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Jack Preston King

@jackprestonking.bsky.social

1.8K followers 3.7K following 2.3K posts

Author of In Defense of Magical Thinking: Essays in Defiance of Conformity to Reason and other books for rebels against the spiritual, creative, and cultural status quo. Writes unruly poems, short stories, and novels, too. jackprestonking.com

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · Apr 13

For anyone interested, my author website currently has over 200 essays, short stories, flash fiction, poems, a novel, bunches of book reviews and more, all free to read. No subscription needed! Just a good old fashioned author website full of cool things. Come see what I'm about! jackprestonking.com

Jack Preston King

Jack Preston King - author, poet, philosopher

jackprestonking.com

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 11h

My #BookReview of The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature, by Stephen Harrod Buhner

#science #spirituality #botany #consciousness #Booksky

jackprestonking.com/f/the-secret...

The Secret Teachings of Plants

I had two very different reading experiences working my way through The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature, by Stephen Harrod Buhner.

jackprestonking.com

Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 15h

“𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝐻𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑟, 𝐼’𝑚 𝑎 𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑡. 𝐻𝑜𝑤 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝐼 𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤?”

#flashfiction #puns #100WordStory #1MinuteRead

buff.ly/cwFCCYa

Don't Drink the Water

“How do you plead?” The judge straightened in his bowl. His eye stalks pivoted in unison toward the defendant.

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 16h

I'd say the opposite of delusion is to sanely question the veracity and authority of anyone claiming to have a monopoly on the definition of "reality," though. Most people just define reality as "what I believe" and delusion as "what people who disagree with me believe." That's no good.

Reposted by Jack Preston King

GorgonGoddess_The🐍 @avngmedusa.bsky.social · 16h

Delusion isn’t about ignoring reality it’s about refusing to let reality be the only voice in the room.

-case kenny

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Reposted by Jack Preston King

FRINGE QUEST @fringequest.bsky.social · 17h

Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?
– Tao Te Ching

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 19h

“𝑀𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑝𝑢𝑟𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑒. 𝑈𝑛𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑙𝑦, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑟𝑢𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒, 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑤𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑢𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒.” -- Anodea Judith

#love #myth #mythology #psychology

Bad Myth/Good Myth

Why Love Is So Difficult and What We Can Do About It?

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Reposted by Jack Preston King

Chapters Bookstore, Parnell St, D1 @chaptersbookstore.bsky.social · 3d

They’ll tell you that the arts & humanities aren’t practical and then …

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Reposted by Jack Preston King

Martin Shaw @thebooksdesk.bsky.social · 23h

Amused just then to remember two recent conversations:

Author who said the only reason to have an agent was to get more $ out of publishers.

Publisher who said they liked authors to have agents so that the pub didn't have to deal with the author

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Reposted by Jack Preston King

𝙹*𝚊𝚍𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝙼𝚊𝚐𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚎 🍏 @artmyoldfriend.bsky.social · 1d

“Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you're already in heaven now.”

~Jack Kerouac

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 23h

Nice, Jim! The beginning of something longer?

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Jim Cherry @jymwrite.bsky.social · 1d

Myrlyn
open.substack.com/pub/jimcherr...

Myrlyn

My only attempt at Sword & Sorcery, a homage to Arthurian stories.

open.substack.com

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 1d

Once you declare “I am a physical body and something more,” you’ve taken a spiritual stand.

#spirituality

Are You Spiritual?

If you answered “NO,” think again

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 1d

Perhaps not directly a #Halloween poem, but definitely Halloween- adjacent...

Here's "Let's All Be Witches and Re-Enchant the World":

Let’s All Be Witches and Re-enchant the World

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting
for our senses to grow sharper.” — W.B. Yeats

I’m tired of this scolding
from the haters of magic
who press their dull knives
to the heart of our longing,
who see in Wild Nature
but a mass to be measured,
and in the Soul of All Living,
but an insult to reason

I’m tired of pretending
their methods impress me,
that their double-blind studies
reveal more than blindness
to all they refuse
in advance to conceive
for fear of conflicting
the faith they believe

I’m tired of hearing
that we’re only our bodies
from men with no love
for the magic of bodies,
who find in our dreams
but the chatter of neurons,
in our deepest desires,
mere chemical churn

It’s time to remember
the Tuatha de Danann,
to sleep on the hilfort,
and learn the Sidhe magic,
till the wind has awakened,
and leaves whirl round,
till “Away, come away”
rises out of the ground

So, get ready to fly
past the glowering doubters
on your unlikely broom
to the place of our meeting,
our sharing the mushroom,
our dancing and dreaming,
our splitting the veil
that separates worlds

Come join me in singing
to the Earth and the Moon,
in welcoming spirits,
in shaking the barley.
Let’s join the wild hunter,
our banners unfurled —
Let’s all be witches
and re-enchant the world.

-- Jack Preston King

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🕯️ Crowley Rae Jepsen 🕯️ @mags.colvett.online · 1d

I can’t get over this. This is what I’m supposed to hear when my time machine crew returns to the present after collecting butterfly specimens in 1812 and realizes we’ve disturbed something

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 1d

I reviewed the #audiobook of the original 1955 novel of Invasion of the Body Snatchers on my blog a while back. The audiobook is narrated by Kristoffer Tabori, who is the son of Don Siegel. jackprestonking.com/f/the-invasi...

The Invasion of the Body Snatchers

I first read Jack Finney’s 1955 classic The Invasion of the Body Snatchers as a teenager in the late Seventies, after seeing (and loving) the Donald Sutherland/Jeff Goldblum movie remake in the theate...

jackprestonking.com

Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 1d

Amateurs...

Reposted by Jack Preston King

hailey @hailey.at · 1d

some of you only started using the internet in the late 2010s or later, and it shows

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 1d

Don't forget Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010) and Werewolves Within (2021).

Reposted by Jack Preston King

Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.com · 1d

To be clear: like the real KDP (which has also been impersonated by scammers), the real IngramSpark does NOT charge any fees to create an account & upload a book, and does NOT sell paid adjunct services like editing and book cover design

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 1d

My #BookReview of Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll, by Peter Bebergal

#ClassicRock #occult #music #Booksky

Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll

I grew up in the ‘60s and ‘70s in an Illinois small town in clear signal distance of St. Louis’s legendary powerhouse KSHE 95 – Real Rock Radio. Many of the bands profiled in Peter Bebergal’s Season…

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 1d

If paying for use of copyrighted material makes #AI economically unfeasible, well, too bad. Products that cost too much to produce so they can't turn any profit are deservedly doomed in a Capitalist economy.

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 1d

to ASCAP and BMI, and those entities pay artists. I know this doesn't address those artists who object to their work being used at all by #AI, but its better than the system the AI industry wants, which is take what they want and to hell with copyrights.

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 1d

I think a fair answer to "I just don’t know how you go around asking everyone first" may be OK don't ask first but DO pay later. Radio has been doing this forever. Stations don't ask permission to play songs. But they DO pay a royalty every time a song is played. Stations make royalty payments

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Jack Preston King @jackprestonking.bsky.social · 1d

Great point.

Reposted by Jack Preston King

LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 1d

okay i’m not saying i’ve learned everything at my middle age but i do think that maybe the key to happiness is having food, water, shelter, some degree of financial stability, good friends, and the wherewithal to slow down and feel time

extreme busyness is a plague

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