Within our daily conscious experiences and thoughts, outside of our awareness of the truth and knowledge claims made by the (S)ciences and many anti-science, postmodern reactions to them, life goes on.

Clare Coffey at The New Atlantis on mesmerism:

‘Identifying primitive belief and calling it “enchantment” — the term for that state of the world before modernity when one is in awe but in error, like Max Weber’s propitiating savage — is a defining aspect of modern secular culture. Enchantment is a periodizing word, that is: The world used to be enchanted, and now it is not. In this way, enchantment and modernity are not opposing forces but belong together.’

Hmmm…

List of things I think are mostly bullshit:  The claims of paranormalists. alien abductees, phrenologists and new-age healers; satanists, psychics, astrologers and some celebrities taking-up causes.  A new addition: Rod Dreher links to Nathan, a big-city analyst, whose wife who may or may not be possessed by demons.

Clearly, the guardrails of Catholic doctrine protect against a great deal of superstition and human folly, but to say that the Church hasn’t been something of an historical vehicle for human folly, well, that’s a bit much.  This is our nature we’re dealing with, here, after all.

Of course, I’m greatly reassured in observing the popular desire for notoriety and fame, the celebrification of politics, the mainstreamed pseudo-religious discontents of social justice activism and intersectionalism.

Choose your ‘-Ism,’ and your actions in the world become mostly justified; the good you’re doing outweighing the bad; your personal doubts and suffering absorbed into the larger cause.

Nothing wrong here!:

Mainstreaming violence is always a good idea:

Bonus footage:

A brief introduction to Adam Smith’s ‘Theory Of Moral Sentiments’

Beware the men of systems, moralizers, rationalists, idealists and utopians: