nagaram

I have a Hugo blog I'm setting up to work on my own forgejo server flow instead of through Github Pages.

I hate how pictures work on Hugo so I was going to just host them on a separate thing and embed the images that way.

Now I'm over thinking it and considering to just run a Lemmy instance, post the markdown for the blog posts there along with the images. Then I have an image host and a place to let people complain about my shotty writing in one go.

Plus there's federation visibility as well.

So short questions

1. This a good idea?

2. Are there better options?

3. is it easy enough to set up a single user Lemmy/Piefed instance?

4. Lemmy or Piefed? Which is easier to host

Picking and choosing which practices to pull from is practically easy but can offer some moral reflections. Most of us will ultimately pull from what is most familiar to us reverting back to our pre-Atheist cultures. Ex-Christians will gravitate towards a Christian Aesthetic much as Ex-Bhuddists will gravitate towards a Bhuddist Aesthetic. However, there is nothing wrong with a Western raised person building their practice on an Eastern based Aesthetic and vice verse. When starting from an Atheist perspective, there are zero consequences metaphysically to picking a faith based on anything other than aesthetics or how well you simply “vibe” with the teachings and modern practice of that tradition.

Why Pick a Tradition

It makes things easier to grow and evolve from.

The point of a lot of Occult practice is to experiment with rituals, prayers, spells, talismans, etc until you find what ever makes you feel successful. That success feeling can be interpreted in basically any way you deem important whether you become more confident in yourself, your enemies succumb to sickness, or you’re simply having fun. So if you can find an established practice with books on theory, practice, and ethics that mostly fits your vibe and you think you can make do with it’s practices then by all means, take advantage of this established tradition.

My first tradition was an obsession with Goetia. I performed several rituals from the Lesser and Greater keys of Solomon translated by Aliester Crowley. I did them poorly by any measure to be sure. I didn’t respect them as much as I do now. Not because I believe in it’s claims more, but because I have since fully embraced the context of the text I used by learning it’s history, the history of Crowley, and the history of Occultism.

I want to clarify that I have “embraced the context”. I do not know it’s full history or it’s translator, or especially of the occuly. I have simply put in the effort to start learning how we got to here. I will never finish learning how we got to here, but I will probably become satisfied with what I know enough to deviate. I have deviated much from what I originally performed half assed while following dorm room safety precations. You must change a good chunk of most rituals to perform them in a dorm by the way.

What ever tradition you pick, make sure you have either a good library or a good teacher to help you learn fundamentals and context of the “hows” and “whys”.

Learning hows will let you learn how to go about ritual preparations in hopefully ways that respect the world from which you are obtaining those materials. Take a foraging class if you do not want to trust a spiritual leader or author on the subject and maybe want a more conservationist approach. That is where I learned much of my herbalism and localized it to me. To no one’s surprising, the ritual herbalism of 16th century European Alchemists mean very little to a man in Kentucky.

Whys are important in that they explain the metaphysical reasons and symbolism of what you’re doing. Learning that Herb X is associate to Moon Cycle Y and is most magically significant on Date Z because of the planetary alignment is most of the rituals. The point above the stated claim of the magick itself will always be to be mindful of this world and the world beyond. Whether that is the world beyond earth or the world beyond this material plane matters little to the human psyche: both are just as incomprehensible yet awe inspiring.

Nearly all religious and spiritual traditions recognize the fundamental fact that the world is bigger than us in some way. This is the most important part of starting your own path to whatever you are seeking. Ideally you will deviate to what you think is the most awe inspiring, but if you are happy with a pre made spiritual world view, then enjoy it, but don’t let it become dogma. Always question a how or why if it makes you uncomfortable or disagrees with your ethics.

Ethics of a Tradition

There does come a problem with approaching any traditions ideas as an atheist in that they are all equally real.

If you have no theological basis and especially if you reject the metaphysical claims of a universal truth be it a god’s will or some gnostic panpsychist as in the case of Philip Goff, then you cannot judge any tradition on legitimacy except through your ethics alone.

If you do not have your own ethical framework set in stone, worry not, that is the mostly like scenario. If you do, feel free to ignore me or argue with me in an email that I will actually read.

For me there are two motives for which I judge a tradition before considering incorporating it into my own practice.

First, is it a money grab?

To me there is very little I detest more than someone writing slop that sounds spiritual and “wooey” simply to prey on the naive lust for learning for people seeking an alternative to the hegemonic traditions. These are books written to sell “another way” to pent up Suburban Christian Moms so that they become Crystal witches who have been convinced that simply buying pretty rocks and organizing them within your home fixes most problems. New Problem? New Rock! Problem bigger? Bigger Rock! Until you have waisted untold funds on rocks that do nothing and yet you are no more connected to whatever this is than you were your christian church.

My condemnation is one in hindsight. I have frequented many rock shops and I love the rock shows that pop up in my town every year. You get to meet many people who are genuinely intuned with a psiritual practice and are simply trying to support themselves doing what they know and that’s vague hedge wtichary. It is most likely what you will encounter first when trying to connect locally. For that I don’t mind patronizing them as I do enjoy incense and candles as a ritual sacrifice. And there are certainly worse sins in a new-age occultists hunt for enlightenment.

If you have rejected the temptations of occult “retail therapy” consider the problem of Occult Self Help Nonsense. You see, the problem of Occultism is that it has been rejected knowledge for the last 300 years. Even a healthy resurgance in the 1890’s and again in the 1960’s and once more in the here and now of the 21st century, has yet to establish any authority on the matter. There is no Jstor Magazine publishing only the peer reviewed magickal texts. There is no Temple that has canonized any text. It is simply your judgement that determines if a text is worthy. This is why I rejected Mindfulness as a practice for years after learning about it because it sounded like some woo that I had to stock far to many books on the shelf at Barnes and Nobles with. Serious, how can I not look at mindfulness as any less of a problematic scam when there’s several dozen authors and a hundred books offering “the one true way to mindfulness guaranteed in 100 days!” for only $36 hard back edition.

That phenomenon is such a problem within Alternative Thought spaces that I fell for this while I was mad about mindfulness (a real and useful thing I practice now), I bought “The Kyballion” by the Three Initiates which I learned only this year, two months into 2026, was published by a slop self help and sales strategy publishing magnate in 1890. Thank you my friend Reverend Erik at Arnemancy for reminding me I had that book in a trunk in my closet and also telling me I’m a sucker.

I’m a little mad, but it’s a lesson learned and now my ethics in tradition hunting has become more defined. I can tell some of the important tells between a genuine piece of Occult Scholarship and slop made to look like it’s real occult knowledge and ideas just to sell me a book on Amazon.

Personally, AI has made this much easier for me to tell, but has also muddied the landscape for those less attuned to good occult authors and what an AI generated book cover looks like. I need to make a better recourse, but I have my own Mastodon thread of good books to get started here but Reverend Erik’s I think is better here and their reading list for Hermetecism is really good so far here, my friend Cat I also recommend Dr. Justin Sledge’s introduction to Western Esotericism for a video based broader introduction here

These are folks I have interacted with enough to trust their judgement who offer a large library of further vetted works. If you are not experienced with vetting a source as real, please stay within either your chosen traditions canon or find someone you trust and follow their reading lists. And do not feel bad if you fall for a Kyballion. I was finishing up my degree in History and knew better about source vetting when I bought mine. I have several other duds that came from drunken nights on Abebooks or lazy sunday shopping sessions at my local book reseller. Truthfully, the book that got me into Alchemy is little more than a Coffee Table book I bought at head shop near my college. Worthless at this stage, but invaluable for at least getting me into things.

If you’re scared of buying books, worry not there are plenty of online libraries like The Hermetic Library here with free ebooks and online versions of books, as well as a growing number of personal blogs such as Cat’s blog on Midwestern Paganism and Witchcraft here and a more dubious recommendation for David Maciver at “Overthinking Everything” who’s like me in that he’s a tech guy who’s into a secular form of magic here (Warning He uses Substack and AI generated Thumbnails if your ethics disagrees with those)

Second is Exclusion

When I first started to question this line of ethics, I was comparing Neo-Pagans with Starseeds (a hindsight disgusting comparison) because I couldn’t tell why I wanted to view the Pagans as more legitimate than the Starseeds.

To catch you up, Pagans are Pagans. Very loose anti-authority religion that focuses on worshiping what feels right to them. Truly an ideal that I strive for and a definition I cannot take for myself as it’s from my friend Ferret on Mastodon. You are certainly aware of Pagans if you’re interested in a post like mine.

Starseeds are a different matter. Starseeds believe they are descendants of Ancient Alien Races and have powers that make them superior to other humans and even other breeds of Starseed. They believe they are in communication with those Alien Races through mental and DNA “downloads” they receive from their still space fairing siblings. On a quick read, this isn’t really any more harmful that most New Age and Occult thought, but just read it again and think about other people who argued they were members of a, say, “master race.” Maybe it would help to learn that the founder of “Star People” a Brad Steiger was following the trend of erasing native people’s history by giving credence to Aliens with little to no evidence because of a common white supremecist zeitgeist that brown people can’t build Pyramids! Youtuber FunkyFrogBait did a really good rundown on them and why they suck here but the crux is that they want to be better than people. They want to be above another and go so far as to claim exclusion to their “tradition”.

Lots of traditions exist in a lot of aesthetics that are racist or bigoted in their teachings. There are traditions following Crowley that are overtly Neo-Nazi in credence. There are Satanic sects that are Transphobic. Hell, there are atheists who claim reason and then cite quacks because “feelings aren’t real” (see: Anything Interesting ).

I have put my line down fairly firmly that anything to do with a modern conception of bigotry has no place in my life. If I learn it, it is just so I can recognize when that practice is happening before me and I can call it out.

This does start to call into question ancient practices though. Lots of early Western Religious systems were Sexist like Plato’s system or they were Race/Ethniically Exclusionairy like early Judaism. And nearly none of them had a real conception of Gender and Sexual Minority identities just because that wasn’t a big deal in their time.

It is my opinion, that we can take from these ancient cultures and add or remove whatever we deem worthy to fit our own ethics because they are so removed from our modern zeitgeist that they did not have the chance to be tested against modern morals by their founding members. These are ideas that belonged to a specific Historical and anthropological time and that time is long gone. No one has any claim to them or authority on them any longer. You are no longer tied to the full belief systems of the founders of those cults.

You can certainly denounce certain ideas that have made it through the ages and into the minds of bigots, but to deny a whole system that humans have deemed useful for so long as to keep around for thousands of years feels wasteful. And ones that were forgotten for all this time like the Nag Hammadi Corpus or the Greek Magical Papayri offer an interesting alternative history option. What if the Gnostics had become the major claimants of Christianity? What if the Greek Magical Papyri had been turned to instead of a Montheistic god? What if Bhuddism had had a written tradition earlier and could travel further? Imagine! A Roman Centurian practicing Bhuddist meditation! How would these have changed if allowed to live on? How can you rehabilitate a forgotten path?

Truly, it is up to you to determine how much time has past and how much relative harm has been done in the interum to judge a practice as worthy for yourself. My line is complicated. I think yours should be too. You should put thought into where you draw the line and why. Re-evaluate often. Always remain open to new ideas in case you no longer want to be who you are.

Conclusion

Picking your way through the infinite library of spiritual thought and practice to build your own world view should be a meditation in itself. Why are you drawn to the texts of Ancient Author X instead of Y? Why don’t you read Modern Author A instead of B? IT can be as simple as liking their Aesthetics be it the world view aligns with your ethics, or their poetry is just magnumanius. It is ultimately up to you, but be warry of modern authors who seek to take advantage of people wanting to learn a world view alien to them, and one trying to tell you Aliens are more real than ancient brown people.

Through practice you will become better at identifying good sources from bad sources. You will fail from time to time, but learning from that failure is part of the journey you’re trying to lead. Hell, this blog itself may become a bad source one day. There are no guarantees that I will remain with the ethics I have. Neither is it guaranteed that anyone I have mentioned in my blog posts will stay a good authority in these matters. People do change. Interpretations of the dead do change. And one day all words and ideas will leave their original context and then the meaning in them is only meaning ascribed by the reader.

You must always change and grow and better. It is the only way down this path.

Someone is interested in your practice.

What books/lectures/philosophies do you tell them to start with?

I'm fairly well rounded because I'm not committed to a single practice.

My interest has been mostly academic so my 4 books to start with would be

"Western Esotericism: a guide for the perplexed" by Wouter Hanegraff

"The Alchemists Handbook" by Frater Albertus

"Three Books of Occult Philosophy" by Henry Cornelius Agrippa

"The Three Magical Books of Solomon: The Greater and Lesser Keys & The Testament of Solomon" by Aleister Crowley, S. L. MacGregor Mather's, F. C. Conybear

The guide for the perplexed, Handbook, and Occult philosophy I think give a good intro to the historical context of magick and the occult while the next two give good modern context and peak Renaissance context respectively.

The idea is to have a well rounded understanding of what magick even is as a concept and then offering a grimoire (The Books of Solomon) as a place to start exploring deeper.

I think a past me on Tumblr would be getting lambasted for even suggesting someone should try Goetia after no practice and some contextual readings, but that's where I started. I don't think I believe in magick and this is all just a fun aesthetic, but I have performed several rituals from the Goetia for fun. It really encapsulated the stereotypical modern occult experience and truly sent me down the path I'm on now (Imteresting only because my first summon was Zagan and I asked for wisdom).

Where would you tell someone to start?

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/34400428

“What the fuck has that got to do with ANYTHING INTERESTING?” -Richard Dawkins

I was listening to Alex O’Conner’s “Within Reason” Podcast while I completed a ten hour drive last week. A great Podcast to listen to if you’re interested in casual philosophy, religion, and okay science (I’ve been a fan for a long time Alex but I’m not convinced you nor I are qualified to really speak on “science”).

I let it play through the one’s I queued up because I wanted to listen to Justin Sledge from Esoterica talk about YWHW and then the Demiurge, then it played an older episode with Richard Dawkins. Honestly, an interesting podcast just from a history of atheism perspective. Dickhead Dawkins is an important figure in the atheist movement and has contributed greatly to atheist discourse and, regrettably, memes.

I’m generally not interested in the mind of a man who starts off a discussion equating “religion” to “wokeism” because “wokeism” isn’t a word used by someone wanting to have a good faith discussion about something they don’t like or don’t understand, but that realization made me want to know more about him because I think he is the quintessential disenchanted man.

##Enchanted versus Disenchanted world views

I have been reading “Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed” by Wouter Hanegraaff to sort of give me a better framework for interpreting occultism or “Western Esoterica” as is apparently the more correct idea. And one of the frameworks that really sings to me is the idea of the Enchanted World. In short, through most all of human history, religion, philosophy, and science have been very powerfully intertwined. For the most part this was due to necessity. We don’t have enough answers in any one “field” to really constitute it being a separate field. So, we keep them combined and inseparable for millennia.

To an enchanted person, they will always see the connection between this material world, their soul, and the great Absolute (whatever that is be it god/the Goddess/Flying Spaghetti Monster) and this makes everything feel important and connected. There is beauty in the smallest parts of life because that is the goddess at work. There are lessons in mundane emotions because you are one with the universe so no emotion is too big. It’s the world of whimsy and love that truly I think I want to suspend my disbelief and live in.

Yet there is a foil, the disenchanted man doesn’t see this deep connection with everything and only sees what is completely rational. If there isn’t a scientific field studying it, then it’s Not anything interesting and probably needs to go away.

Here’s a quick Wikipedia blurb on this

The history of the ideas is pretty interesting too. Hanegraaf believes this world view is new and is what allowed science to take off in the 1600’s. By separating the Natural Sciences from the questions of the soul and god, scientists were able to exist parallel too and mostly independent of gods and the oppressive church. No longer do we have to kill a man for making a scientific discovery that, because it proves old ideas wrong, is a heresy. Now you are simply learning the exact mechanisms through which god made things how they are! You will no longer be burned for thinking humans are made up of tiny humans because you don’t understand atoms!

Then as science advanced, we started to see people like Dawkins appear who have no attachment to the metaphysical realms of religion at all. You can now live your life happy with all the answers of science and psychology to make yourself feel better. No longer do you need the rituals of a god or your own musings to answer any tough questions. At the very least you can get some ideas on what to think or, realistically, enough evidence to gaslight people on your opinion as truth instead of real research.

Anything Interesting

Truly, that was the story that triggered this in me. Alex O’connor has told the story a few times now on his Podcast but the most recent telling is what triggered this whole thought bubble. Its an interview with Emily Gureshi-Hurst an Atheist theologian and its such a good Richard Dawkins quote because it exemplifies my frustration with him and the new atheist movement that I’ve had the entire time (16 years!) I have been an atheist. The story goes

“I had this conversation with Richard Dawkins in a car Park once, after I told him on this podcast that I didn’t think his treatment of Thomas Aquinas five ways was particularly comprehensive being all of two pages. And he asked me at this event, like, well, what would you have had me do? And I said, well, you know, you treated all kinds of causation as if they’re one thing. And he said, well, do you think there are different kinds of causation? I said, yeah, I think so. And he asked me to explain. So as best I could in about 30 seconds, tried to explain hierarchical and like linear causation, to which he interrupted the last sentence of my little speech by saying, I remember the exact words, what the fuck has that got to do with anything interesting? Thank God I’m not a theologian.” -Alex O’Connor

What a boring take. It’s just not interesting to talk about theology says THE FOREMOST PROMINENT FIGURE IN THE RELIGIOUS DEBATE SCENE!

I can’t imagine dedicating such a large portion of my life and free time to “debating” people on an Idea that I fundamentally don’t find interesting. His entire motivation was wanting to be the smartest person in the room. He only argued against the existence of god from strictly his evolutionary biology background. He wanted the spectacle of standing up to a christian orthodoxy. He helped set the standard that anyone can easily clown on even the best trained apologeticicist by simply, not reading their stupid book.

And that’s such a boring way to engage with religion and then the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I think this is a very useful way to remove one’s self from a debate with a theist. It is such a debilitating move to simply ask why I should consider the bible/quran/torah is truth. Why should I even consider it as a history book? At best in can be another “The Illiad” but we don’t take that as gospel. Dropping a holy text to the level of a Homeric Epic I think is fair but sweeps the feet of any arguments for god they have and then you can bully them for not having faith in their god if they have to use outside evidence for their claims. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

There is a very toxic sub current to this mindset though. This virulent search for truth in a “fuck your feelings” mindset has always lead to harassment of anyone deemed outside of a simple understanding of “basic biology”. Nu-Athiests have always been bigots because it “biologically doesn’t make sense to be gay” or “you can’t change your biological gender” and I’ve always thought they were annoying.

Imagine wanting to understand the world and those who inhabit it, but you completely reject the concept of “feelings” because they “aren’t real.”

Feelings, my friends, are real. They are how we experience the world and our place within it.

Feelings as a basis for the Enchanted World

Feelings, psychological responses, brain chemistry, neurological rewiring, etc, etc. is the enchanted world. Allowing your emotions to be felt and your world view to be open to interpretation. To write symbolic poetry in your mind to put into words the feelings you have about this material plane. That is where the enchanted world of the divine exists.

I really do think that is the cross roads for religion and spiritualism. I personally believe that’s where it stops, the mind.

All magick exists in that it is simply an expression of our intentions. It is a psychological trick to make us be the change we want to see happen. You casting a spell is you telling your subconcious to get into gear working towards that goal.

See my blog post here and also here for more.

And I know what that means for that whole shtick about the bible. It means we have to acknowledge people really do have strong feelings about the bible and that there is something more than pure facts and logic that is needed when engaging on those topics. It means there is some similar line between “wokeism” and “religion” but that that isn’t inherently evidence against it but a necessity for nuance in such discussions.

I am saying that, while useful for “winning” debates, Dawkins disenchantment is not conducive to a productive conversation.

Feelings are the driving force of humanity. At the core of all human action there is an emotion we are reacting too and it is our feelings we are trusting to guide those feelings. Even if we have a feeling to trust “rationalism” above emotions, it is still some inherent emotion that is causing such an attachment.

Conclusion

There are things in this world we have yet to understand and we may never understand. I think we have done the world a disservice in academia by ignoring the emotional angle for things in Dawkins time and we’re still seeing the repercussions of “Toxic Rationalism” in thought. Modern scholars are doing much better considering this and I think the increase in intersectionality has been a massive blessing to the Liberal Arts and even the Sciences.

It’s unfortunate that this old problem has been solved, but the conservative old guard has turned this Academic problem into a Political one. People like Dawkins who are wrong and no longer contributing to the discussions in a good faith manner end up as fuel for the censorship of good scholarship under our new authoritarian regimes.

Dawkins first made the claim that something simply wasn’t interesting, which is his right to not be interested, but then he added to an ideology that hurts people. That second sin is much much harder to forgive.

“What the fuck has that got to do with ANYTHING INTERESTING?” -Richard Dawkins

I was listening to Alex O’Conner’s “Within Reason” Podcast while I completed a ten hour drive last week. A great Podcast to listen to if you’re interested in casual philosophy, religion, and okay science (I’ve been a fan for a long time Alex but I’m not convinced you nor I are qualified to really speak on “science”).

I let it play through the one’s I queued up because I wanted to listen to Justin Sledge from Esoterica talk about YWHW and then the Demiurge, then it played an older episode with Richard Dawkins. Honestly, an interesting podcast just from a history of atheism perspective. Dickhead Dawkins is an important figure in the atheist movement and has contributed greatly to atheist discourse and, regrettably, memes.

I’m generally not interested in the mind of a man who starts off a discussion equating “religion” to “wokeism” because “wokeism” isn’t a word used by someone wanting to have a good faith discussion about something they don’t like or don’t understand, but that realization made me want to know more about him because I think he is the quintessential disenchanted man.

##Enchanted versus Disenchanted world views

I have been reading “Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed” by Wouter Hanegraaff to sort of give me a better framework for interpreting occultism or “Western Esoterica” as is apparently the more correct idea. And one of the frameworks that really sings to me is the idea of the Enchanted World. In short, through most all of human history, religion, philosophy, and science have been very powerfully intertwined. For the most part this was due to necessity. We don’t have enough answers in any one “field” to really constitute it being a separate field. So, we keep them combined and inseparable for millennia.

To an enchanted person, they will always see the connection between this material world, their soul, and the great Absolute (whatever that is be it god/the Goddess/Flying Spaghetti Monster) and this makes everything feel important and connected. There is beauty in the smallest parts of life because that is the goddess at work. There are lessons in mundane emotions because you are one with the universe so no emotion is too big. It’s the world of whimsy and love that truly I think I want to suspend my disbelief and live in.

Yet there is a foil, the disenchanted man doesn’t see this deep connection with everything and only sees what is completely rational. If there isn’t a scientific field studying it, then it’s Not anything interesting and probably needs to go away.

Here’s a quick Wikipedia blurb on this

The history of the ideas is pretty interesting too. Hanegraaf believes this world view is new and is what allowed science to take off in the 1600’s. By separating the Natural Sciences from the questions of the soul and god, scientists were able to exist parallel too and mostly independent of gods and the oppressive church. No longer do we have to kill a man for making a scientific discovery that, because it proves old ideas wrong, is a heresy. Now you are simply learning the exact mechanisms through which god made things how they are! You will no longer be burned for thinking humans are made up of tiny humans because you don’t understand atoms!

Then as science advanced, we started to see people like Dawkins appear who have no attachment to the metaphysical realms of religion at all. You can now live your life happy with all the answers of science and psychology to make yourself feel better. No longer do you need the rituals of a god or your own musings to answer any tough questions. At the very least you can get some ideas on what to think or, realistically, enough evidence to gaslight people on your opinion as truth instead of real research.

Anything Interesting

Truly, that was the story that triggered this in me. Alex O’connor has told the story a few times now on his Podcast but the most recent telling is what triggered this whole thought bubble. Its an interview with Emily Gureshi-Hurst an Atheist theologian and its such a good Richard Dawkins quote because it exemplifies my frustration with him and the new atheist movement that I’ve had the entire time (16 years!) I have been an atheist. The story goes

“I had this conversation with Richard Dawkins in a car Park once, after I told him on this podcast that I didn’t think his treatment of Thomas Aquinas five ways was particularly comprehensive being all of two pages. And he asked me at this event, like, well, what would you have had me do? And I said, well, you know, you treated all kinds of causation as if they’re one thing. And he said, well, do you think there are different kinds of causation? I said, yeah, I think so. And he asked me to explain. So as best I could in about 30 seconds, tried to explain hierarchical and like linear causation, to which he interrupted the last sentence of my little speech by saying, I remember the exact words, what the fuck has that got to do with anything interesting? Thank God I’m not a theologian.” -Alex O’Connor

What a boring take. It’s just not interesting to talk about theology says THE FOREMOST PROMINENT FIGURE IN THE RELIGIOUS DEBATE SCENE!

I can’t imagine dedicating such a large portion of my life and free time to “debating” people on an Idea that I fundamentally don’t find interesting. His entire motivation was wanting to be the smartest person in the room. He only argued against the existence of god from strictly his evolutionary biology background. He wanted the spectacle of standing up to a christian orthodoxy. He helped set the standard that anyone can easily clown on even the best trained apologeticicist by simply, not reading their stupid book.

And that’s such a boring way to engage with religion and then the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I think this is a very useful way to remove one’s self from a debate with a theist. It is such a debilitating move to simply ask why I should consider the bible/quran/torah is truth. Why should I even consider it as a history book? At best in can be another “The Illiad” but we don’t take that as gospel. Dropping a holy text to the level of a Homeric Epic I think is fair but sweeps the feet of any arguments for god they have and then you can bully them for not having faith in their god if they have to use outside evidence for their claims. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

There is a very toxic sub current to this mindset though. This virulent search for truth in a “fuck your feelings” mindset has always lead to harassment of anyone deemed outside of a simple understanding of “basic biology”. Nu-Athiests have always been bigots because it “biologically doesn’t make sense to be gay” or “you can’t change your biological gender” and I’ve always thought they were annoying.

Imagine wanting to understand the world and those who inhabit it, but you completely reject the concept of “feelings” because they “aren’t real.”

Feelings, my friends, are real. They are how we experience the world and our place within it.

Feelings as a basis for the Enchanted World

Feelings, psychological responses, brain chemistry, neurological rewiring, etc, etc. is the enchanted world. Allowing your emotions to be felt and your world view to be open to interpretation. To write symbolic poetry in your mind to put into words the feelings you have about this material plane. That is where the enchanted world of the divine exists.

I really do think that is the cross roads for religion and spiritualism. I personally believe that’s where it stops, the mind.

All magick exists in that it is simply an expression of our intentions. It is a psychological trick to make us be the change we want to see happen. You casting a spell is you telling your subconcious to get into gear working towards that goal.

See my blog post here and also here for more.

And I know what that means for that whole shtick about the bible. It means we have to acknowledge people really do have strong feelings about the bible and that there is something more than pure facts and logic that is needed when engaging on those topics. It means there is some similar line between “wokeism” and “religion” but that that isn’t inherently evidence against it but a necessity for nuance in such discussions.

I am saying that, while useful for “winning” debates, Dawkins disenchantment is not conducive to a productive conversation.

Feelings are the driving force of humanity. At the core of all human action there is an emotion we are reacting too and it is our feelings we are trusting to guide those feelings. Even if we have a feeling to trust “rationalism” above emotions, it is still some inherent emotion that is causing such an attachment.

Conclusion

There are things in this world we have yet to understand and we may never understand. I think we have done the world a disservice in academia by ignoring the emotional angle for things in Dawkins time and we’re still seeing the repercussions of “Toxic Rationalism” in thought. Modern scholars are doing much better considering this and I think the increase in intersectionality has been a massive blessing to the Liberal Arts and even the Sciences.

It’s unfortunate that this old problem has been solved, but the conservative old guard has turned this Academic problem into a Political one. People like Dawkins who are wrong and no longer contributing to the discussions in a good faith manner end up as fuel for the censorship of good scholarship under our new authoritarian regimes.

Dawkins first made the claim that something simply wasn’t interesting, which is his right to not be interested, but then he added to an ideology that hurts people. That second sin is much much harder to forgive.

I've been wanting to get a distillation kit to start some alchemy experiments and making my own oils and fragrances for my altar.

Do you have any recommendations? How do you like it? What do you use? Tips before I drop $100 on a kit and then figure it out?

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/33707780

Original Blog Post

My altar is less aesthetically pleasing than mosts I have seen posted on the Tumblrs and Instagrams of the world. It has a vibe to it that I enjoy.

It is based vaguely on the description in Oberron Zell-Ravenloft’s “Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard” in that it has a representative of all four elements(earth, water, wind, fire) and it has a higher and lower teir to represent our higher and lower self. The shelf that separates the two is a black box that I have painted with symbols that are important to me. One is the symbol for the demon king Zagan (who’s name I stole to give to my cat Zagan) and the other is a Triquetra a symbol for unity and interconnectedness, something I value in myself and society. I painted them with silver paint which I just thought looks cool and I wear a lot of silver but the symbolism of silver in occultism is a connection to feminine energies and the moon.

Things to include by Element

Earth - rocks (duh). I have Labradorite. It’s my favorite semi-precious gemstone because it’s pretty, but it’s hard to find the parts that are pretty. You need the right light and angle to find the shiny beauty spots. It’s a reminder that beauty is always visible but not always immediately. One must look to find beauty in all things because all things are beautiful.

Water - Water (duh). I have a few vials of water on my altar. One is a jar of river water from my home town that I collected after a flood. The other is water from Lake Superior I collected on vacation there where I met some kindly witches collecting stones on the beach (like I was doing). It is equal parts a reminder of good times and the fluidity of time. Much like the river flows and the lake washes new stones onto the beach, so to does time flow and things change. Not always for the better, but we must carry on to find new beauty.

Air - Bells and Feathers. I have bells from all over that I’ve thrifted over the years. They make all kinds of chimes some deep, some light, some far too pingy and I get annoyed having to move them, but all of them are only making noise for a moment and that moment is long enough to drastically change my mindset. These are often actual tools as opposed to purely symbolic meditations. Much like Pavlov making dogs think of food, I use bells to pull myself out of whatever mundane drudgery I am experiencing and immerse myself in meditation. Although, to be honest, I am mostly using a meditation app with a gong sound more than bells.

The feathers I’ve collected from various places and types of birds (none I killed but many were deceased). Birds are wonderful symbols of freedom and letting go. View it as a symbol for that. Let your mind be free like the bird is free to explore and travel where it pleases. Follow a bird around one day. It’s a wonderful type of meditation.

Fire - Candles and Incense. Candles and incense are such an essential aspect of modern witchcraft and occultism that you can find lists of meanings and uses for certain colors and scents all over. Since I’m an atheist, I know it doesn’t matter and gave myself meaning and uses. Hell, I “summoned a demon” using battery powered tea lights and a essential oil diffuser because my dorm banned candles. So I have three preferred candle colors: red, green, purple. When I am working, I burn a red candle. When I am meditatating, a green candle (placed on the higher shelf of the altar). When I am relaxing, the purple candle.

Why those colors? I really like the color red and the other two were on sale at Hobby Lobby so I bought a bunch. The color symbolism is arbitrary to me. You can follow the traditional standards of chakra candles if you so wish. Or maybe certain colors remind you of certain contexts you wish to evoke. In a way, red does good as a working color because my childhood school’s colors were always red and some others. So I associate red with focus and academic work.

Things to Include by meaning (CW: Dead Animal Mention)

This sorta stuff really gives you and excuse to collect knick-knacks and baubles of all sorts. I enjoy collecting carved semi-precious stone statues, sexual idols, and animal remains.

The stone statues I collect are pretty boring. I was gifted a Blood stone skull by a dear friend and I already had a ceramic skull paper weight my dad had given me as a child from his own days of collecting haunted looking objects (he was a Cathoilic not an occultist, but he liked having props in front of his Dungeons and Dragons screen while Dungeon Mastering). So now I collect well done stone skulls.

The sexual idols kinda started as a bit. I also 3D print a lot and I love printing a penis shaped character called Ding Ding to test out calibrations, colors, and new printers. So my house is covered in little penis guys and some naturally ended up on all my altars. Then years later, my fiance and I were at a rock and gem show where someone was selling female bodies with an uncomfortable spine curvature, fine tits, and a ridiculous ass. So we bought some of those in various stones since we must balance feminine and masculine energies to achieve peak post-gender god like status as it were.

Animal remains was a conflicting call for me. I found a really well cleaned and reconstructed Cyote skull at a different rock and gem show early on in my altar building days. However, I didn’t know if I wanted to include it because it felt like I was evoking animal sacrifice imagry into my altar. And that is a fair read on my altar but not what I personally feel. For me its a Stoic reminder of our own mortality. I will die just as Mr. Bones died. I also have the preserved jarred body of a baby albino snake I bought at a reptile show. That one had similar symbolism too it but with the added allussion to the alchemical symbol of the ouroboros. Maybe the snake means more in that the cycle will end one day with death. Maybe it’s just a cool morbid knick-knack.

You can really include whatever brings you back to a sense of mindful reflections is the point. I have a friend who’s altar is exclusively for her crafted stuff like little statues and fairy homes. And what is a Christmas village or a Model Train table but an altar like zen garden with tiny people and tiny trains?

I may even be convinced of a digital altar like this one where I am simply meditating on my own actions publicly!

What is an Altar to me

My altar is a place for ritual. It’s a grounding space for me that I use to take me out of whatever mindset I’m in and enter into an appropriate one. It’s my portal into my own psyche and my own place of control. It is also we’re I keep reminders of things dear to me. Friends from years past. Memories of old versions of myself. Reminders that life is fluid and that I grow.

Original Blog Post

My altar is less aesthetically pleasing than mosts I have seen posted on the Tumblrs and Instagrams of the world. It has a vibe to it that I enjoy.

It is based vaguely on the description in Oberron Zell-Ravenloft’s “Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard” in that it has a representative of all four elements(earth, water, wind, fire) and it has a higher and lower teir to represent our higher and lower self. The shelf that separates the two is a black box that I have painted with symbols that are important to me. One is the symbol for the demon king Zagan (who’s name I stole to give to my cat Zagan) and the other is a Triquetra a symbol for unity and interconnectedness, something I value in myself and society. I painted them with silver paint which I just thought looks cool and I wear a lot of silver but the symbolism of silver in occultism is a connection to feminine energies and the moon.

Things to include by Element

Earth - rocks (duh). I have Labradorite. It’s my favorite semi-precious gemstone because it’s pretty, but it’s hard to find the parts that are pretty. You need the right light and angle to find the shiny beauty spots. It’s a reminder that beauty is always visible but not always immediately. One must look to find beauty in all things because all things are beautiful.

Water - Water (duh). I have a few vials of water on my altar. One is a jar of river water from my home town that I collected after a flood. The other is water from Lake Superior I collected on vacation there where I met some kindly witches collecting stones on the beach (like I was doing). It is equal parts a reminder of good times and the fluidity of time. Much like the river flows and the lake washes new stones onto the beach, so to does time flow and things change. Not always for the better, but we must carry on to find new beauty.

Air - Bells and Feathers. I have bells from all over that I’ve thrifted over the years. They make all kinds of chimes some deep, some light, some far too pingy and I get annoyed having to move them, but all of them are only making noise for a moment and that moment is long enough to drastically change my mindset. These are often actual tools as opposed to purely symbolic meditations. Much like Pavlov making dogs think of food, I use bells to pull myself out of whatever mundane drudgery I am experiencing and immerse myself in meditation. Although, to be honest, I am mostly using a meditation app with a gong sound more than bells.

The feathers I’ve collected from various places and types of birds (none I killed but many were deceased). Birds are wonderful symbols of freedom and letting go. View it as a symbol for that. Let your mind be free like the bird is free to explore and travel where it pleases. Follow a bird around one day. It’s a wonderful type of meditation.

Fire - Candles and Incense. Candles and incense are such an essential aspect of modern witchcraft and occultism that you can find lists of meanings and uses for certain colors and scents all over. Since I’m an atheist, I know it doesn’t matter and gave myself meaning and uses. Hell, I “summoned a demon” using battery powered tea lights and a essential oil diffuser because my dorm banned candles. So I have three preferred candle colors: red, green, purple. When I am working, I burn a red candle. When I am meditatating, a green candle (placed on the higher shelf of the altar). When I am relaxing, the purple candle.

Why those colors? I really like the color red and the other two were on sale at Hobby Lobby so I bought a bunch. The color symbolism is arbitrary to me. You can follow the traditional standards of chakra candles if you so wish. Or maybe certain colors remind you of certain contexts you wish to evoke. In a way, red does good as a working color because my childhood school’s colors were always red and some others. So I associate red with focus and academic work.

Things to Include by meaning (CW: Dead Animal Mention)

This sorta stuff really gives you and excuse to collect knick-knacks and baubles of all sorts. I enjoy collecting carved semi-precious stone statues, sexual idols, and animal remains.

The stone statues I collect are pretty boring. I was gifted a Blood stone skull by a dear friend and I already had a ceramic skull paper weight my dad had given me as a child from his own days of collecting haunted looking objects (he was a Cathoilic not an occultist, but he liked having props in front of his Dungeons and Dragons screen while Dungeon Mastering). So now I collect well done stone skulls.

The sexual idols kinda started as a bit. I also 3D print a lot and I love printing a penis shaped character called Ding Ding to test out calibrations, colors, and new printers. So my house is covered in little penis guys and some naturally ended up on all my altars. Then years later, my fiance and I were at a rock and gem show where someone was selling female bodies with an uncomfortable spine curvature, fine tits, and a ridiculous ass. So we bought some of those in various stones since we must balance feminine and masculine energies to achieve peak post-gender god like status as it were.

Animal remains was a conflicting call for me. I found a really well cleaned and reconstructed Cyote skull at a different rock and gem show early on in my altar building days. However, I didn’t know if I wanted to include it because it felt like I was evoking animal sacrifice imagry into my altar. And that is a fair read on my altar but not what I personally feel. For me its a Stoic reminder of our own mortality. I will die just as Mr. Bones died. I also have the preserved jarred body of a baby albino snake I bought at a reptile show. That one had similar symbolism too it but with the added allussion to the alchemical symbol of the ouroboros. Maybe the snake means more in that the cycle will end one day with death. Maybe it’s just a cool morbid knick-knack.

You can really include whatever brings you back to a sense of mindful reflections is the point. I have a friend who’s altar is exclusively for her crafted stuff like little statues and fairy homes. And what is a Christmas village or a Model Train table but an altar like zen garden with tiny people and tiny trains?

I may even be convinced of a digital altar like this one where I am simply meditating on my own actions publicly!

What is an Altar to me

My altar is a place for ritual. It’s a grounding space for me that I use to take me out of whatever mindset I’m in and enter into an appropriate one. It’s my portal into my own psyche and my own place of control. It is also we’re I keep reminders of things dear to me. Friends from years past. Memories of old versions of myself. Reminders that life is fluid and that I grow.

What's your go to easy meal?

For me its Golden Curry. Just dice up some veg, boil in veg/mushroom broth, and serve with rice.

It takes probably 20 minutes and is very inactive.

It also has the plus that I can use basically any veg combo, but I don't really stray far from the OG carrots, potatoes, and onions. I do often add broccoli or cauliflower.

Bonus points for beanless and cornless recipes. Fiance can't have either :(

I've wanted to start carrying a mobile altar and meditation stool for a bit and I'm pretty happy with it.

Simple fire, air, water, and earth (candles, bell, jar of rain water from home, citrine) altar in a mint tin with my star sign and a pentacle on it.

The idea is the reflected surface of the mint tin is my mirror.

It is wrapped with my altar cloth (which I didn't realize was a Mother/goddess cloth until now) with a green candle and lighter.

It travels with a Sieza bench in my luggage.

I love bad books. Popular bad books. Non-fiction bad books. Any bad book is worth a read every once in a while.

Bad books aren’t objectively bad in my opinion just books that might not be for me or I even disagree with. The best bad books are the books that I want to enjoy because they’re popular or because the premise is fun. And what makes them bad is equally fluid and often just my own bias.

Why Bad Over Good?

Good books are good books. What is there to talk about? What do we even do in a Tolkein book club? Make sure everyone has read Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Then divide the room into people who preferred the Hobbit or thought LOTR was too long but still good. Then we share the same fun facts about the extended edition of the movies?

Boring. We get it. Essential reading for the book lover.

Now a shlocky Romantasy that very clearly ripped scene from other Young Adult novels and then put the “Fuck” word or act in there (with adults of course). Now we’re talking! How many different books do you recognize? Is this transformative? Are we out of original ideas? Does the sex add anything? Is she a good writer because I felt the intended emotion even if the scene is stupid? Can I do better than this? I should try!

A proper bad book where the flaws are glaring enough that I, a simpleton, can see them and talk about them is so much fun. There’s a discussion, there’s room for disagreement, there are no stakes! There may even be diamonds in the rough….

Finding Good ideas in Bad Books

It’s no secret that I love Slavoj Zizek and his writings, but not because they’re good.

Zizek is a load of fun to read because it really is a cacaphony of references and jokes interspersed with “And now to contradict myself!” that makes it feel profound. If I was smarter I think I’d call any Zizek book the philosophy equivalent of “Finnegans Wake”. The books are non-sense but there is a hidden idea that you, the reader, must decode. Maybe you disagree with the meaning, maybe you found a different meaning than what was intended, maybe the referenced book sounds interesting so you start reading Judith Butler instead (a good author).

Bad philosophy books are stimulating in that they triggered the part of your brain that wants to “philosophize” in that you want to express why you feel the way you feel. Be it the author made a good point in a bad way or maybe they made a bad point and you want to really think out a rebuttle they will never read.

Allowing a transgressive thought to make you reflect and expound upon is the correct way to use offensive content. There are obviously exceptions to this idea in that some people write books explicitly to be useless propaganda.

Bad Books verses Unreadable Books

I think the defining feature of a bad book is that it is genuine in it’s attempt to do whatever it is trying to do.

I love Rebecca Yarros “Fourth Wing” not because it’s good fantasy (or even exceptional porn) but because it feels like she’s trying to write an entertaining book. It feels like a genuine attempt at decent world building. It’s a flawed story and the world doesn’t make any sense when you think about it trying to be anything other than an explanation for why everyone is so horny.

Zizek is living far too modestly for someone who is simply a political grifter leveraging memes and podcast interviews to sell suplaments to a guilable audience. He’s even said he’d rather write the occastional Ambrocrombe and Fitch ad if it means he’s not married to a publisher or Patreon account. And that makes his work feel more genuine. I am convinced this is how he really feels and thinks.

Now, on the other end, I’ve read a lot of political writings from people I hard disagree with. I’ve read theological works from people who seemingly just like that they are a “published author”.

I used to worry that I was easily influenced and that I would just agree with or enjoy any book because I invested the eight-ish hours it takes to read one. Then I read a book I thought was interesting, and the point was one I agreed with, but it was so painfully obvious that this author had nothing new or interesting to add. It read as if they were a high schooler who had Chat GPT write a paper on something controversial, but it was pre-LLMs and I think ChatGPT would have been more interesting.

This was the first time I found a Liberal leaning grifter since I did find their podcast and heavily pushed merch store. It was embarrassing to see.

I’ve since given a lot of people I would disagree with a chance. I read Charlie Kirk’s ghost written slog feast, Ben Shapiro’s argument-less book on “Bullies”, and a book by Glenn Beck? I guess he was a Proto-Stephen Crowder.

“Authors” like that really helped me solidify the difference in my mind between “Transgressive” and “insubstantial but I’m triggered.” They’re so hard to talk about because there is very little to pull from. I was hoping to find a real argument to look into. I was giving them a fair shot and not just be angry monologues and accusatory language without any reflection.

Every arguments seems to have been “The Libs accuse us of being classist, homophobic, racist, sexists who use slurs and dedicate all our time to making life worse for minorities, poor people, and the Libs. But by calling US fascists, they show that they are the REAL FASCISTS!” And then just a bunch of examples of times someone got punched for saying a slur in public and crying “See, free speech haters!”

I don’t want to hang on this too long. It’s just the most egregious example of “Unreadable books”.

Books are Easy to Make

Yes I know it’s not that easy, especially if you want a good publisher, but book writing is so accessible these days that anyone can be a published author in hours with an Amazon Kindle account and a ChatGPT subscription. Maybe not a Good author or even a defendable Bad Author. You’d be an awful author but an author in the technical sense.

However, it is this accessibility of writing that I think allows for a diverse range of written works to exist. We no longer have the traditional filters that ensure only good or readable books are available. And I worry that the awful authors have soured the world of reading.

It is so easy to say any book that even begins to offend is trash and should be abandoned as a “Did Not Finish”. And with authors like the ones mentioned and the AI slop farms poisoning our book supply, I can’t really blame someone for not wasting their precious time on this earth with a Bad Book.

Yet, even with my bad experiences, I love the things I’ve learned about myself and the world at large because of bad books. I will continue committing way too much time to authors who probably don’t deserve the fame or my money.

I love bad books. Popular bad books. Non-fiction bad books. Any bad book is worth a read every once in a while.

Bad books aren’t objectively bad in my opinion just books that might not be for me or I even disagree with. The best bad books are the books that I want to enjoy because they’re popular or because the premise is fun. And what makes them bad is equally fluid and often just my own bias.

Why Bad Over Good?

Good books are good books. What is there to talk about? What do we even do in a Tolkein book club? Make sure everyone has read Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Then divide the room into people who preferred the Hobbit or thought LOTR was too long but still good. Then we share the same fun facts about the extended edition of the movies?

Boring. We get it. Essential reading for the book lover.

Now a shlocky Romantasy that very clearly ripped scene from other Young Adult novels and then put the “Fuck” word or act in there (with adults of course). Now we’re talking! How many different books do you recognize? Is this transformative? Are we out of original ideas? Does the sex add anything? Is she a good writer because I felt the intended emotion even if the scene is stupid? Can I do better than this? I should try!

A proper bad book where the flaws are glaring enough that I, a simpleton, can see them and talk about them is so much fun. There’s a discussion, there’s room for disagreement, there are no stakes! There may even be diamonds in the rough….

Finding Good ideas in Bad Books

It’s no secret that I love Slavoj Zizek and his writings, but not because they’re good.

Zizek is a load of fun to read because it really is a cacophony of references and jokes interspersed with “And now to contradict myself!” that makes it feel profound. If I was smarter I think I’d call any Zizek book the philosophy equivalent of “Finnegans Wake”. The books are non-sense but there is a hidden idea that you, the reader, must decode. Maybe you disagree with the meaning, maybe you found a different meaning than what was intended, maybe the referenced book sounds interesting so you start reading Judith Butler instead (a good author).

Bad philosophy books are stimulating in that they triggered the part of your brain that wants to “philosophize” in that you want to express why you feel the way you feel. Be it the author made a good point in a bad way or maybe they made a bad point and you want to really think out a rebuttle they will never read.

Allowing a transgressive thought to make you reflect and expound upon is the correct way to use offensive content. There are obviously exceptions to this idea in that some people write books explicitly to be useless propaganda.

Bad Books verses Unreadable Books

I think the defining feature of a bad book is that it is genuine in it’s attempt to do whatever it is trying to do.

I love Rebecca Yarros “Fourth Wing” not because it’s good fantasy (or even exceptional porn) but because it feels like she’s trying to write an entertaining book. It feels like a genuine attempt at decent world building. It’s a flawed story and the world doesn’t make any sense when you think about it trying to be anything other than an explanation for why everyone is so horny.

Zizek is living far too modestly for someone who is simply a political grifter leveraging memes and podcast interviews to sell suplaments to a guilable audience. He’s even said he’d rather write the occastional Ambrocrombe and Fitch ad if it means he’s not married to a publisher or Patreon account. And that makes his work feel more genuine. I am convinced this is how he really feels and thinks.

Now, on the other end, I’ve read a lot of political writings from people I hard disagree with. I’ve read theological works from people who seemingly just like that they are a “published author”.

I used to worry that I was easily influenced and that I would just agree with or enjoy any book because I invested the eight-ish hours it takes to read one. Then I read a book I thought was interesting, and the point was one I agreed with, but it was so painfully obvious that this author had nothing new or interesting to add. It read as if they were a high schooler who had Chat GPT write a paper on something controversial, but it was pre-LLMs and I think ChatGPT would have been more interesting.

This was the first time I found a Liberal leaning grifter since I did find their podcast and heavily pushed merch store. It was embarrassing to see.

I’ve since given a lot of people I would disagree with a chance. I read Charlie Kirk’s ghost written slog feast, Ben Shapiro’s argument-less book on “Bullies”, and a book by Glenn Beck? I guess he was a Proto-Stephen Crowder.

“Authors” like that really helped me solidify the difference in my mind between “Transgressive” and “insubstantial but I’m triggered.” They’re so hard to talk about because there is very little to pull from. I was hoping to find a real argument to look into. I was giving them a fair shot and not just be angry monologues and accusatory language without any reflection.

Every arguments seems to have been “The Libs accuse us of being classist, homophobic, racist, sexists who use slurs and dedicate all our time to making life worse for minorities, poor people, and the Libs. But by calling US fascists, they show that they are the REAL FASCISTS!” And then just a bunch of examples of times someone got punched for saying a slur in public and crying “See, free speech haters!”

I don’t want to hang on this too long. It’s just the most egregious example of “Unreadable books”.

Books are Easy to Make

Yes I know it’s not that easy, especially if you want a good publisher, but book writing is so accessible these days that anyone can be a published author in hours with an Amazon Kindle account and a ChatGPT subscription. Maybe not a Good author or even a defendable Bad Author. You’d be an awful author but an author in the technical sense.

However, it is this accessibility of writing that I think allows for a diverse range of written works to exist. We no longer have the traditional filters that ensure only good or readable books are available. And I worry that the awful authors have soured the world of reading.

It is so easy to say any book that even begins to offend is trash and should be abandoned as a “Did Not Finish”. And with authors like the ones mentioned and the AI slop farms poisoning our book supply, I can’t really blame someone for not wasting their precious time on this earth with a Bad Book.

Yet, even with my bad experiences, I love the things I’ve learned about myself and the world at large because of bad books. I will continue committing way too much time to authors who probably don’t deserve the fame or my money.