william_kent

Well-known member
1621594251106.png

Austin Osman Spare - Landscape ( 1902 )

Sorcery is a deliberate act of causing metamorphoses by the employment of elementals. It forges a link with the powers of middle nature, (i.e. The astral plane, between the spiritual and physical realms.) or the ether, the astrals of great trees and of animals of every kind. Will is our medium, Belief is the vehicle, and Desire is the force combining with the elemental. Cryptograms are our talismans and protectors.

Unpublished text by Austin Osman Spare quoted in The Magical Revival by Kenneth Grant

The above is also quoted by someone I have been informed is a forum favourite
 

catalog

Well-known member
yeah good shout on paul nash - there's this whole strain of british surrealism that's actually really good but never got anywhere...

Nash's squeeze for a bit, Eileen Agar, is a proper good artist too, her photographs are brilliant



"Agar first visited Brittany in 1936 after participating in the International Surrealist Exhibition in London. She spotted these rock-formations from the train and was intrigued by their unusual shape, describing them as 'enormous prehistoric monsters sleeping on the turf above the sea'. Agar may also have been influenced by her friend Paul Nash's photography of ancient sites such as Stonehenge and Avebury. Agar's photograph brings out the metamorphic imagery in the rocks, showing the poetic and comic qualities of the natural forms."

 

catalog

Well-known member
i suppose what we're all doing here, and what nash, agar, colquohoun etc were doing, is basically low level rejection of conscious/scientific gnosis, favouring a more subconscious/animist thing.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
They have a distinct presence. Ecosystems. A couple of drives recently have revealed more ash die-back. Sepulchral, bleached skeletons, particularly eerie among so much May greenery

Reading a book Caesar’s Druids which has masses of data on groves, natural and artificial. The artificial practice was to construct an enclosure (as old as humans), almost as a horseshoe, then in between the earthwork banks place gigantic tree trunks in rounded sequences. Durrington Walls immediately comes to mind but the two examples are separated by 3000years and distinct design differences

Place names with a “Drun” prefix feature heavily

 

catalog

Well-known member
it's reminding me of thomas moynihan's "spinal catastrophism" where he talks about Ballard's ideas of how the spinal column is like a history lesson back to when we were fish.

The essay in there i really liked was about this colleague/disciple of Freud's, called Ferenczi, who got excommunicated by Freud, cos he took the ideas a bit further. He said Freud was wrong about all our fears/desires being related to childhood. He said we wanted to be back in the Ocean!

So I guess it's the same with trees. There's this whole "saviour narrative" going on right now, right?

With trees i mean. Trees as intelligent "beings" who can show us a way out of our folly. I think it's got a danger edge to it, especially the Robert Macfarlane vision. To me, that's like a mainline to a weird sort of eco-fascism, proper 3rd reich style thing. You posit trees as superior and then it becomes a proscriptive thing...

Much better to accept our folly and understand that all we can do on this planet is use and abuse? Like Robinson in the OP?
 

william_kent

Well-known member
With trees i mean. Trees as intelligent "beings" who can show us a way out of our folly. I think it's got a danger edge to it, especially the Robert Macfarlane vision. To me, that's like a mainline to a weird sort of eco-fascism, proper 3rd reich style thing. You posit trees as superior and then it becomes a proscriptive thing...

There's real danger with going down the "Earth First!" path with their infamous "Miss Ann Thropy" article claiming that AIDS was good for the planet, etc - also the original eco-warrior Charlie Manson and ATWA ( Air, Trees, Water, Animals - All The Way Alive ), the Blood & Soil fascists, Unabomber, etc
 

catalog

Well-known member
yeah exactly.

good quote in the "psychedelic fascism" thread from thirdform on this, quoting Ishay Landa:

I mean you just have to look at görıng

An important facet of the new, surrogate religion of nature that was developed as part of the attempt to dehumanize atheism (as discussed in the previous chapter), and which was embraced and further processed by fascism, was the mystical approach to nature, to plants and to wildlife. These attitudes also reflected a neo-romantic sensitivity and an aversion to the modern, massified, metropolis. A characteristic manifestation of this mystique was the National-Socialist cult of the forest, that facilitated an evocation of glorious episodes in the German past such as the victory of the legendary military leader Arminius (Hermann in modern German) over the Romans in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (Varusschlacht), which took place in 9 CE, in the northwestern part of modern Germany. This battle became a symbol of German nationalism especially during the romantic period, as stylized by writers such as Heinrich von Kleist. (On the forest as a symbol of German nationalism from the early 19th century to the end of the Second World War, see Zechner 2011.) The forest represented the vigorous and primeval ethos with which Nazism sought to replace the meek Christianity imposed on the German tribes, as well as a mysterious image of an organic, cohesive and combative collective, which is well rooted in the soil but manages nevertheless to expand and annex further territories: the image’s role was emotional, not logical. As in the forest, what seemed to count was not the individual warrior, the lonely tree, but the survival of the entire forest.

The Nazis pseudo-historically bestowed on the Germans the title of “forest people,” a people striking deep cultural roots into the forest soil from which it allegedly sprang forth. This mythical self-representation was grafted onto the regime’s racist ideology. The ability to care for the forest was perceived as a unique attribute of the Aryans, while Jews and Slavs were represented as desert and steppe peoples, respectively, hostile to the forest. So argued Hermann Göring, the prominent figure in the Nazi movement for the preservation of nature: “When we walk around in the forest, we see God’s magnificent creation […]. That distinguishes us from yonder people which deems itself chosen, yet will only calculate the market prize for a cubic meter of timber” (In Zechner 2011: 25).

These motifs were propagandistically employed in a full feature motion picture, Eternal Forest (1936), produced at the behest of Alfred Rosenberg (directed by Hanns Springer and Rolf von Sonjevski-Jamrowski). Its dramatic opening sentence already contains the racist, imperialist, social Darwinist and mystical messages of the movie: “Eternal forest—eternal people. The tree, it lives like you and me, it strives for space like you and me. […] People and forest persist for eternity.” And one of its final sentences focuses on the message of a national regeneration, to be achieved by eliminating the sick and the foreign: “Let’s weed out the racially alien and the sick. […] Join in to sing the new song of the time: ‘People and forest persist for eternity’” (In Zechner 2011: 23). The movie is also a prime example of the Nazi attempt to displace the humanistic legacy of Judaeo-Christianity in favor of a pantheism imbibed by the spirit of Nietzsche and Haeckel. As stated by Lee and Wilke (2005: 42) in their analysis of the film and its ideological context:

To a certain extent, National Socialist ideology stemmed from the pantheistic rationalism of Ernst Haeckel, zoologist, father of ecology, and founder of the Monist League. Haeckel’s monism, for Darré and other Nazis, provided an influential “over-arching belief system” because it legitimated the rejection of Christianity in favor of a monistic religion in which the nation was seen as the ultimate whole, worthy of worship and obligation.

This worship of nature can help to explain an aspect of National Socialism that may seem somewhat surprising in retrospect, and this is the way the Nazi regime was in many senses a “green” one, exhibiting special sensitivity to issues of protection and preservation of nature, restriction of animal suffering, an emphasis on natural and organic nutrition and so on and so forth. Under Nazism several pioneering laws were passed for the preservation of nature and preventing experimentation with animals, and the regime actively encouraged consumption of organic food, notably the promotion of whole wheat bread. In order to have bakeries produce especially such bread, the “Reich’s committee for whole wheat bread” (Reichsvollkornbrotausschuss) was established in 1939, and Dr. Leonhard Conti, head of the physicians’ union, declared: “The fight over whole wheat bread is the fight for the people’s health” (In Melzer 2003: 189). In January 1940, it is interesting to note, the same Conti, according to various testimonies, was involved in the euthanasia killings, through the use of lethal injections and gas chambers, undertaken in a “medical center” in Brandenburg, where their respective effects were compared. He himself, apparently, administered lethal injections to invalids. This experiment was of great importance for the continuation of the Nazi euthanasia project.22

Nazism also conducted a successful national campaign against smoking and encouraged researches that established for the first time the connection between smoking and lung cancer (Proctor 2000). Pioneering legislation protected the environment and was praised by activists for the preservation of nature, such as the June 1935 Reichsnaturschutzgesetz (Uekoetter 2006: 61).23 In August 1933, Nazi Germany also had the honor of passing the first law against vivisection, under Göring’s initiative. In a radio broadcast he explained the motives behind the law:

An absolute and permanent ban on vivisection is not only a necessary law to protect animals and show sympathy with their pain, but it is also a law for humanity itself. […] I have therefore announced the immediate prohibition of vivisection and made the practice a punishable offence in Prussia. Until such time as punishment is pronounced the culprit shall be lodged in a concentration camp.

(In Marquardt 1993: 124)24

Göring forbade the setting of traps for commercial purposes, limited hunting and set up regulations for horse shoeing and the boiling of lobsters. A fisherman cutting up a frog for use as bait was sent to a concentration camp (Marquardt 1993: 124–125). Göring’s anti-vivisection law survived in its original form for only three weeks, since it collided with the requirements of scientific and technological development that was vital, among other things, for speeding up rearmament (Uekoetter 2006: 55–56).

quoted from Ishay Landa - Fascism and the masses: The Revolt Against the Last Humans, 1848–1945.
 

william_kent

Well-known member

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front

I remember this as being a quite entertaining documentary about the ethics of environmental activism
 

william_kent

Well-known member
because I remembered its existence, I decided to watch the Earth Liberation Front documentary again, and my first thought is that no one comes out of it looking good ( police, corporations, and activists ) but the amount of dry snitching, self snitching and just plain ratting out of their accomplices by the activists is just astonishing.. talking on camera saying who did what... jaw dropping....
 

william_kent

Well-known member
This obituary appeared on the BBC site yesterday...

Sunderlal Bahuguna: The man who taught India to hug trees

Bahuguna, who died with Covid-19 on Thursday aged 94, was known the world over as the man who taught Indians to hug trees to protect the environment.He was one of the main leaders of the Chipko movement in northern India in the 1970s. In Hindi, chipko literally means "hugging".
Heeding calls by Bahuguna and fellow activist Chandi Prasad Bhatt, men and women in the Indian Himalayas embraced and chained themselves to trees to stop loggers from cutting them down. It was a powerful symbol that conveyed, 'Our bodies before our trees'.


1621675103358.png
1621675454408.png
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
I watched that steaming pile of excrement Sasquatch last night. The forest trees were the real stars, everything else was a mess

Evergreens here tend to be Forestry Commission, slapped all over the place for timber and to cover industrial era carnage, but none of them have the majestic presence like the pacific NW (see Twin Peaks S3 too, ok maybe the Scottish Highlands before midges season count)


2061794A-0A93-452E-953C-BC0DC562F466.jpeg
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The prevalance of non-native species such as sitka is an environmental scandal in its own right. They're useless for native wildlife and often carry pests and parasites that native trees have no resistance to.

It's also used for greenwashing our horribly despoiled country. Ancient forest cover reduced to 2.5% of total land? 70% even of that rated as in poor condition? 34 ancient woods going to be damaged or destroyed to make way for a railway nobody actually needs? Never mind, we'll just plant more trees! Doesn't matter what kind. Just stick 'em anywhere. Bish bash bosh, job done.
 

william_kent

Well-known member
1621703409707.png

A mythical Nariphon tree - a Thai myth describes how Indra builds a hideaway for a former incarnation of Gautama Buddha, Vessantara, and his wife and kids ( before he gives away "everything he owns, including his children, thereby displaying the virtue of perfect generosity" ). His wife has to go and fetch fruits from the forest but it is infested with bad yogis who have gained special powers from meditating but have not conquered lust. Indra plants twelve Nariphon trees and now when she goes to fetch food the trees bear fruit in the form of a replica of her, complete with internal organs, but no bones. This distracts the bad yogis, who pluck the fruit maidens and take them home and have their way with them which drains their special powers for a period of months.

1621704163802.png
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
View attachment 7269

A mythical Nariphon tree - a Thai myth describes how Indra builds a hideaway for a former incarnation of Gautama Buddha, Vessantara, and his wife and kids ( before he gives away "everything he owns, including his children, thereby displaying the virtue of perfect generosity" ). His wife has to go and fetch fruits from the forest but it is infested with bad yogis who have gained special powers from meditating but have not conquered lust. Indra plants twelve Nariphon trees and now when she goes to fetch food the trees bear fruit in the form of a replica of her, complete with internal organs, but no bones. This distracts the bad yogis, who pluck the fruit maidens and take them home and have their way with them which drains their special powers for a period of months.

View attachment 7270
Fruit-based RealDolls. I love it.
 

catalog

Well-known member
ElXQU4UXEAA-11o
 
Top