Chronicles of the Sages

The Sage Library – Archie’s Top 100 Books that everyone should read

So why not read something that will grant you a better understanding of yourself and the world around you? Why not delve into a great tradition of literature and optimize your state of being? To that end, this is an essential
reading list that I plucked for you today from my copious library. In my estimation, if you read any of these books, the experience will nudge you ever closer to becoming a Sage.


Fascinating Psychology Lecture: How To Integrate Your Shadow Self

In this lecture, psychology professor Jordan Peterson talks about Carl Jung and his concept of the shadow. Our shadow self is similar to the “Id” concept pushed by Freud. It is our more primal and aggressive self, the part of us that we suppress when we want people to like us, and creates feelings of resentment when we are being taken advantage of.


Was Slavery about Racism or Economics?

In this historical study I discuss the topic of slavery and its fundamental causes. So many people today, especially in the Americas, are hyper sensitive to racial tensions, and many feel that racism was at the root of slavery. I make the case that racism was, not the cause of slavery, but one of its products. Also, we will discuss the case of slavery in the Americas as an example of two competing ways to interpret history; The materialist view and the Idealist view.




The Great Cocktail Party – T.S Eliot’s Advice for Writers and Critics

Today’s meditation on Literature comes from the beginning of the 20th Century, from a poet and essayist that changed the way we think about literature itself. I am, of course, referring to the “master of verse” himself, Thomas Stearns Eliot. In this discussion, I want to revisit his essay on “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” published in 1919.



What is a Crusade?

To a historian, the answer to this question becomes more elusive as one learns ever more about the long history of this concept. There are four main schools of thought on what it actually means – or meant – to crusade; the traditionalists, the pluralists, the generalists, and those who favor a more spiritual/psychological approach.