Wordspells to Rewyrd the World

Marching through the shadowlands to board the Mosaic Ark

The Old English pronunciation of ‘wyrd’, incidentally, is much closer to ‘word’ than it is to ‘weird’.

Donato Giancola

Six months ago I published probably the most important – or at any rate the longest – essay I’ve ever written, The Reenchantment of the World. Over the several weeks that were consumed in composing it, it felt as though I was in a fugue state, possessed by some spirit that would not let up its grip upon me until it had successfully pushed itself through my thoughts and writings out into the noosphere.

I haven’t returned to the subject since, partially because what’s done is done, partially because many other projects and events in the world have seized my attention over the intervening months, and partially because I’m just a little bit frightened of it.

Last week, however, I returned to the subject not once, but twice, because people wanted to discuss it with me.

First was Professor Rachel Fulton Brown, a medievalist with the University of Chicago’s Department of History. She came across my essay linking Mircea Eliade’s concept of the Eternal Return of mythic archetypes to the World War Two myth, and approached me over Telegram (H/T to

Hans G. Schantz

for putting us in touch) to ask if I’d be willing to drop by for an interview on her podcast Fencing Bear at Prayer, where she hosts both The Mosaic Ark and The Forge of Tolkien. Knowing that she’s a traditionalist Catholic, I warned her that some of my view might be, well, uh, kinda heretical ... was that okay? “Just don’t insult Mary,” she said, which is a perfectly acceptable condition as I would never.

As we were chatting, it occurred to me Rachel might find The Reenchantment of the World interesting, which she did: she and her co-host actually read the whole thing, and we spent much of the podcast discussing it, along with adjacent subjects such as Marshall McLuhan’s conception of advertising as a modern mythology.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a podcast host do more preparation in advance of an interview. Not only did they read (and take notes on) a 20,000-word essay, they watched the Disney John Carter movie, read A Princess of Mars, and prepared a slide show of Barsoom artwork to show their audience in lieu of disturbing them with my disquieting visage.

Joe Jusko

Frank E. Schoonover

Joe Jusko

Rachel even composed a brilliant monologue to introduce me to her audience.

I thought reading Burroughs was going a bit above and beyond – A Princess of Mars is great fun, of course, and I obviously highly recommend but, I don’t think it’s necessary to understand the Barsoom mythos to understand Postcards From Barsoom . Rachel respectfully disagreed, and tried to convince me that this is in fact essential, at levels that I myself might not be consciously aware of. Which, after all, is where myth does its best work.

You can find Prof. Brown here on Substack

Fencing Bear at Prayer

, although she isn’t yet very active on the platform, preferring to write at her traditional blogspot domain, Fencing Bear at Prayer, where she updates the world on her Dragon Common Room working group’s long-term project to write a poem that will re-enchant our world. Maybe if enough of you follow her here, you can motivate her to start porting some of her writing over to Substack. I suspect she’d gather quite an audience, given both the rare quality of her creative insights into modernity – we live in a world of light! – and her ability to turn a phrase.

What it feels like talking to Prof. Rachel Fulton Brown. Donato Giancola

All of which is to say that I had an absolutely fantastic time sailing on The Mosaic Ark. It was a lively, fascinating discussion, one in which I learned a lot. I think you’ll enjoy it, and strongly encourage you to give it a listen, or a watch, which option comes with a lot of very cool art.

As a coda, after publishing my jeremiad against the perfusion of academia with the feminine essence, Prof. Brown – a woman in academia, who one might expect to have been offended, but was not, we are after all talking about an academic who is friends with Milo and Vox Day, so I really don’t think she cares what people think – sent me this Lobstercide webcomic that she created all the way back in 2017 (she is not only a scholar and a poet), showing what happens when girls insert themselves into the games that boys play. Here’s a panel to whet your appetite:

It’s poignant, true, and funny. Go check it out.

The second discussion of The Reenchantment of the World was on

Dave

’s podcast here on Substack, Marching Through the Shadowlands.

Dave found me via the comment group on my Telegram channel, where he very quickly distinguished himself for his propensity both to make insightful remarks on an incredibly wide range of topics, and to share hilarious memes. He’s got an open and extremely active mind, as a result of which our conversation ranged over such a wide conceptual territory that I was feeling a bit dizzy by the end of it.

Thankfully, Dave prepared extensive podcast notes, complete with links. You’ll have to click through for the links, but thanks to his diligent note-taking I can report that our discussion covered: the wizard of woo and of web bot scrying,

clif high

; backpfeifengesicht and the importance of getting punched in the face; the Hajnal line; the Swedish invasion of Russia, the Hutterites; the Amana colony; America 3.0; building your own CPU from scratch; Stormy Waters’ recent interviews on private equity and political realignment; Chris Langan and the Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe; Bernardo Kastrup and the filter model of consciousness; Mark Stavish and egregores; the Codex Oera Linda; biogeochemist Vladimir Verndadsky’s concepts of the biosphere and noosphere; Terrence McKenna’s Timewave Zero model of novelty generation as the universe’s teleological purpose; Harold W. Percival’s book Thinking and Destiny; Valentinian gnosticism; L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth; Cixin Liu’s Three Body Problem;

Vox Day

’s mathematical killshot of the Neo-Darwinian synthesis; Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of morphic resonance; and Michael Levin’s work on the role of bioelectrical fields on biological structure formation.

Every single one of those is a deep and rewarding rabbit hole, the depths of each of which I have not begun to plumb myself. Which is to say that I found the conversation tremendously interesting and informative, and am convinced that you will, too.

Go listen to it.

Interview with John Carter, author of Postcards from Barsoom

And do not forget to subscribe to Marching Through the Shadowlands!

By the way, Dave has been noodling around the concept of Techno-Hutteritism as a strategy for reviving trad lifeways with cyberpunk characteristics, and is working to develop the concept at length for a guest postcard here on Barsoom. That will be ready when it’s ready, and promises to be extremely interesting; in the meantime, the concept reminds me of

Nelson R. Elliott

’s Techno-Canton, which you may enjoy reading about while waiting to find out exactly what Techno-Hutteritism entails:

The Techno-Canton - A Vision of a Free Future

What it feels like talking to Dave. Donato Giancola

As always, my gratitude to all of my supporters, both those of you who have been with me since the beginning, and those who have just joined. Your generous patronage gives me the time to have fascinating discussions such as these, and to share them with you.

I’m leaving the comments on open on this one, since the primary purpose is to promote my friends’ podcasts. If you would like to help promote them, please

on whichever digital walled garden you haunt.