Unless either the philosophers become kings … or those who now are called kings and rulers become philosophers … there will be no rest from evil … nor, I believe, for the human race either. And not until that happens, will this politeia of ours have a measure of growth and see the light of the sun.

Socrates [i]

Are we ruled by wise men or fools? Which country has a philosopher as head of state? France, perhaps? When French President Emmanuel Macron conducted an eight-hour “Great Debate of Ideas” with dozens of academics, people were left wondering. Should we take him seriously? Or is Emmanuel Macron merely an intellectual posing as a philosopher? Rather than striking a pose, a philosopher is concerned with deeper truths while the politician shaves the truth for the sake of political expediency. As Machiavelli might say, deceit is the politician’s obligation if he hopes to succeed. This is how ambitious politicians become slaves to untruth – like the criminal who cannot stop adding to his crimes because a turn toward honesty would prove fatal. In brief, the politician who serves expediency might imagine himself to be powerful and free. Yet he becomes trapped by his own expedient lies.

Diogenes the Cynic, a famous Greek philosopher who lived in a large clay pot, was once noticed by Alexander the Great examining a pile of human bones. Alexander’s curiosity being aroused, he asked what the philosopher was doing. “I am searching for the bones of your father,” he allegedly replied, “but I cannot distinguish them from those of a slave.”

Xenophon tells the story of Euthydemus, an Athenian youth who fancied himself the best educated of his generation because he had acquired a great many books that would teach him how to be a successful politician.[ii] Socrates sat down with the youth and inquired about his ambition. “I want to be a politician and administrator,” admitted Euthydemus. Socrates said this was commendable and praised Euthydemus for studying “the art of kingship.” Then Socrates asked, “But have you satisfied yourself whether it is possible to become good at these things without being morally good?” Socrates admonished the youth that ignorance of moral goodness signifies enslavement (i.e., to vice).   

In Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary we find the following definition of the word EMANCIPATION: “A bondman’s change from the tyranny of another to the despotism of himself.” Bierce then set down four lines of poetry by “G.J.”

He was a slave: at word he went and came;
His iron collar cut him to the bone.
Then Liberty erased his owner’s name,
Tightened the rivets and inscribed his own.

At the beginning of his Politics, Aristotle says there are pairings of persons and things that need each other. His first example was the pairing of male and female, necessary for the survival of the human race. Aristotle then suggested another natural pairing – that of rulers and ruled. Aristotle explained that those who can use their intelligence to look ahead are by nature rulers and masters, “while that which has the bodily strength to do the actual work is by nature a slave, one of those who is ruled. Thus there is a common interest in uniting master and slave.”[iii]

Of course, this formulation makes a poor impression on today’s liberals and socialists, whose demagoguery consists in flattering the masses. They prefer to speak in terms of “democracy,” which promises liberty and equality for all. Aristotle’s ”pairing” of rulers and ruled is something no democratic politician would care to expound upon. He would prefer to say that “the people” are the rulers. Indeed, we think of ourselves as self-governing and free. But this is not exactly true. As Aristotle was a reasonable man, he would have admitted that the “slaves” created by a political pairing of rulers and ruled might enjoy many freedoms in practice; and these freedoms might even be respected for generations. Yet all these “free men” are not helmsmen on the Ship of State, or captains. The Ship of State is not theirs to command. So, what are they? The masses of today are either passengers on that Ship of State, or members of the ship’s crew. Following our analogy further, because the sea is dangerous and emergencies are inevitable, the captain of a ship must always have absolute authority over passengers and crew. Otherwise, he is no captain at all.

Where, indeed, does a captain get his authority from? Is moral goodness necessary to his office? Is it the case that any “empty suit” will suffice? Looking at a professional politician like President Joe Biden, who governs America as the ultimate empty suit, can anyone honestly say he has the wherewithal to be a captain? Or is he a slave of corruption, obligated to let the Ship of State sink in the next storm? Can we imagine him accepting the same responsibility for his actions as the captain of a real ship? Would he go down with his ship? Or is he a human placeholder, standing in the shoes of George Washington without any of Washington’s virtues? Looking at the Republican side, do we see any prospective captains? There are those who believe that Donald Trump is a proper captain, yet his opponents clearly regard him as a “Captain Bligh.”[iv] Such was the mutiny that erupted during Trump’s presidency, which proved to be a political booby prize.   

It is my suspicion (and only a suspicion) that our Ship of State has no captain, and no real crew. Watching things unfold, I suspect that our Ship of State has been hijacked. Whoever is at the helm, whatever course they claim to be sailing, is not to be trusted. The man who is impersonating the captain is obviously taking direction from somebody else. I doubt he knows where the ship is going. It may be that a monster of the deep, with a strange hypnotic power, has taken charge of the ship. I am thinking of a many-headed serpent called Ideology. Emblazoned on each of its heads is an ism – egalitarianism, Marxism, liberalism, feminism, conspiracism, etc.

Since nearly everyone is hypnotized by this many-headed serpent, nobody is free to act. All are enslaved by the prevailing ideological lies. How, indeed, do we defeat this many-headed serpent? Every attempt to break the spell of one “ism” traps us in another. The serpent’s coils continue to tighten around us. There appears to be no escape. It seems we are slaves of one political gospel or another. The most sinister development, however, is that our favored political gospels prevent the pairing of captain and crew. Our political system is largely dysfunctional because every man is captain over himself. Every man is now a king. Gilbert and Sullivan’s Gondoliers explains this situation in terms of a fable:

There lived a King, as I’ve been told,
In the wonder-working days of old,
When hearts were twice as good as gold,
And twenty times as mellow….

He wished all men as rich as he
(And he was rich as rich could be),
So to the top of every tree
Promoted everybody….

Lord Chancellors were cheap as sprats,
And Bishops in their shovel hats
Were plentiful as tabby cats –
In point of fact, too many.
Ambassadors cropped up like hay,
Prime Ministers and such as they
Grew like asparagus in May,
And Dukes were three a penny.
On every side Field-Marshals gleamed,
Small beer were Lords-Lieutenant deemed,
With Admirals the ocean teemed
All round his wide dominions.

And Party Leaders you might meet
In twos and threes in every street
Maintaining, with no little heat,
Their various opinions.

That King, although no one denies
His heart was of abnormal size,
Yet he’d have acted otherwise
If he had been acuter.
The end is easily foretold,
When every blessed thing you hold
Is made of silver, or of gold,
You long for simple pewter.
When you have nothing else to wear
But cloth of gold you cease to care –
Up goes the price of shoddy.

CHORUS

When every one is somebodee
Then no one’s anybody!

Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of democratic egalitarianism. If everyone is responsible for the Ship of State, then nobody is responsible. As noted earlier, I suspect the ship has no captain at all. It has either been hijacked by bandits or it is adrift. How can we get out of this situation? It cannot be fixed so long as the pairing of captain and crew has been disrupted by Ideology. This is the monster that must be defeated first. Surely, with the next storm, our ship will come to grief. Poisoned by Ideology’s hallucinogen, we look upon the horizon and see only a Promised Utopia. Sadly, it is a rocky shore on which our Ship of State must crash.

Looking back at the last several centuries, we might ask why this is happening? Why is Ideology afflicting us? Monsters of the deep are mysterious creatures who dwell in darkness. One such monster was described long ago by the ancient Egyptians. They called it the Apep – a chaos demon in the form of a serpent who constantly battled the sun god, Ra. Here is a very old representation of a battle that is waged through eternity between light and darkness, good and evil, truth and falsehood. What we are experiencing today is an iteration of this battle. Our chaos demon is called Ideology. It has injected mankind with a blinding agent which has disrupted those images and structures on which the human soul depends.

In his poem, “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot penned the following lines:

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief….

Here is the rocky shore we are headed to. Eliot is writing about spiritual desertification and its consequences. He wrote the poem after suffering from a nervous breakdown in the aftermath of the First World War. The poem itself partakes of the dryness it depicts. (In other words, Eliot is writing what he knows.) And there is nothing fertile in this dryness. Nothing can take root in it. There is drought, dust, red rock without water, cracked mouths, dry bones, and “dry sterile thunder without rain.” In his poetry Eliot falls back on dryness again and again because dryness is akin to emptiness, and his contemporaries were, as he famously noted elsewhere, “hollow.” Eliot’s key phrase, which tells us what this poem signifies, is his reference to a “heap of broken images.” These images are quite clearly the treasures of the mind and soul. The interpretation follows that something has caused a desert to form in man’s soul. And all those images, on which spiritual meaning depend, lie broken. Among these are Aristotle’s pairings – man and woman, ruler and ruled, God and the Universe. [v]

Eric Voegelin once described the twentieth century in terms of an oppressive flood of ideological nonsense. Men were, he said, “hemmed in, if not oppressed, from all sides….” After World War I, society was bombarded with “language symbols that pretend to be concepts but in fact are unanalyzed … topics.”[vi] Here is a realm of “idols” dressed up as science that are, in fact, pseudo-science; from the “scientific socialism” of Karl Marx to the National Socialism of Adolf Hitler. Today we have the dogma of anthropogenic global warming fastened on socialist arguments for reducing the human race from 8 billion to 500 million people. All these pseudo-sciences, argued Voegelin, have been designed to justify killing people for the fun of it. Voegelin explained, “What the fun is, I did not quite understand … but in the intervening years the ample exploration of revolutionary consciousness has cast some light on this matter. The fun consists in gaining a pseudo-identity through asserting one’s power, optimally by killing somebody….” This pseudo-identity, he added, “serves as a substitute for a self that has been lost.”[vii]

Forgive me for quoting these passages at intervals, but I find them so very precise – so directly on target. You will not find a better general explanation of revolutionary consciousness than this. To recapitulate: The madness of Ideology endangers our Ship of State by disrupting the pairing of captain and crew. It has even sought to deny the pairing of male and female. The damage here is far-reaching and involves the whole of society as well as the individual.

Thomas Carlyle, reacting to the Revolutions of 1848, wrote his Latter-Day Pamphlets to expose the fallacies of the revolutionary mind. Here he used the metaphor of a sailing ship headed to Cape Horn. He wrote:

Unanimity of voting, – that will do nothing for us…. Your ship cannot double Cape Horn by its excellent plans of voting. The ship may vote this and that, above decks and below, in the most harmonious and exquisitely constitutional manner: the ship, to get round Cape Horn, will find a set of conditions already … fixed with adamantine rigor by the ancient Elemental Powers, who are entirely careless how you vote. If you can … ascertain these conditions, and valiantly conform to them, you will get round the Cape: if you cannot, the ruffian Winds will blow you ever back again; the inexorable Icebergs, dumb privy councilors from Chaos, will nudge you with most chaotic ‘admonition’; you will be flung half frozen on the Patagonian cliffs, or admonished into shivers by your iceberg councilors, and sent sheer down to Davy Jones, and will never get round Cape Horn at all!”[viii]

As we watch the news, some of us wonder about election fraud. But our problem is larger. What if, as H.L. Mencken suggested, democracy is the system where “the people get what they want, and they get it good and hard”? Aside from this, our republic was not constituted as a democracy. Voting is only one check in a system of checks and balances that is now breaking down. In the Sea of Time, wrote Carlyle, what is needed is a Captain who discerns what the true regulations of the Universe are “and can faithfully and steadfastly follow these.” Only men who see the truth and stand by it are going to matter. Whatever stands in the way of the truth, stands in the way of national recovery. Falsehood, in this context, is man’s “enemy of enemies.” Those who do not adhere to truth, who cannot read the Divine Message or see the eternal regulation of the Universe face destruction and shipwreck “for every affair.”

In Federalist No. 2, John Jay wrote, “Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of Government, and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights, in order to vest it with requisite powers.” And herein lies our dilemma. We have the Founders’ Constitution today, on paper. But the men who are ostensibly in charge are no longer upholding that piece of paper. And now, after the pandemic, we see that our Government is a Ship of Fools, adrift in a dangerous sea. War has broken out in Europe. The waves are getting larger and larger. The wind is picking up.

How do we survive the coming storm? To be part of the solution we must stop being part of the problem. This means we must stop believing in ideological lies. We must set aside conspiracy theories that never quite name the conspirators; for everything imprecise and vague, in this regard, is worthless. And we must take care not to attribute all mankind’s ills to some ethnic group, like the Jews; or to some cult which has somehow gained mastery over all other cults. Falsehood is not going to save us. We must have the truth.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Links and Notes

[i] Plato, The Republic, 473c-d. (As translated in Eric Voegelin’s book on Plato.)

[ii] Xenophon, Conversations of Socrates (London: Penguin Classics, 1990), pp. 178-190. These are the pages which cover Socrates’s interactions with Euthydemus.

[iii] Aristotle, The Politics, 1252a24. Translation by T.A. Sinclair.

[iv] William Bligh was with Captain Cook’s third voyage to the Pacific Ocean when Cook was killed in July 1776. Bligh played an essential role in getting the expedition back to England (in August 1780). In 1787, Lieutenant Bligh took command of the His Majesty’s Armored Transport Vessel (HMAV) Bounty, which famously mutinied against Bligh after loading up with breadfruit trees in Tahiti. Three movies were made of the mutiny. Bligh was played, in succession, by Charles Laughton (Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935), Trevor Howard (Mutiny on the Bounty, 1962), and Anthony Hopkins (The Bounty, 1984). Only Hopkin’s portrayal of Bligh was sympathetic, partaking of that same mid-1980s nostalgia for great men found in Roland Huntford’s Last Place on Earth, turned into a seven-part miniseries on the 1910-11 race for the pole between Captain Robert F. Scott and Roald Amundsen. In the miniseries Scott was depicted as a dangerously conceited man, out of touch with reality, fully empowered to march his polar party into oblivion. (The party died of scurvy, exhaustion and the cold.) At the same time Amundsen was depicted as a realist, as a man who could admit his mistakes, whose expedition safely and swiftly arrived at the South Pole and departed. The irony is, of course, that Scott is more celebrated as a hero, and Amundsen is depicted as a villain because he kept his men alive by eating the expedition’s sled dogs on the return trip.  

[v] Aristotle believed God and the Universe were eternal; however, Aristotle suggested that God imparts motion to the universe. Without motion, the Universe would have no meaning, no direction, no from or to. In other words, the motion imparted to matter by God grants form and order to what would otherwise be a lifeless waste land of formless substance. Creation, therefore, is the coming together of form and substance, mind and matter. The physicist Viktor Kulish has suggested that the physical universe is manifested and sustained, moment to moment, by God.  

[vi] Voegelin, Autobiographical Reflections (USA: Louisiana University Press, 1989), p. 93.

[vii] Ibid, pp. 46-47.

[viii] Thomas Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets (Kindle), p. 249.

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172 thoughts on “No Philosopher Kings”

      1. If one uses the term nowadays, he is immediately accused of anti-Semitism, yet the term is of greek origin. Cosmopolitan literally means citizen of the world. Such a person cannot be loyal to his country. By definition it equates to traitor.

  3. “The physicist Viktor Kulish has suggested that the physical universe is manifested and sustained, moment to moment, by God.”

    He is correct. Without God’s sustaining power, the universe would spontaneously disassemble. God, being the ultimate Engineer, designed even the laws of Physics we use to produce works for man and to explain the universe. Because of the fall, god is allowing the universe to slowly run down, the earth particularly.

    The Prophet Isaiah wrote,

    Lift up your eyes to the heavens, And look on the earth beneath. For the heavens will vanish away like smoke, The earth will grow old like a garment, And those who dwell in it will die in like manner; But My salvation will be forever, And My righteousness will not be abolished. Isaiah 51:6

  4. Pingback: No Philosopher Kings – Mist Vista

  5. Always glad to see another article posted. Merry Christmas to you and yours, Jeff, as well as your readers. I hope 2023 is everyone’s best year yet.

  6. Professor Emeritus, Tim Walker, of San Francisco State University, Music Recording Industry, has asked the class, “If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

    What do you here, say?

      3. Is hearing a representation of the tree falling the same as hearing a tree falling? (ala “This is not a pipe”)

        Does it help if instead of playing the signal back, we digitize it and plot the signal on a computer screen, or are we now hearing with our eyes? What if we use signal processing and pop a flag?

        Does it count if a squirrel hears it? We could train the squirrel to operate a telegraph and blindfold it to make sure it doesn’t cheat.

        On a more serious note, I suspect the essence of the question is “Does reality still exist if I am unable to sense it?” So, does my bedroom still exist when I am in the kitchen? if not, then I can think of two options: reality is an illusion or we create reality with our own minds (are there any other options). R.C. Sproul said that Descartes argued that illusions can’t think and therefore at least something (my thinker) has to be real (“I think therefore I am”), but I guess that does not preclude everything else from being an illusion. If we create reality (or at least the material universe) with our minds, then we have the problem that we are create from the material universe and this seems that it would devolve into self-creation, which is irrational since we have to exist and not exist at the same time and in the same sense, violating the law of non-contradiction.

        On a less serious note, I heard a joke years ago (obviously created by an engineer) about an an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician. The engineer woke up and saw that his house was on fire. He grabbed an envelope and quickly estimated the amount of water needed to put out the fire, went and got water, put out the fire, and went back to bed. The physicist woke and saw that his house was on fire. He went to his desk and derived five pages of equations to calculate the amount of water needed to put out the fire and then he went back to bed. The mathematician woke up and saw that his house was on fire. He thought for a moment and then said, “It can be solved” and rolled back over and went to sleep. Perhaps we can expand the joke to include the philosopher. The philosopher woke up and saw that his house was on fire. He asked himself, “Is it real or is it an illusion” and he lay awake pondering the question.

      5. Tim Walker is bassist with the Zydeco Flames. He says that there can be no sound without ears to hear it; only ‘signal’. When the signal reaches the brain, only then can it be perceived as sound. The Zen cats didn’t have this scientific comprehension. This is an difference between science and philosophy

      6. In light of Dr. Berkeley’s answer, I suggest we delegate the task of finding an appropriate tree to use in the experiment. 🙂

      8. Oh, oh. I know the answer. Yes. He is still wrong; but he is free to do what he wants.

      12. 🙂 I hadn’t heard that one before, but I loved “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival” as a kid.

    2. If sound is mechanical vibration, which it is, then a tree falling will make a sound, regardless of whether anyone hears it or not.

      Merry Christmas everyone!

      2. Jeff, sounds like a poorly defined question until we define what sound is. In physics class, they defined sound as a mechanical vibration. The ear is a mechanical vibration sensor.

      3. I think maybe Jeff is thinking more on the Quantum Physics level than just Physics. Sound is simply how we perceive what are being referred to as “mechanical vibrations”. We perceive these as “sound” due to how we are created, with our hearing, nerves, and our brain presents this information to our mind as sound…a way to perceive the oscillations. A microphone and recorder is simply attempting to mimic this method of perception. But going further, what is a mechanical vibration? Mechanical insinuates matter must be involved; which we also perceive in certain ways. But what is matter? I don’t think we actually know for sure. When it is broken down as far as we can at this point, it really just appears to be energy in various forms suspended in empty space…force “particles”, point particles, weak force, strong force…but that is just scratching the surface. I think Jeff may be hinting at some of these concepts which we are still learning about. God is the force that holds everything together and in which all things consist, it all comes from Him, His power , energy if you will. So in that sense “sound” is simply how we perceive an oscilation or disturbance in energy…thinking about it from the perspective of Quantum Physics (which deals with the “matter” we study in Physics…it goes deeper than matter and mechanical things).

        I’m not trying to put anyone in their place in this, or even correct anyone; I just think this issue of sound was being looked at from two different perspectives that may have been missing each other; Physics vs. Quantum Physics. I am no physicist or scientist, but do enjoy trying to learn more about those things. It is fascinating to consider that the chair I’m sitting on is really energy and empty space (dig into the construction of and what makes up the atoms it consists of). Fascinating, God has created us with senses to be able to perceive these things in various ways. In this way all things are spiritual.

        I appreciated the article. I had to think while reading it…the eternal laws of sowing and reaping are unavoidable. What a man sows, that will he reap; and, the wages of sin is death. There is no way around this, and it is applicable to the person, family, church, institution, and nation.

        But, I do take comfort from this scripture:
        2Ch 7:14  If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

      4. Dr. George Berkeley, who proposed the question about the tree falling in the forest, said there is sound when the tree falls (and no one is around to hear it) — BECAUSE GOD HEARS IT.

    3. Another philosophical paradox at best, same as if God can do everything, can he build a rock so big he can’t lift it? I’ll attempt an answer, it’s all based on time. If the tree falls, it makes a sound (because time is related to gravity). Just like God the spirit can build the rock so big that Jesus and can sit on and not lift it. There are many paradoxes that can be answered when moving between time and frequency domains, another reason why it is so heavily studied.

      Merry Christmas to you too Jeff, and everyone here.

      1. Here’s my zen answer for the rock problem. God could create a rock so big that he can’t lift it. But then he would come along and lift it anyway.

    4. Irene, I like what you mentioned and what Tim Walker said.
      And I’d say that Tim Walker took some philosophy classes, just like Andrew Fletcher did when he said to JFK, “you write the laws, I’ll write the music and I’ll rule the country.”

    5. OK, then. The premise is that if it is not perceived, it never existed. Disproven by basic scientific analysis, we would never have xrays, a periodic table, or celestial mechanics. The premise is one of willful ignorance. QED.
      .

  7. I think you make excuses for the traitors to evade the pending Nuremberg 2.0. The only question is, why do you do so?

  8. Actually, the question is, why are you making an asinine statement and question with no grounds whatsoever in anything he has written?

      1. It’s the Reagan Defense. For years of his time in office, people cast aspersions on President Reagan, calling him senile. Junior senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry, opened investigations into Iran/Contra. After Reagan left office, he was subpoenaed to testify.

        His doctor sent an excuse that Ronnie had Alzheimer’s.

        Case closed.

      2. “It is my suspicion (and only a suspicion) that our Ship of State has no captain, and no real crew. Watching things unfold, I suspect that our Ship of State has been hijacked. Whoever is at the helm, whatever course they claim to be sailing, is not to be trusted. The man who is impersonating the captain is obviously taking direction from somebody else. I doubt he knows where the ship is going. It may be that a monster of the deep, with a strange hypnotic power, has taken charge of the ship. I am thinking of a many-headed serpent called Ideology. Emblazoned on each of its heads is an ism – egalitarianism, Marxism, liberalism, feminism, conspiracism, etc.”
        –JR Nyquist, December 22, 2022, No Philosopher Kings

      3. I get it, but I think you’re just messing with Jeff. I don’t gather that he is trying to let Biden off the hook at all. He has said in other essays and interviews that Biden came into politics via Soviet agents, ie Armand Hammer, and on foreign policy was always supportive of laws that were detrimental to us, and favored the Communists.

        But you have to admit, Biden has always been a corrupt dimwit. And now, he is a senile, doddering, child-molesting dimwit. He couldn’t mentally figure his way out of a wet paper bag. He is truly the empty suit of empty suits. Someone else, or more than one person, truly is calling the shots. He’s just signing in the right places

      5. Is there, legally, an “empty suit” defense? I think the ultimate empty-suit of Nazism, Adolf Eichmann, would have used this defense when he was tried in Jerusalem. But he did not offer this as a defense. And they hanged him. Hannah Arendt said that Eichmann personified “the banality of evil.”

      6. It’s just like the plea of insanity. Insane or not, you do the crime, you pay the penalty. Empty suit or not, you do the crime, you do the penalty. At least that’s the way I think.

      8. It may be a defense, but it doesn’t free the empty head from the consequences.

        Just like the person who absentmindedly locks their keys in their vehicle. They temporarily had an “empty head”, but still have to pay a locksmith to get the door unlocked.

      9. I think Jeff does too, but he doesn’t want to be Cancelled. So, he soft peddles.

      10. No. I soft-pedal. I never soft-peddle. Though I might soft-piddle. As with music, one must sometimes play softer. The reason is not to avoid cancellation. It is to avoid a harsh, clangy, sound — like that of beating a dead horse.

      12. A common misconception is that defendants charged with felonies, who successfully plead insanity, are let off the hook. Fact is, that they thereby become subject to an indefinite term of commitment in an insane asylum.

        Doesn’t always work out that way, and of course political shenanigans rarely result in long prison terms, rather six months in Club Fed.

        Nothing will come from the Congressional referral to the DoJ for Trump, either. The objective is merely to make him undetectable.

        As for the Proud Boys, they are JTTF controlled opposition; homosexual partners of Antifa, who find it amusing to bait Conservatives into fighting for these anarchists’ rights. In my own opinion, not reflective of the editor of this blog.

        I don’t trust Trump, or RINO Kari Lake, either.

  9. Is ideology the problem? Or is it merely a smokescreen for something more sinister, namely the unbridled selfishness of psychopaths? And ideology is the tool that they use to convince others to follow them, like the flute of the Pied Piper?

    In Proverbs, the “throne” is used to denote government. “The throne is established in justice” and “…for the throne is established in justice” Proverbs 25:5, 16:12. “Justice raises a nation” Proverbs 14:34. Then in Micah 6:8 there’s the admonition to do judicial justice. A repeated theme throughout the Old Testament is that the rulers are to do justice.

    What is the most important role of government? Is it not providing justice among its citizens? That includes protecting its citizens from the injustice of an invasion from an oppressive enemy? But what do we see our present government doing? Is it justice to steal elections? To politicize the FBI? To order private companies to censor legally protected speech? To persecute people who don’t agree with the party in power? Or are these the things ordered by a shadow government behind the empty suit in the presidential suite?

    Just as we cannot see viruses but we can see their results (sniffles, fever, cough, etc.), so often we can see the fruits of conspiracies, before we know the identies of the conspirators.

    If ideology condones injustice to get or remain in power, is it the ideology at fault, or the people pushing it? If it is the people, is that not a sign that they are psychopaths?

  10. I don’t want to appear as a killjoy; but truth be told, there are unreachables, unteachables who are incapable of discussion on even their own level let alone an intellectual level. That would mean there is no solution on a grand scale to change the course of history or that which has been predetermined. And, I say predetermined based on the ultimate truth that is so vehemently criticized. Whatever action we take to remedy our lot will not only result in chaos but the fulfillment of prophesy. Leave one bad apple and the barrel is rot. Except that the barrel is full of rot. You can only preach to the choir. All else falls on deaf ears. We might turn one soul here or there; but beyond that………. Merry Christmas, Jeff. I enjoy your thoughts.

  11. What ever. You want the truth Jeff? As Jack said, “you can’t handle the truth” You made a comment a while ago about Gates. Do you want to know what he was told on Richard Bransons Island in April 2004? No you don’t. Happy festivus.

    2. What is truth anyway? Gates is a billionaire who knows how to be cunning and smart yet play innocent when needed. Yet, he wondered why people hated him. However, when they threw a pie in his face because he forced Netscape out of business, people never forgot that. Why would anyone trust Gates to speak the truth, is he a doctor again now too? He’s a software salesman, and nothing more.

    3. Gates who? Robert Gates? Bill Gates? And what about Richard Branson’s island? Exactlly what don’t I want to know? Do I get any clues, or only insults?

      1. No insult intended, but the person mentioned is Bill Gates. The events mentioned point to him. Those of us who have been connected with science, engineering and computers know much about him. And we don’t like what we see. Through his “vaccines” he is a psychopathic mass murderer.

        It’s quite understandable that those who have not followed the goings on in Silicon Valley wouldn’t recognize the allusions mentioned above. That is no criticism of you, as you have gone very deeply into a different subject, just as important, one that we of more limited resources in that field cannot match.

      2. I have written about Gate’s connection to China. He is basically one of China’s best friends in America. This explains his actions pretty well.

      3. Gates is a man to never trust. He, and those like him, inspired the term “Ghostware” because they made all kinds of promises for what was coming, but it never materialized. I’ve never had any respect for the man.

  12. Some atheists seem to imply that the root of all evils [if not without qualification, at least culturally] is religion in and of itself. But if this is true, this doesn’t explain from an atheist perspective why religion even exists. Thus, one ne becomes entrapped in a mindset of, on the one hand, “Christianity won over compared to many other religions simply because of sheer luck or a statistical necessity”, and on the other, “Christianity is the problem”. If something is as meaningless as to not having any intrinsic merit in its secular predominance, why should it be held accountable in any outstanding way, and thus described as “the problem”?

    I think the same reasoning holds somewhat similar with the stance against ideology. If it is a perfectly-arbitrary-and-instrinsically-meaningless-by-product-of-chaos made-up thing, how can it be as much endowed with “merit” or demerit as to constitute the problem? In other words, how can nothingness beget something?

    If you look attentively, many ideological problems arose from very real and pressing problems, and precisely from one’s not having a ready answer to these problems. Ideologies, from the latter perspective, are the facade of an underneath civilizational drama. For example, the early socialist ideal opposing the bourgeoisie selfishness [and individualism] to the proletariat solidarity and colectivism: this opposition did not come up in a vacuum, the European societies in which it arose were really troubled by a irreconciliation between private and public, the bourgeoisie represented private-focused existence, the proletariat represented colectivist aspiration. But if you think about it, this antithetical schema could only arise in the context of a society in which religious indifferentism gained momentum, and religious indifferentism only gained momentum in the 19th century, according to Hillaire Belloc. When you cannot voice your religious opinions with reputableness, and they [opinions] are relegated to the domain of “private life”, it’s no wonder private life and colective life became irreconcilable in the form of socialist doctrines; and change of personal opinions [along with change in general], deemed “merely private”, were understood by influential socialist utopian Fourier as “the universal law”, or words to that effect. The endless-reincarnation-cycles Spiritist doctrine was entirely based on Fourier’s outlook, and of course Karl Marx dedicated his Das Kapital to Darwin’s work, the Origin of Species, meaning that the law of transformation in the bilogical realm, deemed the golden law by Fourier, also applied to the socio-politico realm.

    When you see a notion such as religion, which in relative recent history had such reputableness, fall down to being primarily a pejorative term, it is simply a fact that things have gone completely awry. An early poem from Wordsworth has him praising religion, the very word “religion”, with unsuspecting cheerfulness. Now you can hardly get people to realize or even examine the evidence for the opposition between “true spirituality” and religion having been the effect of some of the same cultural tendencies which gave occasion to socialist ideals. The very tyrannical degenerate look religion as such acquired was a real phenomenon marginally effected by revolutionary tendencies. The cause for religion (and for the dignity of religion’s name) has become the prey of ideological foes, but this ideological enmity is the facade for very real underneath civilizational circumstances that preclude the possibility that the problem may be solved by merely promoting the notion of religion in a positive light, as if such was sufficient to address the problem or deal with its underlying reality.

    1. A close friend of mine is an atheist who casts aspersions against whom he says doesn’t exist. He has a masters’ degree, yet fails to acknowledge his indulgence in circular reasoning.

      1. What do you mean by that question? Just thinking it through, I see different ways it can be understood.

      2. I do not think there can be a true ideology. For then it would merely be “the truth,” and would no longer serve the usual political purposes. I fact, Eric Voegelin describes ideologies as inherently false. And he does not offer exceptions. So, where can we find an example that proves him wrong?

      3. Jeff: I could not help but laugh at your response—it is so true that the truth cannot serve the usual political purposes. From this description, ideologies are defined as false. You would have to redefine “ideology” in order to “prove” Eric Voegelin false

      4. No. The question is empirical and therefore leads to a hypothesis about ideologies. Can you find a true ideology? Please name a true ideology. The history of ideological formation was instructive to Voegelin in this regard. His original ambition was to write a history of political ideas. He eventually realized that, excepting ideas examined by philosophers, there were very few political ideas. Most of the things people have called “political ideas” are unanalyzed topics like “freedom,” “equality,” “democracy,” “race,” “class,” “revolution,” etc. Furthermore, to take these these unanalyzed topics and fashion an ideological system cannot align with propositional truth. This is what he discovered after years of study. Now you may disagree, but you will have to find a black swan to prove that all swans, in this instance, are not white.

      5. Well, Olavo de Carvalho proposed that he himself had an ideology or ideological framework [albeit a complex framework], and he proposed that ideology is the means by which policy is carried out. He also said the “nonideological but technique-friendly” approach to solving political problems is an ideology, rampant is Brazil’s right-wing media language

        . I think ideology means a stereotypical way of interpreting the socio-politico venue, one whose stereotypical quality is by its own nature misleading in some way. In that sense it is false.

        However, just because one goes to the supermarket to buy stuff and one doesn’t study each individual product’s price [whether the tagged price is accurate or fair], doesn’t mean the purchase is based on fraud in an ordinary sense, even though producers probably, in part, have charged a bit above what could have been strictly fair or sustainable. In economic objects a marginal degree of absurdity or nonintelligibility is a property, not an accident. The same holds true to ideology, it is marginally absurd and inapplicable, even though it may be useful.

        An example of ideology prevalent in America is given in one scene of that movie Concussion, in which Dr. Bennet Omalu uses the expression “God did not intend for us to play football”; the guys he was talking to replied with something like “Leave God out of it”. Dr. Omalu mostly meant to say the human constitution is not well-fitted for withstanding the risks and impacts of the game without dire outcomes, and to this extant the game violates the horizon of possibilities impressed in human nature and its ultimate purpose; and even though the people Dr. Omalu was talking to got the point, because they have an ideology according to which religion is absurd or at least should have no biding authority in the public square, they recognized it would be inconvenient to even allude to a religious outlook while delivering the point. So, their ideology didn’t strictly apply to the situation/conversation, but it gained retrospective validity in the sense of what was going to make the message get across efficiently in the public square. That is how ideology works, it can’t be totally fitting or adequate, or intelligible, but this doesn’t mean it lacks all intelligibility.

      6. Saying that ideologies are formed to carry out political programs, or even saying there is some practical value in using them, is not the same as saying they are true.

      7. In the first comment I stated ideologies are the “facade of an underneath civilizational drama”; which in and of itself implies they cannot be endowed with unequivocal truth validity. A mask can never be one’s face, and this is a premise underlying the discussion I brought out.

      8. Pedro: What I will say, in general, is that philosophers do not make ideologies. They seek wisdom and search for truth. As such, formulating an ideology is out of the question for a philosopher (who never rests, or stops, to affirm what is popular with a political party or mob). The task of forming ideologies belongs to philodoxers.

        The philodoxer doesn’t care about truth or goodness, justice or the meaning of things. He cares about the approval of others. He cares about sounding plausible; whereas, the truth, if it were known, sounds rather improbable and people dislike it.

        To the philodoxer, the philosopher’s search for truth appears senseless. In the end, warns the philodoxer, the philosopher is going to get himself in trouble by annoying people — as Socrates did. Society is going to sentence him, one day, to drink the hemlock and die. Better, then, to seek popularity, get rich, and acquire power.

        Ideology belongs to philodoxers, Pedro. Hitler’s description of how he formed his ideology, in the pages of Mein Kampf, is a perfect example of a philodoxic process.

      9. I never said an ideology is not to be considered evil, I rather stated it is supposed to be misleading. This, however, does not mean something with a true malefic quality is to be considered absurd from each and every point of view. This is discussed, for example, by René Guénon in his The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, in which he explains that the agents of pseudo-initiation and of counter-initiation [whom he denounced in his publications for long] fulfill a certain cosmic role which contributes to the total order of things.

        As for Olavo’s opinion that it is legitimate to have an ideological or stereotypical response or expectation, this can be interpreted as meaning that in each circumnstance one is brought closer to knowledge by means of one’s previously built foreshadowing presentiment. This perfectly corresponds to Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians message, in which he remarks the two sons of Abraham are suppose to symbolize to stages of grasp of truth, the son of the slave-woman comes first, the son of the promise after; to signify the two covenants, and that the imperfect one comes first; and that shadow comes before light in the order of knowledge. This is precisely what the Greek myth of the harpies signifies, them harpies are the shadowy impressions or presentiments with a malignant look, who precede illumination; that is why the female Hermes, the female messenger of the gods, Iris, is a protectess of the harpies.

      10. Has there ever been a “true” ideology? Depends on your definition of “ideology”. I have seen different definitions for “ideology”. From those held individually where they are synonyms for “religion” or “belief system”, to mass ideologies (believed by a group) that drive public policy and politics. The discussion here seems to be limited to mass ideologies that drive public policy. An ideology held individually can be the “truth” (possibility) but members of every mass ideology that I have seen hate “unpleasant truth” and those bearing it, thus fulfilling what Voegelin has observed.

      11. Coca Cola is definitely better than Pepsi, but both are much, better than piddle.

      13. Petunia, Coke is syrupy swill. It was good in Germany, but when I got back, Coke was simply not as good in the US. Same with my time in Italy in the early 70s.

    3. Has anyone else noticed that evangelical protestant types can often be found saying “I’m spiritual but not religious,” and criticizing religion in general? I have had so many say this to me in debate and discussion. This phrase came from New Agers as far as I know. What a state of degeneration we’re in.

      3. Unfortunately the degeneration started much earlier. For many, “religion” means legalism, dos and don’ts, much like Confucius’ Analects, merely rules to live a good life. But then they go and make the opposite mistake, making their “spirituality” merely internal subjective feelings which is just as much degeneration as the former.

  13. Jeffrey, please write an article about the current level of Russian disinformation among Rightwingers in the USA.

    I have been following Twitter accounts of famous ones (Tucker Carlson, Taylor Marshall, Cernovich, Jack Posobiec etc.) and, even among the Catholics, there is a belief that Russia is a Conservative country, a lighthouse for the free world, that the West is not free compared to Russia, that the Russian Orthodox Church keeps Christian values more than the Catholic Church, that Russian families do not divorce, that the average Russian is healthy and free of drug addiction, that Russians are “macho” men (brave and strong), that Russia is against abortion (!!!) etc.

    I was a student of professor Olavo de Carvalho (1947-2022), who warned Brazil against the Russian disinformation, mainly from 2011, when he had a debate with Vladimir Putin’s mastermind, Alexsandr Dugin: «The USA and the New World Order: A Debate Between Olavo de Carvalho and Aleksandr Dugin, the Brains Behind the New Russian Geopolitical Strategy». Unfortunately, our current president, Jair Bolsonaro, said last year: “Vladimir Putin is a Conservative” – this shows that this government did not take professor Olavo seriously!

    God bless you and the USA! Greeting from South America, Brazil, Minas Gerais state.

  14. Hello Mr. Nyquist, I was thinking about these very things that you mentioned in your essay, as I watched Andrei Tarkovsky’s ” Passion according to Andrei”, concerning the life of Andrei Rublev. I’d say that this formidable film, over three hours of cinematic beauty, is probably the best film I’ve ever seen. I recommend all of Tarkovsky’s work: ” the Mirror”, ” Stalker”, ” Ivan’s Childhood”, and ” Solaris”. But especially ” the Passion according to Andrei”. An excellent look into the Russian cultural code and a wellspring of much meaning. The world is so much more than we ever realize, and then there is the Eternal, the Icons and Archetypes which reveal a glimpse of the World to Come.

      2. I will add too, Mr. Nyquist, that what the King needs most is not Philosophy, the preparation for death, as Righteousness, to wield the Sovereignty for the chastisement of the wicked foreign (should they ravage his people)and domestic (should an Oligarchy rise upon the backs of the people to tyrannize them). Ideology only obscures this duty with ornate and artificial distinctions which aim to fragment and destroy his power altogether. I believe every nation and people has a kind of ” hidden king”, an obscure man who can by God’s Grace step forward and set things at rights, if God so wills it. Likely in our times if we were to look for such a man he’s liable to be found in a log cabin in the wilderness, or in a prison.

      4. Mr Nyquist, to reply to your comment about the ” hidden king” concept, that they ” are even crucified”: this is most true. For they possess the Sovereignty which comes from God, but not the Power. That is, they can observe their people, pray for them, offer wisdom and advice, even prepare for the possibility of wedding their sovereign right to rule with the power to do so, and wait for a time that might never come, passing the sovereignty on to others if their line fails. In singular moments in history, they take action: a military commander seizes the throne from a usurper, or the whole people bring someone forward to rule them, moments of supreme crisis like that.

      6. Thank you for your reply, Mr. Nyquist. One can see like with the era described by the movie ” the passion according to Andrei”: savage invaders sacking towns and raiding with impunity, treacherous nobility at one with the Tatars, and so forth, cruelty and grace, beauty and destruction, lust and sublime supernatural love. And a shadow of central authority, fighting for sovereign right, so as to subdue evil by force.

  15. Pope warns Vatican staff an ‘elegant demon’ lurks among them

    Pope Francis warned staff in Christmas speech to be wary of ‘elegant demon’
    He traditionally uses annual speech to rebuke bureaucrats to help them repent
    Aimed to address conservative Catholic critics who are his biggest opponents

    By MADELEINE ROSS FOR MAILONLINE
    PUBLISHED: 06:25 EST, 22 December 2022 | UPDATED: 10:58 EST, 22 December 2022

    The Pope told Vatican staff to beware the ‘elegant demon’ that lurks in self-righteous Catholics in his traditional Christmas speech.

    Francis used his annual Christmas greeting to the Roman Curia to again put the cardinals, bishops and priests who work in the Holy See on notice that they are particularly vulnerable to evil.

    Pope Francis has long used the annual speech as a chance to rebuke bureaucrats in an examination of conscience to help them repent before Christmas.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11565847/Pope-warns-Vatican-staff-elegant-demon-lurks-them.html

  16. Jeff, first I want to be clear that I am not attempting to attack or be contentious. I agree with you however there is a logical error in your argument which can get picked apart and I am hoping for clarification.

    You state in the above article (paraphrasing) that conspiracy theorists can never quite name who is behind the conspiracies. And yet you start that Biden is an empty suit and someone(s) are controlling him without stating who they may be. This could also be true of the communist leadership that is running Russia behind the scenes. On the other hand, a right-wing friend of mine will clearly label George Soros and Klaus Schwab as the epitome of evil driving totalitarian agendas. Therefore the litmus test you give for discerning a conspiracy theory vs conspiracy fact is not clear enough.

    Are there additional thoughts you can offer on this? Thank you.

    2. I did not say, “conspiracy theorists can never quite name who is behind conspiracies.” I actually wrote: “We must set aside conspiracy theories that never quite name the conspirators; for everything imprecise and vague, in this regard, is worthless.” In other words, if you have a conspiracy theory, you need to have a clear idea of who is doing it. This helps us to determine whether the theory is true or not. We might invent any number of theories, but science requires that they be falsifiable in principle. This guards us against dogmas dressed up as theories. My own experience investigating conspiracy claims goes back more than thirty years. What I realized early on was this: If a theory refers to some mysterious group (i.e., the Illuminati) whose existence is either murky or impossible to prove, there is no way to verify any claim about this group. In fact, very fantastic claims can be made about secret organizations whose existence bears a question-mark. Outside the naming of a few famous individuals who we wish to malign, what sort of organization are we talking about? Is it governed by a single person or a council? Are its leaders elected or appointed? How are they inducted into the organization? When did it form? How does it keep from breaking apart? What is its charter? Is there a membership list?

      When we name objects, like unicorns, we might say that they exist. But has anyone actually examined one? Have we studied it? Do we know its biology? Well, no. We cannot examine something that is invisible. Yet there are writers who claim to be experts on the one grand all-encompassing CONSPIRACY. In my view, most “conspiracy theorists” are participating in a process of “ideology formation” in which their key words turn out to be unanalyzed topics — like democracy, freedom, equality, etc. The word “conspiracy” itself, in their writings, turns out to be an unanalyzed topic. And that is very strange; for what they are claiming is not a small group of criminals planning a bank robbery or a kidnapping. What they are claiming is a very large group of criminals operating down the centuries, controlling states and banks, political movements and history itself. For anyone who has studied the historical record, this is improbable on its face. What I first observed in the conspiracy theoriests I met was a deplorable lack of historical knowledge. No reading of ancient history. No familiarity with philosophy. Knowledge of modern history only insofar is it fits with their conspiracy theory. Everything one would expect in an educated person is missing. Yet they see themselves as possessing the most valuable knowledge of all. All other knowledge, I was told, is a waste of time because it was invented by the conspiracy to trick me (and to trick other idiots like me). I quickly saw that conspiracy theory is no theory at all. For its practitioners it is akin to a religious dogma.

      Conspiracy theory is imprecise, say the conspiracy theorists, because its object is not directly observable. One discovers the conspiracy by interpretting events. Yet the interpretations are always circular. What eneters into this is something called confirmation bias, which leads the true believer to interpret any and every event as confirmation. If someone is assassinated, the conspiracy did it. If the stock market crashes, the conspiracy did it. If a war begins, the conspiracy started it. The proof follows from the fact, recognized by the conspiracy theorist, that nothing happens by accident. Everything is connected to the conspiracy. Therefore, if anything of importance happens, THEY DID IT.

      Because of the way conspiracy theories are formulated, the door of the mind is opened to ideology, and ideology entails the falsification of reality. And nothing is more dangerous to political endeavor than this. Imagine those who interpret history as a vast centuries-long conspiracy to control mankind. The conspirators are so diabolical, so ruthless and powerful, they make the Devil look like an amateur. Do we have, in this “theory,” a falsification of history? Do we have proof of anything? No. Can we even disprove it? No. Then what we have, in the last analysis, is a mythology framed for a new political religion that feeds off political paranoia and resentment. What forms around this is a series of dogmas about actual historical events. For example: “9/11 was an inside job,” “A missile hit the Pentagon,” “The moon landings were faked,” “Hitler was the dupe of the Jews,” “Trump is still president and is directing events from a secret base,” etc.

      Is there where we want to go?

      1. Mr. Nyquist, I see it as a form of Gnosticism: ” Conspiracy theory”. The whole world is in the grip of superhuman plotters, unseen but all powerful, and the theorist/gnostic has the key of knowledge which the conspiracy strangely allows to be disseminated, so as to ” reveal the truth”. People who don’t believe the gnostic/conspiracy theorists are ” sheeple” or “hylics” who enable the conspiracy/archons to prepetuate their hidden nefarious schemes.

        The truth is much more complex than this, and personal sin and ignorance explains more than conspiracy theory ever can

      2. Vladimir: Yes. I have often thought that conspiracy theory is Gnostic. The conspirators are the Archons who control the world they are trapped in. Here we see how closely conspiracy theory mirrors Marxism. In Marxism, the ruling class are the Archons.

  17. No Philosopher Kings?? Jeff in Australia we have a wonderful philosopher king, worth Billions, loves the Government, in his words “without tall poppies all you have is weeds” Mate, that’s some deep philosophy. Watching Bill do what he is doing is surreal. You write at length about past leaders. Bill is the boss of the very worst of them.

  22. In your last paragraph you obviously made reference to the two groups I mentioned. I stated facts. How you deal with them is your business. Dr Yeadon yesterday said it very well. We are not alone.

  23. In your right hand you have the cure for the dancer. In your left hand you have 10 Industries that like to dance. Hmmm. Here’s an Ideology for you Jeff. No one gets sick. You tell the 10 its game over, watch what happens. A Schizoid Ochlocracy right.

  24. On the subject of Philosopher Kings, think you can do an article on Voltaire, Diderot, D’Alembert, Rousseau, and Sade’s roles in what’s going on, also the French Revolution? They are directly tied to that whole Philosopher Kings garbage that’s all the craze right now, all because they can’t stand that God’s smarter than themselves (and while people might blame Rousseau for the Revolution, I’d argue that the most significant and damaging aspects of that event actually came from Voltaire based on what Edmund Burke, Timothy Dwight, and Abbe Barruell relayed).

    And unfortunately, some of our Founding Fathers were influenced by those creeps as well, like Thomas Paine, and even Thomas Jefferson as well.

      1. The Ghost Kings
        https://youtu.be/obAucaYvP3k?t=8

        At that time, from within the Iron Ring Mountain, Lord Yama and his following of infinite ghost kings came before the Buddha in the Trayastrimsha Heaven.

        They were: the Ghost King Evil Poison, the Ghost King Many Evils, the Ghost King Great Argument, the Ghost King White Tiger, the Ghost King Blood Tiger, the Ghost King Crimson Tiger, the Ghost King Spreading Disaster, the Ghost King Flying Body, the Ghost King Lightning Flash, the Ghost King Wolf Tooth, the Ghost King Thousand Eyes, the Ghost King Animal Eater, the Ghost King Rock Bearer, the Ghost King Lord of Bad News, the Ghost King Lord of Calamities, the Ghost King Lord of Food, the Ghost King Lord of Wealth, the Ghost King Lord of Domestic Animals, the Ghost King Lord of Birds, the Ghost King Lord of Beasts, the Ghost King Lord of Mountain Sprites, the Ghost King Lord of Birth, the Ghost King Lord of Life, the Ghost King Lord of Sickness, the Ghost King Lord of Danger, the Ghost King Three Eyes, the Ghost King Four Eyes, the Ghost King Five Eyes, the Ghost King Ch’i Li Shih, the Great Ghost King Ch’i Li Shih, the Ghost King Ch’i Li Ch’a, the Great Ghost King Ch’i Li Ch’a, the Ghost King No Ch’a, the Great Ghost King No Ch’a, and other such great ghost kings. With them were hundreds of thousands of minor ghost kings who dwelt throughout Jambudvipa, each presiding over certain jurisdictions.
        http://www.cttbusa.org/ess/earthstore8.htm

    2. Commit, part of the Announcement That Night in the *Jews’* homeland, was “…and on earth, Peace, goodwill toward men.” Think about that for a little while.

      2. True. But what did He say as He hung on the cross? “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

        He also said, “….I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”

  30. When you get what I am saying, but probably shouldn’t be saying here, you will see Covid and the Jab in the correct context. 2 days ago on Infowars Jones did a clip on Dr Yeadon. Must watch.

    1. Mr. Nyquist has done several articles on Covid, was part of a highly skilled group of people looking into the origins of it, and has spoken about it in some of his interviews. I think he sees it in the correct context quite well, and if you’ll scroll back through his essays, you will find them.

  31. I always kept in my heart the Priest Kings of the World (in Rene Guenon’s sense of the term) who were the Magi who saw Christ. The Magi still follow Him, even hidden as they are in these Latter Days before His Return.

  32. I have never commented before, although I’ve been reading your stuff for awhile.

    Love this.

    One point, however. The covid phenomena pulled the curtain back on global coordination unlike anything ever seen before. From the slogans used by politicans literally around the world (“Build back better”) to the way digital certificates were rolled out (with backend support from Microsoft, Google and Amazon), never in humanity’s history has there been such coordination. Thus, there is someone or something directing traffic. Who and for what reasons are where the so-called “conspiracy theories” come into play. But there can be no doubt humanity is being directed like never before from central nodes of control.

    The coming world war, which can no longer be avoided imo, will likely determine who is at the controls moving forward.

    1. Yes. The decision on COVID by the West, excepting Sweden, shows that somebody sold something questionable to the West. That the advocates were of the socialist faith suggests a connection to the organizations of that faith — the communist movement which works with China. This likely explanation is nowhere advanced by our conspiracy theorists, who point to instruments as the originators — or hidden ones.

    1. There is a lot of technology being rolled out to work in conjunction with a totalitarian social credit system. https://www.biometricupdate.com/

      Also, on one of the electronics forums, there was a “sentiveillance” (automated surveillance) article which stated that cameras will be embedded into the cell phone LCD screen, you won’t be able to cover them so easily. I thought they were kidding, but then I read about it, and it’s true. The manufacturers state that will help users take better pictures.

  34. The politbureau, it never left! A Russian dissident reveals “recent” Russian politics. https://youtu.be/qtdPKI0keGQ

    Tell me how the FBI and CIA are not corrupt. They knew these people through security clearance interviews of Americans who most likely had correspondence with these people. Where is the background check? It seems all the funding for background checks went to a screeching halt!

    Oh, and this one, Mc Carthyism introduced in Russia makes me wonder if McCarthy was a Soviet right wing operation designed to fail, a sort of mini icebreaker… Et tu,Trump? who got trapped with a phone call from Russian-Obama chummy embassy about Hilary…

    https://youtu.be/See8CElgaKg

    1. The “Inside Russia” guy is showing honest surprise, I think. Even Russians do not understand how they’ve been swindled by the same old communists.

  35. Echoing Emanuel Kant, Otto Weininger in Sex and Character, discussing the deeper meaning of complementarity and correlation (dismissing darwinian causality as being a naive form of thinking) opposed the genius to the dictator. The genius’ interest is immemorial memory, connectedness to the universe, eternal values that we put into equally eternal and valuable material such as hardened statues of semi-precious stones etc. Whereas the dictator and his female equal the prostitute is running away from memory, connectedness etc because thinking would impede on his frantic activity of will to power. The dictator is an absolute slave of the present day, and him and the rabble are quite at home. In a way the lower slaves also live the present moment, not thinking ahead and wanting someone to make them do things. I think Otto was onto something and maybe thinking of a sort of complementarity between the philosopher and his student-people, seeking a place for the genius to find his place. Unfortunately Otto became depressed and lonely in this modern world, not finding a fix to that or concluding there were none, or some thought he was foo harsh with himself and felt he was not the genius he aspired to be, and feeling impure, he left, whereas the feminine would cry to attract attention on her defficiencies.

    Another tack in this is the opposition between Paramenides and Heraclites, as well as the writings of Zeno (Zeno’s arrow) before he was killed by a mafia thug / dictator.

  36. Jeff I deal with the Company. They don’t want me talking to you. I know this from your essay and responses today. Study what I have said. Perspective. Take care.

    1. Jeremy Rugless: You claim to “know” the “Company” doesn’t want you talking to me. And you somehow know this from my essay and my responses in the chat. But, aren’t you being a bit presumptuous? Try to see it from my point of view. Perhaps someone will correct my reaction as being too knee-jerk, but I feel a kind of slap in the face as I read your sentences above.

      First, none of the former CIA officers I know have (within my hearing) referred to the CIA as “the Company.” The term they have used in my hearing is “the agency.” I could be mistaken, and my friends can correct me, but the term “Company” used for the CIA leaves me feeling irritated. If one of my retired CIA friends used the term, I would not like it (and think less of them for using it). I believe the expression is even slanderous in its import, suggestive of opium smuggling by Russell & Company, the largest American trading house in China during the mid-19th century. Although the term is a subtle insult, I believe it is no different than calling Vietnam veterans “baby killers.” But people in our disoriented society very often use insulting self-referential terms — like conservatives who refer to the United States as an “Empire.” What better way could there be, in daily speech, to affirm Lenin’s thesis that the free market signifies “imperialism”?

      Worse yet, likening the CIA to a business enterprise was popularized in a book, titled “Inside the Company,” written by the traitor, Philip Agee, who passed a great deal of information to the KGB while he was working for that agency. Agee also worked for Cuban intelligence, and died in Havana in 2008. His defamatory book about the CIA has been highly praised as accurately describing the work of CIA officials (from a communist point of view). A book may be technically accurate, yet it may be thoroughly dishonest by omission. In the book, Agee released the names of over two hundred CIA officers, which resulted in at least one death (i.e, one of our CIA officials in Greece). Thus, I associate the term “Company” applied to the CIA with officials who are traitors of their country, and disloyal to the CIA. Forgive me if this is off base, but I am telling you how the word “Company,” used for the CIA, makes me feel. And I suspect I am not alone because Agee’s treason is well understand by older CIA veterans.

      So, whenever someone refers to the CIA as “the Company,” I think of Agee’s treason. I ask myself why someone who pretends to be well-informed, would use a term made famous by an anti-American traitor? Do they agree with Agee’s communist point of view, or are they merely ignorant of this backstory? In either case, the word “Company” is irritating, all the more because it has the smell of a pretender trying to sound like an insider.

      The way language is used, and what it reveals, involves many subtleties, and perhaps the misunderstandings are my own. But I would guess, Jeremy, that you do not know the history of Philip Agee.

      Are there traitors within the CIA? Oh yes, Philip Agee was hardly alone. The KGB has penetrated the CIA again and again. Under Obama, the management of the CIA was secured by people who appear to be Marxists (like John Brennon). Furthermore, I have read CIA Director Bill Burns’s memoir, and consequently think very poorly of him. There could be no collaboration between myself and a person like him (or anyone directed by him).

      Yet, you are very cheeky, and have the nerve to write, “They don’t want me talking to you. I know this from your essay and responses today.”

      My essay and responses demonstrate collaboration with the management of the CIA? How does that figure? My essay is not about the CIA. It is not even about intelligence work. Your comments are, in fact, tangential. And I suppose you think that’s further proof — that if I do not share your obsessions and conspiracy theories, I am somehow under their thumb. But I am not under anyone’s thumb. I am free to think and write. I am not even concerned about losing readers, as you can see.

      So, if you have some secret to impart, please tell us all you can. Preferably in plain English.

    2. The only ” Company” I knew of was the ” Company of Jesus” or ” Society of Jesus”, the Jesuits. Of course old hands used to joke about the CIA standing for ” Catholics In Action” , about the numbers of them in the CIA and the friendly relationship with Georgetown University and with Fathers Walsh and John Courtney Murray, SJ towards the CIA. But what you’re suggesting is sketchy. Most nations national security and intelligence services are composed of genuinely patriotic people, for better or for worse.

      2. I’ve never heard the CIA called “Catholics in Action.” I have heard it called Christians in action, however, many, many times.

  37. Jeff, you didn’t get my email. Everything happens behind closed doors. Please watch Yeadon and what Jones says. They must go down. You write, we fight.

  38. Mr Nyquist: Thank you for a year’s worth of shared understanding and teaching (and challenges!) that have shifted my whole paradigm and taught me more how to think, process and analyze more rightly REAL realities and “ruthless truths” happening in the earth now. And, oooh the history lessons I’ve been completely clueless about! Thank you! And despite all the shakings and uncertainties in the earth and no matter your worldview, may each one know and feel moments of deep peace and refreshment this Christmas season. ❤️👑🕊
    Isaiah 9:6-7
    Isaiah 2:1-4

  39. Yeadon said whoever planned and implemented the vaxx is Satanic. Then Jones explained who he, and Icke have seen. Curing cancer is easy, preventing it by building peoples immune systems so they don’t get sick is easy. No one wants it as it put the trillion dollar drug industry out of business. Gates was told all this in 2004. He said no way. Doctors say no way. Media, Government, all say no way. The Company? who ever you call them, they aren’t my friend. Bush Obama Trump Biden? haha. All know the truth. Gates is depopulating. We have the proof. And just so you know, the two brilliant men who have made curing and preventing all disease are Americans. Only sick ignorant scared people would fear a silly virus and take a poison shot. Mt Gates wants em all dead.

  40. In 100 years disease will not exist. That process is underway now. Its a fight to the death, and the ‘World Government’ doesn’t plan to lose, but they must, and they will. They are Satanic, and stupid, and their planned society will implode as it is anti life. I told the person who called the meeting who told Gates. I’m under the pump. I don’t care what they do. If you still know these CIA types tell them whats going on. The more in that world that know the better.

    1. I probably saw your email. But there are so many people sending me these things. I have watched Yeadon many times. And Jones, too. I have been in Alex’s show three or four times.

  43. I have been told Lincoln, Washington and others were of the Rosicrucian Order. Nothing changes. We are here again and will do what is required for our Creator.

    2. Jeremy: Have you ever read a serious biography of Washington? Or anything on the Rosicrucians? Please do not use my site to spread crazy conspiracy theories about my country’s father. I am losing patience with you.

    3. Washington was never a Rosicrucian. He had been a Freemason, as so many of that era were. However, when he found out that he was reputedly head of Freemasonry in the Us, he denied it and said he had not been in a lodge for over 30 years when he wrote the letter.

  46. Jeff. Merry Christmas. I would like you to know the secret about agriculture so I will say this cryptically. Mike Adams has written an article on this and called it “the coming agricultural revolution”. I’m not sure if he is up on the Nous bit. You test it with radionics.

  47. If you want to know how to eradicate (most) disease, read the 1938 book “Nutrition and Physical Degeneracy” by Westin A. Price. He spent years visiting primitive societies that were extremely healthy. They all ate diets high in fat-soluble vitamins (i.e. from animal fats) and had very low incidences of any sort of disease including genetic diseases or mental diseases.

  48. I just saw Tucker Carlson’s comments on Zelensky today and tend to agree with him that we are playing with fire and it could easily get out of control. I have no love of Russian acts of war. The point Tucker made about the clapping of hands by our congress in attendance at the speech, comparing them to similar Communist meetings, was quite valid. Why weren’t the dissenting GOP members all present and showing their distaste for the bill? If you are against something, hiding in the closet is not the way to react.

    I also listened to an interview with Ex-Colonel Douglas Macgregor and learned that both Ukraine AND Russia have lost about 100,000 soldiers in the war and that Russia is massing a large number of troops with plans of overpowering the Ukraine forces. All I’ve heard from the MSM was that Russia was losing.

    This should have been settled well before this all happened. Sorry. I don’t trust the Democrats to not mess this up.

    1. MacGregor has been wrong almost entirely. His number of troops is way off. He has denied, repeatedly, that Russia has lost anything close to 100K troops.

      It is unlikely that Russia will bring huge numbers of troops into the war. Putin can bring a lot of people in uniform into the fight, but that is much different than troops. Those people are underequipped, under clothed, under fed, and under trained. In short, they are cannon fodder and Ukraine has already been destroying large numbers of them that Putin has shoved into the line hoping they cab stop Ukraine. All it has done is ramp up Russian casualties.

  49. As an Australian I don’t know a lot about your history. The one story which I have read, and I dont know all of it, but the story is the fellas who all signed the declaration, game on, were all in their early twenties. And half paid the ultimate price. You know all about this. But do your school kids? No. Who decides what they are told? The world is completely stuffed to be polite. I have said, and it sounds like many others have, that secret societies play a big role in this. JFK used the word ‘abhorent’ when talking about Secret Societies in the US. Think of the sheep dog and the sheep. Not hard really is it.

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