It's all so tedious.

There is a certain type of mind that defaults to manic dot-connecting in a frantic effort to prove monstrously far-reaching claims about our reality. But as philosophers of science have put it in their usual convoluted way, the larger the scope of a theory, the less likely it will hold true. If you have the operator "all" in your sentence, you better make damn sure you are at least a half-god with X-Ray vision, because otherwise chances are you're going to miss something. The antidote to such fallacies is the art of balancing abstract ideas with a deep sense — an embodied feeling — for the particular: situations and circumstances that are unique, non-replicable, derived not from laws but from beyond the realm of categories.

Following Trump's victory, the small but vocal group of schizognostics has reared its left-brained head again, proclaiming from their text-walled gardens the gospel of Trump: the Deep State Psyop. Because, it just has to be a psyop. Why? Simple: their first principle says that all leaders are psyops, and if your theory's scope is nothing short of everything, then Trump and his coterie of disgruntled smarties has been the Trojan horse of the earthly demiurge all along.

Granted, zooming out from the dot-connecting spree ("Trump just didn't start any wars because there already were enough going on, mkay") for a moment, the instinct that something is deeply rotten with our world is, of course, correct. There is, however, a spectrum between doomer-Gnosticism — the idea that we are ruled by an all-powerful evil god rendering everything corrupt right down to the last atom — and the naive evil-denialism of certain feel-good religious outlooks. Where one side cannot bring itself to acknowledge our reality has things in it like love, beauty, fun, wisdom, intelligence, and good guys playfully one-upping the Evil Eye with memetic judo from outta spacetime, the other side engages in blatant self-blinding when it comes to darkness. To them, evil is all one big misunderstanding, which goes away if we just all come together and talk, spreading love and light. Healing the divide and all. You know, just work through your traumatic experience of a harsh daddy, Mr. Psychopath, to discover the lamb of Christ (or the guardian angel of light) within. Now please, eat my soul. Thank you, I knew you had kindness in you.

Both extremes just won't do, as anyone who has left the realm of disjointed abstractions and actually lived with eyes open for a moment will know. Clearly, there is a bottomless darkness at the heart of our world. Powerful bad guys are a thing. The Apostle Paul spoke of spiritual principalities we are up against. Christianity has Satan. Mythology is full of hellish creatures. But also clearly, the good stuff is here, too. Heck, even the Gnostics acknowledge a Über-Creator who has the final word.

How to look at current events given that reality seems to be a mixed bag, and indeed given that to assume a deep darkness at its core is the right instinct? The trick is to choose your angles from which to look at the world wisely. You play your perception by hitting perspectives like keys on an organ. Sometimes you need that gloomy, dark bass, conjuring the terrifying vista of the demiurge holding us captive in the prison of material reality, where even goodness is just a cynical joke by the cosmic torturer to instill a false hope, just to be crushed in a pain-maximizing kick in the soul, while a distant cackling makes its way through the misty swamp we call our home. You need that sound, because it is a note that rings true. But you also need those other notes, the harmony, the simple yet rich melody, softly breezing in this radiant sphere where a shy mountain stream tickles down in the sun-lit woods, the air heavy with the sweet scent of heaven and earth coming together, the direct expression of the kind of love that only ever makes its way here via radical truth.
Let me give an example. Unlike some others in the save-western-civ-community, I agree with some of the oldschool radicals on the left that our civilization is fundamentally evil. It is built on the rotten foundation of slavery, deceit and free will violation. It's foul at its very roots. And I don't mean just our modern Western civilization in this masochistic, self-hating pose so common these days. I mean the whole deal, ever since that first fucker began hoarding a bunch of produce, and then lied, backstabbed and slave-morality-preached his way to top dog status. Organized slavery wasn't far behind, because that used to be the only way to build a civilization. Progress equals oppression in our god-forsaken realm, and that's not good. (One wonders if a different kind of high civilization built on radically different ideas could have been possible, but the mind, itself rooted in history, cannot really go there.)

Some on the Nietzschean right sense, correctly, how reprehensible such manipulative, psychopathic, false-egoic original sin-ism is, and contrast it with glorious warrior tribes conquering lands, village-burning and woman-raping their way through the steppes, hills and seas. Well, I'm not a fan. (To confuse the noble warrior with the psycho warlord is a sleight of hand I won't just overlook, just like confusing the pimp with the sex appeal of male strength won't do.) But you have to admit these guys were at least more honest, more primal and straightforward: the right-wing edition of the Noble Savage. In our modern so-called civilized world, of course, the self-proclaimed top dogs spew moralistic acid while having a grand one on Epstein's island or at Diddy parties. Yeah, makes you appreciate the honesty of those warrior-savages of yore, I suppose.

Point being, I know all that. We are a doomed world, built on horror, in desperate need of a good Old-Testamentarian divine smackdown. But the art of living and thinking lies in holding different angles in mind and using the tension productively, choosing now this, now that perspective to get a hold on what's going on. And so, that I know all that doesn't mean I have to hate civilization in general, and my civilization in particular. Rotten foundation and constant, lie-infested horror show notwithstanding, it has brought us a richness of mystic proportions. The music, the architecture, the art. The inventions, the technology. The philosophy, the languages, the science. The sheer goodness, courage and drive. It really is beyond the pale. And all of it should be celebrated as the outpouring of spirit that it is, the tapping of the existential underground spring from whence the Holy Ghost rises, from whence we rejuvenate, strengthen ourselves, from whence infinite love for creation, and the consequent transmutation of that love into a celebration of humanity's sacred station between the realms of the gods and the realm of pure instinct, springs forth like a unicorn in the night.

So, Trump. If ignoring the existence of goodness, beauty and the spirit working through humanity is to lie, so it is to categorically exclude that a team of renegades can ever grow into an effective opposition against the regime. The thinking behind such (secretly enjoyed) doomerism is that we are totally controlled by darkness, by overlords so crafty and ancient that they will always be ten steps ahead, and that any person on earth with any power or fame is by definition "in on it" — it's all one giant collusion. Interestingly, those who make such claims seldom go into specific instances where collusion between what appear to be mortal enemies might actually happen, apart from manic dot-connecting of the "see, he was at a WEF meeting!1!" variety.

For instance, it is conceivable that Israel and Iran have certain communication channels open, and that to a degree they coordinate their tit-for-tat strikes for public consumption, while behind doors making sure things don't escalate, based on a form of limited mutual interest. Or that Trump's killing of Soleimani might, in fact, have happened with the tacit Iranian approval and support, because the elites there wanted to get rid of a general so popular he might threaten their power one day. Or that Putin and Xi play along with the climate agenda in a strategic bet and to further certain interests, just as the Western leaders do, if probably for different reasons. Whatever the truth of these matters, such things happen and have always happened. It's called realpolitik. You don't need to postulate a Gnostic demiurge and proclaim universal collusion or reality-as-mere-theaterism to see that. Admittedly, it's boring and nuanced, and defies our longing for a quick-and-dirty first principle that sorts all the facts into a neat little narrative.

Just as to realize our civilization is rotten to the core doesn't exclude a celebration of its fruits, so a realistic worldview that allows for good guys doesn't exclude the idea of dark overlords. Paul's principalities, a Gnostic demiurge, or evil alien-demons controlling things from behind the scenes are essentially the same motif, and damned if we don't find ample hints for their existence in the hellhole also known as prison planet earth. However, the nature of our interaction with this dark realm is complex. It is not that of the billiard ball universe causal network, where the puppeteers control every single movement of their puppets. Why? First, let's not forget about the ultimate creator, the one even Gnostics pray to, the source of it all. This means that demiurge, hyperdimensional aliens, principalities and the rest of the gang have to play by certain rules, too. They aren't the top dogs. Second, there is this thing called Free Will. Now combine these two ideas, and what you get is that Free Will, in cahoots with the ultimate creator, can break the spell. We can fight back. What we grow to think, what we grow to be, matters.

This goes for individuals as well as collectives. Just as Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz, always had the power to go home using her slippers, and just as the Wizard was revealed as a pathetic little fraud once the evil witch was defeated and the veil lifted, so we have the power to end the charade, and there's not a damn thing that little fraud of a wizard can do about it. But the witch must die first, otherwise her spell remains too strong.

The Wicked Witch wants Dorothy's slippers because they are the magic key to getting back home. Just as "they" want to take our Free Will, indeed make us believe we haven't any, and no way of reclaiming our world. Dorothy gets angry and throws water at the witch. The witch dies.
Trump and gang represent a major reality shift, and I believe they have been helped along by a collective Free Will decision against which even the overlords, subject as they are to certain cosmic laws, couldn't do anything. Too many people have supported him, prayed for him, seen through the media brainwashing (the existence of which proves the point). Just look at the timeline and the sheer impossibility of what went down. Those who proclaim that this is all just a big ruse to further lead us astray have a lot of explaining to do: why did the Deep State try to destroy Trump for almost a decade, including attempts on his life? Why did they need to rig him into oblivion in 2020? Isn't there an epic difference between what Trump did during his mess of a term, even with all the given constraints, and what the Biden admin did? Isn't there a humungous gulf between Vance, Musk, RFK on the one side, and Kamala, Cheney and Obama on the other? If your answer is that this is all just to fool the masses into supporting yet another Deep State puppet, then this isn't an argument; it's just repeating your premise.

Are we there yet? Of course not. The overlords are real, and they aren't done. They are indeed ancient and crafty. And I'm not at all sure we have used our Free Will, individually and collectively, to the degree necessary to defeat them. We are still too blind, too messed up, too timid, too afraid, too broken, too ignorant, too emotional, too intellectual, too spiritually beaten and defenseless. My sense is that whoever those overlords are, they have realized some time ago that they have been defeated in this particular battle, and that Kamala won't make it. Not with a rigging operation so obvious and unbelievable that it would further contain the spell, anyway. (It probably was impossible on a practical level as well; they just thought Trump wouldn't be there, but then he survived and pulled off a spectacular campaign.) They have resigned themselves to it, busying themselves with plotting their next moves. Unlike in 2016, it didn't come as a shock to them. Hence it feels more calm this time around — a calm before the storm, perhaps.

Will Trump and team deliver? They will try, and they truly are the best team we have seen in politics for ages. But they also have blind spots and weaknesses, which gives the Deep State many options: they will try to manipulate Trump into appointing traitors, setting wrong priorities, and drive him away from his campaign promises, particularly in foreign policy. They will block and subvert every step, every initiative. They might stop him before the inauguration with whatever they can marshal. They could tank the economy with the push of a button and take the Trump admin down with it. And if we all don't use our Free Will wisely, the deeper cosmic order might not stand in the way of the demiurge-lords next time; indeed, the ultimate creator may allow one of those divine smackdowns to go through, in a last ditch effort to make us get over ourselves by our own choice. Suffering is the best teacher, after all. But there is hope, too: the future never felt so open, so indeterminate. We are at a crossroads, the world is spinning, and nobody knows where we'll land.

Let's not get lost in lazy grand narratives of dark 4D chess that fly in the face of reality. Neither should we give ourselves over entirely to hooray emotions or over-intellectualization. (Celebrating victories is a must, though.) Let's do what we should always do: observe closely, wise up, touch grass, while counting our blessings and riding the shifting energies: by channelling the subtle glory between those coarse atoms, a material world that is neither the wasteland of the Gnostics nor the ultimate playing field that materialists both left and right take it to be. Rather, let's see it for what it is: a divine offer for redemption, both contained within it and reaching far beyond it.

When the divine makes an offer, you can be sure to be in for a hell of a ride.

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