This is one of the best things I have ever read - timely to the moment, and timeless in your understanding of the relationship between humans (and our ego/control fanaticism) and the natural world with whom we are intimately connected. Absolutely brilliant.
I've been reading Savage Gods. After all your worries that your writing might be just adding to the evil deceptions of civilization or might be meaningless, you have truly found your way through. It is good that you write these essays. It is good that you have lived and wrestled in order to be able to see and write them. It is good that you are willing to tackle the mundane and engage the confusing for the benefit of others. Thank you and your family!
Thanks for saying that. I do wonder fairly regularly whether I should have returned to this kind of writing. I'm glad to hear it's helpful to you. Happy Christmas!
I think what you are writing is absolutely necessary. The real work is for all of us to start putting things into action. Time is short. We can no longer afford to be pseudo-scholarly observers to all of this. I see in another comment about someone putting a group together for buying land in Ireland. This is one way. Though here in America, most people's eyes glaze over if I even bring this up as an idea. Another is what I mentioned in another comment, the life on The Road as in the Way of the Pilgrim. The time to start making real plans is upon us; it has been for a good while.
I couldn't agree with you more about a planned retreat to the countryside here in the United States. I've made a murmuring or two about it at my church, but am regarded lovingly as a Holy Fool. The church is building a little community composed of rehabilitated old houses in our old Midwestern city's Historic District, and this is a dear thing, but from the start - the start being one of our parishioner's leaving us an unexpected $1,600,000.00 at his death as a starter fund for our community - I thought our families should be planning an evacuation. Yes, sell your houses, quit your jobs, let's get going. But, no.
One of our elders has recently brought into the open among the leadership ( we Holy Fools sit in the councils of leadership because we're harmless ) his concern that something vital has gone out of our fellowship in the last few years. He's right. An example: one family's children have their Saturdays scheduled six weeks in advance. Do I need to say more?
I wonder about the downfall of the Machine prior to Christ's return. I may be over crediting epigenetics, but what I think we've learned about it makes skepticism of such a collapse justified. Young people are "annoyed" by a loss of privacy, but not much more than that, I guess. The next generation will be amused that the geezers were annoyed.
It’s definitely helpful to us. My 17-year old daughter, (who is in homeschooling to avoid vaccine pressure) and I like to read what you write and we watch your interviews with interest. Your ideas help her navigate the present time, I believe. Also your experience as ex-environmental activist is highly valued.
You say this in one of your responses to comment: "I do think this is a spiritual war, as well as a mateial one." I absolutely agree, and it's worth noticing the traditional ways in which religions react to oppressive regimes. I know Christianity best, so will refer to that faith's 2000 years' experience.
The church has typically divided into three tendencies. Group One will engage with the new reality and may well end up by blessing its nastiness rather than mitigating it. Classic case, the German Christians in Nazi Germany. Group Two will concentrate on the direct welfare of oppressed people, working on the margin between legality and illegality, including a degree of apparently ineffectual protest and organisation. Classic case, probably the Catholic Church in 19th century Ireland. The third, numerically smallest, group is driven inwards upon the sources of the faith, to discover ways in which its spiritual and traditional resources can be reborn as seeds ready for a hint of spring.
I'm hoping this virtual space can help Group Three.
I wonder if some of us will have to live a life as described in the Way of the Pilgrim. A Bible, the Philokalia and a prayer rope. On the Road, indeed.
It's also necessary that the terms of the debate don't exclude those of different faith, no faith, or even antipathy to faith. I am quite capable of taking what I find here and finding the reflections within, say, the Hebrew prophets, the life of Jesus, and my own branch of the Christian family.
I appreciate your comment -and PK's response to it below - for the truth and beauty it holds of that 'sure hope'. Thank you and may you be surrounded with blessings, peace and warmth this Christmas.
Odd, isn't it, that two of contemporary storytellers who caught the popular imagination most, Tolkien and CS Lewis, were both horrified at the spectre of power wedded with technology, and warned against. Yet, here we are...
First, I remember when Alex Jones was a conspiracy theorist.
Second, some links:
The EU's long-term plan for a vaccination passport, a long time in the making: "Examine the feasibility of developing a common vaccination card/passport for EU citizens (that takes into account potentially different national vaccination schedules and), that is compatible with electronic immunisation information systems and recognised for use across borders": https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/default/files/vaccination/docs/2019-2022_roadmap_en.pdf
Third, I also remember when an international government was able to control the movements of an entire people whom God had set free, when it forced that free people to register with an occupying military power, when it made an expectant couple homeless, created the conditions in which they were shut out of all hospitality, and then turned them into refugees. This was the world that God loved and into which he sent his son - as the tiny stone that would crush the giant statue of imperial power, in Daniel's vision. For how else could the Word have become flesh and dwelt among us, with the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth? When the world seems so dark, isn't the incarnation simply stunning?
Thanks Crawford. That first link is already in the essay - though I hadn't realised it had already gone that far in Sweden. Mark on the right hand, anyone ...?
We're getting to the point where being called a conspiracy theorist is an obvious badge of honour. Doubtless Isaiah and John the Baptist and William Blake were called the same. If they're not calling you names, you're doing something wrong!
I love what you say about the incarnation: yes, the overcoming of the world. Blessings to you.
The thing is, there are those "conspiracy theorists" who are actually outside-the-box thinkers prepared to risk being seen as nutjobs because of their skepticism of The Narrative, and then there are those who are… well, out-and-out nutjobs. The fact that a person is labelled a conspiracy theorist doesn't necessarily imply that they're in the former rather than the latter category…
Indeed, and I was trying to make that distinction gently in the essay. Being an 'outsider' is not inherently good if you are outside for the wrong reasons. We need to use our heads.
It's fascinating to see you come to this conclusion. I hope you've also thought long and hard about what CDBC means for humanity. It's the ultimate control mechanism, digital indentured servitude. It's a truly cashless society where cash just doesn't exist and your access to life-giving supplies is dictated by your level of adherence to the religion of the Machine.
And you're correct, the vaccine passports are about normalizing our use of a digital control system. I've written about this before but stated the exact same thing just yesterday:
However, my outlook is not so cheery. I don't mean to make any assumptions but when anyone writes about the bleak outlook for humanity's immediate future they have to end on an optimistic note. Ernst Wolff does this and another writer whose name escapes me right now but who writes about totalitarianism ended one of his pieces along the lines of, "Totalitarian system always self-destruct, so this attempt will also fail".
Nazism didn't self-destruct, it had to be killed at tremendous cost. Communism did eventually collapse but the external pressures exerted on it did most of the damage. Even in that case, it took over 70 years and the deaths of tens of millions. Maoism transformed into some kind of communist capitalist hybrid and a kind of society where freedom is even more of an illusion than we in the west experience. And still at the cost of 10s of millions of lives.
Totalitarianism does rise in our civilization and it's very hard to dispose of. Now we are facing what I call "Neototalitarianism", an invisible monster you call the Machine. Invisible as it is there is no tyrant at the top, no ironfisted strongman to hate, and it's global this time. If Klaus Schwab's vision of tomorrow is allowed to manifest, we will be free-range slaves.
Even though many are waking up, I don't see an easy way of stopping this march towards dystopia. People are out on the streets almost daily and still, the Narrative continues. They literally do not care. They have their roadmap and they are sticking to it. And when they are ready they will crash the financial system and let it burn while society unravels. That's when they bring in their new system, replete with UBI as an extra carrot.
Conspiracy theory? My track record so far has been 100% with rolling lockdowns predicted in April 2020, variants, vaccine passports, and mandatory vaccinations. I'll even give you the mechanism of the engineered collapse - a cyberattack. Maybe a penny just dropped? With CDBC there are no more high street banks, they will have to be eliminated. I'll even give you a likely timeframe - Q2 2023.
The rabbit hole is an interconnected tunnel of caverns with thin walls. You just need to reach out and push your way through to the next level. No flat-earth, 5G, and chemtrails in here though. But you will need your tinfoil hat.
I think we agree on most of this. I'm not optimistic about the near-future by any means (though it makes a change to have someone say it;-)) That's why I say we need to work out where we draw our battle lines as individuals. I think we have been an obviously digitally authoritarian society for some time already, and a technologically authoritarian one for a century or so at least. Yes, what is happening now is the ramping-up of this trend so that it is impossible to ignore. 'Conspiracy theorist' becomes a useful label under these circumstances.
I do think this is a spiritual war, as well as a mateial one. Digital slavery, as you put it, is precisely the direction of travel. But at the same time, I believe it's also obvious - or I hope it is - that the massive ecological overreach of the Machine will be its downfall. As I've said a lot in the past though, there's a fire to be walked through first.
Your cyberrattack point is intriguing. I've been watching the noise around that one unfold for a while now. We had our government databases in Ireland hacked recently, or so we were told ...
When it comes to ecological overreach you have to think about it through the eyes of a globalist. They know that as things stand we are on an unsustainable trajectory. The planet is also not going to become uninhabitable. It just can't sustain the industrial output of a projected 10 billion people by 2050. They also see themselves as stewards of the planet. This leads us to only one possible conclusion.
I've often wondered about Bitcoin. Could it actually be a ruse that will be used to crash the world economy - perhaps when it's worth a million bucks a coin? Help, pass me my tinfoil hat!
My understanding of Bitcoin is that it relies on an encrypted ledger to record transactions, and that the ledger due to that encryption cannot be purged of old transactions. It is a fact that the ledger is doubling every 18 months or so. It stands to reason that Bitcoin is therefore subject to the same limits of growth that everything else is, and will in the end crash on its own. The only question is when. It may be after 2100, but it will happen.
John Titus of the channel 'Best Evidence' on YT has some interesting vids on CDBC. Particularly enjoyed 'Larry & Carstens' Excellent Pandemic' - https://www.youtube.com/c/BestEvidence/featured
I feel moved to add my own comment, although the breadth and depth of my understanding falls far short here. As I struggle to sort out the meaning of the times, I am beginning to focus on myself--seeking to re-establish self-trust, intuition, spiritual engagement. My expectation for this third essay was that you would address the impact of the "omicron" variant, and for a brief moment I was disappointed that you did not lay out just how I should handle this new wrinkle. That is where I am and have been for the past two years--scrambling, desperately seeking everywhere for the Right Answers.
But, to my surprise, I ultimately reacted with a powerful sense of release, of freedom, to your words. With this new variant, whatever fictitious "control" over the virus I had because of my vaccination status has been well and thoroughly destroyed. Now it's up to me to nurture (with the help of family and community) my own sound health, as best I can, and in the old ways--rest, nourishment, sunshine, etc. and, most profoundly, with a serious deepening of my faith. This is one way--and a radical one--that I detach from the Machine. I listen to God and myself above the establishment clamor, I depend upon God and my own human grounding. I test "truth" through fearlessness and purity of heart, such as it may be.
Having sought for so many years to grasp and to solve the world from without, now I go within for a time. I cannot express how liberated I feel! It's like I am reverting to my (Irish) roots--the strength and simple practices that delivered my ancestors through poverty, disruption, oppression, all that. Such faith is work, and I'm excited to take it on.
Please excuse the narrow application of your wonderful words.
Lewis Mumford would be proud, Paul. You have shown us how what we are experiencing is the logical conclusion of his idea regarding 'The Magnificent Bribe'. It used to be that we were just rewarded by the system for playing along. There was room to opt out to various degrees if one chose. Now there will be no choice, only forced participation, keeping the 'progress and growth show on the road', as you say.
Thank you for generating such inspiration at the close. What a gift! Thank you, truly.
Indeed, I used to not care about the rewards offered by consumer culture, thinking me and my family could just navigate through life by living on the land. Now, they are starting to introduce punishments for those not playing along, and I'm at a loss what to do. I've been resisting since the start, but I can see that this will become impossible at some point. We're living in Austria, having moved here from the Netherlands over a decade ago. We have some ideas on what to do next, but it's tiresome, and I fear for the future of my 17-year old homeschooled daughter.
Thanks for putting it like that, punishments added to rewards. Now I know what to tell people when they ask what's wrong.
Thank you, Neven. Well put. Here we are now, with a carrot on the end of a stick in front of us, and a whip behind us. And no way to climb out of the ruts to escape.
It sounds like we have a great deal in common, Neven. Only we are in Vermont and my kids are in their early 20s. I fear for their future as well. I understand exactly what you mean.
Hello, my husband is Dutch and he lives in Switzerland. Our life changed due to the situation. I feel for you being in Austria, it’s so hard there currently as I understand. My 17-year old daughter is homeschooling since October due to blatant pressure at school and by the government to comply with the vaccination. She didn’t want to go to school anymore. So she’s doing an online American high school which, honestly, is of higher quality than her previous schools, but she’s isolated from people her age. What kind of homeschooling is your daughter doing? We are looking for where to go, a country -preferably in Europe- to live. We have thought of Ireland. For now my daughter and I are nomadic. I wonder what made you move from NL, we were thinking of moving here for my daughter’s university. We are hesitant to make plans yet. This idea of the digital identity is very worrying. I wonder if even university will be possible for my daughter. In any case I don’t intend to let my spirit be intimidated.
Hi, Maria. I believe it's all very much up in the air, right now. People say the narrative is crumbling, but from what I've seen so far, it doesn't look like it will be very hard to ratchet up the fear again. Even if corona is as good as endemic, influenza is bound to make a comeback next winter, causing exactly the same problems for health care. One wasn't allowed to compare SARS-CoV-2 to influenza, but my guess is that it will be completely fine to compare infuenza to SARS-CoV-2, once the hospitals start filling up again.
Here in Austria, there is already talk of extending the vaccination mandate to influenza, measles, whooping cough, and so on and so forth. My guess is that pretty soon there will be an mRNA cancer 'vaccine', and who in his right mind could be against mandating that? So, I'm not optimistic, after having seen how fear and mass formation work. It's a sinister step up from the usual consumer culture propaganda, which was a more gentle means of ramming stuff down your throat.
Right now, my wife and I are going for a two-pronged approach, where we build a so-called home/doomstead in a southern European country, while trying to set something up in the Netherlands for temporary stays (to take care of our parents, and perhaps as you say, for our daughter's future education). We will travel between these two places about twice a year, and how long we stay where, will very much depend on the situation.
We moved from the Netherlands because we wanted to get away from consumer culture, and it was easier and cheaper to build and eco-friendly house on a large plot of land in Austria (we tried in Bavaria first, but that didn't work out, because of mandatory schooling). Our daughter has always been home-schooled, which is extremely difficult in Austria, because people here hate everything that is different. In the next 2-3 years she will be doing Dutch state exams for secondary school certificates, because that will give her access to to many Dutch universities, if that's what she wants to do.
We have also contemplated going to the UK or Ireland, but Brexit and distances make it a big jump for us. Scandinavia is also far away from everything, and too dark/cold for our liking. A friend of mine is very enthusiastic about Portugal. Friendly people, lots of expats there and not expensive. Other than that, I wouldn't know where to go in Europe. Germany and Austria are out of the question. Denmark is expensive. Eastern European countries, like Poland and the Czech Republic, aren't very appealing for various reasons. France has huge problems, and hasn't exactly been a guiding light during the pandemic. Neither have Spain or Italy, with their crumbling economies and widespread corruption.
Of course, should it come to European-wide vaccination mandates, travelling and studying will become very difficult, wherever you are. But if we let ourselves be guided by worst case scenarios of this kind, there is almost no point in living. So, we hope for the best, and prepare for the worst.
Gorgeous piece, Mr. Kingsnorth. Enough to push me over the edge to finally purchase a subscription! Thank you for articulating hope in these disorienting times. Not an easy thing to do while remaining truthful, but I think you did it. I felt a shiver down my spine reading those final paragraphs. Looking forward to reading the rest of your writings on here.
I too shivered through the final summation and let out a smile and a chuckle. Those driving the Machine may think themselves clever, but there is, and always has been, something bigger, that no one can control.
I've been eagerly waiting for this third installment, Paul, and have not been disappointed. I've spent the last two weeks home with COVID and have had time to ponder even more than I usually do the state we are in. Just the COVID narrative alone is so unbelievable. That many, many thousands of people believe they need to keep getting vaccinated and boosted, despite the fact that those vaccines will not (we are now, finally, being told) prevent anyone from getting COVID is crazy enough. But that those same people also believe that the unvaxxed are the problem just beggars belief. I find among my friends and family many who do not buy the narrative and I am so grateful for that. But, I also know many people who do believe it and I think, what will you do when the truth wins out, as it will? Will you just re-write history? Your own part in it? Will you crumble in the face of all the lies you believed? Will you join the fight? Or will you cave, give in, learn to love the oppressor because it certainly seems easier? For the entire history of the world, The Machine has been trying to take over, with varying degrees of success. In the spiritual battle, we sometimes retreat to the catacombs or the hedge schools, we sometimes live peacefully within the light of the monastery. Once, a king slaughtered 1000's of newborn boys in an attempt to kill the one who he thought would usurp him. He failed and the boy was born. The Machine can't control everything. This week hope is born in a stable.
On another, more humorous note, I read on Twitter that a man was performing PCR tests out of the back of a halal truck on Queens Blvd. That too gives me hope!
I think I concur with most of this, Paul. All I want to add is that at this point in history, I suspect the number one driver behind most of the accelerating trends and changes you've outlined is good ol' filthy lucre. Altruism and lust for power surely play some part, but the main engine for all of this is the massive revenue opportunity offered by what Charles Eisenstein calls "exponential tech".
I suppose it's just another resource to exploit to grease the wheels of capitalism. When the physical resources run low, is there anything else to monetise but humanity itself?
Yes I agree, marketing is incredible, anything can be sold and everything has a price.
They say follow the money, well the money is in tech and pharma now where it was once in chemicals and petrochemicals. Having exploited and plundered our external environment with one , we now start using the other to plunder the inner environment .
Its Tower of Babel mania. Our tech has advanced so quickly and brought so many new fun "sci-fi" worlds into existence that the excitement cant be contained, keep building, keep building, higher, higher. No one is in charge, no conspiracy needed like you said. Its collective lust grabbing at new objects of desire without any self control, only control of others. You can feel the mass hysteria growing amongst the powerful. Hyenas in frenzy.
I read somewhere recently "It feels like we are living in someone else's psychosis." And that sounds pretty accurate. Maybe this is what an apocalypse feels like.
In better times, Paul, you could have invited everybody to Ireland for a Christmas gathering at a local pub, and probably half of the Abbey of Misrule would show up for an evening of conversation and debate, and a song or two.
I am so glad that you are a writer, and that you are writing. I live on a far flung island off the west coast of British Columbia, Canada, and a few days ago we had a snow storm and a power outage for over 24 hours. I slid Savage Gods off my shelf, which had recently arrived in the mail, and proceeded to read it nonstop for the entire day, curled on the couch by the wood stove. Paul, I LOVED that book. Your musings are my musings, and are so many people's musings, particularly the artists and the writers of this world.
Today's essay is equally as important and articulate. What I like about these covidian essays is that you not only eloquently sum up exactly my sentiments on the topic, but you write in a manner that is very sharable -- these are essays I could share with friends, family members who are nervous to officially question the Narrative, but are intelligent people and know something is definitely 'off' regarding the pandemic, passports, mandates. I think your essays provide a toe-step into questioning and poking at the Narrative without the screeching of full blown 'conspiracy theory' tales that can outright turn some people off.
Anyway, thank you for Savage Gods and for these essays. I look forward to reading your trilogy series, next.
Thanks Paul for the closing segment of your trilogy. The world economic/cultural system is a "superorganism" as elaborated by Nate Hagens and in his construct, nobody is in control because of the interconnected complexity of it all with 8 billion inputs but the machine hasn't heard of Nate Hagens . Even if they have, the drive for power and control by the digital arms race of the technocracy will forge forward until they win or until they lose, which is an odd way to phrase it. The energy behind their push needs energy to sustain it and that is their Achilles heel even if they don't know it yet. All this technology generates yet more complexity which needs yet more energy from under the ground and that inevitable depletion may doom their battle plan. This control needs electrons and if they don't have control of electrons, they run out of bullets. There are any number of risks to their strategy which I am sure they have backup plans for but without energy, there will be no backup plan.
Faster. . . faster . . . yes, everything seems on hyperspeed nowadays. I want my fast food NOW, I want to be fit and buff looking without suffering through months of exercise and diet, I want. . .I want. Sigh. And the Machine entices and satisfies us by teasing us with convenience and being quick to satisfy our impatience.
The Mad Farmer has been my role model for several years now, to the extent that I used worry about being contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian. The last two years have put that fear to rest.
This is one of the best things I have ever read - timely to the moment, and timeless in your understanding of the relationship between humans (and our ego/control fanaticism) and the natural world with whom we are intimately connected. Absolutely brilliant.
I've been reading Savage Gods. After all your worries that your writing might be just adding to the evil deceptions of civilization or might be meaningless, you have truly found your way through. It is good that you write these essays. It is good that you have lived and wrestled in order to be able to see and write them. It is good that you are willing to tackle the mundane and engage the confusing for the benefit of others. Thank you and your family!
Clara
Thanks for saying that. I do wonder fairly regularly whether I should have returned to this kind of writing. I'm glad to hear it's helpful to you. Happy Christmas!
I think what you are writing is absolutely necessary. The real work is for all of us to start putting things into action. Time is short. We can no longer afford to be pseudo-scholarly observers to all of this. I see in another comment about someone putting a group together for buying land in Ireland. This is one way. Though here in America, most people's eyes glaze over if I even bring this up as an idea. Another is what I mentioned in another comment, the life on The Road as in the Way of the Pilgrim. The time to start making real plans is upon us; it has been for a good while.
Amen to that.
youre doing a brilliant job man please continue, especially with the video interviews :)
I couldn't agree with you more about a planned retreat to the countryside here in the United States. I've made a murmuring or two about it at my church, but am regarded lovingly as a Holy Fool. The church is building a little community composed of rehabilitated old houses in our old Midwestern city's Historic District, and this is a dear thing, but from the start - the start being one of our parishioner's leaving us an unexpected $1,600,000.00 at his death as a starter fund for our community - I thought our families should be planning an evacuation. Yes, sell your houses, quit your jobs, let's get going. But, no.
One of our elders has recently brought into the open among the leadership ( we Holy Fools sit in the councils of leadership because we're harmless ) his concern that something vital has gone out of our fellowship in the last few years. He's right. An example: one family's children have their Saturdays scheduled six weeks in advance. Do I need to say more?
I wonder about the downfall of the Machine prior to Christ's return. I may be over crediting epigenetics, but what I think we've learned about it makes skepticism of such a collapse justified. Young people are "annoyed" by a loss of privacy, but not much more than that, I guess. The next generation will be amused that the geezers were annoyed.
God knows how wrong I hope I am. I can't shake the feeling that the demoralization is too far advanced. Can the young even imagine a non tech society?
Deep gratitude Paul.
"Morality: doing what is right regardless of what you are told vs Obedience: doing what you are told regardless of what is right."
It’s definitely helpful to us. My 17-year old daughter, (who is in homeschooling to avoid vaccine pressure) and I like to read what you write and we watch your interviews with interest. Your ideas help her navigate the present time, I believe. Also your experience as ex-environmental activist is highly valued.
Yes. Yes yes yes.
You say this in one of your responses to comment: "I do think this is a spiritual war, as well as a mateial one." I absolutely agree, and it's worth noticing the traditional ways in which religions react to oppressive regimes. I know Christianity best, so will refer to that faith's 2000 years' experience.
The church has typically divided into three tendencies. Group One will engage with the new reality and may well end up by blessing its nastiness rather than mitigating it. Classic case, the German Christians in Nazi Germany. Group Two will concentrate on the direct welfare of oppressed people, working on the margin between legality and illegality, including a degree of apparently ineffectual protest and organisation. Classic case, probably the Catholic Church in 19th century Ireland. The third, numerically smallest, group is driven inwards upon the sources of the faith, to discover ways in which its spiritual and traditional resources can be reborn as seeds ready for a hint of spring.
I'm hoping this virtual space can help Group Three.
I think that's where it's going.
I wonder if some of us will have to live a life as described in the Way of the Pilgrim. A Bible, the Philokalia and a prayer rope. On the Road, indeed.
That sounds deeply appealing to me.
I don't think there is really anywhere else to go, Paul.
It's also necessary that the terms of the debate don't exclude those of different faith, no faith, or even antipathy to faith. I am quite capable of taking what I find here and finding the reflections within, say, the Hebrew prophets, the life of Jesus, and my own branch of the Christian family.
I appreciate your comment -and PK's response to it below - for the truth and beauty it holds of that 'sure hope'. Thank you and may you be surrounded with blessings, peace and warmth this Christmas.
Odd, isn't it, that two of contemporary storytellers who caught the popular imagination most, Tolkien and CS Lewis, were both horrified at the spectre of power wedded with technology, and warned against. Yet, here we are...
Bless you Paul.
First, I remember when Alex Jones was a conspiracy theorist.
Second, some links:
The EU's long-term plan for a vaccination passport, a long time in the making: "Examine the feasibility of developing a common vaccination card/passport for EU citizens (that takes into account potentially different national vaccination schedules and), that is compatible with electronic immunisation information systems and recognised for use across borders": https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/default/files/vaccination/docs/2019-2022_roadmap_en.pdf
Sweden and implanted vaccine chips: https://www.newsweek.com/people-get-microchips-implanted-that-include-vaccine-records-amid-new-covid-restrictions-1655916
Third, I also remember when an international government was able to control the movements of an entire people whom God had set free, when it forced that free people to register with an occupying military power, when it made an expectant couple homeless, created the conditions in which they were shut out of all hospitality, and then turned them into refugees. This was the world that God loved and into which he sent his son - as the tiny stone that would crush the giant statue of imperial power, in Daniel's vision. For how else could the Word have become flesh and dwelt among us, with the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth? When the world seems so dark, isn't the incarnation simply stunning?
Thanks Crawford. That first link is already in the essay - though I hadn't realised it had already gone that far in Sweden. Mark on the right hand, anyone ...?
We're getting to the point where being called a conspiracy theorist is an obvious badge of honour. Doubtless Isaiah and John the Baptist and William Blake were called the same. If they're not calling you names, you're doing something wrong!
I love what you say about the incarnation: yes, the overcoming of the world. Blessings to you.
Yes, Jesus said “woe unto you if all men speak well of you, for thus they spoke of the false prophets)
The thing is, there are those "conspiracy theorists" who are actually outside-the-box thinkers prepared to risk being seen as nutjobs because of their skepticism of The Narrative, and then there are those who are… well, out-and-out nutjobs. The fact that a person is labelled a conspiracy theorist doesn't necessarily imply that they're in the former rather than the latter category…
Indeed, and I was trying to make that distinction gently in the essay. Being an 'outsider' is not inherently good if you are outside for the wrong reasons. We need to use our heads.
Are you saying that Alex Jones is not a conspiracy theorist?
It's fascinating to see you come to this conclusion. I hope you've also thought long and hard about what CDBC means for humanity. It's the ultimate control mechanism, digital indentured servitude. It's a truly cashless society where cash just doesn't exist and your access to life-giving supplies is dictated by your level of adherence to the religion of the Machine.
And you're correct, the vaccine passports are about normalizing our use of a digital control system. I've written about this before but stated the exact same thing just yesterday:
https://renegademind.substack.com/p/decoding-the-narrative
However, my outlook is not so cheery. I don't mean to make any assumptions but when anyone writes about the bleak outlook for humanity's immediate future they have to end on an optimistic note. Ernst Wolff does this and another writer whose name escapes me right now but who writes about totalitarianism ended one of his pieces along the lines of, "Totalitarian system always self-destruct, so this attempt will also fail".
Nazism didn't self-destruct, it had to be killed at tremendous cost. Communism did eventually collapse but the external pressures exerted on it did most of the damage. Even in that case, it took over 70 years and the deaths of tens of millions. Maoism transformed into some kind of communist capitalist hybrid and a kind of society where freedom is even more of an illusion than we in the west experience. And still at the cost of 10s of millions of lives.
Totalitarianism does rise in our civilization and it's very hard to dispose of. Now we are facing what I call "Neototalitarianism", an invisible monster you call the Machine. Invisible as it is there is no tyrant at the top, no ironfisted strongman to hate, and it's global this time. If Klaus Schwab's vision of tomorrow is allowed to manifest, we will be free-range slaves.
Even though many are waking up, I don't see an easy way of stopping this march towards dystopia. People are out on the streets almost daily and still, the Narrative continues. They literally do not care. They have their roadmap and they are sticking to it. And when they are ready they will crash the financial system and let it burn while society unravels. That's when they bring in their new system, replete with UBI as an extra carrot.
Conspiracy theory? My track record so far has been 100% with rolling lockdowns predicted in April 2020, variants, vaccine passports, and mandatory vaccinations. I'll even give you the mechanism of the engineered collapse - a cyberattack. Maybe a penny just dropped? With CDBC there are no more high street banks, they will have to be eliminated. I'll even give you a likely timeframe - Q2 2023.
The rabbit hole is an interconnected tunnel of caverns with thin walls. You just need to reach out and push your way through to the next level. No flat-earth, 5G, and chemtrails in here though. But you will need your tinfoil hat.
I think we agree on most of this. I'm not optimistic about the near-future by any means (though it makes a change to have someone say it;-)) That's why I say we need to work out where we draw our battle lines as individuals. I think we have been an obviously digitally authoritarian society for some time already, and a technologically authoritarian one for a century or so at least. Yes, what is happening now is the ramping-up of this trend so that it is impossible to ignore. 'Conspiracy theorist' becomes a useful label under these circumstances.
I do think this is a spiritual war, as well as a mateial one. Digital slavery, as you put it, is precisely the direction of travel. But at the same time, I believe it's also obvious - or I hope it is - that the massive ecological overreach of the Machine will be its downfall. As I've said a lot in the past though, there's a fire to be walked through first.
Your cyberrattack point is intriguing. I've been watching the noise around that one unfold for a while now. We had our government databases in Ireland hacked recently, or so we were told ...
When it comes to ecological overreach you have to think about it through the eyes of a globalist. They know that as things stand we are on an unsustainable trajectory. The planet is also not going to become uninhabitable. It just can't sustain the industrial output of a projected 10 billion people by 2050. They also see themselves as stewards of the planet. This leads us to only one possible conclusion.
I've often wondered about Bitcoin. Could it actually be a ruse that will be used to crash the world economy - perhaps when it's worth a million bucks a coin? Help, pass me my tinfoil hat!
Bitcoin will be destroyed with regulations as soon as CDBC goes live. Probably sooner.
Bitcoin as the Dutch tulip bulbs of the 21st century? You may think you're jesting!
My understanding of Bitcoin is that it relies on an encrypted ledger to record transactions, and that the ledger due to that encryption cannot be purged of old transactions. It is a fact that the ledger is doubling every 18 months or so. It stands to reason that Bitcoin is therefore subject to the same limits of growth that everything else is, and will in the end crash on its own. The only question is when. It may be after 2100, but it will happen.
John Titus of the channel 'Best Evidence' on YT has some interesting vids on CDBC. Particularly enjoyed 'Larry & Carstens' Excellent Pandemic' - https://www.youtube.com/c/BestEvidence/featured
That very same video is embedded in the post I linked to above:
https://renegademind.substack.com/p/decoding-the-narrative
Cool, I'll have a look at the article.
I feel moved to add my own comment, although the breadth and depth of my understanding falls far short here. As I struggle to sort out the meaning of the times, I am beginning to focus on myself--seeking to re-establish self-trust, intuition, spiritual engagement. My expectation for this third essay was that you would address the impact of the "omicron" variant, and for a brief moment I was disappointed that you did not lay out just how I should handle this new wrinkle. That is where I am and have been for the past two years--scrambling, desperately seeking everywhere for the Right Answers.
But, to my surprise, I ultimately reacted with a powerful sense of release, of freedom, to your words. With this new variant, whatever fictitious "control" over the virus I had because of my vaccination status has been well and thoroughly destroyed. Now it's up to me to nurture (with the help of family and community) my own sound health, as best I can, and in the old ways--rest, nourishment, sunshine, etc. and, most profoundly, with a serious deepening of my faith. This is one way--and a radical one--that I detach from the Machine. I listen to God and myself above the establishment clamor, I depend upon God and my own human grounding. I test "truth" through fearlessness and purity of heart, such as it may be.
Having sought for so many years to grasp and to solve the world from without, now I go within for a time. I cannot express how liberated I feel! It's like I am reverting to my (Irish) roots--the strength and simple practices that delivered my ancestors through poverty, disruption, oppression, all that. Such faith is work, and I'm excited to take it on.
Please excuse the narrow application of your wonderful words.
Maybe not so much narrow as wisely focused. It's about the mustard seed.
Lewis Mumford would be proud, Paul. You have shown us how what we are experiencing is the logical conclusion of his idea regarding 'The Magnificent Bribe'. It used to be that we were just rewarded by the system for playing along. There was room to opt out to various degrees if one chose. Now there will be no choice, only forced participation, keeping the 'progress and growth show on the road', as you say.
Thank you for generating such inspiration at the close. What a gift! Thank you, truly.
Indeed, I used to not care about the rewards offered by consumer culture, thinking me and my family could just navigate through life by living on the land. Now, they are starting to introduce punishments for those not playing along, and I'm at a loss what to do. I've been resisting since the start, but I can see that this will become impossible at some point. We're living in Austria, having moved here from the Netherlands over a decade ago. We have some ideas on what to do next, but it's tiresome, and I fear for the future of my 17-year old homeschooled daughter.
Thanks for putting it like that, punishments added to rewards. Now I know what to tell people when they ask what's wrong.
Thank you, Neven. Well put. Here we are now, with a carrot on the end of a stick in front of us, and a whip behind us. And no way to climb out of the ruts to escape.
It sounds like we have a great deal in common, Neven. Only we are in Vermont and my kids are in their early 20s. I fear for their future as well. I understand exactly what you mean.
Hello, my husband is Dutch and he lives in Switzerland. Our life changed due to the situation. I feel for you being in Austria, it’s so hard there currently as I understand. My 17-year old daughter is homeschooling since October due to blatant pressure at school and by the government to comply with the vaccination. She didn’t want to go to school anymore. So she’s doing an online American high school which, honestly, is of higher quality than her previous schools, but she’s isolated from people her age. What kind of homeschooling is your daughter doing? We are looking for where to go, a country -preferably in Europe- to live. We have thought of Ireland. For now my daughter and I are nomadic. I wonder what made you move from NL, we were thinking of moving here for my daughter’s university. We are hesitant to make plans yet. This idea of the digital identity is very worrying. I wonder if even university will be possible for my daughter. In any case I don’t intend to let my spirit be intimidated.
Hi, Maria. I believe it's all very much up in the air, right now. People say the narrative is crumbling, but from what I've seen so far, it doesn't look like it will be very hard to ratchet up the fear again. Even if corona is as good as endemic, influenza is bound to make a comeback next winter, causing exactly the same problems for health care. One wasn't allowed to compare SARS-CoV-2 to influenza, but my guess is that it will be completely fine to compare infuenza to SARS-CoV-2, once the hospitals start filling up again.
Here in Austria, there is already talk of extending the vaccination mandate to influenza, measles, whooping cough, and so on and so forth. My guess is that pretty soon there will be an mRNA cancer 'vaccine', and who in his right mind could be against mandating that? So, I'm not optimistic, after having seen how fear and mass formation work. It's a sinister step up from the usual consumer culture propaganda, which was a more gentle means of ramming stuff down your throat.
Right now, my wife and I are going for a two-pronged approach, where we build a so-called home/doomstead in a southern European country, while trying to set something up in the Netherlands for temporary stays (to take care of our parents, and perhaps as you say, for our daughter's future education). We will travel between these two places about twice a year, and how long we stay where, will very much depend on the situation.
We moved from the Netherlands because we wanted to get away from consumer culture, and it was easier and cheaper to build and eco-friendly house on a large plot of land in Austria (we tried in Bavaria first, but that didn't work out, because of mandatory schooling). Our daughter has always been home-schooled, which is extremely difficult in Austria, because people here hate everything that is different. In the next 2-3 years she will be doing Dutch state exams for secondary school certificates, because that will give her access to to many Dutch universities, if that's what she wants to do.
We have also contemplated going to the UK or Ireland, but Brexit and distances make it a big jump for us. Scandinavia is also far away from everything, and too dark/cold for our liking. A friend of mine is very enthusiastic about Portugal. Friendly people, lots of expats there and not expensive. Other than that, I wouldn't know where to go in Europe. Germany and Austria are out of the question. Denmark is expensive. Eastern European countries, like Poland and the Czech Republic, aren't very appealing for various reasons. France has huge problems, and hasn't exactly been a guiding light during the pandemic. Neither have Spain or Italy, with their crumbling economies and widespread corruption.
Of course, should it come to European-wide vaccination mandates, travelling and studying will become very difficult, wherever you are. But if we let ourselves be guided by worst case scenarios of this kind, there is almost no point in living. So, we hope for the best, and prepare for the worst.
Gorgeous piece, Mr. Kingsnorth. Enough to push me over the edge to finally purchase a subscription! Thank you for articulating hope in these disorienting times. Not an easy thing to do while remaining truthful, but I think you did it. I felt a shiver down my spine reading those final paragraphs. Looking forward to reading the rest of your writings on here.
Enjoy your holy day.
I too shivered through the final summation and let out a smile and a chuckle. Those driving the Machine may think themselves clever, but there is, and always has been, something bigger, that no one can control.
My wife cried reading those last paragraphs.
I've been eagerly waiting for this third installment, Paul, and have not been disappointed. I've spent the last two weeks home with COVID and have had time to ponder even more than I usually do the state we are in. Just the COVID narrative alone is so unbelievable. That many, many thousands of people believe they need to keep getting vaccinated and boosted, despite the fact that those vaccines will not (we are now, finally, being told) prevent anyone from getting COVID is crazy enough. But that those same people also believe that the unvaxxed are the problem just beggars belief. I find among my friends and family many who do not buy the narrative and I am so grateful for that. But, I also know many people who do believe it and I think, what will you do when the truth wins out, as it will? Will you just re-write history? Your own part in it? Will you crumble in the face of all the lies you believed? Will you join the fight? Or will you cave, give in, learn to love the oppressor because it certainly seems easier? For the entire history of the world, The Machine has been trying to take over, with varying degrees of success. In the spiritual battle, we sometimes retreat to the catacombs or the hedge schools, we sometimes live peacefully within the light of the monastery. Once, a king slaughtered 1000's of newborn boys in an attempt to kill the one who he thought would usurp him. He failed and the boy was born. The Machine can't control everything. This week hope is born in a stable.
On another, more humorous note, I read on Twitter that a man was performing PCR tests out of the back of a halal truck on Queens Blvd. That too gives me hope!
I think I concur with most of this, Paul. All I want to add is that at this point in history, I suspect the number one driver behind most of the accelerating trends and changes you've outlined is good ol' filthy lucre. Altruism and lust for power surely play some part, but the main engine for all of this is the massive revenue opportunity offered by what Charles Eisenstein calls "exponential tech".
I suppose it's just another resource to exploit to grease the wheels of capitalism. When the physical resources run low, is there anything else to monetise but humanity itself?
Yes I agree, marketing is incredible, anything can be sold and everything has a price.
They say follow the money, well the money is in tech and pharma now where it was once in chemicals and petrochemicals. Having exploited and plundered our external environment with one , we now start using the other to plunder the inner environment .
Reminds me of the first spoken line on Manic Street Preachers Holy Bible album:
"You can buy this one here, this one here, this one here, or this one here. Everything is for sale".
But yes, you are right. Always follow the money.
Its Tower of Babel mania. Our tech has advanced so quickly and brought so many new fun "sci-fi" worlds into existence that the excitement cant be contained, keep building, keep building, higher, higher. No one is in charge, no conspiracy needed like you said. Its collective lust grabbing at new objects of desire without any self control, only control of others. You can feel the mass hysteria growing amongst the powerful. Hyenas in frenzy.
I read somewhere recently "It feels like we are living in someone else's psychosis." And that sounds pretty accurate. Maybe this is what an apocalypse feels like.
In better times, Paul, you could have invited everybody to Ireland for a Christmas gathering at a local pub, and probably half of the Abbey of Misrule would show up for an evening of conversation and debate, and a song or two.
That would be something. Let's hold out for it!
Next year in Connemara!
I am so glad that you are a writer, and that you are writing. I live on a far flung island off the west coast of British Columbia, Canada, and a few days ago we had a snow storm and a power outage for over 24 hours. I slid Savage Gods off my shelf, which had recently arrived in the mail, and proceeded to read it nonstop for the entire day, curled on the couch by the wood stove. Paul, I LOVED that book. Your musings are my musings, and are so many people's musings, particularly the artists and the writers of this world.
Today's essay is equally as important and articulate. What I like about these covidian essays is that you not only eloquently sum up exactly my sentiments on the topic, but you write in a manner that is very sharable -- these are essays I could share with friends, family members who are nervous to officially question the Narrative, but are intelligent people and know something is definitely 'off' regarding the pandemic, passports, mandates. I think your essays provide a toe-step into questioning and poking at the Narrative without the screeching of full blown 'conspiracy theory' tales that can outright turn some people off.
Anyway, thank you for Savage Gods and for these essays. I look forward to reading your trilogy series, next.
God bless to you and your family!
Thanks Paul for the closing segment of your trilogy. The world economic/cultural system is a "superorganism" as elaborated by Nate Hagens and in his construct, nobody is in control because of the interconnected complexity of it all with 8 billion inputs but the machine hasn't heard of Nate Hagens . Even if they have, the drive for power and control by the digital arms race of the technocracy will forge forward until they win or until they lose, which is an odd way to phrase it. The energy behind their push needs energy to sustain it and that is their Achilles heel even if they don't know it yet. All this technology generates yet more complexity which needs yet more energy from under the ground and that inevitable depletion may doom their battle plan. This control needs electrons and if they don't have control of electrons, they run out of bullets. There are any number of risks to their strategy which I am sure they have backup plans for but without energy, there will be no backup plan.
Faster. . . faster . . . yes, everything seems on hyperspeed nowadays. I want my fast food NOW, I want to be fit and buff looking without suffering through months of exercise and diet, I want. . .I want. Sigh. And the Machine entices and satisfies us by teasing us with convenience and being quick to satisfy our impatience.
I think Ian McGilchrist (among others) captures the dichotomy you refer to in "Master and His Emissary : The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World"- https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30280879144&searchurl=kn%3Dmaster%2Band%2Bhis%2Bemissary%2Bthe%2Bdivided%2Bbrain%26sortby%3D17&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title2. He delves into the mysteries of the human brain, and the ongoing tension between the ways in which the left and right hemispheres perceive the world, and what goes wrong when the more machine-friendly hemisphere takes over. We're seeing all that being played out right now.
Fortunately, Paul, we have you, Wendell Berry and other writers of similar ilk to help us sort all this out.
So, thank you.
In a weird way, one of my role models for the way to respond is becoming Wendell Berry's Mad Farmer: https://onbeing.org/poetry/the-contrariness-of-the-mad-farmer/
Cheers everyone.
Merry Christmas, Blessed Nativity, Happy Hanukkah.
"When I see an airplane
fuming through the once-pure sky
or a vehicle of the outer space
with its little inner space
imitating a star in the night, I say,
'Get out of there!' as I would speak
to a fox or a thief in the hen house" - Wendell Berry
The Mad Farmer has been my role model for several years now, to the extent that I used worry about being contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian. The last two years have put that fear to rest.
It has put it to rest for me, as well. Now I'm trying not to slide int a permanent state of cynicism.
You're probably aware of McGilchrist's latest book. Merry Christmas to you!