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For quite a few years now, the Friday after Thanksgiving has been celebrated by some of us as Buy Nothing Day. We celebrate it -- quel choc! -- by buying nothing that day. It's an opportunity to step outside of the manufactured frenzy of the consumer economy and, just for once, kick back and do something that doesn't involve money changing hands. It's also a way to take a little of the pressure off the people who have to work shifts as store clerks on the notional first day of the Greedmas -- er, Christmas -- season, and can usually count on seeing crowds of foam-flecked consumers shed their last scraps of human decency in the frantic struggle to get the latest shoddy and heavily marketed gewgaw, fresh off the boat from some overseas hellhole where sweatshops churn out plastic crap to make billionaires richer at your expense.

(Of course those who celebrate any of the many religious holidays around the beginning of winter -- very much including Christians, whose holy day got hijacked by the mass marketers of Greedmas -- may like to use the break to reflect on what the season's really about. That's up to each of us, however.)

I keep Buy Nothing Day strictly -- that is to say, I won't be buying anything today. No, I don't expect that to have any effect on the consumer economy or society as a whole; it's simply a personal celebration and an act of personal intention. Your choices are yours to make, dear reader, but I hope that some of you will join me in having a happy Buy Nothing Day today.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: anywhere but a store
Current Music: George Winston, "Thanksgiving"

ecosophia

Some months ago I was invited to submit an article on the occult dimensions of the UFO phenomenon for a special issue of a scholarly journal, World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research. That came as something of a surprise. Even more of a surprise was the fact that the editor accepted my article with enthusiasm and asked only for minor (and quite reasonable) revisions. It intrigues me that at least one end of the world of scholarship is that open to straightforward discussions of what occultism has to say about one of the odder mysteries of our time.

The article, "UAPs and the Occult: An Inquiry into Rejected Knowledge," has now been published. The publisher has an odd little marketing gimmick where each author of an article in one of their many journals can give away, electronically, 50 copies of the article. Since I'm not in the academic circuit and won't be sending the links off to colleagues in the Department of Extraterrestrial Sorcery at Miskatonic University or the like, I decided to post the link here. If you're one of the first fifty people to click on the link, you get the article; if not, you get the abstract. Here's the link:

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/TB6IZUDFRFUAVDKVRPIQ/full?target=10.1080/02604027.2025.2592184

Once it's in back issues I'll see what I can do about getting it in some more accessible venue. In the meantime, enjoy!

Current Mood: startled
Current Music: Klaatu, "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft"

ecosophia

We are now into the fifth year of these open posts. When I first posted a tentative hypothesis on the course of the Covid phenomenon, I had no idea that discussion on the subject would still be necessary all these years later, much less that it would turn into so lively, complex, and troubling a conversation. Still, here we are. Crude death rates and other measures of collapsing public health remain anomalously high in many countries, but nobody in authority wants to talk about the inadequately tested experimental Covid injections that are the most likely cause; ~~public health authorities~~ government shills for the pharmaceutical industry are still trying to push through laws that will allow them to force vaccinations on anyone they want; public trust in science is collapsing; new revelations are leaking out about just how bad the Covid vaccines are for human health; and the story continues to unfold.

So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before:

1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry and its government enablers are causing injury and death on a massive scale. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.

2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its wholly owned politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here.

3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue.

4. If you plan on making off topic comments, please go away. This is an open post for discussion of the Covid epidemic, the vaccines, drugs, policies, and other measures that supposedly treat it, and other topics directly relevant to those things. It is not a place for general discussion of unrelated topics. Nor is it a place to ask for medical advice; giving such advice, unless you're a licensed health care provider, legally counts as practicing medicine without a license and is a crime in the US. Don't even go there.

5. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules.

6. Please don't just post bare links without explanation. A sentence or two telling readers what's on the other side of the link is a reasonable courtesy, and if you don't include it, your attempted post will be deleted.

7. Please don't post LLM ("AI") generated text. This is a place for human beings to talk to other human beings, not for the regurgitation of machine-generated text. Also, please don't discuss large language models (the technology popularly and inaccurately called "artificial intelligence" these days) except as they bear directly on the Covid phenomenon. Here again, my finger is hovering over the delete button.

Please also note that nothing posted here should be construed as medical advice, which neither I nor the commentariat (excepting those who are licensed medical providers) are qualified to give. Please take your medical questions to the licensed professional provider of your choice.

With that said, the floor is open for discussion.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Mark Isham, "In The Blue Distance"

ecosophia

It's almost midnight and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions noted below, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note: Any question or comment received after that point will not get an answer, and in fact will not be put through. If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 341,928th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.3 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.

Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. And further: I've decided that questions about getting goodies from spirits are also permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I've discussed this in a post on my blog.

(The image? I've finished the sequence of my published books; while I decide what I want to do next, I have some memes to share.)

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here.

I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

~~With that said, have at it!~~

***This Magic Monday is now closed and no further comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: The Moody Blues, "Voices in the Sky"

ecosophia

Just a heads up -- a fortunate conjunction of events will have me in New York City on the weekend of December 19-21. I'll be taking in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute on the evening of the 19th and attending an esoteric lodge meeting on the afternoon of the next day, but I don't have anything scheduled for the evening of Saturday the 20th. If any of my readers would like to get together somewhere in lower Manhattan or points nearby that evening, I'm up for it. Let me know!

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Elton John, "Spanish Harlem"

ecosophia

Current Mood: moody
Current Music: David Bowie, "Modern Love"

ecosophia

It's midnight and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions noted below, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note: Any question or comment received after that point will not get an answer, and in fact will not be put through. If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 341,928th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.3 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.

Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. And further: I've decided that questions about getting goodies from spirits are also permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I've discussed this in a post on my blog.

(The image? I've finished the sequence of my published books; while I decide what I want to do next, I have some memes to share.)

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here.

I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

~~With that said, have at it!~~

***This Magic Monday is now closed, and no further comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: David Bowie, "China Girl"

ecosophia

I was delighted to learn of a new project related to one of my longtime interests, Gerard Thibault's classic manual of Renaissance swordsmanship Academie de l'Espee, the longest and most elaborate textbook of swordsmanship ever written and the one surviving text of a martial art with close links to Renaissance Hermeticism. As some of you may know, I produced the first English translation, Academy of the Sword quite a few years ago; it's in print these days with my regular publisher Aeon Press, and--ahem--can be found here if you're interested.

The one drawback with the translation is that Thibault's original book was one of those huge folio volumes that Renaissance printers loved to produce, with vast two-page copperplate engravings showing every detail of each technique. (Imagine the diagram above a couple of feet across.) To produce the translation at an affordable price we had to go with a much smaller format. Now, thanks to the growing community of fencers and scholars who are working with Thibault's ideas, there's an ambitious new project to produce a volume of the illustrations at close to their original size. They're currently raising funds from advance orders to pay for the print run. If this sort of thing interests you at all, by all means go visit the site and consider placing an advance order for the volume!

Current Mood: delighted
Current Music: Yes, "Arriving UFO"

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Ray Wharton

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Ray Wharton

Reading

Happy Buy Nothing Day!

JMG article on UFOs

Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 223

Magic Monday

JMG in NYC

Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 222

Magic Monday

Academy of the Sword

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May 2018

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