John Michael Greer

Author, blogger, speaker, druid Born in Bermerton, Washington, USA (1962-Present)

Greer is a neo-pagan whose work focuses on the overlaps between ecology, spirituality, and future of industrial society. Greer blogged for many years at the now retired “Archdruid Report” and has authored more than fifty books on esoteric traditions, nature spirituality, and the deindustrial future of civilization. Greer now blogs at ecosophia.net and continues to be a widely respected writer and teacher within the occult field.

Greer was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome in 1998, which he claims shaped his enthusiasm for esoteric subjects at an early age. “Kids with Asperger’s have a lot of trouble learning social skills, and usually become loners with some sort of obsessive interest to make up for the lack of social contact. That was me, and my obsession was anything weird.”

Greer is an initiate in Druidic, Hermetic, and Masonic lineages and served twelve years as Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America. He currently heads the Druidical Order of the Golden Dawn and is a certified instructor in one of the old “temple styles” of t’ai chi ch’uan. Greer’s involvement in sustainability issues dates back to the early 1980s, when he was active in the Appropriate Technology movement and became certified as a Master Conserver. He is the author of many titles relating to collapse, including The Long Descent (2008), The Ecotechnic Future (2009), The Wealth of Nature (2011), After Progress (2015), and Dark Age America: Climate Change, Cultural Collapse, the Hard Future Ahead (2016), and Not the Future We Ordered: Peak Oil, Psychology, and the Myth of Progress (2018).

“The core hypothesis shaping my view of the future is the proposal that our time differs from the past only in the way that one past era differs from another. The notion that the present epoch is utterly unique in history, popular as that is, fails to convince me, and the habit of using that notion as an excuse to project an assortment of utopian and apocalyptic fantasies on the inkblot patterns of the future strikes me as frankly delusional. It makes more sense, I think, to recognize that imperial overstretch is imperial overstretch no matter what technologies the empire in question happens to use, and that trying to make sense of the future on the basis of historical parallels is a more useful strategy than insisting that the future must conform to our desires, our fears, or both at once.”

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