John Michael Greer's Blog, page 5

The Ritual of High Magic: Chapter 21

With this post we continue a monthly chapter-by-chapter discussion of The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic by Eliphas Lévi, the book that launched the modern magical revival.  Here, as we have over the four years now past, we’re plunging into the white-hot fires of creation where modern magic was born. If you’re just joining us now, I recommend reading the earlier posts in this sequence first; you can find them here.  Either way, grab your tarot cards and hang on tight.

If you can read French, ...

The Nibelung’s Ring: The Twilight of the Gods 2

He’s blond, brave, and doomed. In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, “Well, what did you expect from an opera? A happy ending?”

Siegfried’s betrayal of his ideals and his love for Brunnhilde, the central theme of our discussion three weeks ago, is also the hinge upon which the entire story of The Ring turns toward its end. Our blond and brawny hero was doomed the moment he took the Ring from Fafner’s hoard, Alberich’s curse guarantees that, but it was not yet certain how the curse would destroy h...

Carl Jung, Occultist

A longstanding tradition on this blog has it that whenever a month has five Wednesdays, the readers get to propose topics for the fifth Wednesday post, and whichever proposal fields the largest number of votes becomes the topic for that post. This time, the winning theme was the archetypal teachings of Carl Jung, the famous Swiss occultist.

One of the most influential occultists of the twentieth century. Oh, wait…

Oh, excuse me, I should have said “psychologist,” shouldn’t I?  Certainly he marke...

January 2025 Open Post

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 j...

The Nibelung’s Ring: The Twilight of the Gods 1

As the orchestra warms up for the final opera of the Ring cycle, the great conflict in Richard Wagner’s mind has been settled at last. Gone is the giddy utopian fantasy Wagner took from Ludwig Feuerbach, which led him to the brink of disaster in 1849, and forced him to flee for his life to exile and poverty in Switzerland.  In its place is the more profound and tragic vision of Arthur Schopenhauer. All those dreams of a perfect society that motivated Wagner in his youth have given way; the opera...

The Ritual of High Magic: Chapter 20

With this post we continue a monthly chapter-by-chapter discussion of The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic by Eliphas Lévi, the book that launched the modern magical revival.  Here and in the months ahead we’re plunging into the white-hot fires of creation where modern magic was born. If you’re just joining us now, I recommend reading the earlier posts in this sequence first; you can find them here.  Either way, grab your tarot cards and hang on tight.

If you can read French, I strongly encoura...

The Nibelung’s Ring: Siegfried 2

As we saw two weeks ago, the action of The Nibelung’s Ring is rising toward crisis in this third opera of the cycle. Siegfried, the child born of the incestuous relationship between Wotan’s human children Siegmund and Sieglinde, has grown to young manhood in the deep forest under the dubious care of Mime the Nibelung. He’s strong, vital, passionate, utterly fearless, and just as utterly clueless: a perfect weapon, which is the role that Mime has intended for him all along.

Fafner in his lair. If...

December 2024 Open Post

Yes, it’s Christmas, and most of you have better things to do today than read the internet. That said, 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 ...

The Nibelung’s Ring: Siegfried 1

Before we go on with the third of the operas in Wagner’s vast tetralogy The Nibelung’s Ring, I’d like to take a moment to talk a little about my trolls. Yes, this sequence of posts has gotten a fair amount of trolling, and I’m sorry to say that none of it has been interesting enough to put through. Nearly all of it, to be precise, is obsessed with the notion that Wagner can’t possibly have intended the economic and political subtexts that I’ve discussed here.

George Bernard Shaw, after spending ...

The Ritual of High Magic: Chapter 19

With this post we continue a monthly chapter-by-chapter discussion of The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic by Eliphas Lévi, the book that launched the modern magical revival.  Here and in the months ahead we’re plunging into the white-hot fires of creation where modern magic was born. If you’re just joining us now, I recommend reading the earlier posts in this sequence first; you can find them here.  Either way, grab your tarot cards and hang on tight.

If you can read French, I strongly encoura...