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320 results for “dionysia8”
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It's the #DayOfHelios / Sol's Day / #Sunday! ☀️
"The water bride-groom [#Okeanos] begat #Klymene, fairest of the Naiads, whom #Tethys nursed on her wet breast, her youngest, a maiden with lovely arms. For her beauty Helios pined, who travels the sevenzone circuit [the zodiac] garland-wise. Helios dispenser of fire was afflicted with another fire!"
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 38.108🏛️ #Helios-Sol, Roman bronze lamp, 400 CE
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It's the #DayOfHelios / Sol's Day / #Sunday! ☀️
"The water bride-groom [#Okeanos] begat #Klymene, fairest of the Naiads, whom #Tethys nursed on her wet breast, her youngest, a maiden with lovely arms. For her beauty Helios pined, who travels the sevenzone circuit [the zodiac] garland-wise. Helios dispenser of fire was afflicted with another fire!"
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 38.108🏛️ #Helios-Sol, Roman bronze lamp, 400 CE
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It's the #DayOfHelios / Sol's Day / #Sunday! ☀️
"The water bride-groom [#Okeanos] begat #Klymene, fairest of the Naiads, whom #Tethys nursed on her wet breast, her youngest, a maiden with lovely arms. For her beauty Helios pined, who travels the sevenzone circuit [the zodiac] garland-wise. Helios dispenser of fire was afflicted with another fire!"
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 38.108🏛️ #Helios-Sol, Roman bronze lamp, 400 CE
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It's #SNHFridayRitual time - welcome to label We Are Horror Records, radio show Shay Decay and artist development agency DC Sound Attack. Bands are DONE, Iris Marlowe, Let's Disinfect, Synthema Occvlta, Dionysiaque, Breeding Chaos, Hellstorm Of Flaming Nothingness, Vampyra, Savini, Garbage Day Massacre, Midnight Jazz Club and finally Onhou #SatanNotHatin #s8nnoth8n #ProtectedByThePitchfork #MetalMusic #Punk #CountryAndWestern #HorrorPunk #Music
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Have a courageous Day of Ares aka Mars' Day aka Tuesday 🗡️
"Ares, destroyer of the Titanes, his father's champion, who lifts a proud neck in heaven, still holding that shield ever soaked with gore."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 20.35🏛 #Ares and the #Dioskuroi in the #Titanomachy, ca. 400 BCE
📸 Jason Brooks
https://www.flickr.com/photos/21386822@N02/2233850064/in/album-72157603827642420/@antiquidons @mythology
#DayOfAres #GreekRomanArt #mythology -
Have a courageous Day of Ares aka Mars' Day aka Tuesday 🗡️
"Ares, destroyer of the Titanes, his father's champion, who lifts a proud neck in heaven, still holding that shield ever soaked with gore."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 20.35🏛 #Ares and the #Dioskuroi in the #Titanomachy, ca. 400 BCE
📸 Jason Brooks
https://www.flickr.com/photos/21386822@N02/2233850064/in/album-72157603827642420/@antiquidons @mythology
#DayOfAres #GreekRomanArt #mythology -
Have a courageous Day of Ares aka Mars' Day aka Tuesday 🗡️
"Ares, destroyer of the Titanes, his father's champion, who lifts a proud neck in heaven, still holding that shield ever soaked with gore."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 20.35🏛 #Ares and the #Dioskuroi in the #Titanomachy, ca. 400 BCE
📸 Jason Brooks
https://www.flickr.com/photos/21386822@N02/2233850064/in/album-72157603827642420/@antiquidons @mythology
#DayOfAres #GreekRomanArt #mythology -
Have a courageous Day of Ares aka Mars' Day aka Tuesday 🗡️
"Ares, destroyer of the Titanes, his father's champion, who lifts a proud neck in heaven, still holding that shield ever soaked with gore."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 20.35🏛 #Ares and the #Dioskuroi in the #Titanomachy, ca. 400 BCE
📸 Jason Brooks
https://www.flickr.com/photos/21386822@N02/2233850064/in/album-72157603827642420/@antiquidons @mythology
#DayOfAres #GreekRomanArt #mythology -
Have a courageous Day of Ares aka Mars' Day aka Tuesday 🗡️
"Ares, destroyer of the Titanes, his father's champion, who lifts a proud neck in heaven, still holding that shield ever soaked with gore."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 20.35🏛 #Ares and the #Dioskuroi in the #Titanomachy, ca. 400 BCE
📸 Jason Brooks
https://www.flickr.com/photos/21386822@N02/2233850064/in/album-72157603827642420/@antiquidons @mythology
#DayOfAres #GreekRomanArt #mythology -
@pagan @antiquidons The last day of the #Anthesteria is called #Chytroi or #Khýtroi, 'The Pots'. It's a festival of the dead where fruit or pulse is offered to the souls of the dead, who are then bidden to depart, and to #Hermes Chthonios, who should guide them back to the underworld. No one is supposed to eat the pottage, which is food of the dead. A rehearsal to select the players for the City Dionysia also takes place on this day.
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Have a joyful #DayOfDionysos here at Erotic Mythology! 🍇
"To escape the midday lash of #Helios (the Sun) moving on high, he [#Dionysos] cleansed his body in the stream of the Meionian River bubbling gently [...] Playful Satyrs lifted their heels in air, and tumbled plunging headover into the river."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 10.142🏛 #Satyr and #Bacchus as a child, glass cameo, first half of the 1st century CE, Italy
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Have a joyful #DayOfDionysos here at Erotic Mythology! 🍇
"To escape the midday lash of #Helios (the Sun) moving on high, he [#Dionysos] cleansed his body in the stream of the Meionian River bubbling gently [...] Playful Satyrs lifted their heels in air, and tumbled plunging headover into the river."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 10.142🏛 #Satyr and #Bacchus as a child, glass cameo, first half of the 1st century CE, Italy
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Have a joyful #DayOfDionysos here at Erotic Mythology! 🍇
"She [Hera] smeared a subtle magical ointment over their [guardians of Dionysos] faces, and changed their human shape. Then they took the form of a creature with long ears, and a horse's tail sticking out straight from the loins and flogging the flanks of its shaggy-crested owner."
Dionysiaka 14🏛 Cameo, 27 BCE-14 CE, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli
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Have a joyful #DayOfDionysos here at Erotic Mythology! 🍇
"She [Hera] smeared a subtle magical ointment over their [guardians of Dionysos] faces, and changed their human shape. Then they took the form of a creature with long ears, and a horse's tail sticking out straight from the loins and flogging the flanks of its shaggy-crested owner."
Dionysiaka 14🏛 Cameo, 27 BCE-14 CE, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli
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It's the #DayOfHelios / Sol's Day / #Sunday! ☀️
"The water bride-groom [#Okeanos] begat #Klymene, fairest of the Naiads, whom #Tethys nursed on her wet breast, her youngest, a maiden with lovely arms. For her beauty Helios pined, who travels the sevenzone circuit [the zodiac] garland-wise. Helios dispenser of fire was afflicted with another fire!"
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 38.108🏛️ #Helios-Sol, Roman bronze lamp, 400 CE
@antiquidons @mythology
#DayOfHelios #GreekRomanArt #mythology -
It's the #DayOfHelios / Sol's Day / #Sunday! ☀️
"The water bride-groom [#Okeanos] begat #Klymene, fairest of the Naiads, whom #Tethys nursed on her wet breast, her youngest, a maiden with lovely arms. For her beauty Helios pined, who travels the sevenzone circuit [the zodiac] garland-wise. Helios dispenser of fire was afflicted with another fire!"
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 38.108🏛️ #Helios-Sol, Roman bronze lamp, 400 CE
@antiquidons @mythology
#DayOfHelios #GreekRomanArt #mythology -
It's the #DayOfHelios / Sol's Day / #Sunday! ☀️
"The water bride-groom [#Okeanos] begat #Klymene, fairest of the Naiads, whom #Tethys nursed on her wet breast, her youngest, a maiden with lovely arms. For her beauty Helios pined, who travels the sevenzone circuit [the zodiac] garland-wise. Helios dispenser of fire was afflicted with another fire!"
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 38.108🏛️ #Helios-Sol, Roman bronze lamp, 400 CE
@antiquidons @mythology
#DayOfHelios #GreekRomanArt #mythology -
It's the #DayOfHelios / Sol's Day / #Sunday! ☀️
"The water bride-groom [#Okeanos] begat #Klymene, fairest of the Naiads, whom #Tethys nursed on her wet breast, her youngest, a maiden with lovely arms. For her beauty Helios pined, who travels the sevenzone circuit [the zodiac] garland-wise. Helios dispenser of fire was afflicted with another fire!"
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 38.108🏛️ #Helios-Sol, Roman bronze lamp, 400 CE
@antiquidons @mythology
#DayOfHelios #GreekRomanArt #mythology -
It's the #DayOfHelios / Sol's Day / #Sunday! ☀️
"The water bride-groom [#Okeanos] begat #Klymene, fairest of the Naiads, whom #Tethys nursed on her wet breast, her youngest, a maiden with lovely arms. For her beauty Helios pined, who travels the sevenzone circuit [the zodiac] garland-wise. Helios dispenser of fire was afflicted with another fire!"
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 38.108🏛️ #Helios-Sol, Roman bronze lamp, 400 CE
@antiquidons @mythology
#DayOfHelios #GreekRomanArt #mythology -
It's the #DayOfDionysos here at Erotic Mythology! 🍇
""[The Argive river] Inakhos was witness to both, when the heavy bronze pikes of Mykenes resisted the ivy and deadly fennel, when #Perseus sickle in hand gave way to #Bakkhos with his wand, and fled before the fury of Satyrs cyring Euoi."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 25 104🏛 #Dionysos and a satyr, possibly his lover Ampelos
@antiquidons @archaeodons @mythology
#GreekRomanArt #mythology #SatyrDay -
It's the Day of Helios / Sol's Day / #Sunday! ☀️
"Phaethon [#Helios] laughed, because #Ares in the seafight [of #Dionysos against the Indians] had fled again before the fire of #Hephaistos, as once before he fled from his chains."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 39.403🎨 Helios (possibly Alexander of Macedon) bronze bust, 1st century CE.
#DayOfHelios #GreekRomanArt #mythology @antiquidons @mythology
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Looking more like frozen soda, this is actually a miniature intaglio portrait of a young boy, possibly Eros (remains of wings can be seen). He clutches two pine-cones, an ear of corn and a leaf, all Dionysian symbols of rebirth.
#Roman, 2nd c. CE. #FitzwilliamMuseum, Cambridge. #archaeology
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Ordeals – Third Rail Prayer Review
By Spicie Forrest
Sometimes called the live rail, the third rail runs alongside the New York City Subway tracks, carrying electrical current enough to power the trains’ motors—or kill those who accidentally touch it. In a political context, the term refers to subjects dangerous enough to ruin careers. I learned this while researching Ordeals’ debut album, Third Rail Prayer. This NYC trio formed in 2011 and released two EPs and a split in the 14 years since.1 Influenced by the Australian scene, Ordeals promises a serpentine, subterranean blend of black and death metal, garnished with quiet grandiosity. Will Third Rail Prayer jumpstart their burgeoning career, or are they dead on arrival?
What Ordeals lacks in recognition, they offset with strong musicianship. Blackened riffs, courtesy of bassist/guitarist Illuminated, roil and surge like a sturgeon just beneath the surface, constantly shifting and reappearing through tempo shifts and key changes (“Throes”). Tremolo-heavy passages like those on “Suffer Cursed Ordeals” invoke Abominator and instill a sense of urgency and desperation. The bass most often acts as foil for the guitar, adding depth and texture to each track, but there are moments, like the back half of Skeletonwitched “Emerge,” where it takes center stage. Drummer Bellum loves a good blast beat, but he has a wealth of percussive techniques at his disposal. His kitwork is dynamic and energetic, and he drives the album with a varied and masterful hand. Bellum sets the tone (“Scorn Ceremony”), guides transitions (“Third Rail Prayer,” “Suffer Cursed Ordeals”), and keeps the album moving at an enjoyable and engaging pace.
A sectarian, ritualistic energy pervades Third Rail Prayer. Rather than high-pitched rasps, Zealous Hellspell mostly employs full-throated roars and shouts like Uada or Rotting Christ, evoking clandestine religious ceremonies or the recitation of some dark magic (“Triumph,” “Suffer Cursed Ordeals”). Though Ordeals bills themselves as blackened death, my ears hear a fair—and quite competent—share of doom, as “Throes” and “Triumph” build delightfully unsettling tension with stately Candlemass-esque riffcraft. The patient bass and inexorable drums of “Scorn Ceremony” paint a picture of evil sacraments and recall the backwater cult vibes of Choir. Ordeals releases that tension to great effect, too. In conjunction with Hellspell’s fanatical roars, Illuminated and Bellum often end songs by whipping each other into a spiraling dionysian fervor reminiscent of Kvaen’s “The Funeral Pyre” (“Third Rail Prayer,” “Throes,” “Emerge”). Contrary to my expectations, crafting this ceremonial, almost liturgical atmosphere is where Ordeals truly excels.The atmospheric, doom-laden high points of Third Rail Prayer make for an ironic prime criticism. When Ordeals channels Solitude Aeternus or Solstice, their measured, dignified songcraft and palpable atmosphere far outstrip anything else on the album. Make no mistake, Third Rail Prayer is an enjoyable ride front to back, but Ordeals’ blacker, deathier portions feel lackluster by comparison. While Zealous Hellspell’s rapturous howling helps stretch that atavistic spirit over the whole album, the same can’t be said of Illuminated and Bellum’s contributions. When Ordeals’ focus shifts from doom to another subgenre, I’m left impatiently waiting for their focus to shift back. The synergy and flow in those Sabbathian passages is so comprehensive, it’s ultimately frustrating that there’s not more of it here.
Third Rail Prayer employs a kitchen sink approach, showing off a little bit of everything the band can do. Ordeals plays good black metal and good death metal, but they play great high (blackened) doom. On Third Rail Prayer, Ordeals treats their best characteristic as just another tool in their belt. This debut serves as a 40-minute proof of concept, albeit an unfocused one.2 If they can hone in on their strengths—stately, doomy songcraft and palpably ceremonious atmosphere—and use them as a solid foundation moving forward, they’ll create something great in a sea of good. Ordeals is not a band to be slept on, and I have high expectations for them in the future.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Labels: Eternal Death
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: September 26th, 2025#2025 #30 #Abominator #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #BlackSabbath #BlackenedDeathMetal #Candlemass #Choir #Daethorn #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #EternalDeath #Kvaen #Ordeals #Review #Reviews #RottingChrist #Sep25 #Skeletonwitch #SolitudeAeternus #Solstice #ThirdRailPrayer #Uada
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Ordeals – Third Rail Prayer Review
By Spicie Forrest
Sometimes called the live rail, the third rail runs alongside the New York City Subway tracks, carrying electrical current enough to power the trains’ motors—or kill those who accidentally touch it. In a political context, the term refers to subjects dangerous enough to ruin careers. I learned this while researching Ordeals’ debut album, Third Rail Prayer. This NYC trio formed in 2011 and released two EPs and a split in the 14 years since.1 Influenced by the Australian scene, Ordeals promises a serpentine, subterranean blend of black and death metal, garnished with quiet grandiosity. Will Third Rail Prayer jumpstart their burgeoning career, or are they dead on arrival?
What Ordeals lacks in recognition, they offset with strong musicianship. Blackened riffs, courtesy of bassist/guitarist Illuminated, roil and surge like a sturgeon just beneath the surface, constantly shifting and reappearing through tempo shifts and key changes (“Throes”). Tremolo-heavy passages like those on “Suffer Cursed Ordeals” invoke Abominator and instill a sense of urgency and desperation. The bass most often acts as foil for the guitar, adding depth and texture to each track, but there are moments, like the back half of Skeletonwitched “Emerge,” where it takes center stage. Drummer Bellum loves a good blast beat, but he has a wealth of percussive techniques at his disposal. His kitwork is dynamic and energetic, and he drives the album with a varied and masterful hand. Bellum sets the tone (“Scorn Ceremony”), guides transitions (“Third Rail Prayer,” “Suffer Cursed Ordeals”), and keeps the album moving at an enjoyable and engaging pace.
A sectarian, ritualistic energy pervades Third Rail Prayer. Rather than high-pitched rasps, Zealous Hellspell mostly employs full-throated roars and shouts like Uada or Rotting Christ, evoking clandestine religious ceremonies or the recitation of some dark magic (“Triumph,” “Suffer Cursed Ordeals”). Though Ordeals bills themselves as blackened death, my ears hear a fair—and quite competent—share of doom, as “Throes” and “Triumph” build delightfully unsettling tension with stately Candlemass-esque riffcraft. The patient bass and inexorable drums of “Scorn Ceremony” paint a picture of evil sacraments and recall the backwater cult vibes of Choir. Ordeals releases that tension to great effect, too. In conjunction with Hellspell’s fanatical roars, Illuminated and Bellum often end songs by whipping each other into a spiraling dionysian fervor reminiscent of Kvaen’s “The Funeral Pyre” (“Third Rail Prayer,” “Throes,” “Emerge”). Contrary to my expectations, crafting this ceremonial, almost liturgical atmosphere is where Ordeals truly excels.The atmospheric, doom-laden high points of Third Rail Prayer make for an ironic prime criticism. When Ordeals channels Solitude Aeternus or Solstice, their measured, dignified songcraft and palpable atmosphere far outstrip anything else on the album. Make no mistake, Third Rail Prayer is an enjoyable ride front to back, but Ordeals’ blacker, deathier portions feel lackluster by comparison. While Zealous Hellspell’s rapturous howling helps stretch that atavistic spirit over the whole album, the same can’t be said of Illuminated and Bellum’s contributions. When Ordeals’ focus shifts from doom to another subgenre, I’m left impatiently waiting for their focus to shift back. The synergy and flow in those Sabbathian passages is so comprehensive, it’s ultimately frustrating that there’s not more of it here.
Third Rail Prayer employs a kitchen sink approach, showing off a little bit of everything the band can do. Ordeals plays good black metal and good death metal, but they play great high (blackened) doom. On Third Rail Prayer, Ordeals treats their best characteristic as just another tool in their belt. This debut serves as a 40-minute proof of concept, albeit an unfocused one.2 If they can hone in on their strengths—stately, doomy songcraft and palpably ceremonious atmosphere—and use them as a solid foundation moving forward, they’ll create something great in a sea of good. Ordeals is not a band to be slept on, and I have high expectations for them in the future.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Labels: Eternal Death
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: September 26th, 2025#2025 #30 #Abominator #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #BlackSabbath #BlackenedDeathMetal #Candlemass #Choir #Daethorn #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #EternalDeath #Kvaen #Ordeals #Review #Reviews #RottingChrist #Sep25 #Skeletonwitch #SolitudeAeternus #Solstice #ThirdRailPrayer #Uada
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Ordeals – Third Rail Prayer Review
By Spicie Forrest
Sometimes called the live rail, the third rail runs alongside the New York City Subway tracks, carrying electrical current enough to power the trains’ motors—or kill those who accidentally touch it. In a political context, the term refers to subjects dangerous enough to ruin careers. I learned this while researching Ordeals’ debut album, Third Rail Prayer. This NYC trio formed in 2011 and released two EPs and a split in the 14 years since.1 Influenced by the Australian scene, Ordeals promises a serpentine, subterranean blend of black and death metal, garnished with quiet grandiosity. Will Third Rail Prayer jumpstart their burgeoning career, or are they dead on arrival?
What Ordeals lacks in recognition, they offset with strong musicianship. Blackened riffs, courtesy of bassist/guitarist Illuminated, roil and surge like a sturgeon just beneath the surface, constantly shifting and reappearing through tempo shifts and key changes (“Throes”). Tremolo-heavy passages like those on “Suffer Cursed Ordeals” invoke Abominator and instill a sense of urgency and desperation. The bass most often acts as foil for the guitar, adding depth and texture to each track, but there are moments, like the back half of Skeletonwitched “Emerge,” where it takes center stage. Drummer Bellum loves a good blast beat, but he has a wealth of percussive techniques at his disposal. His kitwork is dynamic and energetic, and he drives the album with a varied and masterful hand. Bellum sets the tone (“Scorn Ceremony”), guides transitions (“Third Rail Prayer,” “Suffer Cursed Ordeals”), and keeps the album moving at an enjoyable and engaging pace.
A sectarian, ritualistic energy pervades Third Rail Prayer. Rather than high-pitched rasps, Zealous Hellspell mostly employs full-throated roars and shouts like Uada or Rotting Christ, evoking clandestine religious ceremonies or the recitation of some dark magic (“Triumph,” “Suffer Cursed Ordeals”). Though Ordeals bills themselves as blackened death, my ears hear a fair—and quite competent—share of doom, as “Throes” and “Triumph” build delightfully unsettling tension with stately Candlemass-esque riffcraft. The patient bass and inexorable drums of “Scorn Ceremony” paint a picture of evil sacraments and recall the backwater cult vibes of Choir. Ordeals releases that tension to great effect, too. In conjunction with Hellspell’s fanatical roars, Illuminated and Bellum often end songs by whipping each other into a spiraling dionysian fervor reminiscent of Kvaen’s “The Funeral Pyre” (“Third Rail Prayer,” “Throes,” “Emerge”). Contrary to my expectations, crafting this ceremonial, almost liturgical atmosphere is where Ordeals truly excels.The atmospheric, doom-laden high points of Third Rail Prayer make for an ironic prime criticism. When Ordeals channels Solitude Aeternus or Solstice, their measured, dignified songcraft and palpable atmosphere far outstrip anything else on the album. Make no mistake, Third Rail Prayer is an enjoyable ride front to back, but Ordeals’ blacker, deathier portions feel lackluster by comparison. While Zealous Hellspell’s rapturous howling helps stretch that atavistic spirit over the whole album, the same can’t be said of Illuminated and Bellum’s contributions. When Ordeals’ focus shifts from doom to another subgenre, I’m left impatiently waiting for their focus to shift back. The synergy and flow in those Sabbathian passages is so comprehensive, it’s ultimately frustrating that there’s not more of it here.
Third Rail Prayer employs a kitchen sink approach, showing off a little bit of everything the band can do. Ordeals plays good black metal and good death metal, but they play great high (blackened) doom. On Third Rail Prayer, Ordeals treats their best characteristic as just another tool in their belt. This debut serves as a 40-minute proof of concept, albeit an unfocused one.2 If they can hone in on their strengths—stately, doomy songcraft and palpably ceremonious atmosphere—and use them as a solid foundation moving forward, they’ll create something great in a sea of good. Ordeals is not a band to be slept on, and I have high expectations for them in the future.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Labels: Eternal Death
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: September 26th, 2025#2025 #30 #Abominator #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #BlackSabbath #BlackenedDeathMetal #Candlemass #Choir #Daethorn #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #EternalDeath #Kvaen #Ordeals #Review #Reviews #RottingChrist #Sep25 #Skeletonwitch #SolitudeAeternus #Solstice #ThirdRailPrayer #Uada
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Ordeals – Third Rail Prayer Review
By Spicie Forrest
Sometimes called the live rail, the third rail runs alongside the New York City Subway tracks, carrying electrical current enough to power the trains’ motors—or kill those who accidentally touch it. In a political context, the term refers to subjects dangerous enough to ruin careers. I learned this while researching Ordeals’ debut album, Third Rail Prayer. This NYC trio formed in 2011 and released two EPs and a split in the 14 years since.1 Influenced by the Australian scene, Ordeals promises a serpentine, subterranean blend of black and death metal, garnished with quiet grandiosity. Will Third Rail Prayer jumpstart their burgeoning career, or are they dead on arrival?
What Ordeals lacks in recognition, they offset with strong musicianship. Blackened riffs, courtesy of bassist/guitarist Illuminated, roil and surge like a sturgeon just beneath the surface, constantly shifting and reappearing through tempo shifts and key changes (“Throes”). Tremolo-heavy passages like those on “Suffer Cursed Ordeals” invoke Abominator and instill a sense of urgency and desperation. The bass most often acts as foil for the guitar, adding depth and texture to each track, but there are moments, like the back half of Skeletonwitched “Emerge,” where it takes center stage. Drummer Bellum loves a good blast beat, but he has a wealth of percussive techniques at his disposal. His kitwork is dynamic and energetic, and he drives the album with a varied and masterful hand. Bellum sets the tone (“Scorn Ceremony”), guides transitions (“Third Rail Prayer,” “Suffer Cursed Ordeals”), and keeps the album moving at an enjoyable and engaging pace.
A sectarian, ritualistic energy pervades Third Rail Prayer. Rather than high-pitched rasps, Zealous Hellspell mostly employs full-throated roars and shouts like Uada or Rotting Christ, evoking clandestine religious ceremonies or the recitation of some dark magic (“Triumph,” “Suffer Cursed Ordeals”). Though Ordeals bills themselves as blackened death, my ears hear a fair—and quite competent—share of doom, as “Throes” and “Triumph” build delightfully unsettling tension with stately Candlemass-esque riffcraft. The patient bass and inexorable drums of “Scorn Ceremony” paint a picture of evil sacraments and recall the backwater cult vibes of Choir. Ordeals releases that tension to great effect, too. In conjunction with Hellspell’s fanatical roars, Illuminated and Bellum often end songs by whipping each other into a spiraling dionysian fervor reminiscent of Kvaen’s “The Funeral Pyre” (“Third Rail Prayer,” “Throes,” “Emerge”). Contrary to my expectations, crafting this ceremonial, almost liturgical atmosphere is where Ordeals truly excels.The atmospheric, doom-laden high points of Third Rail Prayer make for an ironic prime criticism. When Ordeals channels Solitude Aeternus or Solstice, their measured, dignified songcraft and palpable atmosphere far outstrip anything else on the album. Make no mistake, Third Rail Prayer is an enjoyable ride front to back, but Ordeals’ blacker, deathier portions feel lackluster by comparison. While Zealous Hellspell’s rapturous howling helps stretch that atavistic spirit over the whole album, the same can’t be said of Illuminated and Bellum’s contributions. When Ordeals’ focus shifts from doom to another subgenre, I’m left impatiently waiting for their focus to shift back. The synergy and flow in those Sabbathian passages is so comprehensive, it’s ultimately frustrating that there’s not more of it here.
Third Rail Prayer employs a kitchen sink approach, showing off a little bit of everything the band can do. Ordeals plays good black metal and good death metal, but they play great high (blackened) doom. On Third Rail Prayer, Ordeals treats their best characteristic as just another tool in their belt. This debut serves as a 40-minute proof of concept, albeit an unfocused one.2 If they can hone in on their strengths—stately, doomy songcraft and palpably ceremonious atmosphere—and use them as a solid foundation moving forward, they’ll create something great in a sea of good. Ordeals is not a band to be slept on, and I have high expectations for them in the future.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Labels: Eternal Death
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: September 26th, 2025#2025 #30 #Abominator #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #BlackSabbath #BlackenedDeathMetal #Candlemass #Choir #Daethorn #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #EternalDeath #Kvaen #Ordeals #Review #Reviews #RottingChrist #Sep25 #Skeletonwitch #SolitudeAeternus #Solstice #ThirdRailPrayer #Uada
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Ordeals – Third Rail Prayer Review
By Spicie Forrest
Sometimes called the live rail, the third rail runs alongside the New York City Subway tracks, carrying electrical current enough to power the trains’ motors—or kill those who accidentally touch it. In a political context, the term refers to subjects dangerous enough to ruin careers. I learned this while researching Ordeals’ debut album, Third Rail Prayer. This NYC trio formed in 2011 and released two EPs and a split in the 14 years since.1 Influenced by the Australian scene, Ordeals promises a serpentine, subterranean blend of black and death metal, garnished with quiet grandiosity. Will Third Rail Prayer jumpstart their burgeoning career, or are they dead on arrival?
What Ordeals lacks in recognition, they offset with strong musicianship. Blackened riffs, courtesy of bassist/guitarist Illuminated, roil and surge like a sturgeon just beneath the surface, constantly shifting and reappearing through tempo shifts and key changes (“Throes”). Tremolo-heavy passages like those on “Suffer Cursed Ordeals” invoke Abominator and instill a sense of urgency and desperation. The bass most often acts as foil for the guitar, adding depth and texture to each track, but there are moments, like the back half of Skeletonwitched “Emerge,” where it takes center stage. Drummer Bellum loves a good blast beat, but he has a wealth of percussive techniques at his disposal. His kitwork is dynamic and energetic, and he drives the album with a varied and masterful hand. Bellum sets the tone (“Scorn Ceremony”), guides transitions (“Third Rail Prayer,” “Suffer Cursed Ordeals”), and keeps the album moving at an enjoyable and engaging pace.
A sectarian, ritualistic energy pervades Third Rail Prayer. Rather than high-pitched rasps, Zealous Hellspell mostly employs full-throated roars and shouts like Uada or Rotting Christ, evoking clandestine religious ceremonies or the recitation of some dark magic (“Triumph,” “Suffer Cursed Ordeals”). Though Ordeals bills themselves as blackened death, my ears hear a fair—and quite competent—share of doom, as “Throes” and “Triumph” build delightfully unsettling tension with stately Candlemass-esque riffcraft. The patient bass and inexorable drums of “Scorn Ceremony” paint a picture of evil sacraments and recall the backwater cult vibes of Choir. Ordeals releases that tension to great effect, too. In conjunction with Hellspell’s fanatical roars, Illuminated and Bellum often end songs by whipping each other into a spiraling dionysian fervor reminiscent of Kvaen’s “The Funeral Pyre” (“Third Rail Prayer,” “Throes,” “Emerge”). Contrary to my expectations, crafting this ceremonial, almost liturgical atmosphere is where Ordeals truly excels.The atmospheric, doom-laden high points of Third Rail Prayer make for an ironic prime criticism. When Ordeals channels Solitude Aeternus or Solstice, their measured, dignified songcraft and palpable atmosphere far outstrip anything else on the album. Make no mistake, Third Rail Prayer is an enjoyable ride front to back, but Ordeals’ blacker, deathier portions feel lackluster by comparison. While Zealous Hellspell’s rapturous howling helps stretch that atavistic spirit over the whole album, the same can’t be said of Illuminated and Bellum’s contributions. When Ordeals’ focus shifts from doom to another subgenre, I’m left impatiently waiting for their focus to shift back. The synergy and flow in those Sabbathian passages is so comprehensive, it’s ultimately frustrating that there’s not more of it here.
Third Rail Prayer employs a kitchen sink approach, showing off a little bit of everything the band can do. Ordeals plays good black metal and good death metal, but they play great high (blackened) doom. On Third Rail Prayer, Ordeals treats their best characteristic as just another tool in their belt. This debut serves as a 40-minute proof of concept, albeit an unfocused one.2 If they can hone in on their strengths—stately, doomy songcraft and palpably ceremonious atmosphere—and use them as a solid foundation moving forward, they’ll create something great in a sea of good. Ordeals is not a band to be slept on, and I have high expectations for them in the future.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Labels: Eternal Death
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: September 26th, 2025#2025 #30 #Abominator #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #BlackSabbath #BlackenedDeathMetal #Candlemass #Choir #Daethorn #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #EternalDeath #Kvaen #Ordeals #Review #Reviews #RottingChrist #Sep25 #Skeletonwitch #SolitudeAeternus #Solstice #ThirdRailPrayer #Uada
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#GRK0062 #Tragédies #Sociologie #GeorgesBATAILLE
La sociologie sacrée du monde contemporain [1938]
Georges Bataille (Lignes, 2004)
iBouquin:https://mega.nz/file/1EZWyLoK#sXzw50oQvwghQarDPGihbk8Jh9ZPepka1eg7_wcMUeM
Si t'as les moyens:
https://www.editions-lignes.com/LA-SOCIOLOGIE-SACREE-DU-MONDE.htmlPrésentation de Simonetta Falasca Zamponi:
La Sociologie sacrée du monde contemporain est le texte inédit de la conférence prononcée par Georges Bataille le 2 avril 1938 au Collège de sociologie .La Sociologie sacrée du monde contemporain est un court texte d’un intérêt considérable. De par sa date : Georges Bataille l’a prononcé peu avant les accords de Munich et la guerre, le 2 avril 1938. De par son contexte : il l’a prononcé dans le cadre du cycle de conférences du Collège de sociologie, créé par Michel Leiris, Roger Caillois et lui-même. Les activités de ce Collège – tout sauf académique – ont connu elles-mêmes, après coup, un retentissement important. Non sans raison : c’est dans le cadre de celui-ci que s’est sans doute pensée avec la plus grande acuité la gravité de la situation mondiale. Et c’est cette gravité que, par des détours qui lui sont familiers, Bataille pense dans cette conférence inédite.
Il y a trente ans sûrement, vingt-cinq peut-être, le nom de Georges Bataille était à peu près inconnu. Et il n’était pas rare, si vous évoquiez le nom de Bataille auprès d’un libraire, que celui-ci vous sortît des livres d’Henri Bataille, et non de Georges. L’histoire littéraire est friande de ces retournements, qui sont aussi des réparations : Henri Bataille est maintenant tombé dans l’oubli et Georges Bataille est désormais célèbre dans le monde entier.
Douze volumes d’Œuvres complètes (Gallimard) ont certes permis que cette célébrité s’établisse et que nul ne doute plus qu’il compte parmi les écrivains-philosophes français majeurs du XXe siècle. La sortie en novembre du premier volume de la Pléiade consacrera en quelque sorte cette évidence.
Tout n’était-il pas déjà publié dans ces Œuvres complètes ? On pouvait le penser. Tout ne l’était pas, cependant. Ainsi de cette conférence que reproduit ce court volume qui était considérée comme perdue, à l’exception des seules premières pages. Enfin retrouvée, nous la publions intégralement, sous le titre que Bataille lui avait lui-même donné, assortie de la présentation de Simonetta Falasca Zamponi, son « découvreur ».Dans la presse :
« En 2005, où la philosophie semble s’être bornée aux traités d’athéologie et autres principes d’ingouvernabilité, la prose de Bataille peut encore impressionner. Ardente et froide, mêlant rigueur et cérémonie, elle élève constamment l’analyse à la hauteur du mythe. »
Le Matricule des Anges=============
Georges Bataille (1897-1962)
est est un écrivain français.Entré au séminaire à l'âge de vingt ans, il admet rapidement la faillite de sa vocation religieuse. Il se rend dès lors à l'école des Chartes pour y suivre une formation d'archiviste, enrichie d'une initiation à la psychanalyse et à la philosophie.
En 1929, il fonde la revue "Documents", point de ralliement de tous les excommuniés de Breton, en rupture avec l'idéalisme surréaliste. Quelques années plus tard, avec des fidèles, il fonde la revue "Acéphale" dont le thème principal est l'exaltation tragique et dionysiaque de la vie, jusque dans la cruauté et la mort. Persuadé de la perversité du fascisme, ne croyant pas aux mouvements prolétariens, il fonde en 1935, quelques mois avant la victoire du Front populaire, un mouvement d'intellectuels révolutionnaires "Contre-Attaque", qui se situe contre le capitalisme, contre la bourgeoisie, pour la libre expression sexuelle.Quelques faits marquants : conversion au catholicisme (1914), perte de la foi (1920), lecture de Nietzsche (1923), psychanalyse (1926), lecture de Marx et de Hegel (1930), adhésion au Cercle communiste démocratique (1931-1934), lutte contre le fascisme (1936), formation d'une société secrète d'inspiration nietzschéenne et anti-chrétienne et du Collège de sociologie avec Pierre Klossowski, Jules Monnerot, Roger Caillois et Michel Leiris (1936), initiation au yoga (1938), début de "l'expérience intérieure" (1939).
Plus tard, il se détourne de l'action politique pour se consacrer à l'écriture d'ouvrages très souvent à composante autobiographique, dans lesquels il développe sa recherche du sacré et de l'extase, l'horreur de la mort et sa fascination pour celle-ci. L’œuvre de Bataille est diverse : essais, poèmes, romans, mais elle ne se préoccupe que d'approcher ces états limites (douleur, mort, plaisir) à travers lesquels se précise la manifestation de "l'impossible". Multiforme, son œuvre s'aventure à la fois dans les champs de la littérature, l'anthropologie, la philosophie, l'économie, la sociologie et l'histoire de l'art. Érotisme et transgression sont les deux termes les plus communément attachés à son nom.
Bataille a usé de nombreux pseudonymes pour signer ses ouvrages notamment Troppmann, Lord Auch, Pierre Angélique, Louis Trente et Dianus.
Écrivain longtemps maudit, Bataille a été encensé à sa mort par une nouvelle génération d'auteurs et de philosophes.
(babelio)============
Simonetta Falasca Zamponi:
" I am a cultural sociologist engaged in comparative-historical research through an interdisciplinary approach. Focusing primarily on the first half of the twentieth century, my work examines the production and circulation of meaning in historical experience. It draws on visual and textual narratives to assess the dynamic nature of political and social phenomena, especially during times of traumatic transformations. And it looks at cultural forms as helping to mediate the boundaries between official history and people’s lived experience, the public and the private. My award-winning book, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy (1997), employs the category of “aesthetic politics” to analyze the role that symbolic discourse — myths, rituals, images and speeches — played in the making of the fascist regime and the construction of Mussolini’s power. In turn, Rethinking the Political: The Sacred, Aesthetic Politics, and the Collège de Sociologie (2011) utilizes the notion of “the sacred” to address 1930s French analyses of the “crisis of democracy” amidst the growing rise of totalitarianisms. My most recentbook, Fascism, the War, and Structures of Feeling in Italy, 1943-1945: Tales in Chiaroscuro (2023), examines shifts in Italians’ perception of fascism in the years immediately following the fall of Mussolini’s regime in July 1943. Inspired by Raymond Williams’s concept of “structures of feeling” and based on more than one hundred private diaries of ordinary citizens, the book is a hermeneutical investigation of how Italians negotiated their historical situatedness after twenty years of fascist dictatorship. " (S. F. Z.)[1938? 2004? 20 piges plus tard, Bataille et son acuité...]
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MUSSOLINI: SON OF THE CENTURY (2025)
This TV Mini Series from Italy, based on Antonio Scurati’s 2018 book of the same name, has been strangely overlooked by online reviewers for reasons I can’t quite determine. The instant appeal of this work for me was the dynamism in the cinematography and the deployment of an eclectic range of imagery and styles to express both the volatile period and the shifting mood swings of Mussolini (played by Luca Marinelli). In this way it partly echoes the style of Scurati’s book which used a mix of fictional and documentary methods to depict fascism from the inside. This style, which the author termed ‘fictual’, shifts between archive documents, omniscient narration, and the first person perspective of Mussolini and others. In this TV adaptation however, while there is only the perspective of Mussolini, there is an analogous shifting between traditional acoustic and modern electric and digital instrumentation in the soundtrack, created by Tom Rowlands, one half of the The Chemical Brothers duo. This combination drives home the fact that fascism consciously played on a romanticised past while also evoking a kind of hypnotic fascination with the future. It should feel anachronistic to hear a techno soundtrack over montages of archival footage but it’s a common edit technique used by amateurs on X and YouTube with great success.
https://youtu.be/laEem5wiOSY?si=_R4VmiRg-uhTCTrj
It’s also very refreshing to watch a TV series and not to be browbeaten by a script in which every second character explicitly warns of the threat to democracy posed by the extreme right as if the viewer is a drooling halfwit. Antonio Scurati has been described in the publicity for the series as
democratic, libertarian and progressive, and sees his novel as his greatest contribution to the re-foundation of anti-fascism, an anti-fascism that can stand up to new times.
As if not to be outdone in this display of liberal credentials, the director Joe Wright has even talked about Mussolini’s toxic masculinity:
What I find really fascinating about Mussolini is that he represents, in my mind, the worst of masculinity… Mussolini… dug into the worst in himself and used it to gain power.
All this is to be expected in the current climate and doesn’t detract from the work which unapologetically immerses the viewer in the fascist worldview and deploys the same method common to left-wing/liberal biopics of people like Che Guevara (The Motorcycle Diaries 2004) or the American communist John Reed (Reds 1981).
What is interesting here is the application of this immersive method to a party on the right of the political spectrum. The usual demonization of the leaders and followers of right wing movements which makes every depiction a static, po-faced denunciation of a strawman caricature is thankfully absent from this work, even though it depicts brutal acts of violence committed by the fascists. The same film industry which waxes lyrical about Che Guevara and his peasant followers and romanticises the lower classes when they are mobilised for leftist causes, will usually turn around and condemn them as losers and reprehensible social misfits when they are attracted to right-wing movements. Perhaps even the liberals have grown tired of this hypocrisy or perhaps we have entered a more cynical age and perhaps this cynicism can be seen in the depiction of politics as theatre within this series. For example: the mocking asides from Mussolini as if this was a Shakespeare play and he is Richard the Third: the Brechtian breaking of the fourth wall to explain the background context: or his remarks announcing the role he has to play as necessity dictates:
Enter the magician…Enter the trainer…Enter the quick-change artist.
Add to this the comedy of many scenes and the constant mockery and contempt he displays toward Parliament and ‘this putrid liberal democracy‘ and it’s possible to see a reflection of the current mood evident among the electorate of many European countries and the skittishness of the ruling classes at the smouldering discontent and contempt just awaiting a genuine alternative.
There is a moment when Mussolini remarks to the camera, in English, Make Italy great again! which is an explicit, comical nod to this seismic shift in the current political landscape. With the hysterical accusations of fascism directed at Donald Trump and ICE being compared to a fascist militia, there is the implicit recognition of the failure of liberal democracy to deliver on its promises and the growing desire for radical change or rather a radical reversal/return. As an aside it was noticeable in Donald Trump’s initial campaign rallies of 2016 that he consciously mimicked Mussolini’s jutting chin and oratorical style but the press preferred to go with the comparisons to Hitler as Italian fascism has always been rather ill-defined and inadequate for stirring up Pavlovian reactions.The marginal role Mussolini and Franco played in the media’s morality tale of World War Two actually allows a certain freedom to explore the topic without those mind-numbing, thought-killing accusations of reviving a deadly ideology, which still hampers any attempt to put this period into perspective in regards to Germany and the Weimar regime. Scurati himself has talked about how anti-fascist prejudice blocks the ability to analyse fascism, producing a form of ideological blindness. For that reason there is a lot of space for an in-depth exploration of the psychological and emotional make-up of Mussolini which is clearly influenced in this version by the fictional character of Tony Soprano and the real-world figure of Silvio Berlusconi. There’s also a fascinating mixture of exhilaration and nihilism in the character of Mussolini: one minute enraptured with utopian visions of a united Italy, the next wracked with self-doubt and disgust at humanity. The abrupt shifts, from revelling in excess and violence with his ‘fighting bands’ (Fasci Italiani Combattimento), to adopting an air of respectability when attempting to gain parliamentary power, are a reflection of his own internal contradictions. Taking his cue from Marinetti’s Futurism and D’Annunzio’s self-proclaimed Superman image he struggles to find a coherent identity. His initial socialist ideals transformed into what has been termed ‘revolutionary nationalism’ by A James Gregor:
Mussolini’s revolutionary nationalism, while it distinguished itself from the traditional patriotism and nationalism of the bourgeoisie, displayed many of those features we today identify with the nationalism of underdeveloped peoples. It was an anticonservative nationalism that anticipated vast social changes; it was directed against both foreign and domestic oppressors; it conjured up an image of a renewed and regenerated nation that would perform a historical mission; it invoked a moral ideal of selfless sacrifice and commitment in the service of collective goals; and it recalled ancient glories and anticipated a shared and greater glory
The visual and audio styles in the series reflect this confusing mix of political categories, a political syncretism which is fluid and shifting, combining elements from the left and right of the spectrum. This dynamic and unstable environment inhabited by the volatile character of Mussolini is part of the fascination of this series. Right from the start we are hurled into the wreckage of WW1 and the broken, disenchanted veterans feeling discarded by the political class. The same discontented masses that the socialists wished to utilise for their revolution are also the object of his overtures:
History is made with outcasts, people at the bottom of the barrel. Inflame their anger, arm them with bombs and guns. I will make the revolution with them!
There’s even an attractive quality in the inept Machiavellianism of Mussolini as depicted here. His bluntness and his mood swings really disqualify him from the smooth-talking, cool-headed role of a master manipulator, despite his self-presentation as such. It’s made clear that much of his success relies upon the shrewdness of those around him such as Cesare Rossi and his mistress Margherita Sarfatti and that he resents this dependency.
The brief inclusion of the character of Marinetti, the founder of Futurism, does situate fascism in the confluence of artistic currents such as Cubism, Vorticism, Surrealism and Expressionism. These are also the sources for the dominant aesthetic of the series which deploys spectacle in its examination of the political movement to a greater degree than usual. The scenes of violence borrow much from Peaky Blinders and have the same sensationalist excess but with an enhanced unreality, a kind of magic realism which makes for a less exploitative appeal to the baser instincts.
This extract from the Futurist Manifesto of 1909 is reflected in the dynamic aesthetics of the series:
We will sing of great crowds excited by work, by pleasure, and by riot; we will sing of the multicolored, polyphonic tides of revolution in the modern capitals; we will sing of the vibrant nightly fervour of arsenals and shipyards blazing with violent electric moons; greedy railway stations that devour smoke-plumed serpents; factories hung on clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke; bridges that stride the rivers like giant gymnasts, flashing in the sun with a glitter of knives; adventurous steamers that sniff the horizon; deep-chested locomotives whose wheels paw the tracks like the hooves of enormous steel horses bridled by tubing; and the sleek flight of planes whose propellers chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer like an enthusiastic crowd.It’s no coincidence that the year Mussolini took office was the same year as the publication of The Wasteland by T.S.Eliot and Ulysses by James Joyce. These modernist landmarks both deal with the confrontation between the traditional worlds and the encroachment of radical modern developments. Eliot would wrestle with this issue even as late as Notes Toward the Definition of Culture (1948) and in his plays which attempted to revive blank verse. Joyce would solve the conflict by seeing in the modern world of Dublin a parallel of the ancient world depicted in Homer’s Odyssey. Also we have the figure of Ezra Pound, a leading modernist poet who produced radio broadcasts from Italy denouncing the allies from 1941 to 1945 and was later arrested for treason. Pound’s Cantos are very much concerned with this dialogue between the ancient and the modern. The same struggle between acknowledging the past and pushing into the future without a radical negation of values which underpin a society is evident in the trajectory of fascism and other ‘third position’ parties. Even Futurism is a response to this pressure of the modern world albeit in a different manner.
We are also shown Mussolini rejecting the bohemian, artistic milieu around Marinetti as ultimately unserious, in the same manner in which Julius Evola abandoned his early dalliance with Dadaism in favour of esoteric philosophy and traditionalism. Mussolini’s admiration for D’Annunzio is tinged with envy in regard to the latter’s charisma but also a kind of mockery toward his immersion in the realm of fantasy and heroic idealism exemplified by his invasion of Fiume: a clump of houses nobody would ever give a fuck about, if it hadn’t become a symbol. D’Annunzio himself would be worthy of a similar series, just as the whole era in Italy is largely unknown to the average viewer and rewards investigation. This article about Fiume is especially eye-opening:
Dionysiac Left-Nietzscheanism in Power: In Defence of the Fiume Commune — MEON
It’s interesting to see the influential political role played by figures like D’Annunzio, the warrior poet and heroic fighter. Such people no longer influence our political system which has been reduced to performative statements in parliament and stage-managed PR stunts. Any figure who might faintly correspond to leaders such as those thrown up by that chaotic period are immediately denounced as ‘strong-man authoritarians’ who threaten democracy. In reality they threaten the marionette show of party politics which masks corporate and technocratic dominance.
The insert of a puppet show, as in this example, is part of the eclectic visual style which also mirrors Mussolini’s mercurial temperament. The scene here is depicting his ‘nightmare’ of social peace, a socialist utopia, which he fears will render his movement redundant and irrelevant. This is the viewpoint of Scurati which recurs frequently within his book and it echoes the kind of blinkered, dismissive view often heard from establishment figures for whom any suggestion of an alternative form of government is cynically capitalising on minor problems which can be solved through the parliamentary process. To be fair to Scurati he does emphasise that the politicians, apart from Matteotti, are quite willing to forgo their principles if it means retaining their positions. In contrast to that corrupt, ossified system, is the vision of fascism which Mussolini himself evokes:
Fascism, a beautiful creature, made up of passion, ideals, courage and change, that will conquer millions and millions of hearts.It’s hard to ignore the contrast between the passions generated by the polarized politics of this period and our own cynical and apathetic attitude towards the bland centrists offered up for election. At one point when asked to define fascism Mussolini calls it an ‘anti-party’ which is, in the context, simply an expression of disdain for the charade of left and right opposition. This is also closely bound up with the nihilist and anarchist roots of fascism and futurism, a desire to break out from the suffocating orthodoxy of political and artistic forms.
His mistress, Margherita Sarfatti, ran a salon and was influential in the promotion of the Novecento style of art which informs some of the cinematography in the series. The same dynamic and energetic impulses of this artistic movement are transmitted through the editing and camera angles chosen by the director. A sort of feverish surrealism frames the historical events which mirrors the manner in which Scurati’s book immerses the reader’s senses in the atmosphere of Milan or Rome.
Fortunato Depero, Nitrito in Velocità, 1932.
Unique Forms Of Continuity In Space, 1913 By Umberto Boccioni
This image of Mussolini torching his socialist ideals is a perfect example of the visual elements deployed by the director. There seems to be a willingness to experiment with different narrative modes which challenge the viewers and break the work out of the formulaic strait-jacket which so many TV series now inhabit. There are some parallels with Hans Jürgen Syberberg’s 1977 work Hitler: A Film from Germany which also deployed a range of styles in the service of representing historical events and personages. It’s not just the use of puppets and Brechtian theatrical techniques that evokes a similarity but also the implicit attempt to come to terms with Italy’s fascist history without resorting to the post-war propaganda narratives. In Syberberg’s work there is an explicit reckoning with the past and a far more ambitious and complex artistic aim but it’s hard not to see echoes of it in this series.
Susan Sontag, the author of Fascinating Fascism, a study of German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, also wrote about Syberberg’s film with considerable insight.
Susan Sontag: Syberberg’s Hitler
It’s possible that the post-war liberal consensus is reacting to the tremors of a new era where their well-worn slogans no longer have the power to persuade and pacify the populace. The main thesis in Scurati’s book and repeated in the series is that the principles of liberal democracy were not upheld and that the left was too riven by factions and infighting to resist the rise of an authoritarian regime. This view ignores the pre-war context where the idea of nations and peoples had not yet been reduced to a sphere of economic zones/resources to be effectively managed but was instead seen as enmeshed with a spiritual destiny and an historical mission. A view which seems eccentric to our crude materialistic age but was strong enough to enlist the forces of millions of people in its service. It is the sense of our own impoverished political landscape that makes the period of fascism so compelling.
That a work such as this can still emerge in the midst of remakes and formulaic dramas is very encouraging. It has something akin to the 1986 TV series The Singing Detective by Dennis Potter, with the same verve and bold stylistic choices, proving what can be achieved with the medium. As to why it has not been given the attention it deserves, it’s possible that the depiction of Mussolini as a very human character with relatable fears and guilt alongside his arrogance and charm threatened the ready-made image of a vain, strutting buffoon who was eventually overthrown by his own people. Perhaps it’s necessary for a liberal democracy that he remain only a propaganda symbol of the threat of dictatorship and the cult of personality and not a vivid representation of human nature. Whatever the reason may be, the fact remains that the current system in Europe is very fragile and defensive, even reactionary and censorious, in contradiction to its ‘liberal’ and ‘democratic’ claims. The desire for political change is as strong as it was in Mussolini’s time and surely it is better to have a political system that recognises the inherent flaws in human nature than this intransigent egalitarianism that is at war with reality and a political ruling class that is at war with its own people.
It’s worth listening to this discussion which throws light on some of the work behind the cinematography.
Mussolini: Son of the Century Q&A with Seamus McGarvey ASC BSC ISC
Jonathan Bowden is always worth the time to read or listen to. Here he is on Syberberg.
#Democracy #donaldTrump #Fascism #history #JonathanBowden #Mussolini #politics #trump -
Wanna Stop Writing After This
“For a long time now, the role of the Brahmin has been outsourced to other countries, particularly Europe and the US. Why? Because we Indians have stopped thinking many centuries back.”
Neruda, I Feel Sadder Than You Tonight
No reason Neruda that I feel sad
You at least had your girl to blame
I have nothing and no one to blame
For how I feel now, just life itself
Galls me to no end, where I feel mocked
By life itself which demands it be understood
Am I supposed to love life and not the woman
But I do not know what life is nor how to live
Shall I just drink a Coke and open happiness
But Coke’s fizz lasts less time than morning dew
The sun is hot but it’s supposedly life-giver
But when I step out in the aft’noon it’s killing
So, I cannot trust the very so-called life-giver
Nothing in nature seems benign, not even society
And when night comes, cocooned here in my flat
I can’t see the stars, and moon interests me not
All I can look forward to now is slow deterioration
One by one the powers will desert me, from the teeth
To the knees to the memory to the interest
Time cares not to show anyone any compassion
The philosophy I know is even more problematic
In a way it gives me relief from these thoughts
And in a way it doubles the pain by showing
This whole life was a waste of time, no study
Nor emotion nor smile nor understanding
Takes you where you want to be, and these days
I am not even sure where I want to be, not even to be
I cannot even go back to where I came from
Nor can I know where I have to go, nor whether
Any journey is worth it at all, as now I understand
This flight from myself is the cause of all problems
And, when I look into myself, I find only wisdom
And that wisdom tells me I do not understand at all
Neither Truth nor Love, for wisdom tells me
If you think you understand Truth and Love
Why are you still undertaking many a journey.
“Everything in this world has a cause. And every effect becomes in turn a cause. Where there are causes and effects, there is change underway. Where there is change how can Truth be. And where there is no Truth how can love be.”
“Definition of a perfect love story: Going from aroused to erased.”
“Most human love arises out of fear, is sustained by fear, and ends a quiet death due to fear.”
“Life is a Russian roulette.”
“Perfect recipe for dissatisfaction in life: Wanting to be happy always all the time no matter what.”
“Some say God is Truth. Some say God is Love. Both are wrong. God is. Period.”
“Love is not an add-on to the other things in your life. Love is the life.”
“Love is the ultimate soporific which dullens the pain of existence.”
“We think there is life. That is the death of us.”
“We are all lost in our desires. Desires take us to the future. Inhabiting the future, we fail to live because life is happening in the present.”
Jagat (Sanskrit: जगत्) primarily means the world, universe, or earth. It is derived from the root gacchati (“that which moves”), signifying that the universe is in constant motion, ever-changing, and ephemeral.
Core Meanings & Contexts:
• The Moving World: It refers to all that is moving, animate, living, and changing, encompassing the entire material universe.
• Vedanta Philosophy: It is often described as mithya (dependent reality/illusion) in comparison to the absolute reality of Brahman, often referring to the subjective experience of the material world.
• Spiritual/Non-dualism: In some contexts, it is interpreted as the manifestation or “body” of the divine, completely dependent on the Supreme for existence.
• Common Usage: In Hindi and other Indian languages, it is used for “world” or “universe,” and sometimes implies a specific field or community (e.g., Nari Jagat – world of women).
Common Compound Words:
• Jagadish/Jagannath: Lord of the Universe (Vishnu or Shiva).
• Jagatmata: Mother of the World (Durga).
Jagat is also a common Indian name for boys, signifying the universe.
“Don’t wait for retirement or for that smile; be happy today, nay, right now.”
“Dare to be who you are.”
Give me some deeply philosophical quotes of Arthur Rimbaud.
Claude responded: Here are some deeply philosophical quotes from Arthur Rimbaud:
________________________________________
On the Self & Identity
“I is another.” — Letter to Georges Izambard, 1871
One of his most famous lines, suggesting the self is not a fixed entity but something foreign, observed from the outside — a radical idea that anticipated modern theories of subjectivity.
________________________________________
On Disorder & Vision
“The poet makes himself a seer by a long, prodigious, and rational disordering of all the senses.” — Letter to Paul Demeny (Lettre du Voyant), 1871
Rimbaud’s manifesto for poetry: to reach true vision, the poet must shatter ordinary perception and embrace suffering as a path to illumination.
________________________________________
On Life & the Absolute
“Real life is absent. We are not in the world.” — A Season in Hell
A haunting declaration of alienation — the sense that authentic existence lies forever beyond reach, and the world we inhabit is a kind of unreality.
________________________________________
On Suffering & Knowledge
“One must be absolutely modern.” — A Season in Hell
Deceptively simple, this is Rimbaud’s demand to break entirely with tradition — to find truth not in the past but in the raw, uncharted present.
________________________________________
On Love & Hell
“I have swallowed a famous mouthful of poison. Thrice blessed be the counsel that came to me! My bowels are on fire. The violence of the venom twists my limbs, deforms me, lays me low.” — A Season in Hell
A visceral metaphor for the self-destruction that comes with absolute passion — love, ambition, and vision as simultaneously poison and revelation.
________________________________________
On Eternity
“It has been found again. What? Eternity. It is the sea mixed with the sun.” — Eternity
A mystical fragment — eternity not as abstraction but as a sensory, almost pantheist fusion of natural forces.
________________________________________
On Freedom
“Only divine love bestows the keys of knowledge.” — A Season in Hell
Rimbaud suggests that rational intellect alone cannot unlock the deepest truths — only a surrender to something greater can.
________________________________________
Rimbaud’s philosophy is essentially one of radical becoming — the self must be destroyed, perception unhinged, and comfort abandoned in order to glimpse something true. He abandoned poetry entirely at 19, which many see as the ultimate philosophical act: refusing to be captured even by his own genius.
“Vivekananda, when he was young, really young, went around asking everyone, ‘Have you seen God’. And when he posed the same question to Ramakrishna Paramahansa, RP replied, ‘Yes, only more clearly than I see you now.’ Now, the question that can be asked is was RP, like J. Krishnamurti always said he does, ‘Answering the questioner rather than the question.’ Otherwise, the correct answer is, ‘What a stupid question, Naren, all you have been seeing all your life is ONLY God but you have been thinking you are seeing the world’.”
Buddha’s Mistake
Sam’s First Noble Truth
I agree with Buddha’s First Noble Truth that “Life is suffering”.
Sam’s Second Noble Truth
I do not agree with Buddha’s Second Noble Truth that “Desire is the cause of suffering.”
My point is that once you have understood that “Life is suffering”, you should also understand the simple logic that “No life, no suffering.”
So, do not bother about desires and all such nonsense.
Do not get caught in such traps, traps which arise only if you are living.
Just end life and you are done.
Or, rather realise you were never born.
No Sex, No Salvation, No Sam
I do not want to get caught
In the vortex of these Fie-loss-oafers
And whatever theories they spin
About this world, existing only in imagination;
When I talk about myself Sam
Or about Sex and Salvation, I do so
Under Erasure, as that Algerian Jew would have it
Who set afire many an academic department in the US
And, I note with pleasure his association in 1966
With my alma mater Johns Hopkins, kickstarting
That peculiar school of philosophy, poststructuralism,
But, why dabble and grapple even dilettantishly
With these games that minds of philosophers play
I who have understood Kena Upanishad’s admonition
That if you think Truth is there for the taking by the mind
You poor thing how little you understand
And where is the mind but in this world
Or is the world in the mind
Now, now don’t confuse me
I refuse to play this game with these words
For I know too well that if I renounce words
Which is the only true Vairagya that is there
And not so-called Vairagya of Kamini-Kanchana
Then in that silence all doubts are quelled
All truths stand revealed, and I know
Whatever I knew till now was wrong
And I learn to let go of not only Socrates and Sartre
But also of Maharshi and Maharaj
For where do they all exist
Except in my fertile imagination
As do Sex, Salvation and Sam.
“The tree has to bend to every wind, but it cannot know why the wind is blowing.”
“In the autumn, it is foolish for the tree to try to hold on to the leaves.”
“There is no spot in the pot where there is no clay.”
“In every love story, there is something more than biology at play.”
“My Call”
Yes, Michael, it always was your call
To go solo or to go with the family
And also your call to spread love and light
To this world through your moves.
Music, moods, musings, and murmurings
And did you change the world?
Who knows? Maybe a few and here and there
When you were alive, and a few more might change
Long after you are gone as long as your music lives on
Surely, though, you yourself must have escaped
The suffering that the blind strivings of the Will
Imposes on one, if Schopenhauer is to be believed,
With your Dionysian spirit that Nietzsche championed.
Yet how I despair Michael, my call
Is that this world is condemned to its duality
Of light and darkness, good and bad, virtue and vice
Socrates, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Jesus could not fix the world
So, Michael, you are forgiven, too, for failing
Though your critics would point out your own failings.
—
Maya (the cosmic creative/illusory power) is constituted by the three gunas — Sattva (clarity, harmony), Rajas (activity, passion, restlessness), and Tamas (inertia, darkness, ignorance). As long as manifestation exists — as long as anything is appearing — all three gunas are present in varying proportions. You can’t have Maya with only Sattva, because pure undifferentiated Sattva would dissolve back into Brahman. The tension and dynamism of Rajas and Tamas are what keep the world-appearance going.
So yes, suffering and evil are structurally baked into manifestation itself. Tamas produces ignorance, delusion, and stagnation; Rajas produces craving, conflict, and agitation — both are inexhaustible engines of suffering at the cosmic level.
This creates an important asymmetry:
At the individual level, liberation is possible — you can step out of identification with the gunas entirely, which is what Nisargadatta and Ramana point to. The Self is not a product of the gunas.
At the collective or historical level, you might get periods of greater Sattva, but Rajas and Tamas always reassert themselves — civilizations rise and fall in cycles (the yuga framework reflects exactly this).
At the cosmic/natural level, as long as Maya is operating, the interplay of gunas never ceases. Suffering doesn’t “end” — it’s part of the texture of manifestation.
This is also why Advaita doesn’t promise the world will get better or that evil will be eliminated — it says the world as such is the wrong level to seek resolution. The resolution is recognition of that which was never in the gunas to begin with. Nisargadatta’s typical move is precisely this — he doesn’t ask you to fix the dream, he asks you to wake up from it.
Universal liberation of the cosmos is a category error within this framework. The most Maya can do is oscillate; it cannot transcend its own constituents.
Two Ways to Retire Early
1. Earn as much as is 100% sufficient for your wants.
2. Pare down your wants (but NOT to the bare minimum) so that you can retire earlier than you can under Scenario 1.
I chose the latter option by becoming sort of a minimalist because I realized that happiness does not come from accumulating more and more, be it wealth or any other damn thing.
When did more and more wealth ever make anyone more and more happy.
And, if you need more and more money to become more and more happy, know that you are not going about it the right way.
Money cannot buy almost anything worthwhile.
Anyway, the best things in life are either damn cheap or totally free.
Don’t think so?
Well, my friend, good luck with that happiness you are chasing.
No, I forget, you are chasing money not happiness.
Let me know when you shift your rat race from pursuing money to pursuing happiness, then as Paul Simon sang, “I can be your long-lost pal.”
What about the work that needs to be done in this world that might suffer if you retire early?
Ha, ha, ha, as if you are working FOR the world. Get real.
Besides, there are enough unemployed people out there to fill the space that you vacate.
And, besides, if people thought like I am suggesting, then believe you me, far less work will be needed to be done in this world so that the world can get along by just fine.
Ha, ha, ha…how bad people are at thinking!!!
Well, well, I guess God knows what he is up to.
Homo Duplex
Homo duplex (“the double human”) is a theory by sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) proposing that humans possess a dual nature: part biological organism driven by selfish individual desires (“profane”), and part social being guided by morality, collective consciousness, and social constraints (“sacred”).
Key Components of Homo Duplex:
• The Profane (Individual): This side consists of personal appetites, instincts, selfishness, and bodily sensations.
• The Sacred (Social): This side comprises moral forces, social solidarity, shared values, and altruism, which are cultivated through societal interaction and collective rituals.
• The Tension: Durkheim argued that society requires a balance between these two sides to prevent individualism from leading to unhappiness, greed, or excessive anomie (social instability).
• Societal Role: Socialization, education, and religion play crucial roles in regulating the individual’s “animalistic” nature and nurturing their “moral” or “social” side.
This concept underscores the idea that humans find their highest potential not in isolation, but by participating in a larger social whole.
What Durkheim Was Really Saying
At its core, Homo Duplex is Durkheim’s answer to one of philosophy’s oldest
questions: what kind of creature is a human being? His answer was deliberately
paradoxical — we are simultaneously two things at once, and that tension is not a
flaw to be resolved, but the very engine of social and moral life.
This was a bold move in the late 19th century. Darwinian biology was pushing toward
the view that humans were essentially animals with sophisticated brains.
Enlightenment liberalism, on the other hand, celebrated the sovereign individual.
Durkheim rejected both as incomplete. He insisted you cannot understand a human
being by looking only at their biology or their individual rational mind — you must
look at what society does to and inside them.
Unpacking the Two Sides
The Profane (the animal self)
The word “profane” here doesn’t mean vulgar in the everyday sense — it means
outside the sacred, ordinary, earthly, bodily. This is the self that:
Hungers, lusts, fears, and competes
Acts in its own interest without reference to others
Exists in time and space as a finite, mortal organism
Durkheim didn’t moralize this side as evil — he saw it as simply pre-social. It is what
we are before society gets hold of us. Left entirely to this nature, humans would be,
in Hobbes’ famous phrase, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
The Sacred (the social self)
The “sacred” is what society implants into the individual. This is a profound and
somewhat unsettling idea: your moral conscience, your sense of duty, your empathy,
your values — these are not naturally yours. They were installed by the collective.
This side includes:
The capacity for self-sacrifice
Loyalty to groups, nations, ideals
Moral disgust and reverence
The ability to feel that something is bigger than yourself
Crucially, Durkheim believed this sacred dimension is genuinely real and genuinely
powerful — but its source is social, not divine or innate. When you feel moral awe,
you are, in his view, feeling the weight of society pressing on your consciousness.
The Tension: Why the Conflict is Necessary
Durkheim didn’t want the tension resolved — he wanted it managed. Here’s why:
Too much profane (pure individualism) leads to anomie — a condition where
social norms collapse, individuals feel unmoored, and rates of depression,
crime, and even suicide rise. His famous study Suicide (1897) showed that
societies with weak social bonds had higher suicide rates — a radical,
counterintuitive argument.
Too much sacred (total collective absorption) leads to fatalistic overregulation
— where individuals are crushed under the weight of social duty,
also producing misery and, paradoxically, suicide of a different kind (what he
called altruistic suicide, dying for the group).
The sweet spot is a productive friction — society strong enough to give life meaning
and structure, but not so totalizing that it erases the individual.
Socialization as the Civilizing Mechanism
When Durkheim says education, religion, and socialization regulate the individual’s
animalistic nature, he means something very specific: they transfer the sacred into
the individual so thoroughly that it feels like their own conscience. This is the
machinery of moral internalization.
Think of how a child is taught not to steal. At first, it’s external — “don’t do that or
you’ll be punished.” Eventually, the prohibition becomes internal — “I don’t want to
steal, it feels wrong.” For Durkheim, that feeling of wrongness is society speaking
through you. You have been successfully socialized. The collective has colonized
your inner life — and this is not manipulation, in his view; it is what makes you fully
human.
Religion, in particular, fascinated him because its rituals (collective gatherings, shared
symbols, emotional ceremonies) were the most powerful mechanisms for recharging
the social self — reminding individuals viscerally that they belong to something
beyond themselves.
Where Homo Duplex Connects to Bigger Ideas
Concept Connection to Homo Duplex
Freud’s Id/Superego
Strikingly parallel — the id (drives) vs. the superego
(internalized social rules). Both emerged around the same
era, independently.
Rousseau’s Noble
Savage
Durkheim inverts Rousseau — society doesn’t corrupt
natural goodness; it creates moral goodness in the first
place.
Nietzsche’s critique of
herd morality
Nietzsche saw society suppressing the individual as a
tragedy. Durkheim saw it as a necessity — even a gift.
Modern psychology
Jonathan Haidt’s social intuitionist model echoes Homo
Duplex — moral feelings are social products, not individual
reason.
A Critical Perspective
Homo Duplex is elegant, but not without its critics:
It’s overly binary. Human nature resists clean splits into “animal vs. social.”
Much of what Durkheim calls “profane” (love, curiosity, creativity) is not
straightforwardly selfish.
It romanticizes the collective. Durkheim’s framework can justify social
conformity too easily. History shows that the “sacred social” can endorse
racism, nationalism, and genocide just as easily as altruism.
It underestimates individual agency. Humans don’t just receive society
passively — they also reshape it. The individual isn’t merely a battleground
between animal drives and social imprinting.
The Bottom Line
Homo Duplex is a powerful lens for understanding why humans are so
contradictory — capable of extraordinary selfishness and extraordinary sacrifice,
often in the same person, sometimes within the same hour. Durkheim’s lasting
insight is that this is not hypocrisy or moral failure. It is the structure of what we are:
biological creatures who can only realize their deepest potential by surrendering part
of themselves to something collective and larger. We are, as he saw it, always living
on the border between the animal and the social — and civilization is the ongoing,
never-finished negotiation between those two halves.
Kids? Just say no
You don’t have to dislike children to see the harms done by having them. There is a moral case against procreation
https://aeon.co/essays/having-children-is-not-life-affirming-its-immoral
No Words To Say What I Want To Say
Strange how sometimes you are at a loss for words
When you realize the words you used have not been understood
And using more words would only complicate the picture
Because the words have to go through the sieve
Of other minds and hearts, though mine they have navigated,
And this is not just my problem, just the human condition
And until we understand silence we cannot understand each other
But unfortunately, until then we have to keep using words
And thereby keep encountering battlefields of various sorts.
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, / Rough-hew them how we will” is a famous quote from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act 5, Scene 2). Spoken by Hamlet, it means that a divine power or fate determines the ultimate outcome of our lives, regardless of how clumsily we plan them.
Key Details and Context:
Context in Play: Hamlet says this to Horatio while explaining how he survived
a plot to kill him, suggesting he has accepted fate.
Meaning: “Rough-hew” refers to shaping a rough block of wood. It suggests
humans make rough plans (“rough-hew”), but God or destiny refines the final
outcome (“shapes our ends”).
Theme: This reflects a shift in Hamlet from indecision to a fatalistic acceptance
of whatever happens, including the “special providence in the fall of a
sparrow”.
It shows a shift from a belief that mortals control their destiny to a belief that higher
forces are in control.
“There’s a Divinity That Shapes Our Ends” — Through the Lens of Advaita
Vedānta
And the Self Reveals Itself to Whom She Chooses
I. The Two Voices Speaking the Same Truth
Shakespeare’s Hamlet, standing at the threshold of death with a curious calm, utters
something that no purely Western philosophical framework can fully contain. He is
not simply expressing fatalism. He is not surrendering to an external God the way a
theist might. Something deeper is trembling in those words — something that
Advaita Vedānta, the non-dual philosophy of Śaṅkarācārya, can illuminate with
remarkable precision.
Advaita means not-two. Its central revelation is that Brahman — the infinite,
undivided, self-luminous Consciousness — is the only reality. What we call the
“individual self,” the jīva, is not a separate entity that Brahman controls from outside.
The jīva is Brahman, appearing individuated through the veil of avidyā (ignorance).
The drama of human life — the planning, the struggling, the winning and losing — is
līlā, the cosmic play of Consciousness with itself.
With this as our foundation, Hamlet’s line ceases to be merely about fate and
becomes a window into the nature of Reality itself.
II. “Rough-Hewing” — The Activity of the Ego-Self
“Rough-hew them how we will…”
In Advaita, the one who “rough-hews” is the ahaṃkāra — the ego, the sense of
being a separate, autonomous “I” that plans, decides, and acts. This ego-self believes
itself to be the kartā (the doer). It picks up the chisel, surveys the raw wood of
circumstance, and begins to hack away according to its desires, fears, and
calculations.
Hamlet spent four acts doing precisely this. He rough-hewed furiously:
- He devised the play-within-a-play to trap Claudius
- He calculated when to strike and when to hesitate
- He philosophized endlessly about whether to act at all
And what did all this rough-hewing produce? Chaos. Mistaken killing. Broken
relationships. Near-annihilation.
The Advaitic teaching here is precise: the ego is real as appearance but not as
substance. It is like a wave that believes it is generating the ocean’s movement. It
hews and carves, but its cuts are always rough — approximate, distorted, limited by
its own ignorance of the whole. The jīva cannot see the totality because it is the act
of pretending to be separate from the totality. You cannot see the whole painting
while believing yourself to be only one brushstroke.
This is not a moral failure. It is the nature of individuation itself. The Kaṭha Upaniṣad
says: “The Self is not attained by the weak.” The weakness referred to is not physical
— it is the weakness of clinging to the ego’s rough-hewing as if it were the final
word on reality.
III. “The Divinity That Shapes” — Brahman as the Immanent Sculptor
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends…”
Now we arrive at the heart of the Advaitic mystery. What is this “divinity” that
shapes?
It is not an external God standing above creation, adjusting outcomes like a cosmic
bureaucrat. That would be dvaita — duality, two-ness. In Advaita, the Divinity that
shapes is Brahman itself, operating as the innermost reality of everything that
appears to happen. It is not separate from the rough-hewing. It is the very ground
within which the rough-hewing occurs — and it is simultaneously the one who knows
that rough-hewing is never the final act.
Śaṅkara would say: Brahman is both the material cause and the efficient cause of the
universe. Like gold that becomes ornaments without ceasing to be gold — the
ornaments appear different, but gold alone is real. Every “end” that is shaped —
every outcome, every death, every transformation — is Brahman alone, crystallizing
into form from its own infinite freedom.
This is why the shaping is so effortless and inevitable. It does not struggle against the
rough-hewing. It uses it. Every awkward cut the ego makes, every miscalculation,
every tragedy — Brahman absorbs it and shapes it into exactly what was needed for
the whole. The sculptor does not fight the chisel marks. She works with the grain of
the wood, which she herself laid down before the carpenter arrived.
IV. The Self Reveals Herself to Whom She Chooses — Ātman Prasāda
Here we arrive at the most luminous, and most humbling, dimension of this teaching.
The Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad declares:
“Nāyam ātmā pravacanena labhyo na medhayā na bahunā śrutena। Yam evaiṣa
vṛṇute tena labhyas tasyaiṣa ātmā vivṛṇute tanūṃ svām॥”
“This Self is not attained by instruction, nor by intellect, nor by much hearing. It is
attained only by the one whom the Self chooses — to that one, the Self reveals its own
nature.”
This is perhaps the most radical statement in all of Vedāntic philosophy. And it
reframes Hamlet’s entire journey.
Hamlet spent the whole play trying to know — trying to verify the Ghost’s truth,
trying to understand his duty, trying to calculate the right moment. He brought great
intellect, great sensitivity, great moral seriousness. And none of it worked in the way
he intended. The knowledge he needed did not come through his efforts. It came
through a sea voyage, a near-death encounter, a pirate attack — through
circumstances entirely outside his planning.
And then, at the beginning of Act 5, he simply knows. A calm descends. He speaks of
providence with the ease of one who has stopped arguing with reality. He is ready.
The Self has chosen him.
From the Advaitic lens, what happened? The jīva Hamlet had exhausted its roughhewing.
The ego’s strategies had all collapsed. And in that exhaustion, in that
surrender — not as a strategy, but as a genuine letting-go — avidyā thinned. The veil
grew transparent. Brahman, which had always been Hamlet’s own deepest nature,
turned toward itself through the instrument of Hamlet’s readied consciousness.
The Self does not reveal itself as a reward for correct behavior. It reveals itself when
the ego becomes sufficiently transparent. Grace — prasāda — is not earned. It is
received. And the receiving is only possible when the clenched fist of the ego-self
relaxes its grip on rough-hewing.
V. Why “She Chooses” — The Feminine Ground of Being
To speak of the Self as She is to invoke Śakti — the dynamic, creative power of
Consciousness. In the non-dual Śākta interpretation of Advaita, Brahman’s power of
self-revelation is understood as intrinsically feminine — not in the gendered human
sense, but in the sense of that which receives, gestates, and births reality from within
itself.
Māyā — the power that veils Brahman — is feminine. And Anugraha Śakti — the
power that removes the veil — is also feminine. The same divine Mother who wraps
the world in the dream of separateness is the one who, in her grace, tears the veil
away.
This means the Self’s self-concealment and self-revelation are not opposites. They
are two movements of the same creative freedom. Brahman chooses to hide in order
that the joy of rediscovery can be complete. The rough-hewing is part of the plan.
The chaos is choreographed. The tragedy is embraced.
The “divinity that shapes our ends” is not a cold determinism. She is a Mother who
allows her children to wander, to build, to destroy, to suffer — because she knows
what they are, even when they have forgotten. She shapes the ends not by
preventing the rough-hewing but by ensuring that every rough mark ultimately
reveals the beauty of the finished form.
VI. Hamlet’s Enlightenment — The Shift into Sākṣī
Hamlet’s final equanimity — “the readiness is all” — is, in Advaitic terms, a
spontaneous shift from identifying as the kartā (doer) to resting as the sākṣī
(witness). He no longer needs the outcome to be controlled. He no longer needs
certainty. He acts when action is called, rests when rest is called, and accepts death
when death arrives — without any of it disturbing the stillness beneath.
This is not stoic resignation. The Stoic still believes the ego is real and chooses nobly
to endure. Hamlet’s shift is subtler and deeper: the ego has become transparent to
itself. He sees through the rough-hewing to the shaping beneath. He does not
become passive — he kills Claudius, he orchestrates the final scene — but he does so
without the contracted, desperate quality of his earlier scheming. He acts as an
instrument of the Whole.
In Advaita, this is called Jīvanmukti — liberation while still living. The body-mind
continues to function. The drama of life continues. But the one who believed they
were only the rough-hewer has recognized themselves as also the Divinity that
shapes. Subject and sculptor are one.
VII. The Final Integration
Shakespeare could not have known Advaita Vedānta. And yet he wrote this line, and
it carries the full weight of the tradition as though it were distilled from it. This is not
coincidence. It is evidence that certain recognitions are not cultural — they are
structural. They arise whenever human consciousness is pressed to its limit and
breaks open into something larger than itself.
The Divinity that shapes our ends is not other than us. It is the deepest stratum of
what we are — the Ātman, Brahman, the Self — appearing as destiny from outside,
because we forgot that we are inside it.
And She reveals Herself not when we have perfected our rough-hewing, but when we
love Her more than our own plans.
When the chisel drops — She speaks.
The Drama of Desire
A friend wrote, “Desire…
I realised drama we are all living in”,
Really, my friend, really you “realised?”,
But to realise is to realise that
There is no “We”.
Do you know where you’re going to?
Do you like the things that life is showing you?
Where are you going to?
Do you know?
Do you get what you’re hoping for?
When you look behind you, there’s no open doors
What are you hoping for?
Do you know?
Now, looking back at all we’ve passed
We let so many dreams just slip through our hands
Why must we wait so long before we see
How sad the answers to those questions can be?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuMBl1peAlo
This Dream, This Life
Aw, shucks, this dream
This life, oh so unnecessary
Yet we keep dreaming
We keep living
As if we have no choice
Do we have a choice,
And is the choice only death
Some say the choice is immortality
But if it indeed is immortality
Immortality can have no beginning
So, right now it surely must be the case
That I am indeed already immortal
And being immortal
‘Tis strange that a mere dream
A mere life
Bugs me to no end.
“This unreality, oh this unreality…where neither love is true, nor the truth is true…oh this unreality.”
“Ah, to disappear, be submerged…”
The Passion and the Intezaar
When passion for you
Is no longer a passion
When passion for you
Is no longer in fashion
Know that
The wait is almost over.
Lekin intezaar bhi kahi baar
Bahut meetha hota hai
Intezaar may dard bhi kyu na ho
Aur tumhaari zindagi may
Ye ittefaq bhi ho sakti hai
Ye taqdeer bhi ho sakti hai
Jis pal pe tumhari zindagi hai
Aakar rukhi hai, tehri hai
Ab tum aur kuch lumhe
Sirf intezaar may bitana hai
Aur iss ittefaq ko, iss taqdeer ko
Galay lagaanay ke siva
Aur koi raasta nahi hai
Aur agar koi waisa raasta hai
Tumhari taqdeer may nahi hai
Ki tum uss raastay pe chal sakogay.
“When I read some poets, I feel like it is high time I stopped writing poetry, and left that job to the poets.”
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’
“Mending Wall” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44266/mending-wall) is
one of Frost’s most celebrated poems, and these lines are among the most analyzed
in American poetry. Here’s a deep commentary from multiple angles.
The Lines in Context
These lines come near the end of the poem, spoken by the narrator as a
counterpoint to his neighbor’s repeated mantra: “Good fences make good neighbors.”
The narrator is the questioner, the skeptic, the one who wonders why the wall exists
at all.
Line by Line
“Before I built a wall I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out”
This is the poem’s central philosophical provocation. Frost draws on a binary that
cuts in two directions simultaneously:
Walling in — keeping something of yours contained, protected, defined.
Territory, identity, privacy, culture.
Walling out — excluding something foreign, threatening, or simply other.
The genius of phrasing it as a question is that the narrator admits he doesn’t always
know which is which. A wall built for protection can become a cage. A wall built for
exclusion can become a statement of fear. The act of building precedes the
understanding of the act — and Frost is warning against that.
There’s also a quiet confession here: the narrator says “I’d ask to know,” not “I’d
know.” He’s humble. He’s not claiming wisdom, only the willingness to pause and
question before acting.
“And to whom I was like to give offense”
This line introduces an ethical and social dimension. Walls don’t just affect the person
who builds them — they mean something to others. A wall is a message. It says: I
don’t trust you. You are not welcome here. This far, and no further.
The word “offense” is carefully chosen. It suggests that walls can wound — not
physically, but relationally and psychically. They can communicate contempt,
suspicion, or rejection without a word being spoken. Frost is nudging the reader to
think about walls not just as practical structures but as acts of communication, and
sometimes, acts of aggression.
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, / That wants it down.”
This is the poem’s most famous line, and it opens and echoes throughout the poem
like a refrain. Notice Frost refuses to name what that “something” is — and that
refusal is deliberate and profound.
Nature? Earlier in the poem, frozen groundswell heaves the boulders apart every
winter. Nature literally dismantles the wall year after year, as if the earth itself resists
the partition.
Human nature? There’s a deep instinct toward connection, curiosity, and openness
in people — children especially. We are social animals. Something in us chafes at
barriers.
The cosmic or spiritual? Some readers hear in “something” a quasi-divine force — a
universe that tends toward unity, entropy, dissolution of artificial categories.
The unconscious? The vagueness of “something” is psychologically astute. We often
can’t name the part of ourselves that resists conformity, convention, or inherited
thinking — but it’s there, eroding our certainties.
By ending with “That wants it down,” Frost gives the force a kind of desire — almost
personifying it. The wall isn’t just falling apart; something wants it gone. This is
subversive and tender at once.
Thematic Angles
The Paradox of Community
The poem never actually argues that walls are bad. The narrator helps rebuild the
wall every spring! He participates in the very ritual he questions. This is Frost’s
honesty: we simultaneously crave connection and separation. The wall-mending is
itself a form of connection — the two men meet, work together, talk. The wall
enables the relationship in a strange way. So the lines aren’t a simple anti-wall
polemic; they’re an admission of complexity.
Individual vs. Inherited Tradition
The neighbor repeats his father’s saying: “Good fences make good neighbors.” He
thinks in proverbs; he doesn’t question. The narrator questions everything. These five
lines are essentially the voice of the Enlightenment — don’t build anything you can’t
justify rationally and ethically. The neighbor, by contrast, represents tradition,
continuity, inherited wisdom. Frost doesn’t entirely mock either. Both impulses are
human. Both have costs.
Political and Social Reading
Frost wrote this in 1914, but its political resonance never ages. Every era has its wall
debates — literal (border walls, ghetto walls, apartheid walls, the Berlin Wall) and
figurative (class walls, racial walls, cultural walls). The question “What I was walling in
or walling out?” is a haunting one for any nation or community grappling with
immigration, identity, or belonging. Who do we include? Who do we shut out? And
do we even know what we’re doing when we do it?
The Epistemological Angle
These lines are deeply concerned with knowledge before action — a Socratic impulse.
Don’t act on habit, tradition, or fear. Know what you’re doing and why. The narrator
doesn’t say walls are always wrong; he says building them without asking these
questions is reckless. This is a poem about the ethics of unreflective behaviour.
Frost’s Tone: Wry, Not Preachy
Crucially, Frost never lets the narrator become a moralist. He’s mischievous, a little
playful — he considers telling the neighbor that elves knocked the wall down, then
thinks better of it. The narrator’s wisdom is offered quietly, almost to himself. This
makes these lines feel like thinking aloud rather than lecturing, which is far more
persuasive and far more true to how genuine insight actually arrives.
In short, these five lines compress a whole philosophy: think before you divide,
consider who you hurt, and know that something in the world — in nature, in us — will
always push back against walls that exist without justification. That “something” is
never fully named because Frost understood that the best questions outlast their
answers.
“To attain Nirvana, now I need to do some juGod.”
“The very restlessness and attempting to become perfect is the imperfection.”
The Discovery
I have discovered the recipe for happiness
No, it is not owning the oil fields in Kuwait
Nor is it winning the John Bates Clark Medal
Nor the Merc parked in your driveway
Nor your byline in Sunday NYT
Simpler, far, far simpler than that
Just an evening at Roastery Coffee House in Banjara Hills
Sipping Cranberry Coffee and eating lasagna
What would double the happiness though
Is if a certain someone is in the opposite chair
Or we both in some other place
Else, it is just perfect, perfect.
“I have reached an age where if a girl smiles at me, I cannot read too many meanings in it.”
“Spending time with and understanding our children will make us understand philosophy faster than by reading any religious texts.”
“Love at first sight is a killing concept. But then dislike at first sight is a different kind of killing.”
“Just because you suspect you are wise; it does not mean your wisdom will be of a helluva lot useful when it comes to interpreting all the meanings in a smile. And, God’s photos and statues depict a smile on the face of the deity. Damn. It is hard enough interpreting the smile of a girl, now God is also smiling at us. Shit, we are screwed. No way we can know what life is all about.”
Think About These Things
One of the very few virtues that Ramana Maharshi extols is humility.
He says in his short book “Who Am I?”:
“To the extent we behave with humility, to that extent there will result good.”
Meanwhile, Nisargadatta Maharaj in his book “I Am That”, keeps saying repeatedly that the most important virtue is “earnestness”.
“When the mind is silent, any amount of speech and action do not vitiate that silence. Mind cannot be silent when there are desires in our being. Find out how to deal with desires.”
Betwixt Wise and Otherwise
Today’s morning comes
Like any other morning
It does not seem that different
Until I start thinking, feeling
Then, too, it does not seem that different
Unless I resist, protest, regret, wish for,
And why do I resists, protest, regret, wish for?
That seems to be the way things are
That seems to be our lot here on earth
Some may come and say things can be otherwise
Between this wise and otherwise I live my life.
“Sometimes, to be wise is to accept defeat. Why flow against the current of life?”
Suicidal Impulse
Today morning
I told a friend
“Come, let us go and commit suicide.”
“No,” the friend protested,
“I want to live and enjoy life.”
Now, I have to gather
The courage and wisdom
To travel alone
The journey cannot be given up
Just because
One’s companions want to rest.
“Duniya paison ke peeche baag rahi hai. Mai fursat ke peeche baag raha hoon. Paise bahut mushkil hai milna, mahnat karni padti hai. Fursat toh yoohee mil jaati hai, bina kuch kiye…kuch muth karo aur fursat pao…samjha karo kyunki ismay ek raaz chupi hai…lekin mai galat bhi ho sakta hoo…zindagi toh jua hai…aur judai bhi….”
“Truth divorced from love is no truth. Love divorced from truth is no love.”
“Don’t be an archaeologist. Don’t dig up the ruins of your past, otherwise you will be ruined.”
The Itch
The itch is
inside my heart.
But I am scratching the paper
with my pen.
“It was daffodils that flashed upon the inward eye of Wordsworth. On my inward eye, it is she who flashes.”
“To love someone truly is to give them the freedom to walk away from you without any guilt or regret should they want to.”
“Someone sang, the whole night your memory troubled me. My problem is far worse. Even the whole day her memory is troubling me.”
“Sitting here alone in this coffee shop, I am lost in thought, wondering what Donne meant.”
“Something shifted in me that day when she gave me that look and said, ‘Sam, I don’t see you nowadays’. Life is full of loose ends and some knots live on inside us.”
“I told her ye death ke baraay may zyada buk buk muth karo. Hum sab har raat aath ghante ke liye mar jaatay hai.”
“There seem to be different kinds of love. Oh, oh…just when thought you can stop going to the library.”
Cutting Out the Social Self
Sartre wrote, “Hell is other people.”
But, also at the level at which Sartre is speaking, it is also true that “Heaven is other people.”
But, at this social-self level, one gets stuck in a certain level of living where the dialogue “chal daaroo peeyingay” plays out in its various shades and nuances.
And that daaroo is not the wine that Sufis would have us drink.
And, it is this social self that makes you earn more money than we need, etc.
From this social self, you need to reach inside to find your true self.
The moment you leave your social self behind, then your thinking and emotions also are less in play because most of them are in service of our social self.
“No, Kirshna, I will wage war with my love and not with bows and arrows. Jesus knew something you did not. Besides, it is not my job to wage war against injustice with bows and arrows. Isn’t that your job as the creator of this universe, which you anyway you say you are. Remember what you said about being the creator of the four castes. Then, why you are passing the buck to me. Besides, you yourself say, ‘sambhavami yuge yuge’. Deal with it, Krishna, deal with it. After all, this world is your baby. Don’t instruct me. Leave me alone to me and my love.”
“Zindagi koi jung nahi. Sirf junglee loga waisay sonchthe hai. Mai pyaar ko itna samajh chuka hoon ki pata lag gaya hai ki jung sirf woh mushkilay kada karthi hai jo pahlay nahi the, aur jo mushkilay pahlay the unka hul teek say nahi kar paatha.”
“Ye kya jung jung kahthay phir rahay ho. Mai zindagi ko tukhratha hoo, kyunki mujhe woh zindagi nahi chahiyay jahaan mujhe jung may haasil hona padtha. Jung nahi ladnay say zyada se zyada sirf meri zindagi mujhse cheen jaayegi. Cheen lo jitna chahiya utna ye meri zindagi. Mai todi poocha pehale naa ab pooch raha hoo mujhe paida karo aur zinda rakho.”
“The mind says, ‘Look, look, there are so many problems, stay focused and awake.’ Heart says, ‘Chill, I have the solution to every problem’.”
The Darkness in My Soul
For too long I have seen
The sun in me eclipsed
By something or the other that comes,
Some emotion, some yearning, some dreaming,
Between me and the truth that be
That light, that love, that beauty
Slowly I begin to see far too clearly
This flight outward that gnaws at my soul
That waits for the right consonance, right season
Waits and waits but waits in vain
Thwarted by some destiny that I cannot control
I learn to let go, knowing I can control
Neither my destiny nor that of others.
I thought I had left them all behind
That some emotion, some yearning, some dreaming
Back in the stormy days of my confused youth
Why are they coming back again to me
As if I am still accountable for I know not what.
Who was Arjuna?
Arjuna is anyone in this world who is NOT content to just keep the body alive but also seeks to keep the mind and heart alive.
Such a one finds himself having to fight many a battle on many a Kurukshetra.
Hence also such a one will keep needing the counsel of a Kirshna.
But the Arjuna who is content to keep just the body alive and lets go of the mind and heart, has no battles to fight nor has any need for any Krishna.
Understand this and not any other Gita, be that Gita of Kirshna or Ashtavakra.
👍🏼 just the B and when the pot breaks you are one with the rest of the only consciousness.
Yes.
Even before the pot (B) breaks, what keeps the illusion that you are NOT right now one with the rest of the only consciousness is ONLY the mind and heart.
When the mind and heart are NOT in play, then the illusion of separation also does NOT exist.
Like in deep sleep
Yes.
Perfectly said.
That is why, Ramana Maharshi said, “What happened in sleep is your real nature.” (Talk 304)
In many places in his Talks book, the Maharshi says something to the effect of deep sleep is NOT ignorance but reality itself.
That is why he says, one has to be in the state of wakeful sleep or jagrat sushupti.
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