Logan Albright
Logan is a writer, musician, and occultist living in Washington, DC.
Logan Albright
Logan is a writer, musician, and occultist living in Washington, DC.
Books
Freedom Over Fear
In a career spent fighting for human liberty, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed some uncomfortable truths about the human condition. Economists, politicians, and pundits tend to believe that the only thing required for individuals to embrace free markets and limited government is data. If only people knew the statistics that prove that liberty works better than coercion, they would at once become enthusiastic libertarians.
But the reality is, people don’t reject freedom because they are ignorant. They reject it because they are afraid. It turns out that for many, freedom is less important than a feeling of security. Even when the conscious mind knows that those promising safety are not really capable of delivering it, the instinct to quell the sensation of fear, perhaps the most primal emotion we possess, is so great as to completely obliterate rational thought and sane judgment.
Our task is therefore far more difficult than we ever imagined. If I want people to reject the policies that would lead to totalitarianism, we have to conquer not only ignorance, but fear itself,
The purpose of this book is to catalogue the many ways in which governments use fear to expand their own power, to explain why we fall for it, and to demonstrate the terrible things that happen when we allow our emotions to take control over our otherwise rational minds. The best remedy, not only for fear, but for depression and pessimism in general, is perspective. By stepping away from the day-to-day minutia of the news cycle and taking a look at broader historical trends, we can partially immunize ourselves from giving into panic and becoming overly reactionary. At the end, I hope to provide a few more tips on how you can safeguard yourself from making the same mistake we have made all too many times before, namely that of surrendering your most basic rights in the hope that someone else will protect you from whatever the evil, real or imagined, of the current moment may be.
So, if you want to live a more fearless, more courageous life, if you want to act rather than react, and if you want to stop getting duped by political opportunists, read on!
Libertarian Paganism: Freedom and Responsibility in Nature-Based Spirituality
Paganism and libertarianism might seem like odd choices to bring together in a single book. One is a broad set of nature-centric religious and spiritual practices, while the other is a fairly narrow political philosophy focusing on personal freedom and responsibility. But as a member of both communities, author Logan Albright has been unable to shake the feeling that they actually have more in common than most people realize.
Libertarian Paganism posits that there is a fundamental sympathy between these two apparently unrelated belief systems, and that a set of shared values might attract politically homeless pagans to libertarianism, or spiritually homeless libertarians to paganism. These values include respect for the individual, the importance of consent, the freedom to express views which are out of the mainstream, tolerance and inclusion, and a healthy skepticism towards the powerful. Libertarian paganism is, in Albright's experience, a way of life that is both personally empowering and deeply ethical, two qualities towards which the author likes to think we are all striving.
It is the author's hope that readers of any political or spiritual persuasion will find something here of use, or at least thought provoking, in the development of that personal philosophy we all need to work on continually if we are to live lives of meaning and purpose.
Conform or Be Cast Out: The (Literal) Demonization of Nonconformists
Available now!
Everyone knows that being different is a good way to be unpopular, but what if you're so different that people think you are an actual servant of evil? Conform or Be Cast Out is a history of humankind's tendency not only to shun nonconformists, but to label them as devils, demons, and Satan worshippers. Beginning with scapegoats and devil figures in folklore and mythology, the book moves on to look at other aspects of nonconformity such as witchcraft, the Inquisition, spiritualism and medical conditions once mistaken for lycanthropy, vampirism, and demonic possession before concluding with a discussion on aspects of contemporary culture ranging from heavy metal music to zombie movies.
Our Servants, Our Masters; How Control Masquerades as Assistance
In “Our Servants, Our Masters,” Logan Albright asks readers to reexamine their preconceptions of the world based on the language we use, and consider the fact that Members of Congress, among other so-called public servants, don’t “work for us” as is commonly asserted, but actually have the power to dictate to a large extent how we live our lives.
Music
Owlblinking
Owlblinking is the experimental electronic music project of Logan Albright, with a focus on evocative sounds and pagan/occult themes.
