For men in the city a transformation 20 years in the making is nearly complete. A psycho-spiritual shift in the minds of men began in earnest in the fallout of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008, a disruption culminating in a perfect economic storm two decades later. The GFC profoundly shocked the American (Western) economy and disproportionately impacted young white men. Nearly two decades later official measures show compound fractures across domains: economic dislocation, income-earning capacity, family-formation, racial-enmity, self-esteem, self-deletion etc. The breakdown permanently exiled young white men from mainstream Western society and marked the beginning of self-discovery.
On the surface, government bailouts stabilized the economy and restored confidence in the system by papering over the problem. Beneath the surface, however, severe psychological trauma, atomization, and social-scarring took root. For masses of men, the collateral damage from joblessness, isolation, and loss of status was compounded by a weaponized wokism whose prime directive was the forcible displacement of white men from mainstream society. These forces combined to produce a compressive effect on the Western-male psyche.
The internet was the relief valve. Men escaped from a compressed real world into a novel and expanding online one. The emergence of new internet platforms coinciding with the GFC triggered a great social schism. YouTube and Twitter quickly became digital social safety nets for the disconnected and disoriented. Online community caught the masses desperate to vent emotional energy, collaborate with like-minded men, and process the crisis around them. The digital universe became the nexus point for a psychological reset in Western society.
15+ years later the results are revolutionary even if revolutionary movements remain embryonic. As I have written since the first entry of Men and the City, powerful communities emerged (Alt-right, Bitcoin, Manosphere), new philosophies (Race Realism, Dark Enlightenment, Spectral Revolution), and a cadre of influencers shook up the culture with viral rants. Call it chaos media or an online rebellion, either way, psychological levies were smashed and a breakthrough occurred. “Men of words” held nothing back about Jewish Power, hypergamy, pedophilia, and the Great Replacement. Taboos shattered like pagan idols at the Kaaba.
"For a temple to be erected, a temple must be destroyed."
Nietzsche
The creed of online mutiny became: Tell me the lie so I can smash it with viral thunderclap. Since the GFC, subsequent shock waves have fractured the fragile facade of a legacy order crumbling under the weight of its own lies. For Gen Z, 2020 Covid-lockdowns, mask-mandates, and experimental vaccines replicated the GFC convulsion Millennials experienced 12 years before. Both sabotaged economic launch, both undermined trust in government, and both prematurely vaporized youthful illusions of self and society. Fortunately, disillusionment opened impressionable young minds to new ways of thinking and disconnect led to discovery.
The beginning of a new self-image was born. Internet algos are a kind of Heraclitian flux churning through trillions of fragmented mental nodes clustered into audio and visual content like charged electrons spinning into quantum entanglement. Eventually, content cohered into men’s groups, reddit short-squeezes, conspiracy cults, or marathon hangouts on X spaces. Indeed, online trends have come to define (amplify) modern culture.
However impactful digital communities have become the online world is NOT reality, even if reality has become a clownish version of itself. Online escape was an indispensable step towards psychological reorientation, a counter-neural network against the Orwellian mainstream dystopia. Predictably, what began as escape from clown-world has become a hyperreality of its own. Social media group think has extinguished the fiery independent thinking that once defined these communities.
Further, as white men have mentally transformed over the last twenty years so has the world beyond X echo chambers. Once unassailable government institutions are unraveling, Jewish banking cartels are illiquid, and global power has migrated from West to East. A vast vacuum has emerged in the wake of these changes, one eager to be filled by a new order. The rebellious energy birthed over the last decade is primed to fill the void. The next step requires collective suffering before the final reorganization.
Suffering Equals Ascent
Understandably, after two decades of hardship and toxicity the discerning reader will rebut - “Have I not suffered enough?” The answer to that question is:
YES - YOU HAVE
but:
WE - HAVE NOT
Let me explain. Every man wields a rare superpower that women simply do not - the power to be ALONE. Men spend lots of time alone because we do not possess intrinsic value in society; women do and always have. Being alone and loneliness overlap but are not the same thing. Being alone in this sense is a kind of darkness, a withdrawing from the world, a place where all the demons (real or imaginary) envelop and overwhelm you. There is no shield, no protection, no shock absorber to soften the cold sting of darkness.
What are some real-world examples? Generally, though not always, men experience withdrawal when life falls apart:
Divorce after decades of investment and commitment
Losing a job, a house, maybe a business or family member
Loss of faith or the collapse of a belief-system
Whatever the case, the world turns upside down and nothing make sense anymore. Sometimes men have someone to consult: a father, a priest, or a friend. More often there is simply no one and nothing to do except sink into the depths of darkness, alone. In the “modern” West, male isolation is structural: white men increasingly lack fathers, father figures, and male-only public spaces are banned or emasculated. However, it is in the depths of darkness where a faint light flickers in the distance.
A self-image comes into view. What and where the self-image comes from is a metaphysical question beyond the scope of this essay. For our purposes, suffice it to say the self-image represents the taproot of self-consciousness, the psycho-spiritual frame that defines who you really are and reorients you in reality. As stated in the forward to Maxwell Maltz’s Psycho-Cybernetics explained, self-image is “a mental blueprint we have inside our subconscious mind.”
“A person cannot rise above how he sees himself”
Matt Furey
Notice a couple things:
Self-image cannot be created it must be discovered
Suffering is the key to unlocking the self-image
Self-image is a kind of resonance or vibration with the divine, the Christ, or the force in Star Wars. Suffering brings your consciousness into spiritual alignment with this higher force. Like it or not, suffering is both necessary and unavoidable to cross the spiritual chasm. If you try to avoid it, spiritual growth is either stunted (sometimes reversed → despiritualized → evilized) or eventually the darkness finds you like the whale swallows Jonah. External conflict and internal stress alchemize in the new, transformed self-image.
“The way up is revealed to man and given to him…ONLY in suffering and ONLY through suffering.”
Ivan Ilyin - On Resistance to Evil by Force
The transformation of self-image is not the full story. There is no guarantee you will break free from what mystics call the “dark night of the soul.” Tragically, many do not survive the process (suicide / evilized) but it is necessary because it is so fatal. ONLY after sufficient suffering shakes loose the false frames of old is a new self-image bolted to solid psychological ground like megaliths at the base of a pyramid. Since the GFC (then Covid), men have experienced this transformation alone, as conscious individuals. Going forward, we must suffer together, as a conscious collective.
The inner, invisible work is finished but now it must manifest in outer, visible work. Mental, emotional and intellectual leaps have been made and a new frame of mind has emerged but operationalizing change in the real world is the next step. Resetting the West so its civilizational identity is realigned requires synchronizing these forces in a transformative mass movement. The coming perfect storm is the opportunity to complete the West’s crucible for spiritual cleansing.
Decline is Irreversible
Irreversibility defines today’s sickly Western mind. In every Western country sentiment is negative and defeatist. Masses of migrants (legal and illegal) are overwhelming white countries. Government and society are structurally broken and endemically corrupt. White women are brain washed by feminism and fetishize non-white men. Mainstream institutions and big corporations are propaganda machines promoting anti-white culture: multi-racialism, equality, and nihilism. Most have concluded all is lost and the damage is irreversible.
Accelerated breakdown across the West is confirmation the end is nigh. Evidence to support this conclusion is compelling:
Democratic Breakdown - Anemic opposition parties who virtue signal dissent but lack the capacity, vision and leadership to meaningfully resist
Demographic Collapse - Tens of Millions of migrants surging across the West overwhelming locals and unobstructed by police or border security
Economic crisis - a falling standard of living for average whites in all Western nations
Jewish Power - Consolidation of Jewish Power at the highest levels of Western institutions, especially in America (MAGA is MIGA)
Urban Conflict - racial fault lines are boiling over in major Western cities: London, Paris, New York City and beyond
“Western Europe is committing suicide, and the sixty thousand African migrants who just smashed through Ceuta are only the latest proof…This is the terminal phase of a civilization that has already decided to die.”
Constantin von Hoffmeister - Camp of the Saints Live
The trends above may seem unassailable but the situation is far more complex. The terminal diagnosis for Western Civilization is based upon the assumption that the fall of Western governments, currencies, institutions etc. is synonymous with the extinction of the West. Of course, we know that is not true. Throughout western history governments have bankrupted themselves, lost major wars, currencies have collapsed, plagues have wiped out millions, and violent revolutions have turned society upside down and razed institutions to the ground. None of this is new nor is it unrecoverable.
But this time is different. Inherently, every scenario is one of one, a unique situation unlike any we have seen before. The West’s accelerating racial extinction for instance is unprecedented by volume and percentage, as we know. Public debts are higher, institutions are more complex and powerful, and the white population is nothing if not fragmented. Again, this all adds up to hopeless irreversible collapse, right?
Wrong. Breakdown often serves as the galvanizing force to reunify, indeed redefine and reintegrate society. If individual realities are fragmented (just as the white population is currently divided) a collective shock will unify them. In this sense, conflict of an existential nature is the birthing process for higher culture and rejuvenate national-civilizational identity. Wars, plagues, revolutions etc. generate reorganizations of human consciousness like the Renaissance and Reformation. Jacob Burckhardt described the Renaissance as “the rediscovery of the world and of man.”
“In the ancient view, a new round of time does not emerge gradually from the last but only after the circle experiences a sharp break.”
William Strauss and Neil Howe - The Fourth Turning
In summary, reversibility or discontinuity is what defines the human experience not irreversibility. In fact, the acceleration of the trends above is likely to create an inversion or possibly a Fourth Turning because history is not linear or chaotic but cyclical. As William Strauss and Neil Howe put it, “Each circle of time has a great moment of discontinuity,” what the ancients called ekpyrosis - purifying fire. Have we arrived at such a turning point?
The Blackpill is the Final Boss
Overcoming a distorted self-image - the enemy within - is the final boss. Shadow boxing with psychological demons has mentally transformed masses of men but not without cost. A blackpill residue has infected men psychologically. Ironically, at a time when Jewish intellectualism (wokism, globalism, Zionism et al) so dominant in the citadels of power is more detached from reality than ever, its persuasive power is at its peak. Under the spell of blackpill faith men piously believe that Western society is secretly or not so secretly setup for a controlled demolition that cannot be stopped.
“the vital wisdom consists not in escaping from suffering as from imaginary evil, but in accepting it as a gift and a pledge, in utilizing it and wading through it”
Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin - On Resistance to Evil By Force
I would describe this thinking as refractory. Paul Ekman defined the term refractory period as a phase “when we are only able to use information that supports the emotion we are feeling.” Generally, it follows an intense “emotional charge” so powerful that it overwhelms all other senses. It is a reaction function that can only burn itself out after the driving emotion has subsided. Remember: “The human nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and an experience imagined vividly and in detail.”
Here we have blackpill psychopathology. The blackpill God is the super-elite, a figment of emotionally charged imagination. Whatever happens in the world from this point of view is firmly controlled and orchestrated by them. I call this the “Its part of the plan” fallacy. Regardless of the antagonists (Jewish Power, Bilderbergs, City of London, Illuminati, Techbros), some or many powerful groups are singularly driving global events with Godlike power and precision. The end-result is pre-determined and unstoppable.
In many ways, blackpill pyschopathology mirrors its tormentor, Jewish intellectualism. Both are a kind of “non-sense machine” as Roger Scruton appropriately called it. In both frameworks, the individual is deprived of self-empowerment, action or agency because external monsters are all powerful and irresistible. Psychologists refer to this problem as “the external locus of control,” the belief that outside forces—like luck, fate, or other people—dictate outcomes rather than internal beliefs and actions.
“With an internal locus, you feel empowered to shape outcomes through your actions. In contrast, an external locus suggests that outside factors determine your fate. Understanding this concept can impact your motivation and response to life’s challenges.”
Western civilization is premised on the belief that the individual, group or nation has power over circumstances. From the Iliad to Faust, Western cannon preached courage, honor, struggle and overcoming. Non-Western values tend towards the opposite and favor fortune over boldness. At the core of Buddhism, for example, is the idea of anatta - no-self. “Buddha rejects the idea of an eternal soul.” “Me” or the self is always changing rather than catalyzing the change.
By contrast, the Western psyche is fixed on what Carl Jung called “Mana-personality,” the charismatic leader. Western culture above all others has a “fascination with the person who holds or symbolizes power.” So commanding is this indelible feature of the Western narrative that all major movements for change come to identify with one figure head or one leader. The mana-personality harnesses the collective will, the frustrations, feelings, and hopes of the many and converts them into the actions of the few, or the one via transference.
Transference is not about creation, it is a bonding experience. The function of the charismatic leader is more that of conductor than chemist because transference awakens or emancipates feelings that are already alive but bottled up. Indeed, the hypnotic effect of the leader (his charisma) breaks resistance so that emotional energy for change is liberated. The psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi explained that hypnosis, like transference, releases it does not create:
“there is no such thing as a ‘hypnotizing,’ a ‘giving of ideas’ in the sense of psychical incorporating of something quite foreign from without, but only procedures that are able to set going unconscious, pre-existing, auto-suggestive mechanisms.”
Sandor Ferenczi
Psychological breakthroughs are the precondition for mass movements. Over the last 15+ years the psyche of white men has traversed the stages of grief, we have ascended from disconnect to discovery. A new self-image born of suffering has pushed rebellious online energy to the precipice of a Western movement(s) for change. First, we must reconcile the imminent crisis we fear with a calm acceptance of the real-world action we must take toward its resolution.
The final boss is yet to be vanquished. We must reframe the coming storm as opportunity rather than damnation, a necessary and unavoidable crucible to reset the West, just as the last 15+ years of disruption have reset the white male psyche. We must slay the illusory dragons (shadowy elites) and see beyond the false frames of Jewish intellectualism (external locus of control). We are not victims, we do not believe fate nullifies action, and we know that heroes and mass movement shape the great moments of history, and this is one of them. It is only the enemy within that truly holds us back. Are you ready?
"The next step requires collective suffering before the final reorganization."
Agreed. Collective suffering is coming--and likely through a series of successive events. Unfortunately, through our own poor decisions and actions humanity has sowed the wind, and soon we shall reap the whirlwind.
Psychologically transformative, insightful, not to say predictive. The world is not as we see it; it is as we perceive it. The individual is paramount, indeed effectual. There is a tide in the affairs of man.... each must make his way in this perception. To throw a minor wrench: Whiteness is indeed under attack; however it's not the colour but the culture. The have-nots see our sacrifice as their due and will brook no opposition to their 'rightous' claims.