Loreosophy: A Magic Lantern of Guidance and Hope
Craig Chalquist, PhD, PhD
July 30, 2026
Although most of our guiding beliefs and worldviews should be in mental hospice, we cling to them for want of anything better. A simple but profound change of perspective can open a portal to a reanimated world.
The Problem
When was the last time you felt inspired by anything happening in politics? Religion? Education? Finance? Any major arena of human life? Years ago, while guest-lecturing at Santa Barbara Community College, I asked this as an opening question to a class of about a hundred students. Not one hand went up, but the class broke into applause. I asked them why: “Because,” a woman in front explained while others nodded, “you are naming what we all feel but hardly ever talk about.”
Why this persistent mood of meaninglessness and futility? We could nominate many specific factors—nothing effective done internationally to reverse climate chaos; rising costs for life’s necessities; corporate bureaucracy; governmental indifference; mailfist rulership passed off as leadership—but, at a deeper level, we live in a threshold time when our most basic guiding narratives about who we are and our place in the world have worn out and no longer serve.
The people who usually help build the guiding narratives of a time are missing in action, constrained by red tape, or bereft of anything that might motivate us. For example:
Religious organizations are having trouble interesting clergy in ordination. To this day, the Catholic Church won’t allow women to be priests. Scandals multiply as membership in the major religions plummets across the world. Clergy who stay too often respond to questions about purpose and meaning with dogma.
Few scientists or philosophers believe in free will even though we know from psychotherapy that attributing one’s behavior to outside forces makes us sicker while attacking the sense of personal responsibility. Furthermore, most astrophysicists believe the universe to be made of unintelligent matter and energy without meaning or purpose.
Lack of interest in Western philosophy has to do with its unreachable vocabulary, predilection for abstraction, and endless fussing with language games. An old joke suggests that a philosopher asked why the sky is blue will ask: What do you mean by “sky” and “blue”? This kind of intellectually narcissistic philosophy has little to offer for how to actually live a full life.
Education in nations like the United States is aimed at passing tests, not at providing excursions through the humanities: the disciplines where questions about values and meanings are welcome and the arts thrive. Educators at every level who teach with heart and soul are leaving their careers in large numbers.
According to studies by Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and other business resources, the strongest predictors of attrition remain constant across decades: incompetent and controlling “leaders” (rulers), lack of meaningful work, pathological corporate culture, and lack of work-life balance. In other words, the people in charge don’t know what they are doing and aren’t held accountable for it.
At the time of writing, no political party in the United States offers any visions of how things could be better. This is increasingly true in other countries. Hopes, imaginations, passions, and enthusiasms are almost entirely ignored at nearly every level of national and regional politics, where only funding matters.
What about spiritual teachers? Deepak Chopra was an advisor to pedophile ring chief Jeffrey Epstein. Marianne Williamson, a late product of the New Thought tradition, implies that collective prayer deflects hurricanes. The Dalai Lama has given a nod to political assassination and claims that horse milk cures alcoholism. Eckhart Tolle offers a buffet of sweeping platitudes that come with no operating instructions.
Is it any wonder we feel adrift? Obviously, exceptions can be found to any of the above: authentic spiritual teachers, wise leaders, etc. However, there aren’t enough to change the current of collective turbidity coming from everyone else who should be providing good guidance but instead sow nonsense at best and insanity at worst. Those who are right about what’s going on feel wrong, and those who are wrong claim stridently to be finally and absolutely right.
But what is really going on?
A Threshold Time
“Liminal,” meaning “at the threshold,” is probably related to an old Latin word for “limit.” We are at the limit and between the ages, in the place of transition, as the old institutions, traditions, and ways of being—in myth, the old gods—are dying and the new ones are not yet revealed. We are in the portal, neither fully here nor there. Our compasses of meaning are spinning; our guiding stars are turning and twisting in skies gone mad.
Our most persistent and reliable navigational tools are guiding stories that go by various names: worldviews, mythologies, sagas, philosophies. Every religion and discipline, every science and industry, every custom and way of life is built on these guiding stories. They are collective in origin but personalized into what my work calls “keystone fictions”: tales we tell ourselves for guidance in a shifting world of uncertain footing.
Our worldviews are failing us because, whether we know it or not, we’ve outgrown them. The landmarks on our mental maps are melting.
If we were to give pithy labels and descriptions to some of the most common collective worldviews, which always promise but never deliver, they might be:
Techno-Redemption: Technology will save the world from its worst problems if we get behind it, fund it, and buy it.
Cosmic Stuff: Everything in the universe is material (even energy) governed by chance and natural laws with no larger story or purpose behind them. This story is sometimes called Scientism, a materialist ideology often confused for science itself.
Heavenly Kingdom: Returning to traditional religion will save our souls and improve life here on Earth while we await the life to come.
Father Knows Best (Authoritarianism): We would all be better off (especially men) if a political or religious father figure made all the big decisions for us.
Systematic Selfishness: Let’s arrange all key financial and political institutions to serve only a greedy elite. This was formerly known as Social Darwinism; psychology calls it Machiavellianism.
Astro-Narcissus: The universe is a giant whiteboard with lessons and signs pointed mainly at me.
Back to Nature: Let’s return to how we used to live centuries or even millennia ago because tech = bad and nature = good.
These big tired worldviews often overlap. They also loudly compete for our loyalty. Their advocates take them literally, and true believers sometimes die or kill to defend them. But mythologies—worldviews in storied form—always wear out. By the time we hear about Greek gods, for example, it’s because they’ve been fictionalized or cast into art or drama. The institutions that once supported them are long gone.
On the world’s historical stage, Christianity and other mono-faiths have competed for centuries. As their influence waned, scientific materialism stepped in with its godless and spiritless clockwork universe. Religion gave us community, wisdom stories, sacred art and music, and a cosmology that put humans at the center of everything. Science gave us technology, mathematics, logic, and wondrous discoveries about ourselves, our planet, and the universe. As methods, religion and science continue to offer much; but as worldviews, they leave us lost and bewildered.
And this at a time when authoritarian billionaires and bullies rule more and more of the degrading world while turning what remains of the upperworld into a hellish Underworld.
We live indeed in an apocalyptic time, but the world isn’t ending. Our worldviews are. An important truth in the old tales of universal destruction is that losing our moorings can feel like the end of everything.
In many stories and myths, however, an apocalypse has not one but two great movements: a difficult initial time of descent into the dark abyss, yes, but one followed by renewal. If we want to see that renewal and perhaps help bring it about, we will need a worldview, mythology, or philosophy of reenchantment, inspiration, care, and hope.
Creating that would be more than one person could achieve. Ultimately, it will need to be collaborative and worldwide, a planetary mythology with local roots that grow stories from every culture.
Meanwhile, perhaps a pocket philosophy can help us walk through this liminal time. I think of mine as a metaphoric magic lantern: an early image projector sometimes used a a toy or for entertainment. At first, the colorful images were hand-painted; light guided by a mirror shone through them to cast them forth while enlarging them. The light came from candles or oil lamps. Like visions that guide, the images shone brightest when all around them was dark.
Loreosophy
I call loreosophy a pocket philosophy because an abridged version of some bulkier work can be easier to carry and use. A wayfarer trying to get home needs portable directions, not a tome on the history of navigation. A traveler on a dark uneven path won’t benefit from a discourse on the theory of light: a lantern will do.
In practical terms, what is a philosophy? Certainly not an engine for dissecting statements or thinking up vast conceptual systems. No: a grounded philosophy is framework for guidance in life. We all have one. Whether conscious or not, our personal philosophy is a miniature worldview or mythology: a set of guiding stories to organize our perceptions, prioritize our values, tell us who we are and might become. Our philosophy attends to existential questions like: Who am I? Who are we? Why are we here? What is here?
Loreosophy is a pocket philosophy—a mini-mythology in transition—offering ten premises and ten practices for living more consciously, deeply, holistically, and humanely with ourselves, one another, Earth, and cosmos during a time of hard transitions. “Lore”-osophy because our guiding narratives are composed of bits of lore we accumulate over time: cultural habits and mores, inherited myths and archetypes, old wisdoms, legends and legacies, hidden dreams, imaginings returned to life, and none of it absolutely or measurably true but all of it useful narrative material.
As an abridged version of a larger body of work called Gnoesis, Loreosophy is a depth philosophy that seeks insight below the surfaces of events, actions, and motivations. Easy explanations are ever the assassins of deeper insight.
Ten key premises of loreosophy:
We live in a universe of creative diversity.
Each thing in it is a presence, not just an object.
Everything is linked and responds to everything else.
Belief can’t grasp the nature of the cosmos, but the power of imagination can.
Conscious imagination can fuel guiding stories that free us to be more humane and appreciative of the beauty all around us.
Humanity is on a long journey to fully mature as one species among many.
Living our maturity requires aligning ourselves with the primal principles of world and cosmos instead of identifying with them or worshiping them.
Each of us is of incalculable worth, and we realize this through an ethic of care: of others, self, Earth, story, and possibility.
Rulership diminishes us, but governance that supports equity, creativity, liberty, and maturity moves us forward.
By relearning how to dream together, we can create a just, equitable, delightful, and Earth-honoring civilization.
Here are ten practices for living into our personal and collective potential:
Create. Linked to imagination and play and the deeper levels of the psyche, creativity is basic to our humanity and has endless ways to express itself. One person writes; another makes music; yet another plans a curriculum, invents a dance, or gathers images for a ritual. To create as a daily practice is to align ourselves with the creativity of humanity, world, and cosmos. But to be creative requires open-mindedness, for what we think we know with certainty is what blocks us from learning more. We survive and flourish by mental flexibility centered on an openness to perpetual discovery. No easy explanations, and no conclusion ever final, because life is change and flux.
Animate. Play with the idea that everything that happens, everything you perceive that stands out to your attention, holds some symbolic meaning that can be interpreted and applied without making you the center of everything that happens. When we work with dreams, we play with who and what the symbols might be. The same can be done with everything that happens in life: new faces, changing events, family interactions, seasonal transitions, sudden losses, surprising gains. What’s required is to shift from literal-mindedness to a more metaphoric and symbol-friendly awareness. It feels a bit like learning a language.
Reconnect. Be open to the idea of an intelligence, aliveness, or presence within and behind everything, even the cosmos. This is a post-belief sensing, feeling, or imagining into what goes by many names: Tao, Wakhan, Ashe, Logos, grace, Holy Spirit, Shakti, Orenda, mana, numen, mana, barakha. “Reconnect” also means with each other. Unity and difference go together. Unity split off from difference turns into sameness at best and tyranny at worst; difference without unity subsides into bickering fragmentation. For relationships to be genuine and nourishing, people must experience both poles.
Reimagine. We can practice imagination to foster visions, inspirations, glimpses of possible futures, anticipations of what waits around the corner, conversations with figures of dream and fantasy, and weavings of new stories and lore, conjuring beyond the actual in search of the possible. But imagination isn’t just things we make up. The figures in dreams, fictions, fantasies, and visions have roots deeper than the conscious mind, ultimately reaching out into the world. “Imagiknowing” is responsible use of imaginings to access deeper wisdom, including that brought by “fictional” and “mythic” figures of dream, fantasy, and vision.
Mature. The biggest problem in human life is not evil sociopaths out to destroy, but the emotionally immature people who enable and rally for them. We need to find ways to get initiated into effective psychological adulthood. And we can’t do this by ourselves. The only way is to find people more mature than we are and learn as much from them—and be seen by them—as we can. This kind of initiation includes learning to manage our emotions, reflect on our weaknesses, take responsibility for how our actions impact others, and commit to being better people.
Align. On one level, we are free at any time to reenter the Great Conversation with Earth and its places and beings by heeding winds, fluctuations of light and shade, insect movements, basic patterns (spiral, circle, net, branching), and other earthly movements and moments, recognizing ourselves to be one of many species inhabiting the animate world. On another level, those basic patterns have taken the shapes of archetypes, gods, and divine powers; when they do, the task is to neither ignore them (they won’t go away) nor worship them (adults are not children), but to appreciate and converse with them in endless cycles of learning.
Care. This rule of conduct goes back at least to Egypt and the goddess Ma’at: Treat others as you would want them to treat you. Cultivate care as a basic ethical orientation. A person who can’t care is diminished in their humanity and is in need of healing. Caring as a form of service can include “lamplighting”: bringing someone a bit of wisdom, a relevant story or anecdote, a new perspective, help with a dream, encouragement during a difficult time, even practical advice. We get through the troubles in life mainly by being there for each other.
Discern. Support true civic betterment, just and fair laws, and wise leaders who do not act like rulers. Keep malignant narcissists, the unscrupulous, the deceitful, and the hyper-controlling out of positions of power. Be clear about who and what you get behind. Don’t allow yourself to hate a scapegoated group. When people commit harm that’s not accidental, do everything possible to hold them accountable, including organizing with others for a common effort. Injustice ignored almost always spreads. Justice should also include doing our best to acknowledge and try to repair past wrongs, whether personal or collective.
Participate. All cultural groups take time out for embodied, lively celebrations, some sacred and highly ritualized, others informal and spontaneous. When we break routine to celebrate, we break through to a participatory state of play and imagination in which customary barriers fall and hearts connect. From there is a short step to finding people who share our better dreams for how we can live together in peace and joy on our suffering but still-vital planet. Moving forward together into the grounded, abundant, and peaceful civilization of our desire will require relearning how to imagine better possible futures together.
It’s fun to teach people these practices. I’ve spent my career doing it, and it never gets old.
There you have it: Loreosophy as a transitional, post-absolute-belief (and hopefully post-patriarchal) guide for being at our best in an uncertain time. “At our best” matters: the default of dictators and harm-doers and sociopaths is to define humans by our worst, our darkest and most evil. But neither should we blithely assume that everyone is doing their best, especially when some of us are clearly out to do their worst.
Loreosophy speaks instead to what could be true for us and often is, because acts of kindness, illumination, goodness, and inspiration are not rare. And some among us make it their task every day to cultivate a non-defensive, non-dogmatic, uncertainty-embracing zest for wisdom, balance, and inward maturity.
Loreosophy says: We all have the chance, no matter how far down we get, to be reenchanted; to awaken to the miraculous animation of things; to care. Why not try it?
