Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 384

The Mythic Dimension: Answers from beyond the grave

 

For a long time I have wanted the pinnacle books in a series written by Joseph Campbell literally until his death in 1987 for many years now. The Historical Atlas of World Mythology books are five of the most all encompassing books on history and mythology collected anywhere by anybody���ever. They are absolutely phenomenal. They were released not long after his death and published by the Joseph Campbell Foundation. I was given book three of the five in 1997 by the Foundation which became one of my greatest treasures. But I was not able to get the rest of the books before they went out of print by the close of the century.

The Historical Atlas of World Mythology is a multi-volume series of books by Joseph Campbell that traces developments in humankind’s mythological symbols and stories from pre-history forward.

Campbell is perhaps best known as a comparativist who focused on universal themes and motifs in human culture. He first conceived of the Historical Atlas in the late 1970s as an extension of his works, The Mythic Image and The Masks of God. Like those books, the Historical Atlas of World Mythology intended to show the ways in which those universal themes and motifs were expressed differently by different cultures in different times and places.

Heavily illustrated and annotated, with numerous charts and maps to show both variations and similarities in different cultures’ expressions of mythic themes, this series was intended to serve both academic and lay readers.

The Historical Atlas was left incomplete when Campbell died in 1987.

Only the first volume was completed at the time of Campbell’s death. Published by Alfred van der Marck editions as a single book in 1983, it was rereleased by Harper and Row in 1988, in the wake of Campbell’s posthumous fame, brought by the airing of the television series, The Power of Myth. The first three parts of the second volume, which Campbell was working on literally to the day that he died, were completed by Campbell’s long-time editor, Robert Walter, and published by Harper and Row in 1989. Both volumes are currently out of print.

Campbell left rough text for the last two parts of Way of the Seeded Earth, as well as notes for the final two volumes. The Joseph Campbell Foundation has expressed the intention to rerelease the existing books, and, if possible, to complete Campbell’s magnum opus.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Atlas_of_World_Mythology

For Christmas this year my daughter managed to find two of the missing books on Amazon which can cost up to several hundred dollars because they are so rare and hard to get. After receiving them for a present I was able to then find the other two by the same means and complete my collection. The final two books arrived on my doorstep on the first day of the New Year and marks a new phase for which I am about to embark.

We have tried to help as many people as possible, and we���ve done it for not just the five years of this blog site, but for many years prior leading up to it. We have saved all who we could, and these words will now remain out there like a lighthouse to those late coming to the show. But at some point, you have to draw a line, and now it is thus marked. The bus is leaving the station and if you���re not on it, tough luck.

Our society has been successfully destroyed by internal insurgents. Lately, a Facebook war between family members confirmed my thoughts and showed me that if they represent a certain segment of society���which they do, then people are too far gone to help���so it is pointless to continue. The process of rebuilding society has to begin and to do that a firm understanding of who we are where we are going must be understood. For me, the best place to start is in the mythic dimension.

The mythic dimension was written in the opening of the very first book in the series by Campbell shortly before his death and describes how the laws of our human knowledge have been largely governed by Newton and his three dimensions, with the fourth being time and all the stuff we have talked about in great detail here at Overmanwarrior���s Wisdom many times. But there are other dimensions and previous cultures had a relationship with them that we do not have now���and if society is to begin again, it will have to have an understanding of that relationship.

Nothing can help John Boehner, John Kasich, or even Barack Obama now. They are doomed to the status quo and the answers are not in that political realm. So it is time to deal with the answer and not just the problem. To do that will require a lot more different kinds of information. So to put my mind in the right state, I have dusted off a lot of this old Campbell work to meet that need. Receiving those old Atlas books of World Mythology are the culmination of a long time of effort and need given to the current moment. The mythic dimension is where the answers are and they exist in that fifth dimensional brane��which runs parallel to our current brane��of four-dimensional��existence in what is called the ���out-back.��� It���s a very thin realm of quantum fluctuations where history runs in a kind of free flow existence without the concerns of time, length, width, or height. Older cultures made many religions out their observations of the quantum fluctuations that intersected our brane of reality from that place. And they had an understanding that we have lost in our current time and there is no way to solve the problems of our day without that understanding, because it is directly relevant. You can���t solve hard problems without all the answers intact, and those answers have been taken from our reality and tossed into concealment back into the mythic dimension by modern politics.

So it was wonderful to see the Atlas��books by Campbell for the first time in my life all in one place for my use. And of course that use is to uncover the answers hidden in the mythic dimension. Politics, philosophy, and economics are all primary by-products of the mythic dimension so it is pointless to concern ourselves with the fools who reside in the brane��of four-dimensional space when there is much more at work that must be dealt with. So to that end, the Historical Atlas of World Mythology by Joseph Campbell as his last work on planet earth will speak to me from beyond the grave���from the mythic dimension where the real keys truly reside. And it is a journey that will be extremely, profitable.

Rich Hoffman

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Dreaming of ‘Fury Road': The beauty of chaos shown honestly

There is a beauty in the honesty of George Miller’s films whether we are talking about the children’s classic, Babe, or the wonderful Mad Max films. But I’ll admit to being a little blown away during a recent trip to the movies where Fury Road was releasing its second promotional trailer—and it was something to marvel at. The images, the content, and the way it was orchestrated together looked and sounded like the exact constructs of my daily thoughts and it was hauntingly surreal. Likely most people may not be quite so affected by it, but for me, it was a religious experience. Suddenly Fury Road is the film I am most eager to see in 2015. When the smoke clears, it is likely going to be that film that will be the stand out most to my liking. Check it out for yourself and welcome to the world of my thoughts.

What I have always loved about Miller’s over-the-top villains is that they are attempts at the honesty which manifests inside the typical collective brute and his Max stands against the tide of such swarms with minimalistic viciousness that is entirely appropriate. Specifically, take the average person who puts on a nice face and attends a funeral, or wants to be a Facebook buddy, and you are getting one of these vile Miller villains most of the time disguised behind one of their social masks. The moment—the exact moment that society strips away its convention, they deregulate themselves into anarchy and chaos insanely fast and leave in their wake destruction and pain.

You can see the cracks in the corners of civility among our own youth with the tattoo culture that has emerged among them in a struggle to show personal identity, along with the body piercings. Underneath their thin layers of social maintenance is the brute of Miller’s villains—the type of people functioning just above the social condition of a typical animal. Yet the piercings and tattoos are a form of radical tribalism that is directly associated with collective identity, not individual merit.

Years ago—2009/2010 I was in the process of putting together information for a motorcycle documentary showing why motorcyclists were America’s backbone of independence. However the more I looked into the collectivism that embodies most people in motorcycle groups, from criminal gangs down to the simple enthusiast organization—you get at their core an animal seeking its place in the pecking order of the forest and awaiting its time and place to die in the theater of existence. So I abandoned the project out of sheer disappointment. It is no wonder that shows like Sons of Anarchy did so well on cable television. I can’t relate to them in any way, yet I ride motorcycles more than most gang members will ever dream of. I spend more time on a motorcycle than most of the hardest core riders who make yearly pilgrimages to Sturgis. Yet I can’t relate to a single one of those riders because the essence of their experience is rooted in the collective goo of animal concerns, and not the plight of the individual against the thug. Most people at their core are thugs by choice.

In the new Max film it is said that the main protagonist only has about ten lines of dialogue through the entire picture. This too is like me most of the time. I have a lot to say obviously if left to my own individual endeavors but once I have to make a decision to mix with others functioning from animal needs, I say very little and watch the clock frequently for the first moment that I can part company. The reason is that there is no way a common thug or the average person whose sole purpose in life is to “fit in” can possibly understand anything I am saying—so I don’t even waste my time.

Miller’s basic premise is that the moment society strips away that thin veil of orthodox European civility backed by Christian righteousness that mankind quickly falls from grace into the kind of characters in his Mad Max films. And I agree with him emphatically. The common thug is quick to invent new religions to formulate their social aims of collectivism, they are quick to attack like insects the foundations of individualism and the worst of the characters are those with the most piercings, and most elaborate tattoos, because it is they who are most prone to assimilation into collective opinion.

It is not hard to imagine characters as vile as the ones Miller places into his movies because the masks which conceal the tendency is not very well hidden and is easily removed. It wouldn’t take much to plunge our society into the world of Mad Max if one looks at it honestly. Fury Road if it is like the other Mad Max films will undoubtedly take an honest look into the nightmares capable by the human mind and explore the role of collectivism in all the worst forms with color and spectacle that is unmatched anywhere.

I understand why Mad Max works by himself. I understand why he is weary to have connections to people, and why he spends most of his life as a solitary figure only helping people occasionally out of compassion—which always puts him in peril. Now that Miller has a reputation as a filmmaker with great commercial successes like Babe, Happy Feet, and of course the previous three Mad Max films—he can pretty much make the film he has always dreamed of. After all, he may not ever get a chance like this again, so he might as well take his shot and it looks like he succeeded.

There is something beautifully honest about symphonic music applied to the absolute brutality of the animalistic human and its desire for bare essentials, food, sex, and tribal approval. In the Mad Max films gasoline means food—or the ability to get it—so it’s at the heart of all car cultures, particularly those in Fury Road.   In the Max films the protagonist is often the only one who is truly sane—the only one capable of survival because he is free of that collectivist viewpoint. So the commentary of the plot lines is particularly potent. The films are popular because they touch on an honesty which many can perceive but fail to properly identify. But after so many years of manifesting in the mind of a great writer/director, George Miller looks to have been given the opportunity to conduct a great fortissimo on the human experience the moment that convention is stripped away.

I know many beautiful people who are every bit the thug from Fury Road. I know many smiling faces that are just as vile as the worst shown in that series of clips promoting Fury Road. You can see them on Facebook discussions, you can see them in protests, you can see them at the traffic light texting nobody on their phone while somebody sits next to them wanting companionship. You can see them in the tattoo parlors as helpless parents pull at the skin of their faces and wonder how and why they failed their children then to hide their crime of upbringing failure—promote that they too will join their children in getting a tattoo on their ass—so to make the whole thing seem more appropriate. You can see the thugs of Fury Road fresh out of their suits and into their golf cloths renting a cart for a quick afternoon game. The Fury Road thugs are in their eyes there too as they flip through Internet porn on their cell phones and the young girls shown there between golf swings while the lady of the house buys new diamond earrings at a jewelry complex ahead of the next charity event. After all, one must show off their current social status within the tribe—no matter if it is a motorcycle gang or a fundraiser for political candidates. They are all thugs. And nobody gets to the heart of the matter better than George Miller.

I can’t wait for his new film. I’m sure it will be one of my absolute favorites.

Rich Hoffman

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‘Battle of the Five Armies': A setting sun on the theater experience

There was a bit of a flare to the attendant who gave us popcorn at the movie theater—just a bit of life that desired to emerge from beyond the staleness of employment. Instead of just scooping the popcorn into the large overpriced cup, he spun it around his finger like a six-gun fast draw and once full returned the scoop to a holster on the side of the popcorn maker. I told him I appreciated the flair as the young 17-year-old was glad I noticed. It was good to see today in the eyes of a young person someone not yet defeated but looking to the future with ambition and flair. It made our trip to see the bittersweet last Hobbit movie Battle of the Five Armies that much more wonderful.

My readers here know that I am likely to give the film a glaringly optimistic review because when something impresses me, I do get excited about it. Like the kid at the popcorn machine, I have spun such things around my fingers for several decades, and still do. When I see the same effort in the products I use, whether it is popcorn or a new movie, I enjoy the spectacle fully. And I did.

But there was constant sadness while watching this last film. It wasn’t the film’s fault—but it was in the presentation itself. All during the film I was thinking that this was the last time. It would be the last time I’d get to see such a fabulous Gandalf played by Ian McKellen, or a Bilbo Baggins played by Martin Freeman or any number of the other cast. These Peter Jackson films are just epic spectacles which made much more accessible the great work of J.R.R. Tolkien.   On the business end of things, these Hobbit films almost didn’t get made with union trouble brewing and Tolkien family squabbles missing the point of the films entirely. If J.R.R. Tolkien were alive today he’d be impressed with Jackson’s efforts, but the parasitic studio system driven by union wage labor is lost to the central message of this latest film, that sickness that Thorin has throughout this last film, the greed of the gold and what it does to otherwise good minds was evident throughout the movie.

 

The metaphor of the movie was simple; the dragon Smaug protected the various races of Middle-Earth from their own internal greed by representing a greater threat which united them. The moment that the threat was removed, the various societies of Middle-Earth sought out the Lonely Mountain to bask in its treasures. It wasn’t lost to my eyes that some of the rewriting that Jackson had done in the film was intended to accentuate more fully the negative experience he had while bringing the Hobbit to life in the first place—particularly dealing with the Hollywood community. Due to his magnificent skill as a director he built on the Hobbit film set for all three movies a family atmosphere that caused the heavy actors like McKellen, Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving to cross over the union desire to picket the film as Jackson resisted the attempts from labor to take control.  The labor unions involved knew what to expect out of the Hobbit films because the Lord of the Rings trilogy had been so successful winning so many Academy Awards. Not this time, the Hobbit films may be loved by the fans, but Hollywood internally is scoffing at Jackson and his cinema family who chose to stick together instead of giving way to the Wilshire Blvd thugs. There’ll be no awards for this Hobbit film of Five Armies, even though it deserves them. The politics of Hollywood won’t allow it. But Jackson cleverly applied his own frustrations to the characters barricaded into the Lonely Mountain and told the story much more potently than anything ever written by Tolkien because of that conflict.

The film was loaded with so many metaphors like the one previously described that it will continue to be unraveled for years to come. However, for me, it was sad to watch the last of each scene knowing that it may never come again that such an assembly of talent was put on the screen for the purpose of such a grand exploration of the nature of evil. From the music to the behind the line technicians, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies represents the very best of what movie makers can pull out of their craft for the enjoyment of their audiences. There was never any remark of a sexual nature in any of the films, there was never any sophomoric humor presented, each movie culminating with this last one had a sincerity within that is extremely rare and comes largely by the fact that all the Jackson films are essentially foreign films from Wellington, New Zealand and not made anywhere else. They have a country innocence about them that is pure and good in virtually every way. While Hollywood itself will continue to have individual successes—as 2015 is shaping up to be a big financial year with a new Mad Max film, Jurassic World, and a new Avengers film ending the year with another Star Wars movie—the overall health of the industry is very sick. Of the movies mentioned they are all dust offs from an earlier time. There is nothing original about them and people are only going to pay for a dust-off so long and pay so much money. The vacuum of creative ability that is on the horizon from 2020 on is truly terrifying to a culture like the United States that loves its intellectual media—it’s music, its movies, its television and so forth.   The Hobbit films are unique in that they are truly an honest and loving approach to a well established source material that was beloved to begin with—made only better through Jackson’s efforts. It will be a long time if ever that such a thing happens again.

 

So my wife and I sat to the very end of the very last credit until the theater lights came on and the cleanup crew came to prepare the place for the next showing. I really didn’t want to leave the theater because once we did the big screen experience of Jackson’s Hobbit films would be over forever for us. I wouldn’t make it back to the theater to see it again before it had its run, and I knew that Middle-Earth would never be shown so gloriously again on such a large format.   Sure, many homes these days have nice theater systems which in many ways rival the movie theater experience. More and more I prefer those over the theater where it cost twenty dollars for two medium Cokes and a bucket of popcorn. But the kid at the counter who dished out the snack with some flair made the twenty bucks worth it, and Jackson made going to the movies fun for what feels to me like some of the last times.

Of the coming slate emerging from Hollywood in 2015 and 2016 there is a lot that I will personally be excited about. I love stories—particularly movies. I love books, I love folklore, mythology—I love anything that shows creative impulse even if such a thing shows itself in a Power Point presentation. I love to see minds on fire and often in really good movies, which is what you get to experience as a theater dweller, the effort is generally easy to see when it’s there. But at my age time is moving very quickly. Two years of movies won’t be enough to fill that hunger that I have and there aren’t a lot of promising films coming after this next slate of blockbusters. The Hobbit is one of those spectacles that are unusually good in every category of film production so it isn’t something to take lightly when seeing it at the movie theater.

I wish every movie was like the Battle of the Five Armies. To see Gandalf captured among a hidden evil with Galadriel coming to his rescue to vanquish the threat to a far off region to regroup for the future Lord of the Rings trilogy was the kind of stuff that makes you want to purchase a $20 dollar popcorn. But there isn’t much out there anymore that does and for that I felt like this last Hobbit film was more of a setting sun than just a trip to the movies as an encroaching darkness envelopes a creative culture that I truly enjoy—and will miss.

Rich Hoffman

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Being Judgmental: Be sure to throw rocks at glass houses often

 

I have heard some of the dumbest things over the last few weeks that I believe I have ever heard from the largest contingent of individual minds. Most of the reason is that it has been the Holiday Season and that inevitably puts you in touch with people you only speak to a few times a year. Between all the Christmas parties on a professional end, and all the family functions, the last two weeks of December puts you in touch with a lot of people if you happen to know them. Of course conversations spawn from these interactions which for me is often frustrating and by the time I enter the new year I am ready to never speak to another soul and return to my stacks of books as my favorite pastime due to the let down in finding out how little is on everyone’s minds. This is a typical reaction at least in my house but this year for whatever reason it was much worse. I would attribute this to the emergence of the demographic group—the 25 to 35 year olds who feel that their time for respect has come and that they have arrived to the adult world. What is discovered when talking to them is that they have microwaved intellects that begin as a frozen turkey only to be blasted for five minutes on high to emerge as a steaming carcass on the outside. But inside they are still frozen solid and are completely unthawed for consumption. This is most realized in the most usual banter that comes from them—and those pathetic souls who are in their middle years who wish to be just like them—that humans are not to pass judgment against each other, so to hide their evils. I can’t say how many times over the last two weeks that I have heard “don’t judge” as part of the dialogue.

Anyone who has had interactions with the Church has heard the Matthew quote from 7:1-6, “We must judge ourselves and judge our own acts, but not to make our word a law to everybody. We must not judge rashly, nor pass judgment upon our brother without any ground. We must not make the worst of people. Here is just reproof to those who quarrel with their brethren for small faults while they allow themselves in greater ones. Some sins are as motes, while others are as beams; some as a gnat, others as a camel. Not that there is any sin little, if it be a mote, or a splinter, it is in the eye; if a gnat, it is in the throat; both are painful and dangerous, and we cannot be easy or well till they are got out. That which charity teachers us to call but a splinter in our brother’s eye, true repentances and godly sorrow will teach us to call a beam in our own. It is as strange that a man can be in a sinful, miserable condition, and not be aware of it, as that a man should have a beam in his eye, and not considered it; but the god of this world blinds their minds. Here is a good rule for reprovers; first reform thyself.” Or in other words, don’t throw rocks in glass houses, we are all sinners and therefore not qualified to judge others—so leave that business to the church, pay your offerings and leave your neighbor be.  That is part one of this tragedy of modern times. Part two is that the secular public school system has used this ingrained tendency to further destroy in young minds the natural process of being human—and that is to think—and therefore to judge one’s surroundings and path through life.

When it is being demanded that one should not judge another in either the Biblical or secular context, what is expected is for one to turn off their minds and simply not think. Those people are expected to just leave the business of judgment to others in the church or some unknown deity interpreted by mankind itself. Just leave judgment to the authorities—more or less. Well, the result is the kind of sheer stupidity that I heard over the 2014 Holiday which led to my opinion about Facebook. (CLICK HERE TO REVIEW) Only an idiot would turn off their judgment to endorse some of the vile things uttered from the mouths of a very spoiled demographic catered to for their entire lives only to be unleashed unprepared upon the world to assume that they are done cooking like the quickly microwaved Turkey—hot to the touch but ice-cold and completely unthawed in the center. While the Church has played its part in the debacle the ultimate failure is in the public school and college system.

Many of us noticed this ten years ago when we first started fighting school levies when it was obvious that the public school system was failing miserably in teaching kids fundamentals about life and navigating through it—and charging tax payers premium fees for the service which essentially was a baby sitting opportunity for working parents too busy with their careers for the job. Now we are seeing the result of that chaotic lifestyle in these young people who are suddenly entering adulthood justifying the sins of their own loved ones with a Christian mantra against judgment backed with the secular public schools advocating placing their faith in the greater good of society rather than in their own intelligence.

Judgment is part of the human experience. We do it when we drive a car, when we decide what kind of food to eat, what we do for a living, how we conduct virtually every part of our life. Without judgment, we are rudderless animals poised for self-destruction. It is completely asinine to expect a family to sit back and watch a child ruin their lives on drugs while running around with a terrible crowd of miscreants without passing judgment on the kid or the people who paved the way toward that type of social destruction. Then for other family members to swarm to the defense of the bad behavior under the guise of not judging—as if the matter should be left to God through a repentance process. Meanwhile, evil is allowed to spread from person to person like a common cold to infect many instead of a few and everyone is just supposed to stand around and be happy about it? No. That is not how things work and anybody who then uses the Bible as a crutch has not studied the Bible properly. Not passing judgment on others allows evil to spread like fire among dry timber—fast and furious. I would argue in addition that the Biblical passivity toward judgment was caused by faults in the minds of man while interpreting “God’s Word” during a time when the Church wanted to rule the world as the premier authority on all things—namely science, so it can’t be completely trusted and only “judgment” will allow such a conclusion.

Another derogatory comment that I have personally heard all my life is that it is bad to have a “Holier than thou” approach to life—as if to say nobody is perfect. This idea that I was perfectly willing to throw rocks in glass houses knowing full well that I didn’t live in one, was somehow bad.  It has led me to a lot of trouble not because of anything illegal or improper, but because it stood in stark contrast to the surrounding world and their values formed by thoughtless surrender to non-judgment. The “holier than thou” mantra has been cast in my direction to my beginnings including the bus ride that I have talked about before when I was in the fourth grade and a pack of fifth graders told me they’d beat me up if I didn’t take the hit of speed they were trying to force down my throat on the bus ride back home from school. I threw the pills out of the window as I vowed never to take any drugs of any kind. I got into a big fight and hurt some of the kids and I got into a lot of trouble—and that wasn’t the last time. I did the same for many years to many more people all in a fight against the spread of drugs.

When it comes to young people I have earned the right to tell them they shouldn’t smoke, they shouldn’t do drugs, and they shouldn’t get drunk. I don’t do any of those things and I never have, and I never ever will. In regards to drinking it was always about showing that I could still command my senses against the current of alcohol consumption which is a practice I still embark on. In over a quarter century of adult life there isn’t one person who could come forward and declare they saw Rich Hoffman drunk and senseless anywhere at any time. That’s not to say that I haven’t drank 5 to 6 dunkel mugs at the Hofbrauhaus in Newport just because I enjoyed the old German beverage. But for me it’s always been about mastering command over intoxicants, not in surrendering to them—ever. Mind over matter in every case. If beer and alcohol were outlawed it wouldn’t hurt my feelings in the least, and I think drugs of every kind, like cocaine, heroine, meth, and marijuana should be not only be illegal, but should be removed from planet earth and launched into a nuclear furnace at the center of the universe. I hate them that much. I hate drugs and I hate drug abusers. I won’t vote for Rand Paul just because of his loose stance on drugs—that’s how bad I hate drugs in our culture. But I walk the talk and always have—as I do with everything else in my life.

Being “holier than thou” is a good thing. It is good because it makes those conducting their life in a bad way feel bad—and that is “good.” And to determine that holier than thou judgments have to be made. It doesn’t make a person who despises drugs and their abuse among loved ones a hypocrite because they don’t want to associate with the dregs of society. It makes them honest. And honesty is the core tenet of any Biblical study. For those who do wish to pass judgment—which the world needs a lot more of—live up to your opinion—stand by it through thick and thin. Don’t allow the youth trained toward evil to waver your thoughts as “old” and “outdated.” To surrender to this opinion is to allow evil to spread without restraint, and that isn’t what the world needs.

And to those who point and call those of us with opinions as hypercritic aristocrats, and violators of Christian doctrine, look at your pathetic lives and declare honestly that not having judgment in your life has been good in any way at all. The failures of the present point back to that long ago conversation in the kitchen of our youth when we had the argument about marijuana smoking and whether or not it was harmful. Look at your lives now and what that permissiveness has done to not only your lives, but those of your children. And the only way you can hide the crime and own stupidity is to insist that nobody judge you, that everybody is a sinner, and that nobody is any better. But guess what—they are. And that is a grim reality that all the evasion in the world can’t hide with backward chants, Ouija boards, and cries for help beyond the grave to rescue the circumstances of the present due to extremely poor judgment. By the way all those things have been called out against me by people who didn’t want me to “judge” them, and I have learned to deal not just with man, but the armies of thuggish demons who are so easily seduced by those Ouija boards to assist the feeble-minded in trade for some merit. I know a lot about this issue—believe me. The overman concept was forged in those fires.

I am holier than thou because I can be. And I’m very proud of it. It is the best weapon to fight evil with, and an armament that I wish everyone in the world to possess. If I have it my way, which eventually is my goal—they will. It starts with not feeling guilty and proceeds to be forged with honesty, contemplation and the willingness to move out of a glass house so that you can then throw rocks at it. And it ends with passing judgment often and with great fanfare so that the work of evil has nowhere to hide under the scrutiny of intelligence. So my advice to you dear reader is judge, and judge often and feel not an ounce of guilt about anything. Because “they” use that guilt as leverage against your opinion—and that is how evil spreads and the good work of good is destroyed forever.

Thank goodness the Holiday is over. My books are much better company.

Rich Hoffman

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Why Facebook Only Helps the Second-Hander: Keeping the “frenemies” at a proper distance

By now it should be clear why I do not participate in Facebook other than some very remote advancement of my literary projects. Even with those, I do not engage in the practice of associating with the mass collective of society whether it be friends, family, or “frenemies” in any means whatsoever other than this blog, which consists of top down advice and opinions intended to do two things—act as a personal notebook for myself to work out complicated topics—and to offer advice to those who need it—which is most of the world. For a person like me, there is nothing to be gained by Facebook associations. It is only good for the type of person who feels they need to justify their existence with “like” buttons and foul language to pluck up their social feathers in the manner of a peacock.   In that Facebook realm it is only the busy body type who are always on the lookout for what everyone else is doing who prosper when in their private lives they are miserable failures—Facebook allows them to be second-handers in society, to steal ideas and concepts from others via a “Facebook wall” then pass them off as their own gaining notoriety within a collective group—whatever it may be. So for me, there is absolutely nothing to be gained by Facebook. Yes it connects people from all over the world; yes it is a great way to get product notoriety—but there is a cost. It allows the bottom feeders of civilization to feel like they are equal contributors to intellectual dialogue and legislative value within circles of influence—and that is proving to be detrimental, culturally.

There is a reason that the founders of Facebook ended up gloriously rich primarily by investors seeking data collection—particularly among government agencies. The reconnaissance of who knows who and how and what little brat is harassing the latest elderly grandpa over some old-fashioned idea of family value—is just the kind of scouting report that enemies of tradition seek to capture. No longer does the CIA, or FBI have to seek complicated warrants to spy on potential threats to their existence—they just check the Facebook wall of a potential target to see what they are saying, and who likes their opinions, and who hates them. If there are those in dissidence, it is far easier to steer those minds in a negative direction against the target than to launch a complicated counter-strike involving hundreds of man hours and a lot of foot work to do the same just ten years ago. Now, the soothsayers and busybodies rule the planet from Facebook leaving those of a private mind at a severe disadvantage as the chaotic thinkers through social media now have equal latitude in cyberspace with the wise and well-earned intellect.

This is just an example, but it is one that I witnessed from afar over the Holiday season among a particular group of such busy bodies. An elderly couple wanted a family photograph but one grandchild is having particular trouble with drugs and personal social destruction. The parents of this child of course are defensive as to any judgment because ultimately it points back to them as the ones at fault for their kid’s behavior. So the friend of this poor child was brought into a family photograph for Christmas causing all kinds of commotion. The friend to the rest of the family is a symbol of the type of person who has greatly deteriorated the mind of the beloved family member fair or not—so further memories of such a person was not welcomed into the family photograph, which caused quite an uproar on Facebook.

Those most guilty of allowing the mind of the fallen child to waver on self-destruction came out on Facebook fanning the flames of discontent against the elderly couple bringing in members of the family who weren’t even remotely connected to the situation other than maybe seeing each other at a wedding or funeral, to offer their defense of the vanquished child bringing equal opinion to the matter with collective banter—as if by measuring the number of opinionated fools somehow outranked the few who were close to the situation and hurt by it. Of those are people like the grandparents who simply are on Facebook to talk to old friends and family during their silver years as travel and frequency of correspondence is increasingly difficult due to their advanced age. Once the democratic banter against the grandparents had raised to a fever pitch then the youthful felt entitled to banter four letter expletives generally making fools of themselves as the parents of these children and their extended families of liberal round hounds mixed with drug induced whores cheered from the sidelines marveling in the power of democracy that Facebook provided them.

As cowardly souls in their normal every day lives going nowhere fast and stuck like wooly mammoths in the La Brea tar pits Facebook gave these mass swarms of know-nothings the latitude to hen-peck at the truly wise and intellectual just because they don’t like the opinions shaped by the elderly personal values. The cause of the poor child’s problems in question to begin with is that the parents screwed up in the upbringing causing directly the problems at hand. So to cover up that error, they seek the blanket of social acceptance through Facebook ridicule to justify their quandary of failure in lieu of collective salvation.

That is another trend of social media that is emerging—it allows the cowardly and stupid to sit from behind the comfort of their computers and cell phones to become suddenly bold in justifying their failed existences by summation of a collective opinion consensus among others of like mind without fear of retaliation. Because social media is so effective in combining those of like mind together, and the number of idiots in the world greatly outnumber the intelligent, it is easy for such faulty thinking people to build a consensus against wisdom by collective input. If a series of drug addicts and former bar whores believe that a judgment against some particular social value is too intense by a well-hated target, that slug of a personality can then seek out aunts, friends, or that loser drunk uncle who otherwise has no valuable opinions except to add to a “like” button on a Facebook wall, and other connected losers and social outcasts to suddenly be the most important people on the planet when they can gang up and pile drive against someone because their view of the world is too “old fashioned.”

I know all too well who my frenemies are, and unlike most, I feel absolutely no impulse to make them into “friends” by seeking their counsel about anything—anything at all. If anything, I seek ways to make more “frenemies” so that my daily correspondence is made more simple allowing me more time to do the things I truly enjoy. It is good to be pleasant and fair to all people—once. But once they screw you over in some literal or intellectual way—it is time to place them on the frenemie list and discard them from the inner circle of cherished memory forever. Facebook allows those fenemies to appear as friends when really it just empowers them to become more like succubus types behaving as social destroyers than any kind of wise counsel granted from a trusted relative or friend. Facebook is only good for the despot–the intelligent introvert has nothing to be gained from the interaction but to place themselves on a cross to be picked apart by the know-nothings and dregs of society.

For this blog, my opinion is all that matters. What I write and why I write it is my own decision and device. I do not seek the approval of one other human being on planet earth in providing it. The opinions come from deep within my own thought process and does not require anybody to “like” it. But when I see validation to my original opinions play out on the Facebook stage, just remember that I told you so. To the parents of the little girl in the example, I explained to them what was going to happen if they didn’t listen over twenty years ago to the wisdom my wife and I offered. But they chose to run away from that help, and screwed up their lives and those connected to them forever. And to further conceal their mistakes they found it opportune to pounce on a person whom I respect a great deal just because that person had an opinion about the poor choices of a lifestyle that has been conducted by that child and they didn’t want a hint of that in a family picture commemorating the future.

In Facebook misery loves company, and they do find themselves there easily. Once they do, they unite together to become a dangerous band of cyberspace thugs able to pardon their poor decisions in life with collective opinion attacking like a mob all those who fall outside of their social virus of Facebook groupings. But even through the expletives and tough talk the real measure of success in life—and death—is in how one lives and how things really end up in the end. For those who speak loudest against traditional opinion of value are those who even today are drug abusers, sex addicts, failed intellectuals, destroyed personalities, conservatives turned to liberal hippies with massive college debt, homeless wrecks cast aside by their own stubbornness and a youthful culture that is hell-bent on doing it all again by drowning out the wisdom of their elders who simply love them too much to let them fail without saying something. Facebook takes that traditional wise voice of old and drowns it in a collective goo of democracy providing the illusion that mistakes can be redeemed if enough people believe something to be true. The only people who really benefit from Facebook are the second-handers, the beings that live through other people. Those who don’t function from this modern social parasitic entity gain nothing, but lose a lot—which is why I don’t participate in Facebook—and I never will. I deal with enough “frenemies” on a daily basis at just about every level—and family is not immune to that experience. So there is nothing to be gained by breaking bread with them on Facebook. Because being a person of value, they can only take that value from you. They have nothing valuable to contribute otherwise making Facebook a lost cause.

Rich Hoffman

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Fire Fighting Murderer Made $130,000 Per Year: Sixteen others placed on paid leave having sex on firetrucks

So what happens when you give a worthless slug a $130,000 salary to sit around the firehouse bored out of his mind protected by a labor union and encouraged by mediocrity to do as little as possible? You get sixteen California firefighters placed on paid leave for having sex with prostitutes on top of their fire trucks and the death of a prostitute turned seductress girlfriend by a brutal stabbing and strangling which lead to a massive manhunt. Yet when the California Highway Patrol was asked to find evidence of a video tape to prove the misconduct which existed according to the ex-wife of the alleged murderer Orville Fleming, they came up empty. Imagine that? The state labor unions circled the wagons to protect their members and clear them of any wrong doing. Orville himself would have been cleared as well had he not been terminated from his job because he failed to show up for five days after the stabbing and murder of his 26-year-old girlfriend Sarah June Douglas.

Sarah had been a moderately priced escort service girl who had been spending a lot of time at the firehouse entertaining the bored fire department officials working there. Just two years prior there were several news reports of increases in fire fighting incidents around the Sacramento area where this murder took place blaming the defunding of the fire department due to budget cuts. Yet here was a mustache bearing battalion chief who made $130,000 per year off the taxpayers willing to bring in Sarah as a pass-around while he watched sixteen other fire department saplings have their way with her—then he showed the really poor misjudgment of falling in love with her, leaving his wife, letting Douglas move in when she was 30 years his junior. Then he was surprised when the relationship didn’t work out?

In her last moments of life Douglas was on the phone with her sister complaining that Orville had left the gas on in the home they were sharing accusing him of trying to kill her pet birds. Then like a maniacal lunatic, Orville broke into the conversation from the background surprising Douglas, hanging up the phone while she had been talking and proceeded to stab the young girl to death so violently that her blood splattered on the walls and drowned her sheets with life essence. Then to top it off, he strangled her with a bed sheet. Talk about really poor judgment—where does anybody start with that one?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/30/16-california-firefighters-on-leave-after-sex-tape-inquiry/

 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/30/16-california-firefighters-on-leave-after-sex-tape-inquiry/

But this is not an isolated incident. As seen by the videos on this article, these crazy sexual shenanigans are persistent all across America at fire houses in virtually every demographic area. It is so persistent that perhaps they should be opened as part-time brothels when fire fighting isn’t at play—so to justify the cost of the structures and employees housed there. Undoubtedly, these stories are what you get when you throw good money at really poor quality people.

And who is really at fault for all this bad behavior? Well The International Association of Fire Firefighters, who has protected these slugs of humanity with a value perception that clearly doesn’t match their public behavior, holds most of the responsibility. After the tragedy of 9/11 there was much public relations effort to show that people like Orville Fleming were worth any amount of money that they demanded through union brotherhood—and that if the money was paid, that all would be right in the world. But in reality, there really isn’t much to do around a fire station when everything is working well—so foul play often becomes the default mode of operation. Matters get much worse when public employees are paid so much to do so little.

Orville Fleming even at such an extraordinarily high salary was married formerly to Meagan Fleming—who is a public school teacher. So it was a household fully under the protection of the state labor unions. This brought the household income for the couple at a very disproportionately high rate compared to their actual industrious worth. It’s a similar type of behavior that one might find when they give a lottery ticket to the typical Sunday afternoon buffet dweller fresh from their dwellings in a trailer park—they blow the money on foolishness because they didn’t have to earn the money—and have very little value for it. So they behave recklessly. In Orville’s case, he was considered one of the elites and was actually in charge—which is difficult to imagine. Anyone who would show such recklessness in bringing prostitutes into the fire house under his command in the presence of so many other public employees and expected to not have ramifications for his behavior is an idiot—and shouldn’t be given the responsibility of washing a fire truck let alone being in charge of a whole battalion of them. Yet it wasn’t murder which caused Orville Fleming to lose his job eventually, it was because he didn’t show up for work for five consecutive days. That’s how entrenched the labor unions are in the process of employee management of state workers.

The tragic case of the Sacramento Fire Department is just one of many. Orville showing terrible midlife crises judgment fell in love with a woman he knew was a prostitute then grew hyper controlling when he realized that like his job, he didn’t have the stuff to keep a young girl like Douglas interested. Unlike his actual job, there wasn’t a labor union to protect him from a broken heart, or a prostitute turned girlfriend who lost interest in his decaying body when he wasn’t showering her with gifts to keep her interested. After all, if a 26-year-old girl wants sex, she can get it from a much younger man who is in better shape and connected to less baggage. Ultimately what appears to be the final straw that broke Orville Fleming’s heart was that there was no labor union to give him the false premise of value for a lover as he had received in his state backed employment. He was coddled with false value from his labor union, but that didn’t translate over into his love life. So he freaked out at the obvious lack of control there was to protect him from competition. He thought that being a sugar daddy with a comfortable income would be enough to protect him from hardship. Well, it wasn’t.

The International Association of Fire Firefighters gave Orville Fleming a false value through their collective bargaining agreement that did not translate over into other parts of his life. Living with his school teacher wife for so long, Orville had become so accustom to being peppered with accolades granted from the state that he lost touch with reality. Having so much household income between the two well above the typical household Sacramento median income of $57,000 per year empowered the small-minded man to believe he was something he wasn’t. So long as the labor union granted him that illusion—he was fine to order up prostitutes to be the big man on campus as a fire house legend among his peers. But when he fell in love with one of those prostitutes, there was no union to protect him from his own stupidity—so he folded under the pressure and committed a horrendous murder. And that is the result of what happens when people who don’t deserve such ability and finance are given it just for showing up for work over a thirty year period. They didn’t achieve their wealth by merit, skill, or effort—but rather it was just given to them because they were in a labor union. So when the same tactics didn’t work with a young 26-year-old he didn’t know what else to do—because he had an intellect that didn’t give him the answer. So he turned to the ultimate control there was—murder. All this is of course conjecture, but is based on direct experience. We’ll never know more of the story than this, because all parties involved from the police to the court system are also state employees—most of which is protected by the same type of labor unions. Thus, there are a lot more potential Orville Flemings out there—just waiting to snap.

Rich Hoffman

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How the Rothschild’s Made Their Money Off Waterloo: Secrets revealed from the cryptic text of ‘Finnegan’s Wake’

I suppose its time to carry you dear reader further down the rabbit hole. For a long time, I have treated my readers here like children learning the alphabet for the first time, patiently allowing the language of query to percolate from a question mark into an exclamation point. That’s not to say that it’s anybody’s fault so much. Information has been purposely withheld, so there isn’t any way that you could know certain things unless you had access to uncorrupted source material not altered through the public education system. But its time I think to take a new step and to share with you a new layer to the great mysteries of life. To answer the question which started this journey so long ago against the traditional mode of public education to the present is to understand a key book in my own education process—my college. The story goes that I attended traditional university on several occasions believing that I had to in order to secure a good living. But after my own business experience early in life, and a quick understanding of how the world really worked I needed more and traditional education didn’t have it. So I found my education in the most obscure book in the English language—Finnegan’s Wake.

Finnegan’s Wake is a cryptic key to many things in life and over the course of the year 2015 I will refer to it more and more often because it’s directly relevant to our present subjects. It’s very relevant to the here and now of today. For instance, any conspiracy theorist will point to many of the present financial problems and contemplate about the Rothschild family and the global bankers who dangle world leaders from their fingertips to control the world through the money supply. That family specifically is responsible for much tampering in the marketplace and political movements from all sides of the social spectrum strictly so that they can profit from the turmoil. I learned very early about these political dealings not from conspiracy theorists but actually from Finnegan’s Wake and its many lyrical puzzles which are carefully concealed from the lazy and uninitiated—particularly the unlearned. I am extremely proud of my unique education because there are only a handful of people who have really tackled the James Joyce novel Finnegan’s Wake including lettered academics, to the level of mining from its depths the intentions of his vast work.

The novel was written to begin civilization again once the forces of destruction have ripped it apart. It’s something of a human time capsule encompassing many religious and political beliefs through historical context containing nearly 70 different languages in the text. Unlike James Joyce, I am not content to surrender to this circular born again motif—but to change it with the strategy and force of the overman. But that simple disagreement does not violate the treasures which can be found in every paragraph of the very elusive book, Finnegan’s Wake. For instance, I will provide the passage from the novel which discusses how Nathan Rothschild took over the bank of England and made his family into one of the most powerful in the entire world. The footprint of it is placed within the Wake to disguise it from the book censors and religious fanatics of Europe who had their coffers open to such maniacal influence. Yet boldly, Joyce told the story as follows. (Before continuing the misspellings below are on purpose, they are a type of language written by Joyce for a means even more mysterious and dangerous to those not acquainted.) But I will explain that in greater detail later:

What a warm time we were in there but how keling is here the airabouts! We nowhere she lives but you mussna tell annaone for the lamp of Jig-a-Lantern! It’s a candlelittle houthse of a month and the windies. Downadown, High Downadown. And numbered quaintlymine. And such reasonable weather too! The wagrant wind’s awalt’zaround the piltdowns and on ever blasted knollyrock (if you can spot fifty I spy four more) there’s that gnarlybird ygathering, a runalittle, doalittle, preealittle, pouralittle, wipealittle, kicksalittle, severalittle, eatalittle, whinealittle, kenalittle, helfalittle, pelfalittlegnarlybird. A verytablenad of blaeakbardfields! Under his seven wrothschields lies one, Lumproar. His glave toside him. Skud ontorsed. Our pigeons pair are flewn for northcliffs.

But yet what gives away this historical moment? This passage which preceded it from the previous paragraph on page 10 of the Viking Press edition published in 1939:

Toffeethief, that spy on the Willingdone from his big white harse, the Capeinhope. Stonewall Willingdone is an old maxy montrumeny.

OK, what does all that mean? Well my teacher Joseph Campbell was the first to detect it in the 1944 publication of his Skeleton Key where it was accused that the House of Rothschild actually defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, not the Duke of Wellington. Spying on the great battle which held Europe’s fate in its outcome, Rothschild’s agent upon a hill gathered news of the battle and knew the happenings of the course of the battle before the government in England knew anything of the Belgium conflict. It is entirely possible that given this reach of influence that Rothschild had enough sway to turn the tide of the battle against Napoleon. The giveaway in the passage is not only the spy for Nathan Rothschild at Waterloo but the description of the seven superimposed shields suggesting the seven “sheaths” (physical, astal, mental, buddhic, nirvanic, anupadakic, and adic) which according to occultists, clothe the essence of the soul. The one left would of course be Nathan Rothschild.

Essentially what happened can be best read from the excellent article below with a link to the original story. It is about how Nathan Rothschild played both sides against each other, those of the English forces and those of the French to become the most powerful family in the world at the time. His wealth grew to such an extent that there wasn’t a kingdom on earth that could stand against his power as he had grown to control the money flow of currency in Europe. So he didn’t care to become a king or to rule any nation with a formal title, he simply ruled from controlling the money supply as the King had to bow to Rothschild’s feet if he wanted a strong economy. Keep in mind the following took place in 1815. Imagine the amount of information collected today and for the same purpose by modern families of like mind.

Their [Rothschilds] unique spy system started out when ‘the boys’ began sending messages to each other through a network of couriers. Soon it developed into something much more elaborate, effective and far reaching. It was a spy network par excellence. Its stunning speed and effectiveness gave the Rothschilds a clear edge in all their dealings on an international level.

“Rothschild coaches careened down the highways; Rothschild boats set sail across the Channel; Rothschild agents were swift shadows along the streets. They carried cash, securities, letters and news. Above all, news — the latest exclusive news to be vigorously processed at stock market and commodity bourse.

“And there was no news more precious than the outcome at Waterloo…” (The Rothschilds p. 94).

Upon the battle of Waterloo depended the future of the European continent. If the Grande Army of Napoleon emerged victorious France would be undisputed master of all she surveyed on the European front. If Napoleon was crushed into submission England would hold the balance of power in Europe and would be in a position to greatly expand its sphere of influence.

Historian John Reeves, a Rothschild partisan, reveals in his book The Rothschilds, Financial Rulers of the Nations, 1887, page 167, that “one cause of his [Nathan‘s] success was the secrecy with which he shrouded, and the tortuous policy with which he misled those who watched him the keenest.”

There were vast fortunes to be made — and lost — on the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo. The Stock Exchange in London was at fever pitch as traders awaited news of the outcome of this battle of the giants. If Britain lost, English consuls would plummet to unprecedented depths. If Britain was victorious, the value of the consul would leap to dizzying new heights.

As the two huge armies closed in for their battle to the death, Nathan Rothschild had his agents working feverishly on both sides of the line to gather the most accurate possible information as the battle proceeded. Additional Rothschild agents were on hand to carry the intelligence bulletins to a Rothschild command post strategically located nearby.

Late on the afternoon of June 15, 1815, a Rothschild representative jumped on board a specially chartered boat and headed out into the channel in a hurried dash for the English coast. In his possession was a top secret report from Rothschild’s secret service agents on the progress of the crucial battle. This intelligence data would prove indispensable to Nathan in making some vital decisions.

The special agent was met at Folkstone the following morning at dawn by Nathan Rothschild himself. After quickly scanning the highlights of the report Rothschild was on his way again, speeding towards London and the Stock Exchange.

Arriving at the Exchange amid frantic speculation on the outcome of the battle, Nathan took up his usual position beside the famous ‘Rothschild Pillar.’ Without a sign of emotion, without the slightest change of facial expression the stony-faced, flint eyed chief of the House of Rothschild gave a predetermined signal to his agents who were stationed nearby.

Rothschild agents immediately began to dump consuls on the market. As hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of consuls poured onto the market their value started to slide. Then they began to plummet.

Nathan continued to lean against ‘his’ pillar, emotionless, expressionless. He continued to sell, and sell and sell. Consuls kept on falling. Word began to sweep through the Stock Exchange: “Rothschild knows.” “Rothschild knows.” “Wellington has lost at Waterloo.”

The selling turned into a panic as people rushed to unload their ‘worthless’ consuls or paper money for gold and silver in the hope of retaining at least part of their wealth. Consuls continued their nosedive towards oblivion. After several hours of feverish trading the consul lay in ruins. It was selling for about five cents on the dollar.

Nathan Rothschild, emotionless as ever, still leaned against his pillar. He continued to give subtle signals. But these signals were different. They were so different that only the highly trained Rothschild agents could detect the change. On the cue from their boss, dozens of Rothschild agents made their way to the order desks around the Exchange and bought every consul in sight for just a ‘song’!

A short time later the ‘official’ news arrived in the British capital. England was now the master of the European scene.

http://thecounterpunch.hubpages.com/hub/Nathan_Rotschild_and_the_Battle_Of_Waterloo

Since then there have been many financiers who have essentially done the same thing. In our current time George Soros comes to mind. These are men, who crave power and dictatorship over mankind in various forms, yet they tactfully supersede the election process to just take power through the manipulation and open theft of money and once they gain control of such things, they can control the legislation system that might otherwise convict them.

A system of government to stand against such abuses of power rose in the communist and socialist movements—however, little known to everyone’s mind it too was a creation by these global manipulators to limit the power that governments might gain and to keep everyone off balance allowing the financial families to reign as a global aristocracy in control of everything and everyone. And for the most part it has gone unnoticed for many, many years. Only recently with the rise of the Internet has some of this discussion against these money controlling families really taken off. But for those who have read and attempted to unlock the secrets of the classic novel, Finnegan’s Wake speaking out against the Rothschild family was very dangerous business, and could get a book banned in 1939, even from Paris where Joyce lived for quite a long time during his writing years. So he coded the information so that future aspects of civilization might know, and put a stop to the practice.

The answer to these kinds of tyrants is in pure capitalism as people like Rothschild, and Soros cannot compete in a world where honor is given to those who make things instead of just to people who have a lot of money. A thief can acquire a lot of money. That doesn’t make them good people. But the creation of wealth in the first place is an honorable endeavor if the value between making money and making wealthy assets is distinguished. That is an important consideration that deserves contemplation because those types of decisions are before us now. And to unlock the correct answer I usually turn toward the recorded history protected through obscurity from censors in Finnegan’s Wake. The information there is protected from the stupid and manipulative because it’s too hard for them to unlock. But for us, those who read here often—the soil is rich for new ideas to grow and the seeds for such an endeavor are located within the complicated paragraphs of Finnegan’s Wake.

It is time to graduate.

Rich Hoffman

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Open Letter to Adam Winrich: Good guys do sometimes wear black

Back in the day my family was one of the first to do slow motion and dramatic set photography with bullwhips. But as I’ve said in an article titled the Class of 2005 of the young people coming up through the bullwhip community at the time, nobody really catapulted bullwhip work as brilliantly as Adam Winrich did. He has since broken nine Guinness Book of World Records in the field of whip cracking and makes his living exclusively doing shows as a bullwhip artist. And when it comes to photographing bullwhip work Adam has excelled there as well. In the beginning he watched a lot of my videos to find ways to improve on them. Now, these days, I watch his, because he does so many unique things with bullwhips. It was because of him that I learned how to cut a soda can in half with a whip. He has for the last decade been the premier whip cracker of our time, and I’m proud of him.

It was at Christmas dinner that I heard my son-in-law had received a new Go Pro camera from my daughter. The conversation migrated to what could be done with a Go Pro camera which of course ended up into a bullwhip conversation. Upon that, my brother let me know that the number one video on the Go Pro website broadcast over the Xbox network was a whip cracker by the name of Adam Winrich who had made a fantastic video using a Go Pro Hero3 camera combining slow motion and very well set up camera shots.

The video is quite beautiful to look at, the firewhip work was very well done, and the ability to show perspective of how the whips work from the view of the whip cracker is extremely unique, and admirable. Adam’s Go Pro work takes much of the excitement of being a whip cracker and puts regular people into position to enjoy it, which is marvelous. It is a very useful tool in advancing the sport.

 

So this next part is not intended for my normal readers here, but for Adam himself. Things like this are so hard to explain in an email. So pardon the deviation. If there was an opportunity to work for a film studio owned by a controversial conservative pundit deeply in love with traditional American values—is that something that would be attractive? The project I’m currently working on, which heavily involves bullwhip work could use a nine time record holder who is nice and young and can handle the innovations that this particular studio is looking for.

This particular individual is uniquely placed into the heart of the entertainment industry because of his success as a political pundit and even those from the political left are seeking refuge among his growing stable of stars. Within the next five years, his particular studio will be poised to directly compete with the Hollywood product model, and within ten to surpass it. Let’s see, that would put Adam Winrich right around 43 years old about that time and likely still in good shape to teach a new generation all the fantastic skills of bullwhip work.

 

I’ve been working on this Cliffhanger character for the last ten years refining things so that it’s a unique enough concept that can hold water for a new generation, but the goal has always been to popularize again an appreciation for the western arts the way westerns used to. But young people can’t identify with westerns any longer, so a new way to present that type of value based material has to be utilized. I’ve done a few bullwhip gigs for the Hollywood crowd and they just don’t get it. That’s why they are going out of business. They certainly aren’t poised to do anything positive for the western arts. But this one guy is–the catch is that he’s political.

The last film festival that I participated in was in 2009, since then I have used my skills to help real causes in the real world, but I don’t do bullwhip work professionally, so I don’t have to worry about not getting bookings because of my political beliefs. So it can be risky to embark on these kinds of adventures. But it can also be worth it. So it’s kind of a loose offer. There are a lot of things up in the air that has to be settled, but the first criterion has to be of interest. We live in an exciting time, and opportunities are certainly there for people who can see easily over the horizon.

There are opportunities with camera systems like the Go Pro to really change the way dramatic stories are told. I’d personally like to see something like Lash LaRue re-emerge without the camera tricks to cheat the stunts. Whip work has for the first time in history an opportunity to be done in a way that can stun audiences so long as there is a narrative justification for the suspense—and there is no better way of achieving that than with real stunts captured by camera systems like Go Pro.

So what does the schedule for Adam Winrich look like over the next ten years? Interested? These days, I’m busy writing, I still do a lot of whip work, and likely always will, but for this proposed project, I can’t think of anybody more committed to the art, and nobody more poised to bring a wow factor to further innovations. So before I make a pitch, I’d need to know some basic fundamentals. Could be a lot of fun, because in this case the hero does wear black—black as night.

 

Rich Hoffman

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Spengler’s Decline of the West: Stepping out of a cycle that promises social destruction

So, what is the task for the overmanwarrior, those who look at the world and think that a cycle of stupidity and irreverence is long overdue for a severed divorce from the human race? Well, the effort of these many writings, my books and general approach to the meaning of life is to rebel and achieve through that escape velocity the perilous grip of Oswald Spengler’s great book, The Decline of the West—published in 1932. in that monumental work Spengler illustrates properly, and with the blow of a hammer upon the head, the fourfold cycle of history which forever repeats itself over and over again with a birth, death and resurrection that is holding mankind to an infantile state of development perpetually. Spengler’s four part cycle is derived from Goethe which is a developed idea from the Greek mythological sequence of the Four Ages–Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Iron, which in turn is a counterpart of the Hindu Round of the Four Yugas, Krista, Treta, Duapara, Kali. For western civilization specifically through global attempts at kingdom building—the fourfold cycle of phases of society is theocratic, aristocratic, democratic, and chaotic.

An example of a theocratic society would be that of modern Islam. After the Sykes-Picot agreement in the waning days of World War I the societies of Arabia moved from a democratic society united under the Lawrence of Arabia and fell after the betrayal into a chaotic society that is currently seeking to reinvent itself. There is now a mild obsession with Allah and the concepts of a theocratic society—which is to say that the leaders and official policy is divinely guided. The Middle East is attempting to give rebirth to itself as Europe, which is still in an attempt at democracy, is trying to reverse the cycle and drag that part of the world backward on their psychological path of self-destruction and resurrection. Europe itself is slanting quickly toward chaos as the psychosis of the typical resident is hell-bent like moths to a flame to renew their society in the same manner.

In the United States the chaotic period in a mild way accelerated in the 20th century jumping through the cycles at lightening speed with the help of technology, radio and television as new inventions. The typical progressive and New England Victorian was much in love with the aristocratic notions of a small privileged few who ruled over all others. But quickly as the enchantment for the masses of socialism and communism spread across America during the “Red Decade” of the 1930s a strong sense of democracy blasted its way onto the scene for the second time in America’s young history. The first time was after the War of 1812 as the settlers from aristocratic Europe brought a mentality with them that quickly quelled the fires of revolution sending adventurers and those of religious persecution westward to flee from the oncoming social parasites. After several failed presidents and a basic philosophical battle with the notion of freedom, the Civil War was fought which plunged America into chaos. It was reborn as a mild theocracy at the turn of the 20th century then moved quickly through Spengler’s four cycles once again. After the labor unions had their destructive result with democracy, the nation was once again plunged into chaos only to now seek to become a theocracy–again. This is the fundamental desire of the Tea Party message—to be a nation divinely guided, and why the Glenn Beck message resonated so strongly as the national debt under presidents Bush and Obama spiraled out of control.

The IRS in targeting the Tea Party is simply the same as the modern European at the United Nations hoping to drag the Middle Eastern to the bargaining table—their societies are in different phases of the four-cycle process and human inclination resists greatly going backwards on that scale instead of always forward. The Washington D.C. culture in modern America wishes to think of itself as aristocratic where the labor unions want a democracy. But the Tea Party seeing the chaos of all those failures is seeking to restart as a theocracy—divinely led. However, the secularists still profiting off the previous periods of chaos do not want to move into a theocratic phase since it will mean an end to their particular rule of man’s mind. So the national consciousness of Americans is moving toward a theocracy with the rest of the empowered being drug along kicking and screaming for chaos—which has already occurred—but they wish it sustained.

So where dose all this put us as a society of human beings? Always in a state of birth, death and resurrection leaving most of the world’s problems impossible to solve since all nations of the world are not going through the same periods together. It is important to understand that these phases are not mandated, they represent a deep psychological neurosis that is part of the human evolution process that it has never graduated from. This mentality goes back to the first Neanderthal with their large craniums attempting to construct an organized society from their nomadic existence. They did, and those four cycles emerged and it is within those cycles that much death and loss of progress can be blamed. Spengler’s cycle is like a treadmill to nowhere which takes us always back to the same spot no matter how hard we work—and its rather ignorant.

The only way to stop that train to nowhere, that cycle of stupidity is to emerge philosophically beyond it without going through the death of one type of society and being reborn again like a child destined to always perpetually make the same mistakes as a parent—just because they taught you to make those mistakes. True independence for the human mind insists that this concept be entertained, that human beings step off the treadmill and into a fate of their own making. Otherwise, the cycle of death, destruction and perpetual resurrection will continue on into infinity always bringing with it lost gains re-found as if they were brand new only to discover much later that they were never lost, only covered up by social ignorance and political structures that prevented nurturing.

The overmanwarrior fights to step off that treadmill and emerges as an independent human mind facing destiny for the first time without knowing how the story ends. It takes courage, a lack of desire for power over others, and it takes a love of adventure for uncharted territory. The term overman is intended to take man’s mind away from its anchoring to this childish behavior of Spengler’s and to fight for the right to free will away from the cycle of Goethe.

There is no way to ever advance as a civilization until that cycle of personal destruction is broken. So that is the purpose of all this writing, and the term of the overman. It is truly time to graduate away from the ignorance of our past—to learn from it—but to leave it behind to build something truly new, and not the same old garbage that has plagued us for infinity. It appears even the stories of giants in America that I occasionally write about who clearly had an advanced understanding of mathematics during the Archaic Period in the Ohio Valley built for themselves an elite social hierarchy that resembled the typical European aristocratic society. They failed, died as a culture through their incestuous ways, then were plunged into chaos after democratic attempts only to be born again as the Adena and Hopewell Indian tribes moving back into a theocratic society until they were supplanted eventually by new groups of Indians—also theocratic in their social hierarchy who were then replaced by the building of a new country in America who were leaving behind the aristocracy of Europe to begin a new theocracy under the hand of God to start all over again like a rebellious teenager who eventually grew up to become a fat middle-aged—defeated soul who dies and seeks their resurrection anew in the afterlife.

My argument against all this is that it’s pointless, and its time to view the world in a new way—and our role within it. To comprehend that view, it takes an overman—a mind that overtakes man’s addiction to that cycle of destruction. Only then will the decline of human civilization stop and advancements truly take root.

Rich Hoffman

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Caltech Capitalism: An explaination of ‘Interstellar’s’ “blight”

I was surprised to learn while reading a recent book by a physicist I respect a great deal regarding the science of the movie Interstellar how limited the views of science really are. While attempting to discover a way to insert the concept of a blight into the film as the primary reason for earth’s cataclysmic disaster pushing human kind off the planet, Kip Thorne, the author organized a dinner meeting with Jonathan Nolan the screenwriter, at the Caltech faculty club, the Anthenaeum. Also attending the dinner was film producer Lynda Obst, the biologist Elliot Meyerowitz, Jered Leadbetter—an expert on diverse microbes, Mel Simon, an expert on cells that make up plants, and David Baltamore, an expert about everything regarding biology.

The challenge was to discover how plausible it was for a blight to consume the food supply on earth due to relatively natural occurrences. In the film Jonathan and the Director Christopher Nolan wanted a natural disaster in the story that would force humans to make a decision, so they set the story a bit into the future, yet the population on earth was rapidly declining, and technological advancement was regressing. The scientists attached to the film, and the attendees of that dinner found it hard to believe that scientific endeavor would decline so rapidly in such a society—which I thought was astonishing. After all, it’s happening right now.

My son-in-law and I were discussing this very problem just last night–if it hadn’t been for Ronald Reagan and Margret Thatcher who wrestled away from socialist England much of its industry back into privatization, most of the great technology we are enjoying today would not have happened. Our society would regress as opposed to the leaps it made in the 80s and 90s to what many neglect these days as common occurrences–such as cell phone technology. It took political vision and commitment to privatizing industry that was using science to usher in the technical leaps that we have been seeing. However, the danger is that much of that work is has-been technology and for the generations coming from the years of the Bush presidents, Clinton and Obama, much of the science has returned to the type of dinner discussions occurring at Caltech for the Interstellar blight meeting.

Most college professors know that most of their funding comes from the tax payers, so their view of the world tends to be left leaning progressive. People tend to attach their politics to what feeds their mouths, not so much what they believe is right or wrong based on personal judgment. So those brilliant scientists at Kip Thorne’s meeting were already missing a major ingredient to the success of science before their meeting on the blight even took place. After reading about the meeting it is no wonder that so many top scientists believe in global warming as a manmade occurrence—as their funding often comes from government, and government wants to propel such myths so to gain more control through organizations like the EPA on regulating industry. In much the same way that the aforementioned scientists found a type of blight for the Interstellar film plot line, they also find evidence of global warming to gain grant money for their research leaving the discovery process of scientific data contaminated with liberal politics.

Yet the point of the meeting was to find a form of biological blight appropriate for the Nolan storyline—so it was under a capitalist endeavor that the scientists even gathered to discuss the topic. Without the potential profit of making the movie Interstellar, the motivation for even having the scientific discussion would not be present, and those same faculty members would talk among themselves not sharing with the world the brilliant science of their efforts. It was just another reminder of how science should be attached more to business rather than government.

The dinner meeting went on for some time and many topics were discussed. Jonathan Nolan is my kind of screenwriter. He is concerned with many of the same types of themes that I am, the danger of collectivism, the regression of human spirit when the profit motive is taken away, and the strength of the individual over the mob of democracy. Those are topics that Kip’s scientists are typically weary of as they come often from the liberal side of the tracks, particularly Lynda Obst who is one of those liberal Hollywood producers that are always talked about attending Obama fundraisers thinking that he is the second coming of Christ or the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses. Yet Lynda was in the business of making money. At the time it was Steven Spielberg who was attached as the director of the film, and there is an expectation that his films must garner a certain healthy box office take—especially in regards to science fiction. But Nolan was staying away from the typical man-made doomsday scenario that most writers guided by Obst would typically be comfortable with. If not for the profit motive, the dinner meeting would not have occurred at Caltech with any purpose but for scientist to talk about what projects they were working on.

The result of the dinner was the type of blight that is known in the science world as a lethal generalist blight that would run rampant over the earth consuming the oxygen humans need to breathe. As the atmosphere is 80 percent nitrogen and the lethal blight feeds off of nitrogen it has an endless supply of nutrients for its parasitic destruction of plant life. The byproduct of the Interstellar blight is CO2 which of course is a byproduct of human breathing which would gradually consume the oxygen in our atmosphere slowly killing everyone who depends on oxygen to live. But before arriving at that conclusion many scenarios were discussed, such as an AIDS virus that could quickly evolve into a far more contagious form that was airborne. Another scenario proposed by Leadbetter was that people might panic due to global warming and fertilize the oceans to produce algae that would eat much of the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide via photosynthesis. This could be done by throwing a lot of iron into the oceans to help feed algae growth. However this massive growth might then kill off all the fish and plant life starving humans from the rich food supply there. Another proposal by Meyerowitz contemplated that ultraviolet light streaming through our atmosphere’s ozone hole could mutate an enormous bloom of algae growth creating new pathogens that would again wipe out plant life in the oceans then jump on land to do the same. All those are interesting ideas, but also point to the dangers of not having a screenwriter like Jonathan Nolan who came up with a strong premise that actually made these scientists think. Typically, what would have happened is that a clueless screenwriter enamored by the nice meal and wine at such dinners would do whatever the scientists proposed and hoping to get another writing job, would kiss the ass of Obst. This would have taken Interstellar’s plot and made it into something like The Day after Tomorrow or some other cheap environmentally charged message film that would falter at the box office because it does not speak to the core of the American film audience—rather just the fringe government driven scientists at universities.

If the faculty at Caltech was more attached to capitalism instead of government driven socialism discussions like the one that took place for Interstellar would take place all the time and be aimed at more profitable measures—which would be a great thing. Instead of brilliant scientists like Thorne, and the others sitting around at the Anthenaeum contemplating the universe as they wait for tax payers to funnel money through the government to arrive at their science experiments, the goals of such discussions under capitalist endeavor would be to align profit with science to arrive at a new market—and therefore a new human creation. There needs to be a lot less government involved in those types of meetings and a lot more capitalism. It is only because of Jonathan Nolan and later his brother Christopher that Interstellar took a unique approach that pushed scientific validity to a level that was unusual for a big screen film produced by the studio system. And if such endeavors could do wonders for a simple movie, just think what they could do if private enterprise was more engaged directly with the likes of Thorne, Leadbetter, and Meyerowitz.

Rich Hoffman

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