What are you reading now?

I still haven't decided if it is good or not. For the first part, it has been rambling. Remains to be seen if it contains techniques hitherto unknown to me. I hope so.

 

One of the books I'm currently reading happens to be one I've read before, just not in English. I originally read the German translation because a friend of mine lent me a copy. I was able to get the original English edition from a library giveaway. A tattered copy, but useful nonetheless. For reference, the title is Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm by Stephen Harrod Buhner



I'm about halfway through and already have begun to see this book in a new light, albeit the German translation was very well done all things considered. Buhner's work in general is amazing if you're interested in the more pantheistic, psychotropic, and especially the biocentric overtones of shamanism, herbalism, communion, and/or spiritual transcendentalism in general. Extremely insightful, although it might be like a koan to you at times. Overall I have an interest in botany, so this is a book I like quite a bit.

 

Was reading an article about Dante and will go to the Bibliotheque tomorrow for something else.

 

May as well boot this back up.

Was reading non fic by Pound and Wood.

 

Allah's Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya by Sebastian Smith

This book really captures a lot of sacral warfare. It's biased in favor of Chechnya and glorifies Islam to some extent, but I'd still recommend it. Favorite quote so far:

‘At the beginning of this war, we didn’t know much about fighting. But just like our forefathers, we learnt quickly and they’ve paid for it,’ Vizit says. 'They’ll never take this valley, not our village, not the holy hill. At least while I live.' He pulls out a foot-long kinzhal. I walked with him to this spot and don’t remember his carrying it. But here it is. Must have been in his jacket.

'Look at this kinzhal. A friend of mine from Avtury gave it to me at the start of the war. It belonged to his grandfather, who was an abreg. You know what an abreg is? A bandit. It’s a beautiful thing this kinzhal.’ The knife feels solid, well-weighted, cold, sharp and smooth. I don’t suppose Vizit uses it much, but a lot of these guerrillas like to wear a kinzhal along with their grenades, Kalashnikov ammunition clips and pistols.

It’s a way of saying that they’re continuing the fight of their forefathers.
​

 

I've just finished with Alexander Dugin's "Ethnos and Society" and am currently (slowly) working through Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time" and Karl Marx's "Capital".

 

How is the Dugin book?

 

I thought it was rather good, especially in his analysis of the primitive ethnos and its transformation into the laos. This basically corresponds to the transition from archaic tribal society with a shaman to the trifunctional structure of Traditional Indo-European society.

The sections on the transformation from laos to nation, civil society, and global society (post-society) is pretty mainstream and follows the constructivist paradigm, Marxist analysis of the liberal bourgeois revolutions (1789-1848) etc. His synchronic analysis of these various forms of society is the most interesting aspect, as he discusses how the archaic ethnos becomes the peasant function with the shaman being transformed into the priestly function. It's made me more interested in getting Jeremy Naydler's book on the Pyramid Texts as shamanic wisdom. Dugin does make some errors, in my opinion, but they are rather small.

This book is essential if you want to understand the subject of the 4th Political Theory - narod/laos.

 

Metre, Rhythm and Verse Form - Philip Hobsbaum