Saturday, April 18, 2009

Antichrist Update Vol. 8: Left Wing Gnostics and their Chronic Temperament Tantrum

Two relighted posts from a year ago, guaranteed to innertain. I'm going back to calling them "Antichrist Updates." Why? Either because I'm being ironically polemical, or maybe because I sense one of those nasty world-historical inversions taking place, or perhaps because I'm more than ever aware of the demonic spiritual energy that animates our seething cauldron of idversaries. You decide. Or deicide, as the case may be.

*****

There's a reason why hardcore leftists -- I mean, the true believers, not just the typical confused or dim Democrat -- are such assouls, since political inclination has more to do with temperament than people might realize. Being that the B'ob is temperamentally sunny, lighthearted, and so very gay, he could never find his soul's rest in leftism, which is predicated on such anger, envy, bitterness, paranoia, leaden seriousness, deep unhappiness, and general "sourness." For the leftist, life sucks, and only the government can turn things around and make it really blow.

That being the case, one wonders how Barry Obama, the young stoner with the seemingly laid back, live-and-let-live "island temperament," could be a member of an angry and paranoid church that preaches racial supremacy, America hatred, anti-Semitism, and other vile doctrines that can only find fertile soil in a soul that is already enraged and looking for a place to organize, focus, and project the rage? In other words, this kind of church doesn't make you nuts. You have to be a nut in order for it to appeal to you in the first place.

First of all, by his own admission, Obama has struggled with the notion of "identity." Now, most mainstream commentators -- since they are virtually all materialists -- have reduced this to a superficial materialistic analysis, i.e., that he is "bi-racial" (as if there can even be such a thing outside the race-obsessed leftist's mind), so that he was essentially left without a tribe. And in primitive tribal culture, a man without a tribe is a dead man. A leftist without his tribe is like a bee without a hive, or an ant without a hill, or a rapper without his posse.

Again, this all follows from the leftist's cosmological inversion, in which existence precedes essence, rather than vice versa. In other words, on any properly spiritual view, one is born with a spiritual essence that is anterior to existence, as it is "created" by God, not a contingent result of accidental cultural and historical forces, such as raceclassgendersexualorientation. Therefore, the idea that any leftist candidate could ever be "post-racial" is not even a lie, it's an absurdity. It would be like a sheep running for shepherd on the grounds that he will be a post-flock candidate. He can bleat about this all day long, but it is in the nature of sheep to identify with the flock.

Likewise, the Democrat party is a coalition of groups, not individuals or consistent ideas. It is a "herd of independent group minds," a Big Chief Crazy Quilt of flocking idiots, journalistic hack animals, buffaloed herds, moveable riots, mass rally crying jags, giant snit-ins and other demonstrations of affect, schools of economic fish stories, snivel rights agitators, cairing allahgators, heards of poor listeners, whordes of sex-workers, feline prides of lyin' shemales, educational kennels of K - 9 kosbags, pods of peaheaded publications, plagues of lawyering locusts, boring nests of teeming tenuremites, coops of chicks who look more like dudes, and gaggles of gaydom and boring Goredom spanning the gamut from goofy weathermen to those who don't know whether they're men.

So Obama, in order to be a viable Democrat, had to tap into one of the prominent streams of anger, envy, bitterness, and divisiveness that define and animate the left. Oddly, his whole appeal was based on the misperception that he was beyond this sort of destructive divisiveness, but this is about as realistic as an Arab leader claiming to be "beyond the differences between Muslim and Jew," without which they could not be an Arab leader. For what does the Arab political world have to recommend itself except for an officially sanctioned target for their overflowing rage, envy, sexual insecurity, and low self-esteem? In other words, all the Arab leader has to offer his people is death to Israel.

Similarly, what does the Democrat leader have to offer his various tribes except for Bush, or Cheney, or Rove, or Halliburton, or the Wealthy, or scary Christians, or Creationists, or White Racists, or misogynists, or "homophobes," or the End of the World? What's left of the Left if you remove these "containers" of projected rage and fear? Only the free-floating rage and fear.

Now, America was founded as a -- as the -- Culture of Liberty. But as it so happens, there is no liberty without individuals, and no individual without liberty. (By the way, this is one of the areas where I strongly disagree with the "integral movement," which talks about a "higher we," which is actually just Marxism in disguise, and why they are almost always on the left; there's already a "higher we," i.e., the Body of Christ, understood in its Cosmic dimension -- in other words, the cosmic Body of Christ is the proper "we" with which the individual "I" may be reconciled, bearing in mind that this Christ is merely focussed in the lens of Christianity, but permeates the spiritual dimension in a nonlocal manner, "blowing where it will" in "other sheep who are not of this fold.")

For example, William F. Buckley, the founder of the modern conservative intellectual movement, was primarily concerned with preserving the individual, and for obvious reasons. I don't know if you had the chance to read the commemorative edition of National Review, but after reading all the eulogies and tributes, one comes away with the overwhelming impression that there has never been someone like this, nor will there ever be again.

This was a man who incarnated American ideals by utilizing liberty to actualize his potential in the most extraordinarily diverse ways, but always in the context of the "higher we" of the "American spirit," so to speak. It was not individualism for its own sake, but in order to "become" everything that his Creator intended for him to be, which is the purpose and vector of our liberty. His political philosophy came down to arguing that "the culture of liberty deserves to survive": "freedom anticipates, and contingently welcomes and profits from, what happens following the calisthenics of the free mind, always supposing that that freedom does not lead the mind to question the very value of freedom, or the value and authority of civil and moral virtues so to designate themselves."

Thus Buckley's unwavering -- but good natured -- hostility to the left. "Good natured" because he knew that life was short and that there was no ultimate salvation in politics anyway. Perhaps the best we can hope for is a righteous battle in a (horizontally) lost cause, but that's life, and it is surely Christianity.

And this is indeed the broad purpose of the spiritual life -- or let us just say "life": to become what you already are. The purpose can never be to become what the group wishes for you to be, for this is slavery, not liberty. Classical liberalism enshrines a sort of liberty that implicitly promotes the use of it for higher ends, since it is a "gift" given for that purpose. Its alternative -- leftism in all its forms -- enshrines the idea that your liberty is a privilege granted by the state, subject to revocation if you do not use it to promote slavery, whether intellectual, political, spiritual, sexual, or economic, for liberty is One.

As Michael Heller argues in Creative Tension, postmodernism has succeeded in displacing man from the "privileged margin" to an "average center" of the cosmos. In other words, flatland materialism actually effaces the spiritual individual and replaces him with the selfish atom, as it were, so that Man's true existential needs -- which are intrinsically spiritual -- can never be engaged in any meaningful way.

Yes, the One became many so that the many might become One. But not so the bourgeois could become the faceless proletariat, or so that you and I and our children's children could slave away not just to fund the fantasies of the left, but to work toward the abolition of Mankind and the individuals of which it is composed.

****

It's a shame when one perfectly good word gets tarred by another through no fault of its own. A case in point is genuine spiritual gnosis vs. the political "gnosticism" discussed by the philosopher Eric Voegelin. In the April 7, 2008 National Review, Jonah Goldberg has an insightful article on the politics of left wing gnosticism as it pertains to the Obama campaign, a campaign that goes to the very core of the left's spiritual pathology. It again demonstrates what happens when one abandons the "authorized" channels of religiosity for manmade ones, which ends up elevating man to a god and politics to his religion. In so doing, it collapses the critical distinctions between time and eternity, natural and transnatural, freedom and constraint, and other essential complementarities within which man lives -- and without which he isn't a man at all.

One difference between gnosis and gnosticism is that people without spiritual gnosis -- e.g., atheists and materialists -- are necessarily "exterior" to the domain it discloses, and yet, proclaim this infirmity to be a kind of superiority, or ultimate health. But in reality, a person who is not seduced by the group fantasies of left wing gnosticism is in a superior position to judge them, since he remains within the confines of objective spiritual reality.

In this regard, it would be interesting to know how many of Obama's supporters, like Obama himself, belong to heretical gnostic Christian churches that preach a spiritually inverted "liberation theology," as this would tend to confirm my view that real religion is the best defense against false ones.

We shouldn't be surprised that the spiritual path of the left mirrors the universal stages of purification, illumination and union, only in reverse. First comes union with the new messiah. For example, Goldberg notes that "Obama recruiters are encouraged to proselytize not by talking about 'issues' but by testifying about how they 'came to' the candidate..." In short, there must be a "conversion" process, a "metanoia," in which the scales suddenly fall from the Obamian's eyes -- i.e., he "sees" the truth, the thigh tingles, and he joins the cult.

Goldberg writes that "Obama’s apostles include his wife, Michelle, who insists she is 'married to the only person in this race who has a chance at healing this nation.'" In this regard, she has testified that “We need a leader who’s going to touch our souls because, you see, our souls are broken.... The change Barack is talking about is hard, so don’t get too excited, because Barack is going to demand that you, too, be different.”

Thus, after one merges with Obama and is illuminated by the Truth for which he stands, ones commences with the hard work of purification, as we struggle to make ourselves worthy of the grace we have received. In other words, ask not what Obama can do for you. Ask what you can do for Obama.

Goldberg cites numerous examples to show how much of the messianic language that encircles Obama "is more New Age than New Testament." He quotes Gary Hart, who says that the Anointed One "is not operating on the same plane as ordinary politicians,” but is an "agent of transformation in an age of revolution,” whatever that means. Likewise, the dreadful spirit hustler and enlightenment pimp, Deepak Chopra, claims that Obama represents “a quantum leap in American consciousness,” while another pneumapath and career guru, Eve Konstantine, says that he “is our collective representation of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings.... He’s our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence.” (Deepest knowings? She doesn't even know that "knowings" isn't a word.) And Oprah Winfrey suggests that Obama doesn't only "speak" truth but is the Truth who will help us “evolve to a higher plane.” Ironically, such sentiments are possible only in a Christianized mind that is no longer Christian.

Of course, in left wing gnosticism, God does not work through the individual. Nor does he work through the interior collective, or any kind of "higher we." Rather, he works through the instrument of that coerced labor camp known as "the state," which will take control over the spontaneous order of the free market and attenuate the true "interior bonds" of civil society. For progressives, liberty is not the solution, it's the problem, because it tends to lead to the exercise of free will, which in turn emphasizes the sanctity of the individual.

The heart of Goldberg's piece involves a discussion of Voegelin's point that progressivism is a political religion and therefore a form of gnosticism. This religion has "two core assumptions. First, it condemns the existing world as broken and alienating, plagued by evil forces preventing a complete and happy restoration of man’s spiritual and material life."

So the progressive, in his own garbled way, recognizes that man is "fallen." However, "the gnostic promise, to borrow a phrase from John Edwards, is that 'it doesn’t have to be this way.'" Thus, the second assumption; as Russell Kirk observed, these religions promise "a mode of deliverance or salvation from the prison of the world for man through a secret gnosis." By manipulating people with the right policies, we can create a "'kingdom of heaven on earth' -- not coincidentally, a phrase invoked by Bolsheviks, progressives, fascists, and every other variety of utopian collectivist. This effort to lasso the hereafter and pull it down to the here-and-now was dubbed by Voegelin 'immanentizing the eschaton'" (Goldberg).

Different denominations of leftism will have different secret formulas and incantations to create their utopia. For Marxists, "the secret lay in the intricacies of scientific socialism.' With just the right manipulation of material or historical forces we could -- ta-da! -- create a land where each lives according to his need.... For the progressives, the trick was giving ourselves over to the social planners and gnostic 'ideologists of Christ'.... today, the secret is Barack Obama." Goldberg cites a creepy video "in which children testify about the dire state of the world." It then "cuts to a baby opening a copy of The Audacity of Hope, complete with a whispery spirit voice promising a 'secret.' The video concludes with one child after another announcing that the secret is -- Barack Obama."

As I mentioned above, the wave of Obama support rides on a deep structure of religious energy that is unrecognized by those most susceptible to it. In fact, as Goldberg says -- and as I have noted in the past -- "the craving to create a heaven on earth is the inevitable consequence of a godless society." Or, to paraphrase Pope Benedict, "the loss of transcendence leads to the flight to utopia."

The very definition of "totalitarianism" is the "existential rule of Gnostic activists": "Indeed, the story of totalitarianism is the story of men trying to replace the allegedly discredited old God with one of their own creation." So de-divinization always preceeds the "redivinization" of explicit left wing brainwashing. This is certainly how it worked for me in college. First you discredit religion, and then replace it with with a pseudo-religion that occupies the vacant spiritual territory. It took me years to undo this ironically named "higher education," which specifically forecloses the higher.

From this follows the worship of man -- not even Man as Such, the image and likeness of the Creator -- but usually a man. "Or, in Voegelin’s words, they 'build the corpus mysticum of the collectivity and bind the members to form the oneness of the body.” In short, we finally become the anonymous ones we’ve been waiting for. Or, more accurately, you will be forced to wait upon the narcissism and self-victimization of the infantile ones constituting the progressive mob.

Time to cowboy up!

47 comments:

QP said...

Time to cowboy up!Old Cowboy's Lament (cause Blogger's not readin' and writin' line breaks.)

QP said...

My bad. Good linkwv guesses a redrains a comin'.

Gagdad Bob said...

Wow, anti-Queegism is spreading through the population like a helpful genetic mutation. He's through, unless he goes full-on left, since no one on the right takes him seriously. He's the new Andrew Sullivan.

Anonymous said...

Fountina wv ruminates thus on why the 'deomnic energy' seems to be getting more visible.

I can speak only from experience gleend from working with all kinds of energies through the power- transmission of "spiritual energy" (hands-on-healing) where the high-velocity current's job is to 'dislodge' the low-vibing energy consciousness/thought forms
at a "critical mass" point.

*

Divine influx of energies unloosed 'extreme disorder'
Like Vishnus arms, White Pine is holding up the Sky . . .
We oppose deception.
Realize, fulfill on Earth-plane Gifts that put man's best dreams to shame.

Theofilia

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes, the ingression can definitely drive the unprepared into madness, again, very much analogous to what sexual energy does to an immature person without boundaries. Therefore, if a collective influx is occurring....

Petey said...

Must be like solar flares, which also release a cascade of high energy particles. These proton storms "can interfere with short-wave radio communication, and can increase the drag on low orbiting satellites, leading to orbital decay. Protons can also pass through the human body, doing biochemical damage."


No shi*t.

mtraven said...

Jesus Haploid Christ, you people amaze me. In one post, you chide the "Democrat Party" (and the mere use of that misnomer is a sure sign of a shithead talking) for being a coalition of group interests, and ALSO cite the repellent racist Buckley as an example of individualism, the Buckley that wrote:

”Why the South Must Prevail: The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes — the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists."So apparently some groupings are just fine -- dominant groups are free to organize to maintain their dominance, but if a subordinate group dares to try to organize to promote its interests, that's "gnosticism".

So Obama, in order to be a viable Democrat, had to tap into one of the prominent streams of anger, envy, bitterness, and divisiveness that define and animate the left. This is an exact inversion of the truth. Whatever you think of Obama, that was not was campaign was about. And just look at the right these days -- the right of the grotesque hatemongers like Limbaugh, Coulter, Savage, your hero Mark Levin, and the simpering clown Glenn Beck, all of who are stirring up paranoid divisiveness that leads to real violence.

Cousin Dupree said...

As Will predicted, it didn't take long for vile left wing racists to play the race card. Expect more.

Petey said...

Speaking of low-flying satellites in orbital decay, do not ask for whom the troll yells, for he yells at the moon.

lame duck said...

"...all of who are stirring up paranoid divisiveness that leads to real violence."

Someone is projecting themselves again...

lame duck said...

Hey Cousin Dupree, how do I make the blue links?

ximeze said...

Well done Ducky

ximeze said...

Iowahawk does DHS

will said...

Pace mtraven's remarks re: the volatility of conservative commenters such as Rush, Coulter, etc. -

Conservatives tend to be individuals as opposed to the collective drone mentality of the leftist, a mentality that tends to mute personal expression, personal "fire." In other words, leftists tend not to express *themselves*, but are conduits for groupthink - even when they snarl away with their accusations of racism, with their class warfare jibes, they tend to come across as colorless castrati.

It would be foolish, needless to say, to mistake this colorlessness for some form of rationalism, let alone a magnanimity. This lack of individualism, this colorlessness - the result of soul-warping materialism - is the essence of the "banality of evil" that murdered hundreds of millions in the 20th c.

lame duck said...

Re: the racist ranting Garofalo. Saw that video clip last night. What a nut. Go get 'em Lou!

Finally had a chance to fully read your re post. Great stuff, Bob. Between the posts and the comments I usually don't have much to add (y'all are a smart bunch), but I want to at least thank you and acknowledge your work here when I can.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Gagdad Bob said...

Even this certified moonbat knows the left is angrier than the right. He can't figure out why they're still so enraged despite winning control of the federal government. He obviously doesn't understand what motivates the left. I predicted that they would only become more unhinged because of the absence of their projective "toilet breast," President Bush. Now, with no place to put it, it just spills out everywhere.

Anonymous said...

guide wv sez thus:

Yo Petey!

Because the Spirit works to shed light on us, the truth is not something merely external: it is also internal. God is working the mind of Christ into us. (COr. 2:16)

Theofilia

Cousin Dupree said...

Look at mtraven. Instead of doing something constructive, like helping to bring the beautiful new Obamaworld into being, he's over here scouring a powerless little blog for comments he can get pissed off at. Madness!

Van Harvey said...

"Classical liberalism enshrines a sort of liberty that implicitly promotes the use of it for higher ends, since it is a "gift" given for that purpose. Its alternative -- leftism in all its forms -- enshrines the idea that your liberty is a privilege granted by the state, subject to revocation if you do not use it to promote slavery, whether intellectual, political, spiritual, sexual, or economic, for liberty is One."

Excellent post, and that One right on the mOney - or as mtcraven clearly stated:
It BURNS!!!

will said...

>>Must be like solar flares, which also release a cascade of high energy particles<<

Hmm, might be time to reflect on the Fatima prophecies and the "miracle of the sun" back in '17.

One could take the symbolism of that event as meaning, in part, that the Great Change to come would have something to do with the makeup, the composition of the sun.

Van Harvey said...

"One difference between gnosis and gnosticism is that people without spiritual gnosis -- e.g., atheists and materialists -- are necessarily "exterior" to the domain it discloses, and yet, proclaim this infirmity to be a kind of superiority, or ultimate health. But in reality, a person who is not seduced by the group fantasies of left wing gnosticism is in a superior position to judge them, since he remains within the confines of objective spiritual reality. "

In the end, because of the beginning, it always comes down to that. It is the defining idea of, on One hand, the importance of liberty, morality and character in the Individual and of a state to defend each other's right to exist as Individuals, or on the other claw, that of reactionary Determinism and the necessity of the all powerful State to prod and pound the people into it's shape.

wv:acide
Cleans nearly as well

Anonymous said...

Yo Cos' Dupree!

Serves him right any which way One looks at it, eh? :)

Theofilia

ximeze said...

It BURNS!!!

snortle

Van, u Teh Funny

mtraven said...

Conservatives tend to be individuals as opposed to the collective drone mentality of the leftist...These are the same people who call themselves "dittoheads", right? The party that made "message discipline" into a catchphrase? Conservative commentators are remarkable in their uniformity of opinion and style. This is especially notable for Yoosta Bees like Bob, who once they discard their old opinions seem to pick up adopt the entire conservative package with no discrimination, from hating the UN to hating gays.

BTW, some of you are wondering why I keep coming here to spoil the happy self-congratulatory atmosphere of your little club. I ask myself the same thing sometimes. There are, after all hundreds of places where stupid conservative opinions get aired. I guess there was something about Bob's more spiritual writings that I liked, something that suggested that you people might be redeemed from your reprehensible politics. I've changed my opinion about that; you are obviously locked into a closed system of thought that no criticism can penetrate. My technique has been to try to highlight internal contradictions, since a contradiction is an error no matter what your premises are. That hasn't made any appreciable dent. Still, it is hard to resist trying to correct errors, it's the educator in me.

will said...

>>it's the educator in me<<

That and your self-expressed admiration for and willingness to follow the pattern of the archetypal rebel satan.

Petey said...

There is a story that moths tell themselves -- that they are attracted to the flame because they so wish to share their wisdom with it.

ximeze said...

"you people might be redeemed from your reprehensible politics"

Not a chance, Buckwheat

will said...

I think we have to admit, though, that for a 13 year old, mtraven is quite precocious.

Van Harvey said...

Hey Will, mtcraven’s “it's the educator in me” made me laugh too, that and the “My technique has been to try to highlight internal contradictions, since a contradiction is an error no matter what your premises are”!

Oh mr. craven logic wiz, if you don’t know what your premises are, you are not capable of knowing whether you have any contradictions or not. For instance, “Thou shalt not kill” and “Hang ‘em high” are typically picked out by flatlanders as contradictions… primarily because they’ve no grasp of the underlying premises.

Moron.

Thanks for the laughs though.

will said...

Fer shore, Van.

You would think that leftists, now that their wet dream of having gained the White House has come true, would at least let the opposition vent in loyal, patriotic fashion as the leftists did so overtly and loudly and obscenely for the past 8 years (no, of course, you don't think that, neither do I, I'm just saying this by way of enhancing the drama) - but NOOOO, suddenly it's all "Hey, you can't say that, you can't protest this because if you do, you are fanning the flames of violence!

As if there's a genuine comparison between M. Levin's concern over taxes/Euro-like socialism, etc., and the rantings of the "Bush is Hitler" crowd.

Once in a great while, if I read a particularly egregious falsehood on a lefty site, I will post a comment on that site. That's once in a great while, and I never return to post more comments. I'm well aware that I'm not going to change minds. The polarities are in place, the lines have been drawn, and I'm fine with that. If I did continue to post my opposing comments again and again in a lefty site, I'd have to question my ego-involvement, if I was relishing the fray a bit too much - nay, I'd have to question my sanity.

Yes, there is something perverse about a troll.

Gagdad Bob said...

I remember about 20+ years ago, I was mad at the wife over something, and thinking about unloading on her. Then it dawned on me -- I'm not really the victim here. I'm actually looking forward to unloading, especially because I have a perfect excuse to do so. I will enjoy the "unpleasant" feeling of getting angry. Indeed, being the victim gives me the perfect excuse to be the victimizer, but pretend I'm not enjoying it.

And then I understood the left.

Ever since then, I've been very aware of how people actually enjoy nurturing bad feelings. It usually comes back to directing anger toward an internal object (i.e., a mind parasite) that is projected into another, which is where the sadistic pleasure comes in.

This is why I am so suspicious of anyone who describes themselves as a "political junkie," because they're usually the kind of person who unconsciously enjoys these inane conflicts, even if they imagine they don't. In truth, they manage intrapsychic conflict and define themselves in terms of the process.

Which is why, when I write about politics, I discuss things in light of the Absolute, because I want what I say to be valid for all time, not just today. I'm not suggesting that that will happen, but I at least try to say everything with "one eye on eternity," otherwise, what's the point?

Gagdad Bob said...

BTW, it's why I insert the humor -- i.e., don't get mad, get funny. One thing about Islamists and liberals, they like it when you get angry, because it makes them feel powerful, but they can't stand to be ridiculed. It's the real reason they hate Rush, because he laughs at them for three hours a day.

will said...

Yes, there can be something that feels good about anger, it's a perverse pleasure. Anger magnifies sense of pride-ful self - one feels perversely alive, vibrant, expansive. Also, I think it's an "anchoring" in the same sense that any addiction might be, drugs, alcohol. I suppose it's a false individuation, the aping of true spiritual individuation.

I think it helps to know that there are astral critters who try to stimulate and feed off negative emotions such as anger. That's one of the reasons why anger has a tendency to build and build, to magnify itself.

Same is true of all negative emotions, I think.

will said...

Jacob Boehme on anger:

"The darkness graspeth the holy power (the deific powers in human nature) and bringeth it into malignity, and then it is as the Scripture saith, *with the perverse thou art perverse, and with the holy, thou art holy."

When we get angry, we are playing with divine fire. More, we are corrupting the divine fire. We reverse the natural flow of primeval fire sublimating into divine love - the divine love descends back into the primeval fire.

We're all magicians with the deepest, most sacred of responsibilities.

lame duck said...

Great point, Will. Which makes me think of Tomberg's "artificially generated demons" or egregores. ie, negative collective unconscious entities such as Communism. Artificially engendered demons as opposed to the truly spiritual entities or "real demons". It's obvious that something could indeed be started by the will and imagination of people, but I would imagine "real demons" or the evil spiritual entities are just waiting to for a door like that to open to take over the cause. A certain kind of anger can be righteous, but the other kind of anger which is being discussed here, must call out into the darkness for power and sustainability. In other words, there's only so far the human will and imagination can engender such an entity before the real entities will and must take over.

mtraven said...

BTW, some of you are wondering why I keep coming here to spoil the happy self-congratulatory atmosphere of your little club. I rarely ask myself the same thing. There are, after all hundreds of other places where I'm to stoopid to understand the conservative opinions that get aired. I guess there was something about Bob's more spiritual writings that I liked, something that suggested that you people might be redeemed from your reprehensible politics and I, mtraven, captain of Democracy, slayer of dragons and Champion of the disposed, would be the ONE to do it. I've changed my opinion about that; having zero insight into the mote in my own eye, I project that you are obviously locked into a closed system of thought that no criticism can penetrate. My technique has unconsciously been to try to highlight your internal contradictions, since my contradictions contain no error regardless what your premises are. Bob hasn't made any appreciable dent. It is still easy to resist trying to correct my own errors, it's the uneducable in me.

julie said...

Empty, some of us wonder why you think we care about your opinion at all, but then, like a bout of bad gas, the wondering passes and we turn our thoughts to things that actually matter.

Will and Bob, thanks for your observations on anger. Syncoonicity is at play again, it seems. But in case anyone should wonder, no, I'm not angry. I'm simply reminded that it is more important sometimes to stick with objective truth as opposed to letting certain emotions, both "positive" and "negative," take control of a given situation. Unless, of course, the emotions in questions are founded in truth and not an simply an opportunity for certain mind parasites to jump into the driver's seat.

Anyway, thanks. WV suggests you should ration the good advice. I disagree :)

Northern Bandit said...

"it's the uneducable in me"

I WAS you 20 years ago. Almost word for word. A bleak, cramped existence in hindsight.

Gagdad Bob said...

This is all so true. Once created, the egregore requires a constant infusion of emotional energy, or "fire," in order to go on being. It's as if the thought is the skeleton, while the anger is the blood that brings it to life. In order to go on living, it must siphon off a part of one's fire.

But at a certain point, a threshold is crossed, and the central self starts dancing to the tune of the mind parasite. Or, you could say that the "center of gravity" within the person shifts, and they now identify with the parasite. Such a person is obviously "lost." But because of the laws of the unconscious, they will generally imagine that they are "elevated" instead of fallen. Which is why the left is so angry and self-righteous.

Anonymous said...

Yo mtraven!

I will echo Bob's "Don't get mad, get funny" - that was the intent of my post, where I scribled "serves him right, any which way One looks at it".

Note the intentional capital "O" in "One?"
From the adobe of understanding -- "If you don't see God in all, you don't see God at all" -- point-view, if I began laughing at You, it would amount to same, as laughing at myself.

Can You see that?

Theofilia

notyermom said...

BTW, it's why I insert the humor -- i.e., don't get mad, get funny.So long as you define "funny" as laughing at someone rather than with them. How original! How clever! How...individual.

How juvenile and ego-bound.


As a bunch of back-thumping holymen, you coons sure are passive-aggressive and insecure, a sort of Amerikan Taliban, costumes and all. If you're so convinced you're all that, why aren't you peddling your hatred cum self-aggrandizement out in the world instead of festering in this islolated little pustule you've created? Oh, of course. That would be to profane the occult. (Tasty Kool-Aid, Gagdad Jones! Secret recipe?) Not to mention that your "self-evident truthiness" won't stand up to unbiased discussion. Despite all the yipping about individualism, you jaccoons pack up more easily than teens on myspace.

Unlike many postings here, little in this post carries the weight of truth or peace. Only bitterness and pride. Keep your noses to the ground, jacoons. You aren't in the clear yet, despite what your own leftist (gasp! who, ME?) packthink brain is whispering in your brother's ear.

BTW, not that you are interested, but then again you keep asking: I come here as a field test for my own BS detector. There are few places where feast and feces are mixed so freely. It takes a real big ego to toss a salad with this much nutty flavor. Bon apetit.

Van Harvey said...

Gagdad had said "but they can't stand to be ridiculed. "

Proof of laugh:
nutiermoon said "...s a bunch of back-thumping holymen, you coons sure are passive-aggre..."Still laughing.

Mike O'Malley said...

"mtraven's skull is unusually thick." … a rather concrete metaphor …

Indeed, MTraven seems unworthy of the acclamation: “yiddishe kup”. Yet he is sufficiently skilled at two rubbing sticks together to ignite yet another character assassination. This time of William F. Buckley Jr. Readers will find that MTraven does not identify the source of his “damning” quote. Perhaps because he borrowed it from a left-wing smear of Buckley published at the time of Mr. Buckley’s death. See here http://www.southernstudies.org
/2008/02/william-f-buckleys-peculiar-south.html

It is a tasteless smear but its author, Sue Surgis, is at least fair enough to disclose that the quote comes from an unsigned editorial. Moreover, Sue Surgis identifies her source a National Review editorial that ran on Aug. 24, 1957, titled "Why the South Must Prevail", which I presume was approved by Buckley for publication. MTraven it would seem has no such compunctions about being fair. Keep in mind that quote was over fifty years old at the time of Buckley’s death and that Gov. George Wallace’s soul was changed by grace from virulent racist to civil rights supporter in far less time. Be mindful too that Thomas Jefferson, who MTraven promotes as an icon of godless enlightenment, held far more racial White supremacist views through out his life. Never mind the sex abuse of the Hemmings woman … But anyone who wishes to be fair can note that Buckley (if the author is indeed Buckley) indicates that any such purported entitlement and superiority is temporary. Moreover, Buckley is clearly discussing a “cultural superiority” not a genetic racial superiority. Certainly, a fair argument can be made for cultural supremacy at that time although I’d attribute much of those apparent differences to the social and psychological damage caused by slavery and Jim Crowe.

.

As Buckley said in Time (4/5/04), asked if he’d taken any positions he’d come to regret, he answered: "Yes. I once believed we could evolve our way up from Jim Crow. I was wrong: Federal intervention was necessary."

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3406

mtraven said...

M-o-M: To be called stupid by people as feckless as you and your fellow cultists is a badge of honor, so feel free to keep it up.

I take it you don't bother to actually read the stuff you link to, or else you don't expect your readers to do so. The racist quote from Buckley is widely available, so attributing it as a smear by Sue Surgis is wrong. Here's the context of the quote from FAIR that you cleverly clipped:

There is evidence that Buckley later softened some of his racist views. When Time (4/5/04), asked if he’d taken any positions he’d come to regret, he answered: "Yes. I once believed we could evolve our way up from Jim Crow. I was wrong: Federal intervention was necessary." But Buckley never seriously renounced or retracted what amounts to a huge body of racist work. And National Review continued to publish racist material nearly to the present day. Indeed, Buckley and National Review were promoting racist writers like Philippe Rushton, Steve Sailer and Mark Snyderman into the current decade (Extra!, 3–4/05.)Anyway, the point was about the ridiculousness of citing Buckley as some kind of individualist, when that quote and others clearly marks him as concerned chiefly about group privilege.

Here's another take on Buckley, from even earlier but accurately and presciently mocks the pretensions of conservatives to be opponents of the state. Fifty years later not much has changed.

Mike O'Malley said...

mtraven said... M-o-M: To be called stupid by people as feckless as you and your fellow cultists is a badge of honor, so feel free to keep it up..

Like anytime you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that gets hit yelps.

LOL!

Van Harvey said...

mtcraven said “to be called stupid by people as feckless as you and your fellow cultists is a badge of honor”

Yes…I see what you mean… ‘stupid’ does imply more honor than is deserved by someone practicing deliberate ignorance, skepticism and preening juvenile cynicism… we’ll have to watch out for making that mistake.

The labeling of anyone as ‘racist’ by someone such as yourself who has no understanding of what individual rights are, let alone property rights or liberty, is as with most of what you have to say, without meaning or content.

BTW, regarding your linky, as an anarchist (under whatever guise of ‘libertarianism’ he masks it), Rothbard’s ‘philosophy’ is nearly as dangerous to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as any random leftist moonbat such as yourself - even more so, as his aims would ultimately bring about the destruction of law, society and the establishment of an absolute state, and as such, is no defender of Individualism, nor any more capable than you are of offering advice on such matters.

Mike O'Malley said...

Thank you Van for offering a more civil response than I.

I just couldn't resist punning Dr. Bob's justified observation. MTraven can dish it out but he can't take it. That said, I continue to be unimpressed by MTraven's juvenile tantrums and absence of “yiddishe kup”. America needs liberals of the stature of Lionel Trilling, instead America seems overrun with left-wing dolts with anger management issues.

It seems to me that the “rock” which earned the “yelp” was my comparison of the hatchet job on William F. Buckley Jr. with MTraven's idealization of the racist Thomas Jefferson.

.



BTW MTraven I do read the stuff I link to, but since Buckley isn't a particular favorite of mine I saw no need to fill this tread with apologetics in his defense. I generously provided you with the source of my quotation but saw no good reason to engage Steve Rendall's hatchet job. Readers can visit that link and find that even Steve Rendall had to notice that his vilification of a Buckley was not the order of the day on the left. I'll quote quote “from FAIR that you cleverly clipped”:

PBS's Charlie Rose dedicated his full hour-long show (2/27/08) to Buckley "in his own words." He introduced the tribute: "We celebrate his laughter and his joy and his friendship. We celebrate his ideas." Well, perhaps not all of his ideas.

Even liberal commentators like Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel ("A Liberal's Praise for William F. Buckley," Newsweek, 3/10/08) and Nation writer John Nichols ("Contemplating the Former Brilliance of Bill Buckley," Nation, 2/27/08) had little but praise for Buckley, paying surprisingly little attention to his viciously anti-liberal views. Liberals tended to dwell on Buckley’s personal comity and wit--often stemming from the writers’ contact with Buckley--rather than his ideas and their impact on the national polity.

One common claim in Buckley obits suggested that he'd changed his views on race around the mid- to late 1960s (e.g. Newsweek, 3/10/08). In an online New York Times Q&A (2/28/08), Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of the paper's "Week in Review" and "Book Review" sections, who is working on a Buckley biography, insisted repeatedly that Buckley parted ways with racism in the '60s, offering as evidence the claims that Buckley had "debated George Wallace quite strenuously in the late 1960s" and had "wept when he learned of the Birmingham church bombing that killed four black children"

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