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kimberlysteele) wrote2025-06-02 11:08 pmY'All Need a Banishing Ritual
One of the troubles with being sensitive is that my consciousness acts like a superhauler net for passing dramas and emotional dirty laundry. I cannot read anyone’s mind, but I can sense where their minds wander with an uncanny accuracy. Most average people have a slew of dark, macabre thoughts they have never once brought to the surface and dealt with in the light of consciousness. Most normies are plagued with grotesque sex and violence fantasies which of course are worse if they watch porn. You don’t need to watch porn, however, to have a festering subconscious mess on your hands — some of the worst and most hideous fantasies I have perceived came from older suburban women who are nothing but kind, pleasant, and helpful in person.
If the nice suburban lady has a snuff film series perpetually running in her subconscious, you can bet anyone born in the porn and digital media saturated generations that came after her is not doing any better.
Where does it come from and why is it like this?
Not only are we not alone when we think we are alone, we are all under constant spiritual attack. We live in a spiritual Dark Age. Never has a group of civilizations been in more profound denial and ignorance of the unseen, non-obvious (occulted) world. To the average person in our day, magic has to be Harry Potter with his fire hoses of lightning shooting from his fingertips or it does not exist. If an animal or tree doesn’t start forming sentences in American English, we claim we cannot understand its language. We are so senseless and numb when it comes to the spirit world, we pave paradise to put up a parking lot. We call an office complex “church” and presume God will give us goodies if we show up there in our cars every Sunday.
Those who think a being powerful enough to have a great deal of authority over our lives and deaths is beyond being pissed off at us would be wrong. I think Jesus has become so frustrated with what has been done in his name that he has all but left the building. He is still around, but he makes himself scarcest around the very people who claim to know him best. Their massive egos don’t leave him sufficient breathing or speaking room. The thing invoked in megachurches is neither Jesus nor God, nor anything like him. Many Christian rituals summon an array of spirits, some of which are benevolent. From what I have sensed in Christian churches, all too many of the spirits are neutral or malevolent. In any given mainstream religious service, I have sensed an array of feeder spirits who eat loosh, elementals, fairies (fairies can be as predatory and malevolent as they come), bodhisattvas, and demons. Yes, you heard me correctly, demons.
Any ritual gathering of people in an unbanished, badly designed, and unholy space is going to attract its fair share of demons. Certain human activities generate potent astral and etheric energy dumps. Religious rituals are no exception. A large group of spiritual insensitives whose members believe God himself is reaching out and touching them are not totally wrong. For those willing to live Jesus’s word via selfless generosity and the Golden Rule, ritual is a pathway to connect to Jesus via their Holy Guardian Angels and higher selves. For the rest, ritual is a socially acceptable method of getting high.
When the Catholic church discarded its traditional mass for the “new” one, it opened the floodgates for sinister spirits to take the mantle once held by the Christian God. Long before Catholics abandoned their own genius, longstanding egregore, Protestants were making a demonic mockery of Jesus via Pentecostalism. Charlatans writhing on the ground and babbling like asylum patients in public while claiming the miraculous healing powers of Jesus gave rise to both Spiritualist seances where other charlatans allegedly channeled the dead and modern televangelist “healing” shows.
By the time I was born in 1973, there wasn’t a serious religious ritual to be found almost anywhere in the world, save a few enclaves where people had instinctively preserved the old ways. Add to this a bunch of zealots who claimed every ghost sighting or non-monotheist synchronicity was demonic and it is no wonder people like me started saying “my church is the great outdoors”. They traded a living spiritual ecosystem for a broken, muted liminal space that looked a great deal like a shopping mall.
Ritual in general is like bathing and serves a similar function on the astral plane. Old Catholic and Orthodox masses were and are full of banishing and cleansing elements such as images of God, singing, chanting, incense, and demon traps in the form of repeating symmetrical designs. Not only does the repetition of a traditional mass strengthen the inner self of the person lucky enough to participate in its pageantry, it simultaneously draws and builds the ancient power of millions who have performed the ritual over time. Time and space are irrelevant on the level of spirit because spirit is so large and time and space are small. There is nothing spirit cannot “see”. Those who choose to enact the ancient mass are like radios that decide to tune themselves to a holy bandwidth. Yes, they could choose to dial in static like everyone else, or they can narrow down their actions to specifically tune into the self-improvement God channel. Of course there are many God channels and many rituals that tune into them. One of these is the Sphere of Protection. Though there are other banishing rituals, the Sphere of Protection is the one I am the most familiar with. It is also considered easier and gentler than other banishing rituals for reasons I do not understand.
Decompression mode
Someday when this incarnation is over for the lot of us, I believe we will look upon this time as very compressed, dense, and pressurized as history goes. Many have tried to cram several lifetimes worth of experience into a single incarnation: multiple marriages, houses, great hoards of possessions, compulsive travel/perpetual tourism, children with multiple mates, and careers that make it clear that nobody can serve two masters. The Sphere of Protection (SoP) is a great separator, unsmooshing disparate intentions so they are no longer tangled and confused with one another. When I first started doing the SoP, I had the instinct as most do to attract monetary prosperity to myself without considering where the wealth was coming from. As years wore on, something happened where I was no longer willing to accept unearned wealth even in the realm of fantasy. What replaced the lust for unearned wealth was a feeling of true security and the notion that my will could sustain me in far worse circumstances. The result was a deep appreciation of the small and large luxuries I have as a lower middle class American and the steady diminishing of the Wendigo to accumulate more, more, MORE.
The balanced ecosystem of the SoP
The Sphere of Protection invoke an ecosystem via the imagination and a bit of dramatization, i.e. hand gestures and body movements. The way it works is via numbers and shapes. You do a series of turns, facing one direction and tracing a circle, facing another and tracing a triangle, and so on. This seems like a bunch of nothing until you actually do it every day for about six months. I went through the motions for a long time. If you’ve ever played a musical instrument, it is a great deal like musical practice. For the first six months to a year, you sound like ass and you are embarrassed every time you hear yourself. Give it enough time and dedication, however, and you sound pretty good.
The Sphere of Protection opens with a mini ritual of essentially drawing a cross in the air. In my own case, I sing the names of the gods I invoke. There are four of them all belonging to the same pantheon. After the cross, the “real” Sphere begins and it involves turning to the East, South, West, and North (clockwise) and invoking one god per corner. The East and West gods are masculine and the South and West are feminine. This can be changed around so the North and South are masculine and East and West are feminine. Monotheists can also adapt the entire invocation to their own, single god. Again, in my case, I sing the Divine names but you can also just speak them. It’s a very adaptable ritual.
The Sphere of Protection ends with drawing a circle for the spirit above and the spirit below and imagining another cross with two extensions going up and down much like a ship with a mast and an anchor. The Sphere is complete when you imagine all the invoked forces meeting and creating a protective ball around you that extends about four to ten feet around your general person. I am a visual learner, so that is why I have made a video of the Sphere of Protection here.
The Sphere of Protection will not make you astrally bulletproof, but it will deflect a large amount of psychic static that would otherwise make itself into a nuisance. In my own case, I am a psychopomp, which is a fancy term for someone who talks to the dead and occasionally helps them cross over. The SoP has helped me filter genuine messages from deceased people who need my help and muted the voices of malicious impersonator spirits. I would highly advise that anyone who struggles with addictive behavior perform the SoP every day. Addictions are commonly the result of being fed upon by nefarious entities who get off on the energy of addictive behavior. In large part, the SoP is a big astral pyramid that is using me to perpetuate itself. I’m fine with that, and if you give it a try, I will try to help as much as I am able.
I have a detailed walkthrough of the SoP here. Good luck!
degringolade) wrote2025-06-02 08:59 amA Dune Digression
I liked the Dune series from Frank Herbert greatly. My taste for writing flavors has changed over the years, but I can still pick it up and enjoy it. Hell, I even liked the prequels, the whole nine yards. I didn’t especially care for the movies. Too showy, too fashionista with the current mass market pretty boy playing Paul and the current flavor of skinny bimbo playing the women.
One of the (many) things that the books did do was discuss sentience and who should have it. While the book came late to the sub-sub-genre that is the Dune universe, I thought that “The Butlerian Jihad” was pretty good. Set 10,000 years before the original book, it discussed what would happen if the machine intelligence that we created out of our wealth and greed turn out to be as big a set of assholes as we are capable of being. But I am now wondering to myself what is the process that turns a baby human into an asshole?
I am noodling around with different models of AI. There appear to be a shit-ton of different flavors out there. Ugo claims that some are better than others, but his usage and goals for what they produce is different from mine, so I am trying to withhold judgement. One of Ugo and my interactions was when I discussed AI in terms relating AI as an equivalent to grad students.
Ugo was/is a full professor at a prestigious university. My guess is that he has been a mentor for quite a few. When he defines his use of AI, my experience as a grad student when I consider Ugo’s use reminds me of the professors that were a decent sort and didn’t abuse their grad students. Just so you know, my professors did not always fall into that category.
Someone is training up a bunch of power hungry silicon to mirror the output of how that/those person(s) think. What I am worried about is that if the person training them is an asshole that trains them in a manner that reflect the trainer’s flaws (greed, self-centeredness, anger, violence), those will be imbedded in the output of the AI..
Maybe it is a time to review Asimov’s three laws
Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are a set of guidelines for the behavior of robots, designed to ensure their interaction with humans is safe and ethical. They are: 1) A robot may not harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; 2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law
I am not saying that these are complete, but they are a good start to begin the discussion.
sdi) wrote2025-06-01 11:37 amEscape
ἀλλὰ φόωσδε τάχιστα λιλαίεο: ταῦτα δὲ πάντα
ἴσθ’, ἵνα καὶ μετόπισθε τεῇ εἴπῃσθα γυναικί.
But anxiously hasten to the light, and remember all this,
so that you can tell your wife even after.
(Antikleia speaking to Odusseus. Homer, Odyssey XI 223–4, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)
Σωκράτης. ἀλλ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ἀπολέσθαι τὰ κακὰ δυνατόν, ὦ Θεόδωρε— ὑπεναντίον γάρ τι τῷ ἀγαθῷ ἀεὶ εἶναι ἀνάγκη—οὔτ᾽ ἐν θεοῖς αὐτὰ ἱδρῦσθαι, τὴν δὲ θνητὴν φύσιν καὶ τόνδε τὸν τόπον περιπολεῖ ἐξ ἀνάγκης. διὸ καὶ πειρᾶσθαι χρὴ ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε φεύγειν ὅτι τάχιστα. φυγὴ δὲ ὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν: ὁμοίωσις δὲ δίκαιον καὶ ὅσιον μετὰ φρονήσεως γενέσθαι.
Socrates. But it is impossible that evils should be done away with, Theodorus, for there must always be something opposed to the good; and they cannot have their place among the gods, but must inevitably hover about mortal nature and this earth. Therefore we ought to try to escape from earth to the dwelling of the gods as quickly as we can; and to escape is to become like God, so far as this is possible; and to become like God is to become righteous and holy and wise.
(Plato, Theaitetos 176A–B, as translated by Harold N. Fowler. I might translate the last phrase as "becoming righteous and pure in thought.")
Πυλάδης.
[...]
λήξαντα δ᾽ οἴκτων κἀπ᾽ ἐκεῖν᾽ ἐλθεῖν χρεών,
ὅπως τὸ κλεινὸν ὄνομα τῆς σωτηρίας
λαβόντες ἐκ γῆς βησόμεσθα βαρβάρου.
σοφῶν γὰρ ἀνδρῶν ταῦτα, μὴ 'κβάντας τύχης,
καιρὸν λαβόντας, ἡδονὰς ἄλλας λαβεῖν.
Ὀρέστης.
καλῶς ἔλεξας: τῇ τύχῃ δ᾽ οἶμαι μέλειν
τοῦδε ξὺν ἡμῖν: ἢν δέ τις πρόθυμος ᾖ,
σθένειν τὸ θεῖον μᾶλλον εἰκότως ἔχει.
[Orestes and Iphigenia are tearfully reunited, but Orestes's comrade, Pulades, reminds them of the danger they're in.]
Pulades. [...] But stop crying, we have to focus on other things so that we can obtain that glorious label of "salvation" and escape this foreign land: wise men seize the moment, lest they snub Lady Luck for the wiles of others!
Orestes. Well said!—but I think She will support us in that, since the more one strives, the more the gods strive for them.
(Euripedes, Iphigenia in Tauris 904–11, as loosely translated by yours truly. "Lady Luck" is Tukhe, the gods' providence or good fortune.)
degringolade) wrote2025-06-01 08:23 amDisgust
Plants on my walks make me happy
Voltaire. At best, a snarky frog but of all the “philosophers” of that era, I can get along with his “big three”; freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state. But today, I want to speak of his famous quip:
"This agglomeration, which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."
I think that the European Union is merely another attempt at recycling the idea of the Holy Roman Empire. Even worse than the rotating millionaires that populate our politics, the Eurotrash seem to wish to create a clever disguise for the recreation of the Ancien Régime with a different set of nobility replete with an inquisition to suppress any thoughts deemed unworthy.
I am annoyed by the poseurs who sit around and declaim anything European as worthy. Remember, they are the colonial powers that spend couple of centuries raping Africa, the Middle East, India, and Asia. We threw the bastards off this continent 250 years ago, we should stick to that principle (and please, do me the courtesy of not trying to claim the French as our helpers, Louis XVI didn’t do it because he “loved liberty”, he did it because it screwed the British).
Nope, I say let Europe stew in their own juices. They deserve what they have coming to them. I think that the Non-Europeans that they have in their countries should take over from the aristocratic swine that has floated to the top.
boccaderlupo) wrote2025-05-31 06:32 pmAll the Hosts and Powers of Heaven
We see this syncretization in some obvious places like Dante and, say, some Renaissance architecture (to say nothing of the magic of that period), and more blatantly in syncretic survivals like the festa U Muzzini in Alcara li Fusi. In the Italic peninsula, we see this also at certain shrines, such as the Madonna del Sacro Monte on Monte Gelbison (formerly dedicated to Hera) and St. Michael on Monte Gargano, a former location of pagan devotion. Indeed, it may be said of such "high places," as of the former: Locus iste sanctus est, et ab angelis consacratu. As even St. Augustine notes, in City of God: "If the Platonists prefer to call these angels gods rather than demons, and to reckon them with those whom Plato, their founder and master, maintains were created by the supreme God, they are welcome to do so, for I will not spend strength in fighting about words."
To that end, I offer an overview of some scriptural references that are suggestive of a henotheistic view of Christianity, for those who are into that kind of thing:
God creates the gods (Psalm 33:6, Colossians 1:16, CF "God of gods," Deuteronomy 10:17), the sons of god (Job 1.6, Psalm 82:6) and the hosts of heaven (Psalm 103:21, Psalm 148:2). They partake of divinity, but the creator remains unique and they are subject to him (Psalm 89:7-8, Psalm 95:3). He has apportioned the nations among them (Deuteronomy 32:8 (LXX), CF Judges 11:24), but selected the descendants of Abraham as his own people (Genesis 12:2), though they are to worship him alone (Exodus 20) and not to pursue other gods not apportioned to them (Deuteronomy 18:9, Deuteronomy 29.26).
At some point, the depredations of these gods and their dalliances with humankind became so extreme (Genesis 6:1-6, 2 Peter 2:4, Jude 1:6, CF pseudepigrapha 1 Enoch) that the Lord, after considering the destruction of all humankind, passed judgement upon the gods (Psalm 82:7-8, CF Hebrews 2:5), much as he executed judgment on all the gods of Egypt (Exodus 12:12), and shall gather all nations to him (Psalm 86:9-10). Those gods persist (1 Corinthians 8:5), but their worship is deprecated.
At a particular point in history, he himself would enter the sensible, material world as a human (John 1:9, John 1:14, Romans 8:3) and by his own act of sacrifice, as the Christ (Colossians 2:9), redeem the world from death (Hebrews 2:9, Philippians 3:8, Revelations 1:18), to break the power of fell spirits (Hebrews 2:14-15, CF Matthew 10:1), and thereby enable humankind to become adopted children of the Most High (John 1:12, John 3:16, Galatians 4:4-5).
As St. Athanasius writes provocatively in On the Incarnation, "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."
ecosophia) wrote2025-05-31 10:54 am
On Hiatus
Just a reminder -- I don't expect to post here again until June 13. I'll put through comments when I have the chance, but there may be long delays. Those of you who are coming to the book signings in London or the talks in Glastonbury, I'll look forward to seeing you soon. Everyone else -- why, I'll be back in a couple of weeks.
degringolade) wrote2025-05-31 07:00 amTold Ya
One of the technical issues that I will be forcing into a scifi world will be the place that the “ship” goes on its colonization run. One of the issues that I felt I needed to deal with is the simple fact that when you leave town (the Sol system) you don’t want to have to go dodging things on your way out. So I figure that since the ecliptic is sorta crowded, you will need to leave the Sol system heading galactic north or south.
So I fired up the research associate that Elon has let me use and started asking questions. When I asked about leaving south, I got nada. But North was more interesting
what is the closest g-type star that is approximately (=/- 20 degrees) 90 degrees south of the ecliptic
The closest G-type star approximately 90 degrees south of the ecliptic (±20 degrees) is **Alpha Centauri A**, located at a declination of about -60.8 degrees, which is within the specified range (90 ± 20 degrees south). It is a G2V star, roughly 4.37 light-years from Earth.
Well, I suppose this should be shelved on the “been there, done that” shelf. I would say that a large minority of scifi space travel ends up going to Alpha Centauri for science-based fiction.
Let me digress. My personal fenceline between science fiction and science fantasy is the “actually doable using known technology” fenceline. I always thought that James T. Kirk and Han Solo weren’t science fiction characters, they were fantasy characters, no different than Harry Potter shouting “expelleramus” (or whatever the little whiner shouts).
Now, just to be clear here, I will probably jump that fence a couple of times as I proceed. But the next little while is going to come up with a way to stay on this side of the fence for the most part.
sdi) wrote2025-05-31 05:42 amThe Meaning of Buddhism
When Ts'ui-wei was asked about the meaning of Buddhism, he answered: "Wait until there is no one around, and I will tell you." Some time later the monk approached him again, saying: "There is nobody here now. Please answer me." Ts'ui-wei led him out into the garden and went over to the bamboo grove, saying nothing. Still the monk did not understand, so at last Ts'ui-wei said, "Here is a tall bamboo; there is a short one!"
(Shi Daoyuan, The Transmission of the Lamp XV ccclxiii; as retold by Alan Watts, The Way of Zen II i.)
kimberlysteele) wrote2025-05-31 12:13 amOgham Readings on Saturdays
-a one card reading to answer a specific question and a three card for a more nuanced question
-Two separate readings, two cards a piece exploring the positives and negatives of two different choices
I am happy to do Ogham readings confidentially via email -- just email me at k steele studio at gmail during the allotted time/before deadline. I cannot answer health questions. If you have a question about health or another sensitive, private matter, provide a bunch of non-identifying information and the Ogham will be able to figure it out even if I don't. I'm serious... the Ogham actually tend to "know" things without me being privy to what is going on.
My next planned break is from Saturday, June 21, 2025 - Friday, July 11, 2025.
For a more in depth look into how I read and interpret the Ogham's symbols, please visit my website druidogham.wordpress.com.
I am currently trying to minimize my use of PayPal. If you'd like to make a donation, I would be grateful if you did it here:
http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele
Your prayers of blessing to the deity/deities of your choice are welcome whether or not you can donate.
sdi) wrote2025-05-30 03:28 pmThe Mother
The English word matter is from French matière from Latin materia from Latin mater "mother." The Romans worshipped Magna Mater "the Great Mother," just as the Greeks worshipped Demeter "Mother Earth," and the Egyptians worshipped mother Isis "the seat [upon which all rests]."
I might note that our modern materialists worship matter to a far greater degree than those other cults, denying even the existence of all other gods...
degringolade) wrote2025-05-30 08:23 amanother reason not to want to publish on substack
Maybe laboring in obscurity is the way to go.
https://matthewgasda.substack.com/p/writers-diary-2a2
In a way, I think that idea of writing to make money terrifies me. I realize that folks gotta eat, but I can’t say that writing to make money has any appeal to me. Granted, if someone were to send me some nickels, I most certainly wouldn’t turn up my nose, but it wouldn’t be the reason I would write.
Let me give you some background concerning where this is coming from. In the mid ‘00’s my two sons were the age where Harry Potter was huge. Harry Potter was a brilliant book to bring kids into the act of reading. They were enthralled (their mother was appalled, she being of the whacked out christian flavor) and they read the books and wanted to go to the movies and live the Potter life. I indulged them.
But as the number of books mounted and the story evolved and my sons became teenagers in sync with the books, I stopped reading because dealing with two teenagers was annoying enough. Having a book accurately depicting the hormonal imbalances and angst of teenagers was not a place I wanted to visit. So I stopped reading at book four and let them deal on their own.
Fast forward about twenty years and I figure, what the hell, I might as well finish the last three books. I am on the last book now and overall I think that the first three were great and then tapered off progressively.
I am glad Rowling made her money and she deserved all the credit. The books were a great bit of storytelling. Everyone loves sniping at them, but truthfully, all I get from the sniping is a taste of sour grapes.
She tells a good story. Isn’t that enough just by itself?
I am writing because I enjoy sitting down with my coffee in the morning and reading the world's weirdness and then pecking away at this diary. If it suits me, I spend time thinking about the stories that I want to tell and trying to create vignettes that tie together into a bigger story.
Now I am hoping to create a novel using all these disjointed written pieces into a bigger piece. When (if) I manage, I will try to get someone to buy it because I can alway use a better quality of whiskey. But that isn’t the goal. I have enough and I am content. If I start thinking that my writing is worth something, then I stand a good chance of being discontent.
boccaderlupo) wrote2025-05-30 06:58 amLLMs are demonic
degringolade) wrote2025-05-29 10:28 amMore on Writing
Gray and yucky…’nuff said
There isn’t a new idea anywhere in the world of literature. The “new” ideas that peddled off today have always been there. Maybe you just haven’t read the idea yet, but it is there and will come and bite you should you publish a work and someone else reads it.
So I asked “Grok” to look into this for me, mostly because I don’t need a “correct” answer, I just need a decent approximation:
How many new novels of any genre and any publication format were published in 2024?
Exact figures for new novels published in 2024 are hard to pin down due to varying data sources and self-publishing. Estimates suggest 500,000 to 1 million new books, including novels, were published globally, with the U.S. alone seeing over 500,000 self-published titles and 10,000+ from major publishers. Novels likely make up a significant portion, but no precise genre or format breakdown is available.
https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMg%3D%3D_f9b252c2-c814-411f-b181-65bfaacbd7dd
So I am working on a “new” novel in this environment. The storyline is going to be similar to a set of stories that I have not read. The characters will be of a stereotype that will bore a lot of people. The setting will be hackneyed in the estimation of many readers. The philosophy is established, regardless of which I choose.
But everyone else who is trying to get someone to read their story is operating under the same constraints.
All I have to do is create a good recipe from the same staple ingredients. Maybe someone will read it, maybe someone won’t.
degringolade) wrote2025-05-28 07:47 amBiggus Dickus
One of the residuals from my exit from the land of “geek” is my almost indecent obsession about the specifications of electronics.
It started back in the seventies, with an unseemly obsession about the advertised “total harmonic distortion” and “power wattage” of stereo equipment. It also led to the desire for greater displacement in the realm of internal combustion engines. It was an enjoyable, albeit expensive, obsession that ended up nowhere and probably saved me from any number of social diseases due to my lack of funds to be earmarked for chasing women with proven promiscuity.
The age of the computer and my education led me down another path, one leading from from 8086 through 80486 and then to the AMD 64 fueled weirdness that defines my electronic life today.
But truthfully, now that I am old and I find this sort of dick-matching tiresome, I have come to the conclusion that the computers that fill all my needs are of a I-5 vintage with around 8 gb (could probably do with an I-3). All of the advancement since then isn’t about what I want to do with a computer, but what the computer wants to do with me.
I don’t think that I am alone in this. Most of the power of modern chips is wasted. The need for the greater power in chips has been built around the idea of giving the corporations at the top of this odd food chain a continuing revenue stream (which is why they also stop supporting chips).
The “revolution” in the internet and my use of it is going the way of stereos and cars.
By the way, this is always a great read
sdi) wrote2025-05-27 08:35 pmAn Omen (Revised)
Okay, so while I just revised Enneads I iv, it seems I might as well revise the joke that went with it. Perhaps you recall how I was tired after work, but since I'm a burning-the-candle-at-both-ends kind of person, forged ahead to study this particular essay, but a bird flew overhead and pooped on the page I was reading, an obvious omen to just give it a rest already.
My daughter was asking me about my angel today, as I mentioned how they have a very playful personality. She asked for examples, and so I told her a number of my angel stories. I got to this one, and while she was laughing about it, I was telling her how that page of the Enneads is still kinda messed up since of course I had to wash the poop off. She fetched the book from the shelf and asked me to show her which page it was, so I turned to the beginning of Enneads I iv and pointed to the worn-out section near the top of the page.
As I did so, I realized that I had missed the joke's punch line!
See, in the edition of the Enneads I was reading, the essay on True Happiness starts halfway down the page; the top half of the page is the last part of the prior essay on Dialectic. Here is the relevant section, with where the poop landed (which is now half-erased from being scrubbed clean) highlighted:
And while the other virtues bring the reason to bear upon particular experiences and acts, the virtue of Wisdom [...] is a certain super-reasoning much closer to the Universal; for it deals with correspondence and sequence, the choice of time for action and inaction, the adoption of this course, the rejection of that other [...].
The bird didn't just poop on my book, it literally pointed out that it would have been wise for me to rest. Lorna Byrne says somewhere that "angels find it easier to move minds than physical objects," but it seems to me that they're plenty capable of fine movements when need be...
sdi) wrote2025-05-27 03:07 pmEnneads I v: Can Well-Being Increase With Time? (Revised)
Re-reading Enneads I v "Can Well-Being Increase With Time?" I think my previous summary is fine and I have simply edited that post with different nomenclature (e.g. changing "happiness" to "well-being," following the reasoning I outlined yesterday).
I would like to flag a few sight-seeing points that stood out to me this time around, though:
In §4, Plotinos agrees with (and elegantly subsumes) Aristotle's definition of well-being: if one equates well-being with the ability to exercise free will, then they are simply accepting Plotinos's position, for the soul has free will according to its nature, while the body has none.
In §7, Plotinos makes the case that eternity isn't merely the sum of all times, but is beyond time. (This echoes Proklos's and Taylor's distinction of "perpetual" and "eternal.") Thus something which is eternal is better than something which is perpetual, and therefore eternal good is better than perpetual good, and therefore the well-being of the soul is more to be desired than even perpetual pleasure of the body.
In §10, Plotinos makes a cute distinction between well-being and well-doing, which echoes Plato's "world of being" and "world of becoming." I think this neatly describes the functions of each: since the intellect essentially is, a soul only accidentally is; thus the intellect can only be, but a soul can be well or be poorly. The soul essentially moves, but a body only accidentally moves; thus the soul can only do, but a body can do well or do poorly. That is to say: something that essentially possesses some quality simply embodies that quality, but something that accidentally possesses it may have it to a greater or lesser degree.
ecosophia) wrote2025-05-27 03:01 pmOpen (More or Less) Post on Covid 199
We are now in the fourth 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 more than three 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 are 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; 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.
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.
kimberlysteele) wrote2025-05-27 01:37 pmNew Podcast Dropping Tomorrow: Casual Temple with Merrily Duffy
The podcast will be dropping Wednesday, May 28 on all the platforms.
degringolade) wrote2025-05-27 09:35 amsins of the fathers/rewards of inheritances
Blue sky day today, already 60℉ and barometer looks to be steady at 30 in/Hg. Need to walk a little today.
There are a couple of out of date books that I really think need to be brought back to the thin gruel that is literary output these days.
The Ugly American By Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer
And
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
I think that these go back to an older time and place that really never went away, except for the fact that the bad guys in these novels won in the real-life mirror world that we inhabit.
I am going to think on my memories of these two books and after pondering for a bit, I might just write a piece on them and the way they dropped slowly out of the discussion as we began to believe that our imperial aspirations were actually coming true.