Jonathan Smith is a former CIA agent with a special operations background who relocated his family to Russia to immerse himself in the ancient roots of shamanic traditions. In this interview, Jack Donovan delves into Jonathan's unique journey, unveiling the profound insights he gained from authentic shamans in the birthplace of shamanic culture.

Discover the essence of shamanism as Jonathan shares his experiences and imparts valuable wisdom that promises to bring you closer to the shamanic path. By the end of this video, you'll not only be inspired but equipped with practical advice to kickstart or elevate your own spiritual journey.

Connect with Jonathan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rogue_emissary/

Explore the recommended book by Jack Donovan - 'Shamanism' by Mircea Eliade.

Jack Donovan, is the author of 'The Way of Men,' 'Becoming a Barbarian,' 'A More Complete Beast,' and 'Fire in the Dark.' As the founder of The Order of Fire and the PH2T3R project, Jack invites you to explore more:

Website: https://www.jack-donovan.com/sowilo/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/starttheworld/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ph2t3r

For details about the PH2T3R project, visit: https://ph2t3r.com/

To learn about joining The Order of Fire, click here: https://ph2t3r.com/theorderoffire/

Follow The Order of Fire on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theorderoffire/

What happened to the Men's Movement? A few years ago, there seemed to be a "big tent" men's movement that advanced a wide range of ideologies, all in the interest of helping men and dealing with the crisis of masculinity. The crisis certainly hasn't disappeared, but the "men's movement" and "manosphere" seem to have broken into competing factions largely driven by commercial interests and petty gossip.

I've been writing about men and masculinity for 15 years, and I've been watching all of this unfold for a long time.

On our weekly live show on YouTube, C.B. Robertson and I asked what happened to the men's movement and wondered how it can be fixed --- or if it needs to be.

C. B. Robertson is the author of The Hero and the Man, Holy Nihilism, Letter to Anwei, and more. He writes for PH2T3R and his own blog, Caffeine and Philosophy.

https://caffeineandphilosophy.com/

Instagram:  

 / caffeineandphilosophy  

Jack Donovan is the author of The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, A More Complete Beast, and Fire in the Dark. He is the founder of The Order of Fire and the PH2T3R project.

https://www.jack-donovan.com/sowilo/

Instagram:  

 / starttheworld  

Twitter:  

 / ph2t3r  

To find out more about the PH2T3R project, visit PH2T3R.com

https://ph2t3r.com/

To learn more about joining The Order of Fire:

https://ph2t3r.com/theorderoffire/

Instagram:

 / theorderoffire  

 / ph2t3r  

Last month, The Order of Fire read the Oresteia, a series of three plays by Aeschylus. On this week's live show, C.B. Robertson and Jack Donovan go over the plays and talk about why we think they are so important.

Many of our members were surprised at how engaging the plays were -- especially in some of the BBC audio performances available on Audible and even on YouTube for free.

 • Aeschylus' Oresteia - Agamemnon (BBC ...  

The Oresteia is the story of Orestes, who killed his mother after she killed his father -- Agamemnon from the Iliad. He is then chased and tormented by the grotesque and ghoulish Eumenides, and seeks sanctuary from Apollo. Apollo sends him to Athena, who conducts a trial to end the blood feud, establishing a mythic basis for trial by jury.

https://caffeineandphilosophy.com/

Instagram:  

 / caffeineandphilosophy  

Jack Donovan is the author of The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, A More Complete Beast, and Fire in the Dark. He is the founder of The Order of Fire and the PH2T3R project.

https://www.jack-donovan.com/sowilo/

Instagram:  

 / starttheworld  

Twitter:  

 / ph2t3r  

To find out more about the PH2T3R project, visit PH2T3R.com

https://ph2t3r.com/

To learn more about joining The Order of Fire:

https://ph2t3r.com/theorderoffire/

Instagram:

 / theorderoffire  

 / ph2t3r  

Why bother writing? Is it worth doing if you have no aspirations as a (public) writer? Authors Jack Donovan and C.B. Robertson talk about the meaning and process and possibly some of the business of writing. In the second hour, they take questions from live viewers and answer questions submitted by newsletter and Instagram.

C. B. Robertson is the author of The Hero and the Man, Holy Nihilism, Letter to Anwei, and more. He writes for PH2T3R and his own blog, Caffeine and Philosophy.

https://caffeineandphilosophy.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caffeineand...

Jack Donovan is the author of The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, A More Complete Beast, and Fire in the Dark. He is the founder of The Order of Fire and the PH2T3R project.

https://www.jack-donovan.com/sowilo/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/starttheworld/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ph2t3r

To find out more about the PH2T3R project, visit PH2T3R.com

https://ph2t3r.com/

To learn more about joining The Order of Fire:

https://ph2t3r.com/theorderoffire/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/theorderoff...

https://www.instagram.com/ph2t3r/

Join us for a thought-provoking live podcast featuring Jack Donovan and C.B. Robertson as they delve into the origins of the philosophy of humanism and inspect its ideological baggage.

Then we'll throw all of that out with the "blank slate" it was scribbled on and talk about the need for an approach to living that acknowledges human nature as a product of our physiology and evolutionary history.

What is the nature of the human animal - from a zoological perspective - and how do we live more harmoniously within the confines of that nature?

A pro-human position is sorely needed as AI development accelerates and the transhumanist death cult cheers on our collective oblivion.

---

C. B. Robertson is the author of The Hero and the Man, Holy Nihilism, Letter to Anwei, and more. He writes for PH2T3R and his own blog, Caffeine and Philosophy.

https://caffeineandphilosophy.com/

Instagram:  

 / caffeineandphilosophy  

Jack Donovan is the author of The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, A More Complete Beast, and Fire in the Dark. He is the founder of The Order of Fire and the PH2T3R project.

https://www.jack-donovan.com/sowilo/

Instagram:  

 / starttheworld  

Twitter:  

 / ph2t3r  

In the absence of meaning, we must create it. In our last live broadcast, we discussed "The Meaning Crisis" -- what is perceived by many as an absence or loss of meaning. People say they want to "find meaning," but rarely seem to consider the possibility that they are capable of creating it.

In this show, we'll discuss strategies for creating meaning and designing a more meaningful world. Specifically, we discuss four kinds of meaningful objects:

1. Aesthetically Meaningful Objects
2. Symbolically or Representationally Meaningful Objects
3. Objects with Inherited Narrative
4. Objects with Loaded Narrative

---

C. B. Robertson is the author of The Hero and the Man, Holy Nihilism, Letter to Anwei, and more. He writes for PH2T3R and his own blog, Caffeine and Philosophy.

https://caffeineandphilosophy.com/

Instagram:  

 / caffeineandphilosophy  

Jack Donovan is the author of The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, A More Complete Beast, and Fire in the Dark. He is the founder of The Order of Fire and the PH2T3R project.

https://www.jack-donovan.com/sowilo/

Instagram:  

 / starttheworld  

Twitter:  

 / ph2t3r  

To find out more about the PH2T3R project, visit PH2T3R.com

https://ph2t3r.com/

To learn more about joining The Order of Fire:

https://ph2t3r.com/theorderoffire/

Instagram:

 / theorderoffire  

 / ph2t3r  

This year PH2T3R will produce a LIVE show on Thursday evenings at 7:00 PM PST.

In our first episode, Jack Donovan and C.B. Robertson will discuss the first few episodes (1-3) of John Vervaeke's series "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis" from a Solar Idealist perspective.

You can find the full playlist here:

 • Awakening from the Meaning Crisis 

---

C. B. Robertson is the author of The Hero and the Man, Holy Nihilism, Letter to Anwei, and more. He writes for PH2T3R and his own blog, Caffeine and Philosophy.

https://caffeineandphilosophy.com/

Instagram:  

 / caffeineandphilosophy  

Jack Donovan is the author of The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, A More Complete Beast, and Fire in the Dark. He is the founder of The Order of Fire and the PH2T3R project.

https://www.jack-donovan.com/sowilo/

Instagram:  

 / starttheworld  

Twitter:  

 / ph2t3r  

To find out more about the PH2T3R project, visit PH2T3R.com

https://ph2t3r.com/

To learn more about joining The Order of Fire:

https://ph2t3r.com/theorderoffire/

Instagram:

 / theorderoffire  

It's not that what they've told you is wrong, it's that they haven't told you the WHOLE story...

That was C.B. Robertson's summary of the gnostic sales pitch during our recent PH2T3R podcast, and it's becoming an inside joke in our circle. 

One of our best podcasts yet, we discuss Gnosticism and the "occult" as they relate to Solar Idealism.

A note from CB Robertson:

Gnosticism is not something to dwell on. But to avoid being led astray, it's probably wise to be aware of what Gnosticism actually is, and what it looks like when the gnostic impulse expresses itself in worldviews that go by other names.

For more resources on the topic, James Lindsay has two short(ish) videos and one very long video going deeper into the ideas here (and it is worth saying, Lindsay is mostly borrowing from the work of Eric Voegelin):

1. Gnosticism, Modern and Postmodern (20 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-vJ_qPPljc

2. The Gnostic Temptation (23 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svFxRVW0IfU

3. Gnosticism in the Modern West (2 hr 23 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spetALxmcSc

There are also decent Christian sources on the early Christian gnostics. We're not terribly concerned with Christianity, but one can glean a lot about gnostics in general from the early Christian gnostics specifically (for the real deep-dive nerds):

4. Gnosticism and the Early Church (25 min - Ryan Reeves) **[[best historical video]]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXc-vvCivp4

5. Gnosticism, The Enduring Heresy (28 min - Robert Barron)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOvVgqBpeTY

C. B. Robertson is the author of The Hero and the Man, Holy Nihilism, Letter to Anwei and more. He writes for PH2T3R and his own blog, Caffeine and Philosophy.

https://caffeineandphilosophy.com/

https://www.instagram.com/caffeineand...

Jack Donovan is the author of The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, A More Complete Beast, and Fire in the Dark. His is the founder of The Order of Fire and the PH2T3R project.

https://www.jack-donovan.com/sowilo/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/starttheworld/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ph2t3r

To find out more about the PH2T3R project, visit PH2T3R.com

https://ph2t3r.com/

To learn more about joining The Order of Fire:

https://ph2t3r.com/theorderoffire/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/theorderoffire/

https://www.instagram.com/ph2t3r/

Jack Donovan discusses Beowulf with Paul Begadon, Order of Fire member and author of The Layman's Havamal, who has spent the last year narrating and using AI to illustrate this classic heroic tale.

Paul provides a thorough and engaging summary of the story of Beowulf and explains why he believes it is relevant today and how we can engage with it in such a way that it enriches and informs our own lives.

For a more, read his essay, "Beowulf : An Ancient Model for Modern Heroism" on his web site https://woodkern.net .

https://woodkern.net/beowulf1/

Paul's Beowulf Illustrated project is available through Amazon in Audiobook, paperback, and e-book formats.

https://amzn.to/3GdBdms

Paul's thoughtful exploration of The Havamal -- The Layman's Havamal -- is also available through Amazon.

https://a.co/d/fsvMAgj

Mentioned:

Heraclitus, Fragments

Hesiod, Works and Days

Jack Donovan is the author of The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, A More Complete Beast, and Fire in the Dark. His is the founder of The Order of Fire and the PH2T3R project.

https://www.jack-donovan.com/sowilo/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/starttheworld/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ph2t3r

To find out more about the PH2T3R project, visit PH2T3R.com

https://ph2t3r.com/

To learn more about joining The Order of Fire:

https://ph2t3r.com/theorderoffire/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/theorderoffire/

https://www.instagram.com/ph2t3r/

Jack Donovan and C.B. Robertson discuss Plato's dialogs concerning the Trial of Socrates and parallels to current events. We also attempt to place Socrates and some of the issues within the context of Solar Idealism.

Mentioned: Plato's Dialogs - Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito

C. B. Robertson is the author of The Hero and the Man, Holy Nihilism, Letter to Anwei and more. He writes for PH2T3R and his own blog, Caffeine and Philosophy.

https://caffeineandphilosophy.com/

https://www.instagram.com/caffeineandphilosophy

Jack Donovan is the author of The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, A More Complete Beast, and Fire in the Dark. His is the founder of The Order of Fire and the PH2T3R project.

https://www.jack-donovan.com/sowilo/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/starttheworld/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/ph2t3r

To find out more about the PH2T3R project, visit PH2T3R.com

https://ph2t3r.com/

To learn more about joining The Order of Fire:

https://ph2t3r.com/theorderoffire/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/theorderoffire/

https://www.instagram.com/ph2t3r/