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The Deep Implications Of The Recent Thuringen Election

The Free State of Thuringia is one of the sixteen states in the German federal republic, with a population just over 2.1 million. Normally, little of importance would come from Thuringen – but the state elections earlier this month have upset that. The much-feared Alternative fuer Deutschland party – regularly dismissed as neo-Nazis by the opinion-shapers in the mainstream media – won 33% of the total vote, taking first place.

Mainstream commentators were aghast at the AfD’s success, labelling it a return of Nazism. But in the hysteria over the AfD result, other results with deep implications have been missed.

One of the most striking of these was the Buendnis Sahra Wagenknecht winning 15.7%.

The BSW is also nationalist and also opposes Germany getting sucked into the war in Ukraine. Hence, they are as anti-Establishment as the AfD. But, unlike the AfD, they are a leftist movement that wants to empower the negotiating position of workers, and which has no interest in the Christian dogma so common to alternative right movements (the BSW also lists ‘reason’ as one of its two core values).

Sahra Wagenknecht is a former top-ranking Die Linke (The Left) candidate, which means that she’s coming from a very leftist perspective. If the AfD had done well and the BSW not, it might be possible to blame everything on TikTok. But because the BSW also did so well, it’s impossible to speak of a “right-wing wave”. The BSW winning over 15% shows that support for nationalism, not just support for the AfD, is what’s rising.

Perhaps the most striking change from the previous election was the collapse of Die Linke. They were the biggest party in 2019, with 31% of the total vote. Their 2024 vote was a much humbler 13%. The vast bulk of this fall can be attributed to the rise of the BSW, which didn’t exist in 2019.

In total, the nationalist bloc of AfD and BSW won 48.7% of the Thuringen vote, more than the 47% for the globalist bloc of CDU (23.6%), Die Linke (13%), SPD (6.1%), Gruene (3.2%) and FDP (1.1%). Nationalists outpolling globalists in a Western European region the size of Thuringen is something unprecedented since World War II. Since that war, nationalists have been reduced to small minorities. For them to become the majority again, anywhere, came as a shock to many.

Even more shocking was the voting breakdown.

The first result of note here was that some 49% of working-class voters in Thuringen voted AfD, and a further 16% voted BSW. This means that 65% of working-class voters went for a nationalist party, as opposed to a mere 30% for the five major globalists.

This is a remarkable result because it speaks to the extent to which working-class people feel themselves betrayed by the globalist establishment, in particular the leftist globalist establishment.

One of the issues that forced Sahra Wagenknecht out of Die Linke (along with COVID-19 measures and Ukraine/Russia policy) was German refugee policy. Die Linke supported the globalist approach of constantly and permanently increasing the refugee quota. Wagenknecht abandoned Die Linke in the belief that many left-wing voters would prefer a nationalist option to a globalist one, and she has been vindicated by this month’s polling.

Of even more import is the fact that this process has just begun. The AfD has been around for a while but the BSW is new. If they can already poll this high in a regional election, they can dream of doing so at a federal level. Then the possibility arises of an AfD-BSW coalition ruling Germany.

The second result of note here relates to age. If one looks only at voters aged 18-24, who are traditionally globalist left voters, we can see a radical seachange towards nationalism. 55% of men and 46% of women in this age group voted for one of the two nationalist parties.

The only real supporters of the establishment now are the Boomers whose rental property portfolios and stock portfolios are the prime beneficiaries of mass immigration. The Western ruling classes have denied for 80 years that mass immigration leads to higher rents and lower wages, but the people of West widely understand now, and the working-class understands well. Many of those people are now desperate for an anti-establishment alternative.

As the Boomers continue to die off over the next decade, globalist sentiments in the West will continue to weaken further. Those who believe that nationalists are only rising because of social media may succeed in banning that social media to a major extent. But they won’t stop what’s coming, because it’s not a social media phenomenon. It’s the inevitable end consequence of many tens of millions of unpleasant encounters with the diversity that the globalists have imported.

These results of note, taken together, suggest that the vast majority of young, working-class men in Thuringen are now nationalist. Perhaps then, a smaller majority of young, working-class men in the West in general might be nationalist. This means that the nationalist forces now control the loyalties of the precise demographics needed to control the streets – or overthrow the government.

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The Transmutation Of Tin Into Lead

The sixth, and final, stage of the Katabasis is the transmutation of tin into lead. This completes the process of spiritual descent and makes an animal out of that which was once divine. Lead is the lowest level of the Mithraic Ladder, and in the context of Katabasis reflects a person who has not only lost touch with their divinity, but also with their basic humanity.

Shrinking is the process by which tin transmutes to lead. This reflects the fact that, in transmuting down to lead, a character exchanges vastness of soul for pettiness. The character becomes what Confucius called a xiaoren, or small man. Metaphorically, a character’s consciousness shrinks, and that divine energy is replaced by animal energy. The character becomes a monster.

A character of tin might be degenerate, but they are still often fun to be around. In transmuting to lead, the character of tin loses the good humour and sociability that makes the character of tin so fun. They become dark and serious, even sinister. The realm of lead is the realm of the extreme resentment that makes truly horrendous crimes possible.

Extreme stress is a common catalyst for the transmutation to lead. One major trauma, enough to cause thorough bitterness, is typical. Here one can see how the Katabasis is structurally similar to the Anabasis, even if the overall movement is in different directions, as both begin with large numbers of acts of subtle emotional energy, and both are completed with singular acts of extreme emotional energy.

A major traumatic experience, such as getting stabbed almost to death, can create a permanent fear response that robs life of joy. The collapse of a character’s environment, from peacetime to wartime, can manifest a constant joyless state. Becoming a refugee or an orphan, or getting caught in a natural disaster, can achieve the same effect.

Stress and suffering make it impossible to relax and enjoy oneself. Therefore, increasing the stress and suffering a character undergoes will generally push them down the Mithraic Ladder. For these unwanted feelings to push a character as far as the realm of lead – which is to say, to the subhuman level – they have to be inhumane. They must involve extreme misery, or misery extended for an extreme length of time, or extreme callousness (or all three).

In the mind of a character undergoing the process, transmuting from tin to lead can feel like losing one’s mind completely. Being at the level of tin already suggests that a person has given up on most ambitions and is willing to degenerate. Descending to lead is the end result of that degeneration process. It’s the rock bottom spoken about by alcoholics.

Another common example of this process occurs when a character is broken by early childhood stress. Perhaps they were abandoned as a child, and, despite being able to battle their way up to the realm of copper or even silver, the structural damage done to their brain by the neglect leaves them vulnerable to tragedy later in life (most stories about the descent from tin to lead will be tragedies in some form).

Extreme stress often leads to low-frequency behaviour on the battlefield, and the deprivations of war have driven many a character into the realm of lead, both in fiction and in real life. War might be the preserve of the realm of iron or copper if one is writing in a heroic sense, but if the object is to portray the kind of stresses that break a person, the realm of lead is particularly relevant.

Chronic insomnia is archetypal of the nagging stress conditions that can drive a person from tin to lead. A person might be trying to enjoy their life, but, due to an inability to sleep, they eventually crack. Chronic pain is a related condition.

Morally speaking, there is no deed too low for the character of lead, which can be a function of either malice or insanity. Characters of iron might be brutish and characters of tin degenerate, but the grosser crimes are the preserve of the characters of lead. The murderers, rapists, traitors that other characters regret ever having known are usually characters of lead. So are the genuinely wretched cases of mental illness. Thus, in descending to lead, a character will plumb new moral depths.

Physically, the transition to lead can be marked by physically shrinking. Lead is the realm of desperation to survive. To transmute from tin to iron is to lose weight in becoming fit; to transmute from tin to lead is to lose weight in becoming weak. The kind of thinness that comes with extreme stress is perhaps the most obvious marker of a descent into the realm of lead.

In real life, people can become skinny after suffering extended stress because they have less appetite, or have started throwing up. A character who regularly throws up from stress is almost certainly on a path to losing all joy in their life.

Socially, lead is marked by ostracisation. To transmute from tin to lead in this context is to fall out even with one’s degenerate friends. To be an alcoholic, and to have even other alcoholics start not wanting to be around you, is to descend to lead. Starting a fight with a barman and getting an assault conviction is a common example, as is your ex-partner taking a restraining order out on you.

The more extreme and dramatic forms of ostracisation are often readily symbolic, such as ending up in prison or in a mental health ward. A character who ends up incarcerated has very much shut themselves off from higher frequencies. Anyone who takes a happy-go-lucky attitude into a prison or a mental health unit will soon lose it.

This ostracisation could lead to a mass shooter story (or some other crime tale).

Mentally, the transition from tin to lead is marked by a loss of pro-social thoughts and attitudes. If the descent from iron to tin involves becoming apathetic, the descent to lead involves becoming cruel. A character descending to lead learns to take pleasure in the misery of others. Where they may have once found mirth in common cheer, they now find it in more selfish perspectives.

The character of tin might be unhealthy and under a lot of stress, but they generally enjoy themselves. In transmuting to lead, such characters lose that ability. They start wishing they weren’t alive. They may even develop the sense that the gods are laughing at them. Moreover, and most critical from a dramatic perspective, they start taking their misery out on others.

Spiritually, the descent to lead implies the abandonment of all idea of spirituality. Concerns about earning an auspicious rebirth are jettisoned from consciousness. The character descending to lead loses all belief in reincarnation and karma. Like an animal, they only care about satisfying impulses. The descent to lead, then, is very much the final victory of the beast over the higher self.

One classic depiction of the process of transmuting to lead is in the story of Private Pyle from Full Metal Jacket. Werewolf tales are related to this. The general idea is that the transmutation from tin into lead unleashes the beast. Thus the Katabasis is completed and the character either dies or begins the Anabasis again.

This is an excerpt from Vince McLeod’s The Alchemy of Character Development, the sixth book in VJM Publishing’s Writing With Psychology series. This book will show you how to use alchemy to create deep, realistic and engaging characters for your creative fiction.

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The Alchemy Of Character Development

The Alchemy Of Character Development, by Vince McLeod, is the sixth book in VJM Publishing’s Writing With Psychology series.

This book describes how an author of creative fiction can use the alchemy of spiritual development to create fascinating characters, and how that development can form the basis of an engaging plotline.

The Basics Of The Alchemy Of Character Development

CONTENTS

Foundations
The Mithraic Ladder And The Heroic Journey As They Pertain To The Alchemy Of Character Development

Writing Characters of Lead
Writing Characters of Tin
Writing Characters of Iron
Writing Characters of Copper
Writing Characters of Silver
Writing Characters of Mercury
Writing Characters of Gold

Anabasis
The Transmutation Of Lead Into Tin
The Transmutation Of Tin Into Iron
The Transmutation Of Iron Into Copper
The Transmutation Of Copper Into Silver
The Transmutation Of Silver Into Mercury
The Transmutation Of Mercury Into Gold

Katabasis
The Transmutation Of Gold Into Mercury
The Transmutation Of Mercury Into Silver
The Transmutation Of Silver Into Copper
The Transmutation Of Copper Into Iron
The Transmutation Of Iron Into Tin
The Transmutation Of Tin Into Lead

The Inevitability Of The Maori Party, And Of Race Politics

This month’s Roy Morgan poll didn’t appear to contain any major news. There were no significant shifts since last time. But, buried two-thirds of the way down the page, some highly interesting facts lurked: evidence of a remorseless trend towards social discord in New Zealand. This trend is the rise of racial consciousness, and its replacement of class consciousness.

It can be seen from the above image that, among Kiwis younger than 50, the Maori Party has close to 10% support. This is an astonishing level of support for an ethnonationalist party, especially considering that Maoris make up less than 20% of the population. Even if one allows for 25% of the population aged between 18 and 49 being Maori, and one assumes that almost no non-Maoris vote Maori Party, 10% total support means some 40% Maori Party support among Maoris aged 18-49.

Dedicated Roy Morgan poll watchers might have already noticed the trend towards Maori Party support increasing among the young over recent years. It has not only increased, but is unstoppable.

All over the Western World, class consciousness is dying, and getting replaced by race consciousness. VJM Publishing has written about this phenomenon before, noting that it’s the result of a deliberate effort by the ruling class to shatter any potential bonds of solidarity among the lower classes.

Applying the Orwellian maxim War is Peace, the ruling classes have deliberately set the lower classes of New Zealand against each other by encouraging them to divide themselves among racial lines. They have done this by suggesting that the average Maori is the victim of the order of society and the average white is the beneficiary. The resentment thus created has seen some Maoris and whites turn on each other, ignoring the hand of the ruling class behind all the discord.

This schedule of suggestion is mostly applied through the education system and popular culture. As a result, the younger a resident of the Western World, the more likely that they see the world through the lens of race, and not class. Young people have been conditioned to think in terms of race, and that’s why so many of them support the Maori Party.

40% support within a major demographic for an ethnonationalist party is something that few Kiwis would have anticipated, had they been asked 25 years ago. Few Kiwis will have anticipated what’s next: the inevitable rise of white racial consciousness.

It’s very bad news for those who wish for unity and stability among the New Zealand populace.

The New Zealand political establishment has done everything it can to pre-empt the rise of white racial consciousness. Their intent to do this was made clear when they sent the Police to my house to intimidate me after I sold ‘It’s Okay To Be White’ t-shirts on TradeMe.

But if working-class white people see the Maori Party getting 10%, they will start asking “Why not us?”.

Working-class white people will not remain slavishly supporting the ruling class if they see Maori people coming together as a Maori race, and getting concessions from the Government on the basis of that racial identity. There are already great numbers of working-class whites who resent that the ruling class helps Maoris more than them, and who would vote for a white identitarian party if one ever stood up.

Already we can see from the table above that the Labour Party – one of the two major parties – polls a mere 18% among the under 50s. Their support base is Boomer women. Among women under 50, Labour gets less support than the Greens. This suggests that support for Labour will continue to decline as the Boomers die off and get replaced by more alternative young people.

If the Maori contingent among those alternative young people vote for an ethnonationalist party that represents them on identitarian lines, the white contingent will also want that. After all, young working-class whites are getting representation as working-class whites all over Europe.

VJM Publishing has been following the rise of the Sweden Democrats for a long time, and the frustration and sense of injustice that impels young working-class whites in Europe to vote for identitarian parties is shared by young working-class whites in New Zealand. They just don’t have a good option yet.

It’s possible that wealthy whites (along with wealthy Asians, Jews and others) keep supporting National and ACT, which collectively develop into a broad ruling class movement. The Maori Party might keep growing, Labour might keep declining into a Pacific Islander party, and then a new, working-class white party will rise to fill the gap.

Whether this will be a good thing or a bad thing cannot be known in advance.

The real solution to all the problems mentioned here: Kiwi nationalism. A fresh formulation of nationalism which saw young Maoris and young white Kiwis as the yin and the yang of a glorious new civilisation whose best time was yet to come. This would allow young Kiwis to come together in support of a common goal, with a understanding of common heritage, free of the petty bickering that has characterised recent decades in New Zealand.

For more of VJM’s ideas, see his work on other platforms!
For even more of VJM’s ideas, buy one of his books!

If you enjoyed reading this piece, buy a compilation of our best pieces from previous years!

If you would like to support our work in other ways, make a donation to our Paypal! Even better, buy any one of our books!