I can’t tell you how deeply this essay hit me. During my fifteen years of Jungian analysis I tended to identify more with the Greeks than the Norse, but I read Bullfinch’s mythology and Edith Hamilton, as well as many books by Jungian analysts relating myths of one sort and another with psychological problems and their resolutions. I was brought up a Methodist—no statues of saints in the churches I attended. We barely recognized the existence of saints. So when I encountered Jung, I was ripe for the sensuality of imagery.
I have not lost that love of richness, but I have missed it a lot since I left the Jungian community. Thank you for bringing it back to life!
I have a really deep and resonant experience reading some of your essays mate and really believe you are onto something good with this publication's overall project aims. I even cross-posted your recent essay on the Dark Elves Fallacy critique of NRx.
That being said, as a minor point of contention for myself - I get frustrated when critics on the mainstream left such as within podcasting, academic and journalistic spheres let their emotional reactions and hysteria bleed into what could otherwise be good quality dispassionate exploration.
When I personally hear "stinky far right" and stuff along the lines of "content warning: think of the non-binary children writing gay smut (check out my piece on joining a writer's group for this reference)" I just roll my eyes a bit because it tends to look like someone having an emotional seizure.
Thanks mate! Deep and resonant? Almost my love language :)
And a very valid point you bring. An emotional warning might even drive some readers away, those who might benefit the most from reading this and engage more deeply with myth they've mostly seen recuperated.
I'm okay though, the seizures are getting better ;)
My brain went through the blender reading Evola when I was 19 and it woke up a lot in me. At the same time what he wrote and the life he lived was strange.
The to what degree plato actually thought it was necessary to lie gets a little complicated. Not helped because of the Straussians taking it and running with it.
Excellent analysis, Slick. You shine needed light into the dark recesses of the twisted soul and troubled collective consciousness of the far right. Myth and the power of the symbol is shamelessly misused to achieve domination and regression to an authoritarian hierarchy. As a psycho-historian, I like to hear more about “what hurt you, Julius Evola?” Your summary of Cassierer’s take on myth and his limitations is spot-on, as is your dissection of the hollow-stick figure, the Q-Anon Shaman, who exclaimed ungratefully upon beng pardoned -“Gonna get me some f-ing guns!!”
My ancestors were mostly Germanic. But that's irrelevant here.
What's relevant is that I don't want my cultural heritage to be distorted by people who understand nothing of it.
Stop cosplaying as a defender of an imagined ethnic homeland and go read a book. Look at you. Whatever you think you stand for, your best shot at people is blind-guessing their origins and culture, just so you can hit them with your half-digested, rehashed lingo.
Nothing to make your ancestors proud, whoever they were. And the 'Aesir' would laugh at you, if you even knew what the word meant.
And... a hermetic magus, really? What's your ethnocentric claim to *that* tradition now?
I think Mr Martin skipped his meds for a few years and I have a lot of compassion and respect for the mentally ill. It must be difficult for him. What a burden. I think you just struck a nerve. BTW, your essay is brilliant. I've read it a few times. Thanks.
I can’t tell you how deeply this essay hit me. During my fifteen years of Jungian analysis I tended to identify more with the Greeks than the Norse, but I read Bullfinch’s mythology and Edith Hamilton, as well as many books by Jungian analysts relating myths of one sort and another with psychological problems and their resolutions. I was brought up a Methodist—no statues of saints in the churches I attended. We barely recognized the existence of saints. So when I encountered Jung, I was ripe for the sensuality of imagery.
I have not lost that love of richness, but I have missed it a lot since I left the Jungian community. Thank you for bringing it back to life!
Thank you!
Life is colourful, deep, nuanced, and no one can take that away from us, no matter how hard they try.
I'm happy to be a weekly reminder, and grateful every time the goal is met--so, thank you!
I have a really deep and resonant experience reading some of your essays mate and really believe you are onto something good with this publication's overall project aims. I even cross-posted your recent essay on the Dark Elves Fallacy critique of NRx.
That being said, as a minor point of contention for myself - I get frustrated when critics on the mainstream left such as within podcasting, academic and journalistic spheres let their emotional reactions and hysteria bleed into what could otherwise be good quality dispassionate exploration.
When I personally hear "stinky far right" and stuff along the lines of "content warning: think of the non-binary children writing gay smut (check out my piece on joining a writer's group for this reference)" I just roll my eyes a bit because it tends to look like someone having an emotional seizure.
Thanks mate! Deep and resonant? Almost my love language :)
And a very valid point you bring. An emotional warning might even drive some readers away, those who might benefit the most from reading this and engage more deeply with myth they've mostly seen recuperated.
I'm okay though, the seizures are getting better ;)
My brain went through the blender reading Evola when I was 19 and it woke up a lot in me. At the same time what he wrote and the life he lived was strange.
The to what degree plato actually thought it was necessary to lie gets a little complicated. Not helped because of the Straussians taking it and running with it.
Ah, I didn't mean to be unfair to Plato; I did mostly present Cassirer's take on Plato's lie here.
It wouldn't be the first time someone's thought gets a bit distorted in the retelling...
Thanks for bringing this nuance!
Excellent analysis, Slick. You shine needed light into the dark recesses of the twisted soul and troubled collective consciousness of the far right. Myth and the power of the symbol is shamelessly misused to achieve domination and regression to an authoritarian hierarchy. As a psycho-historian, I like to hear more about “what hurt you, Julius Evola?” Your summary of Cassierer’s take on myth and his limitations is spot-on, as is your dissection of the hollow-stick figure, the Q-Anon Shaman, who exclaimed ungratefully upon beng pardoned -“Gonna get me some f-ing guns!!”
Lol, Are You Jewish?
What does your question have to do with Norse mythology being appropriated and misunderstood by the American far right?
Lol, yep, really looking Jewish. Pagan religion is by and large ethnocentric, Brezhnen. Stop trying to push universalist slop.
Ahem where's the universalist slop?
My ancestors were mostly Germanic. But that's irrelevant here.
What's relevant is that I don't want my cultural heritage to be distorted by people who understand nothing of it.
Stop cosplaying as a defender of an imagined ethnic homeland and go read a book. Look at you. Whatever you think you stand for, your best shot at people is blind-guessing their origins and culture, just so you can hit them with your half-digested, rehashed lingo.
Nothing to make your ancestors proud, whoever they were. And the 'Aesir' would laugh at you, if you even knew what the word meant.
And... a hermetic magus, really? What's your ethnocentric claim to *that* tradition now?
I think Mr Martin skipped his meds for a few years and I have a lot of compassion and respect for the mentally ill. It must be difficult for him. What a burden. I think you just struck a nerve. BTW, your essay is brilliant. I've read it a few times. Thanks.
I appreciate you!
Yes. You can empty a thing and subvert it, then claim it wasn't that big to begin with. To some that is called missing the point; to others, victory.