"WhatifAlthist" | World History, Philosophy, Culture the next ideology isn't what you think.
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Nov 21, 2025 Society's disarray is laid bare as wealth masks our collective insanity. Explore how modern power without wisdom leads to instability. Delve into the risks of polarization, low birth rates, and elite failures. Discover a new worldview rooted in Hermeticism, blending pre-modern wisdom with contemporary challenges. The podcast connects alchemical ideas to modern science, consciousness, and personal growth, suggesting Hermetic principles may offer solutions to our existential crises.
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Civilization Collapsed Into Nihilism
- Modern society suffers a collapse of shared meaning after the 'death of God', producing widespread nihilism and denial.
- Rudyard Lynch argues this spiritual void explains social incoherence and the fragility of contemporary institutions.
Friend's Agricultural Work Exposed Global Poverty
- Lynch recounts a friend working in agriculture in India, Thailand, and Indonesia to illustrate extreme global poverty he rarely sees in the West.
- He uses this experience to stress urgency: we must fix society so future children live in a better country.
Alchemy As A Cross-Disciplinary Grammar
- Hermeticism (alchemy) provides a symbolic grammar that reveals recurring patterns across disciplines and history.
- Lynch claims this framework maps states of cultural development and explains cycles of innovation and decadence.
