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 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
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) Our ancestors enjoyed not just a very different way of living to ours today but also a very different way of being. Morris Berman writes of the supposedly "primitive" human being: "He may often be frightened by his environment or by things in it, but he is … Continue reading The magic of meaning
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) "The birthing of humans by the Earth is a universally widespread belief. In numerous languages, we are named 'born of the Earth'". [1] So writes Mircea Eliade in Le sacré et le profane, a book to which I referred in 'Our sacred belonging'. [2] On the surface … Continue reading Gnosticism and the universal mother
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) As the bulldozers of power and control progressively destroyed organic folk customs and beliefs across the world, some areas held out for longer. One such place was the south of Italy, which in the 16th century was described by Jesuits as an "Italian India" [1] - this … Continue reading Dancing on the web of being
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) Over the last few years, my reading and research have led me to the unavoidable conclusion that the contemporary world is dominated by an entity I call ZIM - the zio-imperialist mafia. Those who dispute this finding, despite all the detailed evidence I have mustered, basically fall … Continue reading Lifting the lid on a bankster stink tank
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) All the folk customs and rituals which today celebrate our belonging to nature are but the scattered and oft-distorted remnants of a primordial nature religion. This is the view put forward by French scholar Alain Daniélou (1907-1994) in his 1979 book Shiva et Dionysos. [1] As the … Continue reading Our sacred belonging
by Paul Cudenec with photos by Ibraar Hussein [Audio version] "In the time when gods, spirits and human beings lived together in nature with the plants and the animals, everyone communicated, each knew everything about the others". [1] Such is the ancient wisdom of the Kalash people of South Asia, their ancestral memory of a … Continue reading Rooted in our living world
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) What would it feel like if, in the eyes of the outside world, you suddenly ceased to exist as the person you knew yourself to be? If your partner, colleagues and family no longer recognised you, if your bank account simply disappeared, along with all means of … Continue reading Existing for real in a world of fakery
winter oak 