The intentionality of consciousness toward objects would not in itself lead to fallacious images of reality if man’s participation were automatic, producing in consciousness correct images of reality and nothing beyond that. Consciousness has a dimension of freedom, however, as it designs its images of reality. In this dimension are found such disparate phenomena as … private worldviews of the liberal bourgeois, and constructions of ideological systems. Within this wide range of problems we are here directly concerned only with the possibility of the separation of form and contents of reality, for it is in separation that the phenomena of the loss of reality originate.
Eric Voegelin, “What is Political Reality?”
Many Americans, especially politicians, suffer from a form of insanity. They continue to turn a blind eye to the military preparations of Russia and China. These preparations should be front and center, but they are not. The attentive citizen glimpses the danger out of the corner of one eye, now and again. A series of “little” warnings trickle in from abroad. For example: “Japanese official warns U.S. of potential surprise attack on Hawaii – from Russia and China.” More alarming than this, a source in Ukraine (which I will not name) says that Russia’s military has secretly agreed on a price for Mexican cartels to smuggle Russian Spetsnaz commandos across the U.S.-Mexican border. This, of course, is consistent with the following Russian war preparations: “Russian jets practice bombing enemy ships days after threatening to sink HMS Defender amid NATO war games” and “Putin approves new National Security Strategy preparing Russian economy for war.”
Going back to May 8, we read the headline: “China was preparing for a Third World War with biological weapons – including coronavirus – SIX years ago, according to dossier produced by the People’s Liberation Army in 2015 and uncovered by the U.S. State Department.” In early May, according to information acquired from a Hong Kong businessman with contacts in Beijing, the Chinese Communist leadership has been expecting war with the United States within “months” – not years. As if to confirm this information, China is planning for mass conscriptions and for the return of demobilized veterans to active duty. As if to blame the behind-hand United States for all these Russian and Chinese war preparations, Russian news sources are attempting to blame America: See, especially, “US Actively Prepares for War with Russia” | New Eastern Outlook (journal-neo.org).
For those who have been paying close attention, none of this is news. China and Russia were making small telltale war preparations twenty-two years ago. Almost nobody noticed. A thoughtful observer might have understood (back then) the intent behind China’s longstanding stockpiling of gold, or Russia’s extensive underground Urals construction program during the 1990s, or China’s growing interest in places like Panama, the Strait of Malacca and the Cape of Good Hope. Strategy is not a difficult subject if you are willing to dispense with liberal illusions (i.e., belief in the “end of history”) or conservative illusions (“Reagan won the Cold War”). Early indications of Russia’s long-planned military buildup were seen in the testing of new prototype weapons during the Second Chechen War. But who bothered to notice?
Today, we are confronted with a sudden shift in the balance of power. Sadly, this is a fact that the American public has yet to absorb. There has been a massive Russian-Chinese military buildup for many years. We have not matched this build up. We do not seem interested in acknowledging it. The Russians have obtained a strong qualitative edge. The Chinese have increased their forces in quantity and quality. On its side, the United States is unready. Europe is also unready. Australia is showing courage, but cannot stand alone. Japan is trying to fill the gap, but must rely on America. India is ready to join with us. Through all this, despite significant changes in the strategic balance, America’s leaders talk and act as if America is still number one. They are still fixated by the same misbegotten notions, fooled by the same disinformation themes that have plagued our political discourse since the 1960s. To speak plainly, Americans are not living in reality.
Anyone who watched the Democratic Party presidential debates of last year would not know there was a threat from Russia and China. All these presidential hopefuls, from the left side of the spectrum, told the country that the main threat to America was from global warming and Donald Trump. This kind of thinking is literally insane. But tens of millions of Americans bought into this nonsense. Most of the news media fed into it – with the exception of Fox News. After the election, many who thought differently were kicked off Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.com. The call for outright censorship is growing.
We now find ourselves in a ridiculous situation. We live in the most advanced technological society the world has ever seen. We have machines that can do almost everything for us. We have “science” to provide answers. Despite all these advantages we have lost touch with reality. In one of Dr. Carl Jung’s later works, The Undiscovered Self, the old psychiatrist pointed to a growing rift between what modern man thinks and what is real. Linking this problem to a decline in religious belief, Jung warned, “You can always take away man’s gods, but only to give him others in return.” [P. 36]
What does the taking away of the gods have to do with America’s break from reality? As it happens, human beings relate to reality through a big picture narrative that often goes back to Sunday school. Whether we believe in God or not, we tend to believe in something that is the equivalent of God; something that serves the same function as God within the psyche. That something might be very dysfunctional – like believing that you yourself are God.
According to Eric Voegelin and Carl Jung, our present break with political reality owes everything to what Voegelin called “the murder of God” and the assumption of God’s office by totalitarian politicians. As everyone can see, the old Christian teaching has declined. The new secular teaching has taken over. Jung thought the secular psyche was prone to neuroticism. In fact, the secular mind, turning to politics for its ultimate salvation, is headed for a total break with reality; for ultimate salvation can only be spiritual. This veil of tears, this world of “solid” objects and treacherous politicians, has nothing of final salvation in it. Salvation belongs to a non-material dispensation; that is, to the realm of spirit. There is no such thing as worldly salvation except when we are momentarily taken out of danger. Yet danger always returns, and death remains inevitable. The madness of today’s politicians thus appears: Believing there is a secular path to salvation, their policies betray the soul as it leads mankind down a false path, toward false understandings. The spiritual mechanism of man’s psyche is then perverted, looking for God in all the wrong places; that is, in politics – seeking salvation in a “socialist revolution” or the “liberal welfare state” or by transforming one’s tribe into the “the master race.”
These are paths to madness, to mass murder and more. If there is no divine order, if there is no God, then man is alone in the universe. In that event, the world of cause and effect is all that is. How, then, do we escape from the absurdity of existence? The only remaining solution is “the State.” Man becomes God through the mechanism of the State. And it is through state power – through the revolutionary seizure of power – that the Marxists (and other revolutionaries) hope to save mankind. In other words, the Marxist becomes Jesus Christ. Only he is not the one who is crucified. Mankind as a whole is crucified.
The former communist espionage courier, Whittaker Chambers, famously wrote that communism “is not simply a vicious plot hatched by wicked men in a sub-cellar. It is not just the writings of Marx and Lenin … the Politburo, the labor theory of value, the theory of the general strike, the Red Army, secret police, labor camps, [or] underground conspiracy….” No. These, he warned, are merely “expressions of Communism, but they are not what Communism is about.” [P. 8]
Chambers then quoted Marx’s complaint that philosophers merely explained the world; the point is to change the world. Marx wanted to remake the universe (for which human society serves as an analog). One might say, in Marx’s view, God did not create the universe; rather the universe was in the process of creating God out of man.
Whittaker Chambers had a more Biblical way of explaining this. Communism, he said, is man’s second-oldest faith: “Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: ‘Ye shall be as Gods.’ It is the great alternative faith of mankind.” Chambers added, “It is the vision of man’s mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man’s liberated mind, by the sole force of rational intelligence, redirecting man’s destiny and reorganizing man’s life and world.”
But here is the problem: Man’s intelligence is not up to the task. Man cannot become the “creative intelligence of the world.” He cannot remake creation or remake himself. He does not possess the necessary wisdom to play God. Any attempt at such a project is bound to produce fatalities. It is bound to draw man into megalomania – a form of madness brought on by the lust for power. As Othello reacted to the demonic Iago at the end Shakespeare’s play, Carl Jung might have reacted to Marx:
I look down towards his feet; but that’s a fable.
If that thou be’st a devil, I cannot kill thee
The devil, of course, has no feet but cloven hoofs. And Karl Marx, like the villain Iago, was never killed off. Everyone said Marxism died, but it is still in the world, laughing at us. Marx’s ideology, his evil spirit, walks the land. The pious believers in Christ, in God, have not been able to defeat Karl Marx – the demidevil, the antichrist, the breaker of nations. Yes, we lied to ourselves on that score. Communism is not dead.
In 1957 Jung wrote: “Hence, it is quite natural that with the triumph of the Goddess of Reason a general neuroticizing of modern man should set in, a dissociation of personality analogous to the splitting of the world today by the Iron curtain. This boundary line bristling with barbed wire runs through the psyche of modern man, no matter on which side he lives. And just as the typical neurotic is unconscious of his shadow side, so the normal individual, like the neurotic, sees his shadow in his neighbor or in the man beyond the great divide. It has even become a political and social duty to apostrophize the capitalism of the one and the communism of the other as the very devil, so as to fascinate the outward eye and prevent it from looking within.”
Marx said the capitalists were devils. Conservatives and Christians identifed Marx as the devil. Yet the demonomania of modernity has spread to both camps. Of course, there are sincere “humanitarian” socialists, and there are sincere Christians. Yet the mania for power on both sides infects the whole. Just as there are self-aggrandizing socialists, there have been and there will continue to be self-aggrandizing patriots and pious frauds. God made man in His image and “holy” imposters have been trying to return the favor ever since. Indeed, they would have God for their creature, serving as His ventriloquists – by the arts of puppetry.
What we now have is madness on the left and madness on the right. How can humanity escape? The public’s understanding is now so muddled that the whole of humanity has lost its bearings. If the public is not being duped by the Marxists, they are nonetheless ready to vomit up yesterday’s swill about the “banksters,” or the “Illuminati,” or the “Jews” – an ill-digested regurgitation of conspiracy theories that trace every evil deed back to the Rothschilds or the Bilderbergers or to reptiles from Zeta Reticuli. But the common problem, the central problem of the age, is a deficit of soul – and a consequent deficit of reality.
Eric Voegelin wrote about this “loss of reality” in the sphere of politics. But not only in the sphere of politics. After all, we are told that a girl is not a girl and a boy is not a boy; that each can decide to be the other on a whim. Having inverted all identity, have elevated the inferior on a pedestal of envy, the plan is now to breach the walls of a weakened civilization – if only to level that civilization to the ground. And that is exactly where we are headed.
When we hear politicians speak of global warming (or climate change), we are hearing madness. When we hear politicians say that everyone should be vaccinated against COVID-19, even those who have natural immunity, we are hearing madness. When we hear talk of “the end of history” and “the end of the Cold War,” once again, we are hearing something that is completely nuts. But the politicians who have uttered these slogans really do believe in what they are saying. And this is catching up with us. Today’s “loss of reality” in the sphere of politics is going to cause millions of deaths.
A few weeks ago, I had an unpleasant exchange with a retired CIA officer who gasped in outrage when I referred to communism as a problem. “Communism?!” He said with an incredulous ring. “What is communism? Communism is nothing!” Well, I replied, you may think that; but try telling it to the people in China who are living under it. “China is capitalist,” was his mad reply, as if communist-led countries would never use money or engage in trade to advance their schemes. China, therefore, could not be communist in his view.
This former CIA official had confused the final achievement of a communist society, which Marx said would occur only after a successful world revolution, with a society ruled by communists who were trying to bring about that world revolution. In other words, he apparently knew nothing about communist theory, communist objectives, or communist methods of organization. Looking out at the broad world, he did not see a communist threat to America – a threat centered in Beijing and Moscow, a threat from Americans who were following the program of the Communist Party. He only saw corrupt domestic politicians. That, he said, was our only problem. In other words, he had already suffered from a catastrophic “loss of reality.” He could not see the larger problem our civilization faces, and so he could not see reality. A solitary fact is not reality. On its own, it means absolutely nothing. Truth and its meaning require a connection between fact and reality as a whole. If one has no sense of the latter, one cannot make use of the former.
This is the ground of madness: to have only facts and no clue about the larger reality. This is called “not seeing the forest for the trees.” Only by seeing the big picture can we properly grasp the significance of today’s headlines. But who is paying attention? Most of our people have no idea how dangerous the situation has become. Citizens everywhere have long been persuaded by a half century of lies, disinformation, and false narratives. The political reality of the average citizen is no reality at all. What is written on this website, for example, must appear fantastical to the average American. How could some outlier – outside the mainstream media, outside the government – present insights and truths that the mainstream media have missed?
Here is what I say. The mainstream media is mad. Its themes are crazy. Please understand what has happened and what is to come: Our society, our government, our culture, our leaders, were deceived by their enemy. And even now, almost nobody has figured it out. How did the communists fool everyone? They made up a story about communism going away, about the Cold War being over. But it was not over. Communism went underground and now, for those who are beginning to notice, the trap is visibly closing – from Antifa and Black Lives Matter burning buildings and looting stores, to Russia and China openly preparing for military strikes. Furthermore, we have been attacked by a Chinese biological weapon. We have a corrupt leftist president who was elected by fraud. We have a Justice Department that will not investigate crimes committed by Marxists.
Many readers will be incredulous. America could not have been fooled, they say. America could not have been tricked. The country is not stupid, after all. Americans have eyes. We read the press. We watch TV. But I say, there are none so blind as those that will not see. The facts have always been there. We just did not want to admit them.
Voegelin’s insight
The Austrian-born political scientist, Eric Voegelin (1901-1984), fled to America following Austria’s absorption into Hitler’s Reich in 1938. Being born of a Lutheran father and Roman Catholic mother, Voegelin was raised as a Lutheran and saw with what ease the Nazis corrupted mainstream Lutherans and Catholics. This led Voegelin to the realization that Christendom is not altogether Christian. Voegelin’s later indifference toward institutional Christianity derived, according to Eugene Webb, “from disappointing experiences with its representatives.” Living in Vienna during the 1930s, Voegelin found that “all the clergy he knew except one were Nazis, and his contacts with clergy in Eastern and Western Europe since the war seems to him to indicate a similarly opportunistic attitude on their part toward the communist powers.”
This is a dismal report, but an important part of the larger picture. Consider the Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, whose final years were taken up in an attack on the Church of Denmark – written out under the title, Attack Upon Christendom – in which he called the institutional church “a knavish trick.” The Church of Denmark, he explained, no more resembled the Christianity of the New Testament than “a square resembles a circle.” Truth is something that belongs to the spirit, to the soul. It does not belong to an institution. It is does not belong to the State, or to the minions of the State; or to those who chase after money. That which is merely plausible, readily understood and profitable, is not truth.
Kierkegaard objected that “the eternal is not a thing which can be had regardless of the way in which it is acquired.” His point being, “The eternal is acquired … in the difficult way which Christ indicated by the words: ‘Narrow is the gate and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it.’”
Voegelin’s concept of “political reality” is spiritually grounded, resting outside of institutional understandings and institutional “creatures.” Therefore, the path to “political reality” is also narrow. The truth about politics is not upheld by political parties, state institutions or schools of political science. The gate of truth is a narrow one, and few are they that find it. One might ask why any institution, given what institutions are, should value the truth above what is expedient for its administrators. The sad answer is, no institution can be found that values the truth for its own sake; for institutions and the creatures within them value only what immediately serves their interests. And as we all know, lying often serves such interests more readily than the truth.
People everywhere want the truth to be simple, so they can claim to understand it. People everywhere want the truth to flatter their own prejudices, so they can feel good about it. People everywhere expect the truth to be profitable, so they can make money from it. Yet the truth is none of the above. You want the truth? – then pick up your cross.
We all like to imagine we are on the side of truth. Look at the Germans in 1939. They thought they were justified in following Hitler. And Nazi Germany was a churchgoing nation. The Germans, in fact, thought of themselves as “decent.” But there was something amiss in this decency. There was something corrupt in it. The same is true of America’s decency today. I am not saying that America is a Nazi country. No. But America is inwardly corrupt – on the right and on the left. This is not to say that other countries are better. Merely, all of humanity – especially in these modern times – suffers from a kind of degeneracy, and there is no use being defensive about it.
– To quote that line again: “Narrow is the gate and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it.” Our civilization is collapsing because we suffer from a “loss of reality.” Our civilization is collapsing because we have lost our way. We are caught in a net of lies because we prefer lies. Richard Weaver was correct when he blasted modern skepticism regarding objective goodness, truth and beauty. We are not concerned with truth, he wrote. We are not focused on goodness. Our loss of reality is doubly accounted for here; for those who do not care about the truth might well be driven to madness by a readiness to embrace lies; and those who care not for goodness, by nature, succumb to that special madness called “evil.”
Even the pagan philosopher, Julius Evola, wrote that “a transcendental realism” is the basis of all civilizations – Christian and pagan. Only today, under secular society, we deny that transcendental realism is possible. According to ancient Sanskrit texts, the era we are now living in was foretold as a “dark age” in which spiritual truth would be eclipsed by mechanical skill and technical knowledge. This age was then described as one of “falsehood, evil, or unreality.” Here, again, we encounter Voegelin’s theme – that we suffer from “loss of reality.” And here is the root cause of modern totalitarianism.
The greatest darkness, according to Voegelin, comes from those who claim absolute knowledge – who talk of “absolute proof” of things that cannot be known. Voegelin referred to such people as “gnostics” (small g). These include the chiliastic true believers of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, who established false messianic political movements “in terms of the Judeo-Christian apocalypse.” These were fanatical communistic sects – precursors to Marxian communism – as described by Igor Shafarevich in his magnificent book, The Socialist Phenomenon.
In his introduction to Shafarevich’s book, Aleksandr Solzehnitsyn explained that “no precise, distinct socialism even exists; instead there is only a vague, rosy notion of something noble and good, of equality, communal ownership, and justice: the advent of these things will bring instant euphoria and a social order beyond reproach.” In other words, socialism is a reaction against the harsh realities of the world. Voegelin wrote, “The soul’s rebellion against the order of the cosmos, hatred of the gods, and the revolt of the Titans” was known to the ancient Greeks. We have, in our Christian teachings, the story of Satan’s rebellion against God. This is what Marxism represents. It is the old story of rebellion. This is what totalitarianism signifies. According to Voegelin, the totalitarians who claim “absolute” knowledge must also claim “absolute power” in their “revolt against God.” The whole process is advanced by a series of lies. Nothing here opens the soul to wisdom, but to “persistence in the deception, where revolt against God is revealed to be its motive and purpose.”
It is bizarre, of course, that atheists should want to assume God’s office. But as Jung said, “You can always take away man’s gods, but only to give him others in return.” The new gods, of course, are the builders of man’s communist future. They want to be God, says Voegelin, “for inscrutable reasons.” But here I turn to Kierkegaard’s book, The Sickness Unto Death. The whole problem can be resolved, suggests Kierkegaard, when we realize that the atheist has committed the “sin of despair”; for this is the opposite of faith and the origin of what Kierkegaard called “intensified defiance: sin as the intensification of despair.” Here is the ultimate error – the error which permeates modernity. It is at the core of the revolutionary’s being. It wills to be itself “out of spite,” says Kierkegaard. It adheres “out of malice.”
Kierkegaard further relates: “Rebelling against all existence, it feels it has obtained evidence against [existence], against its goodness. The person in despair believes that he himself is the evidence, and that is what he wants to be … in order to protect against all existence….”
Those who have seen the Marxist revolutionary up close can testify to the reality of Marxist despair. Voegelin, of course, is correct in saying that the revolutionary’s self-deception involves the pretense of striving for a superhuman ideal. In truth, the revolutionary is not forward-looking. He is not spiritually contented or happy. He is self-pitying. According to Voegelin, Nietzsche’s Dionysian dance is therefore a mask. His “superman” is a fraud. The ideal of the Soviet man was also a fraud. All of Marx’s lies, and Lenin’s lies, and all the socialist lies are masks behind which sits black despair. The will to power, the craving for political power by way of revolution, is merely a narcotic used to chase away this despair.
Why are they so despairing? Why have they “lost reality”? Because these people have no faith, no real interest in the truth, and are possessed by what Voegelin called a “demonic mendacity.” It is an interlocking web of self-deceit, rooted in spiritual arrogance. Consequently, these people are in need of psychiatric medications. Depression is a correlate of their narcissism and their psychopathy. From these people we are not going to hear the stoical refrain of the ancient philosophers; namely, that philosophy is above fate, uncorrupted by desire or self-delusion. The many fine gifts of our despairing intellectuals are lost to the poor sportsmanship of these jilted “lovers of humanity.” What did they expect? If they had loved God, instead of “the people,” they might have discovered faith, they might have discovered truth. But no, they had to love “humanty.”
What can one say? Unrequited love is a bitch.
Alas, this melodrama is yet another chapter in the book of self-deceit. If you listen to the modern rebel, he easily switches between his love of “the people” and his love of self. This brings us to Nietzsche’s famous statement: “If there were gods, how could I endure not being a god?” Marx went even further. His secret thought was, “Whether there are gods or not, how could I endure not being one?” The mad project of replacing the old world of God with the new world of man – as a work of man – is the “principal point of Marx’s gnosis,” wrote Voegelin. Marxism, therefore, is not merely a pack of intellectual swindles; for the murderer of God is also a mass murderer of men. The logic of this could not be more obvious – whether one is atheist, pagan or Christian.
To believe a lie, to make the world in the image of that lie, is the sense in which Marx sought to be a creator in place of God. The kind of world he promised to create, according to Voegelin, is a “second reality,” a “swindle” born of spiritual pathology (i.e., the sickness unto death), which reinforces the revolutionary’s original despair while doubling his malice.
Here is the ground of today’s political insanity. Carl Jung, writing over sixty years ago, said, “The change must begin with one individual; it might be any one of us. Nobody can afford to look around and wait for somebody else to do what he is loath to do himself.” Jung then tells the story of a Rabbi who was asked why God showed himself in olden times and nobody sees him now. The Rabbi replied, “Nor is there anyone nowadays who could stoop so low.” Jung went on to say that God really does speak to us, even today. But he doubted whether there were many willing to “stoop so low” as to “consider the possibility that the vox Dei might be perceived in a dream.
Links and Notes
Eric Voegelin, Anamnesis: On the Theory of History and Politics, Volume 6 (University of Missouri Press, 2002), p. 366.
Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 36, pp. 36-37.
Whittaker Chambers, Witness (Washington, D.C., Regnery, 2001), pp. 8 – 10.
Eugene Webb, Eric Voegelin: Philosopher of History, (Kindle version) Location 3826.
Søren Kierkegaard, Attack on Christendom (Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 100.
Voegelin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism (Washington, D.C., Regnery, 1997), p. 34, p. 23.
Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death (Princeton University Press, 1980), p. 73-77.
Please note: Zeta Reticuli is a binar star system in the southern constellation of Reticulum.
The man who is grounded in history knows something of the ever-present tension between the ideal and the prudential, so that his judgment should reflect wisdom rather than cleverness or fantasy.
Richard Weaver
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“Political Insanity” = ignoring reality?
https://journals.lww.com/americantherapeutics/Fulltext/2021/06000/Review_of_the_Emerging_Evidence_Demonstrating_the.4.aspx
“Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of Ivermectin in the Prophylaxis and Treatment of COVID-19”
May/June 2021 – Vol 28 – Issue 3 – p e299-e318
“In summary, based on the totality of the trials and epidemiologic evidence presented in this review along with the preliminary findings of the Unitaid/WHO meta-analysis of treatment RCTs and the guideline recommendation from the international BIRD conference, ivermectin should be globally and systematically deployed in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.”
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/07/13/sebelius-unvaccinated-americans-should-not-be-allowed-to-work-have-access-to-children/
This is frightening rhetoric, and now that this regime is in power, they can make it happen.
They are looking to use this health crisis to justify extreme measures.
Definitely.
Jeff, not sure if you can comment when I was searching on Twitter, David Axelrod made a endorsement of Nathan Law and even interviewed him:
https://twitter.com/davidaxelrod/status/1411799224920969221
Why am I not surprised?
“They live in their own world, within God’s world, which makes a world of a difference.” I heard this quote from Os Guiness.
So I understand your essay. According to Barna’s surveys, only about 6% of U.S. citizens have a Biblical world view, the rest live within their own worlds. The corruption goes back centuries.
In a previous thread, I mentioned Luther and the Reformation. What I meant then, and will emphasize now, are the “secular” effects of the Reformation. These include the development of modern science, universal education, the idea of a constitutional government, and we can’t forget the arts, the paintings of the Dutch masters and in music the compositions of Bach, Händel and Mendelssohn, etc.
The corruption started early. Already about a generation after Luther died, prominent “Lutheran” theologians had returned to neo-Aristotelianism after Luther himself had explicitly rejected it. They thought they could baptize the underlying paganism by papering it over with Lutheran terminology, giving it the symbols and appearance of orthodoxy. Fortunately most laymen including scientists, educators, politicians, artists and others didn’t bother with those heavy theological tomes rather stayed reading their Bibles.
Starting in the first decade of the 19th century, theologians went a step further, basing their work on Aristotle’s teaching of evolution, they started teaching that the Bible itself was a late fiction. Their teaching has gone by different names, including JEPD Theory, Documentary Hypothesis, and what else? Darwin made a direct attack on modern science with his popularizing of Aristotle’s teaching of evolution. Today, how many “scientists” still practice modern science? Education has deteriorated to indoctrination turning out semi-literate drones. The Reformation brought in modernism, so what do we call this present age that rejects and attacks the Reformation? Many call it post-modernism.
Luther emphasized “go to the source.” For theology, that meant study the Bible directly instead of the neo-Aristotelian theologians popular in his day. For scientists, that meant ditching studying Aristotle’s writings in favor of studying nature directly. Studying nature directly means that any phenomenon that cannot be repeatedly observed, cannot be studied by science. Yet most “scientists” today insist on the fiction that the creation of the universe, which no one can observe, can be accurately mapped out by “modern science”. Many “scientists” today insist that “science” can prove other phenomena that cannot be directly observed by human senses, such as the non-existence of God, angels, devil, demons, even the human soul. Today’s “scientists” have tossed out the mooring of direct observation of nature itself, including human nature, for the lie that “science” can prove anything. Society follows that lie.
Reality is often messy, with loose ends that we don’t understand. Some things we have to accept on faith. Did God create the universe in six days? That teaching can only be accepted or rejected on faith, do you trust that as accurate history? It can neither be proven nor disproven by our senses today. But the lie is that those loose ends can be cleaned up by rejecting reality then following the siren call of modern neo-paganism, elevating man to the position of a god. Instead, he has become a devil.
Sorry this comment has turned out so long. It’s based on my training as a scientist and not philosophy. Add to that some references to history.
Three times God commanded Jeremiah not to pray for the good of his people, Jeremiah 7:16, 11:14, 14:11. Has the U.S. sunk to the same level? I fear that it has.
I do not understand your misreading of Aristotle. Aristotle was not an advocate of Darwinian evolution. I have read, in previous threads, with bewilderment, the false assertion that Aristotle was a materialist philosopher. Yet his reference to the possibility of the soul’s continuance after death (as the “noetic soul”) is not something a materialist would ever suggest. You are perhaps unaware that Aristotle authored one of the best arguments for the existence of a Creator (or unmoved mover) — and for the Creation of the universe — of all time? Have you ever bothered to read Aristotle? Regarding the corruption of civilization being traced to paganism, please note: the pagans developed a civilization that lasted longer than ours. Egyptian civilization existed, along the banks of the Nile, from the fourth millennium BC until the birth of Christ and beyond. There was even a prophecy about the destruction of the Egyptian religion, saying it would lead to atheism and the extermination of mankind — which oddly suggests, to the mind of a reader familiar with history, the passage from polytheism to monotheism followed by monotheism’s gradual slide toward atheism. It is hard for Christians to wrap their minds around this, but Ancient Greek and Egyptian writings laid out a theory of spiritual corruption far more elaborate and far older, than yours. They viewed the world as an earthly reflection of heaven. They thought that a secular worldview was, in itself, a portent of man’s extermination. And so it seems to be.
First of all, I never claimed that Aristotle was a materialistic philosopher. But one doesn’t need to be a philosophical materialist in order to believe in evolution. And the histories I’ve read on the theory of evolution mention Aristotle as a prime expositor of the theory, even to the point of mentioning natural selection as the mechanism that propelled evolution. All Darwin did was to take out Aristotle’s theory of evolution and apply it to his atheistic materialism. That he and his followers call evolution “science” is a direct attack on modern science.
Evolution, the theory, predates Aristotle. One of the histories I read on evolution mentioned that when Jewish missionaries traveled throughout first century BC Roman empire, evolution was one of the polemics against those Jews.
One of the features of ancient paganism, and modern religions like Hinduism, is syncretism. There are no absolutes. All religions are equal. A statement attributed to ancient paganism claimed that all philosophers believe that all religions are equally false, the common people believe that all religions are equally true, and politicians find that all religions are equally useful. One of the reasons Christians were persecuted was because they refused to practice syncretism and accept the Roman emperor as a god.
The recognition that there are absolutes was a component of modern science that I was taught at the university. It is part of the research I do today. Today there are new definitions for “science” that lack absolutes. Absolutes are necessary for a recognition that communism is evil.
The lack of a recognition of absolutes is one of the reasons that people don’t see communism as a threat. They think that communists are just as wishy washy in their thinking as they are. They will be shocked when the invasion comes.
What is your definition of a civilization? Does it include the present CCP ruled China? Do you realize that China is corrupt from top to bottom? That’s how the communists were able to grab power. Now they too are corrupt. Does evil make a civilization?
I see. You are dealing with secondary material I am unfamiliar with.
Precisely. The only way to know what Aristotle wrote is to read Aristotle. If a secondary source asserts that Aristotle held certain views – and doesn’t cite chapter & verse where Aristotle said it, I’d stop reading and dismiss the secondary source as worthless. And if the secondary source does cite chapter & verse, one must look it up in the original to see if Aristotle actually said it. Secondary sources often get it wrong – sometimes deliberately so. And they usually get away with it because few people question them.
Commentaries can be useful – I found that Wilhelm Windelband’s history of Philosophy was helpful. However, one must always remember that one is reading a secondary source. And if Windelband said that Aristotle held certain views – and I hadn’t read the original – all I could properly say is, “according to Windelband (cite), Aristotle held that ….
I’m aware that Mr. Nyquist knows this – but most people don’t: they routinely repeat what others have told them as a Fact. Ayn Rand warned in 1957 that the public schools were destroying the minds of American children. She was right. Americans have been conditioned to accept whatever “authority figures” tell them as fact.
Philosophers say many things and understanding them does not always come easy.
Oh, and I think Ayn Rand said that in Atlas Shrugged – if I recall correctly, the context was the homeschooling Moms when Dagny was in Galt’s Gulch.
This is fascinating. It does make me want to read Aristotle’s work. I have old copies of Plato’s “Republic” and “Dialogues,” which I should take a look at.
Mr. Nyquist,
I would say that all this is quite true, I don’t disagree. I assiduously try to live in that world,where everything is alive (Hylozoism) and surrounded and penetrated by numinous spirit. But, I would also add that everyone prior to say 1500 in the Pre-Modern era shared pretty much the same worldview throughout human history (”viewed the world as an earthly reflection of heaven”,etc…), relative to the humanity that lived after that year. What triumphed then and afterwards in the Modern era was Philosophy, not Monotheism.
Would you make a hard cut-off date for what is, in essence, a Hermetic doctrine?Was a secret monotheist esotericism within the Egyptian priesthood as one Hermetic text claimed?
I meant to direct my comment to Mr. Nyquist, I should clarify, not to the poster whose response is immediately above mine.
As to reading Aristotle myself and not secondary sources,I’ve read ”Politics” and the ”Nicomachian Ethics”.I’ve read more Plato; the Republic and the Laws, and Timaeus, a few other snippets here and there. I have however read St. Dionysius the Areopagite and Plotinus, and among followers of Aristotle, Gennadius Scholarius.
Earlier I mentioned Lev Shestov the Anti-Philosopher or Philosophical Critic. I do not go as far as him in his critique perhaps ,or Tertullian and some others. Although, I am getting there…
One must be be careful not to be contrarian to the point of absurdity.
This is true, Mr. Nyquist; Aristotle was right in taking the ”Golden Mean” between extremes, to his credit.
Political insanity indeed, across the board! I watched a brief Sean Hannity interview with Mark Levin the other day, who just published a new book titled American Marxism (the layout of which looks almost like stolen from Diana West’s American Betrayal). Anyway, opening the conversation, proud icon of televised “conservatism” Sean Hannity comes up with a definition of conservatism. Here’s what he said:
“… And, conservatism, if you break it down to what we believe as conservatives: We believe in liberty, we believe in freedom, we believe in capitalism, we believe in our Constitution, we believe in low taxes, less government regulation, Constitutionalists on the bench, we want free-market solutions for issues like health care and, yes, protect pre-existing conditions, we believe in law and order, and safety and security so people can pursue happiness, we want choice in schools, we want energy independence, for national security reasons and for the economy, for economic reasons, we want our borders secure, we want free and fair trade, and we believe in Peace through Strength. I might have missed one or two things.”
Hannity mistakes the indispensable precondition for conservatism for the essence of conservatism itself. Not a word about tradition, morals and principles, righteousness, sincerity, let alone piety and faith. Hannity’s version of conservatism reflects a libertarian, not a truly conservative view. He is yet another “conservative with nothing left to conserve.”
Yes. Hannity said nothing that is conservative. These are the old liberal (now libertarian) ideas. It is as if freedom were a stand-alone thing. It is not. Freedom is not free. It is a by-product of getting other things right. This kind of talk makes Hannity an ideologue, and it shows how unintelligent he is. Nothing here has been thought through. No care has been taken. If this is what he thinks is going to win; then who is going to save him from all those businessmen who want to make money off China. What about their freedom? Oh yeah. Say good-bye to your economy, too.
I have heard it said that peace is not a cause but a consequence. To at least some degree the same can be said of freedom.
And here is Laura Ingraham’s latest, analysing the disease of political insanity in her own, fabulous, and as-ever refreshingly common-sense style:
“… Right now, we have a national defense apparatus, the Pentagon, and Intel agencies, that are spending inordinate time and resources on satisfying the wokesters on the Left and too little on the real threats bearing down on the United States, mostly from China. Oh, and let’s not forget that their ties to Big Tech and giant military contractors are a huge ongoing problem, more on that in a moment. All Republicans on the Hill need to demand that our military leadership and Intel officials return to their proper roles – and get out of politics. Do some soul-searching, because you are doing a massive amount of damage to your really important institutions. And then what happens when America faces a serious challenge to our security? What happens when we need national unity to prevail? And that*s The Angle.”
Her colleague, Tucker Carlson, devoted a segment to how the military and apparently ICE are following out obviously unlawful directives to transport illegals covertly to destinations all over the country in staggering numbers. Unlikely that these actions have anything to do with protecting the country from enemies foreign and domestic.
They did the same (and still do) to Western Europe. We don’t have governments any more representing us. Instead, what we have is puppet governments serving Moscow and Beijing’s World Revolution…
Importing large numbers of indigent aliens into the country causes massive financial problems for cities, counties and states. It brings crime and poverty. I have seen what this has done to California. That state is headed for collapse and bankruptcy. Community requires that people share the same background, culturally and in other areas. You take that away and you introduce division. Then add the idea that white people are racist for not wanting millions of indigent foreigners coming into their communities. This is a very sick game, and it is being used to destroy us by multiplying our problems to an extent that only a communist dictatorship can promise a solution.
The active duty generals and the intelligence community have been politicized. That is obvious; and it puts is in a serious hole.
Every dictatorship muse have a KGB/Stasi element. Those elements always attract volunteers due to the security of the occupation (food, housing, weaponry, paycheck, clothing and whatever can be appropriated (spoils of conflict).
Secret police are essential when a people loses its unity or shared values. Dictatorship is the only course that then remains. This is the end to which all multiculturalism tends.
I’ve been calling our current Administration “the Directory” at times, after the notorious French regime of “Directoire Executif” of the mid-to-late 1790s. That was another failed, weak-willed and short-lived government with terrible policies for its people. And what happened to France after a few years under such a disastrous leadership? One of history’s most famous despots, Napoleon Bonaparte, seized power in 1799.
You are paying the current government too high a compliment. We are not talking high-grade fertilizer here. And there is no Bonaparte here.
I didn’t mean “the Directory” as a compliment to the new Administration. I use it with contempt. I gave that era in French history as an example in support of your (Mr. Nyquist’s) statement that ineffectual leadership often causes authoritarian rule to follow shortly afterward.
Perhaps our own Napoleon, whoever that may be, has not shown up yet.
They are even weaker and more corrupt than the Directory. To find people of this caliber one has to go back to Elagabalus or Nero.
The Emperor Elagabalus was a really debauched and a very bizarre individual. Perhaps even more so than Caligula.
If memory serves, he had eight naked women pull his chariot.
Good gods. And he married a Vestal Virgin, which, to the Ancient Romans, was a form of sacrilege. All this before he was eighteen!
He wasn’t evil. He was just ahead of the curve.
😉
Mr. Nyquist,you asked me;
”Would you make a hard cut-off date for what is, in essence, a Hermetic doctrine?Was a secret monotheist esotericism within the Egyptian priesthood as one Hermetic text claimed? ”
I would say that the answer to the second question also answers the first. The more or less official scholarly cut-off point for Hermetic Doctrine (and I’m somewhat reliant on Francis Yates in this) brackets Hermetic teaching from around 4th-3rd centuries B.C during the Hellenistic era. to the beginnings of the ”Renaissance” period, as Cosimo Medici began scouring Europe for ancient manuscripts and Greek scholars like Gemistos Plethon fleeing the collapsing East Roman Empire of the middle 1400’s AD;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemistus_Pletho
”Plethon’s own summary of the Nómoi also survived, amongst manuscripts held by his former student Bessarion. This summary, titled Summary of the Doctrines of Zoroaster and Plato, affirms the existence of a pantheon of gods, with Zeus as supreme sovereign, containing within himself all being in an undivided state; his eldest child, motherless, is Poseidon, who created the heavens and rules all below, ordaining order in the universe. Zeus’ other children include an array of “supercelestial” gods, the Olympians and Tartareans, all motherless. Of these Hera is third in command after Poseidon, creatress and ruler of indestructible matter, and the mother by Zeus of the heavenly gods, demi-gods and spirits. The Olympians rule immortal life in the heavens, the Tartareans mortal life below, their leader Kronos ruling over mortality altogether. The eldest of the heavenly gods is Helios, master of the heavens here and source of all mortal life on earth. The gods are responsible for much good and no evil, and guide all life towards divine order. Plethon describes the creation of the universe as being perfect and outside of time, so that the universe remains eternal, without beginning or end. The soul of man, like the gods is immortal and essentially good, and is reincarnated in successive mortal bodies for eternity at the direction of the gods”
So ”his” doctrine is a close approximation of the genuine Hermetic Doctrine of Egypt, with one easily trading the names of Greek gods for their corresponding Egyptian counterparts.
I would say that the esoteric teaching in fact is almost as old as the world itself, it’s essence being that taught in the Mystery Schools of the Pagan civilized world, Egypt and Babylon to Greece and Rome, and then resurfacing in the West. I would not then call it so much a ”Monotheism”, but rather a Panentheism hidden behind the popular Polytheism of the masses. Solon and the other ”Seven Sages of Greece” traveled and were taught the doctrine and carried it over to the Philosophers (note that Aesop is not counted among their number, but Christ recognized him).
Dear Mr Nyquist its Jayne Sunter in England just to let you know a man has posted a doc off UK gov. UK website dated 10 June 2021 asking for tenders to be submitted for 4 sites in london to made into morgues in the event of excess deaths this agreement will be for 4 years and no expense will be spared for the successful applicant. Something bads coming Jeff UK gov purchased many thousands of body bags from China before brexit
It could be a killer strain of covid or vaccine deaths or war whatever it is its preplanned I’m worried dick for us all every morning I wake and think wonder what the hell is going down in the U S today we need God more than ever
Thank you for the report, Jayne. That is very sobering. Four sites being made into morgues in London is an indicator. Of what, exactly? I know that meetings have been taking place to the level of Prime Minister in different Western countries on the subject of Chinese war preparations. Many governments are worried about what they are seeing out of China. This London story could be a readiness prep for the unleashing of another organism. On the other hand, the vaccine deaths may be increasing.
Christ recognized Aesop?
Sure, yes, enough at least to have used an allusion to one of Aesop’s fables.
Aesop;
”A WOLF clothing himself in the skin of a Sheep, and getting in among the flock, by this means took the opportunity to devour many of them. At last the Shepherd discovered him, and cunningly fastened a rope about his neck, tying him up to a tree which stood hard by. Some other Shepherds happening to pass that way, and observing what he was about, drew near, and expressed their admiration at it. What, says one of them, Brother, do you make hanging of Sheep? No, replies the other, but I make hanging of a Wolf whenever I catch him, though in the habit and garb of a Sheep. Then he showed them their mistake, and they applauded the justice of the execution.”
Our Lord Jesus Christ in Gospel of Saint Matthew chapter 7 verses 15-16;
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits.”
Aesop being a barbarian slave in the Classical world, it’s a kind of preparation inwardly for the Christian Faith; very often slaves and servants…suffering hollows out a space in a man’s heart that only God can fill it. Egypt, the land of Slavery, cannot….But oh,how many have been the justifications!
Somewhat related to this; are you familiar with the work of Anthony Ludovici?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Ludovici
I meant to ask you but didn’t get a chance before.
As I read some Huxley and Darwin, and some Spencer in my youth, and found them unconvincing, I had no interest in reading Ludovici (who was influenced by Spencer). I found something by Ludovici in a used book store in the 1980s. It seemed interesting at first, and read a few chapters, felt sick and would not pay the five dollars for something I did not care to finish. Did I miss something by not reading him?
Jeff, I know this subject might be completely irrelevant to this discussion, but i was just curious if you have followed any of the news coming out of the baltic region recently? This is news regarding the new findings that have been done concerning the sinking of The Estonia. Estonia was sunk in 1994 under mysterious circumstances and recently more and more evidence has surfaced showing that the post-soviets most likely sank the boat because of smuggling of soviet military hardware from Estonia.
Do you have any thoughts or knowledge of this situation? I know its an old story but it seems to indicate some very “active” Russian forces protecting soviet secrets at a time when the Soviet interests were supposedly no longer relevant…
I do not have any knowledge of this. Where was the boat headed with the supposed weapon cargo?
It was headed to Sweden, the “conspiracy” theory is that Nato was trying to gather as much soviet-intel and tech as possible through “neutral” countries like Sweden.
The sinking of Estonia as I recall is the largest maritime disaster after ww2… so it is a big deal.
NATO intelligence is like a pasta strainer on a toilet bowl. You never get rid of the bad. You just keep collecting it.
🤣
While thinking about this thread, I just remembered a statement from ancient Greece, I don’t remember who said it: those whom the gods wish to destroy, the gods first strike them with madness. (I don’t think I quoted that exactly, but close enough.) I don’t know of any other way to say it, but our country has descended into collective madness. Boys can become girls, men become women, biological facts be damned—absolute madness. The chief enemy of the country is not one that has called for our destruction and has already unleashed a biological weapon against us, but those of its own citizens who strive for justice, real, personal and societal justice—how can that not be madness? How many other examples of madness do we need to cite?
Please bear with me as I go Biblical. The Bible teaches that God is a God of love, and he is. And so Jesus is often pictured as a kindly hippy who wouldn’t hurt a fly. One who invites children to flock to him. Everyone is welcome. That’s not the whole picture. The Bible also pictures God as a God of justice for love cannot thrive in a milieu of injustice. As a just God, he executes judgements against wicked individuals and even nations who have made injustice part of national policy. He sometimes delays judgment to give peoples opportunities to repent and avoid judgment, but his patience isn’t unlimited.
Just one example, our country has “legally” murdered over 70 million innocent lives since Roe v. Wade. If God merely requites life for life, then 70–100 million Americans will die in the coming troubles. Don’t think that because you’re personally just that you will escape, for when God judges a nation, the just suffer alongside the unjust.
If China is judged at the same time as the U.S. and with the same standard, then China would lose 800+ millions of its population. Russia would lose 200 millions. These are staggering losses for the world in the coming world war. The mind can hardly comprehend it. Those are not the only losses. War is one of the ways that God unleashes judgments. Other means are famine and disease. Who on this list doesn’t recognize that war is coming? Disease is all around us.
The Bible doesn’t mention madness, only wickedness.
We here in the U.S. recognize the madness in our society. We can see that that madness is unjust and wicked. But is not the CCP also mad in its pride? How about the leaders in Iran, an ally of the CCP? How about their other allies? Has not the whole world indulged in madness?
If you listen to Michael Wolff, Trump is “a fruitcake.” I think Wolff might be a fruitcake. It might well be that everyone is now crazy (all the above). I see crazy coming in every kind of package. The problem is, of course, that we do not think for ourselves. We all succumb to group narratives. My contention would be that all group narratives are tinged with madness. Why? Because group narratives appeal to the lowest of common denominators. This is my problem with the populist right as well as the demagogic left. Truth is always lost in the lurch.
I vastly prefer a Thomas Jefferson or a Daniel Morgan or a George Washington when dealing with matters of the intellect. The first and third were true intellectuals who then committed to fighting with rifles, as did the second, who was a great leader but more a common man. But all three of them have more intellectual force than this entire thread, which is committed to intellectually theorizing about Hegelian Dialectics and interpretations of the writings of Xi Jinping, while warriors recognize their adversary’s intentions inherently and immediately, and fight and defeat them kinetically without delay. This thread reminds me of a group of participants who prefer to analyze a football game avoiding ever have to play in one. There is nothing more boring than intellectual self stimulation. True intellectuals use their minds to interpret what to do; faux intellectuals use their intellects to avoid having to put themselves on the line. That is why such a fine intellect as Jeff Nyquist’s has so few followers. They sense that there is nothing but avoidance of conflict in the words here, so they quickly tire and tell no one of their attempt to participate, and then blindly move on searching for what they know not that they seek; their own courage. The reason that I torture Jeff so incessantly is because a true intellect in service of bold action is such a valuable asset, and one that I cannot suffer to see wasted. Minds like Jeff’s should be gathering in private, under penalty of hanging as did the colonialist intellectual leaders, finding the best way forward in order to prevail and overthrow the current power of the left as did the colonialist intellectuals and common men with the British. But alas, so far, we will have to rely on our Daniel Morgans more, for their courage is not overshadowed and muted by their intellects. Jeff fears the deep state and the alphabet agencies more than he loves courage. But then again, maybe I say this as a plant who seeks to draw Jeff out into illegal arenas of conversation in order to silence his powerful voice, in the service of the left. Who knows for sure? Maybe I made up the story of the F.B.I. visiting me for an article I wrote. Maybe it was all illusion and deception. You all should know, but you probably don’t, as you are fully invested in this intellectual self stimulation without effect. What good does it do you to know that the left is advancing in America, and to know all the attendant tributaries historically that have lead up to this great river threatening to wash us all away in its flow? Without true courage, all knowledge is in vain. That’s why courage is the seminal virtue, for without it, all the others are impossible to attain.
Buzzing us again? Gone kinetic have you? In a brainless frenzy? Do tell. What brave thing have you done, Malins? Did you swat a horse-fly? — No! Not fratricide! But alas, there are no flies here. The road apples are that away —->
For Robert Malins – So you want to see some action. Well, so do I. However, let’s look at what we have to work with. Granted, I’m not as intellectually proficient as many on this blog but; as an observer and thinker, I can offer some insight. We have two classes of warriors in America – ex-service members from both the Viet Nam era and those from the various Gulf wars. That’s one group. The other is comprised of hunters. I have no doubt both are well equipped unless they are too disabled to bother. On the ex-military side many are aged and broken down with limited fighting ability. I’m sure they would fight when the door breaks down in the middle of the night only to die in the process as will likely happen in my case. That’s fine. We expect that. The more recent warriors have been disillusioned fighting wars of no value only to be maimed and killed for nothing. The hunters, on the other hand, are expert shooters. Unfortunately, many have not really become trained trackers preferring to set up and wait for their prey to arrive at a pre-assigned location where a shot is taken.
A number of strategies have been put forth by some astute individuals to deal with our problem. Most of that centers on prepping of one form or another. Prepping is temporary at best or of no value at worst. Most folks do not even have access to locations suitable for surviving. They have to make the best of the situation in which they live; and most will fall quickly as seen in the violence over the past year and a half. One of the strategies involves organizing communities for self-preservation. That, too, is a temporary measure; and in most cases it can’t even be done. The reasons are varied but, for the most part, it is difficult if not impossible to garner interest in such measures. Folks with a job of any sort aren’t interested or don’t have the time to bother. They will likely come to a realization when it reaches their door.
While there has been a surge in first time gun buyers for some time now, it is readily apparent that the buyers are reactionary and have little understanding regarding their adversary and how to deal with it. It is certain they cannot be depended on in a confrontation. So, let’s see who the enemy is.
Within America there exist numerous groups dispersed throughout the country that have a mission to destroy (a fifth column if you will). Muslims were imported and they have complete impunity to operate outside the bounds of law. Many are proficient terrorists that have been groomed (i.e. indoctrinated) from birth and, in my opinion, will be activated by signal (aka as hypnotic suggestion) to proceed with their plan. They are formidable adversaries willing to die for their god (Satan). These folks are well- funded and are able to procure whatever they need.
BLM/Antifa is another well-funded organization. Considering that most do not work, may never have worked or don’t want to work you have to wonder how they can afford their cell phones, uniforms, placards, food, housing and armament. Like I said, they are well funded. They are an ignorant mass of expendable excrement that will be disposed of when they have served their purpose.
The police have the unfortunate responsibility to obey unlawful orders in order to preserve their financial integrity. A job is a job after all. Too bad some of them are friends I would be reluctant to harm. The military is no longer our friend and protector. It may not be the force we once enjoyed; but it certainly is well equipped and under control by the lawless dictatorship.
The border surge has provided a mixture of enemy forces all of whom despise Americans. They have been and are being distributed to multiple locations and will be amply supplied with the means to start ethnic cleansing (git whitey). Some of that repository of evil consists of foreign troops. But speaking of foreign troops, many are already here in disguise ready to act on a moment’s notice.
As for the government, there is no end to the number of agencies ready to engage the resistance of “domestic terrorists.” And we know whom they have labeled as such. Of course, they are already doing this; and it will continue full steam ahead. So, let’s look at logistics.
Since the ideal time to have done anything is decades past (fifty years ago), what might be a course of action today. It would be necessary to knock out all communication and services (utilities) thereby bringing everything to a level of barbarism. Sounds rather drastic though necessary. Technology must be completely interrupted. Surveillance must be shut down. Such a venture is a humongous task requiring local coordination. This puts everyone on the same playing field with the possible exception of military. Collateral damage? Who cares? Suppose it were even possible to regain control of our country. Do you still want all the perverted, criminal elements for neighbors? No? What would you do with them? Everything is fair in love and war though I’m not so sure about love. Maybe love OF war.
Since we don’t have a sugar daddy that benefits our opposition, all resources must be appropriated by hook or by crook. Know beforehand that everyone will be of the same mindset. I can tell you there will be a resistance at some point. My assessment is that it is doomed to failure. There are many reasons why; but I won’t enumerate them except to say this has already been foretold and ordained. The only way to eliminate the evil is through massive destruction. Until then we are pretty much on our own in a defensive mode; and I haven’t even scratched the surface.
Mr. Malins…You want war? Good luck. I respect Jeff and all that we see on this blog. All he can do is sound the trumpet. If no one cares their blood is on their own hands. We can never go back. It’s too late. I would like and even welcome a fight; but I have no authority. NONE!!!!! Where would I start? I used to pray for our country. No more. It needs to be cleansed. If that cleansing includes me, so be it. I know where my strength lies.
Thoughtful post Eddie. All that you mention about the opposition is true. But to take a fatalistic approach is not in any way helpful to our cause. To follow your train of thought to its conclusion, we are doomed. If one starts from this point, his mind is thereafter closed to ideas and strategies that can ultimately win the day. Steve Jobs famously said: “The ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.” Realizing that there are 70,000,000 gun owners, 20,000,000 veterans, and a few million active military and police that mostly side with us is a good start in the realization that our force is actually the dominant one, and that if it can be organized effectively the dark side of the equation will be soundly defeated. Why do you think that the left is trying so hard to marginalize and criminalize the Capitol demonstrators? They know that with a few tens of thousand more they are doomed. In analyzing medals of valor recipients historically, in most every case the result of the battle was already decided against us, and then that one individual refused to accept the foregone conclusion, and through sheer audacity changed the course of the battle and of history. We all need this spirit on our side, but it must be adopted and cultivated. Though I respect very much and have benefitted from the work of Trevor Loudon and Jeff Nyquist, they are purveyors now of why we cannot win. Trevor told me recently as I asked him what chance he gave the continuance of our country as a republic, that he would put it at 2%. This of course incensed me that someone I had supported both philosophically and financially, and relied on for good information and perspective, would take such a defeatist and fatalistic tact. Jeff Nyquist seems to me to be of the same ilk; a truly great reporter of the positioning of the left historically and present day, but a fatalist also, waiting for some potential alignment of the cultural and political stars to elevate our chances into possibilities, which may never come, leaving us then to be overwhelmed and subjugated. I refer now to this type of conservative as the “Two Percenters,”as they in no way embody the fighting spirit of either our colonialist ancestors nor our Medal of Honor recipients, and for this reason are not suited to lead the conservative movement forward out of the serious mess we are in. Their strong purpose is the context setting that is crucial to any counter-revolutionary movement. These men along with others have shown us clearly who the enemy is and what he intends. But that is as far as they can take us. Others have to step forward now and lead the charge.
Man is man, RO. So we all deserve judgement from God. But He is merciful and loves mankind. In His justice and for His Glory He punishes the wicked, while the elect He sometimes chastises for their eventual repentance.
My final phone call with the FBI’s Jim Kallstrom
Exclusive: Jack Cashill recalls sitting on the Mediterranean as G-man ‘carpet F-bombed me’
Jack Cashill
Published July 14, 2021
On July 3, the FBI’s Jim Kallstrom died at 78 of a rare cancer of the blood. This was just two weeks before the 25th anniversary of the destruction of TWA Flight 800. In its opening sentence, the Washington Post summed up Kallstrom’s public role.
Kallstrom, wrote Emily Langer, “became a familiar presence on the nightly news as chief of the criminal investigation into the crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island in 1996, a confounding disaster first suspected to be an act of terrorism but ultimately attributed to a fuel tank explosion.”
For years, I thought Kallstrom would be the one person to finally come clean about the real cause of this “confounding disaster.”
I got my hopes up in the fall of 2016 when Kallstrom regularly blasted Hillary Clinton from his perch at Fox News where he served as something of an anti-terrorism expert.
A few weeks before the election, I got his home address from a PI friend and sent him a registered letter. In short, I said that if he were truly serious about keeping Hillary out of the White House, he would tell the truth about the missile attack on TWA Flight 800.
After sending the letter, I voted absentee and headed off to France to sit out the election. Living in a liberal neighborhood, I had seen all the Hillary signs I ever wanted to see.
About a week before the election, I was sitting out on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, looking out over the Mediterranean, when my phone rang. The call came from Connecticut. It was Kallstrom.
I had heard he was a profane bully, and he more than lived up to his reputation on both counts. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to vent. I had to hold the phone away from my ear. I was hoping the people sitting nearby did not speak English.
He was a Marine. I wasn’t. He served in Vietnam. I didn’t. How dare I question his judgment? Reminding him we were on the same side politically, I got him to calm down.
“So are you trying to tell me that terrorists shot down the plane?” he barked.
“No,” I said. “I wish that were the answer, but the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the U.S. Navy shot the plane down—I hope by mistake.”
Now, Kallstrom carpet F-bombed me. The French people nearby had to know that one word.
“You know who you sound like?” he asked.
“No, who?”
“That f***ing Pierre Salinger. He held a f***ing press conference on the f***ing French Riviera accusing the f***ing U.S. Navy of shooting down that plane.”
At this point I almost laughed out loud, thinking, “Thank God I didn’t tell him where I was!”
Salinger, JFK’s legendary press secretary, was right. A loyal Democrat, Salinger spoke at an aviation conference in the French resort city of Cannes two days after the Nov. 5, 1996, presidential election.
There, Salinger told the assembled executives that he had “very important details that show the plane was brought down by a U.S. Navy missile.”
He added the obvious, “If the news came out that an American naval ship shot down that plane, it would be something that would make the public very, very unhappy and could have an effect on the election.”
American authorities did not care what role Salinger had played in Camelot. They were quick to swat him out of the Kennedy pantheon. The FBI, the White House, the Navy all took a shot.
Salinger was unready for the assault. The documents he had were sketchy, and his knowledge base was shallow. The media found the subject irresistible.
In the month of November 1996 alone, the New York Times ran four articles with headlines that mocked Salinger. George Johnson was particularly merciless. “It was all linked to Whitewater,” Johnson wrote, “unless the missile was meant for a visiting U.F.O.?”
Johnson’s reference to “Whitewater” was not uncommon. He made slighting illusions as well to Waco, Ruby Ridge, Arkansas state troopers, Vincent Foster and other sources of amusement in Clinton-era newsrooms.
What Johnson was attempting to do, and he was hardly unique in so doing, was to paint TWA 800 as one wacky anti-Clinton conspiracy out of many. What he did not do – no one at the Times did after the first two days – was speak to any of the 258 FBI witnesses to a likely missile strike.
After my contentious call with Kallstrom, we did speak one more time. It was, appropriately enough, on All Souls Day, 2016, still a few days before the election. I was just coming out of a choral presentation at a local church when “Connecticut” flashed on my screen.
“Who’s this?” Kallstrom demanded. “Who’s this,” I shot back. “You called me.” He butt-dialed me. That was awkward.
Here’s hoping that if Mr. Kallstrom gets to heaven, the 230 souls who preceded him by 25 years are more forgiving than he ever was. Au revoir, Jim, bon voyage.
https://www.wnd.com/2021/07/final-phone-call-fbis-jim-kallstrom/
I have a lot of respect for Cashill.
JEFF: YOU MENTIONED LAST NIGHT IT WAS RAINING “CATS & DOGS“ LAST NIGHT WHERE YOU LIVE. GIVE THANKS THAT YOU ARE NOT LIVING IN GERMANY RIGHT NOW:
The New York Times
BREAKING NEWS
There were 1,300 people unaccounted for after flooding in Germany led to frantic rescue efforts, authorities said.
Thursday, July 15, 2021 7:11 PM EST
Swift-moving water from swollen rivers surged through cities and villages in two western German states, where the hardest-hit regions said that 58 people were known to have died and other fatalities were expected.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/world/europe/flooding-germany-belgium-switzerland-netherlands.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20210715&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta®i_id=127946122&segment_id=63581&user_id=c04b5ee9f828b9a8528a5a264bab77fc
THE VIDEO IN THE NY TIMES ARTICLE IS A DISTURBINGLY STUNNING VIDEO TO WATCH. IT HAS BEEN UPDATED IN THE ABOVE REPORT VIA THE HEADLINES BELOW:
By Melissa Eddy
July 15, 2021
Updated 8:08 p.m. ET
Hundreds Missing and at Least 69 Dead as Raging Floods Strike Western Europe
Strong rains caused rivers to burst their banks and wash away buildings in Belgium and Germany, where at least 1,300 remained missing. Homes and streets in the Netherlands and Switzerland also flooded.
Mr. Nyquist, you replied thusly as to my question about if you read Ludovici;
”As I read some Huxley and Darwin, and some Spencer in my youth, and found them unconvincing, I had no interest in reading Ludovici (who was influenced by Spencer). I found something by Ludovici in a used book store in the 1980s. It seemed interesting at first, and read a few chapters, felt sick and would not pay the five dollars for something I did not care to finish. Did I miss something by not reading him?”
I must say Mr.Nyquist, your instincts in this area are better than mine, I often continue to read where my heart tells me otherwise, and Ludovici was no exception. I guess I suffer from a particular concupiscence, the desire to know, to address every contingency, to go down every rabbit hole wherever I might be led.
Ludovici’s extreme hatreds remind me of another American writer, Revilo P. Oliver, or of the Belgian Rexist Nazi who Hitler said he’d be proud to have a son like,Leon Degrelle.
Well, at least Oliver had an excellent prose style and Dagrelle had intellectual charisma. If one can get past their obnoxious ideas there are a few interesting historical tidbits to be found. My evaluation: The whole Darwinian/racist thing is yesterday’s pseudoscience. So boring.
This is also true. Degrelle in particular in another age and for a less loathsome cause, could even be considered heroic after a fashion.
But it is all so vulgar, dreary, tawdry and lacking in any real grace or perfections, yes.
Truly.
Memory is the cure for insanity, political or otherwise. Remembering what we were told.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LObLaozKUk&list=LL&index=238
”Christ with his disciples leaves the Temple
before His death on the Cross,
With sorrowful words full of sorrow
He taught his beloved friends.”
“Tell us, Teacher, the last word,
While you are still living with us.
Tell us, Teacher, when will it be,
When will you come to judge us?”
“Hear war, rumors of war,
The people will rise against the people;
Diseases and famines and pestilences
will come , And brotherly blood will flow.
When you see the abomination in the temple,
Then know that the Judgment is at the door.
See that the door does not close before you,
Hold the lamp in your hands!”
”Faith will diminish , hope will fade away, Love will grow cold in hearts,
And then many people will be tempted,
Spill innocent blood”
”Severe sorrows will be poured on the earth,
And grievous torments will come;
Then people will say: “Cover us, mountains” –
But the mountains will not fall on them!”
”And in these minutes look for death,
But death will run away from people.
And whoever works in the field, not at home,
let him not rush home.”
”The sun will darken, the moon and the stars
will fall from the firmament;
Earthly peoples
will rise from the dead, Go to the Divine Judgment.”
”The Cross will appear illuminated by the rays
And it will shine like the sun, The
chosen children will rise from the beginning
And they will gaze joyfully.”
”Crowds of people will follow them,
From edge to edge of the earth,
And all earthly nature will tremble
Before the Terrible Face of the Judge.”
Robert Malins, you said;
”I vastly prefer a Thomas Jefferson or a Daniel Morgan or a George Washington when dealing with matters of the intellect. The first and third were true intellectuals who then committed to fighting with rifles, as did the second, who was a great leader but more a common man. But all three of them have more intellectual force than this entire thread, which is committed to intellectually theorizing about Hegelian Dialectics and interpretations of the writings of Xi Jinping, while warriors recognize their adversary’s intentions inherently and immediately, and fight and defeat them kinetically without delay.”
But people are not even clear as to the ”adversary” to be fought. No warrior is lacking in that perception; knowing who the enemy is and why they are the enemy. People give all kinds of different pseudo-reasonings, but they merely have strong but unthinking prejudices, not reasons.
”This thread reminds me of a group of participants who prefer to analyze a football game avoiding ever have to play in one. There is nothing more boring than intellectual self stimulation. True intellectuals use their minds to interpret what to do; faux intellectuals use their intellects to avoid having to put themselves on the line. That is why such a fine intellect as Jeff Nyquist’s has so few followers. They sense that there is nothing but avoidance of conflict in the words here, so they quickly tire and tell no one of their attempt to participate, and then blindly move on searching for what they know not that they seek; their own courage.”
Again,who is the enemy and why?
”The reason that I torture Jeff so incessantly is because a true intellect in service of bold action is such a valuable asset, and one that I cannot suffer to see wasted. Minds like Jeff’s should be gathering in private, under penalty of hanging as did the colonialist intellectual leaders, finding the best way forward in order to prevail and overthrow the current power of the left as did the colonialist intellectuals and common men with the British. But alas, so far, we will have to rely on our Daniel Morgans more, for their courage is not overshadowed and muted by their intellects. Jeff fears the deep state and the alphabet agencies more than he loves courage.”
Stupidity is not courage, it is lunacy given wings.
”But then again, maybe I say this as a plant who seeks to draw Jeff out into illegal arenas of conversation in order to silence his powerful voice, in the service of the left. Who knows for sure? Maybe I made up the story of the F.B.I. visiting me for an article I wrote. Maybe it was all illusion and deception. You all should know, but you probably don’t, as you are fully invested in this intellectual self stimulation without effect.”
So you brag about your dishonesty, like a robber among friends, while harping to have others go do something.
” What good does it do you to know that the left is advancing in America, and to know all the attendant tributaries historically that have lead up to this great river threatening to wash us all away in its flow? Without true courage, all knowledge is in vain. That’s why courage is the seminal virtue, for without it, all the others are impossible to attain.”
Telling others to have courage and do something….This is a joke,or ravings from a mental institution.
Jesus Jeff, at the end of the day you are an intellectual that seems somewhat like one who diverts away from truth they are afraid of. We all know very well who the enemy is; no more missives are required to know that. Godless globalist communists and their allies are clearly the enemy. No more conversation required. They are the ones seeking to undercut the traditional underpinnings of our republic. Can we agree on this? Or would you like to debate its implications for a few more years? Your definition of stupidity is somewhat different from mine, which is delay when a mortal threat is sufficiently understood.
And if you take my jest that I might be a deep state subversive trying to implicate and then silence your voice as actual, and then would actually use this basis to suggest action from a basis of admitted dishonesty; I thought you were an intellectual! Nice ad hominem about the mental institution by the way. I have not implicated you as mentally ill for failing to exercise your God given courage; but you are quick to use this tactic in response to most anything I post, in an attempt to deflect what I suggest you know in your heart to be true. You can do so much better Jeff; please do so soon before people like you are later intellectualizing about the fall of the American Republic and mentioning your name as a reason! Now have I forgotten any seminal commas that you might use against me, ones that are crucial to the understanding of our standing?
You do not even understand that you are not talking to Mr. Nyquist, and yet you want others to go out and take actions based on your perceptions of what ”courage” is? When your perceptions are already so flawed on an elementary level? Maybe you should stop and prayerfully think and have respect for the wisdom of others. I know that that takes humility, which is hard for man to do sometimes. But consider the light that others have,perhaps it is more than your own.
I am afraid only that you are a waste of time.
You finally reveal more of your nature. You have condemned the posters on this thread basically
as cowards and dumb. Wow! You
definitely come across as narcissistic, prideful, arrogant, and appear to have a few screws loose. You are so much more intelligent and braver than the rest of us, and see so clearly what must be done….and yet, here you are ridiculing everyone here for “not doing anything”. How do you even know what anyone is doing or will do? Has it not dawned on your infinite intellect, that we are in totally different times than we were in the American War for Independence? That our enemies are already entrenched on our shores, in every locale? That they also have us surrounded, and control, or have greatly infiltrated, every institution? That our society is so degraded that we dont hold a candle to our forefathers? You, sir, by your last two posts, have lost any smidgen of credibility I might have given you. You are definitely either an informant for FIB, or of that ilk, or just plain nutty.
I will quote Edmund Burke to you, from his famous “Reflections on the Revolution in France”: “I see that your example is held out to shame us. I know we are supposed a dull sluggish race, rendered passive by finding out situation tolerable; and prevented by mediocrity of freedom from ever attaining to its full perfection.” He later says about revolutionaries: “But let them not break prison to … sweep the earth with their hurricane, and to break up the fountains of the great deep to overwhelm us.” — we are not the revolutionaries. Try to remember that the enemies of the country are the revolutionaries. Indeed, a civil war may happen all the same, but we must be as rocks in the storm. We hold because we are not flighty or inwardly unprepared; having thought things through to the end. One must not judge a thing by what it is, but by what it is becoming. This is part of “learning how to see.”
I really like that, Mr. Nyquist 🙂
Lunacy with wings. Yes. Buzz, buzz, buzz against the glass behind the blinds. Give me a fly-swatter!
Lol@
M2A1-7 Flamethrower would be more appropriate.
Or fly paper.
Indeed. I have a love for two lands and two peoples, America and Russia,which inform my thinking. I may not always agree with your assessments entirely because of my own politics and philosophical perspective (although the basic idea of a spiritual and cultural malady of blindness, blindness to an enemies strategic deception which is ongoing and which will bring down modern civilization,is all-too-correct in my opinion,”enemy” in the sense of Schmidt), but some kind of extremist revolution is not the answer. Counter-Revolution is the opposite of Revolution in every way; Peace not War, which is the fuel for the engine of Revolution. What this man suggests and annoyingly insinuates constantly is madness.
I agree. In the end the malady is a modern materialist dogma that negates spiritual understanding. Russia and America are infected at leadership level. How to gently to bring healing? How to avoid a conflagration — or mitigate one.
Th enemy is the criminal regimes, not the people.
Both cultures have been irreparably damaged to the point of making score cards absurd.
Yet I see no way forward without Faith in Jesus Christ.
It will not be gentle.
Mr. Nyquist, have you ever read any of Xenophon’s works? Like “Anabasis?” I’m interested in reading his works at some point, especially since he wrote about Greek military history.
I have read Xenophon’s continuation of Thucydides’ history. The contrast between the two authors is so striking that I developed — like many others — a tremendous respect for Thucydides, who is unique in all history for his depth. Xenophon also wrote an Apology of Socrates which is of interest.
Word of mouth organizing of new elections. No secret ballot. Voters must show identification. Everyone makes a mark on the wall of the candidate of their choice for all to see. Establish Common Law courts and quit using public services. Get members of the armed forces to join in the process, and honor the elected President. Eliminate Democrat and Republican parties. Reinstate the Anti Masonic Party. The Marines will resist, and will become enemy combatants to the People.
Actually, official looking identification is not to be trusted. On voters fluent in English with no detectable accent will have votes that count. If they are old enough to reason, they can vote.
Jeff, not sure if you can comment, during the last few months there has been serious allegations from people who participated in the Hong Kong Protest in 2019 that Nathan Law gave the Chinese Communist Party information on participants who took part and there are people also saying that a lot of participants who took part and are in jail due to the actions of Nathan Law:
https://twitter.com/Lukernether/status/1392741034698940420
https://twitter.com/Lukernether/status/1407427006157967362
According to the person on the above Twitter, Carrie Lam had a secret meeting with Nathan Law to dismantle umbrella movement and also a Chinese Communist Party backed organization sponsored Nathan Law’s scholarship during his time at Yale.
Interesting.
Mr. Nyquist, you said to me;
”I agree. In the end the malady is a modern materialist dogma that negates spiritual understanding. Russia and America are infected at leadership level. How to gently to bring healing? How to avoid a conflagration — or mitigate one.”
The answer lies in the Heavens with the God and the gods His messengers and saints, and with the Earth, the people,and their memory and their hardships;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL-BaOQKZiA
Dew Drops (Russian Folk Song)
”If I only knew
When I would die
Ah, my Lord, my God
I would’ve hired a carpenter
To build me a coffin
Ah, my Lord, my God
I’ll just lie down and die
I’ll fly up to God
Ah, my Lord, my God
I’m with our God
With great concerns
Ah, my Lord, my God
My silken grass,
Oh, my dew drops of pearl
Take me down, my dear God
From heaven – and back to earth
Ah, my Lord, my God
From heaven – and back to earth
Onto the yellow sands
Ah, my Lord, my God
My silken grass,
Oh, my dew drops of pearl”
And the pictures to the video-it was said that the Germans have one foot in ”Atlantis”, well, Russians have their whole self in ”Hyperborea”, in ”Fairie”. Maybe hard to understand…We are not the West, no matter how hard some try to be,or to force others to be Westernized.
I just want us to be ourselves, all of us.