The First Church of David Bowie, Phonomancer

Something shocking happened when I posted to Facebook my essay about the necessity of organizing a societal response to the existential threats that plague us. It got lots of comments, and almost all of them were from people who are in favor of a human-less Earth. One idea that came up a couple times is that humanity is a cancer on the body of the planet, and that if we were to slide into extinction, it would be no big loss. I found that simply mind-boggling. And really I feel a little sick about it. I had no idea that this virulent strain of nihilism masquerading as "enlightened thinking" even existed, not really, even though my friend whose comment inspired the original piece told me I was going to encounter a lot of it. Boy, was she right! Anyway, here are all the comments. A lot of accusations were made that I was angry, sarcastic, unwilling to listen to other points of view. That's...pretty accurate, actually, but honestly I'm surprised I managed maintain at l

The other night I was having dinner with a friend, and she said, "I don't know, maybe we're not worth saving. Maybe things will fall apart and human beings will go extinct. Then the world could heal. Maybe that would be best." Appalled by her nihilism I said, "But you're a doctor! " And she just shrugged. I've been thinking a lot about that exchange. I think it's symptomatic of a deep weariness in our culture that is the result of what we face every day: all the existential threats, and the evidence of cruel human ignorance, and the soul-grinding stress of living in a capitalist oligarchy. It inculcates a sense of "It's too much, this is just too complicated, there's no solution, fuck it, we give up." Some people express this through gleeful apocalypticism (I've been one of those), but most are anesthetizing themselves with smart phones, anti-depressants, and long-form TV. It's just easier to feel less.

The "Holy Ma" is my name for the Divine Feminine. "Pa" is the masculine aspect of the Godhead. Make no mistake, this is not about gender. In this case feminine and masculine are ways to characterize the energies of the penultimate dualistic nature of the Absolute. You could as easily say, negative and positive, yin and yang, chaos and order, etc. Based on my experience, Pa is God as the Radically Alien, the Logos, the Ein Sof. It is Pure Intellect, and utterly uncaring of you, puny human.* But Ma is God as Person, Spirit, Shakti, the very essence of emotion itself, and she loves you like your mommy does, only times infinity. These are energies that can be encountered up-close-and-personal in one's unconscious. They also completely transcend our ability to think about or even experience them. So what happens is that your imagination throws up a screen, a symbol, an image, to help you interface with that energy. That's what every god and goddess is

It's still inchoate, but this weekend I received a novel and possibly very useful new image of the Goddess. It was She Who is Not There, a three-dimensional hole in the world in the shape of the wife I never found. It inspired an epiphany: Your "heart" is part of the perceptual apparatus of your consciousness, like your mind. And like your mind, it always has an object of its apprehension. If, like William H. Macy in "Magnolia," you feel like you have love to give and nowhere to put it, if you're dying inside because you've got no one to love, understand that the pain you're feeling is a sure sign you *do* love Someone, a Transcendental Person who feels the same way about you, only times infinity. Your heart sees Her, even if you cannot. So I offer you one weird trick to achieve salvation. All you need to do is reframe your suffering to recognize that your longing is proof that She is real, and you will be delivered. Loneliness is a strang

This is an excerpt from three-and-a-half hours of video I'm going to be uploading to YouTube. I edited in reaction shots of my engagement with this song in order to give you an idea of the incredible psychological wallop this work delivers. It's straight-up 21st century Gnosticism and utterly transformational. TRIGGER WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS PHOTOGRAPHS OF WARTIME ATROCITIES. Some notes: 1. We are on the verge of civilizational collapse. 2. Avoiding this will require a spiritual transformation at a societal level. We need to find a way to pull together, to establish a common vision for the kind of world we want to live in--not just a nebulous notion, but a detailed imaginal reality--and then organize to actualize it. 3. Currently existing religions--including scientism--have thus far failed to provide that framework of meaning. 4. It's time to try something new. 5. Mystical experiences are the root and center of religion. All major world religions ar

Loneliness can have many causes. But they all boil down to one fact: unrealized potential. There is a person you can be in the context of a relationship with another person that you simply cannot realize in isolation. And I don't mean a romantic relationship, necessarily, although a positive romantic relationship is often foremost on people's minds, because it provides the broadest context for the expression of oneself. What I'm saying is that we're only as much of ourselves as other people allow us to be. You might be witty, kind, affectionate, sensual, passionate, poetic--whatever the qualities you most like about yourself. But without another person who can appreciate those qualities in you, they might as well not exist. You are not funny if there's no one around who gets your sense of humor. You're not an ardent lover if there's no one around who inspires you sexually or returns your interest. You're not intelligent if there's no o

I want to tell you about my approach to working with psychedelics, because I think I'm breaking new ground. If you or someone you know is working along similar lines, get in touch. I want to talk with you. For now, at least, I'm calling this approach "phonomancy," meaning "divination via sound." If you're a recreational user, it likely won't appeal to you. If you're someone who's dipping your toe in the psychedelic water via microdosing, or someone who is primarily interested in using psychedelics to treat trauma, depression, or addiction issues, you might find the practice I'm going to describe off-putting or even alarming. That's because phonomancy is not therapeutic--it's augmentative. It's a program for developing supra-normative emotional and spiritual capacities via psychological hormesis. Some risk, pain, and fear are part of the process. But that's the price of transformation. THE ORIGINAL TWO &qu