If you love stereotypically witty and jovial Australian commentary, combined with adorable homemade memes of wombats with tinfoil hats surrounded by various conspiracy icons, you will love Down the Wombat Hole.
“In short, and in a shameless plug: I am a conspiracy theorist that came of age with Covid, and have none of the often unpleasant baggage that might come with some of my more established, reptilian-believing, anti-semitic leaning compatriots.”
“If there is one thing that this pale, male and stale scene is in desperate need of, it is inclusive conspiracy theories. And I am here to help.”
🤣
Speaking of conspiracies, have you read the most recent Spartacus letter? It’s an epically well-referenced and equally long piece on the origins of the virus, the sketchiness of the covid vaccines, what DARPA wants with your brains, and what DARPA’s desires might have to do with said vaccines. Not for the faint of heart.
Next up. In Trumans, Kathleen Devanney writes:
Despite this sounding like a long-winded complaint, I’m really thinking what’s happening in the world right now is very good. Because while it’s maddening to be lied to and manipulated and all the rest - let alone so obviously - the cracks happening in the world-we-were-presented-with, actually spell the Shadow Controllers doom and our freedom.
CNN watchers are an endangered species at this point (maybe they’ll be carted off to the Smithsonian too) and alternative news sources - despite being rife with gate-keepers and misinformation agents - continues to grow. Good signs. A renewed sense of purpose has been ignited in humans who are quickly catching up with the layers of deception. That’s really, really good. We’ve been asleep, but many of us are not asleep anymore.
So much positive is happening simultaneous to Mr. Global’s obvious and deeply flawed power grab. I like to remind myself of that.
As in the final scene of The Truman Show, when Truman sails his boat to the limit of his manufactured world, the story does not end there. In fact it’s only the illusion he’s been captured within that is over. No longer a captive, he opens the door to a new reality. A new story, and one he himself will author. (Albeit it will have illusions too - but a big layer’s been peeled off and he’s now someone who will question everything.)
We know when Truman exits the stage, he will have to reorient his sense of identity; our internal selves are fully entwined with our external world. If the facade of the world is falling, what of our identities attached to it? They’ll have to fall too.
Because, if the world is not what we thought it was, then chances are, neither are we.
Freed from the grip of Mr. Global’s play and its long-standing run of a limiting and spirit-crushing world, what will humanity look like? We’re going to find out.
We’re building a wonderful new international community here in Stackerland. I saved my absolute favorite for last.
In A New Earth, CPJ writes in Confessions of Doctor Strangelove (How I learnt to stop worrying and love the Right)
“It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids, without the knowledge of the individual, certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.”
- Dr Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
…
“I do not pretend to quite understand why the neo-corporatists - as I now term the Democrat establishment wing - so overwhelmingly fell in with the Covid narrative, and unrestrained fanciful speculation on this topic is very much not my cup of tea. But of course there are some elements in the Zeitgeist of the latter 2010s which foreshadowed this, particularly climate alarmism, which always shocked me because it was obvious that its negativity would only dull people to any need to take action which might collectively be accorded. It is shared dreams that change the world - not fear. The pursuit of increasingly arcane causes by the so-called liberals also suggested to me a strange inability to focus on the essential. Not that I am at all hostile to such causes, but the political prominence which they attained and the hypoxic bouts of self-shaming associated with them seemed like some strange sadomasochistic ritual. When Foucault insisted on the importance of confession in Western culture, I thought it was a little bit his own fetish. On the contrary, it has come to seem like for a section of society even the privacy of the confessional is not enough. Their sins have to be constantly paraded by they themselves on national television and in the political arena.
….
I am most certainly not a Conservative. I squirm when I hear their nonsense about abortion, not only because I disagree with them, but especially because I view it as absurd culture-war posturing (just as bad as wokeism) that could hardly be less relevant to the challenges we face as a species; a complete distraction. I detest every manifestation of patriarchy, I am a deconstructionist of gender and traditional sex roles, I am for liberal drug laws and decent gun control, I am even opposed to laws favoring monogamy and in favor of universal basic income. I couldn’t disagree more strongly with Lasch’s characterization of liberal-left culture as narcissistic. Perhaps it has become narcissistic, but I am not willing to accord him that degree of prophetic power. I think the last thing we need, also because it has zero hope of ever happening, is some kind of back to the future religious revival. I believe that, even if it is a rocky road, the rejection of patriarchal religion will eventually provide a new model of society.
And yet. I am very impressed by the way that many in the faith community have found their voices in the current crisis. Many on my side of spirituality have also - actually I think it is almost universal - but this is still invisible, even in the heterodox media. But I have really learnt to value decent common sense and kind, community-based values. Even if philosophically I think there is no future in this and that we must change, it is still warm, real and grounded. Yes, we should all re-examine our privilege. But it has become so painfully obvious that all those who espouse these ideals at the political level today do so entirely opportunistically, and are amongst the worst offenders against the ideals that they preach. Much in the woke agenda is simply neo-colonial. Neo-corporatism is all wrong, it is highly dangerous, and it needs an Augean cleansing; nothing of it is to be rescued at all; its self-righteous advocates need to awaken to the vacuity of their empty lives and find some real causes to fight for, but above all, find themselves. It is all empty show and it is very, very sad.
This next one was particularly good, because the writer puts into words exactly what I feel. I wish I was equipped with this type of eloquence. Alas. This is from the same newsletter, in a piece entitled Religious Exemptions:
The philosophical notions (if such they be) to which I cling are, however, even though nameless, very widely shared in contemporary Western society. Many people teach them, under many labels. Many have come to them independently. They do not involve or necessitate authority; they are anti-authoritarian and they are anchored in immanent experience. Although I have no name for this “religion”, I do very much feel part of a broad movement in society. There are many people I listen to, from various backgrounds, whose attitude towards the world seems to me quite effortlessly to dovetail with my own. I feel that we share a common understanding of the spiritual nature of man, and that the only compelling explanation as to why this is so, is a commonality of experience derived from immersion into how things really are. This “natural religion” is beyond and independent of dogma and unconfined by language or cosmology. It is the one, primeval and eternal religion of humanity, divinely revealed not in scripture but through personal experience.
Religions as they exist in the world also incorporate windows on this reality (alongside many elements which I would consider epiphenomenal or diverse in nature). Nevertheless some actually established religious movements (or at least what we call religious movements) are indeed quite close to this common, experiential core of things, in particular advaita vedanta, taoism and zen. These and other traditions teach that meditation gives access to a reality beyond illusion or contingent happenstance, beyond the world of form. Such reality, experienced through whatever language and cultural lens, is nevertheless and necessarily one. That is my religion.
Such religion is incapable of anxiety before death. It is absolutely unconcerned with the ultimate fate of the body. It is not worried in the slightest even about serious illness, never mind the mild symptoms which are most people’s experience of Covid-19. It is accepting of adversity. It is serene before all things. It is therefore profoundly, irreducibly countercultural. The world of existential anxiety is threatened by it and cannot accommodate it. But it has been threatened by all other religions also, even if it has found some sort of accommodation. Religions are supposed to provide answers to existential questions which otherwise provoke anxiety. That is what they do. The Western world is currently in the prey of excruciating anxiety, beyond any rhyme or reason. That is the only reason it seeks salvation by turning to spiritually desolate medical hierophants. Somehow, these grey emanations of the positivistic, materialistic creed they themselves (incorrectly) call “science” are the appointed priesthood before which we all must prostrate ourselves. I consider that idolatry. It’s not an objective, superior truth and better way to order society, it’s ugly and inhuman. My submission to Moloch is being demanded. But I resist.
Thanks for the shoutout Monica! ❤️
Thanks for the nod, Monica! And new round up. Really appreciate them. Pretty soon, I won't have time to do much of anything other than read substack posts. A good dilemma to be sure. Best to you!