OK, alright, before you break out your pitchforks, hear me out.
This editorial isn’t about Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster, record-setting, box-office busting, three-hour epic recounting of The Odyssey.
I am not here to spoon-feed you the same old boring, predictable, low-energy hot takes that “woke casting ruined the movie!” and “this movie is gonna flop for sure!”
I’m not even here to provide you with the significantly hotter (and actually accurate) take that the worst actors in the movie by far are Robert Pattinson, whose mustache-twirling hammery in the climactic “slay-the-suitors” scene was truly cringe-inducing, and Anne Hathaway, whose botox-frozen face is no longer capable of conveying human emotion.
I’m not here to talk about practical effects vs. CGI or ponder the future of films shot on IMAX or opine on why it took three months for the film to finally open in Japan.
No. Today I’m here to discuss something infinitely more important: the death of God and the possibility of His surprising rebirth.
Interested? Let’s go.
Very well done Corbett!
Perhaps it is because I have a degree in literature myself or because I’ve grown weary of paint-by-numbers conspiratainment myself but I found this (and much of your work lately) especially potent. This was easily the most erudite take on Nolan’s film yet and you maintained kept a literary tension throughout.
This also reignites a thought I had had quite a bit while reading (nay, inhaling) Reportage last year. …I think that you may have at least one great work of fiction in you waiting to be foisted upon the world. Don’t mind me playing the role of AJ-damus here, but you clearly have that rare gift of great writers to be able to synthesize not only the news of the day and the works of others but to also use it to so effectively–and more importantly, bravely–as a means of diagnosing the broader issues of our times.
Note: I do not base this prediction off of the excerpt from your Napoleon story, but that wasn’t all that bad either!
Great article.
You got me with sagacity and buboes (from the email blast); got my thesaurus/dictionary out.
Brought me back to my HS junior year English class: Word Wealth, 20+ new words/week via pop quiz.
I have now put Reportage in my top 5 books to read queue (from 12😁).
And that was my first actual reading of a Nietzsche excerpt….context, context, context,….I always took offense to “God is dead”…
As CS Lewis said in Abolition of Man when you see thru everything you are blind…the Enlightenment critique is like strong solvent that is useful but when you huff too many fumes you get brain damage.
Mr Corbett himself appears to suffer from the same disorder (to a degree) when he appears to reject the idea of legitimate authority totally….the desire for freedom is good but taken to excess leaves humans in a state where they have nothing solid to stand on. The majority of people use excessive freedom to enjoy vice and (like me if I lived in a liquor store) the end result is death. The majority of folks become like the “mass man” AA describes in his GT series and thus easy to rule
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PHuwM0wmxSg&ra=m
or they go crazy like Althauser.
The thing is the elites ARE trying to bring in a new culture, it’s just that they can not because true meaning must come from outside ourselves. The Elites will just bring in system failure and mass death.
You can not MAKE meaning, because real meaning binds you and you can not bind yourself…..People need God like a car needs lubricants and we are definitely making grinding noises right now
Thomas777 is doing a series on serial killers over in the J Burden show and on the (iirc) Rameriz one he discussed the concern back n the hey day of serial killers that something in the psychological environment was bringing back atavistic behaviors – the kind of human sacrifice (he had a talk in that too) and cannibalism and such that olde cultures practiced.
I have personally seen humans act atavisticly and really do not think most people have any idea how bad that can look. Asocial violence is not like social violence.
The era of mass media and public relations have left minds open for all
kinds of steering and shaping, and the law of unexpected consequences make that dangerous…..the British meme about gas mask fetishists came from a generation who sat next to women in gas masks during air raids- am I the only one who thinks “the walking dead” could do the same for necrophillia?
The Tranny craze and the queer craze replaced the anorexia but now we have the O9a / Com / 764 type operations going and finding fertile ground….maybe the elites think they can use the backlash but these forces are probably a lot bigger then they understand
I’ve really been enjoying AA’s GT series, a lot of them I’ve never heard of and others I had dismissed unfairly. AA might be the antithesis of Corbett in some ways, but he did do a Solutions episode recently 🙂
“….AA might be the antithesis of Corbett in some ways…”
lol, if the Corbett and the anti Corbett touch they both vanish in a flash of enlightenment ? 🙂
I don’t know that the are really that far apart though- AA is also pro making your own thing. They kinda complement each other I think, attacking the same problem from different sides.
A macroscopic view on this topic may prove helpful: https://www.weslpress.org/9780819562050/saving-the-appearances/
Beautiful, James. I haven’t seen Nolan’s Odyssey–not only because his female characters appear mostly as unempowered sidekicks–but because his sensibilities don’t match my own. Maybe I’ll watch it to see your point.
Everyone seems to be drowning in technofeudal blob despair but even in the grimmest times people have found ways to be hopeful, to find workarounds to things they can’t change.
If you believe ancient priests still whisper in the ears of those at the top of the power pyramid, then possibly renewed belief in a divine organizing presence will prove to be the most satisfying workaround of all–and by direct experience, not one mediated by a middleman.
The Thumbnail IMAGE for Corbett’s “In Defense of Nolan’s Odyssey” drew me in like a Siren’s song.
The editorial…what a voyage!
Oh…to get home again with the tale of the search and man’s humanity.
GOD SHOULD BE DEAD
The most stultifying, devastating, murderous, controlling thing to the natural evolutionary process/progress to humanity is this nonsense belief in an unprovable creator of all things who “loves” you only if you follow its rules, if not it is everlasting pain.
It has to sink in at some point:
There is absolutely no historical evidence that “JESUS”, JOSEPH, MARY, MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE, JOHN, PETER, and others EVER existed. The God of the Bible is a whinny, vindictive, petty, cruel, murdering, jealous, insecure, unforgiving, baby killer who promotes rape, cannibalism, genocide, bloodshed, butchery, and massacre. God? or the reflection of demented humans seeking power and control over the masses.
Using the bible for “proof” is like using a super hero comic book for proof of superheroes.
The religious church state was/is, a hostile, anti-female take-over of the life affirming, Goddess, Pagan, and Tribal spiritual expressions. These SPIRITUAL ways had existed mostly with social equality and in peace for eons before the invention of a male, off planet god and dominated war culture that offered promises of eternal bliss, in some mythical, far away utopia, or everlasting punishment for “sinners.”
Reflect on how many millions of people have experienced hideous torture and repression and been killed in the name of God.
[Out of the headlines the genocide going on in Lebanon, Gaza, Iran, etc. is not about who has better recipes for some food!]
It is my made-up God is better then your made-up God and I will kill you to prove it.
So, IMO, if you love being alive and want to be thankful…See the miracle of life in every rock, tree, blade of grass, in the wind, rain, sunshine, and snow. In your breath on a cold day. Honor this most incredible miracle of realized existence of being alive by doing ceremony in your own time and fashion perhaps.
The controllers have used their nonsense story to take your sovereign thinking from you.
All that matters is where we are in the present, that eternal now, and how we choose to act…for our self and for the benefit of all who live.
And that’s that about that.
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
“The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own.”
— Frank Zappa
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
“Are you a God?” they asked Buddha. “No he replied.”
“Are you an Angel
“No.”
“A saint?” “No.”
“Then what are you?”
Replied the Buddah, “I am Awake.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
BLUES IN THE PULPIT (Life)
https://old.bitchute.com/video/q8ZG6femxLgj/
EJ Doyle
OK boomer.
WTF are you name calling and talking about?? Is that your best level of intelligent conversation?
So many here need to not break some code and remain lost in sameness of thought and behavior. That is called being in a cult whomever you are.
“Egregore” an occult concept representing a “thought form” or “collective group mind”
Think about your behavior…
Insulting someone’s character Ad hominem is a rhetorical tactic of attacking the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than the substance of the argument itself.
Well I likes his Zappa quote. That doesn’t mean I condone his whole shtick, a bit too much self-righteous anger for a steady diet. But this is a place for us to express ourselves, and we can make room for everyone. At least he is clear about his atheism. (I am agnostic, yet I agree with his Zappa quote).
Duck, you write lots of long involved comments, but I still don’t know where you stand on many issues. However, it is clear that you fear and loathe all things Jewish. It is also clear that you know a lot of facts and factoids.
As far as the God issue, I don’t know where you stand. Recent posts reveal you to possibly be a firm reductionist, which is a place to find many ‘scientific’ atheists, but other things tell me that is not your core attitude.
Hankey
my basic philosophy is Reality is Real.
A think is either real/happened/works in X way/ect or NOT…..actually getting to base reality is beyond me and possibly beyond anyone but that there IS base reality is true.
I stand firmly in the belief that God is king of the universe and Jesus is then savior. I believe there are spiritual forces behind many events….I do try to use different lenses to look at things as much as possible (I will use evolutionary psychology because even if Indont believe in evolution any more the “economic “ forces of selection will delete many gene sets and behaviors that don’t work)
I am blackpilled on Liberalism because its end point is death. I am happy to deconstruct ideas but believe that excessive use of this tool will end badly.
I don’t particularly hate Jews, since they don’t have magic powers to MAKE us take up vice and destroy ourselves- it’s our own stupid fault for listening and trusting them……they just do what’s good for themselves just like Muslims and the Chinese and everyone else except for stupid people who act like the stupid Dodo staring at a pig when it arrives in their island and eats eggs.
You don’t need to hate each other to be enemies.
lol….going to go nail these to the church door or something now.
So, with less waffle on my part
I try to use different mental tools to process things and that includes breaking things down to their parts (as with morals earlier) and seeing if an idea like Natural Law makes sense as stated or if there is something else required.
I like to argue because I need my weak arguments broken down, but more and more the net has become a collection of para social ass kissing silos.
Oh and Inbelive Mr Corbett is correct and western society is heading into trouble ….but IMO more then he says, Mind Quake territory where lots of bad things (which I will see as demonic possession and most see as mass mental illness ) will happen
Hey Tex, you replied to me as if it was Duck. 🙂
I don’t have a “shtick” my friend, I am just an authentic social/political activist with lots more experience in activism from being shot at, phone tapped, followed and more then most. I express it in my books, screenplays, music, etc.
With 50+ years of only an occasional movie or TV show now and then I don’t carry the same controlled perception garbage as most regarding “heroes” in sports, celebs, all the hundred of hours of commercials, etc. the cliche’ life “truths” mouthed by actors and coming out of a very repressive, dark ‘entertainment’ business.
My confidence may appear as ego seeking attention, but I seek clarity, truth and facts, that need no applause. I am NOT an atheist, I simply do not believe in myth. That is why I am also a pure blood from my time in the the “trenches” I picked up that the COVID thing was a lie and why I spent a year putting my free pdf file together on it about the who, what, why, etc. and didn’t get the jab.
If a Frank Zappa quote is all you agree with in my statement then that is your business, but IMO it shows a lack of intellectual curiosity or flexibility.
As far as Duck goes, he is nothing to me but an anonymous commenter on this soap opera medium and “Ducking” any real dialog from Cognitive Dissonance because accepting contradictory information from the mind control perception/misinformation learned in school, from parents, media, etc. is a frightening thing to have to perhaps let go of it.
So again, that’s that about that…😎
EJ,
It could be said that we all have a ‘shtick,’ just as it has been noted that all journalism is biased. It is not necessarily referring to a superficial act. As with most words, different interpretations of their meaning exist.
I think the biggest danger, intellectually, was expressed to me by the great musician, Paul Harrington. He said simply, “Don’t believe in your own bullshit.” He was giving me a warning. That came up in the context of him talking about another accomplished, but limited, musician. That fellow was clearly mesmerized by his own skill, which is something that is not all bad and is common to talented artists. The problem was that he was sometimes blind to what the audience felt. This held him back from reaching another level.
Why do you express anger and frustration in so many of your posts? We both have reached the age where it is good to be skilled at maintaining our equanimity and balance. Trivial jibes and even insults can be deflected gracefully. If we take it to heart, we are feeding on negativity.
PS I think that perhaps our views about religion are fairly close to each other.
EJ Doyle
You literally support the thing the article warns about….that is the most Boomer point of view possible.
Not identifying as a Boomer is also super Boomer tier thinking.
I could have gone into why the whole Female led society and religion thing is discredited non historical rubbish mostly invented by Victorian perverts and CIA adjacent Sociologists…..but there is no arguing with Boomer mindset.
Enjoy life dude.
I don’t know what any of those generational labels are about and have only seen them used in negative ways.
Read my reply to Hanky as you are such a sad man avoiding any real interesting discussion about things that I don’t want to waste my time on
you. Again your Ad hominem fallacy speaks about your level civilized development.
EJ
“…don’t know what any of those generational labels are about and have only seen them used in negative ways….”
You do not need to know something to embody it.
Everyone is somewhat created by the culture they swim in, and you are no different except that you lack the awareness of this fact. You will never understand this fact because it would damage the false identity painted on you by social engineers who laid out your archaic revival story line before you were born.
I would like to say Boomers are the problem, but all they are is the left overs of the old story line told by long dead villains. Being mad at them is like being mad at someone else’s cattle
Indeed, the only Cult he/we can not see is the Cult we are in. I try to be completely independent. And, based on my age you might call me a “Boomer” yet I fail to fit the mold.
Truth seeker
🙂
i don’t know your posts or lifestyle but if you can avoid saying shit like god should be dead or LARPing that your a shaman from some indeterminate culture or that the sixties actually made life better then your probably OK.
#NotAllBoomers (just most of them)
The programming hits every generation differently, X’s are lazy and really didn’t do much, millennials are dumb as fk and zoomers are fag maxed…..t the actual humans in each generation don’t need to be labeled with the same brush but stereotypes exist because their based on reality.
Mr Doyle certainly embodies they spirit of his own age
@Duck, et al:
Interesting isn’t it? Not one of the “collective group mind” replied to any of the substance of what I posted. That Ad hominem dance of delusion to attack me and not discuss what I offered and that YOU started.
Like school yard adolescent behavior, the weak needing to dismiss and criticize another to achieve faux self worth.
EJ
dude….you offer “god is dead” , “I am a special boy who exists outside of culture” and “shamanism is cool n I do it”
I am sure some people want that….sensible people who want to continue in the world do not. I wish you well, but the age of surviving with such silly ideas is coming to an end.
“OK boomer” – DEFINITION and backstory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_boomer
https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/ok-boomer
Duck,
I was not aware of this slang term. I must be a boomer. 😉
HRS
Thanks to how many Boomers there were I and all the little zoomers will be a “boomer” one day. 🙂
I even know a song about that….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Stgq7ZDVnQg&list=RDStgq7ZDVnQg&start_radio=1&pp=ygULR2VuIHggc29uZyCgBwE%3D&ra=m
Interesting perspective. Is rare you venture into the spiritual domain… so glad you have.
“No, the threat we face is something infinitely worse: the unraveling of the fabric of our civilization. The unmooring of our moral universe. The death of God.”
… Amen
Oh ! Jamisan
~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Den Mother and Mortars in the Surf
The day in the surf was exhilarating and as the day passed the pile of metal objects grew . The fear , was a dud like the pile of explosives. After 70 years in the surf history keeps invading our domain. ” Preparedness, kids is how we will free the future from fear. I’ve shown you how to carefully remove these relics from our future. They are less in number every time we apply our joy to this beach. Careful handling kids, you can make a future quite unlike the past . You must remain vigilant to prevent this pile of diseases from ever coming back.” The den mother then asked who wanted to make the call from the phone box by the parking area. The Henoko ordinance ammunition dump has a direct hot line from the beach to the UXB detachment on 24-7 call. The detachment arrived before everyone had loaded the van to leave. As the den mother drove away a sigh was barely audible as the van turned out of the packing lot , ” another day away from the past, vigilance kids.”
James lost me at fingering Bilbo Baggins.
“Despite its contrarian title, Corbett’s essay concludes that Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey ultimately fails as a modern myth. Nolan attempts to construct a Christian-style morality play while rationalizing away the sacred, falling directly into the civilizational trap Friedrich Nietzsche warned about.
1. Representation and Artistic Choice
2. Nietzsche’s “Madman” & The Loss of the Sacred
3. Why Nolan’s Odyssey Falls Flat
4. New Myths for Old Cynics
At least James is talking about Christianity again, albeit somewhat veiled here. Maybe he’ll guest with Jay Dyer soon, start talking about Jews as a collective and their moshiach antichrist (rather than Charlie Robinson’s Ickean ‘Sabbatean Frankists’ cop-out) and do a deep dive into Third Temple Eschatology for a future documentary (I won’t hold my breath, tho. James isn’t going to stray too far from his Western, classical liberalism ethics and a Canadian penchant for multicultural inclusion and pacifism for tikkun-olam plots against the Gentiles).
CRM
He has had Jay Dyer on before.
Jay Dyer doesn’t talk about Jews as a collective much , afaik.
https://corbettreport.com/the-prestige-flnwo-30/
Yeah, got to agree that sabbatean Frankists (while a real thing) are just one “Microscopic part in a catastrophic plan”
lol
Peter Jackson took on Lord of the Rings.
Christoper Nolan took on The Odysee.
… who’s going to take on Foucault’s Pendulum?
Fingers off those buboes!
James wrote: “For those who haven’t figured it out yet, the problem we face today is not a conspiracy of a few bad men and women. Our biggest threat isn’t this or that false flag event or a corrupt monetary system or a rogue military-industrial contractor. No, the threat we face is something infinitely worse: the unraveling of the fabric of our civilization. The unmooring of our moral universe. The death of God”
The inability to distinguish true claims from false. No mooring to distinguish fact from fiction through direct research. Passive deference of judgment to technical, scientific and military authority. No direct fact checking anchor.
James wrote: “As a result, we will not be saved by yet another documentary about how the Twin Towers blew up or by yet another expose about who really killed JFK—valuable as these things may be for establishing an accurate historical record.”
I disagree with this characterization. The “spaces of information” around the JFK assassination and the Twin Towers collapses are not similar. For example, I have not followed the JFK research closely but as of 2026 I can place the person who shot JFK in the right front temple (James E. Files) who was part of a 3 person assassin team (with John Rosselli and Charles Nicoletti, working under Sam Giancana) and I can place a separate “abort team” in the Dealey plaza at the time of the shooting which included Tosh Plumlee. I can know these things because James E. Files has given detailed interviews of his experiences in a documentary called “I shot JFK” (2014) and Tosh Plumlee has described his experiences on the “abort team” in detail (including on Trineday podcasts, the publisher of Whitney Webb’s book).
(continued) In contrast, the Twin Towers collapses (initiations and progressions) have been misrepresented through multiple sources for the last quarter century. Speaking loosely, it is a subject that has turned the brains of many, many people into “mashed potatos”. For example, Consortium News founder Robert Parry simply deferred to the NIST without being aware that the NIST stated nothing on the Twin Towers collapse progression mechanisms and themselves deferred to Dr Bazant on the subject. So did Alex Cockburn, founder of Counterpunch Magazine. So did Noam Chomsky. The Twin Towers collapses split those considered part of independent media in a way that the JFK assasination never did.
Misrepresentations still emerge from multiple sources. For example, there were about 48 speakers at the Turning the Tide Conference. Only 2 of them (Richard Gage and Niels Harrit) spoke about the technical nature of the Twin Towers collapses. In one example Niels Harrit showed the audience an image comparing the Twin Towers collapse progressions to an erupting volcano. The other 46 speakers never openly questioned this representation of the Twin Towers collapse progression mechanism and simply deferred all technical explanations of Richard Gage and Niels Harrit without a single objection.
“In our time of apparent un-magic, this story, this modern myth that reconstructs the world for us, will take the form of some other popular entertainment. A video game, perhaps. Or a film.”
Magic is alive and well if it is possible to turn the brains of Robert Parry, Alex Cockburn and Noam Chomsky into ‘mashed potatos’ on this key historic issue. Magic is alive and well when the Twin Towers collapse progression mechanism is presented as comparable to an erupting volcano on the 25th anniversary of the collapses to a passive, accepting audience that seems to see nothing odd in the comparison. It is the magic of a stage magician.
(conclusion) The JFK assasination does not need to remain a mystery since the key shooter confessed on video in 2014 and made the unique claim that JFK was shot with a special mercury round, so his corpse and brain cavity must be splattered with mercury (a testable claim).
The Twin Towers collapses, in contrast, is still very much a living subject and very few people even today are capable of making a pencil etching of the Twin Towers collapse progression mechanisms.
James write: “Perhaps my Sisyphean penance is not to roll the rock back up the hill for the rest of eternity but to forever be casting these pearls of sagacity before Circe’s swine. ”
Me, too. I know the purpose of your article was theistic. Sorry for raising these crass material objections.
When Nietzsche was at the end of his life, the Austrian polymath, Rudolf Steiner, wanted to meet him. Perhaps because Steiner had already completed the compilation and editing of Wolfgang von Goethe’s scientific archive, Nietzsche’s sister allowed Steiner in, and gave him access to his library and papers. Five years after Nietzsche’s death, Steiner wrote a book (in German), English translation: Friedrich Nietzsche – Fighter for Freedom https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA005/English/RSPI1960/
Steiner considered Nietzsche one of the greatest thinkers of his time, but ultimately rejected his direction. Instead, Steiner outlined a new path for Western thinkers toward an awareness that God, and the world of non-material reality, was simply not perceptible through ordinary means. He advocated a path he called “spiritual science” or the Wisdom of Humanity (Anthroposophy). It involves individual effort to develop consciousness. To reconnect to the realm in which God can be perceived — and thus to know that God is not dead — requires letting go of the ‘requirements’ by which things are claimed to be REAL or not. Is there any reason at all to think that the boundaries of “sense perceptions” are the boundaries of reality? Of course not. If a color-blind person cannot perceive red or green, it doesn’t mean those words apply to nothing. A person born deaf cannot convince people with hearing that sound is a figment of imagination.
Corbett tells us that “Our current era of enlightened rationalism is not some triumphant achievement to be uncritically celebrated but, rather, a profound burden to be borne and overcome.” We may ask, where can we find a new approach? An introduction to Steiner’s “Spiritual Science” can be found in his basic books. https://rsarchive.org/Basics/BasicBooks.html
If that doesn’t float your boat, check out A New Science of Heaven – How the science of plasma will transform humanity’s understanding of its place in the universe By Robert Temple, 2021. Catherine Austin Fitts also recommends this book.
Rudolph Steiner was an early New Age freak…..nothing good grows on bad bushes and while sending their kids to Steiner Schools and singing odes to “the fire Gnomes” works for silly single moms it’s not the basis of a solid civilization.
The New Age is documentably a massive operation to reshape western men into a more malleable thing, IMO it’s actually a demonic plot BUT even if I am batshit crazy the first fact remains true and it’s unwise to follow such people’s prompts
I wonder how much of Conspiracy Culture is actually just a feint to get us to go to the exact same place the Technocrats want? The ZeitGeist films started out with facts and then led their marks into utter BS astro theology that was debunked a hundred years before
Tut tut, Duck. Name calling is so easy…
How about Robert Temple? Do you have some aspersions you’d like to cast?
Here are some ideas from his book about how things can be invisible but still exist:
The Kordylewski Clouds, named after the Polish scientist [Kazimierz Kordylewski] who first discovered one of them and worked out mathematically that the other one must also exist, remained invisible to everyone else until 2019, when a Hungarian team of astronomers, led by Judit Sliz-Balogh, confirmed their existence. These clouds of “space dust” exist at two points (La Grange points) in the Earth-Moon system, where the gravitational forces have been canceled out – there is no gravity in these two areas. Each of these “clouds” is 4.5 times the size of the Earth. What are they? How was it that Kordylewski had seen one? Of what could it be composed? History of plasma research starts with 1879, Sir Wm. Crookes, who invented the vacuum tube, worked with “cathode rays” and asserted there exists a “Fourth State of Matter”. It was named “plasma” by American scientist, Irving Langmuir “because the way a charged gas carries electrons and ions reminded him of the way blood carries red and white corpuscles, so the plasma seemed to him to be ‘alive’.” He also introduced the word “sheaths” for the skins of plasmas, in 1928. Temple tells us that as a result of the publication of Langmuir’s article: “…the science of plasma physics was truly born; all the work that had been done since 1879 on what had been called ‘ionized gases’ or ‘radiant matter’ became known retrospectively as plasma research.”
When you same name calling are you saying that I call Steiner what he was?
what part do you think I got wrong about him? or am I wrong that the New Age is a massive project adjacent and funded by the same types of people we complain about here on CR?
as to Temple …..Actually I don’t think I know that name….wait a sec. A brief (so it’s just IMPRESSIONS) look at his web site makes me think he’s a bit like Hoyle who was an interesting thinker.
As to having advanced knowledge….uhh…you can look all the way back and find all kinds of weird ideas that turned out to be true(ish) and many more that were BS. THrow enough stuff out there and something will be true, as every fake astrologer doing a chart knows.
Even HAVING advanced knowledge dos not mean the source of that knowledge is a good buddy you should listen to…..the old story of Faust has that guy getting the low down on lots of stuff before going low down 🙂
to the oxymoronic statement “god is dead”, we can include from R Temples book (thanks for mentioning it), that (idea/fact?) plasma “clouds” are generators or birthing place of materials,,,. in the way the vapor of a cloud transmutes into liquid rain, so does 3d reality manifest out of plasma. (read the book). That seems to fit with the buddha’s model of “dependent origination” which is the keystone of his whole effort to “teach a way out of suffering”. one way to describe it is to say that things only happen because of all that has lined up before hand. (if I’ve got that incomplete happy to be corrected,,), such as electro magnetic potentiality based on atomic geometry (thats whats happening in “plasma clouds”), et voila du pain-buerre.
2 other buddha stories spring to mind. for the record I’m not a practicing Buddhist, but Ive read and sat through some of the teachings. It is a vision of reality that doesn’t accept the claim of one omnipotent creator “god”. I suspect that monogod idea is a dominator device. To embrace the “origin-of-all-as-one-being eternally doing it” notion is to give away the game of not knowing. the staunch monotheisms (abrahamic et al) disagree but also respect the Buddhist position.this contradiction or denial ought to be first hand red flag evidence of cognitive dissonance pretending to wear the boss hat, an agitprop circus of fear, wading through the dumpster juice of humanity’s selfie before kaliyuga sunset, all done with green screens of course.
https://www.embodiedphilosophy.com/definitions/kali-yuga/
https://www.vidyadhara.ch/wisdomlibrary/the-god-who-might-be-wrong-about-himself
https://www.lionsroar.com/if-you-meet-the-buddha-on-the-road-kill-him/
for a read “capable of lifting almost any brain out of its cognitive Kansas” (tom robins), Robert temple, the new science of heaven” ,,contemporary developments in the fledgling world of plasma physics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TMNH1w3ZPE
Thanks for bringing up Buddha — remember, that was not his actual name.
Whenever we try to understand something and share ideas with others, we are almost universally using language. Words are tools. Every tool can become a weapon.
The individual who came to be called “Buddha” was born into a Hindu family and culture. He was not a Buddhist. He grew up with a world view, as every child does. He knew and probably believed stories that come down from the Vedas (the scriptures of the Ancient Indian continent). But unlike most, he was not trapped in an understanding that was rigid and literal. He undoubtedly started “smart” became “intelligent” and then moved beyond. The “beyond” is possible.
What the Ancient Indian people believed is only known to us by way of texts that are not nearly as old as the ancient ways of knowing. To approach the ideas we need to use words that are not ordinary American English as it has evolved to the present time. Below I have lifted quotes off the internet. Note how a “One God” is represented grammatically, and how it becomes a trinity. One might even wonder if there is a relationship in the story to Abram/Sarai and Abraham/Sarah.
In Sanskrit grammar, the noun stem brahman forms two distinct nouns; one is a neuter noun bráhman, whose nominative singular form is brahma.
Brahmā is the name of the Hindu god (deva) of creation and one of the Trimūrti, the others being Vishnu and Shiva. According to the Brahmā Purāņa, he is the father of Manu, and from Manu all human beings are descended. He is not to be confused with the Supreme Cosmic Spirit in Hindu Vedānta philosophy known as Brahman. Being the husband of Saraswati (the Goddess of Speech), Brahma is also known as “Lord of Speech and Sound.
If you believe it is possible to conceive of a “oneness” that contains everything that could ever be represented (a plural concept) what word/name would you use?
If you believe it is possible to conceive of a “oneness” that contains everything that could ever be represented (a plural concept) what word/name would you use?
I’d grunt.
words exist for concepts that are undefinable. i think of them as name tags. but the thing they point to can only be bandied about as an abstraction. name tags like like “zero” and “everything” even “phi” and ‘Pi”. my way of accepting and moving on is to lean in the general direction of the force vector. egoless mind can be expansive and even lean in the direction of higher capacities of awareness & more refined physics. but for us hungry sheeple from jolity farm theres a fire wall for our perceived consciousness, I give it the name tag “3D”. your question is unresolvable.
“….I suspect that monogod idea is a dominator device….”
weirdly Asian cultures with Buddhism are even more authoritarian and have less respect for human rights as Christian Europe
”Nolan’s Odyssey is not the tale to set the world aright. But someone, somewhere, is working on the story that will.”
No need to work on it. The tale has been told.
But it was, and is, rejected and despised by an overwhelming majority. And will be so until the end of this world. The tale is told in the Gospels.
But the tale is deemed foolishness by the world. And only a remnant of humanity believe the tale to the saving of their souls. And the remnant are from every tribe and tongue. And the remnant are precious in his sight.
James, you and maybe others might enjoy the book I just purchased, THE RIVERS NORTH OF THE FUTURE The Testament Of IVAN ILLICH as told to David Cayley. I highly recommend it. The book is based on a series of interviews with David Cayley in the late 1990’s and was published three years after Illich’s death. Lord, the man is a deep thinker. It is a slow read but I found it vastly rewarding. He was an amazing man in my estimation.
Thank you for this, James.
The reductionists would like to consider any intrusion of God-talk as heresy. The doctrine reduces existence to a single event and would like to have us suspend our disbelief about what happened before that single event that takes the contents of the universe, packs it into a single point and then explodes it to create an infinite universe.
While this may have happened, it does not preclude the existence of God. It doesn’t kill God or in any way suggest that God is not real. God exists outside of time and space and quantum fields.
This is a matter of faith but also a practical necessity if we are to make sense of any of the subsequent theories that brilliant minds have worked upon to try to explain our existence.
It is not for inferior minds and simple thinkers such as me to criticize the great mathematicians and physicists who have tried very hard to make sense of what we experience here on earth.
I merely point out that all of these theories come with assumptions and we will never have a theory of everything because there are limits to any assumption that must be put forward before any theory can be fleshed out.
Yes, we need God. We need a reason to act morally and with purpose. Without the assumption that God exists and that the Good exists and for the Good to exist, Evil must also exist, there is little to recommend our continued efforts here on earth.
If there is no God, no good and no evil and no reason to act in a way that might suggest that there IS a God….then there is no purpose to life beyond satirical lines from Monty Python’s “Meaning of Life”.
IOW, something like, don’t eat too much sugar, keep your body mass index in a healthy range, and hunker down because there’s bad stuff out there that might hurt you……not that it matters, of course….
“God exists outside of time and space and quantum fields.”
said the time bandit to the spacey quanta,, but we are in and of 3d time/space, even claiming a forth dimension is a 3 dimensional act. I believe (because of direct experience) one can be in a 4th dimensional state, but that faith is only based on my memories. Is it verifiable? only by having the actual conditions occur. (spoiler: Epiphanes usually come unannounced).
I agree about low sugar and keeping fit. Mate after 50 we’re just dodging bullets
there’s bad stuff out there that might hurt you……not that it matters, of course
no interest
lotsa care
thats a mantra, or aid to healthy decision making, to get past perceived Nietzsche nihilism or absence of meaning.
we are but formless forms
yet it still hurts when one stubs one toe on a rock
Funny video by Awaken-with-JP
“What the f is going on?” Waking up from a coma today.
https://rumble.com/v7g1bju-what-the-fck-is-going-on-waking-up-from-a-coma-today.html
That was funny…a good script which lightly touched on a lot of recent news’ stories.
1982 film – Starring Linda Hunt as Billy Kwan – Mel Gibson & Sigourney Weaver also star
~~ The Year of Living Dangerously ~~~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x5Pd66YfRE
DESCRIPTION
Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hunt star in this story of a naïve Australian reporter who lands in the middle of a coup during The Year of Living Dangerously. Indonesia, 1965. With the help of diminutive local Billy Kwan (Hunt) and diplomat Jill Bryant (Weaver), Guy Hamilton(Gibson) suddenly rockets to importance as a newsman with access to inside information about the coming coup d’etat. But Hamilton must make a choice: To succeed as a newsman–to report this story to the world–he must betray, and possibly destroy, the two people who love him. LindaHunt won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the male Billy Kwan.
About a month ago was the first time I watched this film. The script and acting for Billy Kwan was impressive. I’m watching the film again primarily to note the script and character of Billy Kwan. It is as if he is typing in his personal journal…whether narrating or dialogue or typing. There are some beautiful and profound words that flow from this actress.
The imagery and filming was also remarkable.
Some of the QUOTES – The Year of Living Dangerously
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086617/quotes/?_ssoLoop=1
This film has grown on me. I think I watched “The Year of Living Dangerously,” all the way through without interruption, two years ago. The past few months I’ve been putting it on just to have it running in the background.
*spoiler*
Near the end, when Billy Kwan stages a protest from his window, about how the people of lower classes in Jakarta are being starved, and they come and defenestrate him, and he dies on the sidewalk bleeding, with this look of satisfaction. It’s heartbreaking when Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver go through his things in his apartment and discuss how his protest and death were in vain.
What I really like about how this film was shot, aside from being beautiful, you can almost smell the grit and sweat from the screen. I can really imagine the smell of cigarette smoke, incense and alcohol wafting through streets filled with the smell of the jungle and gasoline vapor.
It is an exciting film to watch.
To resolve the ‘God is Dead’ (or God is Dad?) it is helpful to mutilate the genitalia of you an the kids.
I really enjoyed the article, especially the part before the discussion of the current film.
Dear James, Did you watch the whole movie?
James, The Greek warrior costume suits you. You should wear it at your next live appearance.
This is the most succinct exposition of Nietzsche’s philosophy of God that I’ve seen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BuZamufWAs
Who killed God? When, and why? I think the powers that shouldn’t be killed God centuries ago with the intended effect of destroying human morality and making humanity more readily open to dissection and scientific manipulation. Breaking humanity down to rebuild it into a wretched chimera.
Jonathan Pageau has done at least three interesting videos discussing Nolan’s Odyssey from a Christian perspective which are very interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESIzQNfmAo4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3wkrDbRgDs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKIxTvWNDNw
The big Corbett Report – related theme I picked up from it was the mental health thing. His time with Calypso and her lotus flowers seems very obviously time in an modern asylum on psych meds, presumably for PTSD. Which would explain all his hallucinations if you wanted.
And I thought Robert Pattinson wasn’t bad considering what he had to work with.
Yes, I think Pageau’s take on Nolan’s Odissey, although almost singular in the Youtubesphere, has it’s valid points and arguments: although cloaked as a woke movie, due to some casting decisions and some of the dialogues, it tells a somewhat traditional story, at least by contrast with other contemporary movies, about the return of the king, the need for male leadership, the destruction of the WW2 consensus – so, essentialy, the movie itself is a trick, maybe on everybody: the left, the conservatives, and on Nolan himself.
Right there with you James, though I call the creative urge Infinite Spirit, or infinite Energy (have an antipathy to the word god, because of religious dogma, but I’m slowly learning to handle it)
It’s obvious there is a creative force, because there is a creation, it is amazing and beautiful, and we are messing up our bit of it, this earth and its nature, which includes us.
When we learn that all we say and do has an on going affect, when we take responsibility for our actions, when we decide to be more caring of each other and of this planet which makes our lives possible, then we will have revived God or whatever you want to call all that is and all that is possible.
SuziAlkamyst, your description of the creator as “infinite Spirit” hits home with me, as do your remedies for fixing what humans “are messing up,” especially “. . . when we decide to be more caring of each other and of this planet. . . .”
What you say reminds me of what James features in his Recommended Listening above: https://lifeandlifeonly.podbean.com/e/episode-73-the-psychology-of-everyday-life-with-rob-ager.
I’m not referring to Episode #73 of this “Life and Life Only” podcast, but rather to the previous six episodes (#67-#72), which constitute a series that podcaster Antony Rotunno calls “Animals for Food: A Horror Story.”
Corbett supporters who take a little time to listen to Antony lay out his thesis and then watch or read some of the sources he cites in his show notes (videos, documentaries, books, articles, and TEDx talks) will perhaps begin to rethink the ingrained belief that humans are superior to non-humans and can do whatever they want to them.
After several weeks of intensive research this past summer, Antony concludes that it cannot be moral (respectful, compassionate, merciful, kind) to exploit any animals in any industry, whether for food, clothing, entertainment, or experimentation. (He confines his remarks to the average Westerner who doesn’t depend on animals for survival.)
Antony makes it clear that our carnist culture victimizes not just individual animals (notably mothers and their young) but also slaughterhouse workers, consumers of animal “products,” future generations, and the environment we all depend upon for life.
I can vouch for the freedom felt when one stops participating in actions that terrify and brutalize the innocent beings whom man is meant to look after and love.
To me, there’s no way that the Golden Rule doesn’t apply to our treatment of “the least of these,” whether they be bees or bovines, shrimp or sheep, pikes or pigs, tunas or turkeys.
“….After several weeks of intensive research this past summer, Antony concludes that it cannot be moral (respectful, compassionate, merciful, kind) to exploit any animals in any…”
respectful / compassionate / merciful / kind are a weird and poor definition of “moral” –
CS Lewis (and most people thru history) would certainly say these are all PARTS of being moral but none of them by themselves constitute “moral” and there are many other traits that have as much or more claim to that role.
”….. (He confines his remarks to ithe average Westerner who doesn’t depend on animals for survival.)….”
How can something be moral for one set of people but immoral for another set of people?
Is it moral for one flavor of people to keep human slaves too? OR are animals a special case ?
I will have to listen to this chap n see if he explains
As another commenter has already offered, James had indeed had Jay Dyer on for a discussion in the past, although I suspect, given James’s most recent newsletter, that another sit-down, this one articulated instead around some of the ideas expressed here (the sacramental, morality, Christianity, secularism, etc.) would be of particular interest to many long-term Corbett Report subscribers.
Yes.
Government has created so many perversions throughout society that natural living, which connects you to god, is almost impossible. Feminism, borne and institutionalized by gvmnt, killed marriage. Property taxes killed ownership. Public school killed education. Integration killed race relations. War on drugs fueled drug use and destroyed races.
The wars are accelerating purposefully to hide the destruction wrought by governments and their controllers. God is real and very much works through you and gives you magic, if you truly give of yourself.
James, I consider this one of the great and profound articles of yours, and it reminded me of the one you wrote about 5 years ago, “Mightier then the sword” or something like that was called, in which your main theses was that the narrative is the greatest weapon in the world.
It seems that your Book Club makes you more philosophical and even theological in your recent takes, I reckon. And I don’t think that reading “Brothers Karamazov” for your october meeting is unconsequential on your recent reflections and points of interest.
In one short sweep, you defend the power of reiterating old stories with contemporary means and you cut through the heart of the problem, which is not political, or economical, or scientifical, but theological, and is not recent, given that Nietzsche merely articulated it in the late XIX century, but its effects were already happening.
Although, before, you gave glimpses of your religious proclivities, I was surprised by the frontal, direct and poignant formulation of the problem (and solution – the John the Baptist kind of prophet, or the saints, how we, ortodox christinas, would say), and I wasn’t aware of how far in seeing the role of the metaphisical assumptions were you in your personal meditations on the issues of the world.
I also deeply appreciated you, from the virtues perspective, humbleing yourself in acknowledging that, although extremely important, is not the documentaries or the information per se, that will save the world, acknowledgment which is inherently anti-rationalist.
I hope that your pearls will have received and receiving better feedback than that from swines! 🙂
JP reacts – Genocide in Gaza just got Harder to Deny! (Thanks to Google Earth Images)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PmjBYcwsnk
“It is not about politics, It is extermination of humans”
We all knew it already, but the reality seems to be dripping into the mainstream.
Thanks for this interesting piece James.
I haven’t seen the film yet so won’t comment on that, but it seems that Christianity and monotheism has been a 2000 year dead end, and that Nietzsche might need to revise his work.
Moses is not found in the archaeological record pre 200 BCE.
Far to late I am learning Ancient Greek to see what pagan societies may have thought. (rather than what the Christian revolutionaries tell us)
Gmirkin suggests that Judeo/Christianity was invented, based on Platos Laws.
Its all a bit fake.
this is what happens after grad school in English, too much James Joyce, and not enough (post-1878) Tolstoy.
the remedy is clear–tolle, lege!
While I agree there’s a persuasive case to be made for the need of narrative/myth/story in giveing humankind meaning, it remains to be seen if that’s possible in our current media and communication environment.
Can any narrative withstand today’s fragmented world?
I remain hopeful and optimist that one or multiple stories will appear and bring unity but until then I would like to offer an alternative. In fact, the hint is at the end of the newsletter, with the reference to Myth of Sisyphus. To quote the ending
Or as Nicholas Carr put it more recently: The case for unenchantment
In our increasingly dizzying travels in hyperreality, do we need transcendence?
Isn’t reality enough?