The Exiting-Hellfire Club

Where the Mundane Merges Back into the Sacred

(Original art by Michelle Horsley)

(Partial audio version, w/o testimonials)

Taking Soul Stock

A day doesn’t go by when I don’t:

a) think about dying

b) wonder what I am doing with my life

I also doubt a day will ever come when I don’t think about these things. Until the last day.

Would I/you have it any other way—if within the (necessary) context of a), there is no way around b)?

There is no “answer” to the sheer fact of death—besides “God.”

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“A ragtag fleet of pirates, charting strange seas under a broken but fiercely loving and demanding captain.” (Participant testimony)

The end of the year is a time to take stock: a metaphorical expression with a fairly literal application. How well do things add up?

2024 may be the first year in which I have actually measured my creative efficacy in terms of remuneration, a.k.a. cash. Substack will do that to you. But it’s also the new currency of the Global Village Social Credit System, where “likes” amount to solvency/rights to exist.

At substack, every new paid subscriber is a “win,” and every cancellation is a loss. In both cases, the question arises of whether the win or loss is a direct result of my choices.

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Does anyone, post-generation X, use the term “selling out” anymore? It used to mean compromising one’s artistic integrity for the sake of money or fame. Money depends on popularity, and popularity is hard to separate from some sort of financial profit, especially since an artist can’t support him or herself without some measure of recognition.

So how to separate the natural and essential desire to communicate effectively, from the desire to be famous/popular/make money? To even try may be an exercise in futility.

Whatever the case, it is safe to say that I have never succeeded in selling out—which isn’t to say I never tried (to become popular via strategic choices, c.f. Matrix Warrior).

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“This ‘jump-starting’ myself into meaningful action is the current flavor of suffering.” (Participant testimony)

Now, in 2025, I am met with the archetypal artist’s dilemma. The online groups I run are the least popular aspect of Children of Job: only about 25 out of 2,500 (free) subscribers have shown even a passing interest in them.

That’s 1%. Yet this 1% is, by definition, the most important and real—meaningful and rewarding—portion of my audience, and hence part of what I am even doing online, at all.

When forced to choose sides in a struggle between quality and quantity, integrity must always demand the former. The only thing worth taking stock of is the soul.

A Hunt for the Soul

“a bookmark of mystery for the fundamental questions on the nature of reality.” (Participant testimony)

The online meetings have been happening since September 2024. That’s four months of men’s meet-ups, almost every week (about 16 in total), and a mixed meet-up roughly once a month (usually timed to accommodate people in Oz).

The meetings have averaged about 7-8 attendants. A few attendants have been coming regularly during that time. A few have made one-time appearances only. A few have balked at the no-substance requirement (especially the tobacco one), some before ever attending, some after one or two meetings.

A few have been put off by my bluntness, directness, and impatience with small talk, and disappeared fast. A significant few (perhaps 30%) have reached out to ask about the meetings, then failed to follow through (so far).

I can’t speak for the hundreds of subscribers who have yet to express any interest at all. I would guess that one reason for this is fear—trepidation—whether justified or not, about entering into an unknown space for unclear reasons. A Horsley (or Jobian) cult.

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“We trek to Mordor, through the fog of samsara—blind but unyielding, bound together in fierce, fragile kinship.” (Participant testimony)

Another reason, perhaps the principal one for all forms of avoidance, is laziness. Another is a healthy reluctance to spend more time online, which is a reason I can’t argue with. It would be a thousand times better to find and develop a local community than an online one. But most of us don’t have that option.

When I surveyed about 25 people after the screening of my short film, one question was: “Would you share the film on social media.” All but one or two answered that they didn’t use social media.

Apparently, I attract the sort of person discerning enough not to get pulled into social media; but this presents a sort of Catch-22: trying to establish an online community for people who are trying to get offline, an “Exiting Hellfire Club” in which we have to go deeper into Hell in order to find one another, before moving towards the exits.

“Aim for ‘creative disobedience’ towards one’s own programming. Creativity and silence are forms of disobedience. Don’t make the power of silence be an excuse for the part of myself that doesn’t want to be seen; be aware of my desire to hide.” (Participant testimony)

Children of Job has a double function.

1) To provide content that will increase your interest and my income, and the more interest generated, the more income for me.

2) To find and recruit souls ready, willing, and able to move towards the exits.

Recently, when I hit 200 paid subscribers, I said I would relax and stop worrying about the numbers (as that basically covers my living costs). But then a funny thing happened on the way to solvency. After slowly and steadily increasing over the first year, the numbers began to slowly and steadily decrease, over the past month. There have been only two new paying subscribers in the past two weeks, and a loss of roughly one every two days.

Bummer.¹

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“Esoteric chat roulette whose purpose is not shock but exploration: personal, astral, theological. I enjoy: the randomness of others, the mis/communication, the light and the darkness.” (Participant testimony)

I assume this has something to do with Christmas and the New Year, a time when a lot of people are doing their bookkeeping. Or maybe it is to do with the collapsing US economy, though that’s been going on for years. Or perhaps I am doing something wrong?

Or something right?

Whatever the case, this somehow coincides with a choice to try and make my online content here at Children of Job more congruent with the online meet-ups, and thereby better oriented towards building an audience-base that is looking for community, rather than just intellectual content .

Yet this is more likely to reduce my numbers—at least at first—than increase them. More often than not, taking stock of what the soul wants turns out to be at odds with evening up one’s books.

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This is a free post. Merry Christmas!

Many Eyes Make Light Work (Themes of the Meetings)

“Groups can be powerful energetic containers, with much going on in the unseen (and the unheard).” (Participant testimony)

The meetings constitute less of a think tank than a soul bank: a reserve, a place to check our soul balance and measure our authenticity, accountability, honesty, openness, and our ability to be present in our lives, in relation to others.

They are a tuning station, a recording studio where we get to hear our instruments by jamming and tuning them to one another. A “manopticon” is a space where many eyes make light work, where all our blind spots can be enlightened, via a fully-rounded, 360-degree view of the landscape we are moving through.

Personal sharing, intellectual discourse, silence, and an ongoing exploration into the mystery of being human, in a world increasingly antithetical to the qualities that most make us human (and divine).

A space where love and joy can grow organically by developing trust, respect, and unconditional honesty in communication. Where words are deployed carefully, consciously, wisely, and effectively, to attune the mind to the soul, via the experience of becoming bodily present.

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The following are taken from several months’ worth of notes taken by one of the regular attendants of “the Manopticon” (the men’s meeting space). My original plan was to use them as the inspirational basis for a longer piece, and so convert meeting insights into CoJ intellectual content. But there are so many of them that, for now, I am keeping to a menu of bullet-points, possibly for later expansion.

• · Body vs. Mind: Trusting intuition over ego-driven reasoning.

• · Being True: “The main obstacle for all of us in life is gaining access to our life force, so that our life force can fully take over the reins and do what it’s here to do.”

• · “If you want to lighten your load, just talk about it and start allowing these connections to be made.”

• · Take action: “Do you want to fiddle around for half your life trying to untie this knot, or do you just want to take your sword out and whack it with one fell swoop?”

• · Importance of Preparation: “We can learn how to swim when we get thrown in the ocean, but it’s much better to practice before we actually get thrown in the ocean.”

• · Letting go of control, and the irony of relinquishing it to gain a sense of mastery.

• · Exploring the idea that the mind can’t be trusted—seeing it as an enemy, host, or parasite with a life of its own, hidden from us.

• · The role of amulets and protections: protection as a double-edged sword, acting as both a shield and a magnet.

• · The exploration of risk versus reward in living life. “You can’t get to Mordor without taking some dangerous paths.”

• · “To become more open, we need to be more contained.”

• · Sliming: unconscious projection of emotional or psychic burdens onto others.

• · Breaking mirroring to achieve autonomy.

• · Autism as a form of telepathy, emotional overload, or neurodivergence.

• · Appreciating autistic individuals as deeply connected to their essence, rather than judging them by societal norms.

• · A provocative question: Are babies inherently autistic?

• · The concept of man living with the awareness of killing God, leading to the creation of the Superman.

• · Trauma as a controlled [and dubious] method for personal evolution (Übermensch).

• · Questions about culture: Is it fixed software or adaptable over time?

• · “Souls seek equals, egos seek competitors.”

• · Shared silence as a practice for connection and mutual understanding.

• · Discussion on the assault on our bodies: how they are subject to a constant, often unnoticed assault. Does this arise from the body, the self, internal forces, or external factors?

• · The group applying diverse lenses to topics—parasocial, personal, psychoanalytic, literary, etc.

• · “Grudge as charge”—Metaphor of Capacitor.

• · “De libidinized, emasculated men trying to compensate with their intellects.”

• · “Return to the Body.”

• · “Imagine your father as a child. Heal. . .”

• · “All Roads Lead to Anti-Humanism.”

• · “To be free, you must speak the truth.”

• · Signal vs Noise—reduce “bullshit signals.”

• · Communities exist to get things done: people trying to make sense of things.

• · The most important thing to know is that we don’t know.

• · We are adrift in infinity, our body is our home.

• · Animals have instincts, what do humans have?

• · Is this “Hell with Benefits” ?

• · Breaking down the image of the father, reconnecting with lessons and values around fatherhood.

• · Is redeeming our fathers a way to redeem ourselves? Are they models for god, for ourselves? Learning from their negative examples.

• · The significance of receiving the father’s blessing or not.

• · Reflections on fathers, uncles, grandparents. . . Fathers as young men vs. grandfathers as wise elders. Members of the group, friends as male archetypes to learn from.

• · Meditation as Spiritual Bypass. How meditation or “spiritual tech” might disconnect us from our internal selves and truth.

• · Collective unraveling as a means of renewal and growth.

• · On Male Anger: Anger as truth. Release vs. bottling it in—as we grow wise, where does anger go? Productive vs. impotent anger.

• · Paranoia and Pronoia: Distinguishing between fear and heightened awareness.

• · Self-Awareness and Courage: Rejecting toxic patterns and embracing growth. The real test.

• · Adapt and Engage: Tennis Metaphor, on recognizing your (and others) underestimated potential to rise to challenges. Just like in tennis, where you may doubt your ability to react effectively, in life you might be doing the same—doubting your capacity to handle difficulties.

• · Challenges provide the necessary pressure or “push” that brings out our ability to respond and grow, rather than avoiding or shielding from them.

• · Stepping up when faced with challenges and trusting in your ability to adapt and respond. “Increase the strength in the shots gradually.”

• · Personal Adaptability: “You can either learn how to swim differently, or get the fuck out of the water.”

• · Collective Power: “I’m all for harmonizing.”

• · Crab Shell Metaphor: The hard, crab-like exterior with a vulnerable core—Jasun argued that society has coaxed men out of their protective shells, deceiving them (by themselves, entities?) into becoming soft and exposed, easy prey.

• · Others in group proposed that men should band together, supporting one another in rebuilding and reinforcing those protective layers.

• · Strength in numbers: A single wheat stalk bends and breaks in the first strong wind, but when bound together or standing in a row, they stand firm, resisting external adversity.

• · The Importance of shared male experiences—be it a hunt, this group, war, etc.

• · Joy is the foundation of being alive.

• · “You’ve got to find every last faulty connection if you want the tree to light up; but I’m pretty sure that nobody has a fully functioning Christmas tree.”

• · Jasun: “If anyone feels like they need any help. . .”

• · Facing Paranoia with Self-Compassion.

• · On hyper-vigilance: “It’s like the chicken or the egg. If you’re hyper-vigilant, you notice things that seem threatening, which makes you more hyper-vigilant. To a hammer, everything is a nail; to a paranoid mind, everything is a threat.”

• · Whether paranoia stems from internal struggles or broader cultural and existential awareness.

• · “You could muscle test to find out if muscle testing works or not.”

• · “The body knows how to decide without the mind getting involved, which is the essence of muscle testing.”

• · “This open-heartedness is compatible with a ruthlessly discerning mind that will not tolerate even a millisecond of bullshit.”

• · “The quality of time is more important than the quantity.”

• · “Always check the reception before you transmit.”

• · “The only thing that saves you from Paranoia Cubed is God—a sense that something greater is taking care of everything.”

• · “We can’t act responsibly for others unless we first act responsibly for ourselves.”

• · The metaphor of Medusa and the mirror (Jason’s shield) as a symbol of confronting and overwhelming maternal influences to reclaim personal freedom.

• · “Everything is a ritual if we pay attention. There’s only one master of ceremonies.”

Participant Testimonies

“Jasun is a skilled and engaging group facilitator, and is highly accomplished discussing trauma (when it arises) in a ‘professional’ and sensitive manner. Those looking for sugar coated pleasantries, for comfort blankets, or the security of easy answers, need not apply; a soul-soup kitchen offering free hand-outs this is not.”

“Jasun was a gracious host who encouraged discussion and, despite his position of authority, remained welcoming and open to challenges. The biggest takeaway was how smoothly everyone connected and shared ideas. I lean into Jasun’s perspective on honesty, truth, and openly expressing feelings, even though, ultimately, I struggle to be fully honest with my own.”

“The potential for cult dynamics. Jasun however seems very aware of power issue and probably walks the fine line of playing around it with and then ultimately deflating it.”

“I’ve been a semi regular at these meetings through many incarnations and more or less since they began. Apparently there’s something that draws me in and keeps me coming back, though it’s tough to say exactly what that is. There is wanting to stay connected with Jasun and what he’s doing and that’s been great.

“Aside from that, I guess it’s a practice. A practice of tuning in to a signal. Often it’s subtle or my mind is too loud to fully tune in. But that’s the practice of it. Am I really listening? Am I talking just to talk? Can I tune into something deeper? How honest am I willing to be? How much honesty can I receive? Can I speak up if feel strongly about something? Why do I care what people think of me? Am I willing to be uncomfortable? Why not show up just to see what happens next?? Well, there . . . I guess I do have some idea of what keeps me coming back.”

“These meetings work like a saw which cuts in both directions of its travel, with each member having a hold-fast in its sawn-reciprocity. Often drawing across topics of habitual behavior that need be divided from facts of the soul and fantasy of ego. Attendance has provided lasting reorientation and a forged sense of individuation from cycles of thought and behavior which only conspiratainment served to quell.

“The purpose and potential of these meetings stems from the relinquishment of platitudes in exchange for direct engagement through soul. As refugees of indoctrination and by way of anecdotal evidence, a joint operation of mythological forensics pierces the social dynamic and provides a foundation among the group for greater examination of the ways we men come to be. Attending has helped generate a felt sense for making choices in life from a place of autonomy.”

“The meetups are deeply valuable to me. I think about them when I’m not in them, considering what I could contribute next or which themes from my own life I can discuss with the group. It’s a rare outlet that allows for discussions of such depth and vulnerability—topics that can’t be explored in normal discourse.

“It’s difficult to find people in daily life who share such interests, which makes these online meetups particularly valuable. I would encourage anybody to come and face whatever attendance in the meetings might bring up—that’s the whole point. Be brave. There’s nothing to be afraid of, really. Let’s face those demons. Face them down.”

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“Jasun offers unexpected challenges that play outside of the group, where the mundane merges back into the sacred. It is also relaxing, rejuvenating and exhausting. The purpose and potential depends on what you want, what you bring and how far you are prepared to go; offering a safe space to explore authenticity, congruence and personal meaning.”

“Enjoying being part of a group of men seeking meaning in unusual ways. Gratitude for others’ efforts to endure, remain positive, and bring energy to the circle. A call to let go of attachments and enter the space without expectations. Leaving behind burdens to engage meaningfully. Confronting personal vulnerabilities and taking solace in the idea that others are on their journeys—we are not alone.”

“Free-jazz in an improvised cacophony, fragments crashing into each other until, somehow, silence blooms—a resonance harmonizing across impossible space. We sit in love, soul bared, aiming toward something unspeakable: truth, rapture, God. We aim to be better, to claw our way out of karmic solitude. To gain our fathers’ blessings, to honor our mothers, to become in some way that matters.”

“I experienced a very potent weaving of energies in these sessions. A number of times I would attain interesting and important realizations either during the meetings or in the aftermath.”

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“I received clarity in my world-and self-concept + ended essentially all para-socializing I was doing on the internet prior—like meeting two para-socials of mine (urself + nina power) synchronously in conscious awareness killed my parasocial impulses. It shifted my interest to emergent ideas/discourse that relationship w/others might create instead of using ur image/ideas to generate an identity-concept that secures my alienation, by enforcing my connection to abstract entities rather than concrete persons.”

“For me, attendance at the men’s group precipitated a personal and communal adventure, encompassing diverse and profound psycho-spiritual terrain. More than anything, the experience of being opened to provocation and encouragement led to developments in my psyche that I thought I would never have a chance to witness; gaining an appreciation and respect for in(di)visible matters and accountability.”

“The meetups offer a unique opportunity to have free-flowing exploration with like-minded people from all over the world who come together with a similar purpose—trying to work out what’s going on and how we can experience the goodness of our souls.”

“It was good to meet other folks who are aware, or ‘paranoid aware.’ The meetings helped me bring into focus the need for action as opposed to apathetic complicity. This ‘jump-starting’ myself into meaningful action is the current flavor of suffering.”

“I have gained a sense of slow, gradual growth within my spirit; Beyond that I can’t really articulate. ‘Wherefore one cannot speak, Therefore one must be silent.’”

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“Very few of my real world peers, if any, acknowledge the trauma-based mechanisms of control that pacify the population. This technique of control is esoteric, and therefore difficult to prove, let alone articulate. I benefit from these meetings by listening to people share their experiences with this system. These experiences are often familiar, and help me identify where my more destructive impulses might come from.”

“[Meetings help] to reflect the inner quality, un-staged , non-Ted-Talky. A recovering and non-immediate unshaped dialogue from an empty space. Gemstones and diamonds can only be traced and shared if found or collectively left undiscovered.”

“Ultimately it’s a hunt for the soul. Confronting egoic fictions and defenses, peeling them away and shedding light, god willing, on the fundamental psychic dis-ease beneath. A willingness to challenge and be challenged, to release, an un-safe-space, yet one of camaraderie, courage and the opportunity to trust. It’s been a profound experience for me, I simply haven’t had such relationships. Uncomfortable at times, always a challenge, but consistently emerge better orientated and connected.”

“As a recovering drug addict (and human) I feel strongly about the causes, consequences and remedies for trauma, even from its most subtlest source and influence. This is the broadest explanation for what gravitates me towards the Jasunverse and then it’s about how the transmission resonates in me and through me. I often feel much uncertainty regarding life, meaning and purpose.

“Recently, at a group meet, Jasun spoke about having a placeholder, a bookmark of mystery for the fundamental questions on the nature of reality. My body felt a tingling ‘aliveness’ at that point—not for the first time listening to him. These moments are important because they are signs to me of something real and helpful even when I can’t really articulate what or how. Part of it is a frankness about the limits of what we can know but the desire and value in the work of seeking and wrestling with understanding.

“For me the basic and profound idea/question that persists—what is it to live a soul-full life, to grow into a truer expression of self?

“An answer (the answer?) I hear championed by Jasun is soul connection. How, therefore, can I seek out such an experience if I’m unwilling to go beyond listening to a podcast or reading a blog when the opportunity to interact in the very midst of such a potential atmosphere presents? Unless I felt I was having such soul connections in my life already—which I’m not—or not enough.

“Attending keeps me more accountable on a number of fronts. Jasun is blunt in demanding a pragmatic and personal account. I trust and welcome when he and/or the group confront my BS (and others). So has attending groups manifested anything like a soul connection during the meeting? Not sure. Away from the meetings I think I do feel a gradual opening up or breaking off the petrified chrysalis around me.

“Lastly, these groups are formed around the nucleus JH. I do delight in his honesty, intelligence and humor. It seems self-evident that a community likewise drawn to him would/could supply soul enrichment. And in turn I can offer something too.”

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“The meetings I have attended have provided me with valuable insights in to some previously unknown psychical and spiritual aspects of my life. The conversations have also helped me put some already known aspects in a new light, as well as exposing me to many new interesting concepts and the perspectives of different people.

“Early on I started to feel an active sense of bonding, which has lasted until the point of writing this, which is several weeks since the last meeting I attended. In a time and a place in my life where I could often feel alone even when surrounded by people because of the difference in my developing worldview and that of the people surrounding me, attending these meetings was very helpful in alleviating this feeling, which has since mostly been ‘cured.’”

“I was initially reluctant to use online video communication platforms, believing them to have little to offer by way of deep human connection; in part perhaps a hangover from the cold disconnect of so many family conference calls. The reluctance was also around not wanting to be pulled further into the technosphere; the more time I was spending offline and in nature the better I was feeling generally speaking. A growing awareness that I needed more satisfying soul connections in my life, coupled with a realization that beggars shouldn’t be so choosy (with regards the medium they use at least), led to me joining these groups.

“This quote came across my substack feed when writing this, “the languages and structures through which we communicate our experiences derive from ancient systems and rules.” Divergent qualities challenge the system; a system run by algorithms. This speaks to why I believe Jasun’s communication style suits this group context — Tension breaks circles creates spirals: releasing noise and revealing signal. This divergence from the programmed, acceptable communication styles is confronting to many, and to circular social norms. As algorithms funnel us toward ever more predictable behavior, something that circumvents socially acceptable guardrails should be welcomed; at the very least as an exercise in novelty, and/or practice handling oneself when triggered.

“All this to say I find a lot of value in trying to operate socially within these ‘unconventional’ conversational parameters; as challenging as that is. These parameters being: No BS, no meandering off-topic, no memes, no parroting, no ‘chit chat’ or talk about the weather, no automated pre-programmed NPC nonsense, keep it personal when that’s required and be honest with yourself.”

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“I appreciated meeting people concerned with the state of the world and who are also concerned with the state of their own being. In these meetings I’m able to share the ongoing struggle making sense of my abusive childhood and how that influences my experience of the world I’m living in. But I’ve noticed, so far, that I’ve only been able to connect with people online.

“This has become a problem because I desire to make connections with people in my local community. I’ve been thinking about what actually happens when people meet face to face. There is a sharing of breath as people speak to each other. This is a sharing of spirit, and that’s something that can’t be done online. It’s my suspicion that this has been done intentionally by people (and spirit beings) who want us to reject spirit and soul.”

“The groups are more than the sum of their parts. Groups can be powerful energetic containers, with much going on in the unseen (and the unheard); even online. The shared comments people leave on their experience of each group are really interesting and valuable. Energetic shifts have been experienced during and post-group. Participants often demonstrate ‘active listening’ when others talking, offering a palpable sense of being seen; as opposed to passive participation—like when listening to podcasts for e.g.

“Active listening as a creative act; energetically speaking it supports the container. Otherwise known as ‘holding space.’ Silence interrupts ‘normal’ socialized patterns; upsetting the algorithms that prosper in cacophonous digital realms. Many are uncomfortable with the silences in group; sitting with and processing discomfort is hard work but good work.”

1. To make this “set-up for selling out” even more weirdly symbolic, being a “Substack Bestseller” requires having “hundreds of subscribers,” which technically means 200 or more. So technically, I am stuck currently in a weird limbo between being and not being a bestseller.