). Dunno. It hasn’t really sunken in that if this virus is anything like the other respiratory viruses, well it’s going to hang around and be a nuisance for a long while to come.
Have you any inkling as to whether this health matter may reach a crisis where acceptance – no need to discuss the ethics or morals of that reflection point – becomes the norm? I mean we seem OK living with other more deadly diseases. Dunno.
Cheers
Chris
@Dear Elkriver, on the offer of an exit:
I had no idea it was ‘a thing’, but it must be. I was offered ‘the option’ 3 decades ago; but I had just passed through some of the better times of my life up to that point; I could see difficulties on the horizon, but I decided I wanted to stay here and ‘cook’ some more. It turned into a long, hard, dreary slog, for decades. I kicked myself and wondered why I hadn’t taken ‘the option’.
And then all unexpectedly, in that same way I was asked what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and I was aghast; I made an astral snort and an answer off the cuff, “as if it matters one iota anywhere what I want!”
Then, as Weilong put it , “I woke up one day I knew that I had turned a corner.” There was still some hard slogging to get through, but what I had asked for “off the cuff” is now what I have.
I think I was given opportunities to make conscious choices, so as to minimize the time I spent shaking my fist at heaven. “You asked for this.” In 20-20 hindsight I see Providence, and I have a glimmer of why things may have had to be as they were.
What seemed like failure to me at the time, I now see as something else entirely; what I thought was going on in my life was just the tip of the iceberg. Things weren’t hard because I was doing things all wrong, and they didn’t get better because I changed my ways. There are things we cannot make happen, but it doesn’t mean they won’t happen. There are things we can’t see until events unfold. ‘It’s not over until it’s over.”
QUESTION FOR ALL:
I’ve never used a Patreon-type service. Could those who have tell me what you think is a fair price for each book chapter?
Also, what frequency of posting chapters do you prefer? All 3 volumes together are about the size of The Lord Of The Rings overall, for a handy comparison.
Thank you for any feedback you can give!
@ CR Patino RE: supply chain
I also saw that steel was very easy to get, and the prices a lot lower than here in the US. Here, there is a wait list or backorder issue with many sizes of high grade steel – in Mexico it was a single phone call and next day delivery. Groceries were also the same, with zero surge in prices for steak compared to here. There were no empty shelves either – everything seemed the same as last year at Superama and Walmart.
Maybe your experience has been different. I have to go to Bogota later in the summer – so that should tell the tale if Ara or Olimpica are the same.
JMG, you mean lime this beaut here? : https://www.ebay.de/itm/Antike-Gestetner-Druckmaschine-mit-Untergestell-Holz-/363190651050
I had half a mind to have my daughter who lives in Germany buy it for me, but I’m not at a point where I can really justify it 😀
If any German readers are interested, there’s a guy in the Netherlands who teaches these machines’ use… No pressure, though! 😉
Violet,
You have a much larger and deeper sample size than me, so I’ll take your word on it – and now that I think about it – I don’t know anyone personally who has gone deeper into Christianity or any similar faith, either. (At least, not that they’ve admitted in public.) Your observations concern me, because I think we’re headed rapidly into a time when some sort of religious faith is going to be psychically necessary…
I wonder if it’s a response to disappointment? I can even lump myself in. Believing as I once had really, really did not work in 2020. I wonder if that underlies some of it? Part of it could be America’s over-identification with Progress (“this belief didn’t lead immediately to the Promised Land, it must be bunk!”) or – more hopefully – just a lull in response to a shock. 2020 was really a shock, I think for everyone. These happen from time to time in history. Eventually we will all pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and move into the brave new future. Hopefully with a fuller understanding of our faiths!
Rita Rippetoe,
Please do post your thoughts! 🙂 I too am hoping for some more concrete things to celebrate the Eightfold Wheel holidays with. My attempts this past Beltaine did not feel properly ceremonial (some fire, some… other stuff that Beltaine is known for). Having a specific food and drink recommended for each one would be very grounding.
Best,
VW
Hi all,
I wanted to share a recent “discovery” I made that many of you might appreciate.
I subscribe to two word of the day email lists and for the past several weeks the word pairs have been remarkably and consistently fitting for the days in question. Sometimes they are related to an event or interaction which happens later on and I realize later how they fit. Lately the words have been more immediately and directly related to my inner experience in profound ways.
These are now a valuable divination tool in training my habits of intuition, reflection, and attention. And if the power is out then one can do it oneself with a dictionary.
I wonder whether anyone else here does this?
I hope the Spring is treating you all well!
@ Tim RE: flyers…
I think the best policy at this point is to just get on with your life. You have people driving alone in their cars with masks on even here in Texas. I had a woman yell at me in the grocery for not wearing a mask, and I just told her to call the governor and went on about my business. With all the info trickling out about vax negative responses, the fact that these vaxxes are not targeted at making you immune but merely reducing symptoms and most importantly the incredible amount of pressure from government and corporations to get the jab makes me want to run away rapidly. “We’re the government, and we’re here to help…:” – that ring a bell?
Wait a few more months – people are starting to talk about firing Fauci ( https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/calls-fauci-resign-fired-intensify-nih-funding-wuhan-lab ) and much as the MSM tries to avoid it, Texas has pretty much shown this to be mostly self-inflicted. This is not to say there is no such thing, but it is also interesting to me that the typical flu outbreaks we have annually (around 38k deaths) were reduced to less than 2000 this year – I find that an interesting factoid straight out of the CDC files..
Keep your head down – no reason to fight a battle already won.
Dear all,
Thank you very much for your prayers for my mother-in-law. She is able to walk around again now, limited to their home and garden, but not stuck in bed. (She was in a motor-bike-taxi wreck, for those who missed that post.)
To whomever posted the link to the survey of women with post-covid-vacination feminine problems last month, thank you very much. Many friends have expressed gratitude to me for confirming that not only they are not alone but also providing them with a way to participate in something that may somehow help someone.
I was going to post some notes on the impact of a largely carnivorous diet – but I’ve woken up today to see that a major story about corruption in academia has emerged:
https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/6/252840-collusion-rings-threaten-the-integrity-of-computer-science-research/fulltext
Essentially it seems that cliques of researchers have been gaming peer review by subverting the blind commentry process in order to get their papers into conferences. The fields mentioned in the article are small enough that most of the people active in a field know each other so it’s relatively easy to do. Getting their own stuff included automatically excludes other people’s work. There’s a suspicion that things have got nasty enough that a junior victim of one of these rings may have committed suicide.
Not mentioned but implied is that given that there are hardly any private research institutions left, these rings will exist almost exclusively in universities. Secondly, it is unlikely that this is only happening in computer science research.
I am genuinely shocked by what I’ve read here, and given my own background in CS research also rather saddened by it. I suppose that’s naive but it’s an honest reaction. Membership of a ring is going to be rather hard to prove or disprove as well so any academic who has had a productive career in terms of published papers is going to fall under suspicion. This looks another nail in the coffin of the education industry, and it’s a big one.
@JMG – a couple of weeks ago you warned about people getting even more crazy, and to back away and avoid them. Wow. You were not kidding. In the last couple of weeks I’m trying to arrange visits to friends and relatives, since I’m taking a break from work this summer, and wanted to do the right thing and let them know I have not gotten, nor am planning to get, The Jab. The science is one thing, but I’ve also sensed an underlying primary goal of profits driving the whole program. The viewpoint was not well received by some. It’s as if logic and reasoning is not only checked at the door, but that any data not agreeing with the narrative was just overridden by some thought process that doesn’t even recognize the point.
Do you think there is some subliminal content to the news media stories to be “pro-vax”? I’m thinking about as in a reaction of someone who’s hypnotized hearing a trigger word.
@Oilman2 – I agree with your thoughts on the new change to carry a concealed weapon in Texas, thought it’s the first “big” state to allow that, if I’m not mistaken. While I live in downstate Illinois where laws are pretty strict and a licensed conceal carry law very recent, as you say criminals don’t adhere to the laws, and those that need to carry for their location or work probably already have the credentials. I suspect that if violence increases, more generally law-abiding people won’t wait for permission – they’ll do whatever they need to do to feel safe.
JMG, I am recommending a friend of mine for a job and wanted to help the process with a little natural magic so I will light a candle for him. It is me who will be submitting the recommendation, so should it be my hour of Venus on Friday? One last thing, the Moon will be on the strong waning period this Friday, would it be on my best interest to wait for next Friday or does it not matter much since I am using the planetary hours?
Hi JMG,
Is it possible to use magic to overcome a crush that has lasted 20 years?
I wanted to think my feelings were just friendship but a couple of events have shown me otherwise.
I would like it to be just that, friendship.
Violet, regarding banishing. I know of a banishing ritual using the Mahavidhyas of Hinduism per Don Kraig’s unfinished (That didn’t stop Lewellyn from publishing it after his death and loading it with ads on the back though!) Modern Tantra . It is more like a prayer accompanied by a bell or a lamp and banishes by flinging it or ringing it in the cardinal points, of which he uses 10 (or 8?) and asking the deities for protection. I don’t think it is as elegantly designed as the other two though but it seems to work.
Golden Dawn style rituals were quite hard on my etheric and astral bodies too but never unworkable so I am not sure if this will help. I think I might have even sprained my energy body but doing them less intensely helped and with time things seemed to have settled for me. After about 2 months of the alleged sprain I find I can handle bigger amounts of energy comfortably and it feels “fuller” as if a leak was patched. I also found adding positive pranic foods to my diet (basically raw and fresh fruits and vegetables; raw peanuts soaked in water overnight; and sprouts, specially sprouts), massage and stretching (and avoiding coffee) very efficient at taking care of it until it got stronger.
Another data point per something that was mentioned on the last Magic Monday is that the SoP seems to get quite stronger with time but I can’t speak from experience.
I’d like to thank you for taking the time to answer questions such as the following: When making eye contact with women and there is some sort of emotional connection which may or may not be romantic, I notice their eyes look to me as if they are colored in a glowing ember like color.
At least in some cases, when I looked into said women’s eyes when they were not looking at me, I noticed their eyes were not actually of that color. One time a particular person’s eyes turned out to actually be blue, which struck me as curious.
I would be glad to hear your thoughts on the matter, as this seems to be a repeating pattern in my personal experience.
@Sundara, regarding education in Mexico. I’m glad to hear this! Despite what you hear in the upper social classes in Mexico, education is pretty decent. And Mexico right now is a hub for bioconstruction with a lot of opportunities for hands on experience. In my opinion, having studied here in Mexico there are still many things lacking but really, nothing that can’t be learned from the internet and libraries these days since researching for sources has become really easy. What I did is that I downloaded or asked for in forums for the syllabii of several universities and compared them with mine, filling in the holes myself.
And also, if you ask me, most architects can’t draw anymore, and they should, they are just the slaves of programs and the laughing stock of engineers which is a shame given the rich history of architecture in the United Sates! IMO, architects being trained as artists is essential to combat Uglicism.
Also, if you daughter will be looking for a post-graduate degree and can’t find a suitable and affordable program in the US, Europe is definitely a good an cheap option. Last time I checked, education in Germany even for foreigners was about 300 Euros a year and similar in other countries. All the best to her!
Hi JMG,
What do you think will become of the UK if Scotland becomes independent and Ireland unites? Would the remaining rump be a laughing stock? would it be able to defend itself sufficiently and would it still be able to project power? I wonder whether if Scotland joined the EU, England (+ Wales) would be obliged to join again too as it would be so isolated. I know you have said you are in favour of Scottish independence so I wonder how you see the effects on the whole island.
@Jean: regarding my own experience of my fellow humans trying to bully me into getting the vaccine: I live in Israel, which as you know seems to be ground zero for this crazy experiment.
I’d like to encourage you to wait the restrictions out, as they are probably only temporary. In reality, our government is now set on cancelling the limitations on the unvaccinated, and even when they were in place I was not very affected. I think I maybe once or twice had to sit outside when going out to drink, but what happened was that everyone just started drinking outside, so siting inside tuned out to be boring, and no one did that, vaccinated or not. This and other sanctions stopped being enforced by now, and as I said the government is about to make this de facto situation de jure.
I had a lot of emotional appeals from my sorroundings to vaccinate myself, but by arguing rationally and calmly, most of my friends and family came to respect my position, even if they do not agree with it. So, my advice is to be prepared and knowledgeable so you can argue your position in a civilized manner without getting angry and definitely without resorting to logical fallacies, do not sink to their level.
As for the state sponsored bullying, I hope you will see in the US what I am seeing in Israel: the situation on the ground will quickly be that the limitations will dissolve and will turn out to be threats without substance.
I’d like to refer you to JMG’s post about “The Victim Game”, as being aware of said game will help you avoid being cast as ” The agressor”, who’s every action is interpreted as hurting “the victim”.
Hang in there.
Hello, everyone.
I have been (very) slowly progressing with “High Magick: A guide to spiritual practices”, by Damien Echols. For personal reasons, I want to keep my practices secret even from my family. So far, I can study CosDoc in privacy (people think I am just doing mindfulness), and I am working on scrying which is also very discreet. But when it comes to rituals, there’s that ‘vibrate words’ in the Middle Pillar practice I find hard to achieve.
A couple of days a week I am left alone in the appartment, and I’ve done the vocal part, felt the vibration and it looks like it’s important for the ritual. However, I am pretty sure that, in order to feel the vibration, I have to speak at a volume that can be heard in the rest of the house. So I don’t dare to practice when I am not alone.
My question is, is there a substitute for vocalization, something discreet? There sure must be something, otherwise mute people wouldn’t be able to practice rituals. Would it work if I speak the words in my mind?
On a different but related issue, I have been working on a shared garden as a volonteer, and I am very lucky since I am given much free rein to work as I please, I am even allowed to make structural changes.
I’ve come to think that anything that is an entity made of complex internal relationships has a spirit, a conscience, so I think the garden must have its own spirit. So far, I’ve just ‘observed’ the garden with an open mind. The garden was fenced a few years ago; last century there were several market gardens and orchards in the zone, but they were left to the wilderness and it’s been understory and shrubs since then. The patches were I’ve been working on look like new organs, somewhat disconnected from the rest. The old garden feels peaceful, tired, even indifferent, while the new beds feel active and inviting. I want the garden to become a thriving place, both for plants and people’s hearts, and I am willing to pay for it with labor in my spare time, although in a way that the garden will no longer require my efforts once I’m done.
Is there a way to contact or understand this spirit, or magical practices that can help me with my goals (other than visualize what I’d love to see)?
Thanks.
I do hope the vaccination pressure will subside especially as immunity through other ways is a real thing like Jean says and I’ve known a few people to have had covid, the same thing sickness but not extreme for.any of them. I don’t love the masks but don’t have to wear them much. weirdly I had to go through airport security and not once was my passport checked and it felt way more relaxed apart from the masks.
Jmg yes plastic straws ! I have some stainless steel ones for the kids and have been given paper ones before which do bring up the question of the value of them às they just disintegrate unless you have a disability or are a child just drinking from a cup is much better! I just hope the world moves on from vaccine fever soon.
We have to be careful so this doesen’t become a echo chamber people. What if some aliens saw pity in us, and came with a large shipment of aid in the form of 100 000 000 trillion barrels of sweet crude oil. No peak oil!
@ Mollari – #10 – the following website will not teach you to DO the math, but it does give an insight into the mind of someone who is striving to ensure that every bit of math they use (topics – physics, electro-magnetic phenomena, gravity, light) relates to actual physical quantities rather than modelling abstractions upon abstractions.
Since I myself am not that good at the maths, I am not in a position to evaluate his actual workings, but I think that his oft repeated refrain – “we need to get back to the mechanics” – is a sound one. And the result is a total review of physics, the evidence, the models, the equations, and all, which is absolutely fascinating. You might find it tangentially rewarding to peruse.
milesmathis.com
h/t to the nameless commenter who recommended this site in a previous thread, it is a fascinating read.
Note, the same fellow maintains a site on art, mileswmathis.com, in which he also covers topics such as (what he views as) the scripting and staging of what are otherwise known as current events, which may be of general interest, but the science site is the one I found most challenging and most exciting.
Hello JMG,
1) I think you mentioned that you were working on a commented edition of the Cosmic Doctrine. Is there a potential date for its release?
2) It surprised me that karma is used within the context of western occultism. Was the concept already present in it before the orientalist influx of the XIX century?
Just tried to order your “The King in Orange”, JMG, but the “country” field on the online order form insists on the United States being the only country!
The more I observe the current trajectory of the Western world, the more the stunning parallels to the narrative of The Weird of Hali stands out: the same fanatical defense of ratiionalism and digitalisation of every sphere of life to the exclusion of personal interactions; the same role for spiritual and occult practices in the fringes of society for those excluded from a satisfying role in Western society and such things. If quality of life in Western society can degenerate so fast not only in economic terms but in social and cultural terms, too, I’m not sure at all that we could for the time of 2030 and afterwards expect anything than total oblivion. Since this is the Long Descent, not the Short Descent, Western society must still exist in the 2030s, 2040s and so on, but in which condition?
One other aspect of the whole problem is how to handle totalitarianism. I didn’t come to any new conclusions, but if others have thoughts about this, I would like to hear them.
(Only one copy of this needs to be put through.)
Dear JMG,
This is my first comment here at Ecosophia. I have been a silent reader since a few years (including binge reading your blog backlog and the books “The Long Descent” and “Collapse now and avoid the rush”). First, I want to thank you for the great content, that you are putting out on a regular basis.
I have noticed an interesting trend during my life. When I was a child, I was obsessed with Science Fiction and Technology. As a teenager I was totally into stuff like giant fighting robots (Battletech), interstellar travel (Battletech, Warhammer 40k), Cyberpunk (RPG of the same name and Shadowrun), modern military equipment (tanks, airplanes, battleships) and computer games. While I was also always interested in nature (past and present), my past time was filled with all the technology stuff I have mentioned (Tabletop Wargames, RPGs, Computer Games).
During my years at the university, where I got a PhD in Biology, a trend started, that I became more skeptical of technology. I was a late adopter of the ubiquitous mobile phone and later the “smart” phone. I still was addicted to computer games (which definitely had a negative impact on my studies). I am very glad, that I got rid of this addiction after I met my future wife during my PhD thesis.
The next major step was like an awakening maybe 4-5 years ago. Looking back at this moment, it seems like I stepped out of the matrix. I got fed up with the media and politics in Germany (that´s where I was born and live until today), since the stories told by them did not fit my own experiences very well. Then, from critics of German politics, I encountered a whole world of independent thinkers talking about the problems of humanity in the upcoming decades including your blog. Now I would consider myself a romantic luddite, who is very skeptical of most of the new technology. I even thought of downgrading technology, that I will be using.
So, this was a long introduction to my current situation. I turned 40 just a few weeks ago. I still live in my home country Germany. I have a job in the IT business, which does interest me less with each passing day. I am afraid of technological innovations, which seem to go into the direction of total control of all (human) life, while degrading our habitat completely. My country seems to go down the drain as well, including the misdealing with the Covid “crisis”. If you are outside the matrix, it seems hard to stay sane.
Do you have any recommendations on how to stay sane in this insane world? Do you think that religion would help? Stoicism? Any other philosophy?
Maybe I am just in my mid-life crisis?!
Kind regards
Secretface2097
Augusto: That’s very interesting! I will have a closer look at those links, and see if I can find a copy of the Surya Siddhantha. Thanks!
Phutatorius: Thanks to you also for the further info. I wish I knew more about all this, maybe I can get my hands on a broadband RF meter (they seem expensive) and do some exploration with it.
Rita: Hm, I hadn’t ever thought about drinks and food for the eight stations, but that makes sense. I’ll be interested to see what you and others post.
@Sherrif Harry S. Truman (#48)
“Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it. Don’t wait for it. Just let it happen.”
Does anyone know where I can find a copy of Ptolemy’s Centiloquium online in Latin, not English?
Some of the Christian folks here (and others just curios and curioser) might be interested in this book I just cataloged today at the library:
Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicism’s Looming Catastrophe by Voddie T. Baucham Jr.
“The author explains the sinister worldview behind the social justice movement and critical race theory, revealing how it has already infiltrated some seminaries, leading to internal denominational conflict, canceled careers, and lost livelihoods. Like a fault line, it threatens American culture in general and the evangelical church in particular.”
I know this subject has been brought up in the comments before, so just putting this out there.
@Pinghanling #8, it’s vital to be able to apply critical thinking (a tool that is the basis for scientific inquiry into material phenomena) to magical practices, as one needs to be able to sift meanings, etc.
However, to follow on what JMG noted, Jean Dubuis, who worked in electronics and nuclear physics as well as with alchemy and other esoteric disciplines, writes:
“But we know that esoteric experimentation is not externally measurable. It is interior to the being.”
http://www.portaelucis.fr/
@Oilman, David BTL, Mark,
Regarding hydrogen, I feel the same way you do – whenever I hear it mentioned as an energy source, I conclude that whoever/whatever mentioned it is best ignored. Now if you were to say “In the future, we will have lots of cheap nuclear electricity, and we’ll turn some of that into hydrogen” (or, alternately, “we’ll have lots of cheap solar electricity, and we’ll turn some of it into hydrogen”) then you’ve made an intelligible comment that can be debated (though not necessarily agreed with). But if you just say “hydrogen” it’s game over.
@Yorkshire, JMG, others re civics classes,
On the one hand, I understand the appeal of civics classes, because it really would help a lot if more young people were aware of (or interested in) the workings of the government. On the other, it seems to me that any attempt to reintroduce them would be a two-edged sword, since they would inevitably become propaganda for somebody – either leftists who just want to teach that America was founded on racism, is irredeemably racist, and every issue in present-day American politics is best understood through the lens of intersectional oppression, or else right-wingers whose vision of American history is heavily overlaid with a chosen people myth, and who do way too much papering-over of differences between America’s ideals and its realities.
Perhaps, warts and all, civics classes are still worth bringing back – I certainly have fond memories of studying Locke and the Federalist Papers and debating Fourth Amendment jurisprudence at my own private high school – I’m just doubtful that most kids would end up getting anything like that experience.
@Kulibali, JMG, re Kingsnorth,
Thank you for sharing that. I read the whole thing and, as with Kingsnorth’s other work, it strikes me as broadly similar to our host’s views, but much more pessimistic towards complex civilizations in general – i.e. their rise and growth is a sign of mankind’s tragic fallenness, not (as I expect JMG would claim) a cyclical manifestation of character traits that can’t be amputated without destroying our essential humanity. Though perhaps that is the mindset one would expect from someone who found nature religions unsatisfying and, after a long sojourn, converted to Orthodox Christianity. BTW, I look forward to your future posts about the rhythmic rise and fall of urban cultures.
“I find myself bouncing back and forth between wanting to raise awareness of the weirdness going on with covid, its “vaccines”, etc. and just keeping my head down to avoid trouble for me and my family…..I struggle with whether I’m abdicating my responsibility to speak up against this craziness….”
Tim, if it’s any consolation at all, you are not alone. I struggle with this constantly too, as does at least one friend of mine.
There are situations where it has been, and likely will be, easy for me to not say anything about mainstream misinformation, or to just smile and nod and lie that I got the vaccine when I didn’t, but I hate the dishonesty. And I wonder if I should be speaking up, or if in not doing so, I’m “abandoning” the people who are standing up, and making it seem like there are fewer of us than their really are.
I actually asked a similar question one or two open posts back (should I lie about getting the vaccine?), and I did a divination on it, Both the advice here and a divination came back strongly in favor of dissembling.
My conclusion is that it is is unwise for me to argue with True Believers, as it will accomplish nothing. One of the hardest lessons of this pandemic has been the reminder that people will not accept information if it contradicts a world view (narrative) in which they are invested, and sometimes you just have to keep your head down because doing otherwise will accomplish nothing. (For what it’s worth, I noticed the same thing in other situations as well; it just got a lot more immediate this time.)
The best I can do is suggest that you focus on protecting your loved ones, and accept that right now, many people do not want to hear any facts that contradict their narratives, and will, in fact, get angry if you try to point out inconsistencies in the Official Story. There may be exceptions, and maybe you (and I) should focus on talking to them. One of the biggest helps for me during this madness was having a friend who was also questioning official narratives; neither one of us is sure of anything, but in a world full of people absolutely convinced that the mainstream narrative is Pure Truth, having one person with whom I could say “I also think this doesn’t add up but don’t pretend to know the answer either” was incredibly valuable. Maybe try to find a way to connect with people who are already questioning and need support? And also remember that things could change down the line. Who knows – maybe in some months or a year or two, there will be other people willing to listen to you who aren’t going to hear you now. I guess I’m saying the only options aren’t just “nothing” and “pick useless fights you can’t win” – maybe try to make connections and pick some carefully-chosen actions to support your side, and be ready to talk to some others in the future when things calm down a bit and people begin to be able to hear contradictory opinions again?
@Elkriver:
Yes, this experience happened to me during the Celtic Golden Dawn meditations.
One of my main interests in occultism is what happens during afterlife. So, during a meditation, a man with a white beard, sitting on a throne, appeared to me and asked if I wanted to know more about that with the implication of direct experience. I felt he was benevolent, and he was smiling. Then I looked back and I saw Earth from above (only a portion of the top, the bottom was cropped, by I knew it was Earth) and I said that “I still have things to do.” With that, the experience ended.
I’m quite suspicious that if I said “Yes,” I wouldn’t be typing this now. During the whole thing, I was very uncaring about my life on Earth per se, it was absolutely irrelevant to me. I felt nothing about the possibility of dying. My feeling was of a slight worry to leave things unfinished here, without thinking about what these things are.
Now, I have to discover what I have to do here. I didn’t think what it was back then, and I don’t know now. Yes, karma would keep bringing me back, but this helped to cement my impression that suicide won’t solve my problems.
You’re very welcome, SundaraYogaShala! In general, I don’t think most young people should go to college in the USA these days. There are exceptional young people, of course, and exceptional colleges, too (though I’ve been retired for so long now and so galdly out-of-touch with the whole system that I don’t have any specific colleges to recommend any longer).
As for graduate degrees, they have become part of a far-reaching system of exploitive labor by now. Very often they leave graduate students with no prospects of non-exploitive employment anywhere once they’ve gotten their degrees.
Fortunately, the whole house of cards that is higher education here seems to me to have been overbuilt, and likely to come tumbling down rapidly any year now.
Jean (117), my work provides free legal services, so 60% of my coworkers are lawyers and our board president is a labor and employment lawyer. Our board president advised that our director can ask about vaccination status and maintain a log.
Jean (117), sorry – hit post before finishing my comment. I don’t know the details beyond that, sorry. I am pretty sure my employer would accept religious exemptions, proof of immunity, etc., with the caveat that you may be required to work remotely, wear a mask, but that’s given our small staff. I am not sure what the law is regarding proof of immunity other than vaccination.
There is a podcast titled “Breaking Down: Collapse” that is looking at different aspects of the decline of civilization. From their description: “(the podcast) takes the complex ideas surrounding the ultimate collapse of modern industrial society and simplifies them so they’re easier to learn….Like all societies throughout history, ours will experience an inevitable decline caused by our relentless desire for progress. It’s not a conspiracy, but rather the natural consequences of a society growing beyond the limits of its finite planet.”
Episode 36 is “A Deeper Look at Catabolic Collapse”. The summary- “In a follow up to episode 5 (“Catabolic Collapse”), Kory and Kellan take a deeper look at the concept, specifically by analzying the paper written by John Michael Greer titled “How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse”.”
They provide a link to a pdf of your paper. I’ve listened to a few episodes and have found them to be well done. The podcast seems to be available on most of the usual platforms. Your ideas continue to spread!
We have to use the scientific method for magic of course. Otherwise, how would you know if anything happens? Like any experiment, you run it, then see the results. The direction and character of the results, whether they reflect the magic, and whether there’s another more plausible explanation. I don’t see how you couldn’t because the alternative would be blind faith despite no results, and mental chaos.
Because math is tangible, doing it by calculator is a decided disservice. Not only proportions, but equations where numbers go back and forth across the = , are struck out and vanish, or even better, using a compass and sector, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sector_(instrument) or even a slide rule. It interacts with reality in a firm and tangible way that decimals can’t.
Food is the ultimate Psychometry. All things it went through are knowable and compose it. When you eat it, you take on those aspects. So while fake meat doesn’t partake of factory farms, it partakes of the far worse dead chemical factories it is synthesized in and affects me badly. Can’t fool Mother Nature: it’s your responsibility to eat responsibly, spreading love or happy creatures, robust life and diversity or else. Or else it – the poisons you create – dilute but come back to you in your environment. Like everyone, I would love to eat Doritos with no ill effect from their construction, their additives and their corporate support. I would also like to fly and walk through walls. Oh well, I don’t get those either.
I’d say the opposite for the occult. The wild popularity of TikTok and Facetube astrologers is high and sharply converged with Crypto. Seems more practical and less soul-searching than the 80s though. Could be good.
mRNA vaccines couldn’t be FDA approved for a decade for exactly that reason: they worked as they’re working now, but when exposed to the wild virus again they overreacted badly, even to death. That may also be happening – which would be no surprise since they always did before and physics haven’t changed, only the “law.”
We also know with certainty from the Diamond Princess, that two spouses, +70y.o, one can get it bad enough to die, the other not at all – same room, same ship. So LOL Kitten’s experience is exactly right. Perhaps as many as 80% always had near-perfect immunity, but it would have to be researched, although that doesn’t help the 20%, largely over 70, at all.
It might be legal to demand vac status (you’ve entered a contract by being employed and can leave if you want), however, it is illegal to vax you, even mildly pressure you to take it. If so, they are fully liable for all damages caused as workplace-related injury. If you put that contract of understanding on their desk they will most certainly think twice and make and exception if you wish. Like everyone, they almost certainly don’t know that, and that it’s already the law. In fact, it’s against Nuremburg and U.N. human rights, but no need to go nuclear. Can you prove natural immunity and solve both problems?
There are sometimes real, solid cast iron printing machines some other hobbyist is letting go on Craigslist. Since they may scrap without your help, think about doing what you can to get them moved to a home and even start a line making wedding invites and Etsy cards. Since I’m sure the seller understands the challenge, they can probably pallet-ship if necessary. There’s probably an Olde-Printer’s website with want ads.
For University or Decline, there are Ye-Olde-Thingie sites for old engines, pumps, equipment, all kinds. Way rather be a farm-welder than a farm hand.
Marcos, I dropped out of graduate school to learn to farm, spent many years doing it, and eventually have been forced to move it to a side business as my family has grown. I made a lot of mistakes along the way and did a lot of things right too (I think). The advice above is pretty spot-on. Find yourself a farmer to work for – not as a WWOOFER or short-term volunteer, but in a job that pays real money, and ideally at a farm that needs to make real money to survive, not at one run by a college or a monastery or something like that. Then you can get a view of how people are successfully navigating the boundaries between sustainable/organic/regenerative ideals and profitability.
Keep in mind, too, that something like 80% of the farmers in the US (per a recent Acres USA interview I read) have at least one other source of income in their family. And this isn’t really a new trend – in colonial days, the blacksmith and wainwright and miller all had their own family farms to run, as did the politicians and lawyers. Find yourself a business that you can do in slack times, online or in a rural area, and give yourself some resiliency that way. It doesn’t have to be a “farm skill” per se – it would be great to have a tractor repair shop, of course, but helping out at an accountant’s office during the busy January – April season would work really well for a produce farmer too.
Then start growing things and selling them, and you can scale up or down year by year as appropriate. Farming isn’t a Silicon Valley startup – taking out a 200K loan and deciding you need to sell 100 CSA shares next year to make it is going to leave you bankrupt. You need time to discover what works best on your land and in your local market.
A series of short comments.
Vaccines – What I noticed is that nobody was at the vaccine place when I went for my second shot. There were more National Guard and nurses, than people getting vaccinated. Those who were, were on their second shot. No new people.
The pressure is from the local schools. If you want to play sports, you have to get vaccinated.
I have noticed pressure in the advice columns like “Ann Landers” and the like. The questions are usually, I am vaccinated, those people are not, how do I get them off the stick. Or I am vaccinated but those people don’t want me to visit. It is all IIIIIIIIIII, self-centered and no thinking about anyone else.
My son has found more pop-up vaccine sites than he can shake a stick at. He went his local comic book store (yes, they still exist) and out in front…. people with needles ready to sign him up and jab away.
Exxon-Mobil – I was in the middle of that stockholder fight. It was expensive beyond belief. I had getting weekly calls and mail to vote blue proxy which is to keep current board. The other group did not sent anything to me. They never sent me a proxy. The people went after the major stockholders like BlackRock, mutual fund company, who owns 5 percent. BlackRock voted against management. (I have 1 percent.)
So it should be interesting how the new board can deal with an entrenched bureaucracy. I do believe that they are trying to dismantle the company. Well, I am in for a Mr. Toad’s wild ride.
Neopagans and religions. I have noticed that the major names like the ones who blog at Patheos are becoming less religious and more political. They seem to be reblogging the same old Pagan stuff. I noticed that the Moon company that is in MN (not to be confused with Moon Books) is doing more Tarot and the like, than religious stuff.
However, outside of that stratus, there seems to be an exploration of theology or thealogy in other groups. Most of whom I have encountered are trying to redefine the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. They seem to want to rewrite the myths of Christianity or re-interpret them.
Pockets of serious religious or magical folks are writing, just that they are not as well-known.
Food and magic. I have noticed that certain foods leave me unable to function. It is subtle. I cannot tolerate seeds of any kind. Or hot spices. The foods that promote deeper thought for me are basic vegetables, potatoes and beef and cheese. The more processed the food, the more problems it causes.
I know this is crass and unholy, but can anyone pray for me, that I might start to get more customers at work, and for the company I work for become more prosperous? On the mundane level, we’re doing everything we can, we have good marketing, and a good location, but our business went to hell when the government introduced more severe restrictions in April, which have just been lifted. I work in a massage/foot reflexology place. Everyone who works here has been against all the restrictions and the hoopla, and the atmosphere of fear created by the tag team of media and the government. Preventative health like we offer should be respected, rather than just untested innoculation. I imagine once people around here become less fearful of the “varus,” business will gradually pick up, but right now it is so bad that I am on partial Employment Insurance and some days I get zero customers.
I don’t care which deity or deities you pray to, I would appreciate your prayers. I’ve been reading JMG’s blogs for years and am still on the edge of my seat with every comment. Even though I don’t post often, I love the voices of the commentariat and enjoy JMG’s thought. To pay it forward, I’ll donate some money to JMG through the tip jar on the other blog.
Thanks!
(JMG, could you please delete the version of this post that I accidentally submitted to The Legacy of Luxor post, this is embarrassing, but on my phone I must not have realized that I was not on the open post, thank you!)
Last comment. I was unable to contribute to Magic Monday with my question.
Recently I did a blessing spell with Jupiter, the Planetary Dignity (on a Thursday – waxing moon). I had a physical blowback almost when the spell ended. I was wiped out for three days. I am curious if this is common and what to do about it in the future. I was doing a bunny slope type of spell.
I wonder if Jupiter is that expansive and I got the power full blast, or what.
If there is a physical blowback, did those Magic Resistors like Michael Hughes get it too? Are were their spells too disjointed? Or if they did, how would it have shown up – more sickness?
A strange thought – was Covid-19 the result of all that Magic Resisting?
Mollari: I studied Physics in university, and by the end of my degree, I stopped needing a calculator for trig functions, as well as stuff like many complex exponentials. In my opinion, it will be relatively easy for you to learn how to evaluate trig functions without a calculator, as it is some of the most intuitive of mathematical concepts. I’ll try to point you in the (in my opinion) best direction:
I’d like to encourage you to study some basic geometry, which will give you the training to simply visualize the trig functions. I initially tried to write a detailed explanation, but then realized it may confuse you, but the trick is to think about the unit circle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_circle). Once you think in terms of the location you’d be on the unit circle by drawing the appropriate triangle, and when you have the ratios of the special (30, 45, 60) angles, you are well on your way to be able to know the values of the functions without needing a calculator. More complex trig identities also become intuitive once you think geometrically rather than purely algebraically, reducing the need to memorize them. Let me know if you are looking for resources, but if you are serious, a geometry textbook that teaches in the method of “The Elements” by Euclid is best, I was fortunate to have a high school teacher who gave me this training. I know it seems like an overkill, but once you grasp the geometry, you will mostly not need to punch angles into a calculator most of the time.
I will leave you with an exercise that helped me with remembering the important angles and developing some intuition – Try drawing the unit circle, and making the angles 30, 45, 60, 90… and writing down the values of the sine and cosine for each angle. The result should look like so: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Unit_circle_angles_color.svg/450px-Unit_circle_angles_color.svg.png Keep going around the circle all the way to 330 degrees. It’s ok to copy the angles and the results, but I recommend you really use a compass and a ruler to keep everything as precise and tidy as possible. I found it helpful at the time to color code the cosines as one color and the sines as the other, coloring the appropriate edges of the triangle as well (x axis for cosine, y for sine). This will really help you see the patterns and geometric meaning. Do not try to memorize so much as understand and look at the shapes on the paper, like reading a map. Notice things like how adding 180 degrees to the angle simply inverses the sines of the numbers from positive to negative and vise versa. Patterns like that make memorizing all angles redundant as you can quickly “construct” angles in your head by knowing a few basic angles (who’s values are also far from arbitrary but instead has a geometric meaning). I think maybe just the unit circle exercise may be enough for you, I do not wish to make things overly complicated for you.
Complex numbers are actually intimately linked to trig, so once you have this down (It’s not hard, I promise!), you will see the same patterns here. I’d add that multiplying and adding complex numbers is also way easier once you imagine their location in the complex plane, and what each operation does to them. I think I will end the discussion here, but this stuff can also be learned in an intuitive rather than the mechanical, boring way many highschool math classes unfortunately teach.
I hope you found this helpful, it always saddens me to see students being told to mindlessly punch numbers into the calculator, or memorize complicated trig identities that are actually obvious geometric properties once you grasp the concepts. I am glad you decided to use your head for that rather than the calculator, and you are welcome to reply here if you want me to try to find you some basic resources that explain this stuff to someone new to geometry and math, I am afraid I may confuse you by elaborating any further.
I think your first comment could apply to English..for example
“It’s very dangerous because instead of clarifying and surfacing the inherent relationship it passivates everything and obscures the inference”
“To be” seems inherently passive; maybe we call it “passive voice” in many contexts for that reason. E-prime reverses that. The use of “to be” seems more abstract than an active voice verb, which one could interpret to obscure the meaning of the causal relationship between subject and object. I would argue an abstract verb obscures the meaning of a sentence more than a specific one. The abstract verb lives 1+ levels of abstractions higher than the specific/active verb.
Do I not understand something here?
Your second comment makes a lot more sense to me, and I’ll think it over more before responding.
I think I forgot to @Amaranth Billious Centaur in the last comment I submitted
For your delectation – the inimitable Dana Blankenhorn.
https://www.danablankenhorn.com/2021/05/know-your-enemy.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+danablankenhorn%2Fgfvj+%28Dana+Blankenhorn%29
You know it kind of weird, whenever I start thinking about the King in Orange I keep getting these 2 weird visions in my head.
The first is a documentary film by the guys who did the Pepe the frog movie Feels Good Man. They are out there tracking down the 4Chan Kek worshipers and the magic resistance for interviews, taking apart a Coke-a-cola commercial from a magical perspective, an interview with Vine Deloria Jr talking about the Land and its spirits maybe a short animation of the story of the Moon as the changer. In my head it works kind of well.
The other is a bit more disturbing. You are on Fox news being interviewed by Tucker Carlson, you two are bantering back and forth about the working class and the strangeness / insanity that has gripped America when he asks you “What do you think is ultimately behind all this weirdness?” And you answer “It has become almost impossible to deny the stench of the rotting corpse of the god of Progress, and the realization that the Age of Abundance is over and we are headed towards a new dark age.”
Tucker has that completely shocked look on his face “Well, it is time to cut to a commercial” and it is a commercial for Trumpy Bear.
@ SundaraYogaShala RE: Uni
Thank you for your comment regarding no shortages in Mexico – I am guessing it will be the same when I go to Tabasco later this summer.
I am glad to hear you have worked with your daughter to avoid the dark pit of university madness here in the USA. It was bad 9 years ago when my youngest graduated from a ‘conservative’ uni, Texas A&M. Between keeping their students “safe” and the rise in corruption, he actually picked up more useful skills working part-time at the university farm. In his words; “Dad, if we had to do it over, I think I would have learned more by working several jobs than what they sent me away with.” But here in America, the diploma is required to even get a job in most fields of work.
She will be in some very pretty country in Yucatan, with Quintana Roo right next door – much to see and do when not studying. I wish her luck in living her dreams – they may need to be modified, but that is life. My younger son earned a horticulture degree, and yet he is working as a park ranger and firefighter while living on our small farm.
@ Rita Rippetoe RE: medical
SWMBO is a believer in the medical system, in spite of my best efforts @ logic with her. Thus, from my perspective, this was a great opportunity for the medical establishment to fill their coffers. SWMBO had several ‘telemed’ appointments, which are billed the same as pesonal appointments. In every case, at the end of the telemed call, she was asked to come in for additional, personal appointment. This was done by her GP, her OB/GYN and her ortho. Funny thing – the diagnostic software currently installed in most hospitals is relied on by most doctors – they plug in symptoms, test results and then are given a list of possible diagnoses. If none of them fit, then you are shunted to a specialist. I have no idea if the specialists are doing the same thing with a different diagnostic software package.
To me, the entire telemed thing is a giant scam to wring a few more bucks out of people who are trying to get better. YMMV, of course….
I came across this twitter post about the CHAZ Conflict Resolution Advisory Council. It starts to get funny when the edits come. I thought I would share. Critical Race Theory in practice. Seemed like folks here would be interested, I know it gave me a laugh. Also, kind of disturbing:
https://twitter.com/adamscrabble/status/1272294178983219202
I have now read through the essays on Samo Burja’s page that you mentioned some time ago. I find his theory really interesting, though unbalanced. While most people will talk about averages in great populations (average education, average resourcefulness, average courage etc.), he insists on the outsized effect of a small number of founders. That actually reminds me of something my father told me many years ago when discussing rather small-scale religious and communitarian movements: they are brought into being by one exceptional person, and when that person dies or retires, the movement will usually settle into bureaucratic sameness. I think averages in big populations are also important, but Samo’s theory is a welcome counterbalance. I only wish he wouldn’t count Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos among the great founders!
I do think Samo is neglecting the importance of the physical environment. He seems to suppose implicitly that “where there is a will, there is a way”, and that is why he can say that no civilization has ever been eternal, and then go on to encourage his readers to keep ours going for the long run! Maybe one needs to have (or at least communicate) that outlook when one wants to integrate into the current elite class, which he has explicitly set out to do.
@ Elkriver #3, I had what might have been a “turn away from death” experience.
It was a very low time in my life. I had been fired from my job, was drinking and smoking heavily, and was very depressed and saw no future for myself. As I lay on my bed one afternoon I felt myself floating up towards the ceiling. At the same time I heard a loud roaring noise as though someone was shaking a large metal sheet next to the bed. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but felt that if I just relaxed and let go I might die, and it was wrong of me to let go. With a big mental effort I brought myself back to reality as just some guy lying in bed, and the floaty feeling and noise disappeared. The whole episode might have lasted about ten seconds.
A few days later the same thing happened — floating up to the ceiling accompanied by noise — but this time I was ready for it and mentally wrenched myself back within a couple of seconds.
It never happened again. I can’t say it had any spiritual effect. I put it down to some sort of hallucination. I did eventually kick the smokes and booze and get a job, but that was more through a lot of family support and a 12-step group.
JMG, what are some foreign policy fails that the the Biden administration could blunder into that would result in the same situation as James Weed’s Twilight’s Last Gleaming? Are there any possibilities of the morbid and hilarious blend laying around, like say…..
A Russian Invasion of Ukraine uncovers that Barisma’s deal with Hunter Biden was made on behalf of Biden himself?
Biden Administration is forced to institute a military draft because Israel’s collapse looks imminent. Only finds out that most young Americans are too obese/overweight for service.
A series of computer hacks on Critical Infrastructure leaves the South West without power or air conditioning in the depths of one of the hottest summers on record, the Biden Administration is forced to negotiate with the Chinese Government to track down the hackers in a closely affiliated Chinese satellite state…..
For molari up there at #10, before the calculator was the slide rule. Very quick, but does not track the decimal point, so you have to know what order of magnitude the answer will be before you start. I was in the third to last class to go through Naval Nuclear Power School with slide rules before they switched to calculators.
Also, on my bookshelf is a dusty copy of the CRC Standard Mathematical Tables, a book that has logarithms and trigonometry functions all calculated out to reasonable precision. Calculators killed off demand for that book really quickly.
Wikipedia killed off any need for my CRC handbook of chemistry and physics. Perry’s chemical engineering reference book is still around and would be useful if you can find a older copy.
This all made me remember a guy way back on some “doom is nigh” blog who asked what survival books he should load on his Kindle. Talk about not grasping the concept…
Sorry that I asked this question when it was OT before.
Now that’s it’s the appropriate time I would like to ask what you think are your best writings. And maybe why you choose those?
Thank you and thanks for all your work.
https://youtu.be/bMc7OZmBahs
I wonder if you are familiar with this.
It seems to open up many more questions with regards to “reality” experienced, than it does answering questions.
For instance (besides the obvious bizarreness) why this sound? Who and how did someone discover or receive this? What the heck is the little device? Can I get one at hot topic?
I brought this up on an earlier post, but it seems to be getting more craven and sad all the time. I am speaking of the new trend in the mainstream media to debunk or explain away bad press for the Biden regime. You know things are really getting bad when you get the following headline.
https://www.oregonlive.com/nation/2021/05/mad-about-high-gas-and-lumber-prices-turns-out-joe-biden-isnt-to-blame-after-all.html
Dear JMG,
Many thanks for your responses! A different question, if I may:
in the past few days I’ve listened to quite a bit of Hasidic Jewish music. This has gotten me thinking: I’ve attended quite a few Shabbats and some Seders and something that deeply impressed me was how much the experience of participating with a traditional culture differed from the more typical American experience. When I’ve spent time with traditional peoples in general who are not assimilated into the American mainstream I’ve seen the same thing. Their lives are certainly not perfect but they are in no way as dreary as what we see as the normal option for Americans. In short, American culture is really, really, incredibly, unspeakably boring.
Given that I’ve had exposure to more traditional Jewish, Muslim, Creole and Latin American cultures I can write with certainty that this level of tedium exceeds anything that I’ve ever seen. That is, American culture is in my experience uniquely boring. I consider the level of unbroken tedium in American life a profound political problem of the first order and something that contributes vastly to the current revolutionary situation.
My question then is what do you think are the magical roots of this facet of American culture? It seems from my research that the advent of the great tedium of American culture comes post WWII, as part of suburbia and television. Still, it seems to me that the outer manifestations likely come from something deeper and more spiritual, that they descend down the planes. Do you have a sense JMG whence this tedium comes, what myths and images contribute to this terrible reality?
John, et alia–
What does you think of the fact that the coming demographic reality of population decline has been openly acknowledged (for now, at least)? Given that the foundations of modern industrialism rest firmly on a premise of perpetual growth, the implications of long-term demographic decline are stark: fewer people with less consumption supporting over-built infrastructure and unsustainable entitlement programs. (For my own part and as one example, I’ve built into my own retirement planning the assumption that the ~25% haircut in benefits happens when the social security trust funds are depleted in the late 2020s/early 2030s. I don’t see Congress doing anything about this.) Once the consequences of the pending decline filter through, how are people going to react? Policy-makers are going to be confronted with very, very hard choices.
My assumption had been that the fact of the coming decline would be denied for as long as possible, but apparently that’s not what happened.
JMG,
I am considering reading Henry George’s Progress and Poverty but I recall a few years ago you mentioned you thought he was wrong? Or maybe assessed the problem(s) incorrectly and thus his proposed solutions would not have their intended results? Or at least that’s what I vaguely remember. It’s not exact. I don’t recall exactly what you said about him. It’s just that I remember you disagreed with Henry George but never really explained what you disagreed with him about so I was left guessing as to what it was about him you disagreed with.
Could you explain what you thought was incorrect about Mr. Henry’s assessment and proposed solution(s)? Or if that takes too long for this month’s open post would you consider making it one of your monthly essay topics this year? In fact, now that I think about it, I suspect more blog readers than myself would be interested in your assessment of Henry George and maybe the historical circumstances of what he was trying to say and whether you think anything of Mr. George’s books have merit for today’s circumstances for industrialized societies?
@Ecosophia Readers
Are there other blog readers here who will 2nd (3rd, 4th, etc) my request for a full essayt on George Henry?
Oops! I’ve been putting in requests at my now finally opened public library so much (it’s taken that long!) that I said George Henry. *rolls eyes*
I actually did start Progress and Poverty about a 1-1.5 years ago but put it aside for other books I was wanting to read even more at that time. Now I want to go back to it but I still have that niggle in the back of my mind that JMG didn’t agree with Mr. George’s assessment (or was it his proposed solution?). I don’t recall which it was just that JMG didn’t agree.
Hello JMG and commentariat,
It’s been a while, but I used to post here pretty often as just Jen (my little avatar thing seems to have gone missing and somehow now my Google account has become ascendant, but some of you may remember me).
Just wanted to give an update:
I’ve been at Wheaton Labs in Montana for a couple years now, and have learned a lot. I am now returning to Texas to start ranching and farming again, and getting married to a man I met at the PDC here taught by Alan Booker. I cannot recommend Alan’s PDC highly enough–he is a brilliant, thoughtful, observant, and very kind man, as well as a competent occultist in his own right. Josiah (my fiance) and I have spent the last couple of years living off grid practicing timber framing, natural building techniques, and permaculture design together, and are ready to split off on our own and put it all to work on my family ranch back in Texas.
In addition, we have both been participating in the Levi book club (although neither of us have joined the discussion yet), and I am continuing my AODA studies.
We will be returning to Texas in mid-September, and the wedding is on October 15, 2021. We also plan to have an annual harvest/anniversary party to share what we’re building, raising, and growing each year. If anyone can make it out to Columbus, Texas and wants to check out our projects or eat and drink with us, email me at jennifer dot ann dot richardson at gmail dot com.
Also, a special thank you to Violet, who sent seeds that have been planted here in Montana and will also be planted in our new home once we return!
Violet, the extreme boringness which you describe is not only a part of Amerian culture, it is, as far as I can tell, and experience, a problem of the Western world as a whole. In Germany, where I live, it is similar, although our equivalent of suburbia is somewhat different.
@ Secretface2097 Comment #163
I was there just before covid stroke. Same age, same thoughts, same unfulfillness.
I think the problem is that we are left without any spiritual practice to face these problems in modern life. So, really, any spiritual practice would do.
I consider myself an atheist (where gods are a useful representation of natural processes, but not the real thing), yet I have found meditation and magical practices quite worthy for peace of mind. Studying the Cosmic Doctrine, as instructed by JM Greer is really mind opening (but not that much that your brains fall off). It’s a way to see natural processes, with a deep understanding of them, that will clarify much of what is currently happening in your life. Also, meditation (discursive meditation too, and you get to learn new things as a plus), gives you skills for handling your emotions, instead of letting them handling you.
I also took a gardening hobby (a must for druids, though I don’t plan to become one), and I must say that working with nature is really food for the soul in itself, but in addition I got a purpose, a dream, made new friends and learned new things.
Re: waking people up from covid/vaccine hysteria
I have also debated whether to be more active in this regard. I don’t exactly evangelize but I have shared my views on my blog and social media. Pushback has been surprisingly muted, as it seems most folks are not prepared to counter my logical arguments, and so those who disagree seem to remain silent more often than not.
This does seem to be precipitating a “sorting” of the population along some new axes: those who are willing to think independently vs. those who prefer to believe what they are told, and (perhaps more importantly) those who cannot bear to see Progress reversed even slightly (i.e. overall death rates rising to levels last seen 20 years ago) vs. those who see the end of Progress as inevitable and not something to freak out about. For those who report feeling isolated and shunned, I would also encourage seeking out new friendships and connections with folks who think similarly.
Re: calculators
It is the *long* descent, after all, and I would be very surprised if any of us currently alive will live to see a day when calculators or similar tools are completely unavailable. As resources decline, I would expect to see electronics rise in cost to become tools of the trade rather than five-dollar desktop throwaways, but $500 calculators would still make economic sense for accountants and engineers. That’s not to question to value of learning math and other basic skills without reliance on modern gimmickry.
JMG,
I am re-reading your Weird of Hali series and some vital questions have come up.
1) Can you tell us some beers that you enjoy? If they are all local can you name one national brand that you consider palatable?
2) Same with tea.
3) What music do you like to have on in the background?
4) Was the Chaudronnier mansion based on a real place?
More to come as I make my way through the series. Oh, any word on the RPG?
AV
Respectfully, John et al. The UFO subject requires some genuine and prolonged research of the thousands of relevant eye witness accounts, opinions and conclusions of reputable people (Jaques Vallee, Allen Hynek, for a start) before one can offer an informed opinion. The ‘evidence’, albeit mostly anecdotal, (some not) is compelling and deserves looking at squarely. One would have to assume that there are very many people (some of high standing) who willingly invite disdain and ridicule in order to propagate a lie that has zero gain. I just don’t see the pay-off.
As far as I can see, intelligent people who have been looking at this issue for many years are not jumping to any conclusions about the origin of UFOs, but are quite convinced that there is some kind of non human intelligence interacting with the human race. Curiously, I imagine that idea to be quite amenable to yourself, John, and your readers. The sticking point seems to be the possibility of advanced technology which understandably throws a spanner in your idea of our ‘long descent’.
The best explanation I’ve heard for the UFO phenomena is the analogy of a human being trying to enter a 2D world. All flatlanders would see is the cross section of certain body parts. Similarly, maybe what people are witnessing are intrusions into our 3D world from 5D objects, which would explain their utterly confounding nature. So, what if they’re not aliens, but trans-dimensional beings?
There are so many things here I want to comment on but don’t want to clog up the comment section.
@temporaryreality I’ve been looking on-and-off for a mimeograph machine and will start up again and see what I can get. I’m very excited about this project! Is there a way to subscribe for updates or do you have a newsletter? I want to keep up with it. Thank you.
@deadnotsleeping Thank you for the update on Israel’s vaccinations and still being able to resist it. I refuse to get this stupid “vaccine” that does not stop people from getting Covid or passing it to others. It might limit me from doing my work but I’ll just figure something else out.
@cutekitten Praying for your quick recovery!
@JMG I got a good laugh from the word “zany” in the PW review. I guess “crazy” is too offensive these days. My copy arrived last week and it’s even more of an enjoyable read than I anticipated. It kinda feels like a lot of your themes are all gathered in one place as “greatest hits.”
Thank you for the response about having one’s own mind. I saw the standard for a comment section being that people could post only comments that were both non-PC and PC. In other words, don’t just say standard talking points from the media narratives, and don’t come to be offensive on purpose; post your original thoughts and questions. I think about that standard a lot with two questions: What is the usual accepted/allowed two sides of this posted idea? Now what are my thoughts about it and what is the basis for that?
This comments section is still one of my favorite stops during the week.
Justin,
I intend to buy the book, so thank you for the recommendation.
If I am not mistaken, most of the damage has already occurred. To give you a personal example, my husband went to a church with a very diverse crowd twenty odd years ago. All of them identified as evangelical. Probably half of those people (mostly the more intellectual and affluent of the bunch) are no longer speaking to him and when they do speak to him the interactions tend to get a tad heated.
Many of them are very anti Trump and now seem to have adopted liberal positions wholesale. One of them used to attend anti abortion protests, and now she goes to pro-choice marches wearing a pink hat. She still calls herself an evangelical, but it’s a bit of a misnomer to my mind “It’s life Jim, but not as we know it”. She has been largely unfriended by most of her former (still orthodox) evangelical friends, from what I can gather, due to her combativeness (my husband unfriended her himself on Facebook, after she wished some horrible fate upon our infant daughter because of his anti-abortion stance). They seem to have substituted some of their orthodox religious positions for the religion of social justice warrior – and they are, I would say, most definitely evangelical about THAT! It makes life an awful lot easier when you don’t have to have anything to do with them. I do see a bit of irony there I have to say….
Another thing which I see going on more recently is the divide between the QANON-ers and the rest of us.. not sure where that one is going to go, or how it’s going to evolve. To my mind, it’s potentially more serious.
https://off-guardian.org/2021/05/18/how-the-cdc-is-manipulating-data-to-prop-up-vaccine-effectiveness/
It looks like we will never have a level playing field in the USA to enable us to make a judgment for all the age groups between no vaccine/vaccine
Seaweedy, it’s a very useful book. It won’t help you particularly with Lévi, but it’s worth reading as a counterweight to the more enthusiastic works on the Templar legacy.
Chris, I expect plenty of braying! As for the health thing, that’s a really good question. I’m still not sure why this virus got such an overblown reaction when, as you’ve pointed our, plenty of more dangerous diseases get a shrug. Thus I don’t know when that reaction is likely to give way to something a little less over the top.
Your Kittenship, the Patreon-style services I’ve worked with don’t let you charge per chapter, just per month; I found that $5 for my basic astrological reports and $10 for the fancier ones got plenty of takers, so $5 a month might well be a good price. I’d suggest one chapter a week at that rate.
Temporaryreality, that’s the one! A classic Gestetner model. One of the things that made the cyclostyle charming was that its stencils were all handwritten — I imagine getting a knowledge lecture in William Wynn Westcott’s own handwriting. 🙂
KidVrain, hmm! Well, synchronicity is everywhere…
Adwelly, oof! That sort of thing has been going on for a very long time, of course, all through the academic world, but having it out in the open is going to rattle some cages good and hard.
Drhooves, no, I don’t think there’s anything subliminal going on. Get people frightened enough and their brains shut down — that’s been a standard gimmick of malevolent magic for a very long time.
Augusto, hour and day of Venus is traditional; the Moon will be waning this Friday but it’s not far from the full, so don’t worry about it.
Jacinto, depends on the sources of the crush. If it’s just something psychological, possibly; if it’s a connection from a previous life, probably not. In either case, you can choose not to act on it, of course.
Deadnotsleeping, hmm! I don’t think I’ve ever encountered that. Anyone else?
Devonlad, England was a viable nation long before 1603 and it will be a viable nation after Scotland regains its independence. The notion that only big nations are viable is an offshoot of the myth of progress — which is of course the founding myth of the EU; I expect to see the EU break up within my lifetime, for what it’s worth, or be reduced to a shell along the lines of the Holy Roman Empire. As for England, it’ll only really begin to heal from the self-inflicted wounds of its imperial era once it finishes shedding its conquests and becomes just England again.
kriswils2013 says:
“The best explanation I’ve heard for the UFO phenomena is the analogy of a human being trying to enter a 2D world. All flatlanders would see is the cross section of certain body parts. Similarly, maybe what people are witnessing are intrusions into our 3D world from 5D objects, which would explain their utterly confounding nature. So, what if they’re not aliens, but trans-dimensional beings?”
That resonates with me. As you are probably aware, the Jungian explanation considers the UFO experience to be an eruption of the collective unconscious into human consciousness.
From the perspective of the conscious mind, the collective unconscious is an alien intelligence and it is utterly confounding.
From the point of view of the collective unconscious, human consciousness is also alien.
Both are dimensions of Reality, but possibilities for trans-dimensional communication may exist.
This interpretation does not rule out parallel, material plane activities by various human organizations such as the military, governments, and other secret groups.
@ Marcos #1. If you’ve got access to soil, you can start learning soil improvement empirically. It won’t earn you that all-important fancy document, but you’ll better understand the reality of soil as a living, breathing entity.
Go out every day and look at your soil. Really study it. Dig down a trowel deep and see the layers.
Examine the soil with a magnifying glass and then a microscope at regular intervals. What you’ll see will change with location and the seasons.
Do basic soil tests, starting with a one-quart glass canning jar, a scoop of soil, and water. Shake vigorously and let it settle. What did it settle into?
Start adding organic matter and document what happens over time. What seems to change things more? Coffee grounds? Eggshells? Leaves?
Does the soil change as it moves from an overgrown wilderness edge compared to the middle of the lawn? It should.
Did you know you can improve your lawn simply by setting the lawnmower to its highest height? Taller grass has deeper roots. Use a mulching lawnmower and you’ll see even more improvements over time.
This is all practical, real-world knowledge that will add immensely to whatever you learn in school. We’ll all be growing plenty more food locally and we won’t have access to magical fertilizers made from natural gas.
No, this won’t get you an embossed sheepskin, but you will get results.
@ Jean # 4 and Vaccination.
My husband and I have not yet gotten vaccinations. We’re both 61. So far, we’ve been able to avoid it, but then, we’re self-employed indie writers.
We may eventually be forced to vaccinate in order to participate in local shows and events.
Already I’m seeing (in Central PA) a mashup of signs ranging from no masks required if you’re vaccinated (who’s checking?) to masks at all times no matter what your vaccination or recovered from Covid-19 status is.
I am not anti-vaccine at all. Nonetheless, I do prefer my vaccines to have been properly tested prior to releasing them into the larger population.
Look at the history of rota-viruses and their vaccines.
Dear JMG:
I have a couple of questions:
1) I remember reading a comment Mark Stavish made about a conversation he had with you circa 2012 about the future of religion in America and you stated that you thought the Independent Sacramental Movement stood a good chance of gaining ground as “meso-denominations” in the years to come (correct me if I’m wrong). If so, how might your position have changed, and for those of us in the mainstream sacramental churches tired of the political agendas, what lessons can we learn from the ISM so that we survive as valid churches of the Christian Mysteries? (I would frankly be happy if my church survived as a tiny minority jurisdiction if it meant a valid continuation of the tradition).
2.) While I originally went to college with the expectation of becoming a professor I’ve since given up that goal a) to avoid the hot mess universities have become, and b) to change courses toward the priesthood, and as an independent scholar. I’m still rather fond of my ethnographic/ethnohistorical Master’s thesis on alternative spirituality in a particular rural valley; and lately I’ve thought of turning it into a scholarly, yet lay-reader friendly book for the general public. It will probably be through a small publisher/print-on-demand, but other than that I have no clue how to proceed. Any tips you or the other readers if this kind of experience would be greatly welcome.
Thank you very much in advance. Many blessings to you.
Sincerely,
Christopher Kildare (nom de plume).
I’d like to say I really enjoyed the KIng in Orange. I will be rereading it in a couple weeks once I’ve had time to think about what you wrote there. It is one of the most thought provoking books I’ve read in years, and I think it deserves a closer second reading. I intend to come back to the next open post with some questions, but right now, I just want to say how much I enjoyed reading it.
On a fairly different topic, I’ve come to realize that a major factor keeping me stuck where I am is that I don’t know what I want, nor how to get there even when I do. I’ve been starting to use astrological days and hours to good effects, and would like to confirm I’m on the right track with the assumption that the best time to set aside for contemplating where I am in my life, where I’m going and how to change course to get to where I want to go would be Saturday during an hour of Saturn.
Lunar Apprentice (37&44),
That’s a valid point. I’ve been assuming Covid-19 is fairly widespread; my sole reason for that is that people I know who work in hospitals have said they have seen a lot more people showing up with respiratory illnesses. They’ll freely say it’s not the world ending disaster so many people are claiming, but it’s a major change, and one of the most parsimonious explanations I have is that Covid-19 is real, and fairly widespread.
However, I will freely agree it is an assumption, and that I could be very wrong.
I also hope the prion event doesn’t happen. My own divination on the topic, however, has told me that I need to avoid the vaccine because it will cause neurological issues; as well as that my entire family will get them, since everyone else in my family signed up with a remarkable amount of enthusiasm….
JMG, Robert Mathiesen (89), Jim Kukula (132), Your Kittenship (136), Scotlyn (159), Deadnotsleeping (184), Siliconguy (194), Mary Bennet (51)
Thank you all for your advice and suggestions on going about learning to do math without a calculator! I was not expecting to get so much useful advice and so many sources this quickly. I’m going to try to find a slide rule as soon as possible, and will take a look at the various resources and material you’ve provided.
Jasper (176),
I think you might be onto something here with calculators doing a major disservice; I find it rather eerie how many of the instructors seem to have no idea what they’re doing without it, and seem to struggle to understand how it works. Their calculators seem to function as a prosthetic, and like all of them, it replaces something human beings used to be able to do.
Mark L (205),
I will freely agree that calculators will continue to be made for quite some time, and that for certain trades they will remain viable and in use for a while. However, I also expect to see the costs rise a lot in the near future, and learning how to function without one is a useful skill. I expect that for however long I happen to need one, I will be able to get one, but I want to reach the point where I don’t need one quickly, for the simple reason that I figure that will provide me with more freedom and opportunities.
Abraham, there is indeed a discreet alternative. Imagine, as vividly as possible, that you’re speaking the words aloud. Imagine feeling them resonate in your body and in the air around you. Some books on occultism call this the Great Voice; it’s not as effective as actually vibrating the words aloud, but it’ll do if you don’t have the option. As for the garden, spend plenty of time in it and mentally frame the question: “Garden, what can I do to help you to thrive?” It may take a while, but you’ll get an answer.
P.log, fascinating. I think I’m going to propose the Law of the Conservation of Panic; there’s only so much panic to go around, so while everyone’s panicking about coronaviruses, people forget to panic about terrorists going through airports.
Seidemann, sure, and if pigs had wings we’d all catch our breakfast bacon with butterfly nets. So?
Alex, (1) it’s at the publisher now. I expect it to be released sometime in 2022. (2) The concept was there but it didn’t have a convenient label, which is why the word “karma” was adopted so eagerly once it came on the scene. It’s like the concept of zero, another Indian import: everyone had the concept of “nothing,” but having it so neatly and conveniently denoted was so useful that everyone adopted the 0 sign once it reached Europe.
Robert, oof — I didn’t know they hadn’t fixed that yet. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t been released in Britain yet; when it does, you can order a copy via https://uk.bookshop.org/ .
Booklover, well, the historical trajectory in my tentacle novels was based squarely on what I saw happening around me, so that’s not surprising! What I expect to happen is a series of sharp crises followed by a plateau and some degree of recovery. Here in the US, to judge by the spreading shortages and the degree of public hysteria, I’m pretty sure the leading edge of crisis is very close.
Secretface, welcome to the commentariat! Your mileage may vary, of course, but my take is that spirituality is essential in times like these. There are enduring realities that make sense of the world, and when human cultures come unglued, those enduring realities are a source of clarity and insight that can keep you sane. Me, I found my spiritual home in occultism; you may find it somewhere else; but I encourage you to consider finding some source of contact with the spiritual realm, and practicing the disciplines that belong to it.
Steve, sorry, I don’t — anyone else?
Justin, thanks for this.
Squirrelly, that’s very good to hear. Thank you!
Jasper, the scientific method isn’t simply doing something and seeing what happens. It’s a specific set of protocols for deciding what counts as disproof, which rely on being able to control most variables (which you can’t do in a magical context) and on objective quantitative measurements (which you also can’t do in a magical context).
NeptunesDolphins, many thanks for the data points!
Merle, positive energy en route.
NeptunesDolphins, that’s a fascinating speculation…
Patricia M, and where would be be without the dewy-eyed faith of the true believers?
Skyrider, funny. I’m not holding my breath in either case, but they’d be fun.
BCV, I saw that. Yes, it’s hilarious.
Matthias, sure, Burja’s fixated on his Great Founders to the neglect of issues like resources and environment. His theory won’t stand by itself, but he makes points that are well worth including in a broader synthesis.
AustinofOz, consider these possibilities:
1) Things heat up between the US and Iran. The US sends two aircraft carriers into the region, and after a flurry of saber-rattling, the US starts bombing Iran. The Iranians respond with a flurry of antiship missiles and both carriers are sunk, along with several of their supporting ships.
2) Things heat up between the US and Venezuela. The US sends a carrier. The same thing happens. The US doubles down with land-based planes, only to find that somebody’s covertly given the Venezuelans a state-of-the-art antiaircraft system and a whole bunch of US planes go down.
There are plenty of other similar options. The crucial point is that the US tries to flex its military muscles and suffers serious losses. In that case we hit instant political crisis here in the US, because nobody here knows how to handle anything but quick victory.
To Augusto #153, Thanks for your best wishes for my daughter and her university plans. Yes, exactly! The specific education you want and need doesn’t just present itself to you….you must be willing to research, compare and fill in the blanks yourself. My daughter is a real go-getter so if she feels that not enough art is included in her program, she will seek that out. In Waldorf school she had 6 years of art history from an excellent teacher so she knows where to look. Viva the beautiful buildings!
Seems like over the past several years Mexican higher education has been aligning itself more with European institutions and less with American ones…..so thanks for the idea of looking in that direction for grad school. We know several local kids studying in Italy and Spain…..and these are middle class kids.
Indeed, construction here remains extremely hands-on and interesting……I enjoy watching guys mix up concrete in the street with a shovel as much as I enjoy the artistry of my palapa guys repair “skylights” in my palapa. ….helps to keep it real 🙂
SundaraYogaShala
Check out the new poster child for clueless liberal elites…
https://www.foxnews.com/us/atlanta-defund-the-police-backer-has-car-stolen-by-kids-in-broad-daylight-reports
Regarding that Yahoo article about population decline that’s been posted here a couple times, it’s good to see an article that tackles the matter as what it actually is: an unavoidable situation that all countries are going to have to go through eventually and do their best to adapt to but which isn’t the end of the world. When I see an articles about population or birth-rate decline in this or that country get posted in the geopolitics subreddit I frequent, everyone acts like it’s some some catastrophe that can only be solved if governments implement the author’s pet policies, be it more government handouts, unrestricted immigration, or promotion of traditional family values.
Hi all
It seems that the “lab scape hypothesis” is gaining ground recently after more than a year of being considered a “lunacy”, I think the article that could have helped change minds in USA have been this one of Nicholas Wade:
https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038
He used the same metaphor (Pandora’s Box) and a good chunk of the arguments I used in my post of the end of last year about the same topic:
https://dfc-economiahistoria.blogspot.com/2020/12/pandemia-ii-la-caja-de-pandora.html
Of course I can’t prove that he copied my post, and in fact I don’t care too much, because I think what it matters is that people start to think about the risks of the genetic engineering “project”, that for me are bigger than those of the nuclear technology (civil or military), and I hope that it profoundly change the mindset about the risks of this technology in the same way that Chernobyl changed the perception of the nuclear energy for the future; but of course I am not sure at all.
Nicholas Wade’s article is very well written and I highly recommend it.
The future will be very complicated to have many more risks on top of the existing ones
Cheers
David
Re: Calculators
I was in high school when the educators switched over almost overnight from “calculators are banned” to “calculators are required”. There was a very subtle but discernible change that followed in the design of assignment and exam questions in math and science classes. The absence of calculators had always forced educators to design math and science questions such that the final calculation in the answer was a simple, straightforward one (like 12/4=3 or 5*7=35) so that what was taught and tested was knowledge of the principles involved rather than the drudgery of endless arithmetic. And it helped the students because anyone whose answer involved some unnecessarily complicated math (like 17.66/4.02=?? or some such thing) knew he had made an error somewhere and could set about on his own to find and fix it – a very useful but now almost lost art. Once the calculators were brought in, the immediate need for this simplicity evaporated so educators got lazy in designing the example problems, and the arithmetic became correspondingly more complex – with the result that the students no longer knew immediately when their answer contained a fatal error. And so this increased difficulty in the learning process has set us one step further along on the decline of society….
JMG – technically such a method is still possible, though the stencils are hard to come by (that’s the thing I’m looking for in India, if it’s still made there). The stopgap measure is to electronically create stencils (same mechanism as fax machines, using a thermal stencil paper, and you can still use handwriting). I’ll be starting there while trying to source traditional stencils.
Denis,
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll see about adding a subscription option to the blog page as I post updates to the general site there. I’ll be excited to hear how your search goes!
Goldenhawk, yes, I’m aware of the Jungian interpretation of UFOs. Honestly, I find it a little too reductive. However, if you start from a philosophical idealist position then material craft could indeed be eruptions of the unconscious, matter being excitations of consciousness from this perspective.
Interestingly, Jacques Vallee identified similar characteristics in alien visitations and Celtic folk tales of fairies. He invokes Jung’s trickster archetype to account for this. The same man is now in the process of publishing a paper on the properties of material supposedly recovered from UFOs (material whose atomic structure is suggesting an off-world origin. I don’t necessarily believe this, but I’m very interested in the way in which the so called evidence seems to constantly confound our theories- it’s purely subjective but it also has an objective material component!). It’s worth noting that he is a serious and respected scientist.
The only truth I can glean from all of the related material is that UFOs are here to confound us, to transcend any and all theoretical frameworks we might want to squeeze them into. Like death, it seems to be beyond our comprehension….it’s a 5D object!
Beyond the reality warping effects of seriously considering this subject, what I find endlessly fascinating is the inability of people to digest the possibility that the ‘other’ is intruding into our world. Some of the skeptical ‘debunking’ of recently released videos is more absurd than the phenomena itself, including David Brin’s effort. To suggest that trained fighter pilots cannot identify a bird, or a laser projection, or a visor reflection is patently silly. There is also the glaring and unaddressed question as to why the US government would permit it’s trained pilots to appear on television looking stupid as it deceived them. There is certainly no win there for public relations. Furthermore, the pilots are clearly credible and reluctant reporters. It’s a beautiful mystery!
One of my ferals had a kitten who died on my side porch last night (looks like another animal attacked her). Please pray for her little soul. I buried her in my garden this afternoon. I have named her Tiger. Thank you!
JMG, I keep hearing you mention on podcasts and elsewhere that you plan on writing occult novels and a book of occult philosophy. That prospect excites me immensely and I would gobble up those projects like a kid eating chocolate cake.
I’ll also place an order for the King in Orange soon with a couple of Jung books I’ve procrastinated on buying. Looking forward to that one too.
JMG, I’m intrigued to hear your take that vaxxing may go the way of plastic straws but confess I have doubts about that. Doesn’t it seem likely that some kind of VAXPASS proof will be required for travel outside one’s own country? Won’t this divide be exploited internally also as another wedge separating the ‘good people’ from ‘the great unvaxxed’?
@secretface2927(#163) There’s a post at OffGuardian by an American expat living in Berlin that really grabbed my attention yesterday (https://off-guardian.org/2021/05/26/greetings-from-new-normal-germany/) It’s satire, but I’d love to hear your take on it.
temporaryreality @ 220 Sewers, quilters and crafters routinely make stencils by hand. Is this not possible for what you are trying to do?
The long decent a becoming a sharp crash…? Dear JMG and all other readers, if the current jabs are as effective as we now know they are at killing and seriously injuring people, the long term effects will not be better… What will the west look like in 18 months?
To JMG and the commentariat
I have been living in various small flats and travelling a lot for the last decade and consequently have a Kindle with many many books, purely for the convenience. I have always planned to buy all my Kindle books (well, all the decent ones I want to read again or keep as reference) on paper, when I have the funds and space.
I am fortunate enough to have the funds now and we are going to be buying a larger residence soon, so I should have the space too.
So I am thinking about the best way to do this. I have not done a complete count, but we are talking about hundreds of books, so quite a few thousands of dollars/pounds (including quite a few of JMG’s books incidentally).
The *easiest* way would be to go to Amazon and look through the list of my Kindle orders and click over to each book and order the paperback copy, but I wonder if there is a better way for me to do it so that an independent bookstore gets quite a large order. I don’t mind putting in some extra effort, to support an independent store (or even split between two or three) but not a huge amount. There’s also no particular hurry – I’ve read all these books. I just want to build a proper library.
What would you people recommend? Does that independent Bookshop.org site support something like this? Or should I literally just email a couple of independent stores with a list of hundreds of books and ask if they can help?
Any particular bookstores to try? I like Foyle’s on Charing Cross Road here in London and that is famous, but while it is indie, I’d like to support a smaller store. Some of the other second hand bookstores on that street are quite well known (not as many left as there used to be, but there’s still 2-3) but one of them has a really obnoxious “No Mask, NO ENTRY, NO EXEMPTIONS” sign outside which really puts me off (I don’t mind polite signs asking people to follow the law and mask up, but the law allows for exemptions and I won’t patronise a business which engages in aggressive fearmongering). Daunt and Hatchards are also excellent, but while smaller than Foyles, the same points apply.
Oh and for everyone, not just UK people – I have not been there in person but there’s a lovely bookshop called Mr B’s Emporium in Bath. Someone gave me a fantastic reading subscription from them as a gift. I know the concept but have never seen it executed so well. Basically the recipient of the gift subscription gets an email asking them to fill out a detailed questionnaire (very well thought out) about their interests and reading style and based on that, a *HUMAN*, not an algorithm decides on books you might like and sends you a surprise book every month – could be old or new – for as long as the subscription lasts. They nailed it pretty much every time for me – the first book I had already read and loved, and the other two I enjoyed. Great gift.
To Robert Mathiesen #172…..I graduated from Uni when we still handed in papers on paper, typed on a third hand typewriter and you could go talk it over with your actual professor. Perhaps the level of pride weighs too heavily on the house of cards…..I agree, it can’t last too much longer. Thanks again!
To Oilman2 #189…. Thank you for best wishes and sending the best to your son. He sounds like he was a very perceptive student! My daughter totally gets the changing energies all around us, so while she was taking her year off to devise Plan B, she decided to go to business school….which translates into starting a business. She makes handmade perfumes and skincare products …..good quality and easily affordable. It’s going pretty well and it provided a bargeload of real life skills and will power. She will continue the business while in school as everyone nowadays needs several sources of income.
We live in Quintana Roo so she won’t be too far from mama but far enough to spread her wings. Here, we never had any shortages as I said…..while receiving photos from friends in the States and the UK of empty store shelves during lockdown, we had an absolute embarrassment of riches right here in our little town, from canned food and dry goods to toilet paper to fresh fruit and veggies with little to no price increases.
Enjoy your time in Tabasco! SundaraYogaShala
For Steve T
https://ptolemaeus.badw.de/work/44
Is this it? There appear to be different translations of his works in Latin.
A question for those versed in website development: I have a self-hosted site running WordPress and I’d like to add a widget or plugin that allows for readers to subscribe to posts by email (the way JMG has done in the sidebar). Jetpack wants me to have a wordpress.com site, most plugins I see are trying to make me set up a subscription service (mailchimp, mailerlite, etc) I already have mailerlite, but I’m not trying to create subscriber content, I just want something automatic and RSS-like that sends readers my new blog posts. If you know how to solve this issue, would you please tell me how if it can be explained in under 50 wordsotherwise, please email me (gmail, username above). Thank you kindly for saving me from another hour (or more!) of searching!
@SundaraYogaShala
“She is interested in “sustainable architecture “ where one doesn’t have to depend on air conditioning but rather one can open well placed windows in an attractive building. ”
You have just described my dream house. When I look for people actually *doing* stuff like this, I find… nothing. it gives me hope for the future to hear that somewhere out there, a young future architect is headed in that direction! Congrats on raising such a fantastic daughter 🙂 Maybe someday, down the road, when I have enough money to build a house, and she has become a full-fledged architect… well, one can dream. Best of luck to her!
Temporaryreality, I don’t remember where you’re located, if I ever knew, but you might be able to find a goodly amount of information about mimeographs if you tap into science fiction fandom, especially such older APA (Amateur Press Association) and fanzine fans as are still around. Fanzine production used to be a huge and lively part of fandom; still is, I suppose, if you just spell it “blog.” I’m essentially out of fandom these days, but I used to hear the Boomers talk about the ditto machines or mimeos they had stored in the basement, either for old times’ sake or “just in case”. There’s a Hugo award for Best Fanzine; that might be a place to start.
JMG, I have a question for you — given how overpopulation and resource depletion are going, do you expect water shortages to become an important political fact in first-world countries? If so, when? Recently, there have been several high-profile droughts in places like Vietnam and Taiwan that usually get far more rainfall, and the water situation in parts of the US is well-known, but I’ve barely seen it publicized by the media. Do you expect water shortages to play an important role at all in the future of the US and other privileged nations, or will they be overshadowed by other, more pressing crises?
@neptunesdolphins I appreciate you sharing your food list. A couple weeks ago it hit me during meditation to limit my foods and my list is similar. Somehow leaving out pasta, and anything with flour, improves my clarity during meditations.
My new observation with Covid fanatics is it seems to be all the Resistance participating. All the energy pretending they were in the French resistance under Nazi occupation went effortlessly into battling Covid. They keep using the phrase “we can’t lose all the progress we’ve made fighting Covid” often and its just so odd. These people wore cloth masks and used hand sanitizer against what they claimed to be a deadly virus. Neither item protected them. If questioned, they shrieked and pointed their fingers claiming “believe the science!”
I’m not sure where all the energy goes once they are told Covid is over again. They clearly don’t want it to be over. I shudder to think they decide to focus on climate change. We’ll be back to fixating on something like the plastic straws again.
@Mollari:
You dont need a calculator, after you learn the math you need in your program, or while you are learning it, practice some of the same problems by hand. Then, for the “special keys” on the calculator, like trig functions, logrithms, etc… you can just use look up tables, practice now. I have a CRC Standard Mathmatecal tables book, I bought it in college ( I have an engineering degree so had alot of math) and you can look up all the functions in that and it also has alot of the basic formulas so it is a good reference book to have. Looks like you can get a used hardcover of the latest edition. This is the bible of math look up tables
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1439835489/ref=olp_aod_redir_impl1?_encoding=UTF8&aod=1
Just a general reminder for Twilight’s Last Gleaming scenarios that we don’t know the extent of that Solar Winds hack a few months back. All kinds of things could occur or show up unexpectedly.
Plus word on the street is that over half the homes being scooped up with all cash offers plus paying all fees is being done by Chinese nationals. Are they moving into the homes or just investments? No one has a clue.
@Martin_Grandaunet
It’s interesting to me how “tweedle-dee” and “tweedle-doom” are dominating the vaccine discussion.
The current rate of vaccine-induced deaths and adverse effects is much higher than officially acknowledged but still not enough to show up as significant excess deaths or crowded hospitals, i.e. not at crisis levels. Longer term, if ADE or autoimmunity problems crop up, death and suffering could increase dramatically and it could strike a serious blow to the religion of Progress and to the associated blind faith in vaccines. But at the same time it is not going to kill off half of humanity. Even if it’s new mRNA technology, it’s still just the same basic biology of genes, proteins, antibodies, and immune responses, and human bodies have a great deal of built-in diversity and resilience against all manner of disruptions.
I confidently predict that those who currently believe these vaccines are 100% safe will be sorely disappointed 12 months from now, and that those who are expecting all vaccinated people to die or become seriously ill will also be disappointed.
JustMe, my best nonfiction books so far are Inside a Magical Lodge, A World Full of Gods, and After Progress. All three break new ground, exploring topics that were almost completely neglected beforehand, and I’m very satisfied with the way they build their arguments. My best novel so far is The Shoggoth Concerto; it succeeded in hitting the exact emotional tone I wanted, ran through a series of variations on that theme, and ended perfectly. Of course your mileage may vary!
Travis, I don’t do videos. If you’ve got an essay to recommend, I’d be happy to read it.
Clay, that’s just priceless.
Violet, it’s the normal aftermath of culture death. The United States had thriving regional cultures and a nascent national culture, but the latter was killed, stuffed, and mounted by corporate interests in the early 20th century and the war against the regional cultures is ongoing — half the reason it’s so fashionable to hate the South these days is precisely because the South has done a better job of holding onto its own culture than most. Replacing cultures with manufactured corporate pseudocultures is an essential theme in modern marketing, and the boredom is part of that — bored people are easily talked into wasting their money on consumer goods, after all.
David BTL, I’m still trying to process the fact that it happened. To accept the reality of approaching population decline is ultimately to give up on progress — it’s to give up on the fantasy of metastasizing across the galaxy and instead begin to think of settling back down onto a planet that will become much larger again as our population becomes smaller. It’s game over for the civil religion of progress, and sudden death for the entire world of ideas built on that dubious foundation. How are people going to cope as that sinks in? I have no clue yet.
Panda, my objection to George is that he was too fixated on a single issue — in his case, the role of land and natural resources in driving inequality. If you read my book The Wealth of Nature (or for that matter Retrotopia you’ll notice that I adopted his “single tax” as one important aspect of the reforms I propose — but it’s also crucial to control the mismatch between the money economy and the economy of actual goods and services, and his approach would do nothing to control that. That’s why in Retrotopia, the Lakeland Republic taxes all natural resources that enter the economy, and it taxes all income that is generated by money making money, but does not tax earned income — wages, salaries, dividends, royalties, and so on.
Jen, welcome back, congratulations on your engagement, and best wishes for the work ahead! All this is very good to hear.
AV, I’m fond of most dark beers; a Guinness will always do. My tastes in tea are very broad, but white tea is a special favorite. My musical tastes tend to a weird mix of Baroque, 70s rock, and Windham Hill instrumental meditation music. No, the Chaudronnier mansion was wholly imaginary — and I don’t yet have a release date on the RPG but there’ll be a Kickstarter. More on this as I get more data!
Kriswils, I started studying the UFO phenomenon in the mid-1970s. I accepted the extraterrestial hypothesis for a while, but then rejected both that and the “null hypothesis” promoted by pseudoskeptics in favor of less stereotyped views. My book on the subject, The UFO Phenomenon, was published in 2009 — it’s recently been reprinted in an updated and expanded form as The UFO Chronicles. The subtitle of the new edition is a good summary: “how science fiction, shamanic experiences, and secret Air Force projects created the UFO myth.” I gather that you weren’t familiar with any of this.
The reason the UFO phenomenon doesn’t fit any set of categories, as I show in my book, is that it isn’t one phenomenon: a series of different phenomena, some sociological, some metaphysical, and some manufactured, have gotten wrapped up together under the label “UFO” and used as an anchor for exactly the fantasy that you’re trying to push here — that advanced technology will somehow bail us out from the consequences of our own actions and prevent our civilization from following the normal life cycle of all civilizations and ending in a new dark age. Did you ever hear of all those tens of thousands of Christians who gathered on hilltops in 1844 because they were sure Christ was about to descend and bring about the Millennium? For that matter, did you ever read that classic of sociology, When Prophecy Fails, which is about a bunch of UFO believers who predicted the end of the world and found out the hard way they were wrong? I recommend looking into both of these.
Denis, thank you. Yeah, I rather liked “zany.”
Naomi, yes, I saw that. Of course they’re cooking the books. I’m pretty sure the US medical industry these days doesn’t know how to get by without doing so.
Christopher, (1) I still think the ISM has a good chance of still being around when the big mainstream denominations have collapsed. As for what exactly you can learn, well, that’s more a question about you than it is about the ISM. Have you looked into what they have to teach? (2) I think that’s an excellent idea, but you’re literally going to have to unlearn everything you learned in university about how to write. Pick up a good nonfiction book on any subject that’s aimed at a general readership, and notice how the writer does it; then compare this to any academic text of your choice. Notice the use of active voice, straightforward sentence structure, colorful verbs, and a narrative tone in the book for general readership, and the avoidance of jargon and of constantly positioning oneself vis-a-vis the approved figures in the field.
Mollari, thank you, and yes.
Okay, I know “the opposite of one bad idea is usually another” but I couldn’t help the thought that sprang into my mind today, that would be perfect for a new meme (all you memesters out there, please feel free to roll with it!):
FOLLOW THE GNOSIS
I was thinking this as I went to something where I may have had to mask up… and I was kind of feeling (as someone who hasn’t been vaxed) that I find it really strange that people/cdc/corporate overlords & pmc want those who haven’t been vaxxed to keep wearing their mask. Yet isn’t the vaccine supposed to prevent the person who got it from getting the dread virus? Anyway… somewhere along the way…
FOLLOW THE GNOSIS
flittered into my brain.
Hope everyone is well.
@ Pinghanling: I am currently testing the usefulness of geomancy to predict the winner of sports matches, using a fixed question format. If the success rate is significantly more than 50% over a large sample size, I will consider that to be confirmation of the method’s effectiveness.
Thanks JMG, I will try my best.
@Patricia M, Elkriver
re: Choices. I have not been offered that particular choice: live or not. But I have had, a couple of times, a peculiar experience of *being given* unusual clarity, and a choice. the last time it happened– my life had been entirely upended, and I was consumed with grief, after a family tragedy. I was given a vision of intense clarity about my options. Grief is painful. We all wanted it to be someone’s fault, or to have an enemy on which to focus anger– because that hurts less than grief, and there was no shortage of volunteers for the position! What I was shown, in this bright, intense orange-hot-windy-desert place, was that I was at an inflection point, and I could choose to try to escape the pain of grief: to deflect it into anger, or try to hide or shield myself, and that ultimately my soul would become nasty, shriveled, and bitter. Or, I could choose to endure it: to voluntarily and consciously lay myself open to the full experience of grief, without hiding or turning aside from it in any way, and I would be shaped, melted, refined like metal in a kiln. Things would be burned away, and I would come out a different– but whole– person.
I chose not to become a toxic raisin. But it was the hardest, most painful thing I’ve ever done. I don’t normally have that kind of insight– it wasn’t *me*– and without being given that clear choice, I would easily and naturally have gone the escape/avoid/deflect route (I’d been headed there already). The… intelligence?… was right, though: I’m not the same person now. But I came through whole. And I’m not sure everyone else involved did. It was a narrow escape, and Someone was looking out for me. I am grateful.
@JMG @David BTL
“To accept the reality of approaching population decline is ultimately to give up on progress.”
I’m far from convinced that’s true, especially from the perspective of the elites pushing the “Great Reset” and other such social engineering agendas. I think there is increasingly a recognition that we are reaching hard limits in terms of per capita resources, and that one way to keep materialistic “progress” alive a bit longer is to reduce the number of capitas. There are certainly voiced concerns – which I would still place in the “conspiracy” camp though of course I can’t say for sure – that such an agenda is interwoven into the current pandemic-of-possible-lab-origin and rushed vaccination drive.
@JMG
“That’s why in Retrotopia, the Lakeland Republic taxes all natural resources that enter the economy, and it taxes all income that is generated by money making money, but does not tax earned income — wages, salaries, dividends, royalties, and so on.”
Are you familiar with the “UnTax” initiative which is essentially just that? (https://www.untax.org/) There’s too much utopian Progress language on their site but at least the idea is getting some airtime. It was mentioned on this week’s Crazy Town podcast, which discussed Peter Turchin’s theories and overproduction of elites.
@ Mark L well from what I can read from official government data VAERS in the US and countless other in Europe they all seem to cause massive organic failure, if not administored as a saline solution, in Germany and many other European countries they are administrating jabs to workers, the elderly, those on social programs, that cannot be coincidental I think….
Galen, okay, that’s funny.
Valenzuela, agreed. The calm and reasonable tone is the most astonishing thing about it.
DFC, thanks for this. I know the feeling — it happens fairly often that an idea I put out there in my blog gets picked up without attribution and then becomes widespread. (My distinction between problems and predicaments was the first of those, but far from the last.) I don’t mind; I’m shaping the collective discourse, which is my intention, and the fact that my ideas don’t have my name on them when they begin to take effect just means I get less hate mail. 😉
Temporaryreality, the original cyclostyle stencils were made from waxed cloth intended for kites. It should be possible to figure out how that was made — I doubt it was very complex, as we’re talking 19th century technology here — and maybe make some.
Kimberly, that’s sad. Blessings en route.
Youngelephant, the occult novel — well, actually it’s a trilogy — is coming along very slowly, but it’s coming along. I’ve got about 115,000 words done of a total of maybe 300,000 words; creating an imaginary midwestern town with rural surroundings, an imaginary Welsh town with rural surroundings, an imaginary American magical order founded in 1872, a history going back into the Middle Ages, and the entire course of study of the order in outline — oh, and a cast of around 200 characters distributed among the 11th century, the 17th century, the 19th century, and more or less today…it’s keeping me busy. The work on occult philosophy — I haven’t started that yet. I’m probably going to begin with a few essays critiquing the ideas of Nick Land, and go from there.
Jim W, here in bright blue Rhode Island, the mask mandate has been quietly deep-sixed. I went shopping today for groceries, and the grocery store has gotten rid of all its social distancing signs and put up a pallid little sign saying “masks recommended for unvaccinated persons.” I expect the same thing to happen more generally in the months ahead, as the chattering classes find something else to terrorize themselves about.
Martin, “we” don’t know much of anything yet. We still have no idea what the long-term effects of the vaccines will be because they haven’t been around long enough. That’s just it — nobody knows. The frantic attempts of the corporate media to insist that they know, and everything’s fine, are balanced precisely by the equally frantic attempts of the alternative media to insist that they know, and everyone’s doomed. Uncertainty is frightening stuff — but that’s what we have to live with right now.
UKBookshopGuy, my advice is to find an independent bookstore you like that’s not too far away from your new home, one that isn’t stupid about masks, and then just walk in there and say, hi, can you handle a really large book order? After they recover from the faint, and offer to buy you a pint, you can place your order and have the books in a week or two. You’ll also have a friend for life, and if you keep on shopping there you’ll help that bookstore stay open.
Ethan, it’ll vary from place to place, but crippling water shortages in some regions are pretty much inevitable at this point. Some regions of the American West will probably have to be abandoned over the next century or so, for example.
Denis, well, there’s that!
Justin, I like that. Thank you.
Mark, oh, I’m sure elites will continue to dream of progress for a long time to come, or at least until the tumbrils come for them. It’s the broader appeal of the myth that I see faltering. As articles like the one in Yahoo spread, and people begin thinking about what it will be like to live in a less crowded world, the entire mythology of progress will lose its grip and give way to something rather more like constructive nostalgia — which is after all normal at this phase of the historical cycle. As for UnTax, no, I hadn’t encountered it — thanks for the heads up.
Thank you very much, JMG!
OK I get your point @JMG but we do have documentation of serious deadly adverse effects, side reactions and injuries right now… how many more…? When is enough, enough??
I’am not saying everyone is doomed, but there is amble documentation that these jabs are harming and killing enough civilians to say this is not worth it….
Dear Violet, re: the utter tedium of cultural life in the USA
Several things come to mind. First is how the Romans, when they became the superpower of their world, became stodgy on principle. Gravitas trumped everything. Dancing and appearing to have fun was not good PR. How could you intimidate people who had seen you whooping it up?
Then, there is public schooling, in which the social security is all about being able to hoot down the other; and the reasons for doing so come down to “I don’t need any reason, I just need to do it.” There is no mitigating situation that requires or even allows the inmates to cooperate for mutual benefit. In such an anti-social environment, to do something as silly as having a good time in a non-stereotyped way just paints a huge target on your forehead. For some reason, obliterating yourself with some intoxicant is not considered as risible as dancing.
Then there is the aspect of rowdy crowds of people having a roaring good time that can so very easily turn into grassroots political action. Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a book about that, titled Dancing In the Streets.
Then there is the specter that haunts the consumer economy: If people could count on being able to entertain one another with jokes that are actually funny, and activities that are downright exhilarating, that don’t cost money, whole industries would be put out of business.
JMG, I agree with you that the mythology of Progress is rapidly losing its grip on the wider population, and that it’s well overdue and a very good thing. I’m also – in my community and in the book I’m working on – trying to push back against a particular comfortable-class ideology that embraces economic degrowth and population decline while remaining very much couched in the mythology of Progress – in the sense of assuming that a combination of renewable energy transition, economic degrowth, and population decline will allow them to maintain their current lifestyles with a few tweaks while also raising the standard of living of more marginalized populations (i.e. lots of talk about social justice and equity). So I’m not sure that the author of that article, or the editor who approved it, would agree that discussing population decline entails accepting the end of progress.
@temporaryreality I use ConvertKit for email lists (free for under 1,000 subscribers and their company is run by a homeschooler and not woke). There is a plugin for ConvertKit to link your account to subs. Set up the account at ConvertKit first and then they’ll send you an email telling you how to integrate it.
I switched from MailChip because they went full social justice last year and was afraid my account would be cancelled.
@JMG
Thanks for the clarification.
I’ve finished the King in Orange now, and have a few more questions. When you talk about the archetypal myth of The Changer playing out in America now, could the same not be said for most other well-established liberal regimes? The way the Changer is described – as a force which goes around swatting away obstacle after obstacle in its quest for change without much in the way of major crisis happening – seems applicable to quite a few countries. The UK, for example, has very rarely been afflicted by major crises of the sorts seen in continental Europe over the centuries, but still there are periods of social/political/economic change which defeat their obstacles (more often than not with less trouble than America). In fact, pretty much all the Anglosphere countries could be described the same way. As America loses its imperial privileges and slides down to Third World status, would it not be expected that a more volatile archetype would gradually take over?
I had a thought today that the reason ‘hydrogen’ has become the great fad again, is that around about now, battery-powered electric cars are on the cusp of reaching mainstream market acceptance, having the potential to meet the day-to-day motoring needs of a large fraction of people. Although whether the electricity grid would cope is another question.
If the electricity grid worries, and lithium supplies for batteries can be resolved, this is a possible problem for those heavily invested in the fossil-fueled establishment. What they need is a ‘jam tomorrow’ option to keep people in fossil fuels in the short-term, that has to wait 10 years or so until a whole new hydrogen infrastructure gets built (or not) complete with the facilities for electrolysing water to make hydrogen, hydrogen distribution and fuelling stations.
Dear VW, well certainly I share your sentiment that people might find the faith they need to get through the crisis. Here I’m hopeful if cynical: there are, they say, no atheists in a foxhole.
Dear Augusto, thank you for the data points!
Dear Jennifer, first of all I’m delighted to read about all of the good news — congratulations! second you are most welcome and thank you for sharing about the fate of the seeds I sent. That makes my day.
Dear Booklover, thank you for the data point! I had no idea that similar conditions prevail elsewhere.
Dear JMG, that really elegantly explains that — thank you!
@VW #65
Solarfed here. I have begun setting up an email list of Oregon folks whom are interested in meeting up.
Admittedly, I have been rather slow to work on this as of late. Some major life changes happened, almost literally, after I made that initial posting.
Anyhow, there are a number of people whom have replied to me and we have been exchanging emails a bit, back and forth. We have not committed to a first meeting, as of yet, however; it does seem we might first meet in Roseburg, Oregon.
You may email me at Bill Quanson at P M d O t M e
JMG, some of your ideas shape the collective discourse. That’s changing consciousness. You do magic with your blog.
Archdruid,
As the American economy rattles apart do you think there will be room for a return of the profit class?
Regards,
Varun
Re: what to do about vaccine pressure, etc.
There are people who chant the official mantra of the official government/mass media/church of science, saying that we can have parties/go on trips/eat out “when everybody has the vaccine.” I’ve noticed that these people have the glassy-eyed stare of a cult member when they say it. I have decided that it’s probably a waste of time to try to point out the problems with that. On the other hand, I have decided that I absolutely will not mouth the lies myself. If the subject comes up, I state my position as succinctly as possible and don’t pursue it any further.
There are some places (shops, restaurants, offices) that make everybody perform purification rituals – cover your face, purify your hands with alcohol from a plastic squirt bottle, bow down and let the officiant take your temperature. Then there are places where they have a jug of hand sanitizer and a touchless thermometer on a stand by the door collecting dust, just so that when the inspector comes by he can see that it is there – they don’t expect anybody to use it. So… guess which places I go to. I wouldn’t be surprised to see society gradually segregating in that way into members of the hygiene cult on the one hand, and normal people on the other. No need for health passports.
On the subject of health passports, I find notions of a digitally regulated dystopia rather far-fetched. Experience of daily life, as well as IT work in factories, suggests that such systems would not work well in practice. I can imagine shops installing terminals for everyone to scan the digital vaccination certificates on their smart-phones. It would work great, except when the server is down, or the wifi is spotty, or the latest iphone update breaks the app. I imagine the uptake would be about as high as with the contact tracing apps, which went over like a lead balloon last year.
JMG, awesome! Thanks for sharing. One follow up – does the trilogy have an underlying metanarrative, similar to Weird of Hali or Dion Fortune’s novels, that you can share?
To Mollari
Re: How widespread COVID really is
In response to the observation that there is apparently a new disease cropping up, the scientific method of inquiry would be to first confirm if the observation is correct (i.e. it’s not something that was here before and we just now noticed, or something already know that got mis-classified). The next step would be to come up with one or more hypotheses as to the cause, and test it (or each of them) with experiments.
That would mean actually identifying the virus in sick people (which it is my understanding that the PCR test does not actually do this, at least not directly), confirming that it is _not_ present in people who are not sick, and establishing that it is, in fact, transmissible between humans. I’m not an expert on the subject (not by a long shot) but my current understanding is that none of that has been done – the hypothesis that there is a virus called SARS-CoV-2 and it causes COVID-19 has been assumed to be true and never really challenged.
Other hypotheses have not been given serious consideration. It might be worthwhile to inquire, for example, whether some recently-introduced chemical toxin might cause those symptoms. Vaping, lab-grown meat in fast-food hamburgers, radioactive cesium from Fukushima… I’m just tossing out ideas; but the point is that there might be another explanation.
I ran across this article in my link crawl today, and found it a fascinating reflection (from a culture I know very little about) of a lot of things this blog has been discussing recently: the Christian God not responding to prayers, the updated Catholic mass being awful and perhaps even no longer holy, an example of a circular firing squad on the political right (!), rank tribalism at the expense of common sense and logic, Violet’s comment that people seem to be pulling away from religion en masse in recent years, COVID making people lose their gosh-durn minds, and business-as-usual simply not working any more…
https://skojecfile.steveskojec.com/p/against-crippled-religion
I have utter sympathy for the man – I could never have endured what he did for as long as he did, and his decision sounds mandatory for his own health – but I wonder, just from a personal perspective, whether living in the high-octane world of social media and blogging is one of the reasons for his current spiritual crisis. JMG manages to keep up his posting without flaming out, but I think it’s in part because he strictly limits his exposure to that world (no video, no American news, no huge and unbelievably corrupt clergy whom his own reputation is tied to whose crimes are being exposed at a rapid clip in both those mediums, etc).
And… another thought… he doesn’t ever seem to have had an actual religious experience? Not one single moment where God spoke to him, or the angels directly answered his prayers, or where he interacted with the numinous, or caught a glimpse of a world beyond our world. It’s really pretty amazing how far he’s gotten on, truly, nothing but faith. I wonder whether he’s even prayed to Mary?
I will keep this man in my thoughts as he embarks upon his long-overdue (I believe) crisis of faith, and hope he comes through it in one piece. I hope the good people in this commentariat will spare a thought or a prayer for him as well.
JMG and Mary Bennett – the stencils for mimeograph are made from waxed or otherwise coated paper. Originally it was washi paper (made from a particular mulberry tree not really grown outside Asia) and later I think there was a special “cellulose blend” that was used (not totally certain, I haven’t gotten that far in my research). The “impression” is made on these stencils with stylus or typewriter – essentially moving the coating aside so ink can then bleed through from ink pad to paper.
As JMG notes, this is do-able on a small scale if you’ve got the right supplies. I have been downloading patents and there are things that can be tried (I’m just not there yet). For convenience, though, I hope to start with the stencils one can still hopefully get. They seem to be made in Japan in limited quantity.
One thing I’ve been realizing is that while things made in the 19th century might seem easier to mimic, there were very robust industrial processes and products available so technologies underwent changes and true “upgrades” with great rapidity. The flurry of patents I’ve come across points to this – improvements really did improve things, so though we might be able to (somewhat) easily replicate the first versions of things, their quality may actually leave something to be desired. Garage quality vs. factory quality might mean the difference between stencils that allow ink to bleed everywhere and those that focus its flow. But that’ll be part of the experiment down the line.
SisterCrow – yes, the fanzine folk are well-versed in mimeographs. I’ll be looking through the fanac site at some point, perhaps. I’ve got a contact who works at Univ. of Iowa’s library and who’s been doing work related to zines and mimeographs. There appear to be some DIY versions of mimeographs detailed in some of the zines, so I’ll be posting those as I get access (grateful for his research).
I guess you all can tell that I’ve become tremendously fascinated by this whole topic. 😀
I saw Mr. Skojec ‘s article too. I thought that before the leaving the Church over one bad priest, he ought to try complaining to the bishop. I hope it all works out for him.
Martin, I’m not going to get any of the coronavirus vaccines, and the comparatively high rate of serious adverse reactions is an important part of that. As for “when is enough enough,” well, do you have the power to stop the medical industry from pushing their vaccines? Neither do I. So all we can do is encourage people to think twice about taking an untested experimental pharmaceutical, and wait and see what happens.
Mark, a good point. It’s hardly new for believers in progress to miss the obvious consequences of the things they’re talking about…
Mr. White, that’s a very good question to which I don’t have the answer. Right now the US is the cultural center of the Anglosphere, and so it’s not improbable that its archetypes would dominate the Anglophone countries. A country can decline from global hegemony and keep its role as a cultural center — consider Spain, which is still culturally influential all through the Spanish-speaking world even though its empire has been pushing up daisies for a very long time. What we don’t know is whether the United States will keep its cultural role as its age of empire ends.
Mawkernewek, that makes a lot of sense.
Bruno, and that’s quite deliberate.
Varun, yes, because as the economy tips over into contraction, the capacity to maintain vast corporate hierarchies will come apart, leaving individual business owners a default model.
Youngelephant, depends on what you mean by “metanarrative.” What do you think is the metanarrative of The Weird of Hali?
VW, ouch. That’s harrowing — and it’s identical, in all but detail, to what I’ve been told by scores of former Catholics I’ve met who left Catholicism for Druidry or other alternatives. Repeated, flagrant abuse on the part of clergy or monastics, supported and excused by the hierarchy, with no recourse for the victims of abuse: in every case, that’s what drove them away.
Temporaryreality, fascinating. Thanks for all this info!
Your Kittenship, er, he did complain to the bishop. He mentions that in his post. He got a dismissive response.
JMG, I’m using it in the same way one might use the word theme which might be a mistake. I’m pretty sure I lifted this usage of it from Keys to the Temple. I might give up on this word since I seem to miscommunicate every time I use it :). One theme/metanarrative which stands out in Weird of Hali is the misapplication of rationalism, or human hubris opposed to its opposite (I don’t know that there’s a convenient word for the opposite of rationalism). I’m trying not to write too much about it in case people haven’t read it. And Fortune’s whole theme/metanarrative seems to me to be the restoration of natural relationships and cure of neurosis facilitated by the pagan gods.
@methylethyl:
You have just described my dream house. When I look for people actually *doing* stuff like this, I find… nothing.
There’s a fair number of people who are interested in this. The library I work at has a selection of books on sustainable homes. I’d also say look up CalEarth, earthbag homes, and Earthship Biotecture. (Earthship Biotecture, unfortunately, seems to be floundering. My feeling is that its founder, Michael Reynolds, is too spastic to run a business. But his ideas are worth considering.)
But in a sense, you’re right. There’s a way that society could have gone, innovating sustainable, livable, aesthetic homes. Instead we’ve gone for concrete, styrofoam, air conditioning, wifi, and stick frame houses that get knocked together quick so people can game the market with them.
@Josh, thanks for the lead anecdotes! Do you have a classical background?
JMG, ordered the Kilner book on auras. Surprise, surprise, dicyanin dye is not much for sale.
JMG,
Regular poster here. I took a job at a super-woke company that is really necessary for me in the short term. I hope to build up some reserves before I accelerate my collapse. I am careful about exposing my identity online. Hence this alternative handle. Hope that is ok.
The past year has been quite interesting. It is like watching a theatrical production of a classic play by a new troupe: I know this story already, I am just eager to see the people who play the characters, and the slight variations they bring to the way the characters are portrayed. Because of your blogs and many books we know the plot points of decline of industrial civilization already. So most things don’t feel like a surprise or shock. That has helped in staying sane and grounded. Thank you for this.
Now just a couple of interesting data points.
1. Colonial Pipeline is not the only one who suffered a cyberattack this month. The Scripps clinic in La Jolla, California was locked out of it’s computer systems for nearly half of May. So much that they had to use the good old paper system.
https://www.lajollalight.com/news/story/2021-05-15/scripps-ransomware-shutdown-hits-the-two-week-mark
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/scripps-health-outage-ransomware-attacks-cal-dept-of-public-health/2598793/
I am guessing that the attackers are quietly doing target practice, honing their techniques and testing the defences of US computer systems without causing too much alarm.
2. I came across this substack post. https://doxa.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-everything-game
This has some remarkable similarities with what adwelly posted about collusion in academia. This looks like a good example of Barbarism of Reflection in real life.
JMG, He did? I missed it. My apologies. Nyquil makes me a bit foggy (though cheery). 🍷. Most dioceses of any size have open parishes anyone can join, usually those of historical value. He could try one of those. If he already lives in the open parish, maybe he could switch to the Protestants. Or even become a Druid.
He could also embarrass the diocese by telling his story to reporters. That’ll serve ‘em right. 😈
Weilong, in the department of anec-data, my heavy vaping friend did not get covid, her pack a day smoking husband did. Both mid-seventies. I believe the vaping illnesses and deaths were attributed to vape cartridges with oil in them in the end.
TemporaryReality, my local county historical society museum has a collection of mimeograph machines, as we found out last Friday on a tour. If you have a similar sort of historical society in your county, they might have machines and supplies of different phases of development you could examine. Mine also has a bunch of old newspaper presses among other interesting older but not really old-old items: the county hasn’t been settled long enough for anything but Native artifacts to date to more than 150 years (Natives here were nomadic).
@UKBookshopGuy:
If you are in the Charing Cross Rd area, I can also recommend Watkins Books at Cecil Court (most of the books are downstairs), and the smaller and rather unique Atlantis Bookshop in Museum St. Both are focused on esoterica, both within walking distance.
I always stop off at Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Ave (eastwards of Cambridge Circus) as well, an excellent selection of SF down stairs.
I can’t report on their masking stance – It’s been well over a year since I was last there, but with Foyles to boot this is essentially a fun day out for something like me. Atlantis really is the kind of small independent shop that JMG describes and well worth a visit.
Dear JMG thank you, we are on the same page here. I just wished more people would spend at least five minutes just web searching side “effects” or watch some youtube/any or other social media interview with someone who’s been injured by these “safe and effective” injections. Thank you and all the others for your work, my thinking, if I can save one person that is better than warning ten people that will do the opposite anyway. I think the those who watch a lot of television are the once that are least open to warnings what do you guys think?
—
Abraham, there is indeed a discreet alternative. Imagine, as vividly as possible, that you’re speaking the words aloud. Imagine feeling them resonate in your body and in the air around you. Some books on occultism call this the Great Voice; it’s not as effective as actually vibrating the words aloud, but it’ll do if you don’t have the option. As for the garden, spend plenty of time in it and mentally frame the question: “Garden, what can I do to help you to thrive?” It may take a while, but you’ll get an answer.
—
Great answer! Now I don’t have excuses for a daily practice except for my natural laziness. Thank you!
Hi John,
In a single day, somehow, I managed to discover three emotions that are floating around me and I suspect may interfere with everything I do. After meditating on one of them I traced its origin clearly in a deficit during my infancy and the kind of dreams I had back then was the key.
I plan to meditate on its origins and try to catch the moment they are interfering to observe its nature.
What is your advice to reduce its influence on me?
Thankyou,
Sergi
Hello Greer, tried to post before but it was on the old one so assuming I have to put it here instead.
I was going to ask what your opinion is on the phenomena which involves some people seemingly relying on a process known as ‘subsistence of information to maintain or continuously strengthen’ their ‘identity of life’ that a few occultists have described?
Not sure if you will understand what that means but if you do, got some things to describe:
It may be something which can make meditating hard or seemingly near-impossible in some cases for the people who experience it, because it means they would have to break off what they are doing and cut off that form of ‘subsistence’ or behavior, which might be very unpleasant to them in some cases. It then becomes either really something they don’t wish to do or seemingly almost impossible for them in certain cases.
Is this likely something psychological or relating to something like the ethereal, mental, astral l if you do understand what some occultists who discuss it are talking about? What would be your advice to people who experience it if its the latter examples and what are the explanations of the western hermetic traditions on this phenomena? Like what is the situation with these people?
Even if it can be related to some mental conditions, those conditions right now are something that modern medicine has not found much proven solutions to unfortunately, and some theoretical treatments are still being tested. Even then there is no ‘cure’ or reliable ‘treatment’ yet against the drawbacks.
Re: Slide Rules
In first year engineering we were forced to use slide rules. The reason being, calculators gave you a spurious feeling for accuracy because they calculated to as many decimal points as they could display, whereas you can only work to maybe three significant figures on a slide rule. If you only know something to a limited degree of accuracy, such as the strength of concrete is 30 Megapascals, you hope, depending on the guy operating the concrete mixer, and your calculator tells you your structure can carry 45.678 tonnes, don’t rely on the .678 tons. It’s 45 tons, maybe.
You get it in books that have converted from imperial to metric or vice versa. I was reading an adventure story where they parachuted from a plane flying at 304.8 meters altitude. That was obviously converted from 1,000 feet altitude. Planes don’t fly at altitudes that precisely. Round it off to 300 meters altitude, for heaven’s sake.
Hi John
I would be interested in your thoughts on the vaccines. Thanks to massive and systemic Big Tech and corporate media censorship, it is proving very difficult to get independent and reliable information on the risks of the experimental vaccines.
I have, however, found two good sources of information which you should find interesting.
https://healthimpactnews.com/2021/study-analysis-of-vaers-shows-the-covid-shots-are-likely-cause-of-deaths-spontaneous-abortions-cardiovascular-neurological-and-immunological-adverse-events/
https://www.bitchute.com/channel/HEpBeuAz9n9P/?fbclid=IwAR0WMJAJcVhhU4bi8f2RC7pTWUvlOV4bznbf7BmnIbNkKe-1m3TKTumdskQ
Both informational sources are entirely based on the VAERS database, the US government database that records adverse incidents likely connected to the vaccines.
The VAERS database is not perfect, and probably only captures about 1% of all actual incidents (including deaths) – according to Harvard university.
Particularly concerning is the exponential rise in immunological related averse reactions to the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines 3 months after getting jabbed.
A different data analyst thinks that the likely death toll of the Covid-19 vaccines in America is now 12k with 1 million adverse incidents.
Mary Bennett #51, when I was young I’d spend long periods staring at diagrams of anything from engines to volcanoes, memorising all the details and how they worked. But if anyone had tried to force me to do that I would have resented it so much. 🙂
Methylethyl #57, In high school I remember a book on politics and government – colourful and illustrated. But I only remember looking at the pages about coup d’etat. Wish I’d read it more thouroughly now. 🙂
Rhydlyd #92, rugby really isn’t fair if you went through puberty early and were nearly full-grown by 12 of 13. Then they just hand you the ball and you plod down the field with the entire other team hanging onto you. It was glorious. 🙂
Weilong #115, it is curious how intense an academic education can be tolerated at a young age. At my schools they weren’t even trying to get close to anything like that.
Beekeeper #116, the first time I made a red bag amulet I was stitching it up and thinking “why do I know how to do this?”. Then I remembered I’d learned it in domestic science class. I’d recommend teaching yourself how to use power tools. I learned how to use a chainsaw from two books, and several years later still have all my appendages. 🙂
Wesley #169, now I’m wondering if there’s any subject that can’t be used for propaganda… 🙂
Siliconguy #194, there is one defence of a Kindle in a survival situation. If something happens and you have to make a run for it, you can stuff a Kindle in your pocket and go. Assuming electricity isn’t gone for good, once you get somewhere with power, you’ve brought thousands of books with you. There’s no way to do that with hardcopy.
Methylethyl #245, Toxic Raisin would be a good name for a ska-metal band. 🙂
A new front in the cultural wars: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/05/real-american-men-and-the-liberal-war-on-meat.html. The interesting fact here is, like so often in such matters, the snobbery of the political left and the bandying about of such verbal noises as “white supremacism” for the lifeways of ordinary, non-elite peoples. It is quite relevant to the subject of culture death in the Western world.
Recently I have noticed a disquieting tendency toward anger in myself. It stems, quite simply,
from frustration at a world growing ever more stupid and the feeling of powerlessness to
do anything about it.
Some typical examples of things that have set me off lately:
-I have had the good fortune to never hold what could be defined as a “corporate job”.
That is, until quite recently. (It’s a temporary arrangement, thank heavens.) Now, although I had
a good understanding of what the corporate world is like there is a difference between
knowing in the abstract and actual experience. I was in for a shock, in other words.
The degree to which work has been digitalized is mind boggling. Straight off the bat I was
forced to install two new apps on my (almost defunct) phone and spend several days
trying to get things up and running. To keep up I constantly have to follow two e-mail accounts and
messages appearing in a third software. At first it seemed impossible to find time to do
the actual work I was hired to do! And this is not abstract, bit-shuffling work, but hands-on
filming, editing and animating. The thought of how much energy and resources are wasted in this
mad dash towards digital dystopia makes me cringe.
-I have a group of friends that I’ve known almost all my life and we still meet regularly. The frequency
of these meetings has increased during covid since they now take place online, thus becoming much
easier to attend. Therefore, I have become painfully aware of how utterly clueless they are
about the world. They are, I have come to see, archetypical upper middle class westerners. In other words,
it has never crossed their minds that their lifestyles are not viable in the long run or, heaven
forbid, that they and their lifestyles are actually a major factor in our predicament. Rather, they
seem to subscribe to a vaguely formulated idea that everything can and will be maintained by switching
to “sustainable” or “green” technology. Consequently they consume shamelessly and at an ever increasing
pace. Here, the anger is mixed with sadness and disappointment. I’ve yet to explicitly confront them,
but am afraid the dam will burst soon.
-The president of the Finnish Green party recently stated, in an interview related to the upcoming
municipal elections: “We wish for sustainable growth in Finland.” I don’t think there is any need
to explain why this stupendous display of stupidity got my blood boiling. And at least you would
think that when a president of a major party uses a contradiction in terms to explain the
party’s agenda someone would pick up on it, but no.
-Even small, rather inconsequential things get me going: on the street right outside my apartment building
a couple of weird installations have appeared in the form of bright yellow metallic buckets, mounted
on poles and tilted at an angle of about 45 degrees. It is not at all clear what they are supposed to be,
but the only reasonable explanation is that they are trash cans. However, they are entirely solid and uncovered, meaning that when it rains, they will become half filled with water. Now, it is possible that they are
not meant to be trash cans, but in any case the result will be bright yellow tilted buckets half filled with
water with doggy poop bags and french fries floating around. There is no practical way of emptying them.
I don’t want to become a grumpy old man, but I feel the risk of that happening growing by the day.
Does anyone else struggle with almost constant anger over these kinds of issues? Have you found ways to channel it constructively?
>We still have no idea what the long-term effects of the vaccines will be because they haven’t been around long enough. That’s just it — nobody knows.
This much you can gather from reading between the lines though – they have been working diligently to make sure that if you get into trouble from it, you are on your own, nobody’s going to help you. Insurance, worker’s comp, all of it has been deactivated or taken away. So, do you feel lucky?
@Temporaryreality
I live in India, and I tried looking for mimeograph manufacturers online, and this is what I found: https://dir.indiamart.com/search.mp?ss=mimeograph&prdsrc=1. Hope this helps.
Hello John and fellow Ecosophians,
Seeing you mention the “religious revival’ in the Middle East remind me of something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. Though mostly taken from a social and economic view here, I’m actually more interested in the hopefully coming cultural renaissance, and thus on the contextual aspect of this revival. In Islam, there’s a belief among most sects that there will come a time when moral values and spirituality will decline and even afflict Islam itself, preceding a period of renewal that will turn back the religion to its original and essential form, mostly by a figure called Imam Mahdi (from the ancestral line of Prophet Mohammad through Ali ibn Abi Talib, who married the Prophet’s daughter). Interestingly enough, the current Islamic regime in Iran claims to be in “contact” with this figure in one way or another. Personally, my take on this figure and eschatology is rather esoteric and not literal, unlike most Muslims at this point, but it’s interesting to follow and examine this timeline.
This also makes me think of other (kind of related) subject. Dion Fortune mentioned in one of her books that Prophet Mohammad was the initiator of Africa, which is something interesting and strange at the same time for me. Did most Europeans at that period consider Arabia part of Africa or is she hinting at something else? In the history of Islam, one of the earliest foreign nations that Muslims called to conversion was the Christian monarchs of Ethiopia, after going as refugees following persecution from the pagan Arabs. In another source from Crowley, he said that Prophet Mohammad was sent by the “Brotherhood” to bring order or enlightenment through the sword, or something of the like. All of this makes me think of the relation between the main Western traditions and those in the Middle East.
Cheers,
Aziz
Dear JMG
Please, could you consider switching Open Post and “Bookclub”, since OP is so busy in comparison that the slower “BC” afterwards would make it more convenient catching up.
To all Austrian or resident “Ecosophians” (I`ve noticed quite a few):
Würd Euch gern persönlich kennenlernen:
mein username bei gmxat
I bought the book and lost a lot of sleep with it last night—overall I feel that you’re closer than most to the mark with your analysis, but I’m not convinced your “salary class vs wage class” framing covers the full scope of the issue.
It doesn’t really explain, for instance, why so many in the salary class voted for DT. It also doesn’t seem to account for the enthusiastic culture warriors on the right who really do have it good economically, but vote based on a desire to stick it to the other side (this isn’t caricature—I’m from Mississippi and have heard this explanation over and over in those giving a defense of DT).
The culture war is a magic war, and has forced a lot of people into one of two very stupid possible ways of viewing the world. I find myself suspicious of any narrative that ennobles either side of the culture war, whether it’s (as you identified in your book) the left identifying themselves as The Good People vs. the bigots, or when it’s the right declaring themselves to be The Oppressed Ones rising up against tyranny. Both ring false to me. So it’s not that I think your explanation is wrong—more that it simply doesn’t get to the real root of the deeply stupid schism that’s dividing us.
Someone has to take us past the culture war. The boomers have been fighting it for too long, and they’re all getting dumber as a result.
Did you mention the increase of accusations of “eco-fascism” in “The King in Orange”? I would have. The idea that Trump is heretical, and therefore anything Trump wanted, such as planting more trees, is now heretical too, even though it was dogma on the Left before. It was a great opportunity for reverse-psychology in politics.
I think we can’t rely on science to get environmental changes done. People have to be motivated by religious beliefs. Or just magical thinking. I wish we had pilgrim routes in North America. It would work better than historical societies.
Hey, do you mention why evangelicals aren’t environmentalists? For that alone, I’d buy the book. (I will probably buy it anyway.) I’m a bit obsessed with theories about evangelicals-as-cultists lately.
Political wonks like to pretend that they’re logical, rational beings, but scratch the surface just a little and there’s mystical stuff that even armchair occultists have rejected as too wacky years ago. Because politics IS religion. Religion is how humans deal with huge things that we can’t control. Since politicians are the high priests, they know all of the secret mysteries…and usually are cynical and disbelieving on one level, while also being deeply emotionally invested in other facets of it.
I look forward to reading “The King in Orange”!
@Violet (#198), Booklover (#203), JMG (#241)
I agree with Booklover´s description, that Germany has the same problem, too. I would even say that the German elite (and those that think that they are the elite) actively hate everything that is German. I would say that the Bavarians are currently the only federal state of old Western Germany, which somehow try to celebrate their own culture. Therefore, they are despised in the rest of the country. At least that is my impression. I think that the same applies to a lesser degree to the Eastern German federal states, where the resistance again the German elite is the strongest.
One aspect of this hate of everything German seems to be the utilization of German tradition and history by the National Socialist to further their agenda. Based on the widespread attitude, that everything the National Socalists did was absolutely evil, everything they used from German tradition and history must be evil, too.
@Abraham (#204)
Glad to hear, that I am not the only person with such problems. What kind of effects did the meditation and magical practices have on your life? Did it “only” improve your emoting handling, or did it have further positive effects on your life (e.g. major changes)?
A few months before Covid, I have moved to the Harz area in Germany after living in the Ruhr area for 35 years. So now there are 300km distance between me and my relatives and most of my friends. Because of Covid I was only able to establish very few contacts or even friendships with the local people here in the Harz area. So, I was already isolated the months before, it did not get better since then.
To counter my bad mood, I had started hiking as new hobby right before Covid came around. Since I do it with my family (wife and daughter), this was by far the most enjoyable time last year. I then wanted to join a local hiking club but there were no activities due to Covid. I have to check again, if this has changed now. I also restarted an old hobby of mine, miniature painting and scale modelling, which fortunately is Covid-proof due to being a solo hobby done at home.
I am also interested in gardening, but I somehow do not make the first step, even though we have a large garden for our own use. In addition to that, I became interested in bushcraft after watching youtube videos by Bjoern Andreas Bull-Hansen and a guy called Fandabi Dozi. Funnily, my 4-year-old daughter received a bushcraft book a few days ago as a present. She was really exited to try everything explained in the book. We will see how this will work out. I am also exited that this would be an activity that would be both a healing for my soul and bonding with my daughter.
In general, I want to try to spend as much time in nature as possible. Unfortunately, my job demands of me to stay indoors and look at a screen the whole day. I was thinking about changing to a job, where I am more on the outside and doing some more meaningful work, but until now I did not have flash of inspiration, what I should do.
@JMG (#217)
Thank you for the welcome.
The problem is that there are so many spiritual traditions, it may be hard to find the right one. I was thinking of Druidry, since this seems to be a spiritual tradition which is very relevant for the future of humanity and the rest of the world based on the human generated predicament. What kind of literature do you recommend getting into Druidry?
And now for something completely different, I remember that you have mentioned Julius Evola in one of your old posts or comments to a post a few years ago. I have bought his book “Revolt Against The Modern World”, since I found the title very interesting. Evola was also versed in the Occult, as far as I know. Do you think, he would be worth an essay by yourself? I would be eager to read your opinion about him.
@Jim W (#227)
I have already read a few essays by CJ Hopkins, including the one in your link. I like how he exaggerates while sticking to the truth closely.
I think, in general, since 1945 the Germans are trying to be the good guys as hard as they can, which means that they are following everything ordered by their leaders (inside and outside of the country), which seems to be for the greater good. This also applies to the Covid situation.
The government/media use the same trick for persons/groups critical of the handling of the Covid situation, they either call them Nazis directly or claim that they have contacts to Nazis. So basically, you are treated as a heretic, in German “Corona-Leugner”. A lot of people seem to accept this propaganda without any thought. Therefore, I could see some kind of vaccination apartheid coming up here in Germany. I am not sure, how long these rules will stay in place, but you currently can go to a restaurant and other venues only with a current negative Corona test (Anti-gen or PCR), a proof of vaccination or proof of recovery from Covid.
I have heard from quite a few former DDR citizens, that they have the feeling to live in DDR 2.0, with a massive censorship campaign against critical voices. But this was already starting before Covid. I basically lost all faith in the German government after the state election in Thuringia in 2019, where the democratically elected state minister (member of the liberal party in Germany FDP) had to resign after critique from the central government and media, due to receiving votes from the “brimstone jacks” party AfD, which is also constantly smeared with the Nazi term while propagating terms that were part of Merkel´s CDU just 10-20 years ago.
@JMG
Sorry for the long post, but the discussions here are very interesting, so I have a lot to say.
@Naomi, Steve T: That’s a really good-looking site! I started reading, but then I saw that of the 100 “verba” only 1 to 10, 51, 60, 99 and 100 are shown. It is probably meant to whet your appetite… You can read the images of the original manuscript though, if you can get accustomed to the letters.
Hi JMG,
I’ve found myself continually wondering if the recent hard leftward shift in the politics of America’s ruling elite (specifically around concepts of racial grievance and demonization of traditional America) did not develop as an organic fluctuation in the cultural landscape–but rather, is largely driven by the apparatus of military, intelligence, and their private partners. Though it seems as though the triumverate of Academia, Big Tech, and Media drive these new “narratives,” a review of American intelligence’s past domestic activities (particularly the CIA and NSA) reveals an extensive history of deep penetration of those institutions.
Why would they do this? Well, if that apparatus (the phrase “Deep State” seems appropriate to use here) recognizes that the strength of rival powers (Russia, China) is forcing it to back away from the global War on Terror, it may have decided upon a new “War on Terror” against its domestic political opposition as the most viable means of maintaining power.
This provides a dark vision of where things are going next, and I hope that I’m way off in the above speculation.
Thoughts?
To swear is neither brave, polite, nor wise.
Not the ‘Pope of Greenwich Village’ but still a Pope. When I came across that gem, I laughed and thought of our host.
Taking on a new signature here. The anagram site JMG shared in last week’s comments was too fun. It had to be as my iPhone kept auto filling my alter identity everywhere to the point of aggravation. Technology…
@Elkriver, after I read your account I came across this in the Zero Hedge comments of all places… Life is pleasant, death is peaceful.
It’s the transition that is troublesome. It was a funny cause it’s true moment for me. Thought you could appreciate it.
-Jeff
@Denis 237:
I don’t want to discuss the deadliness of Covid here because it would go too deep into differences between countries. I do want to comment on the effectiveness of masks and hand sanitizers because we had a first-hand example here in Quebec. In February 2021, a number of restrictions were lifted here, so that, among others, fitness centers could re-open. The rules seemed rather arbitrary: one had to use masks while walking from one equipment to another but not while exercising on one equipment; one had to cover the equipment with a towel (well, that rule actually predates Covid!) and also wipe down all surfaces with sanitizer after use… I didn’t feel they were much use but of course complied, as did everybody at our fitness center.
Then, in March 2021, there was an explosion of Covid positive tests, more than 400 in a couple of days, which is more than had ever been detected in the Capitale-Nationale region. They were tracked down to one single fitness center where all the rules had been flouted. We happen to know the owner of that particular fitness center because we bought a used treadmill from him in 2020, and in that transaction, he was sleazier than you can imagine, so I fully believe the news. Well, the government overreacted to that explosion of positive tests, closing everything down again, even the primary schools, which was completely out of proportion to the number of hospitalizations and deaths (at that point, many elderly had already been vaccinated).
However, the episode did serve to show that the masks and sanitizer, as ridiculous as they may seem, reduce Covid transmission.
@JMG #241:
Can you give examples of the nascent national culture from the early 20th century? I was reared on a dichotomy between wildly successful corporate American culture (Hollywood, Disney, McDonalds) and European disdain of American superficiality (Hollywood – eek! Disney – aargh! McDonalds – horrible!). Your phrase made me think of Henry James, George Gershwin and F. Scott Fitzgerald, but maybe you are thinking of a different phenomenon?
@Varun: I read your comment as asking whether there would be a return of the prophet class. Ezekiel returns!
vw #264:
I read Steve Skojec’s article and have a slightly different impression of it than you do, at least I think I do. There’s a crisis of faith going on with him, but even moreso is a crisis of faith in the institution called the Catholic Church, which, in his experience, is an organization filled with bureaucrats, many of whom have no genuine connection to God. Looking to people like that for spiritual guidance is going to be a losing game.
I can’t say for sure since I’ve never met Steve Skojec and don’t know anything about him beyond his articles, but it seems from his comments that his relationship with God has thus far been second hand, in other words, mediated through the Church bureaucrats, not a first-person experience of his own seeking. He appears to hold that following all the rules of the Church and participating in the sacraments will lead to a genuine relationship with God, which he’s sadly discovered isn’t true. In my unenlightened opinion as a cradle, but non-practicing, Catholic, these practices are more helpful as outward expressions of an inner faith that already exists.
On the other hand I could be completely wrong.
@Temporaryreality: I’m glad you found the APA’s. Congratulations on the launch of your project, and thank you for your work saving this tech.
(BTW the AAPA is looking for a new official mailer if someone on this blog is looking for a hobby 😉 -I’m not as participative in this group as I’d have liked to have been, but am still a member and have contributed to a few of the bundles. You’d have to be a member to be the official mailer, but it might be interesting. Either way, the current official mailer wrote a post about what her job entails… It might be useful to you if you get into starting some kind of Ecosophian APA 😉 ( https://www.aapainfo.org/may-bundle-and-mailer-of-bundles.html )
I’ll be keeping an eye on your site and subscribing once/if that feature becomes available.
I’ll also give it a plug in my next Seeds from Sirius newsletter (which comes out next week) which has really evolved into a monthly e-zine. This will be issue 16. I’d like it to be an analog zine (and I did do an analog version of the first issue for the AAPA) and I made another mini analog version of it for another AAPA bundle earlier this year. I just have to carve out more time for printing, stapling, etc., which cuts into what I already have on my plate.
I did see your post about this over at greenwizards.com. I haven’t hung out there as much as I’d hoped in the past year or so either, but its still a great resource, and could always use new contributions from other people. A Green Wizard type APA would be a great project for someone to undertake.
I do hope to participate in some way or other with what you put together, so I’ll happily be following along. Thanks in advance for keeping us postal (and posted!)
Wishing you much success to your work!
@Naomi: I don’t go to church, but thought that others who do, or are concerned about the issues raised in that book might be interested (I won’t be reading it myself -at least not anytime soon, too much else to read & in the works).
I have noticed some of my Christian friends and/or family getting into QAnon here and there (with some later chucking it). I tried to explain it was probably a disinfo operation. Some of them got that, others did not.
The King in Orange was very hard to put down, even though I had read your earlier posts that foreshadowed it. I recommend it highly!
One curious historical footnote: You mention FDR’s vice-president and Cabinet member, Henry A. Wallace, a Theosophist. He was not just a simple Theosophist, but a devoted follower of Nicholas Roerich. Wallace’s wife and attorney went through his papers after his death and destroyed a large part of them, apparently including everything that so much as hinted at any occult interests. However, the Roerich Museum in New York preserved Wallace’s letters to Roerich and his associates, and they are very, very revealing.
More to the points of your book, we know a little about Wallace’s successful efforts to have both sides of the Great Seal of the United States added to the reverse of the $1 bill in 1935. Wallace himself clearly regarded this achievement of his as a powerful work of what we would now call “sigil magic.”
From 1897 down to 1935 there were published a number of now forgotten books and pamphlets about the mystical significance of the Great Seal as the key to unlocking the secret Destiny (with a capital D) of the United States, which was thought to be the culmination of the entire march of world history over many millenia. This doctrine grew out of the Anglo-American Israelite movement, which regarded the Anglo-Saxon “race” as the genetic descendants of the ten “lost” tribes of Israel (in contrast to the Jews, who were said to be no true Israelists at all, but merely debased and vile “Judah-ites”). As such, all the impressive prophecies of the Old Testament were really, according to the British Israelite teaching, prophecies about the coming future of the Anglo-Saxon “race” [!!!].
Most of the American followers of this movement were unabashed eugenicists as well as open-and-shut racists, and thus they fell very much on what is now the “rightward” end of our political spectrum; but in their own day, they occupied what was then the “leftward” end of that ever-shifting spectrum. (“Left” and “Right” have flipped at least once within my own lifetime, and more times than that within the last century or so.) Becuase of this, some of the pre-Gardnerian traditions of Witchcraft in the United States still have traces of these ideas about the true Israel and Great Seal of the United States embedded in their core teachings.
JMG and all:
Here’s a recommendation for a nice, short (73 pages), timely book (although published in 2004, it’s perfect for today): “Modern Medicine: the New World Religion”,by Olivier Clerc. The author is a Frenchman and a Catholic, so he writes from that perspective. Here are some brief quotes from the back of the book: ” …physicians have taken the place of priests, the search for health replaces the quest for salvation, the hope of physical immortality….will soon take over the hope of eternal life, vaccination plays the same initiatory role as baptism, and a hypothetical universal vaccine shall save all mankind from illness”. I.e., the savior. I bought this book used some years ago for about $5; now there are a couple of copies available from ABE books for about $22 or on amazon for upwards of $400. Or on kindle for about $2 (I don’t do Kindle). Easy to read yet quite profound.
JMG, after reading “The King in Orange”, I find myself wondering if you see our current medical environment as a kind of magic?
“
Re network infrastructure and the economics of decline
An aspect of persistent population decline that we need to keep in mind as things progress (sic!) pertains to the economics of network-type infrastructure, which tends to be capital-intensive among other characteristics. The utility world, and the electric industry in particular, is an excellent example of this. From the time of its birth until about a decade ago, the electric industry has consistently expanded and its economics developed around a core assumption of growth. For the last ten plus years, however, load-growth has stagnated and even declined. Where once 2% and 3% growth rates were commonplace, an assumption of 0.5% today can be considered “aggressive.” Remember, there are all these fixed costs which need to be recovered via rates and the greater the volume those costs can be spread over, the more affordable the rates will be. If the volumes decline, on the other hand, the process works in reverse.
Many of these assets can be rather long-lived. Power plants have thirty- and forty-year useful lives and are depreciated accordingly. Transmission lines, if I recall correctly, are upwards of fifty-year assets. (In the water utility world, it can be even more extreme: water mains can be hundred-year assets and our water department’s main replacement program is currently working on the cohort from the 1920s and 1930s.) These investments can end up as stranded assets in an environment of demand decline. Not to mention for the investor-owned utilities, their profit comes from the return on investment in utility plant (assets in the ground) and fewer assets means less return.
In the electric industry, this is one reason that power companies (including public power like the municipal utility I work for) has gotten behind EVs and the electrification of transportation generally–we’re looking for electric load wherever we can find it, even if that means poaching from other sectors of the economy.
The actual “best” answer for the economy is to begin to adapt to a world that uses less energy in the first place, a world that is slower-paced, less virtual and more real. But I think we’re a ways from the broader understanding of that yet.
@Rita Rippetoe: I offer a loaf of artisan bread and ale or similar beverage at my seasonal rituals. I always switch it up according to the feel of the festival, as well as what’s available . I’ve offered pumpernickel with dark sour ale (Surly Pentagram, ghastly stuff but popular with the Ancestors) on Samhuinn, for instance, and a fruit-and-seed loaf with hard apple cider on Lughnasadh. Mead at Midsummer/Alban Heruin, of course! I usually offer honeycomb or something with honey to Brigid on Imbolc (She got a bottle of Celtic Honey liqueur this year), and slaughter a chocolate bunny on Ostara/Alban Eiler and a marzipan pig on Yule/Alban Arthuan (it’s a Scandinavian thing…). Oddly, my gods aren’t much interested in grape wine, so I only use that for the Communion Ceremony.
There are a lot of fun-looking liqueurs. Creme de Violette would be lovely for a spring ritual, I’d think, and perhaps Frangelico for autumn. There’s one with gold leaf in it that Freya really likes, which could be good for Summer Solstice. Maybe a traditionally-flavored aquavit for winter? Interesting topic, I’m looking forward to hearing more!
Greetings!
@temporalreality Mulberry trees were happily alive in the Beacon, NY, area when the few years before Pete Seeger’s leaving us.
JMG,
just finished _Twighlite Last Gleaming_, in two days’ reading. Utterly flumoxed by how much you got right without (am assuming) a security clearance. I got to spend seven months in the sand box, with only a Secret clearance, in a fighter wing. It really frightens me how cavalier the American side is about OPSEC(operational security). They stink!!
BTW, aircraft camouflage depends on what is assumed to be the human observer’s view of them, in their operational context.
You’ll see a similar color choice in the Russian a/c too. In USAF parlance, it’s “hide-me-gray.” The last F-16 our wing got from the factory were painted a pale greenish pastel with white.
Everybody seeing these birds come in reacted like: We got to put a flower bud vase on the “dash board” here…..
They got repainted to the Hide-me-gray in short order.
About Covid being the Magical Resistors’ (MR) blow back. I pondered that some more, and still think that they are connected. The MR are overly concerned with the disease, and having everyone be vaccinated, etc. I found it interesting that when Trump suggested that it came from a lab in China, everyone said he was racist. Now with Biden, everyone seems to believe that it did come from a lab in China. Why the about face?
The other thing is that everyone keeps plunging ahead with new plans, etc without reviewing whether the old plans worked. It seems as though people are running away from something.
@Mollari #10:
…I’m enjoying the program overall, but would like to supplement it with learning how to do the math behind electrical work without using a calculator or computer.
Good for you! That should be fun!
As you have likely already been told, before digital calculators people used analog computers known as slide sticks. They were developed in the 17th century and are based on the logarithm work of Napier. Quoting wikipedia, they are primarily for multiplication and division, and also for functions such as exponents, roots, logarithms, and trigonometry, but typically not for addition or subtraction.
However, there are also a variety of human calculation methods which can sometimes look like magic, which will
Here are two which derive from algebra:
(1) When multiplying two numbers, such as 97 x 89, you can pick a more easy to calculate pivot point such as 100. Notice that 97 = 100 – 3 while 89 = 100 – 100. This can be generalized as (C+a)(C+b) where, in this case, C=100; a=-3 and b=-11. What does this get you? Well, basic factoring of (C+a)(C+b) ALWAYS EQUALS C[C+a+b] + [a][b]. So 97 x 89 MUST EQUAL 100[100-11-3] + [-11][-3] = 100 [86] + 33 = 8600 + 33 or 8633.
(2) We can check the above using another concept known as “casting out nines”: EVERY TIME A PRODUCT OR SUM CONTAINS A 9 YOU DISCARD THE 9. So 8633 → 8+6+3+3 //9 →
“2”. 97→ 7 and 89 → 8 and 8×7=56 or →11 → 2. 2 == 2 so you have a better than 90% chance that your original answer of 1433 is correct.
If that looks a little bit intimidating, it doesn’t have to be! “Practice makes perfect” and, better yet, with understanding the underlying “magic” of algebra means you can trust your answers.
Lets try another: 7 x 13. In this case, we chose 10 for C. So C[C+a+b] + ab = 10[10-3+3] + (-3)(3) →100 – 9 =91. Check by casting out nines: 7 x 13→7×4=28→1. Vs 91 →1 . 1 vs 1; looks good to me.
Combined with mnemonic techniques and some other mathemagics, you can find yourself doing problems like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37meAwQqPsE
“Can you tell me what 57 MULTIPLIED by 135 is?”
In your head.
P.S. notice 135 =45*3 so choosing C=50 simplifies things a lot (and even more when you remember that 50=1/2* 100); and just remember to multiply by 3 at the end to turn your final answer into your final final answer. Oh, and when casting out nines, note 135 →9 →0; And anything by zero is zero. So…the final final answer must cast to 0. And … hmm… 7695?
BTW, casting out nines works with complex addition as well – so it could be taught and made useful by third grade…. What is wrong with our school system? “We have become the tools of our tools.”
JMG,
As you have pointed out, we all live and function, and understand the world through the use of narratives or myths. Some narratives seem to more accurately represent or portray reality; others, not so much. The Progress narrative seems to have worked for a while, but has severe flaws, which are in evidence these days for the more observant folk.
How do we characterize someone still following the Progress narrative or some other failed narrative? Are they under a spell? An enchantment? In a trance? Or maybe just deluded?
I am about the same age as you and growing up I always felt in the back of my being that there was something that wasn’t quite right about what I was being told by my elders and those in power, and about the world I was experiencing. My immediate family was religious, we attended an evangelical church. But, something always seemed a little off there – things didn’t match up no matter how hard I tried. My adventures and searches during adulthood examining and investigating various other narratives and subcultures never vanquished that uneasy feeling either. Again, no matter how hard I tried, things didn’t match up.
Your writings seem to be the most reasonable and accurate description for what is going on in the world and what I’ve experienced in life. It sure explains a lot and things match up much more often than not. I feel like I have come out of a trance; or a spell/enchantment has been lifted. What would be the appropriate occult term for describing the experience? And can you please provide a little more background about these (trances, enchantments, spells, etc.) types of phenomena?
Thanks,
Will1000
JMG,
“I’m probably going to begin with a few essays critiquing the ideas of Nick Land, and go from there.”
I’ve thought for a long time that Dion Fortune’s idea of allowing evil to destroy itself by letting it go unimpeded sounded a lot like accelerationism.
What do you think about the Religious Rights conviction that the True the Good and the Beautiful (Catholicism or other organized religion, strict family values, rejection of homosexuality, classical art) will make a comeback as a reaction and also demographics (Religious Right groups such as Amish and Quiverful have larger families )to the woke ism of today?
I sure hope not. I think they have good points but I find their approach very rigod and not a great way to deal with the Long Descent. Especially since I think borrowing ideas from other groups and tolerating other lifestyles (some which I think we haven’t seen yet and will emerge from the Long Descent) isn’t a strong point of theirs.
“Chris, I expect plenty of braying! As for the health thing, that’s a really good question. I’m still not sure why this virus got such an overblown reaction when, as you’ve pointed our, plenty of more dangerous diseases get a shrug. Thus I don’t know when that reaction is likely to give way to something a little less over the top.”
Is it possible the Covid-19 hysteria was somehow caused by people sensing the consequences of the vaccine? I’m noting with some concern that the vaccines seem to be causing everything attributed to Covid in the more hysterical end of things, which seems to suggest mass deaths may be coming…..
This hit my inbox when I got home today. It’s in german, but you don’t really need to read it – just watch Kamala climbing the stairs to a non-existent plane…
If you are still watching MSM news, you might want to take this one under advisement as a great reason to simply stop…
http://mannikosblog.de/2021/04/28/seltsames-video-kamala-harris-besteigt-eine-gangway-ohne-flugzeug/
Most of what you see on TV is pure fiction, and the news is especially so. This particular video screw-up is just priceless – made me laugh out loud.
It’s a shame, but even the weather has become woke and hyped. Tracking the general trend, if there are thunderstorms in the forecast, it seems replays of tornadoes, floods, maps of lightning strikes and complete hyperbole. are routine. It isn’t just national – now it’s gone into local weather as well. Rainfall predictions have gone crazy, with forecast amounts routinely 100-500% overblown, which helps nobody. Which is why we just put in some barometers at the farm, along with some other gadgets and got on board with Farmers Almanac…
Progress indeed! LOL
(@Matthias Gralle and all)
One of the things that I’ve noticed in the covid saga is that there appears to be a distinction between the way the disease spreads on micro and macro levels. On the micro level, it seems that it spreads where people aren’t following the rules, or that masks make a big difference in transmission, etc. On the macro level, there is no consistent difference in disease and death rates between places with severe restrictions and places with almost no restrictions, and certainly not between areas that require masks and areas that don’t. I’m also seeing this during the ongoing vaccination campaigns, where some areas that are 60% vaccinated are now seeing significant outbreaks. To some extent this is just bad science, and unwise extrapolation, and over-reliance on anecdotal evidence, but I’m also wondering if there might be an occult-level process at work. Something to the effect that epidemics follow their own cycles that are beyond our control, and while we can shift the burden demographically (i.e. areas with lockdowns/work-from-home concentrated the illness among lower classes, minorities, and essential workers, while areas without regulations saw a more uniform distribution) we cannot effectively stop it. Kind of like the way we can divert or contain a flooding river, but we cannot realistically quell the flood.
To say this more simply, based on a year of watching the data, it is clear that “superspreader” events can happen, but it is equally clear that societies that allow such events do not necessarily find themselves comparably overrun by infections. Therefore our models inevitably fail, because there are factors at play that we don’t understand.
@Tommy
I share your sense of anger and frustration. One of the things that would help for me would be to find a real-world group of people who share my thoughts about the end of Progress and the bigger picture of what is going on in the world. That is my assignment for myself for the year ahead…
@ Stephen D #133 and self-publishing versus traditional.
As a self-published indie author, my vote is obvious (https://peschelpress.com/career-indie-author/)
Or is it?
The thing with self-publishing is you have to do everything a traditional publisher does yourself, or you have to contract outside your home office for those services. The most common ones are developmental editing, copy or line editing, and book covers. The cost can add up and quality can vary.
You are a business and you have to think that way. You can’t just write the book, throw it up on Amazon, and walk away although plenty of people do just that. That’s why, according to David Gaughran (https://davidgaughran.com/), former Amazon staffer, up to 1/5 of all books on Amazon have no ranking. They’ve never sold a single copy.
You are in charge of marketing, blurbs, jacket copy, deciding on comps, trim size, ISBN’s, and a host of other things. It’s all doable but if you really don’t want to do them, then you’re better off trying for a traditional publisher.
That said, going indie may be your only option. Trad pub is publishing less and less each year. Their gates keep getting narrower, especially if you’re nobody with no name recognition.
That doesn’t mean you can’t succeed. But don’t expect it to be easy.
If you do decide to go traditional, you’ll probably need an agent as many publishers won’t look at ANYTHING that comes in over the transom. But maybe not. There are a LOT of micro-publishers.
Whether you go with or without an agent, you MUST make your manuscript letter-perfect. More and more, according to what WE see, traditional publishers don’t edit. They barely run spellcheck. I’m seeing new books from named publishers that are riddled with errors that any decent copy editor would have spotted and red-penciled.
The smaller the publisher, the worse the book. I have on my shelf tiny press books where the characters not only change names, those names are spelled inconsistently! Plus they’re rife with grammatical errors that grammarcheck would have caught.
If you get a tiny press to accept you, check over your manuscript ten times. You may have to pay for your own editing. The tiny press will print what you submit, errors and all. Ye olden days of editors holding your hand are long gone.
If you want to learn more about traditional publishing, agenting, etc. go to the library and read several years of back issues of Writer’s Digest magazine. You’ll know a lot more about the publishing process.
I hope this helps!
Secretface, what you described is exactly the special German version of culture death: the Nazis made many traditional things unpalatable to current Germans, but the consequences of Wilhelminism and the disastrous fate of the German Reich had a role, too. Germany never had the opportunity to organically develop a national culture like Great Britain and France; the only equivalents are regional cultures which are stronger in Southern Grmany Switzerland and Austria than in Northern Germany.
Hi, Secretface2097.
You ask for changes that the spiritual has delivered. Well, I don’t know if all that belongs to the occult training, but several changes happened to me last year.
1. I stopped watching covid news.
2. I stopped conversation in forums that took too much valuable time from me.
3. I reduced the time spent in games.
4. I joined a shared garden, made lots of new friends, despite my allergies.
5. I faced divorce with my then angry at me wife. We’re still working on it.
6. I droped mindfulness and took more occult practices.
7. I started doing physical exercises regularly at home.
8. I changed my diet, I’ve lost almost 10 kg now.
9. I’ve started to see the importance of feelings and emotions in human systems, and care for them.
Maybe some of these things were just an effect of the crisis, but some come from the practices, I think.
Darkest Yorkshire @ Sure, kids resent being made to do chores, also, but we now see the effects when whole generations grow up without any kind of responsibility having been expected of them. I am afraid that the whole “memorizing is boring” theme is rather a pet peeve for me. A caveat: I know less than nothing about British education at any level and would never presume to opine about it. Now American public schools, OTOH,–I have grandkids in public school, and do (try to) help with homework– are a scene of shocking intellectual depravity. I insist that that language is not too strong. The loathsome bastard, social studies, in particular, exists for one purpose and one purpose only, which is to inculcate politically correct opinions and attitudes. And we all know that those change yearly, if not oftener.
As I see it, geography and chronology are something like the grammar of history. I assert that you cannot hope to understand the latter unless you have first learned and understood the former, and, yes, that does mean you do some memorizing. To take a famous example from English history, 1066 is not the same as “a long time ago”, or “way back in the dark ages”. For us Americans, 1776 is not the same thing as “a couple of generations before my ancestors arrived at Ellis Island”, and our Civil War began in 1860, not “uh, maybe a little before WWI”.
The decline of the US-centered empire continues apace…
https://off-guardian.org/2021/05/28/presidential-election-drives-home-syrian-sovereignty-and-western-irrelevance/
Booklover @ 283 about meat, tradwives, and so on, a few observations:
I just planted out 20 Brussel sprout plants, of which about 15 survived a recent heat wave. I have another flat to go. I am hardly a “tradwife”, having raised two girls mostly by myself on less money than your average RW activist spends on his weekly bar tab, or than tradwife spends at the beauty parlor. I early on decided that my girls were going to have home cooked meals, no matter what else we might have to do without. I also love baking and always have.
As for eating grilled steak, that would imply dental care becoming affordable and we all know that that won’t happen. I don’t care what the regular fellas eat, but I do wish some would understand that women’s metabolism changes with advancing age, and for some of us, the diet needs to change also.
As for culture wars, the leftist wokesters might be all in for vegetarianism, but they emphatically do not want us nobodies growing our own veges. Lowers housing prices, they fear, and besides their immigrant clients neeeed those farming jobs.
I’m not caught up yet with the conversation this week, but a couple of data points from Central Pennsylvania today:
1) Sitting at the car dealership for a couple of hours this afternoon, and overheard one of the service managers conversing with customers, pitching Bitcoin investments to them. Different groups of customers, and the topic was raised by the service manager himself, who apparently has some money in Bitcoin and is eager to spread the word. Very reminiscent of the shoeshine boy stock tips pre-1929 Crash.
2) Driving home listening to the country music station, and for the first time heard an advertisement for the expertise of the staff at the local county hospital’s blood clot clinic. Nothing specific said about the mRNA side effects. Just a coincidence, I’m sure, that they want to make sure people in our county know where to go if, say, symptoms of blood clots happen to occur.
I think I saw last week that Israel is thinking of reducing the number of shots for the young people from two to one, or maybe not giving them anymore, because of the blood clotting problems.
Praying my two teen/young adult kids haven’t yet and don’t succumb to the peer pressure and media pressure and giveaways (ice cream! Lottery winnngs!) and find a way to secretly get the shots. That pressure is extreme where we live.
Hi John,
I have been wondering to myself about Russia’s future since we last talked and I was wondering if you could shed some light on the affair, particularly in regards to the comments left by Mr. White.
So we do know that Russia itself is going to be the host of a new great culture – Sobornost. Yet things here on the ground seem to point out that Russia is a dying country right now. It is suffering from heavy depopulation (it is forecast to lose about 20 million people in 30 years) and the large bear is suffering from its youth moving to primarily Moscow and St. Petersburg, leaving many cities on the verge of permanent decline.
Now we did speak about last time of a European exodus moving to Russia and this obviously would boost the population. However once again these prospective migrants would be centred around the big cities and I doubt would want to move to say Novosibirsk.
Russia also isnt that keen on opening up the borders to the Islamic world and Africa due to memories of Chechnya and fears of potential separatism.
So my question is this – what is the future of Russia and its actual current decline combined with the rise of Sobornost? Is the country going to split up into smaller states united under some form of Commonwealth? Or will Russians end up having more babies as the long descent continues and repopulating the current size of the Federation?
Also when you speak of Europe being overrun by migrants, do you mean Western Europe or Eastern Europe too? From what I see, all of the former Warsaw Pact countries seem to share the same ideas as Russia on this question. So do you think this is going to be limited to mainly Western Europe?
Also how does Britain fit in with this prediction? It is Europe after all but as you mentioned yourself, it will recover when it just becomes England so I wonder if England will avoid the same fate…
Thanks
Hi JMG.
Rhode Island is a tiny blue state, are you concerned about it having a hard decline and having to live somewhere else? (you have said that Ohio river basin/Great lakes will have a better future)
Balowolf @ 293 You typed:
I’ve found myself continually wondering if the recent hard leftward shift in the politics of America’s ruling elite (specifically around concepts of racial grievance and demonization of traditional America) did not develop as an organic fluctuation in the cultural landscape–but rather, is largely driven by the apparatus of military, intelligence, and their private partners.
Of course it is. Now, I will believe there has been a “hard leftward shift” in elite politics when I see housing price controls, serious countrywide-not-just-NYC-and-LA investment in mass transit, and Monsanto being slapped with an antitrust lawsuit by DOJ. And a genuine plan to wind down the overseas bases, and put our soldiers, marines, airmen and women, and sailors to work stateside where we need them.
For an explanation of why the apparent left shift, I think you have to look at and try to guess at the motives of those from whom the military intel people take their orders, which isn’t you or me. (I speculate) that for one thing, the protests last summer seriously frightened elites and their fellow travelers. That wasn’t any decorous occupy the park demonstration, and calling out their antifa paid rioters didn’t seem to work so well this time. Neither did blame the victim, this time. I don’t care if Mr. Floyd was a bad dude, I don’t pay police to carry out summary executions. For that, we have juries. I also believe that if the elites are willing to live with defund the police it is because they know quite well that what will actually get defunded will be the units which investigate fraud and other white collar crime. Which is where a lot of elite money comes from lately.
We are also headed into another West Coast fire season, how many towns will be burned this year–oh, but antifa! 1000 buildings!. I rather think the town of Paradise, CA had, had a few more than 1000 buildings, but then PG&E is an important big deal capitalist company so I guess that makes not doing due diligence on your maintenance OK. The point being that the fire season will need to be distracted from as will what looks to be an active Atlantic hurricane season. How many towns will drown this summer?
And, also, new organizations like BLM need to be coopted and brought into the fold, and something has to be done about mouthy self styled progressives taking out “our guys” in Congress.
@Cliff
Yes, I remember devouring everything I could find on the whole Earthship phenomenon. After a while, though, I realized that it was a thing that would only work in fairly arid climates. Just like masonry heaters are awesome… if you live somewhere cold. A little greywater oasis is fantastic… in the desert (but what do you do with your greywater wetland if you get eighty inches of rain a year?). In the end it’s just deeply frustrating that nobody seems to be working on that for the humid subtropics, where I happen to live. I have seen people digging through historic building design looking for what might, possibly, be appropriate for local buildings, and some general principles crop up: high ceilings, dogtrot layouts, wide porches on the south and west sides, built off the ground… but nobody’s out there *doing* it– one assumes because building codes discourage it, and the idea of living without air conditioning is a tough sell.
So I’m psyched to hear that somewhere, out there, there is an architecture student *in the Yucatan* who wants to do this. It’s a radically underserved market.
I would like to make a request to the commentariat: At some point in the past, there were some comments on this blog about certain game theoretic results the describe cooperation and competition in a hierarchical system. The result I am thinking of is one where there is cooperation and coalitions are formed or naturally arises amongst alternate rungs/levels of the hierarchy. Can someone please point me to some more details about this topic? Thanks in advance. Yes, I have spent a few hours searching the web on this topic and come out empty handed.
@Matthias Gralle Point taken that the super sensitive PCR testing noticed that people caught a virus. Was anyone out of the 400 hospitalized from Covid? Or god forbid disabled or died?
Masks are talismans and hand sanitizer is a ritual in a fight against any virus. I don’t believe they work consistently enough in real world conditions to make a difference.
Regarding Neptunesdolphins speculation about “Covid being the Magical Resistors’ (MR) blow back”, I too find that fascinating.
Weren’t the MR casting spells to “bind” and silence Trump, drive him from office, and allow him to do no more harm?
And what did we get? People driven from their office work places (either temporarily or permanently through layoffs), bound in their homes much of the time, and isolated and muzzled behind silencing masks, right? Not sure about the “no more harm” part, but still…
Could be unrelated of course, and I don’t actually know anything about how blowback works in practice. But it IS kind weird when you think about it that way.
@Adwelly and JMG – thank you for the response- I will try just walking into bookshops.
@Adwelly – that’s a great suggestion thanks. I think I know Watkins Books but have never been in there (on a small side street off Charing Cross Road, near where the old Stanfords travel bookshop was – they’ve moved a few hundred yards away now)? It’s always looked interesting – I will make the time to go in.
I am however, very familiar with Forbidden Planet and have been going for decades to the old location and the new, as well as the Birmingham location.
I know the Atlantis bookshop too – I used to work next door to it briefly last year and went in a couple of times (sadly it was closed due to the various lockdowns for much of the time) and it is a really cool place. But it’s occult themed – I wonder if they’ll be able to handle a massive random grab bag of books from my Kindle – everything from occult to history to sci-fi to martial arts to physical fitness..
Clark #67, JMG,
I’ve tried to look into Peter Zeihan’s work, but found most of what I read at a glance pretty outlandish – US energy independence through fracking, China as a fragile nation with no history of relevance, starry eyed adoration for the miracle workers in the covid vaccine industry, a Fukuyamaian view of world history with the US as the eternal hero – it all sounded like so much flunky language to me.
Are we talking abut the same dude? If so, what are some of his good ideas? I found the aging populations thing quite interesting.
Youngelephant, in that case, I don’t know yet. I don’t set out to impose a metanarrative on a story; if one shows up, it does so in the course of writing the story. For me writing is always a process of discovery.
Celadon, somebody in the chansphere seems to have made a breakthrough on this front. There’s a variety of optical filter glass called Wood’s glass that appears to have the same effect. You might have an easier time finding that.
Collapsenik, thanks for both of these!
Your Kittenship, enjoy the Nyquil high. 😉 One way or another, I hope he can find something that meets his spiritual needs — the guy is clearly in agony.
Adwelly (if I may), Atlantis and Watkins are both lovely places, each in its own way — I can’t imagine going to London and not visiting both of them. I’ll have to check out Forbidden Planet if I ever have the chance to get back over there.
Martin, wasn’t it in the movie Repo Man that the strange old hippie character tells the protagonist that watching TV makes you stupid? I think he was right.
Abraham, you’re most welcome. Go to it!
Sergi, do exactly what you’re doing. Consciousness is the universal solvent; by bringing these emotions into full consciousness and letting yourself deal with them and accept them, they release the energy locked up inside them, and stop being an issue.
James, the “identity of life” such people cling to is a false identity; that’s why they have to keep on propping it up with certain activities. To let go of the false identity is frightening, but it’s an absolutely necessary step if any kind of inner development or healing is going to happen. Setting aside a few minutes a day to practice meditation, and sticking with that even when it gets scary, is one functional way to outgrow the habit.
Forecastingintelligence, I’m still gathering information, and doing it in the certain knowledge that most of what’s going on is hidden from me. It’s clear from the VAERS data that the vaccines being used in the United States have an unusually high rate of adverse events, and a very wide range of them. Since no one anywhere has yet experienced what the vaccines will do for very long, we’re just going to have to wait and see. Do you happen to know if there’s a registry of adverse vaccine effects in Britain, or any European country? Having comparison data would be extremely useful. (By the way, that first website isn’t exactly convincing — ads on the sidebar insisting that Freemasonry is behind the Luciferian New World Order gives it a very distinctly crackpot flavor. Do you know of a less dubious site that covers this information?)
Booklover, thanks for this. Yes, it’s highly relevant.
Tommy, in the occult teachings I’ve studied, one of the useful lessons is that anger is almost always a secondary emotion — that is, there’s another, different emotion hidden under it, usually fear, grief, or shame. Until you can let yourself feel and accept the primary emotion underneath the anger, the anger’s going to stay around. Reflection and journaling on the subject of your feelings is one good way to get down to the primary emotion and deal with it.
Owen, not that lucky. That’s part of why I’m not getting vaccinated. (The other part is that I had the coronavirus last April and got over it easily; I’ve had bad colds that were worse.)
Aziz, interesting. It’s quite common in the history of religions for periods of laxness and moral decay to alternate with periods of revival and renewed energy, so it wouldn’t be surprising for Islam to pass through such a cycle. As for Africa, no, Fortune was perfectly well aware of the difference between Arabla and Africa; I’m not at all sure where she got the belief that Africa was to be initiated by Islam, but she knew a fair amount about the European colonies in Africa; did you know that one of her thriller novels (written under the pseudonym “V.M. Steele”) is set in Africa?
Pamouna, well, if I did that the Open Post would be on the 2nd Wednesday and be followed by a substantive post on the 3rd Wednesday. Did you mean to suggest Open Post on the 3rd Wednesday and book club on the 4th?
Ryan, I certainly don’t expect the King in Orange to be the last word on the Trump phenomenon. I tried to point out what I observed, and why it matters that what I saw contradicts the standard corporate media version of the story. I’ve never been to Mississippi, much less lived there long enough to know the local culture well, so doubtless you have experiences I don’t. If you have a clearer sense of what’s going on, why not write some essays or a book on the subject, and get it into the collective discussion?
Womensatlasrc, nope. I could have made The King in Orange easily twice as long as it was; a variety of things could have gone in, but I trimmed it down to focus on a specific set of themes. I’ll look forward to hearing what you think of it.
Secretface, well, one introduction to Druidry I can certainly recommend is The Druidry Handbook by somebody named John Michael Greer. 😉 As for Evola, I did a post on his magical writings on my former blog The Well of Galabes; I haven’t had time yet to do the series of posts critiquing Revolt Against the Modern World that I mentioned in that post, but we’ll see what circumstances permit.
Balowulf, of course it was. There isn’t anything authentically leftward in the current behavior of the ruling elite. What’s happened, as I read it, is that they’re desperately trying to whip up racial conflict in the US to prevent working class white people and working class people of color from noticing that they have more in common with each other than either has in common with the privileged classes. If that fails, and working class people make common cause across the artificially imposed and enforced color line, it’s game over for the managerial class — and they know it. That’s why the canned riots on demand and the deployment of “critical race theory” — the problem they face is that white people in this country are no longer racist enough to allow the same old game to be played.
Matthias, I’d have to go back and repeat a bunch of research to provide much in the way of details. I’m thinking more of the second half of the 19th century, when musical styles such as ragtime spread nationwide, popular fiction became a national phenomenon, and institutions such as the Chatauqua (a venue for traveling lectures and infotainment) popped up all over the country.
Robert, glad to hear it. I didn’t want to get deeply into Wallace’s extremely interesting spiritual background, not least because the automatic reaction from certain corners of the public would be “You see, it’s those awful Russians again!” But of course you’re quite correct. One of Sara’s grandfathers, by the way, was a hardcore Welsh Israelite — there was a subset of the movement that insisted that the Welsh, but not the English, were members of the lost tribes of Israel!
Lydia, thanks for the recommendation. As for your question, good heavens, yes — the number of people in this country who manage never to notice the substandard care they’re receiving from the medical industry, and keep on blindly doing as they’re told even at the cost of their prosperity, their health, and their lives, shows that there’s serious sorcery involved.
David BTL, many thanks for this. Can you point me to a good book or website that goes into more detail about the economics of network-type infrastructure? That seems crucial to understand just now.
PG, thank you! I didn’t (and don’t) have any kind of security clearance at all; fortunately there was a lot of stuff in print about the last handful of American imperial adventures in the Middle East, and I used the two Iraq wars and the US presence in Afghanistan as my chief templates for the East African war. One of the reasons I had my Chinese characters talk about how easy it was to figure out what the Americans were going to do was just how little trouble I had finding detailed information about our order of battle, preferred strategy and tactics, weapons systems, etc. — all the stuff that countries used to hide from their adversaries at all costs.
Neptunesdolphins, I’ve been brooding over that as well. It’s certainly possible — and if so, we could be in for very strange days.
On the boredom of modern life: we are moving into a larger, older house, and in the spirit of reusing old things, we have been frequenting charity shops for our furniture, and also auctions. You can get great, old, high-quality wooden furniture for very good prices. The graceful, curved legs of the side table we bought, the stately old lamps, the richly upholstered sofa with the same nicely curved wooden legs. It’s remarkable that there is so little demand for this type of furniture, likely because it’s not boring enough. The taste for natural wood finish is gone, most new wooden things we’ve seen are painted over.
We just arranged our new dining room set that we bought at an auction for $350 CAD (i.e., dirt cheap): 6 very comfortable chairs and a solid wooden table. My first thought when we put it all together is that we maybe went too far – the table and chairs are extremely ornate, even gaudily so. With Covid lockdowns, it was hard to tell from the photos online. I started to imagine, as I stood there looking at it set up for the first time, the reactions of guests when they visit, that I’ll probably be a little embarrassed, and then wondered why – even in its gaudiness, it has a sort of life to it which seems contrary to anything you’d find expressed in Ikea’s products, for example. It also made me wonder whether we’ll see ornamented things make a comeback in the future? Adolf Loos did a lot of damage with his essay Ornament and Crime.
Booklover #162
Re: How to handle totalitarianism
Assuming you mean “how to handle totalitarianism as a citizen”
The fact that the population here in Germany is so overtly compliant with the new rules, although quite a number of people find these rules wrong and at least bordering on the totalitarian, has had me consider the idea that it might actually be wise to keep a low profile and not voice much criticism, at least not loudly.
You see, the obvious and loud critics have been brown-washed really quickly, so nobody dare say a peep in public, lest they be lumped in with the Nazis.
Saying a few sensible quiet peeps in private here and there, though, especially while superficially pretending to play along, might help to slowly undermine the believability of those in charge while they never get alarmed enough to actually tighten the noose and make the soft totalitarianism hard.
This idea aims at weakening the rulers’ power over the people without ever raising the alarm, without giving the authorities a clear aim to strike at, and, optimally, without them ever even noticing that they’re losing control.
By what means that could achieved would have to be thought out in detail, but I guess it’s a lot about attitude and raising people’s spirits by subtle means.
ADJMG,
Please ignore if this has already been posted, but Amazon cares about its employees:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2021/05/amazon-amazen-booths-would-make-even-a-dystopia-wince.html
@ Christoper #215 and what to next with getting published.
Read my advice to Stephen.
It’s not difficult to get published if you go indie. Traditional publishing will be harder.
The hardest part is not writing the book.
It’s finding the market that wants it and selling to them.
Will1000, you could use any of these terms. The terms “spell” and “enchantment” are equivalent — one comes from Anglo-Saxon roots, the other from French — and “trance” is the state of someone who is under an enchantment, voluntarily or otherwise. In terms of background, a lot of what’s going on here has to do with what we can call the level of consciousness. The higher the level, the more capable you are of self-knowledge, reflection, and creativity; the lower the level, the more you fall under the control of mental and emotional automatisms, so that you don’t think, you just react. Hostile magic very often has the effect (or tries to have the effect) of lowering the level of consciousness so you do self-defeating things of various kinds in an unreflective, automatic fashion. Ideologies, such as belief in progress, function in exactly the same way.
Logan, interesting. The funny thing there is that Land is in favor of the free market and technology and thinks that letting them accelerate indefinitely will lead to their triumph…
Danielle, religious conservatives always have larger families than liberal atheists. What always happens is that the kids of the religious conservatives grow up and reject their parents’ beliefs — and the more aggressively the parents push their beliefs on the kids, the more likely the kids are to rebel. It makes for a fine bit of cultural irony.
Anonymous, I hope you’re wrong. If you’re not, we’re going to have to find someplace to put a very large number of corpses in a hurry.
Oilman2, thank you for this. That’s one of the funnier things I’ve seen this week. As far as weather predictions, yep — “If it bleeds, it leads” is now the model for the whole range of mass media infotainment.
Teresa (if I may), er, I’ve never had an agent. There’s a whole world of small to midsized publishers that don’t require manuscripts to be agented, do a decent job of editing, and turn out 5 to 50 books a year; again, that’s what I recommend these days for new authors.
Mark, the entire Syrian fiasco will probably go down in history as the beginning of the terminal phase of American global hegemony. All we succeeded in doing was giving the Russians a warm water naval port on the Mediterranean and a crucial air base within range of most of the Middle East. .
KW, many thanks for the data points! The business about blood clots is interesting — I’ve heard plenty of reports of blood clots immediately following vaccination; do you happen to know if that’s starting to happen later on? If so, ouch.
Ksim, of course. The birth of a new great culture doesn’t happen in a burst of radiance and joy. It’s the first tentative spring that follows a long, bitter winter. The great culture of western Europe, the Faustian culture, began to take shape around the year 1000, when western Europe had been ravaged by Viking raids, internecine warfare, and the collapse of the Carolingian empire. It took that to break the grip of the Apollonian pseudomorphosis and spark the first stirrings of something wholly new. In the same way, Russia faces a very troubled century of demographic decline and social crisis — and out of that, sometime around 2100, something genuinely new will begin to stir, probably in the lower Volga basin. It won’t be a significant political factor for another century, and only after the Arctic Ocean is ice-free and the Ob/Irtysh basin becomes a major economic hub will it rise to the status of major global power — say, by 2500 or so. If it follows the usual chronology it will finish its cultural evolution around 3100 as an empire dominating much of Eurasia.
Quinshi, no, I chose the location with some care. This has been a viable area for urban settlement since the seventeenth century. The Ohio river basin and Great Lakes will likely be the center of the great culture that will rise in North America, but that won’t get started until around the year 2600 — and I don’t expect to wait around until then!
Loafer, you might want to look at Naven by Gregory Bateson; if I recall correctly, it includes a discussion along these lines, and it might point you to other sources.
El, that’s a very good — and a very troubling — point. Yes, it’s weird, and it does fit the way that blowback tends to work.
Eike, oh, he’s got some idiotic ideas. I thought his analysis of China was interesting, though it needs to be balanced with other views.
Dashui, thanks for this. Oof.
A small update on how some people are starting to figure out that ‘Not the future we ordered’ is what is coming our way.
Via Hacker news comes this story of “Goodye to the future. The last days of Tokyo’s Nakagin capsule tower”. It is fascinating to see the past visions of the future now being torn down because they wore out long before nay vision of them came true.
https://japan-forward.com/goodbye-to-the-future-the-last-days-of-tokyos-nakagin-capsule-tower/
The most interesting part was the response this news was getting. The top comment was as follows.
“Travelling to the 70s must feel like going to the future: these futuristic capsule buildings existed, supersonic air travel was commonplace, and there were humans travelling to the moon. The epitome of modernity these days is how fast your car videos can load.”
More everyday I see folks starting to realize the predicament of our times. Something to be wary of in terms of its potential blow back but also for the possibilities it will present.
—
@JMG – I just got my copy of ‘The king in Orange’. Haven’t started it yet, but I do love the note you put in the back about using two search engine to check on what is being said. Very nice.
Your interview on of ‘Higherside chat’ did a fantastic job of summarizing how the occult/magic side of the world is so deeply embedded in role of future decline. I’m strapped in for another wild ride.
John—
Re utility economics
My knowledge has been largely OTJ learning, but I know of a couple of works which might be helpful starting places. The “gold standard” for utility rates (which derive from the underlying economics) is, as I understand it, still _Principles of Public Utility Rates_ by James Bonbright (1961). Another that I know of, but am not familiar with personally, is _Public Utility Economics_ by Michael Crew and Paul Kleindorfer (1979). You might also peruse your state public service commission’s website or NARUC (National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners) at naruc.org for papers or primers on the economics of utilities. The FERC website, too, though you may have to dig a bit (ferc.gov).
Hope this helps some.
@ UKBookshop Guy #230.
Don’t use Amazon for used books unless you have no other choice.
They’re great for researching to make sure you’ve got your titles and names spelled correctly, to see what else the author wrote, and to see the also-boughts which lead into interesting directions. The sellers on Amazon are nearly always the most expensive option because they have to pay Amazon a percentage. I know because we (as very small fry) used to sell used books on Amazon.
Abebooks.com and alibris.com are both made up of used bookstores putting their stock online.
Yes, I know abebooks is owned by Amazon. Nonetheless, plenty of used bookstores use it to sell their stock. Check both sites because they are not the same.
If you want to support your local guys, go in and ask!
The owner may have some of your books already in stock in the backroom. If you want them to do the searching, ask. You may have to pay a small fee over and above doing it yourself, but that spreads the $$ around.
If you like serendipity, make sure to hit library sales, thrift shops, and yard sales. You never know what you’ll find.
Hi John Michael,
I really don’t know why either – but the reaction is most certainly quite odd relative to the risk. Guilt or madness can produce such a rection, just one of many suggestions which pops into my mind in relation to this health subject. Hmm.
Hey, I’ve mentioned this to you before, but back in late December 2019, I had the worst cold that I can ever recall experiencing. Most certainly it got into my lungs, and they took a few weeks to clear the muck (sorry for the details). Anyway, fresh air, sunlight, exercise and fresh food from the garden helped a lot. Mind you, it was a very strange and unpleasant experience and it was certainly very different from colds which I’d had plenty of prior experience with, but neither was it influenza – which I’ve had twice in my life. I can see how that influenza virus would kill people.
Now timelines are beginning to be released into the ether in relation to this larger health matter, things that were once obscured are becoming clearer. It’s all rather unfortunate isn’t it? Oh well.
Down here the forest is subject to occasional bushfires, some of which are intentionally lit, and others are acts of human stupidity. Either way, the outcome is rarely good. I have a saying in relation to the situation in that: “You’re only ever as good as the weakest link.” The saying could well be applied to the health matter which dares not be named, or at least things appear to be shaping up that way!
Cheers
Chris
Over my lifetime I have had some phenomenal dreams (night dreams, that is, in my sleep). Some have had such stories as I could not contrive in my waking hours, and sometimes make use of special visual effects worthy of CGI in the Hollywood films. My questions: 1] do you yourself have startling dreams, JMG?; and 2] where do our dreams come from? I am not even sure that they come from my unconscious / subconscious mind, because at times they give me knowledge that I don’t have. What is your view on this, JMG? Do we have a ‘higher self’ (whatever hat might be) that produces these dreams? If not, what is their source?
Some of my dreams are very banal, like daydreaming. Others are sometimes precognitive. Then there are those in which I fly or levitate – these I enjoy very much. Then again, I have dreams in which I am me but not me – I am somebody else (e.g. an Arab waiter in the 1940s), but only realise this when I wake up. Then there are recurring dreams, in which I commute to work and go to the same workplace, in locations that seem very precise but which in waking life I have never visited, nor do I know where they might be. I am sure I am not the author of many of my dreams – that is all I know.
Jargon? What jargon? a.k.a. “What’s this mean in English? The first part of the first sentence means – what?!?!?
*We’re uplifting a major lawsuit to know about* from our affiliate in Florida – which challenges one of nearly 100 anti-protest state bills introduced this year. Make no mistake, bills like the one in Florida – signed into law only weeks ago – are a direct response to the power and effectiveness of historic protests demanding justice for Black lives.
It’s racist, unconstitutional, and an attempt to suppress dissent. So learn more now and we’ll be back with updates on our growing number of state and national lawsuits very soon.
– The ACLU Team”
@JMG
Some sources for vaccine adverse event reporting, and additional information.
In addition to VAERS, there are efforts at compiling anecdotal reports and media stories that are not out on the crackpot fringe. One is the link I posted in my first comment here. Another is https://covidvaccinereactions.com/
Europe has an equivalent reporting system. You can search the raw reports here. https://www.adrreports.eu/en/search_subst.html#
Go to C and scroll down to COVID-19 to find the four vaccines. The “number of individual cases by reaction groups” graph is useful.
Israel more or less dismantled their official reporting mechanisms, but an independent committee has been attempting to compile reports: https://www.the-people-committee.com/translated
There is a correlation between some of the problems caused by the vaccines and those caused by covid itself. Based on some new research, this may well be due to biotoxic effects of the viral spike protein. (All four of the vaccines used in the western world train the body to make these spike proteins in order to induce immunity.) I have not yet seen any comparison of the relative levels of spike protein in the bodies of someone who has a mild infection vs. someone who has been recently vaccinated.
https://www.salk.edu/news-release/the-novel-coronavirus-spike-protein-plays-additional-key-role-in-illness/
“In the new study, the researchers created a “pseudovirus” that was surrounded by SARS-CoV-2 classic crown of spike proteins, but did not contain any actual virus. Exposure to this pseudovirus resulted in damage to the lungs and arteries of an animal model—proving that the spike protein alone was enough to cause disease. Tissue samples showed inflammation in endothelial cells lining the pulmonary artery walls.
The team then replicated this process in the lab, exposing healthy endothelial cells (which line arteries) to the spike protein. They showed that the spike protein damaged the cells by binding ACE2. This binding disrupted ACE2’s molecular signaling to mitochondria (organelles that generate energy for cells), causing the mitochondria to become damaged and fragmented.
Previous studies have shown a similar effect when cells were exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but this is the first study to show that the damage occurs when cells are exposed to the spike protein on its own.”
Scotlyn-
As an engineer, I try to keep my mind pragmatically open to new (and archaic) ideas and perspectives, but milesmathis has all the earmarks of a classic crank mathematician. I struggled through a few pages of his long-winded, redundant, and defensive writing and found nothing to encourage me to continue. For all its flaws, modernity has given us a system of mathematics that works really well for manipulating matter and energy. (Mathematics, though, does not grant us much wisdom regarding choices about matter and energy.) “Milesmathis” needs to show that his development is useful, not merely correct.
Mollari – On the same topic, I have recently done some slide-rule calculations related to the design and construction of crystal radio receivers, and found it to be a good mental workout. Sometimes, by the time I set up the problem and track the decimal point properly, I’ve got enough precision mentally that the slide-rule itself is superfluous. It’s handy to remember a few special cases, such as the small-angle approximations for trig functions: sin(x) = x, or x – x*x*x/6 if you need a little more precision. cos(x) = 1, or 1 – x*x/2, where x is the angle in radians.
Archdruid,
Well that’s actually good news then, I do hope that the new profit class will see the sense of paying their workers a living wage.
Peter,
Oh I’m sure the prophets will be making a buck in the years ahead too. 😉
Regards,
Varun
JMG,
After reading your series of discussions on Dion Fortune’s Cosmic Doctrine, I am ever more intrigued about our existence between incarnations. From what I understand from the discussions, when we die, our consciousness transitions into a dream state. Is this dream state similar to the same dream state we have when we sleep each night — where things can be quite surreal, disjointed, forgotten right away, and so on, or is it more like our living consciousness where our memory connects events and where one has a sense of time? I guess that I’m saying that in my dreams at night I am always in a present moment and I don’t have an awareness of a past or a future.
I asked you once before about our reuniting with loved ones after we die. If we are in a dream state when we die, are we merely imagining those loved ones and not really with the them?
And when I have dreams of my dead loved ones now, are they my memories or imagination or am I actually meeting them spiritually?
I’m confused about meeting a dead loved one between incarnations — would they have not reincarnated by the time I die?
You’ve mentioned that an interest pursued in one lifetime can turn into a natural talent in the next lifetime. I believe this is true, but how does the genetic aspect contribute? My grandmother was a talented artist, her son, my dad, was also a talented artist, and I have a natural talent in art also. In addition, if you don’t use a natural talent very much in your current life, do you lose it in the next incarnation, or does it atrophy, or do you always have it thereafter?
On the topic of Covid as blowback for the Magic Resistance, I’m noticing some freaky stuff; the first is that the Covid hysteria allowed for the rule changes which put the democrats over the edge in certain crucial swing states, and persuaded a few people I know not to vote for Trump; it’s also allowed for a far firmer strangling of national conversation than otherwise in the States and Canada. Having just reread Magic for the Resistance, I’m astonished how much of the Covid hysteria maps on to the stuff the Magic Resistance did.
It also explains why Canada has gone so totally over the top here: in the states, those energies are at least notionally able to hit Trump, but the MR’s workings to block “Russian interference” would also prevent anything Canadians in the MR (and there seem to have been a lot of them) did from leaving the country, so of course it would become unusually septic here….
“Is it possible the Covid-19 hysteria was somehow caused by people sensing the consequences of the vaccine? I’m noting with some concern that the vaccines seem to be causing everything attributed to Covid in the more hysterical end of things, which seems to suggest mass deaths may be coming…..”
“Anonymous, I hope you’re wrong. If you’re not, we’re going to have to find someplace to put a very large number of corpses in a hurry.”
I’ve noticed a lot of charts for Canada and the US over the next few years have seriously afflicted sixth and or eighth houses, and have also noticed the vaccines seem to do a lot of what people claimed Covid does. I’m not going to speculate about cause and effect, but those combinations, mixed with the fact that three of the predictions of the Great Conjunction (improved economic conditions for the world as a whole; the end of progress as an influential force; and an intense global distrust of governments) would all happen in a hurry if these vaccines, being pushed so hard in so many countries and taken up by most of the global elite, killed a lot of people.
I’m also tentatively inclined to consider the Covid hysteria to be Pluto’s last hurrah, and it would be fitting somehow if the astrological planet of death, own goals, hubris, and over-the-top pointless suffering were to end his final moment with a pointless mass die off caused by people insisting that they know these experimental vaccines are safe; one which will also obliterate much of what remains of the Plutonian Current……
@Phutatorius,
Thank you for bringing up the topic of EMFs. I have been pretty busy recently translating relevant documents into Japanese. I will try to respond properly later today or tomorrow.
@Everyone discussing pressure to vaccinate, the entire country of Japan appears to be being subjected to bullying. We had a new spike in cases here starting from March 8 (which incidentally was a date when many electrosensitive people worldwide started reporting effects like they get from sunspots though there were no sunspots, but rather Musk’s 5G satellite service increased its power). In response to the spike, the government declared an emergency and restricted economic activity. Last week, Japanese perseverance paid off and the cases started declining again. However, with frightful news from overseas, a large portion of the public was demanding the Olympics to be cancelled. Japan has been slow about vaccination–I wouldn’t be able to obtain one even if I wanted, but they started off with healthcare workers in January. The minister in charge of public health has declared all along that vaccination will not be mandatory, but it was mandatory for the healthcare workers if they wanted to keep their jobs. I do not know if Japan has any system at all for reporting adverse vaccine events, but rumors of deaths have been leaking out.
Anyway, right when the case count started subsiding again, the USA up and declared Japan, where the government is very determined to hold the Olympics despite public opinion, to be too dangerous to travel to. Subsequent to that, Japan responded by saying it would focus solely on mass vaccination as its preventive effort, and accelerated its vaccination program. Now every time I see a TV, it is pushing for everyone to be vaccinated.
People notice that at the very bottom of the vaccination notification cards that have been sent around to senior citizens, in small letters they say “Whether to vaccinate is your personal choice.” I take this to mean the government has no intention of helping anyone injured.
Michael, now there’s a great icon of decline! The Nakagin tower is a classic example of the mythic pseudofuture — people in the present building something that they thought represented the future. I’m impressed that people are thinking along the lines of that first comment; from there, it’s not far to the realization that industrial civilization peaked in the 1970s and it’s all downhill from there. I’m glad you liked the podcast — and the book.
David BTL, many thanks for this. I wonder, though, if you’d be interested sometime in writing an essay on what people need to know network-style infrastructure in an era of decline; it might be useful for a lot of us.
Chris, that sounds rather remarkably like the case of coronavirus I had, though I had a milder case of it. Interesting. “Guilt or madness”…yes, it does sound like that.
Malcopian, my dreams range from the weird to the really weird; I’m not startled by them because they’re always like that. In a dream I had last night I was in an old-fashioned ice cream parlor, talking to the guy behind the counter about Nick Land’s theories about Lemurian time sorcery, while he dished up one scoop after another of cherry ice cream for a succession of mimes who came into the shop, talking silently into cell phones. (They ordered silently, too.) As for where dreams come from, the occult tradition is that when you enter into the dreaming state you perceive the outer surface of your astral body, and so part of what you experience comes from outside, from elsewhere in the astral, and part comes from within your astral body.
Patricia, I wonder if they could get someone to translate that into English.
Mark L, many thanks for these. It’s good to see people stepping up to the plate where the medical industry has failed them.
Varun, those who do so will be able to provide better goods and services to their customers…
User Name, okay, the state you enter between lives depends on how developed your mental sheath has become. At a very low level of development you’re practically asleep; at a level where you’re nearly done with the human level, you remain fully awake and conscious between lives; in between are various levels of deeper or shallower immersion in dreaming. You can actually contact another person in your dreams — it happens more often than most people realize — and the same is true after death; as for whether the person has reincarnated or not, it depends on how long the gap is between their death and yours. As for talents, if you’ve pursued an interest in this life, you’re much more likely to be reborn into a body that has genetics that will further that interest. If you don’t use it, you may not have much access to it in your next life, though it remains within the permanent part of yourself.
Mollari, I’m still brooding over that possibility. If the coronavirus business is in fact blowback from the Magical Resistance, I’d expect negative effects from vaccines to become steadily worse over the next four years. We’ll just have to see…
Patricia O, thanks for the heads up! Which vaccines are being used in Japan?
For anybody interested in a Jung-inspired (and hence quasi-magical) take on corona: http://simonsheridan.me/covid-19/the-coronapocalypse-part-26-the-devouring-mother/
The Great Khan’s potluck horde is typing too fast! I’ll have to knock off The Nyquil and try that stuff they use on racehorses. 😲
JMG, can you post your dreams more often? The ice cream mimes (good band name) made me laugh.
You mentioned to Violet a “nascent national culture” that got killed in the early 20th century. Can you tell me anything about it, or point out some pieces of culture that might help be get a gut feel for what you are refering to. It’s an interesting notion.
@JMG There ought to be a word for ‘nostalgia for inaccessible bookshops’. There almost certainly is in German. In my case I regularly get it for Powell’s in Portland which I remember fondly and would pretty much be my only motivation for transatlantic travel these days. I’m afraid the addiction is sufficiently bad that I did briefly look at possibilities while writing this. Ocean liners are still a thing. Who knew?
@UKBookshopGuy, I’m afraid neither Atlantis nor Watkins could cope with a grab bag – they both specialise in the occult. The original Foyles shop might have done but that is long gone. For sheer variety you need either Powell’s (see above) or a town. Hay on Wye. I was last there in 2019 and although it was somewhat diminished there are still around 20 really good stores. Hay will have been shut down for the last 15 months but there may be signs of life now. I will make a point of heading over later in the year.
@JMG, @Forecastingintelligence
The UK uses the yellow card system. The official site is here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions/coronavirus-vaccine-summary-of-yellow-card-reporting
Tommy #284,
Embrace your grumpy old man. I love being a grumpy old woman. People have their world view. Certainly you can say what you think but do it briefly and with humour. There are friends of circumstance and friends of the heart. They both matter. Don’t lose friends over politics or the environment. Listen with respect and silence and try to talk about what you do have in common. Friends are too important to lose over the things people count as important but which are really drivel.
Another point: a Canadian wrote about outbreaks of Covid lessening with hand cleaning and mask wearing. We have hardly worn masks where I live but we have used hand sanitizer and handd-washing extensively. The incidence of flu is about half this winter. As somebody said, who would have thought that better hygiene would stop the spread of disease?
@Mark L Yes, I’ve come to the same conclusion; real world people with similar views would be a wonderful resource. I’m constantly searching!
@JMG Thanks, that deserves some reflection.
Mary Bennett #316, one of the best things about compulsory education is they make you learn things you wouldn’t have had the motivation to do yourself, but have no objection to. The problem is if they try to make you do something you had enthusiasm for, especially if what they want you to do is less sophisticated than what you were doing anyway. I’ve always instincively understood punctuation in English. But when they made us learn it formally, my ability to do it actually declined. Or consider an average PE class – a waste of time for a natural athlete, and ritual humiliation for the least talented. Hard thing to get right because what is right is different for everybody.
Loafer #324, that reminds me of the joke that grandparents and grandchildren get on so well because they have a common enemy. 🙂
@JMG, Thanks! It’s good to get confirmation of what was going on (my friend being a psychic vampire).
I’ll limit our in-person interaction for the foreseeable future, since we were mostly texting friends anyways.
One thing I’ve been wondering about is how do I keep my inner serenity now that the lockdowns are over and I will be out in town much more? I do the DMH suite of practices every day, SOP-Ogham, and I either do a five minute prayer-meditation or I journal. Do you think that is enough to keep thinking my own thoughts and feeling my own emotions while in a major city? I don’t want to go back to the way I was, when someone else could put me in a mood.
Based on the practices I know how to do, I figured I should either do my SOP or a cold water wipe-down before leaving the house each day, that way I have at least some kind of protection before I’m interacting with other people. Is there anything else you recommend? I’ve also got the Druid Egg exercise under my belt, though that’s only sustained for a few seconds while I walk through a crowded area.
Hi John Michael,
Yeah, it was unpleasant, but at the same time it wasn’t the end of the world either, but then you and I are probably not in a high risk group – at present. To be frank I’m not entirely unhappy with having experienced that episode. And not to sound flippant but it appears that this one is a new thing in our environment and looks set to hang around and mutate for a long while to come. From a purely pragmatic perspective, isn’t it better to be put to the test when there are the excess resources floating around to assist you should you need it? And if you were put to the test and you didn’t need the assistance, then well, you are dealing in the future with a known risk for which you have personal experience. My thinking is that in the future, resources will be constrained, and I must add that the fear of the unknown produces a very strong emotional response, as you’re no doubt aware. It is a sad thing for society to keep pushing those buttons.
My wife had no symptoms whatsoever, so it is a bit of lucky dip really.
There are other possible reasons for the response, but lately those two have been getting higher billing in my mind. Have you ever heard of: 1978 smallpox outbreak in the United Kingdom?
Crazy days.
Cheers
Chris
Are there any American institutions left with credibility at this point? It seems they are worked hard to shred any they had over the past year (medical, military, public health, media, public schools…..)
Mr. Greer,
Is the assemblage point an invention/revelation of Castaneda or does it have a history and independent confirmations in occultism?
Dear Commentariat in general.
Please spell out in full all these acronyms that are proliferating all over the comment section. At least spell them out once when first used in your posts. Why do so many of you assume the rest of us know what these acronyms refer to?
@Malcopian:
Here’s Charles Godfrey Leland’s take on dreams and one’s inner dreamer, or subliminal self, from his Gypsy Sorcery:
“Now this Dream Artist is, to judge by his works, a very different kind of a person from Me. We are not sympathetic, and herein lies a great and serious subject of study. ” Dreams,” says a writer, ” are the novels which we read when we are fast asleep,” and, at the risk of receiving punishment, I declare that my writer belongs to a school oi novelists with which I have no feelings in common. If, as everybody assumes, it is always I who dream — only using other material — how is it that I always invariably disagree with, thwart, contradict, vex, and mock myself? I had rather be hanged and be done with it, before I would wrong my worst enemy with such pitiful, silly, degrading dreams and long-forgotten follies, as I am called on to endure. If this alter-ego were a lunatic, he could not be a more thoroughly uncongenial inmate of my brain than he often is. Our characters are radically different. Why has be a mind so utterly unlike mine? His tastes, his thoughts, dispositions, and petty peculiarities are all unlike mine. If we belonged to the same club, I should never talk with him.
“Now we are coming to our Witchcraft. This alter-ego does not confine himself to dreams. A lunatic is a man who dreams wide-awake. He has lost his will or the controlling power resulting from the just co-relation of brain-forces. Then the stored-up images stray out and blend. I have dreamed of telling or seeing things and of acting them at the same time. A fish and a watch and a man may seem to be the same thing at once in a dream, as they often are to a waking lunatic. A poet is a man who dreams wide- awake ; but he can guide his dreams or imaginings to symmetrical form, and to a logical conclusion or coherence. With the painter and sculptor it is the same. When the alter-ego works harmoniously with the waking willy we call it Imagination.
“But when the alter^go draws decidedly on latent forces, or powers unknown to the waking Me, I am amazed. He does it often enough, that is certain. Then we have Mystery. And it is out of this that men have drawn the conclusion that they have two or three souls — an astral spirit, a power of prophecy, the art of leaving the body, and the entire machinery of
occultism. Physiology is probably on the high road to explain it all, but as yet it is not explained.”
Multiple selves within one and the same body! This is a principal part of my view of the esoteric constitution of man, as it was my ancestors’ before me. The concept goes back to 19th-century psychical researchers such as the amazing F. W. H. Myers.
Leland has a lot more to say about the multiple selves that lie within each person, both in this book and elsewhere when he writes about magic and sorcery and will-power.
A troll-banishing image for your blog or social media: this one is a wearable talisman, with a fancy body, but others are plain: it’s the shape that counts.
https://grimfrost.com/products/troll-cross-iron?variant=30033771282
To Malcopian on dreams: I like a quote from Barbara Hambly’s Cold Bayou, “Dreams are what God sends to people too smart to learn any other way.”
@Denis:
6 hospitalisations and one death resulting from the flouting of rules in one gym here, according to the news. I haven’t checked this, since what interests me most is that the overall mortality in Quebec (and most Canadian provinces) in 2021 has been at or below the average of preceding years, according to Statistics Canada.
@Mark L:
I do agree that there is no easy correlation between the degree of social distancing measures and excess mortality country-wide (or region-wide). There are differences that could be ascribed to social distancing, e.g. in a comparison between Sweden and its immediate neighbours (Norway and Finland) or between Brazil and its neighbours of equal or higher per capita income (Argentina and Uruguay). For other differences, however, there are no such obvious explanations.
That doesn’t mean that such differences between countries or regions don’t matter, and I think the reasons for these differences are among the most important pieces of information missing. For example:
– why was Central and Southern Italy almost completely spared in February-May 2020?
– why was Japan relatively spared?
JMG.
If I remember correctly, accelerationism was orignally a Neo-Marxian idea that to defeat capitalism, its inherent revoluitionary dynamic had to be intensified to a destructive apogee. In embracing accelerationism as a viable path to the future, I think Land was actually wandering off the accelerationist reservation, as it were.
“Hostile magic very often has the effect (or tries to have the effect) of lowering the level of consciousness so you do self-defeating things of various kinds in an unreflective, automatic fashion. Ideologies, such as belief in progress, function in exactly the same way.”
I suspect the Pavlovian response of the Western left in regard to all things Palestinian is an example of this.
Hi JMG,
Congratulations on the new book. It is an interesting read so far. Most importantly, I now understand what you are pointing toward when “magic” is discussed. On another topic, I have been steadily working through the Order of Essenes material. I am wondering if the next set of material is still available for access?
All the best.
John–
Re an essay on infrastructure economics in the context of decline
An intriguing proposal. I will give the idea some thought, certainly.
Re the future and visions thereof
I stumbled over this article and thought you’d find it of interest:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/5-predictions-uss-top-spies-130250857.html
My first reaction was with respect to the kinds of scenarios *not* listed. Things like the US now a second or third-tier power and some other power or group of powers playing top-dog. I also noted how the cases where there was no one “in charge” of the world were described in negative terms. (I mean, perhaps we just do our own thing, tend to our own affairs, and mind our own business?)
Understanding, of course, that this is the public version of the report.
Gee, great minds think alike. The Covid response could be blowback from the MR.
From my limited experience in spell work in the bunny slope, I felt blowback by simply doing the spell. I am always careful to ask for blessings for people and myself, and I get a whammy. I am not sure if it is my brain injury or my acute psychic senses (I have running conversations with cicadas and squirrels).
But if I get it, and I am super careful, then powerful entities being invoked by the MR could be at play. From reading Hughes’ book, I have a sense that he doesn’t know how to close the door after the spell is over.
As a Roman Pagan, I always invoke Janus, the Divine Guardian of the Threshold, first and last in my work. He opens the Door, watches the Door, and then closes the Door. So only good stays on one side, and not-so-good on the other. That there is no leakage.
From Hughes’ spells, he doesn’t end them as much as just stops. Perhaps, all those people with their stubby orange candles produced the virus which is often depicted in orange and red hues, with cones sticking out of a sphere. Going deeper in the weeds, seems that they opened the Door and something came through. They just didn’t know how to prevent the Something from entering nor from leaving or even having other Somethings coming over. In other words, the focus on Trump was so overwhelming that they lost all sense of how to do things.
—
Speaking of all things Trump, I read the various reviews of the new book. Everyone who hated Trump, had nothing good to say about your book. It was boiler plate.
Another interesting article, re the US Navy’s next round of construction (compared to its Chinese counterpart)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/amid-worries-chinas-growing-navy-210637959.html
Best info about The Virus that I have found:
https://rumble.com/vhp7y5-full-interview-world-renowned-doctor-blows-lid-off-of-covid-vaccine.html?mref=6gby3&mc=98uay
@ David BTL RE: Reduction in energy use….
How does this article fit in with your existing knowledge of utility infrastructure and baseload?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2016/06/28/how-much-electricity-does-it-take-to-run-the-internet/?sh=64426cfc1fff
Now, we are having 5G shoved on us from all sides, even from space via Elon Musk. That is a YUGE investment for very modest gains in relation to what 4G currently delivers. Outside of virtual gaming and virtual porn, I cannot see the advantage that 5G will bring, and the expense of 5G means that outside of the LEO satnet, rural folks will be stuck with 4G (I can’t even get 4G at my farm in Texas without a tower and repeater!).
I have also heard from those already using the LEO satellite downlink that solar storms make it become very sketchy. Can anyone here attest to that? My traditional satellite downlink goes bye-bye during thunderstorms and severe snow, and logically I cannot see the LEO satellite downlinks being exempt from that.
But the energy required to run the internet is much greater than most people realize…
@ Everyone and JMG
The last paragraph of this article is priceless – talk about the myth of progress.
Dominos can’t even field a fleet of self driving pizza vehicles in local neighborhoods.
I read an article somewhere that the vehicles get confounded by anything not permanent – like the guys parking their landscaping trucks in the road to cut grass, or local internet service trucks parking on the street. The robocars simply sit and wait until things return to their “normal” due to “safety” – which further slows local traffic.
There also seems to be a developing resistance to anything “ROBO” among people. Like the reaction to NYC cops and their Boston Dynamics pooch. Has anyone else noticed this particular outcome of the robot invasion?
JMG,
Do you ever wonder (or perhaps you already know) what you did in past lives to give you the natural talents you have now? Your past self must have loved to write, read and ponder the deeper things in life.
I have been “blessed” with multiple natural talents in this lifetime; I must have been quite busy in my past life pursuing various interests. That has certainly been the case I n my current life. For a long time I’ve felt a certain worry or guilt that pushes me to continue and develop the use of my talents as I feel that one mustn’t waste a talent, but I find that I am happiest when I focus on just a few; otherwise it’s overwhelming. Unfortunately, I don’t think that many of the things I’ve mastered in this lifetime will be around in my next liffetime due to the decline in technology that will come with the long descent, so perhaps I should focus on those things that will be around in my next go around, like gardening, tinkering and drawing.
@Sandy
As one of the acronym offenders:
ADE: Antibody-Dependent Enhancement. An immunological phenomenon in which antibodies to a particular pathogen are not protective against future infection but instead enhance the severity of disease. This can occur following exposure to the target pathogen, to a mutated version of the target pathogen, or to an entirely different pathogen, and it may in some cases become apparent as immunity wanes over time.
VAERS: Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. The United States database for tracking adverse reactions to vaccines.
mRNA: messenger RiboNucleic Acid. A biological intermediate between DNA and protein, and the basis of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. No treatment involving the injection of mRNA into the body has been previously approved.
ACE2: Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2. A protein found on the surface of many human cells that plays an important role in regulating blood pressure and is believed to be involved in other processes that maintain homeostasis (e.g. blood glucose regulation). It is also the protein to which the SARS-CoV-2 virus (i.e. the virus responsible for COVID-19) binds in order to gain entry into the cell. In addition to facilitating viral entry, the interaction of the viral spike protein with ACE2 appears to disrupt normal ACE2 function, potentially leading to symptoms or tissue damage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiotensin-converting_enzyme_2
There was an interesting article in yesterday’s Grauniad about vaccine hesitancy in Wisconsin, USA, claiming a link between vaccine hesitancy and political beliefs: “The best predictor of skepticism about vaccines, from our early analyses, is a belief that the election was stolen from President Trump”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/28/wisconsin-coronavirus-vaccine-hesitancy
@adwelly, UKBookshopGuy. I’m sure Watkins would be perfectly able to order non-occult books – they have a dedicated ordering section downstairs, and I dare say they would be glad of the business. Otherwise, I’d probably try Blackwells on High Holborn, or an independent further out of town (although a small independent will probably balk at importing books from the US, India, etc.)
Which role playing games have you played and which ones did you study as reseach for the Weird of Hali RPG?
I’ve never played but did read quite a few World of Darkness books because I was curious how to develop secondary worlds. Recently I’ve been watching games on YT channels like Stream of Blood and The Glass Cannon Network. If it’s not already part of the marketing plan, I’d suggest trying to get your game played on them. They do a brilliant job of showcasing games and make it look so much fun.
It also occured to me that if you’re playing an investigation-based game, reading the real-world books Surveillance Tradecraft by Peter Jenkins and Investigative Reporting by David Anderson and Peter Benjaminson, would massively stack the odds in your favour. 🙂
Darkest Yorkshire (but I hope of wider interest): you describe Phys Ed classes as boring to the athlete, and humiliation to the weak, but I had two years of high school PE that I actually enjoyed. Being of quiet and bookish nature, I was well known as “among the last to be picked” for any sports team. The PE teacher somehow knew exactly who my peers were, and when it was time to pick teams, he selected us FIRST, as “team captains”. We got to do the picking! Of course, the first thing we did was pick the best athletes, and then ask them for recommendations on building the rest of the teams. Thus, none of us was the absolute last pick. And each of us had the privilege of choosing someone who might never have spoken a word to us otherwise.
The same PE teacher, when it was time for softball, taught us modified rules: the batter gets just two pitches; if he declines to swing at a bad pitch twice, he’s out. But the pitcher is on the batting team, so he’s floating the ball into the best hitting position he can. In professional baseball, a “no-hitter” is apparently celebrated for its drama, but in PE, we want lots of hits, lots of fielding, lots of base-running.
I think that my PE teacher was a genius (or at least well educated).
JMG – A brand-new question… People have written about breath control exercises used for magical purposes. I recall one poster setting out, if I recall correctly, “6 breaths per minute” as a goal to strive for, to advance toward enlightenment. To me, this sounds like it risks voluntary asphyxiation! I realize that the autonomic nervous system will take over to maintain life when consciousness is lost, but why should one think that the self-awareness of an oxygen-starved brain is useful?
Re: ransomware attacks – Johnny at granolashotgun noted in a recent post that the workplaces of two people of his acquaintance (at seemingly separate healthcare institutions) suffered ransomware attacks this last few weeks. Media is mum, which is interesting.
Denis – ok, I’ll look more closely at my MailerLite subscription and see if it offers the same ability. Thanks for the tip.
Justin Patrick Moore – thanks for the good wishes and interest! I am keeping the APA-style mailer in mind and otherwise brainstorming ways to use my mimeos. I may also do print jobs for zinemakers (within certain parameters generally related to the types of things we discuss here), in addition to offering a catalog of booklets and whatnot. Thanks for the shoutout via your next newsletter!
PG – mulberries grow where I live too – but the paper-bark mulberry is a different variety that I think is not generally desirable outside its native range – maybe because it’s prone to invasiveness, but I’ve also heard it’s an incredible allergen. I’m in an already allergy-plagued locale (we have a reputation) so I won’t be extending my experiment as far as trying to grow this. A quick search shows, though, that it’s already spread throughout the eastern US – so if anyone in that part of the country wants a project…. there are some traditional skills related to it that could be learned from East Asia so we could produce our own products and help rein in an exuberant plant!
Sorry, JMG
Your proposition is what I actually meant.
All-
This headline is astoundingly misleading, but not, technically, false:
Tulsa Race Massacre events cancelled due to ‘unexpected circumstances’ as DHS warns of racist threats
(Let’s be sure to give “The Independent” .uk full credit for this travesty.)
A day later, a more informative headline appeared:
Tulsa Cancellation Of ‘Remember & Rise’ Event On Black Wall Street Massacre Shot Down By Money Demands – Update (This one, from “Deadline”.)
The first story correctly reports that an event was cancelled, and, correctly, that the Dept. of Homeland Security said “While there had been nothing the Department deemed serious, they said in a note that said “the current Homeland threat remains heightened””. It also went into some detail about historical activities of white supremacists. But it’s hard to read the first headline without assuming that white supremacist threats caused the events to be cancelled, implying that US law enforcement could not provide adequate safety.
In the second article, though, we read that the event organizers had agreed to pay honored guests $100,000 each to appear (and a $2,000,000 donation to a reparations fund). However, the guests’ lawyers then demanded $1,000,000 each, and a $50,000,000 donation, instead. THAT’S what killed the events.
The original headline killed my respect for The Independent.
On vaccine side-effects, this is the latest UK info relating to the Oxford (Astra-Zenica) vaccine (of which I have had two doses without any issues):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57260463
All-
Followup to my prior post: Here’s a teaser for the full article that I described above:
The Independent
Tulsa Race Massacre events cancelled due to ‘unexpected circumstances’ as DHS warns of racist threats
Event marking century since attack on Black Wall Street, where its believed 39 people died, cancelled due to
fears of racist violence
Not just misleading, this is completely false.
Not sure if the Open Post is closed or not, but thought I’d float some ramblings about the pop culture of the times in the form of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU…unsure if this has already been discussed, but if so, forgive me). I believe our host JMG has said he does not watch films or TV, but there’ve been some throwaway comments on here about the general vacuity of superhero films. JMG has elsewhere also lamented about some of the tropes in fantasy fiction, in which there’s a “big bad” that a Chosen One is out to overthrow (a narrative that hearkens back to Christianity itself and finds echoes in everything from Star Wars to Harry Potter). What’s fascinating about the MCU, which is for all intents and purposes the Star Wars (that is to say, generational mythos) of our era, is…how much it ain’t that, and how fundamentally pagan/polytheistic its outlook is. I’m not here to defend it as a piece of high art—it’s full of dumb explosions and the usual contrivances as anything. But on top of questioning the limits of technology and the transumanist/antibiotics-natalist project (Age of Ultron) and the limits of governmental control and self-defense (Civil War), a key point is that even the bad guys are portrayed as having reasonable ends; they are not simply agents of a Principle of Evil, but in working towards their goals create evil outcomes. There’s also an implicit multiplicity in the mythos, and if you think the inclusion of actual Norse gods (in cartoon form, of course) isn’t sneaking one across the psychic goal line, you may be missing something. The important thing, in my view, is that this polytheistic saga will be just as worldview-shaping for the current generation of people as the very binary/Manichaean/good vs. unredeemable evil mythos of Star Wars was for previous ones, and it presents a radically different view of the cosmos.
As I’ve said elsewhere, any sufficiently effective advertising is indistinguishable from magic.
Viduraawakened, thanks for checking that out. Could I ask you to see if anyone in India is still making the old-fashioned stencils? They look something like this http://www.studioduplicatingservice.com/Portals/StudioDuplicatingService/Images/sds-images/stencil.jpg and are either green or blue, have a cardboard or thick-paper header with holes… I don’t know any search terms other than “mimeograph stencils” – but if there’s any way for a non-English search to occur, that might yield better results, or if a company name shows up with a historical connection to the manufacture, that might be even better. I get the same kind of results you got (indiamart and one or two other such things) where the right words are there, but the there doesn’t appear to be either the right product or actual manufacturing.
It might just be that no such thing exists there, but on the off chance that some machines are still in use in rural communities, there might still be suppliers.
Thank you so much for your help.
Lathechuck #378, there are a lot of ways to do it right, but the average is often far from that. as you noted, your PE teacher was a genius. Another way to get that effect is weight training. Intellectuals love to lift. As it doesn’t require the same kind of athleticism and coordination that running, kicking, catching, etc, do – they can get good quickly. Then you get stories of the nerd spotting for the hockey jock, and new friendships formed.
@JMG
Forbidden Planet also operates a store in Manhattan, near Union Square
@Denis
Does “South Park” count as an institution? I feel like they’re the only people who’ve managed to stick to their original mission in spite of what’s happened over the past two years.
Hi everybody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nGmKv-tCyo
I know that JMG does not like to see videos, I just want to point out that this Youtuber (with 803k suscribers) that speaks about pop-culture made a video about how flying cars are a really bad idea, and therefore we should not expect them in the future.
Something in the narrative is changing…
I wanted to share two items:
Yesterday I sat down and read the Steve Skojec article. I wrote out a detailed response here, but then realized it was much too long to be a comment, so I posted it on my Read Old Things blog here: https://readoldthings.dreamwidth.org/42694.html
I also posted an interpretation of Wednesday’s Lunar Eclipse on my astrology blog here: https://voxcaelorum.dreamwidth.org/2474.html
Simon, is this your work? One way or another, it’s absolutely brilliant, and I think it makes a strong case for the Devouring Mother archetype as what’s behind the virus panic. Now I get to find time to read the other 25 posts in the series.
Your Kittenship, I’ll consider it. Some of them would require a couple of pages of footnotes!
Ray, sure. Look to the period between the end of Reconstruction and the First World War. We had the emergence of national musical styles such as ragtime, the rise of a distinctive literary culture mediated by the popular press, the expansion of a variety of dishes out of regional cuisines into national habits, the birth of cultural institutions such as the Chatauqua, and so on.
Adwelly, I miss Powell’s too, but Portland these days is no longer safe to visit, and I don’t expect ever to go back there again. Thanks for the info on the yellow card system!
CS2, it takes work! The basic practices will do a lot of good, but you’ll also need to practice keeping your cool — notice how other people affect you, and also the effects of places, advertising, etc., and see how well you can deliberately counter their effects. That brings considerable power: when you can simply shift your mood to override what someone’s trying to do to you, they generally have no idea how to cope. (It’s like the classic aikido move where someone tries to push you, you simply pivot out of the way, and down they go nose first.)
Chris, novel viruses enter the human population quite often, spread as widely as they can, and we and they gradually evolve a stable relationship. This is just another example of a natural process — and yes, it’s good to have had the chance to deal with it when there were other resources available. No, I didn’t hear about the smallpox thing — ouch.
Denis, I don’t know of one. We’re facing a massive crisis of confidence in the entire institutional structure of our society, and the most important thing about it is that the loss of confidence has been richly earned by those institutions.
Goran, as far as I know Castaneda made it up. Certainly there’s nothing like it in any of the systems of subtle anatomy I’ve studied.
Patricia, thanks for this. I wonder if it will work to repel the internet species…
Logan, that’s typical of Land — remember he started out as a Marxist and is currently well over on the alt-right in neo-Reaction territory. People who do that quite often say “evil, be thou my good” to a variety of Marxist concepts. As for the Pavlovian responses of political zealots of all kinds, yes, exactly.
Res, at the moment, yes — you’ll want to contact the office soon, though, via the website, because the number of people interested in it has dropped steadily and it’ll probably be going to some other arrangement in the not too distant future.
David BTL, thanks for this. The last one was just as clueless — but this’ll probably need a detailed post down the road a bit.
NeptunesDolphins, I suspect it’s your high sensitivity. Magical work always sets off turbulence on the inner planes, and many sensitives have a lot of trouble practicing magic for that reason — it’s basically just too loud. As for Hughes, well, yeah — that’s one of half a dozen consistent failure points in his workings. The guy could really use some basic instruction in ritual structure. As for the boilerplate nature of the hostile criticism, yes, I noticed that as well. It amused me no end that they all insist that The King in Orange is “incoherent” — what that means, of course, is that the central theme of the book is something they can’t allow themselves to think about.
David BTL, okay, the Navy really is getting a clue. They’re ramping down major ship acquisitions — sensible at a time when the US has no choice but to retreat from overextended military commitments, and when major warships are sitting ducks for antiship missiles. This is very good news!
JustMe, thanks for this.
Oilman2, funny indeed.
Lacking, I remember my last half dozen lives fairly clearly, and yes, they explain my talents — and also the places where I lack talents — with quite a bit of clarity. (For example, I’ve never done much of anything with music, which helps explain why I love music but have zero talent for playing it; I’ve been practicing anyway, with an eye toward my next life.) By all means focus on a few talents — you can develop the others in other incarnations.
Tarian, it makes perfect sense. The more you believe the corporate media, the more you believe the corporate media…
Yorkshire, I started playing Dungeons & Dragons when it was still three staplebound pamphlets; I played that, Tunnels & Trolls, Chivalry & Sorcery, Traveller, Empire of the Petal Throne, Call of Cthulhu, and a long list of Steve Jackson games, for starters. For Weird of Hali I had the rule system already defined — the publisher who offered me the contract uses Mythras (the reworked version of RuneQuest 6) as its house system — but I reviewed a couple of dozen current RPGs in the process of adapting Mythras to WoH use. I’ll pass on the suggestion about the YouTube channels!
Lathechuck, you’re neglecting the other variable — depth of breathing. Fast breaths are shallow breaths, and leave a higher than usual amount of unchanged air in the lungs. Breathe slow and deep from the diaphragm, pushing your abdomen out when you breathe in and letting it go back in when you breathe out, and you increase your oxygen uptake considerably.
Pamouna, gotcha. Thank you.
Lathechuck, yep. Welcome to our managed media.
Tarian, thanks for this. It’s sad to see the Beeb turning into such a tabloid!
Fra’ Lupo, interesting.
Waffles, so noted! Thank you.
Quinshi, heh heh heh.
Steve, thanks for these.
I would like to respond to Darkest Yorkshire about courses we should have while in school. I have been thinking a lot about that lately–I don’t know why, maybe because my husband was a high school math teacher and is now retired.
First of all, I think that public funded public high school should have the basics for living in our world, and I include in that: English and one other language, math (enough to understand things like interest discounts, rates of increase, etc.), health (anatomy and physiology as well as other practical things like nutrition and exercise and their role in disease, and mental health), geography and history (not just a list of battles), and political education (how to vote, how laws are passed, and all that). So that when you leave the school and have a diploma, you are ready to participate as an active citizen, and to stand up at a meeting and speak simply about what you think.
It sounds like a lot,and there are probably many places where this is going on. I’m old now and I didn’t like much of high school courses–they were mostly memorizing.
And if a student has trouble, they get a lot of help. I was a teaching assistant when I went back to school, and taught junior level college kids and it was very frustrating because they really didn’t have any background in history (it was a historically oriented class), and they couldn’t read very well. They weren’t stupid. They could read the words, but they didn’t have their minds active–they didn’t argue with what they read. It was depressing to be there.
In rereading this I realize I sound like an old crank. But I just feel like we ought to be more prepared to resist, fight back, redefine our lives and decide what really matters, and other things. But I think that the powers that be don’t really want an educated populace–how we they sell all that useless crap if people could see through th hype.I’m dont sounding off.
Kathy
@Secretface2097 (#291), Evola was more or less trying to revive the Roman Empire (emphasis on Empire), and to whatever degree he influenced Mussolini, he got things rolling in that direction. It’s not a coincidence that Steve Bannon, conjurer of the Orange One, and his coterie were focused on Evola…hoping JMG touches on this in his new tome.
Re: my post #385, that should have read “antinatalist.” I blame autocorrect…
Axé
Lathechuck, I start off my discursive meditation sessions with a dozen 4-fold breaths (breathe in 4 counts, hold 4, breathe out 4 counts, hold 4), which takes about 4 minutes, so 3 per minute. When my body needs more air (in my case, after climbing the steeple to toll the bell), it will make me gasp in the out hold time. I doubt you can deliberately starve yourself of oxygen.
@JMG:
Something intriguing, and quite evil, just happened.
Apparently the Android version of GMail is rerouting all links you receive on GMail through Google. Not that Google isn’t seeing what is sent to your Google Mail account, but now Alphabet Inc. is tracking if you open the links that you received too. If I was using Google Chrome as my default phone browser, I wouldn’t even have noticed it.
RE: Old Math
The discussion of calculators made my thoughts go in a strange place.
I was a math wiz in High School (early ‘80’s) and had a most excellent teacher! He taught me all my advanced algebra, trig, analytic geometry, and up through integral calculus. Cheap solar-powered pocket calculators were becoming common, but I found that I was usually faster with a pencil and a piece of scrap paper (or just in my head). (Second the comment about getting really familiar with the unit circle!)
But what tripped my brain was how in a lot of situations, the answer would reduce to something elegant like 3√2 . I think to modern ears to say, “the answer is three times the square root of two” they might ask you, “Yeah, what’s the answer?” But back then, it wasn’t about the actual number, it was about the math. You had to show each step of your work, and sometimes there could be 10 or more steps, and if in step 6 you said 2×3=5, you would still get nearly full credit if all the higher math steps were correct (like if you got all the calculus part right, you just made an error adding two numbers). It was about thinking.
The answer 3√2 has way more decimals than a calculator can show, so it’s actually much more accurate than a decimal answer. Which for practical purposes immediately begs the question “What is this number for? How much precision do you need?” We building a bridge, or we building a chicken coop?
And also somehow, changing √2 to 1.4142 just seems demeaning and unnecessary. Unless the point is to shift the focus from thinking math to crunching numbers. Simplify the complexity and beauty down to a series of buttons you push to get the right number. Is that what it’s come to?
Sorry for the long tangent (but isn’t that we love about the Open Posts!). I don’t do much math these days, but I used to really enjoy it. This discussion is making me want to get a slip-stick and try some problems in one of my old textbooks just to exercise that part of my brain again.
Thanks again JMG for this wonderful oasis.
neptunesdolphins #305: “I found it interesting that when Trump suggested that it came from a lab in China, everyone said he was racist. Now with Biden, everyone seems to believe that it did come from a lab in China. Why the about face? ”
With Trump now out of office, it’s prudent to believe the most reasonable theory, which is that it did in all likelihood come from a lab in China. The Nicholas Wade article linked above (comment #221 by DFC) lays it all out pretty clearly.
Whew, another week of overtime completed! Tired yet ready for the holiday and catching up with comments. I hope I don’t provide a link that’s already been posted; though maybe that would mean it’s doubly important to read it?
Good article from the people who brought us the Doomsday Clock on the origin of Covid 19. If you’re time constrained, scroll about half way down the page and find the paragraph starting “In conclusion”. Also note that the right hand side bar includes links to more articles on the virus, which I have not had time to explore (but I will, once I get through the rest of these comments!).
https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/
The Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown: Progressive communities have been home to some of the fiercest battles over COVID-19 policies, and some liberal policy makers have left scientific evidence behind.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/05/liberals-covid-19-science-denial-lockdown/618780/
Redeeming old songs from the sixties: the rewrite of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” by Early James. “I hope we p*ss off the right people by changing these words,” he said before King and his band got rolling alongside him. I wonder if Joan Baez has apologized yet for recording the original version.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/night-they-drove-old-dixie-down-early-james-interview-1036886/
Interview with an author about his new book on censorship and free speech, which I find quite amusing since he dances around issues so as to avoid recognizing that censoring happens on the Woke Left as much as on the extreme Right.
https://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2021/05/the-forbidden-fruit-of-censorship-through-the-ages.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+beaconbroadside+%28Beacon+Broadside%29
And the perfect spine design for the fall of the Roman (or American) Empire.
https://twitter.com/pietersender/status/1392190795118153733
Joy Marie
No what the topic, I’ve always been fascinated by JMG’s amazing clarity of thought and the insights he offers. In a world where the ability to discuss a broader range of ideas is becoming increasingly strained, I really appreciate this blog. I have ideas that I express through rhyming allegories and I frequently tackle politicians and various social and cultural ideologies, so given that JMG has an open post, I thought I’d post one here. I tried flogging this to various publications, like the Spectator in the UK and Private Eye but the answer has always been a ‘no.’ A polite note for sure, but still a no. I have more of them on the environment, fallacy of endless growth on a finite planet and more and they’re all funny and poignant, designed for adults and kids. Having said that, to date no publication has the guts to say, refer to Boris Johnson as a baboon, so this one remains unpublished. For the others, I’ll keep trying. So rather than be driven mad by frustration and since my goal is just to have readers, please enjoy the one below, no matter your individual take on the pandemic. Cheers.
P.S If anyone knows any open minded literary agents, please let me know.
Bobo the Baboon
by Anna Lussenburg
Like all politicians, Bobo the Baboon
enjoyed his political honeymoon.
He had captured the nation’s support and felt brave,
and had swept to power on a significant wave.
Bobo the baboon had all the traits
inherent in elite primates.
He saw himself as set apart,
as uniquely eloquent and smart.
Bobo had his plan. He had clout.
He knew how to rule, had figured out
why he was the best baboon to lead and how,
without appearing too highbrow.
Among Baboons, Bobo stood out.
He had a flair, there was no doubt.
His golden tufts, his cocky bearing,
his stance, the epitome of daring.
For baboons, already in a state of tension,
there was even more apprehension,
when out of the blue, arrived a strange affliction,
something to do with their sun-addiction.
And this malady was no bed of roses,
for it targeted their tender noses.
And baboons we know, worship the sun.
It’s something that they’ve always done.
Of course, working hard outside
has been part of baboon historic pride.
But now the sun, a major threat
brought consequences Bobo couldn’t see just yet.
Even with this new threat on the horizon lurking,
Bobo felt justified in shirking,
his responsibilities for his country home,
to enjoy the woods where he could roam.
Meanwhile, those tender noses, burned and sore,
were more than the baboons could ignore.
They complained, stayed out of the sun, were nervous
and flocked en masse to the Baboon Health Service.
“Wait,” Bobo declared, “you must stay in the sun.
Otherwise it’s clear, we’ll get nothing done.
We all know how the economy will suffer
and believe me when I say, things will get much tougher.”
“The science,” he said, “on the subject is clear.
If you spend time in the sun, immunity will appear.
Your skin will get darker, that’s all there is to it.
If we all stick together, we’ll easily get through it.”
The affliction though would not disappear,
and over time it became more and more clear,
that this strange, nose burning abnormality,
brought with it an increase in mortality.
Essential baboons, despite their own fear,
had to work, even without the all clear.
And on top of that and with no guarantee
of their safety, or enough PPE.
“We need protection,” they yelled “for without it, we’re scared.
You’ve left us alone in the trenches, all unprepared.
You downplayed the risk, you’re not even contrite,
and now this nose burning killer has come back to bite.”
“Now that this illness is killing us off one by one.
It’s must be clear, even to you, we want something done.”
“Don’t worry,’ said Bobo. “It’s hard, yes I know,
but this affliction of ours, I’m sure it will go.”
“A few may get sick in our larger community,
but then we’ll achieve what I call herd immunity.
The economy will roar back to life, you will see
and everyone will thank far-sighted leaders like me.”
He turned deaf to their needs, offered no apology.
Stuck like glue to his own ideology.
Yet when things took a turn for the worse,
Bobo learned the worth of a doctor and nurse.
You see, suddenly Bobo didn’t feel at all well.
The sun on his nose, well, it caused it to swell.
Nobody knew whether he’d make it through,
when Bobo ended up in baboon ICU.
Baboons stood by, anxiously waiting.
The medical team worked, not once hesitating
to give him their best, to save this baboon who,
seemed not to know what health workers do.
Bobo survived, I’m happy to say.
Did he learn? Did his hubris fall away?
Was he chastened by his very near miss?
Did he feel even remotely remiss?
I can’t tell you that, not even a guess,
for I don’t know if Bobo has plans for redress.
Though for baboons going forward, I’d have to advise
for the truth about Bobo, just look at his eyes.
Having finished The King in Orange, I have ordered The King in Yellow – the edition you quoted; and after reading that article about The Devouring Mother as the archetype for today’s risk-averse culture, also Jung’s Archetypes & The Collective Unconscious. Delivery dates: “June 8th -22nd” depending.
Speaking of The KIO, I noticed that American culture is, in two different regions, heavily influenced by two different older but imported cultures: Deep Dixie with its strong African underlayer, which reaches far into the north since the Great Migration, and the southwest, with it’s strong Mexican flavor, which as Mexican, has a Mesoamerican underlayer, and as Southwestern, has a the strong Indian underlayer, but with the Pueblos, heavily Spanish-influenced. So, if this nation ever breaks up, there’s two prime candidates for going in other directions. Besides losing the coasts, of course.
And of course, a large portion of what we think of as quintessentially American, comes from the most deplorable set of ruffians ever to shock and disgust the genteel and civilized anglophile East and the peaceful, settled German heartland settlers. Yes. Mr. Greer, your paternal ancestors and mine. And loved the bit about our own WIld Hunt, “Ghost Riders In the Sky.” Heh-heh-heh….. having lived in 5 separate regions in my lifetime can be a real eye-opener!
Noticed this rather breathtaking admission on BBC a few days ago.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57267729
Or in other words, when taking the lab-leak theory seriously ran the risk of making Trump look smart, the media had to dismiss it, but now that Trump isn’t so much of a concern anymore, it can finally be talked about.
And these people wonder why nobody takes them seriously anymore.
Just a thought. I don’t see how covid can be backlash from MR if it is global. India and Brazil didn’t do anything to generate this.
BTW – if any reviewer of The King In Orange bleats about “pseudomorphosis” being a meaningless piece of jargon, a good translation is “wholesale cultural copycatting of a more powerful culture.”
JMG said:
“As for the boilerplate nature of the hostile criticism, yes, I noticed that as well. It amused me no end that they all insist that The King in Orange is “incoherent” — what that means, of course, is that the central theme of the book is something they can’t allow themselves to think about.”
Funnily enough, in the one serious discussion of the Kek phenomenon I’ve seen outside of here (a discussion thread on a forum), the author, after explaining what Kek was, immediately felt the need to add that no, no, no, nobody anywhere on the internet seriously believed Kek was supernatural-no, they were all Postmodernists ironically pretending to believe so!
JMG,
Thanks for the praise. Yes, the series of posts has been my ongoing attempt to make sense of what has happened. Recently, I’ve been working my way through Jung’s Red Book and a few other pieces and I think some of his concepts have finally clicked for me. This is both intellectually exciting but also somewhat terrifying for, as Jung says, we mere humans are almost powerless in the face of the archetypes. Although, I guess that’s been one of the main messages of religion down through the ages so shouldn’t be a great surprise.
So far I’ve read through to Tommy’s comment #284 and JMG’s answer. I, too, have been feeling all sorts of emotions (some anger, but mostly feelings of uncertainty, distraction, and frustration) lately. The average person would say “Covid pandemic fatigue” but that’s not it. There are things going on outside of me that are contributing (I won’t go into detail over mail delivery problems, dealing with Big Corp customer service, mandatory overtime at the Big Globalist owned factory, etc.) but I think there is some sort of resistance within me, possibly to changes I’m planning for or making in my life. These are changes that I want do, such as the study of Levi’s High Magic. Even after just beginning to read Levi, I have noticed a difference within me when I do the SOP. It’s like I’m more aware or tuned in. But at the same time, while wanting this, I feel something pulling me back. I’ve always had a problem with procrastination, but I think this is more like fear of the unknown, and the responsibilities it might bring with it. I was thinking of posting this, and then thought, “Naw, JMG will just say meditate and journal about it”. Then I read your answer to Tommy and think “Yup, reflect, meditate, and journal.” Journaling is the one thing I haven’t done, so I will have to remedy that.
Joy Marie
Anonymous, now surprise me. Rule #1: nothing on the internet is ever private.
Joy Marie, many thanks for all of these. I’ve seen that spine art before — absolutely perfect.
Anna, thanks for this. I don’t know any literary agents — I’ve tried working with one twice, and it was a total waste of my time — but then I don’t write poetry, which is very difficult to get published these days.
Patricia M, I’ve assumed for years that when the southwest goes, it’ll become Alta Mexico in some more formal sense. The south has been its own country all along. Other fractions? We’ll see.
Tolkienguy, good heavens. Well, that isn’t embarrassing to them at all!
No name, fair enough.
Patricia M, that’ll work.
Tolkienguy, too funny. That’s certainly one of the things they can’t let themselves think about…
Simon, the Red Book’s potent stuff — I’d read it several times before buying my own copy late last year. I’m glad it’s inspiring useful insights. I note that you already have a book out on the coronavirus business; will you be issuing another?
Joy Marie, once you start on the Path, things become more vivid, more alive, and also more challenging. Welcome to a wider world.
In your essay about the commons, I brought up how liberals (including myself) turned to incivility in the run-up to the Iraq War, as a response to a dishonest administration that was leading us to catastrophe.
in response to my questions, you recommended that I look into the experience of minority religions as they navigate through times of trouble. Do you have any reading you’d recommend on the topic?
Also, it occurred to me that my example was almost the complete opposite of what you were talking about regarding the commons. You pointed out that the commons is, by necessity, a local affair. On the other hand, the liberal freakout over Iraq was a reaction to a national event that we had no real control over, and no real stakes in, by and large.
It’s a bit different affair to scream at an anonymous commenter who lives a thousand miles away, as opposed to screaming at your neighbor over a piece of shared property.
Only took me the better part of a month for that to soak in.
@methylethyl:
So I’m psyched to hear that somewhere, out there, there is an architecture student *in the Yucatan* who wants to do this. It’s a radically underserved market.
Oh, I’m glad to hear it too. I think in the long term, radical local adaptation is the name of the game.
I’m going to comment about my reaction to Simon’s “Devouring Mother” post. I went back and started reading through the series. The thing is, here in the US, the voices against the official narrative(s) tend to be shrill, conspiratorial, and generally off-putting (JMG a notable exception) when they’re not straight up ad hominem attacks and profanity-filled rants… It’s absolutely wearisome. It’s good to see someone calmly lay out the information, albeit with some snark and loaded language at times. Living in Australia bypasses some of the craziness, or more likely, you have different species of craziness. Berserker
@JMG Portland is unsafe? There’s been little, actually no, reporting of ongoing violence in that area in the media here so I checked with an old friend who lives in the area and he said quite casually that he ‘doesn’t go into the downtown area any more’. He thinks both Antifa and the cops are equally dangerous.
A bit of research found a site that collects data on armed conflict, ACLED. Their analysis shows clear bias but I’ve no reason to doubt the raw data that shows ongoing violent events in the US spiking in June last year but continuing. The whole thing might have been suppressed by COVID and that particular factor is ending. Even more worrying is the description of provocateur groups dedicated to making things worse.
I’ve spent an unhappy hour reflecting on this because there doesn’t seem to be any political force that might bring this situation to a end. The obvious conclusion is that it will not end because the underlying causes have not stopped. The actors won’t get bored – the UK had a low level civil war in all but name for 30 years in Northern Ireland, and NI does not have a heavily armed civilian population.
To make use of your own useful distinction (thanks for the reminder) this looks more like a predicament than a problem. Do you think of this as the actual series of events that lead to a ‘Last Gleaming’ situation?
Out of the two dozen recent RPGs you looked at, which ones did you like best, or thought had the most potential?
Thanks and sorry to hear your agent experience was useless, I’ll bear that in mind. Nevertheless they are the gatekeepers of the publishing world. I would love to hear your thoughts on the state of the publishing industry as a whole, as I’m sure would others. As a satirist, I have noticed that what’s allowed in terms of books and subjects you can write about seem to be narrowing by the day. All the money in publishing is swallowed by celebrity memoirs or the newest ‘must have’ politically correct screed. Meanwhile writers that want to broaden the conversation are left on the sidelines. It’s not even about what the audience wants to read or even what they will buy but rather it’s about being forced to read what publishers think is good for them. Here’s a professor saying much the same thing. https://medium.com/@zookkini/why-the-publishing-industry-is-sick-7e243c6b0a69. It would be great to hear your experience with agents and publishing and your thoughts on the matter. Anyway, thanks for reading and responding to my satirical poem and many thanks for your brilliantly clear and thoughtful writing.
Kathy Halton #392, I definitely agree about students getting the help they need, and not left behind or hanging on by their fingernails. Conversely, not having their time wasted on stuff they alredy know. I’m a believer in ‘Once they’ve got it, move on’. Being allowed to move fast in things they’re good at frees up time to spend improving areas where they don’t have natural talent. And you’ve noticed the reason why they teach trade union history in posh schools but not working class schools…
@JMG,
Interesting! I had mistakenly believed that I would need to put more years into the SOP before I could start to really notice the difference between my own thoughts and emotions and the thoughts and emotions of others or egregores/thought-forms. If this is an exercise I can do whenever I go outside, then I will start working on this immediately. I much prefer if it’s something I can start doing now rather than needing thousands more SOPs to gain potency.
I already have some experience with examining and questioning my thoughts because I worked with a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy counselor for a few years back when I had really bad anxiety. Is this the same sort of thing? Any time I noticed my thoughts starting to spiral, I’d step back and question them, which helped point out when I was obsessing about something irrational and convincing myself that the worst possible scenario was going to happen.
So in summary, what you’re suggesting I do is head into town in a state of inner peace, and try to notice when I get shaken out of that peace, then dodge it somehow? By shifting your mood to override what someone else is trying to do to you, as you said, is that like when someone else is angry but you laugh instead? I live in a very grumpy city, and find myself chuckling at all the people acting like angry chihuahuas.
@Jbucks,
I’m very glad you’re finding good furniture on the used market that’s made well. I am definitely of the same opinion. I want to buy and use furniture made by local craftsmen so future generations have apprenticeships to complete and skills to learn.
There is a glamour on Ikea, where people shrug bashfully like “I’m too poor for anything else” even though Ikea is quite expensive, especially for the poor quality. People also comment that they like putting them together, but that’s all the more reason to take a woodshop class offered by a local carpenter, rather than fitting plastic nubs into particle board. I call Ikea “Swedish Walmart” to try to get around the glamour.
If I lived in the US, I’d buy furniture from the Amish. I’ve long thought the Amish should teach classes or take apprentices from non-Amish people wanting to learn their skills. That could be a way for Amish communities to bring in outside cash.
In my city, everyone lives in small apartments, so there’s actually a market for local craftsmen to make custom tables and such that can fit, especially for small bakeries and cafes that really need something that squeezes into their space. The most common instance of a regular person hiring a carpenter is surely for their bookshelves. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves are common here. Maybe that’s a flex, but honestly they make for good conversation starters when you have guests: just wander in and start examining the collection. You really can’t afford to use Ikea shelving that could fall on you. The apartments are so small, you wouldn’t be able to run away from a falling bookshelf.
A squadron of pigs has just flown over my house. Also, the Guardian has published a piece questioning the foundations of our consumer culture. It’s an interview with Canadian author JB MacKinnon. A choice quote:
“MacKinnon rejects my suggestion that perhaps consumerism is hard-wired into human nature, but says it is “deeply ingrained” in society and it’s “much easier for us to think, ‘Let’s make all these cars run on solar power instead of gas,’ rather than, ‘How do we end up with fewer cars?’”
The interviewer is a fashion editor, so later on in the piece, he/she (unclear from the name) discusses clothing brands which also state how people should buy less. Regardless of the intentions behind such a statement on their part, the effect might be similar to that of Jevon’s paradox on renewable energy.
The first sentence in the quote, incidentally, made me wonder: what archetype is behind consumerism?
JMG, regarding Jung’s Redbook. I couldn’t hack through the 100 page introduction (which was not written by Jung). Are you saying Redbook really is readable?
The lab leak theory was denounced in the early days not only because Trump supported it but because the Wuhan lab was partially funded by the US. The Wuhan lab was funded for exactly the work that created the danger of a leak after such work was restricted in the US. So if there was a lab leak, this would implicate not only the Chinese but also most of the US virology and public health establishment.
Trump may be out of office, but the US virology and public health establishment is still in place, so the real question is why the possibility of a lab leak has become an acceptable topic of discussion now.
Re the revitalization of the lab-leak hypothesis
Does anyone else here think that this turn-about is likely to show up as prime campaign material if a certain former president attempts to pull a Grover Cleveland? (Though how likely *that* is at this point, I’m not sure.)
I studied for two years at the University of Tübingen, and have had some contact with pietistic traditions in southwestern Germany. However, it was completely news for me that in the 17th century, the princess of the duchy of Württemberg oversaw the painting of a Christian cabbalistic triptychon in a church of this region and that Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, one of the most well-known pietists, wrote a book interpreting this triptychon. Has anybody heard of this before? Here is a short article (in German) with an image of the main part of the triptychon.
@Oilman2:
“The bad guys who shouldn’t have guns will have them – same as it ever was, because they are not going to abide by a law anyway”.
I keep reading this argument, but it simply ain’t true.
A percentage of the bad guys who shouldn’t have guns will have them anyway, law or no law.
So, thugs like the mob and drug dealers will keep their guns anyway.
But if guns are made difficult to buy, more well tracked, put you under close police inspection, etc. a big percentage of bad guys who shouldn’t have guns won’t have them.
Like random teenagers who go and shoot their schools, two-bit “wanabee” thiefs, petty crime, violent husbands, vindictive curmudgeon idiots at war with society with a trigger finger, antifa sympathisers, and so on.
Dillinger will still get his gun. A violent idiot, petty burglar, or a disgruntled teen that can now just go to the store and by one with minimal or no checks, wouldn’t get one if they were illegal and had to go get them in the black market – and risk large penalties if he was found to have one.
That’s the case in Europe and other places, and how they get to have 1/10th the gun murder rates…
JMG-my copy of The King in Orange arrive last week and I thoroughly enjoyed It. I especially appreciate the cover art as I feel it allows me to suggest the book to friends who may be slightly influenced by “TDS”.
I am fascinated by the idea of American culture (or the lack thereof). One of the reasons we chose to relocate to the Champlain valley of NY is the area’s staid New England-like vibe. I also thought that being poor (we are) would be easier in an economically depressed area. What I didn’t foresee was the impact this area’s ultra wealthy “second home” owners would have on the local character. I put second home in quotes because many of these wealthy people buy up multiple properties and old homes, restore them and then leave them empty “ to preserve the bucolic nature and scenery” of the area.
It creates an interesting dichotomy, to say the least.
Thanks all for the interesting and informative conversation!
Cheers,
Courtney
Mollari, re: post #10, in addition to the above excellent comments, I would suggest taking some time learning the rules of logarithms and obtaining a copy of common and natural log tables. Logarithms are ‘magical’ in their own way; they turn taking exponents into multiplication and division. Suppose you find an engineering formula that has a non-integer exponent, e.g. x^2.75 (x raised to the power of 2.75). Let’s say you know x = 5 for the specific problem you’re trying to solve. You know that the answer has to be somewhere between 5^2, which equals 25, and 5^3, which is 125, but how the heck do you calculate the 2.75 power without a calculator????
Easy – you take advantage of the fact that a^b = 10^(b*log(a)). So, look up the base 10 (“common”) logarithm of 5 in your table and find that log(5) = 0.698970 to six decimal places. Now multiply 0.698970 by 2.75. This takes about two minutes to do by hand doing long multiplication. Find the answer of 1.9221675. Now take the antilog of 1.9221675 (10 raised to the 1.9221675 power) – which means looking up 1.9221675 (or close to it) in the same table, but this time reversing the input and output of the table, and find your answer, 83.59.
You can use a table of natural (base e) logarithms or in fact any logarithm base and achieve the same answer using the same methodology. Since roots are just fractional exponents, you can take any root by this method also – e.g., the cube root of a number is just that number raised to the 1/3 power. So, to find the cube root of a number, take the log of the number, multiply the log of the number by 1/3 (or divide by 3, same thing), and then find the antilog of the last result and you’ve got your answer.
A poster above mentioned the Chemical Rubber Company (CRC) Standard Math Tables, which is a fantastic book for these kinds of tabulated functions, including a whole bunch of other functions that are used in engineering (e.g., Bessel functions, the Error function, etc.). It’s also a go-to guide for finding analytical (exact) solutions to integrals and differential equations. It was known as the “Rubber Bible” back in the day. Another great book is Abramowitz’s and Stegun’s Handbook of Mathematical Functions, which at $35 for the paperback supposedly has the most mathematical functions per dollar of list price.
My modest recommendation would be to read about how logarithms and other functions themselves are calculated to make the tables (Taylor Expansion), then try some problems by hand until you get a feel for how the math works, then pick up a slide rule and start using that for the calculations.
Balowulf, your comment reminds me of the Iron Law of Institutions: “The people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself.” I suppose this can be extended from institutions to society at large.
Simon S
“…we humans are almost powerless in the face of the archetypes.”
Almost being the operative word there.
I’ve been immersed in a deep dive into Jung’s work for about 9 months. It’s been both exhilarating and humbling, as well as profoundly transformative personally. The imposing Red Book arrived last week and stands on my hearth like a doorway beckoning me closer to the fire.
I read your article on the Devouring Mother archetype as the force manifesting in the official response to the pandemic. Thank you for your important work on this. Fortunately there are opposing forces in play, such as you and many other courageous individuals who have the capacity to think, speak and act more consciously.
Hi John
I agree the 1st website link is not the best (it seems to be a anti-vaxxer website which I am not).
The actual doctor who published the YouTube into the alarming trends seems legit. I know you don’t do video, so that was why I used that link (which screenshots and summarises her key findings).
Her actual website is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0EhWf2Vswdg7DwKKKZ34ng
I would not discount her fascinating research based on the website that references her work.
These are also interesting articles:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-19-vaccines-lead-to-new-infections-and-mortality-the-evidence/5746393
https://www.globalresearch.ca/alarming-casualty-rates-mrna-vaccines-warrant-urgent-action/5746343
Jessica @ 419 I suspect the lab leak theory, what I know of it sounds quite plausible, is being promoted at the present time for at least two reasons of which cynical me can think. There might be others.
First, someone is going to have to take a fall, a scapegoat is needed, and better it be folks in virology and public health–pointy headed sneering intellectuals in lab coats get their comeuppance, yay!–than any part of corporate sickcare.
Second, we the idiot public need to be distracted from how much cash this pandemic is making for corporate sickcare. Whether you believe the pandemic is for reals or not, there is no doubt that the money being made from it is very real, as in extra 00s in bank accounts, except not yours or mine, to be turned into all kinds of fun stuff.
@ Jessica
I guess it’s because the United States and China are slowly entering a long-term cold war.
– Spork –
Mollari and all who are thinking about visualizing math concepts and lessening dependence on calculators, there’s a video making the rounds that’s about stereotomy (labeled by wikipedia as “descriptive geometry”). The video is here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veECjU6edQg).
JMG, sorry that I don’t know of non-video sources for this same information because it might be of interest to you (though knowing you, you’re already up to speed on this whole topic!). The history of the practice reveals a nexus of fraternal and secret societies, religion, memorization and practical skills, initiation and mind-training. It’s really quite incredible and the resulting works are mesmerizing and profound and left a mark on Europe’s architecture and culture. It’s no wonder we build ugly in the Americas (and anywhere modern, I guess) – there’s a tremendous depth to working with and in the world that we’ve mostly lost or that’s known now to only a few.
Interestingly (and, well, yay!) the American College of Building Arts in SC has one of the compagnon on their faculty (he’s the chair of the woodworking). So, perhaps there’s hope that the traditions will live on.
To the “lab leak” discussion:
Simon Sheridan’s series (linked above, but especially this post, “The Neverending Story”) helped me to make sense of this. Simon points out that insofar as the corona story is following the standard narrative template of a “plague story,” there’s no really good way for it to end. He observes that normally, ordinary people judge a plague to be over when people around them stop getting sick. In this case, that’s not an option, since most of us never saw a dramatic spike in actual sickness among our neighbors (as distinct from “asymptomatic” positive PCR tests).
Now of course, “the vaccine” was supposed to be the final chapter in the story, but between the large number of people refusing the shots, and the fact that they only prevent symptoms and not infection (and so, won’t be lowering the PCR results), that’s not going to bring resolution either. They can change the testing protocols, but that’s already just too hotly contested. And regardless, those shifting numbers don’t have the viceral impact that brings a *narratively* satisfying conclusion.
As a result, what we’re seeing with the sudden revival of the lab leak story is an attempt to shift the story onto a different narrative template: the one where “the bad guys” do something bad, and are eventually caught and punished by “the good guys,” thus bringing a satisfying narrative closure, letting everyone *feel* that the story is over.
Of course, the political/media establishment could never have allowed Trump to play the part of “good guy”, so there had to at least be a delay. But I really think that the inability of the “vaccines” to finish the story is only just now sinking in, and so there’s also a new, desperate search for something, anything, that will allow for narrative closure.
Maybe the “lab leak” will fit the bill.
“Anonymous, now surprise me. Rule #1: nothing on the internet is ever private.”
I’ll take it a step further: nothing on any device connected to the internet is every private. I’ve just discovered that with Windows 10, even after you take the time and effort to disable the “feature” where any time you search for a file or application it also shows web results, what’s disabled is not sending those searches to their servers, but rather the part where the computer shows the results the sever provides.
This is giving me yet another reason to try to reduce how much I use the internet….
On a completely unrelated note, JMG, in Star’s Reach, there’s a passage where Trey quotes Plummer to the effect that roughly 1 in 20 people in Meriga make their living on the road, travelling whenever the monsoon rains aren’t too much of an impediment.
Is that 5% statistic based on any particular historical (or contemporary) societies? Do you happen to recall any of your sources? I ask so that I can follow up in more detail, to learn about historical patterns of social organization in this regard.
More generally, can anyone point me to a good discussion of “road people” in non-industrial societies?
Thanks!
@fkader
Have you read anything about the legislation oilman2 is talking about? It is not a law that concerns who can and cannot *buy* firearms. It’s carry legislation. These are not the same thing. It simply makes it so that if you already legally own a firearm, you wouldn’t need a special permit like a CCL in order to have it on your person in public. Right now, in most states, you can buy a firearm, and own it, and keep it in your house, and that’s governed by various rules about background checks, waiting periods, etc. But being able to carry a firearm with you in your car, or in a holster, etc. is usually a whole additional layer of rules and licensing. That’s what the proposed TX bill is about: if you *legally own a gun*, you no longer have to do six hours of training and submit your fingerprints, in order to legally take it outside your house with you.
Cliff, I don’t really — I was riffing off my own experience as a member of a minority religion, in contact with many other members. As for the internet as uncommons, good — not many people ever notice that.
Berserker, that’s one of the things that struck me about the articles — they’re good to share.
Adwelly, the media dropped the mess in Portland like a hot rock once it could no longer be used as a weapon against Trump, but it’s still ongoing. It could actually be ended very promptly if the city and state governments chose to use the legal options at their disposal, but they aren’t willing to do so, and as a result people are fleeing the Portland area in considerable numbers. I’ve been predicting for years that the west coast is going to be the 21st century’s rust belt, but I thought San Francisco was going to be this century’s Detroit — turns out Portland will be taking that role instead.
Yorkshire, I wasn’t really looking for that, since (as already noted) the rules system I was using was already set. I was looking for specific details of how they handled the relationship to their setting. For what it’s worth, I thought Gumshoe was very good for investigative games.
Anna, agents only serves as gatekeepers for the big presses. There are literally thousands of small to midsized publishers that don’t require manuscripts to be agented; some of them produce 200 titles a year, and they have distribution and marketing comparable to the big boys. They also pay better and are much less abusive in their contract terms. The delusion that the major corporate presses are the only publishers that matter, and that there’s nothing in the vast space between Random House and self-publishing, is heavily pushed by those major corporate presses, and it’s one of the principal forces keeping writers stuck in the self-defeating rut of only trying to sell to the big boys.
Get outside of the corporate ghetto, and you’ll find many more options, and an entire world of conversations in print that never make it into the pages of the New York Review of Books (speaking of gatekeepers!) but have lively communities of readers and participants following them. I’ll take my own career as an example; I publish almost entirely with small to midsized publishers, I make quite a comfortable living as a full time writer, and I have no shortage of readers! You can do the same thing — all you have to do is shake off the mistaken belief that the big corporate presses are the only game in town.
CS2, you can start learning to do it right now — and yes, that’s exactly how it’s done. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one of the modern therapeutic modalities I find most promising, precisely because it teaches people how to take charge of their own thoughts. Give it a try; the fact that you can already laugh at the angry-chihuahua brigade is a good sign already.
Jbucks, thank you for a good laugh! That line about the pigs is great. I’m just as astonished, though, to see something like that in the Grauniad; for decades now it’s been the great mouthpiece for the “someone else ought to do something” school of environmentalism. As for the archetype behind consumerism, I forget who it was who suggested that consumerism is the mentality of the “hungry ghosts” in Buddhist tradition — phantasmal beings who have huge empty bellies and pinhole mouths, so they spend their entire existence driven by a constant hunger they can never satiate. That’s someplace I’d look for archetypal patterns.
Apprentice, by all means skip the introduction! The Red Book itself needs to be read a little at a time — it’s intense, passionate, and packed with symbols.
Jessica, I’m wondering about that as well.
David BTL, doubtless that’s part of it. I wonder if the Democrats have realized that if Trump doesn’t run, the Trumpistas have their choice among half a dozen successful, popular GOP politicians who will be much harder to beat?
Matthias, Tübingen has a long and rich esoteric history! I didn’t know about the altarpiece, but the people who wrote the original Rosicrucian manifestoes were at the University of Tübingen.
Court, glad you liked it! So far we’ve avoided the plague of real estate investors in working-class East Providence, but doubtless it’ll just be a matter of time.
Forecasting, thanks for this. I don’t discount her work at all — I simply want websites I can pass on to other people without looking like an antivaxxer.
Temporaryreality, well, you’ve already told me that it’s associated with Compagnonnage, which I’ve researched in some detail, so I know where to look!
Barefootwisdom, hmm. That’s an intriguing and, I think, a useful way to think about it.
Different Non, bingo. I don’t tend to think of that because literally nothing in my home except one laptop is connected to the internet, and that laptop gets turned off when it’s not in use. (It also has a bit of tape over the camera lens, and it uses Windows 7…)
Barefootwisdom, I wrote that a decade ago and at this point I have no notion where I got that figure. Sorry!
@Mary Bennet #427, @Spork #428
Were it not for the deep involvement of the US health establishment in funding the Wuhan lab to do research recently prohibited in the US, the “Let’s blame China” explanation would make sense. What doesn’t add up for me is the willingness to implicate the very top of the health establishment because doing so is so inconsistent with the pressure to treat Dr. Fauci, the CDC, the WHO, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo(!), etc. as heroes beyond criticism. I do note though that the recent flurry of articles about a lab leak have been omitting mention of the role of the US public health establishment in the Wuhan lab.
Yes, it may simply be a matter of New Cold War imperatives taking precedence. Or perhaps the Nicholas Wade article really was just too effective and silence could no longer be maintained. But I still wonder if there is some other factor at work.
Meanwhile, one has to wonder what it means that Podgorny was standing next to Brezhnev during the parade, not Kosygin.
By the way, JMG, so much emphasis has been placed on being vaccinated – making it almost as good as a BLM sign on one’s lawn – that I have a hard time imagining that just being turned off and replaced with some other fear that is promoted to keep folks in line*. If that happens, I will have to revise my model of how things work.
*”fear that is promoted to keep folks in line” is another concept that they probably have a word for in German.
@Waffles South Park just might count! They certainly have been consistent and can be counted on for a laugh. I’ve only watched a few episodes yet they seem to nail modern society.
Question – about the Haliverse. Since I don’t know what crops can grow in New England, beyond a few, where do the people who went back to oil lamps get their oil? Since the price of petroleum products was said to be sky-high, and the gas stations were closing down. Do they grow canola?
@Matthias (#366) If I may even though you address this to Mark – there is a theory going round that Covid actually broke out of the lab in 2018, not 2019. The areas that have seem to be spared the disease in 2019-2020 breakout had immunity from Chinese travelers to those regions (these are areas with either lots of tourists or developers).
Two main events support this conclusion: 1) There were 11 known variants of Covid when we first started testing it here in American in December 2019-January 2020. If it had just been released a few months prior this number of variants would have been impossible to have occurred. And 2) The Chinese bottomed out in CO2 emissions in 2018 during two different periods lasting 6-10 weeks. Their factories just shut-down production seemingly. Could it have been they just didn’t have workers to run them because everyone was sick with Covid? It graphs like a respiratory virus whipped through the population much like it did here grinding things to a halt.
There was also a substantial increase of deaths in Alzheimer and dementia patients in the winter of 2018-2019 here. Those diagnoses are usually the oldest people ages 80 and up which matches the profile of who is most vulnerable to Covid. They could have died of Covid so someone needs to look at the death certificates of tens of thousands of people to see if they had a respiratory disease at death.
If Covid did first appear in 2018 then the pandemic closures in 2020 look even more useless.
I’m finding it strange that the “lab leak” story breaks and not one media personality or elected representative asks “So what exactly is in this man-made coronavirus? And what other viruses was this lab working on that could have been released at the same time?” Instead all the energy goes to making the story about Trump and politics. We just can’t quit him!
I took that as a sign to buy some N-95’s, a couple of respirators, and some nitrile gloves and face shields since all those supplies are available and reasonably priced. It’s clear from the reaction to the lab leak the past week that there’s no leadership and no one will be held to account in the US government. We will be left to fend for ourselves when this lab (or one of the dozens of others where these experiments are ongoing) has another accidental release of franken virus.
@JMG – you mentioned doing magic rituals that worked when you were 16. What were your sources at that time, and if books, some titles? Because obviously they had to be something you could do with a minimum of money, and quietly, in your room, which sounds like something useful for many of us.
And you took the words right out of my mouth with your answer about consumerism. I was going to say, The Wendigo.
@Anna, on publishing.
I second JMG’s advice to look into small presses. Your poems would be perfect for a quirky small press with a dedicated readership and lots of strange charm.
I myself got a trilogy at a small press in my genre after spending way too much time submitting to 200+ agents. I had the strange early success of winning two regional writing contests, getting into two magazines, and having agents at conferences be very interested in my work. I once had a NYC agent wave his card in my face, “Can you email it to me from your phone?” before I even finished my log line.
That early faux-success resulted in me barking up the wrong tree for a long time and delaying my journey.
In my case, the small press went under and my rights reverted back to me. I decided to pull the books completely because my writing had gotten much better. I knew I wanted to try blending genres next, which would make it hard for a small press to market, so I switched to self-publishing. That has been cool because I can conduct experiments and watch the results on the back end. I have access to all kinds of neat stats I didn’t have before. For example, of my first 50 newsletter subscribers, 25 were from Sweden. Who knew? Why are my books heavily pirated in India, but of those who do purchase, they only buy the paperback? So many questions!
Anyway, if I ever stop blending genres and switch to something with a dedicated market, I will return to submitting to small presses in my genre because overall I had a good experience. Good luck!
Teresa from Hershey,
I’ve tried to sign up for the Green Wizards forum twice now, and both times have not received a welcome email 🙁 Is there possibly an issue with Gmail going on?
Adwelly/JMG,
As I spent the height of the unrest last year in an office (alone) 5 blocks from the action, and as I regularly visit downtown Portland still, I guess I can make a local report on the situation.
Antifa are not a threat – not in any way, not at any point. Their strongest weapons were illegal laser pens and scary (to suburbanites) graffiti. The worst damage they did was to a statue pedestal. I argued with a few online when I still thought there were political solutions to all this, and found that, unfortunately… they were very stupid. I read in the local paper that the leaders were quietly arrested this January by the police, so my current guess is that there will be relatively less excitement of that type in Portland this summer.
So far this year, I’ve barely seen any police in Portland… which is kind of interesting all in itself. There are a few officers in Pioneer Square, not doing anything, probably to help the people there feel safer from the homeless (more on that later). I also saw some security guards posted around the Apple store in the middle of downtown, which is currently recolonizing that space for capitalism. It’s disappointing – the street art of the protests was, hands-down, the best part of the whole thing. I took lots of pictures at the peak of it all! I’m white and female and non-homeless, so feel less than zero threat from police officers. I wouldn’t blame people of a different demographic for feeling otherwise, though.
Does all that mean that Portland is “safe”, though? Now that’s a more interesting question. I love to walk in old cities, and have done so compulsively for 10 years and running, which means that I’ve had an close-and-personal view of how PNW cities have changed in that time. I also have a very, very high tolerance for being close to the homeless, which I recognize that almost everyone else non-homeless does not share. **I** still feel safe in Portland. But there’s a certain vibe in the air…
That vibe is not coming from the homeless, but from the so-called ‘regular’ citizens. It’s the vibe of We Must Not Think About That. Here’s the straight truth: Portland made a decision to prioritize COVID response over all else, and as a result, utterly annihilated its own local economy. It was almost impossible to be a small business owner in downtown this past year. Every time I go, almost, I see a new blank storefront. The rate is even picking up (there were government grants for a while, which I suspect are running out). Business owners are simmering with rage, which they cannot express lest they lose their last few customers. The recent spike in housing prices has removed the last fig leaf of Portland as an affordable city. (A neighbor of mine, already a homeowner with a small nest egg, tried to buy in Portland recently–it can’t be done for less than a million dollars in free cash. Not just the markets, but government regulations are also making it harder to buy.) The homeless are everywhere, absolutely everywhere – tents on the sidewalk, on the freeway medians, in the camps the city has set up for them, wandering down the shopping streets… everywhere. The most aggressive and mentally ill of them hang out near the downtown gathering spots, like Pioneer Square. I keep my eyes and ears open, and if a man is screaming at a wall a block ahead of me, I take another path – easy to do with Portland’s small blocks. This isn’t a hardship for me. But even I am saddened by the constant witness of their obvious pain. I’ve been choosing to hike in nature as much as in the city recently, partly to save money, partly to lessen my exposure.
Portlanders believe that they are Good People who do Good Things, but the truth is that the society they’ve created here is cruel, anti-black racism is only a small part of that (and no actual progress is being made there, either), and their own insistence on their priors has slammed the door shut on all possible solutions to that cruelty. Right now they’re struggling with COVID’s decline – which sounds odd, but they were SO invested in it as THE problem, that now that its going away, they don’t quite seem to know what to do with themselves. I mean, it was so EASY to stay inside your nice house with a #BLM sign in your window and feel like you were solving the problems of the world! Now it’s time to come out, though – the break from reality is over. But many of them just aren’t ready. They are struggling to witness what they’ve done to their own city, and to face the reality that Portland is unlikely to be a truly “nice” city again for decades to come. Instead, it’s well on its way to becoming a plantation city, ironically enough for the amount of #BLM signs here – homeowners will be rich and getting richer, and remain mostly white; renters will be in general paying with other people’s money (students, etc) or falling into debt while desperately virtue-signaling up the wazoo to prove they’re the same class as the homeowners; a small servant class made up of people of color will be supported through the local taxes, which are specifically reserved to support them, so the rich people can always have access to the help; and the ranks of the homeless will swell and swell and swell, while everyone else pretends not to see them and tells themselves through gritted teeth that in Portland, they are Good People…
How long will this status quo continue? I know well enough that it can continue indefinitely – cruel societies can and do last for millennia. But, how long can the Good People of Portland keep fooling themselves that their city is a “nice place”? I think that’s the breaking point. The source of the weird energy I sense pooling everywhere. And which way, and what way, it will break in – I don’t know. Maybe there will be a frenzy of revenge against anyone who isn’t vaccinated. Maybe there will be a bunch of overheated rhetoric against THOSE TRUMP VOTERS (i.e., their own suburbs) that channels them into pointless and self-defeating political action which further wrecks their economy. Maybe there will be a religious revival centered around global warming, as the forests catch on fire again later this summer. Heck, maybe there will be a “Let’s par-TAY!” stampede as soon as we enter summer properly, and the businesses left will get a new lease on life. I’d like that one best! Or maybe the events of History will overtake all of it and the outcome will be something I can’t possibly predict.
In any case, I will keep walking around downtown Portland as long as I live nearby – or until I actually get mugged, whichever comes first! 🙂 For what it’s worth, I don’t see direct violence towards strangers being an issue anytime this year. Portland’s beauty and laid-back-ness (and don’t-bug-others-ness) is still a powerful influence. I get the feeling that we’re in the waning years of a golden age here – a Fin de Siècle, if you will. There are still so many great parts of Portland! I’m taking them in as much as I can – trying to lock them into my memory, to take out and turn over in my mental hands in the future, like a bottle of fine wine. Once I do leave… I won’t be back.
@barefootwisdom, I don’t have a source right now, but I read that in the 11th century, about 10% of the population of Europe was on the road at any moment: pilgrims, scholars, robbers, and others. Things settled down a bit afterwards.
Mr. Greer, I’m happy to hear you avoided the scourge of agents.
Sadly, there are publishers who won’t talk to a writer, particularly a complete unknown with no platform, without agenting.
The trick is to look for smaller publishers who will accept un-agented writing.
As for working with agents, well, many of them are not just terrible. They are criminals who steal from their clients.
This is why if a writer does work with an agent, said writer should *DEMAND* that any contract be written so that the agent is sent his cut directly AND separately by Publisher when Writer gets his own payment check directly from Publisher.
To clarify, do not rely on Agent to receive the entire check from Publisher, take their cut, then forward on the remaining cash. Chuck Palahniuk was famously defrauded by his agent and he wasn’t the only writer so victimized:
https://nypost.com/2018/12/22/accountant-gets-prison-for-embezzling-millions-from-famed-literary-agency/
There are also very good agents out there. I have been told this by writers who have been very happy with their agents. Those agents have more work than they can handle so it’s extremely unlikely that a completely unknown new writer will ever sign on with one of these agents.
JMG,
I don’t recall you ever mentioning siblings. Do you have any?
To anyone following the mimeograph discussion who wished to be apprised of subscription options – I appear to have a functioning subscription “button” now. If you’ll forgive any kinks that need to be ironed out and that I won’t know about until I have subscribers (and a new post up), come on over: https://www.mimeographrevival.com/subscribe/
@ fkader RE YOUR truth RE Guns
In my experience, running among some not-so-lawful types along our border with Mexico, in traveling in many foreign countries NOT in Europe – a gun in hand is personal safety. When dealing with trespassers on my property, having a gun at hand lends weight to my words when I tell someone (politely) to leave.
Your truth and your circumstances may be different from my own, and your life experiences likely are as well. Having already been shot, I can say it was not an enjoyable experience. Having shot others, that is perhaps a worse experience, but not as bad as my being shot. In both cases, for me, having a gun at hand precluded things growing progressively worse.
The truth is that bad, criminal types will get guns from other criminals or guys looking to make a buck. This has always been so, no matter the legislation. Reducing the number of guns does not reduce the ability to get one – it just raises the price. Supply and demand, same as in many other things.
What most gun laws do is complicate and tax every step of the process of ownership – and yet there is little change in violence levels. People who want to kill will use a knife, a shovel or even a screwdriver to kill. Go look up stabbing statistics in the UK – where guns are ‘illegal’ mostly. Nobody has successfully legislated murder out of existence, just as they haven’t yet legislated prostitution away since the time of the Romans. Nor did they legislate away alcohol or marijuana – they simply taxed the hell out of it and the volume continued to rise along with the prices.
What the Texas law does is to do away with the training required for concealed carry – essentially the concealed carry ‘tax’. Just because it is against the law does not mean nobody will break the law. I routinely break laws I believe are stupid, and many because the list of prohibited or “permit required” things has never ceased to grow, and I find it intrusive, time-wasting and cumbersome to comply (and expensive where permits are required to remove a tree, for example). It has always been legal to open-carry a rifle in Texas – now, we can open-carry a pistol as well – so the change essentially repeals the concealed carry permit tax and makes carrying a pistol the same as a rifle in my state.
If you want to see the true level of illegal gun ownership in a place where it is illegal to own a gun, have a gander at Mexico. If you think law abiding Mexicans aren’t arming up in the face of those statistics, illegal or not, then you are not thinking straight.
You do what you think is best for you and your family, and I will do the same. You live where guns are illegal if you wish, and hope you remain safe as police budgets are cut repeatedly and response times increase. I will remain here, and be happy to carry a gun in places where the police are far away in time and space, and where 300 lb boars and poisonous snakes are routine.
As a sidenote, the response time for the sheriff dept at my farm is 45 minutes…in other words, they show up to take statements. Just as an ambulance, which has response time of over an hour at my farm – so we have ER-type supplies there.
Your life is NOT mine, and that is ok by me. I just don’t want people trying to make me do things NOT in my own best interest – their lives are usually dissimilar to my own, as are their conceptions and notions of right and wrong. Looking down the barrel of another gun makes most laws immaterial,IMHO.
Sorry if I wrote a novella, but people need to realize that one size does NOT fit every circumstance.
@JMG and Will1000. Thank you for the answer and the question, respectively! John, as you know, I’ve been trying to match up your writings about “magic” vs. my personal experiences and world view for years. Much of my personal experiences had to do with “change in consciousness according to will” — but seemingly not meeting your criteria as being “magic”.
So for you to now write “— and “trance” is the state of someone who is under an enchantment, voluntarily or otherwise. In terms of background, a lot of what’s going on here has to do with what we can call the level of consciousness. The higher the level, the more capable you are of self-knowledge, reflection, and creativity; the lower the level, the more you fall under the control of mental and emotional automatisms, so that you don’t think, you just react. Hostile magic very often has the effect (or tries to have the effect) of lowering the level of consciousness so you do self-defeating things of various kinds in an unreflective, automatic fashion. Ideologies, such as belief in progress, function in exactly the same way.”
Well…let’s just say, this huge, tensioned, gap in my head (trying to hold open my respect for you versus my confusion/frustration) just snapped together pretty resoundingly!
I had just about decided to let you keep your magic while I returned to my “magic” (whatever it actually was when highly improbable things just “happened” around me). And then I read THIS. So, thanks to both of you!
One last thing, John. Since I’ve apparently (your definition) been “enchanted”, “enchanted” others (usually, but not always with full conscious consent) and “enchanted” myself methodically and often, I think you might find it interesting to read up on the life and “magic” of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. You have referenced Gregory Bateson. FYI, Bateson knew Erickson VERY well. I suspect – but don’t know – that Erickson influenced Bateson’s thinking and later writing more than slightly. I recommend you read more about Erickson. And his use of “enchantment” for healing and good. It might expand your own horizons on magic (I know I am presuming a lot) and, more to the point, allow you to let “hypnosis” and many aspects of psychology and covert influence, in general, out of the closet.
In particular, your statement “the lower the level, the more you fall under the control of mental and emotional automatisms, so that you don’t think, you just react” indicate a really large gap in your understanding of the “lower level” goings on. Usually the “lower levels” hold creativity and ultimate power. More importantly, they can be remarkably creative — when they are respectfully communicated with and ALLOWED to participate in the evolution of the soul. At least that has been my experience: Most of what passes for evil in this world is incongruity held together with fear and ignorance.
Again, thanks to you and the community for the great weekly blog and forum! You guys regularly tilt my brain!
Re: Portland
As an Oregonian who doesn’t like cities and so doesn’t spend much time there, I still have to say that calling Portland “unsafe to visit” is a little bit like equating COVID-19 to the Black Plague. Yes, there are nightly protests in some neighborhoods, and yes, there are a lot of unhoused people with addiction and mental health issues. But the chances of suffering physical harm while riding the trains and buses, or visiting Powell’s City of Books, remain infinitesimally small.
Housing prices in Portland are also up 14% from last year, and still sky high relative to the rest of the state and country, so while some people are leaving, even more people are arriving, and it is still a long way from becoming the next Detroit.
@JMG – our adopted twin girls were born under the sign of Gemini. Is that astrologically significant?
@barefootwisdom:
The plague IS over, or will be soon. TX and FL are already open, CA will open soon, people are going to start seeing in July that everything is okay, when CA numbers don’t go up. I also have reason to believe that a vaccine that has been around forever with a good safety profile (polio booster shot) will get approved as an option for COVID-19 later this year. The only reason the powers that be would allow COVID to rage again was if they wanted to catch the anti-vaxxers or vax hesitant in a pincer move, but they need Biden to succeed more than they need to punish those people.
In any case, the FDA will grant full approval to Pfizer or Moderna later this year, and everyone who wants to fully participate in our economy, and doesn’t live in a state with contrary laws, will be forced to vax at that point. I only hope the alternative I spoke of above makes it before then.
@Temporaryreality #122 and others on the printmaking, mimeograph topic.
I would like to be added to your distribution list if you get one running.
I was on WordPress for awhile, but after they completely changed the admin interface and all the plug-in procedures, I found it unusable. I had used MailChimp as a distribution method. In April or May 2020, I switched over to SubStack, which is basically WordPress plus MailChimp in one platform, although it’s only a single page feed; you can’t have several separate pages on different aspects of your project. So I have archived PDFs still at WordPress.
On printmaking, I made my own bottle jack printing press six or seven years ago from plans available through a printmaker named Charles Morgan at Mossworks (I just did a search and the PDF isn’t as readily available as it was then, it’s a lot of videos but I can email you the plans if you’re interested.) Very affordable. I think the whole thing cost about $100 after finding a discarded countertop alongside the road and cutting squares of melamine on particle board as the main platen and pressbed parts. Purchased steel uprights and some small hardware, and used 2×4 scraps leftover from other projects for cross beams.
I have used the press along with linoleum block carvings (linocut) to print calendars, picture-notecards, t-shirts, dishtowels and the like. At about the same time, I started collecting lead type manufactured at M&H Foundry in San Francisco, and antique accessories like chases, quoins, furniture, quoin keys, with the idea that someday I would print a local newspaper on sheets about 12×18. That hasn’t come to fruition yet, for a variety of reasons, but I still have the materials collected to do it someday.
And yesterday at an antique shop, I bought 8 or so editions of the Belleville [Pennsylvania] `Times, a few from early 1940s, some from 1959, and one from the exact day of my birthday in 1973 — a strange synchronicity. Partly to read to get a better idea of what a local newspaper in the 1940s and 1950s had in it.
Some photos of my work are here:
https://bailiwicknewsarchives.wordpress.com/2021/04/23/printmaking-photos/
A couple of years ago on a family trip we visited the Hatch Show Print shop in Nashville, where country music posters have been printed for more than 100 years and they continue to use the wood type as a way to conserve it. Inspired by that, I carved larger type from linoleum (72-pt, 96 pt and 192 pt) with the idea of doing notecards with words, posters and other items.
This January I finally took the plunge and bought a Chandler & Price Pilot printing press, probably manufactured in the 1920s or so (they didn’t do much with serial numbers so it’s hard to tell).
I found it through the classifieds at Briar Press.
http://briarpress.org/ – “proudly introducing the bleeding edge world of personal desktop printing circa 1820”
Also have joined Ladies of Letterpress, which has several discussion forums and organizes an annual conference in the Midwest.
https://ladiesofletterpress.com/ – “Dedicated to the proposition that a woman’s place is in the printshop.”
Another good site is Excelsior Press in NJ
http://excelsiorpress.org/
And a good source for equipment is a guy in Chicopee Massachusetts
http://www.letterpressthings.com/
The C&P Pilot is a tabletop press, mostly used back in the day for training purposes. And a whole new learning curve for me. I’ve done some small jobs and have some books to help figure out troubleshooting, but would love to someday be able to attend hands-on workshops or a full training program at an art school or something. I had some leads but lockdowns cancelled those activities. There is so much trial and error involved.
I’m also interested in mimeograph, ditto machines and so forth. I remember in elementary school in the late 1970s, early 1980s, the delight of being allowed to turn the handle on the ditto machine in the main office as it churned out sheets of purple-inked copes of the teacher’s own handwriting. And was also lucky enough that by the time I was in middle school in the mid-80s, my school still had a print shop and print instructor as part of the home economics. I remember making stapled notepads with my name printed at the top of each sheet.
Anyway, I’d like to be in the loop on your project, so if you can add my email to your distribution list, please do. It’s kgwatt at protonmail dot com.
JMG: Yes. Just like The Plague Story became the pattern which connected the first set of posts and became a book, I think The Devouring Mother will become the pattern which connects a second book.
Beserker: the craziness in Australia, specifically where I live in Melbourne, has been that while our city and state was turned into a B-grade version of North Korea, nobody apparently had any problem with that and concepts that nobody even knew existed a few months prior (eg. “level four” lockdowns) were parroted about as if they were perfect common sense and had been around since time immemorial.
Goldenhawk: thanks for that. The Red Book has certainly helped me to make sense of some personal experiences. For example, whereas Jung talks about how he first had a ‘life’ (career, marriage, children) and then started his journey to the depths, I wonder how many of us who were ‘losers’ in school and experienced the intense anomie of that haven’t already journeyed to the depths and our task is therefore to pull ourselves up again.
Barefootwisdom: the lab leak story answers one of the main holes in the official narrative: how did they find the virus so quickly? For SARS-1, it took six months to find the virus and that was considered radically fast at the time. The Chinese apparently found it in a week or two which makes no sense unless they knew what to look for. I don’t know which part of the story is weirder, that the US would send money to China for viral research or that China would let them. Can you imagine the news if it emerged that a Chinese viral research lab existed in mainland USA?
Here is my first try at a sabbat calendar of food. Should depend in part on what is available locally and in season. No hot house strawberries or Chilean grapes in December unless you live in Chile. No pineapple in Iowa or Paw Paws in Washington. Not necessarily native; oranges are not native to Florida or California but have been grown there a century by now. Same with kiwi fruit, mandarin oranges and pomegranates, but not bananas or dragon fruit. Things that are not local but could travel and be traded, such as nuts; dried fruit such as raisins, figs, dates; liquor of various kinds are fine.
TENTATIVE SABBAT FOOD AND DRINK
Summer solstice/Litha
Cherry brandy
fresh local fruit
Lamas/Lughnasad
beer
bread—wheat or barley or mix
Autumn equinox/Mabon
a honey liqueur such as Barenjager or Drambuie
cookies with raisins or dried fruit of other kinds
Samhain/All Hallows
Apple brandy or hard cider
an apple based desert—strudel, applesauce spice cake
Winter solstice/Yule
brandy or whiskey or a nut flavored liqueur such as filbert or walnut or pecan
gingerbread
Bridget/Imbolc/Candlemas
milk based liqueur such as Irish Cream
?
Eostre/Spring equinox
flower base liqueur such as crème de violet, elderflower (St. Geramains and others)
decorated eggs
May Day/Beltaine
May wine (flavored with woodruff)
strawberries if in season locally, otherwise any fruit in season locally
Rita
Thanks so much for the encouragement and info. Yes, I can understand how you went the self publishing route and that you like how you have more control and more of an ability to experiment. Your issue of mixing genres is one I struggle with the most. My allegories are a mix of genres really written for adults and address topics such as climate change, endless growth paradigm etc. While they have a simple story that kids can get, they have language in the rhyme that appeals to adults so they are really adult picture books. It’s that aspect that is the most difficult as they really span age groups being neither exclusively for adults or children but rather everybody.
I admire your ability to see the self publishing through and you’ve obviously done well. I’ve done one but have lost my illustrator so now I’m back to square one with just the poems. I found self publishing to be an arduous, frustrating process with few options and even more hurdles. It didn’t help that my first book was political in nature, taking off Donald Trump and I was subsequently banned from advertising anywhere on social media or google because the book was considered political meddling. Anyway, onward and upward. I’ll look for little publishers who as you say, may find my allegories fun. Thanks again for engaging.
Thanks for this. You really made me sit up and take notice. You’re entirely right as I’ve passed up a whole series of possible opportunities. I’ll get on it.
KW, you should receive a confirmation email (I plugged your email address into the form and if it worked, that’s what’ll happen). Thanks for your interest!
I like C&P presses – we had one at the printshop I learned in, though I mostly used the Vandercook. I stupidly got rid of a tabletop proof press some years ago – had I not, I’d have been much more engaged in lino printing through the years, something I miss doing and now find that my then-nascent illustrations skills are pretty much dormant or dead. Time to get back to it, though I’m fighting years of inertia in that direction.
Your work is lovely, by the way.
If anyone else here is interested in letterpress, do check out Briar Press – they’re the ones I’ve linked to in past open posts when I found interesting things in their classifieds. Personally, I probably have disembarked from the letterpress train now that I’m mimeo-happy, though I have a soft spot in my heart for it. 🙂
@ Mark L RE: Oregon
I think many people still believe the sensational headlines and stories they see on TV, TBH. Just as many do about what happens outside this country – where Americans only receive ONE side of every story, and there is no on-the-ground reporting; rather, there is a massive deluge of repeating what specific officials and experts are saying about events.
If one went by the TV reporting, you would think the entire state was aflame and BLM was running amuck across the countryside. That is unlikely to happen in most places, as people would take action to stop it.
This same type of thing happens when we have big storms here in Texas (reporters sitting in boats in knee deep water,’reporting’ on flooding) and then it grows worse with hurricanes. So I think you are probably much more accurate than anything the rest of us have seen or read via ‘news’ sources. – thanks!
Re: Portland
Thanks for everyone’s perspective on this. Over the years I made several visits but it was my first in ‘87 that stands out in my memory. I’d come to attend a CS conference in a downtown hotel. One afternoon was free and I was able to take a walk through the city itself and then up into a hilly area in the suburbs and into an extraordinary – from my admittedly limited perspective – forested area. I fell in love with the place a little bit that day.
The hollowing out of the city centre is something I see everywhere in the UK too. Ten years ago you could visit many small northern towns and the shopping district would have every other shop boarded up and of the remainder about half would be charity shops (donated used goods, profits supporting a charity, no local business taxes). COVID and online shopping have made that much more widespread now. In the last decade I’ve regularly drawn up business plans for speciality retail outlets, run the numbers, and concluded that they simply make no sense. The usual problem is the high cost and personal liability involved in leasing a retail space. I suspect most commercial landlords here are in, or shortly will be in deep trouble.
As for the safety of Portland; I’m seeing very mixed messages. I wonder if the difference is simply down to individuals with different appetite for risk in their daily lives?
JMG,
I am currently reading an abridged version of “A Study of History” from Toynbee, following your numerous references over the years. You have argued in the past that the end game of the Long Descent will be a Dark Age, 100-300 years from now, from which a new Ecotechnic society may emerge.
Toynbee does mention different courses for civilizations, including a form of revival when the impetus for the emergence of a new creative minority are the failings of the dominant minority and its associated stressors (social, environmental, etc.), and therefore the new cycle of a civilization starts from some of the foundations left behind by the previous, without necessarily having to go through a complete disintegration phase. Are you using the perspective of a Dark Age as a thrust-block to make that latter scenario more likely?
I am of the opinion that if enough of a new creative minority explicitly set itself to achieve this scenario, we could achieve the seeds of a working Ecotechnic society faster without having to go through a Dark Age several hundred years long. But for that to work, we would need enough people willfully choosing a “pre-figurative lifestyle” that would be compatible with limited energy and resource usage, as defined by what will be available in 50-100-300 years. The challenges of doing so becomes the driving force for creativity, yet some results may be achieved faster by leveraging our current (declining) infrastructure in the meantime, e.g. sharing results with other like-minded on the Internet, using power tools, etc.. The key insight is that one can generate surpluses to dedicate to the task *by willfully choosing a lifestyle with energy and resource requirements that _decrease_ faster than the limits currently closing in on our industrial lifestyles*.
Following a different tangent, it seems to me that our cultural landscape is slowly re-appraising the sophisticated way of life and culture of natives at the time of colonization, instead of the traditional “savage” view our Western civilization used to have. We are re-discovering, for example, that some “wild nature” was in fact humanly-managed forest gardens, and some of them have maintained some stability even after having been abandoned for decades:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/indigenous-forest-gardens-remain-productive-and-diverse-for-over-a-century/
I would have to experiment with others to see the total productivity of forest gardens and other related techniques (in terms of human-supporting produces) to have a clearer picture of the size of population that could be sustained this way. But still, as a driver for a creative endeavour of a new creative minority there is plenty of fodder there!
Perhaps a list of Open Problems could help focus the efforts of would-be creatives?
Viking
@Robert Mathiesen – Interestingly, I’m currently re-reading ‘Otherworld’ by Kurt Leland. I wonder if he is a descendant of Charles Godfrey Leland?
@Patricia Mathews – I am beginning to wonder how much more I can learn from life. I do suspect some of my dreams are a preparation for the afterlife, when flying or levitation will be perfectly possible at will.
Elkriver – yes, I’ve been given the choice. It was after a nasty bicycle accident where I’d been quite badly injured. I’d been patched up at hospital and was in bed at home when I was asked ‘Are you ready?’. I said ‘No’ and the reply was ‘Okay, but it’s going to hurt’. And, boy, did it hurt, for a long time afterwards. I’ve wondered many times about what happened, if it was just me being injured, or if the question was actually real so it’s interesting to see that others have had a similar experience.
It may not be related at all but on the topic of Covid being magic related, I thought it had something to do with the septic despair being generated at the Uighur Camps. I had warning bells a few months leading up to it saying that causing a dip in the lower fields like that would draw a defense manifestation, but who knows really.
@Phutatorius,,
Microwave News has always been very good. Louis Slesin managed to produce a high-quality publication with enough demand for the honest news he presents that he was able to charge for it, and he has enough integrity to avoid without becoming a corporate promoter, which is what happened to the Bioelectromagnetic Society.
Directed energy weapons have been around for the past half century at least, with the Moscow US Embassy being targeted during the Soviet years, which is well documented, and I also suspect they played a role in spectacular car crashes several years back, when Toyota (if I recall right) electronics failed. A perfectly hideable and deniable weapon. A severely electrosensitive friend now living in Ireland was a human rights campaigner in Los Angeles, where she’d gotten her doctorate. She saw someone trundle in some heavy looking equipment into the apartment next to hers and that night felt like she was being fried alive. As a result she became electrosensitive and has suffered all kinds of indignities since.
In the current cases, it could be hostile actions by Russia or China, but I also wonder if they have the consulate rooms so protected from outside snooping that they are in effect Faraday cage/micorwave ovens, in which too many people with smartphones could result in hotspots and cause health issues. Mysterious fires in a metal-walled factory in Japan were traced back to just that back when all people had were older cellphones. Smartphones have several antennas and high enough power that the fine print warns people against actually holding them against their head.
@JBucks,
So far I don’t think there are 5G smart meters, but industry may be aiming for them as part of the IoT. Regarding peer-reviewed studies. There would be very little about 5G or smart meters as such because they are proprietary, relatively new and the industry has no incentive to test them. Regarding aspects of the radiation they employ, though, there is quite a lot available: effects of low-frequency modulations, polarization, epidemiology, in vivo, in vitro, environmental, etc. Check out Microwave News for its archives as just one resource. Also BioInitiatve Report, just off the top of my head.
@JMG,
The Safe and Sound Pro II RF meter is sturdy and reliable, and with Magda Havas recommending it for international monitoring, it is set to become the standard. There are cheaper meters. Acousticom is about half the price and pretty good if you are just confirming levels around your place and the effectiveness of shielding. If you are using a Faraday cage, you need in addition to find ways to ground yourself at least once a day for a half hour or more, because your body needs the natural EMF rhythms (Schumann resonances) to stay healthy. I go barefoot outside. I tried a grounding wire to my office, but every time my brother-in-law’s smartphone transmits, I feel like I’m having a heart attack, so that is no good. I read recently (Steven Magee, Curing Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity) that wearing a battery-operated watch with a second hand and a plastic strap provides some of the benefits of grounding. I’ve tried this and it feels good, but once again, every time I get near a smartphone, I feel even worse than would without it. It’s useful–I can just take it off in bad situations.
Regarding the “vaccines” in Japan, initially, only Pfizer’s was being used, so that is what all the medical personnel got. With the elderly being mass vaccinated now, they have added Moderna and will add Johnson & Johnson’s and Astrazeneca’s as well. They have refused to consider the Sputnik V vaccine or China’s.
http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2021/05/requiem-for-educational-system.html
I have noticed that news reports often reference how news articles when referencing blood clots only talk about how Astra Zeneca/JJ vaccines can cause a VITT, that is a thrombosis paired with a thrombocytopenia. That is two conditions which general aren’t associated with each other, a blood clot while your blood cannot clot. Appears to never reference those blood clots caused by vaccines which don’t also cause low platelet count (thrombocytopenia). Even though according to this oxford report https://osf.io/a9jdq/ mRNA vaccines cause two serious types of blood clot (PVT/CVT) at roughly 3-4 times the rate that the adeno-virus vaccines cause VITT. This seems like a True lie to me. That is a truthful statement which is made with the intent to deceive. The truth is that yes VITT is rare, and only cause by the adeno-virus based vaccines, the deception is that those are the only serious blood clotting events occurring (rather than a small subset), and they aren’t caused by the mRNA based vaccines. Ironically this probably means that if a still rare clotting event occurs to somebody after being vaccinated, they are probably safer with the AZ/JJ, it is more likely the doctor will correctly diagnose the problem. Is the phenomenon of the true lie an occult concept?
@vw
“I ran across this article in my link crawl today, and found it a fascinating reflection (from a culture I know very little about) of a lot of things this blog has been discussing recently: the Christian God not responding to prayers, the updated Catholic mass being awful and perhaps even no longer holy, an example of a circular firing squad on the political right”
When Samuel was a boy the visions and even the voice of God was rare:
“And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision.”
-1 Samuel 3:1
Indicating wrath. When God is angry with a Nation and with people he no longer responds as formerly. But turns his back.
It is Judgment on the cultural phenomenons and what is going on inside the hearts of Men and on people who ended up updating the Catholic mass as a result of said inward attitudes.
“And… another thought… he doesn’t ever seem to have had an actual religious experience? Not one single moment where God spoke to him, or the angels directly answered his prayers, or where he interacted with the numinous, or caught a glimpse of a world beyond our world.”
Even the Pharisees got the sign of Jonah which was the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus never honored them with signs in the sky or miracles as they wanted him to do.
So that man will have to believe in the promise that is the result of this one miracle that is at the core of what validates Christianity. And the law and the prophets which records what has already occurred in history.
@SundaraYogaShala @JMG
What is discouraging is that even so called sustainable architecture. And low-energy intensive architecture manages to end up so ugly and in tune with uglicism when I see those people’s designs and final results.
Its like those architects who designed them are unable to create beauty or refuse to. Or had said capabilities taken away from them in architecture school which indoctrinates students in the cult of uglicist modernism.
Hideous bughives rather than livable homes.
@Booklover #314
I agree that the German Reich had a role in this culture death, too. If you use the symbols of the German Reich today, you will be seen by most of the Germans as a right-wing nut or Nazi. I have read quite a bit about the crucial period in Germany from 1871 to 1945. Especially, Sebastian Haffner has written great books about it, which are very well written and deliver a credible explanation of the history of this period. What I remember was a statement by Bismarck after the foundation of the German Reich in 1871, that now Germany is big enough and should not grow any further. Unfortunately, he was not able to prevail against the expansionist philosophy of emperor Wilhelm II. This got us into major trouble in the 20th century.
I also agree on your assessment on regional culture, but I have to admit that one of my favorite moments regarding regional culture in Germany happened during a trip to the North Sea. I was visiting an old fishing port. There was a still stage in this fishing port, where a fisherman´s choir was singing old fisherman songs. The audience was large and I remember that we listened to quite a few songs. Unfortunately, there weren´t any young people in the fisherman´s choir. So, I had a feeling of tragedy that there will be no more fisherman´s choir as soon as these people are gone.
Other than that, I have the feeling that the remains of regional culture have be commercialized like an adult version of Disneyland. For example, here in the Harz region, we have a lot of mythology around the witches gathering at Mount Brocken. In every town, you can buy witches as souvenir and the Walpurgisnacht is also just another “Volksfest” like for example the Oktoberfest in Munich.
@Abraham #315
Thank you for listing the changes happening to you. Especially, point 1 and 8 seem to be related for myself. When I became “red-pilled” first, I gained a lot of weight, because I was eating out of frustration about the negative news that I was reading. As I crossed the 100 kg barrier, I decided to not read any negative news anymore, started intermittent fasting and did regular bodyweight exercises. I lost 15 kg in 1,5 years but then came the move to the Harz and Covid and I started to read a lot of negative news again and dropped the other healthy habits, now I am nearly back to where I started. Maybe, I should drop the news again. Point 5 also seems to be similar with me and my wife.
@ JMG #329 and #334
Thank you for the advice. I will order your book on Druidy soon. How do you think about joining a Druid organization? Would you advice to join as soon as possible or join after extensive self-studies?
I remember to have read your post on his magical writing in the past. I think that I have got the idea from it, that you have had vague plans to write about “Revolt Againt the Modern World”. From reading your old post, I extracted the following:
-Evola was good in magical theory but could not extract magical training advice from it due to not having mastered a magical tradition.
-Evola was good in analyzing the problems of the modern world but developed solutions that would be even worse if implemented.
Do you think that it is still viable to read his books for an assessment of the status quo, even if his conclusions are not worthwhile? Anyways, I am looking forward to a critique of his political work. Maybe, I have read the book by then (currently it is low priority).
This is related to what Ksim wrote in Post #320. Currently, it looks like the Eastern European countries have a stronger will to survive than the Western European ones. Do you see the possibility that the iron curtain could be erected again in the near future but this time with exchanged roles, e.g. the Western European countries being an authoritarian hellhole and the Eastern European countries more or less independent liberal democracies?
@Fra’Lupo #393
Thank you for the short summary on Evola. It seems that he bet on the wrong horse for empire building.
@Eike #331
Your strategy of keeping a low profile seems to a wise choice. I have read from quite a few dissident voices in Germany that they were either harassed by the police or by paramilitary thugs.
In the small town, where I live, I already see a lot of young people, who at least seem to ignore the ban on assembly of lager gatherings. There is a parking lot in my neighborhood, where they meet in the evening. Until today, I only saw it one time that the police dissolved these gatherings. I interpret this as a positive sign, that the Germans maybe aren´t that compliant as I have feared based on the behavior of most people. A negative is the vaccination virtue signaling of my friends from academia. Today I had the first photo of a vaccination passport with Covid vaccination evidence in a WhatsApp (unfortunately still using it) group.
@Oilman2 #373
“There also seems to be a developing resistance to anything “ROBO” among people. Like the reaction to NYC cops and their Boston Dynamics pooch. Has anyone else noticed this particular outcome of the robot invasion?”
Maybe this has something to do with the expectations that people had, what robots could do today, and the much less awesome reality of what they are able to do. Maybe the disappointment is so overwhelming, that the mood turns into the negative and all robots suck now.
Apologies to anyone who already brought this up. I’ve been learning how to draft. I enjoy the art and precision of it. If anyone has looked at old-school architectural drafts (and sketches made on tracing paper), or the designs made for machine parts, they’ll see the amazing beauty. I imagine this is a skill that will be necessary in our future decline. Fortunately, for anyone interested, there are a ton of books out there, and archive.org has some oldies but goodies.
Also, this seems like a skill that one could get employed for teaching. While some schools still teach it, it’s pretty much thrown to the curb for the preference of CAD.
Also, rendering works in watercolor or ink is another skill that has been lost.
@Dagnarus – I’d suggest that you are slightly misrepresenting the purpose of the study, which was to compare the risk of serious thrombosis in cases of Covid against that in people diagnosed with flu or in receipt of an mRNA vaccine. It doesn’t attempt to assess the risk of thrombosis in mRNA vaccine recipients versus the general population (the baseline), or versus recipients of other vaccines – it is only really trying to assess the risk of thrombosis in Covid patients.
Essay on the highly effective “Aspergers Republicans,” and the need for more of them, by Kurt Schlichter.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/05/24/bring-on-the-aspergers-republicans-n2589897
Mister Papa Greer-
i just bought a mini Marseilles deck to follow along with the rest of the class on the Levi book, and i’ve been wanting to illustrate my own tarot deck for decades, but even i am too humble in my double-leo audacity to take it on with how little i know.
i like how you and Mark Anthony Mikituk pulled the translation off.
IF you feel it’s also time for a new deck, i raise my hand to begin. maybe it’ll take yeeeears, but….?
x
adwelly wrote:
“As for the safety of Portland; I’m seeing very mixed messages. I wonder if the difference is simply down to individuals with different appetite for risk in their daily lives?”
There’s another factor as well. Fearful people–or at least people who manifest their fear, even if only in very subtle ways–are actual predator magnets, and attract more than their statistically fair share of aggression. Once you’ve learned how to project your own personal comfort with dangerous situations, dangerous people tend to leave you alone and look for easier targets.
@Malcopian:
Charles Godfrey Leland and his wife had no children of their own, but Kurt Leland might be a collateral relative of his, especially if he or his ancestors came from Philadelphia. (However, Leland is not a particularly rare surname.)
@temporaryreality
Are mimeographs still used by small publishers? I ask because one of the people in my apartment building owns a small printing press. If the answer is yes, I guess I can ask him and give you the details, if any.
A datapoint … Michael Malice compiled a book of essays on anarchism and its been in the top 100 of all books sold on the great slimy river site for a couple of weeks now. A sign of how fed up people are with the existing system.
Secretface,
This is where you are mistaken about Eastern Europe. They will not become “liberal democracies” but more what I would term “conservative democracies”, in a similar vein to what is the case with Israel today.
However I limit this to just Eastern Europe. Russia will attempt to “democratise” but I dont really see it veering from Putinism. You see, the Russians like to have a strong leader. It is “in the blood” so to say. There will always be a demand for a strong leader who will write the wrongs and guide the ship of state to safety.
I think that in the future, Russia will have a more democratic Putin type of figure who ends up reigning for 20 or so years (the people will keep voting for whoever it is) but the country has more checks and balances in play then the current problems with corruption it has now (which isnt even half as bad due to Putin compared to what it was under Yeltsin where you needed a bribe for everything).
I could quite easily see Russia evolving into some sort of one party democratic state like what Singapore has…multiparty democracy would never work in Russia….
Now for John,
I actually need your help. I am trying to get into magical practice but the problem is, the more I read, the more confusing and boring it gets that I end up putting down what Im doing.
I have tried Wicca, all sorts of reading and I just end up losing interest. Do you have any advice on where I could actually be starting and what advice would you give to basically a newbie? Thanks
170 – El: Thank you very much for the thoughtful response. I slipped into binary thinking there about what to do, and I appreciate you calling me on that.
Thanks to everyone about the discussion on how to talk about covid vaccines with others. It’s been helpful.
Tim
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/05/27/dont-expect-the-world-economy-to-resume-its-prior-growth-pattern-after-covid-19/
Secretface, I, too, have read some books of Sebastian Haffner and found them worthwhile. About regional cultures I cannot say much, but in the last few years, I have travelled with a friend to the Baltic Sea near Lübeck and Flensburg. I liked it there, the towns were nice and the landscape beautiful.
There are something similar to new local cultures developing in a few places; in the city where I live girls and women more often than in other cities are having their hair dyed, most often green, but violet, blue and other colors do occur, in that order.
Having had our Orange Julius, the nation may now be looking at a palm tree Octavian.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/08/politics/desantis-presidential-run-democrats-midterms/index.html
Hello JMG and Ecosophiasphere. I wonder if anyone else remembers this nugget from September last year. I thought it one of the most chilling things I’d read lately, and it just seemed to be swept under the carpet (the carpet that is now about three foot off the floor …)
“The government has ordered schools in England not to use resources from organisations which have expressed a desire to end capitalism.
Department for Education (DfE) guidance issued on Thursday for school leaders and teachers involved in setting the relationship, sex and health curriculum categorised anti-capitalism as an “extreme political stance” and equated it with opposition to freedom of speech, antisemitism and endorsement of illegal activity.”
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/sep/27/uk-schools-told-not-to-use-anti-capitalist-material-in-teaching
A completely unrelated question: somebody I know has had ME on and off for years. They have tried everything you can imagine and are still ill; life passes them by; it is though they came into this world not quite put together right; is there any possibility that magic could help? Thank you for any suggestions.
Somebody gets is! From Laurie King’s “Mutterings,” in the context of Queen Marie of Rumania,
“In feudal times, the survival of a region depended on noblesse oblige. If a duke or king felt no responsibility for his people, they wouldn’t make it when the next kingdom over invaded. Over the centuries and millennia, boundaries have expanded, until now entire countries are looking at their neighbors and realizing that responsibilities reach beyond national identity.
“If you’re reading this, you are almost certainly one of the world’s aristocracy, born into a degree of power and luxury that vast swaths of the world’s population can only begin to imagine. If bombs are not falling on your head; if your children and neighbors are not wasting from malnutrition; if you need only flip a switch to push away the night; if your brother disappears into a prison you still feel he has rights—then you, like me, are one of our globe’s aristocrats.”
Link to the whole: https://laurierking.com/2021/05/noblesse-oblige/
Full disclosure: Laurie King is of my class and generation and leftie politics. But she does understand a lot.
@ vw #442. I don’t know! I’ll email David Trammell who runs the site and ask.
He hasn’t posted recently so I’m not sure what’s up.
In the meantime, I hope you can still read the forums even if you can’t respond.
@Viking #460 – If you come across a copy of the book 1491 by Charles C. Mann, it has some interesting comments on forest management in the Amazon prior to the arrival of Columbus and the Europeans.
I think the modern interest in perennial gardening stems from the work of permaculture pioneer Bill Mollison. I have dabbled in this approach, and my initial impression is that it involves a substantial amount of work until the system is up and running. Also a fairly lengthy learning curve, much of which was probably common knowledge among the first nations of centuries past, but is certainly not common knowledge amongst the public-schooled of today.
Once up and running, it seems to be relatively easy to maintain, but will this kind of system work with today’s land-use patterns? It’s hard to see how such a system could support New York City as matters stand now.
John, everyone–
I found this bit of contrarian news interesting:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/putin-betting-coal-still-future-050020630.html
More signs of significant divergence from the West and US influence.
@PatriciaOrmsby” thanks for those tidbits of info. My house has aluminum siding: I’m not even considering replacing it with vinyl. My neighbor next door even added a metal roof to his house! That part about needing to ground yourself is interesting. I suppose my daily walk in the woods would suffice for that. Some folks are concerned about the etheric effects of microwave ovens on food. Someone here designed an experiment to use microwaved water on a plant and reported that it had an adverse effect on the plant’s growth. So if that’s true, we should also be interested in the knowing the etheric effects of widespread presence of microwave in our environment, less intense than in a microwave oven, but much more constant and likely to get worse now that our “public airwaves” have been auctioned off to the big telecoms, etc. .
I second your praise of the Safe & Sound Pro II. I’ll add that It’s also economical to operate. A pair of AA alkaline batteries will last for more than 24 hours, or you can power it from a USB port if you prefer. I have nothing negative to report about it.
I’m still confused about the word, “thrust-block” that often gets used. I am too dense to glean the meaning from the sentences. Can anyone explain it?
Hey jmg
I just finished the introduction of Lévi’s book, and it occurred to me that his verbose writing full of literary and philosophical allusions is strongly reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges writing style.
It occurred to me that a lot of borges writing has occult themes, though I doubt he seriously studied or practiced the occult. Could you imagine a past where borges where he was a practicing occultist, and wrote essays or even manuals on it just like you do?
Btw, did you ever get around to buying the collection of borges’ essays that penguin published ?
@ Merle Langlois (May 27, 10:46 am) – You & and the business where you work are in my prayers, especially that in your area people in need of healing will be able to find you and receive the help they need, and for prosperity that benefits all. Best wishes and good luck!
Asking for prayers to help in your particular situation is not at all crass – we all need to be able to work for a living and be fairly compensated. In my work at a small family business myself I can certainly relate – there are way too many roadblock and challenges put in the way of small businesses these days. (I know this is late, but am slowing catching up on reading the comments.)
BTW – The business where you work – by chance – is it in Albuquerque? I need some healing help myself…
Look at this now, what on earth?! https://insiderpaper.com/birds-blind-dying-washington-dc/amp/
Malcopian #461, I wonder if it goes the other way and people in the afterlife preparing to come back have dreams of something solid to stand on? 🙂
A few weeks ago I said a ‘suspicion’ mechanic would be fun in RPGs. Just found out it already exists in Blades in the Dark (steampunk and magic, like China Mieville’s Bas Lag / New Crobuzon and the Dishonoured computer games) where it’s called ‘heat’ – https://bladesinthedark.com/heat#. The game also has an interesting mechanic called the ‘progress clock’ – https://bladesinthedark.com/progress-clocks.
@patriciaormsby:
Thanks for the info, I’ll have a deeper look. Apparently I’m able to talk to our power company and request that they put back the old ‘dumb’ meter, so I’ll do some research first.
@CS2:
Funny you should mention bookshelves, we are going to contact a local craftsperson to get some bookshelves from him. Agreed about Ikea – it is indeed expensive. And I like ‘Swedish Walmart’ as a workaround for Ikea’s glamour!
@Rita:
Your list of foods and drinks for the seasonal celebrations makes sense to me, thanks for that! Here in Eastern Canada there may be some local food that is traditionally associated with certain seasons that may help flesh out the list for my area.
Hi JMG,
I’ve noticed one or two people have linked your astrological lunar eclipse suggestion of a U.S. public health issue with the vaccine rollout. Given those same vaccines are being taken up in countries that don’t have the same indicators (different houses), could it instead/as well be indicating that the American vaccines are where we might have the issue (i.e. Pfizer and Moderna mRNA) wherever they are being found. As I’ve heard you say before, the guides to mundane astrology were written in a less techno-globalised time – maybe harder to catch the nuances of now?
Talking of historical reference, some on here may find this paper interesting on the 1889 pandemic and attempts to understand and map it in Britain at the time. That pandemic also was quite likely coronavirus caused (when OHC43 jumped from cattle to humans) and took around three/four years to properly settle down: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/21757097
JMG
WOH in the news 🙂
https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2021/05/24/sailing-vessel-horse-drawn-wagon-deliver-cargo-to-industrial-red-hook/
John – Coop Janitor
Dear Violet, I’ve observed what I think is the same phenomenon in a very different context. Recently my father, who studied Christian Mysticism in his youth but was a Buddhist for most of the time I knew him, has renewed his study of Christian Mysticism in a big way. Around the same time I, who had been studying Western Occultism quite heavily of late, very naturally felt compelled to return to the Buddhist practices I grew up with. Both are magic-heavy systems, and neither of us have encountered any particular difficulties in returning to these practices – but it has been a strong and sudden change in focus.
I perceived this impulse as a response to the general hurleyburley, as a pull towards tried-and-true methods that set down early patterns capable of counteracting the environment’s uncertainty. If my early religious experiences had been characterized by evangelical Christianity, which to my understanding considers any magical practice interference with God’s plan, I imagine I might be now drifting away from my recent studies without replacing them with a new activity. If my guess is correct, I would think this ‘drifting away’ is a function of what the early religious or spiritual experiences of that nature were among your particular friend group.
After burning incense during rituals, how do you get rid of the smell afterwards? And would doing so remove any effect that the ritual may have had? My wife finds the smell pretty strong.
@ JMG – I don’t have much understanding of or context for astrology beyond your regular posts as daily horoscopes published in the papers. Bear that in mind when responding to my question; my adopted twin girls were born under the sign of Gemini. Is there any significance to twins being born under the sign of THE twins?
Merle (thanks to Patricia T for the reminder), yes, I’d be happy to add a blessing for you to my morning devotions – quick question, do you pronounce your name like the country singer (Merl) or the German way (Mare-la) or another way altogether?
Jon Goddard, yes, I just discovered some of those texts yesterday and some of them seem very neatly set out in lessons such that I could add them to my mimeograph catalog. I’ve been looking at public domain art lessons for my own use and this track seems to fit with my desire to incorporate sacred geometry and classic design/ornamentation.
Also, though someone else has probably already gotten to it, “thrust block” comes from Dion Fortune’s Cosmic Doctrine. The image describes one way of working with situations, people. forces, etc., when your goal is to change something. Rather than head-on opposition or an utterly passive stepping aside, you use the thing as impetus to create the change you want. Not an exact match, but think of travelling through an urban landscape: your choices are to blast through impediments and carve a path through great resistance, to wind your way through the streets and around all the infrastructure without engaging with any of it, or to use the infrastructure as a springboard, a la parkour, to boost your way up and over and beyond. With the latter, you’d be literally using the buildings as thrust blocks.
Viduraawakened – no, I doubt it (at least not in North America); it would be something used by local municipalities or NGOs or associations to run off their memos and minutes. Your publisher contact might know of the general state of things related to mimeographs, though, so if you don’t mind asking, I’d be interested to hear what you could find out.
Hi JMG,
Yesterday you recommended a book entitled “F*ck Your Feelings” to somebody. I decided to have a look at the book, and it’s pretty interesting– I’d describe the genre as “pop culture motivational neuroscience.”
What’s particularly interesting to me is how this book– and popular neuroscience in general– appears to be nothing less or more than the psychic anatomy of Platonism in pop culture clothing. At one point the author discusses the well known “three brains” theory–
“The limbic system predates our language system, and according to Paul D. MacLean’s triune brain theory, it is involved with the fight or flight response of the sympathetic nervous system. MacLean, who passed away in 2007 at the age of 94, was a pioneer in neuroscience, positing that the brain is actually three brains in one: the reptilian (lizard) brain, the limbic system, and the neocortex.”
The three brains are identical to the Epithymia, Thymos and Nous that are the three parts of the soul in the Republic, and that are later identified with the abdomen, heart, and brain centers (discussed in Cosmographia for example.) Later, we learn that the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex “are at constant interplay inside our minds”:
“Think of it like having a Zen monk and a hormone-driven, rebellious teenager fighting to control your mind… it is the limbic system that fires when we walk by the bakery section at Whole Foods and immediately react with: ‘Oh, those cookies look amazing! After that initial reaction, the prefrontal cortex kicks in to remind us that while those cookies look tempting, they may not be our best choice– something called cognitive control.”
We could think of it as a Zen monk and a teenager fighting to control our mind, or we could read the Phaedrus and think of it as a light and a dark horse fighting to control the chariot of our souls.
…The more I read of Plato and his successors, the more I see their ideas everywhere. Of course, most neuroscientists consciously define themselves against last century’s psychologists, but Freud’s Id, Ego and Superego isn’t very different from Nous, Thymos and Epithymia– or reptilian, lizard, and mammal brains. Jung apparently lacked a direct understanding of Plato (this according to Pierre Grimes, who discusses the issue in a lecture series here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOqreYtPXGg). I don’t know if that’s true, though I read somewhere that he had a copy of Plotinus on his shelf with the teeth still uncut at his death. But the ideas he attributes to Hermeticism and Gnostics in his writing are Platonic ideas.
I’m beginning to understand Whitehead’s comment that Western philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato.
Dear Christopher Henningson,
Thank you for the data point! Honestly I’m not sure what’s going on: it seems to me that mystical Christianity and Buddhism are, both, potentially extremely rewarding spiritual practices. Likewise occult disciplines of the Golden Dawn and Druid variety at least, are potentially extremely rewarding spiritual practices. I’m not sure if people are returning to their childhood religions. What I do find interesting is that at the beginning of the acute political crisis — 2016 – 2019, lots of people began all sorts of spiritual practices. When this political crisis went into shrieking mode in 2020, yet even more people seemed to take up spiritual practices, especially with the the forced isolation of the lockdown. Then came election night, 2020 and myself and many others noted that we spontaneously had unexplained hangover symptoms, presumably from all of the noxious energies bandying about.
And the morning after? The morning after frankly reminded me of my local town meeting after the gavel goes down on the year’s big and controversial question. It seemed to me that rather spontaneously after the election the great majority of people who had gained a temporary interest in magic and occultism filed out, leaving mostly empty bleachers. For this reason I think that a lot of people’s magical interest in the Trump years was politically motivated. I saw a lot of people take up magical practices on the political right seemingly to battle with the Magical Resistance. Likewise a lot of people on the political left took up magic to battle Trump.
I find it so interesting in retrospect the degree to which Election 2020 demarcates in my experience so clearly the line between the last hurrah of the Neopagan era and whatever era we’re in now. This may also be on account of the Grand Mutation and the changes it brings.
Personally, I think that it’s very different when people change a serious spiritual practice to another serious spiritual practice and when they give up intensive spiritual practices altogether, as similar as the two might appear from the outside. From my perspective it appears that there has been a great turning away rather than a great turning towards the new.
@Tarian
The paper gives figures for the rate of PVT amongst both those who have covid-19, and a relative risk ratio for the mRNA vaccine. If select the very lowest of the low end of PVT incidence rates for covid-19 patients given in the paper (342.8) and the very highest rate of relative risk ratio (11.24) we get an incidence rate of (342.8/11.24) = 30.49 incidences of PVT amongst vaccinated individuals. If we look at this paper here https://air.unimi.it/retrieve/handle/2434/512485/899570/th_2017-117-4_27139.pdf. We can get an estimate of how often we would expect PVT occur in the population in general. For the purposes of our analysis here we will assume that every vaccine recipient was an 80 year old man, and thus the expected incidence of PVT for this group is in fact 100 per million per year. Thus if we were only following the vaccine recipients for a month we would expect 8.33 PVT cases per million people to occur under natural circumstance. 30/8.33 suggest that the vaccine increased the incidence of PVT over baseline by roughly 3 times. As the mean age of vaccinated individuals in the study was 55 and the majority were female a much better estimate for PVT in the general population would be around 30 per million per year, for a relative increase in PVT incidences of 12x.
@ Robert Mathiesen
I’m on a short break on a local river so bandwidth is tight. So, absolutely, I’ve seen examples of just this.
Jessica, well, we’ll see!
Patricia M, sunflower’s a first-rate oil crop and sunflowers grow in New England. There may be other good oilseed crops, too. I’m sure they get better harvests, too, courtesy of offerings to the Black Goat. As for the magic I did when I was 16, the first book I used was Techniques of High Magic by Francis King and Stephen Skinner — a tolerably good basic guide to Golden Dawn magic.
VW, may I be frank? I think you’re lying. Quite a few people were beaten, one was shot and killed, buildings were torched, and photos of the rioters show armor and weapons — this is one of many examples:
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Spin doctoring is a bad habit, and it’s worse when you’re trying to insist on something that is contradicted by plenty of evidence…
Teresa, the secret is that if you get enough of a reputation, big publishers will contact you. (That’s how I got books placed with HarperCollins, Tarcher, and Sterling.) The small to midsized publishers that accept unagented manuscripts are a great place to build the kind of reputation that can make that happen.
Onething, yes. We haven’t spoken in thirty years.
Gnat, I’m quite familiar with Erickson, having been exposed to NLP when it was first fashionable back in the early 1980s. It’s a different kind of magic from the sort of thing I do, but if that’s what works for you, by all means.
Mark, have you factored in the role of investment in driving up housing prices? A lot of west coast cities have rising real estate prices despite a lot of people leaving, because investors are snapping up houses as soon as they come on the market, planning to flip them once the market goes higher.
Ben, significant how?
Simon, excellent. Let me know when it’s released and I’ll mention it on Dreamwidth.
Rita, that looks very tasty. 😉
Anna, glad to hear it. There’s a whole world out there!
Viking, that’s the great difference of opinion between Spengler and Toynbee. Toynbee — who was a member of the dominant minority of his own society — believed that a new creative minority could stave off the process of decline and fall. Spengler — who was watching from outside — rejected this claim. I tend to take Spengler’s side of the debate, not least because the number of people willing to embrace a prefigurative lifestyle of the sort you’ve sketched out is so very, very small. That said, if you want to take this up as a project, I’d encourage you to get a website and a blog, and start getting your ideas out there. If you do so I’ll announce it on my Dreamwidth account and give you a signal boost that way.
JMG, thank you, on both counts.
Matthias (#443), thanks for this. If you happen to stumble across a reference that goes into more detail, please do pass it along in a future open post!
DT (#451), I may have been unclear. I don’t mean the actual illness, such as it was, being over. I’m referring to the sense of clear, satisfying narrative closure.
Simon (#453), yes, to be sure. But that little plot hole has been there all along. And so it doesn’t help to explain the sudden about-face in being allowed to talk (even to fixate) on the lab leak *now*.
Also, Simon, your timing was excellent in sharing the link to your posts. I burned through them after finishing James C. Scott’s Seeing Like a State earlier that morning.
Jon (#489),
In its most literal sense, a “thrust block” is the solid block bolted to the ground at the starting line of a race track. The runner puts his foot against this block, and kicks off or pushes against it (“thrusts”) to get a good start to the sprint.
The concepts of a thrust block is used as a metaphor by Dion Fortune in the Cosmic Doctrine. You might have a look through JMG’s book club posts to see some of those discussions.
Christopher (#498), if I may,
I really appreciate your point about “tried-and-true methods that set down early patterns capable of counteracting the environment’s uncertainty.” All of your observations here, but especially this little thought, were very helpful for making sense of some things. Thank you!
Patricia Matthews @ 482 I read the article about DeSantis, about whom I do not know enough to have an opinion. Would I vote for him for Pres.? I can’t say at this time. All I have to say about Fl. as the next center of the Republican Party is watch them howl for govt. assistance when the next hurricane hits.
Howsomeever, the writer–and this is no criticism of you, who merely transmitted the article–looks to me like a prime example illustrating my opinion and belief that the far right needs to grow up. So Mr. I didn’t take note of his name is going to do what he wants when he wants too bad what someone else thinks. Has he considered that some of the rest of us also might feel exactly the same way and that what we do whenever we want won’t include trying to please him in any way, nor spending money in the businesses he might favor, nor being in any form or fashion deferential to his cultural preferences. Were I his neighbor, my attitude would be something like I don’t care how many guns you have but you can @#$% well keep your roundup out of my yard and no, I am not hiring your housekeeper’s relatives to do things I can perfectly well do myself.
Thanks Patricia T. for your prayers. I will send a prayer for your the business where you work as well. Unfortunately for you I don’t live in Albuquerque, I live in Vancouver, British Columbia, but I’m sure there are some skilled people in your city if you know where to look. Usually Chinese businesses that have foot reflexology often have body massage as well, and if you can see the treatment chairs for the foot customers from the front window, you’ll know it’s not an adult services venue!
Thanks Temporary Reality for your prayers as well. My name is pronounced like the country singer (Merl) with a silent “e,” on the end. It’s a French Canadian name, although archaic and not very common. I’ve always pronounced it in the English way, as I grew up Anglophone in an Anglophone province, and I think my French Canadian ancestors hadn’t spoken French in some time.
@ JMG – I guess I’m asking; what is more impactful, as far as astrology is concerned, on a person’s life: the sign they are born under, or their natal chart?
Hey JMG, thanks for the responses thus far. I have one more question, time permitting, since I know closing time approaches. Do you have a specific note taking system you use for book research? Do you combine digital notes and written? I want to more formally follow some ideas that have stewed around in my mind for awhile and my organization leaves much to desire. I might end up just writing down annotated citations in an offline digital doc; but wondered if the pros did anything more snazzy. Thanks for all you do.
RE: The Story of the Commons that JMG has referenced in his posts over the last few years. I think there is an addendum to the story beyond people’s personal greed destroying the commons. What happens when you lose faith in your neighbors to protect the commons because you see them being destroyed by communal forces? I think the obvious answer is you try to get the most gain from the commons while they still exist, thus exacerbating the destruction of the commons.
I’m currently debating with myself this issue in regards to the California drought. The coronavirus response in my community brought me to the unwanted conclusion that many of my neighbors are so misinformed they do not have the raw data to think themselves out of a paper bag. I don’t have a lot of faith in my neighbors.
This is my dilemma. I should start taking military showers to do my part to conserve water. But I don’t have any faith that my neighbors will do there part to save water. So, maybe i should enjoy my showers and pray for rain. Not looking for a response, to my personal dilemma, just using it to illustrate the addendum to The Story of the Commons.
@Mary Bennett – re deSantis – if by “the article,” you mean the screaming, ranting, adjective-laden Republican site that was all but howling “Ave, Augustus, and let’s bring on more of him!” it wasn’t me that posted that link. I posted the mainstream media news link about the possibility of him running for president. To which a friend I also sent that link to replied ” he won’t go far. He’s telling the cruise ship people that they can’t enforce vaccination only on their customers or crew. The cruise people, who can see people staying away in droves if they don’t feel sale, are thinking about forgetting about any Florida ports. Just imagine the tens of millions of money Florida could lose on this.”
Now, whatever you think of the need for the vaccination, you have to consider what the cruise ship operators think, and she has probably pinpointed their reaction pretty nicely.
@JMG – sunflower oil! I never thought of that, and I have used it in cooking. Duh… and so you started your magical training with the Golden Dawn. Okay, will look up that book, since that’s what the circle I got my training in emphasized, but without a book. IIRC, the book she used – having asked us to vote on one of two she selected, knowing nothing of Wicca, was Silver Ravenwolf’s, I forget what it was called. But she did teach us a lot of Golden Dawn, which I probably was too ignorant to take systematic notes on. Though I still do the LBRP regularly. Anyway, thanks.
@Rita, why not Irish soda bread for Imbolc? Seems like a gimme to me 😉
@JMG: “Learning Ritual Magic” ordered via Bookshop.
@JMG We would not be talking about a creative minority if it were any other way, and if it was not a minority we would have already managed to deal with the worst aspects of our current predicament, so there would be no need for these insights. I personally know at least a handful of people with compatible lifestyles, although maybe not explicitly for that reason, so very very small is still significant.
As a case study, I personally spent the last year working on and going around in a velomobile, that I electrified myself, in replacement of a car and public transit. The economics and energy efficiency beat every other options, including going by train, electric bike, motorcycle, and car on 100-200 km trips when also carrying luggage (except for a regular mechanical bike but I know of no one who commutes 100-200 km trips on a regular mechanical bike). The technology complexity and construction techniques are similar to that of composite gliders from the 70s, which when well-maintained are still flying 50-60 years after construction. Replacing a car with a velomobile, you get a factor of 30x reduction in material needed and a reduction of 300-600x in energy usage per km, even compared to recent electric cars. When electrified, a velomobile still reduces by a factor of 100x the amount of batteries needed, which becomes small enough that it it is trivial to switch chemistry in the future, including much older mature technologies (ex: NiFe as used by the electric car of the beginning of the 20th century). And finally, the technology complexity is simple enough that anyone who has had fun playing with lego technics can become self-reliant for all maintenance and small repairs. Therefore, every person that replaces the use of a car with a velomobile frees up the previous ratios of resources, which they can allocate elsewhere.
Of course, we currently rely on industrial production facilities as well as fossil fuels for manufacturing bearings, composites, bike parts, electric motors, etc. The maintenance of road infrastructure also requires fossil fuels. But because we are talking about a Long Descent, there is time to first replace the cars with bikes and velomobiles, which frees up resources. These resources can be affected to add bike lanes to roads. Then once enough people are priced out of a car, roads can become in majority dedicated to bikes (and velomobiles). Since bikes are lighter, roads will be cheaper and easier to maintain and bikes and velomobiles could also be transported on longer distances by train. Then some of those additional surpluses can be re-affected to developing replacement materials for composites, which hopefully would eventually be plant-based. Manufacturing of bike components can be re-localised in smaller shops (which may happen soon anyway if current shortages continue for sufficiently long). And the remaining industrial processes can be switched to solar heat with intermittent production, following the availability of sunlight, as anticipated by Auguste Mouchot 150 years ago (which you covered in your previous blog).
The skill (and luck!) will be in correctly timing each step so: (1) they are introduced no earlier than at the time they can be economically viable compared to alternatives, yet (2) started early enough that the solutions are ready as soon as they can be. But a cursory survey on a few technologies suggest me that the conditions for a bootstrap are either close or already satisfied.
Moreover, when going around in a velomobile, the level of enthusiasm and interest I get from strangers, from widely different demographics and backgrounds, suggests there is certainly the beginning of an opening in consciousness to these alternatives. Most tellingly, I get more attention than drivers of exotic and expensive cars; even a number of those driving those exotic and expensive cars enthusiastically nod at me! In other words, the fact that I seem as “cool” or even “cooler” in a velomobile than a Tesla/Porsche driver in their car, despite the widely asymmetric media coverage, advertisement dollars, and vehicle price between the two technologies suggests a deeper shift is underway.
I currently don’t have the surplus attention required to maintain a regular blog. I will rather first focus in properly integrating these first experiments in a sustainable lifestyle to talk from hard-won actual personal experience. I have seen too many pioneers of alternatives fall in the trap overselling preliminary experiments before they have matured enough to be a reliable basis for successful mimesis — and make more money from selling the idea than from the actual value of the idea itself! But once/if I do reach the stage where a personal blog could accelerate the spread of mature solutions, I will certainly send the link your way.
Rose, interesting. That bears watching.
Patricia O, thanks for this.
Dagnarus, the “true lie” isn’t something you’ll find discussed in occult circles because most occultists are more careful about karmic issues. Misleading someone for profit when it could cause them bodily harm is a very, very bad idea, karmically speaking.
Info, no argument there. “Bughives” is a good label.
Secretface, I recommend taking the time to do some Druid practices and see how comfortable you are with those, but if you find they work for you, joining an order can be very helpful — you have people to advise you as you proceed, and some degree of contact with others on the path. As for Eastern Europe, it depends very much on what happens over the next couple of decades.
Jon, delighted to hear that you’re getting into this!
KWk, seriously funny. Thanks for this.
Erika, if you feel inspired to create a new deck, by all means, but remember there are hundreds of them currently in print!
Denis, I’ve been watching that. I’m amused to note that Malice’s handbook is among the books that people also view when they view The King in Orange.
Ksim, that’s a common issue. I recommend choosing one book that provides a course of practical training in magic, and following it exactly from the first page to the last. Yes, I can recommend a couple of my books! If you’re comfortable with Judeo-Christian symbolism, Learning Ritual Magic is a good starting place. If you’d prefer something Celtic, The Druid Magic Handbook is probably the best place to begin.
TJ, well, we’ll see. Gail’s got some good data, but she’s been wrong so many times…
Patricia M, that’s one of the more likely possibilities in 2024. His press in the GOP is extremely good.
Lark, no surprises there. Er, what is ME?
Patricia M, good! I’m delighted to see this.
David BTL, I figure the hostility to coal will last just precisely until the price of electricity spikes. Putin is as usual ahead of the game.
Jon, it’s the thing this guy’s foot is pushing against:
More generally, it’s anything that a force can use as resistance in order to push off into motion.
J.L.Mc12, I don’t have the Borges anthology, though I do have a public library close by!
Erika, hmm. That’s very odd, and rather troubling.
Yorkshire, great minds clearly think alike. 😉
Jay Pine, and of course it’s equally possible that the 6th house eclipse could refer to a different health crisis, or to a problem with the work force, or even to a problem with the military — the 6th covers all those things. Getting past generalities is always challenging in mundane astrology.
John, huzzah! A two-masted schooner delivering food cargoes to a dock in Red Hook, and a horsedrawn wagon taking it from there to local businesses — why, I could write a book titled Retrotopia about people doing something that smart. 😉
Burner, either you open the window or you get used to the scent.
Ben, as far as I know, an equal number of twins are born in each of the 12 signs of the zodiac, so no, not that I know of.
Steve T, I’ve only skimmed the book. I’ve simply found that when somebody’s caught on an emotional merry-go-round, getting ever more bent out of shape about their emotional state, that title alone is sometimes enough to snap them out of it!
Ben, the natal chart. The sun sign is roughly 1/36th of the total information that comes from the chart.
Youngelephant, I write them down with a ballpoint pen in a college ruled spiral notebook. I don’t worry about organizing the notes — I write them down as they occur to me, and then review the notes as I’m writing.
Jason, if you think the tragedy of the commons is just a matter of personal greed, please go find Garrett Hardin’s original essay “the Tragedy of the Commons” and read it. What you’ve described is what he’s talking about.
Patricia M, I did Golden Dawn work pretty continuously from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, and it’s permeated my way of thinking about magic. It’s a good solid foundation!
Viking, by all means go for it.
@Mary Bennett
I read the article, and I also live in FL. The article is long on words and short on content. Here’s everything the author was trying to express, in just one sentence: “We need more politicians who ignore Twitter trolls and just do the work the voters elected them to do.”
Well, duh.
That said, DeSantis has been an excellent administrator, and he’s very popular here. He’s not flashy. Gets stuff done. Doesn’t grandstand a lot about it. I like him.
Here is an interesting letter from a former engineer to his younger, more naive self.
https://wsimag.com/science-and-technology/65575-from-science-fiction-to-reality
Malice’s is a role model to the younger generation on how to handle themselves in a world full of gaslighting and shrill shrews. Often these people come at him to argue and debate him. His response “I’m not interested in trying to convince you of anything. I also don’t want to share a country with you.”
His book The New Right is a very good recap of the last 20-30 years and interviewing some of the major characters. There were a lot of details I missed being an NPR listener for way too long 😉
@Simon Just read your post on the Devouring Mother and coronavirus. It’s excellent and really put some of the pieces into place for me. I can see that pattern in my kids’ colleges too and the willy nilly changes in rules and requirements. It’s amazing that people are either in the trance or totally out of it.
I passed it onto my oldest daughter who just read Jung for class. I think she’s going to really enjoy it.
Teresa from Hershey,
Thank you so much – let me know! And yes, I can read it… but I’m hoping to ask questions of the people there, too! And channel my walls of text there instead 🙂
Rita Rippletoe,
Thank you so much for posting! I will use this to base my own practices off of – I really, really appreciate you getting the ball rolling! I’ll post here if I manage to develop the “food/drink” system further <3
JMG, would this book (and its companion volumes, I saw at least vols. 4 and 5 as well) be of interest to you and the folks working on the various energetic/etheric techniques? It’s on something called electrotherapeutics – discovered when I fell down the rabbit hole of correspondence courses on archive.org. https://archive.org/details/asystemelectrot10schogoog
Re: thrust block. Okay – it’s what the side of the pool is for swimmers, too.
Note for sf/fantasy readers wanting something so deeply rooted in Americana that European influences are totally lacking: Lois McMaster Bujold’s 4-volume “Wide Green World” novels. By “European influences lacking,” frex, there’s a bird called the Redcrest. And personal names sound very American, but are, in fact, from nature or from the trades. We see, as one reviewer complained, no government officials except the equivalent of the county clerk, but that just shows how lacking in bureaucracy the highly localized culture is. The technology is roughly early 19th century, and all of Volume 3 takes place on a great river, most of it on a flatboat. Very pioneer in flavor! And the food… hit the backroads of the Midwest and compare.
Fantasy because of a gift called “groundsense” which seems to be the ability to sense and work with the etheric plane, and decidedly includes healing. Note: the first 2 volumes are small-scale and personal and involve culture conflicts as they affect two people and those around them. Lois does not scorn the small-scale and personal.
It’s a fun little book, and full of useful practical advice. I just find it interesting to note how often we end up saying the same thing, even– or especially– when we think we’re saying something new. I’m sure that 100 years from now, when Neuroscience has the same status in the Academy that Freudian Psychoanalysis currently does, some hot young professor will once again re-discover Plato’s tripartite division of the soul– in terms that make sense to his contemporaries.
Patricia M – another interesting source of vegetable oil is flax, from which we get linen. When pressed for use in food, it’s called “flaxseed oil”, and when it’s pressed for use in paint, it’s “linseed oil”. (As a wood preservative, linseed oil has various additives that one would never want to ingest, so I suppose different terms are used for oils from the same source just to make sure that the two destinations are not reversed.)
Viking,
Thanks for the post about velomobiles. It has always seemed odd to me that we think within certain boxes (e.g. cars, motorcycles, and bicycles), and that there is no particular good reason for that. Combining the efficiency and drivetrain of a bicycle with the stability and elemental protection of a car seems like a particularly useful idea for commuting when the energy consumption of cars prices them out of reach, and I hope to see many more velomobiles in the years ahead. There are other no-brainer ideas – like simple solar hot water heaters and passive solar building design – that will hopefully see wider adoption as energy becomes more precious in the decades ahead. And part of what makes me hopeful is that this can be a largely catabolic process, re-using resources already in existence or even discarded as waste, so it shouldn’t require a prohibitive amount of novel energy or resource investment.
JMG (in response to VW),
No, she isn’t lying. And yes, the reports you’re seeing are also real.
The thing about violent protests (or riots, if you prefer) is that participants gather in one place and make lots of noise. So while it’s dangerous to be in or near a riot, it’s not at all difficult to avoid them. Especially as they tend to gather late at night and in more or less the same places day after day. This is in contrast to cities that have active insurgencies, or active gang warfare with frequent drive-by shootings, where violence can happen anywhere at any time. Portland is not presently such a place. It’s bad if you’re the owner of a ground-floor business that gets broken windows or looting when the riots happen, but it’s not by and large an unsafe place to live or to visit.
What you’re missing, in seeing reports on the opposite coast, is that the pictures and stories you’re seeing don’t represent “Portland” in general but rather depict mobs that occupy a few city blocks for at most a few hours at a time. Now, if you say you don’t – on principle – want to visit a city that allows such violent mobs to happen without consequence, that’s fine. I even share that sentiment to some extent. But it is not unsafe, in the sense that visitors or residents disproportionately suffer injury or death.
All – Here’s a short, wordless, video about DIY construction of a camera lens, including cutting, grinding, and polishing chunks of glass into lens elements. It struck me that most of the operations could be done with intermittent mechanical and/or electrical power. If your lens grinding machine is water-powered, then lens grinding is something that one does in the spring-time. If it’s solar-electric, one does it during the day. etc.
As someone who now relies on low-strength reading glasses, I’ve wondered, from time to time, about their long-term availability. Not so much for me, but for the generations to come, that is. I can imagine books being discarded because the fonts are small; and old eyes know their value, but cannot focus, while young eyes can focus, but can’t appreciate their value.
Ksim @ 478
I had to chuckle (no disrespect intended) at the term “liberal democracy”. In that public opinions seem to be manufactured via various forms of psychological manipulations amplified by modern media (“manufacturing consent” is an apt term), there is no democracy as our opinion are largely creations of our rulers and not born as a reflection of our own life experiences.
Our opinions are formed from grade school indoctrination through media of every form and cemented in place by our desire to conform to the prevailing thoughts. I think a large fraction of the world (tens of millions of people in Latin American, the Middle East, and much of Africa) would roll on the floor laughing at the concept of “liberal democracy”. Those liberal democracies have financed terrorists, blockaded countries to the point of mass starvation and bombed and invaded at will (of course only for humanitarian reasons).
I have hopes that Russia will lead that portion of the world capable of change to a much more humane way of life.The term “Putinism” and “in their blood” is baffling. These are memes promoted by the West to minimize Russia and its people. Russians could just as easily say racism in “in our blood”. Would that be fair? No.
Corruption? I can not imagine a country with more corruption than the US with Western Europe close behind. I use a definition of corruption that can be simplified to a person being paid/earned/awarded far more than the value that they add. A bonds traders can make a hundred million dollars in a year with perfect legality. The West has made such corruption legal hence, presto, no corruption as they economically rape the population. Give me a petty bureaucrat who will speed up an application for a box of chocolates over our billionaire stock manipulators.
Russia does have multiple political parties ranging from communists to nationalists – a much broader spectrum than in the US. I can go on but I think that the my intended message is clear enough.
okay, i’m kinda glad/relieved you’re not feeling the new tarot deck idea and passed on the offer. i’d started to read the Levi book and epiphanies for now were popping and i immediately thought you oughta’ have your own revised designed tailored kinda deck for now times.
but i’m over here sewing and dancing outside in the streets, trying to start a new san francisco underground and thus my plate is hella full / but it seemed such a good idea i had to offer, as an artist cartoonist and performer partaking in these lessons of yours here, on manifesting a new now/future.
(smile)
thanks again for passing. as a cartoonist living in a cartoon world. i draw ideas for where i’m going NOW as it is. / but thanks even more for doing the book thing.
x
JMG,
A kindred spirit at work introduced me to Ecosophia during one of our many “I can’t believe what’s happening in the world” chats over the past year. I believe it was a week during which I told him that I seriously felt that evil sorcerers were behind it all, everything from COVID lies to fake fact checkers and all the rest. I couldn’t tell you why it suddenly hit me that way or why the study of magic in my 20s now seemed to hold some key to understanding how the mass psychosis and delusion was possible. Everything felt inverted by design.
I wrote that comment as an atheist for over 15 years. Every now and then I’d feel whimsical and say “Well, sometimes I’m more a pantheist, but…” There were a few labels I loosely associated with during those same 15 years that I dropped seemingly overnight by May last year for reasons I often couldn’t put into words. I saw the strange days getting stranger and had a gut feeling about it, maybe even a gut feeling about the mechanisms at work, but not enough familiarity that I could point to it and say, “Yes, that’s definitely a duck!” 😉
I was directed to your post “Strange Days Dawning.” You knew what I had only felt and wrote about it with such clarity and sagacity – it blew me away. What a gift! And what a gift out instincts are if we listen. Like you suggested in that post, I also felt it important to put thought into how I spent my spare time and money, to remove myself from the collective mind as much as possible, and turn to activities invented a long time ago.
I am so grateful you and your readers are out in the world. It gives me much hope. There’s still a lot of work ahead.
-jar
Dear JMG, perhaps ME is known as CFS or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome to you? it’s a sort of ongoing torment of symptoms — fatigue, brain fog, various pain — with no let-up and no apparent cause, which drags on and on for years, perhaps forever, and means living in a room and not doing much, while the world whirls merrily on outside, making its own, fairly scornful judgements about what’s wrong. My friend has tried all kinds of therapy over the decades — too numerous and various to list here — etc, etc, which have certainly made a massive difference to her bank balance but almost none to her level of wellness. When discussing it the other day, the comment came up that everything had been tried … but that what she really needed was a magic wand!
A lightbulb went “ping” in my head, and I just thought I would ask you whether there is a way that magic could help. Could one be a “patient” of magic or must one be a practitioner? Forgive my ignorance — please advise!
I love to do a personal discussion with maybe a German speaking druid you respect. May you recomend me any? I am promoting the transition to the country side for many young people in east Europe (Carpathians) and I do live with Waterbuffalos for 12 years now in the wilderness.
@skyrider #15
> Have any of the regular magic users here taken a course of antibiotics lately?
>Did you notice anything different about your magical practices after taking the antibiotics?
>Or if you started taking probiotics or eating more fermented foods did that effect your practices?
My last subjection to antibiotics was in hospital early 2017 after breaking bones and undergoing surgery. The general unhappy situation didn’t allow me to distinguish any particular effect from them except for a notable case of thrush!
I have been doing the polytheist LBRP as detailed on JMG’s dreamwidth page (https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/9828.html) when it was published the following year. Before that, I had been doing prayer and meditation but no formal magical practice.
I would now be far more strongly wary of any suggestion I use antibiotics and reject it if at all possible. Also I am aware of peculiarly positive effects on my wellbeing (read etheric body) of eating raw fruit and vegetables, but not necessarily fruit from shops. Often even the local greengrocer sells fruit that feels awful–dead–when tasted despite looking normal. I suppose it has been kept in cold storage and some etheric virtue of it ruined. Home grown fruit –even if spotty–does not have this taint. There is a sense of missing something vital if I don’t have some frequently.
Raw onion or garlic have always given me a super positive boost, as if they can take one up a level.
As for scientific method, I think only before vs after in your own life is really possible for comparison of effects.
kallianeira
@Lark #533: I have exactly that as well. I sympathize, it’s awful to live with. I’ve divined about it: it seems to be caused by (in occult terms) a severely damaged etheric body and (at least in my case) there seems to be nothing that can be done about it in this life.
@#107 Weilong, Patricia #128, Anonymous #139, Anonymous #171, Martin Beck #192, Methlethyl #245, J Born Yolk #294, Miranda #462
Thanks to each one of you for the reply regarding “being given the choice”. There’s something here that certainly warrants further investigation! Might be a paper, or even a book, here somewhere.
And, of course, a bow to our host for allowing such fruitful conversations!
The OBOD member forums are now overrun with “this is problematic” and “that is racist.” I can’t even go there anymore.
Hey, JMG. I recently did some magic to change some things in my life and well, long story short, we’re now selling our house. It’s the best move for us at the moment but it’s really a tumultuous and scary shift. Less so for me because I actually did the magic so it all just seems to be a matter of course for me but my wife is still really processing the change. Everything just keeps falling into place to expedite the process as well.
But even so, it’s still on my mind a lot and making it hard to meditate in the morning. The LBRP and Middle Pillar Ritual have been a life saver during this process but I was wondering if you had any advice you could offer to a beginner mage on how to keep a state of balanced discipline and equipoise during such times?
Hey JMG. I’m a hardcore materialist atheist who found your blog a week and a half ago. I stumbled into as I saw a someone screenshot a snippet of you discussing how rationalists become inexorablely detached from reality because their abstractions no longer map onto it. That intrigued me because I am obsessively interested in the nature of understanding just how science and the philosophy of gaining knowledge about the world works and I have trouble finding people who discuss this.I had no idea that this blog was about magic. I’ve read most of the posts on your blog. I am reeling so freaking hard I’m periodically wondering I’ve lost my touch of reality.
You, a man with a beard who worships nature spirits somehow has clearly and logically made a sane argument for the existence of the supernatural by hitting on and resonating with every single intensely deep core understanding of the nature of knowledge, philosophy, science, and the human mind I have. Understandings that I’ve had to toss out many intellectuals and science communicators I grew up idolizing over as I realized they didn’t understand basic notions about said concepts. But some how the freaking mage does.
I also have a encountered synchrocity as you would put it. As apparently every freaking single habit or skill or interest I have had a deep persistent desire to learn no matter how seemingly unrelated or obscure is connected to occult practice and many are apparently key skills. And these connections kept showing up no matter what one after another in an short window.
I have other non magical frameworks that I use that seem to correspond 1:1 to the higher and lower self terminology. And when reading the about all this, particularly the cosmic doctrine, that was the closest connection I have ever felt to my “higher self”.
I’m so confused because I can feel I’m believing and accepting all of this. The part of me who’s job is detect BS is lounging about because nothing is setting off it’s sensor. The speed at which I accepted this unnerves me. I have never had any interest in the occult. I blitzed the cosmic doctrine and the rest of your blog and I keep coming away more convinced. Everything is pointing towards this for me so hard. I wish I could say I’m giving it a shot and will hold my opinion after experimentation but that would be a lie. I will drop this stuff like a hot rock if I find something that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny but I can feel in my chest already I’m accepting it. Either the world is completely and totally different then I had conceived it or all my heuristics for detecting clear thinking have utterly failed.
I have your Learning Ritual Magic. On the Shadows of Ideas is on order, and the
Magician: His training and work will be picked up soon as well.
I said much more than I intend to. I initially just wanted to ask how to find a good astrologer and/or other trustworthy magical resources. If I try this all out I wanna make sure I do it right But I spewed all this out. Anyway that’s my question, thanks.