Monday, March 9th 2026

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

People are apparently unable to grasp the very simple fact that the "subfertility*" of all the populations of all the developed nations is a strategic choice of biological extinction.

The peoples of the modern world are willing their own annihilation.

Of course, the averaged population choice in favour of death is ...

3m (900 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

The tempest sync theme reminded me of a hymn that confused me as a child:

Master, the tempest is raging!The billows are tossing high!The sky is o'ershadow'd with blackness,No shelter or help is nigh;Carest thou not that we perish?How canst thou lie asleep,When each moment so madly is threat'ning,A grave in the angry ...

2.5m (740 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

I just read J. M. Smith's recent series at the Orthosphere on apocalyptic literature: "Servants of the Saints of the Most High," "Apocalypse is Neither Cryptic History Nor Cryptic News," and "Myth is Cathartic and Not Cryptic."

The second post in the series discusses the meaning of the biblical phrase "son of man," ...

1.5m (390 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

I was listening to a recording of the Book of Isaiah while doing some routine paperwork for my school. At the very moment that I wrote Ariel -- the English name of one of my students -- Isaiah said:

Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! (Isa. 29:1)

That's all so far, but these minor syncs are often a ...

Sunday, March 8th 2026

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

With the Cherubim re-entering the sync stream, I was reflecting on the strange way certain themes or symbols are connected. The Cherubim have been identified with the Gryphon, which has been identified with the griffon vulture Odessa Grigorievna, who is linked to the Garuda, which is linked to the monstrous avian ...

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

The fourth couplet of "With?" is:

Ninbad the Nailer -- there he stoodAnd did the only thing he could.

I wrote this with Martin Luther in mind -- the "nailer" who nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, and who famously said, "Here I stand. I can do no other."

🖼️

In "Up ...

4m (1,100 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

Escapism is a good, and perhaps spiritually-necessary, basis for Life.

The desire to escape, the evaluation that escape from this actual-Life is needed, is an aspect of any person of depth and wisdom...

Which implies that not to be an escapist is to be a shallow, dishonest fool (and there are plenty of these!). ...

2.5m (790 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

In "Glorians and such," I quoted as an example of a Glorian "witnessing an ant transporting a magenta blossom across the desert floor." In the next post, "Animals dipped in food," one of the titular animals was a blackbird "in the bush with pink blossoms." One of the definitions of pink is "magenta, the color evoked ...

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

In "Minor syncs: Omelette and Mormon tempest," I report suddenly wanting an omelette and then finding a reference to that food in The King in Yellow. Wondering whether omelettes might have been mentioned earlier in that book, planting the idea in my head, I did a word search. There is one earlier instance:

"That's a ...

Saturday, March 7th 2026

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

My last post, "Minor syncs: Omelette and Mormon tempest," dealt with two seemingly unrelated syncs: one about omelettes, and one about the word tempests in the Book of Mormon and a Mormon writer named Tempest. But perhaps they are related after all, via Walt Whitman. Though the review, linked on A&L Daily, which ...

3m (870 words)
Author iconMeeting The Masters
William Wildblood

There have always been wars so the end times prediction of wars and rumours of wars should not seem especially relevant now, and yet it does. Perhaps because wars usually have some kind of sense to them, territorial, tribal, monetary and the like. But recent wars seem to be without any sense at all and simply war for ...

2m (640 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

This morning, while far from home, I suddenly wanted an omelette -- that specific dish, which is not at all common here in Taiwan. I tried to think of any restaurants in the area that might have such fare on their menu, but in the end I gave up and got something else instead. While waiting for my food, I decided to ...

1.5m (460 words)

Friday, March 6th 2026

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

Tolkien depicted the nature of evil with a depth and power only possible to a good Man. But what is the extremity of evil as depicted in The Lord of the Rings?

Which sentences would you nominate?

My candidate is quoted over at The Notion Club Papers blog.

Author iconThe Notion Club Papers - an Inklings blog
Bruce Charlton

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From The Two Towers "Shelob's Lair" (slightly edited):

‘We’ll see, we’ll see,’ Gollum said often to himself, when the evil

mood was on him, as he walked the dangerous road from

Emyn Muil to Morgul Vale, ‘we’ll see.

'It may well be, O yes,

it may well be that when Shelob throws ...

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

As I was reading The Words of Them Which Have Slumbered this morning, I unexpectedly came across a footnote referencing -- incongruously in this book set in a distant Tolkienian past -- a rock song that had been in Daymon's head when he wrote a certain part of it:

The song? "When You're Gone," by The Cranberries, a ...

2m (590 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

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To my eye, drawing lines between the five brightest stars; Auriga (the charioteer) is a great pentangle in the night sky; and one that includes Capella (meaning "chapel") - which one of the brightest stars, and one that is usually high overhead.

Because I have "a thing" about ...

Thursday, March 5th 2026

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

I have begun to think so.

It is impossible to be sure, because the whole world of communication is full of lies and fakes; as well as sheer ignorance and honest error.

But the attempts to maintain some kind of civilization outside of the West - which is long-since committed to suicide - are apparently unravelling ...

1m (350 words)
Author icontrees and triads
Laeth

because the worst person to tell you about a book is the author (and in this case it’s even worse because the author is me), here’s what other people have said about Sketches of Alice.

(do not read too much into the fact that they are all writers, please).

anyway, it might pique your interest, or ...

2m (580 words)
Author iconTaking the Book of Mormon seriously
Wm Jas Tychonievich

This is the standard reading of Nephi's list of what is included in the Plates of Brass (1 Ne. 5:11-13):

And he beheld that they did contain:

(1) the five books of Moses [Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy], which gave an account [in Genesis] of the creation of the world, and also of Adam and Eve, who ...

2m (580 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

As a complement to William Wildblood's reflections on the potential value for Christians in what might be termed pagan-ism; Laeth makes an interesting point about the possibility of a future pagan religion in The West (edited):

Jupiter stopped answering the Romans, and Jesus stopped answering the Christians. This ...

1.5m (440 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

In a geopolitical world where treachery and gratuitous murder are openly and officially celebrated; it's become pretty easy to appear "good" - merely by defending The System, and its continued functionality.

When contrasted with a mainstream moral system increasingly based-upon paranoid resentment and Schadenfreude - ...

1.5m (390 words)

Wednesday, March 4th 2026

Author iconTaking the Book of Mormon seriously
Wm Jas Tychonievich

A few passages in the Book of Mormon appear to contain errors immediately followed by corrections. This is probably the most obvious instance:

. . . and thus we see that they buried their weapons of peace, or they buried the weapons of war, for peace (Alma 24:19).

Since "weapons of peace" doesn't make any sense, the ...

2m (540 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

In my reading of Rudolf Steiner I came across a fourfold division of Beings into what he called "bodies" but which might better be understood as "levels".

Ego - Astral - Etheric - Physical*

The first and last are easy to grasp - Ego is me-my real-self which is eternal; and Physical is the mortal material body. ...

4m (1,300 words)

Tuesday, March 3rd 2026

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

Today I read in Words of Them Which Have Slumbered an alternate account of Fëanor's creation of the Silmarils. In this telling, the three gems begin as "light-seedlings" taken from the Trees of Valinor, but later "to seeds again returned they, who once as light were never so housed," and thus the Silmarils are not ...

1.5m (480 words)
Author icontrees and triads
Laeth

.

no man is an island, but a couple can build a boat.

(how you read the above says a lot about you, doesn’t it)

.

the only real war now is about preventing what is yet to be created.

some people say this has always been the case, but i don’t think that’s true. there were forward thinking eras, ...

8m (2,400 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

William Wildblood's latest post analyses and expresses well something I have felt for as long as I have been a Christian.

Edited excerpt:

Paganism died out for a reason. It was superseded by the advent of Christ who really did make all things new.

And yet some things were lost in the process, in particular a real ...

1m (370 words)

Monday, March 2nd 2026

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

In Christendom, I'm at a lossTo find a symbol more iconicThan our Holy Christian Cross. Invert it, though, and it's demonic.

The swastika in HindustanIs thought an image most auspicious,Dear alike to gods and man. It's mirror-image, though, is vicious.

In Jewry, too, there is a signFor everything on which we ...

Author icontrees and triads
Laeth

by Susana Imaginário.

this is the second book in the Timelessness series. i reviewed the first one here.

i tried to keep SPOILERS to a minimum, but you know, beware.

.

the book starts out very dark, and overall it’s much darker and more moody than the first. and it makes sense since the Dharkan who ...

4m (1,200 words)
Author iconMeeting The Masters
William Wildblood

The rivalry between Christianity and paganism seems to be reviving in the West as the secular materialism of the post-war period becomes increasingly threadbare and unsatisfactory. Once our stomachs are full and we have a roof over our heads and maybe a family of our own, many of us find there is still something ...

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

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This is just so wrong

I have written before about the scam that is dark chocolate - how everyone really wants milk (and/or white) chocolate; but gets coerced, shamed, or indoctrinated into that inversion of enjoyment which is dark chocolate.

Dark chocolate is the decadence of the over-indulged ...

1.5m (390 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

It has been my contention since the second half of 2020 that the nature of dominant "establishment" evil has evolved and transformed from the goal of global totalitarianism (international omni-surveillance and micro-control of populations) to a resentment-rooted and spitefully-motivated destructiveness.

The ...

1.5m (480 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

I have no comment on geopolitical events known to me only through propaganda produced by professional liars in service to their father. I'm just noting a sync.

This morning, following a link on the Orthosphere, I skimmed part of Edward Feser's post "[One country's] war on [another country] is manifestly unjust." ...