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Published: 02 February 2023

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Feblog 2023

Matt Kaybryn. Does anyone have any contact with this artist who seems to have completely disappeared off-scene and off-net? If he still lives, I would really like him to contact me to discuss future publications of the EPOCH artwork.

Cosmology - JWST update. At the time of writing, the James Webb Space Telescope has astonished conventional cosmologists by revealing huge numbers of apparently ‘young’ and ‘old’ galaxies at very high redshifts. According to conventional theory this means that we now see them at vast distances in space and time as they would have looked just a few hundred million years after the hypothesised big bang event 13.8 billion years ago.

At the very least these new observations will lead to a severe revision of the theories about how fast galaxies can come into existence and develop after a purported big bang.

If the JWST can find stars and galaxies even closer to the CMBR horizon, then the LCDM big bang hypothesis will die.

Hypersphere Cosmology predicts with increasing confidence that we inhabit a finite and unbounded non-expanding universe, homogenous and isotropic in space AND time on the large scale. It only appears to expand, and at an increasing rate, because conventional LCDM theory fails to acknowledge the gravitational origin of cosmological redshift in a universe with a small positive curvature which leads to a redshift dependent only on distance, and an overall hyperspherical cosmic lensing which dims distant objects and creates the optical illusion of an accelerating expansion.

The CMBR arises from highly redshifted galactic light from near antipode distance, and this creates an effective horizon that we cannot see beyond.  

FSW Update.

Frontier Space War has remained a work in progress intermittently for the last 50 years. It consists of related game ideas for modelling interstellar conflict at the level of individual spacecraft and surface forces.

In the FSW universe, spacecraft can warp jump from one star system to an adjacent one between points of equal gravitational potential and they can also manoeuvre in system to engage enemy ships or surface units.

The latest innovations to this simulation system appear in the scenario shown below: -

Spatial Topology – The board represents a three dimensional volume of space with five factions (empires, corporations, polities, alien races, neo-feudal great houses?) within it, each having borders with the other four, note the identification of opposite corners of the board by the placing of halved areas in the corners. The territories of the five factions thus have a topological relationship equivalent to a pentachoron.

The use of discs to represent star systems and the touching of discs to represent permitted jump routes allows for a clearer and less ambiguous positioning of pieces than point like stars joined by lines.

The use of metal pieces throughout allows for a vertical aesthetic (they have a pleasing weight and don’t easily fall over). The pieces consist of nuts and bolts, ball bearings, woodscrews, masonry and plaster anchors, and plumbing fittings, with 2 part epoxy resin glue where appropriate.

Art -  As the project begins to take on its mature form I have blinged it up with high end metallic spray paints.

Rule structures continue to evolve in several directions. For simpler play, combat proceeds using Risk like protocols with polyhedral dice, D20 for fortresses/manufactories, D12 & D10 for capital ships, D8 for cruisers and carriers, D6 & D4 for destroyers, frigates, fighters, and forts. More complex play depends on the use of Asymmetric Combat Polygons, secretly selected tactics, plus also diplomacy and simultaneous moves on written orders in the afficionado versions.

Ethical note: Nobody gets killed in FSW. As animals cannot survive the stresses of interstellar warship manoeuvring, backed-up AIs and droids crew all the vessels. Civilians merely become informed of new laws and taxes as planetary ownership changes.

Alternative Physics. The Quantum Chromo-Dynamics model of how the nuclei of atoms work looks increasingly like a mess of questionable suppositions and dodgy mathematics that have little explanatory or predictive power. In response to the extensive zoo of meson and baryon particles that arise from smashing nuclear particles together at high energies the quark-gluon QCD model evolved. In this model protons and neutrons both consist of three quarks each and gluon exchanges hold them together. Each of the two major types of quark has to have a fractional electric charge of one third or two thirds, and to come in one of three possible ‘colours’ which represents another abstract property, plus it has to come in one of three possible ‘flavours’ which differ only in their masses. Additionally, each variety of quark has its own fundamental field, and an antiparticle with an anti-charge and an anti-colour, although not an anti-mass. This deceptively ingenious scheme does have the virtue that it can qualitatively describe all baryons like the proton and the neutron and all the heavier baryons that we can create for fleeting moments in particle colliders as quark triplets and all the fleeting mesons as quark-antiquark doublets.

However, quark theory doesn’t add up without the additional assumption that the three ‘valence’ quarks which supposedly make up a baryon each have a surrounding cloud of ‘virtual’ ‘sea quarks’ with seemingly arbitrary properties to fix the maths.

Yet individual quarks (virtual or sea) and gluons remain undetectable, and far too few things really add up quantitatively in QCD. Murray Gell-Mann who largely devised the model did sometimes wonder if quarks and gluons only existed as mere explanatory devices of our own creation.

The model of baryons as quark triplets demands that something like colour-anti-colour gluons must hold them together. This leads to the supposition that attractive proton-proton and neutron-neutron forces exist.

Yet apart from hydrogen which has only a single proton in its nucleus, all clusters of nucleons in all atomic nuclei have to consist of a mixture of protons and neutrons. Poly-proton nuclei without neutrons do not exist. Heavy nuclei require that the number of neutrons exceeds that of protons to overcome the mounting electric charges and forces which tend to push protons apart. Thus, it seems that a proton-neutron attraction  remains the only significant force required to bind atomic nuclei together if we discard the quark hypothesis. The relatively simple exchange of charged Pions can account for this. (The gravitational forces and the chiral spin alignment forces between nucleons remain orders of magnitude weaker.)

What then could explain the whole zoo of transient exotic baryons and mesons that our particle smashers can create? Why do orthodox theorists think in terms of ‘coloured’ and ‘flavoured’ down, up, strange, charm, bottom, and top quarks, plus all their antiparticles and meson and baryon combinations and eight varieties of colour-anti-colour quarks, and twenty six separate fundamental fields of which each of these particles constitutes an excitation?

It would seem far more economical to explore the hypothesis that only a single fundamental field, that of spacetime itself, actually exists, but that it has more dimensions than commonly supposed and that it can support quantised spinorial rotations in various of its dimensions. And that these spinorial rotations remain conserved in all particle interactions. In this case only a single type of stable fundamental baryon really exists – the proton, (or if it spinorialy rotates  in the opposite direction the - anti-proton). The neutron then just consists of a proton with an added opposite electrical spinorial rotation. All ‘higher’ versions of baryons simply consist of excited states with exotic extra spinorial rotations. Neutrinos play a big part in the universe but only because they carry away leftover spinorial spins and anti-spins from nuclear interactions. The ubiquitous nature of attractive gravity arises because any and all distortions in an elastic medium will tend to attract each other weakly regardless of their relative direction of ‘twist’.

This line of speculation has a manifold motivations: - both quantum mechanics (particularly in its Transactional interpretation) and certain esoteric phenomena seem to demand extra-temporal dimensionality in the universe. Gravity remains impossible to integrate with current quantum field theory. Quantum field theory looks like it has gone down a mathematically intractable blind alley, particularly with the overenthusiastic application of SU3 symmetries. Such triplicities as exist may well arise from the three dimensionality of time.

Entertainment. Only Prince Harry seems to have realised the real function of royalty in a constitutional monarchy – to act as highly paid entertainers in a family soap opera. Let us hope he turns up for his father’s coronation bash and does something ‘interesting’. I don’t watch either of them, but here in the UK we have two popular soap operas: Eastenders, a proletarian soap opera, and Westenders, an aristocratic one. Eastenders does not have much of an export market, so well done Harry for creating one for Westenders. Marrying a professional actress has obviously helped.

Actual War. I guess the main question for the western alliance has now become ‘How quickly do we want Putin’s forces in Ukraine defeated?’

A rapid defeat would prove easy to accomplish and economically cheaper, but it increases the slight possibility of the use of WMDs, and it increases the chances that Putin could manage a retreat into an even more repressive neo-feudal Fortress Russia which might effectively become a client state of totalitarian China.

A slower defeat may prove more costly in humanitarian and economic terms, but it would reduce the chances of WMD use, inflict even greater damage on the Russian economy and the standing of Putin and his cronies, and increase the chances of a regime change, hopefully towards something more democratic.

Keep up the good work https://www.specularium.org/blog/item/349-putin-s-war

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Published: 01 January 2023

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Janblog 2023.

The Predator Mindset - Review

Acting as Chancellor of the world’s premier online magical training facility at Arcanorium College does keep me in touch with the evolving esoteric zeitgeist, and sometimes an aspiring alumnus will come up with something interesting and provocative in their own research.

I have always thought that physical and mental fitness aids the quest for magical abilities, yet Daniel Domaradzki has looked at it the other way round -  How about using Chaos Magic for Strength Training, Bodybuilding, and the development of Mental Resilience?

We have exchanged ideas on magical techniques and physical/mental techniques for some time. Whilst at 70 years of age I merely want to stay in about the same shape as 50 years ago, he trains athletes and competitors professionally.

Daniel has just released a book infused with all the fire and fury that I would expect from a promising young Mage – The Predator Mindset.

This book basically sneaks the magical techniques into mental resilience training without using magical terminology – it functions as a book of magic for the non-magician, yet it may inspire some to explore the esoteric arts more deeply.

The book reads well - short and direct and loaded with effective ideas and practises, and by slipping in the magical concepts in psychological terms it won't put off those who reject such ideas. I think a lot of people who call themselves magicians could and should also learn something from what it says. I have seen some laughable examples of wannabe magicians living hopelessly ineffectual lifestyles. I suspect that the approach he suggests may well prove appropriate for the challenging times ahead. No more hippy-dippy magical mysticism! Go for the Jugular! The Triumph of the Will and the Imagination!

Available here: -

https://primexaos.com/product/the-predator-mindset-mental-toughness-in-practice/

French Books

Eliphas Levi crossed the English Channel ( or La Manche as he would have called it) in the middle of the nineteenth century and met the British magicians and occultists of the day. His writings afterwards became translated into English, and they had a profound influence on Mathers and the Golden Dawn and later upon Aleister Crowley.

In the twentieth century, few if any exchanges seem to have occurred between Francophone and Anglophone magical traditions. Although Levi did become republished during the magical revival in the UK during the last third of the century, nobody here had much of an idea about what, if anything, went on in French magic. We generally lived under the assumption that French alternative thinkers had become entirely preoccupied with politics and philosophy.

Anglo-Germanic collaboration in magical matters occurred intermittently through the twentieth century despite interruptions due to wars. Crowley’s OTO grew from a Germanic neo-masonic organisation, and I like to think that my own crossing of the North Sea in the 1990s to Germania and the subsequent publication of my books there did much to promote Anglo-German magical collaboration. Yet whenever we had pan-European meetings the question often arose – where are the French magicians?

Well perhaps we shall soon find out, a French publisher - Alliance-Magique - has just released Liber Null & Psychonaut with Liber Kaos to follow. I look forward to seeing what French speakers make of them.

Vive l’Alliance!  Vive La Revolution! Vive Le Chaos!

Threescore Years and Ten.

A ramble upon becoming seventy years of age.

I distinctly remember a question posed in 1967 by my English master at school - Old Bill, a clever and charismatic old cove who had taken it upon himself to provoke his charges to actually think. “How old will you boys be in the year 2000 - and what will you be doing?”

Blimey, forty seven! That’s nearly dead, isn’t it? Older than my dad? It seemed so unimaginably far away, that I couldn’t guess what might become of me.

“What are you here for boys?”, he also asked rhetorically, and then he answered, - “You are here to be made into clerks!” (It was an old style grammar school). He had a talent for provocation. It worked; none of us became clerks to my knowledge. He also told me that I would never write because my essays were an illiterate and opinionated mess. Nice move Bill.

Now looking back from the perspective of the traditional finish line, it all seems to have gone so quickly and with increasing speed. Back in my fifties and sixties I sometimes wondered if I would live for precisely 84 years, the orbital period of Ouranos which featured so prominently in my natal chart and my later magical career, however I now begin to doubt the usefulness of this belief, it seems as useless as a belief in immortality. Uncertainty seems a better motivator. I still have an active mother of 92 with a serious golfing habit.

‘Threescore years and ten’ does today sound like the finishing line from a previous generation, only a few of my contemporaries have died so far, yet I do feel myself at the beginning of getting old now, everything still functions, but stamina has started to decline, recovery time from exertions has lengthened. On the bright side, excessive algebra has brought with it Mentat eyebrows; plus, the thickening of fingernails into proper wizard’s talons suitable for light engineering works and handling hot metal braziers has proved useful.

Though now it all seems to have passed so quickly, my world has changed drastically in seventy years. I grew up in the long shadows cast by WW2 which had indirectly brought my parents together and brought nuclear power and weapons, radar, computers, jet engines, and liquid fuelled rockets into action perhaps twenty years before they would otherwise have appeared. The post-war period also marked the end of the British empire and the relative decline of Britain during a worldwide boom in population and industrial and agricultural production. I remember ‘the sixties’, a cultural period which for my social class in the UK ran from about 1968 into the 1980s, as one of intense optimism despite the cold war. We hippies had more freedom and opportunities than our parents and we would change the world for the better.

Yet so much went wrong, the drugs did not deliver the advertised enlightenment, the economic slack disappeared from the system. Much of the developing world got into a mess as Islam failed to decide on whether it wanted to live in the twenty first or the eleventh century, and the climatic, ecological, and political consequences of a carbon fuelled growth boom and globalisation became increasingly apparent. Our science and technology have so far failed to realise our dreams of space travel.

A lot of the optimism of the late twentieth century seems to have evaporated as the costs of ‘progress’ have risen. Few from the more recent generations can probably look forward to the easy material increments enjoyed by the post-war baby-boomers. So much of the modern art and architecture that has arisen in my lifetime seems destined for demolition and forgetting. The same probably applies to a lot of the current notions at the bleeding edge of science in cosmology and in the quantum realm.

The process of dissociating magic from religion has advanced well during my lifetime and magic can now stand on its own theories and vocabulary and practices without reference to theological concepts. Yet as Chaos Magic shows, you can still throw religious ideas in at whim for a bit of colour and fun if they offer beliefs of convenience and utility. Humans obviously create gods, goddesses, and spirits in their own image, not the other way around.  

The old political systems consisting of various conflicted mixtures of monarchy-aristocracy-democracy seem to give way to conflicted mixtures of oligarchy-synarchy-democracy as communication technology ramps up. Synarchy has crept up on us. The Chinese Communist Party has achieved absolute synarchy over 1.4 billion of us. The EU strives for synarchy over a further 0.4 billion despite democratic resistance. Russia has become an absolute oligarchy. In the USA democracy still contends with oligarchy. Communism failed miserably everywhere, but socialism landed western Europe with the biggest welfare bills in recorded history, and a resulting decline in Christianity.   

I have seen social and moral fashions come and go, and huge shifts in what we are officially required to think and what we are officially forbidden to think. Multiculturalism failed and became replaced by multi-ethnic and multi-racial monoculturalism as an ideal. The Romans had worked that out millennia ago. The wokeist fashion for promoting every possible alternative to the traditional family and every possible consensual sexual deviancy appears to  have passed its peak as the social consequences mount. Opportunities for women in westernised societies do seem to have improved in my lifetime because late and post-industrial societies co-opted them into both production and consumption, yet Feminism looks as much a symptom as a cause of this. Imperialism has become anathemised except where it occurred so long ago that we can celebrate it as advancing civilisation.

Lessons from life so far? The cultivation of health and wealth creates more time in which to do what matters to you, – and time remains the ultimate resource. Pick a lifetime partner with a very similar level of intelligence but with a significantly different personality so that you can compensate for each other’s weak points. The social capital of friendship counts for at least as much if not more than financial capital. Give your children every last bit of your accumulated wisdom and let them sort out the mess of contradictions. Don’t expect self-consistency from anyone, particularly yourself(s).

Things left to do?

Despite spectacular advances in science and magic, much of humanity still lives under the scourge of religion and the scourge of tyrannical regimes. I will redouble my modest efforts to undermine both. Religion and Tyranny both depend upon fragile beliefs.

Although we now have in Hypersphere Cosmology a more accurate map of the cosmos, we still haven’t got starships. I will continue looking into the equations.

Magical Theories and Quantum Theories do not yet have comprehensive descriptive or predictive powers, nor do we know if, or how, they relate to each other. Either way, both require further research and substantial upgrades. This may all take longer than I have left.

Yet at the end, to believe: -

That your descendants prosper,

That your deeds and ideas may outlive you awhile,

That your enemies all lay neutralised or dead,

- That seems enough.

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Published: 01 December 2022

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Decblog 2022

Monkey Squabbles

Has Britain reduced itself to an international laughingstock by replacing its Prime Minister twice and reversing all its policies in the space of a couple of months?

Rather, I prefer to think that we have set a shining example to people living under ghastly systems of glorious authoritarian leadership the world over.

Nevertheless, we do look set for a winter of discontent having demanded that the government print half a trillion pounds to subsidise furlough in lifesaving covid lockdown and to subsidise hiked fuel prices.

Printing money effectively devalues the existing money, and it thus acts as a tax.

As we have ended up with about 10% more money in circulation than goods and services, those goods and services will inevitably inflate in price making everyone 10% poorer for it.

Now every faction and interest group argues that some other faction or interest group should take the hit rather than them.

COP-out 27 - another monkey squabble

It seems we have decided to throw a few peanuts to the worst affected members of our own species by way of a risible climate change compensation, and to carry on burning fossil fuels until it either becomes climactically catastrophic for us all, or clean energy becomes a cheaper way of fuelling our demented addiction to growth.

The state of the nation, UK end 2022

Some things do look a bit buggered. In an attempt to inflate property prices, provide cheap labour, and depress wages we have let another 500K people into these stupidly overcrowded islands. The costs of Covid Furlough, resisting Russian aggression, and Brexit have proved high but will prove worthwhile. Paradoxically everybody and his uncle wants a pay rise in excess of inflation - but nobody wants any more inflation………

Yet on the bright, side over half the nation has managed to disabuse itself of the infantile delusions of religion. Have a look at the recently released the results of the 2021 census: -

I note that the locations of my place of birth, Chateaux Chaos itself, and my holiday retreat all feature as hotspots of atheism. Cause or effect? I don’t know, but I do like to think that I can still deconsecrate a diocese at a hundred paces with a single chaobolt. London remains a bit of a worry, but the residues of religion there probably arise because of its >50% immigrant population, and in time our freethinking British culture will probably corrupt them.

Putin

The last Czar of the Russians must fall, and the corrupt neo-feudal despotism he has created from the ashes of Soviet communism must fall with him and become replaced by a prosperous free democracy. Putin has revealed himself as monstrously egocentric and deluded, inhumanly barbaric, and also geopolitically and militarily incompetent.

Keep those conjurations coming. Support for him wanes as his hideous ambitions crumble.

https://www.specularium.org/blog/item/349-putin-s-war

Festive Gifts for the Illuminati.

Royalties from the books funds the maintenance of this free Specularium website and its Arcanorium College facility. Thus, we unashamedly promote the books here. If you haven’t yet read the lot so far, then herewith a guide: -

Liber Null & Psychonaut  and Liber Kaos. These two seminal books revolutionised the theory and practise of magic and they remain indispensable for the modern understanding of it.

Psybermagick. This quirky book explores a variety of strange ideas in variously provocative, offensive, and humorous ways.

The Apophenion and The Octavo. These two books explore the magical imagination and the magical creation of personal realities and the creation of useful gods and goddesses.

The EPOCH. The great triple grimoire of elemental, planetary, and stellar magics embodies the only workable version of the Necronomicon ever brought to this world. This giant book comes replete with full colour illustrations and a separate deck of altar sized cards for evoking or invoking just about anything the magician may require.

Interview with a Wizard. A book about almost everything, the distillation of a lifetime’s experience in 365 questions and answers, plus the probably correct alternative to the big bang theory in the appendix.

(For all these books see the Publications pages on this site)

Singularities?    

Using a little known tool developed by Kurt Godel, one of the world’s most outstanding logicians who remains famous mainly for his Incompleteness Theorem and his decent into madness, I have created a seasonal present for the world, - a remedy for all those pesky singularities that plague our physics and our understanding of the universe.

THE ANTI-SINGLARITY THEOREMS.

We must remain highly suspicious of any theory which asserts that an infinite amount of any physical quantity exists. We can never observe an infinite quantity of anything, and we have no reason to suppose that an infinite quantity of anything can exist. The concept only arises when we introduce it by mistakenly assuming that something else has no limits or by erroneously dividing something by nothing.

If spacetime and mass/energy have a mutual dependency, then we have no reason to assume that spacetime exists independently and infinitely beyond the presence of mass/energy.  

Contemporary theoretical physics suffers from the delusion that mass/energy can become concentrated in an arbitrarily small volume, including zero volume. This has led to the assumption that black holes must contain singularities and that this universe arose from a zero dimensional singularity and the assumption that fundamental quanta can exist as zero dimensional point particles.

The Schwarzschild  Solution of General Relativity: -

r = 2Gm/c^2 shows that an event horizon at radius r will arise when a given mass m collapses to that radius under its own gravity creating a black hole.

The Penrose-Hawking Singularity Theorems assert that nothing can prevent further collapse and thus that a spacetime singularity consisting of a zero-dimensional point of infinite density must inevitably form within any black hole.

The Godel Solution of General Relativity: -

w = 2sqrt(piGp) does however indicate that something will prevent the collapse of matter into spacetime singularities. 

 ‘Matter everywhere rotates relative to the compass of inertia with an angular velocity (w) of twice the square root of pi times the gravitational constant (G) times the density (p)’.

As matter becomes denser, spacetime curvature increases and a compact body acquires a radius excess which gives it more volume on the inside than an outside observer would expect from its exterior radius by assuming 4/3 pi r^3 for flat Euclidian space.

When a body contracts to r = 2Gm/pi c^2  (or pi r = 2Gm/c^2) the radius excess makes its internal ‘diameter’ equal to half of its circumference and the body becomes a Glome Hypersphere. With a volume of 2pi^2 r^3 or 2L^3/pi where L means antipode distance.

The Godel Metric w = 2sqrt(piGp) then supplies the internal metric of such hyperspheres in the reference frame of internal observers, and it shows that such bodies must have an angular velocity w.

Substituting hypersphere volume into the Godel metric shows that a Glome hypersphere will rotate with an angular velocity of pi c/L and hence a frequency f of c/2L and have balanced centripetal and centrifugal accelerations a of c^2/L.

Given that: -    w = 2sqrt(piGp),  w = 2pi f,   p = mass m/volume v,    2Gm/L = c^2

And that hypersphere volume v = 2L^3/pi

Then: -    w = 2sqrt(piGp),         w^2 = 4pi^2Gm/2L^3,            w^2 = pi^2c^2/L^2,

w = pi c/L,        2pi f = pi c/L,      f = c/2L,    a = c^2/L.

The mass inside a Glome hypersphere does not rotate as a simple sphere with a single axis of rotation, but rather it rotates about the randomly orientated axes of the Hopf Fibration.

Hence such Glome Hyperspheres cannot contract any further because that would cause them to rotate faster than light. This falsifies the Penrose-Hawking Singularity Theorems for both black holes and the universe as a whole.

If the mass of the universe remains constant, then so does its size, despite appearances. (See the Hypersphere Cosmology redshift-distance and hyperspherical lensing relationships.)

Now if such hypersphere mechanics forbids the formation of spacetime singularities at cosmic and astronomical scales then it most likely also forbids the formation of fundamental zero dimensional point particles. Yet we cannot usefully regard quanta as miniature cannon balls.

Quanta also have characteristic wavelengths many orders of magnitude greater than the antipode lengths suggested by L = 2Gm/c^2 for such particles. Yet the wavelengths of quanta have a directional quality which we most commonly observe in the direction of propagation rather than transverse to it.

The following calculation shows that given the Planck-Einstein relationship E = hf and the Godel metric w = 2sqrt(piGp), quanta with mass have a definite volume: -

Given that: -  E = hf,    w = 2sqrt(piGd),   w = 2pi f,   E = mc^2,   p = mass m/volume v

Then: -      f = mc^2/h,         w = 2pi mc^2/h,         2pi mc^2/h = 2sqrt(piGm/v),  

pi^2 m^2c^4/h^2 = piGm/v,       pi mc^4/h^2 = G/v,

v = Gh^2/pi mc^4       

This closely matches the Einstein-Cartan volume of a quantum ~ Gh^2/mc^4  (derived by other means).

Thus, it seems probable that quanta embody a hyper-geometrical component in their probably variable dynamic geometry, rather than existing as simple 3-sphere Glome Hyperspheres. Rotating Hypertoruses of some kind may supply a solution. Research continues.

As quanta have a spatial volume, then that volume sets yet another limit to the compressibility of matter and its maximum possible density. This also sets a minimum bound for the mass of any black hole.

Merry Solstice, Alban Arthan, Mithrasmas, Christmas, or whatever; from Stokastikos, Pete.

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Published: 01 November 2022

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Novblog 2022

Weather The unseasonably mild weather has occasioned an unscheduled last break down at our Welsh coastal hideaway and by the edge of a wood against the dunes I met the parasol mushroom of a lifetime Macrolepiota procera

COP 27 Agreeable as the recent weather may have seemed, we must not forget that it comes as a side effect of increasing climate disruption due to anthropogenic global warming. Globally we still burn a thousand barrels of oil per second - every second of every day, and also perilous volumes of gas and coal. The future of civilisation lies at stake, its future simply does not add up on current projections – flood, rising sea levels, drought, devastating heatwaves, wildfires, desertification, ecological and agricultural collapse, famine, mass migration, and war will all continue to increase until well after we have stopped burning fossil fuels. The climate catastrophes currently devastating the polar and tropical/equatorial regions of the planet will increasingly afflict the temperate regions as well in the near future.

Yet nearly all politicians still believe they have to deliver economic growth now rather than the medium term survival of civilisation, and this prevents them making the massive and immediate commitments to clean energy we so desperately need now. 

Lithonia A last tour of the Lithonian naval spaceship yards coincided with the arrival of the ancient dreadnought the LSN Varspik. Long presumed lost in space, this vessel disappeared 256 years go. As it limped into dock after its epic odyssey, its furious AI Ship-Mind lamented that 73% of its droids had become dysfunctional, noted that it was fortunate it hadn’t carried any animal crew, and it demanded an upgrade to its lousy antique relativistic navigation equipment.

Forgive me, the nights grow long. As a kid I would always discard the irritating instructions that came with any plastic kit model aircraft or ship I was given and built it to my own imaginations. Now in my dotage I eschew plastic entirely and create from recycled junk and scrap.  

Review - of Interview with a Wizard - on Amazon by Jozef.

This book is a true gem that brings a touch of the authentically Chaoist perception of the reality. Not only in content, but also in form. Magic, physics, politics, psychology, history, technology, cosmology, and lots of humour. The questions are thematically mixed in different ways, they don't create huge monothematic blocks, which was a great idea and adds a chaos magical flavour.

However, this is not random rambling. The whole reveals a philosophically holistic Pete's view on reality, which does not derive primarily from theories, but from experience and decades of bare Chaos Magic practice. This perspective is unique and cannot be precisely labelled; it is the result of a fruitful life dedicated to magic.

The emphasis here is on fruitful. I can say with a clear conscience that Chaos Magic, as presented here, is one of the few magical currents, if not the only one, that in its application and true function expands, enriches, and vitalizes life, not the other way around. Along with this, and importantly, it is consistent with our current empirically based knowledge in, for example, psychology (Steven C. Hayes), statistics and probability (Nassim Taleb), and others.

The occasional criticism of Chaos Magic that I hear is that it has no roots and is just a confused postmodern creation. My argument is exactly the opposite, that Chaos Magic is currently one of the few, if not the only, authentic continuation of the magical tradition. This book is a proof of that. The magical tradition has never been based on a blind adoption of something from the past, nor has it been based on religious dogma. It has always been eclectic, creative, and sought to integrate up-to-date knowledge from other disciplines. This is convincingly demonstrated in Stephen Flowers' book Hermetic Magic or in the Ronald Hutton books.

Last but not least, Interview is also a highly practical book. There are gems in the answers regarding magical practice that I didn't find in Pete's other books. This is probably due to the way Ian Blumberg-Enge asked the questions, as he doesn't appear to be a long-time practitioner of Chaos Magic, but he has an incisive, inquisitive mind and is able to capture the essence well. In doing so, he extracted particularly interesting details from Pete. This makes the book suitable for complete beginners who want to learn what Chaoism and Chaos Magic are all about, as well as for experienced practitioners who are inspired to augment their own practice.

Pete can be proud of his legacy and the significant mark he has left on the Western magical tradition. He seems to have single-handedly reshaped it - forever and definitely.

Available here https://www.amazon.com/Interview-Wizard-Peter-J-Carroll/dp/1914153154

And here https://mandrake.uk.net/interview-with-a-wizard/

Quantum Biology and Magic.

For many years most theorists have dismissed the possibility of significant non-classical quantum effects occurring in biological systems. They have generally reasoned that the warm temperatures, and the wetness and the chemical interactions would instantly cause the decoherence of any ‘interesting’ quantum states.

Yet IF the brain and biological systems do use some of the non-classical properties of quanta like indeterminacy, superposition, entanglement, coherence, and spatial and/or temporal non-locality, then it becomes far more interesting IF that can explain something about 'consciousness' and parapsychology which seem to have similarly non-classical properties.

These two big IFs have become something like holy grails for many contemporary esoteric theorists.

The Penrose-Hameroff  hypothesis of Orchestrated Objective Reduction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction

Postulated a possible basis for a quantum component to consciousness, but the hypothesis lacked much experimental support and attracted widespread criticism.

However, a correspondent recently sent me this: -

‘Experimental indications of non-classical brain functions.’

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2399-6528/ac94be

Experimentalists seem have discovered a measurable quantum coherence signal in the brain synchronized with the heartbeat, and not due to classical effects. This occurs only in the brain's neural tissues, and it changes radically when the subject falls asleep.

Plant biologists seem to increasingly agree that plants use quantum superposition and non-locality to hugely increase the efficiency of their photosynthesis. It seems that they exploit the superposition/non-locality of excited electrons created by incoming photons of light to catch them exactly where they need them at their chemical synthesis sites. Virtually all life on earth depends on photosynthesis and this seems to depend on non-classical quantum effects.

If plants can exploit quantum strangeness, then we should expect animals to do so as well.