it’s interesting subject matter but I’m always at a remove with it. I’ve never registered that I have a “daimonic” self that inhabits a dream reality as posited by Harpur but then again it’s not something I’ll look into because I guess I’m catholic. Like I can read about magick, but can’t really give it a shot it’s not allowed. I asked a priest
2 Likes
Hm so a Pete townshend type situation then
don’t know what that means but what I’m saying is I wouldn’t try astral projection because you can’t do that and also put your Faith in Jesus at the same time. In fact I’m a little surprised that UFO types sign up for Monroe institute courses knowing as they do the intelligence connections. Why would you trust your brain to that? Idgi
1 Like
My gut says it’s because people that typically fall into that sort of thing have various demons (metaphorical) they’re outrunning and have incoherent yearnings and ways of seeking answers as a result
as I alluded to a little ways back part of my formative reading experience was spending hours at the public library looking through large volumes in the reference section with titles like Unexplained Phenomena and getting heavily freaked out by UFOs and cryptids etc. It all seemed very convincing to a 9 year old me. But since I’ve started looking at all that again after the recent “official” “acknowledgment” of UAPs one thing that strikes me is that now decades later the topic hasn’t really moved on; it’s all the same stuff more or less. It’s all the same motivated reasoning people get carried along with and they do it yet again, and what gets me is that some of the things/people coming out now are rehashing known hoaxes, but because they’re being re-presented as credible I guess now they’re of interest again. So with the Monroe institute example: the people giving the Gateway tapes or whatever a try I would assume know the provenance and give it some weight since you’re into the whole conspiracy ufo narrative otherwise why would you be there at all, but even so they’re like sure I’ll self-inflict CIA hypnosis techniques. I’m not even saying I think any of that is real, it’s just strange behavior to me. Can’t resist the chance to see the soul-trapping tower on the dark side of the moon or something I guess.
But in general wrt to books on the subject: now that I’m no longer 9, it’s still a fun subject matter but revisiting for example John Keel now, you can clearly tell he’s doing the literary equivalent of holding a flashlight under his chin through the whole text lol
5 Likes
i was a latchkey kid and spent most of my time at the school library doing the same. i didn’t gravitate toward ufos as much as i did monsters and folklore, particularly werewolves. for some reason i got really scared from this one blurb about a kid from the 1600’s or something who killed a bunch of people and claimed it was because he turned into a werewolf at night. i remember being afraid for many days afterward and even became afraid of the book itself in the library (i was a little too old to be that scared, tbh). i can remember what the page looked like, too. it was an illustrated map with little callouts of lycanthropy throughout history. would love to find that book again.
to your point–i think the true believers of that stuff are aware the cia is involved but think “intelligence” merely tapped into something very real and don’t have actual control over it, which i guess makes sense if you have beliefs about the ether. so maybe it’s more of a strange bedfellows or useful idiots type situation. or maybe they don’t think about it at all, much like i prefer not to think about patrons of the arts.
6 Likes
The monroe institute is one pointed example but more simplistically I think it’s the many, many people who do in fact know better getting themselves in a lather about all the out of focus nighttime iphone images of helicopters over new jersey in spite of their knowing better. So it’s not really an assumption that US intelligence does have access to knowledge bc those organizations would be positioned to, there’s another phenomenon going on when people are climbing over even their own specialized knowledge knowing-better. I don’t know what to make of it really. Another example that comes to mind is that one of the recent us intelligence whistleblowers (again, I get to two-edged sword of this circumstance: the person is both not to be trusted but at the same time their connection to intelligence lends them a kind of credibility of assumed access to the real dirt) got while giving a hotel ballroom powerpoint (this guys all seem to end up raking in money doing that sort of thing) presenting an known debunked image as one of his “we in the government don’t know what this is” ufo images: it’s a reflection of a light fixture fringed with someone’s Larry from the 3 Stooges type hairline
But to take this back to the subject of writing on the topic and the Daimonic Reality book: as the ufo and conspiracy stuff has expanded in scope with time and as it’s gotten bottled into aesthetics and a product (though I suppose it’s been something of these things dating back at least to Charles Fort) you see these attempts to synthesize every aspect and outgrowth - idk if I’m convinced that’s reasonable. It think it’s already under strain by 1993 as evidence by Daimonic Reality not really trying but including because it has to, more recent and nastier things like the satanic panic. I’m not sure that all falls under the same rubric. Like UFOs and the prospect of Bigfoot being a interdimensional life form is one thing but when a unified field of esoteric thought bends that way, what can it actually account for. We’ve covered some of this territory itt already so won’t insist on rehashing. Just observing from this particular book the upcoming inflection from woo woo to the podcast patreon disturbing conspiracy theory industrial complex. These “theses” slide into commodifications and/or “authority”. But to be clear I don’t think that’s Harpur’s aim by any means he’s just a old hippie. Like for me, that’s the ballgame right there we can move on, and not necessarily because it’s discrediting but instead it’s an indication that we’re just back in that circular product/manipulation zone.
But to bring it even more back to what’s really important in literary terms: this dilemma reminds me again about why Roberto Arlt is remains such an interesting and vital author. And I note that he began publishing with surveys of the occult and then went on the write about I suppose the nascence of conspiracies and secret societies at least as manifest among ordinary people in El jugete rabioso then onto that more desperately grasping and perverse manifestation in Los siete locos and then sort of the fallacy of that sort of thing giving way just to underpinnings of loneliness, violence, and psychopathy in Los lanzallamas. And then even further into the mundane still in the class and social analgesia in El amor brujo I really should revisit that one
2 Likes
I guess what I’m observing in my imo is more stuff getting blended into the big perseveration loop
1 Like
yeah, good observations. without knowing the specifics of the ufo-people and their specialized knowledge you’re referring to, i think there’s a human need for explanation and explication (knowledge) that drives them/us to feast on new information despite the contradiction, a need that likely overlaps with the same urges that brought them to the table in the first place. it’s also worth noting that all of this is still rather contemporaneous and even the best of us get caught up in the moment.
as for the intelligence people being the ones to deliver the information, i’ve had the same thought. despite what i said about i think little things like that (i.e, whether or not someone decides to put stock in spooky “admissions”) can be big differentiators behind the ideology of what someone believes, which really just means what questions they’re asking. a 95 theses moment.
you’re not wrong. where we differ is i do like to synthesize disparate phenomena and i find a lot of value in the connecting tissue. this might not be an intellectual choice on my part as much as it is a byproduct of the way i think and experience life. i think the only way our way of life can continue is through a forced decontextualization and i want to fight against that. likewise, the arc of all these topics bending toward the same point fuels my intuition that there is a there there.
at the same time, i cringe whenever you (rightly) bring up things like the podcast patreon industrial complex. i try to avoid that stuff but only because i’m alarmed at how similar these things are to each other and how similar they are to my own interests. how much of me is determined by the algorithm? why do i view my interest in these topics as a core part of my identity and why is that threatened by fellow travelers? why the need for originality? have i wasted my life? all scary questions to ponder while you view a youtube video with a breakcore soundtrack made by @MK_michelob_ULTRA
who the hell knows ofc, but I tend to think the there is money/attention, and I don’t even mean to allege any special cynicism on the part of the people doing it. I think coming back to the Daimonic Reality subject matter and looking at it from as meta a perspective I can manage and having revisited it to find this all happening again but now it’s social media accounts and podcasts, only now they’re looping in atrocity to spooky weird stuff, and you can see just beyond the temporal end point of the text where what’s imagination-expanding is going to sputter and fail when it’ll inevitably hit Behold a Pale horse and epstein island etc
Would it be too dogmatic to argue that you have sort of a binary of valuable kinds of texts here which is the just the facts ma’am broadly speaking like Realism or journalism and then you have the imaginatively provocative and descriptive like De Sade or Keel: it’s this assertively provisional stance and open sieve range in the middle that wears me out and idk if it’s a great place to be in terms of serious subject matter. I don’t know what to call that stuff it’s like patreon subscription to access to knowledge about true evil in the world. And as if the audience doesnt already know. Check out the news for the latest airstrike from wherever that hit took out a dozen women and children. When the latter is synthesized together with all that other stuff…makes me queasy. But again, I don’t think the people doing it are all particularly malicious to be clear don’t want to hate.
2 Likes
think there’s a similar dilemma with lovecraftian and weird fiction. HP lovecraft: mankind is eternally fearful of the incalculable power of unknowable cosmic beings - wrote the paranoid and socially malformed extreme racist. Yeah it’s the cosmic beings we have to worry about
2 Likes
I mean is that stuff even actionable or imaginative on the level of imagination? It just subsumes and flattens
1 Like
i think our amorphous analogues have outgrown their usefulness, because i have a hard time separating your queasiness at the commodification and packaging of horror (which i sympathize with) from your critique of the underlying method of inquiry (which i don’t).
leaving what other people may or may not do aside, i’ll state in plain terms that i do see valuable connection between atrocity and the esoteric. this is far from saying that is the only connection or that such theorizing doesn’t need to be done thoughtfully and sensitively, but when the same organization that points attention toward astral projection also carries out the literal jakarta method, why should those two actions be compartmentalized? likewise, when army officials and securities traders are forming the temple of set or joining the o9a, why should we not question if these extremes point to something humming underneath? questions like that don’t exclude the influence of more verifiably material things like monetary policy or congressional lobbying, but for me to dismiss notions of ritual and power as a thinker would be equivalent to dismissing history in favor of the present. if it must be said, i would not care about these things at all if they didn’t feel a need to explore why bad things happen to so many undeserving people. speaking only for myself, but there is a deep rooted compassion in what i say.
furthermore, i think effort is required is resisting the “memeification” of things like epstein’s island, etc. yes, it sucks and yes it’s infuriating that the worst actors of all time have latched onto it, but to roll eyes at it is to roll eyes at abuse and violence from the hands of power to those underneath. not saying you’re doing that, mostly just an errant thought.
because the former is fantasy and the latter killed a million people. Violence is mundane, debased, and pathetic, and where it is organized it’s done by gangsters either validated by having a government agency employ them and offices with fax machines and coffee machines or not.
so the burden of proof then is on the people alleging this. The reason I don’t find myself sympathetic here is because as I’ve described with the UFO stuff: this is all the same information being repackaged, recirculated, and, tellingly, re-sold. And what does this approach even tell us that material analysis doesn’t?
the method I have a problem with is this wiring of the esoteric and occult to the material and real. It makes the latter unassailable, but aesthetically interesting, is the problem
I mean it’s not people anymore, it’s just me now lol. And that’s what I’m trying to do. Again, fantasy or not, the same channels of power that will kill to protect American business interests will also research esoterica or rub elbows with cults that worship little demons or whatever. To me, there is a truth there that complements a rational material analysis. There doesn’t seem to be for you, just as violence is anything but mundane to me.
I know I was trying to be diplomatic.
then people (perhaps you) ought to elucidate this
I meant the word to mean something other than supernatural, not that I think it’s anything less than horrific. If that wasn’t clear then take this as clarification
And get just to be additionally clear don’t mean to be giving you the business about this or nothing 
2 Likes
yeah no for sure all love 
to give it one more honest try before we inevitably open this conversation again in a few months–
my position: there is truth and meaning in how manifestations of an immaterial force differ and how they are alike; this extends to manifestations of power, violence, and evil. it also extends to things less germane to this conversation, like love, kindness, etc. the truth and meaning may reveal something about the force itself or it may reveal more about what it means to be human.
my reasoning: history has a long reach and we are living in history. events long ago continue to affect us in ways we both do and do not comprehend. likewise, seemingly disparate contemporary events may have a symmetry or dialectical relationship we haven’t understood yet. in fact, you may classify my reasoning as more of a negative sentiment than a positive one in that i simply don’t have the knowledge to definitively say two things are not relate. all i have is intuition.
my politics: i think ideology and materialism are in a cybernetic loop and it is unwise to cleave the two. the esoterica we’re talking about falls into the ideological part of that spectrum.
what this looks like ontologically: taking everything into account and questioning the relation, even if that relation only exists for the subject (i.e., i don’t believe astral projection exists, but what does it mean that the cia thinks it might?)
what this looks like practically: i don’t know. i try to be love people and volunteer when i can. i also carry around a heavy resignation that is probably not good for me or my loved ones. humanity has done so much harm to each other and the world.
what you need to believe in order for any of this to make sense: that there is more to life than what we see
my biases: i read a lot, so perhaps this is just me trying to apply a unifying theory to my own life.
my concessions: i am an “artist,” so perhaps this all works better or is more effective through gesture and conjecture in literature than it does in argument.
my hypocrisies: whether or not two things deserve to be “related” to each other is entirely up to my discretion and i reserve the right to ignore people when they say, for example, that my decision to take out student loans to pay off credit card debt is related to my current financial position.
my summary: the only honest position one can take in life is “well, i don’t know.”
my right: to change my mind.
my request: be nice to me, i am but a man.
3 Likes
@yeso (or anyone) whats a good starting point, in your opinion, for Elena Poniatowska’s work?
I think the issue is that there’s moral reasoning, there’s strictly intellectual reasoning (meaning not applied to making a literary text), there’s intuition as you put it, and then these things are all given an amorphous sense of solidity and seriousness - which ofc is fine to do in life or whatever because any reasonable thoughtful person would be uncertain about these perplexing topics - but an author is still in control of and responsible for the text they produce: so what is it to proffer this kind of floppy yet super serious importance on acutely distressing subject matter. And if an author is applying a cosmology to it then idk that’s by its nature a bit of an imposition at least, which is again in tension with the subject. Is claiming artistic license exonerating? I personally don’t think so. There are more important things. Have you ever read “The Air Disaster” by J.G. Ballard.
Not too knowledgeable I believe her journalism is what’s most highly regarded, I think La noche de Tlatelolco is the most famous single volume - but she’s written novels too. Always meant to read Hasta no verte Jesús mío but haven’t gotten around to it sounds interesting maybe if you try that one you can give us the scouting report
2 Likes
no, i’m under read on ballard. perhaps i should read it though, because i have to admit i’m still not sure of your preferred method of artistic expression or intellectual exploration regarding acutely distressing subject matter. all i know is you’re against my “floppy” way of thinking (i prefer the term fluid, but i digress…)