John Michael Greer's Blog, page 7

September 2024 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 Later Philosophy

At the end of the last thrilling episode of our journey through the tangled wilderness of The Nibelung’s Ring, Richard Wagner, fleeing from the kingdom of Saxony with a price on his head, had just reached safety in Switzerland.  There he would remain, scraping by on the money he could make from writing and trying to dodge debt collectors, while laboring away at a gargantuan tetralogy of operas that nobody was interested in producing. It was a difficult time for him, and that turned out to be one...

The Ritual of High Magic: Chapter 16

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: The Early Philosophy

One of the constant themes of middle class thought in modern times is the insistence that it’s possible to have one’s cake and eat it too. It’s for this reason that middle class activists demand world peace while also demanding lifestyles that can only be maintained at the cost of constant war, and middle class idealists insist that all people should be equal while also insisting that their own class privilege be respected by everyone else. It’s long been fashionable to claim that this is pure h...

The Nibelung’s Ring 5: The Early Philosophy

One of the constant themes of middle class thought in modern times is the insistence that it’s possible to have one’s cake and eat it too. It’s for this reason that middle class activists demand world peace while also demanding lifestyles that can only be maintained at the cost of constant war, and middle class idealists insist that all people should be equal while also insisting that their own class privilege be respected by everyone else. It’s long been fashionable to claim that this is pure h...

August 2024 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 Politics

It’s a common misconception that myths, legends, and fairy tales have lost all their power in the modern world. Nothing could be more inaccurate. Here I’m not discussing covert mythologies like belief in progress, though of course a strong case can be made for that. I mean myths and legends in the modern sense of the term, the colorful stories of marvels that we hand to children and teenagers, or leave for those adults who haven’t had the taste for wonder beaten out of them—the kind of story tha...

The Ritual of High Magic: Chapter 15

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: The Rediscovery

At the conclusion of the last thrilling episode of our exploration of Richard Wagner’s opera cycle The Nibelung’s Ring, we watched bards and minstrels across the European world from Iceland to Austria keeping themselves fed and their patrons entertained by retelling traditional stories about the magic hoard of gold that Siegfried won by slaying the dread serpent Fafner, with guest appearances by the warrior maiden Brunnhilde, the doomed king Gunther, and his cold, bold, sinister brother Hagen. I...

The Neckless Ones: A Historical Puzzle

A longstanding tradition on this blog allows the readers to nominate and vote on a theme for the month’s last post in any month that has five Wednesdays. July being so favored, the usual lively contest unfolded five weeks ago, and the winner this time was the question of why the cultures of the modern industrial West slapped a taboo on the concept of a life force almost five centuries ago, and have kept that taboo rigidly in place ever since.

Don’t try telling them that n|um doesn’t exist. They ...