Awakening From the Magic Spell: A Work in Progress

Sometimes, yours truly, is driven by a seemingly  ungovernable impulse to set forth...even well past a reasonable hour. The difference between "getting" something about the hidden wellsprings that "make history" and merely  behaving like a sightseer "viewing events" as a sort of hobbyhorse pastime (or perhaps, which is in essence the same thing, as a tenured profession) is like lifting a veil of cherished yet unexamined illusions.

Such is the stuff of mind control. Why does a Svengali or Mesmer hold such a fascination? Because dear hearts, at the root of civilization lies some very basic and unchanging principles. Most of us are continuously being snookered by the likes of modern day P.T. Barnums. This is why the fulsome questioning of one's assumptions as a society by what Leibniz called the principle of sufficient reason is always and necessarily  transformative for that very same society.  Just as there is for one's own life a method of vicariously undoing the missteps made and recovering a purpose and mission, so too with peoples and nations.

This is why the process of discovering truth is immortal. Further, it is the only meaning of immortality that is not mythical. For either we are in thrall to the mistaken and superstitious belief that society is inescapably governed by "them" (i.e. the Empire of-- fill in your chosen "opinion of who "they" are) or we awake and escape from the control of the puppet masters in the cave that Plato immortally limned once upon a time.

For the experimental creation of social movements upon these American shores is whether it is the Transcendentalism, Ayn Rand, or the Hippies is always for the simple reason to return us to "mother" Great Britain. Because there is only self government for the benefit of as yet unborn generations or there is the empire of the manipulated mind ((and perhaps one surfeited with "pleasurable" pastimes like being a sightseer at one's own (and one's country's) demise.))

Denying these quite simple truths herein is only a form of rather muted hysteria for some of the people some of the time.