MindMatters

This week on MindMatters we take a third and final look at the prescient and resounding thoughts of Ernst Jünger's The Forest Passage and reflect on what it means - in the philosophical and practical sense - to be a forest walker, or forest rebel.

How one resists and chooses to respond to totalitarianism is at least as crucial as making the choice itself. But what are some of the many considerations involved? What inner resources does one draw upon and where might one find the light that helps to make the best of all choices? What does one fall back on when many of the institutions that are meant to morally support a society have been effectively gutted, or done away with completely? What is the responsibility of an unbroken and ‘concrete individual’ to step in and rectify institutional failure to some degree? And where does the power of the spoken or written word fit into this complex equation? 

What is freedom? Where may it be found and accessed? How does it become actualized from within the individual?  And if we are to become free - then what are we to be free from? In this second discussion of Ernst Jünger's seminal book The Forest Passage we follow along with the author’s many thoughts on what it means to be free. Concerning political bodies, the media, institutionalized medicine, and organized religion - what, if any, is the most fruitful approach to take in response to their diktats or guidelines? Where does free will, in the truest sense of the term, fit in to our responses? And if we are to face our fears and find a way to resist the tide of totalitarianism how should one approach the possible suffering that will likely be involved?

With the heart of a poet, and the mind of a realist, Ernst Jünger has given us much to ponder as we reflect on what he means by becoming a ‘forest rebel’. Join us this week on MindMatters as we delve further into his world view, and a road from which we may find a path to the future.

Psychotherapist, educator, researcher, and author of the books Women Who Live Psychopaths, How to Spot a Dangerous Man, and many others, Sandra L. Brown’s insights have helped many face - and heal from - the damage inflicted by psychopaths and the personality disordered. Expanding on her work as a therapist and author, Sandra Brown has developed the training for thousands of therapists who now understand, and are better able to treat, cognitive dissonance, PTSD, and the neurocognitive damage to executive brain function that many victims suffer.

Join us this week on MindMatters as we look back at Sandra Brown’s influential writings, what she’s been working on since the release of her books, and how her views and perspectives since then might affect what she’d focus on if she were writing these books today - more than 18 years later.

Safe Relationships Magazine: https://saferelationshipsmagazine.com/
Association for NPD/Psychopathy Survivor Treatment, Research & Education: https://survivortreatment.com/

'1984', 'Brave New World', 'Fahrenheit 451', 'The Gulag Archipelago' - there are many great books on 20th-century totalitarianism. But few of them have the power and poetry of Ernst Jünger's 1951 'The Forest Passage'. Both a man of his time - and ahead of his time - the German-born Jünger was not only a staunch but careful critic of tyranny; he could see through the “soft power” manipulations of much subtler forms of centralized oppression as well. And call it out for exactly what it was.

Given Jünger's broad vision and deep insight, one could be forgiven for thinking that the 'The Forest Passage' was written only yesterday. It is packed with perennial truths that apply to the politics and psychology of Western civilization over the last 100 or so years. Join us this week on MindMatters as we give Ernst Jünger's gem of a book its due, and begin to explore what it means to be, or become, a ‘Forest Rebel’.

Grant Smith is a US Army Physical Therapist and author of the "H2F Man" and "Radical American Mind" blogs. He also co-hosts the 5th Gen Leadership and Tonic Seven podcasts. Today we discuss his experiences during plague times - the hypocrisy and delusion he saw in the armed services' policies and actions, and how he successfully resisted the pressures and managed to keep his job - why he joined the Army in the first place, and how he found a place within it that aligned with his values and goals. In the last segment we get into the research and methods of fitness and exercise and Grant shares some central principles to follow in order to optimally train your tissues, whatever your current health status. 

After some brief comments on classical worldviews, natural law, populism, the genesis of leftist and postmodern thought, and the history of ideas, we settle on today's topic of topics: the paranormal. What societal structures exist (in academia, the media, the marketplace, etc.) that make the paranormal both in demand as a subject worth learning about - and yet deeply suppressed as something to take seriously in “official culture”. What does the Church and orthodox materialist science have to say about the acceptance of the so-called supernatural? And how do we come to know anything even remotely objective about such a topic when the rigor and open-mindedness required to study it is so lacking in officialdom? Join us for this fascinating discussion!

Dr. Jadcyk's article on Crookes: https://ark-jadczyk.blogspot.com/2023/04/no-true-science-allowed-priori.html
Part 2: https://ark-jadczyk.blogspot.com/2023/04/william-crookes-and-paranormal-true.html
The Myth of Disenchantment: https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Disenchantment-Magic-Modernity-Sciences/dp/022640336X

In just a short time, programs like ChatGPT and other chat bots have burst on the societal scene to the delight, fascination and enthrallment of millions. Individuals can now interact with a language program that is seemingly conversant on numerous subjects and provides “answers” via virtual brains. But this new powerful technology begs many more questions: What are these programs really, and how do they fit in with the development of AI? Where does anthropomorphic projection fit in as people become increasingly involved with them? Are these bots a first major step towards a transhuman reality? And can these technologies actually be forming the basis or entryway to a new type of technoreligion?

This week on Mindmatters we get to discuss these issues with Joe Allen, author of the Substack blog Singularity Weekly. After extensive research into this and related subject matter, Joe’s nuanced analysis tells us that yes, we need to be paying serious attention to where all this has brought us, and where things are very likely going.  Given how powerful and even seductive the use of these technologies are, he also suggests what may be the healthiest attitude or approach to interacting with them going forward. As if the world hasn’t devolved into enough insanity there is, in fact, a new pathologizing influence to contend with. And we, ‘legacy humans’, ignore its profound influences at our own peril.

ESG’s, diversity, equity, and inclusion, stakeholder capitalism, sustainability, CBDC’s, transhumanism, Agenda 2030—no doubt you’ve heard or read about these and any number of other terms that are meant to get the public with the new progressive and “forward thinking” policies and philosophies of the future. Of course you have; they are all part of the behemoth global elite-inspired policies and agendas of the so-called “Great Reset.”  But what’s really behind them? What are they actually meant to accomplish? And how might these ideas, put into actual practice, affect the way that we live—or don’t live?

Joining MindMatters once again is accomplished writer and researcher Michael Rectenwald. Author of Springtime for Snowflakes, Beyond Woke and The Google Archipelago—and in a most insightful progression—Michael tackles his biggest and most important subject yet with his new book The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty.  With a depth and breadth that is unmatched, his new book delves into one of the most profoundly totalitarian and far-reaching new (and not so new) political, social, and economic agendas in contemporary history. Join us as we get our heads around what already promises to be the most monstrous and destructive developments of the 21st century, the Great Reset, and discuss what we can actually do in response.

Helen Dale, lawyer and award-winning author of 3 novels, including The Hand that Signed the Paper, writes at Law & Liberty and Not On Your Team, But Always Fair. Her two-novel series Kingdom of the Wicked is an alternative history of Roman-occupied Judea in the first century and the arrest and trial of Yeshua ben Joseph, an enigmatic man with a large following, including some radical religious zealots. If you like literary and genre fiction—and Roman history—you won't be able to put these ones down. They’ve got soldiers, lawyers, terrorists, and biomechs; action, romance, legal proceedings, and great characters. 

Today on MindMatters we talk about the books and how Helen came to write them, blending Roman morality with modern technology, and the interesting directions that might have gone. Other topics: political systems and their compatibility with different nations and cultures, Lorenzo Warby’s articles on Helen’s Substack, a policy approach to countering Woke ideology, Cluster B’s and ponerology in modern and historical politics, what Hannah Arendt got wrong about totalitarianism, and how lobbyists are the absolute worst.

Today on MindMatters, we dive into Chris Langan's essay collection, "The Art of Knowing." In the process we discuss free will, Libet's experiments and their interpretations, reality theory, morality (relative? absolute? both?), why we need bad situations in order to grow, and Batman (the greatest superhero).