I've spent the past few days in the greater Denver area hanging out with friends and relatives. As of last night, The Fall Megafest of 2005 is underway at the dwelling of Jaeger and Kiesa.

In the latest from Anthropik, Giulianna Lamanna ponders the slave state (among other interesting things in the post).

In order for me to enjoy my Western luxuries, I have roughly 2.8 slaves. (The third is a part-time slave to someone else, possibly to another American who owns even more slaves than I do.) I don't know who they are. They live in Africa or South America or East Asia or someplace. They live like there's barely any Earth at all so I can live like a queen, with my computer and television set and CD player.

Who are they? What are their names? How would they spend their lives if the'd been born with all the wealth and opportunity I'd been born with? Would they be anarcho-primitivists too? Would they be like the people I routinely argue with, who hold up the products of their wealth - the things they can have because so many more people have nothing - as evidence that this culture is worth keeping?

This, to me, is the other side of the appeal of the anarchist/dropout coin. Of course none of us want ourselves to be forced into slavery (by whatever disguise or name it takes). But how many of us are willing to give up our slaves?

I, for one, would like to. That's one reason I quit shopping at Wal Mart, and started buying clothes at second-hand stores even though I could probably afford new ones. (Though I'm still far from free of dependence on the slave state, because, like Giulianna, I too have a tv, computer, and cd player. The idea of not buying new ones when the ones I have break down isn't easy, especially if I have the money for it.) This is also why I don't want to have tons of money either. Beyond a certain point, the only thing I'd really be able to use it for would be to enslave others, even if that enslavement is subtle, not obvious. No thanks, jack.

Now I recognize that I'm unlikely to break free of slavery completely in my lifetime. (Both of being a slave and using the products of slave labor.) But that doesn't mean it's not worth trying.

Yesterday at work, time seemed to go by slower than ever before at that job. I'd ring up a bunch of customers, and then look up at the clock, only to see that a mere 10 minutes had passed instead of an hour, which was what it felt like.

Great post on fantastic planet about the question of literal truth vs metaphorical meaning vs internal psychological perception of spiritual signs, messages, and entities.

He starts off by pointing out that a common question people ask about gnostics is whether they "really" believe entities like the Demiurge and archons exist, or are these just considered metaphors to help us conceptualize the world?

Although it's all well and good to say "oh, he's just a mythological symbol," or "oh, well, you don't *have* to believe in the literal Demiurge to be a Gnostic," doing so discounts one of the more appealing mythological aspects of Gnosticism from the get-go. If someone is interested in Gnosticism but doesn't want anything to do with the Demiurge or the Archons, they might have a difficult time of it, because discussing Gnosticism but avoiding these concepts would be like discussing gardening without using the word "water." Sure, it's possible, but what a huge pain in the ass!

He goes on to suggest that whether something is "real" or not in an external sense is less relevant than what we do with it.

The healthiest approach may be the shamanic, or Jungian Gnostic approach, which are, at their heart, almost Taoist. ...

For instance, suppose, while taking communion, that one senses the presence of the Holy Spirit. There are a few approaches to this experience that might help illustrate what I mean. The spiritual person might accept, fully and completely, that the Holy Spirit exists as an external entity and is descending from the skies into the wafer. The "rational" person might consider the experience as a psychological state resulting from the atmosphere of ritual. Which is correct? Who cares? What's it *MEAN*? Whether it was ACTUALLY the Holy Spirit or whether it was an internal psychological state is the wrong question! The correct question is: what are you going to do about it?

One sees a ghost in a hallway. Is it REALLY a ghost? Or, is it a trick of the light? Who cares? What are you going to do about it? How is it going to affect you directly? Do you believe it’s a physical ghost? Great! So how does that affect you? Do you believe it was a trick of the light? Fantastic! So what?

You're sick, and a shaman heals you. Did he contact spirits who healed you? Or, did the placebo effect kick in and create a psychological state in which your body could heal itself? Either way, so what?

I like this approach. For example, it makes immediate sense in the context of examining my dreams. Whether they were communicated by entities from outside my mind (a hypothesis I still entertain as possible), or the result of subconscious desires as Linknoid suggested, the result for me ends up being pretty much the same: I need to listen to these messages and take them seriously for my own good!

Ditto for the presence of spirit I "sensed" at the church's meditation room. If all it's doing is "turning on" some part of the nerve center in my brain, I need to spend time there so I can hone that area. If, OTOH, it's the Spirit of Sophia speaking to me, I need to hear that voice so I can absorb Her wisdom. Call it what you want, but the effect ends up being the same.

Yet another way we're killing ourselves little by little everyday without even thinking about it.

The presence of plastic particles and associated toxic chemicals in modern people makes for weak genes, congenital diseases, and a rotten feeling in my soul when I think of the human race's physical deterioration. Looking at an apparently healthy person, seeing him or her licking a plastic utensil, one must imagine the chemical contamination in the person's body and brain...

Another simple example of petrochemical poisoning is PVC wrap on food. Known sometimes as Saran Wrap, the migration of chemical molecules into food is as certain as the migration of phthalates into blood from soft plastic blood bags in hospitals. Things like this are unquestioned by many and thus persist.

I've been meaning to reply to several of the comments people made here over the past few days, but I keep procrastinating it. This happens every now and then. I have vague ideas about what I want to say, but putting the thoughts into words requires mental energy, especially if it is to come out in a coherent manner. And sometimes, I just don't feel like doing it. Sometimes I do. So I guess what I'm saying is, if my pattern of responding or not responding seems erratic, don't take it personally. I'm wierd that way.

In other news...

Lots of insightful articles here, mostly focusing on the impending collapse of petrosociety. I was going to just link to one of them, until I clicked around and found that pretty much everything on the site is worth reading.

That was wierd. I dreamed another dream. A signal from beyond? Or just brain static?

Tonight was the last in the series of the three introductory classes known as Unitarian 101. The featured event was a potluck.

Tim Boucher interviews Ran Prieur. 'Nuff said.

I've been thinking more about this idea of gnosis by way of insanity ever since reading what kylark wrote. (Actually, I was thinking about it for a while even before that, but her post brought it back to the forefront.) I hope she elaborates more on her experiences in the future, but in the meantime, what about mine?

A little secret: Ever since this site came back from its multi-month hiatus last winter, I've been tracking most of the hits it gets pretty damn carefully on a regular basis. In fact, I even wrote a little custom web interface to make it easier. Every IP address that visits this site shows up on my radar, and I look at that radar quite regularly.

I've restructured the Regular Reading links, and added several that needed to go there. It's so tricky to come up with category headings that are sufficiently descriptive yet brief enough to fit on a single line.

New blog for my regular reading. Here's what I like about it: It's by a person who, like me, has read a bunch of stuff from the gnostic blogs online, but does not consider herself learned enough to be called a Gnostic. But here's the post that got me going:

I went crazy this spring.

From my point of view, I got unstuck in time. I met God. I was the heart of my own universe, and I held the fate of all Universes in my hands. From my family and friends' perspective I was batshit insane. That’s OK. I freely admit my mind was not tuned to the Reality Channel.

I consider the inner and outer perspectives to be equally valid. I had a genuine spiritual experience, and also I went on a journey away from reality that scared the hell out of my friends and family. So while I’m willing to admit the craziness of my behavior, I’m also unwilling to disavow what happened to me, to dismiss it as purely the function of an unbalanced mind. I believe there is more to life than mechanistic material existence, and I was lucky (or unlucky) enough to know the raw essence of the Universe firsthand.

Um, wow. Can we say kindred spirit?

She's also a Ran Prieur acolyte (guess where I found the link?), and is into the idea of using the Slow Crash as an "opportunity to slip the bonds of Empire Culture." I look forward to reading more from this one.

I'm still thinking about Linknoid's recent comment, and my response to it. Maybe I'll begin this rambling by continuing with the topic on which I trailed off, and go from there.

This is perverse. I'm listening to the song "Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)" by Concrete Blonde. They used to play it at the club quite often. Tonight, it was stuck in my head. A google or two later, a trip to the allofmp3.com music store, and it's playing. But in the context of recent events... I have to wonder if the DJ's there have been playing it lately. Probably not.

Posting this third-hand. It was forwarded to me through an email list by someone who attributed it to a post on the Rigorous Intuition discussion board. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with all of it, but it is interesting.

I just awoke from a haunting dream. These are my thoughts as they come.

This one's for the Magic players.

Very brief. Biked around northern Lincoln in leisurely manner. Ate bread and cheese. Saw Dark Water, and found it well worth the $2. Saw Elaine Pagels speak at the Lied Center -- a talk focused mostly on comparing and contrasting the Gospel of Thomas with that of John.

Creeping urban horror at its best. Jennifer Connelly is awesome, as is child-actress Ariel Gade, who plays her daughter. Unfortunately, the movie did get a bit bogged down with some over-the-top silliness toward the end, but that's easy to forgive when taking into account the overall quality, characterization, and rich texturing of the film. I really got into it. Thumbs up.

An optimistic portrait of North America's future. Are we up to the challenge?

(according to Dan)... I like this.

1. "He whom you call "The Lord your God" brought you out of paradise and into slavery."
2. "Thou shalt have no other gods beside your own reason, intuition, and empathy."
3. "Thou shalt not swear a vain oath unless thou seeketh struggle and failure."
4. "The present moment is the Sabbath; keep it holy."
5. "Respect Father Sun; stay in the shade and sleep through the hot afternoon. Honor Mother Earth; return to her what you have taken. Seek the wisdom of your brothers and sisters, the plants and animals which live in balance with each other."
6. "Thou shalt not murder the earth."
7. "Thou shalt love and make love to whomever you wish, without the bondage of oaths."
8. "Thou shalt steal from those who horde wealth and share what you steal freely, so long as thou dost not take what another loves more than thee. "
9. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, nor true witness against him, nor against anyone else."
10. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, because his mortgage is his enslavement, nor thy neighbor's wife, for marriage is a shackle."

Yesterday, I got semi-ambitious and started making phone calls.

In this essay, Jeff Vail makes the case that with the coming global economic collapse, we now have a "One-Time Shot" to develop a rhizome-based means of communication that is not dependent on the soon-to-be-decaying corpse of hierarchy. Though he doesn't yet have much in the way of specific ideas on how this can be achieved, his stated intent in writing the essay is to get the ball rolling so a discussion can ensue.

bouncing visits Lincoln, a gnostic sermon at a Unitarian church, jumper cable synchronicity.

This article is mainly about how to make your own fermented soda (which actually sounds like a fascinating experiment to try), but I wanted to link and quote some insightful comments it makes about the food creation process.

Money can facilitate exchange among friends and neighbors, but in essence money is an anonymous form of energy--almost by its definition as a universal medium of exchange. Among friends and neighbors, the usual laws of market economics do not apply. You don't seek to maximize profit. You don't raise your prices to the maximum just because you can. You are not doing it for the money; you are doing it for your family and for the neighbors. In an economy of reciprocation and social exchange--that is, in an economy that is not primarily a money economy--"economic efficiency" takes on a different meaning.

The more anonymous the customer, the more money stands as the sole motivating force. In today’s multi-level, automated and standardized food production & distribution system, the consumer is almost totally anonymous to the farmer, the commodity buyer, the processing factory and even the grocer. There is no reason to care about the wholesomeness of the product, except to the extent necessary to conform to whatever regulations are enforced, and whatever the public might find out about. No reason? Oh pardon me, I forgot about altruism. Yes, of course, a company might make products better than they need to be out of an abstract altruism, but when the very real pressures of market competition come to bear, such altruism quickly degenerates into sloganeering and PR. Some version of "caring about the health of the consumer" surely appears in the mission statements of all the major food corporations, including the most egregious violators of the public trust. In other words, it is hard to genuinely care about someone you don’t even know. Compassion in the abstract is almost always a self-deception. Much more reliable is the goodwill and mutual sense of responsibility that exists among neighbors who are bound together into a community, their good intentions enforced by social pressure and the intimacy of long association.

In many areas of life, social mechanisms of enforcing responsible behavior have atrophied as communities have disintegrated. These have been replaced by legal mechanisms. The old mechanisms of social pressure, reputation, etc., have lost their power. No matter how much your neighbors dislike you, your money is still good at Wal-Mart. In today’s anonymous society, we are little dependent on our communities, which have become mere collections of buildings. More and more, we are connected to our neighbors by proximity only. The increasing legalism and litigiousness of America is a symptom of unraveling communities, weakening connections. On a most basic level, we no longer make food for each other. All phases of food production, from the farm to the kitchen, are increasingly the province of strangers who are paid to do it.

You cannot pay someone to care. You can pay someone to act as though they care; you can pay them to follow meticulous guidelines; but you can’t make them really care.

Wholesomeness of food is more than a matter of which methods and processes are used to bring it from soil to table. When caring is codified, the code loses much of its meaning, especially under the influence of powerful corporations. The letter persists while the spirit departs. Many of the best, most conscientious farmers I know eschew the organic certification, because they know that food produced according to the letter of the organic code need not be consonant with the spirit that gave birth to organic farming in the first place.

An alternative path exists: food should not be primarily a commodity. Food is a gift of God's Good Earth, for which all religious traditions teach gratitude. To subject it to the economic regime of the lowest bidder is to desecrate the gift and insult the Giver. For most of human history, the sharing of food was a significant social act, cementing ties between friends and kin, showing welcome to strangers. Today it has become an anonymous act of commerce. Other people in other times would no doubt have thought it exceedingly strange, if not downright obscene, for total strangers to grow, process, and even cook nearly all one’s food.

This article from Harper's Magazine describes each step taken -- before, during, and after the 2004 election -- to deny certain segments of the Ohio public their right to vote, to rig the results, and to cover up the scandal. With a complicit national media and an opposition candidate too wimpy to challenge any of it, they succeeded, and then labeled anybody who questioned the process a "conspiracy nut".

Representative Democracy in America is now a fiction. Deal with it. The current "elected officials" have no interest in reforming anything, because they're the beneficiaries of the broken system.

Organizers of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial Freedom Walk on Sunday are taking extraordinary measures to control participation in the march and concert, with the route fenced off and lined with police and the event closed to anyone who does not register online by 4:30 p.m. today.

...

The U.S. Park Police will have its entire Washington force of several hundred on duty and along the route, on foot, horseback and motorcycles and monitoring from above by helicopter. Officers are prepared to arrest anyone who joins the march or concert without a credential and refuses to leave, said Park Police Chief Dwight E. Pettiford.

"Freedom Walk" indeed. What would Orwell say if he were alive today?

Tonight's novelty: Unitarian 101 class. But first, some stuff that preceded it. And a little babbling to get me into the spirit. If you think I should have an editor, you're probably right. But this is how I play the game, so if you don't like it, you can direct your attention elsewhere. I won't be offended.

This is a narrative by a family that went to bring help and supplies to a cabin that their church had agreed to let FEMA use to house refugees from New Orleans. They brought food, clothes, and a caring spirit for people who had lost everything. When they got there, FEMA told them they weren't allowed to donate any clothes, and most of their food (especially the healthy stuff) was turned away because the military thought it might cause people to "riot". Nobody (including the church that owns the cabins) will be allowed to use the kitchen for "safety" reasons. The refugees will not be permitted to leave the camp for any reason. Also, outsiders who don't have "official badges" won't be allowed in.

Jason Godesky writes:

If Katrina is not the catalyst of the collapse, it is at least a harbinger of things to come. It is a preview of what follows from the catastrophic breakdown of hierarchical society. In New Orleans, we see a glimpse of what awaits every city, and likely in our lifetimes. It is a dark and terrible tribulation -- the greatest horror that any animal has ever had to face, wherein humanity will answer for 10,000 years of tyranny and despotism. But even in the darkest hour, hope endures.

...

When a man tortures a pit bull to make him a fierce fighter, and then that pit bull mauls a child, we do not blame it on the inherently violent nature of dogs. We blame it on the man who tortured the pit bull to make him violent. New Orleans was a poor city even before Katrina. Those who remained were the poorest of the poor. We have become a people dependent on hierarchy. It has abused us so that we cannot live without it. We can no longer remember what "freedom" even means; all we can dream is to one day be the oppressor, rather than the oppressed. It is the sick fantasy of a slave beaten too hard, locked away too long, so that he no longer remembers what gentleness is, can no longer recollect the light.

The failure of our government to deal with this crisis is painfully evident for all to see. Recriminations have reverberated across the political spectrum, but already the have begun to settle into partisan camps. Liberals picked the easiest and most common sense target in George Bush; others have placed the blame at the feet of Mayor Nagin. This will likely continue to play out for some time with all the reason and decorum we've come to expect from modern American political discourse, but it seems we will once again only learn half the lesson.

This is what the State founds itself on. Precisely this kind of scenario. "Obey us, serve us, and we will protect you in times of catastrophe"; that is the social contract, that is the Faustian deal we strike with Leviathan. It is for that, that we sell ourselves to oppressors and tyrants, and shackle our lives, our futures, our souls to the will of the State. All we have asked in return is its protection from catastrophe. Now catastrophe has come, and the protection of the State is nowhere to be found.

...

It is in times of crisis that our true nature is revealed. It is easy to go along in times of prosperity and plenty; it is in times of crisis that necessity strips us of our masks and lays bare our truth for all to see. And what truth has Katrina laid bare for us? That the victims of hierarchy cannot persist without her? Possibly. But more than that, it has revealed that hierarchy predates upon us, predicated upon a lie. It shows us that Leviathan cannot protect us, that when catastrophe befalls us, Leviathan will fail. It shows us that hierarchy, domination, coercion, all fail.

But it also shows us that in catastrophe, people turn to one another, and to the only thing that really works--tribes. It shows us that tribes endure. While your hierarchy fails, our tribes endure. It shows us that hope endures. And humanity--humanity endures.

Since finishing the last rambling, I've had [count em] 1, 2, 3 ramblings that I've started and haven't finished, each on different subjects. Ok, so a couple of them didn't get very far at all before I stopped, but I hate when this happens. Maybe I should just stop and go to bed, but I don't want to.

My eating habits have become truly odd. A moment ago, I was dipping chunks of bread just ripped from an unsliced loaf into a container of molasses, and eating them just like that. And it was delicious!

Returning to life in Lincoln. Here's what's happening in my sector of the woods.

jwz has put together a nice big batch of news snippets, collectively summarizing the overwhelming clusterfuck that comprises the government's handling of Katrina.

I thought I would never see the day when even Fox News would air the raw and genuine truth. Yet here it is (download the quicktime video), as two reporters on the ground, in emotionally distressed testimonies, corroborate one another's stories live on the air, against feeble attempts by studio anchor Sean Hannity to put it in "perspective".

For graduates of Daniel Quinn's Ishmael...

Up till now, I haven't been posting or linking to much stuff about Katrina, not because it isn't noteworthy or important; the implications are massive (understatement), but there's so damn much happening, plus what's being said about it online, that just trying to keep up and make sense of it all can be a full time occupation. And what more could I add, really?

Published January 2001.

Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

Who's laughing now?