The king in orange has no clothes

 

John Michael Greer strikes again. Funny that he never once mentions a certain "king in orange" in this essay, though. Or that Biden probably had more working class support than Trump. The "wage class" and the "salary class" might still unite behind a Democratic ticket. 

Maybe that´s irrelevant in the long run, but I can´t help thinking that details matter even during a long descent, indeed, *especially* during such a time. The present (ostensible) coalition between the "investment class" and the "wage class" is turning the entire world into a disaster area even faster than the Biden Interregnum!

There is no objective necessity to Trump´s insanity and incompetence. At least not as far as I can tell. And if I´m wrong...well, hold your hats, guys!  

A game of musical chairs

Orion has landed

 

John Michael Greer´s take on the Artemis project. Once you see it, you can´t unsee it!

>>>It bears recalling that Artemis is in fact an imitation of the Apollo program. Single-use capsules atop disposable booster rockets were supposed to be as obsolete as the Model T Ford by now; the Space Shuttle was supposed to be the first of a whole sequence of reusable spacecraft that would make space travel as routine as taking a jet from New York to Paris. 

>>>Yet here we are in 2026 with a slightly upgraded Apollo-style spacecraft, on top of a cobbled-together "Space Launch System" that's basically a reconfigured Space Shuttle booster system -- that was the only option once the Constellation booster program bogged down terminally in cost overruns and engineering problems. 

>>>In other words, the Orion capsule and the Artemis program generally is another successful demonstration of the power of retro technology. I don't recommend saying that too loudly just now, though! 

Orion has landed

Divine hiddenness...solved?

 

- Do I look invisible to you, kiddo?

Why we can´t see God...yet. 

Through a mental sheath dimly

Two, three, many Christs

 

I´m beginning to suspect that there might be something to this...

Can the real Jesii please stand up?

Nobody knows shit

 

Look what I wrote back in 2021. The good news: I´m still here! :D

Nobody knows nothing

Work of the ages

A little reminder

Just a little reminder, et cetera.

French torpor

God´s undertaker

 

I linked to this once before (in 2022), but here we go again. Is the reason why Christianity is receding that the Christian god might actually be...dead?

The death of God: A speculation

The silent planet

 

John Michael Greer as we all know and love him. We want the old JMG back!  

War in Heaven

Prediction

 

Credit: World Mazu Cultural Alliance (WMCA)

More JMG stuff. Well, I wouldn´t be surprised either! Note that Israel would end up on the pro-Russian side in this scenario. Which may or may not strike you as significant. Or ironic.  

>>>It’s also been clear for a long time that Europe is far more invested in fighting Russia than the US is. It would not surprise me if twenty years from now, Russia and the US were pitted against the EU and China… 

Geopolitical paranoia

 

Credit: The Fourth Way 

An interesting speculation about Trump´s Iran War. From JMG´s blog.  

>>>Paul, gasoline/petrol at the gas station a block from my apartment is US$3.99 a gallon and there are no shortages. 

>>>I’m pretty sure that the point of the US takeover of Venezuela was to make sure that there would be plenty of Venezuelan tar sand extract to mix with our fracking liquids (you need both to make something roughly approximating gasoline). 

>>>US fossil fuel companies are raking in money like nobody’s business — but then we get almost none of our fuel from the Persian Gulf these days. Nearly all of that goes to Europe and Asia, which are getting hammered. It’s occurred to me more than once that this may be deliberate.

In other words: one of the goals of the recent Mideast war is to put pressure on Europe so it can´t support Ukraine. When Europe sanctioned Russian oil and gas, Qatar and other Mideast providers suddenly became more important. But now, that source is gone, too. Making Europe dependent on American fossil fuels.

But why do pro-Ukrainian politicians such as Lindsey Graham support the Iran war? Didn´t he see this coming? Maybe the anti-European faction "sold" the war to Trump as an anti-European move? While Trump was always aggressive towards the Iranian regime, his prefered strategy during the first presidency was to attack them through black-ops and geopolitical stratagems. John Bolton was fired for wanting to openly attack actual Iranian territory. Maybe he decided to switch to Bolton´s position for very non-Boltonian (and non-Grahamian) reasons.

What if closing the Strait of Hormuz was the plan all along?     

Meditate on this

 

Credit: J K Yog 

I happen to disagree with the Archdruid Emeritus on a number of very important points (for starters, I´m not an Archdruid Emeritus - or otherwise), but he isn´t entirely wrong in this excerpt from the latest Open Post on his blog spot...

>>>Northwind, oh, we’re definitely moving into crisis territory. May I suggest daily meditation and regular massage to keep stress levels down? I don’t expect it to get better before the end of the decade, if then.

Prophecy?

 

Overheard on the interwebs: "Trump´s destiny is to die in office. He is a Sun King". But wasn´t the sun king ritually sacrificed? 

The hinge of ages

 

Some astrological speculations c/o John Michael Greer on the recent conjunction between Saturn and Neptune at zero degrees Aries. Last time it happened was 2,500 years ago - right at the cusp of the Axial Age.

Interesting, at least if you believe in astrology. Then, the predictions get more and more mundane (pun intended). Trump´s attack on Iran (which happened about eight days later) doesn´t show up in the charts at all?! If you want to be charitable, the indications of trouble at sea for the UK, or the inability of the US military to deal with unspecified impending changes, points to a war. But note that the Middle East is supposed to be calm...

Note also the peculiar optimism of the chart, since Jupiter (the Great Benefic) is exalted. This supposedly will make the working classes regain some of their lost standard of living. Sounds highly unlikely in the middle of an impending oil crisis...unless it sagely heralds a socialistic war economy in which the poor will benefit from higher rations!

Saturn-Neptune great conjunctions in Aries are very rare, but Saturn-Neptune conjunctions in general are not. As I noted in a previous post, astrologers have noted that the previous three have been correlated to dramatic changes in Russian history: the 1917 revolutions, the death of Stalin 1953, and the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 (which triggered the dissolution of the Soviet Union two years later). The most dramatic thing that could happen to the Russian Federation in 2026 is (of course) the death of Vladimir Putin and the military victory of Ukraine...

The Hinge of Ages: Saturn conjunct Neptune

Oh, and what happened to this divination? It actually sounded more correct!   

Catastasis Mundi

But as usual, we just have to wait and see...

The slush pile of civilization

 

Credit: Zeynel Cebeci 

Is this the *real* reason why the Powers-That-Be want to introduce (so called) Artificial Intelligence? From JMG´s blog. 

The end of the bureaucratic era

The Laws of Co-Creation

 

A very interesting essay by our man JMG, this time about the pros and cons of New Thought and its derivatives. Short form: discern the difference between the "pragmatic" and "psychotic" wings of the movement. Also: check your privilege (including your sense of cosmic entitlement) and you will get better results from the teachings - paradoxical as it may sound at first glance.

The Laws of Co-Creation

Sic transit gloria mundi

 

John Michael Greer is back from his hiatus. I know I promised to stop talking about a certain Jeffrey Epstein, but I couldn´t help thinking about him when reading the essay linked below. Epstein assumed he had everything, including freedom, and look what happened to the man. All that time, he was just the upstart...and therefore the fall guy! Sic transit gloria mundi.   

On the education of desire

The silver springs

 

- Yes, Silver Spring. I mean...dude!

John Michael Greer has moved to an urban (and perhaps urbane) congregation close to DC. Gotta love his explanation: "Why Silver Spring? It’s a supremely walkable town, with excellent transit connections all through the Washington DC region; it’s got all the amenities I like; DC these days is a bubbling hotbed of Masonic and occult activities―I’ve already been invited to join four different magical lodges, for example―and, for those concerned about rising seas, my new place is 341 feet above sea level. I expect to have a good time here."

And all this time, I assumed all the conspiracy theories about DC being a Masonick magickal square were...I don´t know...fake or something?

Team Frost

 

John Michael Greer is worried...

Well, isn´t this special

Acceptance

 

I occasionally have bad dreams (I wouldn´t say outright nightmares), for instance when I haven´t eaten properly before going to bed. Funny what effect a hungry stomach can have on the subconscious! And usually I disregard such dreams and (of course) nothing happens. Indeed, I tend to forget them within five or ten minutes after waking up. I forget my regular dreams even faster. 

But sometimes...I don´t know. Just the other day, I had a very strange dream filled with usual surrealist characters which nevertheless had a somewhat serious and disturbing subtext. The dream was set in a high modern society which was suddenly hit by a famine, during which most of the population starved to death. The few remnants reverted to a medieval peasant lifestyle. Clad in black, they carried out some strange ritual, pushing a large cart while holding torches. Not sure what was in the cart, though. Idols? Floatsam and jetsam? The broken parts of high tech machinery? The weirdest thing was that my "dream personality" didn´t seem to care that much, simply "witnessing" the information as if on a TV screen. Yet, in the dream, I was somehow nevertheless part of the society that had collapsed!

Not sure what this means. Probably nothing as far as "the real world" goes. I never had any predictive dreams as far as I know. But it may reflect the state my psyche is in at the moment. A quiet acceptance of the future doom of Western Modern Civilization? 

Or maybe I just need to eat a quick snack before going to bed. Speaking of famines... 

Friendly fascism

 

When fascism comes to America, it will be disguised as moderation. Very interesting essay by our man JMG.

The Rowling Effect