Monday, July 20th 2026

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

I saw this today on Peter Grant's latest meme post:

🖼️

It shows a person in a hooded green robe, a lantern, an owl, runes, and a green octopus-like Cthulhu doll.

Here is Laura Bruno's "Hermit Portal" painting, which I first posted on June 27, in "Owl-collecting (grand)mothers, octopuses, and Hermit ...

1m (350 words)
Author iconMeeting The Masters
William Wildblood

Introductory note: This is a slightly revised version of a piece I have previously posted. It seems pertinent in the light of the previous post serving as an example of what I consider to be a well-meaning but misguided and ultimately failed experiment.

Most of the time during our years in Yercaud not much happened. ...

4m (1,200 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

Mark Docherty says so, in a post titled "Tyconius was right." The name is also spelt Tychonius (and sometimes misspelt as Typhonius, apparently!), and the Russian spelling, Тихоний, matches my surname very closely. Quoting a former pope, Docherty writes that

for Tyconius, it is not the infidels who will ...

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

For most Christians in recorded history (although not in the Gospels) being-a-Christian is the same thing as being an observant member of "The" church.

But, of course, the identity of that The as it is applied to church; has varied in often incompatible and hostile - even lethal, and frequently evil - ways; since ...

2m (610 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

I'm old enough to remember when each of these countries had tens of millions of people.

🖼️

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

Last night one of the songs the algorithm lobbed my way was Madonna's "La Isla Bonita" performed in the style of System of a Down.

🎞️

The repeated oxymoronic line "The sun would set so high" synched with a meme I had just seen on Barnhardt's.

🖼️

As I have said in "Last night I ...

2.5m (710 words)

Sunday, July 19th 2026

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

My last post, "Apple of ashes, brine to the burning throat," mentions that in the Book of Mormon, Lehi sees a tree with white fruit but does not mention the color of the tree itself, while Nephi, wishing to have the same vision, sees a white tree but does not mention the color of its fruit. It also notes that this ...

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

A lot of modern people are(or claim to be) averse to the exclusivism of "Christianity".

By "exclusivism" they usually refer to some particular self-identified Christian church, or denomination, or a selection of such churches.

And by exclusivism is meant a collection of various ideas that limit salvation: for ...

2.5m (740 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

Can we genuinely - by making wise and responsible lifestyle choices - fight The System, and thereby work incrementally towards a Good, a Christian, world?

The true and ultimate answer, the answer from Jesus Christ, is: No, we cannot.

(Also; even if we could truly make a better this-world by our choices; that would ...

2m (590 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

I just read this in Orson F. Whitney's Elias: An Epic of the Ages. The poet is apostrophizing worldly fame and commenting on its futility.

Apple of ashes to the longing lip!Brine to the burning throat and thirsting soul!Phantom, delusion, misty ghost of fame!Voidest and vainest of all vanities!

Whitney's intended ...

2.5m (680 words)

Saturday, July 18th 2026

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

Just a few days ago, I was searching for pictures of a bowl of soup and got a skeletal humanoid deer creature. Today I was again searching for something completely unrelated and got the Hermit card of the Tarot.

I saw this on /pol/:

🖼️

It shows image search results on Google for star wars jew ...

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

It is a simple fact that the supporters of "AI" are thereby supporting global totalitarianism's Core Project - and the project that the totalitarians have-been, and currently are, expending more resources and money upon, than any other of their strategies of evil.

Supporting "AI" is therefore rational and ...

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

My last post, "You have bound yourself with oaths," brought the Moody Blues back into the sync stream. Remembering that I had posted about the anagram Embody the Soul before, I looked it up and found this: "The Moody Blues, Embody the Soul, snails and ammonites, stars and stones, blue ball of light" (September 2023). ...

Friday, July 17th 2026

Author iconThe Notion Club Papers - an Inklings blog
Bruce Charlton

🖼️

This is notice of a TV series called The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin that I am currently watching on Amazon Prime; adapted from a fantasy novel series by Stephen Lawhead. I have, so far, seen three episodes of seven.

This is, by some margin, the best fantasy drama I have seen on TV; very ...

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

🖼️

This is notice of a TV series called The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin that I am currently watching on Amazon Prime - I have seen three episodes.

It is, by some margin, the best fantasy drama I have seen on TV; very powerful and intriguing, beautiful and moving; very well written and ...

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

I dreamt the following lines, sung to the tune of "John Brown's Body" or "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Unfortunately certain key words have slipped out of my memory.

You have bound yourself with oaths the ... take.You have made the ancient covenant the ... make.

My sense is that the first lacuna was 'sons ...

Thursday, July 16th 2026

Author iconFrancis Berger - Blog
Francis Berger

I featured Ivan Aivazovsky's painting Chaos a couple of years ago. At the time I thought it did a good job depicting creation from chaos rather than creation from nothing.

🖼️

Chaos - 1841 Of course, I don't believe Aivasovsky shared that assumption. Nor do I think he implies such through ...

Author icontrees and triads
Laeth

my characters tend to like what i like, both in general and in details. but sometimes i try to give them this or that taste (say, their favorite musician is this or that) and it doesn't work. i know it and they know it. or i know it because they know it. then i find the answer, and through this process i even discover ...

4m (1,300 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

I ran across this image on an old 4chan thread.

🖼️

It caught my eye because of the red and blue spectacles and because the character's name, Hermione, suggests (but is etymologically unrelated to) Hermit. Then I realized that the wat spelling in the meme matched the actress's surname, Watson, and I ...

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

🖼️

Nikolai Gogol - an irrelevant portrait (apparently channelling his inner Benny Hill)

For those too young to remember; the search engine that also hosts this blog and which I will therefore call Gogol, was launched in the late 1990s; and developed over the next years into one of the great ...

1.5m (480 words)

Wednesday, July 15th 2026

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

🖼️

The above are marks inscribed on the door jamb of the entrance to the beautiful and fascinating church of St Andrew's, Hartburn, Northumberland.

The marks may have been left by members of that much-discussed organization The Knights Templar, who were certainly active locally. Three were tried in ...

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

The way things have been shaping over the past years; I think that the biggest spiritual challenge is related to social institutions; specifically the question of whether or not people (including you and I, as individuals) are going to root our fundamental understanding and support of reality in a social ...

2m (540 words)

Tuesday, July 14th 2026

Author iconMeeting The Masters
William Wildblood

This is a follow up to the previous post which stated that Christ can operate through avenues other than mainstream Christianity. This is because Christ is not only the historical Jesus. He is also the eternal or archetypal pattern of divine truth which can appear wherever a form is open to it. In fact, this inner ...

4.5m (1,400 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

I had had a meeting scheduled for this afternoon, but the client called to ask if we could reschedule it to 7/22. Minutes later, I was reading White Crows, and one of the characters checks the time and says, "It's seven twenty-two now."

Now, about an hour later, as I'm typing this, the Global Goblet is on the TV ...

Monday, July 13th 2026

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

In the early 1970s, it was a standard aesthetic criterion that "development" was a good thing, a necessary thing - and that the developed was better.

I first came across it in pop music. e.g. The idea that The Beatles were good because their music developed, from album to another the style (and subject matter) ...

2m (610 words)

Sunday, July 12th 2026

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

But Men shall remember Atlantis's nameCome hell or high water! Sith both of them came,It rests unforgotten, and what we now tellSkills not to be stop'd by high water or hell.We bow to no ban, and though new Men or Old May presume to forbid it, the tale will be told.High water, freeze over! and hell, do your worst!Let ...

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

The sync fairies just will not let up on this theme. I found this while searching for a clip-art image of a bowl of soup.

🖼️

Update: The humanoid deer creature in this post is labeled GRIM STONE. apparently the stage name of a Canadian musical artist. WG left a comment saying that a character in one ...

Author icontrees and triads
Laeth

this post was inspired by a question asked me. essentially, how to like jazz.

.

when had me on his podcast one of the first things he asked me was, What’s the deal with jazz. this is actually a question i’ve encountered before. being into jazz is not the same as being into this or that genre of pop ...

4.5m (1,300 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

🖼️

We are born with secure knowledge that "we are not alone" but inhabit a universe of other beings, some like ourselves, some different.

This knowledge is built-in, not a product of experience (which might, after all, be misinterpreted or delusional).

This built-in-ness is why the existence of ...

1m (370 words)