Mysteries and Histories

The witch, the strix and the harpy,

As interpreted through mythology,

Are ghosts of cultural heritage.

Where is the truth?

Who knows?

Have you explored academia?

Have you explored museums?

Have you examined engravings?

Have you reflected on exhibitions?

How do you reflect upon images?

How do you compare opinions?

 

How have you been picturing witches?

Which hat or headdress are you wearing?

How else are you attired, if at all, and why?

How and what do you learn from history?

What is your attitude towards misogyny?

Do you have a fascination towards imaginings?

The harpies are awaiting you.

What do they want?

They are amazing and ancient.

Where is Medusa?

Where are her Gorgon sisters?

Gathering perceptions and interpretations.

Frightening disruptions and incantations.

Learning about mysterious activism

Heightened with Dark Romanticism

At midnight on Pendle Hill only cruelty is evil.

 

Bring culture and kindness

To the seven ages.

Remember the Pendle Witches

And walk in stages.

Observe nature and hubris.

The communitas is peaceful.

It consists of suitable people.

They are good witches. 

They do not practice fanaticism.

Nor are they advocates of anarchism.

When Mary Fisher was 

Examined as a witch,

By the bigoted Puritans of Boston, 

She did not meet the later fate

Of Mary Dyer and other Quakers.

 

How do you distinguish between the reasonable expression of conscience and the unreasonable disturbances of the peace?

When imagined witches, Lilith, Eve and goddesses were depicted nude, other females were not.

Do you have a magical world view or are you of the view that most mysteries can probably be solved with better evidence?

Have you explored the history of incantation bowls and other superstitious practices?

Are you sure you have adequate respect for history, heritage and the laws of science?

Most of humanity remains inadequately enlightened and therefore inadequately acquainted with real knowledge.

What is your acquaintance with the philosophy of naturalism and how do you respond to it, and why do you take that approach? 

Perhaps you prefer to find meaning in the spiritual and/or the supernatural rather than the natural and the rational.

Perhaps you still associate witchcraft with the evil use of purportedly supernatural powers.

No-one has supernatural powers.  There is only either cruelty or kindness in relation to conscience.

How do you know your conscience consistently expresses well-informed kindness?

There are many mysteries associated with the human mind.  Perhaps your mind enjoys imagining witches.

Perhaps you have a schadenfreude view of witch purges, other political purges and other forms of unjust discrimination and possibly even genocide.

How does your conscience attempt to guide you towards well-informed kindness?

And what prevents your conscience from moving in that direction?

What do you know about self-determination?  

What do you know about scapegoating?

What have you been learning about developmental psychology recently?

What have you been learning about object permanence and the game of peek-a-boo?

What do you know about cultural imperialism?

 

There is nothing kind about empires, including corporate empires.

Are you familiar with the history of emblems?

Are you familiar with the marketing of brands?

Do you usually treat kindness as a brand?

What have you been observing about selfishness in relation to solipsism?

How do you tell the difference between natural inequality and structural inequality? 

What have you discovered about proscription?

What is your acquaintance with political repression?

If you are truly wonderful and kind, has someone equally wonderful and kind supported your suitable independence for much of your life or are you still seeking such a friend and/or partner and/or mentor? 

Suitable independence is necessary for the expression of a well-informed conscience. 

If you consider yourself to be a suitably competent practitioner of well-informed kindness, how do you know?

Authentic intellectuals are well-informed and kind.  They can spot a straw man argument anywhere and will refuse to co-operate with people who use such deceptive practices.  

Most people do not have that ability and/or desire.  Their minds are inadequately independent.

How do you usually reflect upon the meaning of power in relation to kindness?

What do you know about power in relation to cruelty?

What is your acquaintance with recusancy?

What do you about people claimed to be enemies of the state, enemies of the people and public enemies?

What do you know about the history of proxy murders and proxy wars?

What do you know about the proxy abuses performed within and beyond gangs, including corrupt and/or extremist political parties?

How do you attempt to prevent violence and other indignities? 

What do you know about the Levellers and Diggers of 17th century England?

What do you know about the history of political movements?

How do you compare the law of agency and the sociology of agency?

Perhaps you do not have the intellectual capacity to make important comparisons.

Perhaps you lack the conscientiousness to do so.

How have you made comparisons between established religions and emerging churches and suchlike groups?

Authentic intellectuals know that a power vacuum is even more dangerous than a corrupt system.  At least a system is a system.  A power vacuum is associated with the absence of systems and the prevalence of chaos.

What is your acquaintance with the Gunpowder Plot?

What do you now know about social structures and personal choices and the relationships between them?  

What do you know about popular sovereignty?

Much physical and psychological abuse, including torture, is performed by proxy.  

Perhaps you enjoy being a direct and/or proxy bully. 

Perhaps you enjoy covering up incompetence instead of revealing it. 

Perhaps you believe you must work within a corrupt system in the absence of better alternatives.

There is no integrity in corrupt systems.

How do you account for the fact that brutality is often encouraged by the cruel, usually through the proxy practices of gullible young recruits, and deluded older ones?

How do you attempt to remain true to yourself when seeking to uphold morality, civility and democracy, and who supports you whilst doing so?  

How do you assess your own personality, morality and leadership, and how do you know your assessments are adequately accurate?

How do you define social justice, and why?

How do you define mental health, and why?

Preventing psychopaths from gaining or maintaining power is an absolute priority of authentic intellectuals.  Yet they are often powerless to do so.

Authentic intellectuals are devoted to resisting aggression peacefully. 

Perhaps you are yet to become adequately aware of the fact that the wonderful witches of Australia are authentic intellectuals.  They are fully aware of the future facing the world's children.

What do you know about good reasoning in relation to ethical, authentic living?

What do you know about the social and economic effects of enclosing English common land in previous centuries, particularly on poor people who were reliant upon common land for their survival?

What do you know about civil disobedience and civil resistance in relation to anti-establishmentarian necessities?

Psychopathic bullies not only enjoy causing suffering directly, they enjoy the feeling of power they gain by sending proxies to do so.  They also vicariously gain pleasure from watching suffering being inflicted, whether in fact or fiction.  They also enjoy confusing people about what is true and what is false.

Straw man arguments are often indicative of evil.  They deliberately distract minds from the truth.

What is your approach to resisting corruption, bullying and other inappropriate behaviours? 

How do you distinguish between witchery and trickery?

You may be aware that mob rule, in practice, happens when charlatans gain political power through appealing to ignorance, aggression, foolishness and/or bigotry, with or without a ballot happening.

What is your awareness of the history of trustworthiness, and untrustworthiness?

What have been your experiences of trusteeship, whether as a supplier or recipient? 

What do you know about international co-operation and trade links?

Throughout history, many falsehoods have been perpetrated to calm real fears and stoke fake ones. 

What is your acquaintance with Pride's Purge and the New Model Army?

How do you attempt to understand history?

What do you know about substantial gaps in recorded history?

Do you know much about the history of art colonies?

Do you know much about the history of other cultural colonies?

Do you know much about biological colonies? 

Are you quite well acquainted with art history and the history of art?

What is the criteria you have established for assessing whether a person is an arts practitioner or something else entirely?

Are you sure you will never forget Hecate?  

How do you usually think about usefulness in relation to the arts, and religion?

Perhaps you associate cat ladies with witches and witchcraft.

Have you ever explored and/or experienced loneliness in relation to various cultures and subcultures?

Do you associate witches with elderly spinsters of the less happy variety?

Are you sure you are interested in learning the truth about witches?

Do you have an imaginative approach towards understanding and appreciating history or do you prefer to distort historical fact and turn your imaginings into fiction?

Does your imagination ever contribute much towards your research? 

What do you know about cronyism and the problems associated with it?

Perhaps you sometimes associate cronyism with crones.

How do you know your imagination gives priority to health and civility rather than superficiality? 

How imaginatively do you value good relationships and good food?

How imaginative is your approach towards the public interest?

Wonderful witches are neither cat people nor dog people.  Nor are they necessarily people people.  They know that many people are either blatantly unpleasant or superficially pleasant, much like most dogs and most cats.

You may of may not be aware that the words 'habit' and 'habitat' have the same etymology. 

How do you think about human habitats in relation to human habits, and human instincts?

Do you have much experience in the art and science of imaginatively guiding tourists around your mind?  

Perhaps Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr do the guiding.

Or perhaps Heiðrún does.

What is your acquaintance with the Torsåker witch trials and other Swedish witch trials?

What do you know about cottage industries in relation to simple living, peace, prosperity, public health, privacy, civility, frugality and quality of life, and how did you acquire that information?

Most of the human settlements littering the world at present are not expressions of healthy imaginations.  They are expressions of the opposite. 

In which decade does your imagination currently reside, and why?

The well-meaning but ignorant you is the selfish you.  That you has not invested sufficient time in ascertaining the truth, even about yourself as a multifaceted and often contradictory individual.

This is a very dangerous time.  You have selfishly contributed to those dangers for far too long.  Please stop doing so immediately. 

Authentic intellectuals are anti-authoritarian.  They do not seek to gain credibility through appeals to authority.   They never abuse any authority they may possess.  They respect the plurality of differing perspectives, needs and experiences.  They therefore do their best to thwart all moves towards authoritarianism.

What do you do?

Have you ever been a member of a royal family?

Whether you have or not, perhaps you associate royalty with luxury and inauthentic politeness.

Perhaps you associate luxury with inauthentic politeness.   

Perhaps you think genuine politeness is a luxury.

Perhaps you equate royals with rodents.

Improving relationships between people is very important to the practice of intelligent frugality and the assessment of mysteries and histories, without excessive chemical props, and without the unnecessary presence of live or dead animals, and possibly even without the influence of disembodied spirits.

What is your awareness of the ghost of Queen Adelaide? 

What is your acquaintance with Roundheads and Cavaliers, the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the execution of Charles I?

What is your acquaintance with Jenny Geddes and persons of her ilk?

The purpose of life is to understand situations well enough so that injustice can be overcome peacefully. 

How do you currently define and describe a well-informed and kind community, whether through fact or fiction? 

How has history influenced your investment practices?

How does information about the past inform your investment strategies?

Perhaps you are too worried about the future to give the past much thought.

If so, how do you know you give enough thought to your investments?

Perhaps you are actually quite interested in learning more about the Civility Journalism Circle, or not as the case may be. 

Perhaps you are more interested in learning about fauns, satyrs, goats and satires.

Throughout history, stories have usually narrated the process of overcoming obstacles, with or without assistance.

Perhaps you are confused about whatever is likely to be required of you in your role as an enlightened world leader.

Perhaps you have little sense of wonder regarding the objectively numinous, the scientific evidence for noumena and the philosophical perfectionism associated with enlightened leadership. 

If you ever purchase fashion items, whether in attire, technology, home furnishings or any other products of popular culture, mainly in the hope that such expenditure will make people like and/or respect you more, you are obviously rather confused and possibly even deluded.

 

Fashion is a superficial and deceptive indicator of compatibility, credibility and kindness.

 

Perhaps you prefer to laugh at such statements.

Perhaps you have not yet acquired all the necessary knowledge about your responsibilities in relation to mysteries and histories and sciences and the public interest.

What do you know about mathematical beauty?

What do you know about the harmonious interplay of beauty, understanding and magnificence?

Mathematics cannot solve the problem of bullying, or any other form of cruelty, and nor can the natural sciences or military interventions.

Investing time in reckless individuals, selfish groups or otherwise unreasonable people is foolish, unless absolutely necessary.

Investing time in lazy people is absolutely ridiculous.

Perhaps you do not wish to be reminded of your responsibilities in relation to the prevention of bullying and other cruelty.

What do you believe it means to be an appropriate patron of authentic, democratic practices? 

What sort of investor are you in terms of time and ethics and emotion?

What do you know about soft skills and psychological energy in terms of investment decisions? 

How do you assess value in relation to risk?

How do you tell the difference between reasonable hopes and unreasonable hopes? 

When justice is absent or inadequate, life has most purpose.  Perhaps you have made the mistake of believing the opposite to be true.

A market is a location for selfish transactions and confused exchanges of value. 

A community is a location for the expression of enlightened self-interest and ethical altruism.

A good community is where the delights of adequately ethical compatibility can best be expressed.

If you are not yet appropriately registered as a patron of enlightenment in Frugality Cottage, perhaps you are part of a lazy culture rather than a well-informed and kind one.  Or perhaps you are part of a ridiculously busy culture, with no time to think about kindness, wonderfulness, intelligence or anything else of real value.

What does floating like a real witch mean to you, and why?

How do you attempt to access and examine important records, in the public interest, and in the interests of better communities?

Do you usually associate insights with imagination?

Do you usually associate knowledge with certainty?

Psychological trauma, like physical trauma, is associated with ongoing feelings of discomfort. 

If you require the companionship of animals, primarily for emotional reasons, what does that say about your attitude to, and experience of, people?

And what does it say about your experiences of human communities, and of societies more widely?  

How useful are your contributions to comparative history, and to whom?

What, if anything, have you contributed to historical sociology for the greater good of humanity and the world?

How, if at all, do you prefer to conduct comparative historical research, and where? 

Perhaps you are more interested in discussing books than practical attempts at making the world a much better place than it would be without you.

Perhaps you use humour, and images of it, to release tension or at least to distract yourself from it for a while.  You may use music for the same purpose, and possibly even present sentimental stories through one or more media. 

How do you tell the difference between delusional thoughts and digital storytelling about the harmonious interplay of beauty, understanding and magnificence?  

Learning about history from various perspectives is certainly wise.

What do you know about impact investing, socially responsible investing and social investment theory? 

What do you know about environmental, social, and corporate governance?

What have you discovered about psychological theories, and how?

Perhaps you have sought to inform, educate and entertain yourself in various virtual ways for quite a few years now.

You may even have spent a considerable time in digital shopping venues.

Perhaps you have also participated in digital charitable occasions.

But how have you been investing in improving political practices through digital means?

How carefully do you prevent perverse incentives, money laundering, executive greed, obnoxious externalities, charity fraud, regulatory capture and other detrimental and possibly unintended consequences? 

Do you already believe you know enough about sea monsters and lying politicians?   

What do you know about politics in relation to numbers and other mathematical objects? 

How well do you use your analytical skills to identify the causes of problems?

How well can you compose a concise, problem-solving synthesis? 

Politely point out the truth is how quiet, gentle, reasonable individuals are judged to be problems by the perpetrators of cruelty. 

Do you ever associate kindness with love or with ethics or with security or with the continuation of life itself or with the chance to exploit the sentimentality of the foolish for commercial and/or political reasons?

All hierarchical organisations concentrate power at the top.  They also concentrate wealth at the top.  They concentrate on maintaining those concentrations of power and wealth.  They cause social alienation and political alienation.

How do you prefer to interpret matter and imaginings and the mysteries associated with both?

If you have an imagination, you will obviously have a fascination for the mysteries of the universe, whether scientifically, artistically, religiously, philosophically or mainly emotionally.

Perhaps you think an imagination is a luxury rather than a necessity. 

Perhaps you think a library is a luxury rather than a necessity.

Perhaps you think a garden is a luxury rather than a necessity.

How have you been preparing for the enlightened re-enchantment of the world, and where?