An E-Girl's Take on Bronze Age Mindset

to preface this post - I am a high school dropout. a degenerate, a low follower-count "e-girl". I am not very well read on philosophy or politics. I am late to the trends- hence why I did not read this book until 2022. this is not meant to be a fresh, intellectual take on this piece of literature. I am not here to talk about the "gynocracy and it’s consequences." this is merely a diary post about how it made me feel. obviously, this is what women do best - spilling our feelings out all over the place. after spending some time on "dissident- right" twitter, I naturally have an instinct to birth a substack post into cyberspace out of the longing to birth something, anything. maybe that is because I am 29 years old and have not birthed anything else worthwhile into existence yet. Bronze Age Mindset finally stirred up something within me.

before I go any further - I will note that Bronze Age Mindset is for the boys. every man should read this book if they wish to reclaim their masculinity and innate life-force that modern society has taken away from them. there are themes that Bronze Age Pervert (BAP) touches on that I will never understand as a woman (for example, the importance of Brotherhood). however this does not mean that this book did not impact me emotionally and provide value to me. I have not seen a lot of women’s genuine opinions on this book - mostly reviews by autistic right wing males. I’d like to highlight here the themes that stuck out to me and explain them back in a deeply personal and candid way. hopefully this may resonate with other women.

most pieces of art that have been impactful to my life have been introduced to me by a man I was fucking at the time. Bronze Age Mindset was gifted to me by a hot man I was fucking at the time. he generously forfeited over his extra crumpled-up copy to me in my posh hotel room in soho. he said that I would "appreciate the poetry of it".

rolling around in the luxe, hotel king sized bed, I picked up the copy he gifted me off of the nightstand and started reading it out loud to him in a strained and sultry voice. i’m trying not to sound too drunk, but i am highly intoxicated off of wine and romance endorphins after coming back from the natural wine bar in dimes square and engaging in tasteful banter. unbeknownst to me, this very moment, with a glint in my eye, was my way out.

i. the way out

of course, I made a meme out of the passage that stuck out to me the most from the prologue:

"me and who?"

the way out: something we’re all deeply longing for. a way out of the hellscape of constant political discourse. a way out of being intellectually bombarded by therapy speak. a way out of the cancel culture train station: you’re stepping up to the platform and looking down the tracks, watching the train barreling towards you (and everyone else) at full speed. a way out of regurgitating politically correct takes to your liberal coastal elite friends to save face even though it feels completely against your instincts. by doing this, you enable them even more. you are just as bad as they are.

BAP is right about my insides being spiritually wet. spiritually, my insides were sopping wet, my psychic guts spilled out all over the floor. every time I would try to stand up, i’d slip again and my body would slam against the linoleum. before this moment i was desperately searching for my spirit mop. I knew something was awry within. this weird book that this man gifted me was here to shine a light on the way out.

“Life has a thing inside it that reaches beyond itself. This is intergalactic worm. I can’t say here, you must wait. But if you don’t reach beyond yourself you are dead! Most of mankind is the walking dead."

I am a simple woman. all I have ever wanted in life is to reach beyond myself - whether this be through whirlwind romance, new-age spiritual doctrine, or clinging onto a philosophy to desperately give my life a shred of meaning outside of my frail ego. I’ve always wanted to peer into the unseen crevices of life that extend beyond my body. I knew these bones were never my limit. I don’t necessarily wish to ascend, or to "rid the world of refuse". I just want a peek into what this intergalactic worm looks like. maybe this will give me the life force I need to slog on into another day, up until the day that I die. I want to rid myself of this demented energy around my eyes. I refuse to be a walking dead while my physical body is trapped in this cycle of death and rebirth.

ii. the exaltation of life

I knew that I could trust BAP’s judgement and philosophy when I read his passage about encountering birds amongst a waterfall. BAP’s affinity with the natural world, animals, and his appreciation of their reverence and beauty appeal to the pagan nature of Woman. a theme that pronounced itself to me in part 1 is the exaltation of life.

i can’t help but feel affinity towards BAP as a fellow animool lover. animals represent the holy, pristine, spiritually purest form of life. innocent and primal. nature is their God. animal is the tangible example of the exaltation of life. read the passage below, close your eyes and also imagine.

“…was at a big waterfall, gathering place of many birds and other animal. Through all the cycles of history this place remains and birds who witnessed the coming and going of human civilizations remember it through the aeons and always return there. I saw many group of small birds, when the weather slightly changed, this waterfall so big that a small wind would make spray of water everywhere. Sun came from behind clouds and spread many small rainbows, birds would become excited, come out from crevasses in rock face and would glory in the sprays of water and the rainbows, they swoon doing acrobatics this way and that."

naturalistic disposition of woman

…pets calm us because promote a kind of carelessness normal to animal life, unencumbered by thoughts of the past or worries about the future, none of which actually exist. Women are, in their natural state, close to this condition as well, or closer on the whole, which is where they get much of their charm and power from (the modern education, that teaches women to be hyper-aware, anxious for the future, abstract neurotics, etc., actually takes away their power to a great degree, while tricking them into thinking they are being tough or sassy; but a hyper conscious woman is made powerless and charmless).

a hyper-conscious woman is made powerless and charmless. this is true in my experience. there’s no other time I feel more sexless, disempowered, and worn-down than when I am creating google docs at my day job, anxious and neurotic about deadlines for projects that don’t really exist. modern girlbossery has robbed me of my charm and power - these naturalistic dispositions that I was born with. circumstances in which I take this instinct back as mine are submission to the masculine, and spontaneous (sometimes dangerous) moments of the exaltation of life— fleeting romance.

“There can be no compromise between those who live under the pressure of need and of material increase, who are the walking shadows of the dead, and on the other side, those who are carefree, joyous, pleasure-loving and worship beauty. One seeks the preservation and expansion of mere life, the other seeks the exaltation of life."

BAP speaks of two different opposing views on life here. on one hand, the “bugman"— who seeks to blindly preserve life. who limply falls over off of their bed, rolling over like a disgusting, lowly creature into the next day. spiritually emasculated and stuck in the longhouse. yet they must preserve this insanity at all costs. these down-trodden souls are perfectly fine with wasting away in an ugly world. they are also spiritually hideous, and churn out even more ugliness into the world through their acceptance of their stagnancy and complacency.

on the other hand, those who value and wish to preserve beauty seek the exaltation of life. this concept touched me in a way I could relate to. a moment in my life could deeply hurt me, but as long as it was beautiful, I felt fulfilled, invigorated, alive. it doesn’t matter that the man who gifted me this book ended up fucking me over, because we had a beautiful moment as beautiful young people sucking face under the streetlight and romance of new york city. a life made up of fleeting and intoxicating moments strung together. I have always set out to fill my life with these moments and these men. this is exaltation of life.

iii. love of mankind

part 11 had me overcome with emotion the first time I read it. the introspective picture of BAP standing alone on a dimly-lit street corner, peering into the window of a stranger and wondering about what it would be like to live their life was a familiar feeling that I have captured many times myself. I think most women have also experienced it. this sentiment encapsulates empathy, yearning, and the divinely feminine love of mankind.

“many times I’ve wished, not so much that I was someone else, nor that I was immortal, but that I could live many different lives simultaneously and not be limited to being only one thing."

my own life has been a series of transformations. every 3-5 years I have a complete death of Self. I am reborn and transform into someone else completely. I could blame it on the fact that i’m a scorpio, but i’d liken it to BAP’s sentiment of longing to live many lives at once. my consistent cycles of death and rebirth is my sad attempt at living many lives. when I meet someone new, have known them for a bit, and tell them a story about my past they are typically overcome with shock or awe, sometimes amusement. I always find myself telling others “I have lived a thousand lives."

in part 11, BAP runs through the various lives he is curious about living in his minds eye. he describes the great longing he feels for forming friendships with the men like himself and around his age - how he will never know all of their lives, and the yearning for accomplishments they could make together, but never will.

in this, I feel a deep yearning for all of the friendships i’ll never make. all of the lonely, hopelessly romantic women also alone on a street corner at night. the women who also find themselves trapped in the story of Echo and Narcissus. I close my eyes and I will never know this sisterhood, but I can feel them in moments like this, alone on a street corner at night. my way of feeling love for mankind.

“.. a great sadness and irritation that I will never know who lives in that building at that window, never see what they saw looking out. These ways…this is all my version of love for mankind."

iv. the glint

“.. you’re responsible for what you are. You are responsible for the good and the bad things that happen to you, for any accident or disease you might experience! Actually it was all going to happen to you just the way it did at the moment of your birth or conception and even before, at the moment your parents had a glint for each other in the eye. There is fundamentally no difference between you and that glint."

I have always been resigned to the idea of my life being laid out before me, out of my control. life left up to fate, so they say. I have always blindly trusted this fate, and at times have even used this trust as an excuse for not taking responsibility for my life. however I still live my life with the intrinsic knowledge that my fate will end up the way it’s meant to be. but the road that I take to get there is up to me and my "free will". forging my path is my responsibility. however, my fate is left up to God.

BAP makes a point that it all began with our primal, almighty "Will", which we are responsible for. the force of this will drives us forward, into new bodies and new lives — and it’s all our fault. I am responsible for what I am, but I can still surrender to the fate that was laid out for me at conception anyways.

the concept of our fate being laid out for our lives at the moment our parents had a “glint for reach other in the eye"…. aids this poetic outlook I hold in regard to life and fate. I can feel the glint in my blood. I can close my eyes and see my parents gazing at each other, in a sudden flash, deciding to bring new life into this world. that life being me. this fleeting glint exchanged between lovers can bring forth iron will of man into this world, this glint alchemically creating a life that holds a fate of it’s own and then bleeds into the fate of all the other lives they touch. maybe there is someone else out there that also finds comfort in this.

my own glints exchanged with the eyes of past lovers have changed the trajectory of my life in the worst of ways. but i’m responsible for that. it was all laid out for me, the moment that my parents exchanged that same glint.

v. religious intoxication

“Animals walk around in a state of permanent religious intoxication. This is the natural condition of the mind and intellect, the moment-to-moment perception, of man as well."

I have felt the state of religious intoxication BAP describes many times before— when I am developing a new crush. when I am in the driver’s seat going 100mph down a desert highway. when I am stumbling drunk out of a bar in a foreign city in the company of friends and strangers. yes, this feeling of religious intoxication is the way out, demonstrates love of mankind, and is pure exaltation of life. also, you can only experience the glint while under the influence of this religious intoxication.

I historically fall in love with men who are under a constant state of intense religious intoxication. the manic, the dangerous, the men with cult leader energy. BAP goes on in a following passage to describe a moment where he is walking around, plastered off of wine in broad daylight feeling a holy rage. this takes me back to the times me and my drug dealer ex-boyfriend would get plastered in the daytime off of cheap beer, go to the local mexican restaurant, crush up amphetamines and sprinkle them in our margaritas. we’d stumble out of el tapatio, inebriated with religious intoxication and romance. this type of love has always been my way out. my fucked up way of exalting my life - so that I could have a story to tell one day.

intuition is a direct side effect of this religious intoxication.

“All great scientific discoveries, supposedly the great works of ‘reason’, are in fact the result of intuitions and sudden grasp of ideas. And all such sudden grasp and reaching is based on what in other circumstances, would be called a kind of religious intoxication: it depends on a state of the mind where the perceiving part of the intellect is absolutely focused, limpid, yet driven by the most relentless energy, an energy to penetrate."

as a woman, with intuition and sudden grasp of ideas as an inherent trait within my DNA, I would argue against BAP’s point about intuition depending on a state of mind that is focused and driven to penetrate. true intuitive insights only occur in a state of receptivity. the energy of intuitive thought can only enter you when you empty your mind of thought and resign yourself to a certain flow state— following the guide of an invisible force.

only in these states of receptivity have I redefined reason by way of these sudden leaps of imagination. to manifest your destiny and create your own reality, as the TikTok zoomers say, you have to sit back and shut the fuck up. submerge yourself into the eyes of your lover. wait for the glint. take your inspiration, and run with it.

vi. telepathic connections

if you’re a woman, you know that telepathic connections are real. they can manifest with a lover, your pet, a close family member, or the tree outside of your apartment that you walk by every day and exchange your energy with. women are tuned into the invisible, and we are hyper-sensitive to that invisible string that holds all living beings together.

in part 42, BAP speaks of these telepathic connections:

“The most significant of these ‘telepathic’ connections is indeed when two such people, supremely suitable for each other on a biological path, recognize in each other this inner intention or striving of nature for the production of something— of course they think it’s about something very different. In the normal case this is almost always man and woman, for production of a certain child, that nature wants to bring into emergence. But on rare cases there can be other reasons for similar connection in will, such as, two friends who are intended to achieve some task together. “We reach out with open arms in anticipation of satisfying our desire or delusion, meanwhile nature achieves her secret intention."

nature seeks to create through us, humans - her best work. we can only transmute this energy into the most beautiful creations while we are doing so with that other person you were magnetically compelled to throw yourself in front of. two people drawn together for no logical reason, via this “telepathic connection", under the desire or delusion of Love, friendship, art, or reproduction. it’s cute to me that we live under this shared delusion with those people we’re connected to. we move forward, for no other reason than knowing deep inside that we’re just destined to be together — whether that be on the basis of friendship or love. meanwhile, the universe is keeping a secret from us, an intention of her own. i’m ok with never knowing her secret.

vii. woman as the oracle

women feel the past in their blood, and the future in their bones. and from my perspective, I certainly couldn’t explain why. I just feel it. this is the trait bred into us that the modern women is straying further from. we must go back to this, tap into it, and reclaim it once again.

BAP goes on to say about women:

“…they live more in the moment, less encumbered by concepts and abstractions, have more access to to direct perception of things. They can see through many lies and can know people’s intentions before they know what they want themselves".

he also explains that the ancient greeks knew that women are more likely to be oracles and mystics. women can tell the future because we are rooted in nature, unlike men.

however, modern society has conducted a massive psyop on women to inflict mass amnesia among us in regards to our gift as an oracle. feminism, the millennial ‘girlboss’ archetype, the sexual revolution, etc. the bugman tells woman that she should be more like a man— and many of us have obliged. this conspiracy against women has robbed us of our most important traits, given to us by nature herself.

“The modern lords of lies have alienated women from this by promoting the hyper-conscious, talky, neurotic-obsessive persona among urban slave women….

…They know how powerless we are without knowledge of the future; they keep this for themselves."

as a modern-day techgirlboss, I have also been manipulated into the psyop. at one point I had even described myself as ‘spiritually male’ as a symptom of my drive for power and influence. however, women will never lose touch with our ability to channel divine knowledge. they tell us now that ‘women are powerful’. we do hold immense power, but not in the way we are told. do not let society tell you that you are powerful. they tell you that you are powerful only in the ways they want you to be. you have to feel your power, become intimate with it, form a relationship with it. when you take this back, you will know.

viii. yearn to live dangerously

“…and yearn rather to live dangerously and do great deeds, for good or evil. The danger of our time is not that it makes people bad, but that it makes everything small and afraid."

BAP mentions the concept of "divine madness" and "divine carelessness" several times. this is the state in which I live. unafraid, completely throwing myself into someone, or a pursuit. I will never hold myself back from experiencing a new love, or new experience, just because someone or something similar has hurt me in the past.

if I fall in love with a dangerous man, get thrown into the ring, and get my spirit beat to a pulp, I come out feeling alive. and then I wait for the next man to come along and I will do it all over again. I would rather be vulnerable, open, and continuously fling myself into these divine romances full of madness than to never have lived at all. I was talking to a friend the other day about being brave, and what it means to really take the reigns of your life. I said that I never want to be on my death bed, wondering what course my life would have taken if I would have just been brave enough, open enough, or loved enough. I don’t care if it hurts me. I’ll do it over and over again. to live dangerously is the exaltation of life. to live dangerously is to live with vulnerability.

ix. conclusion

of course, there are many major themes in Bronze Age Mindset that I have not even begun to touch on here. perhaps more insightful articles have done so already. this was my attempt at highlighting the innately spiritual, feminine passages BAP has captured in his book. I may have missed the point completely in some of the themes that stuck out to me, but they stirred up something deeply personal within me, that I had the chance to reflect on. the hot man I was fucking was right, I did appreciate the poetry of it all. i’ll end with this:

“In the end, nothing can be trusted, that you can’t see and feel yourself.”

xoxo,

ghost girl