“Some people might say that’s a sign, a synchronicity. I might be one of those people.”
Synchronicity is one of the big reasons why Atheism was brought into existence. When people are told there is no order to existence, people stop looking for order and simply follow orders.
For those who molded society into their own, eg, Technocrats, Billionaires, Royalty, etc, from them, all signs of spirituality and synchronicity had to be removed so that THEIR order would reign supreme.
Tried to see the comet last night. It was chilly and clear here, and it's a very flat horizon. But though Venus was bright as a beacon in the west, no comet graced the sceme.
It was barely visible to the naked eye. The best days were middle of last week actually. A pair of binoculars made it easy to see. I have star gazing binoculars though
As the kind of verso of the page you've been discussing, and in fairness, something important happened yesterday, and I think your readers need to know about it.
When Andrew Sullivan got ridden out of New York Magazine on a rail for deviating from orthodoxy I subscribed to the now for fee "Dish" in solidarity. For a year. Rarely read it. (Please.) But I do get it every week in my in-box though without the opportunity to read all of it or comment. Yesterday Sullivan led with "Rachel Levine Must Resign". It's all about how the Johns Hopkins trans study got cooked--buried really--in the interests of denying the existence of any biological basis for male or female--all in the interests of mutilating children. With Levine behind it. There's a condensed symbol for you. Sullivan says he's seriously considering his vote for Harris as a result. As he should. As everybody ready to vote blue should, because they've been highjacked by lying nihilists.
For some months your agent has been saying in these boxes--I don't comment in any other--that I am waiting with some degree of impatience for some prominent gay pundit to denounce this horror for what it is. Well, here it is. Intellectual integrity is far rarer a quality than you'd think--it's one of the reasons that Orwell retains his appeal even for people like me who agree with him on little. Well, voila'. It deserves to be extolled and celebrated.
Good for Sullivan. And here is the time for me to state I also will probably not vote for Harris. But will also not vote for Trump, who is also a bridge too far. I am strongly leaning toward the American Solidarity Party- and they are on the ballot in Florida.
The presidential candidate for the ASP spoke earlier this year close to my home. Having nothing better to do that night, I stopped by and became part of an audience of about 20. After most the others departed, he graciously entertained my questions one-on-one for about 20 minutes.
ASP strikes me as a thought experiment of what would an "all the things" Catholic political party look like. Thus, viewed through a traditional Republican or Democratic lens, one might sympathize with up to half the platform and dismiss much of the rest.
I'm generally interested in learning about attempts to forge a 'third way', but ASP is an exercise in idealism whereas politics is about what can practically be done. I recall here WFB Jr's quip that he was interested in the party that most closely aligned with his beliefs that could "actually be elected". That said, I understand 'protest votes'; I refused to vote for either Trump or Hillary in 2016.
I don't know: I think that socially conservative and economically progressive is where a critical mass of Americans are actually at, and that the ASP reflects that far better than either the Republicans or Democrats. The platform is full Catholic social teaching, yes, but it's also more or less like what used to be called Christian Democrat in Europe, and it strikes me as less idealism than common sense. The only reason they "can't win" is because our system as it stands makes it impossible for anyone but the two major parties to ever win. I think they'd be set to take a substantial share in a parliamentary system.
The deservedly respected Mr Iacobuzio having invoked Orwell, I carry on a two comment tradition by noting Orwell's essay about pacifists in wartime Britain. He observed something simple: these self regarding people ( my evaluation ) who believed they were serving their own consciences were undeniably harming the British war effort. Each pacifist meant one fewer soldier or civilian support worker.
This is so obvious it embarrasses me to write it, but if the ASP had the chance to win which Ross Perot actually had in 1992 before he revealed himself to be psychotic, a vote for the ASP would be commendable. But here I happily invoke another cliche: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
As I said to a friend the other evening, I would rather have a clever pirate than a cipher who, if she does have policy instincts, we can expect to be malefic.
I have some bones I could pick with the ASP platform which is long on vast generalities and lacking in real world nuance. But that describes party platform in general: bombast over practicality. I don't think I've been in foot stomping agreement with any platform ever.
Harris strikes me as a vapid dilettante, and my main worry would be her unsteady hand could lead to disaster on foreign policy. Though I have that fear about Trump too- as well as the fact that I regard him as malefic and a dire bad influence on otherwise good people, appealing to the worser angels of their nature, affirming all seven day sins in his MAGA fandom.
I suppose you can say I did vote for her in 2020 as VP as at that point I wanted Donald Trump gone and Biden was the sort of old-fashioned Democrat I could vote for, with a bit of nose holding.
We were able to see the comet Monday evening right outside of ATL. It was faint but better visible after taking a photo and expanding it. For an 80,000-year phenomenon, we’ll take it!
In a way, it feels like we are coming to an end of an age. The cult of progress, that had its roots in the monetization of the world in the age of exploration, and then got a huge shot in the arm with the various “positive thinking” cults, all of which preached a mystical mastery of material transactions, are not sustainable. The world where finance drives everything is beginning to fail. How can you sustain a culture based on progress and growth, where there is no more ability to progress and no more room to grow?
Some may be familiar with Fermi’s paradox. It has been a while since I looked at it, but one point is that we may have not had contact with other civilizations because it is physically impossible to travel practically to other stars. Science fiction is the ultimate expression of the cult of progress. Hence, a stronger argument for UFOs being of supernatural origin.
The cult of progress hits a dead end and people think in other places and old things begin to reassert themselves. I won’t say that we are living in the end times, but I will say that I won’t be surprised if we are. Where do you go when there is no place else to go? The old becomes new.
I disagree about UFOs. Just because they are unlikely to be from other worlds does not make them supernatural. That's very much a false dichotomy. They may also be misunderstood natural phenomena of various sorts.
Money has always made the world go round and that will not change this side of the Parousia.
Sorry, Jon, this is cope. I am fairly convinced that this is an occult phenomenon, but I don’t know for sure. But whatever it is, it is nothing “natural” in the sense I think you mean. There are many serious people working intensely on this topic, ppl who are not eccentrics or weirdos. Until a year ago, I didn’t know about this stuff, because I didn’t care, and I figured this was a topic for weirdos and eccentrics. I was prejudiced and wrong.
It certainly seems like there's more UFO-related stuff floating around the interwebs lately (I confess to being a skeptical fan of such things) that seems to be legit. Yes, some can be explained away, especially since we're tossing more and more stuff into orbit. But other stuff? Yeesh, unless state-level technology is orders of magnitude more advanced than what we think it is, there's some truly bizarre things zipping around the skies. Demons? Interdimensional visitors? Who the hell knows? You keep looking for comets and you might be very surprised by what you see!
The account of undergrads seeking to make contact with Greek gods reminded me of the anecdote at the start of T.M. Luhrmann's Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft, where someone starts his work in wicca by sacrificing to Zeus.
I am very excited to receive my copy of Living in Wonder. The synchronicity of the recent comet arrival coinciding with the book release is amazing! And, I am positive Living in Wonder book readers will also become aware of the world of unseen comets, not just those comets that manifest their ghostly spiritual presence.
Psalm 96:5 (NKJV): 5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
But the Lord made the heavens.
For us Catholic Trads, that verse is in psalm 95:5 of the DRV (your readers will no doubt be aware of the variations of psalm numbering) but instead of the word “idols”, there in Douai Rheims is the word “devils”. So tell that college fellow to warn his friends about taking on pagan gods as patrons.
You know who loved Olympus? Hitler. He said no German should be afraid to offer a sacrifice to Zeus. And you know about Goebbels and the Olympic torch, right? Hitler was also a fan of Islam, as a warrior's religion, unlike mushy semitic Christianity.
There was a strain of neo-Paganism in the European right-wing, though.
In addition, something that's forgotten today is the admiration of many extreme-conservative European intellectuals for Islam in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A handful actually converted. Thomas Carlyle, who fell out with Christianity due to the churches' support for abolition of slavery, was very pro-Islamic, and toyed with the idea of conversion. Both Churchill and Kipling clearly preferred Islam to Hinduism. There was also the influence of T.E. Lawrence.
It's forgotten now, but in the 40s and 50s it was mainly the Left that was pro-Israel and the Right that was pro-Arab. Israel was about socialism and progress. Conservatives admired the masculinity of Arabs, riding across the desert on camels and so on.
There does seem to have been something along those lines going on with T.E. Lawrence. He was bisexual and into BDSM, and seems to have been, er, conflicted about his feelings after being gang-raped in prison in Damascus. Not the goats, though!
I believe that a hatred of the feminine is at the core of Islam, and that a kinky S&M dynamic is Islam’s degraded notion of love—both between Eve and Adam, and between humans and God. At least the dude left the innocent goats alone, though. He’s got that much to plead at St. Peter’s gate.
All the very best for the book launch. You've worn your heart on your sleeve these last few years and I can't think of anyone more deserving of the acclaim you are getting already for this new book.
I am sure that your God given gifts as a writer will open the eyes of so many more people. Thank you for being a witness to the power of God in your life and for introducing me to so many other kindred spirits. Reading sure does help you hang on to the truth if your local culture is increasingly divorced from it.
I really do believe that something radically good is happening, despite the nihilistic view conjured up by the secular opinion framers. And your Faith and Hope in action have been no small part in that. Thank you.
Douthat: [Living in Wonder is] partly a how-to guide for seekers after the more mystical relationship to reality that most human societies have enjoyed but ours has unwisely amputated. But it’s also a collection of anecdata about the persistence of enchantment even under allegedly disenchanted conditions, the supernatural happenings that flower constantly in our notionally secularized world.
This is a critical juncture in high relief. His further remark about young women "adopting" Greek deities as "spiritual allies" is, in my opinion, an aspect of popular culture: people attach to and/or affiliate with icons (and when I say "popular", just look at Taylor Swift, and a long list of celebrities before her) as sources of comfort and bolstering their self-esteem. Personal note: this is the exact definition of the Trump worship phenomenon, and I'd be very grateful for an objective look at it by certain people (ahem, Rod).
Many culturally embedded religions have what Pagans call spirit guides. This is the original phenomenon by which those cultures strengthen their connections to their spirit worlds -- their ongoing enchantment! -- and it serves to strengthen their cultures in ways we struggle to understand.
As I recall, anthropologists call this intermediation. It has many forms. Jesus Christ is the ultimate intermediary for Christians. One of the Pope's titles is Vicar of Christ. "Vicar" is a term for clerics in the Church of England. Shaman's are both guides and protectors. When institutionalized religions have [Douthat] "unwisely amputated" enchantment, the existing human intermediaries begin to lose their effectiveness.
Final personal note: take a very close look at why Tolkien's Middle Earth is so poignantly attractive to so many people. He brought enchantment to the written page from a very Christian starting point.
"about young women "adopting" Greek deities as "spiritual allies" is, in my opinion, an aspect of popular culture"
There's something to that. Greek myth has long been in the background of Western popular culture whether it's Jupiter (Zeus) intervening in Shakespeare's "Cymbeline", Victorian Brits exclaiming "By Jove!" or "Clash of the Titans" films, etc.
However, they've inevitably been sanitized from their ancient depictions e.g. Apollo's flaying a satyr alive for challenging him to a music contest, arbitrarily killings as the "Distant Archer" and ubiquitous rapes are rather underplayed.
The only "cure" for that sanitization (excellent term) is reading Homer and the Greek playwrights in direct transaltion. The Greco-Roman pantheons were all deities with feet of clay, in my opinion a reflection of the lives of the believers.
Well, one of the achievements of the Church was to denature the Olympians from gods and goddesses to aspects of humanity and nature (which of course they always were) and thus save the pagan literature that survived for later generations. If Augustine had his way (maybe Jerome) we simply would have forgotten about Olympus, which would have been an immeasurable loss in my view.
At the very opening of The City of God Augustine taunts the Romans with one of the most beautiful verses of the Aeneid, where in book vi Anchises states the Romans' mission as "to war down the proud, and spare the lowly". I always think of this when I think of "all men are created equal" and what the U.S. has come to mean on the world stage.
Once the pagan gods are downgraded to psychological phenomena, that entire imaginative trove becomes available to literature—which, aside from the sheer aesthetic value, also provides artists with cover to explore themes that would be considered forbidden or blasphemous or at least too edgy if Christian figures were involved. So it's a win all around.
I'm an independent theater producer. My short resume includes two plays of note.
The Midlife Crisis of Dionysus, by Garrison Keillor. I loved listening to him telling stories on his radio show "A Prairie Home Companion". His distinctive voice echoes in this play, and his humor as well as his insights to the human condition were sublime.
Electra, by Euripides. This was my first deep dive into the Greek playwrights. We superficially adapted it (performed outside, Electra was banished to a trailer park instead of a farm, etc.), but the director/adapter was faithful to the translated text. The playwrights are our window into the hearts, minds and souls of the ancient Greeks. The play is the culmination of the story of the family of Agamemnon, who lead his army to the siege and sack of Troy. It is tragic, but it is also quite relevant to our times.
OK, so that's the myths straight-up. What about Greco-Roman stories / plays where mythical characters guest star as devices?
In view of your earlier 'denatured' comment I imagine you and his sainted Eminence would see the satire in Lucian's "Sale of the Philosophers", laugh at Aristophanes "Clouds" and sympathize with Antigone's dilemma.
Not being as much of a scholar of early Christian writers as I would like to be, I am grateful for your comment and insight.
The Greeks and Romans feared their gods quite as much as they loved them. Deities we might think of as benign -- mostly on the feminine side, Hera, Aphrodite, Athena -- were also feared in some ways. From my (ahem, lofty) perspective these millennia later, I see those pantheons as reflections of humanity for a very good reason: they were the conduits to understanding Nature in times when natural phenomena were mostly badly understood, and themselves were a source of fear.
Among the Greek pantheon, I was first thinking that Hera might be the one more sinned against than sinning, as her wayward husband is king of the gods, limiting her recourse.
Then again, on second thought, this gave her a nasty streak as Zeus' often 'involuntary lovers' learned to their cost. Not able to directly strike her husband, his playthings felt her wrath.
Andrew Klavan's book, "The Great Good Thing," was an absolutely stellar journey. I began reading it a fortuitous time, too, and on hindsight, I see God's hand in it. I was struggling with few things internally that God was working me through. My mother had just died and I was having to do everything myself in dealing with it (oh, and my first case of COVID came along a little later.) I had been prayerfully picked to be one of the students in Church On The Rock's School of Ministry inaugural year. And I fully began reading this book when we were on our missionary trip to NYC, my first. Reading about Klavan's journey to the Lord underlined the one I was on. I had been in a relationship with the Lord for a long time, but I realized that my walk was "sole deep" for most of my life. As I got up early in the morning before my fellow missionaries, reading God's Word, alternating with Klavan's book, I began turning towards the Lord in way that I never have before. And now, that I made it through my latest class for my MDiv and am about to begin the first class dealing directly with chaplain stuff, this is getting real.
Wow - Tee. I just went to Amazon to check out "The Great Good Thing" on your recommendation. I do not know why, but it is $1.99 on Kindle. (Bought, of course. And hope to finish before the big day, October 22, when shall be reading something else. )
To follow-up on Linda's reply, based on your comment I also went to Amazon to check out "The Great Good Thing". Except I also checked availability at my local library and saw I'd be first in line to get it for free. Money talks, even only a $1.99 :-)
The important point is I'll soon be reading the book. Might not finish it before Oct 22 but I often multi-task my reading.
Very cool! When I last had a local USA library, they just did not carry much of what would be considered conservative , or very much of Christian books. (Yes, I know one can make requests - I tried once but nothing.) Anyway, twelve Andrew Klavan books are available, all secular. I still have e-book access based on that library, but I am rarely spared the Kindle price, since so little I want to read is available from that source.
In re: occult/pagan practices among the young. I've written here before about how often the Mrs. and I see this in Chicagoland, albeit with varying degrees of seriousness among practitioners.
Just yesterday, we heard yet again another 20-something mention how her new office should "saged" for good luck. We've heard so many people casually say they've saged this or that I'm not sure it qualifies as intent to achieve anything spiritual - seems to have moved into a mere pop culture thing, like non-Christians who celebrate Christmas for the gift giving or Valentine's Day.
However, young ladies embracing Greek deities as familiars at a Southern Baptist college was not on my bingo card; that's a new one for me.
I confess, I sage things. Before my conversion, I did it in more of a trendy way, but, now, I use it as part of blessing a space. I try and use sage from my garden when I can. There is great power in nature, after all, God creates it.
Remember the two bunches of flowers? One didn't wither? The one in holy water. I didn't want to spoil things, but holy water has a tiny bit of salt added, which may have helped the flowers live longer. Yes, God did make nature. Newman said the oil of St. Walburga's well, which Kingsley taunted him with, was maybe on the border of nature and supernature.
I don't believe we add anything to the water in the Orthodox Church. I've been at Water Blessings many times; we just ladle into our bottles & jars and take it home. We not only sprinkle things with it, with prayer, we also drink it, with prayer.
Rod indeed bid me metaphorically to "Look for Comets" in the dedication of my early copy of "Living in Wonder" and I shall attempt to do so literally tonight, Chicagoland light pollution permitting.
Congratulations on the wonderful press that your new book is generating. I’m pleased to report that here in the belly of the beast (the Hamptons) I was able to order a copy from my local bookstore. Will be seeing Mr. Kingsnorth deliver the Erasmus Lecture later this month. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the important contribution you are making to our troubled but beautiful world.
“Some people might say that’s a sign, a synchronicity. I might be one of those people.”
Synchronicity is one of the big reasons why Atheism was brought into existence. When people are told there is no order to existence, people stop looking for order and simply follow orders.
For those who molded society into their own, eg, Technocrats, Billionaires, Royalty, etc, from them, all signs of spirituality and synchronicity had to be removed so that THEIR order would reign supreme.
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-reality-of-magic
Glad you’re seeing the synchronicity in things and best of luck in your endeavors!
Excellent point (I would quibble about Atheism being "brought into existence", but I'm glad to stipulate it), and excellent use of Jung's term.
Tried to see the comet last night. It was chilly and clear here, and it's a very flat horizon. But though Venus was bright as a beacon in the west, no comet graced the sceme.
There are so many people who Look but never See. Know what I mean? God has given us (free of charge) The Most Wonderful, Magical place to live.
It was barely visible to the naked eye. The best days were middle of last week actually. A pair of binoculars made it easy to see. I have star gazing binoculars though
All best wishes.
As the kind of verso of the page you've been discussing, and in fairness, something important happened yesterday, and I think your readers need to know about it.
When Andrew Sullivan got ridden out of New York Magazine on a rail for deviating from orthodoxy I subscribed to the now for fee "Dish" in solidarity. For a year. Rarely read it. (Please.) But I do get it every week in my in-box though without the opportunity to read all of it or comment. Yesterday Sullivan led with "Rachel Levine Must Resign". It's all about how the Johns Hopkins trans study got cooked--buried really--in the interests of denying the existence of any biological basis for male or female--all in the interests of mutilating children. With Levine behind it. There's a condensed symbol for you. Sullivan says he's seriously considering his vote for Harris as a result. As he should. As everybody ready to vote blue should, because they've been highjacked by lying nihilists.
For some months your agent has been saying in these boxes--I don't comment in any other--that I am waiting with some degree of impatience for some prominent gay pundit to denounce this horror for what it is. Well, here it is. Intellectual integrity is far rarer a quality than you'd think--it's one of the reasons that Orwell retains his appeal even for people like me who agree with him on little. Well, voila'. It deserves to be extolled and celebrated.
Good for Sullivan. And here is the time for me to state I also will probably not vote for Harris. But will also not vote for Trump, who is also a bridge too far. I am strongly leaning toward the American Solidarity Party- and they are on the ballot in Florida.
The presidential candidate for the ASP spoke earlier this year close to my home. Having nothing better to do that night, I stopped by and became part of an audience of about 20. After most the others departed, he graciously entertained my questions one-on-one for about 20 minutes.
ASP strikes me as a thought experiment of what would an "all the things" Catholic political party look like. Thus, viewed through a traditional Republican or Democratic lens, one might sympathize with up to half the platform and dismiss much of the rest.
I'm generally interested in learning about attempts to forge a 'third way', but ASP is an exercise in idealism whereas politics is about what can practically be done. I recall here WFB Jr's quip that he was interested in the party that most closely aligned with his beliefs that could "actually be elected". That said, I understand 'protest votes'; I refused to vote for either Trump or Hillary in 2016.
I don't know: I think that socially conservative and economically progressive is where a critical mass of Americans are actually at, and that the ASP reflects that far better than either the Republicans or Democrats. The platform is full Catholic social teaching, yes, but it's also more or less like what used to be called Christian Democrat in Europe, and it strikes me as less idealism than common sense. The only reason they "can't win" is because our system as it stands makes it impossible for anyone but the two major parties to ever win. I think they'd be set to take a substantial share in a parliamentary system.
The deservedly respected Mr Iacobuzio having invoked Orwell, I carry on a two comment tradition by noting Orwell's essay about pacifists in wartime Britain. He observed something simple: these self regarding people ( my evaluation ) who believed they were serving their own consciences were undeniably harming the British war effort. Each pacifist meant one fewer soldier or civilian support worker.
This is so obvious it embarrasses me to write it, but if the ASP had the chance to win which Ross Perot actually had in 1992 before he revealed himself to be psychotic, a vote for the ASP would be commendable. But here I happily invoke another cliche: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
As I said to a friend the other evening, I would rather have a clever pirate than a cipher who, if she does have policy instincts, we can expect to be malefic.
I think abstention is an honorable position. Not boutique parties.
I have some bones I could pick with the ASP platform which is long on vast generalities and lacking in real world nuance. But that describes party platform in general: bombast over practicality. I don't think I've been in foot stomping agreement with any platform ever.
Harris strikes me as a vapid dilettante, and my main worry would be her unsteady hand could lead to disaster on foreign policy. Though I have that fear about Trump too- as well as the fact that I regard him as malefic and a dire bad influence on otherwise good people, appealing to the worser angels of their nature, affirming all seven day sins in his MAGA fandom.
You're not going to have much company, Jon. There's chatter out there that her internals are showing her losing Virginia.
In a sentence or less, Jon, why did you consider (or are you) voting for Harris?
I just said I'm not voting for Harris.
I suppose you can say I did vote for her in 2020 as VP as at that point I wanted Donald Trump gone and Biden was the sort of old-fashioned Democrat I could vote for, with a bit of nose holding.
I have things where I disagree w Andrew but gotta say, I think he’s an honest broker about what he says.
We were able to see the comet Monday evening right outside of ATL. It was faint but better visible after taking a photo and expanding it. For an 80,000-year phenomenon, we’ll take it!
In a way, it feels like we are coming to an end of an age. The cult of progress, that had its roots in the monetization of the world in the age of exploration, and then got a huge shot in the arm with the various “positive thinking” cults, all of which preached a mystical mastery of material transactions, are not sustainable. The world where finance drives everything is beginning to fail. How can you sustain a culture based on progress and growth, where there is no more ability to progress and no more room to grow?
Some may be familiar with Fermi’s paradox. It has been a while since I looked at it, but one point is that we may have not had contact with other civilizations because it is physically impossible to travel practically to other stars. Science fiction is the ultimate expression of the cult of progress. Hence, a stronger argument for UFOs being of supernatural origin.
The cult of progress hits a dead end and people think in other places and old things begin to reassert themselves. I won’t say that we are living in the end times, but I will say that I won’t be surprised if we are. Where do you go when there is no place else to go? The old becomes new.
I disagree about UFOs. Just because they are unlikely to be from other worlds does not make them supernatural. That's very much a false dichotomy. They may also be misunderstood natural phenomena of various sorts.
Money has always made the world go round and that will not change this side of the Parousia.
Sorry, Jon, this is cope. I am fairly convinced that this is an occult phenomenon, but I don’t know for sure. But whatever it is, it is nothing “natural” in the sense I think you mean. There are many serious people working intensely on this topic, ppl who are not eccentrics or weirdos. Until a year ago, I didn’t know about this stuff, because I didn’t care, and I figured this was a topic for weirdos and eccentrics. I was prejudiced and wrong.
It certainly seems like there's more UFO-related stuff floating around the interwebs lately (I confess to being a skeptical fan of such things) that seems to be legit. Yes, some can be explained away, especially since we're tossing more and more stuff into orbit. But other stuff? Yeesh, unless state-level technology is orders of magnitude more advanced than what we think it is, there's some truly bizarre things zipping around the skies. Demons? Interdimensional visitors? Who the hell knows? You keep looking for comets and you might be very surprised by what you see!
The account of undergrads seeking to make contact with Greek gods reminded me of the anecdote at the start of T.M. Luhrmann's Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft, where someone starts his work in wicca by sacrificing to Zeus.
Luhrmann is an incredible read
I am very excited to receive my copy of Living in Wonder. The synchronicity of the recent comet arrival coinciding with the book release is amazing! And, I am positive Living in Wonder book readers will also become aware of the world of unseen comets, not just those comets that manifest their ghostly spiritual presence.
Amazing! Thanks for sharing all the news. Ephesians 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than you ask or imagine!
Psalm 96:5 (NKJV): 5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
But the Lord made the heavens.
For us Catholic Trads, that verse is in psalm 95:5 of the DRV (your readers will no doubt be aware of the variations of psalm numbering) but instead of the word “idols”, there in Douai Rheims is the word “devils”. So tell that college fellow to warn his friends about taking on pagan gods as patrons.
You know who loved Olympus? Hitler. He said no German should be afraid to offer a sacrifice to Zeus. And you know about Goebbels and the Olympic torch, right? Hitler was also a fan of Islam, as a warrior's religion, unlike mushy semitic Christianity.
You know who loved puppies? . . .
There was a strain of neo-Paganism in the European right-wing, though.
In addition, something that's forgotten today is the admiration of many extreme-conservative European intellectuals for Islam in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A handful actually converted. Thomas Carlyle, who fell out with Christianity due to the churches' support for abolition of slavery, was very pro-Islamic, and toyed with the idea of conversion. Both Churchill and Kipling clearly preferred Islam to Hinduism. There was also the influence of T.E. Lawrence.
It's forgotten now, but in the 40s and 50s it was mainly the Left that was pro-Israel and the Right that was pro-Arab. Israel was about socialism and progress. Conservatives admired the masculinity of Arabs, riding across the desert on camels and so on.
My first, giggling reaction is that the last line sounds gay. Maybe these “conservatives” also gazed longingly at goats.
There does seem to have been something along those lines going on with T.E. Lawrence. He was bisexual and into BDSM, and seems to have been, er, conflicted about his feelings after being gang-raped in prison in Damascus. Not the goats, though!
I believe that a hatred of the feminine is at the core of Islam, and that a kinky S&M dynamic is Islam’s degraded notion of love—both between Eve and Adam, and between humans and God. At least the dude left the innocent goats alone, though. He’s got that much to plead at St. Peter’s gate.
Except the Soviets emerged as the Arabs patron pretty early on.
Islam is not semitic?
I was waiting for somebody to catch me on that. Compared with Judaism, which is far more tribal, no. But I take your point.
All the very best for the book launch. You've worn your heart on your sleeve these last few years and I can't think of anyone more deserving of the acclaim you are getting already for this new book.
I am sure that your God given gifts as a writer will open the eyes of so many more people. Thank you for being a witness to the power of God in your life and for introducing me to so many other kindred spirits. Reading sure does help you hang on to the truth if your local culture is increasingly divorced from it.
I really do believe that something radically good is happening, despite the nihilistic view conjured up by the secular opinion framers. And your Faith and Hope in action have been no small part in that. Thank you.
Douthat: [Living in Wonder is] partly a how-to guide for seekers after the more mystical relationship to reality that most human societies have enjoyed but ours has unwisely amputated. But it’s also a collection of anecdata about the persistence of enchantment even under allegedly disenchanted conditions, the supernatural happenings that flower constantly in our notionally secularized world.
This is a critical juncture in high relief. His further remark about young women "adopting" Greek deities as "spiritual allies" is, in my opinion, an aspect of popular culture: people attach to and/or affiliate with icons (and when I say "popular", just look at Taylor Swift, and a long list of celebrities before her) as sources of comfort and bolstering their self-esteem. Personal note: this is the exact definition of the Trump worship phenomenon, and I'd be very grateful for an objective look at it by certain people (ahem, Rod).
Many culturally embedded religions have what Pagans call spirit guides. This is the original phenomenon by which those cultures strengthen their connections to their spirit worlds -- their ongoing enchantment! -- and it serves to strengthen their cultures in ways we struggle to understand.
As I recall, anthropologists call this intermediation. It has many forms. Jesus Christ is the ultimate intermediary for Christians. One of the Pope's titles is Vicar of Christ. "Vicar" is a term for clerics in the Church of England. Shaman's are both guides and protectors. When institutionalized religions have [Douthat] "unwisely amputated" enchantment, the existing human intermediaries begin to lose their effectiveness.
Final personal note: take a very close look at why Tolkien's Middle Earth is so poignantly attractive to so many people. He brought enchantment to the written page from a very Christian starting point.
"about young women "adopting" Greek deities as "spiritual allies" is, in my opinion, an aspect of popular culture"
There's something to that. Greek myth has long been in the background of Western popular culture whether it's Jupiter (Zeus) intervening in Shakespeare's "Cymbeline", Victorian Brits exclaiming "By Jove!" or "Clash of the Titans" films, etc.
However, they've inevitably been sanitized from their ancient depictions e.g. Apollo's flaying a satyr alive for challenging him to a music contest, arbitrarily killings as the "Distant Archer" and ubiquitous rapes are rather underplayed.
Well-said about Tolkien there at the end.
The only "cure" for that sanitization (excellent term) is reading Homer and the Greek playwrights in direct transaltion. The Greco-Roman pantheons were all deities with feet of clay, in my opinion a reflection of the lives of the believers.
Agreed. Their deities are steeped in human vices; they're just "bigger" and more powereful.
Well, one of the achievements of the Church was to denature the Olympians from gods and goddesses to aspects of humanity and nature (which of course they always were) and thus save the pagan literature that survived for later generations. If Augustine had his way (maybe Jerome) we simply would have forgotten about Olympus, which would have been an immeasurable loss in my view.
At the very opening of The City of God Augustine taunts the Romans with one of the most beautiful verses of the Aeneid, where in book vi Anchises states the Romans' mission as "to war down the proud, and spare the lowly". I always think of this when I think of "all men are created equal" and what the U.S. has come to mean on the world stage.
"an immeasurable loss"
Once the pagan gods are downgraded to psychological phenomena, that entire imaginative trove becomes available to literature—which, aside from the sheer aesthetic value, also provides artists with cover to explore themes that would be considered forbidden or blasphemous or at least too edgy if Christian figures were involved. So it's a win all around.
I'm an independent theater producer. My short resume includes two plays of note.
The Midlife Crisis of Dionysus, by Garrison Keillor. I loved listening to him telling stories on his radio show "A Prairie Home Companion". His distinctive voice echoes in this play, and his humor as well as his insights to the human condition were sublime.
Electra, by Euripides. This was my first deep dive into the Greek playwrights. We superficially adapted it (performed outside, Electra was banished to a trailer park instead of a farm, etc.), but the director/adapter was faithful to the translated text. The playwrights are our window into the hearts, minds and souls of the ancient Greeks. The play is the culmination of the story of the family of Agamemnon, who lead his army to the siege and sack of Troy. It is tragic, but it is also quite relevant to our times.
Newman said the Greek myths bore the same relation to revealed truth as dreams to waking reality.
OK, so that's the myths straight-up. What about Greco-Roman stories / plays where mythical characters guest star as devices?
In view of your earlier 'denatured' comment I imagine you and his sainted Eminence would see the satire in Lucian's "Sale of the Philosophers", laugh at Aristophanes "Clouds" and sympathize with Antigone's dilemma.
Not being as much of a scholar of early Christian writers as I would like to be, I am grateful for your comment and insight.
The Greeks and Romans feared their gods quite as much as they loved them. Deities we might think of as benign -- mostly on the feminine side, Hera, Aphrodite, Athena -- were also feared in some ways. From my (ahem, lofty) perspective these millennia later, I see those pantheons as reflections of humanity for a very good reason: they were the conduits to understanding Nature in times when natural phenomena were mostly badly understood, and themselves were a source of fear.
I'm no scholar.
Compared to me you are. Again, thanks. 😄
Among the Greek pantheon, I was first thinking that Hera might be the one more sinned against than sinning, as her wayward husband is king of the gods, limiting her recourse.
Then again, on second thought, this gave her a nasty streak as Zeus' often 'involuntary lovers' learned to their cost. Not able to directly strike her husband, his playthings felt her wrath.
Andrew Klavan's book, "The Great Good Thing," was an absolutely stellar journey. I began reading it a fortuitous time, too, and on hindsight, I see God's hand in it. I was struggling with few things internally that God was working me through. My mother had just died and I was having to do everything myself in dealing with it (oh, and my first case of COVID came along a little later.) I had been prayerfully picked to be one of the students in Church On The Rock's School of Ministry inaugural year. And I fully began reading this book when we were on our missionary trip to NYC, my first. Reading about Klavan's journey to the Lord underlined the one I was on. I had been in a relationship with the Lord for a long time, but I realized that my walk was "sole deep" for most of my life. As I got up early in the morning before my fellow missionaries, reading God's Word, alternating with Klavan's book, I began turning towards the Lord in way that I never have before. And now, that I made it through my latest class for my MDiv and am about to begin the first class dealing directly with chaplain stuff, this is getting real.
Wow - Tee. I just went to Amazon to check out "The Great Good Thing" on your recommendation. I do not know why, but it is $1.99 on Kindle. (Bought, of course. And hope to finish before the big day, October 22, when shall be reading something else. )
To follow-up on Linda's reply, based on your comment I also went to Amazon to check out "The Great Good Thing". Except I also checked availability at my local library and saw I'd be first in line to get it for free. Money talks, even only a $1.99 :-)
The important point is I'll soon be reading the book. Might not finish it before Oct 22 but I often multi-task my reading.
Very cool! When I last had a local USA library, they just did not carry much of what would be considered conservative , or very much of Christian books. (Yes, I know one can make requests - I tried once but nothing.) Anyway, twelve Andrew Klavan books are available, all secular. I still have e-book access based on that library, but I am rarely spared the Kindle price, since so little I want to read is available from that source.
In re: occult/pagan practices among the young. I've written here before about how often the Mrs. and I see this in Chicagoland, albeit with varying degrees of seriousness among practitioners.
Just yesterday, we heard yet again another 20-something mention how her new office should "saged" for good luck. We've heard so many people casually say they've saged this or that I'm not sure it qualifies as intent to achieve anything spiritual - seems to have moved into a mere pop culture thing, like non-Christians who celebrate Christmas for the gift giving or Valentine's Day.
However, young ladies embracing Greek deities as familiars at a Southern Baptist college was not on my bingo card; that's a new one for me.
I confess, I sage things. Before my conversion, I did it in more of a trendy way, but, now, I use it as part of blessing a space. I try and use sage from my garden when I can. There is great power in nature, after all, God creates it.
Remember the two bunches of flowers? One didn't wither? The one in holy water. I didn't want to spoil things, but holy water has a tiny bit of salt added, which may have helped the flowers live longer. Yes, God did make nature. Newman said the oil of St. Walburga's well, which Kingsley taunted him with, was maybe on the border of nature and supernature.
I didn’t know that about holy water. I wonder if it’s a little like putting a penny in the water with a bunch of tulips to make them last longer?
I don't believe we add anything to the water in the Orthodox Church. I've been at Water Blessings many times; we just ladle into our bottles & jars and take it home. We not only sprinkle things with it, with prayer, we also drink it, with prayer.
Dana
I know adding a tiny bit of sugar to water helps flowers last longer, but had not heard that say would do the same?
I often burn white sage incense by the altar in my icon corner.
I make a mean roasted chicken with sage. Does that count?
Sure, poultry is one of the most sensible uses of sage.
Rod indeed bid me metaphorically to "Look for Comets" in the dedication of my early copy of "Living in Wonder" and I shall attempt to do so literally tonight, Chicagoland light pollution permitting.
Congratulations on the wonderful press that your new book is generating. I’m pleased to report that here in the belly of the beast (the Hamptons) I was able to order a copy from my local bookstore. Will be seeing Mr. Kingsnorth deliver the Erasmus Lecture later this month. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the important contribution you are making to our troubled but beautiful world.
Be lovin me your Brunhilde ornament.
> wild stories of mystical bedazzlement and demonic derring-do
I love your writing, am so happy for your book release, and excited to get my copy in the mail. Congratulations and good luck.