My Scottish mother had a seemingly endless supply of ghost and other stories, and I spent my entire childhood avoiding them. They frightened me terribly. Strange things happened in our house, though, and I often refused to go to bed until my sister, who I shared a room with, came upstairs.
She (our mother) used to tell me to stop wasting energy being afraid of the dead when it is the living we ought to watch out for. Today I find so much truth to that (though I did once experience the opening of a different - or simultaneous? - plane in my living room), the massive amount of lies we are told and so many trained to believe them. Some won’t need to be tortured to admit that two plus two equals five.
I once had a lucid dream in which one of the spirits (I don’t know what else to call them; on our plane they are no more) from my living room tried to tell me something of utmost importance. I understood him, but in the midst of it all I realized what I was engaged in and fear overtook me. He was upset that he had frightened me and left quite rapidly, and when I woke, I remembered it all except what he had told me.
I still am not entirely comfortable with the thought of being awake and talking to a ghost (Mother: “Ask it what it wants”; Me: “Are you mad? It might answer!”), but I have too many times tried to understand why some humans do to others what they do and my mind generally shuts down before reaching blowout phase. It’s just so inconceivable and my mind is too small. Ghosts are far less trouble.
Just as much a "story" as The Screwtape Letters! Not sure I agree with either Bridget or her Uncle Richard, but lots to chew on, which I will do and regurgitate later. Thank you as always
I read this two years ago and enjoyed reading it - I did - but also left it feeling annoyed: 'these characters and their theories!' I'm not suggesting that my reaction, or my opinion, is either meaningful or trustworthy; I'm just reporting it.
Seeing it here, I felt I had to sign in, prove I wasn't a robot by identifying motorcycles, upgrade to paid and then comment because...
Well, the other week I wrote on my substack about this feeling Bridget expresses at the end - that we deserve it. It's a common feeling, even though it doesn't usually lead to a 'conscious' intention to sacrifice one's own child. My son's upstairs inventing slimes in a notebook because his screen time is over, fyi.
Also... I have a long standing and quite embarrassing weakness for webcomics and one long-running one looks like it might conclude by hinting that modernity is the ploy of a trickster deity. I saw that same idea as the final plot twist in a popular 21st century fantasy novel by a famous author. Specific, named 'tricksters' appear in these works; I'm just not naming them here in case people care about spoilers.
Oddly, this was my own belief from when I was a young teenager until sometime in my early 20s. I thought that modernity - the spirit of it - was a sort of reincarnation of a vanished trickster. For me, it was a generic Jungian archetype trickster. That stuff seemed appealing then. I eventually abandoned the idea because I was sick of being a character with a theory and took up zen practice instead. Is it such a foolish idea, though? Prometheus is a 'trickster'.
Trickster deities aren't the same thing as demons or fairies. Sorry, I mean they aren't the same idea. I don't know if they're the same thing. I'm not trying to say they are, or to put forward another theory either. Still I think the idea must have come from somewhere if different people come up with it independently.
Bridget and uncle Richard are agreed that, whatever They are, They are smarter than us and They know what They're doing. Teenage me was too arrogant to see the truth of that but it's also logical for him. It's pretty hard to know what to do in that kind of situation; I suppose demons might be convincing Bridget that it's fairies or fairies might be convincing Richard that it's demons. Demons might be convincing me to talk about 'tricksters' because they can be viewed with academic detachment and a knowing smile; evil dismissed as mischief. A society of intelligent machines simulating the whole thing could be... whatever.
How can we sensibly proceed if they're smarter than us?
And also who is telling us we deserve to be punished?
Well if you want to know whose side you're on, like the lady says. Or what you're up against. Maybe that doesn't matter if you are sure you have a supremely powerful ally.
For me personally, 6 minutes into that video either I turn from the truth or the spell is broken. That's when i suspect a trick, I suppose.
Again, I'm reporting my reactions, not stating my opinions. I don't know what to think.
"Bridget and uncle Richard are agreed that, whatever They are, They are smarter than us and They know what They're doing." Well, maybe not quite that. Maybe the point is that they are powerful and can hurt us because we don't recognize them, that we don't believe it's possible. They don't have to be "smart", they do what they do. They can be defeated, if we open our eyes to them.
"And also who is telling us we deserve to be punished?" Well, we do deserve to be punished when we do bad things, but maybe the suggestion is we deserve what we get if we don't open our eyes and see what we're dealing with.
P.S., I love that you subscribed. That's important. I enjoy your comments, so hopefully you'll do more.
My Native American neighbors (New Mexico) have trickster characters that participate in most of their feast-day celebration dances. They move among the regular dancers (who are dressed in traditional costumes specific to the dance) wearing only loincloths and body paint. They mimic and mock the dancers and generally clown around, also engaging with visitors and tourists who are watching the dances. I believed them to be light-hearted characters for years but over time came to see them as diabolical.... hard to explain why exactly... possibly some reading of earlier observers like Bandolier. This came with an understanding that the dances and ceremonies, many of which are secret and forbidden to speak of to outsiders like myself, contain both pagan prayers for blessings for the villages themselves and also curses for neighboring villages or perhaps even people further away.
Ah I thought that you were saying 'be careful of too much accusing'. There's a comment further down about accepting personal responsibility and not blaming spirits and it attracted a surprising amount of wrath from one person...
Isn't it the Puritan answer to say 'they're all demons, fairies, ghosts, 'nature spirits', what have you - demons in disguise (unless of course they're angels but you're probably not that special)?' Have I got that right?
This is a wonderful, pertinent, bold story - and, for me personally, uncanny.
I have had exactly the same flow of thoughts as to what might be the forces behind our entrancement, enslavement and madness.
At first, seeing it as some sort of dark demonic force, Moloch being the representation that most resonated. A demon that Ginsberg identified, and Fritz Lang in Metropolis... an eater of children in the way your story describes.
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
Recently I have come round more to Bridget's point of view. I did a shamanic journey last year in which I thought I saw all the nature spirits gathering together for a council of war - with us. I have also recently read a book by R Ogilvie Crombie, one of the mentors at Findhorn in Scotland, about his conversations with nature spirits in which they make clear their powers to destroy us if we continue to desecrate the earth: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Encounters-with-Nature-Spirits/R-Ogilvie-Crombie/9781620558379
The time for warnings may be over; the time of open warfare may have begun. If one believes in the agency of nature spirits, their opening salvos couldn't be more obvious in the drought we face and the refusal of our rivers to flow...
Sometimes I wonder if they are behind the violence between nation states too - that they have chosen to drive us into the madness of nuclear annihilation as a way of returning balance to the earth. I wrote something about the presence of these irrational forces in an essay published just before the invasion of Ukraine - https://medium.com/@ed_80681/causes-of-the-third-world-war-eca6f1ebc791
Sometimes I wonder if it is perhaps a combination of the two viewpoints you detail in the story - that the nature spirits, our guardian oaks, rivers and holy places helped to defend us in the Otherworld from the malign forces that wish us ill. And by abandoning our alliances with them, the dark has found our ramparts undefended...
Either way, the nature spirits are at the heart of it.
I guess it all leaves me with a question: is it too late to do anything?
I can guess your answer though I would like to hear it too.
I do believe that the future lies in restoring the covenants we have broken with the nature spirits, be they of forest, river or mountain. A return to the communication of the past between the human and non-human and a relationship based on mutual respect and reciprocity. As the myths teach us.
But I fear that such a reconciliation will only be possible for the survivors after the fire, when the world has fallen quiet.
Very interesting. Tibetan Buddhism is four-square behind you in this: it completely acknowledges nature spirits, earth guardians, guardians of all kinds. There are many rituals for offering to, respecting, restoring our relationships with them, strengthening their protective powers.
Brilliant, what an essay, the letter format makes it balanced and less heady, consistent with the themes of rationality and the spiritual being our dual nature.
I have been studying the book of Mark lately, and this is the sermon that fell on today (08/15/22). I know it's a bit long, but it's one of those unusual "coincidences," and I hope those who've read the article will find something worthwhile in it:
"If personal supernatural good could exist, why in the world could personal supernatural evil not exist? Why wouldn’t it? There’s nothing irrational or illogical about people believing in demons.
You say, “Well, it’s primitive because, you see, people used to believe in demons when we didn’t understand how the world worked. We used to believe in demons when we really didn’t understand how complex things were. It used to be people didn’t understand diseases and mental illness and epilepsy … They didn’t understand what these things were, so they just attributed it all to demons. They were simplistic and naïve about how things were.”
Maybe that’s the case of many ancient people, but not so of the Bible. As a matter of fact, the biblical understanding of demons is part of the most complex, least simplistic, least naïve, most multidimensional, most nuanced view of reality I think exists. Why so? For example, in Matthew 4:24, we read that news about Jesus spread, and people brought to him the ill, the demon-possessed, lunatics, and the paralyzed, and he healed them all. That’s really interesting.
First of all, it shows definitively that the Bible differentiates the demon-possessed from the diseased. They don’t attribute diseases to demon possession. They knew the difference between a physiological and a demonic issue. More than that, what’s interesting is it says they brought not only the diseased and the demon-possessed, but lunatics. That’s an old word, and today the word lunatic is a pejorative word. It’s really an insult, and not a good word to use in general.
But the original meaning of the Greek word literally meant, in the Greek lexicon, anyone characterized by insanity, irrational behavior, or seizures. That means the Bible understood the difference between insanity, mental illness, epilepsy, disease, and demon-possession. They understood all of that..."
I'm with Bridget. My favorite book when I was little was "The Adventures of a Brownie". And I've never seen or talked with God in a building. Only outside.
But you haven't heard his voice unless you've read the Bible or heard it taught. You're deceiving yourself if you believe otherwise, and clearly, you do.
Satan's Boast by Keith Green. Did anyone else grow up in this kind of evangelical world? Now I'm going to have this song in my head all day.
I grew up in a church where demons were cast out occasionally, we were warned to avoid buying antique items because of spirits or curses they might carry, and we prayed prayers to "bind" demons and the devil.
My upbringing was pretty much the opposite. No sense of evil, and *a lot* of television, movies, pop music etc. I do mean *a lot*. I have watched innumerable acts of violence and the like over my life, particularly when I was younger. I think only my pervasive sense that something was/is fundamentally "off" about pretty much everything that kept it from being worse.
Even so I don't think it compares to what is doled out today. In that sense, I am grateful.
You and your mother have chosen the far better path. -Jack
My parents were Charismatic/Pentecostal "deliverance ministers" (exorcists). For many years they had prayer sessions every Saturday night at our house. A few years ago I discovered a book in which a journalist documents these movements in U.S. religion -- "American Exorcism" by Michael Cuneo. Upon reading it I immediately called my sister and told her that someone had written a book about how we grew up. The author is skeptical of it all, but not condescending. Very much worth reading.
What is all this talk of “it’s the web’s fault, it’s the demons’ fault, it’s the fairies’ fault”? Uncle Richard and Bridget don’t seem to be taking much personal responsibility here. Reminds me of Adam in the Garden of Eden: “You see, God, that woman you gave me made me do it...” blaming both his wife (he doesn’t even say her name!) and God Himself, for his own sin -- it seems to be a popular modus operandi since, well, forever. The original man couldn’t man up and take responsibility for his own actions, and billions of people have followed in his footsteps. I find it disgusting. It’s not the phone’s fault, Uncle Richard! It’s not the internet’s fault, or the TV’s, or the devils’, or the fairies’, or or or... No. Our sins and failings are our own fault. We need to quit trying to scapegoat anyone or anything else which happens to be available. We need to take personal responsibility. It’s part of growing up. Toddlers blame the chair when they bump into it. The people in this story, and so many in real life, blame phones, the internet, social media, the government, the culture, the devil, etc, for their own choices and behavior. There’s so much clutching of pearls and wringing of hands but almost no admitting that each of us has agency and responsibility. Come on, Uncle Richard and Bridget and everyone else, we can do better.
This story left me feeling angry and grossed out. Maybe that’s a good thing, but I shall still end with an ironic emoji:
I think you're onto something. If there were a big scary devil who could force us to do evil then we wouldn't be culpable. But however much there may be forces that influence and addictions.... I'm sure we are culpable. I also believe we can do the right thing; we won't always or 100% but it is sill our command. "Be ye perfect." (perfect = whole or mature). Wouldn't be required if we were up against impossible forces.
This story may help us to see how and where to begin once we do decide to take responsibility and begin to fight in earnest. I hope it doesn't leave anyone feeling like a helpless pawn of the spirit world. I am very grateful that my mom never had a TV in our house because our church preached the injunction "set no evil thing before thine eyes" on account of the sexual and violent imagery. So if this story helps people to consider the nature of influence via their screens, they may be moved to take meaningful action.
The reality of the spirit world and personal responsibility/free will are not mutually exclusive, as we see in the biblical account of the temptation of Jesus in the desert. One of the sobriquets of Satan is the 'Tester'. Prior to the Fall, Adam and Eve had not been tested, in other words, the immortality with which they were created was a Divine gift, not yet earned, as was Adam's 'kingship' (for he had dominion over the earth) and 'priesthood', for Adam could name the animals (i.e. 'see' the 'words' -sounds, vibrations - with which each was composed). Adam, or humanity, must regain his Divine being by discovering his true Being and the gifts which are still in him, which entails precisely overcoming the spirit world with its 'glamours' and 'temptations' (for it is the ego that functions here) and discerning the highest levels of Reality, i.e. God, which is man's own true Nature (Divine Essence). Man, in other words, must become fully self-aware to regain his immortality, i.e. by becoming what he 'always already' was/is. See Christ as the 'second Adam', and the 'body of Christ', or humanity restored in the Son ('Adam is the Son of God. Luke 3:38).
"For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him." Col 1:16). In other words, Man must recover his Divinity through his own free will. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve knew only Good, and so were corruptible: in the end, according to Gen 3:5: "For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil are one Tree. This is an esoteric interpretation of the biblical account, which can be found in both Judaism and Christianity.
The logo of Mac is an apple with a bite in it. Yes, there are forces of good and evil. And yes, we do have personal responsibility. Of the End of Times we read: " He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still." Rev 22:11. Salvation is a personal choice.
On the Internet, I will add that technology has always been a preferred way of entrance for negative forces. In addition to the Apple logo, we can note that the first personal computer was priced at $666. Also, the acronym AI stands for the primary Name of God in reverse, "I Am". A video was titled, " I Am AI".
Well, it's certainly hard to argue against personal responsibility. You're right about that.
Still, it would be wrong to rail against those force of evil that we're up against. Call them what you will, the world, the flesh, the devil; the powers and principalities of the air; the spiritual powers in dark place; etc.
The Apostle Paul talked about this in Romans (Chp 7, 18-25): "For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want."
Surely, it's a battle. And, most certainly, not just a battle with personal responsibility (if even one of the most saintly men could not achieve it). There really are forces of darkness against us and we really are in a fight for our lives--our spiritual lives.
I asked the question "why" for so long I finally burned it outta me. But, in my mind, it always came back to some things *I* did.
External forces? Good "luck" and bad "luck?" Demons and angels? Mebbe it's because I wasn't raised that way. No doubt there are external forces, but I don't believe they can be rationally comprehended. I guess that's the extent of my Spirituality, and it very well mean a lack of imagination on my part.
OTOH, mebbe trying to comprehend and derive mental images of these forces, primarily for the purpose of controlling them is a trap, rather than liberation. Dunno fer certain.
“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” Now, that's the truth.
And, a lot to what you say. As a Christian, I know I am free from the power of these forces (we do agree there are forces, whether we imagine them or not), and I know they are already defeated, it's only a matter of time. But, I should know what they are so that I do know how to react properly.
Still, they're attacking. Someone asked the question in another comment why they would bother, and the answer is the same reason that drives us in our original sin: envy (you can be like God- Adam and Eve) and resentment (why do I have to offer right worship to God (Cain and Abel.). These powers do exactly what we would do if we were spiritual instead of corporeal.
Your thoughts ring true to me and I recognize myself in them. But, as an old soldier, I really want to know who I'm fighting and why. I think there's danger in just accepting a banal idea of evil and emphasizing my own responsibility for it. To me, that's like wearing blinders in a battle. I want to stand, but I want to know what I'm up against so I can stand.
Thank you for your thoughts. You've given me things to chew on this fine morning.
Interesting reply, M. Jumper. Sorry, I was I was just slow getting back here. Like You, You've given me things to think about.
Sorry, but I don't tend to think much. I'm weird, I admit that. When I look at good and evil, I don't go there very often. I've only hated two people in my life, and I was wrong both times. (Other than teenage hatred of Dad, which was as shameful later as it should be.)
There's evil in the world, I don't doubt that. I've only experience the Gospels a few times and Geneses. But isn't there a quote that even the Devil doesn't know who he works for? I think of Hitler. It's easier for me not to hate him, because he's a historical person, rather than a real person. But still, if it wasn't for him I wonder if Israel would exist. I'm skeptical. Mebbe if I thought, I could come up with more examples, but that's always stuck in my mind.
Nature and nurture as led me away from thoughts of good and evil, tho never fail to fail.
Zuckerberg and all them? Come pretty close, to me anyway. Skimmed an article how, consistently, they all made choices that they knew were harmful to their users, but which increased sales. Always the goal to hook users, and increase sales. Yet he's one-a the most admired people on the planet. What can One say? "Different strokes..."
So I don't accept evil, exactly. But I ask myself what can I change. Still wondering about that.
But my strong thought/feeling/intuition on the subject is that, ultimately, I can only change is myself, in this very singular moment. Or, at least, attempt to direct the change I become. (I *think* it was a different forum I mentioned this but, if not, sorry for redundancy.)
One can surely *influence* others, 'course. But *control* them? Well, that's a gray area to extent. Although I never had kids, even I know that babies can be contrary when they have a mind to.
Mebbe I'm too self-obsorbed. Older-Sister mentioned that once. But I dunno who else's experience to draw from. The Way the mop flopped, in my genetics and experience, is that I've had too many problems to do much battle with anything else. Dunno if that's a strength or a weakness. Probably both. I guess I'm saying is that, so far anyway, I've been my own greatest enemy. Frequently. Still trying to do better each day. (As I fail to quit smoking today. AGAIN.)
Ah well... In the end I most ramble. Don't read what I write, because there's always errors anyway.
Sometimes there really are forces larger than oneself. What you're doing here strikes me as not far from standing over a shadow burned into the pavement at Hiroshima and lecturing how this vaporized human should have taken more personal responsibility. It's a denial that large impersonal forces actually exist that have power to impose themselves catastrophically upon people, and that individuals can be genuinely powerless to stop them.
Not every problem represents imposition by such a force, but the subject of The Abbey of Misrule—The Machine and its consequences—surely counts among them. One can retreat to a remote cliff in the West of Ireland to live as a Christian mystic and still be scoured from the surface of the Earth by a Russian nuclear Poseidon missile. Perhaps you can find your way there afterwards to yell at the charred corpse about how they should have taken more responsibility.
A useful method of bullsh*t detection is to stretch any argument to its extreme. If the argument is sound, it should remain valid. If it doesn't, if the argument falls apart, then the person putting it forward will have their agenda/biases/limited thinking/character flaws exposed and the argument can be discarded.
I use a different measure of bullsh*t detector, which sometimes works. If person is full-a pride and brags about how smart they are, it's not always accurate what they say.
Yeah, she comments that we should take responsibility. I didn't infer that she meant there are *ALWAYS* ways we can avoid *EVERY* bad thing that happens.
You infer she would say a person should take responsibility for getting struck by a Poseidon missile? Curious. Your comments were original, and interesting, but not necessarily valid. IMO.
True, not necessarily, but I'm sick of the "lack of personal responsibility explains misfortune" horse-crap. I see it as a branch of prosperity gospel garbage and a way for empathy-impaired neo-sociopaths to justify what is in fact their indifference to the suffering of others.
Well, like I implied, i think You took what Eleanor "said" to mean more than what it did.
I gotta say I'm not much into prosperity gospel garbage myself. But it's a tricky thing about what brings about misfortune. Demons? Bad "luck." Personal choices? Even when You know most-a the facts, it's not always so easy to tell.
I dunno if You're implying that either Eleanor or I are "empathy-impaired neo-sociopaths" or are indifferent to the suffering of others... Well, that'd be a stretch in my case and I assume it would be in hers.
There was a good and interesting article and comments about why some people don't wanna do much to escape being poor on Bari Weiss's "Common Sense," just this morning. I'm afraid it's likely to be paywalled. https://www.commonsense.news/p/on-rich-friends-and-poor-friends
The commenters agreed that sometimes just having the right friends will lead one to be successful, in a monetary sense. But most-a them said it was a combination of good parenting, good luck and hard effort, to over-summarize. And showed there's a lotta Ways for people to suffer. Some, most all the commenters, overcome odds I wouldn't care to face.
But, then, I've battled my own "demons," and lost more than once.
Steven- Once again you make a very necessary point. It is one that is hard to hear so, perhaps as Flannery O'Connor had it, "in a world that is hard of hearing one must shout." Though with so much noise around us most won't hear it anyway.
Yes, personal responsibility is essential for *my own life* and behavior, what I do and say and how live. To the degree I can do that and choose wisely I must do that.
But this doesn't address at all the fundamentally unprecedented metacrisis we are in. I am tempted to say that little I do will have an effect on it. But even that is delusional. I must face the fact that *nothing* I can do can turn the machine from its destructive course. We don't like to face that, but you are absolutely right.
And you are absolutely right, there is no place to escape from it. As Uncle Ellis tells Sheriff Bell in No Country for Old Men, (movie version): "You can't stop what's coming, and to think it's waiting on you, well, that's vanity." We have long been a civilization of vanity.
One slim hope I do take though (also from Cormac McCarthy) is to "carry the fire" (from No Country and The Road). My small flame may get snuffed without ever passing anything on--maybe all of us do--but I think it is worth carrying the fire and leaving it to God or to chance what, if anything, ever continues.
So if I can get further from the mess and keep some distance from it, I will try to do so. Knowing, ultimately, it may not matter where I go, I still prefer the silence to the noise.
Thank you for your comment and your honesty. It is appreciated. I hope all is well in Ireland. -Jack
The Machine, while seemingly expanding freedom and responsibility, is actually taking it away. One of the key pieces of evidence for this is that smartphones, games, etc., are designed and engineered to be addictive. In other words, each of us may have "agency and responsibility," but the intention of these technologies is to attack that. And it's surprising how many people refuse to consider their addictive nature even when presented with evidence from their own developers/designers -- "Well, other people may be addicted to them but I'm not. I could quit any time!" Famous last words.
Hi Eleanor, whenever there’s a kerfuffle about a social platform harming children, causing discord or the spread of misinformation, I think that it’s a convenient ‘look over there, rather than at ourselves’.
That said, I think there is malevolence in Homo Sapiens and that something emergent, that has agency, may come into existence when humans are networked beyond a point that is necessary for standard cooperation & problem-solving.
Calling it by a name that distinguishes it from us is possibly the part that irks me.
Upon experiencing these dread beings on the daily, my Orthodox priest suggested reciting Psalm 90 (OSB) 10 times a day to ward them off. It worked: "You shall tread upon the asp and the basilisk, And you shall trample the lion and the dragon."
Having discovered your writing only recently, and knowing (a small glimpse of) your story, it's interesting to see you writing this at the beginning of 2020. I'm glad you didn't make any revisions; makes the content that much more compelling.
That said, I've experienced my share of the demonic; things that I am hesitant to mention in public, even around Christians who seem to have forgotten this reality. So reading this story has helped affirm the discontent I've been feeling as of late with "the Machine," as you have so aptly described it, isn't simply a battle against the "tangible," but against principalities and powers. And it's so much more prevalent than I ever could have imagined.
I haven't. I just looked it up, and yeah. I'd definitely check it out. My problem with how most people perceive exorcisms and possession/oppression is they either take it too seriously, or not seriously enough. If that makes sense? Seriously might not be the best word to use, but hopefully it conveys my feelings well enough.
You're saying essentially what C.S. Lewis said, but in somewhat different words. And I think that's right.
"Hostage to the Devil" is the most upsetting book I've ever read. I tried to read it at age 25, and was in defeat after the first case. Thirty years later, I was unnerved, but was able to get through the entire book. A year later, I tried it again, and for reasons I can't explain ( other than its being as scary as Hell ), couldn't hack it.
I had an interesting experience with a local bus driver ten years ago. I'd probably been cued by Martin's book, but a driver new to the route I occasionally took seemed to me to be the coldest human being I'd ever been around. She was also mean, loving to drive half a block past a waiting passenger who was certain he was being left behind, or stopping half a block short and forcing the passenger to walk the unneeded distance to the bus. I decided to test her.
I put a crucifix in an inner jacket pocket and caught a bus I knew she'd be driving. I had no particular place to go, so I killed time until she returned on the inbound route. Three people were ahead of me as we boarded. I couldn't see her clearly until I had climbed the first step.
She appeared to be in a trance. I'm not sure her eyes were moving, but they were closed. Her head was lolling back and forth, and she was moaning. I dropped my fare in the box and walked down the aisle to a seat. Whatever had been wrong with the driver when I was a couple of feet from her had seemed to vanish, and she resumed driving the bus.
Several years later, I mentioned the driver and this incident to a paratransit driver, who knew all about her. She's president of the local union. There was dread on the paratransit driver's face when she said of the woman, "People are afraid of her."
Yes, and the "mechanistic" will be the end of this round. God knows what comes next, we're not done quite yet.
So many thoughts.
My Scottish mother had a seemingly endless supply of ghost and other stories, and I spent my entire childhood avoiding them. They frightened me terribly. Strange things happened in our house, though, and I often refused to go to bed until my sister, who I shared a room with, came upstairs.
She (our mother) used to tell me to stop wasting energy being afraid of the dead when it is the living we ought to watch out for. Today I find so much truth to that (though I did once experience the opening of a different - or simultaneous? - plane in my living room), the massive amount of lies we are told and so many trained to believe them. Some won’t need to be tortured to admit that two plus two equals five.
I once had a lucid dream in which one of the spirits (I don’t know what else to call them; on our plane they are no more) from my living room tried to tell me something of utmost importance. I understood him, but in the midst of it all I realized what I was engaged in and fear overtook me. He was upset that he had frightened me and left quite rapidly, and when I woke, I remembered it all except what he had told me.
I still am not entirely comfortable with the thought of being awake and talking to a ghost (Mother: “Ask it what it wants”; Me: “Are you mad? It might answer!”), but I have too many times tried to understand why some humans do to others what they do and my mind generally shuts down before reaching blowout phase. It’s just so inconceivable and my mind is too small. Ghosts are far less trouble.
Just as much a "story" as The Screwtape Letters! Not sure I agree with either Bridget or her Uncle Richard, but lots to chew on, which I will do and regurgitate later. Thank you as always
I read this two years ago and enjoyed reading it - I did - but also left it feeling annoyed: 'these characters and their theories!' I'm not suggesting that my reaction, or my opinion, is either meaningful or trustworthy; I'm just reporting it.
Seeing it here, I felt I had to sign in, prove I wasn't a robot by identifying motorcycles, upgrade to paid and then comment because...
Well, the other week I wrote on my substack about this feeling Bridget expresses at the end - that we deserve it. It's a common feeling, even though it doesn't usually lead to a 'conscious' intention to sacrifice one's own child. My son's upstairs inventing slimes in a notebook because his screen time is over, fyi.
Also... I have a long standing and quite embarrassing weakness for webcomics and one long-running one looks like it might conclude by hinting that modernity is the ploy of a trickster deity. I saw that same idea as the final plot twist in a popular 21st century fantasy novel by a famous author. Specific, named 'tricksters' appear in these works; I'm just not naming them here in case people care about spoilers.
Oddly, this was my own belief from when I was a young teenager until sometime in my early 20s. I thought that modernity - the spirit of it - was a sort of reincarnation of a vanished trickster. For me, it was a generic Jungian archetype trickster. That stuff seemed appealing then. I eventually abandoned the idea because I was sick of being a character with a theory and took up zen practice instead. Is it such a foolish idea, though? Prometheus is a 'trickster'.
Trickster deities aren't the same thing as demons or fairies. Sorry, I mean they aren't the same idea. I don't know if they're the same thing. I'm not trying to say they are, or to put forward another theory either. Still I think the idea must have come from somewhere if different people come up with it independently.
Bridget and uncle Richard are agreed that, whatever They are, They are smarter than us and They know what They're doing. Teenage me was too arrogant to see the truth of that but it's also logical for him. It's pretty hard to know what to do in that kind of situation; I suppose demons might be convincing Bridget that it's fairies or fairies might be convincing Richard that it's demons. Demons might be convincing me to talk about 'tricksters' because they can be viewed with academic detachment and a knowing smile; evil dismissed as mischief. A society of intelligent machines simulating the whole thing could be... whatever.
How can we sensibly proceed if they're smarter than us?
And also who is telling us we deserve to be punished?
Is it the agents we should focus on, or the deceptions they - whomever they may be - are clearly propagating?
https://youtu.be/NzBT39gx-TE
Well if you want to know whose side you're on, like the lady says. Or what you're up against. Maybe that doesn't matter if you are sure you have a supremely powerful ally.
For me personally, 6 minutes into that video either I turn from the truth or the spell is broken. That's when i suspect a trick, I suppose.
Again, I'm reporting my reactions, not stating my opinions. I don't know what to think.
"Bridget and uncle Richard are agreed that, whatever They are, They are smarter than us and They know what They're doing." Well, maybe not quite that. Maybe the point is that they are powerful and can hurt us because we don't recognize them, that we don't believe it's possible. They don't have to be "smart", they do what they do. They can be defeated, if we open our eyes to them.
"And also who is telling us we deserve to be punished?" Well, we do deserve to be punished when we do bad things, but maybe the suggestion is we deserve what we get if we don't open our eyes and see what we're dealing with.
P.S., I love that you subscribed. That's important. I enjoy your comments, so hopefully you'll do more.
my answer to your last question would have to be from the Hebrew. The Bible's trickster is called ha satan, the accuser.
whoa. OK.... So that sounds like two very different answers to my last question here and above... but perhaps I misunderstand.
My Native American neighbors (New Mexico) have trickster characters that participate in most of their feast-day celebration dances. They move among the regular dancers (who are dressed in traditional costumes specific to the dance) wearing only loincloths and body paint. They mimic and mock the dancers and generally clown around, also engaging with visitors and tourists who are watching the dances. I believed them to be light-hearted characters for years but over time came to see them as diabolical.... hard to explain why exactly... possibly some reading of earlier observers like Bandolier. This came with an understanding that the dances and ceremonies, many of which are secret and forbidden to speak of to outsiders like myself, contain both pagan prayers for blessings for the villages themselves and also curses for neighboring villages or perhaps even people further away.
Ah I thought that you were saying 'be careful of too much accusing'. There's a comment further down about accepting personal responsibility and not blaming spirits and it attracted a surprising amount of wrath from one person...
Isn't it the Puritan answer to say 'they're all demons, fairies, ghosts, 'nature spirits', what have you - demons in disguise (unless of course they're angels but you're probably not that special)?' Have I got that right?
My heart is feeling surrender... I struggle with all discussed.
Dear Paul,
This is a wonderful, pertinent, bold story - and, for me personally, uncanny.
I have had exactly the same flow of thoughts as to what might be the forces behind our entrancement, enslavement and madness.
At first, seeing it as some sort of dark demonic force, Moloch being the representation that most resonated. A demon that Ginsberg identified, and Fritz Lang in Metropolis... an eater of children in the way your story describes.
This article offered some useful insights into how "fantasy" has become our safe, Machine-controlled space for thinking about those powers - and how they might be glad that we have ceased to believe in them - https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/fantasy-and-the-buffered-self
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
Recently I have come round more to Bridget's point of view. I did a shamanic journey last year in which I thought I saw all the nature spirits gathering together for a council of war - with us. I have also recently read a book by R Ogilvie Crombie, one of the mentors at Findhorn in Scotland, about his conversations with nature spirits in which they make clear their powers to destroy us if we continue to desecrate the earth: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Encounters-with-Nature-Spirits/R-Ogilvie-Crombie/9781620558379
The time for warnings may be over; the time of open warfare may have begun. If one believes in the agency of nature spirits, their opening salvos couldn't be more obvious in the drought we face and the refusal of our rivers to flow...
Sometimes I wonder if they are behind the violence between nation states too - that they have chosen to drive us into the madness of nuclear annihilation as a way of returning balance to the earth. I wrote something about the presence of these irrational forces in an essay published just before the invasion of Ukraine - https://medium.com/@ed_80681/causes-of-the-third-world-war-eca6f1ebc791
Sometimes I wonder if it is perhaps a combination of the two viewpoints you detail in the story - that the nature spirits, our guardian oaks, rivers and holy places helped to defend us in the Otherworld from the malign forces that wish us ill. And by abandoning our alliances with them, the dark has found our ramparts undefended...
Either way, the nature spirits are at the heart of it.
I guess it all leaves me with a question: is it too late to do anything?
I can guess your answer though I would like to hear it too.
I do believe that the future lies in restoring the covenants we have broken with the nature spirits, be they of forest, river or mountain. A return to the communication of the past between the human and non-human and a relationship based on mutual respect and reciprocity. As the myths teach us.
But I fear that such a reconciliation will only be possible for the survivors after the fire, when the world has fallen quiet.
Thank you as always for your writing.
Got to wonder if you, or anyone else here has ever read Little, Big by John Crowley?
Not heard of it until now!
Well (assuming you might consider stepping into that safe, Machine-controlled space): Duuuuuuude!
Very interesting. Tibetan Buddhism is four-square behind you in this: it completely acknowledges nature spirits, earth guardians, guardians of all kinds. There are many rituals for offering to, respecting, restoring our relationships with them, strengthening their protective powers.
And yes, they are seriously pissed off.
Brilliant, what an essay, the letter format makes it balanced and less heady, consistent with the themes of rationality and the spiritual being our dual nature.
I woke up one morning, and the interweb was dead . . . (to be continued)
I have been studying the book of Mark lately, and this is the sermon that fell on today (08/15/22). I know it's a bit long, but it's one of those unusual "coincidences," and I hope those who've read the article will find something worthwhile in it:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h30jy2R8Dp4EpVxFAaFyHiHnY_t4PgbTjRxazC7s5GY/edit?usp=sharing
A quick excerpt:
"If personal supernatural good could exist, why in the world could personal supernatural evil not exist? Why wouldn’t it? There’s nothing irrational or illogical about people believing in demons.
You say, “Well, it’s primitive because, you see, people used to believe in demons when we didn’t understand how the world worked. We used to believe in demons when we really didn’t understand how complex things were. It used to be people didn’t understand diseases and mental illness and epilepsy … They didn’t understand what these things were, so they just attributed it all to demons. They were simplistic and naïve about how things were.”
Maybe that’s the case of many ancient people, but not so of the Bible. As a matter of fact, the biblical understanding of demons is part of the most complex, least simplistic, least naïve, most multidimensional, most nuanced view of reality I think exists. Why so? For example, in Matthew 4:24, we read that news about Jesus spread, and people brought to him the ill, the demon-possessed, lunatics, and the paralyzed, and he healed them all. That’s really interesting.
First of all, it shows definitively that the Bible differentiates the demon-possessed from the diseased. They don’t attribute diseases to demon possession. They knew the difference between a physiological and a demonic issue. More than that, what’s interesting is it says they brought not only the diseased and the demon-possessed, but lunatics. That’s an old word, and today the word lunatic is a pejorative word. It’s really an insult, and not a good word to use in general.
But the original meaning of the Greek word literally meant, in the Greek lexicon, anyone characterized by insanity, irrational behavior, or seizures. That means the Bible understood the difference between insanity, mental illness, epilepsy, disease, and demon-possession. They understood all of that..."
I'm with Bridget. My favorite book when I was little was "The Adventures of a Brownie". And I've never seen or talked with God in a building. Only outside.
But you haven't heard his voice unless you've read the Bible or heard it taught. You're deceiving yourself if you believe otherwise, and clearly, you do.
Wow. That was fantastic. Thank you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgiqtTGIpbs
Satan's Boast by Keith Green. Did anyone else grow up in this kind of evangelical world? Now I'm going to have this song in my head all day.
I grew up in a church where demons were cast out occasionally, we were warned to avoid buying antique items because of spirits or curses they might carry, and we prayed prayers to "bind" demons and the devil.
Clara
Clara-
My upbringing was pretty much the opposite. No sense of evil, and *a lot* of television, movies, pop music etc. I do mean *a lot*. I have watched innumerable acts of violence and the like over my life, particularly when I was younger. I think only my pervasive sense that something was/is fundamentally "off" about pretty much everything that kept it from being worse.
Even so I don't think it compares to what is doled out today. In that sense, I am grateful.
You and your mother have chosen the far better path. -Jack
My parents were Charismatic/Pentecostal "deliverance ministers" (exorcists). For many years they had prayer sessions every Saturday night at our house. A few years ago I discovered a book in which a journalist documents these movements in U.S. religion -- "American Exorcism" by Michael Cuneo. Upon reading it I immediately called my sister and told her that someone had written a book about how we grew up. The author is skeptical of it all, but not condescending. Very much worth reading.
Uncle Richard is a snob and I don’t like him.
What is all this talk of “it’s the web’s fault, it’s the demons’ fault, it’s the fairies’ fault”? Uncle Richard and Bridget don’t seem to be taking much personal responsibility here. Reminds me of Adam in the Garden of Eden: “You see, God, that woman you gave me made me do it...” blaming both his wife (he doesn’t even say her name!) and God Himself, for his own sin -- it seems to be a popular modus operandi since, well, forever. The original man couldn’t man up and take responsibility for his own actions, and billions of people have followed in his footsteps. I find it disgusting. It’s not the phone’s fault, Uncle Richard! It’s not the internet’s fault, or the TV’s, or the devils’, or the fairies’, or or or... No. Our sins and failings are our own fault. We need to quit trying to scapegoat anyone or anything else which happens to be available. We need to take personal responsibility. It’s part of growing up. Toddlers blame the chair when they bump into it. The people in this story, and so many in real life, blame phones, the internet, social media, the government, the culture, the devil, etc, for their own choices and behavior. There’s so much clutching of pearls and wringing of hands but almost no admitting that each of us has agency and responsibility. Come on, Uncle Richard and Bridget and everyone else, we can do better.
This story left me feeling angry and grossed out. Maybe that’s a good thing, but I shall still end with an ironic emoji:
☹️
I think you're onto something. If there were a big scary devil who could force us to do evil then we wouldn't be culpable. But however much there may be forces that influence and addictions.... I'm sure we are culpable. I also believe we can do the right thing; we won't always or 100% but it is sill our command. "Be ye perfect." (perfect = whole or mature). Wouldn't be required if we were up against impossible forces.
This story may help us to see how and where to begin once we do decide to take responsibility and begin to fight in earnest. I hope it doesn't leave anyone feeling like a helpless pawn of the spirit world. I am very grateful that my mom never had a TV in our house because our church preached the injunction "set no evil thing before thine eyes" on account of the sexual and violent imagery. So if this story helps people to consider the nature of influence via their screens, they may be moved to take meaningful action.
The reality of the spirit world and personal responsibility/free will are not mutually exclusive, as we see in the biblical account of the temptation of Jesus in the desert. One of the sobriquets of Satan is the 'Tester'. Prior to the Fall, Adam and Eve had not been tested, in other words, the immortality with which they were created was a Divine gift, not yet earned, as was Adam's 'kingship' (for he had dominion over the earth) and 'priesthood', for Adam could name the animals (i.e. 'see' the 'words' -sounds, vibrations - with which each was composed). Adam, or humanity, must regain his Divine being by discovering his true Being and the gifts which are still in him, which entails precisely overcoming the spirit world with its 'glamours' and 'temptations' (for it is the ego that functions here) and discerning the highest levels of Reality, i.e. God, which is man's own true Nature (Divine Essence). Man, in other words, must become fully self-aware to regain his immortality, i.e. by becoming what he 'always already' was/is. See Christ as the 'second Adam', and the 'body of Christ', or humanity restored in the Son ('Adam is the Son of God. Luke 3:38).
"For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him." Col 1:16). In other words, Man must recover his Divinity through his own free will. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve knew only Good, and so were corruptible: in the end, according to Gen 3:5: "For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil are one Tree. This is an esoteric interpretation of the biblical account, which can be found in both Judaism and Christianity.
The logo of Mac is an apple with a bite in it. Yes, there are forces of good and evil. And yes, we do have personal responsibility. Of the End of Times we read: " He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still." Rev 22:11. Salvation is a personal choice.
On the Internet, I will add that technology has always been a preferred way of entrance for negative forces. In addition to the Apple logo, we can note that the first personal computer was priced at $666. Also, the acronym AI stands for the primary Name of God in reverse, "I Am". A video was titled, " I Am AI".
Beautifully said.
There is a big, scary devil. Thankfully, he's defeated.
Well, it's certainly hard to argue against personal responsibility. You're right about that.
Still, it would be wrong to rail against those force of evil that we're up against. Call them what you will, the world, the flesh, the devil; the powers and principalities of the air; the spiritual powers in dark place; etc.
The Apostle Paul talked about this in Romans (Chp 7, 18-25): "For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want."
Surely, it's a battle. And, most certainly, not just a battle with personal responsibility (if even one of the most saintly men could not achieve it). There really are forces of darkness against us and we really are in a fight for our lives--our spiritual lives.
I apologize in advance.
I asked the question "why" for so long I finally burned it outta me. But, in my mind, it always came back to some things *I* did.
External forces? Good "luck" and bad "luck?" Demons and angels? Mebbe it's because I wasn't raised that way. No doubt there are external forces, but I don't believe they can be rationally comprehended. I guess that's the extent of my Spirituality, and it very well mean a lack of imagination on my part.
OTOH, mebbe trying to comprehend and derive mental images of these forces, primarily for the purpose of controlling them is a trap, rather than liberation. Dunno fer certain.
“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” Now, that's the truth.
And, a lot to what you say. As a Christian, I know I am free from the power of these forces (we do agree there are forces, whether we imagine them or not), and I know they are already defeated, it's only a matter of time. But, I should know what they are so that I do know how to react properly.
Still, they're attacking. Someone asked the question in another comment why they would bother, and the answer is the same reason that drives us in our original sin: envy (you can be like God- Adam and Eve) and resentment (why do I have to offer right worship to God (Cain and Abel.). These powers do exactly what we would do if we were spiritual instead of corporeal.
Your thoughts ring true to me and I recognize myself in them. But, as an old soldier, I really want to know who I'm fighting and why. I think there's danger in just accepting a banal idea of evil and emphasizing my own responsibility for it. To me, that's like wearing blinders in a battle. I want to stand, but I want to know what I'm up against so I can stand.
Thank you for your thoughts. You've given me things to chew on this fine morning.
Interesting reply, M. Jumper. Sorry, I was I was just slow getting back here. Like You, You've given me things to think about.
Sorry, but I don't tend to think much. I'm weird, I admit that. When I look at good and evil, I don't go there very often. I've only hated two people in my life, and I was wrong both times. (Other than teenage hatred of Dad, which was as shameful later as it should be.)
There's evil in the world, I don't doubt that. I've only experience the Gospels a few times and Geneses. But isn't there a quote that even the Devil doesn't know who he works for? I think of Hitler. It's easier for me not to hate him, because he's a historical person, rather than a real person. But still, if it wasn't for him I wonder if Israel would exist. I'm skeptical. Mebbe if I thought, I could come up with more examples, but that's always stuck in my mind.
Nature and nurture as led me away from thoughts of good and evil, tho never fail to fail.
Zuckerberg and all them? Come pretty close, to me anyway. Skimmed an article how, consistently, they all made choices that they knew were harmful to their users, but which increased sales. Always the goal to hook users, and increase sales. Yet he's one-a the most admired people on the planet. What can One say? "Different strokes..."
So I don't accept evil, exactly. But I ask myself what can I change. Still wondering about that.
But my strong thought/feeling/intuition on the subject is that, ultimately, I can only change is myself, in this very singular moment. Or, at least, attempt to direct the change I become. (I *think* it was a different forum I mentioned this but, if not, sorry for redundancy.)
One can surely *influence* others, 'course. But *control* them? Well, that's a gray area to extent. Although I never had kids, even I know that babies can be contrary when they have a mind to.
Mebbe I'm too self-obsorbed. Older-Sister mentioned that once. But I dunno who else's experience to draw from. The Way the mop flopped, in my genetics and experience, is that I've had too many problems to do much battle with anything else. Dunno if that's a strength or a weakness. Probably both. I guess I'm saying is that, so far anyway, I've been my own greatest enemy. Frequently. Still trying to do better each day. (As I fail to quit smoking today. AGAIN.)
Ah well... In the end I most ramble. Don't read what I write, because there's always errors anyway.
TY again for Your reply, Sir.
Sometimes there really are forces larger than oneself. What you're doing here strikes me as not far from standing over a shadow burned into the pavement at Hiroshima and lecturing how this vaporized human should have taken more personal responsibility. It's a denial that large impersonal forces actually exist that have power to impose themselves catastrophically upon people, and that individuals can be genuinely powerless to stop them.
Not every problem represents imposition by such a force, but the subject of The Abbey of Misrule—The Machine and its consequences—surely counts among them. One can retreat to a remote cliff in the West of Ireland to live as a Christian mystic and still be scoured from the surface of the Earth by a Russian nuclear Poseidon missile. Perhaps you can find your way there afterwards to yell at the charred corpse about how they should have taken more responsibility.
@Steven, maybe a touch harsh, lol. Still, true, true.
A useful method of bullsh*t detection is to stretch any argument to its extreme. If the argument is sound, it should remain valid. If it doesn't, if the argument falls apart, then the person putting it forward will have their agenda/biases/limited thinking/character flaws exposed and the argument can be discarded.
I use a different measure of bullsh*t detector, which sometimes works. If person is full-a pride and brags about how smart they are, it's not always accurate what they say.
Yeah, she comments that we should take responsibility. I didn't infer that she meant there are *ALWAYS* ways we can avoid *EVERY* bad thing that happens.
You infer she would say a person should take responsibility for getting struck by a Poseidon missile? Curious. Your comments were original, and interesting, but not necessarily valid. IMO.
True, not necessarily, but I'm sick of the "lack of personal responsibility explains misfortune" horse-crap. I see it as a branch of prosperity gospel garbage and a way for empathy-impaired neo-sociopaths to justify what is in fact their indifference to the suffering of others.
Well, like I implied, i think You took what Eleanor "said" to mean more than what it did.
I gotta say I'm not much into prosperity gospel garbage myself. But it's a tricky thing about what brings about misfortune. Demons? Bad "luck." Personal choices? Even when You know most-a the facts, it's not always so easy to tell.
I dunno if You're implying that either Eleanor or I are "empathy-impaired neo-sociopaths" or are indifferent to the suffering of others... Well, that'd be a stretch in my case and I assume it would be in hers.
There was a good and interesting article and comments about why some people don't wanna do much to escape being poor on Bari Weiss's "Common Sense," just this morning. I'm afraid it's likely to be paywalled. https://www.commonsense.news/p/on-rich-friends-and-poor-friends
The commenters agreed that sometimes just having the right friends will lead one to be successful, in a monetary sense. But most-a them said it was a combination of good parenting, good luck and hard effort, to over-summarize. And showed there's a lotta Ways for people to suffer. Some, most all the commenters, overcome odds I wouldn't care to face.
But, then, I've battled my own "demons," and lost more than once.
Steven- Once again you make a very necessary point. It is one that is hard to hear so, perhaps as Flannery O'Connor had it, "in a world that is hard of hearing one must shout." Though with so much noise around us most won't hear it anyway.
Yes, personal responsibility is essential for *my own life* and behavior, what I do and say and how live. To the degree I can do that and choose wisely I must do that.
But this doesn't address at all the fundamentally unprecedented metacrisis we are in. I am tempted to say that little I do will have an effect on it. But even that is delusional. I must face the fact that *nothing* I can do can turn the machine from its destructive course. We don't like to face that, but you are absolutely right.
And you are absolutely right, there is no place to escape from it. As Uncle Ellis tells Sheriff Bell in No Country for Old Men, (movie version): "You can't stop what's coming, and to think it's waiting on you, well, that's vanity." We have long been a civilization of vanity.
One slim hope I do take though (also from Cormac McCarthy) is to "carry the fire" (from No Country and The Road). My small flame may get snuffed without ever passing anything on--maybe all of us do--but I think it is worth carrying the fire and leaving it to God or to chance what, if anything, ever continues.
So if I can get further from the mess and keep some distance from it, I will try to do so. Knowing, ultimately, it may not matter where I go, I still prefer the silence to the noise.
Thank you for your comment and your honesty. It is appreciated. I hope all is well in Ireland. -Jack
The Machine, while seemingly expanding freedom and responsibility, is actually taking it away. One of the key pieces of evidence for this is that smartphones, games, etc., are designed and engineered to be addictive. In other words, each of us may have "agency and responsibility," but the intention of these technologies is to attack that. And it's surprising how many people refuse to consider their addictive nature even when presented with evidence from their own developers/designers -- "Well, other people may be addicted to them but I'm not. I could quit any time!" Famous last words.
but he's a loveable curmudgeon! :-)
Hi Eleanor, whenever there’s a kerfuffle about a social platform harming children, causing discord or the spread of misinformation, I think that it’s a convenient ‘look over there, rather than at ourselves’.
That said, I think there is malevolence in Homo Sapiens and that something emergent, that has agency, may come into existence when humans are networked beyond a point that is necessary for standard cooperation & problem-solving.
Calling it by a name that distinguishes it from us is possibly the part that irks me.
Anyway, I loved your comment.
Upon experiencing these dread beings on the daily, my Orthodox priest suggested reciting Psalm 90 (OSB) 10 times a day to ward them off. It worked: "You shall tread upon the asp and the basilisk, And you shall trample the lion and the dragon."
I'm sure this isn't important: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/john-dees-spirit-mirror
Having discovered your writing only recently, and knowing (a small glimpse of) your story, it's interesting to see you writing this at the beginning of 2020. I'm glad you didn't make any revisions; makes the content that much more compelling.
That said, I've experienced my share of the demonic; things that I am hesitant to mention in public, even around Christians who seem to have forgotten this reality. So reading this story has helped affirm the discontent I've been feeling as of late with "the Machine," as you have so aptly described it, isn't simply a battle against the "tangible," but against principalities and powers. And it's so much more prevalent than I ever could have imagined.
Thank you for sharing, Paul.
Have you read Malachi Martin's "Hostage to the Devil?" If so, what did you think of it?
I haven't. I just looked it up, and yeah. I'd definitely check it out. My problem with how most people perceive exorcisms and possession/oppression is they either take it too seriously, or not seriously enough. If that makes sense? Seriously might not be the best word to use, but hopefully it conveys my feelings well enough.
You're saying essentially what C.S. Lewis said, but in somewhat different words. And I think that's right.
"Hostage to the Devil" is the most upsetting book I've ever read. I tried to read it at age 25, and was in defeat after the first case. Thirty years later, I was unnerved, but was able to get through the entire book. A year later, I tried it again, and for reasons I can't explain ( other than its being as scary as Hell ), couldn't hack it.
I had an interesting experience with a local bus driver ten years ago. I'd probably been cued by Martin's book, but a driver new to the route I occasionally took seemed to me to be the coldest human being I'd ever been around. She was also mean, loving to drive half a block past a waiting passenger who was certain he was being left behind, or stopping half a block short and forcing the passenger to walk the unneeded distance to the bus. I decided to test her.
I put a crucifix in an inner jacket pocket and caught a bus I knew she'd be driving. I had no particular place to go, so I killed time until she returned on the inbound route. Three people were ahead of me as we boarded. I couldn't see her clearly until I had climbed the first step.
She appeared to be in a trance. I'm not sure her eyes were moving, but they were closed. Her head was lolling back and forth, and she was moaning. I dropped my fare in the box and walked down the aisle to a seat. Whatever had been wrong with the driver when I was a couple of feet from her had seemed to vanish, and she resumed driving the bus.
Several years later, I mentioned the driver and this incident to a paratransit driver, who knew all about her. She's president of the local union. There was dread on the paratransit driver's face when she said of the woman, "People are afraid of her."