Jeff Russell

Thanks for sharing your personal story. I also remember Magic the Gathering and Tolkien from my youth. It seems that a certain international uniformity was already present back then!

Eric S. Raymond's blog "Dancing With The Gods" was an enjoyable read. He had a "sudden intense" religious awakening. He worships different or no Gods at different times. He has a limited list of ways to contact his subconscious. It's amazing how varied religious experience is! Raymond also writes "Scientific method cannot ultimately be reconciled with religious faith". For me science and religions are both views of the same underlying reality. If they contradict, at least one of them is wrong. I wonder why Eric writes they cannot be reconciled.

That JMG sees "scientific realism" as what you can sense with the five senses is surprising to me. Our zeitgeist is very disconnected from our five senses. For most people, the spectacle is more important than what their senses tell them. Twentieth century physics is no exception: there's not much about quantum, space walks or relativity that one can sense. I'm no expert in planes, but I believe you won't find any modern science on the material plane.

To share, since you write you're interested in Roman history, I've been reading "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry" https://acoup.blog/. Apologies if I learned about that blog from your blog!