H.M. Forester
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hmforester.bsky.social
H.M. Forester
@hmforester.bsky.social
220 followers 250 following 2.1K posts
Author of sci-fi, psi-fi, and mystical adventure novels • Avid reader • Wikipedia editor • Webmaster • Lover of nature • Peacefully resisting.

Blog: mystical-faction.blogspot.com

Original photo by Gabriela Palai, cropped. Creative Commons Zero licence.
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hmforester.bsky.social
Source: Dead Poets Society.

Image: Jumping for joy / Cat from Sevilla, Spain / Wikimedia Commons (orig. Flickr) / CC BY 2.0.
Photo of a silhouetted hill on top of which, three human silhouetted figures have been captured jumping for joy, with a bright blue sky behind.
December 13, 2025 at 5:55 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business, engineering... these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But ...”

~ Dead Poets Society.
An image containing a text quotation, with the grey silhouette of a woman, arms outstretched in joy, in the bottom left-hand corner. The quote, from Dead Poets Society, reads: Our Raison d'être: “We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
December 13, 2025 at 5:55 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
“Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt” and “The Dissidents (Extended 2025): A novel” are freely available at the Internet Archive's library & in full at the FB group Mystical Faction.

Links in comments.

#PostTrust #PostTruth #Materialism #Disenchantment #Resistance #Underground #Survival #Dystopia #DarkAges
Front covers of The Dissidents and Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt, by H.M. Forester.
December 13, 2025 at 5:55 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
Cynicism
~~~~~~
“Cynicism is kind of like folding your arms and stepping back and commenting on things, like the old guys in ‘The Muppets’, just throwing out comments all the time, whereas there are other people on the ground really trying to affect things and improve ... lives ...”

~ Josh Radnor.
Screenshot of the Muppet critics, Statler and Waldorf, leaning over in a theatre balcony.
December 13, 2025 at 5:46 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
Source: PJ Curry, “The work of wonder”, Western Humanities Review, 2018, 72(2). Quoted in Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, & the Unmaking of the World.

Image: Heart and Soul nebulae / NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain.
The Heart and Soul nebulae. Attributed to NASA, JPL-Caltech, and UCLA.
December 13, 2025 at 5:19 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
“Wonder, enchantment, astonishment, delight, joy – these are experiences that are not, & cannot be, simply willed into existence or manufactured on demand. They are not under our control, not something we do but something that happens to us ...” ~ PJ Curry, “The work of wonder”.
An image containing a text quotation, with the grey silhouette of a woman, arms outstretched in joy, in the bottom left-hand corner. The text, from PJ Curry, “The work of wonder”, and quoted in Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, reads: “Wonder, enchantment, astonishment, delight, joy – these are experiences that are not, and cannot be, simply willed into existence or manufactured on demand. They are not under our control, not something we do but something that happens to us (or doesn’t). Indeed, trying to use them, to do something purposeful with them, destroys them. Their only use inheres in their use-lessness; their point is precisely in their point-lessness. They can only do their work, whatever that is, if we don’t try to put them to work. So whatever else wonder may be, it is not itself instrumental but sufficient unto itself ... It cannot be tested, evaluated, improved, rolled out or developed, and there can be no system or method (let alone methodology) to achieve it – even if the goal is re-enchantment! In fact, that attempt would not only be arrogant but insidious, since it would require tacitly replacing wonder with a biddable simulacrum, complete with targets, outcomes, benchmarks, assessments, impacts and other instruments of modern management; in other words, a grievous betrayal.”
December 13, 2025 at 5:19 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
Source: Tom Cheetham, All the World an Icon: Henry Corbin and the Angelic Function of Beings.

Image: Mezquita de Nasirolmolk, Shiraz, Irán, 2016-09-24, DD 66-68 HDR / Diego Delso / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0.
Colored windows under archways, and reflecting on the carpets, seen from inside the Nasir-ol-Molk Mosque, Iran.
December 13, 2025 at 2:14 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
“The world is our projection, and to become conscious of this and to realize the symbolic and “personal” nature of reality allows us to escape the bondage that so-called objective truths can impose.” ...

~ Tom Cheetham, All the World an Icon.
Image containing a text quotation, with a chalice, perhaps the Holy Grail, in the lower left-hand corner. The text, from Tom Cheetham, All the World an Icon: Henry Corbin and the Angelic Function of Beings, reads: The World Turned Inside Out: “The world is our projection, and to become conscious of this and to realize the symbolic and “personal” nature of reality allows us to escape the bondage that so-called objective truths can impose. “Each of us carries in himself the Image of his own world, his Imago mundi, and projects it into a more or less coherent universe, which becomes the stage on which his destiny is played out.” ... ... “This is revolutionary. It turns the world inside out.”
December 13, 2025 at 2:14 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
Image: Transformation of the affine plane 1 [Algebraic geometry] / Aizenr / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0.
An image called "Transformation of the affine plane". Algebraic geometry consisting of two sets of wavy red, orange, pink and magenta lines crossing one-another and interacting.
December 13, 2025 at 9:36 AM
hmforester.bsky.social
“It is in this transformation of perception that we find the healing of that great schism that split the West—the rift between thought and being. It is by means of the Creative Imagination ...”

~ Tom Cheetham, All the World an Icon: Henry Corbin & the Angelic Function of Beings.
An image containing a text quotation. The text, from Tom Cheetham, All the World an Icon: Henry Corbin and the Angelic Function of Beings, reads: Transformation of Perception: “[I]t is in this transformation of perception that we find the healing of that great schism that split the West—the rift between thought and being. It is by means of the Creative Imagination in this specific sense that we discover that the mode of perception depends on the mode of being of the perceiver. We are changed utterly, ontologically: in our very being, by the exercise of the Active Imagination—and this allows us to see things that we otherwise cannot see. Our great task is “to make ourselves capable of God.” The American imagist poet Hilda Doolittle, who wrote as H.D., put it succinctly: “What can be seen is at stake.”
December 13, 2025 at 9:36 AM
hmforester.bsky.social
Source: Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation.

Image: Real Fake / Cole Camplese from Hinsdale, USA / Wikimedia Commons (orig. Flickr) / CC BY 2.0.
A piece of art in a wide paved area with shrubbery, outside a building. The large artwork consists of two words, "real" and "fake", in golden block capitals stacked one on top of the other. The lower word, "fake" is securely bolted down. Behind the artwork are two female passers-by.
December 12, 2025 at 1:37 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
“All of us, no matter who we are, in the pressures of our busy, complicated lives, lose this fundamental relationship to ourselves, again & again. We get caught in false “doing” that isn’t rooted in the ground of our being, the Self...” ~ Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation.
An image containing a text quotation. The text, from Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation, reads: False Doing and Real Being: “All of us, no matter who we are, in the pressures of our busy, complicated lives, lose this fundamental relationship to ourselves, again and again. We get caught in false “doing” that isn’t rooted in the ground of our being, the Self. False “doing” manufactures a hollow or false sense of identity and accomplishments. It assaults us with formulas for changing and bettering ourselves, that ultimately leaves us feeling diminished, frustrated, or empty, like imposters.”
December 12, 2025 at 1:37 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
“Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt” and “The Dissidents (Extended 2025): A novel” are freely available at the Internet Archive's library & in full at the FB group Mystical Faction.

Links in comments.

#PostTrust #PostTruth #Materialism #Disenchantment #Resistance #Underground #Survival #Dystopia #DarkAges
Front covers of The Dissidents and Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt, by H.M. Forester.
December 12, 2025 at 1:37 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
“If a new world is to come, we must first create it in ourselves. You ask how the work of a few people can change the world. It has always been so. Ideas are powerful, not organisations. Nothing can be done by outward force; everything can be done by inner strength.” ~ JG Bennett.
Image: Brother Can you Spare a Dime / D Sharon Pruitt / Wikimedia Commons (orig. Flickr) / CC BY 2.0. A black and white photo showing an upraised palm holding a dime.
December 12, 2025 at 10:14 AM
hmforester.bsky.social
Source: Václav Havel, address to US Congress, quoted in Anne Baring, The Dream of the Cosmos: A Quest for the Soul.

Image: Cosmic-star-flower / Chronamut / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0.
A cyan, pink, blue and white multi-pointed and elaborate star-like, or snowflake-like, design against a black and magenta sky dotted with real stars.
December 12, 2025 at 9:35 AM
hmforester.bsky.social
“Without a global revolution in ... consciousness, nothing will change for the better in the sphere of our being as humans, and the catastrophe toward which this world is headed – be it ecological, social, demographic, or a general breakdown of civilization – will be unavoidable.”

~ Václav Havel.
An image containing a text quotation, with the black silhouette of a man in a hat marching and carrying a flag that reads "viva la revolution".The text, from Václav Havel, address to US Congress, quoted in Anne Baring, The Dream of the Cosmos: A Quest for the Soul, reads: A Revolution in Consciousness: “Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better in the sphere of our being as humans, and the catastrophe toward which this world is headed – be it ecological, social, demographic, or a general breakdown of civilization – will be unavoidable.”
December 12, 2025 at 9:35 AM
hmforester.bsky.social
Source: Roberts Avens, Imagination Is Reality: Western Nirvana in Jung, Hillman, Barfield, and Cassirer.

Image: Imagination 195304 / Greenleaf Publishing, W. E. Terry / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain.
Front cover of Imagination: Stories of Science and Fantasy from April 1953 and priced at 35 cents, showing a large image of red-turbaned, orange genie standing with his arms folded, and beneath him, a woman in little more than a bikini, and a knight in chain mail armour both wielding swords, battling hideous green creatures. These images depict a story, The Enchanted Crusade by Geoff St. Reynard.
December 11, 2025 at 9:13 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
“The West almost invariably has distrusted, belittled, and often denigrated the imaginative quality of human life, at best relegating it to the province of art and poetry, at worst placing it within the range of abnormal phenomena ...”

~ Roberts Avens, Imagination Is Reality.
Image containing a text quotation, with the grey silhouette of a dragon in the lower left-hand corner. The text, from Roberts Avens, Imagination Is Reality: Western Nirvana in Jung, Hillman, Barfield, and Cassirer, reads: Distrust and Belittling of the Imagination: “The West almost invariably has distrusted, belittled, and often denigrated the imaginative quality of human life, at best relegating it to the province of art and poetry, at worst placing it within the range of abnormal phenomena. Post-Cartesian philosophers and psychologists have either denied imagination any noetic value or regarded it as the source of error and deception.”
December 11, 2025 at 9:13 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
Image: Rubbish bin in Shlisselburg / Antonio Kless / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0.
Rubbish bin in Shlisselburg. The buckled metal bin is overflowing, and many drinks cans, bottles and coffee cups are lying on the ground around it.
December 11, 2025 at 6:40 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
“We are accustomed to think of ourselves as an emancipated people; we say that we are democratic, liberty-loving, free of prejudices and hatred. This is the melting-pot, the seat of a great human experiment. Beautiful words ...”

~ Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare.
Image containing a text quotation, with the drawing of a factory producing pollution in the bottom left-hand corner. The text, from Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, reads: Superabundant Loot and Reckless Plunder “We are accustomed to think of ourselves as an emancipated people; we say that we are democratic, liberty-loving, free of prejudices and hatred. This is the melting-pot, the seat of a great human experiment. Beautiful words, full of noble, idealistic sentiment. Actually we are a vulgar, pushing mob whose passions are easily mobilized by demagogues, newspaper men, religious quacks, agitators and such like. To call this a society of free peoples is blasphemous. What have we to offer the world beside the superabundant loot which we recklessly plunder from the earth under the maniacal delusion that this insane activity represents progress and enlightenment?”
December 11, 2025 at 6:40 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
Source: Alan Watts, quoted in Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World.

Image: The Tree Spirit / Werner koehler / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0.
A close-up photograph of a grey tree trunk showing a very large hollow knot in it. In the not there is the face of a woman with grey-green skin, black eyebrows and pink lips. Behind the tree trump is greenery and there's another tree trunk on the far right. The photo is titled "The Tree Spirit".
December 11, 2025 at 1:49 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
“This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not ‘come into’ this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree ...”

~ Alan Watts.
An image containing a text quotation, with a white lotus blossom and green leaves in the lower left-hand corner. The text, by Alan Watts, quoted in Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, reads: As the ocean ‘waves’, the universe ‘peoples’: “This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not ‘come into’ this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean ‘waves’, the universe ‘peoples’. Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.”
December 11, 2025 at 1:49 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
“Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt” and “The Dissidents (Extended 2025): A novel” are freely available at the Internet Archive's library & in full at the FB group Mystical Faction.

Links in comments.

#PostTrust #PostTruth #Materialism #Disenchantment #Resistance #Underground #Survival #Dystopia #DarkAges
Front covers of The Dissidents and Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt, by H.M. Forester.
December 11, 2025 at 1:49 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
Source: Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, from Edward Hoffman, The Way of Splendor: Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology, and quoted in Anne Baring, The Dream of the Cosmos: A Quest for the Soul.

Image: Christmas Lights (130991343) / Bret Schwalb / Wikimedia Commons (orig 500px) / CC BY 3.0.
An image with many differently coloured circular lights against a dark background.
December 11, 2025 at 12:53 PM
hmforester.bsky.social
“As the hand held before the eye conceals the greatest mountain, so the little earthly life hides from the glance the enormous lights and mysteries ... And he who can draw it away from before his eyes as one draws away a hand, beholds the great shining of the inner worlds.”

~ Rabbi Nachman.
An image containing a text quotation, with a stylised orange sun, sun rays and heart in the lower left-hand corner. The text, by Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, from Edward Hoffman, The Way of Splendor: Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology, and quoted in Anne Baring, The Dream of the Cosmos: A Quest for the Soul, reads: Lights of the Hidden World: “As the hand held before the eye conceals the greatest mountain, so the little earthly life hides from the glance the enormous lights and mysteries of which the world is full. And he who can draw it away from before his eyes as one draws away a hand, beholds the great shining of the inner worlds.”
December 11, 2025 at 12:53 PM