Mimetic theory takes on everything.
Send us a text How and why I got into researching Amazonian spirituality. Modern interest in shamanism and the reality of shamanism among Amazonian tribes. Sorcery and witchcraft and recorded cases of scapegoating among the Amazonians. The imperative of conviviality and consequences of breaking it. Inner peace and its flip side: outer violence. Support the show...
Send us a text Here finally is a true and powerful traditionalist response to both feminist accusations and the cheap bragging of low-IQ wife-beaters. Why and how are men "born to rule"? The answer is clear once we recover the once-obvious link between authority, violence, and sacrifice. The gory origins of authority in blood sacrifice, archaic, ancient, and modern. The biological expandability of male versus female bodies. Male competition and female competition (if such a thing even exists), a...
Send us a text Parks Gore and I discuss Terence McKenna's Stoned Ape Theory. McKenna argued that human evolution was driven by hominid consumption of psychedelic mushrooms. We explain his theory and argue against it in light of René Girard's work. Girard believed that in-group violence was the unprecedented problem whose solution through violent sacrificial ritual and religion provided the leap from animal to human. We then talk about psychedelics and spirituality, both in ancient or indigenous ...
Send us a text Autism is a rare but real disorder, but the recent rise in claims of being "on the spectrum" is a massive fad, a mimetic contagion. The spectrum is glamourised by popular entertainment and embraced by celebrities. With reference to René Girard's work, I analyse why people might want to signal autism (rather than "mask" it). It has to do with many notions that hit a raw nerve in our culture: narcissism, victimhood, innocence, ambition, mediocrity, genius. I also address the gender ...
Send us a text What is the link between comedy and tragedy? Why do both laughing and crying involve tears? How is comedy related to tickling? Why do we laugh more in modern times? These and many other questions answered in a philosophical discussion based on René Girard's essay on the topic, "Perilous Balance: A Comic Hypothesis." Support the show...
Send us a text We start where we left off in Part 1: Dostoevsky the romantic wakes up and realizes he lives in the underground, filled with resentment, frustrated ambition, and tormenting idols. The underground man struggles to break free in the character of Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment and the teacher in The Gambler . We then encounter formidable idols that attract and foment underground passions all around them: Prince Myshkin in The Idiot and Nikolai Stavrogin in The Possessed. Dosto...
Send us a text A review of the life and works of the great Fyodor Dostoevsky following René Girard's book Dostoevsky: Resurrection from the Underground . A masterpiece of literary criticism in its own right, this book brings edifying and brilliant insights into Dostoevsky's own masterpieces, but only by connecting them to the novelist's lesser works and personal life. Girard traces a coherent arch in Dostoevsky's life and works, from a frustrated naive romantic trying to fit into the literary fa...
Send us a text René Girard's mysterious quote on masochist reasoning being a model of scientific induction. Connecting masochistic conclusions about the nature of the universe to that of the scientist. What logical genius may have in common with masochism – the idiot-savant stereotype. Why modern materialistic and atheistic ideologies tend to turn sadomasochistic. Support the show...
Send us a text The Devil is trending. Talk of demons can be heard from Tucker Carlson, theorists on UFOs and AI, right-wing podcasters interviewing exorcists, and the Psychedelic Renaissance aficionados. So I go over what I recently wrote about the devil on my blog: Girard's anthropological interpretation of the Devil as the force behind seduction, conflict, and accusation; the victimary mechanism as the Satanic mechanism, depicted in the story of the Gerasene Demoniac and the parable of Satan c...
Send us a text Gregory Bateson's double bind as the cause of schizophrenia René Girard on the double bind as a universal human experience Girard's notion of the haunting double as the source of the double bind and central cause and symptom of schizophrenia Support the show
Send us a text Last episode for the summer. Shakespeare snobbery. Two audiences of Shakespeare: the mob and the initiates. Two layers in Othello and Hamlet : romanticism and mimesis. Othello: thirst for the exotic and the death wish. Hamlet: disillusionment with the violent sacred. Shakespeare the man: relationship trauma and dramatic genius. Support the show...
Send us a text René Girard wrote a book of literary criticism of Shakespeare titled "Theatre of Envy: William Shakespeare." The book makes centuries of Shakespeare critics look like fools while confirming the bard himself as a monumental literary figure. This podcast summarises some of the big points of Girard's analysis of Shakespeare. Shakespeare dramatised and reflected on what Girard calls the mimetic nature of desire ("love through others' eyes"), using it as a key plot device in many of hi...
Send us a text Christ's admonitions to turn the other cheek, love thy enemy, etc., from the Sermon on the Mount unsettle many brave Christians. We interpret these admonitions conclusively with the help of René Girard's mimetic exegesis. Take courage soldier! – Jesus does not advocate cowardice or resignation. We also reference C.S. Lewis, and discuss how "love thy enemy" links to Sun Tzu's precepts in The Art of War. Support the show...
Send us a text Mexico: A Girardian analysis of Mel Gibson's movie Apocalypto China: Girardian notes on Terracotta Warriors and pandas Rome: The Gladiator movie; the origin of gladiatorial games Greece: The origin of the ancient Olympic Games Support the show
Send us a text L'appel du vide -- the call of the void; or as Nietzsche says, "If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back at you" A mimetic theory interpretation of the call of the void: inflamed (rather than mortified) desire leads to sadomasochism, leads to an urge to dash ourselves before the terrible and awesome model-obstacle Call of the void in romantic pursuit and poverty Call of the void leading to political and ethnic self-harm Support the show...
Send us a text René Girard's understanding of the symbiosis of imitation and innovation. In traditional societies, imitation was encouraged, innovation was discouraged; in modern society, it is the opposite; why? Imitation and innovation game in science, the arts, business, and geopolitics Bad imitation: resentment of the rival and cargo cults Support the show...
Send us a text Modernity is the precious product of Western Christian Tradition. It is good. You can't and you don't want to go back to some fanciful "trad" era. The aim should be to learn how to navigate the novel challenges of our exciting though perilous times, not give up on them. Support the show
Send us a text An early reader of The Modern Malaise tunes into Boreas Podcast to talk about his personal journey through the shadowy valleys of male coming-of-age, one that included many – or rather all – of the challenges covered in the book: an obsession with Nietzsche, a body-building buddy group, online dating, and money Twitter. His impressions and advice on making it through. Support the show...
Send us a text Girardian takes on racism How white racism is unique: blindness to violence and genteel insistence on "scientific objectivity" Racism as sadomasochism that ends up in self-destruction and/or mixing with the "inferior" You are whom you f*** so if you want to keep your race pure get used and comfortable with hating your own people. Scale back on globalisation. Support the show...
Send us a text "Eternal Recurrence" of Nietzsche and pre-Socratic philosophers, history repeating itself, and the victimary mechanism, or "Satan casting out Satan"; A big part of "trad Christian Twitter" as a swinging of the "infernal pendulum" from the heathen idols of wokism to a heathen interpretation of Christianity as a violent religion; Religious fear mongering as bottom-shelf cowardice and resentment, and as the way Satan gets his due in post-vengeance era; The impossibility of non-sacrif...
Send us a text Keynes as prophet of mature capitalism, against its rival religion of communism. The arcane language of economics sages. Mythologies that economics/capitalism supplanted (and that's a good thing). Nature of mythologies old and new: how they make you feel good early on, and what happens when they run their course. Support the show...
Send us a text What is it that makes us uniquely human? Thinking ( homo sapiens )? Organizing ( homo economicus )? Symbols (“the symbolic species”)? I propose that it is desire in Girardian sense — we are homo desiderans : the desiring humans. Artificial intelligence versus the desiring human. Wordcels, shape rotators, and a third way. Support the show...
Send us a text What is the one single basic principle of all war strategy? The answer is given from readings of René Girard's mimetic theory together with Sun Tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, and the Bible. I suggest how to apply it in modern life. Also, there is a discussion of military history and how war changed through to modern times. Were Sun Tzu and Machiavelli cynics? Were European aristocrats who shot each other in pistol duels idiots? How did Napoleon influence modern warfare? Are Gospels pac...
Send us a text A Girardian angle on the stock market. Yes, the market is irrational, and no, it's not because we have "herd instincts" and other traces of evolutionary survival instincts, but because we are mimetic. Investing is like romance. Girard's mimetic theory does not in any way, shape, or form support any Marxist or neo-Marxist attacks on the Western civilisation. Support the show...
Send us a text Conspiracy theories getting out of hand on the right. Separating sound skepticism from "esoteric" conspiracy theories. Esoteric conspiracy theories as leftover of archaic paganism. Conspiracy theorising is witch hunting in a secular age. CTs may be violent polytheism, but the woke left is the Antichrist. Support the show...
Send us a text Girardian takes on addiction. Beyond the biochemistry, brain science, and environmental triggers. The pursuit of deviated transcendence. The tormenting obstacle; obsessive or repetitive stumbling. Addiction to pain as well as euphoria; sadomasochism. Escapism; addiction as medicine. Aggravated addiction and hallucinations, monsters, and demons. Support the show...
Send us a text Exploring the connection between the black pill (resigned mindset) and embracing or rejecting "the flesh." Why scientism is an embracing of the flesh. Why the black pill is a demonic lie that should be rejected and protected against. Support the show
Send us a text Some personal background on how I ended up writing and talking so much about Christianity. Reading some of Dostoevsky's "Grand Inquisitor" and discussing the big question of individual freedom versus belonging. Support the show
Send us a text Exploring Jews in the role of Girard's archaic scapegoats: magical outsiders who blend in and either bless the community with white magic or curse it with black magic, and how Jews react and act in this role. Support the show
Send us a text George is back with Virgil for Season 3 of the enchanting, enlightening Boreas Podcast! The episode was recorded around Christmastime 2023. We discuss the katechon , one of the concluding topics in our new book, The Modern Malaise , available all over the internet February 7th, 2024. Katechon ("he who restraints / that which restrains") is a term from St. Paul's second letter to Thessalonians and a mysterious concept much discussed over the centuries. We talk about how the katecho...
