Back in the 1950s, sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote cogently about what he called “crackpot realism”—the use of rational, scientific, utilitarian means to pursue irrational, unscientific, or floridly delusional goals. It was a massive feature of American life in Mills’ time, and if anything, it’s become more common since then. Since it plays a central…
September 2017 Book Club
This week’s post is the third of a monthly series of open-discussion posts focusing on books I’ve written. Our theme for the present is my book Mystery Teachings from the Living Earth, and this week we’re discussing “The Second Law: The Law of Flow” (pp. 26-35). I’d like to ask readers to keep their questions and…
The Death of God: A Speculation
I have been reading William Butler Yeats’ strangest book, A Vision, for the—how many times has it been now? At least once for each of his twenty-eight phases of the Moon, surely, since I first picked up a battered paperback copy from a used book store in Seattle, one of those cramped and marvelous places…
A Few Notes on Reincarnation
At the beginning of this month, when I realized that there were going to be five Wednesdays in August rather than the usual four, I asked readers of this blog what topic they wanted me to discuss on the fifth Wednesday’s post. A substantial plurality of those who responded wanted to hear what I had…
August 2017 Open Post, Plus Eclipse
As noted more than once here already, readers of my blogs have asked for the occasional venue to ask me questions, along the line of Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything” sessions. This is this month’s contribution to that series—with an additional feature. Over the last month or so I’ve fielded a number of inquiries about what…
The Worlds That Never Were
In order to finish sorting out the foundations for the project this blog will pursue, I want to talk a little more about science fiction. That’s not the digression that it may look like at first glance. Much of the work that’s involved in midwifing the birth of ecosophy—of a way of wisdom that draws…
August 2017 Book Club
This week’s post is part of a monthly series of open-discussion posts focusing on books I’ve written. Our theme for the present is Mystery Teachings from the Living Earth, and this week we’re discussing “The First Law: The Law of Wholeness” (pp. 18-26). I’d like to ask readers to keep their questions and comments focused…
Hate is the New Sex
It occurred to me the other day that there’s a curious disconnect between one of the most common assumptions most of us make about how to make the world better, on the one hand, and the results that this assumption has had when put into practice, on the other. It’s reminiscent of the realization that…
July 2017 Open Post
As announced earlier, this blog will host an open space once a month to field questions and encourage discussion among my readers, and this is the week. All the standard rules apply — no profanity, no sales pitches, no trolling, no rudeness, no long screeds proclaiming the infallible truth of fill in the blank —…
Men Unlike Gods
The crisis of our age has many facets. All of them have their roots in the basic fact of our time, the head-on collision between the limitless economic growth our civilization demands and the hard limits of a finite planet. From that collision, in turn, come the drawdown of irreplaceable resources and the disruption of…