I remember being like 12 or 13 years old, back when Shii was still in his (personal) wiki-editing (in)glory- I sort of looked up to him, in ways. He seemed to know a lot, had seemingly-unique opinions, and wrote a lot of shit. I thought it was really cool that someone smart, like I thought I was, was using the internet and being a japanophile nerd (just like I was) but was also writing substantial, interesting stuff. Taking him as some sort of a weird-ass role model, and thinking myself a like-minded lolicon/intellectual, I even went as far as making a personal wiki (thankfully long dead and not even archived anywhere).
I thankfully distanced myself from all that and grew the fuck up, but, later, out of curiosity, I decided to figure out what happened to that Shii guy I used to think was pretty cool, and I found the Avery Morrow we know today. At first, I wasn't taken too far aback. I mean, I thought some of his first articles (like this one http://avery.morrow.name/blog/2010/03/religious-studies-the-future-of-an-illusion/) were pretty decent, and it was cool to see he was still doing the whole religion thing.
As someone always interested in religion and such, even Guenon seemed pretty cool- a little off the deep end, but still, he was an obscure philosopher with appealing ideas about the unity of all religions. It didn't seem all bad, and I was glad to see that he was still off being a pro-religion intellectual.
And then I kept reading, and began to ask "What the FUCK is this?" with increasing frequency.
I'm just as curious as anyone as to what has brought someone who seemed to be reasonably intelligent to turn into some sort of neo-fascist new (old?) age conspiracy-theorist. Was his disgust with present-day religious studies strong enough to make him radically revolt against sane conceptions about religion? What kind of graduate school would be interested in research from someone of his area of expertise?
Avery is sort of confounding at this point, and I still have enough residual respect for him that I am really, really curious about what he has to say. I hope someone records or recalls what he says in this "radio show" tonight, in case I don't get a chance to listen.