Ethereal Insights

Pilgrims in the waterfall By Utagawa Kuniyoshi ( 歌川 国芳 ) Sorcery & Mysticism | Thursday – April 2, 2026 S orcery, Mysticism, Witchcraft, Shamanism, etc... What are they and how are they relevant today? First of all what moderns refer to as "mysticism" is always things about the world that they do not understand or care to understand, and this goes for religion and metaphysics as well: most modern people regard them as artifacts of the past, and really very few people, particularly within the Western world , actually care to even consider religion and the exoteric traditions from the point of view of cultural grounding, and the people who do consider religion from this point of view, the conservatives , have the most backwards and diffused sense of religion, often more so than the raving "hypermodernists". Really, what even is religion ? Yes, truly it should be stated here that religion in the modern and exoteric sense is a kind of mysticism, but not because reli...

Hindu Goddess: Shri Karni Mata ( करणी माता ) The Census | Wednesday – April 1, 2026 T he Census or population registration is another modern practice that came about in the inception of the nation-state , and really even at the time of Napoleon no such thing was possible, but at that time the first moves in this direction were made, and the world has never been alike since. Today of course, it is common place for governments to record the population within its borders and then tie each individual to a national identification, a social security number, or some other means of quantification ; the assumption here is of course that each individual should largely remain fixed in place, truly in a sedentary and settled life. Of course, for most of history one could talk about two kinds of people: nomads and farmers; the nomads were wandering and borderless people and they were guided by the ways and knowledge of the step ; farmers on the other hand were less nomadic, though never as fixed as...

Shakyamuni Buddha ( शाक्यमुनि ) Leadership | Tuesday – March 31, 2026 L eadership is something that is quite lacking here in the modern world, and this shows. What leaders can be spoken of today? Well, if by leader you are merely thinking about temporal power , then you are thinking in the right way, but your conception of leadership is lacking. When we are considering the subject of leadership we have to understand the certain division or bifurcation between raw power and legitimate power . Sure, there are plenty of people holding raw power today, but few, if any, are actually holding legitimate power, and I believe the major problem or mistake being committed by many here is the assumption that leadership begets power, or even the other way around, that power begets leadership. First of all, there is no such thing as power without authority, but authority and power are not the same thing nor are they in any way equivalent; power is derived from authority, that is to say from essence...