Legalise Freedom Dot Com

LF250 Martin Demant Frederiksen – Why Do We Exist?

Martin Demant Frederiksen discusses nothing.
Why is there something rather than nothing? Wouldn’t nothing have been much simpler than something? But can nothing actually exist? Has there, in fact, always been something? Although answers to the vast, unfathomable mysteries of existence seem as distant as ever, we remain as compelled to seek them as countless generations before us. Indeed, as a species, we seem unable to truly thrive without some overarching purpose.
However, in a challenge to this eternal existential quest, Frederiksen pauses to ask ‘What goes missing when we look for meaning?’ In seeking some ultimate purpose to life, the Universe, and everything, do we devalue or even deny the present moment, the instant immediacy of where we are right now? Furthermore, given the strife and conflict caused by competing world-views – religious, secular, spiritual, scientific, and more – is there something to be said for an acceptance of futility, an embrace of meaninglessness, or even the active negation of any and all notions of cosmic teleology? After all, denial of meaning needn’t necessarily mean nihilism.
Like so many civilizations of the past, we live in a time of crisis. Contemporary culture is caught in a corpse-strewn cul de sac, a war zone of competing cosmologies, ideologies, and dogma. There are two ways out of this destructive dead end – turn back or break through – but no guarantee of either. One thing however is certain; what we affirm or deny in thought or in deed – individually and collectively – has an affect. Even if we choose not to decide, we still have made a choice.
Martin’s latest book is An Anthropology of Nothing in Particular.
Bumper music: Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’Stanislav Shevchenko ‘Conscientia’
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LF249 Chris Nineham – How the Establishment Lost Control

Chris Nineham discusses his book How the Establishment Lost Control and the political, economic, and social turmoil of our time.
From the Scottish independence referendum to the Brexit debacle, and the shock election of Jeremy Corbyn as UK Labour leader and Donald Trump as US President, the post-war consensus is breaking up. This turmoil testifies to an insurgent mood amongst great swathes of the population both at home and abroad. How the Establishment Lost Control attempts to explain these dramatic developments and to show how they question received notions about politics, history, and how change happens. Above all they challenge widespread assumptions about the resilience of elite hegemony, the influence of conventional structures of thought, and the ability of the mass of the population to think autonomously in a post-ideological age.
At the close of the 20th Century, we were told and millions of us believed that the neoliberal new world order was here to stay and that it was simply a matter of time before its now incontrovertible benefits touched all corners of the globe. The polarization, upheaval, and often chaotic events of the early 21st Century, however, portend a very different future teeming with threats and uncertainty. But within this flux and deep doubt there also exists the potential for positive change, should we choose to seize the moment.
Bumper music: Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’
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LF248 Mark Corske – Engines of Domination: Political Power and the Human Emergency

Mark Corske discusses his film Engines of Domination – Political Power and the Human Emergency.
Is political power – armed central authority with states and war – really necessary for human society? Or is it a tool that ruling elites use to live at the expense of everyone else? Engines of Domination offers a theory of political power as a tool; an engine that converts human energy into power and privilege for the rulers. Invented in the Bronze Age and ruthlessly refined for six thousand years, today this engine threatens to destroy our world in a human emergency of converging political and economic crises, resource depletion, and environmental destruction. Applying his theory of political power to Western history, Corske makes a passionate argument that there is only one way to respond to this emergency: Armed central authority must be abolished, giving way to a world of peaceful voluntary communities. Six thousand years of violence and chaos, of abusive power and plundered privilege, is more than long enough. It’s time for something better.
Bumper music: Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’Brad Fiedel ‘The Terminator OST’
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LF247 Gary Lachman – Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump

Gary Lachman discusses his book Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump.
Millions of people were shocked, surprised and even horrified by Donald Trump’s election as the 45th President of the United States. From the outset his detractors considered his candidacy little more than a sick joke; a populist publicity stunt designed simply to further his own career at the nation’s expense. Behind the public facade, however, unseen forces were at work and as the campaign wore on, those convinced of Trump’s imminent failure became less and less sure of themselves. His victory turned their world upside down. As pathetic as Hillary Clinton’s campaign was, something else was needed to explain Trump’s seemingly unlikely triumph. But just what might account for this polarising paradigm shift?
Invisible to most, within the concentric circles of Trump’s regime lies a cabal of occultists, power-seekers, and mind-magicians whose influence is on the rise. Did the power of positive thinking and the much-vaunted practice of ‘manifesting’ help put Trump in the White House? Are there any other hidden powers of the mind at work in world politics today? In Dark Star Rising, Lachman lifts the lid on magical and esoteric ideas that are impacting political events right across the globe. From so-called New Thought to Chaos Magick and far-right esotericism, we follow a trail of mystic clues that involve, among others, positive thinking pioneer Norman Vincent Peale, Objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand, Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Alt-Right, Pepe the Frog, and various domineering gurus and demagogues.
We have now entered a mind-bending matrix of occult politics where post-truths and alternative facts proliferate and where change is the only certainty. In the early 21st Century, the borders between fantasy and reality have begun to blur and break down. If anything can be said with any conviction it is that there will be much more chaos to come.
Previous interviews with Gary Lachman here.
Bumper music: Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’John Carpenter ‘Halloween III: Season of the Witch OST’
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LF246 Rob Larson – Capitalism Vs. Freedom: The Toll Road to Serfdom

Rob Larson discusses his book Capitalism Vs. Freedom – The Toll Road to Serfdom
For years, we’ve been taught that capitalism is good for freedom. Dominant right-wing commentators claim that markets free us, and this view still dominates education and politics. However, in Capitalism vs. Freedom, Larson puts big business under a microscope, debunking libertarian economics while demonstrating that the marketplace has its own great centres of power, which the libertarian tradition itself claims is a limit to freedom. Larson illustrates how capitalism fails both this and other concepts of human liberty, not just failing to establish a right to a share of society’s production, but also leaving us subject to the power plays of political and corporate elites which are increasingly becoming one and the same.
That global economic, political, social, and environmental systems are disintegrating is scarcely in doubt. Inequality is on the rise as resources are concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Even in the West, children now born can expect to be poorer than their parents. The era of ever-increasing prosperity is coming to an end. Conventional energy sources are running out while renewables fail to plug the gap. Climate change is making vast swathes of the Earth – such as the Middle East – increasingly uninhabitable for millions who have two choices – move somewhere else or die. Mass migration continues to drive social conflict. Fundamentalism is resurgent. Donald Trump and Brexit are just two of the most obvious signs of cascading collapse. The kaleidoscope has been shaken, the pieces are in flux, a new world is coming. The question simply remains – what, if anything, can we do about it?
Bumper music:Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OSTTangerine Dream ‘Thief’‘
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LF245 Carl Abrahamsson – Occulture: The Unseen Forces That Drive Culture Forward

Carl Abrahamsson discusses his book Occulture – The Unseen Forces That Drive Culture Forward.
Art, magic, and the occult have been intimately linked since our prehistoric ancestors created the first cave paintings some 50,000 years ago. As civilizations developed, these esoteric forces continued to drive culture forward, both visibly and behind the scenes, from the Hermetic ideas of the Renaissance, to the ethereal worlds of 19th century Symbolism, and the occult interests of the Surrealists. In this deep exploration of ‘occulture’ – the liminal space where art and magic meet – Carl Abrahamsson reveals the integral role played by magic and occultism in the development of culture throughout history as well as their relevance to the continuing survival of art and creativity.
Blending magical history and esoteric philosophy with his more than 30 years’ experience in occult movements, Abrahamsson looks at the phenomena and people who have been seminal in modern esoteric developments, including Carl Jung, Anton LaVey, Aleister Crowley, and Rudolf Steiner. Showing how art and magic were initially one and the same, the author explores the history of magic as a source of genuine counter culture and compares it with our contemporary soulless, digital monoculture. He reveals how the magic of art can be restored if art is employed as a means rather than an end – if it is intense, emotional, violent, and expressive – and offers strategies for creating freely, magically, even spontaneously, with intent unfettered by the whims of trends, a creative practice akin to chaos magick that assists both creators and spectators to live with meaning.
He also looks at intuition and creativity as the cornerstones of genuine individuation, explaining how insights and illuminations seldom come in collective forms. Exploring magical philosophy, occult history, the arts, psychology, and the colourful grey areas in between, Abrahamsson reveals the culturally and magically transformative role of art and the ways the occult continues to transform culture to this day.
www.patreon.com/vanessa23carl
www.carlabrahamsson.com
www.trapart.net
 
Bumper music:
Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’Havdis ‘Borea’
 
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LF244 Anthony Peake – Mystery and Meaning in Time, Space, and Matter – Part Two

Anthony Peake discusses his book Time and The Rose Garden: Encountering the Magical in the Life and Works of J.B. Priestley. This is a two-part interview. Part one is here
Active from the early 1900s almost until his death in 1984, English playwright and novelist John Boynton Priestly – when considered at all – is generally regarded as an old fashioned, outmoded relic of a bygone literary age. However, as Anthony Peake shows, Priestly was often far ahead of his time as a thinker, and was an avid explorer of the great existential mysteries which have occupied some of the greatest minds for millennia. Peake draws out common themes in Priestley’s work which strongly suggest that time, space, and matter are not what they seem. In this strange, surreal and, for most people, largely unfamiliar view of reality, mind and matter are intimately intertwined, opening up a panorama of bewildering possibilities. Do past, present and future exist simultaneously in an eternal now? If so, is the past still accessible under certain circumstances, and under similar circumstances, can we foresee the events of the future?
The emergent picture is one of reality as a holistic system in which every part is interconnected with and accessible by every other part. Mind and matter anywhere in the Universe have the potential to affect mind and matter anywhere else in the Universe, instantly, and irrespective of location in either space or time. In this light, psychic phenomena such as precognition, telepathy, and telekinesis suddenly seem possible, and disturbing anomalies such as time-slips, deja vu, ghosts, and UFOs appear less bizarre. As cutting-edge physics continues to construct a scientific framework on which to hang such largely subjective experiences, Peake’s book calls for a reassessment of Priestley’s work and his contribution to our ongoing struggle to comprehend the unfathomable complexities of the cosmos.
Previous interviews with Anthony Peake:Opening the Doors of PerceptionThe Infinite MindfieldThe Labyrinth of Time
Bumper music:Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’Klaus Schulze ‘Schwanensee 1’
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LF243 Anthony Peake – Mystery and Meaning in Time, Space, and Matter – Part One

Anthony Peake discusses his book Time and The Rose Garden: Encountering the Magical in the Life and Works of J.B. Priestley. This is a two-part interview. Part two is here
Active from the early 1900s almost until his death in 1984, English playwright and novelist John Boynton Priestly – when considered at all – is generally regarded as an old fashioned, outmoded relic of a bygone literary age. However, as Anthony Peake shows, Priestly was often far ahead of his time as a thinker, and was an avid explorer of the great existential mysteries which have occupied some of the greatest minds for millennia. Peake draws out common themes in Priestley’s work which strongly suggest that time, space, and matter are not what they seem. In this strange, surreal and, for most people, largely unfamiliar view of reality, mind and matter are intimately intertwined, opening up a panorama of bewildering possibilities. Do past, present and future exist simultaneously in an eternal now? If so, is the past still accessible under certain circumstances, and under similar circumstances, can we foresee the events of the future?
The emergent picture is one of reality as a holistic system in which every part is interconnected with and accessible by every other part. Mind and matter anywhere in the Universe have the potential to affect mind and matter anywhere else in the Universe, instantly, and irrespective of location in either space or time. In this light, psychic phenomena such as precognition, telepathy, and telekinesis suddenly seem possible, and disturbing anomalies such as time-slips, deja vu, ghosts, and UFOs appear less bizarre. As cutting-edge physics continues to construct a scientific framework on which to hang such largely subjective experiences, Peake’s book calls for a reassessment of Priestley’s work and his contribution to our ongoing struggle to comprehend the unfathomable complexities of the cosmos.
Previous interviews with Anthony Peake:Opening the Doors of PerceptionThe Infinite MindfieldThe Labyrinth of Time
Bumper music:Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’Klaus Schulze ‘Zeitgeist’
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LF242 Antonin Tuynman – Machine / Mind / Mankind – The Future of Consciousness

Antonin Tuynman discusses his book Is Intelligence an Algorithm?, a wide-ranging exploration of the similarities and differences between human and artificial intelligence, and the potential for future advancement of both.
Although human and machine intelligence share certain similarities, there are profound differences which pose significant problems for the development of an artificial intelligence which can truly match or even exceed the capabilities of the human brain. Artificial intelligence seeks to emulate the strengths of human intelligence whilst eliminating its weaknesses. However, both human flaws and human genius stem from the same source and it seems that we cannot have one without the other. Among other things, this places the prospects for transhumanist hopes of merging man and machine in serious doubt.
There is also the question of whether artificial intelligence can ever truly understand the information it processes. Even the most powerful computers today are still essentially number crunchers with a limited capacity for pattern recognition. Meaning and purpose are alien to A.I., as are beliefs, emotions, desires, intuition, morals, and a host of other human characteristics and qualities. Consciousness is an unfathomable mystery even to us, so it seems that our attempts to replicate it in machines are doomed to failure.
However, whatever the apparent limitations of artificial intelligence, computers are increasingly being placed in charge of the infrastructure and systems on which modern life depends. This poses difficult questions about what might happen should A.I. somehow evolve on its own. The so-called ‘internet of things’ is linking computer power with sensors, robots, and other machines at a rate which may become exponential. This cybernetic matrix is being given the power to control, to regulate, to decide, to act. What if it calculates that we are the problem? Many human beings have already come to this conclusion. Man, machine, or something in between… To whom – or what – does the future belong?
Bumper music: Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’Cwtch ‘What Do Robots Dream About?’
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LF241 Thomas Sheridan – The Secret Science of Sorcery – Part Two

Thomas Sheridan discusses his book Sorcery – The Invocation of Strangeness.
This is a two part interview. Part one is here.
In the modern world, we no longer have time for magic, dismissing it as mere mumbo-jumbo from a less enlightened age. One might say, in fact, that the magic has gone out of our lives. Most of us, however, misunderstand just what magic is – a mechanism for manipulating the world around us, which through suppression and since the ascent of the scientific era, has mostly faded from memory. Yet this force lives on and indeed is fundamental to the very fabric of the Universe.
Probing deeper, we find that most of that which makes up all that apparently exists – in the form of dark matter and dark energy – remains a mystery to modern mainstream science. We discover that conventional notions of time, space, and matter are illusions and that reality is subjective, malleable, and made up of myriad unseen, unknown levels. We learn that our beliefs and expectations, our desire and will, play a part in shaping reality and in doing so, we understand that we can manipulate the mechanics of the non-material toward our own ends. Materialist science may reject mind over matter, but it’s real enough. From particle physics to psychic powers, and from Donald Trump to 9/11, we roam the realms where science and sorcery are one and the same, and nothing or nowhere is quite what it seems.
Previous interviews with Thomas Sheridan:The Anvil of the PsycheConsciousness Parasites and Psychopathic SocietyRise of the Nazi Death CultThe Druid Code: Magic, Megaliths and Mythology
Bumper music:Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’Tangerine Dream ‘Sorcerer’
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