Chess is two wills locked not only in combat but also in cooperation. Players must together create the conditions allowing one to emerge triumphant—or not.
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The Long Curve of Descent
Since the end of the Paleolithic Era, it is possible that we have been riding a long curve of descent, in which all things once transparent have become more and more opaque.
Poems of Degeneration
A selection of poems from John David Ebert’s new collection, These Things We No Longer Are, including Descent of the Angel, Peter, Dead Men, Five Skulls, and The Angel of Death
Reading Albert Murray in the Age of Trump
In his near-century of life, Murray confronted race by re-constructing American identity as omni-American—that out of many, we are one.
ShantaramReading Group for Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts
Join the Readers Underground for a group reading of Gregory David Roberts’ novel Shantaram, hosted by David Gaian and Marco V Morelli, starting April 17, 2017.
HyperNormalisation (Review)
“We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They don’t care. We say we care but we do nothing. And nothing ever changes.” BBC documentary by Adam Curtis.
Prose for the Paranoid
I am, I am slightly ashamed to admit, a little paranoid at the moment. Some of it is genetic. My family have a history of “nerves.” My lovely cousin, who shares a big batch of genetics with me along with a childhood of school holidays spent together indulging our creative whimsy
The “Other” Globalization and Fear of the Feminine: a Mythological View
In Western culture what is “feminine” has become associated over time with what is evil or immoral… This frightening view of the collective, akin to the archetype of the Terrible Mother, is what drives a lot of the global political and social narrative.
The Global Abyss
It seemed unthinkable. A narcissistic reality show star with an authoritarian personality and a highly volatile temperament was elected to the highest office in the land on a platform of bigotry, xenophobia, and bullying. He was quite possibly the least qualified man to ever make it to the general election, let alone win the election. Yet against all expectations, here we are.
Autumnal Fallout
“It would be hard to communicate to someone growing up today just how widespread was the fallout from the threat of the Atomic Bomb. From July 16th, 1945, when the first bomb was tested over the Jornada del Muerto Desert, its occult light had continued to throw shadows from each object. The danger was not abstract; it was imminent, and it changed our whole way of looking at the world.”
Poems of Genesis
There was a time once when poets Sitting on cracked marble urns Invoked the muses; Or when the angel whispered Into Matthew’s ear The tale of a man Who came to earth as a god….
Reality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger ThingsReality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger Things / Part Three
But the dark truth conveyed in the character of Barb finds its counterbalance in the incredible creative power that Stranger Things attributes to the Cosmic Child, a power which is also present in each of us.
Reality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger ThingsReality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger Things / Part Two
Beneath the conceptual overlay, reality remains what it is: not an orderly network of humanly comestible ideas, but a turbid, ever-changing, symphonic, indefinable process of becoming that is accountable to neither the predilections of reason nor the strictures of logical grammar.
Reality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger ThingsReality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger Things / Part One
The show remains open, ambiguous to the end, and it is this quality that raises it above the normal run of generic entertainment to make of it something that defies genre, something genuinely weird.
Stranger Things Mixtape
This mix is all about the acclaimed Netflix series Stranger Things, and features J.F. Martel’s essay REALITY IS ANALOG, Phip plus the inaugural episode of Jeremy Johnson’s Electric Symposium podcast. Enjoy!
Antagonistic Cooperation as Mind Jazz: Ralph Ellison vs. Amiri Baraka (as Reimagined by Greg Thomas and Greg Tate)
“In their re-imagination of the Ellison/Baraka opposition, direct challenges alternate with playful taunts. These exchanges have the energy of a competition but the warmth and generosity of a collaboration.”
There is a Hydrogen Bomb on Your Raspberry Eyelid
“On rooftops and deserted roadways, she would, in times of chemical storms, spread her legs across the sky to take in the pieces….”
The Snare of Distance and the Sunglasses of the Seer / Part Two
We must access, without moving, all of the records that we need, and with our small flutes challenge the bone orchestra of the empire.
Alone and Behold: A Review of Werner Herzog’s Latest Film
I felt it fitting to choose to stay at home alone and “rent” the movie right away. As the pixels on my laptop flickered with Herzog’s visions, I reveled in the juxtaposition of my solitude while consuming this film whose subtitle espouses connection….
The Snare of Distance and the Sunglasses of the Seer / Part One
“In a comment on my essay “The Vanguard of a Perpetual Revolution,” Okantomi wrote, “I often feel like I can see what is happening in the world, as well as what is just about to happen, and what will almost certainly happen later on, and it’s like no one else sees what I am seeing. It’s eerie, shocking, and finally depressing.”
Our Spiritual Evolution: A Response to Chris Dierkes on St. Paul’s Ode to Love
“The purpose of this essay in response to Dierkes is this: I would like to add the element of human evolution—a Human Evolution that is also participated in by the Divine, and led and guided by the Divine—to the instruction and guidance that Dierkes has given us.”
In the Crack
A searing story of love, sex, longing, spiritual vision, and the paranormal—an intimate look at race, class, consciousness, and sexuality—and a star-crossed marriage of the cosmic and the carnal in one man’s heart.
The Metapolitics of the Noosphere
For me, the cultural shift from an identity that is based upon a nation or a territory to one based upon a state of consciousness—indeed even a seizure of consciousness—expresses the transition from politics to metapolitics.
Consciousness in the Aesthetic Imagination
What can art tell us about the nature of consciousness? Or maybe the question is better framed in McLuhanian terms: What is the message of the medium of art with regard to the nature of consciousness?
Love is Patient, Love is Kind: St. Paul’s Advice For Contemporary Esoteric Spirituality
On second glance I find it very odd indeed that we should have this reading at so many weddings when after all this passage is about esoteric paranormal phenomenon.
Dialogues with the Inscrutable: Five Poems
Fuselage • Perplexing order • Hesitation • Jurisdiction lies in zoology • Caliber
Metapsychosis Community Hangout #1
Join us for a live discussion with the editors of Metapsychosis.com. We will be talking about our first three weeks of featured essays, stories, poetry, and conversations from the journal. Date: July 14, 2016 at 8 pm EDT [time zone conversion] http://w …
Constellating Acts of Starry Night
We believe culture is consciousness, and consciousness is world, and so to participate as a media platform, we see ourselves as agents of enactive culture-making. Social poetics.
Neon Tribes: Ecstatic Highs, Techno-Trance & Digital Gnostics
The neon tribes of the digital age are seeking alternative spiritual streams, and yet the search for ecstatic highs within the inner landscape are fraught with frauds and superficial vendors. The marketplace has never been as full as it is now, nor as diverse and tantalizing.
Four In the Morning
The universe is crawling with unseen life: angels and djinn and spiritual guides. Like the excess in a stagnant pond, this abscess of the Absolute is obscenely corpulent in every nook and cranny, armpit and crotch of the Great Mother of dark energy and …