What Did You Take Away From Your Reading of JMG's "The Kek Wars"?

David Trammel's picture

For those that find this thread months or years down the line, here is a recap of Greer's four part posting on Ecosophia, called "The Kek Wars".

You can find the series here:

Part One: https://www.ecosophia.net/the-kek-wars-part-one-aristocracy-and-its-discontents/

Part Two: https://www.ecosophia.net/the-kek-wars-part-two-in-the-shadow-of-the-cathedral/

Part Three: https://www.ecosophia.net/the-kek-wars-part-three-triumph-of-the-frog-god/

Part Four: https://www.ecosophia.net/the-kek-wars-part-four-what-moves-in-the-darkness/

In the series, Greer discusses how a disinfrancised minority of people, using the Internet discussion boards called "chans", and discovering "chaos magic" effected the 2016 presidental election that resulted in Donald Trump winning. He goes on to suggest that this guerrella undeground has tapped into a primordial archeatype of Change and discusses how this will effect American's future.

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My question is "What did you take away from reading the series?"

Has this changed your view of President Trump?

How do you think this period of Change will effect your personal Life and more broadly, the US and its Empire?

Did Greer's series of posts, open your eyes to something new about yourself or about the World in general?

Please share your insights...

Creator of Pepe the Frog gets trial date in case against Alex Jones

U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald in Los Angeles set a July 16, 2019, trial date for the case brought by Pepe’s creator, Matt Furie, against the Texas-based companies Infowars, LLC, and Free Speech Systems, LLC. Fitzgerald also set an April 22, 2019, deadline to complete settlement talks and referred both sides to a magistrate judge to hold discussions.

Furie sued Jones’ two companies in March, alleging copyright infringement and seeking unspecified damages. He also seeks a permanent injunction barring unauthorized use of the image by assorted factions of the racist “alt-right.”

Here is a poem I wrote today touching on some of the ideas in the CosDoc conversation,

Mortshoon, or the Ash Ghost Walkers

We never know until we touch it: fire.
Fire the outer force and inner urge
Are one; are two, are three gathered together
to sing, to pray, to speak, to flame inspire,
to feel the lunar call and tidal surge
at quill’s end: that fierce and burning feather
more moving than the keenest edge of sword.
For, where minds flow together in accord,
there the Spirit is: and so, the Word.

Logos is our home; reason our hearth.
We winter there in huddled hope and trust
With Nature’s bounteous gifts stacked in our garth.
Industriously garnered. Ash and dust,
cracked straw and dung the only product of
laborious efforts of our minds’ self-love.

But just beyond our doors, the furious winds
of stark unreason; all that’s whirling wild
beyond our puny grasp; life’s turns and trends
the footprints left by passing demigods.
We know ourselves to be the merest child
in want of guidance, mastery, and mild
correction of our ignorance. Against strong odds,
we trial our sheltered thoughts and cloistered dreams,
though all that is, is not at all that seems.

For fire, Light and Warmth, also Consumes;
and we, Consumers of Black Oil and Coal
must someday swear off Devils selling Pitch
and minor demons pitching sales and sex,
big NASCAR news, and monster trucking wrecks;
renounce and forcibly reject the rich,
sweet feelings ‘gendered by our “Progress Goal”
to breathe sweet air in lieu of ICE-fart fumes.

And we, Consumers all, inveterate,
like bankers grown too big and fat to fail,
are tense, intense, and squarely preterit:
so over, man! – flat, profitless, and stale.
Our coffin only wants one tiny nail,
or one of those four horsemen who ride pale.
And then, Game Over: Change pwn all your base.
Survivors know the Undead they must face:
Dead hand, mortgage; dead foot, carbon load.
Aye, there’s the rub that’s bound to hit the road.
Shackled, lives-long, to our Student Debt,
paying in blood and poverty and sweat
for lessons that we bought and failed to learn:
like, where there’s fire, there’s smoke. Their world will burn.

OK, you asked... :bigsmile: What did I take away from the Kek series?

I finally came to the conclusion that this was a synopsis or a "treatment" for a (pretty bad) novel that JMG has in mind. And readers' feedback will most likely determine how it turns out. Though I admit I was pretty much taken in with Part Three and the unintentional invocation of Kek and TSW. I know that moment: TSW!!!! But a God of chaos? .(waggling my hand).

I'm fairly conversant with Ancient Egyptians and Frog God/desses. And I was a little puzzled about the source material for Pepe/Kek/the chans. Was JMG surfing the Dark Web? Is the information accessible to Google?

Well, yes, it is available. Almost word for word...

https://pepethefrogfaith.wordpress.com/

With lots of pictures of Egyptian Frog Gods.

Now I am slightly familiar with Heqt because, some people have speculated about a relationship between Egyptian Heqt and Greek Hecate. Who is associated with the Greek Baubo, who sometimes manifests as a frog. And I am a devote of Hecate/Baubo. And I know just enough about Egyptian creation myths to get myself in trouble..

If you are not familiar with Terry Prachett's Discworld, check out the opening sequence for The Hogfather below.

https://youtu.be/9_UbDSlwAME

Eqyptian creation myths are just about as mystifying as Prachett, and I think there were maybe four main schools of thought on the subject. And Kek is a member of the Ogdoad of Khmunu (Hermopolis). And Ogdoad iconography is pretty close to Discworld. So picture those four elephants on the back of the turtle. They are without gender, but imagine they divide into male and female, and there are eight elephants now standing on the back of the turtle. In just such a fashion four "concepts" on the primordial mound of creation became four matched sets of frog and snake deities. So Kek the frog is the partner of Keket or Kauket the snake. And Kek is the last hour of darkness before sunrise and Kauket is the first hour of darkness after sunset. Kek is old and pretty small potatoes, just one eighth of the Ogdoad. Amun was also one eighth, and he did become a very big deal, but ye gads, Kek is a late bloomer! --And if these "losers" (JMG) invoked Kek, then Kauket is still part of the package, and I can't begin to tell you what that means, so don't ask me. Maybe I'll think of it tonight. At any rate, if Kek and the chans managed to knock Clinton off her pins, I give them props for luck.

http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/themestream/kek.html#.W2zO2ronZLN

AT ANY RATE... that's my take on Episode Three. Episode Four: that may be the novel he's planning, but I'm going to shrug and say "Balderdash." I'm not buying into it. The world's on fire from New Zealand to the Arctic Circle, and if there's something coming up behind us on the path, I think it's a flight of dragons.

David Trammel's picture

Off Topic, I love the Disc World movies, especially "Hogfather". Haven't read the books so I don't know how close the movies follow them.

David Trammel's picture

One of the things I took away from the series related to Greer's discussion of the use of Magic by those in power and those not in power:

"Magic is the politics of the excluded. It’s also, in an inversion of a kind typical in such situations, the politics of the excluders."

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For those who are not in power, magic becomes their last hope of accessing some:

"In the words of the great twentieth century mage Dion Fortune, magic is the art and science of causing changes in consciousness in accordance with will. If you are denied access to any other source of power, you can still exercise power over your own consciousness; what’s more, if you do that and get good at it, you’ll find that some of the techniques you use to shape your own thoughts and feelings will also shape the thoughts and feelings of others, with our without their consent or knowledge. Magic thus becomes the logical fallback option for those who are denied any other way of pursuing their goals or seeking redress for their grievances."

While for those who are in power, magic becomes a way to justify that access:

"The magic of the privileged exists to convince its practitioners that nothing can possibly be wrong with the world, that everything is as it should be, and that any remaining problems can be counted on to go away in good time once the right reforms get put into place and the right people get elected. It’s a tool that assists the comfortable to stay comfortable by excluding unwelcome realities."

For them both then, magic becomes:

"Here again, though, the magic of the privileged becomes more popular as the number of unwelcome realities to exclude goes up. That happens, in turn, when the number of people whose needs and grievances aren’t being addressed by the existing political order goes up. Thus a society in the face of certain kinds of crisis experiences a double upsurge in magic: among the excluded, as a way of changing things, and among the privileged, as a way of hiding from the need to change things."

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What I found personally interesting, was how little interest i had in exploring "chaos magic".

As background, as a young man of my late teens and early twenties, I did a lot of exploring of the occult and the underground that used it. I was helped in this safari by parents who had always supported me and encouarged me to expand my intellictual horizons AND as a high school senior living (that year) in small California farming town just north of Los Angeles, making the romantic aquaintance with a young woman my age, who was multi generation Wiccan named Mary Beth.

She had this old beat up Volkswagon Bettle and knew just about every little hole in the wall occult shop in Los Angeles. And her Aunt (also Wiccan), owned a beach front home, though the beach was 40 feet below you, down a long set of stairs. (The house was on a cliff.) Which meant you could get some great privacy, just the thing for teen lovers, lol.

Luckily I was never one of the truly oppressed in high school. I was skinny and a bit of a nerd, with glasses of course, but well liked and never felt the horrors of bullying. Magic and the Occult then became for me, not as a secret way to gain power over an oppressed situation, but more of a "martial art".

A line from and occult text that I can't remember the title once made this difference.

"A person who uses magic within a Christain framework makes you a "magician". A person who uses magic within a Pagan framework makes you a "witch". A person who doesn't care what the source is, but knows it works, is a "wizard".

There was more to the book, I can not remember, but the core of it could be summed up as; "Do you care how your car (or magic" works? If not then use the system within its rules and guidelines."

As Greer says in Part Two, if you take the serious time and actually study the Occult, and are open minded enough to go through the motions then you discover something that can really change your World View, that "This Stuff Works!"

"There’s a useful acronym in occult circles, TSW—the polite version of its meaning is “this stuff works”—and everyone who’s ever taught magic to novices is used to the inevitable TSW panic, the vertiginous moment at which the student finally grasps that there’s more to magic than make-believe, and usually has to be talked down from a state close to hysteria."

That view of Magic as a martial art, has stayed with me my entire Life. Exploring the teachings of the Occult, lead me to Shamanism, and a World view which accepts the expanded boundaries of the Universe, while at the same time not seeing the need to use my knowledge to gain personal power.

Or maybe I'm just mindful of my exposure to my Oklahoma backwoods relative that I would spend Summers with and their attitudes, sometimes Stupid is more easily dealt with by a good slap across the back of the head with a stick, lol.

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I guess what Greer's series did for me is make me aware that as a Shaman, and as a Green Wizard, I neither find myself Oppressed or Oppressor.

Nearly ten years of reading John Michael's blog posts, first on "The ArchDruid Report" and now on "Ecosopia" have made me aware of the injustices of our current society, and how little I can affect the grander scheme of things, but makes me wonderfully aware of how much control I have over......Myself.

I will seek to control those things that I can, and be mindful of the things I can't, and hopefully have the wisdom to know the difference.

LOL! I just realized I still have a mostly complete defense-against-the-kek-arts kit left over from another age. I just sent you a photo of me in my ritual head gear. I got the hat, I got the t-shirt, I got candle holders, and a musical frog instrument. Somewhere I should have a paper punch for making frog confeitti. I have a hillairously filthy book of frogs doing the nasty (may the followers of Pepe never be so blessed.) I got the soundtrack and the apprpropriate image.. I could use some froggy wine and some Harry Potter chocolates... I'll have to think about this...

https://youtu.be/J6XqjCsJNTo

https://youtu.be/N0VrHQ-cHUA

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Admin Added:

I know JMG can't help himself.  :D

Two features of the Changer myth seem particularly relevant at the moment. The first is pointed up skillfully in the stories. The beings who try to stop the Changer and keep the world the same just keep doing whatever they were doing when the Changer arrives....  Having refused change, they become unable to change, and keep on going through the motions of their failed plans forever. That’s exactly what Trump’s opponents have been doing since his candidacy hit its stride, and more particularly since his inauguration. “From now on your name is Protester,” says the Changer, and sticks a pussy hat on the person’s head and a placard in her hands…

Mind you, fifty years from now, there will doubtless still be people who get their moth-eaten pussy hats down from a box in the attic, and reminisce fondly about the good old days...

I dug my frog hat out of the box, put it on my head, took a selfie, and emailed it to David. So  I am ready to rewrite the passage:  "From now on your name is Witch," says the Changer, and sticks a pussy hat on the person's head and a crystal dildo in her hands..."  Because my frog hat is a pussy hat. and eighteen years later, I have remembered the Power and the Energy and the Possibility that went with it. (And I really do have a crystal goddess dildo.)

So allow me to tell you about the power of the pussy in myth and magic and how potentially it stands in oppostion to Pepe. I stole this long passage from the Internet  "Baubo:The Belly Goddess" by Katie Brown (Baubo BTW is a frog Goddess and thru her association with Hecate is related to Heqet, the Egyptian Goddess the chans mistakenly associated with Kek whom they mistakenly associated with Pepe.).

The Earth Mother, Demeter, had a beautiful daughter called Persephone who was out playing one day. Persephone came upon one particularly lovely bloom, and reached out her fingertips to cup its lovely face. Suddenly the ground began to shake and a giant zigzag ripped across the land. Up from deep within the earth charged Hades, the God of the Underworld. He stood tall and mighty in a black chariot driven by four horses the colour of ghost.


Hades seized Persephone into his chariot, her veils and sandals flying. Down, down, down into the earth he reined his horses. Persephone's screams became more and more faint as the rift in the earth healed over as though nothing had ever happened. Upon all the land came a silence, and a smell of crushed flowers. And the voice of the maiden crying out rang through the stones of the mountains, bubbled up in a watery cry from underneath the sea. Demeter heard the stones cry out. She heard the watery crying. And tearing her wreath from her immortal hair, and unfurling down from each shoulder her dark veils, she flew out over the land like a great bird, searching, calling for her daughter.
That night an old crone at the edge of a cave remarked to her sisters that she had heard three cries that day; one, a youthful voice crying out in terror; and another calling plaintively; and a third, that of a mother weeping.


Persephone was nowhere to be found, and so began Demeter's crazed and months-long search for her beloved child. Demeter raged, she wept, she screamed, she asked after, searched every land formation underneath, inside, and atop, begged mercy, begged death, but she could not find her heart-child.


So, she who had made everything grow in perpetuity, cursed all fertile fields of the world, screaming in her grief, "Die! Die! Die!" Because of Demeter's curse, no child could be born, no wheat could rise for bread, no flowers for feasts, no boughs for the dead. Everything lay withered and sucked at parched earth and dry breast.


Demeter herself no longer bathed, Her robes were mud drenched, her hair hung in dreadlocks. Even though the pain in her heart was staggering, she would not surrender. After many askings, pleadings, and episodes, all leading to nothing, she finally slumped down at the side of a well in a village where she was unknown. And as she leaned her aching body against the cool stone of the well, along came a woman, or rather a sort of woman. And this woman danced up to Demeter wiggling her hips in a way suggesting sexual intercourse, and shaking her breasts in her little dance. And when Demeter saw her, she could not help but smile just a little.


The dancing female was very magical indeed, for she had no head whatsoever, and her nipples were her eyes and her vulva was her mouth. It was through this lovely mouth that she began to regale Demeter with some nice juicy jokes. Demeter began to smile, and then chuckled, and then gave a full belly laugh. And together the two women laughed, the little belly Goddess Baubo and the powerful Mother Earth Goddess, Demeter.


And it was just this laughing that drew Demeter out of her depression and gave her the energy to continue her search for her daughter, which, with the help of Baubo, and the crone Hecate, and the sun Helios, was ultimately successful. Persephone was restored to her mother. The world, the land, and the bellies of women thrived again.

There is a powerful saying: Dice entre las piernas, "She speaks from between her legs." These little 'between-the-legs" stories are found all over the world. One of them is the story of Baubo, a Goddess from ancient Greece, the so-called "Goddess of obscenity." She has older names, such as Iambe, and it appears the Greeks borrowed her from far older cultures. There have been archetypal wild Goddesses of sacred sexuality and Life/Death/Life fertility since the beginning of memory. There is only one popular reference to Baubo in writings existent from ancient times, giving the direct impression that her cult was destroyed, and buried under the stampede of various conquests. I have a strong sense that somewhere, perhaps under all those sylvan hills and forest lakes in Europe and the East, there are temples to her, complete with artifacts, and bone icons.


Story and additional text by Clarissa Pinkola Estes - Women Who Run With the Wolves. Chapter 11 - Heat: Retrieving a Sacred Sexuality.

 

There is a similar story about the Egyptian Goddess Hathor, who is the daughter of Ra. Ra is an aging God who has lost interest in his Godship. Hathor dances for him, and at the conclusion of her dance, she raises her skirts and flashes him. There is a similar story about the Japanese Sun Goddess Amaterasu. And to loop back to Demeter:

The Rites of Eleusis, or the Eleusinian Mysteries, were the secret rituals of the mystery school of Eleusis and were observed regularly from c. 1600 BCE - 392 CE. Exactly what this mystic ritual was no one knows; but why the ancient Greeks participated in it can be understood by the testimonials of the initiated...The rituals were based on a symbolic reading of the story of Demeter and Persephone and provided initiates with a vision of the afterlife so powerful that it changed the way they saw the world and their place in it....The rituals were enacted twice a year. There were the Lesser Mysteries, which took place in the spring, and the Greater Mysteries which those who had been purified earlier took part in when September came. They walked the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis calling for the Kore and re-enacting Demeter's search for her lost daughter.

AND along the way, men dressed in women's clothing would flash the pilgrims just as Baubo flashed Demeter (but with a double surprise...)

Which brings me around to the ecstatic rites of The Rocky Horror Picture Show! The first time I went to a live Rocky Horror event, I recognized this mad version of the Eleusian Mysteries, and I am like, "What the Frack??? What is this and where did it come from????"

AND I think, potentially,the great belly laugh and these stories and images of Baubo and her sisters are toxic to Pepe. (Oh, and one more thing:  the Egyptians didn't care much about writing down the vowels, so when the chans went from LOL to KEK to the Egyptian frog god, they didn't notice that his name is also spelled KUK, which could be pronounced as kook or cuck. LOL.)

https://goo.gl/images/nHXnFN

https://goo.gl/images/HMaJAF

https://goo.gl/images/AwTqD1

https://goo.gl/images/84UAYW

I am much obliged to you for your detailed info on the Belly and female Frog Goddesses.

Everything you uncovered, so to speak, helps explain the unexpected (by me!) power of the demo with the pussycat hats and why some people cannot seem to let go of the fact that it happened but have to keep on and on, still worrying how to squash or reject or undo the impact it had. Apparently, the fear runs much deeper than male power bloc shock at the visual proof that they had not vaccinated the young against feminist ideas by mockery and scorn directed at older feminist ideals. They must be feeling most uneasy at the stirring of a pwnerful force like ancestral memories of the Eleusinian Mysteries and Egyptian blood magic.

See, the Main Male Media thought that they had successfully choked off these kinds of demonstrations of women’s unity in a common cause, many years ago. About the time of Reagan’s ascendency and the demise of the hated environmental movement. They were surprised and dismayed to learn that feminism as a political force was not dead and neither were all the feminists. They were unable to resist the juicy joy of a sexy meme spreading via uncontrolled channels, so first they tried to silence the participants by characterizing them as hideous old hags, sexually unappealing, who ought to shut up and go away. That used to work like a charm.

Alas! They tried it on, only to find that this lot of women are not ashamed of their aged genitals, but proud of what those aged genitals have done for fun and for hard f*cking labor. Giving birth, you know, is not a Sunday school picnic.

Can’t shame them into shutting up, what now!!?!! Next best thing is to mock unmercifully, doing their best to ensure that younger folks think of the marchers as funny old things, just hairy hippies, you know. SO-o-o over. This works much better. People are always ready and willing to diss their moms. Mother-in-law jokes are a perennial favorite. But they overdo it. Keep harping on about it. I get suspicious and take a harder look, pardon the pun.

The US govt. spends how much money and miles of cloth to equip millions of men with a folding cap (why?) that the men put on as ordered, and march around in it while derisively referring to it as a piece of female pudenda, and this is — what? Endearingly cute? Ha, ha, ha, those clever boys, what a bunch of cards!

On one occasion, in one parade, about 0.0001% of that number of older women put on a merely verbally symbolic hat that cost taxpayers not a pink cent, and this is too vulgar and embarrassing for words? Boy Scouts, avowedly clean in thought, word, and deed also scornfully name their hats after female genitalia and that is mildly humorous? Adult women evince pride in actually owning a set of such genitalia and that is side-splittingly ridiculous?

Naw, it just doesn’t wash. Laughter is like a needle: it can be used to suture gaping wounds or to shove under a captive’s fingernails for refined torture.

It can be used as an anesthetic to detach people from experiencing and validating deep and painful feelings. Here’s a guy in your unit who is caught on a barbed-wire fence out in No-Man’s-Land. He’s not dead yet, and enemy snipers are using him for target practice. You don’t dare go out to rescue him or you will be next. So you just watch. As he struggles and jerks and flops around screaming for help, he looks like Gumby being tossed the way a terrier shakes a rat. What do you and your men do? You laugh. It’s funny!

Not to him, of course. All a matter of perspective. Years go by. You attend a comedy revue put on by young people who were never in the trenches in their lives and who are bored stiff by your war stories. They do a skit in which a comic, fake-trapped in fake wire, makes amusing movements as he is fake-shot and swaps quips with the fake soldiers in the fake trenches. Still funny? Maybe, yes, maybe no. Depends on your perspective.

Laughter can be used as crack cocaine or decadent da-daism to airily dismiss the life experiences of whole generations. If you don’t want to feel what it costs women every day to be sexually harassed, by all means, laugh away. If you think world warring is so 20th century (yawn) and people should just get over it, feel free: laugh it all away.

Someone else comes along and uses their needle of ridicule to probe areas of your psyche you do not want brought to light: things you said and did that you are deeply ashamed of, things that are hateful, even criminal. Those people you probably want to kill. Not funny anymore.

Whether healing or hurting or shooting up, laughter is a tool of power. The wealthy oil establishment that constantly ridiculed Jimmy Carter succeeded in driving him out of office by merciless mockery. The same or different wealthy establishment today is failing to drive Trump out of office by the same tactic. They now resemble addicts, shooting up to feel good while failing in every way that counts to lead the nation in the direction that it must go.

Meanwhile, here’s a bunch of kek-sucking also-rans who accidentally discover there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in their porn-soaked philo-scopy† and they instantly conclude that they are the True Masters of the Universe? Based on what evidence of causality? Just becuz they so urgently wanted it to be so? Now there’s a fine bit of magical thinking for you. Aren’t these guys supposed to be logical? Logically speaking, given the premise that there are non-material currents and entities operating in the unseen world, it is equally plausible and far more likely that they merely tuned in on events that were going to happen anyway for other reasons, and then aligned themselves with a pre-set future like a little set of iron filings entrained to a large magnet. Minor prophet or C-list sibyl is the highest office they could aspire to. Or, possibly, the spirit they invoked had its own agenda and used them as frog’s-paws to achieve its own ends, implanting notions in the traditionally orthodox inspirational fashion. And these ideas they could not possibly entertain because it would interfere with their pouty-faced desire for power and agency in a world where the A-team had already kicked them to the curb with laughing ease? O-o-o-kay. As Elinor Dashwood doesn’t say to Robert Ferrars: “Elinor agreed to it all because she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.”

†(Yeah, love of looking, as opposed to doing)

As for kekkie pushback against the recent emergence of cultural pressure to cease the habit of enemizing everyone by calling them a nigger, wop, polack, girlie or c*nt, that too is suspect in my estimation. Sure, some people have seized on the language lever and used it as a crowbar to play ‘payback is hell’ against anyone who has power of any sort; but the original point was to pay enough attention to one’s public discourse to be sure one is not mouthing a pubic diss-curse. That is, to be polite to people who are different. Even (gasp!) women!

Contrary to JMG’s assertion, most people, finding themselves in a stifling or unrewarding environment, do not run screaming away with an irresistible urge to bad-mouth other groups. Only privileged, spoiled people do that. Most people want to BELONG first, last, and in-between. They willingly adapt themselves to the ruling class’s thumbscrews in order to survive, and relieve any pressure they feel by enforcing even worse restrictions on others lower down the power chain. In most people’s eyes, it is only a few scruffy malcontents (who are not very nice people anyway) who get their privy-stained knickers in a twist when they have to conform to get ahead.

Most people are happily conformist and demand conformity like other barnyard animals do. It is called pecking order. And if you land hard at the bottom of the power pole, you pick the damned cotton, preach the blessed gospel, and sing the raunchy blues, which eventually transforms culture from the bottom up. It takes at least three generations to accomplish each step of the transformation.

Beta males, being forced to take their first step down the power pole, scream the loudest at losing their privileged license to tonguelash. For them, conforming to other people’s expectations of niceness is THE sign of their fall from grace.

Alpha males exhibit warmth, generosity, and charisma towards lower classes, especially females, only shoving rough on the male alpha-primes who are good enough to challenge them for the top spot. But these kek-sucker, bottom-beta males exhibit all the classic characteristics of the inferiority complex: running down each other and stomping on everyone else. Whereas, the alpha-primes and upper betas tend to imitate the sweeter traits of the alpha, and thus get a little nookie on the sly from alpha and beta females who feel neglected by their alphas. And all females use grooming to get goodies from both male and female adults; and to give as a reward to obedient young.

Likewise, in other parts of the world, people know how to be polite. In Japan, people can freeze you plumb out of society with polite agreement, or protect the public from their own colds by wearing a mask on the subway. Even the most Pink of Perfumed Primos understand the value of appearance. They conduct themselves with civility; it is considered declassé to do otherwise: to be rude to lower classes is a clear sign of inferior rank. If a lower middle class lady spreads her hanky on her lap to catch crumbs at the WI tea, the merchant’s and the parson’s wives snicker at her. Lady Ludlow graciously spreads her own snowy cambric over her silken lap: making the newcomer feel at ease and shaming the snobs in the same go. She gets a double dose of power-over: proving and reinforcing her aristo status by condescending niceness.

But it is different in the US of A. It is chiefly rich, clueless, white patriarchal loser-class ‘Muricans who expect to be licked all over by obsequious toadies every time they loose off their own licentious tongues. And, as Zach and Thessli mentioned, their Clubhouse Rules often mean you have to lick up their hateful prejudices to be One of the Boys or the Queens-of-Means Girls. They want to dish it out and never *ever* have to take it. Poor misunderstood babbies! Obliged by culture to curb their potty mouth malice in public! To not use slurs about all those nasty, hairy *lower* people! And then they pout, go home and curl up into a sullen ball if the po-leece don’t ‘llow them to beat up on their wives or kick their cats for quickie relief of the Dicky Nixon domination-urge. That is beta behavior all over. And it does not conduce to success in any endeavour. These people need magic mainly to get their arses removed from shoving up into other people’s faces. Maybe then they can learn how to dance. Or converse. Or even (holy frog moley!) listen. And a little grooming might help.

I am much obliged to you for your detailed info on the Belly and female Frog Goddesses.

Everything you uncovered, so to speak, helps explain the unexpected (by me!) power of the demo with the pussycat hats and why some people cannot seem to let go of the fact that it happened but have to keep on and on, still worrying how to squash or reject or undo the impact it had. Apparently, the fear runs much deeper than male power bloc shock at the visual proof that they had not vaccinated the young against feminist ideas by mockery and scorn directed at older feminist ideals. They must be feeling most uneasy at the stirring of a powerful force like ancestral memories of the Eleusinian Mysteries and Egyptian blood magic.

I don't belong to any magical orders. I can't claim a magical lineage or formal eduction. But I am pretty well-read and have an abundance of imagination and a rowdy sense of humor. In The Power of Myth Joseph Campbell says that poets and artists have replace the shaman in our culture. And if you can grasp powerful images and charge them with poetic language, you can (sometimes) make magic happen.

This is the Rally for the Women's March from January, 2017, published by our local NPR station, WCBU.

http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/wcbu/file

About 1800 people turned out for the Rally. We met at the riverfront, which is a place of power in its own right. I'm way in the back somewhere, wearing my "Bene Gesserit Witch" t-shirt. (Upper right hand picture, just as the rally was getting started. Sitting on the edge of the flower bed. I had no idea!)  As you can see, there are young women and older women, young men and older men. On the far right, there's a mother holding a baby, there were young couples pushing strollers, and kids carrying signs and American flags. And fifty years from now, when that young woman pulls her "moth-eaten" pussy hat out of the box, this is the scene she will remember.

Some other pictures:

http://chronicleillinois.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Illinois-012517-...

http://chronicleillinois.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Illinois-012517-...

http://chronicleillinois.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Illinois-012517-...

David Trammel's picture

I haven't read any of the reddit or the chans threads, but I did follow the reporting on the Gamergate idiocy, and I believe that you are right, that women with a health sensuality and empowered by their sexual side would be a powerful counter the the juvenile manly manliness. Those guys definite seem to be the kind to say stuff just to offend and get a rise out of people for kicks.

David Trammel's picture

I'm at my keyboard right now editing your photo to put up, so you'll find it added to this post next time you visit Sophie.

I have to ask you though of what your opinions are concerning the regionalism of the archetypes Greer discusses? He made it a point that he didn't think that a Euro-centrist archetype like Wotan had any influence in the Americas, and instead thought a more local spirit was at play. The Changer (or Coyote) as many know it from North American Plains Indian myths, is something that is shared across the North American contient.

(I'm not sure if there is a similar spirit in South American myth.)

You are referencing both Mediterranean myth and Egyptian as your counter point, which I would bet Greer would argue don't have a lot of followers or influence here.

I might expect some power from ancestral African spirits, given the importation of black slaves, and New Orleans can certainly attest to that influence. I might lean towards some Wotan or Norse spill over since I've read that many White Nationalist have been adopting the Norse Gods as theirs, since it is more Aryan and "beat your shield with your sword" manly.

Do you feel that spirits have regions they are more powerful in and have many worshipers, or do you think they can exert power even in areas of few worshipers?

--

Footnote: I'll have to see what female spirits I can find in my books about North American Indian myth. I am only familiar with Grandmother Spider, who was said to have taught humans the ability to write, with the art of her web. She is among my Totem Spirits and one of the reasons I don't kill spiders.

LOL! Cahokia, dude!

I'm still reading Campbell, The Power of Myth, and last night he's telling me:

It's extremely interesting to read of the primitive, elementary cultures—how they transform the folk tales, the myths, all the time in terms of the circumstances. People move from an area, where, let's say, the vegetation is the main support, out into the plains. Most of our Plains Indians in the period of the horse-riding Indians had originally been of the Mississippian culture. They lived along the Mississippi in settled dwelling towns and agriculturally based villages.

And then they receive the horse from the Spaniards, which makes it possible to venture out into into the plains and handle the great hunt of the the buffalo herds. At this time, the mythology transforms from a vegetation mythology to a buffalo mythology. You can see the structure of the earlier vegetation mythologies underlying the mythologies of the Dakota Indians and the Pawnee Indians and the Kiowa, and so forth.

So this Animal Power from the Old World adapted quite nicely to the New World and did very well by its chosen people... And like I said a ways back, apples and orchids and roses have done very well for themselves, too.

Unfortunately The Power of Myth doesn't have an index, because earlier in the book Campbell says something like hunting-herding cultures have shaman and planting cultures have priests. And when the Navajo, who were hunters, moved in with Pueblo people, who were planters, their shaman became sacred clowns.

But back to Cahokia. For those of us who have been on GW for a while, this time last year David and I were getting ready for the After Oil panel at the Archon SF Convention in Collinsville, IL. And Cahokia is just up the road from Collinsville.

Cahokia was a city that, at its peak from A.D. 1050-1200, was larger than many European cities, including London. The city was spread out over six square miles (16 square kilometers) and encompassed at least 120 mounds and a population between 10,000 and 20,000 people. 

Located across the Mississippi River from modern-day St. Louis, it was the largest pre-Columbian city north of Mexico. The inhabitants of Cahokia did not use a writing system, and researchers today rely heavily on archaeology to interpret it. The name "Cahokia" is from an aboriginal people who lived in the area during the 17th century. 

https://www.livescience.com/22737-cahokia.html

When I'm coming downstate to Archon, I can see the St Louis Arch before we get to the Collinsville exit. Take a look at the pictures of Cahokia. I'm willing to bet there's a power sink between St. Louis, Cahokia and the Collinsville Convention Center, and a person could interesting magical stuff there if s/he had the insight and the knowledge.

Earlier in the week, David said, “I have to ask you though of what your opinions are concerning the regionalism of the archetypes Greer discusses? He made it a point that he didn't think that a Euro-centrist archetype like Wotan had any influence in the Americas, and instead thought a more local spirit was at play. The Changer (or Coyote) as many know it from North American Plains Indian myths, is something that is shared across the North American contient. “

And I gotta say really? I have forgotten most of what I knew (not that I ever knew much) about the Mound Builders, but I am pretty sure they are NOT the Salmon People of the Pacific Northwest, the pueblo people of the Southwest, or the Buffalo People of the Great Plains. Lokk at the map of the Mississipian and related Culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mississippian_cultures_HRoe_2010.jpg

We have not always treated these land spirits well, but we've lived with them, and they've lived with us, and we can be better neighbors. And, no, I don't think they are incapatible with the European Dieties. A Being I identify as the Greek Artemis has established herself in Central Peoria and does much good here. Like Hathor I've been under her hand since I was child.

Anyway! If we are going to speculate about local spirits, we should probably know something about their people and their territories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture

Oh, and just in case, I haven't been weird enough this afternoon, the Cherokee had stories of a race of Little People who lived the Appalachian Mountains. And their stories were similar to the stories of Little People in the British Isles. So how did that come about?

A map of the Appalachian Mountains clearly shows that they range on up through New York and New England into Canada. Even the Appalachian Trail runs some 2,200 miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mt. Katahdin, Maine. So technically, Appalachia extends all the way from north Alabama to Canada. In fact, these mountains are so old they date back to Pangea, when all of the continents were clustered together. This mountain range not only passes through Canada, but picks up again in the British Isles, passing through Ireland and Scotland and continuing into Scandinavia. A tell-tale mineral, serpentine, follows the complete chain to verify that it was once connected.

http://cumberlandvistas.blogspot.com/2012/10/just-where-is-appalachia.html

I personally think the Little People followed the serpentine. I won't speculate on when or how. But if they followed the serpentine into “the New World,” whatelse might have followed them?

Archaeologists explore a rural field in Kansas, and a lost city emerges

"Using freshly translated documents written by the Spanish conquistadors more than 400 years ago and an array of high-tech equipment, Blakeslee located what he believes to be the lost city of Etzanoa, home to perhaps 20,000 people between 1450 and 1700.

"They lived in thatched, beehive-shaped houses that ran for at least five miles along the bluffs and banks of the Walnut and Arkansas rivers. Blakeslee says the site is the second-largest ancient settlement in the country after Cahokia in Illinois."

"Do you feel that spirits have regions they are more powerful in and have many worshipers, or do you think they can exert power even in areas of few worshipers?"

Are you confused? I'm confused!

One of the best books in my library is

City Magick: Urban Rituals, Spells, and Shamanism by Christopher Penczak. He talks at length about working with devas. Over on Crystallinks,you'll find this description:
 
"A deva in the metaphysics refers to any of the spiritual forces or beings behind nature. According to Theosophists Charles Webster Leadbeater and Alice A. Bailey, devas represent a separate evolution to that of humanity. The concept of devas as nature-spirits derives from the writings of Theosophist Geoffrey Hodson. It is believed by Theosophists that there are numerous different types of devas with a population in the millions performing different functions on Earth to help the ecology function better. It is asserted they can be observed by those whose third eyes have been activated."
 
The page also says:

"In the Findhorn material, the term refers to archetypal spiritual intelligences behind species, in other words the group soul of a species.

"Some New Age sources use the term is used as a generic term to designate any being regarded as being composed of etheric matter--elementals, nature spirits (including the various types of nature spirits such as fairies, ondines, etc.)."

These devas are associate with places or species. And according to Penczak they can form heirarchi. es. So if you can picture your neighborhood, there might be devas for specific plants, for alley ways, for special spaces, and then there may be "overlighting" devas who organize larger spaces like zipcodes, let's say, or retail shopping centers or industrial areas, and then higher devas who organize a town and give it its unique character. And they are interested in humans and willing to work with us (or against us).

I think the lesser devas can be thought of as a kind of fairy like a dryad, perhaps, but I wouldn't confuse them with the Fair Folk, who have their own interests and agendas. Nor would I confuse them with Deities. I suppose that if devas work long enough with a particular population, they might be come Deities.  I think some plants and animals have long relationships with devas that can carry across continents and cultures. I say "Orchids have powerful mojo," because people will go to extravagent lengths to propagate and care for them. Same with roses and apples. Bananas! Bananas have completely lost the capacity to reproduce, but humans will devote themselves to serving their needs and extending their domains.

I don't have an affinity with Native American spirits or heroes. I've never particularly been called by one .Old World Gods and Heroes are very much part of Western Civilization and capable of forming relationships with us across time and distances. Many Pagans will tell you that a popular children's book was an introduction to to the Ancient Gods and Goddesses.

D'Aulaires' Greek Myths

I haven't a clue why Hathor picked me, or why I had the ability to recognize me, but I've belonged to her since I was a child. And I met her at the Illinois State Fair! Very first time I laid eyes on the Butter Cow.

And I am not sure whether worshippers make the Deity or the Deity makes the worshippers. When I walked away from Christianity, I was still a decade from realizing that Hathor was real and had been talking to me for most of my life. I did not immediately jump from God the Father to God the Mother. I couldn't make that intellectual transition. But I could still SEE it. And not just in the vital exploration of feminist theology. I saw it on the disco floor! I saw gay men living out these celebrations of the Goddess without any clear conciousness of what they were doing. I saw Jim Morrison and Michael Jackson embodying the archetype of the Dying and Resurrected God.

And The Rocky Horror Picture Show. OMGs! It 's a freaking mystery play! It starts in the daylight with a wedding, and then Brad and Janet get lost in the dark woods (the procession) and then "There's a light burning..." and they come into this MYSTERIOUS CELEBRATION where they meet Frank who is the incarnation of a Bitch Goddess. (And if you listen to the lyrics, they actually pray to Her: "Hot Patootie, bless my soul...") I was at work, listening to the CD, the first time I really heard it and I cracked up!  Frank has discovered the "secret to life itself", and created Rocky, who certainly looks like a Greek God. But the part that really blew my mind: bursts out of the freezer on his motorcycle... He comes in riding a hog, and Frank butchers him like a pig, and they eat him! MYTHIC!  And there's the baptism and invocation, "Don't dream it, be it!" And Frank does the dying God thing, and Brad and Janet return to the daylight world, transformed by the ritual.

Most of us have not been saturated in Native American myth and lore, and I don't think Greer's Changer is going to come naturally to us. And he may not think Wotan and the Wild Hunt don't have a grip on our imaginations any more, but I 've never seen Apocalypse Now, but I've heard "The Ride of the Valkeries" with a background of chopper blades.  https://youtu.be/ZkH5Ak4wAnY  Don't think Wotan isn't in our heads. Most of us just don't know his name.

 

David Trammel's picture

I misunderstood your choice of examples when I first read your post. Rereading it clarified your meaning. I agree with what you wrote about devas, but I know them as totem spirits.

As a explanation of personal history:

The second time I went to college, after four years in the US Army, I had a hard time deciding on a major. So I took alot of different courses. It being the early 1980s, I was under the old GI Bill and the government paid me go to school.

One of the teachers that I found really amazing was a young Archaeology professor. He was the kind of teacher who, in the middle of the lecture would veer off on a off topic subject and talk for minutes about it, until he would realize the time. He often would then say "Come by my home on Friday, and we'll keep talking about this, but now back to the lecture. Oh and bring your own beer, lol."

His focus was Western Hemisphere Archaeology, primarily pre-European arrival. He had this theory that fixed agriculture actually began as a way to grown oil plants, like sunflowers, as a way to harvest the oils you needed to make body paints. Body painting being an important social interaction in Central and South American Mayan and Inca cultures. So people learned to grow plants as a hobby, and then learned they could grow food.

You actually harvest more usable calories as a Hunter and Gatherer, than as a Farmer, so why people would make the switch was of hot discussion during that time.

About that same time I was leaving my learnings of European based Christian orientated magic studies of demons and angels, and investigating more North American Indian myth. I think "Dances With Wolves" had just came out. That myth recognizes what you call "devas" but associates them with animal spirits.

The two tarot card decks I use on a semi regular basis are Jamie Sams' and David Carson's  and their "Sacred Path" cards, which re-writes the Tarot with American Indian myth and their "Medicine Cards" which uses animal spirits as a place holder for forces influencing your life.

https://www.amazon.com/US-Games-Medicine-Cards-Book/dp/B006X0T250/

Also the art of Alicia Austin, which was making its way through the Sci-fi Convention Art Shows about then. Here is one of her prints I have on my wall.

 

A small gallery of her work is here:

http://www.aliciaaustin.com/frame_ArtForSale.html

In American Indian myth the devas form tribes that are often associate with animals and their habitat. That's the interactions I have with them.

---

"Most of us have not been saturated in Native American myth and lore, and I don't think Greer's Changer is going to come naturally to us. And he may not think Wotan and the Wild Hunt don't have a grip on our imaginations any more, but I 've never seen Apocalypse Now, but I've heard "The Ride of the Valkeries" with a background of chopper blades. Don't think Wotan isn't in our heads. Most of us just don't know his name."

This is the point I disagree with you.

While I think your interaction with Hathor is special in a very personal way,  where you don't think Americans are in touch with North American myth, I'm inclined to put it this way.

"Go watch a few John Wayne Films, Little Lady..."

While Wayne was a product of his generation, and a bit of a sexist in assuming men ruled women, his characterization of the Macho American Male, who rode his horse and wore a six gun on his hip, resonates through the American White Middle Class like tales of Thor and Odin resonated through Norse culture.

So to Clint Eastwood and many other actors of that time. Watch this clip from "The Outlaw Josse Wales"

Embedded in the cowboy myth were many of the same spirits and attitudes of the American Indian culture. I would say that for those of us, working class and facing pressures all around, the Changer is very much in our minds.

That Spirit might not be consciously recognized but the yearning for someone to spit in the eye of the Establishment is deep. You only have to look at how popular the actor who plays "Loki" in the Marvel Universe is, to see that America is aware of the power of that Spirit.

Again, why do you think almost half of the voting population of America voted for Trump?

I would add, don't forget that there were native American cultures here for almost 3000 years. That's alot of worship to build upon.

Let me add one more video:

 

Its true that much of European myth is "aware of" in American culture, but I think you over estimate its influence. We may toy with the idea of a Ragnarok, but the American spirit is one of the lone man against overwhelming odds.

That is the Changer.

John Wayne/Josey Wales are a facet of "The American Spirit" just like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, the Pilgrims, and Lady Liberty. Many folks would tell you they are the actual/spiritual descendants of the the Scots-Irish who settled in Appalachia.  The Surname Database even says:

Last name: Wales

Recorded as Wales, Wailes, Waleis, and Walis, this most interesting and unusual surname, of early medieval English origin, has a number of possible sources, each with its own history and derivation. Firstly, it may be a patronymic form of the pre 7th century Old German anbd Anglo-Saxon personal name "Walo" meaning foreigner. The cognate Anglo-Norman French terms "Waleis" and the Olde English "Wealh" also denoted a foreigner or more specifically a Celt. In various parts of Britain this term was used to describe variously Welshmen, Bretons, Strathclyde Britons, and Scotsmen.

Read more: http://www.surnamedb.com/surname/wales#ixzz5OHXq3FLM

John Wayne was born in 1907, almost two decades after the Oklahoma Land Rush and the closing of the American Frontier. He was of English, Ulster-Scots, and Irish ancestry. Peoplle were already nostalgic for the Mythic West. My grandmother actually met Buffalo Bill in an office where she worked in Chicago.

The Pilgrims have been just as important to our national story as the cowboy. And they were an urban people who came to America as part of a community. Turkey is the main course in our Thanksgiving celebration, not beef steak. And the Liberty Bell is enshrined in Philadelphia. Once again, William Penn and the Quakers were an urban people who came to Pennsylvania as a community. The Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, and many members of the congress were Free Masons. I was just reading something about the masonic symbols on the dollar bill: the pyramid, the eye, the triangles on the Seal.

As for

Its true that much of European myth is "aware of" in American culture, but I think you over estimate its influence. We may toy with the idea of a Ragnarok, but the American spirit is one of the lone man against overwhelming odds.

That is the Changer.

I have no idea how you got that from Episode Four of the Kek Thing.

I went back a week ago and started rereading Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth. He says there are universal myths and regional myths, but even across vaste differences, hunter myths will be more alike, and planter myths will be more alike. And I'll say that in hunter-gatherer societies there will be men's mysteries and women's mysteries. And the Changer in JMG's story sounds like a men's hunter story. Actually it sounds to me like a "pour-quois" story or a "Just So" story rather than a living myth.  It explains how the animals got to be the way they are. There's really no reason to think the Changer is going to come back and remake them to live in the world we have now.

I think I said--and if not, I'll repeat it. We can talk all we want about what we think the story MIGHT mean, but what I took away from that post: JMG is finished for the time being with his Lovecraft novels, and he's thinking about something with a Native American theme. And as he does with many of his books, he throws the idea in a blog post and lets readers chew it and digest it before he works on it. Frankly I got tired of his smug, misogynist snark a long time ago, and I think this Changer idea of his is ripe BS. And I don't want to chew it and digest it for him.  But if we wanna deep-six the Changer and continue talking about the power of myths, Ok. 

BTW when I went to look at the Medicine Cards and found this:

The Thirteen Original Clan Mothers: Your Sacred Path to Discovering the Gifts, Talents, and Abilities of the Feminine Through the Ancient Teachings of the Sisterhood

Might have to order it next week.

BTW, I requested a copy of God is Red from my local library. It's in and I'll pick it up next week. Tomorrow, however, is India Fest and I will be grooving to bhangra:

https://youtu.be/ki451bqf6pk