We were lost. Daddy sucked on a fat cigar, leaned across the steering wheel, stared at the dark road up ahead and let out a stream of four letter words, which my mother told me never to repeat. She snapped off the radio, got real quiet. The car filled with smoke, my eyeballs burned. I rolled down the window, gulped the night wind, and squinted at the crescent moon…
Journal Archive
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.
How to Live in the Future (Part 2)
If some Omega Point in hyperspace, the Eschaton that waits for us at history’s end, draws all mundane phenomena into its all-embracing unity, we’re implicated in that vast conspiracy already. We can celebrate. But particles apparently pop in and out of being all the time, each moment a Creation. All of it occurs at once, a party more than a parade. So point me to “the” Singularity, again?
Is Myth Dead?
If new myths are born, re-tethered to something sacred, they must be brutally immediate, possessing unavoidable gravity, poignant, fragile, they must be anything but contrived, planned, and developed with the intention of bringing us the sacred. (She does not come to us on a platter. More likely, the platter will have your beating heart on it.)
The Fall and the Eschaton
Most of us have, in some form or another, if not a philosophy of time, at least a mythos of time.
Banishing the World: Conner Habib on Postmodern Philosophy and the Occult
I spoke with Conner Habib about his new course, “Banishing the World: Postmodern Philosophy and the Occult,” and learned about the surprising ways in which the most interesting and sophisticated philosophies coming out of humanities converge precisely with occult ideas.
Taking the Waters
“We are lost and strangers to this place, this mother of terrors and wonders.”
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.”
Vis Imaginativa: The Power of Imagination in the Theory of Magic and its Relationship to The Jungian Collective Unconscious
The power of imagination, “vis imaginativa,” provides the link between a philosophy of magic and psychoanalysis.
Is Friendship Limited? An Inquiry into Dunbar’s Number
Dunbar proposed the limit of meaningful friendships is “150”—a far cry from our Facebook and Instagram network connections—but maybe it’s more complicated than that.
Call for Submissions—Intensification
Consider submitting your artwork, essays, and creative pieces during our six week publishing cycle.
Letter from the Editor—Intensification
Intensification implies a new way of seeing—not at objects but through them.
The Loneliest Road (Intensification)
A 20-minute “unguided meditation,” this audio journey combines music, conversational fragments, and field phenomena to produce a contemplative response to current events, specifically the United States presidential election of 2016. As an immersive mindscape, the sound collage invites you to engage the world as meditation, and meditation as art.
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….
The Stranger Things Episode: Talking Analog Weirdness
In this singular episode of The Electric Symposium Jeremy Johnson is joined by author and Metapsychosis contributor J.F. Martel, as well as Metapsy editors Natalie Bantz and Marco V Morelli. Together we talk about J.F.’s latest essay, “Reality is Analog,” our curious fascination with the “lifeworld” of 80s analog, and the Metapsy team’s various theories behind the pop cultural Netflix sensation, “Stranger Things.” Pop in the tape and press play.
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….”
Psychoanalysis, Art and the Occult: Cutting Up a New Conversation
This notion about our origins is the essential idea with which psychoanalysis grapples. Thought of in this way, psychoanalysis is nothing other than the meta-theorization of occult ideas.
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.
The American Metaphysical Majority
What’s another word for melting pot? Cauldron.
Colin Wilson and “The Robot”
We are the robots. Or rather, we are like people who allow their servants to do everything for them, and subsequently feel they have lost touch with life, but don’t know exactly why.
Gonjasufi’s “Vinaigrette” & The Dark Night of the Soul
I saw the freedom of the open streets in the early morning and the romance of the street lamps curled with the eerie silence of the city’s expanse. What you call “an isolated figure” makes a left turn into a horizon of pillowy clouds and endures some kind of ecstasy while being alone in a motel room. The film feels alive, present.
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.”
On the Borderlands between Philosophy and Esotericism: An Interview with Gary Lachman
When Gary contacted me about my biographical work on the German poet and Kulturphilosoph, Jean Gebser, I naturally took the opportunity to explore his work.