Shields of the Earth, Arise.

"According to Tradition doctrine, the certain angel, the celestial being is appointed to look after each nation of the Earth. This angel is the given nation’s history sense, being out of the time and the space, but being constantly present in all nation’s historical peripetias. The mysticism of a nation is based on this. Nation’s angel isn’t anything vague or sentimental, indistinctly dim. This is an intellectual, lighting being, “God’s thought”, as Gerder said. Its structure one can see in nation’s historical achievements, in social and religious institutes, which characterize the nation, in the national culture. All gist of the national history is just the text of narration about quality and form of that lighting national angel. In traditional society the national angel used to have the personified expression, in “divine” kings, great heroes, pastors and saints. But being the over-human reality, this angel itself does not depend on the human bearer. Therfore after the monarchical dynasties fall it can be incarnated in a collective form, for instance, an order, a class, or even a party."

The Coming Long Descent

"Learning and practicing such skills can't be left until the first wave of crises hits, however. An astonishing number of people in the industrial world, especially in the educated middle class, have no practical skills whatsoever when it comes to growing and preparing food, making clothing, and providing other basic necessities. An equally astonishing number are unable to travel any distance at all by any means that doesn't involve burning fossil fuels. Most can't even light a fire to keep warm or cook food without matches or butane lighters from a distant factory. Critical skills such as practical ecology, organic gardening, low-tech medicine, basic hand crafts, and the like need to be learned and practiced now, while there's time and leisure to make beginner's mistakes."
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This reminds me that Ortega y Gasset regarded America as a nation of barbarians covered over with a thin hyper-technical veneer (see Revolt of the Masses).

Inventing Alchemy

“DAAS (sic), the shadowy Sephirah, which develops in the course of evolution as we learn the domination of our mental and emotional propensities, is situated at the nape of the neck. Its position is at a point on the spine just below the occiput, about one or two inches above the larynx, and its diameter may be imagined to be about four inches in extent. It is conceived to be a symbolic link, self-induced, and self-devised, between the higher Genius on the one hand, and on the other, the ego, the consciousness self referred to that group of characteristics clustered around TIPHARAS (sic).”[vii]
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This reminds me of a comment made in the UR Group essays on magic that final success in real alchemy is achieved by a technique the magus will invent him or herself. It also reminds of the Bible's words on the tongue: "Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth." (James' Epistle)

Baptism and the Heart, Druids and Celtic Rite

I have some remarks on baptism over at Gornahoor, under the Clement series, but I'd like to note an interesting article which, along with Clement's journals, proves at the least that early Christians thought that baptism was more than a mere sign. Note Calvin and Luther's rejection of the ability of the finite to "bear the infinite"; they intended to defend the super-essence and pleroma of God over against the Baroque Uber-Kultur (which thought that God could be classicalized and painted pink, at its worst), but they ended up throwing out the baby of sacramental theology with the bathwater of excess and error.

I'll also note, in a related digression, that this article on Druidic invoking the elements reminds me a great deal of the Celtic rite in the Western Church. My question for John Michael Greer would be, if you are invoking the universal cross along with the triple spheres, how is this different from the Cross and the Trinity?

Saturday Remarks

The inner meaning of the Terminator movie series dawned on me:

European uber-male starts as a brainwashed, preprogrammed bad-guy who is a robot, but comes back as the underdog good-guy who is becoming more human in order to defeat their newer counterpart. Pretty weird, no? Arnold as "Modern Man", destined for Salvation and Reachieving his humanity?

Also, Ben Bernanke said we would have no uncertainty in the markets, back in 2004. Who says it isn't witchcraft?

Relating Robert Jordan and Baptism

Guest post.

Jordan's idea of "tainting the elements' is an ancient Christian doctrine - one is "washed" from the fires of passion by being sealed in the sacrament of baptism, thus allowing one heavenly power to overcome the tainting of the four elements through ancient demonism, patterns which have to be changed so that God's Kingdom can grow.

An Interlude of Scourging

Occasionally, your humble blogger has had enough....and finds something quite hilarious to comment on. In this case, a progressive, feminine blog from Canada:

Source

"Wilson means for us to accept a theology that revolves around authoritarian hierarchy, with white, straight, cis, Western men at the top, and everyone else knowing our proper place. We’re meant to accept that movements for racial and gender equality are actually the causes of racist and misogynist abuse and violence, and that the real root of such violence – white male patriarchy – is actually its remedy...."

One of the commentators states "this is one of the most horrifying things I've ever read". It's safe to assume she doesn't get out much. We are warned that these people "exist" and (gasp) "have followers" - all that the poor defenceless women can do is pray and "hope they lose their power". Another commentator thanks her for "digging up good content".

This is hilarious. I've happened to hear Wilson preach, and know for a fact he rejects the Islamic view of feminine submission, because I heard him say and teach so with his own ears (to a friendly crowd). I'm glad they managed to dig around wide and far enough to drag up someone they could batter with their feminist platitudes and misconceptions - it must have been hard scouring the country to find a dinosaur like Wilson who dares to disagree with the full-blown feminist gospel of gender equality, sexual liberation, and the exaltation of the feminine at the expense of everything (including truth and Reason).

On the other hand, they could just read Otto Weiniger.