Author Archive

Epistle to Ansgar, Letter 04: God the Holy Ghost

Posted January 30, 2024 By John C Wright

28 January AD 2024, Feast of St Thomas Aquinas

Dear Godson,

This day is the Feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the schoolman who, for once and all, reconciled faith and philosophy, church and science.

Any man who says there is conflict speaks in ignorance, or in malice, either being too literal in his interpretation of scripture, or too hasty in calling the ever-changing guesswork of science factual. It is to be noted that true Churchmen and true scientists themselves see no such conflict, nor appearance of conflict.

The same Holy Ghost who inspired Moses and the prophets, and inspired the saints and apostles, was He who moved softly across the face of the deep when creation was formless and void, brooding as a dove over her chicks. The Creator will not take amiss any disciplined and honest investigation of the artwork and architecture involved in the making of stars and atoms, sea and sky, microbe and mastodon, the geometry of the leaf, the lifecycle of galaxies, the engineering of the inner amoeba.

Thomas Aquinas would approve of any intellectual approach to these great things that kept its aim and nature in mind: science is meant to topple the idols of false beliefs about nature, not to erect them.

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Synthetic Religions in Sci-Fi

Posted January 29, 2024 By John C Wright

A reader with the nasal but labial name of MM writes:

“This is the idea that the philosopher-king should encourage the masses to embrace religion, while eschewing it for the philosopher-king. At least I remember reading this somewhere. It may have been in Thomas More’s Utopia, but I think the idea goes back at least to Plato.”

My comment: Myself, whose education came more from science fiction books than schoolbooks, encountered this idea first in the old pulps, circa 1939.

Science fiction writers are enamored of the idea of false religions erected by rulers to control the masses, religions the rules spread but do not themselves belief, starting with the ‘Synthetic Religion’ attempted by the tyrants of spiritual darkness in Olaf Stapledon’s DARKNESS AND LIGHT.

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Collectivism and Objectivism

Posted January 27, 2024 By John C Wright

I am a fan and admirer of Ayn Rand, as much an admirer as one can be who thinks the object of his admiration is wrong and evil. I feel the same way about Thomas Hobbes, proponent of absolute government. He is wrong and evil, but he uses admirably precise logic to reach his wrong and evil conclusions.

Ayn Rand was an atheist, and rejected God with disgust. She was, however, a passionate adversary of all offshoots of Marxism and irrationalism. Hence, she was able to diagnose the disease of secular collectivism perfectly, but not see the related disease secular individualism infecting her.

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Review: THE BOY AND THE HERON

Posted January 26, 2024 By John C Wright

THE BOY AND THE HERON is a 2023 film written and directed by the great Hayao Miyazaki, and produced by Studio Ghibli. This is to be Hayao Miyazaki’s last film, as have been every film of his since roughly 1997.

As most or all of his other films, this is a work of splendor, a fanfare of the spirit, plunging to depths and reaching heights where only great works of art dare tread. It earns highest recommendation.

It is, however, not an easy tale to unriddle, involving, as it does, themes hidden in symbols, visions and time paradox, and characters and events whose meaning is elusive.

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The Fruit without the Root

Posted January 25, 2024 By John C Wright

Tradition, of itself, is inadequate to justify itself. A tradition can only be justified, or, if unsound, criticized, from its own roots.

Of late, more and more of our agnostic or atheist conservative brethren, seeing the confused if not diabolical current state of the world, and foreseeing it fate if current trends continue, confess that the secular philosophy of the classical liberalism of the Age of Reason seems woefully inadequate to mount as robust defense against the Seven-Headed Beast nihilist philosophers, dogmatic subjectivists, cultural vandals, puritanical sex-deviants, socialist plutocrats, totalitarian anarchists, and pro-jihad atheists, variously referred to as Progressives, Postmoderns, Pervertarians, Wokesters, Critical Race-Hustlers, Cultural Marxists, and Morlocks.

Public men of letters including such figures as psychiatrist Jordan Peterson, mathematician James Lindsay, and ancient Akkadian emperor Carl Benjamin, with a degree of reluctance more or less, have admitted with a degree of candor more or less that only the Christian tradition embedded into our laws and customs stand a chance of fighting the foe.

These men admit that Christian tradition alone is robust enough to fight the Antichrist. But they are secular men, and godless. They see the fruit but doubt the root.  Such is their conundrum.

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The Golden Age Ep. 40 Unqualified Yes

Posted January 24, 2024 By John C Wright

Excerpts from THE GOLDEN AGE, my debut novel from 2001. 

In the far future, where humans have become as gods, living lives of perfect peace and prosperity, Phaethon of Rhadamanthus House discovers centuries of his memory are lost. Like his namesake, has flown too high, and must be cast down: for he has committed the one act the Golden Age forbids, to have ambitions higher than utopia can contain. Now his quest is to find himself.

Episode 40: Unqualified Yes

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Review: LADYBALLERS

Posted January 23, 2024 By John C Wright

Coach Rob: This divorce. I think it is really starting to affect my daughter.

Gwen Wilde (sarcastically): Seriously? Of course your divorce is affecting your daughter: 70% of all people in prison come from broken families; she’s twice as likely to do drugs; twice as likely to drop out of school; four times is likely to have trouble fitting in; three times as likely to end up in therapy; twice as likely to commit suicide; 50% more likely to have health problems.

Gwen Wilde (Rolling her eyes): Do people not even do a freaking Google search before you decide to blow up the planet your kids live on?


LADYBALLERS (2023) is a sports drama and political satire starring, written and directed by Jeremy Boreing. It is noteworthy as being one the few conservative, countercultural films made in the year, outside of the crushingly conformist establishment media institutions, hence opposed, condemned, libeled and ignored by them, and subjected to an Orwellian Two-Minute Hate session.

As sign of this hysteria may be seen on the Rotten Tomatoes website (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lady_ballers) where, as of the time of this writing, the audience score from 5000 comments stands at 91% and the critic score from seven — yes, a whopping total of seven reviews from all professional film review outlets were penned — stands at 43%.

The hysteria is misplaced. LADYBALLERS is a droll comedy, not remarkably funny nor yet remarkably unfunny, not original nor yet unoriginal, but workmanlike, hence a pleasant enough way to beguile an hour and fifty minutes. The film sets out to do what it means to do, and earns many a chuckle and chortle, but no belly-laughs.

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L Jagi Lamplighter on Magical Schools on Blasters and Blades

Posted January 22, 2024 By John C Wright

Blasters and Blades Ep 343

My beautiful and talented wife, Mrs. Wright, who writes under the name L. Jagi Lamplighter, appeared as one of several guests on the BLASTERS AND BLADES podcast, to discuss Magic schools, where every day is a teachable moment!

She is something of a savant on the subject, having written the UNEXPECTED ENLIGHTENMENT series, a “Lovecraft meets Narnia at Hogwarts” sort of genre, and edited three volumes in the FANTASTIC SCHOOLS anthologies series.

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/GisrLg4ARf4?si=whosOc-EMUX_j7Pa

Rumble Link: https://rumble.com/v48hfnu-episode-343-magic-schools-where-every-day-is-a-teachable-moment.html

BitChute Link: https://www.bitchute.com/video/GisrLg4ARf4/

Podcast Link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blasters-and-blades/episodes/Episode-343-Magic-schools–where-every-day-is-a-teachable-moment-e2eoqds

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The Golden Age Ep. 39 Ships are Called She

Posted January 21, 2024 By John C Wright

Excerpts from THE GOLDEN AGE, my debut novel from 2001. 

In the far future, where humans have become as gods, living lives of perfect peace and prosperity, Phaethon of Rhadamanthus House discovers centuries of his memory are lost. Like his namesake, has flown too high, and must be cast down: for he has committed the one act the Golden Age forbids, to have ambitions higher than utopia can contain. Now his quest is to find himself.

Episode 39: Ships are Called She

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Musical Interlude

Posted January 20, 2024 By John C Wright

I was particularly pleased with the cleverness of this particular parody of WE DON’T TALK ABOUT BRUNO by the Christian parody group Resound.

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Metaphysical Romance: Lilith

Posted January 19, 2024 By John C Wright

Lilith: “What I choose to seem to myself makes me what I am. My own thought makes me me; my own thought of myself is me. Another shall not make me!”

Eve: “But another has made you, and can compel you to see what you have made yourself.”


LILITH: A ROMANCE (1895) is the final novel in the career of Scottish writer George MacDonald.

In a way, it forms a bookend with his first novel PHANTASTES (1858), using a similar setting and genre to approach similar themes, albeit from an opposite perspective. PHANTASTES told of a youth entering fairyland, pursuing romance but finding self-sacrifice, dying and rising again to return to earth to begin a parallel life here. LILITH, in contrast, is about a man of mature years passing through a magic mirror into a desolate spirit world or limbo inhabited by the dead awaiting resurrection, where the alluring love-interest must be persuaded to the path of self-sacrifice for her own salvation. In this mirror world, those alive on earth are seen as dead, and those dead on earth are slumbering to await waking to eternal life.

Both stories are told in a fairytale fashion, with simply-drawn stock characters, heavily symbolic or poetical events, centered on moral challenges and conundrums. Neither are clear, easy, nor enjoyable reads.

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Progress Report!

Posted January 18, 2024 By John C Wright

After many weeks of flunking my writing quota, I rejoice to report that this week, I penned six thousand five hundred words of copy, in addition to working my day job, spending evenings with the family, and other claims on my time.

In the scene I just wrote, the quadradimensional ghostblade called Candlewit (which Sir Orlando, called the Last Templar, used to kill and then banish the Faceless Man) has been bestowed on its new bearer, with instructions never to draw it against any mortal. Letters of flame burn in the crystal depth of the blade when its true name is called our in battlecry: Curucondel.

Nor all the dark of endless night
may quench this single candle’s light

Oh, and there is spaceship battle, complete with the blood-red warmoon of the space-pirates whirled out of orbit by its hypergravitic spindizzy engine, firing upon the hard beset planet of walrus-men with interplanetary range beam weapons, and receiving fire in return from the planet-killing Carrington Event Weapon from the iron moon of the defenders. STARQUEST is a space opera, not high fantasy. Except maybe it is not.

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Permit-Free Gun Carry in Ohio

Posted January 18, 2024 By John C Wright

I rarely find statistics persuasive, since it is too easy to manipulate them to support either side of any argument, and rarely are the assumptions and definitions visible. What, for example, is included in “gun violence”? Does this include use of a firearm in a suicide?

However, when a statistic confirms what common sense already shows, I do not mind quoting them.

Gun violence in 6 out of the 8 largest Ohio cities dropped significantly after Ohio legalized permit-free carry of guns across the entire state in 2022:

Columbus: -12%
Cleveland: -6%
Toledo: -18%
Akron: -18%
Parma: -22%
Canton: -5%

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Epistles to Ansgar Letter 03: God the Son

Posted January 18, 2024 By John C Wright

This letter is two or three weeks late, but Ansgar is a babe in arms as yet, and may not notice the delay. 

25 December AD 2023, Feast of the Nativity

Dear Godson,

This day is Christmas. So holy is this day that all witches curses fail, nor may stars and planets in adverse conjunctions shed malign influences. For this is the day, foretold since Eden, when Our Lord, the Messiah and Savior of the world is born.

Because the tradition to exchange gifts on this day has had so profound an effect on the surrounding culture, among Christians and nonbelievers alike, it is easy to forget the meaning of this central miracle, a miracle beating at the heart of human history, that this great day commemorates.

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Poetry Corner

Posted January 16, 2024 By John C Wright

This poem appears, in part, in the front matter of E.R. Eddison’s THE WORM OUROBOROS, which I had read back when I was 16.  Eddison quoted only six stanza, but I thought (for no one told me otherwise) that this was the whole of it.

Now, in my 60’s, only now have I learned there is a complete version.

Ironically, I did not know of the visitor to Elfland who could not lie until this very day: despite how unexpected the coincidence might seem, Gilberec Moth of my own invention is unrelated to True Thomas.

What I did not know what the Thomas the Rhymer, True Thomas, the Scottish foreteller who could not tell a lie, is based on a real man from history.

As the tale tells it, Thomas of Erceldoune meets the Queen of Elfland, who seeks to employ him as her harper, but he seduces her to become his leman. He harps at her court during a feast, which lasts three days there while seven years pass by on Earth.

During the ride to Elfland, whose food he dare not eat, was given an apple whose taste prevented him thereafter from ever telling a lie — hence his name “True Thomas.”

Sir Walter Scott remarks: “The traditional commentary upon this ballad informs us, that the apple was the produce of the fatal Tree of Knowledge, and that the garden was the terrestrial paradise. The repugnance of Thomas to be debarred the use of falsehood, when he might find it convenient, has a comic effect.”

The second and third parts of the poem tell of his prophecies regarding the wars between England and Scotland, and his mysterious disappearance at the end of his life, following a snow-white hart who appeared at his doorstep.

Alexander Gardner, publisher to the Queen, in 1865, in the annotated edition of THE BALLAD MINSTRELSY OF SCOTLAND, remarks “As both the English and the Scots availed themselves of the credit which his prophecies had obtained, in falsifying them, to serve their purposes against each other, it is now impossible to ascertain what the real prophecies of Thomas the Rhymer were, if he ever published such.”

He also remarks that the original and ancient poem, on which the later versions were based (such as that of Sir Walter Scott, given below) may indeed have been penned by Thomas the Rhymer.

In his words “Would it not be pardonable, from such instances as these, to suppose it at least probable, that Thomas Kymour (Thomas the Rhymer) was really the original author of this romance; and that in order to give a sanction to his predictions, which seem all to have been calculated in -one way or other for the service of his country, he pretended to an intercourse with the Queen of Elfland, as Numa Pompilius did with the nymph Egeria? Such an intercourse, in the days of True Thomas, was accounted neither unnatural nor uncommon.”

Here is the story as told by a modern (and comedic) historian.

Here is the poem:

First part:

True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;
A ferlie he spied wi’ his ee;
And there he saw a lady bright,
Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.

Her skirt was o the grass-green silk,
Her mantle o the velvet fyne,
At ilka tett of her horse’s mane
Hang fifty siller bells and nine.

True Thomas he pulld aff his cap,
And louted low down to his knee:
‘All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven!
For thy peer on earth I never did see.’

‘O no, O no, Thomas,’ she said,
‘That name does not belang to me;
I am but the queen of fair Elfland,
That am hither come to visit thee.

‘Harp and carp, Thomas,’ she said,
‘Harp and carp, along wi’ me,
And if ye dare to kiss my lips,
Sure of your bodie I will be!’

‘Betide me weal, betide me woe,
That weird sall never daunton me;
Syne he has kissed her rosy lips,
All underneath the Eildon Tree.

This was all the poem I knew all my life until today. It continues onward to epic stature.
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