“Turnum outknaves all three” sent me back to my 2023 dream post “Narrative Reasoning,” which begins with a quote from Turnus and ends with a green book that I at first took for a Quran. As I reread that post and its comments, my attention was arrested by a comment from WanderingGondola that said (ellipsis in ...

My understanding of the international scene (which is, in this respect, a macrocosm of what is happening in many individual people); is that most of the populous nations of the world aspire to totalitarianism; but the leadership class of some powerful countries (Western civilization especially) have gone "beyond" ...

As I was contemplating "Rub-a-dub-dub" this morning, I spontaneously reinterpreted the last line, "Turn 'em out, knaves all three," as "Turnum outknaves all three" -- meaning that Turnum (accusative of Turnus, the Rutulian king whose death brings the Aeneid to an abrupt end) is even more of a knave than the butcher, ...

It is one of the more obvious lessons of life experience that prolonged engagement with some kind of evil environment almost-always has a corrupting effect on people - and consequently on groups including nations.

While theoretically avoidable, in practice is seems almost inevitable that dealing with evil and with ...

What's the use of Jesus in my actual, daily life, here-and-now?

This question needs an answer that is simple and clear enough to be comprehended and grasped whole - or else it will be ineffectual.

But also, of course, the answer must be true - not some kind of incoherent answer; nor one that will soon be ...

Look in any spiritual textbook and it will tell you about humility and self-abnegation, particularly if it is a Christian one. Humility is an important virtue that shows one is not dominated by the ego or separate self which is a materialised expression/distortion of the soul. Self-abnegation likewise indicates that ...

Over the past few days, I’ve been trying to puzzle out the meaning of "The plant is the three pages just starred by an asterisk," followed by an asterisk and then the italicized word or name Gloria. (See my post "Gloria.") I read that on a page that was itself marked with an asterisk, but I quickly decided that that ...

I had planned to spend the bulk of today removing fiberglass insulation from the attic, but I couldn’t find my N95 respirator. Not wanting to run out to the store to buy a new one, I decided to don an old birdemic cloth mask I happened to stumble upon in my workshed.

The N95 respirator is marketed as effective ...

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,Jack jump over the candlestick.

Jack be be rapid, Jack be fleet,Jack jump over the slab of meat.

Jack be hastened, Jack be sped,Jack jump over the loaf of bread.

When I dream, I dream about books.

Last night (July 7-8), I dreamt that I was walking through the corridor of a Mormon church, accompanied by a girl of four or five who was wearing a fancy white dress that made me think that, even though it’s not a Mormon thing, she was there for her First Communion.

In the ...

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The archetypal modern senior manager: heroic, far-sighted, at the cutting edge... A corrupt, mediocre, spiteful, psychopath

Bonald has come up with a convincing proximate explanation for the current AI-dolaltry; that seems to fit with the short/ medium term self-interest of the senior managerial ...

I have long been fascinated by the machinations of the Google search engine - who also own the platform on which this blog is published.

At present, I mean a few minutes ago; this blog seems to be delisted by Google - so that searching my name in quotes for the past week gives no return - zilch. I don't exist.

By ...

Some of the Chinese names for Western countries are quite poetic.

The United States is called 美國, which means “the beautiful country.”

The United Kingdom is called 英國, which means “the heroic country.”

France is called 法國, which means “the country of law.”

Germany is called 德國, which ...

no one cares if you only do one of anything.

every "ancient tradition" was invented in the nineteenth century. now it's time for us to do it.

that i know, there are no Guenon fan girls. but there are plenty of Steiner fan girls. (someone told me since that this was the case from the beginning). so the latter is ...

Because of the nature of human consciousness, we inhabit a world where perceptions, facts, common sense, evidence etc are irrelevant; because what counts as perceptions, facts, common sense, evidence etc is shaped by our assumptions and interpretations.

So, most people most of the time (and, apparently, some people ...

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Zdzisław Beksiński - Untitled (often referred to as one of his cruciform paintings). ​Once someone has absorbed the assumptions of mainstream modern materialism, he cannot believe in Heaven - and, much worse, he does not even want it to be true!

The above comes from a ...

When I dream, I dream about books.

I dreamt I was in a listening room at a company that manufactures high-end audio equipment, which in real life is owned by a family I have known and worked with for years. I put an unmarked vinyl record on the turntable, and out of speakers worth as much as a small house came what ...

It is strange to a modern mind, but makes obvious sense if this is the creation of a good and loving God; that our innate understanding of the world, which we spontaneously experience as young children, often (and ideally) seems to be more coherent than any of the others which come to replace it.

In other words; a ...

It seems to be a hallmark of the dangerous stupidity of most self-identified Christians that they translate the injunction to Hope - as one of the core virtues - into a kind of dumb optimism about the people and social institutions of 2025.

They "hope" that if they continue to believe, support and obey their ...

The child was bright. Before entering elementary school it could only be seen in a vacuum, there were no other children around his age in the family, and it would be meaningless to compare the intelligence of a child to that of an adult, or even of an adolescent, not to mention an injustice, and thus, the ...

Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses came up recently in a highly unlikely coincidence, as described in my last post, "Baptism" (which you should read before proceeding, if you haven't yet). Late last night, I checked /x/, mostly to keep tabs on any new Roy Jay developments, and to my surprise found a thread ...

There is a very common psychological scenario in which someone is (or feels himself to be) motivated by high goals, then he is given "well meaning" advice that addresses mundane concerns. And the consequence is that the high-aimer feels misunderstood and alienated.

For instance, somebody wants to change jobs or ...

Maybe it's like this...

If someone becomes convinced by the usual-mainstream-modern assumption that truth is objectively located in the external world ("truth is out-there"), and our job is just to perceive and recognize this external truth...

Then such a person never has to convince himself of truth.

He feels more ...

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Yesterday morning (July 2), I breakfasted at a coffee shop where big lettering on the wall behind the front counter proclaims, "Tasting coffee, not only is a taste of the enjoyment, it is a physical and psychological baptism."

I'm pretty sure that if drinking coffee is a physical baptism for you, ...

As we know, the devil quotes scripture for his own ends. Nowhere has he been busier in this regard over recent years than with the matter of love which is now used as an excuse to overlook all manner of assaults on goodness and truth. Don't judge, don't condemn, be tolerant, accept everyone and (pretty much) ...

the patterns of machine text are not arbitrary. and they help reveal what antihuman communication is.

what i've seen so far of 'ai' chat bots leads me to believe that were they to inhabit humanoid bodies, they would fit already existing patterns of human behavior, but only within that spectrum starting in ...

Last week the "secular right" blogger ZMan - who I had been reading regularly for several years - apparently died suddenly of natural causes; and I find that has saddened me more than might be expected.

The reason seems related to this strange and recent literary form of blogging, which I have been reading for more ...

In response to Francis Berger's comment on Word Spells in Christian theology

Maybe it's like this...

If someone becomes convinced by the usual-mainstream-modern assumption that truth is objectively located in the external world ("truth is out-there"), and our job is just to perceive and recognize this external ...