This week’s Ecosophian offering is the monthly open post to field questions and encourage discussion among my readers. All the standard rules apply (no profanity, no sales pitches, no trolling, no rudeness, no paid propagandizing, no long screeds proclaiming the infallible truth of fill in the blank, no endless rehashes of questions I’ve already answered) but since there’s no topic, nothing is off topic — with two exceptions.
First, there’s a dedicated (more or less) open post on my Dreamwidth journal on the ongoing virus panic and related issues, so anything Covid-themed should go there instead.
Second, I’ve had various people try to launch discussions about AIs — that is to say, large language models (LLMs) and the utilities they power — on this and my other forums. The initial statements and their followup comments always end up reading as though they were written by LLMs — that is, long strings of words superficially resembling meaningful sentences but not actually communicating anything. That’s neither useful nor entertaining. Thus I’ve decided to ban further discussion of this latest wet dream of the lumpen-internetariat here.
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I’m also delighted to report two new books of mine are available for preorder. The Way of the Secret Temple is the third and final volume in the Golden Section Fellowship sequence of training manuals, following The Way of the Golden Section and The Way of the Four Elements. Like the two earlier volumes, it provides a systematic course of training in classic Western occultism, focusing on meditation and inner energy alchemy. It’ll be out this coming spring, but can be preordered here in hardback or paperback editions.
The Carnelian Moon is the third of my Ariel Moravec occult detective stories. As Ariel stumbles her way through the first steps in magical training under the guidance of her adept grandfather Dr. Bernard Moravec, a new case comes her way. Investigating the provenance of an ancient bronze plaque from pre-Roman Italy seems dull at first, but a cascade of strange occurrences gathers around the plaque, hinting at connections with the wolf-priests of a forgotten god — and with the reality behind the old legend of the werewolf. Can Ariel and her grandfather uncover the secret behind the plaque before it vanishes forever? Copies can be preordered here.
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With that said, have at it!
Thinking about symbolism and looking at images of the Russian military cathedral, this turned up:
https://imgur.com/Y0C1MgW
But ‘what is that?’ and zoomed in:
https://imgur.com/cqgNWsz
and zoomed in again:
https://imgur.com/OqwarZR
Does anyone have any ideas what is going on in this image?
An early happy American Thanksgiving to you and your readers!
A commenter on a liberal blog responded to the election results and particularly the educational levels of Trump’s voters by asking “Can you show us on the doll exactly where the educated professionals hurt you?” He meant it as a joke, but I think it is worth taking seriously. I know of no better forum to get answers than here, so I’m throwing it open to you and your readers.
I have a question. Now and then I have been indulging in the torrent of digital sludge on places like YouTube. Especially interesting is YouTube shorts, clips of tens of seconds in a never ending stream.
As a kid I used to love staying up late to watch infomercials after midnight and observe my brain slowly being shaped from “oh my good look at this stupid crap” to the point where a hint of “I need to buy some of these” make its mark upon me. Infomercials were carefully crafted purposeful forms of brain washing.
My question- what effects are this torrent of digital sludge having on people’s minds? Its only constructed purpose is to retain the viewer’s attention for as long as possible, administered by an algorithm that observes which clips you skip past within the first second and giving you less of those type. If you watch anything more than once you get more of those.
Observing my own mind as I consume this material has an odd effect, one I don’t think the people who created it are aware of. It is as if my mind is becoming intolerant of the whole concept of online video the more I watch. I find myself wildly swiping past everything, shutting off the computer and going outside.
I’m a big believer in psychological and cultural immune systems. Is the insult of modern digital media what is finally needed to trigger a transformation?
Hello JMG,
In the UK, November 1st – 10th saw the longest dunkelflaute I can recall in over 15 years of watching for these events. Though the weather was very mild for the time of year, overcast, almost windless conditions persisted over the British Isles and surrounding seas almost throughout. At its worst, from the 3rd to the 6th and again on the 9th, wind power was rarely able to supply more than 5% of electricity and was often below 3% during peak demand periods in early evening. Solar rarely reached 3% and only produced anything of note for 5-6 hours per day. At peak times nearly 20% of electricity was being directly imported by cable from continental Europe and Scandinavia, with natural gas providing up to 60% of generation with nuclear at about 12% and other odds and ends providing the rest.
At present the UK government wants to approximately quadruple wind and solar generation capacity by 2030. Goodness knows where the money will come from and it’s almost certainly an impossible construction task anyway. They also plan to phase out gas boilers for electric heat pumps, so increasing electricity demand. The time scale for that is uncertain but they have already banned gas installations in new houses. Meanwhile, all but one of our nuclear stations are due to close as life-expired by the end of the decade by which time millions more electric cars are likely to be on the roads, though it seems they are beginning to back away from their original plan to ban sales of all combustion-engined cars by 2030. Still, the government dreams of a zero-carbon electricity grid by 2035, which presumably means most or all gas-fired generating stations being closed down and it continues wittering about carbon-capture, hydrogen, etc.
A mighty collision between these plans and reality cannot be far off. It will be interesting to see the public outcry when we get the first power cuts in a winter dunkelflaute, which has maybe an even chance of happening in the next couple of years. As for toppling this government as has been speculated upon recently, it’s difficult to see how it could happen. In contrast to Scholz in Germany who headed an intrinsically unstable coalition, Starmer has a huge majority over a divided opposition so maybe he will stumble on for another four years.
Hi JMG,
A few years ago there was a brief discussion in the comments about map projections, especially with regard to the ubiquitous Mercator projection. I have since produced my own map set in C1500 ad that hopefully has created something a bit more interesting. I’ve tried to produce a less Eurocentric map that also captures the vastness of Africa and Asia. In addition North isn’t up! Here is a link to the image https://www.deviantart.com/newhistoricalmaps/art/Orthographic-map-of-the-world-C-1500-AD-1125887728 (I’ll add a higher resolution one later). Anyway, I thought this might be of interest to readers here.
Hi JMG,
Several months ago I asked you for sources on Ramon Llull and his combinatorial system. The ones you suggested were great, and also pointed the way to additional sources that I have been working through. I’m still in the shallow end of this very deep pool, but between reading, meditating on the elements of his system, and writing monthly essays on what I have learned, it’s all beginning to come into focus. So thank you for the excellent starting point.
My question is if you (and/or other academically trained commenters) have any tips for navigating academic research without access to a university. I studied computer science (no degree) and building preservation and restoration (associates degree) so I never learned anything about that in school. What is the best/most cost-effective way to get access to academic articles? Do you have any methods of tracking down obscure information that you can share?
Thank you for sharing your knowledge so generously!
I know many of us in this community have been quite hopeful about the possibility of real change with a Trump administration, after watching the people he is appointing to the Cabinet and other key posts (especially in domestic affairs – foreign policy may end up being more of the same).
What is this community’s opinion on the chances of a) many key appointees actually getting confirmed and b) more broadly any significant change actually happening, beyond symbolic stuff?
In particular, it is going to be near impossible to pass legislation for anything significant (like actually abolishing the Department of Education) but even with stuff that doesn’t require legislation I am somewhat sceptical about how much they can actually get done.
The more cynical view here by Curtis Yarvin seems to me (sadly) likely to be the right one. There will be some symbolic victories etc but the bureaucracy will fight back to save itself and it is not in the personal interests of the people in DC to actually make significant changes (it’s in the interests of the country though). And all this is despite the best efforts and sincere intentions of people like RFK and Jay Bhattacharya and others.
https://graymirror.substack.com/p/its-easy-from-here
(He basically says the above and says that you have to take control of Congress, not the Presidency to make significant change)
A literary question: do any of you happen to share my disappointment with John Dos Passos’ trilogy “USA”? Given the scope implied by the title, I looked forward to a kaleidoscopically multi-hued saga, but in my view the leftist slant of the work (yes I know workers were oppressed etc etc) results in a rather monochrome mood.
Hi JMG,
I’m interested in learning more about occult resources or organizations that teach the practice of—for lack of a better term—“clearing” a haunted place, such as a house. I’m thinking here especially of houses that have a persistent haunting to the point where they become almost unlivable. Or, maybe, you aren’t aware of any such teachings that you would consider reputable and efficacious?
Thank you!
JMG, you claim that we reincarnate. Who or what decides your next life, after you die? Is it done according to your faith or your god, if you worship one? And if so, what about atheists and agnostics?
I do not like the idea of reincarnation. I am hugely risk-averse. Do I manage to get safely through one life, only to endure another? Not everywhere is as safe as England, and maybe England won’t be in the near future.
I remember that you once wrote that you yourself are very risk-averse. Given this, how do YOU feel about reincarnation?
I did once have a dream that I worked in a family restaurant, somewhere in the Middle East circa 1950. It lasted hours, and when I woke up I thought, “Whose dream was that?! It certainly wasn’t mine!”
Hey John and commentariat,
I haven’t seen much of JMG on podcasts recently- have you slowed down on doing interviews?
Thanks,
Matt
I was thinking about how differently the downhill slope of empire is looking compared to how I thought it would look 25 years ago. Back then I was aware that resource and cheap energy depletion alone would send us in to decline, but as a child of the 70’s I thought it would take a much different shape.
Back in the 70’s when inflation bit, wars were lost and oil got more expensive and scarce the US responded by going to smaller cars, lower speed limits, insulating houses, a bike boom, a boom in gardening etc. So I naively assumed when we got knee deep in the real decline ( the 1970’s was just a practice run) things would play out the same way.
But instead the establishment took and entirely different route, Financialization and delusion. Instead of downsizing and economizing like we did in the 70’s we lowered interest rates, printed money and pumped up the price of assets to make everyone feel richer ( an illusion).
I had thought the suburbs, strip malls, and drive thru would have disappeared with $5.00 per gallon gas. But as we now know those things have been turbocharged along with bigger cars, bigger houses, food delivery, and even more extravagant uses of energy, money and resources than we even imagined in the 70’s. Grade schoolers flying to far off locations for baseball tournaments, people spending extravagant amounts on pets including ” Pet Hotels”, Huge televisions in every room, giant SUV’s that the average late 70’s car could fit inside of.
JMG, did you see things shaping up this way back in the early 90’s? From the perspective of our current experience it makes sense that the elites would choose this path, even though it means a much harder fall. But was I the only one that didn’t see it coming?
Hey JMG
Awhile ago I mentioned that the Australian government was considering a ban on social media for anyone under 16 years old. It appears to be on track to happening, though I am not holding my breath yet.
I wanted to ask if you have followed up on it, and if you had any thoughts about its practicality and significance?
I’ve been keeping tabs on a few of my old liberal blog favorites – specifically Balloon Juice and Driftglass – and it has struck me that their reactions to the election are oddly serene. Oddly, because these writers have fully signed onto the blue side of the culture war.
Something clicked for me this morning, though: They’ve gotten exactly what they wanted.
In your discussion of the Changer myth, you point out that those who opposed the Changer were changed so that they remained fixed in their oppositional behavior. Behold! There’s a certain fraction of Democrats who so fully embraced The Resistance(tm) that they never moved past it. Now that Trump is back in office, all is right with the world, in an oddly inverted way.
I mean, consider how Harris and other Democrats would become angry and baffled whenever anyone pointed out that they couldn’t be running against the current Presidential administration, because they were the current Presidential administration. In a sense, they’re still locked in 2016.
JMG,
Wondering what you think RFK’s chances of getting confirmed are.
If he doesn’t, do you think his national profile will have increased at all?
Thanks,
Pierre
For the Golden Section Fellowship, is this all the books, or am I missing one? (And is this the right order to study them?)
The Sacred Geometry Oracle Book and Cards
The Way of the Golden Section
The Occult Philosophy Workbook
The Earth Mysteries Workbook
The Way of the Four Elements
The Way of the Secret Temple
Thank you!
(And, to everyone who celebrates it, Happy Thanksgiving!)
I thought I’d repost my last comment from the last post. I want to wish all Americans here and abroad a Happy Thanksgiving as well.
I think instead of corporate liberalism we need cooperative liberalism. Instead of more traditional liberal principles getting co-opted and recuperated into the AI Borg-Board Skynet hive mind, they need to get co-op’ed and rejuvenated by workers and doer’s and Diggers with dirt underneath the nails flowing and organic. Low key entrepreneurial small is beautiful business populism to balance the plutocratic brutalist cybertruck, bigger is better, entrepreneurial elites coming into power. People who only want to put their corn, or whatever else may be there harvest, into silos, and not silo off their minds to the other side of the aisle. Pluralistic conversationalist and raconteurs drinking the wine of the new weird America. Religiously accepting and universalist in outlook of the ways we can all approach the divine in our own way, reveling in the diversity of not just cultural backgrounds and intersexual intersectionist preferences, but actually on the corner of the intersection talking to people who come by, and happy to agree to disagree again, but still drink an African-American root doctor beer together. People who don’t cut off their family for picking a candidate, and can stuff it for Thanksgiving so we can eat stuffing together. Defenders of free speech even if it is ugly speech we personally abhor. Letting the gunslingers take a crack shot at the empty Coke/Pepsi aluminum or glass drones of the bland uniparty cola we collectively swim in. We the people forming the base of power, and local and state the next layer, and the federal government being the smallest point of the triangle of government. Sex strikes only for monastic celibates who burn with the secret fire. Let’s get it on and let’s stay together. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Hello JMG and kommentariat. I’m reading now the book “Before the Collapse”, by the Italian scientist Ugo Bardi (spanish translation). You maybe know Mr. Bardi has a sudden collapse theory in his writings , the “Seneca effect”. I think he’s wrong, because every big “collapse” in the human History seems the same old story of long and “dull” decline and fall, but I don’t have the wisdom and universitarian studies for debunking him neatly as contrafactical…
Now, I’d like to ask you, if you don’t mind:
Why decline and not fast collapse?
Do you have ever met Bardi in person or virtually? Did you have a good argument?
@Batstrel: If I may, being risk averse didn’t stop you from being born into your current incarnation.
Hi JMG,
I came across this article in my internet travels. The author speaks of you, so I thought you might be interested.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-151606366
Dear John, I have a few questions below in a ramble/rant format.
1) An important part of practicing occultism is learning to replace habits with choices and ‘wake up,’ so to speak. I have been having such a difficult time with this. I feel that I am entirely a creature of habit and that I move along by the inertia of my lowest tendencies. How do I get out of this rut that I am in? What practical daily things can I do to break out of this? What activities should I avoid or moderate? I practice meditation each day but I just don’t think I am getting anywhere. It goes without saying that I am depressed and miserable being this way. I just want to break free.
2) Which one of your books (or books written by others) would you recommend for someone starting to practice occultism? What daily practices are the most important, and what ducks should a student have in a row before they start practicing?
3) I have heard you say before that you somewhat identify as a Gnostic, but more in the world-affirming Hermetic sense. If you think that gnosis is attainable, how do you attain gnosis?
Is the god of Progress just Lucifer in disguise?
My condolences on the death of your father. Two close-family deaths in ten months is too much for a psyche+body to take. Yeah, more than one commenter here said it was a one-two punch. Knocks the wind out of a person. You may be running on empty, and feel out of whack, for a few weeks. Very, very uncomfortable. I have read you long enough to know you know how to take care of yourself.
Sleep is a good restorative. When I feel upset (like triggered to anger) and nothing I do (or nothing anyone does, or nothing anyone CAN do), is able to calm me down (I typically calm myself by sitting and closing the eyes), in order to thoroughly re-set, I have to fall asleep for at least a couple hours. Actually lately, I have felt ‘on edge’ considerably more the last few weeks than usual, which I attribute to vibes surrounding the ‘world situation’ (like Ukulele-rain), which sitting-and-closing-eyes helps NOT a twit—I must nap in order to let go.
Gods bless…
💨Northwind Grandma💨🪦🛌
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
Hi JGM, Hi Industrial Alchemy,
I’m interested in learning the discursive meditation method by Ramon Llull.
Were shall I beging?
I ‘m fluent in Spanish and I can read english but not latin.
Thanks in advance for everything,
Tired21
@earthworm #1
Clearly, it’s one of the tentacle-faced priests of Cthulhu that the Russian clergy summoned to their aid. He’s overseeing the ceremony. 😛
Really, I think it’s just a guy in civilian clothes and a long scarf standing there. You can see another person in civilian clothes and a medical mask to the left, he’s taking a photo. Why are there civilians there, who can say.
Hello Mr Greer,
My condolences on your recent loss.
I’ve been working my way through your Druid Magic Handbook, and am currently focusing on the ogham. I bought some cards, and discovered that some of the symbols on the cards don’t match the ones in your book, for example, Faern and Saille are swapped, Phagos is upside down, and Mor is on the opposite side of the vertical line, among others. Having my curiosity kindled, I looked them up online, and see they’re different there, too. Would you please tell me why this is?
Thank you
From American Scientist, Sept-Oct issue: “Mayan Agroforestry.” Which sounds a lot like pre-Ice-Age permaculture. They managed their forests and fields, which were either interchangeable or blended together. Until the Spanish came, according to the article.
John,
I recently had to part ways with my lodge (Martinist/Rosicrucian tradition) due to reasons that I don’t care to get into, but I wanted to ask you about esoteric groups that you know of and can recommend here in the U.S that are 1) legitmate (or “contacted” as they say) 2) trustworthy 3) have a comprehensive system of Hermetic training and initiation. The previous group I was involved with was based out of Europe, so naturally I am looking for something much closer to home. I’m looking for something extremely practical without a ton of religious jargon (although I have no issues with Christian symbolism), and I have no interest in anything related to Crowley or “left hand” stuff. Any ideas? Thanks.