This is the first of hopefully many adventure vlogs. If you enjoy it, we would appreciate you helping out the channel by subscribing, thank you!

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.

Goblets they carved there for themselves
And harps of gold; where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.

The pines were roaring on the height,
The winds were moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
Then dragon’s ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall, to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!

Later that night, while Bilbo lay in bed trying to fall asleep, he could still hear Thorin humming in the next room over:

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To find our long-forgotten gold.

-J.R.R. Tolkien

Babylon is falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
Babylon is falling down,
My fair lady.

Build it up with bricks and mortar,
Bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar,
Build it up with bricks and mortar,
My fair Lady.

Bricks and mortar will not stay,
Will not stay, will not stay,
Bricks and mortar will not stay,
My fair Lady...

I am exhausted.

With the internet, with screens, with content, with this matrix we are connected to 24/7 whether we are actively online or not. I know I’m not the only one. Peers I’ve spoken to about this universally agree with the sentiment. We are all chronically fatigued. Something about our current way of life is sucking us dry of energy, leaving us apathetic and cynical.

The world has become very strange. It feels like we are losing our ability to communicate with and relate to each other, despite being more connected than ever before. There is a deafening level of noise, but not much signal. Even since just 2022 there has been a noticeable shift in how unnatural and lifeless our culture feels, and its prompting a wave of people seeking out alternative lifestyles, ways to “escape the matrix”. Many of us have already found ways to detach ourselves from the problems I am describing and focus on real life, but

To find a solution you have to first understand the problem.

So I want to take a closer look at why exactly we are so mentally exhausted, at what metaphysical forces might be behind it all. I think I have identified the culprits, or at least two of them.

Let me tell you a story.

I was on a plane and a young woman sitting in the row ahead of me was having relationship troubles. She was typing an enormously long text to who must have been a boyfriend or at least someone she had a relationship with. I could not exactly make out what she was writing, and I wasn’t going to lean forward to snoop, but it was clearly some sort of breakup text.

I wouldn’t have thought much of it if she hadn’t done what she did next. Instead of sending the text, she copied the entire message and pasted it into ChatGPT. And ChatGPT “analyzed” the message.

From the little I could see of it, the chat bot spoke to her like a therapist, probably affirming her emotional maturity and wisdom as ChatGPT does. She went back and forth between talking to ChatGPT and editing the text before she sent it. I knew there were people out there using AI like this, but seeing it in person was eerie. Seeing an algorithm intrude into something as intimate as a romantic relationship, even one on the rocks, felt unnatural and dirty. You’re supposed to talk to a trusted friend about these matters, not a robot that’s only simulating concern and empathy.

But the real shock came at the end of the flight when the young woman stood up and I could see her face. She was not a young woman. She was in her 40’s, possibly her 50’s. And somehow this made it worse.

It’s one thing to see someone my age using technology foolishly, we grew up on it and there’s always the hope that us Gen Z’s can grow out of it. But to see a woman at this age, who may not have many chances at love left, choosing to experience something as primal and intimate as romance with the assistance of ChatGPT left me with a feeling of dread, and feeling a real sadness for her.

We should not be this connected to AI. We should not be this connected to devices. We should not be this connected even to our fellow human beings. This woman should have been left alone on a wistfully melancholic long flight, contemplating her life and her relationships, perhaps coming to a conclusion at the end of the flight and composing a long letter. That would be human. But the level of connectivity we have access to leaves no time for reflection.

I truly can’t even blame her. Human beings are not equipped to deal with the level of connectivity with machines and other humans that we have access to today. It is a natural behavior to use the technology you have access to, and we cannot expect anything less from the average person.

No, I didn’t judge this woman, but I do feel anger at something.

I’m angry at the screens. I’m angry at the artifice. I’m angry at the magic black cube toy in the hands of billions of human beings including myself.

I’m angry at Slopworld.

I’m angry at how degraded, banal, and mind-numbingly boring everything is becoming. I’m angry at how inorganic and plastic it all feels. I’m angry at the lack of meaning. It is all so tiresome and ridiculous.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. The sentiment seems to be basically universal among my peers and fellow writers I speak with. This is not a personal issue but a culture-wide feeling.

We are fatigued, overwhelmed, overstimulated, divided, and bored. But why?

A constant topic of discussion in online circles recently is “slop”, or “slopworld”. We all know what slop is. It is the barrage of meaningless, stupid, vapid, attention-consuming content shoved down your throat every time you log onto the internet. It’s the feeling that nothing in the world matters anymore. The term describes the state of our culture in general, of the arts, of public discourse, of politics, and our social lives. Even offline, we cannot escape it, because the internet is now the focal point of culture.

The Matrix, the internet, the screens, they’re no longer something you use in your free time. They are the main event.

The term “slop” is used especially to refer to AI-created content, and the internet is truly beginning to drown in it, but this problem goes much deeper than that. AI did not create slop, in fact AI does not create anything, it only regurgitates what already exists. Slop is a primal force, an urge to produce quantity for its own sake, AI is only magnifying it.

But how did we end up in Slopworld? There has been plenty of cultural analysis done on the state of the world. But I believe to get to the real root cause of an issue like this we have to dive down into the realm of metaphysics and symbolism, of archetypes and principalities.

The realm of myth, where all of these stories really spring from.

I think there are primarily two archetypes that can help us understand the fatigue and overstimulation so many of us are feeling.

They are the ancient principality Mercury, and the symbolic structure of the Tower of Babel story from Genesis.

I think we are trapped in a new (and rapidly collapsing) Tower of Babel, ruled by a mad-tyrant version of Mercury.

I will give a brief overview of these symbols before getting into the cultural analysis. Let’s start with the old trickster.

Mercury

You also know him as Hermes, Thoth, Odin, and many other names. This is an ancient god, power, or symbolic archetype- depending on your worldview.

While I personally believe these forces are literal intelligences, for the purposes of this analysis it doesn’t matter if you think these forces are “beings”. It is enough to understand them as forces of nature. Terms like “god”, principality, angel, archetype, force, or power will be used more or less interchangeably here.

Mercury is a confusing figure on the surface, because he was the god of merchants, crossroads, heralds, messengers, boundaries, thieves, orators, travelers, commerce, language, quickness, and he also served as a psychopomp (guide of souls to the underworld). His metal in medieval alchemy was quicksilver.

This might seem like a random assortment of attributes until you understand that Mercury is the principle of connectivity itself. He is the force that connects one thing to another, which is why he is the messenger of the gods- it is through him that all the other powers of reality “talk” or interact with one another1. Without the force of connectivity, nothing could interact with anything else, and therefore nothing could have meaning and nothing could happen. However, Mercury does not provide us with meaning on his own, he only creates the infrastructure for the other archetypes to do meaningful things.

In the medieval alchemy the planet Mercury was correlated with the central nervous system and the brain. He is the mind, that which connects the soul to the physical body. Mercury rules the crossroads where heaven and earth meet, which is why Odin, that Mercurial Norse deity, hung himself upon the world tree (the Axis Mundi), a cosmic crossroads, to gain knowledge.

Importantly, Mercury was a neutral planet in classical thought.

The other six of the seven classical heavenly bodies form pairs with each other. The Sun and Moon represent the conscious and unconscious aspects of the self. Jupiter and Venus represent the benefic powers of the world, and Mars and Saturn were the malefics. Mars and Venus represent the male/female polarity, and Jupiter and Saturn represent something like the polarity between expansion and constraint.

But Mercury is the odd man out, he was not considered positive or negative, and he is not a part of any pairing.

This is because communication is a neutral force- Mercury has no morality. Communication and connection are tools that can be used for any purpose.

Mercury is a messenger, but this neutrality is also what makes him the trickster. He is not really evil, but he likes to mess with the other powers of the world. You could say that the Mercurial energy in the world just likes to do things, stir things up, it likes things to happen just for the sake of things happening. Mercury is in it for the love of the game.

It is one thing for Mercury to be a trickster under normal circumstances, as long as it does not go too far. But I believe the state of western culture right now shows us what happens when this trickster force gets its hands on power- when we begin pursue connectivity for connectivity’s sake, as a primary goal.

When we worship productivity, technological progress, communication, and novelty, Mercury becomes a mad tyrant. When you put the lowest of the gods at the top of the world hierarchy, chaos ensues. And I think this is what the story of Babel was all about.

The Tower of Babel

The story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis is essentially a story of mankind coming together to build a self-made identity instead of striving towards a God-given identity, and suffering a great scattering of identity as consequence.

The story of the great flood seems to get more attention in symbolic analysis, but the tale of the tower is more relevant to our current situation. If Slopworld is anything, it is a Tower of Babel.

This great graphic was created by my friend . It depicts the Tower of Babel as the dark mirrored image of the City of God. We can symbolically understand the City of God as the same thing as God’s holy mountain. You should imagine the space above the equator of the graphic as heaven, and the space beneath the equator as hell or chaos.

A surface level objection to the Tower of Babel story is “why would God be scared of humans building a tower? Why does God say that ‘nothing will be impossible for them’ as if that’s a bad thing?”

This graphic helps make the answer obvious. God did not want humanity solidifying itself into an identity that would bring us further from Him. We thought we were building up when we built the tower, but we were really burrowing down deeper into chaos. The power we were going to gain would only be one that would trap us firmly in the darkness.

Symbolically then, a Tower of Babel is anything humans create to forge their own identity outside of the will of God. In doing this we create something worse than simply existing in “neutral” chaos, because the deeper we build a false identity, the further we sink from a true one. It would actually be better to float in chaos than to build a diabolical safe haven and convince ourselves that we are our own savior.

I believe the god Mercury and the Tower of Babel story are deeply connected. The obvious connecting theme is language.

The story tells us that in the age before the Tower the entire Earth spoke with one tongue. Language is Mercury’s greatest invention and tool. It is precisely through this universal tool that humanity is able to band together to create their own identity through the tower, and this is why God stops them by targeting this ability. The scattering of the nations is God disconnecting humanity from each other.

I think Mercury is the god of the tower, the power bringing all things together, not for the higher purpose of reaching to God, but simply for the sake of bringing them together (there are probably more nefarious powers at work in the story as well, but we’re focusing on the Mercurial element).

The Tower is connectivity for connectivity’s sake. But what does this look like in practice?

I think not enough attention is paid to what the world must have been like right before the tower fell. Rather than being a time of great worldly order, I suspect it was deeply dysfunctional and chaotic, in fact I believe it would have been exactly like our situation today, only worse. What is it like to live in the Tower ruled by the trickster?

One example sticks out to me as the perfect metaphor.

Lost in the Library

In 2015 a website was released called the Library of Babel. The website is an experiment based on the short story of the same name. In the story, the world is an infinite library containing books made out of the permutations of 25 characters. Therefore, almost all of the books are complete gibberish, but it is logically implied that books exist that contain everything ever written, the answer to any question, the secrets of the universe, and true predictions of the future. The population of the library is torn apart by cults and violence as people become increasingly unhinged in their desperate quest for meaning.

The website works the same way. It creates pages or books made out of 29 characters, and each possible page is marked with a specific coordinate (they are not just randomly generated when you use the website, you can always find the same page again at the same coordinates). The website can generate all possible pages of 3200 characters, or about 1.956 × 10^1,834,097 potential books.

Using the search tab, you can input any poem, story, or fact within the word limit and you will find it in the library. Of course, it only works in reverse. Feasibly, if you just scroll through the library you will only ever find nonsense. You’d be lucky to find even a single real word. But technically speaking, the website contains the answer to everything… somewhere.

This website and the short story can give us great insights into the meta-pattern of the Tower of Babel. It also makes it clear that the Tower of Babel is inseparable from Mercury. Creating endless permutations, endless information, is precisely what an out of control or mad Mercury would do.

I think the age of the Tower of Babel would have been a time with a serious lack of creativity and an overload of human connectivity. In the library, the excess of information and the inclusion of all possibilities make it impossible to find anything of meaning. Likewise, a human culture that brings together all of humanity, that is to say, the entirety of human experience and human consciousness, is bound to become meaningless as it will not be able to bring that much information into cohesion (only God can do that). This eventually puts an end to any real creativity or meaning as anything worthwhile is drowned out by, well, slop.

When meaning is drowned out the other powers of the world can no longer function, and everything becomes Mercurial. Mercury becomes the tyrant of the Tower, the mad librarian of Babel. A mad god forcibly subjecting his people to every idea and permutation imaginable with no care for what actually matters or what the people actually need.

I think we are all like the people stuck inside the library. We are sure there is meaning somewhere, or least that there used to be, but we can no longer find it. We are held captive.

Using this symbolic structure, I think we can begin to make sense of what we’re experiencing today.

An Excess of Mercury

Essentially everything about our lives (specifically anything online) at this point is controlled by the power of Mercury. Some elements may appear to be defined by another force, but for the most part I think the trickster is wearing masks of his brethren.

What happens when you get an excess of Mercury? The symptoms of literal Mercury poisoning can tell us a lot. They include:

- Tremors (especially in hands), memory loss, insomnia, anxiety, depression, impaired concentration, headaches, ataxia (poor coordination), sensory disturbances (vision, hearing, touch), speech difficulties, and cognitive decline.

- Severe cases can result in dementia, paralysis, and hallucinations.

- High-level exposure (e.g., Minamata disease) causes irreversible brain damage.

It’s fascinating that over-exposure to quicksilver will actually harm the Mercurial aspects of the human body. Our ability to concentrate, our senses, our minds.

I think it is obvious that on a larger scale, our entire culture is exhibiting these symptoms. Our culture has literal brain damage from guzzling quicksilver. The entire world has a terminal case of mercury poisoning.

The rise and fall of the Mercurial era is inextricably linked to the internet, social media, and screens. It all started in 2004 with the advent of Facebook. Well, it really started with the invention of the internet… or was it with the invention of computers, or telephone lines, or the steam engine, or the wheel, or maybe it was when Cain realized he could use a rock to bash his brother’s head in? There are no hard lines with these metaphysical tales, but the beginning of the Facebook era will do just fine for our story.

From 2004 to today we’ve seen the natural cycle of a story play its course. In these 22 years the power of Mercury began with great promise, accomplished some incredible things, reached its peak, but inevitably declined and spiraled into excess and chaos. Such is the doom of everything in a fallen world.

I can remembered when the screens weren’t so tyrannical. I was very young, but my feeling is corroborated by people older than me. The early days of the internet and social media were innocent, at least compared to what we have now. I think a lot of people feel a real nostalgia for it.

The Internet was fun, and more importantly it wasn’t all-encompassing. You logged on for a while and then you logged off. Maybe you played some games or hung out in a chatroom or scrolled through Facebook for a while, but then most people went on with their day. It was an organic place, and our wider culture was still an organic place as well. The internet connected us with each other, but not too much, we did not spend the majority of our waking hours in front of a screen. The internet was a piece of the world, not the focal point.

At some point in the early 2010’s I think we reached the pinnacle of this connectivity based, Mercurial culture. The world became more connected than ever before, travel was affordable and safe, the general cultural attitude was egalitarian, the world appeared to wide open for opportunity.

But the Tower was being built, we just didn’t realize.

Over time the internet and social media became more and more overbearing in our lives. By the late 2010’s the internet was no longer just part of western culture but the center of it. We listened to the same music, knew the same memes, heard all the same celebrity drama whether we care or not. Youth subcultures like skaters, goths, jocks, nerds slowly died out as the internet created a monoculture. I think the “Great Meme War” of 2016 could serve as the symbolic climax of this story, when we elected our Mercurial, trickster President, Donald Trump.

Some good things came out of the last 20 years, don’t get me wrong. Mercury can do some incredible things when he’s put in his proper place. As we became more connected to each other we were exposed to new ideas, communities, and friends that we would have never found otherwise. I would not be the person I am today without the internet, and I mean that in the positive sense. The last 20 years had been an incredible time for travel, novelty, and the spread information. The peak of this era in the 2010’s was a genuinely fun time, and on a serious note, if it weren’t for the Mercurial power at our disposal I don’t think so many people would have been able to tell that they were being scammed during COVID. Information is power, up to a point.

But now in 2026, we have reached the late stage of the Tower of Babel story. Our monoculture has gone insane, and is exploding into fragmentation. The rise of Artificial Intelligence is a manifestation of what the building of Babel was always all about. We are experiencing both the peak of the Tower’s construction and the scattering of the nations at the same time.

Before getting into how Mercury has taken over aspects of our culture he has no business ruling, I’ll examine the elements of society that are actually intended to be Mercurial, but are now in complete excess and chaos.

Let’s start with the big ones.

Social Media and the Screens

Let’s be honest, social media is an incredible tool and most of us do not truly want to do away with it entirely. It has been a definitive part of my social life as a Gen Z and I won’t pretend it hasn’t been. It is arguably the defining element of the Mercurial era, and you could say it is this principality’s greatest achievement. Through this magic (because it absolutely is magic), your village is now the entire world, everything and everyone is within your grasp. Screens and mobile devices are tied into this as well, they are the Mercurial hardware that allows for the software to work (before mobile phones and laptops, you could not carry the internet with you, which greatly reduced its influence on your life). Social media, screens, Television, the internet, its all one thing, one mercurial Matrix.

Much has been said about screens themselves, ancient humans would have identified them as scrying and sorcery devices. We carry personal black boxes that can generate any information, contact anyone, create anything. They are the pinnacle of the Mercurial principle, his great work.

But everyone I know is completely burnt out with it. We are tired of being this connected to other people, we are tired of staring at screens this much, we are tired of keeping up an online persona as an extension of ourselves. We are tired of using a QR code to order a burger.

We are well past the peak of this part of the story. In 2016 everyone loved their smartphones, you had to have one. The general attitude among young people towards the devices now is disgust. It turns out, we are not actually made to handle a level of connectivity this vast, we did not actually want this. And the screens just keep getting more oppressive, everything requires a smartphone now for no clear reason- it’s just Mercury making everything go online purely for the sake of it.

Social media also has the affect of making its users play characters. It naturally encourages you to show the best parts of your life, your highlights, to present yourself differently than you really are. The people that fall into this can start to play a caricature of themselves, or lose themselves entirely behind a mask. Others become clownish in their pursuit of likes and views. To wear a mask, to be a clown, to pretend to be something else, this is a Mercurial archetype.

The trend towards short-form video content across all platforms is an extension of the Mercurial drive to make things faster, snappier, to grab more attention. If you spend half an hour doomscrolling you will see a staggering number of things, but you won’t remember any of it. Many of us have gained a lot from social media, because it was meant to be a tool for building connections and learning things. But now that its Mercurial energy has gone to excess, the only purpose of the platforms is to get more attention, more engagement, more views, but for no discernible purpose. As time goes on all content is becoming more trite, more repetitive, and more boring, because like in the Library of Babel, simply too much is being said. The noise is completely drowning out the signal. It is all one massive meme.

Speaking of…

Memes

A meme is an idea that spreads from one mind to another via imitation, taking on a sort of life of its own. They have been around forever and are probably the best example of how Mercury works. The ability for the human mind to generate and spread these memetic ideas is part of what makes the world go round.

In the modern context of the internet, memes have become important enough that they’re talked about in high-level politics. In the last few American Presidential elections they have been the subject of real controversy and sometimes taken the spotlight.

Pepe the Frog (or Apu) is arguably the most important meme, and there have been so many good explanations of what he represents, but I will posit that at one level he is a manifestation of Mercury, Hermes, a modern day trickster god. He has no real purpose beyond the meme itself. He exists to be funny, and probably took delight when he was labeled an alt-right racist symbol, not because he actually is those things, but because tricksters live to cause trouble. You can make a Pepe meme out of literally anything and it will always be funny, because Hermes is a traveller, he will go anywhere and wear any mask, not for any particular reason, but simply for the love of the game.

Imagining Mercury as Pepe might be a helpful way to interpret what’s going on in our culture. Imagining Pepe as the mad-tyrant meme god of Babel gives the whole idea a comedic angle. If we’re being honest, as bad as the current situation feels and as fatigued as we all are, there is something hilarious about the absurdity of slop culture. There is something funny about this ability to make a meme out of anything.

But memes have gone to excess like everything else. The ability to poke fun at the establishment and current events is good, necessary even. But at this point, when people are making memes about ongoing wars, genocides, or the idea of dying in WW3, you do have to wonder when we lost the ability to take things seriously, to show respect for life and death. The era of the meme was great, but we’re all growing tired of the constant irony.

As I mentioned before, Mercury is a neutral force, he isn’t evil. He’s driving everyone crazy, turning everything into a meme mostly just because he thinks its funny. This whole situation is a game to him. Pepe is not evil (just look at the little guy), he does not need to be defeated so much as given a scolding and put back in his proper place. It’s humanity’s fault for putting him in charge in the first place, its our fault for building this Tower just for the sake of building it. It’s not your fault, Apu.

News and Free Information

The strides forward in the free spread of information are arguably the most meaningful accomplishment of Mercury’s reign and the area where he shines the brightest.

In 2004 the world was still largely dependent on (and controlled by) legacy news networks and traditional methods of communication in order to find out what was going on in the world. The internet allowed for niche or dissident information to be shared, but you had to really be on the fringe to find it. Normal people believed the status quo.

This completely changed by the 2010’s. Social media networks and mobile devices put the power in the hands of the people. Suddenly we were able to share news and information more efficiently than the professional networks, and we were able to find and share information that exposed conspiracies and government corruption. Best of all we could do it for free, information had never been so cheap, fast, and accurate (this is Mercury’s fantasy come to fruition).

During this era the establishment lost their dominating control over the narrative. The Overton window has shifted more in the last 20 years than ever before in human history precisely due to these technologies- we should be grateful for the power of Mercury here.

Without these tools we would not have been able to combat what world elites tried to do during COVID. They did not count on people being able to question the narrative and do their own research so freely. What they planned as an exercise in world tyranny was actually the event that allowed many normal people to identify the tyrants for the first time. The rebellion against draconian COVID laws and forced vaccinations could be interpreted as one of the great victories of the Mercurial era. Information triumphed over despotism.

Unfortunately it did not stop there. The internet is no longer the perfect tool for sharing information and real-time news. In just the last few years it had fallen from its pinnacle into pure chaos. You already know why- its the slop.

What you see on the internet is no longer trustworthy, there is too much slop and fake content being circulated. It’s becoming like the library of Babel. The truth is still out there, but it is being drowned out at a rate that is impossible to say because we simply can’t know what’s real. It turns out that giving everyone the ability to share their opinions and position themselves as an authority was not a perfect plan. But the primary factor here is the rise of AI generated content, which is polluting the free internet- arguable one of the greatest tools ever created is being destroyed.

Artificial Intelligence is the latest and greatest Mercurial creation, but also the one where this force finally spiraled out of control.

Artificial Intelligence

The AI boom happened at the late stage of our Tower of Babel story because it is the manifestation of excessive Mercurial energy, of Mercury gone rogue and operating without any higher purpose. AI is a force that can generate things completely divorced from the human soul and true creativity. It is Mercury generating things purely for its own sake, it is the construction of a world that feels like the Library of Babel, generating everything possible, instead of just what we need.

I don’t know what will happen with AI, its surrounded by too much noise. But the idea that we are creating our own god, whether or not it will actually happen, is a manifestation of what the builders of the Tower of Babel were doing.

An AI-god could be imagined symbolically as the capstone of the Tower of Babel, the thing God stopped us from manifesting in the Bible story. Tech elites envision a future where AI has made humanity omniscient, omnipotent, and maybe even immortal. It is the attempt to connect us to knowledge and power so completely that we could survive another Great Deluge that we all deep down know is coming.

The AI industry has invited a lot of controversy, a lot of conspiracy theories about what its leaders are after. I think that while some of these tech elites might be seeking world domination, and others may earnestly think they are trying to build a utopia, most of those involved in AI are simply possessed by the Mercurial sprit- they are not philosophers, they are doing it just because we can, because the red line must go up.

In defense of AI, the prevalence of slop is not actually its fault. Like Mercury, the technology is a neutral force. It learned slop from us humans. But AI is proving to be the finishing blow for the internet, the last nail in the coffin. The barrage of AI-slop that is drowning the internet (and its only going to get worse from here) and the fatigue we are all feeling is precisely what is going to lead to the final step, the scattering of the nations.

Immigration

Mercury also traditionally ruled immigration and borders. For the world to function you do need some amount of immigration to be allowed, human beings have to be able to move around in a natural manner or else life will stagnate.

But in the last 20 years we’ve seen this force spiral completely out of control. Western countries are being swamped with third-world immigrants, and nations like Sweden and the United Kingdom are suffering horrific consequences.

There’s a lot more going on with this issue than the Mercurial element and I don’t mean to oversimplify things. But at one level we should understand this surge in immigration as a manifestation of Mercury saying “Why not?”

Why not let anyone from anywhere into any country? Why draw any boundaries? Why say one thing is any better than another? Why wouldn’t you want to share your country with all these other people?

This is the Tower of Babel calling all things into itself, trying to unite all of humanity in a false identity. And as we’ve learned, a world without borders is a slop world, a horrific melting-pot.

Online Gambling

I just want to make a short point on a pet peeve of mine, online gambling is completely out of control. Somewhere on the internet you can find a place to bet on the weather, the outcome of elections, wars, or on what jokes Trump will make during his next speech. Gambling is normally mercurial, but this normalization of online gambling, and gambling on such random things, shows how excessive its become.

Sports betting has become such a huge part of sports culture that these days parlays are a subject of discussion on sports talk shows. The majority of guys I knew in college were betting on sports constantly. People care more about their own March Madness bracket than about who actually wins. This culture of knowing all about every player, every stat, and every possibility is turning something that should be Martian, Jovian, and Solar (sports) into a Mercurial game where its less about the competition and more about these secondary aspects

Speaking of other archetypes being co-opted by Mercury, I want to turn and look at how this principality has taken over other aspects of society, aspects it isn’t naturally supposed to rule. These are absurd things in modern slop-pop culture that you may assume are ruled by another principle, like Venus or Mars, but I’ll show that they’re really just Mercury wearing a mask.

Let’s start with a trending one.

“Looksmaxing”

Right off the bat many people might assume this is a Venusian trend. It’s all about maximizing beauty and sexual market appeal, so it must be about love, romance, and sex, right?

Wrong.

This entire niche might be the least sexy, least Venusian community I’ve ever seen. These people are not lovers, they are not romantics, and ironically I would not be surprised if they’re not having very much sex.

The Looksmaxxing community is about gamifying attractiveness and rating each other, not for the purpose of pursuing the Venusian things of life, but for the purpose of itself. They are Looksmaxing for the sake of Looksmaxing. It is pure vanity, but not in a way that actually feels Venusian.

This is Mercury wearing the mask of Venus (another myth we could use for this analysis is Narcissus). Mercury understands the surface level of something, and then gamifies it, creating a huge quantity of shallow imitations. We’ll see this pattern in everything else we look at.

On the subject of Venus, Gen Z is having less sex than any other recorded generation, in case you need to be convinced that we are not living in a Venusian time. We are outwardly over-sexualized and degenerate, but most of that exists purely online. In real life, hyper-sexual Gen-Z’s are staying at home and scrolling on their screens. We are living in a pornographic society, but not a truly sexual one. We’re all really like the Looksmaxxers, playing characters instead of genuinely doing things.

Media and Art

I don’t have any idea what TV show or movie this is from and that’s the point. This could be from any fantasy series released in the last six years. Media is one of those things in our culture that has become the most obviously slop-ified. Studios continue to pump millions of dollars into projects with absolutely no life and no creativity. It is unclear why they do this, other than that the spirit of Mercury compels them to keep churning out product. Creativity is primarily supposed to be Solar, Venusian, Jovian, Lunar. It can be a lot of things, but slop is what happens when it gets too Mercurial. When you get to this stage, you begin to simply copy creativity.

A tell-tale sign of media becoming too Mercurial is when it gets too self-referential, and that word describes modern media better than anything. Rather than anything feeling new or unique, everything just feels like a riff on better media that was made 20 years ago. Everything is a sequel, or a prequel, or a remake or a reboot. Fantasy is just churning out worse and worse versions of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. Romance flicks feel hopelessly stiff and passion-less. The MCU overstayed its welcome and started trying to sell us on stories no one cared about. Stranger Things is a good example of a show that started strong earlier on in the 2004-2026 period, but its last season was derided as pure slop. It became a caricature of itself, a meme. This goes beyond movies and television, all of the arts are suffering from this spirit. All we can churn out as a culture these days is slop, studios are literally incapable of anything else.

Our culture has fundamentally forgotten why people tell stories in the first place. We don’t tell a story just for the sake of making something. We tell a story because we have something to say.

“Thank you, Mercury, for giving me this post-credits scene foreshadowing that Blorko from Chungus will be starring in the next installment, but please remind me why on Earth I should care.”

But it isn’t just the on-screen adventures that are getting dull.

Travel and Adventure

There’s nothing quite as romantic as viewing the wonders of the natural world through a sea of selfie-snapping Chinese tourists. Sometimes I thank my lucky stars that I’ve grown up in an era where I can experience nature this way.

But seriously, travel is being ruined. There is simply too much of it and it is too easy for everyone to thoughtlessly access.

There are two kinds of travel, one ruled by Mercury, but the other is ruled by Jupiter. Mercury is the principle of trade, merchants, roads, transport, and in a modern context, tourism. Jupiter on the other hand is the principle of high adventure, quests, far horizons, venturing into the unknown. All travel falls somewhere on this spectrum. The adventurer still has to deal with boats and inn bookings and schedules. The merchant still has to brave perilous mountain passes and bandits to move from one hub to another. There is supposed to be a natural flow between the two extremes.

But today, the tourism is devouring the adventure.

It has become so incredibly easy to travel that the adventure has been mostly squeezed out of it. And don’t get me wrong, modern advancements in infrastructure and transport are incredible and we should take full advantage of the good aspects of a Mercurial time while we can. But in making the world so connected, it feels we have also made it shallower. You can make journeys across the world without experiencing the slightest discomfort, and I think there is something spiritually twisted about that.

The travel influencer is a great example. This aesthetic reached its peak in the 2010’s into the early 2020’s. I’m not going to disparage them too much, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying travel. But the aesthetic seems to have turned adventure into a checklist, a collage of selfies and Airbnb recommendations. Are these influencers seeking deeper meaning through their travels? Are they on a quest to accomplish something? Or, like Mercury, are they just doing it to do it. How much interest did they naturally have in the locations they visit, and how much were they simply influenced by what every other influencer was doing. You might say that travel has always been that way, and you’re right, but only to an extent. There has always been a Mercurial type of travel and tourism, the issue in in how the Jovian element has been stripped from it entirely. The travel blogger should have to face a little bit of adversity if they want to get likes on Instagram.

The inevitable result is that this trend has commodified the best places in the world. Airbnb’s are even choking out locals in some areas, and some of the most beautiful locations on earth are totally swarmed with photo snapping tourists. It has gone too far.

This attitude is bleeding over into real adventure culture as well.

Summiting a mountain like Everest used to be a heroic achievement and one only a few people ever accomplished. Today the mountain is so overcrowded that there is a queue to summit, and the base camp looks like the third world. The Mercurial power of infrastructure and the internet has made the knowledge and skillset needed to climb the mountain, as well as the ability to travel to the mountain, so easy (compared to what it once was) that it is becoming just another checked off box for adventure influencer’s social medias. Many people still die attempting Everest every year, but rather than it being seen as a heroic death, its met with a collective shrug.

This does not take away from the individual achievement of climbing something like Everest- if you’ve done it, I am truly impressed. But it serves as a stark example at how over-connected and over-streamlined our world has become. The soul is being sucked out of things.

Influencers

Speaking of influencers, they’re ruining more than just travel. They’ve taken over almost every aspect of society, turning everything into a Mercurial game. Regardless of his niche, the influencer is a trickster figure.

Take for example masculinity or red-pill influencers. You may think the rise in popularity of hyper-masculine, right-wing adjacent influencers is a sign that our culture is becoming more Martian, more violent and masculine. Of course though, that’s not actually true. These guys are cosplaying masculinity and selling it to insecure young men- exactly what Hermes the trickster would do. If they were actually what they said they were, they wouldn’t be selling it on the internet because they’d be too busy actually doing masculine things out in the world. In that way, they’re the same as the Looksmaxing influencers, who are not really out doing Venusian things. It’s all a fascade, or to put it in Mercurial terms, it’s all a hustle.

Self-Improvement influencers are similar. True self-improvement is a Solar idea, and the self-discipline aspect could be considered Saturnian and Martian as well. Of course, there are plenty of well-intentioned self-improvement influencers out there. But for many of the biggest names, like Huberman or Willamson, I don’t think their brand of self-improvement is Martian or Solar, I don’t think they are really striving for a higher ideal. Their philosophy is clinical and robotic, health and productivity are the ends in of themselves for them. That’s not to say I dislike what these two men do, I just think they are Mercurial more than anything else. There is a facade of philosophy, but I am not sure there is much behind it.

Mercury has also infected the Martian worlds of fitness and combat sports, they are defined by influencers. Social media is flooded with countless health and fitness guru influencers whose qualifications are mostly aesthetic and who’s success is determined mostly by content-creation ability. The world of combat sports is also full of influencers and clownish behavior, a caricature of what the spirit of combat is really about.

Politics is another arena that has totally lost the plot. Again, it is mostly dominated by online influencers these days (no one pays attention to legacy news), and our leaders themselves are mostly, well, clowns and tricksters. Our leaders and famous figures reflect us- we clearly do not want serious men in charge.

Nick Fuentes is a great example, possibly the most relevant political influencer at the moment, and if he and his followers are anything, they are Pepe. They are the meme, the tricksters. That is not to discredit him, the most important figures in a Mercurial time cannot help but be Mercurial themselves, but you should at least be aware of who you’re listening to.

Trump himself has been analyzed to death, but I think if he fits any archetype, its that of the trickster. He is Hermes as a president, not the warrior that his core base wants to believe he is. He’s the TV star, the jokester, the businessman, the character. There’s a reason Trump is so hard to pin down, why its so hard to figure out what he believes in and what his goals actually are. My view is that its hard to pin his beliefs down because he does not really have any.

Like Mercury, at the end of the day Trump got into all this for the love of the game, because he loves the “art of the deal”. If his second term behavior is odd, I think it is likely because outside forces have him under their control, not because he had some secret masterplan. I do not think he ever really cared about saving America from a philosophical or spiritual angle, I think he is a hustler, and winning the Presidency looked like the greatest hustle of all.

Terminally Online Esotericism

One final aspect of online culture I want to look at is the boom in esoteric content.

It seems that everyone and their mom knows about once-niche topics like the Nephilim, Atlantis, Hyperborea, Agartha, Alchemy, the black cube of Saturn, etc. It’s a stereotype at this point that every girl is obsessed with astrology. The average guy on Youtube is watching videos about Hermeticism and aliens. And politicians and your normie neighbors are publicly discussing the wars in the Middle East through the lens of the fulfillment of Biblical prophecies. It’s wild out there.

And mostly, this has happened through meme culture. It is memes that spread these ideas so widely, and the element of humor has made it all the more palatable to normal people.

You could say that the esoteric realm is meant to be the domain of the Moon, of the Lunar principle, these things that inhabit the subconscious or background world. They are not meant to be made into pop culture (occult literally means “secret”), but that is what Mercury has done with them. In doing so these subjects have lost most of their meaning because they’ve been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. These are no longer mythic and esoteric ideas, they’re pop culture slop.

This applies to conspiracy theory culture as well. I don’t want to get off track here, but the Epstein files are a good example. Obviously something horrible was going on, but as for the exact details, its impossible to know what to believe. There is too much noise, too many wild theories, too many memes. It is content more than anything else.

Like everything else, it’s part of slopworld now.

So what do we do about all this?

Meaning as the Antidote to Mercury Poisoning

The answer is simple but not easy. Mercury needs to be put back in his proper place in service of all the other powers of the world, he needs to go back to his job as the humble messenger. We have to abandon our Tower of Babel and put meaning, the pursuit of the highest ideals, back at the top of our priorities.

Meaning is the antidote to an excess of Mercury, and this means that Mercury’s father in mythology, Jupiter, is the symbolic solution.

In classical astrology, the zodiac signs ruled by Jupiter (Sagittarius and Pisces) are in opposition to the ones ruled by Mercury (Gemini and Virgo). This is because this father and son have opposite priorities. If Mercury wants to connect everything simply for the sake of doing so, Jupiter goes on adventures in search of higher truths and philosophies. So what is the Centaur, Sagittarius, aiming at? Ultimately, he’s aiming at the inverse of the Tower of Babel, towards the City of God.

Thankfully, this move back to meaning is already happening. Over the last decade there has been a growing push for “re-enchantment”. It started around the Jordan Peterson era, and has led to something of a religious revival among Gen Z. People are reconnecting with faith and symbolic ways of viewing the world. Though earlier I critiqued the bad side of influencer culture, many influencers and online creators have been a positive part of this trend back towards meaning.

Another trend I see connected to the re-enchantment sphere is a move towards rural and analog lifestyles. People are exhausted and are looking for ways to move away from the matrix of cities, screens, and social media. Many Gen-Z’s are ditching their smartphones entirely and there is growing interest in farming, off-grid living, and building intentional communities. By doing these things I think they hope to give themselves the breathing room to cultivate meaning again.

I think these two connected trends are the manifestation of ways we are attempting to deal with the excess of Mercury, by 1) restoring meaning and 2) escaping the crumbling Tower of Babel we’ve constructed.

The Scattering of Nations

What does escaping the crumbling Tower of Babel look like? The Bible tells us.

These trends towards are a manifestation of the final stage of the Tower of Babel story- the scattering of the nations. This is the stage where the excessive mono-culture explodes into fragmented tribes that can no longer communicate with each other.

We’re seeing this happen in a few ways. The creation of online echo-chambers and the rise of extreme beliefs is one, another is the trend towards offline living. We are also seeing a new wave of tribal sentiment and an explosion of interest in religion. People are less interested in talking to others, less in interested in new ideas or hearing out alternative philosophies. There has been violent pushback against immigration in the West and calls for a return to populism and strong nation states. Gen-Z is perhaps the most politically divided generation ever, and its hard to find anyone who is neutral on anything.

We may not literally speak different languages, but it feels sometimes like we inhabit a completely different world than our cultural opponents. I think this feeling will only grow as ourTower of Babel story finishes playing out.

It won’t end for everyone, of course. Some people will choose to stay online in the AI-slop hellscape forever. But I think for most of us, we’re entering a new era that will not be primarily Mercurial, but something else.

But this scattering of people into tribes brings up some thoughts on the Bible story. Let’s return to this graph.

The scattering of the nations is often seen as a punishment, and it was. But I think it was also an act of God’s mercy, and I also think it is a natural part of this symbolic pattern. That is to say, the scattering of nations after humanity tries to build a false identity is actually a natural consequence, not an unnatural intervention.

If the world is dispersed as the consequence of coming all together unnaturally to serve a false identity, this saves mankind from the tyrannical false identity we created (at the bottom of the graph) and places us in a more neutral chaos (around the equator of the graph).

I think we can interpret this to mean that leaving the nations at the middle of the symbolic image freed them to make their own choice to either seek God or attempt to build another tower. This is why after the scattering of nations, Scripture says that God turned away from the nations and turned them over to other principalities. He did not reward us by lifting us up to the Holy Mountain (that does not happen until Christ), but He is still merciful by leaving us in a better place than at the bottom of the grave (or the top of the tower) we were digging for ourselves.

As our own Babel crumbles an era of tribalism is inevitable. The world is going to get clannish. There is nothing we can do to stop the scattering of the nations anymore than the people at the actual Tower of Babel could. What we can do is try to pick the right tribes to be a part of.

You can do this by picking the tribes that acted correctly during the last 20 years. That is, the communities that sought out meaning during the excess of Mercury. Those communities built the necessary tools to move forward into the new era.

However, this era of tribalism will have its own pitfalls after it fixes the issues it’s responding to. Don’t be surprised if in another 15 to 20 years we find ourselves in a culture that has become actually too tribalistic, closed-off, and frankly a longhouse. We may feel like crabs in a bucket. Wherever you find your tribe, put in the effort to actually build things and keep your eyes on higher meaning, rather than becoming tribal simply for the sake of being tribal. It is not enough to merely react against current problems, that is how the cycles repeats themselves.

I’ve spent a lot of words now dealing with combating Mercury, but of course, he’s not all bad. He’s a trickster, not a dark lord. We don’t have to abandon everything that was built over the last 20 years, a lot of it was good, even amazing. I am very grateful for the gifts the internet gave me and for how accessible travel and connection with others has been. So no, we should not reject Mercury.

Some people will inevitably do this though, and they are the ones who will become modern Luddites, modern longhouse grandmothers, they will idolize tribalism and disconnection from the larger world. They will take pride in their way of life and confuse it for actual spiritual superiority.

Demonizing a natural force is just as bad as idolizing it. I promise you many people in the next 10-20 years will make this mistake and you should avoid being one of them.

So if you want to understand how to use Mercury correctly in the coming era, there is a place you can look to where he serves the divine order perfectly.

The City of God

A monastery might look like the least Mercurial place you can imagine. Disconnected from the outside world, quiet, private. It might in fact look like the exact opposite, like an example of the extreme tribalism I have predicted will rise.

But it isn’t.

A monastery is a place that is perfectly Mercurial in just the right amount. Everything done in a monastery is connected. Every single day has a purpose, its own readings, its own commemorations on the calendar. Life at a monastery is structured, scheduled, and busy. The monks receive constantly updated prayer lists for others and for the events of the outside world, they are not living under a rock. And yet a monastery is a serene and peaceful place, because Mercury is doing his job in just the right amount, with none of the excesses that have caused our modern fatigue and overstimulation. You won’t see a monk scrolling on an iPhone.

Monasteries also host a steady stream of pilgrims and travelers. They work, they create, they sell goods. This is all Mercurial, but everything done in the monastery is done for God- they are a vision of the New Jerusalem.

A monastery is an anti-Babel.

It is a place where pilgrims from anywhere on Earth can come to find meaning, rest, and peace. It is a place where anyone can find understanding. There are many tales of pilgrims from foreign nations visiting a monastery, and when they spoke to one of the elders, the elder knew their native language and was able to converse with them. Only later would the pilgrim learn that the elder did not speak their language, but they were able to converse anyway. This is Mercury in service of a miracle, serving God rather than Babel.

This is God bringing the scattered nations back together. Not by giving them a universal language in a material sense, but a spiritual language, uniting us in Christ, through the Church.

This is what happened at Pentecost. This is what happens at Chrismation, when newly baptized Christians are anointed with holy oil and given the gift of the seal of the Holy Ghost. Their relationship with Heaven and Earth is restored, they are connected to God. The Church is where all the forces of the natural world come together in harmony, serving both God and man.

This is the antidote to Mercury poisoning.

In this series of essays I have examined how J.R.R. Tolkien used the backdrop of prehistoric Europe as the setting of his lengendarium. While it is widely accepted that he intended his works to take place in the “real world” in European pre-history, I argue that this was much more serious side to his work, the full extent of which he largely kept private.

If this is the first entry in this series that you’ve come across I highly recommended you read the others first. Part 1 examines how the map of Middle-Earth aligns to a map of ancient Europe before the rising sea levels drastically changed the landscape.

Part 2 examines Tolkien’s incorporation of lost lands like Atlantis and the sunken landmass “Doggerland” in what is now the North Sea.

In Part 3 I lay out my theory that the legend of Turin Turambar and specifically the site of his grave is based around the minuscule island of Rockall.

In Part 4 I explore the far northern reaches of Tolkien’s legends, and the connection between the Dark Lord Morgoth and the island of Jan Mayen.

Now in Part 5 I am going to examine a possible connection between the lost kingdom of Arnor, Nazi Germany, and the last vestiges of Doggerland.

This story begins in the aftermath of WW2.

On the 18th of April 1947, the British Royal Navy detonated 6,700 metric tons of explosives all at once on the North Sea island of Heligoland. This was (allegedly) done to destroy what remained of German military bases that were used there during WW2. At the time it was the largest single non-nuclear explosion ever recorded. It was named “Operation Big Bang”.

If this seems strange and excessive to you, especially considering that the war had ended two years prior, that’s because it is indeed a very strange event, and little talked about.

I have a hunch that J.R.R. Tolkien may have had an interest in the island and in what the Nazis’ were really doing on it.

So far in this series we have seen how the islands of Rockall, Jan Mayen, Iceland, and Faroe all have locations connected with them in Tolkien’s legendarium. We have also examined how central the lost land of Doggerland is to the history of Middle-Earth, specifically as the location of the lost kingdom of Arnor.

It appears that Tolkien wanted to write a legend for all of the notable lost lands and islands in northwestern Europe. Because of what I have found already in this series, I have to conclude that would be very strange indeed if Tolkien ignored Heligoland, as it is a historically important island and also one of the last remnants of Doggerland. My intuition is that he must have included it somewhere.

But which of Tolkien’s legends could be connected with Heligoland?

I thought about this for a while before an obvious answer jumped out at me. Heligoland, in my opinion, must be the location of the watchtower of Amon Sûl, or Weathertop. I’m not sure why this did not occur to me years ago in Part 1 or Part 2 of this series, but upon examining the evidence I think there is a very strong case for this being one of Tolkien’s most intentional connections to a real location in modern Europe, and perhaps his most direct incorporation of the events of WW2 into his legends.

To begin with we should look at the geography. I’ve already shown in earlier entries in this series that Arnor corresponds to Doggerland and the modern North Sea. With this in mind one can also see that Weathertop and Heligoland both fall in the southeast of those regions. Tolkien’s map are not particularly detailed, so any correlation like this is I think probably his intention. I should note right away that I am aware of the discrepancy between the shapes of Heligoland and Weathertop, but I’ll get to that later on.

The function of Weathertop in the history of Arnor also has many similarities to the real history of Heligoland.

Weathertop was primarily used as a lookout and a meeting place, notable for being where the King Elendil stood atop the hill to wait for the hosts of Gil-Galad out of the West. During the civil wars of Arnor all three kingdoms clashed over ownership of the hill as it lay directly where the borders of the three kingdoms met. It is of course also where both Gandalf and Aragorn choose to stop to rest and watch along their journeys in the Fellowship of the Ring. It is the location in Arnor that appears the most often in the legendarium and seems to hold the greatest importance.

Heliogoland is a small island but one that has, like Weathertop, been historically valuable for its strategic location. It has been fought over by the surrounding powers in the North Sea for centuries and during the 19th century it became a major German naval base. Its etymology is connected to the Frisian king Helgi and means something like “Holy Land”. During WW2 naval battles were fought at the island, and the British conducted air raids on it throughout the war, eventually to the extent that the entire population of the island was evacuated. After the war of course came the famous Operation Big Bang.

Heligoland is also notable for being the largest piece of Doggerland left within the North Sea. I think it makes perfect sense that Tolkien would give this island just as much important in pre-history as it had in his own time. It would also be in keeping with a recurring pattern in his myths that certain important locations remain above the waves when a land is lost to the sea.

This is already enough to make a strong case for an intentional connection, but I think we can go further.

The connection to Nazi esotericism is where this entry is going to get a bit speculative. My intuition is that the story of the kingdoms of Arnor fighting over Weathertop and specifically over the palantir stored in the tower is inspired by the events of WW2 and has something to do with Nazi occultism and the British army’s massive explosion on the island.

The palantiri are magical relics from Númenor (Atlantis). This sort of esoteric artifact is exactly the kind of thing that Nazi Germany occultists were obsessed with. In Tolkien’s history, the final clash at Weathertop is between King Arveleg and the Witch-King of Angmar, a demonic spirit from the time of Númenor. The Witch-King destroys the tower at Weathertop, but notably he fails to win the palantir which is taken away and hidden.

Now, I do not know of any evidence that there was anything esoteric going on with the Nazi’s on Heligoland. However, Operation Big Bang is a very strange event. Why did the Allies want to destory the island so completely? Was it really just to keep the Germans from using the island as a base again in the future? What was really happening on this “Holy Land”. I think one could view the legend through the lens of the kingdom of Arthedain representing the Allies and the forces of the Witch-King representing the Nazis. The Witch-King’s failure to attain the palantir could be inspired by the Allies victory over Germany and perhaps their foiling of some occult operation that was taking place on Heligoland. This is speculative I know, but I can’t help but wonder if Tolkien also wondered about the truth behind Operation Big Bang. He certainly viewed Nazi occultism as sorcerous.

As an interesting side point, the only building that survived Operation Big Bang was the Heligoland Lighthouse. A lighthouse serves a similar function to a watchtower, and I can’t help but think this may have been in Tolkien’s mind when he created Weathertop.

It is also interesting that Weathertop is the focal point of these ancient civil wars in Tolkien’s myths, because WW2 was also a brother war. A recurring theme I have found with Tolkien is that similar stories will play out at a location throughout the ages I think he may have envisioned Heligoland as a place where the Germanic peoples fight one another when they are divided. The pattern is of an ancient holy hill that is eventually fought over when the people splinter. I wonder if the Frisian King Helgi had any connection to Elendil or a king of Arthedain in Tolkien’s mind.

Some may remark that Weathertop is described as conical in shape, and Heligoland is not. But I would point out that Weathertop is also described as being flat at the top, and Heligoland is a very flat island. Is does not take much imagination to imagine Weathertop as a very large hill in prehistory, that has since mostly crumbled into the North Sea, leaving a remnant that is no longer spherical. I think in light of the other connections I have made, this details is small in comparison.

If I am right in this connection, then with this entry we have connected almost every notable island around Northwestern Europe with a legend in Tolkien’s legendarium. It raises questions about what exactly Tolkien thought about the nature of Heligoland and the Nazi’s interest in it. Perhaps a quest to the island to discover the truth is in order.

On September 2nd of last year I flew to London. I had last been in England in February of 2024 after living there for seven months. The day before I left I travelled to Glastonbury to see the Abbey, drink from the holy wells, and climb the Tor. It was a fitting end that adventure.

18 months later, I was headed back to do it all again.

Gavin, a good friend of mine in London, had the idea to take a road trip pilgrimage across southwestern England, stopping at notable sites of Arthurian legend and other holy sites. Starting in London, we would travel down to the furthest extremity of Cornwall and then make our way east, ending at St. Michael’s tower atop Glastonbury Tor, at the legendary Isle of Avalon. Along the way we would stop at Tintagel Castle, St. Michael’s Mount, Dozmary Pool, and other sites made famous by the legends of King Arthur. The point of it all, beyond having a great time with the boys, was to try and connect with England’s Christian past and that hidden spirit that still lies beneath the decaying carcass of modern Britain- the spirit of Logres.

Beyond Arthurian myths we added more to the plan, and stumbled across even more by “chance”- exploring an abandoned mine, ley lines, wild camping in Dartmoor national park, ancient standing stones, and a pub or two.

And in the end it turned out to be something more than just a road-trip. We did indeed find ourselves in a more mythical world, and we may have played a small part in some sort of spiritual warfare. But that’s not because we’re anything special. We all live in the same world, a world of magic and faerie and enchantment, its just that many of us have forgotten about it. But that world is still out there, and there still true adventures to be had. I hope that this brief recollection of our quest may inspire you to go find your own.

Any good quest needs a fellowship, so we assembled one. Luckily, when you run an adventure fraternity you’re never left wanting for companions. Our fraternity is named Dark Forest Company. We’re a group of men seeking the heroic ideal, and we organize these sort of adventures all over the world. In the end we had a party of ten- five Londoners, one lad from Nottingham, one from Wiltshire, one from Cornwall, finally myself and one more American to keep things interesting.

I arrived to a London covered in gloom.

It was Gavin and I’s first time actually meeting in person. But I’ve been meeting internet friends in real life for years now, so this was nothing out of the ordinary. We hit it off right away, and we had time to kill while waiting for my American friend’s flight to arrive, so Gavin took me on a quick tour of the city to see some of the sights I hadn’t gotten around to my first time in the country.

It was a comically miserable day in London. Wet, dreary, depressing. Depressing for everyone we saw at least- Gavin and I were having a great time in spite of the atmosphere. We got some dirty looks on the underground tram for smiling and having friendly conversation. Maybe this behavior offended the local sensibility.

We walked past what remains of the Roman walls and the Tower of London before stopping into a little church that, unknown to us, housed the famous explorer Ernest Shackleton’s Crow’s Nest barrel, casually sitting out in the open. When you’re in a place as historic as London maybe this is nothing special, but to the American mind it is truly remarkable how satiated with history this little island is.

Underneath the church was a museum and the remants of a Knights Templar chapel. The usher of the church was a kind old man who offered to give us a tour. He was what you’d imagine as a classic Londoner, someone who grew up in a very different London than the one that exists today.

He began commenting to us about how London has changed and about our English heritage. He made a point to include me, an American, we he said “our” heritage. This man didn’t believe that to be English means to be a citizen of the United Kingdom. No, this man was talking about blood and folk. It was encouraging to meet someone like this in London, and a compliment to Gavin and I that he felt he could share his honest opinions with us. It makes me sad to think of this old man seeing his country change around him, and how unlikely it is that he will live to see things get better. But people like him are what keep the little flame burning.

Next was the London Stone. This is an odd story. This stone has been circulating in London since at least the 12th century and if legends be true, for much longer than that. The earliest legends say Brutus of Troy founded the city on this stone. Others say this is the very stone a young King Arthur pulled the sword from. It has been moved to many different locations in the city over the years, currently it resides behind a glass wall on a seemingly random street corner. Who knows the truth, but it was a good way to start our Arthurian adventure.

We walked on to St. Paul’s, which I was looking forward to, but in keeping with the miserable attitude of London that day, it was closed for renovations. They must have planned that just for me. At least I got my touristy photo with the phone booth.

We strolled on through the gloom a while longer until it was time to get back to the airport and pick up our American companion to start the adventure proper. We picked up Daniel and hit the road in a very small British car (the British soul yearns for the American 4x4 pickup truck).

We were already breaking with the original road trip plan a bit. We were meant to begin in Cornwall, and Glastonbury was supposed to be the end of the quest. But Daniel was going to have to leave the trip a day early for work, and we couldn’t let him come all this way only to miss out on Avalon. So on our way down to Cornwall we decided we would stop to see the Tor early.

We drove west into Wiltshire where we passed Stonehenge along the Highway. We didn’t stop, but there’s something very strange about seeing such a mysterious ancient site from a modern road.

Soon we crossed into Somerset. There’s something ethereal about this beautiful county, something that feels untouched. A piece of old England kept alive by unseen principalities, perhaps. As we neared the town of Glastonbury we saw the Tor rise above the treeline. Our Arthurian Quest had truly begun.

Glastonbury is a weird town. For two thousand years it has been the spiritual center of England. For a long time this was because Glastonbury Abbey was the largest and most powerful monastery on the island. But while the monastery has long lain in ruin, the town is still very much a spiritual center. The town is chockfull of New Age shops, druids, neo-pagans, witches and occultists. Something very real draws this sort of person to the town, and I think some of them are genuine seekers. Of course, they’re looking in all the wrong places, but the power they feel is real. Glastonbury is a Christian holy place and that power still pervades the ground.

First we walked the ruins of the great abbey. This island is littered with the ruin of the work of the Protestant Reformation and King Henry VIII. During King Henry’s dissolution of the monasteries the abbey fell into disrepair, and its last abbot was draw, quartered, and hanged on Glastonbury Tor in 1539. Glastonbury then ceased to be the center of Christianity in the isle, and the blood soaked into the ground has been crying out ever since. The ruins of the monastery are hauntingly beautiful. It is also the purported site of Arthur and Guinevere’s graves, although this is one legend that I think may have been fabricated in the Middle Ages.

On the abbey grounds still live the last of the Holy Thorns, the sacred trees that bloom on Christmas Day, that are said to have been brought to the isle of Avalon by St. Joseph of Arimathea. I’ve written about them before:

On our way up to the Tor we stopped to drink from the Chalice Well, also known as the Red Spring. There are two versions of the legend of this holy well. One claims that St. Joseph buried the Holy Grail inside the Tor, and from it sprang the well. The other claims that he buried two vials, one filled with Christ’s blood and the other with His tears, and from these sprang the Red and White Springs respectively, the White Spring being another holy well just across the street from the Chalice Well garden. Whatever the truth is, the water is full of iron and indeed tastes like blood. Inside the chalice well garden at the foot of the Tor we were met by another one of our companions, Jake, which seemed like a fitting and symbolic place to meet on a spiritual quest. Together we prayed and drank from the well, and then ascended the Tor together. As we began our ascent a rainbow broke out across the sky, crowning St. Michael’s Tower. As omens go, this seemed fortuitous.

We spent some time at the tower soaking in the power of the place. There is a unique quality around the Tor that is hard to explain to somehow who’s never been there. It’s an untouched piece of England, and there’s nothing but pastoral green in a panoramic view all around it. While standing at the tower you can’t help but feel that the legends are true, that this is the isle of Avalon and that King Arthur will one day return at this very spot to save Britain. We left the Tor satisfied but already ready to be back in four days’ time.

As the sun set we began our long drive down to Penzance in Cornwall. We arrived late in the night at a hostel outside of town where we met with two more of our friends, Aiden and our young Cornishman, Ross.

We had another day and a half to fill before the start of the planned Arthurian roadtrip. There would be four more Londoners in our final group, but they were not joining us until Friday evening. Luckily, our local guide Ross had plans for us.

Thursday morning we started with a very mid-tier Full English breakfast at the hostel, then we drove out to a local supply store. We all had to get outfitted in water proof pants, Wellington boots, and hardhats, because Ross was taking us down an abandoned mine.

I have to mention that at this shop something happened which continued to happen the entire week. The cashier was baffled by us. Not just by the fact that we were going down a mine, but simply by a large group of young men hanging out like this at all. He wanted to know if we were a bachelor party, and seemed confused when we told him that we were just friends on a road trip. This happened in multiple restaurants and stores during the week. I’ve never experienced this attitude in the United States. It almost felt as if the British culture didn’t trust a group of young, in-shape white men banded together and having fun. Much to consider there.

We geared up and headed out to the Tywarnhayle mine, a copper and tin mine that was active in the 1800s. Long abandoned, they occasionally use it for training miners. Our friend Ross just happens to work in the mining industry, and is a spelunker and mine explorer in his free time.

He assured us that it was all perfectly safe, and down into the darkness we went.

It was perfectly safe as long as you ignored the arsenic and passages marked “bad air” on Ross’s (hand-drawn from memory) map. We had brought mead and fresh baked Cornish pasties which we ate at the bottom of the mine in the pitch blackness to get an authentic Cornish experience. Exiting the mine was simple, all you had to do was climb a few hundred feet up an ancient ladder. We had a few questions about Ross’ definition of “perfectly safe”, but no one died so we can’t complain too much. We’re just glad we made it out of Moria unscathed.

Later that afternoon, after we had washed all the grime off ourselves we drove out to Loe Bar on the coast. The freshwater lake called the “Loe” is only separated from the ocean by a very small strip of land (the “Bar”), which creates a really unique setting. And this beautiful little spot has some interesting lore attached to it.

The Loe is one of the lakes attested to be the place where Sir Bedivere returned Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake, and Lord Alfred Tennyson chose it as such for his Idylls of the King. There is an ominous local legend that the Loe claims one life every seven years. I also found this tale (picture below) in a coffee table book of mysterious places, but have been unable to find a reference to it anywhere else.

We spent the evening at The Ship Inn in Portleven. Back at the hostel, the Brits introduced us Americans to a local concoction called “scrumpy” which incapacitated one of our merry men, who will remain unnamed.

Friday morning we drove out to Land’s End, the westernmost point of England. Ironically enough, the location of the sign that says “Land’s End” where everyone takes their tourist pictures (next to the gift shop) is not actually at the real westernmost point. It’s a much-maligned tourist attraction, and we had to practically drag our Cornish friend along.

But we managed to turn the pinnacle of British dullness into a fun time by completely ignoring all of that. We didn’t even stop by the tourist center, instead we walked straight down to the actual cliffside that marks the real Land’s End. There was an entire crowd of Brits looking down towards it where a rope barrier marked “danger”, and we got some dirty looks for ignoring this and climbing over it in jovial American fashion. It was actually quite serene along those jagged cliffs far from the tourists and commercialization of the place. For a few brief peaceful moments we were the westernmost men in England. Much to ponder about that.

As we made our way back up from Land’s End we stopped in at the little Church of St. Just, named after a local Cornish Saint who I had never heard of before. St. Just was along the way to one of the most interesting and mysterious stops of our journey- Mên-an-Tol.

Mên-an-tol is an odd little formation of standing stones. It consists of three stones in a straight line with the round middle stone being holed out. Local folklore says that passing through the middle stone can have all sort of strange effects, from increasing fertility to healing back pain and rickets. We crawled through for a laugh, but as far as I know none of us have sired any children since then, so the experiment remains inconclusive.

Mên-an-tol is located along “The Tinners Way”, an ancient trackway that has been in use since Neolithic times, and its also a meeting point for many Cornish ley lines. Ley lines became a notable part of our adventure, but I’ll get to that later.

After this stop our side-questing was over. Friday evening was the planned start to our official Arthurian road-trip, which meant it was time to go meet up with the rest of our party. We met our four Londoners at a pub in Penzance before driving up to where we’d be camping out.

It was a short trek out to a great campsite. Gavin had found an old “folly” called Roger’s Tower where we’d be able to camp with a great view of St. Michael’s Mount, our first big stop that we’d be hitting the next morning. For whatever reason the castle was lit up blue that night, and in the moonlight it looked like something mythical.

We got an early start the following morning. First we got a few album cover shots at the folly, and then drove into town to tour the castle. To walk to the isle you have to wait for the tide to go out, so we watched the waters subside while we had one of the better Full English breakfasts of the trip. As a side note, after all the time I’ve spent in England I still can’t do the beans. As the tide went out the causeway slowly rose out of the water.

This is a good place to stop and talk about ley lines.

St. Michael’s Mount is notable for being the point where two famous ley lines associated with St. Michael intersect.

What exactly is a ley line? Know one knows for certain what their origin or purpose is. But a ley line is a series of three or more notable sites that lie in a perfectly straight line. They can be found all over the world, but Britain is absolutely covered in them. Some propose that they channel electro-magnetic earth energies, or that they mark astronomical lines. What is certain is that most of the sites on them go back to the Neolithic era if not even further. Most churches in Britain were built on sites that were already in use in pagan times, and so many of them fall on ley lines.

The two most famous ley line in the world perhaps are both associated with St. Michael. The one line runs cross England, while the other, sometimes called the “Sword of St. Michael” or the “Apollo-Michael Line”, connects sacred sites dedicated to St. Michael across all of Europe, from the Holy Land to Ireland. The English St. Michael line includes Glastonbury Tor, St. Michael’s Mount, Avebury, Burrow Mump, St. Michael’s Brentor, and Bury St. Edmund’s among other sites.

St. Michal’s Mount is where the two lines intersect, and it is where legends say that the giant Cormoran was killed by “Jack the Giant Killer” during the reign of King Arthur. Legend also states that St. Michael appeared on the island to some local fisherman.

What is so interesting about our trip is that Gavin planned it out without knowing anything about these ley lines, and yet he included three of the sites in our plan- Glastonbury Tor, St. Michael’s Mount, and St. Michael’s Brentor. I believe he did not even know at the time that the tower on Glastonbury Tor is dedicated to St. Michael. So while the trip was intended to focus on Arthurian legend, it ended up including a strong connection to ley lines and St. Michael as well, which will become important later.

But this was when the forces of darkness first began to work against our adventure. We walked all the way across the causeway to the island only to find that St. Michael’s Mount is closed on Saturdays. This was crushing, as this stop was meant to be one of the highlights of the trip and along with Glastonbury Tor is one of the most sacred sites associated with both St. Michael and Arthurian legend in all of England.

Despite the closed gates we knew we could not move on without at least stepping foot on this sacred isle, so we walked around the side and climbed up the stone walls for some quick photos on the grounds. We got yelled at by a resident for trespassing, but it was a small price to pay.

As we headed back to our caravan we stumbled across a Hobbit-like folk music performance.. It was a small thing, but it marks a good place to comment on Cornwall itself. Much like Somerset, Cornwall felt largely untouched by the ails of modern Britain. It appeared pastoral and safe, a bit of an island in dark waters. It’s naturally beautiful as well with a unique biome for Britain. I hope to return to get the full experience at St. Michael’s Mount another day.

Our next stop was St. Cuthbert’s Cave at Holywell. One local legend suggests that St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne’s relics (bones) were removed in the year 995 to prevent them from being stolen from Viking raiders. While the escaping monks were trying to sail to Ireland, their boat blew off course and ended up in Cornwall. When they left, it was said that Cuthbert’s holy remains touched the waters of the cave, giving them magical powers.

It was on the way here that the forces of darkness once again set out to derail our adventure. Our caravan of cars was split up and only half of us made it to the site. The well itself we found in a small cave tucked out of the way and only accessible at low tide. We got actually got caught by the incoming tide while exploring the cave and had to strip off our boots and socks as we made it out. The beaches were really beautiful, nothing like the average person’s mental image of Britain.

At this point our quest took its strongest Arthurian bent yet. We drove further north to Tintagel, the place King Arthur is believed to have been conceived by Uther Pendragon in disguise. Not much remains of the ancient castle, just a few ruins and the outline of some buildings. In that sense the site is frankly underwhelming. But the air of the place is has something mystic and ancient to it, and I suspect that is the real reason it draws such a large number of tourists.

Tintagel is also the home of the famous Gallos statue. It’s often referred to as the King Arthur state, but it doesn’t actually depict King Arthur or any other specific figure. The statue’s name is Gallos, a named invented by the sculptor, and is meant to represent the spirit of the place. I think it succeeds in this. It stands at the highest point of Tintagel where the winds nearly knock you off your feet. The statue captures something of the Arthurian spirit but also something far older than that.

We all felt deeply affected by the soul of this place. I think we assumed this was going to be the highlight of our day, but there was a surprise in store for us.

But before we could get to that, the forces of darkness again attempted to sabotage our quest- one of our number had a hole in his tire when we got back to the Tintagel parking lot. Normally this wouldn’t be a big issue, but he did not have a spare and we were in the middle of nowhere, with no services to replace or fix the tire. This would have genuinely thrown a major wrench in our weekend, luckily our man Jacob was living up to the Dark Forest Company’s motto of being “Quest-Ready” and just so happened to have a full tire repair kit in his vehicle. This requires some context. Jake has been known to over-prepare and show up to adventures with comical amounts of gear. He has been the butt of plenty jokes for this, so this was his moment of vindication (and glory) and we genuinely have to hand it to him. Thanks to him the quest continued.

We drove further north to Bodmin Moor, and after dinner at an enormous pub that almost captured the feeling of a American country family restaurant we hiked out to our next Arthurian site- Dozmary Pool. Like Loe Bar, this is a site where legends say Arthur received Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake, and also where Sir Bedivere returned the sword at Arthur’s death.

Honestly we expected this stop would be one of the less interesting ones on our itinerary. When Gavin was planning the trip I think he saw this as a side attraction compared to Tintagel, or Glastonbury, or St. Michael’s Mount.

But there was something incredibly powerful about this place. I am finding it hard to put into words here, you really just had to be there to understand. As we stood there at the water it felt different than Loe Bar had. Loe Bar was a nice spot, but this was different. At Dozmary Pool one could not help but feel that this really was the place where the Lady of the Lake had appeared so many centuries ago. I don’t have any way to explain it, but after we had left the Pool and discussed it we found that many of us had privately experienced the same feeling.

And perhaps the Lady of the Lake was really there with us, because at the pool we also received a revelation about our quest. The next day, Sunday, was when we’d be returning to Glastonbury Tor for the climax of our adventure. It would be September 7th. As we sat at the Pool we remarked at how large and orange the moon was, which prompted us to look up which day the full moon would be. We found that not only was it going to be the next day, while we were on the Tor, but it was not just any full moon. September 7th was the date of the eclipse, the blood moon, which meant we’d be at one of the most important esoteric sites in England on the day of a rare astrological event. We had not planned the trip for this, so the coincidence felt providential, as if the quest was now leading up to something mysterious. Glastonbury is a hub in England for New Age activity, so we knew the atmosphere there on the Tor the next night would be unlike any other time we’ve visited.

That night we camped in an abandoned quarry in the famous Dartmoor National Park. The park is notable for being the only place in England or Wales where “wild camping” is technically allowed, or where the “right-to-roam” exists. Dartmoor is also the setting of many famous legends and the home turf of one of my favorite storytellers , so it was fun to get to soak in a bit of the atmosphere. In the morning we got to jaunt around the abandoned quarry a bit, but since we were on such a fast-paced schedule we did not get to see much else of Dartmoor. One day I’ll return to really explore the place.

We drove on to our next stop along the St. Michael ley line, the church of St. Michael de Rupe at Brentor.

It’s a small, lonesome church atop a windy tor. The local legend is that the church was meant to be constructed at the bottom of the hill, but the “Devil” kept moving the stones to the top to thwart the builders. Undaunted, the villagers simply built the church at the top of the hill. Folk stories like this where some unknown force seems to influence the site of construction are actually commonplace with sacred and mysterious sites, especially on ley lines. Sites dedicated to St. Michael are usually found at the top of high places like this, so I am inclined to think blaming the devil rather than an angel for the church’s placement is perhaps a mistake. There was a strong masculine energy at the top of this windy, forlorn hill. I was struck by how much it felt like Glastonbury Tor in a spiritual sense. St. Michael seems to choose his strongholds well.

It was Sunday morning, so we took a moment to pray in this serene chapel before facing the end stage of our quest.

It was finally time to return to Glastonbury. I can’t speak for all the members of our party, but at least myself and couple of the others had a sense of something close to apprehension of being on the Tor during the blood moon. Not that we were worried about anything tangible, but we shared a feeling that we were headed for something strange.

The next few hours were spent driving from Dartmoor back to the green vales of Somerset. Immediately upon arriving back in Glastonbury we could tell something was off. The whole place was buzzing and was it packed full of people compared to a few days prior. Specifically it was packed with New-Age and Neo-pagan hippie types.

Upon arriving we realized something. The “Avalon Now” mural, which I’ve always liked, is just opposite the parking lot where we arrived. I think it is intended to depict the Sun setting over the Tor, but we were struck by how it could also be interpreted as the impending blood moon. That we were there to witness the scene from this mural that I’ve appreciated for years struck us as strangely fortuitous.

The members of our group that hadn’t been there on Wednesday went to see the Abbey while the rest of us perused some of the bookshops. Most of the shops are full of interesting esoteric and mythic materials, on everything from Arthurian legend to ley lines to pre-flood civilizations. But at least one shop we stumbled into was carrying genuinely dark and disturbing books that I can only describe as black magic. And it was the kind that appeared quite real, rather than the sort of silly performative witchy or Wiccan stuff that you might usually expect to find.

But this was only the beginning of the darkness we came across in Glastonbury that day. Some of our crew had already climbed the Tor, so myself, Gavin, and Daniel were set to climb it together again just like earlier in the week. But first we went to make our customary stop to drink at the Chalice Spring. We could hardly find a place to park anywhere near the Tor that day, but eventually we found our way to the base of the hill. The usually serene well was surrounded by hippies and Wiccans playing drums, smoking weed, dancing, clearly preparing to observe the Blood Moon in some way. My friends and I walked straight through the crowd to the well, where to our great annoyance someone had put an icon of the Hindu god Kali on top of the holy well. I threw it down before my friends and I drank. I think we got some glares, but no one challenged us as we walked back through the crowd to ascend the Tor. We felt that we were headed to a meaningful end to our adventure, but we had no idea how.

As we approached the Tower we were approached by a figure I can only call a Puck. He was dressed in a clown mask and costume, singing and dancing in a spritely and unwholesome way.

As he danced down towards us he called out,

“Have you completed your spiritual Quest?”

I thought this was odd considering the nature of our adventure and the nature of the astronomical event that would soon be taking place.

I answered him simply as best I could,

“Not yet.”

We walked on and found the rest of our friends at the top of the Tor.

Funnily enough, we learned that the reason Puck had been heading down the hill was that he had just gotten into an altercation with one of our friends who sent him packing. Apparently Puck had been sperging out about the gnostic gospels and how the Rothschilds are poisoning the ley lines (this part may be true, who knows) while approaching people with his dancing and generally annoying behavior. Our friend had told him to stop being effeminate and weird and just be a normal Christian, which is probably the best advice the guy could have gotten.

The Sun was setting in the west. We spent some time together at the tower before our Londoners and our friend from Nottingham had to say their goodbyes and begin their journeys home.

Our band was down to the original five, and the Blood Moon was rising soon.

The place began to fill up with people. At first it was mostly normal-looking people like us, people that were probably just there to watch the Blood Moon rise over the eastern hills.

It was an incredible night on the Tor. The setting sun against the clouds made for a stunning panoramic view over the countryside. For those that are interested in astronomical symbolism, the sun was setting in the constellation of Leo, and the Blood Moon was set to rise out of the constellation of Aquarius and right next to the planet Saturn. Interesting to say the least.

But as it got darker things began to get weird. There were hippies with drums, Neo-pagans with staffs and crazed eyes in Celtic costumes, an Irish guy with a Palestinian flag (?), shamans in black cloaks, and our friend Puck who must have quietly returned. Most disturbingly of all, a young couple with dark eyes dressed ragged cloaks. They were walking in circles around the tower holding an open flame, chanting, and the woman was missing an arm. When she looked at me I thought of Morgan Le Fay.

We were getting closer and closer to the time the Blood Moon was set to rise, and all of the New Agers and Neo-pagans crowded into the tower and started beating drums and chanting and screeching. It turned into something truly unsettling and we could not even approach the tower. It was incredibly frustrating to see a Christian site taken over in this way.

It was cloudy in the east, and at the official time of moonrise nothing could be seen. The chanting and screeching became even more frantic and wild, I guess they were trying to manifest the event. I walked in a circle around the tower and said my own prayers as a sort of counter to whatever the sorcerer couple had been doing.

A few more minutes went by and myself and my friends were stood in our own little circle watching the eastern horizon, sharing our thoughts with one another. At this point the sun had set, it was getting darker, and we were past the time of moonrise. We were all convinced that there was something spiritual about the situation even if we did not know exactly what it meant. We thought we had come to watch the Blood Moon rise over the Tor like in the mural, but now we all began to hope that the moon would not show at all. We did not want these heathens to get whatever it was they were praying for. We began to feel like the mural was not depicting an interesting sight but rather a reality that we wanted to avoid or even fight against. It almost felt like our entire journey had led us here to this moment for the purpose of standing against something, somehow.

It felt as if the all these screaming heathens and the rising Blood Moon represented something about the spiritual state of Britain, something about its rot and decay. And somehow we were on the side of the setting Sun in the west, if you will pardon my romanticism.

But what could we do? That’s the hard thing about spiritual warfare, it doesn’t look for us like it looks in a fairy-tale. We were just a regular group of guys on a road trip. Sure, we had intended for it to be somewhat of a pilgrimage, but we are neither wizards nor great saints. There we stood, a little circle of Christians surrounded by the screams of heathens. Of course, these weren’t “real” witches or sorcerers in the same way we are not real Knights of the Round Table. And yet, symbolism has an odd way of playing out in real life.

So in the end we did the only thing we could do, we prayed. First we prayed the famous prayer called St. Patrick’s breastplate which invokes the Trinity, Christ, the saints and angels and the heavenly powers, the powers of nature, and protection against sorcery and demonic powers.

Then we said the traditional prayer to St. Michael the Archangel- we were on his ley line and at his tower after all, and our whole trip had ended up involving him in a way Gavin had not originally intended. I had to wonder if he had been leading us to this moment the whole trip, including us in some small way in his battle against the darkness.

Between the two prayers it felt like we had done whatever small part we could, against something that we did not fully understand.

The Blood Moon never shone through the clouds.

We are not under any impression that we “stopped” something from occurring. That would be silly. And yet it would be just as silly to think our prayers and actions have no weight, that God does not use human beings for His purposes. I think it would be unwise to try and explain the ending to our adventure atop Glastonbury Tor. None of us fully understood it, we just knew we had experienced something special.

After our prayers and the absence of the Blood Moon we all knew that the quest was finished. We knew it was time to leave the Tor. The druids and hippies were still chanting and screaming for the Moon to show, and yet somehow they had lost all of their dread. It had turned to empty noise. We somehow knew they were chanting in vain and there was no longer any chance of their success.

We walked down the Tor in the twilight and said goodbye to Avalon.

We finished our night in Bath at a pub named the Crystal Palace, one of my old hangouts from when I was living near the city. Spirits were high. That night after a stroll through the streets of Bath we said goodbye to Gavin, who had to get back to London. The remaining four of us were staying the night in Bath. The true quest was over, but we had one last Arthurian site to pay homage to.

Only three of us would make it there, because early in the morning our Cornish friend had to head home as well. So myself, Daniel, and Jake made our way up Badon Hill, the site of Arthur’s first battle. From here you can get a great view of the city of Bath, and we spent some time there talking over the adventure we’d just been on together, pondering King Arthur, and Logres, and St. Michael, and the future of England.

But now the adventure was coming to its close. We drove Daniel to Heathrow airport. I spent one last night in England exploring London with my friend Jake before I too flew back home.

In the end this is the story of a simple road trip, but to us it meant so much more than that. Walking in the steps of the legends that mean so much to us and mean so much for the spirit of Britain. Connecting with the true spirit of England that lies beneath the rot. Paying homage to the great Christian sites that give power and identity to this little island. We had gone to Avalon and back again, and God had used us for some purpose that we may never understand, and we’re okay with that. It’s not our role to fully understand the deep mysteries of the world, only to play our parts as best we can.

Christ takes care of the rest.

   Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb
Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw,
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,
Down that long water opening on the deep
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go
From less to less and vanish into light.
And the new sun rose bringing the new year.

"Brothers shall strive and slaughter each other;
Own sisters’ children shall sin together;
Ill days among men, many a whoredom:
An axe-age, a sword-age, shields shall be cloven;
A wind-age, a wolf-age, ere the world totters."

- Völuspá

We’ve seen this all before, I think.

Mankind is not progressing, but we are not regressing either, not really.

We are cycling- spinning, rising, turning, falling, again and again and again.

Garden, Fall, Quest, Citadel, Empire, Pride, Fire, Flood, Darkness… Then reset the board, call up a new cast, play it again and again until Judgement Day.

There is no use in arguing about whether we should look to the past or the future for the answers. It’s all everywhere, the light and the darkness, Paradise and Babylon, eternally in our past and our future. It is cycles and wheels all the way down until the end of the world.

Speaking of which, that is what I want to talk about. The End. Not just the end of the world in a macrocosmic, Armageddon sense (though I’ll get to that), but this eternal cycle of endings, the symbolic “end” that we constantly endure in this fallen world, here in the maw of the Ouroboros.

The Wheel of Time

The Ouroboros, the world-encircling serpent eating its own tail, is the symbolic image of the cyclic aspect of reality. This great dragon, which can be identified with the Leviathan or the Norse Jörmungandr, represents the cyclic nature of the world, specifically the cyclic nature of a fallen world. A world where things begin with good promise and rise but inevitably fall and are swallowed up before a new cycle begins. Things have not always been this way, but ever since we left Paradise, it is all we have known.

The circle that the Ouroboros creates (or rather, surrounds) is also the Sun Wheel. Mythologist Joseph Campbell called the journey along this wheel “The Hero’s Journey,” but Campbell did not invent this structure; it is the universal pattern that all created things follow. It is the pattern the sun follows throughout the course of day, but also the pattern you follow in any action you take, the pattern of any story that is told—and therefore, at the most macrocosmic level, the entire story of our fallen universe can be set within this framework.

Symbolically, the “Abyss” at the winter solstice (bottommost) point of the wheel is where the Ouroboros swallows the sun and the cycle begins anew. That point would symbolize the end of the world, but on a smaller scale it can be the end of absolutely anything. It is at this point where a “Ragnarök” happens.

What is a Ragnarök? It is the name for the mythic Norse Apocalypse, where the gods die in a final battle and a new world is reborn from the ashes. The symbolic and cyclical nature of the story makes it an apt name for the pattern we are talking about.

When anything ends, that is a “Ragnarök,” no matter how small that ending may be.

But reality is not only cyclic, it is also fractal. Meaning some cycles are larger and more meaningful than others and contain many smaller cycles within themselves. Which means that any point in time may be both the beginning of one cycle and the end of another. Or, one point in time may be the beginning of numerous cycles of vastly different scopes that will end at completely different times.

Simply imagine a series of concentric circles. The largest, imagine as the cycle of the entire cosmos from beginning to end. Within that, there is an infinite number of smaller cycles. Now imagine that as a wheel spinning, a seemingly infinite series of cycles growing increasingly tighter while moving up towards a final point. Constant cycles and infinite Ragnaröks all leading up to where all the circles converge and reality folds in on itself- the “Alpha and Omega” point, or the Eschaton. Along this journey to the end of the world are an infinite number of smaller endings. This is what I mean by “Fractal Ragnarök.”

For this reason, it is sometimes difficult to talk about the idea of the “end times” and especially a bad idea to try and predict when they will happen, because “end times” are happening constantly- something is always ending. And if it’s something big enough, like the collapse of a civilization, it may well feel like the end of the world even if it is not. This is especially relevant to us, as we live in a time where the symbolism of the end-times is appearing more and more frequently. Whether or not we are actually approaching the end, people certainly feel like we are, which is relevant all on its own.

Maybe you believe in the Christian conception of the end-times, maybe you don’t. But for a moment, just assume that we really are approaching the end of the great tale, because looking at the macrocosm can often be the easiest way to understand a symbolic pattern.

I want us to imagine, what would it be like to face the final Ragnarök, the final turn of the wheel? If we are really living near the end of the world, what strange things should we expect to see? What happens at the end of a story?

Wheels Within Wheels

Belief in the Eschaton, or a final Ragnarök, is what sets Christianity apart from other worldviews. The belief in a final, macrocosmic end. Mythically speaking, a belief that Thor and Jörmungandr will not mutually slay each other endlessly, but that the Thunderer will one day slay the Ouroboros once and for all.

But the saga of the end-times as told in Revelation is not a stand-alone story, it is the story of all stories. As the macrocosm of macrocosms, it is when all stories ever begun must come to some sort of final resolution.

Imagine you’re reading a novel. At the end of any well-crafted story, you would naturally expect to see returning characters from earlier in the tale, callbacks to important moments, big payoffs, and revelations that certain events early on were of greater importance than you realized. You expect the ending of that story to wrap up not only the immediate events of the final scenes, but to also bring a satisfying conclusion to every story thread that the author has introduced throughout the course of the tale.

God being the ultimate storyteller, we should expect to see the same thing in the real world if it is nearing its end, a sort of callback to previous stories and patterns. When the cycle comes to an end (which is, of course, also the beginning), we should expect major storylines, especially those concerning the beginning and climax of the story, to have relevance again at the ending.

In The Axe is Laid at the Foot of the Tree, I discussed how an end-times narrative is emerging out of the collective unconscious as our old civilizational meta-narrative consensus begins to dissolve. Certain narratives, like the WW2 consensus, seem to be collapsing. Others, like the rise of AI and the New World Order, seem to be rising. These new narratives are coated with end times symbolism, and references to the Book of Revelation in pop culture and on social media are becoming commonplace. It is as if the end times cannot just happen out of nowhere but must first “warm up” in the collective consciousness.

At the same time, we are also seeing old stories and patterns reappear in the culture that are not at first glance connected to the end times. Subjects like Atlantis, lost civilizations, AI being compared to the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and so much more. I do not think this is random. If we are indeed approaching the end-times that Christ and so many of his saints have so clearly warned us of, then I think these stories and patterns are reappearing in the cultural narrative because they are storylines that must be resolved in order for the end-times and the Eschaton to play out. The final end cannot happen with unfinished story threads left hanging. It means that something about all of these mysterious old tales has been left unsaid and is crying out to be resolved. But what about these old symbols and stories is so important, what makes them relevant to the end of the word?

It will be easiest if we create a framework to visualize this pattern. We can plot the storyline of the Bible onto the circle of the Ouroboros and the Sun Wheel to understand why certain stories are becoming relevant again and which ones will be the most important at the end of the world. Imagine a version of this wheel that is an entire picture of human history (and therefore the whole story of creation) at the most macrocosmic level.

We can start by placing a beginning point at the bottom of the wheel, or winter solstice. The fall in the garden. That event begins the story, and from it mankind begins our journey upwards (imagine everything before the fall as existing outside of this framework, outside the rule of Chronos).

The top point, or summer solstice, of the story is Noah’s flood, the fall of Atlantis. This is where humanity achieves its highest level of development, and we can imply it is where we came closest to achieving some redemption, but due to the fallen nature of the world we were doomed to fail and fall back down. The old world is corrupted and God washes it away. The story now descends down from the solstice into the second half of the wheel.

The third major story is the Tower of Babel which symbolizes the Autumn equinox point. This is where humanity descends back into the lower half of the wheel, that is why the story is about the breakdown of a unified culture and the breakdown of communication. All of recorded human history exists within this section of the symbolic story. In the darkest and downward moving section of the solar year, between the autumn equinox and winter solstice.

At the bottom point of the wheel, at the same point as the beginning of the story, we will have Armageddon. Where the cycle begins and ends is the “Alpha and Omega.” The closer we get to this point, the closer we come to a moment that is eternally or macrocosmically significant, and therefore the world will start to look and feel more “mythic”, because we are linking up with a story thread that goes far deeper than the modern world and connects us to all of the mythic events of the past. Imagine it as the moment when the cycle of the current modern age syncs up with the larger cycle.

These major story points along the wheel- the fall in the garden, the fall of Atlantis, and the fall of the Tower of Babel, are the most importance events within the human story, and therefore will have the most relevance at the end of the world. They are the plot points that most need to be resolved. Looking at the macrocosmic story, we can see that it is these three “Falls” that have led us to our current situation, they are the wounds that need to be healed. While I think that many, many more myths and patterns are going to begin showing up as we approach the end times, these stories will be the biggest and it is their symbolism you should most watch out for. Maybe, just maybe, we should not trust our personal black mirrors that bear the mark of the bitten apple…

Atlantis and our fall from Eden will be more relevant than Hitler or AI when the final cock crows to announce Ragnarök.

The framework we’ve drawn above can be applied to any era or story. For example, we are living through the end times of the world order established after WW2, which we can observe in how the aggressively the official narrative is being questioned by the masses. But what about patterns that are still forming, what about future Ragnaröks?

I will suggest that the idea of an AI takeover and a dystopian New World Order may in fact be yet another microcosmic story that will have to be concluded before the real end-times. This may seem confusing, because a lot of people associate those dystopian ideas with the Antichrist. I don’t think that’s a bad association, but it is also not necessarily correct. The issue is that this modern conception of a dystopian world is, well, modern. The idea behind “The Matrix” and everything like it is a meta-narrative that belongs to the modern age. It may be hubristic to assume that the actual end of the world will look like the modern world. Maybe the kind of world we live in is just an odd fluke of history. Maybe “The Matrix” is just how we imagine the end of the world because we cannot conceive of Ragnarök looking actually mythic instead of like dystopian sci-fi. We are more comfortable with AI and robots than we are with dragons. But maybe “The Matrix” will just be the end of our own little cycle, and at the true end of the world the old monsters will rise out of the outer darkness, out of the chthonic waters for one last curtain call.

So while it is certainly possible that our modern idea of a New World Order Matrix-style dystopia is going to be the same story as the Antichrist and the end times, it may be that they are two distinct things.

Another issue to point out is that the entire idea of the Antichrist is not really the end point of the macrocosmic story. We live in the Church age, which Christ Himself came to Earth to begin. That was the beginning of a major cycle, and the Antichrist is the counterforce that will be faced at the end of that cycle. And of course, the Antichrist is a large player in the end of the world in the Book of Revelation. But I think some almost forget who the real primordial enemy is.

I would say that the Antichrist serves as the ending of the Church age story specifically. The actual Dragon is Satan. In Revelation the Beast and the False Prophet (the Antichrist) are defeated before Satan, because the final story to be resolved is not the Antichrist’s deception of the world, but Satan’s deception of humanity in the garden. So it seems that the Antichrist serves as a fractal end to the age we live in, but to find the real ending you have to go all the way back, not to the beginning of the Church age, but to the very beginning of the world. Christ comes back to defeat both the Antichrist and the dragon because there are two major cycles to be concluded. What is symbolically interesting is the question of whether these two foes are fought at the same time.

While I have been saying that the microcosmic patterns will have to play out before the macrocosmic wheel can turn to its end, it may not be that simple. It could well be that these patterns work in a way where many cycles overlap and finish at the same point. So we have to consider a framework where the lines between all of these cycles are quite blurred. There are so many ways the end of the world could play out, and I am sure that whatever the real end will be is beyond our comprehension or imagination.

While I don’t want to be the person making predictions about the end times, here are some symbolic frameworks that may help you imagine how the pattern of Fractal Ragnarök plays out:

1)

• The modern world/era ends with a Matrix-style New World Order story (keep in mind I am not making predictions about how these stories end or who “wins”, as that is not relevant right now), but the Antichrist is not involved. Modern cycles like the WW2 narrative, AI, and transhumanism are all played out before the real end-times begin to essentially clear the stage.

• The true Antichrist comes later, unrelated to the previous cycle or maybe even directly involved in the defeat of the previous Matrix-world order. The modern nation-state of Israel may not even be involved by this point in history. Depending on what direction the world takes after the modern world cycle ended, the final battle with the Antichrist and Satan may look like futuristic sci-fi, or, if the modern world’s little Ragnarök was really catastrophic, maybe the end of history will look more like The Lord of the Rings or Conan. Who knows?

2)

• The Antichrist comes as the leader of the modern New World Order, and all of these patterns come to their culmination at roughly the same time. Old stories like the fall in the garden and Atlantean Nephilim reappear and are dealt with in the guise of modern tech, AI, robots, etc. The nation-state of Israel actually is involved in the story. This is essentially the framework that looks the most like people seem to popularly imagine.

3)

• The patterns end at roughly the same time as above, but not necessarily in the way people expect. The patterns end together and yet separately. Meaning, imagine a world where modern cycles are being concluded while the primordial ones also reappear in more literal ways than modern people want to imagine. A pattern where countless wheels within wheels align and you have countless “Ragnaröks” happening simultaneously. Where the end of the world can look both like the Matrix and the Silmarillion at the same time. This framework is maybe the strangest to imagine, but also perhaps the one that symbolically makes the most sense. The Eschaton is the moment where every single thing has its resolution, the maw of the Ouroboros.

4)

• This is all wrong, and the end looks like nothing I can fathom. Obligatory concession I feel I must make here.

I hope this has made some sense and helped some of you grasp the pattern of endings and the symbolism of the end of the world. It is important. Whether or not modern conceptions of the end-times are accurate, and whether or not they are temporally "close” to us, cosmically speaking they are imminent. We are are in the last stages of the cycle, in the darkest phase of the year, with midnight fast approaching.

“And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work.

Shall Rome or Heathen rule in Arthur’s realm?
Flash brand and lance, fall battleaxe upon helm,
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand!  Let the King reign.

- Lord Alfred Tennyson

A place becomes disenchanted when it forgets it’s heroes. When a place stops venerating its own Saints, you know it is a spiritually darkened land.

Such is the state of Britain.

14-year-old Lola Sommers was just arrested in Scotland for brandishing a weapon in defense of herself, her sister Ruby, and their friend Mayah against an immigrant who sexually harassed them. The immigrants sister physically assaulted Ruby, who had to be taken to the hospital.

Here’s the story from Mayah’s mother:

"So what happened was the girls where out just walking and the man in the picture made comments to Lola(the younger girl) calling her sexy and other sexual remarks then the girls started to tell this man to leave them alone and stop following them and making sexual remarks to them. After that the man's sister (also in the picture) came around the corner and physically attacked ruby(the older sister) she grabbed her hair dragged her to the floor started to punch her then both the man and woman where kicking her in head while she was on the floor. At this point my daughter (mayah) called the police so my daughters account after that is all abit blurry. But that is when lola had the weapons she pulled them out to protect ruby. After that the man came back at lola recording her making sure she showed the weapons to the camera and antagonizing her. Ruby was hospitalised after the attack with a severe concussion a tennis ball sized lump to the back of her head aswell as lots of bruises."

This account was shared by Aesthetica on X, who has also set up a donation site for the injured girl. Please share, and donate if you can.

Of course, the local media is not painting the full picture in their reporting. This blurb sounds like something straight out of the N.I.C.E from C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength.

Already a counter-narrative has formed, one where these girls are actually violent hooligans who harass innocent brown people. It’s being pushed all over social media. It is frankly shocking to see the vitriol directed towards the poor girls. In modern Britain, there is one rule, and that is that working class whites are scum, always in the wrong, and even deserving of any suffering they endure.

The massive rape gang scandal paints the clearest picture of what is really happening underneath the surface in Britain. For decades there has been a systemic coverup of the rape and trafficking of countless British girls. The government and local police knew this was happening, and they did nothing. In fact, they silenced those that tried to speak out and ignored the cries of the victims.

This is no accident. The entirety of the British political system is designed to facilitate the rape of its land and people. This horrific scandal is simply a manifestation of this deeper reality. Young ethnically British girls being raped and beaten by foreigners is a feature, not a bug, of the nation-state known as the United Kingdom.

It feels the island of Britain is becoming a dark and disenchanted place. But why? What has happened at a deeper, metaphysical, spiritual level to cause this? What has happened to Merrie Olde England?

There are countless ways that could be answered, but I want to focus on the one at the root of the issue. I believe the current state of England is the end result of a land turning its back on God. It is what happens when a land neglects to honor its own heroes, its own patron saints. There are many political, cultural, and economic explanations for the state of England (and of all of the modern west for that matter), but those reasons are all downstream of this deeper truth.

England no longer worships God and no longer venerates its saints. What other result could be expected?

To see the spiritual state of England, you need look no further than its churches. The Church of England cares little to nothing about its parishes. When I was traveling in England I saw the reality, the run down country churches, the signs begging for donations, countless ruins, and parishes sold to muslims to be turned into mosques. No one attends these parishes anymore. They’ve been abandoned, barely kept up by a few elderly parishioners.

The cathedrals are bustling however, likely only because they are tourism cash cows. But the Church of England has long abandoned Christianity. First they stopped venerating their saints, now it is questionable whether they even worship God at all with their lesbian bishops, universalism, and giddy support of the very forces destroying their country.

What is left of English religion is mostly in its patriotism, particularly its devotion to St. George. April 23rd was St. George’s Day, and perhaps nothing is quite so English as this holiday. The celebration is so quintessentially English that it has drawn the gaze of the eye of Sauron, with some condemning its observance as nationalistic and racist.

But the English do not actually venerate St. George anymore, not even the most patriotic of them. The 39 Articles of the Anglican church rejected the “Romish doctrine” of the veneration and invocation of saints hundreds of years ago. England may still love St. George, but it has been a long time since they venerated him.

And in fact, it was was not until the 14th century that St. George became the national saint of England. Before that, England had other patrons, most notably Kings Edmund the Martyr and Edward the Confessor. It was not until some time after the Norman conquest that these saints were replaced in favor of Saint George for a variety of reasons, but one being that Anglo-Saxon saints were less popular with the new Norman aristocracy. That is, of course, nothing against St. George. But it is not insignificant when a land replaces its native saints with a foreign one.

A hero symbolically represents his people and his land. He becomes a manifestation of their highest ideal. A Christian saint becomes the link between a place and God. People pray to patron saints because those saints have a special love for their own people and lands, and therefore intercede especially for them to God.

St. Edmund was martyred during wars with the heathen vikings. St. Edward the Confessor died in 1066, the very year that England was conquered. These heroes have a deep spiritual connection to England, especially in its times of need.

I believe the spiritual degradation of the English, and of all of Britain, has been a very long time in the making. This did not begin with the aftermath of WW2, this began with the rape of England by William the Bastard. I do not think the darkness that hangs over England can be lifted until the people return to God and once again give due honor to their national heroes, their saints.

Operation “Raise the Colours” is taking the country by storm, with city centers and suburbs being covered with English flags. This is a good start. Although St. George was not from England, he has been its patron for a long time, and he is the most loved saint by the modern English people, and so it seems natural that he would be the saint who’s symbol carries the most cultural power. It is also why the English flag is inherently more political than the Union Jack. The Union Jack can be interpreted as a cosmopolitan symbol, but St. George’s Cross cannot. The English flag is the flag of an ethnic people, not a nation-state.

England needs St. George. It needs to be proud of itself again. The strength of this campaign is that all it is doing is displaying the country’s flag. There is really nothing that can be criticized, no real accusations that can be made. To combat it is to combat the very right of the English people to have a country at all.

However, for England to be fully healed, they cannot stop with proudly displaying the symbol of St. George. Their older patrons must be brought back as well. St. Edward and St. Edmund, and likely others, must be reintegrated into the English national mythos and identity. And not just aesthetically, but literally. England must once again venerate its saints, and return to God, if they want to get their country back.

Of course, the Church of England will not do this. They do not venerate saints in the first place, and even if they did, they would likely be reluctant to direct attention to saints that could stoke traditionalist sentiment. Luckily, it doesn’t matter in the long run what the Church of England does or thinks. They will be thrown out along with the politicians once all is said and done.

And so I would urge my English readers not only to be proud of their country but to remember and honor their nations heroes, their saints. Put your faith in God, not in any political leader. Your land is spiritually darkened, but you do not have to be.

Until something changes, little girls will continue to be abused, churches will continue to fall into disrepair, foreigners will continue to run wild through England’s streets. A land needs its heroes. England’s are there, praying for them, and the English would be wise to honor them if they want any hope of saving their blessed plot.

You may have wondered why out of all the gods and goddesses of mythology, we chose seven in particular to correspond to the classical heavenly bodies. These being the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. These each correspond to a god, and they give name to our days of the week, correspond to the seven heavens of alchemy, and rule the signs of the Zodiac. Other cultures, completely disconnected to the source of Greco-Roman culture and tradition, identify the planets with gods that correspond to exactly the same seven archetypes.

But these are not the only seven gods of mythology, in fact many other gods seem just as important as these, yet they do not get planets named after them or so much attention in symbolism. Why?

I believe it is because these particular seven gods represent the primordial forces, or beings, that God used to create the framework of reality. They create the laws of the universe that allow us to experience life. This occurred to me when I realized the classical planets can be used to explain the primordial pattern of the sun wheel or cosmic cycle (also known as the hero’s journey).

The cosmic cycle is a universal symbolic pattern, found in the cycle of the day, the year, human history, or really anything that begins and ends. The only potentially new idea I am presenting is that it is actually the powers of the seven classical planets that God used to form and energize this primordial pattern.

Here is a basic diagram of how I believe this works:

While explaining this, I will assume most of my audience is already familiar with the basic symbolism of solar and seasonal cycles, the right and left hands, the hero’s journey, the four directions, and the planets. Keep in mind that in iconographic imagery, directions are mirrored as if the image is looking at you- therefore, Venus is on the right hand and in the East, Mars is on the left and in the West.

I’ll start with the four spokes of this cosmic wheel, which correspond to the four cardinal directions, the four seasons, and the four elements.

Jupiter and Saturn: Highs and Lows

The vertical axis between Jupiter and Saturn represents the polarity of potentiality and actuality. This can be understood as freedom and constraint, abundance and lack, life and death, heaven and hell, or order and chaos. This polarity allows things to be, or not to be. It sows and it reaps. It decides the limits of potential.

Jupiter is the king of the gods, and his planet was known as Fortuna Major in the medieval world. He is the “best” planet, the lord of luck. In the above chart he is symbolizing the North, the Summer solstice, and air. He represents the force that wants to expand and seek new horizons, he is the adventuring force that sees the highest potential.

His father Saturn is quite the opposite, known as Infortuna Major, the tyrannical lord of limits, stagnation, decay, and boundaries. I should clarify that Saturn is negative, but not exactly the devil. He can symbolize death, but not exactly in the same way as Satan. He is often connected to demonic forces and so is the hardest to understand of all the classical planets. In this chart he symbolizes the South, the Winter solstice, and water. In the simplest terms, he is gravity and time. He is cold, hard facts.

Without this polarity, the world could not exist. Reality without Jupiter would be a black hole, but in a reality without Saturn nothing could exist at all, as atoms would simply fly apart from one another. We need both boundaries and room to grow. If Jupiter is the force that wants us to “ascend the mountain” to come to God, Saturn is the force that is going to test us first. Saturn can actually be seen in a positive light sometimes, he keeps us from getting too close to the Sun before we are ready for it. Jupiter is Pascha, and Saturn is Lent.

However, when Death entered the world this polarity was broken. The bottom limit of potentiality was not originally intended to be able to reach so low. Saturn became a rebel. Only Christ could fix this, but we will get to that later.

Venus and Mars: Multiplicity

The horizontal axis between Venus and Mars represents the polarity of the masculine and the feminine. Essentially what this means is that this axis of existence is what allows things to actually happen- horizontal reality allows for expression and expansion. If the vertical allows for potential, the horizontal is what fills out the space.

This is why Venus and Mars represent sexuality and reproduction, it is their polarity that creates all life. They are, literally, protons and electrons. The marriage of Venus and Mars is the fulfillment of God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply”. Venus is the womb, Mars is the seed. They rule Spring and Autumn, earth and fire.

The horizontal aspect of reality is what allows for true multiplicity and true identity, because it forces things to be something specific. We experience life as either a man or a woman. It is true that from a psychological perspective we contain both the feminine and masculine aspects within us, but we still have to experience reality through the primary lens of one or the other. This polarity forces you to play a specific role in the cosmos. However, it also means that everything in the world is inherently missing something. It is because of this horizontal polarity that “it is not good for Man to be alone.” Mars and Venus teach us to seek out that which we are not, in order to become whole again and in order to create. Without the polarity that Venus and Mars provide, the entire universe would stagnate and die.

To work together, this polarity has to be strong. This is why “opposites attract”. Not only do all created things have to play a specific role, they have to play it strongly. Western culture today shows us what happens when this polarity starts to weaken. When men and women reject their traditional roles and become more akin to each other, they do not begin to get along better. No, the more alike men and women become, the more they detest one another. The same happens when men and women drift too far apart into caricatures of themselves (think red-pill bros or overly sexualized women). Excessive separation has the same weakening effect as excessive closeness. There is an ideal zone where the masculine and feminine forces both reach their maximum potential and become the most attractive to the other.

The horizontal polarity of reality is not so broken as the one between Jupiter and Saturn, perhaps because unlike the existence of Death, the marriage of the sexes is part of God’s natural plan. This is why our effort to take dominion of the Earth, though marred by the fall, is still so beautiful and meaningful.

Mercury: The Crossroads

You may think the Earth should be in the middle of this diagram, but remember that this is a diagram of how the planetary principalities interact to create the laws of reality, it is not a “map”.

In the middle of this cosmic wheel I have placed Mercury, which may not seem intuitive at first, he is the key to this entire idea.

Mercury and his counterparts Hermes, Odin, Thoth, and others are odd gods in mythology. Mercury is the god of a seeming mishmash of things. Merchants, travel, heralds, thieves, magic, language, trickery, and roadways are all his domain, and he also guides souls to the afterlife. In alchemical medicine, Mercury is associated with the nervous system, the brain, the respiratory system, the thyroid and the sense organs. Carl Jung considered him to be the god of the unconscious and the guide of inner journeys.

However, this confusing god makes much more sense once we understand him primarily as the god of connectivity, the one that binds all the others together.

Whereas the previous four gods provide the foundational energies at work in the cosmos, Mercury connects them, allowing them to have relationships with each other. From a scientific perspective, he is the force that binds the elements together.

This is why Mercury/Hermes was known as the messenger of the gods, one who could easily cross and mark boundaries. He was considered the god of the crossroads, which is why he belongs at the center of my diagram. However, he is not just the center, he is also the two lines that connect the four cardinal points, and he is also the wheel upon which the Sun travels. He is all paths, including the infinite other ones that I could not possibly draw that connect the heavenly powers. Mercury allows the gods to speak to each other. Without him, the polarities could not be reconciled and there would be no coherence to anything.

Sol and Luna: Consciousness

Together the Sun and Moon represent consciousnesses. Without anything conscious to perceive it, could reality be said to truly exist at all? Animals are not human because they do not have access to the energies of the Sun and Moon. They exert no will beyond base instincts, and they cannot reflect on any sort of meaning in their lives.

The Sun is Sol, Helios, and Apollo. The simplest way to understand his role is that he is the hero of the story, the protagonist, and the dragon-slayer. The Sun brings light to the world, without him nothing could be seen, no meaning could be found, and no story could be told. He is the hero that battles the forces of darkness. What makes this greater cosmic structure a “wheel” or a “cycle” rather than a stagnant circle is the Sun’s movement journey across it. If the first five planets set up the stage, the Sun acts out the play in a cyclic manner. This is why the majority of mythic heroes all around the world are solar in character, the quest of the dragon-slayer is at the core of what it means to be alive.

The moon, Luna and Diana, is also a part of the protagonist role. Whereas her brother allows us to live, Luna allows us to reflect. If the suns allows us to create meaning, Luna allows us to actually internalize that meaning. She is the subconscious. Without her, we could not ponder the past or future, and so the present moment would lose the greater part of its meaning.

It is important that the Sun and Moon across various cultures are never, at least to my knowledge, lovers or a married couple. They are brother and sister, or in the Christian story, mother and son. This is because while the Sun and Moon contain an element of male and female polarity within them, that is not what they are about. They are primarily representing the external and the internal life, the ego and the anima. Without the Sun and Moon, the stage created by the other five planets would be empty, and reality would have no stories to tell.

The Cross

Together the seven gods of the seven heavenly bodies create the framework that governs every moment of our lives. Every moment from Creation until the Eschaton exists within this great cyclic structure.

To fully understand this symbolism, we can look to the Cross. It was one of the moments in history where the forces of reality collided most strongly, and in it’s icon the symbolism of the seven planets is most easily seen.

We often say that Christ was hung upon a tree. This is true in the lower material sense, as the cross was made of wood and resembles the shape of a tree. But what you may not realize is that the cross is also an image of the cosmic “world tree”, the structure created with the seven planetary forces, which the Son of God allowed himself to be hung upon, revealing Himself as the axis of the cosmos.

In an icon of the crucifixion, Jupiter is represented by the crown of thorns or simply by the face of Christ, or in some icons by the angels holding the Holy Face cloth over Christ’s head. Saturn is represented by the skull of Adam underneath the cross. Here we have a vertical polarity between the dead first Adam and the second Adam who defeats death. Adam shows us our lowest potential while Christ shows us the highest. When Christ descends down into death, He heals the polarity between Jupiter and Saturn by rescuing Adam from Hades.

On the right hand side we have Venus. She is represented by the Virgin Mary and the other women, as well as the good thief. Mars is on the left hand side, represented by St. John the Evangelist1, St. Longinus the Centurion, and the bad thief. Although the crucifixion itself is Martian in character, at the resurrection we will see the marriage of Mars and Venus in the rebirth of the world and the possibility of new life for men.

The sun and the moon are typically placed on the right and left hand side in crucifixion icons, shown as sorrowful figures and often “hiding their faces”. During the crucifixion, the Sun went dark. This can be interpreted as the “story” of the world being stopped in its tracks at the sight of the death of the Son of God. Due to the gravity of this moment, we could say that no other protagonist’s story could possibly carry on. Christ is meaning, He is the Logos, and therefore any other meaning could not continue during His death.

Mercury is represented by the Cross itself. He is the instrument being used to bring all of these powers together in a single catastrophic moment, and I think he is why there was a sign on the Cross that read “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”. The Cross became a cosmic crossroads where all things came together, and so was complete with signage. Symbolism happens.

Some have said that Christ represents the Sun in crucifixion iconography, but this is only partially true. Christ’s story embodies the Solar archetype and follows its prototypical hero’s journey pattern, but he is also much more than just the Sun, so if you try to correlate them too closely the symbolism will start to crack. Christ is the Sun hung upon the world axis, but he is also all of the other planets as well. He is their Lord, and they all reflect one of His aspects. The Sun and Jupiter are the most like Him, but His story contains them all.

Christ is the Ancient of Days. As the Logos He is like Mercury, the Word, the messenger, the force connecting heaven and earth, God and man. In His incarnate earthly mission He is like the Sun and Moon, the culmination of the Hero figure. Enthroned at the right hand of the Father He is like Jupiter, Lord of plenty, but also Saturn, the Judge who will divide the sheep from the goats on the last day. On the Cross He was like Mars, going to battle with Death and sin, and in the Resurrection He was like Venus, bringing new life into the world. In Him, all things find balance. Like the Sun, He is the figure around whom all the heavenly hosts spin.

In Christ the true natures of the lords of the heavens are revealed, just as we find our true selves when we take up our cross and follow Him.

I have always wanted to live a life of adventure. As a very young boy I was most moved by stories of exploration, heroic journeys, and travels through distant lands. I don’t think I ever believed that the whole world has been thoroughly explored and all the greatest mysteries have already been uncovered.

Unfortunately, we do not live in an age that encourages young men to seek out an adventurous life. The school system forces young boys to sit still and raise their hands but punishes their natural energy and aggressiveness. Some only complete high school, or even drop out, and our culture provides them with few honorable options for employment. Then, those that graduate high school and college are provided with very few life paths that offer any sort of excitement, or adventure. There’s a fast track to cubicles and a mid-life crisis.

And its this lack of adventure that almost every young man I know feels deep in their soul. Part of that is biological, I’m sure. Young men have always felt this way to some extent. But we live in a uniquely oppressing time for the young male spirit. Everyone knows our government isn’t worth giving your life up for anymore, so military service has lost its appeal. And there aren’t exactly advertisements in the paper looking for crews to go on grand expeditions.

What’s worse, the adventure we do get can be a bit dull. Much of the mystery has been sucked out of the world. You can go on vacations, hiking expeditions, road trips, but without a sense of enchantment, it may not feel like true adventure. Young boys that grow up dreaming of enchanted woods, ancient swords, and dragon-slaying may find the modern conception of adventure a bit lacking.

We want true adventure and romance, but we don’t know where to find it.

And that’s why I started Dark Forest Company.

Dark Forest Company is my private men’s adventure club. We organize group expeditions, provide fitness coaching, hold challenges and competitions, and perhaps most importantly, have brought together a fantastic group of like-minded men. We have an active online club, but focus on meeting up in real-life to adventure and train together. Essentially, our mission is to provide a space that will allow men to seek out the adventure, challenge, and camaraderie that so many of us feel is missing from regular life.

But our goal goes deeper that just organizing cool trips and helping men get into good physical condition. Our goal for Dark Forest Company is for it to bring a spark of enchantment back into the world. Which is why we make the esoteric and legendary a large focus of our culture, and why so many of our adventures involve exploring mythic locations or ancient mysteries. I do not believe the world has been thoroughly mapped and documented. Quite the opposite. I believe the world is still an enchanted realm, it is simply that we forgot how to look at it.

We have members all over the world (including a very active U.K. division), and we have been organizing trips for over a year now. Some of our upcoming adventures include a quest through all of the Arthurian locations in southwestern England, a multi-day backpacking trip through the Bob Marshall wilderness in Montana, exploring the legend of a lost kingdom deep in the Dolomites, a group expedition to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, a guided Alaskan winter trek, and a road-trip through the Scottish Highlands. Just to name a few.

But I don’t want this Substack to turn into a marketing tool. While I do plan to post more about my adventures, for general updates on what the club is up to and for full logs of our adventures and other endeavors, you can check out our website:

https://www.darkforestcompany.com/

If you want to learn more about what we’re doing or inquire about joining, DM me here on Substack or on our Instagram.

See you on the Quest.

- Andrew

“Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales.
We're in one, of course, but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards."

- Sam Gamgee

In his lecture Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, J.R.R. Tolkien said:

It [Beowulf] is in fact written in a language that after many centuries has still essential kinship with our own, it was made in this land, and moves in our northern world beneath our northern sky, and for those who are native to that tongue and land, it must ever call with a profound appeal…

If this is true of Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon poem many centuries removed from the modern English-speaking world, I think it is even more true of Tolkien’s own work.

There is nothing today that defines the English and the broader Western cultural mythos as strongly as Tolkien’s legendarium. No other writer has contributed so much new life to the Western canon and cultural spirit in recent centuries.

Tolkien’s works will likely be remembered as the most impactful body of literature of the 20th century. Not just fantasy, but literature. The Professor’s importance as a myth-maker cannot be overstated. Tolkien exists somewhere in the grey, not quite belonging anywhere in the library. But every year Middle Earth becomes more real, and its tales and heroes become more akin to those of Asgard than those of fiction.

Which is why it is high time the copyright to his legendarium expires and Middle-Earth is set free to the public, to the whims of any talented artist, screen producer, composer, musician, poet, or novelist that wishes to make their own adventure into Middle-Earth.

There could be no better fate for Tolkien’s works than for them to finally be released into the great public melting pot of myth and story.

But now that I’ve made all of the Tolkien fans upset, I have to explain myself.

There are two camps on the issue of Tolkien adaptions.

There are those within the Tolkien estate that allowed Amazon’s Rings of Power to be produced. This camp has no intention of allowing Tolkien’s work to enter the public domain, but they are willing to allow large studios to make adaptions.

On the other hand, Tolkien’s conservative-leaning fanbase tends to believe that the Professor’s works should be religiously guarded. They dogmatically hold that The Silmarillion and other works must be kept out of the hands of movie studios, and many even argue that allowing the Peter Jackson films to be made was a step too far. Tolkien’s son Christopher is well known for holding this view and considered reproductions of his father’s mythos as inadequate at best and sacrilegious at worst.

However, both of these camps miss what the Professor would have wanted.

Despite the disaster of The Rings of Power, I support allowing it and other adaptions to be made. In fact, not only am I in favor of allowing movie adaptions of Tolkien’s works to be made, I would even be in support of other authors publishing books set in Middle-Earth.

Allowing Tolkien’s stories to enter the public domain once the current copyright expires would be the best thing for the professor’s legacy. Not only that, but it is what Tolkien would want.

Why? Well, that requires answering a few questions.

Firstly, what were the views of J.R.R. Tolkien himself regarding adaptions of his works?

Secondly, what was his intention in creating the legends of Middle-Earth?

And finally, how can we best honor these intentions?

The first point I should address is whether or not the professor would have been in favor of adaptions of his works.

Some may be surprised to hear that Professor Tolkien’s attitude towards adaption was never quite the same as that of his son Christopher or of his most passionate fans.

In a 1951 letter to publisher Milton Waldman, Tolkien wrote about his intentions to create a "body of more or less connected legend," of which "the cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama”.

Clearly, these are not the words of a man that wanted to keep his works far from the hands of other creative minds.

It was only specific types of adaption that he was opposed to. He rejected certain movie proposals based on his books (like the infamous Beatles film proposal) because he felt they missed the point and spirit of his work- not because he was opposed to Middle-Earth adaptions in general.

But if this was Tolkien’s opinion, why do so many of his fans take a different approach?

For the most part, its because the fans take more after Tolkien’s son Christopher, they are fans who view the Middle-Earth legendarium as something sacred that must be protected. And I should say that Christopher did exactly what he needed to do for the job he had been given and the role he had to play, in his own time. His father’s work had to be protected in order for its legacy to be cemented.

But that era is over now. Tolkien’s works don’t need protecting anymore, and especially not if they are released into the public domain- becoming part of the public domain is actually the best protection any story can get. Once mythologized, a tale is invincible. Does a bad Trojan war film diminish Homer? Do viking LARPers diminish the sagas of the Northmen? No, not in the slightest. The tales transcends any one adaption, even a terrible one like The Rings of Power.

But that word “mythologized” brings us to the bigger question- what was Tolkien’s intention in creating his legendarium anyway?

His intent was not just to write a great novel, or to create a frame narrative for his fictional languages as some have said.

Tolkien’s intention was to write a myth. Creating the mythology of Middle-Earth was his life’s work, and he always asserted that it was meant to be a mythic history of our own Earth, not merely a work of fiction. He expressed disdain for fantasy that seemed random or was allegorical, that made no attempt to recreate the spirit that he found in real ancient myths and legends.

And when something is truly mythic, rather than just a good story, it has the potential become something more.

In his famous essay “On Fairy-Stories”, Tolkien describes the process of how stories are thrown in the “cauldron” of myth and transformed:

“speaking of the history of stories and especially of fairy-stories we may say that the Pot of Soup, the Cauldron of Story, has always been boiling, and to it have continually been added new bits, dainty and undainty… …new bits added to the stock. A considerable honour, for in that soup were many things older, more potent, more beautiful, comic, or terrible than they were in themselves (considered simply as figures of history… …It seems fairly plain that Arthur, once historical (but perhaps as such not of great importance), was also put into the Pot. There he was boiled for a long time, together with many other older figures and devices, of mythology and Faerie, and even some other stray bones of history (such as Alfred's defence against the Danes), until he emerged as a King of Faerie. The situation is similar in the great Northern “Arthurian” court of the Shield-Kings of Denmark, the Scyldingas of ancient English tradition. King Hrothgar and his family have many manifest marks of true history, far more than Arthur; yet even in the older (English) accounts of them they are associated with many figures and events of fairy-story: they have been in the Pot.”

If this is true, and if it’s true that Tolkien wanted to write a true myth- then by definition he would want that myth to be eventually added into the “pot”. Of course, Tolkien was far too humble to assert that his story deserved this honor, but this is not for authors to decide for themselves. Rather, it is up to us, over the course of generations, to decide what gets thrown into the pot.

The final and best way to honor a myth-maker is to allow his works to become myth. This cannot happen while a body of work is treated like a franchise and kept away from other creative minds.

But does Tolkien deserve this honor? Should we pull Tolkien from the world of fiction and throw him into the mythic cauldron?

Well, our opinions don’t matter, as it’s already happening- Tolkien is already in the pot, becoming myth, he is already in the public domain in every sense but the legal (the least important sense).

There is a staggering amount of work out there based on Tolkien.

Incredible poetry, and music, and art- and I mean really beautiful work, not your everyday “fan art”.

You can go to university to study Tolkien. What better evidence for his becoming myth could there be? Have you heard of George R.R. Martin studies? No? Well, Tolkien studies are a real thing, and are only taken more seriously with each passing year.

Alan Lee, Howard Shore, John Howe, Ted Nasmith- just a few names that have contributed some of the best music and art to our culture in decades, and without Tolkien we would have none of it.

The cultural impact of Middle-Earth is unparalleled. There are statues of its heroes, the Peter Jackson films are the most culturally significant and impactful films ever made, and “hobbits” or “halflings” might as well be as ancient an idea as elves and dwarves at this point.

But it’s not just that, it’s the way Middle-Earth is spoken of. In England people make jokes about Hobbits in the same way Scandinavians joke about elves- as if it’s just an ancient part of their culture, a reference everyone understands. Frodo, Gollum, Aragorn, these names are referenced more like folklore characters than names from a fantasy series. Tolkien references aren’t considered “nerdy” anymore, and this is a huge point even if it goes unnoticed. It shows that he is being integrated into the English mythos, and more broadly the entirety of European mythology.

Without him, the entirety of the English canon would be weakened- both the works that he inspired and the works that he drew his own inspiration from would be lessened without his contribution. Tolkien is the loadstar from which the entire modern conception of the mythic northwestern spirit springs from. Without him we would not have modern myth, modern “fantasy” as we know it would be completely different. Without his work, modern appreciation of Beowulf, the Eddas, the Volsungs, all of the ancient northwestern canon would be substantially weakened. Without him, even the modern conceptions of elves, dwarves, goblins and dragons that we take for granted would not exist.

He is English mythology.

Tolkien has even become politically relevant. The aesthetics of his work are symbols for traditionalists, reactionaries, conservatives, and even nature conservationists. In an era where the right-wing is fractured, Tolkien appreciation is one of the few uniting things left. Don’t think that I’m being hyperbolic- without Tolkien and without the Peter Jackson films, there would be a gaping hole in modern right-wing aesthetics and culture.

No other work of fiction is treated like this. This phenomenon is more akin to the treatment of Greek or Norse legends than to the treatment of normal fiction.

So it is high time we let Middle-Earth leave the realm of legal disputes, contracts, and movie studio negotiations and let it take its place among the rest of the European mythos. Let Aragorn and Frodo finally sit with Beowulf and Thor and King Arthur.

It’s high time we allow Tolkien to enter the public domain and be fully thrown into the great cauldron of myth and story.

Few stories deserve the honor of being thrown into the cauldron of myth.

The great tales of Middle-Earth are among those few.

In my last essay The Axe is Laid at the Foot of the Tree I discussed how the meta-pattern of the end-times and its symbolism is beginning to manifest in our culture as we move ever closer to the end of the age. I think it is worth further exploring the idea that “symbolism” is something that tangibly happens in world.

When modern people hear the word symbolism, they usually hear it as synonymous with analogy or metaphor. But this is not what the word means. Something that is “symbolic” is a literal manifestation of an idea, pattern, principle, or identity. If you are a husband and father, then you are the symbol of divine kingship in the context of your household. You are not a metaphor or analogy of that ideal, you are literally embodying that symbolic role in the world.

In the same way, when I speak of a an end-times symbol “manifesting” itself in the world, I am describing something that is actually happening, even if it is not physically tangible. There is not a conflict between “symbolic” and “literal”.

Metaphors and analogies do not actually exist in the world, as humans create them in order to make a point. But symbols and symbolism are literally manifesting in the world at all times, and if you pay attention, you will start to notice them.

To illustrate this, I will tell you a story of a minor but interesting manifestation of symbolism that I just experienced and the rabbit hole it led me down. A rabbit hole that connected Saturn worship, a 90’s rock song, Jeffery Epstein, and ends with the sad fate of Chris Cornell.

I was driving home from work yesterday when Soundgarden’s number one single “Black Hole Sun” came on the radio.

It was my first time hearing the song. It came out before I was born and I’ve never been into 90’s music. But within the first minute, this song stopped me in my tracks.

For weeks while putting my last essay together I had been focused on the topic of the end times. And so the demonic forces of the world were laying heavy on my mind, especially the dark force usually described as Saturn or the black-cube, that form of demon worship that corrupted the ancient world and still appears today in occult societies. I have been reading about it, journaling about it, trying to understand the nature of the devil’s hold on our world.

And that’s why “Black Hole Sun” stunned me. Because never before have I heard a song that is so blatantly, disturbingly Saturnalian.

Before I go on, you first need to watch the song’s music video, which was a huge hit when it came out in 1994. Pay close attention to the words and imagery you are presented with.

On its surface, the song has an eerie aura. Many of the commenters on Youtube mention how the song used to creep them out as kids, and many comment that they have no idea what the song is supposed to be about.

Well, immediately upon hearing it I could tell you that the song is not creepy for no reason. It is certainly not a song about nothing.

It is a song about Saturn, the Black Cube, the Matrix, the devil, the demon king of the world itself. And once you understand this symbolism, you’ll never unsee it, and you’ll especially never hear this song the same way again.

For this to make sense, I’ll have to briefly (and hopefully coherently) explain what Saturn actually is and its historic and mythic importance. Bear with me, this may seem strange if you are unused to classical mythology or alchemy, but we are getting somewhere with this.

Saturn is one of the seven ancient heavenly bodies, in medieval times it was named “Infortuna Major” because is the most “negative” or “evil” planet. Words like good and evil are too simplistic and not usually well suited to discussions of mythic ideas, but I’ll use them for the sake of simplicity. Saturn serves as an opposite to both the Sun and Jupiter, the two highest or “good” heavenly bodies. It is often represented as a black cube, the “black sun”, or a hexagon. It may surprise you that the planet Saturn actually does have a huge hexagon-shaped storm on its north pole, but the ancients could not possibly have known that… or could they?

Some historical and mythological references suggest that Saturn was once perceived as the primary celestial body, referred to as the "night sun" or "black sun" in certain ancient cultures. I would suggest that any cultures that considered Saturn the highest heavenly body would have been shockingly demonic- because Saturn represents evil itself.

Saturn represents time, death, stagnation, materialism, and structure or tyranny. It could be understood as the power that devours, decays, and drags things downwards. Saturn is the god of this material plane, in rebellion to the true God of the heavens. For this reason, ancient cultures associated the planet Saturn with lead (the alchemical opposite of gold) as its symbolic metal- all other metals turn back into lead when left to radioactive decay. Lead is poisonous to all life, and in humans this form of poisoning is called saturnism. Its symptoms include lack of energy, depression, blindness, and rapid aging. Lead accumulates over time in the bones of the human body. This is what Saturn represents in a nutshell. He is time, but not in the sense of the passing of moments, but in the sense of the cyclic nature of decay and death. Time in its most terrifying aspect. What rises must fall, what is born must die.

This is the same idea that the Church Fathers refer to when they refer to the evil spirit of “The World”, the demons that tie us to our passions and material things and keep us from looking to God.

This is why the Saturn/Kronos of mythology devours his own children. This is why the Gnostics associated their idea of the “demiurge” with Saturn. This is why occult magic groups and western pop culture are so filled with black cube and hexagram symbolism. Saturn is the anti-god, the head demon of the fallen world and all who hate Christ.

Now that you understand what to look for, back to Soundgarden and Black Hole Sun.

With your new symbolic knowledge, you should be able to analyze what is really going on in this song. It is an ode to the old tyrant god of this world, and an invocation for his return. Let’s look at the lyrics and the symbolism of the music video.

The song begins with a sickeningly plastic and fake 50’s style suburb, eerie and surrealist. An odd troop of assorted religious figures walk the neighborhood carrying a sign that reads “the end is nigh”. Frontman Chris Cornell sings:

”In my eyes, indisposed
In disguises no one knows
Hides the face, lies the snake
In the sun in my disgrace
Boiling heat, summer stench
'Neath the black, the sky looks dead
Call my name through the cream
And I'll hear you scream again”

This first verse invokes a feeling that unseen horror lies underneath the surface of the fake world that has been presented. The “snake” is likely a reference to the snake in the garden of Eden, which may or may not be the same entity as Saturn (from what I can tell, the Church has never been as clear on the identity of demons as modern assumptions may lead you to think).

Musically, the song would feel Saturnalian even without the lyrics or the video to accompany it. The droning dissonance and flat notes make the whole song feel like lead, but it’s still catchy in an odd way. It’s not happy or bright, but it gets stuck in your head. Many of the music video’s comments on YouTube mention an odd, indescribable feeling the song gives them. It certainly feels otherworldly, but not a world I want to be in.

Next is the chorus, which is the majority of the song, repeated over and over again.

Black hole sun, won't you come
And wash away the rain?
Black hole sun, won't you come?
Won't you come? Won't you come?

Saturn over the ages has been represented as a black sun, a black cube, a wormhole, and an eclipse among other things. “Black Hole Sun” is a new one, but one can see how it is just a mashup of all of these ideas. A black hole is the perfect analogy for the essence of Saturn, the force that seeks to consume and posses all of God’s creation.

“Wash away the rain” is an interesting line in the context of the song. God uses rain to cleanse the world of evil in the story of the flood. So, washing away the rain, the implement of cleansing, seems to me like a sort of inversion of this idea. Whereas God made the world new, this “black hole sun” is about to “cleanse” the world by devouring it.

In verse two, the Saturn symbolism gets even more explicit.

In my shoes, a walking sleep
And my youth I pray to keep
Heaven send Hell away
No one sings like you anymore

A “waking sleep” is a perfect way to describe a world ruled by Saturn. In Greek and Roman mythology, Saturn/Kronos is said to have ruled over man’s “golden age”, but in reality I think this is a bit of demonic progaganda. The spirit of Saturn may rule over an age of peace, but it is a false one, his is the paradise of the Lotus-Eaters. A dream world, a fake world, fake eternal youth. Not the life that God offers, which is eternal growth, but a life of eternal stagnation as the next line tells us.

“And my youth I pray to keep” is an interesting prayer to make to the god of time and death, but a fitting one. Occult groups have always been obsessed with youth, there seems to be some idea of sacrifice in exchange for the extension of the material life. It is reminiscent of Cypher’s betrayal in The Matrix, where he decides to live in blissful ignorance inside the machine rather than face the hard truth. This is what Saturn offers. “No one sings like you anymore” could be a reference to the false golden age of Kronos and the pleasures it offered mankind. Honestly, I’m not sure I can make much sense of “Heaven send Hell away”, other than that it feels like yet another inversion.

The most disturbing part of the music video is what happens as the Black Hole Sun begins to devour the world. These people want to be devoured. Their faces show a sort of masochistic glee underneath the terror. I think this is an accurate picture of the reality of the occult and all that is dark in the world- at the bottom of it is a desire for suicide and death, a desire to be devoured by the gaping maw of the beast. Watching this, I really cannot imagine that it could be about anything other than Saturn and death worship. Whether I think Soundgarden did any of this intentionally or not is another matter that I’ll get to later.

Some have interpreted the ancient Black Sun to be that of a huge meteor or an eclipse, connected to the planet Saturn in some way, that would have sent whatever civilization that existed at that time back into the stone age. Back into an age of ignorance and simplicity, in a way that feels like the inverse of the Biblical flood story.

“Won’t you come, won’t you come…”

Hearing this song after weeks of ruminating on the forces of Saturn was like a lighting bolt to my brain. Something about it felt significant, so upon arriving home I immediately began researching the song and the band, and that was before I even found the music video.

After then finding the video and analyzing its symbolism, I turned to origin of the song, and the band itself, where the rabbit hold went even deeper.

To start, Chris Cornell, the band’s lead singer, claimed in an interview that he had no idea where the idea of the song came from, and no idea what the lyrics were about.

In 2014, Cornell explained the song's origins to Uncut Magazine:

I wrote it in my head driving home from Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, a 35–40 minute drive from Seattle. It sparked from something a news anchor said on TV and I heard wrong. I heard 'blah blah blah black hole sun blah blah blah'. I thought that would make an amazing song title, but what would it sound like? It all came together, pretty much the whole arrangement including the guitar solo that's played beneath the riff. I spent a lot of time spinning those melodies in my head so I wouldn't forget them. I got home and whistled it into a Dictaphone. The next day I brought it into the real world, assigning a couple of key changes in the verse to make the melodies more interesting. Then I wrote the lyrics and that was similar, a stream of consciousness based on the feeling I got from the chorus and title.^[1]

In another interview he elaborated further on the subject:

“If you read the lyrics to the verses, it’s sort of surreal, esoteric word painting. It was written very quickly. It was stream of consciousness. I wasn’t trying to say anything specific; I was really writing to the feel of the music and accepting whatever came out.”

If you follow music at all, you’ll be familiar with stories exactly like this one. Many bands’ biggest hits come to them in dreams, on whims, or seemingly out of thin air. The ancients believed in the idea of the Muses or something similar that would impart ideas to creatives. Artists often speak as if they “discover” their creations, rather than creating them themselves, and so I think it is reasonable to believe Cornell here.

If Cornell’s description of the origin of the song is true, then it seems clear that somehow, for some reason, this song “channeled” the spirit of Saturn into the cultural consciousness in 1994 without any intention from Cornell. The song was an immediate hit and rose to the top of the charts. The song became a symbol of Saturn- not a metaphor, not an analogy, but a real symbol because it brought the “energy” if you will of this dark spirit into the spotlight.

Does this mean that the members of Soundgarden were devil-worshippers? No, I don’t think so. I think these powers manifest themselves into the world in all sorts of strange ways, and if you are not explicitly against them, they may catch you by surprise. This is how symbolism works, just like the symbolism of the end-times that I have previously written on, it will start appearing regardless of people’s intentions. However, dark energies and dark powers are probably more likely to appear to lost and confused people. I would imagine that at the time of writing this song, Cornell was not in a very good place mentally or spiritually.

And channeling powers and invoking symbolism has consequences.

For myself, this little event of symbolism popping up was not that big of a deal. I had been thinking about Saturnism, and Saturnalian symbolism appeared to me in the form "of “Black Hole Sun”. Those were my “consequences”.

But imagine what kind of effect Saturn’s energy could have on someone like Chris Cornell? Channeling its creation, performing it for decades for millions of people. What kind of consequences would that have?

And so I looked into it, and the rabbit hole went deeper. Unfortunately, Saturnalian symbolism continued to “happen” in Chris Cornell’s life.

Cornell died in 2017 of an apparent suicide immediately following a Soundgarden concert. While this is tragic enough in itself, the story does not stop there.

The official story is that Cornell hung himself, after taking extra Adivin pills according to his wife. She has claimed ever since that she does not believe her husband meant to take his own life. From the linked article:

Vicky Cornell said her husband slurred his words when she spoke with him after the Detroit show. She said “he was different,” and she contacted security to check on him.

“What happened is inexplicable, and I am hopeful that further medical reports will provide additional details,” she said. “I know that he loved our children and he would not hurt them by intentionally taking his own life.”

But there is further reason to believe that foul play was involved- and it may be directly linked to the Black Hole Sun.

Although Cornell spent much of his life as a typical degenerate rockstar, that is not how his story ended. During his second marriage, to a Greek woman named Vicky Karayiannis the couple began a foundation to aid homeless and poor children, and he also converted to Orthodox Christianity and apparently got sober. He and his wife baptized their children into the Church and apparently frequently travelled to Greece to work with Syrian refugees.

All in all, it seem like the story of an older rock star who found Jesus and turned his life around. So why did he kill himself?

The easy answer could be that he struggled with mental health issues or substance abuse and finally succumbed to it. Maybe. But there is another angle.

If you do a quick google search on the issue, you will quickly find claims that Cornell was working with DJ Avicii (Tim Bergling), Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington, and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain on a documentary film about child trafficking before all four were suicided by the elites they were going to expose. The rings they were going to expose apparently involved Jeffery Epstein.

I don’t know if this is true. If you look it up yourself you will find evidence pointing to it, and you will also find an almost suspicious amount of “fact-checking” articles “debunking” the conspiracy. It would overcomplicate this essay to get into the details of all that, and I don’t know enough about the situation to do it justice. If you look into the matter, you will find some very disturbing evidence that may suggest that the people very close to him had a hand in his death. I don’t want to say too much more, as the accusations are so serious.

But what I will say is that we know for a fact is that elites have silenced many of those that have tried to expose them, and those elites are heavily connected to Saturnalian worship. We know that many whistleblowers in the Epstein case were silenced. We know that Hollywood is full of Satanic worship and symbolism, as are all occult societies. And one of the central tenets of all such societies throughout history is that once you are in, you cannot leave and survive.

Due to his conversion to Christ and the Church I think Cornell deserves a fair look into his death, especially considering the views of the Church on suicide. Maybe at one point he was a degenerate rock star, and maybe he channeled some dark forces and rubbed shoulders with dark people. But if he truly tried to turn his life around, and encountered darkness that he had to confront, and was killed for his trouble, that deserves consideration.

Symbolism happens. It would ring true if the man who wrote “Black Hole Sun” went on to experience demonic things in his life, but later repented and went on to challenge the cult that worships the real Black Sun. It would be poetic, and God is a poet, but you have to decide for yourself what you think really happened.

Did Cornell really fall back into his old inner demons and kill himself, or was he killed by servants of demonic forces that he had denounced? Either way, the story would be Saturnalian in its symbolism.

Symbolically, Saturn drags down those who seek to escape it, pulling them back in with his crushing gravity, devouring them. If Cornell committed suicide, it would be Saturnalian because it would mean he was pulled back in to his inner darkness and succumbed to it. If Cornell was murdered, it would be Saturnalian because he was pulled back in by outward forces, punished for daring to try and break free from Saturn’s matrix.

But Christ has conquered death by death, and so Saturn can no longer hold men in his grip forever. The Black Cube of death is rendered totally powerless in the end. There is hope, for Cornell and for all of us.

I know this is not anything like what I usually post, but I felt I had to write it. I knew nothing about Chris Cornell two days ago, but now here I am writing about him in the hopes that if he deserves justice, he receives it.

And maybe its for that reason that the symbolism of Saturn appeared to me, to bring light to this strange story. I think it is fortuitous that the matter presented itself to me yesterday, just in time to post on the summer solstice. It seems a good use of this most powerful day of the year to call out the darkness. It is unwise to discuss demons in the dark- they deserve to be called out into the light to face judgement.

I pray Chris Cornell truly renounced the devil and that his memory will be eternal.

God bless.

“Brothers: it is later than you think. Hasten, therefore, to do the work of God.”

- Hieromonk Seraphim Rose

Iran and Israel are at it again. The frenzy over AI has some calling it a vessel for the New World Order and the Antichrist. Massive protests are taking place in the southwest United States over immigration and national identity. The winds of war are blowing.

Of course, they always have been, ever since the dawn of time when Cain slew his brother. But today there seems to be a widely agreed upon notion among the people that something larger is happening, or beginning to happen. Something different. The cultural attitude is that of men holding their breath and growing ever more anxious. Something Lovecraftian is looming over the long peace that the West has enjoyed for so many decades. We know things cannot go on like this indefinitely.

What does it mean when a narrative ends? When one narrative dies, another must take its place. When one story ends, another must begin. This is the normal flow of human history.

For example, as the story of the Christian Middle-Ages ended, the age of the Renaissance began. This was an “end” of one particular world on a microcosmic scale. Since then, there have been various other microcosmic meta-narratives, such as the the reformation, the enlightenment, the rise of communism, the industrial revolution, and countless others. These are all meta-narratives, and they have a lifecycle.

We are now living through the end of another narrative, the one that has dominated all of our lives. The WW2 consensus is ending.

This term refers to the world order established at the end of WW2 and the ideology that has ruled the world ever since. This consensus has decided not only the answers to the world’s questions but even the questions that we are allowed to ask. This consensus is everything from our political theory to the presuppositions that we carry to the thoughts we are capable of thinking. The WW2 consensus is a meta-narrative through which all westerners have viewed the world and human history for the last 70 years. It is sometimes called the “Boomer truth regime”.

Among this meta-narrative’s sacred cows are democracy, the holocaust, the state of Israel’s right to exist, universal suffrage, and equality. Until now, you could be ostracized for questioning any of these. But things are changing.

Men who feel their end is nigh tend to forgo with social niceties, and it is often said that the dying have delusions lifted from their eyes. Today, every dogma of the neo-liberal religion is being publicly put on trial.

I believe the collapse really began in 2020. Something in the air changed after the COVID saga. COVID was a tipping point, an unmasking of the true nature of our world for many people, and while for many others it took a few years to really sink in, in 2025 we are living in an entirely different paradigm than we were in 2015. The zeitgeist has changed.

Fifteen years ago, the majority of the “right-wing” was still operating entirely within the bounds of the WW2 meta-narrative. But now, mainstream figures like Tucker Carlson and Matt Walsh openly question some of its sacred cows. Truly right-wing parties are gaining traction in Europe. The growing neo-right wing in America increasingly views establishment Republicans as part of the same corrupt system as Liberals. The entire idea of multicultural society, held as sacred for so long, is finally being seen for what it truly is- the orchestrated destruction of the west and its peoples.

Hitler is probably the best example, precisely because he is the most uncomfortable. Adolf Hitler has served as the neoliberal world order’s Satan, this is perhaps the defining dogma of the WW2 meta-narrative, and as such it will be one of the last to go. But it is being questioned, and in odd ways.

Kanye West's new song "Heil Hitler" is a fantastic example of this dissolution of narrative because of how ridiculous the whole thing is. But more important than Kanye or his song is the reaction of others- for the most part, no one outside the elite class and its shills were remotely offended. Others may find it stupid, others will find it funny, others will see it as a warning sign of a trend towards dangerous pendulum swings to the right, but the silver lining is that few people are genuinely offended by someone invoking the name “Hitler” as anything less than the equivalent of Satan. We are reaching a point where Hitler and WW2 can be discussed as historical events like anything else.

Perhaps more than anything, people taking a fresh look at Adolf Hitler is the proof that we are entering a new age. It does not matter what our personal opinions of him are- what matters is the emotional detachment from him and the entire narrative surrounding him.

I do believe the collapse of the WW2 consensus will be a net positive for western civilization. It was inevitable and necessary, and it will allow civilization to “breathe” and move out of the stagnation that has defined it for the last couple of decades. The rulers of this regime are ontologically evil and I am glad people are waking up to their tyranny and many injustices. But despite all the positives, I don’t feel a true sense of victory.

Because while we may be breaking down a corrupt world order, there does not seem to be a real alternative narrative taking its place. Our civilization is collapsing, but there is no feeling of a great future on the horizon like there must have been on the cusp of the Renaissance. Why?

I propose it is because we are running out of stories, so to speak. The world has become so corrupt, so dull, and so ugly that people are no longer inspired in the way they once were. There is no current sign of a second renaissance coming, no second age of exploration. The narratives of communism, fascism, democracy all seem to have run their course. It has been said that we live in the “end of history” and while that may seem logically impossible, something about it intuitively rings true.

And if we have run out of stories to tell, what does that mean?

It may mean that we are approaching the end of the world.

I should clarify- I am not saying that we should interpret current events to mean that the literal end of the world is upon us- right now. This isn’t that kind of essay. What is important is not the current events themselves, its the attitude of people towards the idea of the end of the world that matters.

There is always a cycle of rise and fall, life and death. The smallest manifestation of this pattern is taking place any time you do anything- you you begin doing it, you finish doing it. At the highest, most macrocosmic level, the cycle is that of the cosmos itself, and ends with the Apocalypse.

This essay is not going to end with me saying that the end of the world is upon us. Or at least, not exactly. It is certainly the “end times”. But we Christians believe that it has been the “last days” ever since the ascension of Christ. And so in a sense, saying that it is the end of the world is always correct, but also vague.

To have this sort of discussion it is important not to get too caught up in theorizing about the events of the literal end times. Christ in fact told us that no one will know the “day or the hour” of the end. It is enough to do what many of the Church fathers have done, that is to discuss the patterns and symbolism of the final age and to remain watchful. But that does not mean that we cannot understand the signs of the times.

To understand what is happening in the world today, we have to zoom out and look at the entire narrative of the world after Christ.

Why is it that the overarching attitude of the last two thousand years has been so apocalyptic?

The age began with the birth of Christ, and our age’s obsession with religion, prophecy, dogma, saviors, utopias, and the apocalypse is something unprecedented in human history. There have always been cults and wars and civilizational collapses, but things like the 20th century wars of ideology, or the narrative of Islam, only this age could produce. Men have never fought and died over what they believe at this level before. What changed? Well, when we say that the world after Christ was a new age, that’s actually a very literal statement.

This is the age of Pisces, the age of religion and fanaticism and mysterious cults and the blood of martyrs. Not everyone realizes that the birth of Christ coincided exactly with the beginning of the astronomical age. Why do you think the early Christians used the sign of the fish, and Christ called his followers to be fishers of men?

No, I am not proposing that the Christian narrative was code for astrology. It is quite the opposite. The astrological symbolism is downstream from Christ. The heavens paint a picture of what is happening, they do not “control” us as perhaps modern astrologists understand it.

The defining meta-narrative of this “A.D.” age has been that of the apocalypse and the coming utopia. We do not live in an animistic age focused on the flow of seasons and the cyclic nature of all things. Men may have lived that way once, but we do not. This is an age obsessed with the end of the world. Christ himself told us that he would come again to judge the world before it is made new, and that prophecy has influenced every event in the last two thousand years. All men know it. Even non-Christians believe in some version of apocalyptic and utopian narratives. At a subconscious level, we agree on what is coming.

And so while the age as a whole is playing out this meta-narrative, the smaller narratives that take place within in it will also have an apocalyptic and religious flavor. Hence, why it is so easy to mistake a period of chaos and collapse for the literal end of the world. Because we know that one day, a microcosm and the macrocosm will indeed overlap.

Since we are living in the last days, we can expect the signs of the end times to constantly appear and small versions of it to play out, even if it is not yet the end. For example, there was the literal destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. That event would have felt like the end of the world to those experiencing it, but here we are two thousand years later.

But symbolically speaking, as we near the true end, we should expect apocalyptic threads to start popping up in the culture more frequently.

And today, the “signs of the times” are everywhere. Modern pop culture is flooded with movies and novels about dystopian futures, wars with sentient robots, or literal apocalypses. Leftists have been performing their own doomsday preaching for the last few decades, telling us all that climate change will bring about the end of our civilization if not humanity itself. The idea of civil war or at least massive civil unrest in America is frequently discussed. The Islamic world is foaming at the mouth for war. Boomer American evangelicals seem hellbent on bringing about end times prophecies in a manner that makes you wonder what side they’re actually on.

It feels as if there is some sort of subconscious civilizational death wish. As if everyone has had enough of modernity, enough of the microcosmic narratives, and is ready to get back to the macrocosmic meta-narrative of the age, that is, getting back to preparing for the end of the world and ushering in a new golden age in the aftermath.

But what new age and what savior are we waiting for? Well, that is a question that millions of lives have already been sacrificed to in the last century alone, and it is one that will surely claim millions more before the end. What is the coming utopia supposed to look like? And who is going to bring it about? Who will be the savior of the world?

Christians are waiting for the second coming of Christ. Futurists wait for the AI singularity. Muslims wait for the Mahdi. Buddhists wait for the Maitreya. Jews wait for their Messiah and the rebuilding of the Temple. Marxists wait for an age where all hierarchies are thrown down and they achieve their utopia. Hindus wait for Kalki. Liberals wait for an age of true democracy and equality. And all over the world, people wait for various folk heroes to return at the end of the age, like Arthur from his long sleep in Avalon. You may assume that men have always believed in this “coming savior at the end of the world”, but this is uniquely Piscean. Bronze-Age Greeks, for example, had no such prophecies.

Many, actually most, of these hopes are mutually exclusive. The end of the world will be bloody and horrific because all men will believe themselves to be on the side of their own Christ- and will see all those opposed as devils.

There are two cosmic cities seeking to be built, the new Jerusalem and the new Babylon. But it is important to understand that all sides will believe themselves to be building the new Jerusalem. The Antichrist at the end of the world will not look like a fantastical manifestation of evil, at least not at first. He will appear to be a savior. He will appear as a Christ.

In his popular talk “Signs of the Times”, Fr Seraphim Rose explained the situation with great clarity:

The very nature of Antichrist, who is to be the last great world ruler and the last great opponent of Christ, is to be anti Christ—and "anti" means not merely "against," but also "in imitation of, in place of." The Antichrist, as all the Holy Fathers say in their writings about him, is to be someone who imitates Christ, that is, tries to fool people by looking as though he is Christ come back to earth. Therefore, if one has a very vague notion of Christianity or reads the Scriptures purely from one's own opinions (and one's opinions come from the air, and the air is not Christian now, but anti Christian), then one will come to very anti Christian conclusions. Seeing the figure of Antichrist, one will be fooled into thinking that it is Christ.

You need to know what you believe in, what patterns you believe to be true. Because if we are truly headed towards the end of the macrocosm, we will witness things totally beyond our comprehension and beyond our ability to handle. If you don’t want to end up fooled, you must get your stories straight now.

Maybe you are not a Christian, or you do not believe that an apocalypse is near, or both. In that case, you have your own question to answer. That is, if there is no end approaching, why is everyone behaving as if there is? Where is this worldwide psychosis coming from? And even if you do not believe in a final judgment and the end of the world, you must at least be aware of cyclic destruction of life on Earth and the life cycle of civilizations. There is always the possibility that civilization is indeed going to collapse soon, which is apocalyptic in of itself, all religious elements aside.

Everyone must consider the signs of the times and prepare themselves for the future, regardless of what they believe in. And it may well be that despite the collapse of the WW2 consensus, we are not yet at the true end. Perhaps there are many more microcosmic stories to be told. Perhaps we are nearing only a microcosmic apocalypse, perhaps we are headed towards the end of the West but not the world as a whole.

On a personal level, I am not expecting armageddon to begin next week. It is easy to confuse a microcosm for the macrocosm in the midst of things. We should all remain sober.

But I believe the patterns I have described are true regardless. Even if the end is not yet, the microcosmic patterns are carrying us ever closer to the end of the macrocosm. The signs of the times that we are seeing may not mean that the end will start right now- but they are signs of the end nonetheless. The Judge at the end of time is waiting. The axe is laid at the foot of the tree. We already know that we live in the last days, and we know where we are in the grand story of the world. We know what cosmological time it is.

As Fr Seraphim frequently said-

It is later than you think.

What more can be said of the resurrection of our Lord? The joy of Pascha is too bright for me to write many words.

Christ is risen!

Christos Anesti!

What more could we ever need?

Christ poured out His blood for Man, harrowed the gates of Hell, trampled down death by death, and rose again on the third day.

Our Lord did what the heroes of old could not do. Like them he descended down to Hades, but unlike them He could not be held captive. He bound Death in chains, freed the righteous from the pit and rose to claim His kingdom. He has bestowed life upon those in the tomb.

In a single moment everything was redeemed. All of Men’s deeds are no longer futile, our all strivings no longer in vain. Every hero’s journey need no longer end in the cold grip of death. The songs of Men need no longer be all bittersweet. Light has scattered the darkness. The Gates of Eden are reopened.

Because of Christ, the long night of the old world has passed away.

Dawn has broken.

The king is the land. When the king is sick, so is the land. Only the Grail can heal them both and restore the right ordering of creation.

And so it is in our lives. The king is our soul, the land is our lives, the knights are our strivings. We all live out our own little microcosm of the alchemical Grail quest. Camelot lives in all of us. What our kingdom’s fate will be… well, that is the question, isn’t it?

This is the question of King Arthur and the Round Table, of Excalibur, of Merlin the wanderer. The question of the Grail and the Fisher King and the Sword in the Stone. The question of Camelot.

The primordial question- the question of Eden.

Is the sickness spreading throughout the land going to bring about our ruin, or will we uproot it and see a new dawn? Will we defeat death?

Do you have the courage to pull the sword from the stone, young boy? Are you willing to face the dragons and traitors lurking within you? Can you break past the threshold of your fears and your ego and step into Mirkwood? Can you descend into hell and look your shadow dead in the eye? Can you bring what you find in those depths back to the world of the living and use it to make the land whole again? And will you do this again, and again, and again?

Who cares what you went through before, how you felt back then, what you feel like you deserve. Did you think the solstice would last forever? That you could rest on your little laurels? No, the wheel is going to turn again and again. You weren’t ready? The dragon comes rampaging anyway. The land will always suffer a new sickness, the king will always suffer a new wound, and if you want to be the hero you will have to heal it over and over again.

The land is only as strong and pure and joyful as the king. You wish for good years, you wish to see the happy times? Then clear your soul of dragons, make safe the roads, do what needs doing. Have you felt it, the ticking clock, the slow dread? You know the sickness within, you know what evil haunts your kingdom, even if you cannot look it in the eye.

Create life or die. That is the lesson of Camelot. What did you think the story of Arthur and Guinevere was all about? A childless marriage, barrenness, infertility. An inability to bring the inner kingdom into harmony, to direct life’s energy into creation. Where there is no harmony, no creation, no flow, that is death.

But this quest feels so impossible. Who can defeat the dragon? Who has ever conquered the rot of sin? Who can escape the grave?

The doom of Camelot is the great tragedy, the primordial tragedy. The doom of all mankind. Unfulfilled promise. Broken hopes. Unrealized potential. The barrenness of life. Visions of what could have been. The same damming curse, plaguing us all, forever and ever. What purpose has man ever had that came to fruition? What has ever gone unmarred? When has Camelot ever been more than a dream?

What do we do? What can we do? It’s all so dammed hopeless, isn’t it? Everything young grows old and and every spring turns to autumn and everything beautiful fades. All of our youthful hopes turn to bitter disappointment.

But there is one thing we can do. The only thing man can do. Seek the Grail.

This is it, our only hope. But what is it? What is the mystery of the Grail?

It is this. We cannot heal ourselves, so we must seek the power that is beyond us. We must seek communion with God. Only by it can we transmute all that was dark and broken within us into shining light. Only it can break the cycle of death and decay. Only communion can take the evil of the soul and turn it to good, making it but a part of the greater tale. The Grail is the cup of Christ.

“O Death, where is thy sting?”

The sickening land must be revitalized, the king must be made whole again. The king must drink from the Grail to heal his wound. The Grail breaks the curse. It fills what was empty, makes fruitful what was barren. To find the Grail is to drink of the living water. Our soul can only overcome the gloaming darkness by communing with the divine light. But how, how can we find this Grail, how do we solve this riddle?

The mystery of the Grail is solved by courage and humility and becoming like a little child. Only those pure in heart like little children may partake. King Arthur wept at the rot that had infected Camelot, that had ruined his innocent dreams, and so must weep at our own sins. The Grail mystery is not solved by raging or fighting or screaming or begging. The soul is made pure through tearful repentance. Those worthy of the Grail are those who know they are not worthy.

Give everything for the Grail. Sacrifice it all. Without the Grail, all the riches in the world are worthless. But with the Grail, the most humble things are worth their weight in gold. Give your very life if need be, follow the king to Avalon. Death holds no terror for those that have sipped from the chalice.

If we can solve the mystery of the Grail, then the Spirit flows through the land and the flowers bloom and the king is healed and the queen bears children.

Then there is Camelot, then there is heaven on Earth.

Then it is spring in Logres.

In our age even the best of us, even priests and monastics, greatly struggle with faith. Our world is so disconnected from God that even those who profess to believe are unable to believe in the same way that the ancient fathers did. And even those ancients, Christ called them “ye of little faith”. If they were small, how small must we be?

Christ tells us that with faith as small as a grain of mustard seed, we could move mountains. And we know the stories of the saints that had this kind of faith. Prophets and heroes who accomplished great deeds of legend, performed miracles, slew dragons. Kings who won battles against impossible odds through the power of the Holy Cross. Women with courage greater than that of warriors. In Christ, all things are possible.

We do not choose our times, but we have a responsibility to seek this kind of faith even amongst the spiritual decay of our age, we must seek it even if we fall short. It is our duty not to become lethargic and lukewarm. Our faith should shake the foundations of the Earth.

“If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”

Christ came not to bring peace but a sword.

To fulfill the law of His Father, not to cast it aside. He came to set the world aflame. Christ brought about a new age for Men, a new Dawn, but the end of this age is yet to come. And until that day we are to be watchful. As wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.

We rejoice in Christ’s victory over death while remembering that the last stage of His Holy War is still brewing. Christ promised us peace, but not until after much trial. One must endure to the end.

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

To take up your cross and follow Christ is to take up a sword.

In the absence of the King who is and is to come, we are the wardens of this world. Our duty is to protect all that is beautiful, innocent, and pure.

Some have said that beauty will save the world. But I think it is more accurately said that it is the love of beauty that will save it. Love for what is beautiful inspires all good deeds, all courage, honor, and sacrifice.

The beauty of women inspires the great deeds of heroes. The beauty of small children inspires the sacrifices of their fathers. The beauty of a country inspires the sacrifice of her sons’ blood on foreign soil.

It was for love of the beauty of all His creation, and especially of Man, that Christ gave His own life. So do not look to beauty for salvation. Look first to beauty- then save it.

Christ has promised us a Eucatastrophe, to come at an hour we do not expect, like a thief in the night. So we must be like the wise servant, always expecting his master, always ready. We have been told signs of the turning of the Age, but it will still come unexpectedly.

Like the old world we will be eating and drinking, and taking and giving in marriage, up until the end.

We live in a state of tension between two truths. Christ has already come and conquered, and He is with us until the very bitter end of the age. It is finished.

Yet we also await his return, and still wage war against sin and death until that day. Are we abandoned? No - Christ is with us, and He has allowed one more age of this world to turn for the purpose of letting us win crowns of our own, battling sin and death in His name.

The evil of the last days will be the greatest ever seen on the Earth, greater even than the evil that sank the old world, that turned the work of giants to dust- but even that evil will be powerless to stop the coming of the Son of Man who will be as lightning. With such surety of victory, what excuse do we have to be fearful? We should not be found hiding with sheathed swords when the King returns. We know our role in this great tale- we have only to play it out.

So until the last day we look to the East - for He is coming at the final hour when all seems most lost and He is least expected.

“An axe age, a sword age, shields shall be cloven,
A wind age, a wolf age, ere the world totters…”

Who is our enemy?

Some act as if all that are not entirely on their side in all thing are their enemies. Those of other faiths, sometimes even other Christians. But should we view life in such an antagonistic manner?

Christ told his disciples, “For the one who is not against us is for us. For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward”.

We have no true enemies but the demons themselves. The demons, and men who have given themselves over to doing their work. Christ’s enemies are our enemies. But in finding friendship we should not be so dogmatic. Christ does not judge those outside the faith by the same standards as us. Even the smallest kindness towards his flock he may repay ten fold.

We must concern ourselves not with judging the whole world, but only with fighting the true enemy. We should be slow to judge those who also resist the our enemy in their own fashion. Christ will judge their deeds in His own Wisdom. Christ came not to tear down Rome, but to defeat Death itself.

Your lifestyle will never be enough if you do not posses inner strength and purpose.

Saints have lived lives that looked miserable on the outside- but they remained filled with a love, peace, joy, and vitality that we can hardly imagine. How? Because they were filled with light, and this light illumined them and the world around them. They did not need the outward things of world to be fulfilled.

No matter where you go or what you do, you will remain yourself. If you can find true purpose, you can then adapt to any situation or lifestyle that you find yourself in. But if you can’t, if you’re filled with jealousy, or resentment, or insecurity- a change in lifestyle won’t fix those things.

All of the outward things of life could be stripped away in an instant, and you could be left with only what you’ve cultivated inside yourself. The things of true value are stored in your heart.

As children we take the innocence and simplicity of our lives for granted. But if children think less often of God, perhaps that is only because they are so close to Him already.

As we age we stray further and further from God as a consequence of our sinfulness. We lose our childhood innocence and find ourselves adrift in a dangerous and cold world. God is never any less present, but we grow blind and callous towards Him. Despite this, God turns our adulthood into a great blessing.

Adulthood is the true test. When true faith is required of us, faith even when we may rarely feel the presence of God or any sort of spiritual “feeling”. In allowing us an opportunity to strengthen our faith without seeing, God allows us to strive in a way we could not as innocent children.

So rather than resent the struggles of adulthood, we should give thanks for them, and look ever forward to the day when we may reclaim that childlike faith and wonder we lost.

"Drink Holy Water as often as possible. It's the best and most effective medicine. I say this not as a bishop, but as a doctor, from my experience in medicine."

- St. Luke the Doctor

What is a man? Such a simple question, but one that has been at the center of philosophical debate for ages. A man is not an easy thing to understand, we are strange creatures. In many ways we exist the same way as the animals, eating, sleeping, reproducing. In this sense we are biological beings interacting with a material world. We are made out of the Earth’s elements and when we die we return to them. And yet despite these facts, we possess some intuition that we are not mere animals.

For the most part, men have always agreed that we posses something called a spirit. That a human being is made up of parts- mind, body, and soul. However, we live in a very different age today. In the age of reason, moderns began to treat humans as purely biological beings, often without acknowledging the existence of the soul at all.

Examining the disenchantment of the world and of mankind is the overarching point of this essay series, and is too big an issue to cover all at once. So, today we will specifically look at the way the disenchantment of man has manifested in our approach to the medical industry, to healing, and has sucked away our energy in a very literal sense.

The modern medical industrial complex seems to view patients not as human beings to be healed, but like a list of symptoms to be solved, or like a list of broken mechanisms to be fixed with the proper cranking of a knobs and the pushing of a few buttons. We flaunt our scientific advancements by fixing problems (often quite impressively it must be admitted) without considering whether we are truly fixing what needs to be fixed. We may alleviate symptoms and even successfully treat diseases, but are we truly healing people?

It certainly does not appear so. In fact, our society appears profoundly sick, especially in America. Obesity, chronic disease, and mental-health disorder rates are skyrocketing. Our children are not healthy- the 2024 United States Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth indicates that only 20% to 28% of children are getting the recommended daily hour of physical activity, and more than 40% of school-aged children and adolescents had at least one chronic health condition such as asthma or obesity. It should go without saying that this is not normal.

Our doctors hand out drugs to children like candy, covering up symptoms rather than treating root issues. They prescribe mind-altering drugs to young adults to “cure” depression rather than seeking to give them a true sense of purpose. They slap a label like “chronic pain” on mystery systems rather than digging deep to determine what deeper issue is causing a person’s body to cry out in agony. They put ADHD energetic young boys on drugs to make them behave more “appropriately” in school. Vaccines are pumped into babies with hardly a second thought. Many of the elderly are taking fistfuls of pills everyday. Despite the great things modern medicine is capable of, one wonders how much this medical system is really concerned with healing.

And this same attitude pervades other fields related to the health of the human body, not just our medicine. For an example, let’s take a look down at our feet.

Either you or someone you know probably wear an orthopedic to deal with foot or knee pain. These orthopedics “work”- they lower the pain many feel while walking. But just like a pain-relieving pill, these cover up symptoms rather than really healing what is wrong with your foot in the first place. In fact, orthopedics actually stop your body from working as intended. You were designed to walk a certain way, and that requires feedback from the ground and the correct activation of the muscles in your feet. If you cannot simply walk without pain, that is a sign that something has gone wrong at a fundamental level, something that must be addressed, weaknesses that must be worked out- not covered up. An orthopedic might relieve your pain, but it does so at the expense of your body no longer needing to functional correctly, which allows your feet to weaken and atrophy.

In fact, forget the orthopedics, even our everyday shoes destroy the natural function of our feet. Your feet were never meant to be crammed into little boxes or to sit on massive cushioned soles all day. Sneakers may be comfortable, but at the expense of your feet turning into the equivalent of a chronic couch-potato. But this is just one small example in a whole world that is no longer seeking to live in the natural way that God intended. We have used technology to “fix” a perceived “problem”, but ended up ruining God’s natural design in the process.

This approach to medicine and other treatments of the body has been the status quo for quite some time, and rarely questioned. Those that dared to do so have often been labeled quacks, conspiracy theorists, or hippies.

But that is rapidly changing. In 2020 there was a meteoric rise in the open questioning of the western medical industrial complex. The response from elites and the media was swift and violent- it became obvious that a sacred cow was being attacked. Much has been said about the “pandemic”, about just how nauseatingly soulless the entire affair was. People forced into humiliation rituals like public masking, families separated, careers and educations put on hold or entirely shutdown, the widespread persecution of those who refused to go along with mandates, and so on. Most chilling of all was the hysterical loyalty of countless people to the medical regime and their mandates. It became a religion for these people, reporting on their friends, shunning their families. All in the name of science and medicine.

If 2020 taught us anything, it should not be merely that our medical complex treats us like mechanical cattle, but that much of the population is in fact just that. You are your beliefs, as many have said. If people decide to live as soulless beings and accept such inhumane, mechanical treatment… then perhaps they actually are machines. No one forced this disenchantment on people. To become a soulless husk, to lose their humanity, that is a choice people have to make for themselves at some level. Perhaps trans-humanism is something that will be accomplished in the souls of men long before it is made tangible through sci-fi technology.

The natural conclusion of an atheistic, materialistic philosophy is playing out. Human beings, after being increasingly treated as soulless animals, are now increasingly being treated as something closer to a machine. Everything about our approach to health, medicine, and living must be wrong- everyone is sick and miserable. Some of the types of disenchantment we will explore in this essay series may not appear immediately harmful. But this one is actively ruining the lives of millions of people that deserve a chance to live as a healthy, complete human being.

This is an issue where I think all that stand against the post-humanist, globalist elite class can find common ground. This is one of the core issues that the neo-right movement is currently rallying around. Everywhere we are seeing people attempt to return to some form of more natural, holistic living. It is indicative of how bad things have gotten that Make-America-Healthy-Again is such a strong rallying point.

But how can we begin to truly undo this disenchantment? Our medical industrial complex is so far beyond being just disenchanted. At this point it is anti-health, and stands in active opposition to alternative or holistic forms of medical treatment.

But what are the actual alternatives? Some readers may be wary that I am about to propose a “hippie” or “new age” philosophy that essentially argues against any form of western medicine and tells you to go heal yourself with crystals (that might work in theory, but we’ll get to that), but that is a false dichotomy. But there is another way to approach medicine and healing while still remaining scientific, one that treats man not as a machine, but as a holistic being made of “energy”.

Dr. Ray Peat was one of the leading minds in the field of metabolic science. His study centered around the study of metabolism, hormones, aging and energy. His research can be read in full in his articles and in interviews on his blog, but you could paraphrase his main views as something like this- Life is the flow of energy. Anything that blocks energy production or flow (stress) is antithetical to life. When energy fails, the foundational structure of the body fails, which allows for aging and disease.

A quote from Dr. Peat addresses the essential problem with modern medicine:

"One of the currents of medical thinking, from Hippocrates to the 19th century, was an interest in the capacity of the organism to heal itself. But 'modern' medicine has arrogated to itself the 'healing power,' with terrible results.”

At some point in the modern era, beginning probably as far back as the Middle Ages, we began to disenchant our view of the human body and of healing, and we started trying to play God. By doing this, we lost our focus on the human’s innate ability to heal itself as a living, energetic being.

Ray Peat is just one name in what could broadly be called the field of “bioenergetics”. This sphere of thought integrates elements of traditional medicine, spirituality, quantum physics, and philosophy to understand human beings as complex energetic systems. Systems where the mind, body, and spirit are fundamentally interlinked and must be treated as a whole.

Innovator Nikola Tesla is often quoted saying, "If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration." This energetic trail of thinking would lead us to conclude that the human being, like the cosmos itself, is primarily animated by this “energy”. What does this mean for our health?

We already know that the human body “heals” itself in everyday ways, like closing up a cut, or fighting off a sickness. But what if our entire approach to healing focused not on our ability to heal a patient from the outside, but on aiding that patient in healing themselves.

We know the human body can conduct energy (we are mostly water after all), and the health of our cells is essentially determined by how much energy, specifically ATP they can produce. We know that we are influenced by magnetism, electricity, sunlight, the cycles of the moon, and so many other things. These things all affect us deeply. You probably remember how different you felt on your last vacation to the beach as opposed to a typical week in the office. You probably remember times in your life where you felt your energy bursting at the seams, and times you felt unable to get yourself out of bed. You are not a machine, you are a living being, and every single thing in your life, down to the smallest detail, has a great effect on you.

The mechanical, soulless nature of the modern world must be having just as great an effect on you, but in the worst way. A society for machines is not one that will allow for energetic human flourishing. The people of the modern world are the opposite of high-energy, we are slow, lethargic, sick and dying. Drugs, obesity, sedentary lifestyles, lack of community- everything about our civilization sucks our energy away. Is it any wonder that living beings, put under such conditions, would begin to sicken and decay? We have been treated like machines, and in time we became like them. Maybe still performing our assigned roles, but lifeless, depressed, and empty.

A bioenergetic line of thinking would suggest that it is the proper flowing of energy that creates “good health”, and blocked or insufficient energy is what leads to aging, sickness, disease, and ultimately death. More specific diagnosis can still be made of course, but they would be considered to be downstream from a blockage or shortage of energy.

For followers of Ray Peat, their primary goal when seeking good health is to increase their energy, measured by increasing metabolism (often tracked by measuring body temperature). A high metabolism, positive emotions, and a healthy hormonal profile are the true markers of health to be sought after. It is often said in that sphere that the ultimate goal of a human being is to live in a state of “childlike wonder”.

If this all sounds a little bit out-there, stay patient. This idea is not nearly as odd as it might initially seem to someone who has grown up with a materialistic, western, disenchanted view of the human body. This view of health is not a modern theory or something invented by the “new age” movement. Thinkers like Tesla, along with Dr. Ray Peat and others in the sphere of bioenergetics are not preaching a “new” philosophy of healing and the human body in opposition to the modern western philosophy, they are just the modern bearers of an ancient torch.

This idea of life being essentially a flow of energy was universal in the ancient world. This notion of “life force” is know by many names across different cultures. Chi, Vril, Prana, Dragon-Energy, etc. All living things are connected by this flow of energy. This is not a “New Age” idea. It is an ancient idea to be sure, but it is a Christian one as well.

In Christianity it is believed that God the Father is the “prime mover”, the origin of all things and that the Holy Ghost is everywhere, flowing and moving within everything.

That is the universal ancient way of thinking- that the world is primarily made of God’s divine energy, and that in order to live rightly and healthily us men must live in “tune” with that energy. It is only our modern, disenchanted worldview that has turned away from this belief. And in doing so, not only did we ruin our physical and mental health, we ruined the health of our souls as well.

To break our disenchantment, we must remember what we are- the imago Dei, creatures made in the image of God. Creatures made of a body, mind, and spirit. And in doing this, we must return to a way of living that affirm this view. Only then can we begin the work of re-enchanting the spheres of medicine and healing.

So, how can we do this?

Firstly, we should seek out alternative forms of medicine and healing that treat patients as holistic human beings and acknowledge bioenergetic principles.

Find doctors and naturopaths near you that will advise you in holistic health practices. Look for solutions to your health issues that focus on healing root sicknesses and inflammation rather than using drugs to mask symptoms. Get your bloodwork done and find out if your hormones are functioning as they should be. Avoid toxins, plastics, processed foods, harmful chemicals, excessive blue light, etc. Seek to live in a way that will increase your energy- exercise, get away from the screens, spend time outdoors, pursue things you are passionate, and above all, love the people around you. Do everything you can to break free from the ways that modern life is forcing you to live as a machine, stealing you energy away day by day. Become a biologically “energetic” being and good health will follow.

Luckily, there is a growing trend in support of a more natural, holistic lifestyle. It is even beginning to go mainstream. Alternative brands are launching in just about any field you can think of, offering alternatives to modern products and services that promote the real health of human beings. Avoiding seed oils is becoming a mainstream health concern and eating “primal” diets and raw foods has become something of a meme. There’s plenty of silliness mixed in with the good stuff, but Gen Z may be becoming the most health conscious generation in decades.

As a side note, a bioenergetic way of thinking does suggest that there may be merit to more wacky and “esoteric” forms of medicine. Sound healing, crystals, vibrations, etc. Some Christian readers may be worried that these things are “occult”, but there is a distinction between “New Age” spirituality and a physical healing method that seems “mystic” or strange. The world is a strange place, and certain things that seem like magic may just be science we do not comprehend. The idea of all of these odd healing methods is centered around energy and frequency- and while I can’t say much about them with any certainty, it is entirely possible that they have a place in a re-enchanted health sphere.

But above all, the most important thing we can do for our physical health is to return to a primarily spiritual philosophy of healing, which is the philosophy of the ancient (and modern) Church. The mind, body, and soul work together to make a human being, but it is our soul that holds the highest value and will most define who we are. Even if one were to follow the principles of the bioenergetics sphere to heal their body, it would be fruitless in the end if the health of the soul were neglected. A man with a sick soul is a sick man no matter the state of his physical body- and often, a sick body will follow after a sickened soul.

Aging, sickness, and disease may well be the result of “blocked energy”- but a more Patristic interpretation may be that this “blocked energy” is the result of spiritual sickness- the result of sin. When the soul is sickened, the body is also sickened. This is told to us at the very beginning of Scripture. First man sinned, and in falling, became subject to Death.

Spiritual medicine is the best medicine, even for the body. I began this essay with this quote from St. Luke the Doctor:

“Drink Holy Water, the more often, the better. It is the best and most effective medicine. I'm not saying this as a priest, I'm saying it as a doctor, from my medical experience”.

This is a hard saying for a modern person to come to terms with. Are we ready to embrace such a fully re-enchanted view of healing, of the spiritual nature of reality? Are we really ready to live this way?

Of course, nothing in this essay is saying we should abandon all science or all modern medicine. Modern medicine has done wonderful things for the world and has many uses. To deal with many diseases and injuries you may require the intervention of modern western medical practices. Our goal can not be to regress to a state of primitivism. Our goal must be to create a culture that once again treats men like holistic, spiritual beings. In such a culture, all methods of medicine, even modern western methods, could find a proper place, one oriented towards the higher goals of healing.

I will conclude with these words from Saint Porphyrios the Kapsokalyvite. They reveal the true path to physical health through the healing of the soul:

“It’s nice to walk, work, move and have health. But first you need to have internal health, health in your soul. This is the basis, physical health follows. Almost all illnesses come from a lack of trust in God and this creates anxiety and stress.”

“If you want to enjoy good health and live for many years, then listen to what Solomon the Wise has to say: Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the counsel of saints is understanding; for to know the law is the mark of a sound mind, for in this way you will live long and years of your life will be added to you.’ [21] This is the secret: for us to acquire this wisdom, this knowledge, and then everything functions smoothly, all things are put in order and we will live with joy and health.”

- Excerpts from Wounded By Love

Major turning points in a cultural zeitgeist don’t come around too often. Ideas that would have once been considered fringe or even scandalous ten years ago are being openly discussed and even highlighted in mainstream media. Ten years ago to earn the label of “racist” was practically a death sentence for a professional, but today more and more people are not only admitting their natural in-group preferences but even proudly display them. Not that long ago the gay lobby at the height of their power were untouchable, but today I regularly see non-anonymous writers and influencers calling the adoption of children by gay couples what it is- legalized child trafficking.

The world of 2025 is not the world of 2015.

I don’t want to be hyperbolic. I do believe we still live in crazy-world. I think there is so much excitement over the quick action of the Trump administration because our society reached a point so beyond absurdity that any change in the right direction appears as a huge victory. It’s easy to get a little carried away. In my recent essay Ode to Power invited some disagreement when I proposed that the return of political leaders enthusiastically wielding their powers is a good thing for the world in general. And while perhaps what I wrote will age poorly, at least for now I stand by the main point of that essay.

But some commenters such as raised counter points in the comments that can’t be ignored, not if we are going to make any genuine change in the world.

Lets assume for the sake of argument that the new American regime is genuine, they are truly fighting against the neoliberal cabal and are seeking to move in a new direction. Trump and Elon are trustworthy, and really represent an alternative elite coalition that will promote vaguely traditional (at least by the modern American definition) ideals.

If this is true, is it not then possible that the pendulum is going to swing so far in the opposite direction from “woke” that we end up in nothing but a new kind of dystopia? A dystopia where everything is “based”, we’re constantly “owning the libs”, and the very idea of empathy becomes something only for women and the effeminate? We laugh at the delusion of “Handmaid’s Tale” fear-mongering types, but is it entirely impossible that a dark chasm exists on the far end of the right as well as on the left?

Could idols not be made out of things that are “right-coded” such as masculinity, power, nationalism, economic growth, or “traditional values”? Is it not said that absolute power corrupts absolutely?

It would be hard to argue that this is not at least possibility. There is absolutely a way that our current story could play out where the new right-wing movement is a Trojan horse that leaves us even more spiritually bankrupt than we were in 2015. At least our current enemies are blatantly, identifiably evil. Such times have been before, and tyrants are not and never have been an odd thing to find in this world.

Certainly Christians, and for that matter all men, should be wary of power in the wrong hands.

But it cannot simply be power itself that is the problem. We can easily find many examples in history of good kings who wielded their power well. Kings and emperors that are considered great precisely because of how strongly they wielded their power. We need look no further than the lives of many saints to see this exemplified.

If there is a spectrum in the Christian life, St. Constantine perhaps represents one end while St. Anthony of Great represents the other. St. Constantine is an example not just of a Christian living in the world, but of possessing and using near absolute power in it. St. Anthony was one of the desert fathers and spent years of his life as a hermit before becoming a leader of other monks and many stories tell of his extreme ascetic accomplishments. Constantine and Anthony were contemporaries and yet lived starkly different lives. There’s even a story that the emperor once wrote to St. Anthony, who being not particularly excited by this honor, wrote back a response simply reminding Constantine to focus on the world to come more than the glories of this life.

We all fall somewhere on this spectrum, and while it is easy to see the wisdom in the approach more natural to you, it is often hard for us to appreciate those living so differently from us.

And yet the lives of the saints show us that despite the common thread of Christ, there is no one correct way to be a Christian in any given place and time. And likewise, there is no one approach to living in the world that will suit every given time and place in history. Different situations will suffer from different woes, and they will require different responses.

What we know for certain is that Christ told his disciples not to be of this world, and he promised them great struggles and terrible persecution.

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

- John 15:19

But this teaching is hard to understand. What does it actually look like to be “not of the world”. If it means that all Christians should be hermits and monks, it would be a simple answer. But we know this must be untrue. The Orthodox Church considers both the ascetic life and the glories of Byzantium to be the heights of Christian expression on Earth. As with many things in Christianity the truth is found in paradox.

We cannot simply say the answer is either total detachment in the desert or establishing a new totalitarian Christendom, no matter how comforting either idea may seem to us. It may be impossible to determine the “correct” response from Christians towards any government at any time, because to be “against the world” will often look quote different. The Royal Path may change in many ways depending on the vices and virtues of the age you find yourself in.

The one thing we can say for certain is that Christ’s command to love God and our neighbor more than ourselves is the solution to becoming “not of this world”. This is unfortunately far too difficult for most of us to practice or even comprehend (at least speaking for myself), and so it is hard to suggest it as as practical answer.

So what to do in the present moment?

For decades (perhaps longer) the West has been run by a neo-liberal bureaucracy and a managerial elite class who wholly despise the Church and all it stands for. They have gutted the morality of the West, imposed sexual perversions on our children, and have turned native peoples into hated minorities in many of their own cities. It is clear many of them want nothing less than total domination over every human being on Earth. And so in recent years Christians and the rising dissident-right have becomes close allies against all of this.

But if the pendulum swings too far, it is entirely possible that we will see a time where a “right-wing” government hates Christians just as strongly as the previous neo-liberal establishment did. We should remember that both fascists and communists persecuted the Church in their own ways.

This is where I believe the disagreements in my earlier post arose. One group of people looking more at the present situation, and the other looking forward at a dark possible outcome of the current cultural trend. Is it good or is it dangerous to see a President throwing his weight around, and the people enthusiastically supporting him? Do we participate wholeheartedly in the anti-woke pogrom or stand naysaying on the sidelines?

The true answer is probably “neither”… and probably that both sides are right in their own way.

Frankly, I am more on the side of supporting the new dissident right, as is probably obvious. Something has to change. The world order in place ever since the end of WW2 and perhaps even earlier needs to be broken. People everywhere are desperate for an end to a world where “nothing ever happens”, a phrase used to describe the recent decades where the rule of neo-liberal tyranny seems totally unbreakable and glimpses of hope are brutally dashed.

I just had my first child. I want her to live in a world where things happen again. Where good things have at least a chance to happen, even if bad comes with it. I want anything for her other than the slow spiritual death of the banal, meaningless brand of dystopia that has been pushed on the West for far too long. I like seeing the Trump administration use its power freely and enthusiastically not due to any particular fondness for him or his cabinet specifically, but because it is freeing up the culture for other, perhaps more genuine actors to make a difference. I want a less monopolized world. Even if Trump is no savior, I truly believe what we are seeing right now is better than the alternative. With such examples in the lives of the saints such as St. Constantine and many others, I do not think we can be so disparaging of the use of power- though we should always be wary of it.

I am happy to admit that I would rather face the problem of normal tyranny than the inhuman, unnatural dystopia we’ve been living under. Maybe some will still disagree with this feeling.

And yet I will not disregard the fears of those on the other side. I do not want to see the West react so strongly against the woke-world-order that we simply trade one set of idols for another.

What I do think is to let reservations about what could be distract us from addressing the actual problems of our day is a mistake. Even if it is a possibility, an excessive swing to the right is not yet our problem. We have to fight the actual battle before worrying about the next. We have to keep up some amount of hope that things can be changed for the better, that good times can come again.

We have to flow with the times we are given. Just as saints have had to walk their own paths while contemporaries walked wholly different ones, in one era Christians will have to combat one thing, and in another will we combat another. There are an infinite number of pitfalls a civilization can fall into, and so there must also be an infinite number of ways that Christ calls us to be “not of this world”.

And if that seems like an impossibly difficult thing, I think that is because it is. The Christian mission has always been seemingly impossible. I think that may be the whole point. Defeating the world defies all logic and all the laws of nature. It is a wholly super-natural mission. Today we may need to set up kings to set the world aright, and tomorrow they may need to be overthrown again. The narrow path is a strange one.

Behind all of my writings is a longing for something I do not fully understand. I have been plagued, or blessed with this feeling as long as I can remember. I cannot blame anything in my nurturing for this and can only assume it is a part of my nature, one I know is shared by others. Like anything else it comes with its good and its bad.

Certain things deeply affect me for reasons I struggle to explain. I know many others feel exactly as I do and similarly struggle to put it into words. There is a longing in the human soul for something that we lost. Some high beauty we once knew yet can only dimly remember. Our longing for the high beauty, for paradise, for Eden, for Faerië, all the result of our ancient fall in the garden. We long for what we have been barred from. Some things are too beautiful for men to look on, or to think too deeply on, without suffering a wound. There are times when a song or a story or a wind among the pines will feel like a stab in the heart. There are times you will feel a wild, desperate longing for something that you cannot even comprehend or explain to those around you. Such is the fate of men.

So much has already been said on the subject of the longing for the enchanted we all know so well. Instead of saying more, I want you to read this poem by Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Last Ship”. This little poem is dear to me. I first read it 5 years ago, when I was 20 years old, right when I began to rediscover my love for everything I’ve been exploring since.

Something about this poem so perfectly encapsulates the longing for that high enchanted beauty that is just out of our reach. It calls to us yet we cannot reach it. We can only glimpse it at the twilight hours, at those times when the veil thins. We feel that the enchantment of the world is slipping away, leaving us to die among the cold ruins. We know we are doomed never to fully grasp that which we long for. At least, not yet, not until the mending of the world…

The Last Ship

Fíriel looked out at three o’clock:
the gray night was going;
far away a golden cock
clear and shrill was crowing.
The trees were dark, and the dawn pale,
waking birds were cheeping,
a wind moved cool and frail
through dim leaves creeping.

She watched the gleam at window grow,
till the long light was shimmering
on land and leaf; on grass below
grey dew was glimmering.
Over the floor her white feet crept,
down the stair they twinkled,
through the grass they dancing stepped
all with dew besprinkled.

Her gown had jewels upon its hem,
as she ran down to the river,
and leaned upon a willow-stem,
and watched the water quiver.
A kingfisher plunged down like a stone
in a blue flash falling,
bending reeds were softly blown,
lily-leaves were sprawling.

A sudden music to her came,
as she stood there gleaming
with free hair in the morning’s flame
on her shoulders streaming.
Flutes there were, and harps were wrung,
and there was sound of singing,
like wind-voices, keen and young
and far bells ringing.

A ship with golden beak and oar
and timbers white came gliding;
swans went sailing on before,
her tall prow guiding.
Fair folk out of Elvenland
in silver-grey were rowing,
and three with crowns she saw there stand
with bright hair flowing.

With harp in hand they sang their song
to the slow oars swinging;
‘Green is the land, the leaves are long,
and the birds are singing.
Many a day with dawn of gold
this earth will lighten,
many a flower will yet unfold,
ere the cornfields whiten.

‘Then whither go ye, boatmen fair,
down the river gliding?
To twilight and to secret lair
in the great forest hiding?
To Northern isles and shores of stone
on strong swans flying,
by cold waves to dwell alone
with the white gulls crying?’

‘Nay!’ they answered. ‘Far away
on the last road faring,
leaving western havens grey,
the sea of shadow daring,
we go back to Elvenhome,
where the White Tree is growing,
and the Star shines upon the foam
on the last shore flowing.

‘To mortal fields say farewell,
Middle-earth forsaking!
In Elvenhome a clear bell
in the high tower is shaking.
Here grass fades and leaves fall,
and sun and moon whither,
and we have heard the far call
that bids us journey thither’.

The oars were stayed. They turned aside:
‘Do you hear the call, Earth-maiden?
Fíriel! Fíriel!’ they cried.
‘Our ship is not full-laden.
One more only may we bear.
Come! For your days are speeding.
Come! Earth-maiden elven-fair,
our last call heeding.’

Fíriel looked from the river bank,
one step daring;
then deep in clay her feet sank,
and she halted, staring.
Slowly the elven-ship went by
whispering through the water:
‘I cannot come!’ they heard her cry.
‘I was born Earth’s daughter!’

No jewels white her gown bore,
as she walked back from the meadow
under roof and dark door,
under the house-shadow.
She donned her smock of russet-brown,
her long hair braided,
and to her work came stepping down.
Soon the sunlight faded.

Year still after year flows
down the Seven Rivers;
cloud passes, sunlight glows,
reed and willow quivers
as morn and eve, but never more
westward ships have waded
in mortal waters as before,
and their song has faded.

- J.R.R. Tolkien

Who has not felt that pervading sense that something is missing. That something was lost, and we now live in a world bereft of a certain beauty and vitality. Who has not found himself wishing he lived in a nobler age.

It can be hard to be a romantic in today’s world.

Our society often feels so lifeless, so empty, so bleak, that it’s painful to imagine how much better things could be, how much better things once were. It’s painful to imagine the glories of the past or hope too much for the future. It’s painful to know you will never know the worlds you read about and dreamt about in your youth. We live in dark times.

But angst changes nothing. So, what to do?

You can do what most do, which is nothing. You can live your life in a state of melancholy romanticism, always unhappy with your own time and place. Eventually, this will turn into depression. And many do live this way. Countless young romantics have ended up jaded, bitter adults. And it is hard to judge them too much for this. The higher one’s ideals and the higher ones’s sense of beauty, the more violently one can be crushed by the dark reality of our age.

But for us this cannot be the way forward. We cannot live with our heads in the clouds, in fantasy, and we certainly cannot waste our lives in despair. We were born for the present moment even if we do not understand why, and we must live in the here and now.

I myself tend to be a romantic and an idealist. I often see how the world “should be” rather than how it is and this is both a blessing and a curse. It means that I can very easily fall into despondency and that I can struggle to see the good in things that fall short of the ideal. I often want to achieve things that appear unrealistic. I often become far too frustrated with the world and the people in it. But on the other hand, that sense of longing is what inspires me more than anything else and what has enabled me to do certain things that would have been too daunting without a sense of adventure.

It could be said that for anything of beauty and honor to be achieved a deep, painful longing is a prerequisite. The human soul is not inspired by comfort or by complacency, we are inspired by the knowledge that we have fallen short of something, that we were meant for more. We hear of the great deeds of our forebears and feel duty-bound to try and match them. And so it may be that without this sense of longing, we would achieve nothing. Our sense of romanticism may be what inspires all great men and women to reach for something higher.

So if you are a romantic- good! You are uniquely suited for this present age of darkness and ugliness. Others may not care what the world once was, they may not dream of what it could be again, or they may even prefer the ugliness of our age. But if you long for something greater, then you are exactly what the world sorely needs. You should not feel that you are so different from those that came before you. The great men and women that have changed the world all experienced the same deep longing, went through the same trials, and overcame the same fears. The greatest stories involve the greatest tragedies and the greatest despairs. You are not alone.

A deep sense of longing perfectly reflects the true purpose of man- our purpose to be “fruitful and multiply”, to take “dominion of the world”. Ordering the world is Man’s original purpose. Our ability to sub-create is what makes us creatures made in “God’s image”. It is telling that the Biblical story of the creation of man places our origin not in a wilderness, but in a garden. From the beginning it was our role to tend, guide, and mold the world that God gave us.

Adam was tasked with naming the animals in Eden. We can understand this to more broadly mean that we are tasked with taking the material things of this world and ordering them and directing them towards something higher. By giving something a “name” we ennoble it and give it meaning. We take what is, see what could be, and strive to mold our reality towards that ideal. We are here to master the world. This is not a task suited for those lacking high ideals and a romantic spirit.

Saint Augustine once said, "To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek Him the greatest adventure; to find Him, the greatest human achievement."

I believe this quote perfectly describes how to “cure” that longing that so many of us experience. The only way out is through- that is, rather than wallowing in our angst, we will only discover what we are missing by totally giving ourselves to the pursuit of what is highest. The only path to fulfillment is the one God has laid out for you.

Whatever it is you long for, that thing that you so desperately wish you could find, that may be precisely the thing that God put you in this world to discover, or to do, or to create. There is a unique piece of the greater human story that God gave to you, and you alone. It is a secret He and you share but you must bring it into being. Artists, warriors, poets, emperors, farmers, monks, no matter what your role in the world there is a story that God put you here to tell. You can live a live of adventure and romance and deep meaning. You can achieve virtue and learn to truly love God and your neighbor.

So do not let go of your romanticism, rather, hold on tighter. Make your longing into reality. That is the only way you will ever fill that void in your soul. That void is God telling you that the world is broken- but you can participate in making it whole again. And while it is not in our power to heal the world completely, we can all do our small part, and that is enough.

I’ll leave you with this short video from one of my favorite creators, (who in fact has just joined Substack, be sure to subscribe to his newsletter). I think it complements what I’ve written here well. We must be “aristocrats of the soul”. We must be romantics. We must do something noble with these lives we’ve been given.

God bless.

Alfred the Great is almost a legendary figure, the greatest Saxon king. During his reign English territory is said to have enjoyed an almost faerie-tale like peace across the land, one where none feared to travel on the highways.

His son, Edward the Elder, continued his father’s work, and drove the Norsemen out of southern England.

Alfred’s grandson, Æthelstan, the first king of a united England was arguably as great as his grandfather. He is renowned for his religious devotion as well as his political and military leadership.

Why am I giving you this little history lesson? Because these were real kings, and they were good. This is not some fantasy. Three of the greatest reigns of English kings in history in succession, father to son, son to grandson. From 871 to 939 A.D. these three brought peace, prosperity, and order to their land, and their legacy is immortalized. That is something that really happened, that would have just been the status quo to those living there.

But for hundreds of years the neoliberal political framework has desperately needed you to think that kings like this only ever existed in fairytales. That for the most part, kings have been tyrants, and any good ones were good in spite of the despotic nature of their kingship. Our cultural framework ever since WW2 has told us that “Democracy” with a capital D is inherently good.

That narrative is now falling apart. At the time I began writing this essay Trump had signed 45 executive orders and I am sure there will be more by the time I hit publish. Frankly, the Trump administration is demonstrating the it is actually quite easy to get things done, and their actions are casting a suspicious light on the decades-long ineptitude of the Republican Party to do anything of substance. And people are beginning to realize that they don’t really care about “democracy” at all.

But the question of the moment is not really about democracy or monarchy at all. Discussions about monarchy and the divine right of kings or about the rights of the people to vote can wait for another day. The question of the current moment is about power, and how it should be used.

The aforementioned kings were good because they used their power for good, not because they were kings. Likewise, there have been good democratic governments that were good because they used their powers for good- but not however, because of anything inherently righteous about democracy itself. Power is to be used.

“You can just do things” has been a common refrain the last few weeks. If you take a step back you may see just how ridiculous it is that it is even being said. Of course governments can just do things to benefit their people- that is the entire point of their existence! The fact that an administration doing basic things in the interest of its own country is in any way notable says less about the current administration and more about the absolutely absurdist dystopia we have been living in.

For decades modern “leaders” have not seemed to actually view themselves as real actors with the power to make active change in the world. They just never seemed to actually do anything. I should clarify- they make plenty of shady deals, filled their own pockets, promoted degenerate behaviors and have brought about the complete upheaval of western civilization. They certainly used their power for themselves. What they did not do is anything to better the lives of their people or to increase the prosperity of their lands- the very things that power is intended for. Nothing the Trump administration has done so far is actually particularly shocking or incredible, for the most part they are just doing things that any normal government in a normal era would have done. But these simple actions are having a devastating effect on the neoliberal world order. Their spell is being broken and they are quickly losing their grip over every aspect of our society.

The MAGA administration is unapologetically acting in the interest of America and its people. They are bringing others nations to heel and making it very clear who is going to be running to show from here on out. But the most important thing they do may have nothing to do with any executive orders. MAGA’s greatest legacy may be more philosophical. They may bring about a shift in the American consciousness, a breaking-free from the constant worry about the rules, and democracy, and the constitution, and this or that. We have lived through the era of hand-wringing, scolding liberal bureaucrats. We may finally be entering a time of men of action yet again. The MAGA populist wave may be the beginning of a new era, one where the quality of a government is based purely on how they use their power.

As I prepared to post this essay, President Trump tweeted this:

I don’t think any image could better sum up the present moment. Assuming they are honest and we aren’t being massively conned (and that is admittedly a big assumption), MAGA is on a mission to use their power to make real change for the better, and that will be power properly used.

“þæt wæs god cyning” - “That was a good king”

That’s a famous Old English line from the opening of Beowulf. A great man is remembered as a leader for what he did with his power, for his people, it is as simple as that. MAGA’s legacy will be what they accomplish for the American people and tangentially for the rest of the West. They could strengthen democracy or abolish it, uphold the constitution or rewrite it entirely, it won’t much matter. What matters is that they use their power to leave their people better than they found them. If they do, maybe we could live to see a time where governments actually exist to do good again.

The Christmas season has come and gone again. It was a particularly special one for me. My daughter was born on the 10th day of Christmas. My wife’s pregnancy beginning when it did, this Advent took on a special significance, as we experienced a little Advent of our own during the fast. Seeing my wife over the course of those last few weeks and in labor opened up a whole new world of insights into the Nativity story that I don’t think I could have conceived of before.

The alignment of my own life with the church calendar in such a symbolic way got me thinking again about the cycles of the world and our relationship to them. Or rather, our modern lack of any such relationship. In Western society the solstices and equinoxes pass by with hardly a mention and our holidays are marked mostly by consumerism. We are not exactly living in harmony with the earth and the cosmos, and the deeper meaning of the Church calendar is being lost.

There are so many ways in which our disenchantment is due to a lost connection with the natural world, but today I want to talk about seasons, and calendars. A combination of the solar year and the church calendar that I’ll call the “sacred year”. Industrialization has disenchanted us much in our day to day lives. Social media, unnatural lighting, nutrient deficiencies, email jobs, and a whole host of other things are damaging us. Much of this I will leave for another time, although it is all certainly connected to this concept of the “sacred year”. I chose this topic as an early installment because our disenchantment with the greater cycles of life must be understood before we attempt to get into the weeds.

There is a natural pattern of rising and falling, waning and waxing, light and dark, life and death that permeates every aspect of creation. This is perhaps most clearly seen in the cycles of the natural world, the seasons. The sun strengthens in the summer and fades in the winter, the plants are born and die in a natural rhythm. Animals follow the pattern and mate, hibernate, and migrate in tune with these cycles. And until industrialization, men were a part of this as well. Humans used to live in alignment with the cycles of the year, out of necessity of course, but also more than that. I think it would be more accurate to say we follow it out of instinct. Does the bear hibernate out of necessity, or instinct? Do birds migrate out of necessity, or instinct? Put that way, the question is absurd, or just pointless. Human beings throughout history lived in concord with the cycles of the world around them simply because we are part of the world. We planted when it was time to plant, and harvested when the earth was ready. We bunkered down in winter and made babies in spring. It is only now that we have managed to “escape” the confines of these cycles.

Did our “escape” bring about any good? It would be dishonest to say no. Industrial society has brought about wonders in medicine, communication, travel, research, standards of living. But in cutting out almost all the inconvenience that agricultural life entailed, did we cut out something vital from our lives? All too often, we fail to understand the subtle complexities of the world. We humans do not exist in a vacuum, we exist as part of the natural world. And it is inevitable that in our “escape” we left something precious behind. A piece of our humanity, traded for comforts and progress.

But we have not only lost our connection to the seasonal or agricultural cycles. The West has also forgotten what for two thousand years defined societal cohesion- the Church calendar. The Church calendar, far from an arbitrary series of feasts and fasts, is based on the agricultural/natural calendar, and in fact sanctifies it, making the world even more “natural” in the process.

Inevitably, this subject will see certain people (usually Americans unfortunately though understandably) come out of the woodworks to tell us that the Church calendar following these cycles is “pagan”. I won’t spend much time on this, as it is simply ridiculous. I am uncertain exactly what these types would have us do. Should we not follow the patterns that God built into the cosmos? Should we not celebrate the birth of Christ at the winter solstice, when the year itself is reborn? If Christ is truly the Son of God as many of these types do profess to believe- what other day of the year could you even expect Him to arrive? The entire life of Christ follows the sacred year cycle, or the journey of the Sun. How this could be seen as a negative thing or a “gotcha” I can’t fathom. But enough about this. The Church fathers did not place our feasts on the special days of the year as a “concession” to pagans, they placed them there because those days are just inherently special. The Church calendar follows the natural sacred year and this is a good thing and an intentional thing.

Christmas comes on the winter solstice. All Hallows’ Eve and All Saints’ Day, the feast where we commemorate the dead, comes on the day between the Fall equinox and the Winter solstice, known by many cultures as a day of the dead. Easter comes on (in theory) the spring equinox when life springs forth, although the actual date is a bit convoluted. The feast of the Ascension of Christ, though it falls a bit early, is the equivalent of the Summer solstice. The church calendar gives us a way to relate our faith to the natural world in a cohesive and tangible way. When the entire calendar was observed, it grounded us. Just imagine celebrating the Nativity in midsummer, or Easter on the Fall equinox. It would be unnatural. But the West hasn’t changed the calendar, it has just stopped using it altogether. We still celebrate Christmas and Easter, but barely. When’s the last time you celebrated all twelve days of Christmas?

In abandoning the church calendar, in abandoning an agricultural life, a life defined by natural cycles, what has happened to us? It seems this modern life has made us into synthetic creatures. It has jarred our very conception of time, one month is now hardly different from the rest beyond the decor we put up. In no longer following a seasonal lifestyle, we are left to float about aimlessly. As anyone can see, we do not do well without structure, either within a single day or across a year or a lifetime. Without structure we are all left to wallow in whatever our natural tendency is. Some may wallow in continual hedonism, others in continual contemplation, others in depression. Without the fasts and feasts of the Church year, we cannot truly learn how to do either. Without a time and place for everything, how could one ever live an enchanted life?

Without seasons, there is no energy, no magic. If there is no cycle, you are stuck in stasis. The seasons have lost their luster and so have we. Our lives have lost a natural “flow” that is likely more essential than we realize. Even our social lives reflect this. Human social calendars are meant to follow a seasonal pattern. You should have periods of fasting like Great Lent, cozy Christmas parties in winter, festivals on May Day and Midsummer. A time and a place for everything. Without a reason for celebration, you end up with a culture that is constantly “partying” but not truly feasting. Can we truly call a time like Christmas “magical” if we are glutting ourselves on everything we desire the entire year? Does Spring lose its meaning if we never allow ourselves to experience symbolic death in the darker parts of the sacred year? Without the crucifixion, there is no Resurrection.

Perhaps to begin to re-enchant ourselves, we need place ourselves back into the natural cycle of the cosmos that God created. We can in fact do this quite easily, especially my Christian readers. The church calendar is already there, ready to be followed. You don’t have to “feel” any special resonance with it right away. You can “fake it to you make it” as they say- over time, it will change you. We can also try our best, in our industrialized lives, to observe the seasons of the natural world around us. Do things in their appropriate season. Participate as best you can in local folk customs and traditions. Go to farmer’s markets and eat what’s in season. You don’t have to become a farmer yourself, but get in touch with the Earth as you can. Read your children stories of Sigurd and Galahad by the fire during Yuletide. If we can find our place again in the sacred year, I think we will be one step closer to defeating our disenchantment. If we fully participate in the life and death of the world in the seasons, and in the life and death of Christ in the church calendar, perhaps we will begin to understand how we should live in our own short sojourn on this Earth.

Fittingly, I’m posting this essay on February 2nd- Groundhog Day. It’s true name is Candlemas, the feast of the presentation of Christ at the temple. On this day candles are traditionally blessed and distributed for use throughout the year. This feast falls on the day of the year right between the Winter solstice and the Spring equinox, and this is no accident. Symbolically, it represents the first public appearance of the light that began to grow at the solstice, but was then a “secret”. It is the day where we have our first dream of Spring, both spiritually and materially. Things begin to seem a little brighter. And I think we are literally experiencing this right now in sync with the church calendar, especially in America. I don’t know if we will truly see a golden age, but there is a new feeling of hope in the air. But whatever the future holds, re-enchanting the world will have to start with you. Remember that you are a part of this world and bound to its rises and its falls. I wish you all a blessed Candlemas.