• Cosmos Cooperative
  • Journal
  • Books
  • Conversations
  • Social
  • Join the Co-op

Metapsychosis

Journal of Consciousness, Literature, and Art

  • Groups
    • Synthesis of Yoga Practicum
  • Podcasts
    • Chthonia – Worlds of the Dark Feminine
    • Writing Off the Deep End
  • Events
  • Meta
    • About
    • Authors
    • Submissions
    • Contact
    • Donate
  • Subscribe
Editors’ Blog

CULTURAL CONSUMPTION: What We’re Reading, Watching, Listening to, and Thinking About – Dec 2021 / Jan 2022

By
  • Brigid Burke
  • Marco V Morelli
 |  31 Dec 2021
Feature Image: Vortex, by Edgar Jansen, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

“Culture is not your friend,” remarked the late great Terrence McKenna. Nevertheless, he didn’t exactly say (or even imply) that therefore it’s our enemy. After all, we are cultural creators too, and art begets art. Even so, it might still be a good idea to keep our friends close yet our culture even closer, as with an enemy who could turn against us at any time. We should do this while maintaining awareness of the arbitrary spells that old adages can inspire.

Thus in the spirit of mindful consumption, we present a curated selection of meta-cultural morsels from our omnivorous editors, if only (though not only) for the fun of it. We encourage you to share your thoughts about any of these links, or tell us a little of what you’ve been exploring, enjoying, and learning about lately in the cultural sphere.

Brigid Burke

Welcome to Chaos

The Cult of the Black Cube: A Saturnian Grimoire (2nd edition) by Dr. Arthur Moros (pseudonym), Theion Publishing, 2021. The author looks at the history of the god Saturn, also known as Kronos or Shani, in various cultures, and his status as the both the bringer of chaos and death and the bringer of the Earth’s Golden Age.

We Are Your AI Overlords

The Dead Internet Theory. There are a number of videos on this subject, but this one caught my interest in particular. It discusses the idea that the majority of Internet content is created by bots, and that major social media sites censor what used to be free and open conversations for business reasons.

Be “Sore Afraid”

This year I joined the ranks of Religious Studies nerds with too much time on their hands and created a Biblically Accurate Christmas tree topper, complete with 1 Seraph and 2 Ophanim. I wanted to create the angels described as “bronze with 4 heads”, but that proved too challenging. Merry Christmas, and they’ll be watching you!

Marco V Morelli

Throwing the Kitchen Sink at the End of the World

Science Fiction living legend Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future looks at a whole bunch of things that could go right in the world, after everything has gone terribly wrong. The story takes place over a couple decades towards the middle of this century. There are characters. They live, love, kill, work, suffer, die. Questionable: the role of terrorism in fomenting positive change. Curious: a carbon-sequestration incentivizing cryptocurrency? Hopeful: co-ops will play a big role in the transition when circumstances force us to go beyond capitalism. Also see KSR’s related talk on Possible Worlds.

Nostalgia is One Helluva Drug

It’s been years—long years, too many years relative to my too brief life—since I have really fallen for a band… since I have felt compelled to bow low, tip my hat, offer up a big wet sloppy BRAVO from the bottom of my quavering heart—as I do now. Yet here is pure artistry with DANTE HIGH: songwriting, lyrics, hooks, yelps, synthesizer sounds! This may be one of the great albums of the early ’90s—written in 2018. Their more serious 2021 follow-up, DANTE HIGH II, dares to go retro in the guise of a tour de force.

And for the Kids…

We had to reprimand our eldest daughter, who had developed a bad habit of blurting out, “But that’s not how it happened in the book!” over and over, every time we watch an adaptation. The younger: “Tell her to stop! You’re ruining my movie night!” They finally settled down and were even won over by Disney’s take on The Mysterious Benedict Society series by Trenton Lee Stewart. I loved the premise: The world is in a state of emergency. Nobody is at the wheel. Everyone is being programmed by subliminal messages broadcast by an evil genius. Only a fellowship of extremely bright and daring children (and their quirky grown-up mentors) can free our minds and save us! I offered token resistance, but soon, I too had been won over and was being blissfully entertained by all the intelligent humor, colorful aesthetics, and enjoyable acting. We watched the whole first season over a couple of weeks.

Filed Under: Blog, Culture (Transformation), Film/Music, Reviews Tagged With: books, movies, music, videos

Brigid Burke

Brigid Burke is the host of the Chthonia podcast, and the proprietor of Chthonia.net. She writes articles, fiction, and poetry dealing with the darker aspects of human behavior and the esoteric world. Her fiction has been published previously in Writin …

Marco V Morelli

Marco V Morelli is a founding editor of Metapsychosis, and co-creator of Cosmos Co-op and the Infinite Conversations forum (where he goes by @madrush). He lives in Colorado with his wife, two daughters, and dog. He is currently at work on a book of poetry titled I AM THE SINGULARITY.

Transmissions

Join the Metapsychosis email list and get our monthly newsletter with everything that's new on the site, plus invitations to upcoming reading groups and events.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Support Metapsychosis

Help us sustain this collaborative cultural project. We are creating community supported literature and depend on your generosity to publish our work.

DONATE

Metapsychosis is a project of Cosmos Cooperative, a creative co-op for people with “visionary tendencies”—artists and scientists, writers and designers, tree-huggers and technologists—lovers of truth, goodness, beauty, and life in worlds upon worlds… It’s a big Cosmos, right? Visionaries of the world, unite! Seriously, this is supposed to be fun. Help us create a better Cosmos…

Unless otherwise noted, all rights are reserved by the individual authors. Other website content is licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

  • Groups
    • Synthesis of Yoga Practicum
  • Podcasts
    • Chthonia – Worlds of the Dark Feminine
    • Writing Off the Deep End
  • Events
  • Meta
    • About
    • Authors
    • Submissions
    • Contact
    • Donate
  • Subscribe

Metapsychosis is a project of Cosmos Cooperative, a creative co-op for people with "visionary tendencies." Learn more at Cosmos.coop »

  • Cosmos Cooperative
  • Journal
  • Books
  • Conversations
  • Social
  • Join the Co-op

Metapsychosis is a project of Cosmos Cooperative, a creative co-op for people with "visionary tendencies." Learn more at Cosmos.coop »

Unless otherwise noted, all rights are reserved by the individual authors. Other website content is licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

 

Loading Comments...