Going Underground: Building a Caring Alternative Parallel Society

As the poet, dissident, and member of the Czech underground resistance movement during the communist regime, Ivan Martin Jirous wrote, perhaps in “Parallel Polis: An Inquiry”:

“If it proves impossible legally to compel the ruling power to change the ways it governs us, and if for various reasons those who reject this power cannot or do not wish to overthrow it by force, then the creation of an independent or alternative or parallel [society] is the only dignified solution ...”

With the shadow of totalitarian or techno-feudalist regime change looming over us and already detrimentally impacting our lives, and the dismal prospect of a further descent into superficiality, falsehood, blatant corruption, vulgarity, and barbarism, not only in the Disunited States but also elsewhere in Europe, the UK, and around the globe, we need to be making preparations right now, and developing alternative infrastructure – and keeping a faithful record of our history – while we are still at liberty to do so.

A Little Something for Your Ark, Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt

In these increasingly dire times we have plenty of warners, but what we desperately need right now are more arks.

As Michael Ventura wrote: “[A]ll of this passing things on, in all its forms, may not cure the world now—curing the world now may not be a human possibility—but it keeps the great things alive. And we have to do this because, as Laing said, who are we to decide that it is hopeless? And I said to my son, if you wanted to volunteer for fascinating, dangerous, necessary work, this would be a great job to volunteer for—trying to be a wide-awake human during a Dark Age and keeping alive what you think is beautiful and important.”

~ James Hillman and Michael Ventura, We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World's Getting Worse.

So, with that in mind, here's a little something to stow away safely in your ark, as we make preparations for the dark times ahead of us.

“Some want to turn the clock back, harkening back to some golden age of nostalgia, when women, children, the lower class, parishioners, and people of other races and creeds knew their place; not back to the 1950s, but further back: to Dickensian times and to (corporate) feudal fiefdom. They want to wind the clock back to a time before the hard-won battles for civil rights, social reforms, and worker representation. A time long, long before the ‘woke virus’, ‘illegal immigrants’, and gender identity, when life was more conservative and white lives mattered; though with a new, fundamentalist, Christian nationalist (or Islamist, or ultra-Zionist, or even atheist) and isolationist twist. And some will go to any lengths – and I do mean any desperate, violent, draconian lengths – to bring this vile and unholy vision about.”

~ Preface to Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt, a story of resistance.

AEON, Step 1: Hello World!

Welcome to AEON!

Home of the Ad-hoc Emergency Online Network.

Inspired by Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt, a story of resistance by H.M. Forester.

The AEON Network

AEON is a decentralised, trust-based, non-hierarchical, democratic, browser-based, online network (with no vulnerable central server or database). It uses gossip to propagate individual users' digitally-signed registry entries (using a private key) containing details such as hostname, IP address, nickname, X509 security certificate, and personal biography or blurb on any site and community resources they choose to host in the network.

A would-be member can contact any other registered member, via the latter's built-in server (a http web server running on port 8008), and become a registered member of the AEON network.

Any registered member can moderate users' behaviour, and it is up to individual members which (if any) moderators they trust, and hence whether or not to act on their trusted moderators' actions. Though we can't block individuals from a decentralised network like AEON, we can limit their audience reach by applying trusted moderator overrides. This will limit the propagation of the individual's registry entry and updates, and hence reduce their social reputation and reach in the network.

The Esoteric Meaning of Noah, the Ark, and the Flood: Maurice Nicoll

“There is the literal level of understanding sacred writings and there is also the psychological level of understanding them.” ... “The esoteric or inner—that is, the psychological—meaning is quite different. Esoteric teaching is always about [Humanity's] inner evolution. It is about Man's higher development and his relation to what is higher than he is.” ...

The legend of the stone soup

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, and in a land not a million miles from here, there were two hungry dervishes, who are seekers, people of the 'poor'. 

One evening in their travels, they came across a small village and decided to stay for the night. There was an inn there, just by the side of the village green. But because they had no money, the two dervishes could not afford to stay there. Sometimes the pair would take out their musical instruments and play and entertain the inhabitants with jokes and news, in exchange for a few coppers for food and lodgings. But not tonight, for it had been a long haul up into the foothills of the mountains that day, and they were both too dog-tired to play, or even raise a smile. 

So it was that the two dervishes set their scant belongings down by the side of the village green, right in front of the inn. While one of them set about stacking up the sticks of wood he had scavenged along the way, the other arranged the stones which he'd collected in his travels, into a small circle around the wood. 

Habit and improvisation, and Sufi Necessity

One of the early aims of the Sufi teachings is to regain the flexibility of mind that is lost as we grow out of childhood. Almost inevitably in this abode of decay, we humans become creatures of habit. But it needn't be this way.

To quote Arthur Koestler in The Ghost in the Machine in a chapter on Habit and Improvisation:

“[Regarding] Lindauer's study of the honey-bee. Under normal conditions, there is a rigid division of labour in the hive, so that each worker is occupied on different jobs in different periods of her life.

ishraqi institute: Modus Operandi and Raison D’Etre

“I think I'm quite ready for another adventure.” ~ Bilbo Baggins, The Lord of the Rings.

In this era of global communications and instant connectivity, we're saturated, even inundated, round the clock by sensationalist news and tempting “fast foods” of consumerism, as well as egotistical, even narcissistic, self-promotion and “media influence”, and drowning in shedload after shedload of information. As a consequence, we are suffering cognitive and emotional overload. I trust that a little hopefully quality “time out” will alleviate that, rather than exacerbate matters, and point you in the direction of others who can offer greater help in what is, as Henry Corbin stated, an ongoing Battle for the Soul of the World. Rather than a course following a logical progression from A to Z, this is a deliberately open-ended exploration, and exercise in mental fluidity, learning as we go along.

Freedom, Resistance and Change: Ursula K. Le Guin

“I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality ...”

“... Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”

~ Ursula K. Le Guin, Speech at the 2014 National Book Awards.

Image: Ursula Le Guin / Marian Wood Kolisch / Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0.

This is a Global Emergency: No more! Enough is Enough!

#ClimateEmergency #EcologicalBreakdown #BiodiversityLoss

Fridays For Future, Oslo.

Swedish schoolgirl and climate activist, Greta Thunberg came to the public attention through the school strikes for climate which she instigated, which have since spread around the world. It’s heart-warming news to see her courageously standing up on the world’s stage and speaking on behalf of her generation and the generations to come, of the dire climate crisis, ecological breakdown, and rapid and deep loss of biodiversity that we are now facing. Thunberg tells us that she is only bringing our attention to what climate scientists have been saying for years. Scientists now predict that we have a small window of opportunity – perhaps only 12 years – in which to reduce CO2 levels (carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels; etc) before we hit a tipping point and global heating really goes out of control. If the world’s climate (not weather patterns) heats up much more, then permafrost near the poles will thaw at an increasing rate, releasing huge amounts of previously-trapped methane into the atmosphere – and methane is a gas that has a far more potent and dangerous greenhouse effect than CO2.

The climate crisis is, of course, only part of the wider picture. Equally alarming is the ecological breakdown and loss of biodiversity, issues that have led to the prediction that the world is facing a sixth extinction or Anthropocene extinction, as a result of human activity. Indeed, with the ongoing extinction of many species, we have already entered the sixth extinction phase in Earth’s history, and in response to this, a new global movement of activists, Extinction Rebellion, has also been holding protests throughout the world and demanding change.

Mostly as a result of the work of activists like school strikes for climate and Extinction Rebellion, and meetings with politicians, several governments have declared climate emergencies. However, if further action is not taken by governments, industry and other key players, then the protests will continue and grow still further.

This is only one major part of a much wider picture, however ...

Rewild Britain now to avert impending environmental and human catastrophe

North York moors, Yorkshire, England.

Remnants of the Wildwood

Britain’s vast areas of wild and wuthering moorland and heath certainly have their appeal, and some of the land, such as the North York Moors, has been designated as National Parks. While many upland areas are devoid of all but heathland shrubs and grasses, thankfully there are still many fertile valleys and man-made plantations managed by the Forestry Commission.

However, if we look further back in history, we can see that what we are now left with are – by comparison – a few grotesquely-stunted remnants of a great and diverse, natural “wildwood” that covered much of Britain.

Is there a niche for reviews of ebooks by readers?

The Guardian newspaper has a weekly reader reviews roundup. To post a review, you first search their database to select a book, and you find that, alas, ebooks are not listed.

There are lots of groups at Facebook and Google+ where authors self-advertize, and book review bloggers who have a waiting list measured in months or years, or who are all-too-often "currently not accepting submissions".

Is there a niche for moderated groups or blogs catering for hopefully genuine reviews of ebooks by readers?

Obviously, a group or blog would need to have clear rules and guidelines and enforce them. Groups would be faced with quality control and style issues and would most likely require several moderators working in different time zones. Blogs would be more labour-intensive, as it's difficult to establish the real identity of the poster, and the owner rather than the reader would have to collect, edit and post the reviews on the readers' behalf.

Anyhow, if there is a niche for this kind of thing, then please go straight ahead. The best of luck to you!

• By Etienne de L'Amour ~ Google+

Wikipedia author biographies and books

A great way to help new authors is to write a Wikipedia article about them or their individual books. However, this is not a trivial task, so be sure to check out the five pillars of Wikipedia first. There's a steep initial learning curve, though in the end you'll find the climb well worth the effort.

First of all, search Wikipedia directly and via google to make sure that the article you want to write doesn't already exist. Duplicated content is likely to be merged or deleted.

The subject of a biography or a book must be notable and you need to provide proof of this. That means that they must have received significant coverage in reliable, independent, third party sources. A book may be notable and yet the author may not, and vice versa, so you may have to just add a minor "About the author" section to an article about a notable book.

Any significant facts in the Wikipedia article, such as those that may be disputed or critical acclaim, must be verifiable by other editors and readers. That is, the source of the facts must be cited in in-line footnotes or global references; and again those sources must be reliable.