Dr Doug, I will check out the links - I just listened to the one about Rogan. I obviously agree the system is broken, and I do not like / even hate the mainstream Democrats. Perhaps this had to happen. But I also don't think the Presidency should be decided as a popularity contest. Trump will be much worse for the working class, for almost all of us, than the Dems, I believe. We also do not know how far they will take the threatened Fascism, mass deportations, attacks against journalists and liberal networks etc. The policies on the climate, eliminating corporate restrictions, ending legal abortions, etc, are awful. More tax breaks for the wealthy is a disgusting idea. Etc. I really got invested in the election when I read the book UNHUMANS which both Vance and Trump blurbed and praised as the right plan. The book says Franco and Pinochet are what we need here: Ruthless repression. I also think the collapse of the rule of law is a serious issue. So given all of that, while the Dems sucked and I can see what this may have been inevitable, I am still deeply concerned we will slide into a very dark abyss as a result of this. I am also a supporter of Ukraine and think this is an important conflict and Putin will keep conquering if he isn't stopped. I am also concerned about the connections between Trump and Putin and other dictators. I also think Trump is part of an international criminal syndicate as Sarah Kendzior explores at great depth. Yes it is fun to cast a "protest vote" against the establishment, but unfortunate if that leads to the end of any kind of Democracy, utter climate catastrophe, 10s of millions in prison camps, etc.
I tell ya Daniel I think your missing so much , of what the real equation is. We as a people aren't breeding healthy human beings. What we have are people who are in control whom haven't a clue about what is essential to grow healthy humans with healthy egos.
90 % live with stunted deformed egos never fully ever , feeling fully satisfied. Most people fill themselves with stuff only to feel something good and then it where's off , only then to buy something else. A Never ending cycle ...
What's needed and wanted is a totally new narrative about what it means to be Human. One needs to be able to acknowledge what is in the way for them to be able to fully feel. What belief do they carry which keeps them chained to a reality that keeps them disappointed 🤔
One must have the will developed to even enter into this process, which in a way is a ritual ...lol
I posted a reply in the main thread as it would not post here. Seems to have to do with the length. If if invokes the "arrow down - arrow up" in the slider in the right it will not post.
Daniel - your newsletter has become a kind of lens through which I can view our collective reality and assess my own responses to it, to some extent replacing scanning the news as a way to frame things. You do such an articulate and thorough job of expressing things that I have been thinking and feeling, and your breadth of knowledge and understanding amazes me. Trumpism is so irrational and the man himself is so extraordinarily unattractive by any normal standard, that making any kind of sense of what is happening requires a very deep dive into the mysteries of the human heart and mind. You have a unique gift for this. Thank you!
I do think that there is hope though - at least in the longer term picture. I believe that each of us has the innate capacity to bring coherence to our collective field, by fostering discernment and love within ourselves most especially in the consciousness that we bring to our encounters with the world around us. I believe that light can penetrate darkness, as is demonstrated by the candle in the dark room analogy. Each human being has the potential to be that candle, You are manifesting this quite powerfully in your essays. And this, for me, is at least part of the answer to the question you posed: 'The only way we can envision defeating the “big lie” is with the “bigger truth:” From where we are now, how do we get there?' Can Truth, when recognized, embraced, and potentized by a sufficient number of people, ultimately pierce, dissipate, and replace the cloud of lies, confusion, fears etc.? I think so. (But first, we have to be able to accept the idea that there is actually such a thing as truth. Today, even that is under question for many people.)
Amen Brother! All you say is true , how we weave the narrative creates the Fabric woven together by three separate streams of consciousness, these 3 streams bonds us together in such a way where it becomes undeniable how much better a way of Living can be had if only we take off the blinders.
Much gratitude to you Lee for expressing your thoughts, I feel them deeply as mine
I looked at your self-description and saw "Anthroposophist" along with Kabalist and Hindu - an interesting mix. As a retired Waldorf teacher, I guess it takes one to know one, or it helps anyway. I've spent most of my adult life in Steiner circles, more recently focusing my attention on the work of David Spangler, which is quite congruent with Steiner only somewhat simpler and quite a bit more current.
I've been a Card Holding member of Steiners Society here in Seattle since 92 working on initiatives, I'm certain our paths have crossed. Back in those days we were just planting seeds of compassion. All so invisible we were then praying those seeds would grow up to the task that we have before us, I believe we do, the only missing link is the ability to see it.
Over the last 14 years two 7 year cycles we have been developing and nurturing our sense organs to see with those eyes , our intuitive is the missing link.
Listening to that creates the vision.
Yes I have learnt that from all three traditions...
The hebrew Tree of Life and the Hindu Chakras brings one into your bodies , that experience is within everyone to have, that in a way is the purpose of Ones existence.
It is within the ability to work with our brains , you can only enter into the higher realms through the development of our right brain , people that are more left brain have little ability to sense in this way.
Like Daniel's says the challenge today is greater then ever before, however , today there are millions more today then ever before who can see with your intuitive senses and turn those senses into a new fabric, a new Idea of what it truly means to be Human...
It had felt like we’re watching a real shadow move over the collective. This wasn’t fully apparent to me until that wave made its way over some of the folks you mentioned, Aubrey Marcus and Charles Eisenstein included, and in turn washed over their followers. Altering perspectives and alliances has become that easy? The key there is followers—the way power is given to those outside of ourselves when we feel powerless. It’s like a pseudo-power that feels like choice and potential, when in reality a larger energy is at play, feasting upon those levels of Individual and collective lack-of-consciousness.
While my journey with psychedelics and navigating the spiritual realms over the years has been much more painful and confusing than most people I know, I feel like it was a master class in fully seeing and experiencing what is to come and how to navigate these energies as a sovereign being (although that master class is on-going).
Thanks so much for your insights. It all helps to put to words those pieces I’m observing myself and it’s good to know there are others who can see across this strange landscape without being overcome by it.
It's enormously helpful to read your articles on this. It's rare to find your open-minded conjecture together with a healthy measure of rational reflection, particularly with regards the political shit storm that's brewing; you're very much appreciated. When I talk about alchemy, I often rub my thumbs over my four fingers rapidly, and say "Hold these ideas loosely," when we address the realm of spiritual, imaginal, otherworldly reality. Our materialist zeitgeist forces us to swim against the current in order to wrap our minds around the paradoxical klein bottle of reality. It may come down to this, stories which take hold of our whole being, that's how we experience it. This may be why the "Holy Grail" could be a book, a vessel containing words that can ignite the fire in the soul. Words. Vibrations? Ideas? Imagery? A combination of all these? What is it about these stories that has gripped our imagination for so many centuries? A high moral story.
t'Rump falls on the other end of the spiritual spectrum. Although he's capturing and holding people's imaginations, he's playing to their lower natures. He's a Chthonic clown, popular at rallies, where he rouses his "MAGAts" with crude talk, tough guy posturing, and empty promises. Anyone caught in 'tRump's tornado of hedonistic fury will inevitably be disappointed by the outcome-the wasteland.
The Holy Grail, says John Michell, is a canon of number related to music whose rules are governed by cosmic principles which are incorruptible. There will be "a new heaven and a new earth", and it will be "recreating the ancient in a new way." It appears to me, t'Rump and his MAGAts are here to bring about total corruption and dissolution of the world order. Out of the chaos and turmoil that must ensue, there's only one true Sacred Canon, a Model of Universal harmony and proportion, whose beauty is cosmic intelligent design. This will be the standard of excellence that the nations of the world can look to in the aftermath of 'tRump's reign of chaos. Like the butterfly in the cocoon, the new world is already forming on the periphery of things. The dissolution is accelerating, but the eternal principles will not perish. The perennial philosophy is all about the golden rules which children around the world recall from their nursery rhymes. I've strayed into a poetic revery, but I hope it's relevant to the problems at hand.
For so many years I wondered what spells were being cast around Trump to protect and empower him. He is uninitiated and surrounded by materialist bullies like Roger Stone. The closest thing to a sorcerer around him would be Steve Bannon. Hardly the Dietrich Eckart that made a messiah-project out of li’l hitler. It does seem, in contrast to Germany’s Wotan possession in the 30s, that there is a kind of headlessness to our wave of mutilation.
Very interesting to consider that we may have contributed to this collectively (and quite accidentally), by unleashing malevolent entities through reckless psychedelic use. This rings true for me. I have also met a number of people undergoing accute, harrowing psychotic states who are perceiving a simulation being run by an evil troll of an AI god, from which they see no escape.
As for what it is that has us possessed, I do think Jack Forbes (and recently Paul Levy) has identified it as Wetiko/Wendigo. It’s the all-consuming hungry ghost, driven completely mad. It’s seen also in the Greek story of Erysychthon, who cuts down the sacred tree to build a great hall for his great ego. Demeter curses him with her shadow, Limos, a goddess of hunger and famine. When he at last finishes eating everything else, he consumes himself. It is not lost on me that a forest activist went mad and chopped down the Haida’s sacred Golden Spruce in 1997. It goes to show that it’s much easier for a single person to create a single powerfully destructive ritual than it is for many to create an equally constructive one.
Ultimately I think the way Wetiko works is by growing. The more it eats, the bigger it gets. The entire Amazon fits in its mouth now. I recall stories from Japan of rituals to put food out for the wandering hungry ghosts, who learned that if they leave and come back there will eventually be more food. It was a way to keep the wetikos small and contained.
However the current beast shrinks back down to a manageable size, and whatever rituals we can devise to construct a saner and safer world, one thing is clear: our dominant systems of neoliberal capitalism and psychotic consumption will have to fall and be replaced in the process or we all remain in the maw.
"Trumpism is a “revolt of the masses” in that sense, but, unfortunately, it delivers the people to an even worse form of authority: " -- a world where logic is upended, and reality is pervaded by a supernatural dread, yes a kind of spiritual possession, where society is overcome by forces that feel beyond rational control. A fear-driven persecution by the persecutors swept into a fervor, perceiving themselves as rational while engaging in horrific acts.
Some thoughts from Chat on leakage and spirit possession : The idea of an "erosion" or "leakage" between the physical and psychic worlds finds resonance in anthropological studies, particularly in the work of James Frazer and Franz Boas, who explored cultural beliefs about spiritual forces interacting with the physical realm. Let’s look at their contributions and other related anthropological perspectives:
1. **James Frazer**: In *The Golden Bough*, Frazer investigates how "primitive" societies perceive the natural and supernatural as deeply intertwined, especially through magic and religion. Frazer saw magical thinking as a way for humans to attempt control over natural forces through symbolic actions, assuming an underlying connection or "sympathy" between objects and forces in both the seen and unseen worlds. This concept hints at "erosion" or "leakage," as he discusses how spiritual or psychic realms are not neatly separate from physical ones. The idea of "contagious magic," where objects that once had contact maintain a link, aligns with a form of unseen but persisting connection, suggesting that the boundaries between physical and psychic are porous.
2. **Franz Boas**: While Boas didn’t write directly about astral or psychic leakage, he approached the spiritual beliefs of Indigenous cultures with a relativistic and empathetic stance. Boas’s work emphasized that so-called supernatural beliefs could be understood as logical extensions of how a culture experiences the world. He acknowledged that many cultures saw spiritual forces as directly affecting the material world, such as spirits influencing health, weather, or luck. Boas's perspective suggests that, for many societies, the physical and spiritual worlds are continuously in dialogue, challenging Western compartmentalizations.
3. **Shamanic Anthropology**: Other anthropologists, like Mircea Eliade and Michael Taussig, delve into shamanic traditions, which often describe spiritual journeys as literal excursions into otherworldly realms that leave tangible effects on the material world. Eliade’s study of shamanism, for example, treats the shamanic journey as a crossing of thresholds, an act that breaches boundaries between worlds and can bring back effects, knowledge, or powers that are explicitly real to the participants. This "crossing" exemplifies how the boundary between physical and spiritual may be more of a continuum than a strict barrier.
4. **Michael Taussig**: In *Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man*, Taussig describes how magical and mystical practices among colonized people in South America were both resistant acts and ways to survive under colonialism. For them, ritual practices could disrupt the "real" of colonial control by bringing the spirit world’s influence into the physical, colonial reality, subtly subverting and transforming it. This view represents "erosion" as a political or even psychological act, where the spiritual realms reclaim space within oppressive material conditions.
In sum, anthropologists like Frazer, Boas, and others have documented how many cultures don’t strictly separate the physical from the psychic or spiritual but see them as interconnected realms. For these cultures, spiritual practices and beliefs don't merely influence; they directly shape reality—suggesting that “leakage” or “erosion” isn’t merely possible but foundational to their worldview.
Collective Madness in Modern Ideological Movements
Modern mass movements can also display a kind of collective possession. Whether in political fervor, financial bubbles, or even social media phenomena, large groups sometimes adopt shared beliefs that guide them with a zeal similar to possession.
Hannah Arendt wrote about the dangers of totalitarian ideologies, noting how propaganda and psychological manipulation could lead entire populations to believe in distorted realities, accepting them as rational and even morally necessary. Arendt noted that once a collective narrative is internalized, it often becomes self-sustaining and impervious to evidence, acting as a form of collective possession that persists until the ideology collapses or is dismantled.
Believing in anything isn't any longer sustainable what's required is having the ability within oneself to tap into there own higher realms of knowledge
For those of us who attempt to see the truth of what is occurring on the planet, we recognize the physical storms are worsening at the same time the norms of our human connection are also breaking down. In this environment trying to gain a degree of clarity is difficult even with mature mental practices which seek truth and recognize objectivity. When the dim sense emerges that the world as we know it is starting to break apart, disorientation and the sense being lost arise. Very few are willing to stand in that awareness. The fear of helplessness and the fear of death are forces not many of us are taught to look at directly. Consequently we are so relieved when someone comes along and says with a loud and convincing voice, "You can trust me. I know the way."
This doesn't help those who do not find that voice credible. Confusion and greater clarity remain accompanied with multiple fears and anger which all must be faced. We are all probably familiar with these states in varying degrees of comfort. Our situation is best viewed in the broad context of the inescapable fact, we are all going to die. The questions of how and when do not change that reality. Becoming genuinely comfortable with that inevitability provides greater peace and clarity when needing to face the multiple complexities caused by these storms.
Developing and determining a common path is difficult because our normal view and use of language doesn't seem to have the capacity to convey the subtleties of understanding required to establish a perspective of that breadth and coherence. With practice meditation can provide enough separation from the domain of language that one can experience the reality that Self still exists even when language is not engaged. Our cultural habits do not support or encourage this range of awareness but I think it is essential if we are begin to make the transition to a level of maturity that has the quality of focus, attention, and intention to live connected with all beings. It is becoming apparent that it is not what we think but how. The need for internal unification, an internal coherence of heart and mind, not two, one, not through words but by actual direct states of being, never achieved, always freshly alive. Perhaps if enough of us connect from here we might find our way forward.
Thank you! This is so beautifully and clearly articulated, something I have long felt intuitively to be true without finding a way to express it in language. "The need for internal unification, an internal coherence of heart and mind, not two, one, not through words but by actual direct states of being, never achieved, always freshly alive. Perhaps if enough of us connect from here we might find our way forward." I feel a leap of hope just reading your words.
Vajrayana Buddhism was the only tool that helped me name and work with these kinds of spirits which are emerging in our minds and society. It is one of many spiritual "technologies" which our society will need to cultivate again.
I have read your last two articles on Trump and the reference to entities with great fascination and interest. Having spent a lot of my late teens and early 20s exploring other worlds, though via meditation and not psychedelics, I have a great respect and acceptance of this narrative as an explanatory structure for phenomena that are hard to explain with more materialistic notions.
I also want to clarify that I see the world much as you do, in terms of the elites taking over governments, corruption and self interests at the heart of politics etc. What fascinating to me however is that I used to see Trump as "the bad guy" and even lost a friendship over questioning them as to why (on earth) they supported Trump. Four years later and I am not so sure.
Like you I have struggled for years to try and understand why people see the world the way they do. I really appreciate that you are presently exploring the notion of entities and how they may be influencing the human realm. I have read Robert Falconer's book and listened to several of his interviews, such as this one on the Stoa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2GLipZBXPo&t=9s
My best interpretation as to why you and I see things so differently (and this is a continuation of a conversation you and I had over email back in Nov 2023) comes down to "sub-cultural context"... a nod to the notion of social media echo chambers except its drifted out of social media and into our daily lives. The gap between what the Main Stream Media portrays as reality and what places like X for example portray as reality is so huge that it is almost impossible to have a conversation across the two worlds. I have explicitly tried with several people and only one or two have ended with a shift in perspectives. Its very hard to shift worldviews because our sense of self and meaning are birthed inside these perspectives and to give them up, for most people, means a kind of ego death that few people are willing to go through.
Mine view is now... I have no idea what is "real" and having been exposed to both worlds I lean towards Trump and his team winning as actually being overall good for the USA and better then is Harris had won. I would love to be wrong but so far this is where I sit.
Here are some videos that illustrate some of my points about the gap between the MSM and what I hear on X (tempted to say "the truth" but its just what is on X).
I am sure the Democrats can compile videos that slant things the other way. I am not posting these here to debate any content per se. I am posting these as examples of the different worlds we get exposed to and how these worlds shape our perspectives and opinions of things.
I did a masterclass series on this topic a few years ago, before I realized how relevent it was.
In that series I suggested that waking up to this cultural embeddedness is called gaining a 4th person perspective: Coming to realize that your whole sense of self and knowledge structures are embedded in a culture with implicit assumptions and values. The real hard part is gaining a 5th person perspective: Taking the contexts as object long enough to deconstruct how they have been constructed and how they relate to each other and cause the formation of different world views. At that point we are free from the bias... but boy I am not there yet. I would love to meet someone or some group that is.
I can understand hating the democrats but, please, snap out of it: Trump is evil. His whole career is a giant con game. He shafts his workers and treats people like suckers. He cheats on his wives, rapes teenagers, lacks impulse control, and he is a racist asshole from a privileged elitist background who has avoided paying any consequences for being a total monster his entire life.
If you find yourself drawn toward or approving of Trump, this is because you have been conned. He is a master grifter, con man, narcissist who has the whole country in a relationship of narcissist abuse. He is also part of an international criminal cartel that wants absolute control as Putin has in Russia: go and read Sarah Kendzior’s substack for details.
Not to mention the 40 people of 44 who were on his cabinet who all said he was unfit to rule, a despot, fascist, dangerous, worst threat to the country etc. And those were Republicans he chose to work with him.
Interesting response Daniel. Did you listen to any of the links I posted? While I appreciate you taking the time to summarize how demonic Trump is, the point of my post was that perhaps you see him that way because of the selective impressions you are taking in from your media sources. And there are other worlds where he is portrayed in a very different light. The question is how to we link across worlds and have conversations about the nature of the reality we are living in. I dont think its by shouting our POV louder.
Anyway I will check out Sarah Kendzior’s substack as a representative of the world you are living in and see what I learn there. Thanks
I just want to connect on that distrust of elites and that clear knowing that we are being screwed over by the embedded billionaire owner class, no matter which world we are from (MSM, X, or indie journalism like The Lever).
If your concern is that wealthy elites are screwing over the average person, I am sorry to say Trump is handing the keys to the halls of power to the worst of the oligarchic warlords. We are all about to experience an absolutely brutal extraction of working class people to further enrich and permanently empower the elites.
They're going to squeeze us like lemons like most of us have never experienced. Many in the world already know what this is like and how bad it can get. It's our turn now. It so happens: America is not so exceptional after all.
Trump represents total oligarchic power and his campaign has used people's rage with the establishment to pull it off. The golden-toilet using billionaire frequent-flyer best friend of Jeffrey Epstein who has bankrupt his trump-steak and trump-university and trump-casino companies and is hated by people who live anywhere near his real estate buys, who has scammed millions and millions and has deep money ties to Saudi Arabia and Putin’s oligarchs, has somehow managed to be the voice of anti elites. That's America:
Razzle dazzle em.
Watch Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd" (1957)
and the old Trackdown tv show episode called
"The End of the World" (1958). If you haven't recognized Trump the snake oil maniac yet, you may recognize him then. Surprise: he doesn't care about you.
Guess who wins? The robber barrons. Again. In a bigger way than this country has ever seen. If you haven't seen it by now, keep your eyes on it. It may be here to stay and we are the ones who will hurt. Let's reach for solidarity when that happens rather than tear each other apart. Seriously, I hear you on that feeling that we've been screwed by elites for decades. By both parties. Because it's true.
If you find yourself leaning Trump, consider auditing your information diet. I have done mine and tweaked it after the election (more nonprofit indie media like The Lever and Jacobin, more newsletters with journalists I trust, less MSM and less Reddit). Read Carole Cadwalladr, whose reporting on Cambridge Analytica resulted in her being brutally attacked in courts in an attempt to silence her.
Trump is a solution to the problem that billionaires have: how to derail the angst of millions to serve us? How to convert a class of wealthy owners who are still (somewhat) beholden to the people into a class of totally powerful warlords who don't have to worry about the pesky proles anymore?
Buckle up. And when the shit hits the fan, let's reach together for the thing we need: Solidarity.
Thank you Daniel - Just want to mention how glad I was to find your Substack, your confluence of the esoteric, cultural, political and spiritual was just what I have been looking for for a long time! It’s appreciated.
From chaos to solidarity: Oof, we have had so many opportunities and they have been so thoroughly squandered (with the notable exception of Bernie’s rise before being torpedoed). The next opportunity I expect is when Trump’s supporters may start to see they’ve been had, as prices go back to skyrocketing and we lose even more freedoms. They’re on the hook now, and getting squeezed should feel like a betrayal.
That’s the opportunity. I’d love to see an organized and concerted effort of new Independent worker-centric people running for congress and local
elections. Let voters see that (I) for a change next to their names on the ballot, like we have with Bernie. Get the real populists in there, in massive numbers. They dont need to be party members to win seats and vote in congress. But to get there, the truth needs to get through the social media silos and shine a signal amid the noise of billions in campaign spending there will be to shut them out.
That’s the tough part. It seems to me that there needs to be a massive influx of truth-bringers into especially the rightwing social media ecosystem (the “truth filter”) to get such a movement viral there. I’d love to see some kind of massive movement of media literacy and something like that Simpsons Treehouse of Horror classic where the corporate mascots are running amok and Lisa and Paul Anka sing “Just Don’t Look.” The fact is, people need to find a way to counter billions in information spending. We don’t have billions of dollars, we just have billions of people, quite at each other’s throats but actually in the same sinking boat.
But perhaps: if there may soon be such a new movement of wide scale new independent (ACTUAL) populists running for office, that would be the moment - that’s a crack in the machine.
(am hoping obviously that enough damage isn’t done to the electoral process - which may already be the case with breached voting machines - by the mid terms. I may be reaching that there is any chance there! Either way we will need local in-person movements, phones down!)
Thanks for the embrace of our common overlaps in perception Thom. I'll check into The Lever and Jacobin and Carole and will look forward to some good old fashioned dystopian movies. And to clarify, man I think Trump is pretty self centred and likely narcissistic and not at all the character kind of person I would want in political office. I just seem him as breaking the strangle hold of the elites currently holding the government hostage. The lessor of two evils so to speak.
If you have the time I would appreciate any reflections you have on the videos I posted and how you make sense of them from within your worldview.
" I just seem him as breaking the strangle hold of the elites currently holding the government hostage." - He is a billionaire, best friend to Jeffrey Epstein and Roy Cohn and now Musk, totally part of the elites, just the Right Wing variety. The only anti-elitist to run for Pres was Bernie Sanders.
Yes this part is hard. It sometimes seems that perhaps we just have competing factions of elites trying to gain control of the world. Right not the ones in control re so scary to me that Trump seems like the lessor of two evils, but we will see.
I am not sure that lack of diversity in close friends, especially for a very old person where exposure to diverse populations was less available, is a sign of racism. He has many Black and Latino supporters etc and has disavowed white supremacists many times.
My reply was far too long and a mammoth essay in its own right! Unfortunately it’s lost so I will just summarize the key points I picked up.
I am seeing from your links a dominant narrative of the liberal media constructing hoaxes and lies to warp people’s perception of reality. I’m my view this is true, the liberal media is fundamentally corporate and serves corporate ownership, as we saw when they rallied during Bernie’s rise. (And Sometimes they do good journalism too!)
Here’s the key: just because the liberal media shapes narratives to manufacture consent, doesn’t mean the rightwing media is the remedy. That’s the power of Bannon’s dark arts: he and others have intercepted justified rage at the corrupt political machine - which in fact is powered by Big Dark Money, not neoliberalism’s 40 year old boogeyman of “Big Government.” So when those of us who turned to Trump are seeing corruption and blaming big government, there’s been a trick pulled on us. When politicians decry big government, they usually mean the cops that police their corporate owners. It means poisoned water for the rest of us. They really don’t mean the system of legalized bribery and corruption that has been installed between the wealthy and the passing of policies.
Anyway at the bottom I think this is the common thing I’m seeing. People are pissed that the liberal media and Democrat party machine have screwed us over and over. Unfortunately many of us are still caught in the black magic web, forged in the nightmare reality of the information battlefield, that makes us seethe and turn our anger into hate and support for a bludgeon.
The problem is, the bludgeon is not going to be used on those who screwed us, in general. It will be used on us.
Chris Hedges in his conversation with George Monbiot identifies that this election amounts to a kind of civil war within capitalism. With the Democrat Party representing neoliberal corporate power (as we have had for 40 years), and Trump 2.0 representing a rising force of neoliberal oligarchic power, which can be thought of as warlord capitalism. expect the big private equity companies to continue to stripmine everything and everyone and hand the wealth to the oligarchs in control. There is also a Christian nationalist element in the trump Trojan horse that wants to see their version of “Christianity” (read: massive social control) installed as an official state religion, possibly even enforced by military means.
I highly recommend Chris Hedges! While I don’t agree with everything, he has been right too many times over the years to ignore.
Interesting... the "can't reply" seems to be length related...
Yes its easy to write essays in response to conversation, harder to do that when you have a substack lol. I appreciate your take and overlaps with my views on the media. I will clarify that I dont see right wing media or the
republican party as qualitatively different from lefts counterparts. I do admire, as you have pointed out, the citizen journalists who post on X and Substack (for example) and the clarity that can bring to confusing dynamics, perspectives I've never heard of on traditional platforms.
Doug - you are aware that this is a post from Tim Pool who we recently learned was getting paid $200,000 a month from Russia to be a "Russian asset"? I really hate Pool and would trust nothing from him.
So I mentioned this to my son and he laughed and said that summary was misleading, that Tim Pool had always been saying the same message but found out later that some of his funding was coming from an agency that had taken some funding from Russia. If we was supporting Russian interests is was a complete coincidence of overlap in topics.
At about 30 seconds into the video the sentence, that Harris is supposed to say, is cut from different videos. The whole thing smells like a deep fake.
I see what you mean in that they cut away while she is talking, showing an older video of her, but they return back to the original and she is still talking, no missed beats or out of alignments anywhere.
So I am pretty sure its not stitched together. and I have faith that if it was it would have a community note on it and it does not.
I get however that her gestures and content are so surreal and in my mind inhuman, that I have a hard time believing anyone could be saying those words, lets alone displaying the giddiness and joy she emanates while doing so.
A simple fact not to be forgotten: the disposable income of large parts of the population has diminished since 2019. ParlGov has the data about it. "It's the economy, stupid!"
I would also include in this formulation the fact that people are waking up from the dream of the Enlightenment, which created monsters with the modern and post modern periods. This includes all the social constructionist line of nominalistic philosophy in favor of something more real. The progressives stand for the enlightenment and the myth of progress that everybody is waking up from, including materialism and scientism. This is not just trump possession but a conscious turning away from something perhaps even more sinister. Where do you stand in the realism vs nominalism philosophical debate?
This time with psychedelics and it’s association with computer technology seems resonant with the period in the book of genesis and the book of enoch when spirits were teaching men how to do metallurgy, different arts and even teaching women to put make up on, but this exchange created fallen giants, and required a flood to cleanse the earth.
I think the category of UBs indicate a metaphysical existence of evil, purely destructive forces, which could possibly lead to some in this crowd to become more weary of casual psychedelic use.
The comments are so good, but harder to navigate on mobile than the posts. I’d encourage you to do what ACX does and share “the best of comments” from this whole series in a separate, new post so folks can read or listen to them more easily.
I like using the ai listening feature on the substack iPhone app, but it only works on posts, not on comments.
Thanks Daniel….it seems as if the world is breaking apart and it seems it has to. Thanks for your thoughts.
“I feel there is an active energetic, an entity, within humanity that is seeking to bring about our own annihilation.”
Those are your words.
There have been times I thought community/people power would burst through.
I was even feeling at the commencement of Covid that the world would come together and work together for the good of all.
We couldn’t even have a federal response to it in a country as small as Australia.
I thought we might start to see a revolution ….
But that didn’t happen. Besides the damage of connectivity of people we saw distraction and people buying nonsense as the way to get through it.
I thought the first Trump term was a reality TV show and the tapes would be shown later when Trump needed money.
Now that we have term 2 …we now know this is a reality…a weird, ass reality…that makes me feel once again the pain is coming, the change is coming but there will be a lot of pain.
Nothing new from me there….
And I share your disbelief regarding intelligent people falling for this grift…it’s a reflection of what we have become….nihilistic capitalism…or something
Just one nuance about the 'unattached burdens', you say 'Using this IFS model, we could say that Trump summoned up all of the darker elements, the fragmented parts of the collective and individual Psyche that we managed to mute or suppress over the last century'. Those in IFS terms would not be unattached burdens, they would be protectors or exiles, i.e. parts which have been neglected and banished (in Jungian terms, the shadow). They might still wish harm on others but serve a protecting function at the same time, e.g. a protector part might help a person commit suicide, with the goal of helping them make the pain stop. Unattached burdens simply wish harm and have no positive function. But of course it's debated within IFS circles if such things exist at all. Falconer certainly believes they do.
Hey Daniel, I am also not able to post longer response in the reply field, so I will try here
I relate to your concerns quite deeply, and its good to see we have so much in common. I have not read the book Unhumans and I will check if its on Audible.
Please remember that much of my interest in this conversation is in exploring and coming to understand how such intelligent people as yourself and myself and the people in your following can perceive the worlds so differently. My best take right now is that the narrative and worlds/ data streams we are subjected to determines our take on reality. It seems only way to wake up to the context within which our perceptions arise is in the friction in how others perceive the same phenomena (within their worlds).
So having clarified I have little interest in debating if Trump is good or evil or better or worse than the democrats per se I will make a comment on some of your contents - that of the Ukraine war. When I watched this video it really put Putin's actions in a whole new light and I wonder how you will react/ digest this. There are a few others but this is enough to give you a flavor... that Putin has been trying not to go to war and is being forced into it by elite interests...
Dr Doug, I will check out the links - I just listened to the one about Rogan. I obviously agree the system is broken, and I do not like / even hate the mainstream Democrats. Perhaps this had to happen. But I also don't think the Presidency should be decided as a popularity contest. Trump will be much worse for the working class, for almost all of us, than the Dems, I believe. We also do not know how far they will take the threatened Fascism, mass deportations, attacks against journalists and liberal networks etc. The policies on the climate, eliminating corporate restrictions, ending legal abortions, etc, are awful. More tax breaks for the wealthy is a disgusting idea. Etc. I really got invested in the election when I read the book UNHUMANS which both Vance and Trump blurbed and praised as the right plan. The book says Franco and Pinochet are what we need here: Ruthless repression. I also think the collapse of the rule of law is a serious issue. So given all of that, while the Dems sucked and I can see what this may have been inevitable, I am still deeply concerned we will slide into a very dark abyss as a result of this. I am also a supporter of Ukraine and think this is an important conflict and Putin will keep conquering if he isn't stopped. I am also concerned about the connections between Trump and Putin and other dictators. I also think Trump is part of an international criminal syndicate as Sarah Kendzior explores at great depth. Yes it is fun to cast a "protest vote" against the establishment, but unfortunate if that leads to the end of any kind of Democracy, utter climate catastrophe, 10s of millions in prison camps, etc.
I tell ya Daniel I think your missing so much , of what the real equation is. We as a people aren't breeding healthy human beings. What we have are people who are in control whom haven't a clue about what is essential to grow healthy humans with healthy egos.
90 % live with stunted deformed egos never fully ever , feeling fully satisfied. Most people fill themselves with stuff only to feel something good and then it where's off , only then to buy something else. A Never ending cycle ...
What's needed and wanted is a totally new narrative about what it means to be Human. One needs to be able to acknowledge what is in the way for them to be able to fully feel. What belief do they carry which keeps them chained to a reality that keeps them disappointed 🤔
One must have the will developed to even enter into this process, which in a way is a ritual ...lol
I posted a reply in the main thread as it would not post here. Seems to have to do with the length. If if invokes the "arrow down - arrow up" in the slider in the right it will not post.
Daniel - your newsletter has become a kind of lens through which I can view our collective reality and assess my own responses to it, to some extent replacing scanning the news as a way to frame things. You do such an articulate and thorough job of expressing things that I have been thinking and feeling, and your breadth of knowledge and understanding amazes me. Trumpism is so irrational and the man himself is so extraordinarily unattractive by any normal standard, that making any kind of sense of what is happening requires a very deep dive into the mysteries of the human heart and mind. You have a unique gift for this. Thank you!
I do think that there is hope though - at least in the longer term picture. I believe that each of us has the innate capacity to bring coherence to our collective field, by fostering discernment and love within ourselves most especially in the consciousness that we bring to our encounters with the world around us. I believe that light can penetrate darkness, as is demonstrated by the candle in the dark room analogy. Each human being has the potential to be that candle, You are manifesting this quite powerfully in your essays. And this, for me, is at least part of the answer to the question you posed: 'The only way we can envision defeating the “big lie” is with the “bigger truth:” From where we are now, how do we get there?' Can Truth, when recognized, embraced, and potentized by a sufficient number of people, ultimately pierce, dissipate, and replace the cloud of lies, confusion, fears etc.? I think so. (But first, we have to be able to accept the idea that there is actually such a thing as truth. Today, even that is under question for many people.)
Amen Brother! All you say is true , how we weave the narrative creates the Fabric woven together by three separate streams of consciousness, these 3 streams bonds us together in such a way where it becomes undeniable how much better a way of Living can be had if only we take off the blinders.
Much gratitude to you Lee for expressing your thoughts, I feel them deeply as mine
Oh , the 3 streams of consciousness which need a Totally New never before heard of narrative which binds us so much more deeply then our current one.
a Narrative which can be aggreed upon digitally in a Collective Manner
Political stream tied together with our Economic Stream (creating better banking for your buck) leading to the sacred
And Our Social sphere coming together and creating it all!
Color me In with a Happy 🖍 Crayon
Michael Raven - Threefold Social Order? Maybe there is way for it to take hold organically.
YES!!!
I looked at your self-description and saw "Anthroposophist" along with Kabalist and Hindu - an interesting mix. As a retired Waldorf teacher, I guess it takes one to know one, or it helps anyway. I've spent most of my adult life in Steiner circles, more recently focusing my attention on the work of David Spangler, which is quite congruent with Steiner only somewhat simpler and quite a bit more current.
I've been a Card Holding member of Steiners Society here in Seattle since 92 working on initiatives, I'm certain our paths have crossed. Back in those days we were just planting seeds of compassion. All so invisible we were then praying those seeds would grow up to the task that we have before us, I believe we do, the only missing link is the ability to see it.
Over the last 14 years two 7 year cycles we have been developing and nurturing our sense organs to see with those eyes , our intuitive is the missing link.
Listening to that creates the vision.
Yes I have learnt that from all three traditions...
The hebrew Tree of Life and the Hindu Chakras brings one into your bodies , that experience is within everyone to have, that in a way is the purpose of Ones existence.
It is within the ability to work with our brains , you can only enter into the higher realms through the development of our right brain , people that are more left brain have little ability to sense in this way.
Like Daniel's says the challenge today is greater then ever before, however , today there are millions more today then ever before who can see with your intuitive senses and turn those senses into a new fabric, a new Idea of what it truly means to be Human...
Thanks Lee 😊
It had felt like we’re watching a real shadow move over the collective. This wasn’t fully apparent to me until that wave made its way over some of the folks you mentioned, Aubrey Marcus and Charles Eisenstein included, and in turn washed over their followers. Altering perspectives and alliances has become that easy? The key there is followers—the way power is given to those outside of ourselves when we feel powerless. It’s like a pseudo-power that feels like choice and potential, when in reality a larger energy is at play, feasting upon those levels of Individual and collective lack-of-consciousness.
While my journey with psychedelics and navigating the spiritual realms over the years has been much more painful and confusing than most people I know, I feel like it was a master class in fully seeing and experiencing what is to come and how to navigate these energies as a sovereign being (although that master class is on-going).
Thanks so much for your insights. It all helps to put to words those pieces I’m observing myself and it’s good to know there are others who can see across this strange landscape without being overcome by it.
Thank you for this
Has* felt
It's enormously helpful to read your articles on this. It's rare to find your open-minded conjecture together with a healthy measure of rational reflection, particularly with regards the political shit storm that's brewing; you're very much appreciated. When I talk about alchemy, I often rub my thumbs over my four fingers rapidly, and say "Hold these ideas loosely," when we address the realm of spiritual, imaginal, otherworldly reality. Our materialist zeitgeist forces us to swim against the current in order to wrap our minds around the paradoxical klein bottle of reality. It may come down to this, stories which take hold of our whole being, that's how we experience it. This may be why the "Holy Grail" could be a book, a vessel containing words that can ignite the fire in the soul. Words. Vibrations? Ideas? Imagery? A combination of all these? What is it about these stories that has gripped our imagination for so many centuries? A high moral story.
t'Rump falls on the other end of the spiritual spectrum. Although he's capturing and holding people's imaginations, he's playing to their lower natures. He's a Chthonic clown, popular at rallies, where he rouses his "MAGAts" with crude talk, tough guy posturing, and empty promises. Anyone caught in 'tRump's tornado of hedonistic fury will inevitably be disappointed by the outcome-the wasteland.
The Holy Grail, says John Michell, is a canon of number related to music whose rules are governed by cosmic principles which are incorruptible. There will be "a new heaven and a new earth", and it will be "recreating the ancient in a new way." It appears to me, t'Rump and his MAGAts are here to bring about total corruption and dissolution of the world order. Out of the chaos and turmoil that must ensue, there's only one true Sacred Canon, a Model of Universal harmony and proportion, whose beauty is cosmic intelligent design. This will be the standard of excellence that the nations of the world can look to in the aftermath of 'tRump's reign of chaos. Like the butterfly in the cocoon, the new world is already forming on the periphery of things. The dissolution is accelerating, but the eternal principles will not perish. The perennial philosophy is all about the golden rules which children around the world recall from their nursery rhymes. I've strayed into a poetic revery, but I hope it's relevant to the problems at hand.
I read Michell years ago - would love to learn more about his idea of the Holy Grail. What is the source for this or can you explain more?
Thank you for this eloquent expression of what I know many of us are sensing to be true.
Your perspective and narrative brought me back in time when Moses came down with the 10 commandments, what he saw was so despicable, just like today.
For so many years I wondered what spells were being cast around Trump to protect and empower him. He is uninitiated and surrounded by materialist bullies like Roger Stone. The closest thing to a sorcerer around him would be Steve Bannon. Hardly the Dietrich Eckart that made a messiah-project out of li’l hitler. It does seem, in contrast to Germany’s Wotan possession in the 30s, that there is a kind of headlessness to our wave of mutilation.
Very interesting to consider that we may have contributed to this collectively (and quite accidentally), by unleashing malevolent entities through reckless psychedelic use. This rings true for me. I have also met a number of people undergoing accute, harrowing psychotic states who are perceiving a simulation being run by an evil troll of an AI god, from which they see no escape.
As for what it is that has us possessed, I do think Jack Forbes (and recently Paul Levy) has identified it as Wetiko/Wendigo. It’s the all-consuming hungry ghost, driven completely mad. It’s seen also in the Greek story of Erysychthon, who cuts down the sacred tree to build a great hall for his great ego. Demeter curses him with her shadow, Limos, a goddess of hunger and famine. When he at last finishes eating everything else, he consumes himself. It is not lost on me that a forest activist went mad and chopped down the Haida’s sacred Golden Spruce in 1997. It goes to show that it’s much easier for a single person to create a single powerfully destructive ritual than it is for many to create an equally constructive one.
Ultimately I think the way Wetiko works is by growing. The more it eats, the bigger it gets. The entire Amazon fits in its mouth now. I recall stories from Japan of rituals to put food out for the wandering hungry ghosts, who learned that if they leave and come back there will eventually be more food. It was a way to keep the wetikos small and contained.
However the current beast shrinks back down to a manageable size, and whatever rituals we can devise to construct a saner and safer world, one thing is clear: our dominant systems of neoliberal capitalism and psychotic consumption will have to fall and be replaced in the process or we all remain in the maw.
Yes
"Trumpism is a “revolt of the masses” in that sense, but, unfortunately, it delivers the people to an even worse form of authority: " -- a world where logic is upended, and reality is pervaded by a supernatural dread, yes a kind of spiritual possession, where society is overcome by forces that feel beyond rational control. A fear-driven persecution by the persecutors swept into a fervor, perceiving themselves as rational while engaging in horrific acts.
Some thoughts from Chat on leakage and spirit possession : The idea of an "erosion" or "leakage" between the physical and psychic worlds finds resonance in anthropological studies, particularly in the work of James Frazer and Franz Boas, who explored cultural beliefs about spiritual forces interacting with the physical realm. Let’s look at their contributions and other related anthropological perspectives:
1. **James Frazer**: In *The Golden Bough*, Frazer investigates how "primitive" societies perceive the natural and supernatural as deeply intertwined, especially through magic and religion. Frazer saw magical thinking as a way for humans to attempt control over natural forces through symbolic actions, assuming an underlying connection or "sympathy" between objects and forces in both the seen and unseen worlds. This concept hints at "erosion" or "leakage," as he discusses how spiritual or psychic realms are not neatly separate from physical ones. The idea of "contagious magic," where objects that once had contact maintain a link, aligns with a form of unseen but persisting connection, suggesting that the boundaries between physical and psychic are porous.
2. **Franz Boas**: While Boas didn’t write directly about astral or psychic leakage, he approached the spiritual beliefs of Indigenous cultures with a relativistic and empathetic stance. Boas’s work emphasized that so-called supernatural beliefs could be understood as logical extensions of how a culture experiences the world. He acknowledged that many cultures saw spiritual forces as directly affecting the material world, such as spirits influencing health, weather, or luck. Boas's perspective suggests that, for many societies, the physical and spiritual worlds are continuously in dialogue, challenging Western compartmentalizations.
3. **Shamanic Anthropology**: Other anthropologists, like Mircea Eliade and Michael Taussig, delve into shamanic traditions, which often describe spiritual journeys as literal excursions into otherworldly realms that leave tangible effects on the material world. Eliade’s study of shamanism, for example, treats the shamanic journey as a crossing of thresholds, an act that breaches boundaries between worlds and can bring back effects, knowledge, or powers that are explicitly real to the participants. This "crossing" exemplifies how the boundary between physical and spiritual may be more of a continuum than a strict barrier.
4. **Michael Taussig**: In *Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man*, Taussig describes how magical and mystical practices among colonized people in South America were both resistant acts and ways to survive under colonialism. For them, ritual practices could disrupt the "real" of colonial control by bringing the spirit world’s influence into the physical, colonial reality, subtly subverting and transforming it. This view represents "erosion" as a political or even psychological act, where the spiritual realms reclaim space within oppressive material conditions.
In sum, anthropologists like Frazer, Boas, and others have documented how many cultures don’t strictly separate the physical from the psychic or spiritual but see them as interconnected realms. For these cultures, spiritual practices and beliefs don't merely influence; they directly shape reality—suggesting that “leakage” or “erosion” isn’t merely possible but foundational to their worldview.
Collective Madness in Modern Ideological Movements
Modern mass movements can also display a kind of collective possession. Whether in political fervor, financial bubbles, or even social media phenomena, large groups sometimes adopt shared beliefs that guide them with a zeal similar to possession.
Hannah Arendt wrote about the dangers of totalitarian ideologies, noting how propaganda and psychological manipulation could lead entire populations to believe in distorted realities, accepting them as rational and even morally necessary. Arendt noted that once a collective narrative is internalized, it often becomes self-sustaining and impervious to evidence, acting as a form of collective possession that persists until the ideology collapses or is dismantled.
Brilliant
These are how cults are formed, they live within side a belief system to sustain them
Believing in anything isn't any longer sustainable what's required is having the ability within oneself to tap into there own higher realms of knowledge
For those of us who attempt to see the truth of what is occurring on the planet, we recognize the physical storms are worsening at the same time the norms of our human connection are also breaking down. In this environment trying to gain a degree of clarity is difficult even with mature mental practices which seek truth and recognize objectivity. When the dim sense emerges that the world as we know it is starting to break apart, disorientation and the sense being lost arise. Very few are willing to stand in that awareness. The fear of helplessness and the fear of death are forces not many of us are taught to look at directly. Consequently we are so relieved when someone comes along and says with a loud and convincing voice, "You can trust me. I know the way."
This doesn't help those who do not find that voice credible. Confusion and greater clarity remain accompanied with multiple fears and anger which all must be faced. We are all probably familiar with these states in varying degrees of comfort. Our situation is best viewed in the broad context of the inescapable fact, we are all going to die. The questions of how and when do not change that reality. Becoming genuinely comfortable with that inevitability provides greater peace and clarity when needing to face the multiple complexities caused by these storms.
Developing and determining a common path is difficult because our normal view and use of language doesn't seem to have the capacity to convey the subtleties of understanding required to establish a perspective of that breadth and coherence. With practice meditation can provide enough separation from the domain of language that one can experience the reality that Self still exists even when language is not engaged. Our cultural habits do not support or encourage this range of awareness but I think it is essential if we are begin to make the transition to a level of maturity that has the quality of focus, attention, and intention to live connected with all beings. It is becoming apparent that it is not what we think but how. The need for internal unification, an internal coherence of heart and mind, not two, one, not through words but by actual direct states of being, never achieved, always freshly alive. Perhaps if enough of us connect from here we might find our way forward.
So true - and so astonishingly close to what I was thinking about and writing about last night.
Thank you! This is so beautifully and clearly articulated, something I have long felt intuitively to be true without finding a way to express it in language. "The need for internal unification, an internal coherence of heart and mind, not two, one, not through words but by actual direct states of being, never achieved, always freshly alive. Perhaps if enough of us connect from here we might find our way forward." I feel a leap of hope just reading your words.
Vajrayana Buddhism was the only tool that helped me name and work with these kinds of spirits which are emerging in our minds and society. It is one of many spiritual "technologies" which our society will need to cultivate again.
I have read your last two articles on Trump and the reference to entities with great fascination and interest. Having spent a lot of my late teens and early 20s exploring other worlds, though via meditation and not psychedelics, I have a great respect and acceptance of this narrative as an explanatory structure for phenomena that are hard to explain with more materialistic notions.
I also want to clarify that I see the world much as you do, in terms of the elites taking over governments, corruption and self interests at the heart of politics etc. What fascinating to me however is that I used to see Trump as "the bad guy" and even lost a friendship over questioning them as to why (on earth) they supported Trump. Four years later and I am not so sure.
Like you I have struggled for years to try and understand why people see the world the way they do. I really appreciate that you are presently exploring the notion of entities and how they may be influencing the human realm. I have read Robert Falconer's book and listened to several of his interviews, such as this one on the Stoa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2GLipZBXPo&t=9s
My best interpretation as to why you and I see things so differently (and this is a continuation of a conversation you and I had over email back in Nov 2023) comes down to "sub-cultural context"... a nod to the notion of social media echo chambers except its drifted out of social media and into our daily lives. The gap between what the Main Stream Media portrays as reality and what places like X for example portray as reality is so huge that it is almost impossible to have a conversation across the two worlds. I have explicitly tried with several people and only one or two have ended with a shift in perspectives. Its very hard to shift worldviews because our sense of self and meaning are birthed inside these perspectives and to give them up, for most people, means a kind of ego death that few people are willing to go through.
Mine view is now... I have no idea what is "real" and having been exposed to both worlds I lean towards Trump and his team winning as actually being overall good for the USA and better then is Harris had won. I would love to be wrong but so far this is where I sit.
Here are some videos that illustrate some of my points about the gap between the MSM and what I hear on X (tempted to say "the truth" but its just what is on X).
Young person describing her "transition": https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1860730005988261985
Megan Kelly sharing a bit of her journey to Trump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpC4HDqzTJM
Joe Rogan's transition from Democrat to Trump supporter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TQLDygbI-s
Why Kamala Harris is not the kind of person most people would want as a President: https://x.com/Timcast/status/1850270235053391954
How the MSM and Democrats continuing saying Trump has never disavowed racism, in spite of a decade of doing so: https://x.com/michaelmalice/status/1742718218223878648
I am sure the Democrats can compile videos that slant things the other way. I am not posting these here to debate any content per se. I am posting these as examples of the different worlds we get exposed to and how these worlds shape our perspectives and opinions of things.
I did a masterclass series on this topic a few years ago, before I realized how relevent it was.
In that series I suggested that waking up to this cultural embeddedness is called gaining a 4th person perspective: Coming to realize that your whole sense of self and knowledge structures are embedded in a culture with implicit assumptions and values. The real hard part is gaining a 5th person perspective: Taking the contexts as object long enough to deconstruct how they have been constructed and how they relate to each other and cause the formation of different world views. At that point we are free from the bias... but boy I am not there yet. I would love to meet someone or some group that is.
I can understand hating the democrats but, please, snap out of it: Trump is evil. His whole career is a giant con game. He shafts his workers and treats people like suckers. He cheats on his wives, rapes teenagers, lacks impulse control, and he is a racist asshole from a privileged elitist background who has avoided paying any consequences for being a total monster his entire life.
If you find yourself drawn toward or approving of Trump, this is because you have been conned. He is a master grifter, con man, narcissist who has the whole country in a relationship of narcissist abuse. He is also part of an international criminal cartel that wants absolute control as Putin has in Russia: go and read Sarah Kendzior’s substack for details.
He is a liar, cheater, fraud, etc.
Hope that clarifies?
Not to mention the 40 people of 44 who were on his cabinet who all said he was unfit to rule, a despot, fascist, dangerous, worst threat to the country etc. And those were Republicans he chose to work with him.
Interesting response Daniel. Did you listen to any of the links I posted? While I appreciate you taking the time to summarize how demonic Trump is, the point of my post was that perhaps you see him that way because of the selective impressions you are taking in from your media sources. And there are other worlds where he is portrayed in a very different light. The question is how to we link across worlds and have conversations about the nature of the reality we are living in. I dont think its by shouting our POV louder.
Anyway I will check out Sarah Kendzior’s substack as a representative of the world you are living in and see what I learn there. Thanks
writing a comment to you - can't post it here for some reason
Might it be benevolent spirits intervening, asking you to heed your words? ;-)
Well this seems like a performative contradiction, in the opposite way its usually embodied.
I also had trouble posting a comment and had to refresh the page and then it worked OK
I just want to connect on that distrust of elites and that clear knowing that we are being screwed over by the embedded billionaire owner class, no matter which world we are from (MSM, X, or indie journalism like The Lever).
If your concern is that wealthy elites are screwing over the average person, I am sorry to say Trump is handing the keys to the halls of power to the worst of the oligarchic warlords. We are all about to experience an absolutely brutal extraction of working class people to further enrich and permanently empower the elites.
They're going to squeeze us like lemons like most of us have never experienced. Many in the world already know what this is like and how bad it can get. It's our turn now. It so happens: America is not so exceptional after all.
Trump represents total oligarchic power and his campaign has used people's rage with the establishment to pull it off. The golden-toilet using billionaire frequent-flyer best friend of Jeffrey Epstein who has bankrupt his trump-steak and trump-university and trump-casino companies and is hated by people who live anywhere near his real estate buys, who has scammed millions and millions and has deep money ties to Saudi Arabia and Putin’s oligarchs, has somehow managed to be the voice of anti elites. That's America:
Razzle dazzle em.
Watch Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd" (1957)
and the old Trackdown tv show episode called
"The End of the World" (1958). If you haven't recognized Trump the snake oil maniac yet, you may recognize him then. Surprise: he doesn't care about you.
Guess who wins? The robber barrons. Again. In a bigger way than this country has ever seen. If you haven't seen it by now, keep your eyes on it. It may be here to stay and we are the ones who will hurt. Let's reach for solidarity when that happens rather than tear each other apart. Seriously, I hear you on that feeling that we've been screwed by elites for decades. By both parties. Because it's true.
If you find yourself leaning Trump, consider auditing your information diet. I have done mine and tweaked it after the election (more nonprofit indie media like The Lever and Jacobin, more newsletters with journalists I trust, less MSM and less Reddit). Read Carole Cadwalladr, whose reporting on Cambridge Analytica resulted in her being brutally attacked in courts in an attempt to silence her.
Trump is a solution to the problem that billionaires have: how to derail the angst of millions to serve us? How to convert a class of wealthy owners who are still (somewhat) beholden to the people into a class of totally powerful warlords who don't have to worry about the pesky proles anymore?
Buckle up. And when the shit hits the fan, let's reach together for the thing we need: Solidarity.
Great comment thank you. How do we get to solidarity from this chaos?
Thank you Daniel - Just want to mention how glad I was to find your Substack, your confluence of the esoteric, cultural, political and spiritual was just what I have been looking for for a long time! It’s appreciated.
From chaos to solidarity: Oof, we have had so many opportunities and they have been so thoroughly squandered (with the notable exception of Bernie’s rise before being torpedoed). The next opportunity I expect is when Trump’s supporters may start to see they’ve been had, as prices go back to skyrocketing and we lose even more freedoms. They’re on the hook now, and getting squeezed should feel like a betrayal.
That’s the opportunity. I’d love to see an organized and concerted effort of new Independent worker-centric people running for congress and local
elections. Let voters see that (I) for a change next to their names on the ballot, like we have with Bernie. Get the real populists in there, in massive numbers. They dont need to be party members to win seats and vote in congress. But to get there, the truth needs to get through the social media silos and shine a signal amid the noise of billions in campaign spending there will be to shut them out.
That’s the tough part. It seems to me that there needs to be a massive influx of truth-bringers into especially the rightwing social media ecosystem (the “truth filter”) to get such a movement viral there. I’d love to see some kind of massive movement of media literacy and something like that Simpsons Treehouse of Horror classic where the corporate mascots are running amok and Lisa and Paul Anka sing “Just Don’t Look.” The fact is, people need to find a way to counter billions in information spending. We don’t have billions of dollars, we just have billions of people, quite at each other’s throats but actually in the same sinking boat.
But perhaps: if there may soon be such a new movement of wide scale new independent (ACTUAL) populists running for office, that would be the moment - that’s a crack in the machine.
(am hoping obviously that enough damage isn’t done to the electoral process - which may already be the case with breached voting machines - by the mid terms. I may be reaching that there is any chance there! Either way we will need local in-person movements, phones down!)
Thanks for the embrace of our common overlaps in perception Thom. I'll check into The Lever and Jacobin and Carole and will look forward to some good old fashioned dystopian movies. And to clarify, man I think Trump is pretty self centred and likely narcissistic and not at all the character kind of person I would want in political office. I just seem him as breaking the strangle hold of the elites currently holding the government hostage. The lessor of two evils so to speak.
If you have the time I would appreciate any reflections you have on the videos I posted and how you make sense of them from within your worldview.
Here they are for your convience:
Young person describing her "transition": https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1860730005988261985
Megan Kelly sharing a bit of her journey to Trump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpC4HDqzTJM
Joe Rogan's transition from Democrat to Trump supporter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TQLDygbI-s
Why Kamala Harris is not the kind of person most people would want as a President: https://x.com/Timcast/status/1850270235053391954
How the MSM and Democrats continuing saying Trump has never disavowed racism, in spite of a decade of doing so: https://x.com/michaelmalice/status/1742718218223878648
And yes, I am getting my homestead ready for when the SHTF!
Have a good one
" I just seem him as breaking the strangle hold of the elites currently holding the government hostage." - He is a billionaire, best friend to Jeffrey Epstein and Roy Cohn and now Musk, totally part of the elites, just the Right Wing variety. The only anti-elitist to run for Pres was Bernie Sanders.
Yes this part is hard. It sometimes seems that perhaps we just have competing factions of elites trying to gain control of the world. Right not the ones in control re so scary to me that Trump seems like the lessor of two evils, but we will see.
Red Scare lefties were pretend "dirt bag "Leftists - turned out to be Trumpers. Disappointing.
Russian ladies - probably also paid off by Putin oligarchs
As for racism, how many non-white people do you see in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNqilWH7Wr0 ?
I am not sure that lack of diversity in close friends, especially for a very old person where exposure to diverse populations was less available, is a sign of racism. He has many Black and Latino supporters etc and has disavowed white supremacists many times.
My reply was far too long and a mammoth essay in its own right! Unfortunately it’s lost so I will just summarize the key points I picked up.
I am seeing from your links a dominant narrative of the liberal media constructing hoaxes and lies to warp people’s perception of reality. I’m my view this is true, the liberal media is fundamentally corporate and serves corporate ownership, as we saw when they rallied during Bernie’s rise. (And Sometimes they do good journalism too!)
Here’s the key: just because the liberal media shapes narratives to manufacture consent, doesn’t mean the rightwing media is the remedy. That’s the power of Bannon’s dark arts: he and others have intercepted justified rage at the corrupt political machine - which in fact is powered by Big Dark Money, not neoliberalism’s 40 year old boogeyman of “Big Government.” So when those of us who turned to Trump are seeing corruption and blaming big government, there’s been a trick pulled on us. When politicians decry big government, they usually mean the cops that police their corporate owners. It means poisoned water for the rest of us. They really don’t mean the system of legalized bribery and corruption that has been installed between the wealthy and the passing of policies.
Anyway at the bottom I think this is the common thing I’m seeing. People are pissed that the liberal media and Democrat party machine have screwed us over and over. Unfortunately many of us are still caught in the black magic web, forged in the nightmare reality of the information battlefield, that makes us seethe and turn our anger into hate and support for a bludgeon.
The problem is, the bludgeon is not going to be used on those who screwed us, in general. It will be used on us.
Chris Hedges in his conversation with George Monbiot identifies that this election amounts to a kind of civil war within capitalism. With the Democrat Party representing neoliberal corporate power (as we have had for 40 years), and Trump 2.0 representing a rising force of neoliberal oligarchic power, which can be thought of as warlord capitalism. expect the big private equity companies to continue to stripmine everything and everyone and hand the wealth to the oligarchs in control. There is also a Christian nationalist element in the trump Trojan horse that wants to see their version of “Christianity” (read: massive social control) installed as an official state religion, possibly even enforced by military means.
I highly recommend Chris Hedges! While I don’t agree with everything, he has been right too many times over the years to ignore.
https://substack.com/@chrishedges
Interesting... the "can't reply" seems to be length related...
Yes its easy to write essays in response to conversation, harder to do that when you have a substack lol. I appreciate your take and overlaps with my views on the media. I will clarify that I dont see right wing media or the
republican party as qualitatively different from lefts counterparts. I do admire, as you have pointed out, the citizen journalists who post on X and Substack (for example) and the clarity that can bring to confusing dynamics, perspectives I've never heard of on traditional platforms.
I have subscribed to Chriss's substack and look forward to hearing what he has to say.
Be well fellow Canadian.
testing
And here is an interesting website, all about debunking the many apparently false allegations made against Trump.
Again totally different world emerges if you spend time there. I'd be interested in your reflections
https://americandebunk.com/
This is what is known as Right Wing propaganda. Once people are on the Trump train, their minds are captured.
Doug - you are aware that this is a post from Tim Pool who we recently learned was getting paid $200,000 a month from Russia to be a "Russian asset"? I really hate Pool and would trust nothing from him.
So I mentioned this to my son and he laughed and said that summary was misleading, that Tim Pool had always been saying the same message but found out later that some of his funding was coming from an agency that had taken some funding from Russia. If we was supporting Russian interests is was a complete coincidence of overlap in topics.
I asked Grok about this and he said the same thing, but in much more detail.
Well, that's good to know, thanks. I just looked it up on X and it seems true.
I don't believe that that invalidates the contents of the Kamala clips however.
Why Kamala Harris is not the kind of person most people would want as a President: https://x.com/Timcast/status/1850270235053391954
At about 30 seconds into the video the sentence, that Harris is supposed to say, is cut from different videos. The whole thing smells like a deep fake.
I see what you mean in that they cut away while she is talking, showing an older video of her, but they return back to the original and she is still talking, no missed beats or out of alignments anywhere.
So I am pretty sure its not stitched together. and I have faith that if it was it would have a community note on it and it does not.
I get however that her gestures and content are so surreal and in my mind inhuman, that I have a hard time believing anyone could be saying those words, lets alone displaying the giddiness and joy she emanates while doing so.
A simple fact not to be forgotten: the disposable income of large parts of the population has diminished since 2019. ParlGov has the data about it. "It's the economy, stupid!"
Can you share a link ?
Sorry, I don't find it anymore.
I would also include in this formulation the fact that people are waking up from the dream of the Enlightenment, which created monsters with the modern and post modern periods. This includes all the social constructionist line of nominalistic philosophy in favor of something more real. The progressives stand for the enlightenment and the myth of progress that everybody is waking up from, including materialism and scientism. This is not just trump possession but a conscious turning away from something perhaps even more sinister. Where do you stand in the realism vs nominalism philosophical debate?
This time with psychedelics and it’s association with computer technology seems resonant with the period in the book of genesis and the book of enoch when spirits were teaching men how to do metallurgy, different arts and even teaching women to put make up on, but this exchange created fallen giants, and required a flood to cleanse the earth.
I think the category of UBs indicate a metaphysical existence of evil, purely destructive forces, which could possibly lead to some in this crowd to become more weary of casual psychedelic use.
The comments are so good, but harder to navigate on mobile than the posts. I’d encourage you to do what ACX does and share “the best of comments” from this whole series in a separate, new post so folks can read or listen to them more easily.
I like using the ai listening feature on the substack iPhone app, but it only works on posts, not on comments.
Thanks Daniel….it seems as if the world is breaking apart and it seems it has to. Thanks for your thoughts.
“I feel there is an active energetic, an entity, within humanity that is seeking to bring about our own annihilation.”
Those are your words.
There have been times I thought community/people power would burst through.
I was even feeling at the commencement of Covid that the world would come together and work together for the good of all.
We couldn’t even have a federal response to it in a country as small as Australia.
I thought we might start to see a revolution ….
But that didn’t happen. Besides the damage of connectivity of people we saw distraction and people buying nonsense as the way to get through it.
I thought the first Trump term was a reality TV show and the tapes would be shown later when Trump needed money.
Now that we have term 2 …we now know this is a reality…a weird, ass reality…that makes me feel once again the pain is coming, the change is coming but there will be a lot of pain.
Nothing new from me there….
And I share your disbelief regarding intelligent people falling for this grift…it’s a reflection of what we have become….nihilistic capitalism…or something
Sigh
Whoa yes !
Keep going daniel Pinchbeck
Just one nuance about the 'unattached burdens', you say 'Using this IFS model, we could say that Trump summoned up all of the darker elements, the fragmented parts of the collective and individual Psyche that we managed to mute or suppress over the last century'. Those in IFS terms would not be unattached burdens, they would be protectors or exiles, i.e. parts which have been neglected and banished (in Jungian terms, the shadow). They might still wish harm on others but serve a protecting function at the same time, e.g. a protector part might help a person commit suicide, with the goal of helping them make the pain stop. Unattached burdens simply wish harm and have no positive function. But of course it's debated within IFS circles if such things exist at all. Falconer certainly believes they do.
Hey Daniel, I am also not able to post longer response in the reply field, so I will try here
I relate to your concerns quite deeply, and its good to see we have so much in common. I have not read the book Unhumans and I will check if its on Audible.
Please remember that much of my interest in this conversation is in exploring and coming to understand how such intelligent people as yourself and myself and the people in your following can perceive the worlds so differently. My best take right now is that the narrative and worlds/ data streams we are subjected to determines our take on reality. It seems only way to wake up to the context within which our perceptions arise is in the friction in how others perceive the same phenomena (within their worlds).
So having clarified I have little interest in debating if Trump is good or evil or better or worse than the democrats per se I will make a comment on some of your contents - that of the Ukraine war. When I watched this video it really put Putin's actions in a whole new light and I wonder how you will react/ digest this. There are a few others but this is enough to give you a flavor... that Putin has been trying not to go to war and is being forced into it by elite interests...
https://x.com/carry_er/status/1856344492963422241