Great piece Father. Yes, most of the chapters in the book appeared as stand alone essays in The European Conservative mainly throughout 2022 and 2023.
I share your views overall. Morello is really astute in his diagnosis of the problem. 'Hex' is a great word, and that's what it is. That's what modernity is in a nutshell. We absolutely need to recover the pre-modern worldview that's open to the Mysteries in ways that we've forgotten or lost these past few centuries.
Your reservations are mine as well though, and I say that as a Roman Catholic and an avid listener of Morello's Gnostalgia podcast. The Roman Church doesn't hold all the aces here in either it's Tridentine or post-conciliar forms. This is where Anglo Catholicism can make a really valuable contribution, I feel. It's style of worship, at it's best, can feel both grounded in the particular and universal in its range and scope. Its aesthetic and overall ambience connect us back to a deep, fertile spirituality that predates the iconoclasm and standardisation of the Reformation and Counter Reformation eras.
A good springboard then for the shift in mindset required to break the hex!
Great review. I’m midway through the book and am finding it inspiring and frustrating in equal measure. Thanks for pinning some of these concerns down in such a clear way.
This is excellent, Father. Thank you for this. The broader reawakening of Neoplatonism is not only a Christian phenomenon but, in figures such as John Vervaeke, also a non-Christian one. Vervaeke, Professor of Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Buddhist Psychology at the University of Toronto, is interesting in that he explicitly states he has encountered Hermes, although I imagine he would describe this in Imaginal terms (through the lens of Henry Corbin). Regarding modernism as an egregore, that could be true of any philosophical or religious tradition. As C. S. Lewis alludes to in The Abolition of Man, we should pair religion and science against magic and technology: the first two seek reality, while the latter seek to conform reality to man’s will. Great stuff.
Thank you. I have had the pleasure of dining with John Vervaeke and giving him a copy of my book in preparation for his Japan tour, so I hope that he might make some use of it! I must admit that I had not picked up that sense in the Abolition of Man. I am perhaps less willing to make the binary between science and magic quite so firm.
That must have been awesome to chat with Vervaeke. As for the Grail, I will do so! However, in wishing to reject Abdal Hakim Murad’s suggestion, based on Eschenbach’s Parzival, that the Grail is the al-Ḥajar al-Aswad, the Black Stone in the Kaaba, I choose instead to believe that I receive it every Sunday at Mass. The Eucharist is the medicine of immortality; it transforms men into gods, right?
Great piece Father. Yes, most of the chapters in the book appeared as stand alone essays in The European Conservative mainly throughout 2022 and 2023.
I share your views overall. Morello is really astute in his diagnosis of the problem. 'Hex' is a great word, and that's what it is. That's what modernity is in a nutshell. We absolutely need to recover the pre-modern worldview that's open to the Mysteries in ways that we've forgotten or lost these past few centuries.
Your reservations are mine as well though, and I say that as a Roman Catholic and an avid listener of Morello's Gnostalgia podcast. The Roman Church doesn't hold all the aces here in either it's Tridentine or post-conciliar forms. This is where Anglo Catholicism can make a really valuable contribution, I feel. It's style of worship, at it's best, can feel both grounded in the particular and universal in its range and scope. Its aesthetic and overall ambience connect us back to a deep, fertile spirituality that predates the iconoclasm and standardisation of the Reformation and Counter Reformation eras.
A good springboard then for the shift in mindset required to break the hex!
Great review. I’m midway through the book and am finding it inspiring and frustrating in equal measure. Thanks for pinning some of these concerns down in such a clear way.
Glad to provide clarity.
Easily one of the best books of read in years
This is excellent, Father. Thank you for this. The broader reawakening of Neoplatonism is not only a Christian phenomenon but, in figures such as John Vervaeke, also a non-Christian one. Vervaeke, Professor of Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Buddhist Psychology at the University of Toronto, is interesting in that he explicitly states he has encountered Hermes, although I imagine he would describe this in Imaginal terms (through the lens of Henry Corbin). Regarding modernism as an egregore, that could be true of any philosophical or religious tradition. As C. S. Lewis alludes to in The Abolition of Man, we should pair religion and science against magic and technology: the first two seek reality, while the latter seek to conform reality to man’s will. Great stuff.
Thank you. I have had the pleasure of dining with John Vervaeke and giving him a copy of my book in preparation for his Japan tour, so I hope that he might make some use of it! I must admit that I had not picked up that sense in the Abolition of Man. I am perhaps less willing to make the binary between science and magic quite so firm.
PS Let me know when you find the Grail.
That must have been awesome to chat with Vervaeke. As for the Grail, I will do so! However, in wishing to reject Abdal Hakim Murad’s suggestion, based on Eschenbach’s Parzival, that the Grail is the al-Ḥajar al-Aswad, the Black Stone in the Kaaba, I choose instead to believe that I receive it every Sunday at Mass. The Eucharist is the medicine of immortality; it transforms men into gods, right?