Good luck on your studies.

At 3am I woke up and felt a nudge to look at Spengler’s Decline of the West. I am home schooling my son and we are at around the 1500’s. As I have a personal feel of an echo for the time of the first world war I was fascinated with when Decline was written and published. So many brilliant people some who wrote about each other.

This morning I googled Steiner and Spengler and of course found your lectures. I have only watched the ones on Spengler and felt as though I had found a missing piece to a puzzle. Curiously I had not felt this since I read W. Irwin Thompson years twenty five years ago, which probably was a huge push to delving into Steiner more.
So I agree with Erik comments above.

My daughter, nearly 17, has just seen Inception and wants me to go and see it with her, she obviously wants to see in again and soon. As I was taken to the cinema and theatre with my parents as I child I have vivid memories of European, Indian and Russian film. My memory of 2001 being quite a strong memory of consciousness of myself the world and the ideas people have of the world. I was ten, having recently turned 50, I have felt an information overload even with my love of reading Steiner. I wonder if Inception is that moment for my daughter who is another generation and has not yet seen 2001, or the Matrix or Blade Runner.

I have a background in film, radio and media studies and recently began a Masters of Writing, which is quite academic in its specialisation. I keep hoping they have a hidden Goethean approach it giving insights and observations into different forms but I think this is just wishful thinking.

Your lectures and this site have shifted the axis significantly. Spengler in 30 minutes means I can approach an abridged version with some framework of understanding.

I hope to create a site about being or perhaps having been a bookseller in this time of change, (could someone explain how Book Depository sell some of their books at those prices). As I am about to move house again and my beloved books I know and sense these changes reflect so much more.

I thank you for your work and its accesibility. You work has pulled together threads not only the themes I am working with but the events around my life at this time.

Lovely when this happens and I in keeping with the coming phase I raise my eyes to the heavens in thanks, or perhaps that should the horizon of the Steeps of Russia.

kind regards to you and John Lobell for this site

Helen Branton

I’ve only recently become aware of your work and that of Wm. Irwin Thompson, but I must say that for me you two have become living beacons for my intellectual energies, which I hope to refine into some sort of career. Over the past year I’ve been researching grad schools in the humanities that offer interdisciplinary degrees, yet which are oriented more toward the perennial philosophy and the archetypes than post-structuralism and identity politics. Alas, I’ve not found many academic depts. that are not dominated by what you called “the nihilistic position” of the establishment. Any recommendations?

I noticed on your wikipedia entry it said you did some editing on a few J. Campbell titles after your BA, but it didn’t mention any further education. If you managed to garner the learning you’ve displayed in your numerous youtube lectures on visionary thinkers without capitulating to social forces by going to grad school, then I salute you!

Anyways, if you’ve taken the time to read this, then thank you very much, I really appreciate it. Although I may be wrong, it seems like a conspicuous absence on this site and your reviews of movies featured on youtube are the films of the Coen Bros. After reading your “Visionary Movies: A Manifesto,” it occurred to me that the Coens’ films could perhaps be interpreted as of the realist films representing high culture (as I referenced their work as “films” above, eg), as opposed to the more visionary “movies” that you guys write about here. Is this the case? And if so, my proposal for a piece would be a review of a movie or two of theirs that would argue otherwise.

Anyways, thanks for giving hope to me and the rest of the “masses”,
Erik Syverson