Uncategorized

The more conservative the magical tradition, the more answers it seems to have. Experience a profound sync? That’s your Yetzirah blah blah HGA. I find this leap to explanation hugely, hugely annoying, especially when it emanates from worldviews that have leapfrogged the discovery of antibiotics, nuclear power, commercial space travel, the rise of quantum physics and the formation of a global mobile network of more than two billion human beings with minimal intervening change.

You could make the case that a magical persona is itself a skeuomorph. And, actually, there is merit in such an approach. Adopting a culturally familiar identity makes for easier onboarding as long as it is with the intention of assessing or engaging with data over a wider spectrum. Here is where the road forks between genuine enquiry and LARPing. In light of the intervening 120 years of astronomy and space science, there is no getting around the observation that core magical texts are riddled not only with blatant astrotheology but also encounters with Unexplained Aerial Phenomena. This provides fertile ground for magical experimentation that is rarely sewn. Be the skeuomorph, do not live the skeuomorph.

Unwinding Skeuomorphism – A Chaos Magic Agenda
Read more

Roll Your Own Culture, a chat with Gordon White of runesoup.com A free wheeling chat with gordonwhite of Runesoup.com on building your own reality map. Drawing upon chaos magic, gnosticism, and the strength of fictional works. Looking at topics such as the billionaire world view, the Secret Space Program, Nazi Science and the Nazi International. […]

Read more

darklyeuphoric:

Jumping lowrider fighting robots is a thing, and it’s freaking awesome.

(via http://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=6ybLQ72t7LU&u=/watch?v=9bZ-x2HWLx0&feature=share)

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
Read more

Ello | dymaxion

warrenellis:

“We are at a juncture in the story of humanity. The decisions we make and the systems we build in the next twenty years will determine not just whether we live free from the boot of repressive dictatorships, but whether we live at all. The way out lies through hope, empathy, and learning to think like our systems — through becoming creatures of the network.”

Ello | dymaxion

Read more "Ello | dymaxion"

We climbed this hill. Each step up we could see farther, so of course we kept going. Now we’re at the top. Science has been at the top for a few centuries now.

Now we look out across the plain and we see this other tribe dancing around above the clouds, even higher than we are. Maybe it’s a mirage, maybe it’s a trick. Or maybe they just climbed a higher peak we can’t see because the clouds are blocking the view.

So we head off to find out—but every step takes us downhill. No matter what direction we go, we can’t move off our peak without losing our vantage point. Naturally we climb back up again. We’re trapped on a local maximum.

But what if there is a higher peak out there, way across the plain? The only way to get there is bite the bullet, come down off our foothill and trudge along the riverbed until we finally start going uphill again. And it’s only then you realize: Hey, this mountain reaches way higher than that foothill we were on before, and we can see so much better from up here.

But you can’t get there unless you leave behind all the tools that made you so successful in the first place. You have to take that first step downhill.

Excerpted from Peter Watts’ “The Colonel” , http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/07/the-colonel-peter-watts (via fuckyeahdarkextropian)
Read more