We are talking about freedom of speech and even a cursory reading of the blog [mentioned] should indicate who

o is on the side of what. Who [is] on the side of the angels (perhaps literally): a rostrum of great minds and souls from the past and present, and who are on the side of ignorance and prejudice; those unfortunate, tortured souls bent on extinguishing in others that spark of freedom and real life (with its necessarily erotic component) which they have long lost hope of acquiring for themselves. The Nazis are appropriately mentioned in the latter respect. The fight for freedom of expression is a fight for the maintenance of the ever-flickering flame of the human spirit. For the money-makers, the materialists and the Caesar-lovers of this world, the human spirit is an irritant, and a danger. The latest trick for political criminals being to invent imaginary crimes (such as reading things "wickedly" in the privacy of your home) and then terrify everyone into a state of general compliance by the severity of the punishment dealt out (I see mention of hundreds of years of imprisonment). As, at any given moment, the entire population is guilty, any of its members can be seized, at will, dragged off to prison, and basically be shut up so than nobody can continue to spread the heresy of free reading or image-watching (television, internet, whatever) which of course means free speech. --An Anonymous Correspondent to B.

Dear B., What a fascinating series of rich, intelligent ideas and imagery. Thanks so much for sharing this. I am heartened indeed to see that any words of mine can have stirred up such feeling, and it is also wonderful to feel a part of a vast worldwide movement of those who still value liberty's "ever-flickering flame," as your correspondent so poetically (and aptly) puts it. Interesting that he mentions the Communist Party of the early Twentieth Century: although without the exact same ideology, of course, we are surely their modern-day spiritual heirs. This both honours and humbles me. I feel so inferior to some of those spiritual giants who led the way decades ago. Their names should be hallowed and revered, and surely taught with reverence in every school, and my greatest fear, besides present-day loss of liberty, is that their names, their stories, and their significance, might be in danger of being lost forever. It is worth remembering how much of our legitimate history from only two or three hundred years back we are still struggling to recover and painstakingly piece together (from shadowy remnants and hints merely). Think of how spiritually-benighted our young ones must be, if the only 'heroes' presented to their sensitive minds are figures such as football-players, or

'celebrities,' or travesties such as the "George Bushes" or "Dick Cheneys" of the world ... Is it any wonder, then, that so many of them rebel (almost mindlessly and intuitively), even though they don't yet know for what they are rebelling? They only know that the 'world' that has been presented to them by their keepers and handlers is a lie, that it is patently false. Thank God the human instinct for liberty is still at least that much alive. God knows I too went through this same period of denial, rejection, and searching for the Truth, and thank God (again) that through my readings, I managed to discover what earlier pioneers of the spirit had said and done. Needless to say (and in passing), we must all do our best to not let that desire for liberty become stifled forever in their young souls. And as we all know too well, it is so easy for this to happen. As you will know, this hidden history of ours, this history of the resistance of the Soul to the overwhelming tide of conformity, oppression (and suppression), is vitally important for edifying us in our own present-day struggles. We gain strength from learning about those who went before us, and how bravely they resisted the mighty behemoth State--so aptly named by Hobbes as "Leviathan." If the only real political/spiritual alternatives in the early Twentieth Century in England had been either a crass, spiritually-dead materialism, consumerism, and rampant industrial/militarism (as now), or the Communist Party, and had I then been alive myself, I should think without a doubt I would have unquestioningly had to choose the latter, as being the only truly spiritually-honest alternative. I think it was probably only the terrible excesses of Stalin in the Soviet Union that forever killed this hope for Western Europeans, and seemed so much to rob the movement of much of its core of honest spiritual idealism. Enough of a history lesson ... What we will do today is the important question, no? Given the seeming unbreakable strength of our respective police-states (on both sides of the Atlantic), I think overt organizing is dangerous The first thing to do is publicly (and constantly) renounce violence as a means of redress. But I'm certain you good folks have probably already addressed these many issues (and more), and shall thus beg off, with these final words: I think probably the most attractive and most effective means of resistance for us now, given present realities, consists of taking to heart Peter Lamborn Wilson's (a.k.a. "Hakim Bey") concept of the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ), in

addition to quietly spreading the truth via the internet, as some of us are now doing. There are young minds out there (those we most need to reach) in vast numbers, who may yet eventually find what we've written, and may yet take heart from it. We may yet live to see an organic groundswell of support grow, for quietly overturning the present rank establishment, and substituting in favour of it the new "peaceable kingdom", the "New Millennium". I truly think this is the only way the new reign of peace can reasonably be achieved. New generations must grow up and not be swayed or cowed by fear (as so many of their elders now are), and once the older, fearful generations have begun to die out (hopefully without too much having spread the cancer of their fearful attitudes to their offspring), these younger generations may yet prove to be our last, best hope. We owe it to them, of course, to try our best to guide them, by word and by example, as best we may, so that hopefully, they will not lose their way among the morass and swamps of fear and despair, so very threatening today. Though horizons may be dark indeed for us right now, I am heartened by the consideration that liberty's "ever-flickering flame," though perhaps extinguished now and then by our fellow-beings who are too bound by fear to love liberty, nonetheless always continues to spring up anew, phoenix-like, out of the ashes of its earlier martyrs. This, at the very least, emboldens me to not fail in my duty to future generations, to do my part, in my present little time, and patiently bear up my own burdens, though skies may be dark and terrible storms may threaten. The enemies of the spirit and of the god of Love can only, after all, destroy this feeble and pitiful body: The burning Soul inside (what the ancient Greeks and Gnostics called , or mind, which is only a spark or portion of the Universal Geist, or spiritus mundi) will indeed "live" to see another "day," albeit on a different shore, and while here in this 'pilgrim's weary sojourn,' may yet light the way toward liberty, for others yet to come. With respect as always, T. (29 October, 2008)