Eternal Refiguration: or how “modernity” can’t help but be “surprised” every time it refigures what discarded Tradition knew centuries ago.

History isn’t optional.ⁱ Being that it’s essentially the root networkⁱⁱ of our cultural trees, it irrepressibly generates ancient interconnections, permeating unknowably vast expanses of time and place. History also happens to be un-Modern, which is to say un-Marxist, which is to say individualising (ie. masculinising) rather than collectivising (ie. feminising), which is ultimately to say entirely out of fashion at the moment, at least at this woefully decadent phase of the cycle.

But that won’t stop the runaway train that is Modern Science™ⁱⁱⁱ from barrelling ahead anyways! Not be diminished by its own Dunning-Krugerism, there’s a seemingly endless supply of lab-coated LARPers who have no other purpose in life than refiguring what medieval monks a thousand years ago (ie. Tradition)^iv saw as patently obvious. Lunging from shiny thing to shiny thing making “discoveries” that “change everything,” these unserious jabronis simply can’t help themselves. But hey, I guess it turns out that you can’t have “scientific revolutions” until you’ve had political ones first!

“But Pete” I hear you protest, “give us some concrete examples instead of just exasperatedly waving your hands in the air like some kinda preacher man.” Fine, fine, Timmy, if you insist. I don’t mind, I really don’t, because it’s really not hard to find if you dig a little beneath the surface. And it can be irreverently fun too!

For example, y’know how Hindu yugas talked about cyclic cosmologies of creation-preservation-dissolution (wash-rinse-repeat), or Stoics talked about ekpyrosis (fiery rebirth)? Well it turns out that Nobel Prize winning physicist Adam Riess is now arguing that the heat-death of the universe isn’t inevitable because dark energy evolves and therefore periodically inverts the sign of cosmic acceleration. Go figure!

Or y’know how Chi / Prāna are this formative life-current that silently shape physical matter? Well it turns out that Tufts professor Michael Levin has “confirmed” that patterned tissue-level electric fields act as master-control layers for morphogenesis and limb regeneration. It really is “fields first, parts second” all the way down. Vibes man!^v Aura yo!^vi

Or how about smoking being so goddam cool? In cultures ranging from ancient Amazonians where tobacco rites “fortified male spirit,” to early European marketing of pipes as symbols of manly vigour,^vii to Marlboro Man in Mad Men-era America, who would’ve guessed that smoking literally boosts testosterone! Yup, per Zhao et al. from University of Hong Kong, Men 🤝 Fire. Simple as that.

Anyways, there are countless more examples besides, but suffice to say that the timeless MPism that “the only thing new in the world is the history you didn’t know yet” continues to bear sweet, sweet, hilarious fruit. Apples and divine knowledge and all that.

So be brave. Take a historical bite. Just watch out for the hidden core.

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1. No, your history isn’t gay-ass “Pride Month” any more than it’s “Pi Day” (3/14) or “Star Wars Day” (May 4th) or other such faggotry. Rather, history is what your grandparents lived and what they died believing. So remember your roots. They’re the only thing that can possibly keep you even remotely sane. ↩
2. Don’t underestimate root networks either. Ancient Celtic notions of nemeton and Shinto understandings of kodama certainly didn’t. Per Russell et al., forest-spirits live! ↩
3. Can we all agree that “scientists” are, at best, empirical artists? Life is art, after all, and from where else do null hypotheses derive than from the spirit world, that same ephemeral world of eternal energy from which is synthesised all great works of art? ↩
4. Not that this would be a surprise to, say, Julius Evola. Or Nietszche for that matter. ↩
5. Or “vibecession” as the case may be. ↩
6. Per Salari et al. at University of Calgary, all living organisms are made of light. Y’know just like Paracelsus described as lumen naturae and Ayurveda described as ojas. ↩
7. eg. this Highland snuff/pipe advertisement from the 18th century

   

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