The Holdall

Ninety years ago, the writer Owen Barfield (1898-1997) had a short letter published in The Spectator, which it headlined “Nationalism and Economics”. The letter, about the reality of the world’s economic life and the failure of that reality to be reflected in relations between nation-states, repays attention in 2026. The states uppermost in our minds have changed. But the failure remains the same....

Can we know the being of society, or if you prefer the living idea of society? How can we really experience it? In advance of a seminar to be held by him on the weekend Friday 25th November till Sunday 27th November 2022: a conversation with Jac Hielema about society and the economy, and how to experience their being. SHOW NOTES, including SEMINAR DETAILS: https://roryoconnor.xyz/podcast/free-equa...

I talked with Jac Hielema about Rudolf Steiner's book The Philosophy of Freedom. It's a book that helps us in our thinking, allowing us to arrive at new ideas, which we can then freely work with (or not). Please listen in the spirit Jac talks about, when he talks about the various ways we can listen to people: "I ask you questions, and I let your answers go into me all the way. Most of the time, i...

An interview with Elias Davidsson about the way that the US government has not provided evidence that the named 9/11 hijackers were on the ill-fated airplanes. We also talked about the unusual Shanksville crash site and the suggestive evidence that two of the airplanes were flying past their alleged crash times. More broadly, Elias talked about international criminal and human rights law and 9/11'...

A change of tone, and a personal podcast.

What the CIA is, as reflected in its declassified files on a small rainy island: Ireland. The Agency's analyses of the the first Brexit referendum in the '70s, with echoes of today and of the Irish failure to join NATO, and a hint of an operation during the IRA campaign of violence, all come up, as well as other topics. Show notes: roryoconnor.xyz/podcast/the-cias-files-on-ireland roryoconnor.xyz...

Owen Barfield was a scholar of what he called the evolution of consciousness, the idea that humanity's modes of perception of reality, of thinking. and of relating to nature have evolved in the time of recorded history. He was also famously a friend of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. I talked with Mark Vernon, who has written a book about Barfield, about how Barfield's ideas shed light on Christ...

How is money created? This is a report on an unconventional explanation – given by the Bank of England. Just the facts, as far as I can ascertain them, but with mentions, and explanations, of quantitative easing, and possible implications of the true picture of money creation. Intro ends, money talk begins at 5:15 in podcast. Show notes: roryoconnor.xyz/podcast/how-money-happens roryoconnor.xyz pa...

A weekend of smashing the system. The head-system. I talk about what ayahuasca is, the legal and medical situation, and so on, for the first 15 minutes, and then it's trip talk, but considered trip talk. As I admit, I am an enthusiast for this psychedelic / entheogen / ecodelic / substance / mind-stuff. I come clean that I don’t think one is experiencing a simple hallucination, but that something...

An account of the CIA's surveillance and protection from arrest of two alleged 9/11 hijackers. This story has often been told, but almost always – as in the recent TV series The Looming Tower – the most damning and incriminating facts are left out. These facts come, by the way, from US government official reports... For this episode especially, it's worth referring to the episode page, for a full...

An interview with the economist Guido Preparata, above all about two broad topics. First, how the United States maintains its central role in the global economy through the power of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Second, about how money might be reformed to reflect its place in economic production. Preparata was a central banker with the Bank of Italy, and has taught at the University...

About the power struggles Putin faced before he became President of Russia in 2000, and about the help he got from some friends in the Kremlin. Along the way he benefited from his clique's war in Chechnya, and a nearly unknown war in the region of Dagestan. roryoconnor.xyz patreon.com/roryoconnor