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Original Blessing as
Pronoia: The Antidote to Paranoia By Matthew Fox 9/29/2025 |
In Saturday’s DM, I wrote of two persons whom I recently read, who spoke of Original Blessing each in their own powerful way. One was Aaron Stern, who wrote of “innate
goodness” that he experienced in music and his love of music as he was growing up in a turbulent household. The second is Rob Brezsny, who writes about pronoia in his powerful book, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia. |
Each of these authors make a conscious decision in favor of biophilia over necrophilia. Love of life, over love of death, love over hate and despair. Both offer powerful medicine for times like ours, when distress and temptations to despair weigh heavily. Brezsny defines pronoia as “the hypothesis that the
universe is conspiring to shower us with blessings.” This sort of sounds like “original blessing” to me. And it is not about denial of struggle and evil, but about how to survive both. |
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He writes: I am rattled. I am aghast. I am in grief about the mayhem and atrocities that the Trump administration and its allies have unleashed upon the world. MAGA is a terrorist theocratic sect. ICE is a secret police force conducting ethnic cleansing….America has been invaded and occupied by a hostile oligarchic death cult. I don’t toss around these words lightly. They are not hyperbole born of a temporary bad mood. They come from watching the erosion of truth, the demonization of the vulnerable, and the ever-tightening clench of barbaric authoritarian power. Millions of lives are imperiled, the earth is brutalized, and a grotesque parody of faith poisons millions of imaginations. A “hostile oligarchic death cult” is a powerful way of talking about those who choose necrophilia over biophilia, that is, evil. Erich Fromm says, “necrophilia grows when biophilia is stunted.” Choking biophilia encourages an “oligarchic death cult.” Such a cult is “hostile” and built on hostility. |
The cover of Carl Schmitt’s “National Socialism and International Law,” 1934. Wikimedia Commons. | Consider the philosophy of Nazi philosopher and legalist Carl Schmitt who I wrote about previously, who defines politics as finding enemies. And who deeply influenced Peter Thiel, whose company Palantir is behind ICE and the current vice president. And consider how the current president committed to using the DOJ to imprison his enemies. The very term “Christian nationalism,” which is the foundation of Project 2025 and the engine behind the MAGA movement, is well named as “a grotesque parody of faith” that is “poisoning millions of imaginations” with |
cries of apocalypse and antichrist and raptures aplenty. Brezsny continues: “And yet, despite my horror at the runaway abominations, I am still a passionate devotee of pronoia: the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to shower us with blessing.” He cautions: Pronoia is not denial. It’s not naïve optimism….My pronoia is rowdy, muscular, and complicated. It recognizes the grief and the terror, the corruption and the cruelty—and still insists on seeking out the currents of benevolence flowing all around us. We are also surrounded by multitudes of life celebrations: people and movements devoted to compassion, justice, erotic intelligence and ecological repair. |
For
every ICE agent wielding cruelty, there is a grandmother planting milkweed for the monarch butterflies. For every demagogue sowing hatred, there are communities weaving resilience out of music, prayer, dance and boisterous rituals. |
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Pronoia teaches me to resist effectively, I’ve got to cultivate my joy as fiercely as I curate my outrage. My anger fuels my sacred fight, and my glee and bliss nurture my soulful lust for life. The fascists want us depleted, numb, and cynical. But pronoia dares me to be tender,
ecstatic, and wildly imaginative even as I confront their horrors.* Brezsny sounds to me like Meister Eckhart and Julian of Norwich rolled into one. Original Blessing is everywhere. |
Queries for Contemplation Do you believe that the universe is conspiring to shower us with blessings? Do you cultivate
your joy as fiercely as you curate your outrage? Does one serve the other and make you fully alive and therefore spiritual? |
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