by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) "The only hope, or so it seems to me, lies in a reenchantment of the world", writes Morris Berman in his book thusly titled. [1] "Some kind of holistic or participatory consciousness and a corresponding socio-political formation have to emerge if we are to survive as a … Continue reading The reenchantment of our world
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) Because the magic in our lives has been deliberately removed by the industrial slave-system, because our all-round withness has been deliberately stolen from us, we are obliged to take deliberate steps to bring it back. One such practical initiative with which I have been involved in recent … Continue reading Coming back to life
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) It is not our belonging to nature that has been stolen from us by the industrial system, but our awareness of that belonging. The distinction is an important one, because it means that it lies within our own power to restore that psychological connection. Many of us, … Continue reading Rediscovering rootedness
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) Over recent months I have been writing a lot about our belonging both to nature and to the living organism that is the cosmos. I have described some of the ways in which humans have traditionally expressed their awareness of this belonging and how we can sometimes … Continue reading Exposing the life-hating criminal conspiracy
by W.D. James Heroes are willing to give their lives, and in the old tales usually do, to protect their homes and loved ones. Their deaths are literally salvific. Beowulf suffering his mortal wounds acquired in destroying the dragon saves the people of his homeland. Of course, the archetype here is Jesus Christ whose death … Continue reading Death and Poetry (The Myth of Philosophy 7)
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) Over recent centuries we have, as Mircea Eliade points out, witnessed a "gigantic transformation of the World taken on by industrial societies and made possible by the desacralisation of the Cosmos under the effect of scientific thought and, above all, by sensational discoveries in physics and chemistry". … Continue reading The Invisible College and the plan for our enslavement
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) If it was a certain kind of religious thinking that paved the road to this modern hell, then it was a certain kind of scientific thinking that pushed us on the bus that brought us here. Morris Berman writes of his conviction that "the fundamental issues confronted … Continue reading The “scientific” war on our freedom
by W.D. James Socrates had a demon. Or, to avoid misunderstanding, he had a daemon, to stick to the Greek which does not have the negative connotation that the English word derived from it carries. Socrates and the divine In this series we have been tracking how Socrates, as the representative of philosophy, is portrayed … Continue reading Socrates’ Demon (The Myth of Philosophy 6)
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) Max Weber, the subject of my last essay, was not alone in suspecting that certain religious beliefs - or the lack of them - had played a key role in shaping modern industrial society. Indeed, a century before Weber wrote about "die Entzauberung der Welt" - the … Continue reading The disgodding of nature and our hearts
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) In recent essays I have been looking at the divine magic of this world and the ways in which this has always been recognised and celebrated in traditional human cultures. In these next few articles, I am going to explore why it might be that this sense … Continue reading The disenchantment of life
winter oak 