Image from the Centre for Climate Safety.

Critical Climate Materialism: Residual Reification and Reparative Critique, by Andreas Folkers, Critical Time 9 no. 1, 2026.

In this article, Andreas Folkers introduces the idea of “residual reification” to rethink critical theory for the climate crisis. Traditional critical theory looks at how social life becomes rigid and trapped in things, like machines and money (reification). Folkers says we must also look at fossil fuel leftovers, like carbon emissions. These leftovers do not just create a “second nature” of social rules. They are now causing real, physical damage to the planet. This new view is called “critical climate materialism.” It argues that matter is not just passive stuff. Fossil fuels changed the very nature of work and matter itself. Work now produces not just goods but also waste that cannot be easily undone. This waste is a new form of reification.

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The essay starts by looking at how reification is usually understood. Often, it is seen as a mistake in the mind, like confusing people with things. Other thinkers see it as a problem in how we treat each other. Folkers prefers a materialist view found in Lukács and Sartre. For them, reification means the things we make gain power over us. They trap us in old ways of doing things. This is true for fossil fuel infrastructure. However, these thinkers see matter as passive and inert. Work is active, and matter is just the object of work. This view ignores nature itself. The theory also sees freedom as freedom from nature.

Folkers then turns to the young Marx to build a better theory. For Marx, working on nature is how humans create themselves and society. It is a form of freedom. But under capitalism, this objectification becomes alienation and reification. Marx thought communism would end the conflict between humans and nature. Humans would fully appropriate nature and make it their own. Folkers calls this “appropriative freedom”. This idea is now very dangerous. The climate crisis shows that trying to fully control nature has failed. The problem is that Marx did not see the importance of waste. He focused on production but not on the pollution it creates.

Folkers argues that fossil fuels changed the nature of work. They do not just shape matter like a craftsman shapes wood. Instead, they transform it. Burning coal produces heat and waste. This waste, like CO2, does not disappear. It becomes a “residual” force that stays in the atmosphere. Work is no longer just productive. It is also polluting. This means production creates two things: useful objects and harmful leftovers. These leftovers cause global warming. They are a new kind of reification. They are not a thing we can control. They are a force that acts back on us. This is “residual reification.” The waste from the past now shapes our future.

This new view changes what emancipation means. We cannot just abolish capitalism and fix everything. The waste is already in the atmosphere. It will stay there for thousands of years. We must do repair work. This is not just about stopping emissions. It is about removing the carbon already there. It is about caring for damaged ecosystems. This repair work is never finished. It is a kind of care work. However, it faces a huge problem. Some damage is irreversible. We cannot fully repair everything. This challenges the idea of a perfect future. Reparative critique must accept that some things are lost forever. It calls for mourning and resilience.

Finally, Folkers says we need new concepts for this new world. Old ideas like recognition and freedom are not enough. They do not address the material damage. We must also rethink reappropriation. We cannot just take back what was made. The waste cannot be reappropriated. We need a new relation to nature. This is not about dominating it. It is about accepting our dependence on it. Freedom must include nature, not exclude it. The essay asks us to imagine a world where we care for the planet. This is the work of reparative critique. It is a humble but necessary task for a damaged world.

Commentary: The article is meant to be about climate change, but is actually an argument for an ethos based on dependence and humility. Unusually, this is articulated with Marxism rather than poststructuralism or identity politics. But the fallacies involved are largely similar. The author points out genuine problems with Marx’s productivism and with optimism about how easily problems can be solved once capitalism is overcome. But these problems don’t really ground the alternative provided: a politics so pessimistic and self-flagellating that it is barely viable as a radical or revolutionary position.

To begin with, it’s a stretch to use the concept of reification in this way. As Folkers realises, reification usually refers to misperceptions or alienated relations. One of its key aspects is the confusion of relations or practices with things. Reified thinking involves imagining that something which is actually a relation or an activity is instead an object. The theory of reification has its roots in Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism. Commodity fetishism disguises, or expresses, a relationship among human beings (the real source of exchange-value) as a property of commodities themselves. The same thing happens when people talk about “housing”, “unemployment”, “education”, “the state”, and so on. But carbon emissions are a question of actual material substances. If there’s reification involved, then it can be defined as the redefinition of actual practices of pollution as simply concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, or as a generic “climate crisis”, or “carbon footprints”. Pollution isn’t reification any more than starvation or sexual frustration are reification.

It can be added that the problem of knock-on effects is not new. Folkers notes that Marx already talked about capitalism depleting the soil. Issues of irreversible or very long-term harms have been around long before climate change was discovered. For example, nuclear waste, deforestation, and desertification all involve similar problems. It would take a more concrete engagement with ecological science and approaches such as permaculture to determine how much can already be reversed, and how quickly. Folkers doesn’t really draw any lines here, but simply observes that some things can be reversed, others cannot. That’s rather noncommittal, and may lead readers to exaggerate things one way or another. It’s possible that the earth will heal rather quickly once modern society stops messing it up – as has already happened with the hole in the ozone layer. It’s also possible that we’re already past the point of no return.

What I object to most in this paper is its liberticidal, anti-desire orientation. It’s full of the kind of ascetic-religious pessimism, humility-mongering, cult of dependency, ego-bashing, and so on that I associate with certain other kinds of critical theory. It’s also rather work-fetishist even though it’s anti-productivist. And it presents a rather hopeless picture, which is contrary to any kind of revolutionary optimism. I don’t know how Folkers thinks he’s going to inspire anyone to overthrow capitalism with such an unattractive vision. It’s as if he knows nothing of human motives, or thinks people can be harangued with survival risks into doing what’s “necessary”. This is the kind of nonsense which brings with it climate lockdowns, one-child policies, labour conscription for clean-up work, congestion charges backed by CCTV, and so on – the sort of thing which brings ecological politics into disrepute and fuels a rightist backlash.

Things are a lot more hopeful if ecological theory instead turns to improvements in qualitative living, involving decentring of power, dismantling of large complex systems wherever possible, and the development and extension of freer, more sustainable ways of living. The ethical aspect of this project is already provided by authors like Illich and Ellul, and the practical aspects by permaculture, DIY politics, agro-ecology, the subsistence perspective, and so on. Localisation provides a win-win situation which increases individual freedom while also reducing environmental damage. It brings systems down to a scale where people are directly concerned about harm which affects their own futures. And it’s compatible with increases in welfare, particularly if land is redistributed. Of course, it runs against the interests of capital, of state and other bureaucracies, and of those academics who want to keep as much of modern society intact as possible. But, eco-anarchist alternatives have already been designed and lived. The main problem today is that they have partially been repressed or recuperated, and that ecology has been discredited by association with Third Way tyranny.

Nonsense: Talal Asad, Wittgenstein, and Religion, by Hengameh Ziai, Critical Times 8 no. 1, 2025.

Talal Asad is a famous thinker who studies religion. He was strongly influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, another famous thinker. But the link between them is rarely discussed. This article looks at how reading their work together can teach us new things. It shows that religion was key to the changes in Wittgenstein’s own thinking between his earlier and later works. Also, looking at religion helps us see how our everyday language can work in “nonsensical” ways. This blurs the line between religious and non-religious life. In fact, religious life might show us how we all operate in everyday life.

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Talal Asad is known for his work on religion, secularism, and power. His books Genealogies of Religion and Formations of the Secular are very influential. Less is known about his early life and work. He spent important years in Sudan in the 1960s. There, he studied a nomadic people called the Kababish. This time is often overlooked. Yet it is where we can see early signs of his later ideas. His early work on spirit possession among the Kababish is a key example. It shows a way of writing that is simply descriptive. It does not try to explain or interpret. This approach was shaped by his own background and his early reading of Wittgenstein.

In Genealogies of Religion, Asad criticises the common idea of religion. He focuses on the anthropologist Clifford Geertz. Geertz saw religion as a system of symbols that express beliefs. Asad argues that symbols do not have fixed meanings. Their meaning comes from social practices and authority. For example, the Western idea of “ritual” has a history. It used to mean a script that told you how to act. Now, we think of ritual as a practice that shows a belief. This new understanding came about during the Reformation and colonial expansion. For Asad, ritual is not about interpreting symbols. It is about learning to perform actions correctly. This shifts our focus from belief to practice and the body. Ziai conceives religion in terms of training in aptitudes and habits. This depends on ‘authoritative practices’ and a ‘script’.

Wittgenstein is often divided into an early and a late thinker. In his early work, the Tractatus, he had a strict idea of language. He thought language works by picturing facts in the world. Any speech that does not do this, like ethics or religion, is “nonsense”. But this nonsense was not worthless. It pointed to important things that cannot be said, only shown. Later, in the Philosophical Investigations, his view changed. He argued that the meaning of words comes from their use in everyday life. This life is made of many “language games”. Religion disappears from his later text. This is a puzzle, given its earlier importance. What happened to religion? To answer this, we must look at his comments on nonsense.

The shift in Wittgenstein’s thinking came from his encounter with non-Western religion. He read James Frazer’s The Golden Bough. Frazer saw “primitive” rituals as mistaken science. Wittgenstein strongly disagreed. He argued that rituals are not based on beliefs or explanations. They are part of a way of life. The power of a ritual comes from its effect on people, not its truth. He showed that words and actions in a ritual are not separate. The belief does not come before the practice. They belong together. This encounter with the “Other” helped him develop key ideas like “family resemblance” and “form of life”. These ideas are central to his later philosophy. His critique of Frazer was a turning point. Unlike Frazer, he did not see “primitive” religions as mistakes. Criteria of truth are irrelevant to religion.

So, why does religion disappear from the Investigations? Asad helps us understand this absence. For Wittgenstein, rituals showed that language is not just about explaining things. It is part of an activity, a form of life. This insight was not just for religion. It applies to all language. Religious practice became a clear example of how all language works. Once this was understood, religion as a special category was no longer needed. The line between ritual and ordinary life became blurred. Nonsense, too, became ordinary. It was no longer a separate domain of the mystical. It was simply a misuse of language in a given game. So, the silence on religion is a radical move. It does not dismiss religion. Instead, it shows that it is not fundamentally different from the rest of life.

Asad goes further than this “banal” nonsense. He explores two other important senses. First, language can be embodied. It can become a habit, a disposition, a way of being. When this happens, it becomes “non-sense”. It is not an idea to be interpreted. It is lived. Second, language about God often defies understanding. It is “nonsensical” because it points to something beyond human comprehension. This is not a failure but a feature. It is a way of engaging with the divine. Asad’s own early work in Sudan, like his notes on spirit possession, shows this. He simply describes. He does not explain. He knows this form of life from the inside. This is the Wittgensteinian moment in his work. It shows a deep understanding of language and practice as one.

Commentary: This article is one of many which take Wittgenstein’s work in a similar direction: a communitarian affirmation of baseless norms. Wittgenstein takes difference very seriously and criticises the confident ethnocentrism of European normies. However, he’s been appropriated by people whose awareness of difference is far less acute. His view of language-games suggests that there is no single purpose to the use of language and that the validity of particular speech-acts is relative to the game they take place in. Different language-games (often within the same speech-community) have different purposes and referents. For example, language about qualia (such as “I feel pain”) has different rules from language about observable objects. But games still have objectives, whether this is a practical purpose, a type of cooperation, a source of pleasure, etc. The legality of a move in chess depends on the rules of chess and is internal to chess as a game, but this does not explain why someone is playing chess rather than another game. If one talks instead of a practice with a definite empirical purpose, such as planting crops or repairing a car engine, there is still a language-game involved. But this time, the language-game is not arbitrarily defined by rules. It’s related to specific entities one interacts with.

I think Wittgenstein’s work has been widely abused by communitarians and collectivist-oriented poststructuralists. These readers want to divest themselves of any need to justify arbitrary adherence to norms or to a particular communal identity. They thus take a “form of life” to refer to an arbitrary communal practice, and suggest that all practices and speech have validity only relative to this “form of life”. The “form of life” (thus the community) is the final court of appeal, and does not itself need to be justified. Individual acts, statements, etc. can simply be assessed as good or bad according to its rules. But this evades the question: why take part in this particular community as a “form of life” in the first place? It’s the same question as “why play chess?” And it’s clearly the case that some people don’t take part in what is taken as “their community” – people who never learn language, schizophrenics, drop-outs, etc. There has to be an underlying motivation – a libidinal investment – for why some people value a given “form of life”.

The blank acceptance of an irrational form-of-life as the end-point of arguments entails a strong denial of any significance to sensuous reality, pleasure, or individual desires. It’s basically an attempt by the metaphorical community, the ingroup, to insist that people obey it simply because it says so. It assigns itself a despotic authority which is meant to be self-grounding. This basically fascistic position is similar to Heidegger’s view of communal practice and Schmitt’s idea of a groundless sovereign. I very much doubt Wittgenstein meant this. And if he did mean this, his view is patently false and even absurd. Language-games are not adopted arbitrarily. Either they serve a practical purpose, or they are adopted for libidinal reasons. One also has to ignore psychodynamics to place so much emphasis on habit.

Ziai’s view leads to the view that religion is no different from indoctrination. It also leads to the view that all religions are basically equivalent and equally valid. The language of skills and aptitudes is here a distraction because it points to an empirical referent which is lacking. If the supposed skill doesn’t achieve something – if it’s validated as a skill only because it happens to be socially valued, with no reason for this valuation – then it isn’t a skill at all. It’s just conformity to an arbitrary script, which unnecessarily complicates and regiments social life and excludes the different from the community. And any other similarly exclusionary practice would have exactly the same value. There might be a habit, but it’s not a habit which is useful for anything.

Conformity cannot provide a self-validating field, because someone else could just as easily claim that their performance is the correct one. It’s nonsensical to talk about an aptitude without a relevant field of application which is based on something other than mere conformity. If ritual is about performing acts “correctly”, then who decides whether the act is “correct”, and by what standards? Perhaps it’s worth remembering here that people do posit different ways of performing similar rituals or practising the same religion – religious revival movements, monastic orders, heresies, Protestantism as a challenge to Catholicism, etc. If religions are referenceless communal practices, such changes should either be impossible (seeming simply to be mistaken ways of playing the language-game, similar to moving a knight diagonally in chess) or else should be seen as equally valid but distinct language-games (similar to playing checkers instead of chess). But this isn’t what happens in practice.

This leads to the question of whether religious rituals really have such an arbitrary character. I don’t think they do. And giving them such a character is actually rather insulting to those who practice them. These practices might not involve “belief” in a certain theoretically predefined sense. The truth-claims involved might be of a different kind from those of science or practical reason. But there are still definite references to particular experiences, perceptions, and presuppositions which provide the basis for a given ritual. Most often, these are ultimately rooted in altered consciousness states or hypothetical ways of achieving them. Religion descends from shamanism, which also has to be “learned” but is not at all a matter of habit or a self-validating practice. To take the example of Asad’s work, he refers specifically to possession by jinns – a category of being which are taken by his informants to exist. There is a difference between being possessed by a jinn and feigning possession by a jinn.

In the same way, there is a difference between superficially practising religious rituals and actually adhering to a religion. Consider cases where someone feigns religious devotion and goes through the motions – such as an unscrupulous anthropologist who feigns adherence to an indigenous religion to gather data, or a Spanish Muslim or Jew who feigns adherence to Christianity during the Inquisition. If religion is simply an arbitrary habit of a community which is acquired as a skill, then there is no difference between a faker and a genuine adherent. By going through the motions, the faker is in fact practising the religion entirely correctly. But this does not cohere with how people talk, think, and feel about religious fakery. To take another example, why do people feel betrayed by religious figures who falsely promise material benefits from faith, or who exploit their disciples? And why do people who hold particular beliefs sometimes drop them, and even come to resent them, when exposed to different experiences?

I believe rituals typically produce, or aim to produce, embodied experiences which are taken as veridical or desirable in some sense. This sense might be soteriological, and/or it might involve direct mystical experience. But these experiences are taken as veridical, even as superior to ordinary consciousness, in certain respects. The more reified a religion becomes, the more its basis in altered consciousness is alienated. Religions tend to degenerate into empty ritualism which people keep up for purely exterior reasons, such as social recognition, networking, and virtue-signalling. But this leads to a sense of pointlessness among practitioners, and a sense among the truly religious that these people are not truly religious. The idea that religion can be reduced to script, habit, and aptitude to conform reflects the arrogance of those who take their own norms for granted. It is simply a demand for conformity without basis, an expression of an irrational love for the dominant system.

Iranian propaganda posters often feature religious themes.

Fundamentalism, by Domenico Losurdo, International Critical Thought 16 no. 1, 2026.

This article is included in the same special issue as the one I just reviewed. It was originally written in 1999 (hence, before 9/11) and attempts to provide an anti-imperialist account of religious fundamentalism. In this article, Domenico Losurdo argues that the term “fundamentalism” is widely misused as a simple insult, often to attack Islam. To understand it properly, we must move past this polemical use and two common but false ideas. The first cliché is the automatic link between fundamentalism and Islam, ignoring the fact that the term was born among early twentieth-century American Protestants who proudly used it to describe themselves. The second cliché paints fundamentalism as a pre-modern rejection of all things Western. In reality, fundamentalist movements are modern, drawing their strongest support from cities and educated elites, such as science and engineering students, who are often frustrated in their social ambitions and have international experience.

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Losurdo defines fundamentalism not as an expression of a particular culture, but as a specific reaction to a violent collision between two cultures. It is a defensive move that builds a rigid, exclusive identity by rejecting another culture while viewing both as natural and unchanging. This is not a new pattern. The historian Arnold Toynbee identified a similar dynamic in Roman-occupied Palestine/Judea between “Herodism,” a willingness to assimilate, and “Zealotism,” a fierce resistance. Toynbee’s error was to see Zealotism as simply backward-looking. Losurdo counters that modern Islamic fundamentalism is revolutionary, creating a new political vanguard that breaks the monopoly of traditional clergy and introduces a modern party structure into stagnant societies, all while claiming to return to a holy past.

The spread of fundamentalism has been massively amplified by modern globalisation and neoliberal economics, which destroy long-standing community ties and cultural identities. As Marx noted, capitalist production has a brutal “cosmopolitan” drive that abandons the weakest. Fundamentalist movements often fill the void left by the decline of Marxist-inspired groups, providing mutual aid and social services to the poor. In the Arab world, the appeal to Islam as a source of identity is a direct response to the trauma of colonisation, which began just as the decolonisation era sparked by the October Revolution was taking off. With the military and religion being the only institutions colonial powers could not fully control, resistance naturally formed around them, constructing an identity capable of standing against the West’s overwhelming power.

The goal of this fundamentalist resistance is a fight not against “modernity” in general, but against the “West.” It attempts to create a pure, unchanging identity by erasing all history of mutual influence between cultures. Losurdo shows this pattern is not unique to the Islamic world. He provides examples from European history, such as German and Spanish revolts against Napoleonic France, where a foreign national and religious identity was built in direct opposition to French Enlightenment ideas. Even within a single country like the United States, the massive social changes after the Civil War, including immigration and urbanisation, gave rise to a nativist Christian fundamentalism. The Ku Klux Klan championed “pure Americanism,” tying the Constitution to the Bible and condemning foreign cultural expressions as immoral.

The article criticises the Western tendency to see fundamentalism only in others, which is a form of dogmatism. When Western intellectuals praise a unique “Judeo-Christian soul” that stands for freedom, they are themselves using a fundamentalist logic by building a stereotyped and antagonistic identity. However, Losurdo notes that fundamentalist movements are not simply reactionary but can be ambiguous. Just as Marx and Engels saw the anti-Napoleonic wars as a “regeneration that goes hand in hand with reaction,” Lenin refused to dismiss the Boxer Rebellion in China as simple xenophobia, calling it a “just war” against imperialism. The anti-imperialist content of these uprisings should be recognised, even if their form is distorted.

Losurdo concludes that the answer to Islamic fundamentalism cannot be a crusade based on a “clash of civilisations.” This theory is contradicted by the ruthless geopolitics of the United States, which has itself supported reactionary Islamist groups when it suits its interests. Declaring a holy war to defend Western culture would only legitimise and strengthen fundamentalism on the other side. The only proper response is to maintain a balanced position that critiques Western hegemony and imperialism while also acknowledging its accomplishments. Without this balance, we are left with a destructive cycle of holy war between the West and non-European cultures.

Commentary: This is a passable summary of the relationship between “fundamentalism” and IPE/geopolitics. It makes short work of the idea that such movements are purely reactions against progress and the idea of a clash of civilisations. The relationship between movements of this type and modernity/the west is usually found in empirical studies to be more complicated than it looks. Only certain aspects of modernity are rejected, and the use of religion is not genuinely traditional. It’s arguably what Deleuze and Guattari call a neoarchaism – a revival of older structures for modern purposes. The author has also noticed that Islamist and related (e.g. Christian radical, Hindutva…) movements can be anti-imperialist under certain conditions – but can also be used by the US, as in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

But the author is determined to treat the issue mainly in an anti-imperialist frame. This creates all kinds of problems, because of the ambivalence recognised here. Sometimes, “fundamentalist” movements in power confront the west, but they do so based on a domestic politics which is both authoritarian (as are some more typical anti-imperialists) and also anti-progressive and anti-leftist. Iran is a good example. In many other cases, such regimes work closely with the west, for example Saudi Arabia. In still other cases, they express legitimate self-determination struggles against states which are themselves ostensibly anti-imperialist or at least Southern (Bosnia, Xinjiang, Chechnya, Kashmir, etc.). If the author supports these movements when they are anti-imperialist but opposes them when they collude, they will end up going backwards and forwards on the same movements, supporting and then opposing and then supporting them as their geopolitics shift. This happens because the issues involved aren’t focused on imperialism at all, even though imperialism is one of the driving forces. Desire-structures, patrimonialism, lineage structures, the role of middle-classes, all need to be taken into account – and self-determination needs to be conceived in more nuanced terms than those involved in a single North/South binary.

Imperialism and Emancipation: An Introduction to Losurdo, by Jennifer S. Ponce de León and Gabriel Rockhill, International Critical Thought 16 no. 1, 2026.

This introduction to a special issue argues that the work of the Italian Marxist scholar Domenico Losurdo provides a vital framework for understanding modern imperialism and the struggle for socialism. The journal seems to be close to the Chinese state and frequently publishes material praising the Chinese developmental model. The editors, Jennifer S. Ponce de León and Gabriel Rockhill, present Losurdo’s ideas as urgently relevant to the current global situation. They point to the open aggression of the declining US empire, seen in events from the war on Gaza to attacks on Venezuela, where its leaders now openly declare colonial and ethnonationalist goals. Against this backdrop, the rising Global South, led by China, is challenging the old unipolar world order. Losurdo’s writings, produced over a lifetime of communist militancy, offer an indispensable map for navigating the history of capitalist subjugation and the ongoing fight for emancipation.

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A central part of Losurdo’s framework is his explanation of why, in the age of imperialism, the most important class struggles take the form of national liberation movements. Imperial capitalism created a global system that drains value from poor nations to rich ones. Therefore, a nation’s fight to break free from this system is the highest-level struggle for human liberation, because it confronts the entire international structure of exploitation. For countries that have historically been subjected to underdevelopment, achieving political independence is only the first phase. They must then win a second, economic phase, where rapidly developing the means of production is crucial for survival. Losurdo suggested that for nations freeing themselves from imperial control, the stark choice is to develop or to die, a fact proven by the constant economic war waged against countries like Cuba and Venezuela.

Losurdo’s analysis directly challenges Western misunderstandings of Chinese socialism. He rejected the simplistic idea that China’s economic reforms and opening up to the world after 1978 were a simple turn to capitalism. Instead, he argued that Chinese leaders applied a Marxist self-critique, learning from past socialist experiments to create an innovative path to modernisation. To develop the economy and acquire advanced technology from imperialist countries, China had to make tactical compromises, such as opening up to multinational corporations. This created new problems, including uneven development and environmental costs. However, the strategic goal was always to harness market mechanisms under the control of a workers’ state, using capitalist development for a socialist project rather than letting capitalism destroy socialism. Today, China’s success as a global leader in poverty reduction, renewable energy, and infrastructure, while building an alternative model of international development, is clear proof of its resilience.

Losurdo’s understanding of class struggle is far broader than a simple fight between workers and capitalists in a factory. He showed that class struggle is a general theory of social conflict with many different forms, which include fights against colonial oppression and the subjugation of women. Crucially, he demonstrated that exploitation and oppression are bound together. The most brutally exploited workers are also the ones who are racialised and dehumanised. Ideologies like racism and misogyny are not distractions from the class struggle; they are tools that divide the global working class and make it easier to rule. Communism, for Losurdo, was a project of “integral humanism” dedicated to uniting the human race. This is why the global communist movement’s best elements have always been at the vanguard of fights for anti-colonial and anti-racist liberation, which are themselves essential parts of the broader class war.

This perspective helps explain Losurdo’s sharp critique of many Western leftists who fail to grasp these realities. He argued that much of the Western left has abandoned a serious critique of imperialism, often embracing a liberal human rights framework that can be used to justify imperialist wars. Many Western intellectuals are quick to judge and dismiss the efforts of socialist states, without understanding the practical demands of building socialism while under constant attack from the world’s most powerful empires. Losurdo traced this weakness back to the national chauvinism of European socialists who supported their own ruling classes in the First World War. He used Lenin’s theory of a labour aristocracy to explain how imperialism can buy the loyalty of a privileged layer of workers in rich countries, who then identify with their own national exploiters against the super-exploited masses of the Global South. The editors suggest that capitalism maintains a dual system, with different conditions for a privileged Northern sector based on Herrenvolk (master-race, i.e. racist, fascist) liberalism. Socialism often gets sidetracked into purely economic struggles within this frame, while struggles against it are recuperated through culturalism and identity politics. Losurdo also criticises western Marxists and other radical theorists for neglecting imperialism and supposedly colluding in Herrenvolk liberalism – what the editors call ‘often unacknowledged colonial and elitist presumptions held in common across a great deal of petty-bourgeois Western intellectual production’.

The editors conclude that Losurdo’s method is a powerful model of Marxist intellectual history. He practised a self-critical communism, constantly testing theory against the practical reality of the struggle to change the world. His work is not an academic exercise but a weapon for understanding that the construction of socialism is a long and difficult process, full of contradictions, and that the fight against neocolonialism is far from over. The special issue aims to deepen engagement with Losurdo’s research, presenting it as a source of inspiration for a rigorous, innovative, and genuinely internationalist Marxist practice in a time of rising fascism and imperialist war.

Commentary: We’re in familiar territory here: dogmatic Marxism that insists on the primacy of a single contradiction (here, imperialism) and denounces everything else as being on the wrong side of the struggle. Such dogmatic splitting typically serves to entrench a theoretical-political elite who speak for the “good” side (here, anti-imperialism) and whose authority and Sacred Science is identified with being on this side. Anti-imperialism is a common target for such moves because it also focuses on nations, not classes or social groups. A state adopting the right policies is thus easily taken as part of the anti-imperialist camp, and its critics are automatically discredited as colluding with imperialism. But this involves an avoidance of questions about the internal hierarchies and authoritarianism of these states themselves, and the different desires and interests of groups or individuals within the societies they dominate.

In practice, ruling elites in anti-imperialist states are not just dominant – they gradually move back towards capitalism. Opening up to capitalism benefits the elite more than the population. And anti-imperialists often engage in a characteristic doublethink to justify this. In this introduction, it happens by way of classifying Chinese neoliberalism as simply a means to develop towards a socialist endpoint. This is wishful thinking. The Chinese developmental model is highly exploitative, for example in its reliance on sweatshop labour, the authoritarian methods used for “stability”, the impoverishment of rural areas to provide a cheap migrant labour pool, and international entanglements to obtain energy and minerals.

In my view, developmentalism is enmeshed with capitalism. It involves orientations to increasing abstract metrics and to the growing power of technocrats, to the exclusion of concrete wellbeing. There is an issue whether countries need to “develop”, or rather, to move away from extractive and accumulative practices and towards qualitative goods and ecology. It’s certainly true that countries defying capitalism suffer economic warfare from the US, but greater developmental complexity and import dependence leave countries more vulnerable to such methods.

I’m back with Deleuze and Guattari after finishing my book – this time, Plateau 3 of A Thousand Plateaus (don’t worry, there’s not really a thousand chapters). It’s a long plateau and so is the summary. And it’s rather dense, dealing with issues across the natural and social sciences. The title is a play on Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals; geology is discussed a little bit, but much more time is spent on biology, evolution, and language. 10,000 BC is roughly the end of the most recent Ice Age and the start of the present period, the Holocene. It’s the setting for this plateau as a reference to prehistoric time and the borderline between strata and a destratified plane. It also reminds readers that geology and biology precede human language and human societies. Stratification is much older than the State, language, or society.

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The overall theory isn’t summarised until the end. Everything starts with the plane of consistency, which is similar to the body without organs, rhizome, and multiplicity. What exists on this plane is called matter or material. This is composed of the various flows and breaks in desiring-production. There’s also abstract machines, which are the patterns or diagrams formed on this plane. Strata are built from this material, breaking up the continuum into distinct substances. At least two of these substances are then articulated within each stratum. Strata develop a Hjelmslevian structure: expression and content, each divided into a substance and a form. An abstract machine provides the unifying force for a stratum. Every stratum has a unity of composition defined by its milieu (the material it draws on), its substantial elements, and its formal traits. This unity is called the Ecumenon. It also has epistrata and parastrata, which we’ll discuss later. A machinic assemblage or concrete machine can draw from multiple strata. An abstract machine defines the unity of composition of each stratum, but it develops only on the plane of consistency. Assemblages actualise an abstract machine in a specific way, unfolding something which already exists on the plane of consistency. Machinic assemblages play a connecting role between and outside strata. Strata maintain themselves through capture of surrounding material but also through processes of de- and reterritorialisation. Different strata can also serve as material for one another, with one forming a substratum for a second.

Strata and Stratification

The text opens by introducing the figure of Professor Challenger, borrowed from the fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle. Challenger appeared in The Lost World and other novels, and is a forceful professor and explorer. He made the world scream in the story “When the World Screamed”, in which he sought to prove that the earth is a living organism by drilling into the earth. In Deleuze and Guattari’s plateau, he is now presenting a lecture that blends geology and biology in a provocative manner. He gradually alienates most of his audience, and begins to deterritorialise and decompose himself, speeding up, becoming animalistic, and then dissolving. The story about Challenger serves as a kind of literary container, which Deleuze and Guattari come back to periodically during the discussion of science they put in the character’s mouth.

He begins by characterising the Earth as a body without organs, a concept signifying a state of pure potentiality. We’ve already come across this concept in Anti-Oedipus, where it refers to an experience of the body as a surface or substance on which desiring-machines operate. This body is not an empty void but is rather permeated by unformed, unstable matter, flows moving in all directions, free intensities, and nomadic singularities. This fundamental, deterritorialized state of the Earth is, however, not the primary focus of his address. The concept of the body without organs is arguably clarified a little by its apparent equivalence to Challenger’s view of the earth. Recall that the earth is treated as the “full body” in territorial societies.

The central phenomenon Challenger seeks to explicate is stratification, a process he describes as simultaneously beneficial and unfortunate. It is also described as inevitable. Strata are conceptualised as layers or belts that act to capture and organise the free-floating intensities (qualitative states, zones of experience) of the body without organs. The operation of strata involves giving form to matter, imprisoning singularities (unique entities) within systems of resonance and redundancy, and organising molecules into larger, molar aggregates. These strata function as acts of capture, or “black holes,” that strive to seize everything within their reach through the dual mechanisms of coding and territorialisation.

Most of these concepts also appeared in Anti-Oedipus. Desiring-production takes place at a molecular level, whereas molar aggregates require a degree of alienation or capture of desiring-production. Coding and territorialisation are the mechanisms which territorial (indigenous) societies use to attach desiring-production to social production. This plateau is an attempt to show more precisely how this process happens. We’ve also previously been told that desiring-machines/partial objects give form to the substance of the body without organs. The term ‘stratum’ is later identified with different levels of science, such as chemistry and biology. Each level is built on an underlying level.

Challenger introduces a crucial geological maxim to be learnt by heart: “A surface of stratification is a more compact plane of consistency lying between two layers.” The layers are the strata themselves, which always appear in pairs, with one serving as a substratum for the other. The surface of stratification is a distinct entity, a machinic assemblage positioned between these two layers. This assemblage has a dual-facing nature; on one side it relates to the strata as an interstratum, while on the other it faces the body without organs, or plane of consistency, functioning as a metastratum where the plane itself becomes compacted.

Double Articulation

The concept of double articulation is presented as a fundamental characteristic of every stratum. Challenger uses the metaphor of God as a Lobster, a double pincer or double bind, to illustrate this principle. Not only do strata come in pairs, but each individual stratum is itself double, possessing several layers (at least two) and exhibiting phenomena constitutive of a double articulation. This involves two distinct operations. The first articulation selects and deducts from unstable particle-flows (the molecular level) to impose a statistical order (at a molar level). The second establishes functional, compact structures and constructs the molar compounds in which these structures are actualised. Forms imply a code. Substances are formed matters arranged as territorialities. The duality might, but doesn’t always, involve a molar and a molecular level.

To clarify this, a geological example is provided. The first articulation is the process of sedimentation, which deposits units of cyclic sediment according to a statistical order, such as a succession of sandstone and schist. The second articulation is the folding that establishes a stable functional structure, effecting the passage from mere sediment to sedimentary rock. It is stressed that this distinction is not simply between substances and forms, as each articulation possesses both form and substance, along with its own code and territoriality. The first articulation (molecular, statistical) is more supple. The second is more rigid, molar, and organised, and it is at this level that overcoding (typical of despotic machines) is produced. Structure here refers to the sum of relations occurring biunivocally between segments of the two strata. Matter lies outside the strata, on the plane of consistency. Within a stratum, there is both unity and diversity. For example, biochemistry involves the same materials, energy, and reactions, but different molecules, substances, and forms. Molecules ‘deploy themselves’ by radiating through space.

In language, Hjelmslev is said to have analysed stratification. It’s implied that more complex or apparently higher-level systems always come about through double articulation. ‘Matter’ refers to the plane of consistency or body without organs, which is non-stratified and unformed. Content refers to ‘formed matters’. These are divided into substance (the matter chosen) and form (the order they are arranged in). Content is articulated with expression. The two never correspond ot conform. They are isomorphic (i.e. play similar roles). A given double-articulation distributes matter into content and expression, which do not pre-exist it. Form and substance refer to aspects of the same matter. None of this is specific to linguistics, but occurs in any stratification. For example, nucleic sequences are a content and the structures of compounds and organs are expressions. Also, every stratified thing ‘sings’ the ‘glory of God’ (i.e. the double articulation structure).

I’ll repeat here my summary of Hjelmslev. Like Saussure, provides a rather abstract, almost mathematical theory of language. Like Saussure, he downplays the relationship between language and sensuous reality. Like Saussure, he’s a structuralist (but he calls his approach glossematics instead). He views language as a system with its own internal relations and structures. He thinks linguists should study language independently from meanings, culture, psychology, and so on. Symbols gain value through their relations to other symbols. He arranges language along two axes: expression and content (similar to Saussure’s signifier and signified) and also form and substance. Expression is the signifiers: the sounds or letters used in language. Content is the meanings and concepts expressed in it. The substance of expression is the sound waves of spoken language, the writing used, or whatever else is used to speak/write (e.g. hand movements in sign language). The substance of content is thought or experience. But the form is how these materials are organised by language. Double articulation means that strata operate in a Hjelmslevian way. They articulate two substances, a content and an expression, through a formal structure.

Cuvier versus Geoffroy

The discussion then moves from the geological to the organic stratum, framing the problem of the organism as an articulatory one. Drawing on Dogon mythology (which was also discussed in Anti-Oedipus), the text describes how an organism befalls the body through a machinic assemblage that stratifies it, creating the articulations specific to a new human form. An organism is formed through articulation. In the Dogon narrative, a smith is created by breaking his arms and legs at the points of the elbows and knees, which he didn’t have before. This led to arms suited to smithing. This process is not limited to bones; the entire organism must be considered in relation to double articulation on multiple levels, including morphogenesis and cellular chemistry, the latter of which involves an internal molecular articulation between small and large molecules. Forms are isomorphic but do not correspond (i.e. the same form is constructed from different substances). Elements are often identical but the compounds made from them differ. Mutations or “monsters” are attempts by other forms and substances to break out of a given structure. Strata are not superior to, or more complex than, their substrata. There is no evolution towards perfection or complexity. The materials of a substratum are simpler than the compounds of a stratum, but their articulation is a change in organisation, not an augmentation.

The lecture proceeds to recount a theoretical debate between the nineteenth-century biologists Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier, staged as a puppet theatre. Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (Geoffroy for short) was a French naturalist who believed in a law-like universe. Geoffroy advocated an early version of evolutionary theory. He worked closely with Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. The main difference between Lamarckian and later Darwinian theories of evolution is that Lamarck believed that acquired traits could be inherited. Geoffroy believed that the environment can directly produce organic changes in species. He thought that large changes (known as saltation) could occur rapidly through the reproduction of individual mutations. The authors portray him as interdisciplinary, nomadic, humorous, artistic, topological, and lighthearted.

Georges Cuvier was a French nationalist and zoologist sometimes said to be the founder of palaeontology. He worked by comparing fossils with living animals, and expanded Linnaeus’s classification system. He sought to make anatomy an axiomatic, law-based science. He’s also credited with proving extinction as a scientific fact. But he opposed the emerging theory of evolution, which was still controversial in his day. And he was involved in founding scientific racism. He promoted a concept of functional integration in which organisms are conceived as functioning like hierarchical systems. Less important organs are subordinated to more important organs. This is a variety of functionalism, which Deleuze and Guattari criticise whenever it is used at a molar level. They portray Cuvier as a ‘man of Power and Terrain’, a rigid specialist, Euclidean, and committed to seriousness.

This debate was a real, historical event which took place in 1830. But Deleuze and Guattari restage it with other anachronistic figures and connect it to their own distinction between rhizomes and arborescence. They take Geoffroy as a topological and rhizomatic theorist and Cuvier as an arborescent theorist. The historical debate focused on animal structure. Cuvier claimed that animal structure was determined by function. Geoffroy argued that animal structures instead expressed an underlying, unified “plan” or basis. In other words, different organisms evolved differently from a common ancestor. This common origin is modified into various different animal species (unity of composition). The debate was occasioned by new research on molluscs. Geoffroy famously argued that a mollusc’s organ arrangement was that of a vertebrate bent backwards. The disagreement also involved questions of methodology. Cuvier insisted on precision and wished to exclude analogy from science. Cuvier is usually seen as “winning” the debate, but Geoffroy’s views on evolution are more widely accepted today. The authors suggest ‘epistemology is not innocent’; this was a personal conflict. But it also expressed different ways of relating: nomad versus royal science.

In Deleuze and Guattari’s reconstruction of the debate, Geoffroy argues for a unified abstract Animal realised throughout the organic stratum, where different forms can be derived from one another through folding. There is no vitalist substance or matter specific to the organic stratum. Its specificity comes from the abstract machine (or organising form) of the single Animal. Cuvier vehemently opposes this, insisting on irreducible axes and discontinuous types. The debate is complicated by further voices discussing embryos and degrees of development, highlighting a proliferation of distinctions regarding form, substance, and the nature of biological organisation.

The fundamental contribution of Darwinism is then introduced as a profound transformation of these terms. It substitutes populations (packs, multiplicities) for fixed types and differential rates for preordained degrees of development. Forms are not pre-existent but emerge as statistical results from populations distributing themselves within a milieu (a habitat, context, or situation). Degrees of development are no longer measured by increasing perfection, relative to a norm. They are defined by differential relations such as selective pressure and rate of growth, meaning progress can occur through simplification and loss as much as through complication and acquisition. There’s no overall direction to evolution; what happens to aid survival or flourishing in a particular situation is reproduced. The molar category of a species is a statistical regularity arising among individuals, not something fundamental and determinate.

Strata, Territories, and Codes

A stratum is argued to possess a unity of composition defined by its exterior molecular materials, interior substantial elements, and the membrane or limit that conveys formal relations. (In humans, the skin is the membrane/limit). The central ring and organising abstract machine, termed the Ecumenon, is never isolatable in itself. An example given is the formation of a crystal from a seed and the material it attracts (the “crystalline stratum”). The crystal forms by incorporating masses of previously exterior, unformed material. The organising structure of the stratum is the crystal structure, but this does not exist precisely in one or another part of the crystal. The abstract machine is virtual, imaginal.

The Ecumenon is necessarily fragmented into epistrata and parastrata. Epistrata are the intermediary layers and superpositions that shatter the continuity of the central ring. The intermediate strata or milieus are arranged in a hubs-and-spokes system on a core-periphery model. They are outgrowths which draw extra material into a stratum. In addition to what it “eats”, a stratum needs an energy source such as breathing. It generates an associated milieu (the environment relevant to it, the sensorimotor field) through capture of energy sources, discernment of materials (perception), and creation of compounds (response, reaction). For example, a tick uses a gravitational energy of falling, a perception of mammal scent, and a reaction of latching onto the skin.

Parastrata relate to the irreducible forms and their associated milieus, fragmenting the stratum into sides and “besides” that must themselves be considered strata in their own right. These are formed through the limit/membrane. This seems to refer to aspects of the environment which interact with an organism but are not part of its own code. A stratum exists only through its parastrata and epistrata, which are its concrete machines. The Ecumenon therefore only exists in a fragmented form, joining together at least two distinct things rather than realising a prior unity. In Hjelmslev’s terms, forms relate to codes and coding/decoding in the parastrata. Substances (formed matters) relate to territories and de/reterritorialisation in the epistrata.

The authors later add that the term machinic assemblage refers to concrete machines, which require strata. These are distinct from abstract machines, which can exist on strata or outside them. Assemblages are necessary to articulate anything with anything else – for example, social machines. Machinic assemblages are said to effectuate an abstract machine, either on the plane of consistency or in a stratum. The mechanosphere or rhizosphere is the set of all abstract machines and machinic assemblages, whether outside, on, or between strata.

Organic creatures, particularly animals, modify their environments to produce an associated milieu (e.g. a spider’s web). Their autonomous code constitutes both their bodily form and their associated milieu. But these forms only develop through intermediary milieus (the wider environment or habitat) which sometimes becomes an outside, or exterior milieu. Milieus also act selectively on organisms (i.e. natural selection). A code necessarily works on a prior population/pack/multitude. Whether it takes hold depends on whether those it codes belong to a certain population. Development and mutation involve passage through zones of intensity. This involves both the kind of functions theorised by Cuvier and the kind of degrees theorised by Geoffroy.

The text explores the relationships between milieus, codes, and territorialities on the organic stratum. Forms in the parastrata are tied to codes and populations. There is always a process (or margin) of decoding inherent to a code (e.g. genetic drift in genetics). A code always has supplements capable of free variation or copiable so as to experiment with variation. Fragments of code can also cross boundaries (e.g. between species via viruses). The authors call this situation a surplus value of code, or side-communication – something existing alongside the main code. This is central to becomings-animal and associated with rhizomes and multiplicities. Elements of the parastrata can thus enter into and be added to a code.

Substances on the epistrata are linked to territorialities and movements of deterritorialization and reterritorialization. Flows of deterritorialisation can move from the centre to the periphery and back again. This is an important part of how strata operate. These relative movements of deterritorialization within the strata must not be confused with the possibility of an absolute deterritorialization, an absolute line of flight that concerns the destratified plane of consistency. The more interior milieus something has (and thus the more autonomous it is), the more deterritorialised it is. The more something deterritorialises externally, the more it reterritorialises its internal milieus. This presumably means that greater autonomy reduces the extent to which something conforms to a definite model or relates in a fixed way to its milieu. But this also means it needs stable internal systems. For example, ticks are territorialised in a simple gravity-scent-latching system. Humans can also drop and grab, but have a wider range of ways of interacting with the environment compared to ticks. But this comes through internal territorialisation, a greater structuring of subjectivity and organic processes. Coding and territorialising, decoding and deterritorialising, do not form constant pairs. Coding can deterritorialise and decoding can reterritorialise, although both operate on the same populations.

Modifications of codes arise from the milieu of exteriority. This is an aleatory (random, chance) effect. Whether the modifications take root depends on their compatibility with the internal milieu. This compatibility depends on de/reterritorialisation. An incompatible territorial organisation will reject a modification; not everything promoted in a milieu takes root. (Contrast here Althusser’s theory of interpellation, and other strong forms of social constructivism). On the other hand, the creation of an associated milieu always deterritorialises existing exterior formations and rearranges them in line with interior or intermediate milieus. For example, a beaver makes a more beaver-friendly environment by building a dam, but this involves deterritorialising trees by gnawing them down, and deterritorialising the river by partially blocking it.

Such modifications also produce territorial signs or indexes. For example, they mark the territory of a particular animal or provide evidence of its presence (a dam suggests the presence of beavers, a web suggests a spider, etc.). These signs function as or correspond to fragments of code. Animals might venture out into a dangerous milieu of exteriority, but they keep a line of flight into their associated milieu, where they are safer. For example, rabbits stay close to their burrows and flee underground at a sign of danger. On the other hand, forces from the exterior milieu can disrupt the associated milieu. This leads to a different line of flight towards exteriority, using the animal’s interior milieus. For example, a rabbit flees out of an overheated, flooded, or collapsing burrow or one a predator has already entered. It then has to rely on its survival responses outside. The authors think this second kind of process can lead to evolution. For example, fish which survived out of water (their associated milieu) might have developed legs and amniotic membranes (a change in their internal milieu). Flight is also creative. Territories are shot through with lines of flight, and are even effects of them.

These relative deterritorialisations are distinct from the absolute type. The latter involves the “combustion” of the plane of consistency – something beyond strata. The authors here raise the possibility of a way of combining through a Planomenon rather than an Ecumenon. This seems to entail doing without double articulations and strata. This involved unformed matter, but isn’t chaotic. Absolute deterritorialisation is not defined by speed or acceleration. It can come about through slowness and delay as well. It is primary over strata, and this is why they require movements of relative deterritorialisation to exist. Relative deterritorialisations have a relationship to the absolute kind and sometimes produce it. The authors also add that axiomatics deal with stratification. They apply within stratified systems and ignore their deterritorialisations. They also argue that the extent of exterior force involved in stratification can vary, from a maximum situation of moulding to a minimum one of modulation. There can also be different numbers of layers between the molecular and molar levels.

Types of Articulation

The nature of the distinction between content and expression (terms taken from Hjelmslev) is shown to vary across three major groupings of strata: physicochemical, organic, and alloplastic (world-shaping). The plateau also mentions geological and energetic strata, so the three-term list is not exhaustive. But the three ‘major types of real distinction’ are taken to be basic. There are real-formal distinctions between orders of magnitude, which establish resonance through induction. There are real-real distinctions between subjects, with linearity of expression, termed transduction. And there are real-essential distinctions between attributes or categories, operating through translation. Every stratum needs to use one of these types of distinction to create a double articulation between a content and an expression.

On the physicochemical stratum (at the level of biochemistry and more broadly in chemistry and physics), the distinction is a real-formal one between molecular content and molar expression. On the organic stratum (the level at which organisms are formed), this becomes a real-real distinction between two independent classes of molecules, such as nucleic acids (content; these are DNA and RNA) and proteins (expression). Here, expression achieves a linear, autonomous character. The expression takes place in a different material substance from the formal coding (i.e. proteins are given their form by nucleic acids, but are composed of amino acids).

On the third, alloplastic stratum associated with humans, people modify the external world. Expression on this stratum is linguistic, not genetic. It is therefore transmittable and modifiable from outside. What people take as human nature is actually the properties of this stratum. A real-essential distinction emerges, with technological content linked to the hand-tool couple and forms of power, and symbolic expression linked to the face-language couple and regimes of signs. The hand is extended through the use of tools, made of different materials. This manual formal trait defines the unity of composition of the stratum (production). But the tools themselves have forms and substances and function as strata affecting humans. The authors think the hand is not a more complex organ. It’s a deterritorialised, underdeveloped version of a paw. Similarly, the lips are a deterritorialised snout, and the breast is a deterritorialised udder. The authors think these evolved on the steppe, which was humanity’s associated milieu. (This is called the savannah hypothesis in palaeontology, and scientists today think things are more complicated. Climate instability might have played a role).

The authors draw on the work of the palaeo-anthropologist André Leroi-Gourhan. In Gesture and Speech (1964), Leroi-Gourhan argues that the hand, face, and language are not separate evolutionary developments. They are closely linked. Human evolution began with bipedalism, the adoption of an upright stature. This freed the hand and face from their roles in movement, making them available for other functions. The hands then develop for tool use and the face, especially the mouth, for speech. The two processes – tool use and speech – allowed humans to grasp the world they lived in. This provided the biological basis for culture, which for Leroi-Gourhan does not transcend biology. It also gave rise to a third kind of memory, alongside genetics and individual memory. Social memories can be stored in tools, technologies, and symbols, allowing the accumulation and transmission of knowledge without further biological evolution. Some of these ideas have been confirmed or persisted in paleo-anthropology, including the idea of the co-evolution of the hand, brain, and tool use, and the idea of social memory. However, some of the details of his theory have been thrown into doubt by radiocarbon dating. Symbolism, language, and tool use actually preceded the species Homo sapiens. Leroi-Gourhan takes writing to be a world of symbols derived from the hand rather than the mouth, which is distinct from ‘unilinear verbal language’. It’s a kind of radiating expression of language at the level of content, rather than expression.

Language relies mainly on vocal substance but is highly variable. It relies on temporal rather than spatial sequences, in contrast with genetics. This is what allows translation and representation, and hence science. Everything else can be translated into language via a ‘sufficiently deterritorialized system of signs’ and an overcoding specific to language. The same form can even pass between different substances (speech, writing, sign language, etc.). However, this does not justify an imperialism of language. Just because everything can be translated into language doesn’t mean that language is basic or necessary to interpret other systems. Language functions differently from other strata. The imperialism of language arises from a particular abstract machine trying to capture everything in its pincers. The authors liken this to a spreading ‘canker’ and to despotism.

The alloplastic stratum combines technological content with semiotic or symbolic expression. These correspond loosely to the connective and disjunctive syntheses in Anti-Oedipus. The formal structures of language (regimes of signs) and of power are related to the stratum. They aren’t effects of the face, language, particular languages, or particular tools. They are abstract machines which determine and select. The exterior milieu for this stratum is the ‘cerebral-nervous milieu’. This comes from the organic stratum as ‘substratum’. This level is conceived as a kind of prehuman matter or primordial soup (similar to the field of desiring-production). This field is now said to be pulled between the two poles of mouth and hand, things and words, essential and real. It’s not clear how these poles map onto the earlier schizorevolutionary and paranoid, or immanent and transcendent poles.

Can there be Signs without Strata?

There are three ways an abstract machine can be expressed. It can operate as Ecumenon, as organising form within a stratum. It can develop in its own right on the destratified plane of consistency, as Planomenon. Or it can exist in an intermediate state, where the pincers of a stratum reach out into other strata. This produces an illusion exceeding all strata, even if it remains part of a stratum. The author thinks the ‘illusion constitutive of man’ (humanity) is of this third type. It derives from the overcoding immanent to language, but seems to fold onto all of existence. But the alloplastic stratum is not an illusion. Different modes of social production (now termed regimes of signs and formations of power) are now said to be different strata in human populations.

The questions addressed in the concluding pages are:

Under what circumstances may we speak of signs?

Are there signs whenever there is a ‘form of expression’ (i.e. stratification)?

Are there signs on all strata?

The authors distinguish three kinds of signs: indexes (territorial signs), symbols (deterritorialised signs), and icons (signs of reterritorialisation). Indexes have already been mentioned to refer to natural signs (dam indicates beaver, web indicates spider, footprints indicate animals, etc.). Symbols seem to correspond to the schizorevolutionary use of signs, and icons were mentioned in relation to the despotic mode. Does this suggest that the territorial mode uses indexes? And which, then, does capitalism use?

The authors oppose the idea that there are signs on all strata, because this ‘reinforces the imperialism of language’. No system of signs is common to all strata. The concept of signs should be limited to human language. On other strata, there isn’t a margin of latitude allowing for writing or recognition. There’s no categorical distinction between signs and particles. If something writes in this situation, it writes directly on the plane of consistency. That’s fundamentally different from language. However, they add that there might be signs on all strata if these are not reduced to signifiers. Language itself might not be reducible to signifiers. Expression should not be reduced to signifiers. The relationship between signifier/signified or content/expression is always reciprocal and relative. What is signified/content is never reducible or equivalent to a signifier/expression. And the Hjelmslevian terms are more accurate.

What Deleuze and Guattari are criticising here is the idea that words correspond to things, or expressions to contents. They criticise various ideas about language: that the relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary, or necessary, or involves a term-by-term correspondence, or involves a global correspondence, or that signified and signifier are indistinguishable, or that the signified does not exist without the signifier. They see all these various views as extending the imperialism of the signifier. In fact, they say, a double articulation involves two distinct fields which are joined together, a form and substance of content and a form and substance of expression.

Deleuze and Guattari here draw on Foucault’s work on prisons. They take this work to be linguistic. The prison (or the carceral field) in Foucault is a ‘form of content’ in Hjelmslev’s sense. It is related to other such forms such as factories and schools. The form does not refer back to the word “prison” but to ways of classifying social deviance. “Delinquency” or “crime” (or the discourse about these) is the form of expression corresponding to the prison. Delinquency is not a signified with the prison as its signifier (e.g. something can be regarded as delinquent or criminal even if nobody is convicted and imprisoned for it). The discourse about delinquency is built from words, and the prison itself is built from power.

The prison system also has a relative expression in statements about it, which do not coincide with statements about deviance. People can talk about prison conditions and regimes without talking about deviance. And the discourse on deviance also produces new ways of committing crimes. These aren’t simply varieties of the prison or part of the prison system, even if they relate to the same discourse. Prison and deviance evolve with distinct micro-histories. The abstract machine unifying prison and deviance is not a signifier but a diagram. In fact, it expressed a common diagram underpinning prison, school, barracks, hospital, and factory (which relate to different fields of expression). The diagram is what Foucault calls disciplinary power (which is specific to modern capitalism, and distinct from older, sovereign forms of power). The two aspects, form and expression, are only combined in a concrete assemblage which uses double articulation and accepts their distinction.

The idea of stratification should replace the ideas of signifier and signified. Signs cannot be equated with language. Signs are defined by regimes of statements related to ‘real usages or functions of language’ (something like Wittgenstein’s language-games). Signs are not signs of things, but of de- or reterritorialisation (the relationship of a thing to a particular territorial system, to its use from a certain point of view). Signs mark a threshold crossed in processed of de/reterritorialisation. For example, animal tracks are not a language. They mark the passage of an animal, as it either constructs or flees a territory.

Even within human alloplastic stratification, linguistic signifiers and their use (signifiance) are only one of the specific regimes of expression. There are also asemiotic expressions, both with and without signs. Deleuze and Guattari think signifiance might only be the most ‘pernicious, cancerous, despotic’, and illusion-based, not the most interesting or the most modern regime of signs. In Anti-Oedipus, they argued that the signifier is connected to the despotic mode of social production. It’s not fully present in territorial recording practices and it’s already being overcome in the capitalist focus on information and data. Expression cannot reflect content, because it already has an internal structure (form and substance). The two relate only because of an abstract machine which generates both of the forms.

The authors thus oppose Marxist base-superstructure models, which reduce culture and politics to an economic base. They take this as a three-layered pyramid with economics at the base, the State on the next level up, and then ideology. But it’s not clear where language goes in this pyramid. In the Marxist model, the abstract structure determining all the levels is situated entirely in the base. But Deleuze and Guattari think the different levels reflect the same structural determinant, the abstract machine (here, the capitalist mode of social production). The different levels are internally structured and intertwined. Marxist theory confuses distinct phenomena. Language operates only in heterogeneous regimes of signs which give contradictory orders. It is distinct from circulating information. Regimes of signs express organisations of power (such as the prison or factory). They are not ideological, but express social machines. Power in turn is present in all these machines and not just the State. Economic phenomena can also be signs and expressions, rather than contents. And there are also noneconomic contents. The base-superstructure model has to be abandoned. They add that the problem is the same whatever one places in the base. For example, the Lacanian theory of the phallus suffers from similar problems. The mind/matter binary comes in for similar criticism. All such binaries are ways of closing a system off from the plane of consistency and reducing everything to a single stratum.

They add that it’s hard to discuss stratification without suggesting that there’s a cosmic evolution from one level to another – a stages theory of history. But different arrangements of content and expression are not stages. They aren’t more or less organised. Any stratum can also be a substratum for another, without any particular ordering. They don’t become more complex or more organised as one goes “up” a hierarchy of strata (say, from chemistry to biology to sociology). They all operate in the same field of machinic desiring-production. Different strata communicate transversally, in all kinds of directions. For example, it seems that biology is a substratum for sociology, but industrial environments also promote the development of certain insects and bacteria. Everything ultimately moves on the plane of consistency. Anything can be uprooted from its stratum, destratified, decoded, and/or deterritorialised. Distinctions like form-substance, content-expression, artificial-natural, base-superstructure, signifier-signified, etc. only exist at the level of strata, not on the plane of consistency.

Deleuze and Guattari then complicate the theory. There isn’t a simple dualism. Strata are built from the material of the plane of consistency. They involve deterritorialisations as well as territorialisations. The strata are simply ‘thickenings’ of congealed substance on the plane of consistency, which remains primary. Abstract machines create strata, but they derive from the destratified plane of consistency.

People can still identify and name things without strata, in a state of absolute deterritorialisation. They keep an ‘aura’, ‘undulation’, ‘memory or tension’ of the stratum they have left. There’s just enough in common between strata and the plane of consistency that stratified terms can be used to describe functions on the plane. Abstract machines still produce intensities on the plane. Continuous intensities (which aren’t split up into exclusive disjunctions) only exist on the plane, not in strata. Particles on the plane of consistency give off a certain kind of signs. They form certain kinds of diagrams, even when these don’t lead to strata. The lecture ends with the disarticulated figure of Challenger undergoing mutations, first sprouting claws and two heads, then emitting vapours, and finally departing for the plane of consistency through a particle clock which functioned as a gateway.

The politics of this plateau are not always clear. Given the breadth of its scope, it seems to suggest that human life requires a high level of stratification. The alloplastic stratum as well as the organic stratum seems unavoidable for humans. However, the authors also gesture towards a possibility of a Planomenon and absolute deterritorialisation. The abstract machine can be enveloped in a stratum or develop in its own right on the plane of consistency. They evidently believe that people can free themselves from strata without simply dissolving in a literal sense.

The concept of overcoding undergoes some mutations in this chapter. In Anti-Oedipus, the authors make clear that overcoding is not socially necessary; it is specific to despotic and capitalist systems. They indicate that desiring-production can operate in immanent ways which do not require the production of a molar society. But they still operate in terms of the alloplastic stratum and in the authors’ new formulation, this entails both linguistic structure and social power. In this plateau, they use the term to refer to any code which takes a pre-existing stratum as its substance. Language, for instance, is termed overcoding because it is built on an organic base. The authors already associated writing and “the signifier” with despotism and overcoding in Anti-Oedipus. But it seems, now, that there are overcodings built on top of overcodings.

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This article, a revised version of the 2025 David Gordon Memorial Lecture, is published in the Review of Radical Political Economy, a mainly Marxist journal. The author, Radhika Desai, is a Canadian political scientist of Indian origin. She’s best known for her book Geopolitical Economy, which is closely related to her present article. Here, she argues that we must return to the original ideas of Marx and Engels to understand the link between capitalism and imperialism today. She contends that at the close of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, the productive weakness of capitalism and the challenge posed by socialist China are driving imperialist countries, led by the United States, into a frenzy of economic and military aggression. The dominant theories that once celebrated “globalization” or “US empire” are now clearly discredited.

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The central problem, according to Desai, is that for over a century, many Marxists have surrendered to neoclassical economics, creating a “Marxist Economics” that is a contradiction in terms. This has led to a situation where Marxists are divided between those who deny any theoretical link between capitalism and imperialism and those who abandon Marx’s core ideas to explain it using a patchwork of other theories. The article traces the root of the confusion to what it calls the “Marxist Economics” tradition, which emerged from a long-standing effort to reconcile Marx’s ideas with neoclassical economics. This tradition levels three false accusations against Marx: that his value theory has a “transformation problem,” that he did not believe in a demand deficit, and that he was wrong about the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

By accepting these critiques, Desai argues that Marxist economists effectively stripped capitalism of its inherent contradictions, portraying it as a harmonious, self-regulating system that does not need state intervention. This has disastrous consequences for understanding international relations because it removes the very reason capitalism needs imperialism. If capitalism has no internal contradictions, then it has no need to expand outward to manage them. As a result, much of Marxist international relations has ended up simply following fashionable bourgeois ideas, either by claiming Marx was the original theorist of globalisation or by focusing on a “US hegemony” that, Desai argues, was never actually achieved. The article’s replete with criticism of people like Max Weber, Paul Sweezy, Robert Brenner, Anthony Brewer, Alex Callinicos, Panitch and Gindin, and the journals New Left Review and Monthly Review. They’re all criticised for supposedly deviating from Marxist political economy and/or denying the relationship between capitalism and imperialism.

To correct this, the article builds a new approach called “geopolitical economy” based on Marx’s own writings. The key lies in a short section of Marx’s Grundrisse where he discusses the protectionist economist Henry Carey and what he calls “the relations of producing nations.” Desai explains that for Marx, the contradictions of capitalism appear on the world stage as disharmony between nations. This international plane is where capitalist contradictions reach their “grandest development” as a struggle between imperial domination, which denies development to other countries, and anti-imperialist resistance, which pursues state-directed, protectionist development to achieve industrialisation. This is the motor of international relations in the age of capital. Imperialist powers need subordinated territories to act as markets for their surplus goods, outlets for their surplus capital, and sources of cheap inputs and cheap labour. However, for a subordinated country to develop, it must resist these demands and shelter its economy, leading to a constant dialectic between the unevenness of imperial domination and the combined, state-led development of those who resist it. According to Desai, a purely capitalist economy cannot exist. Capitalism is not a self-contained totality, but rather, has to constantly overspill its boundaries to survive.

Desai uses this framework to retell the history of capitalism and socialism. The first phase of combined development was carried out by countries like the United States and Germany, which could become capitalist because they could still acquire their own colonies. However, this led to the First World War, which Lenin correctly saw as the highest stage of a capitalism that had exhausted its progressive potential. The Russian and Chinese Revolutions were not historical mistakes, as many Western Marxists claim, but were part of a revolutionary wave that could only succeed outside the imperialist core. These revolutions had to be socialist because the capitalist road to development was now closed. With the world already divided up among the major powers, a country rejecting imperial subordination could no longer pursue capitalism. Therefore, socialism became the only viable path to development for nations seeking to escape the imposed poverty and complementarity demanded by the imperialist system.

The “golden age” of growth after the Second World War, often cited as proof of capitalism’s renewed vitality, was actually the result of a substantial worldwide turn to the left. This included the growth of the Communist world, left-leaning development strategies in newly independent countries, and Keynesian welfare states in the capitalist core that made major concessions to the working class. When this system ran into crisis, the response was not to deepen reforms but to roll them back with neoliberalism. This policy, designed to free monopolistic capital from its shackles, did not and could not revive investment or innovation. Instead, it led to financialisation, low growth, and greater inequality. The decline of imperialism and capitalism now reinforce each other, as the United States-led core loses its ability to compel the rest of the world to serve its needs as a source of cheap goods, labour, and investment outlets, a reality underscored by the return of inflation and the rise of China.

The article concludes that today, the future of capitalism hangs in the balance of international power relations. Imperialism is losing its grip on all four fronts necessary for value production, and the historical opportunity for socialism as the path to development is opening wider than ever. The United States is left defending a deeply contradictory financial system whose crisis is imminent. The article argues that if the working class is the gravedigger of capitalism at home, then states pursuing socialist development are its gravediggers on the international plane. This is why the current conflict between declining capitalist powers and a rising socialist China is the central dynamic of our time. Desai’s geopolitical economy insists that only by understanding capitalism as a historically specific, contradiction-ridden social form that requires imperialism can we properly grasp the climactic conjuncture of the twenty-first century.

Commentary: I’m surprised to see old-school Marxism-Leninism reappearing so often with such force in the last decade or so. The main problem with the approach was never its political economy, but rather, the decline of the working-class as a revolutionary force. Marxists have changed their theories for good reasons: because the classical approach lacked purchase on newer situations. The argument that Marxist theoretical deviation is the reason for failure is even more tenuous, given how marginal Marxism has become in all of its forms. It seems to me rather futile to suggest today that early-twentieth-century imperialism is really the last stage of capitalism, when capitalism has somehow hobbled along for over a century. The argument that its upturn under Fordism was actually an effect of socialism has rather unfortunate implications for the overall argument; it implies that capitalism in the core countries effectively abolished and then restored itself, without any revolutionary process or any change in its imperial stance.

Decolonisation is also something of a mystery here, as are the various transitions of socialist states (e.g. Russia) back to capitalism. Indeed, Desai seems to believe that China today is a model of socialism, simply because it uses limited protectionism to promote development. Workers in export production sweatshops, dispossessed peasants, unemployed rustbelt workers, and jailed neo-Maoists might well disagree on this point. And even if this is a form of socialism, it’s not exactly an advert for socialism or a sign of its impending triumph. I think in fact that state socialism leads to a new ruling elite who, if they achieve “development”, eventually transition into a capitalist class. Also, neo-Marxism hasn’t exactly forgotten about imperialism; the author’s barbs ignore virtually the entire field of dependency theory and world-systems analysis, which make more sophisticated versions of her own arguments. Finally, I’d add that she’s stayed ensconced in a well-paid job in evil settler-colonial Canada, rather than moving to China as her ideology seems to entail. If I was a revolutionary socialist and thought China was a socialist state which was taking over the world economy, I’d be pretty enthusiastic to be part of the revolutionary process and not just a cheerleader from afar. Desai’s situation suggests she doesn’t believe her own theories, except abstractly.

The Kohbar Ghar: A study of sacred space and ritualistic paintings in Mithila marriage traditions, by Shashi Singh, Fulena Rajak, and Anjali Sharma, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 25 no. 2, 2026.

A new study has examined the Kohbar Ghar, the sacred nuptial chamber in Mithila wedding traditions, and its intricate ritualistic wall paintings. This unique tradition, a part of the famous Madhubani folk art from North Bihar, involves decorating the room where a married couple meets for the first time with elaborate and deeply symbolic motifs. However, the practice is now in decline due to rural-to-urban migration and the modern trend of shortening marriage ceremonies, which is causing a loss of cultural roots and putting the tradition at risk of near extinction. The research aimed to explore the cultural and ceremonial significance of these paintings, understand the meaning behind their religious iconography, and study how the tradition has been maintained and adapted in the face of modernity and commercialisation. The authors also suggest that it is declining due to patterns such as rural-to-urban migration, and the commercialisation of art has provided greater opportunities for women.

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The study used a descriptive research design that combined primary and secondary data. Primary observations were made through detailed museum visits and examination of cultural archives in Bihar and Delhi, where the researchers could visually record and analyse exhibited artefacts. This was supported by a thorough study of published literature, exhibition catalogues, and archival documents on Mithila art and marriage rites. Unlike earlier works that focused primarily on the aesthetic or historical dimensions, this paper concentrates on deciphering the specific meanings of the symbolic motifs and their deep connection to the socio-economic and cultural background of Mithila. The research highlights that the Kohbar Ghar is not just a room with decorations, but a central and essential element of the living heritage of the Mithila community.

The analysis revealed that the wall paintings in the Kohbar Ghar are a carefully constructed visual language of fertility, prosperity, and the continuity of life. Every motif painted on the walls carries a specific metaphorical meaning. The researchers identified a range of symbolic imagery, including fish, parrots, sacred lotus plants, bamboo woods, tortoises, and entwined snakes, all of which represent fertility and the blessing of a long and fruitful married life. The paintings also feature Hindu deities like Durga, Rama, and Krishna, reflecting deep religious devotion. The art is traditionally created by women from the Brahmin and Kayasth communities and is meant to sanctify the space for the crucial post-wedding rituals that take place there, making it a powerful blend of art, faith, and social function.

The study documented that the Kohbar painting tradition has undergone significant changes as it has been affected by modernity and commercialisation. The practice of painting directly on the mud walls of the nuptial chamber continued until the early 1960s, when drawing paper and cloth became widely available and affordable in the villages. This shift in materials represents a major adaptation, moving the art from an ephemeral architectural element to a portable product. While this has allowed the art form to survive and reach a global market, it also changes its fundamental nature. The research discusses how this commercialisation has altered the context and meaning of the art, transforming it from a highly sacred, ritual-specific practice into a more generalised cultural symbol that can be bought and sold.

Despite the pressures of modernisation, the study concluded that the Kohbar paintings and the cultural symbols embedded in them continue to serve as a powerful representation of the values, beliefs, and aspirations of the Mithila community. The research points to the important role of museums and exhibitions in preserving and promoting this heritage. These institutions provide a space where the traditional knowledge and artistic skills can be documented and displayed, educating new generations and those outside the community about the depth of Mithila culture. The paper also notes recent developments where artists are using new techniques and materials, creating a dynamic tension between maintaining traditional authenticity and adapting to contemporary artistic expression.

In conclusion, the paper argues that the Kohbar Ghar is an irreplaceable element of Mithila’s living heritage, and its study is crucial for strengthening the wider discussion of cultural heritage. The research discloses how this specific art form embodies the regional identity of Mithila, with subtle variations in style that reflect local differences. By analysing the sacred and ritualistic implications of the paintings, the work shows that they are not merely decorative but are an active and functional part of the marriage ceremony itself. The paper highlights the urgency of preserving this tradition, suggesting that understanding its deep cultural meaning is the first step towards developing strategies that respect its sacred origins while supporting its evolution in a rapidly changing world.

Commentary: I think this article shows some of the limitations of culturalism. The authors talk about “values, beliefs, and aspirations” and the importance of symbols for cultural identity. But they don’t link culture to modes of social production which are more than just “values, beliefs, and aspirations”. For this reason, they don’t clearly theorise either decline or conservation. Their sociopolitical engagement is mainly conservative, bemoaning social changes which undermine “culture”, or reformist, seeking to update “culture” so as to preserve it.

Kohbar art is clearly more than either aesthetic expression or cultural identity. In Deleuze and Guattari’s terms, this is a territorial practice – an intense coding of meanings through inscriptions. Such a practice has an important role in a territorial social assemblage where a small-scale social group (village, clan, tribe, etc.) have a group fantasy with intense symbolism. The practice is magical or supernatural, and depends on the newlywed couples decoding and reacting emotionally to the conventional symbolism. When it becomes “art”, or “culture” to be preserved, or a badge of national/regional/ethnoreligious identity, this aspect of meaningful effect may well be lost. Reviving the affects involved (whether with the same or other symbols) has to take place at the level of desiring-production.

Capitalism tends to decode and deterritorialise, undermining such practices. But it also sometimes revives them as forms of reterritorialisation. The account in this article is typical of the impact of capitalism on territorial coding: what were previously local and segmented practices are converted into commodities and portable images. Attempting to defend or revive “values” and territorial codings without the corresponding (subsistence or tributary) mode of social production is usually either ineffectual or reactionary. One either ends up with a ritual maintained simply because it is traditional, or a commercialised ritual maintained because it is profitable self-branding – neither of which recover the magical/supernatural power of the original. Also, any future revival will have to take account of shifts in the nature of marriage in the context of migration, urbanisation, and modernisation. Elaborate, expensive marriage rituals tend to become unsustainable in modern economies, where the relevant communities of intimacy do not exist and ceremonies become too expensive. Indeed, marriage loses much of its meaning outside relations of filiation and alliance of small-scale groups, and outside a family/lineage/household economy. This said, symbols can also easily be incorporated into new schizorevolutionary assemblages, in the same way hippies make use of ancient symbols. But there can’t be a full revival or conservation unless people start living in territorial-mode societies again.

Pandavleni Caves in Nashik. Only suitable for parties of Level 8 upward.

Public perceptions in an Indian historic city: An empirical study of tangible-intangible heritage linkages, by Vedangi Deshpande and Devyani Gangopadhyay, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 25 no. 2, 2026.

A new study has investigated how the public perceives the deep connection between tangible heritage, like historic buildings, and intangible cultural heritage, such as traditions and festivals, in the Indian historic city of Nashik. While UNESCO frameworks recognise the importance of both types of heritage, existing research shows that their critical interrelationship in urban contexts is not well understood, and conservation efforts often focus narrowly on physical monuments without considering the living cultural practices that give them meaning. The study aimed to fill this gap by examining this relationship from the perspective of the city’s residents, with a specific focus on discovering whether different generations perceive this link in different ways. The research is based on the idea that heritage is not a static thing but is constantly redefined through social interactions and the emotional bonds people form with places.

The research used a mixed-methods approach, combining a qualitative projective survey with a structured Likert-scale questionnaire to gather both deep personal narratives and measurable data. The theoretical framework was built on three key concepts. First, social constructivism provided the lens to understand how heritage meanings are created through shared social practices. Second, place attachment theory helped explain the emotional bonds and sense of identity people form with heritage sites. Third, the Historic Urban Landscape approach was used to see heritage as a living cultural landscape rather than as isolated physical assets. These three foundations were used to structure the analysis around three central themes: Sense of Identity and Place Attachment, the Spatial-Built Contributions to Intangible Cultural Heritage, and Cultural Practices as Socially Constructed.

The study’s findings revealed several important insights into how the people of Nashik perceive their heritage. The first major finding was that residents perceive urban built heritage, such as temples, ghats, and forts, as being much more closely connected to their intangible cultural practices than natural heritage features are. This suggests that for the local community, the physical structures of the city act as essential anchors for their identity, memories, and traditions. The everyday rituals, festivals, and social practices are seen as inseparable from the specific historic spaces where they occur. This confirms the theoretical idea that heritage functions as a living cultural landscape, where the tangible and intangible are not separate categories but form a single, integrated whole in the minds of the people who live there.

An ancient temple in Nashik (I think).

A crucial and highly significant outcome of the research was the clear evidence of generational differences in how these heritage links are perceived. The results demonstrated that a person’s age group significantly influences their perception of heritage assets and their interconnections. The 15-25 age group are less concerned with conservation but highly emotionally connected to festivals and rituals. The 26-40 age group are more aware of the link between practised culture and spatial heritage and concerned about urban pressure on cultural spaces. These two groups also seek modern and digitally mediated heritage experiences with active and participatory aspects.

Older groups were more concerned with authenticity. The 41-55 age group have more emphasis on cultural continuity. They worry about erosion of traditions. The 56-75 age group have a deep attachment to heritage and act as custodians. This generational divide has profound implications, as it suggests that older and younger residents may hold different values, have different emotional attachments, and see different priorities for conservation. Ignoring these differences could lead to heritage management strategies that fail to engage the entire community or that overlook the evolving cultural significance of a place.

By placing citizen perception at the centre of the analysis, the study offers a grounded, evidence-based alternative to the typical expert-driven, monument-centric approach to conservation that is common in India. The use of a projective survey method allowed the researchers to document the everyday experiences and personal narratives of the participants, revealing how they assign meaning to heritage in their daily lives. This bottom-up perspective is crucial because something that might appear common or insignificant to a heritage expert could be central to the collective memory and cultural identity of a local community. The research demonstrates that local knowledge is essential for integrating personal and official views of heritage into a more holistic and socially sustainable management plan.

In conclusion, the study makes a strong case for transforming how urban heritage conservation is approached in historic Indian cities. The empirical evidence from Nashik shows that intangible cultural heritage and the built environment are perceived as deeply linked, and that these perceptions shift with age. These findings directly inform the need for more inclusive and nuanced conservation strategies that move beyond protecting just the physical fabric of a city. The research advocates for policies that actively address generational differences in heritage perception and that recognise the vital role of community engagement in preserving the living cultural landscape. By grounding conservation in the actual experiences and values of the residents, the work paves the way for heritage management that is more relevant, meaningful, and sustainable for future generations.

Vrikshayurveda based biostimulant ‘herbal kunapjala’ enhanced the survival, growth and biochemical characteristics of litchi air layers, by Sushree Suchismita Meher, Ratna Rai, Sunita T Pandey, Pratibha, Harshita Bora, Yesh Pal Singh, Nitin Panwar, Gopal Mani, and Tanshu Chaudhary, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 25 no. 2, 2026.

This study was conducted at G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology in Pantnagar to test the effectiveness of an ancient Vrikshayurveda-based biostimulant called herbal kunapjala on the survival and growth of litchi air layers. Vrikshayurveda is a specific branch of ayurveda, i.e. Indian traditional medicine. Litchi (i.e. lychee) is an important fruit crop in India, but its large-scale production is held back by a shortage of high-quality planting material. While air layering is the most common propagation method, the young plants suffer from a very high death rate after being detached from the mother tree due to poor rooting and transplant shock. The research aimed to find a sustainable and holistic solution by comparing different types of herbal kunapjala with commercially available biostimulants like seaweed extract and triacontanol to see which treatment could best improve the survival, vegetative growth, and biochemical health of the new litchi plants.

The experiment involved eleven different treatments applied to uniform litchi air layers. These included a control with just water, two different concentrations of commercial seaweed extract and triacontanol (a plant growth regulator found in some waxes), and three different recipes of herbal kunapjala, each applied at two concentrations of 50 and 100 millilitres per litre. The three types of herbal kunapjala were all based on a common mixture of cow urine, cow dung, jaggery, and other natural ingredients, but differed in the type of green vegetation used. Herbal kunapjala 1 used only stinging nettle, herbal kunapjala 2 used a mix of stinging nettle and local weeds, and herbal kunapjala 3 used only local weeds. The rooted portion of each freshly detached air layer was dipped in its respective treatment for ten minutes before being planted in a potting mix of soil, sand, and farmyard manure, and then kept for observation.

The results after 120 and 180 days of planting were decisive and clearly pointed to one standout treatment. The plants treated with herbal kunapjala 2 at the higher concentration of 100 millilitres per litre showed the best results across almost every category measured. This treatment led to the highest survival rate, with 90% and 88.33% of the plants still alive at the two observation points. It also produced the most robust vegetative growth, as evidenced by the maximum number of primary roots and the highest relative growth rate. The biochemical analysis confirmed these visible results, with this treatment recording the highest levels of total chlorophyll, carotenoids, phenols, and proline, all of which indicate superior plant health, strong photosynthesis, and high stress tolerance.

The performance of herbal kunapjala 2 significantly outpaced the commercial alternatives of seaweed extract and triacontanol, as well as the other two herbal kunapjala recipes. This suggests that the specific combination of stinging nettle and local weeds created a uniquely potent biostimulant. However, all three of the herbal combinations outperformed seaweed and triacontanol on some measures, such as shoot and leaf growth. Triacontanol had negative effects on some of the aspects measured, but seaweed also had some positive effects on growth. For example, looking at the situation after 180 days, 68% of the control group survived of which 47% were saleable. This compared to 77% and 55% of those treated with low levels of seaweed extract (the lower level worked better than the higher), 78% and 53% of those treated with the nettle mixture, 83% and 71% of those treated with the local herb mixture, and 88% and 76% of those treated with the most successful, herb and nettle mixture. However, those treated with triacontanol actually performed worse than the untreated controls. At the higher dose, only 48% survived and only 27% were deemed saleable. It thus seems worthwhile using any of the formulations except triacontanol.

The study also measured leaf nutrient content and found that the same treatment resulted in the maximum values, confirming that the formulation works as a rich, natural source of macro and micronutrients that the young plants can quickly absorb. The results also showed that the other herbal kunapjala types and the seaweed extract performed better than the triacontanol and the control, highlighting the general benefit of natural biostimulants for overcoming the difficult establishment phase of litchi air layers.

The findings are a strong scientific validation of the ancient Indian science of Vrikshayurveda, which details ways to sustainably cultivate healthy plants using traditional organic preparations. Herbal kunapjala was originally described as a fermented liquid fertiliser made from animal remains, which raised ethical issues. This study demonstrates that a modern, ethical version made entirely from plant materials is not only environmentally friendly but also highly effective. The results confirm that herbal kunapjala acts as a powerful natural plant growth booster that builds a strong, healthy root system, which is the single most important factor for the survival and long-term success of a new litchi plant.

This research provides an affordable and sustainable solution to a major practical problem in litchi cultivation. By dipping the air layers in a simple, farmer-made preparation like herbal kunapjala 2, growers can dramatically reduce the high mortality rate that has long restricted the expansion of this valuable fruit crop. The study promotes a move away from synthetic chemicals towards a holistic, Vrikshayurveda-based approach that enhances nutrient efficiency, improves stress tolerance, and ultimately leads to the production of stronger, healthier planting material. The work encourages the wider adoption of such ancient, ecologically sound practices in modern horticulture for the benefit of farmers and the environment.

Commentary: The method used is designed to improve survival of lychee plants in fairly large-scale plantations. The researchers’ focus seems to be commercial production, but there’s similar issues for anyone trying to grow lychee. However, lychee can only be grown in tropical and subtropical regions with no ground frost (India, Southeast Asia, China, Australia, South America, southern US, parts of Africa). Elsewhere, heated greenhouses are an option but fruit production is low and it takes more effort than other tropical fruits. For people trying to grow lychee in suitable areas, the research indicates that it is most effective to combine manure with both stinging nettles and local weeds in order to provide sufficient biostimulants for young plants.

Integrating traditional knowledge and field monitoring to assess insect pest tolerance in indigenous rice varieties of Wayanad, Kerala, by Sreejina Sreedharan Kallyadan, M K Nandakumar, and M Nasser, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 25 no. 2, 2026.

A five-year field study conducted in the northern panchayats of Wayanad, Kerala, has combined traditional farmer knowledge with scientific field monitoring to assess insect pest tolerance in 49 indigenous rice varieties. Wayanad is a biodiversity-rich district in the Western Ghats where tribal and marginal farmers have preserved a vast array of traditional rice landraces. These varieties are believed to have a natural resistance to pests, making them crucial for low-input and organic farming systems. However, this traditional ecological knowledge had not been scientifically validated. The study aimed to bridge this gap by systematically documenting folk knowledge, measuring actual pest density and abundance in the field during five consecutive wet seasons, and calculating a composite Pest Index for each variety.

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The research team worked closely with 203 farmers across seven panchayats, conducting semi-structured interviews in the local Malayalam language to gather their detailed perceptions. The farmers shared their knowledge about pest identification, giving the folk names of insects which were then validated against scientific references. They also described the traditional indicators they use to judge a variety’s pest tolerance, such as leaf strength, aroma, and the plant’s ability to recover from damage. This participatory approach ensured that the study respected and incorporated the deep, place-based wisdom of the farming communities, particularly the Adivasi tribes like the Kurichiya, who have a sophisticated local classification system for their paddy landscapes based on soil type, drainage, and water availability.

To measure pest tolerance scientifically, the researchers conducted weekly surveillance of insect pests during the peak prevalence months from July to October across 19 different locations. They measured pest density and the rate of natural parasitism to calculate a rigorous composite Pest Index for each of the 49 varieties, where a score closer to zero indicates higher tolerance. The findings revealed a clear spectrum of tolerance. Varieties like Jeerakasala, Mundon, and Gandhakasala were found to be highly susceptible to pests. On the other hand, a different group of five varieties, Kanakam, Kayama, Kunjootti, Kunnumkulamban, and Marathondi, were identified as the most tolerant, consistently showing the lowest pest incidence across multiple seasons and locations. Some of the varieties deemed pest-resistance by farmers were not under lab conditions, suggesting that other factors such as recovery rates influences farmers’ perceptions. Veliyan, for example, recovers quickly from infestations. Pest frequency was affected by weather conditions, but the same rice varieties were pest tolerant whether there were many or few pests.

A powerful aspect of the study was the use of a Random Forest machine-learning analysis to identify which plant characteristics were the best predictors of pest incidence. The model performed very well, revealing that three factors, namely lodging, or the bending of stems, the number of days to maturity, and grain yield, were the most useful indicators for predicting a variety’s pest tolerance. Most importantly, the study found a very strong agreement between the farmers’ traditional perceptions of which varieties were tolerant and the hard data gathered from the field experiments. This convergence is a significant scientific validation of traditional ecological knowledge, proving that farmers’ generations-old observations are an accurate and reliable source of agronomic information.

The findings have important implications for the future of sustainable rice farming in the region. The identification of specific, pest-tolerant traditional varieties provides farmers with concrete choices for reducing their reliance on chemical pesticides. Varieties like Kayama and Marathondi, which are naturally adapted to local conditions and have proven resistance to insect pests, are ideal candidates for promotion in low-input agricultural systems. The study emphasises that preserving this crop diversity is not just a matter of cultural heritage but a direct investment in food security and ecological stability, as these landraces hold the genetic traits needed to cope with climate change and increasing pest pressure.

By integrating indigenous knowledge with quantitative field ecology, the research provides a robust model for agro-ecological studies. The strong agreement between the two knowledge systems powerfully validates the expertise of traditional farmers. The study concludes that conserving pest-tolerant indigenous rice varieties is essential for building resilient agricultural systems. It strongly advocates for policies that support the cultivation of these landraces and the farmers who maintain them, to enhance crop diversity, promote ecological farming practices, and move away from the costly and environmentally damaging cycle of chemical-dependent, high-yielding varieties.

Physicochemical analysis of Agnihotra aerosols and their implications on human health and environment, by Brahamdutt Arya, Vikas Goel, Ajit Ahlawat, Sumit Kumar Mishra, and Surinder P Singh, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 25 no. 2, 2026.

A scientific study has used advanced modern instrumentation to analyse the physicochemical properties of aerosols produced during Agnihotra, an ancient Indian fire ritual also known as Yagya or Yajna. This traditional practice involves burning a specific mixture of medicinal herbs, wood, and clarified butter in a copper pyramid-shaped pot, and is described in the Rig Veda as having benefits for both human health through inhalation therapy and for environmental purification. Despite its long history and continued practice, the ritual has not been effectively studied using modern environmental science techniques. The research team set out to fill this gap by conducting a detailed scientific analysis of the fumes to understand their composition and to investigate their potential effects on air quality and health.

Buy me some herbs!

The Agnihotra plants were fairly diverse. The authors included musk, saffron, rose petals, two kinds of sandalwood powder, agar, tagar, cardamom, jayaphal, camphor, ghee, dried fruits, wheat, barley, and 70-80 types of herbs. The lab test reproduced the ritual, complete with offerings to the gods and Vedic chanting and oblations. The researchers sought to study the gases produced by the heady mixture which was ritually burned.

The study was conducted in three major domains using state-of-the-art instrumentation. The first domain involved a detailed morphological and chemical analysis of the particulate matter released during the ritual. The researchers used techniques like Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy and X-ray Fluorescence to examine the elemental composition of the aerosol particles. Crucially, this analysis revealed that no toxic elements were released during the Agnihotra process, which is a key safety finding. The second domain focused on the real-time monitoring of environmental gases. Using a multi-sensor gas analyser, the team measured the concentration of common pollutants and found a relative reduction in several of them during the ritual. The levels of carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, ozone, and hydrogen sulphide all showed decreases.

The third and most significant domain of the study involved a systematic analysis of the volatile organic compounds that evolved during Agnihotra. Using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, the researchers identified more than forty-two different bioactive compounds in the fumes. These compounds are the result of the controlled combustion of the “hawan samagri,” a precise mixture of specific woods, aromatic substances, and medicinal herbs prepared according to ancient Vedic literature. The study describes how this ritual functions as a traditional bio-fumigation and non-invasive drug delivery system, where the lipid-based volatile organic compounds act as carriers for herbal therapeutic molecules, potentially allowing for their absorption through the nasal cavity. Some of the substances present have been shown to have medical effects in lab studies. For instance, cinnamic acid and its derivatives have anti-inflammatory and anti-tumour effects and atre used against bacteria, diabetes, TB, malaria, and so on. But we don’t actually know if the presence of these substances during the ritual has medical effects.

The findings provide a scientific foundation for the ancient claims about the ritual’s dual purpose. On one hand, the observed reduction in environmental pollutant gases supports the concept of Agnihotra as a method for environmental remediation. On the other hand, the identification of a complex mixture of bioactive compounds in the smoke substantiates its traditional use as an inhalation therapy to treat a wide range of conditions, from pulmonary and dermatological issues to neurological and psychological disorders. The study confirms that the ritual is a sophisticated traditional technology, where the specific design of the copper pot, the precise timing, and the careful selection and combination of ingredients all contribute to generating a complex chemical aerosol.

While the results are promising, the researchers are careful to state that the therapeutic potential of inhaling these compounds requires much more investigation. The study validates that the fumes are not toxic and contain bioactive substances, but it does not prove that inhaling them can cure specific diseases. The next necessary steps are in vitro laboratory studies and in vivo clinical trials to validate any direct health benefits. This work serves as a crucial bridge between ancient Vedic knowledge and modern scientific inquiry, providing the physical and chemical characterisation of the aerosols that is necessary before any biological effects can be rigorously tested and understood.

This research provides a strong scientific platform for the traditional practice of Agnihotra, moving its study from belief-based claims to empirically testable data. By documenting the lack of toxic elements, the reduction in common pollutants, and the rich presence of bioactive volatile compounds, the study opens the door for systematic future investigations. The findings suggest that this ancient non-invasive inhalation therapy may indeed hold potential for modern integrative medicine and environmental science. Future work will need to identify the specific therapeutic actions of the individual compounds found in the fumes and to conduct controlled trials to establish safety and efficacy for particular health conditions.

A study of potential risk factors of Shvitra (vitiligo): a case-control pilot study, by Priyanka Mishra, Anand More, Anil Kumar, Shalini Rai, and Gaikawad Pratima Raghunath, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 25 no. 2, 2026.

A new case-control study has investigated the potential risk factors for vitiligo, known in Ayurveda as Shvitra, by examining ancient dietary and lifestyle concepts through a modern scientific lens. Vitiligo is a psychologically devastating skin disorder that causes depigmented patches and affects up to 8.8% of the population in some parts of India. While autoimmunity is considered a key trigger in its development, the specific lifestyle and dietary factors that set off this process have remained largely unknown. The study was designed to bridge this gap by systematically assessing the role of etiological factors described in classical Ayurvedic texts, particularly the concept of viruddha ahara, or incompatible foods, as well as behavioural patterns, to see if they are indeed major risk factors for the disease.

Buy me some compatible foods!

The researchers recruited 160 participants, consisting of 80 people with clinically diagnosed vitiligo and 80 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. They used a validated questionnaire to conduct detailed, one-on-one interviews, asking each participant about their exposure to a total of 93 different risk factors over the previous year. The questions were based on Ayurvedic concepts and converted into simple, everyday language, covering a wide range of dietary incompatibilities and lifestyle habits. Participants rated their frequency of exposure on a five-point scale. The study was carefully designed to avoid recall bias by excluding people with memory problems and to avoid interviewer bias by having the same researcher conduct all the interviews. Blood samples were also taken to measure biochemical markers of inflammation.

The analysis of the massive amount of data was conducted in two stages. First, a univariate analysis looked at each of the 93 factors individually and found that 47 of them had a statistically significant association with vitiligo. Then, a more sophisticated subgroup multivariate analysis was performed, which groups related factors into domains to find the strongest independent predictors. Out of fifteen domains assessed, two emerged as major determinants of the disease with extremely high odds ratios. The practice of Vega dharana, which refers to the forced suppression of natural bodily urges, was the strongest risk factor, increasing the odds of having vitiligo by over 35 times. The second most powerful determinant was Papa karma, a concept referring to past harmful or sinful actions, which increased the odds by nearly 16 times.

The survey involved questions sorted into the different ayurvedic categories. Papakarma is measured in the study in terms of guilt for past deeds, having hurt someone, occurrence of negative feelings, and spiritual/religious belief. The actual correlation, therefore, is with people admitting guilt feelings, past harm to others, negative feelings, and lack of faith. Vega dharana is forced suppression of natural urges. The researchers specifically tested for control of the urges to shit or piss. Viruddha ahara is not simply bad diet (although some factors on the list were simply dietary); it’s the combination of specific foods which ayurveda considers incompatible, such as sour foods or fish with milk. It also includes things like eating heavy food after sleeping during the day, eating curds at night, or exercising after eating heavy food. It was assessed by a string of different options which made up a lot of the list. Fasting is another factor predicting vitilago. The majority of both groups had vataj-pittaj prakrti which might lead to susceptibility. 60% of the people with vitilago has cishamagni, altered metabolism and irregular digestion.

The study also found significant correlations between the severity of the vitiligo and biological markers in the body. The Shvitra severity score was positively correlated with the inflammatory marker Hs-CRP, meaning that people with more severe vitiligo had higher levels of systemic inflammation. Crucially, the severity score also showed a very strong positive correlation with the total viruddha ahara score, which measured the overall level of dietary and lifestyle incompatibility. This provides direct evidence linking the Ayurvedic concept of improper diet to the measurable severity of the disease. The findings suggest that the consistent practice of incompatible eating habits and the suppression of natural urges creates a state of chronic inflammation that can trigger or worsen the autoimmune destruction of skin pigment cells.

This pilot study provides solid, preliminary scientific evidence that validates the core Ayurvedic teachings of Acharya Charak regarding the causes of Shvitra. By demonstrating a clear and strong statistical link between the ancient concepts of Vega dharana and Papa karma and the disease, the research points towards specific, modifiable behaviours that could be targeted for prevention. The correlation between incompatible dietary practices and inflammatory markers offers a plausible biological pathway for how these traditional risk factors might work. The results emphasize that vitiligo is not just a superficial skin condition but is deeply connected to internal metabolic and inflammatory health, which is influenced by long-term diet and lifestyle choices.

The researchers acknowledge that this is a pilot study with a relatively small sample size, and the findings need to be validated by larger, prospective studies. However, the strength of the associations found is compelling and opens up new avenues for integrative approaches to managing vitiligo. By identifying specific behaviours that dramatically increase risk, the study provides a foundation for developing rational preventive strategies and public health guidelines based on Ayurvedic wisdom. Future research can build on this work to explore whether reversing these practices, such as avoiding food incompatibilities and managing stress, can be an effective part of treatment to improve outcomes and quality of life for people living with this challenging condition.

Commentary: The main groups of factors confirmed here suggest that vitilago has a psychosomatic basis. Papa karma loosely overlaps with “mental health” measurements or sense of life-satisfaction. Vega dharana presumably happens when someone’s neurotic about sticking to regular bodily routines. Both of these indicate underlying neurosis, which might be generating or result from stress which also causes inflammation. Some of the dietary issues correlated, but did not have strong effects.

The tables are rather hard to follow. The authors asked 93 questions but I can only find 59 in the tables provided. These include two items for vega dharana, one for fasting, four for papa karma, 10 items in two separate single-food categories, and 39 different questions in the viruddha aahara class (badly combined foods or foods taken at the wrong place or time). From what I can find, the final right-hand column (O.R.) measures the size of the effect: 1 is neutral, anything over 1 is a positive correlation, anything under 1 is a negative or inverse correlation. 0 in this column means a result couldn’t be calculated because there were no instances of the risk factor in one of the columns. The P.Val column (second-right) suggests statistical significance; anything higher than 0.05 is conventionally taken as not statistically significant. 0.00 here stands for very high significance such as 0.001.

Control of bowel movement has an O.R. of 1.50 (not that high) but significance of 0.01 (very significant). Control of passing urine has a higher O.R. of 4.09 and lists the significance at 0.00 (very high statistical significance). Fasting has an O.R. of 4.57 and p-value of 0.00. Of the papa karma factors, guilt fell short of conventional statistical significance (0.12), hurting someone was entirely non-significant (0.99). Spirituality couldn’t be tested properly because it was absent in one of the groups. The only significant result was for occurrence of negative feelings, which had an O.R. of 2.05 and p-value of 0.00.

A number of the food it4ems had strong significant correlations. For example, exercise after consumption of heavy food items had an O.R. (effect size) of 5.3 and significance of 0.00. It’s something 48 of the people with vitilago had done and only 9 of the control group. Drinking chilled water after exercise has an even higher O.R. of 30 and significance of 0.00. It’s something that 30 of the people with vitilago had done and only 1 of the controls. Eating a biscuit with tea, a banana with milk, breakfast with tea, a salad with a meal, and eating a paneer (cooked or uncooked), all showed high correlations with vitilago. So did having meals at hotels, hostels, and inappropriate places, having meals when stressed, watching TV during meals, and talking during meals. Consuming, fish, coffee, milk, and pickles all seemed to have some relationship to vitilago but with quite low correlations.

My best guess here is that traditional wisdom registers patterns likely to disrupt the production of smooth skin patterning, and that the active factors are some mixture of nutritional, stress, and possibly allergenic ones. In fact, it seems to me that Groddeck would have a lot to say about skin suddenly deciding it wished to be irregular; theere’s a message from the “it”, the id, registering some kind of personality fragmentation or weakening of ego-integration (the skin-ego). I don’t know how well that fits with ayurveda, but it brings its theories into contact with psychoanalysis.

HPTLC characterization of Tinospora cordifolia (Guduchi/Giloy) mother tincture and a randomized clinical comparison with individualized homeopathic medicines in adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus Tinospora cordifolia in diabetes mellitus, by Rachna Goenka, Satarupa Sadhukhan, Ayan Midya, Munmun Koley, and Subhranil Saha, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 25 no. 2, 2026.

A new study has combined laboratory standardization with a clinical trial to evaluate Tinospora cordifolia, a widely used Ayurvedic herb also known as Guduchi or Giloy, for the management of type 2 diabetes. The research had two clear parts. The first part focused on rigorously standardizing the homeopathic mother tincture of Tinospora cordifolia using advanced techniques like high-performance thin layer chromatography, or HPTLC. This step is crucial because the World Health Organization has warned that many medicinal products in low- and middle-income countries are of poor quality, which poses a serious health risk. The second part was a pragmatic, randomised clinical trial to compare the effectiveness of this standardised tincture against individualised homeopathic medicines in sixty adults with type 2 diabetes over a three-month period.

Buy me a coffee!

The standardization process was thorough and examined every aspect of the herbal preparation to ensure purity and consistency. The researchers performed pharmacognostic evaluations, which included a microscopic examination of the plant stem to verify its identity. They also conducted a full physicochemical analysis, measuring moisture content, ash values, and extractive values, alongside phytochemical tests. Crucially, they used thin layer chromatography, ultraviolet spectrophotometry, and HPTLC to create a unique chemical fingerprint of the mother tincture. As this HPTLC profiling had not been previously reported for this drug, the work provides a new and essential reference framework for quality control. It allows future commercial samples to be checked for authenticity and to detect any possible adulteration, ensuring that any clinical effects can be reliably linked to the genuine, unadulterated herb.

For the clinical trial, sixty participants with type 2 diabetes were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group of thirty received the standardised Tinospora cordifolia mother tincture, while the other thirty received individualised homeopathic medicines, a treatment tailored to each person’s unique symptom profile. All patients also received standardised advice on diet and lifestyle changes. The primary outcomes measured were fasting blood sugar, post-prandial blood sugar, and HbA1c, a marker of long-term blood glucose control. Secondary outcomes included lipid profile, urea, and creatinine levels. All measurements were taken at the start of the study and again after three months, with the results compared using a strict statistical analysis with a Bonferroni-adjusted significance level to ensure the findings were robust.

The results showed that the Tinospora cordifolia tincture was significantly more effective than the individualised homeopathic treatments for all primary measures of blood sugar control. The mean reduction in HbA1c was 1.3 percentage points greater in the herbal group, a result that was highly statistically significant. Fasting blood sugar dropped by an average of 38.4 mg/dL more, and post-prandial blood sugar fell by an average of 70.8 mg/dL more, both strongly favouring the tincture. The secondary outcomes, such as cholesterol and kidney function, showed slight improvements but the differences between the two groups were not statistically significant. It is also important to note that no adverse events were reported by any participant in either treatment group, suggesting both approaches were safe.

The superior performance of the Tinospora cordifolia tincture is consistent with the known pharmacology of the herb, which contains active alkaloids like berberine and palmatine. The study authors explain that these compounds work through several biological pathways, primarily by activating an insulin-dependent mechanism that enhances the cells’ ability to take up glucose. The results of this trial align with earlier studies that have reported improvements in diabetic markers when this herb is used as an add-on therapy. The fact that it outperformed the carefully individualised homeopathic prescriptions underscores its potent anti-diabetic action and validates its traditional Ayurvedic reputation.

The study makes a valuable dual contribution: it provides a modern, reproducible standard for a traditional herbal medicine, and it presents clinical evidence of its efficacy. The researchers successfully established a chemical benchmark for the Tinospora cordifolia mother tincture, which is critical for regulatory purposes and for building trust in the product’s quality. While the clinical trial was small and open-label, meaning both doctors and patients knew which treatment was being given, the strong and consistent results on blood sugar markers are encouraging. The findings strongly support the need for larger, double-blind, and placebo-controlled studies to confirm these benefits and to fully establish this standardised herbal preparation as a credible and safe option within integrative diabetes care.

Commentary: The study design is rather strange, with a small group of participants further reduced by dropping-out. The comparison of herbal medicine to individualised homeopathy is an odd combination. Large, high-quality clinical trials of homeopathic medicines usually show no measurable difference from placebo, although small clinical trials sometimes show positive effects. On the other hand, ayurvedic medicine should also be individualised on a traditional model. If the authors are trying to test medical effectiveness by biomedical standards, it would make more sense to compare the herbal remedy to a control group taking a placebo or to a standard treatment already in use. I suppose if one assumes homeopathy is ineffective, the homeopathic group could be considered as a placebo group. Still, the study suggests that guduchi/giloy has effects in reducing symptoms of diabetes. Like the herbs discussed earlier, it’s also fairly widely available.

Polyherbal formulation managing E-Selectin: A novel strategy for the management of diabetic complications; The Impact of Polyherbal Formulations on E-Selectin in Diabetic Complications, by Vadivel Mani, Shalini Lakshmanan, Sangeeta Chandrashekar, Muninathan N, Anandhi Dhanavel, Manikandan Balraj, and Suchitra Kavuri, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 25 no. 2, 2026.

A clinical study has investigated a novel strategy for managing the serious complications of type-2 diabetes by using a specific polyherbal formulation to target a molecule called E-selectin. Type-2 diabetes is a massive global health problem, and much of its long-term damage, such as neuropathy, nephropathy, and heart disease, stems from injury to small blood vessels. This microvascular damage is driven by chronic inflammation. E-selectin is a key protein that sticks to the inner lining of blood vessels and acts like a beacon, calling inflammatory cells to the site and making the vascular injury worse. The study’s central idea was that if a safe, plant-based treatment could lower E-selectin levels, it would reduce this harmful inflammation and therefore help manage or prevent the devastating complications of diabetes.

Buy me some herbs!

The researchers created a polyherbal formulation made from an aqueous extract of seven different plants, each with known anti-diabetic properties. The plants used were Tinospora cordifolia (heart-leaved moonseed) leaves, Glycyrrhiza glabra (licorice) roots, Phyllanthus emblica (Indian gooseberry/amla) pulp, Senna auriculata (Tanner’s cassia) flowers, Nigella sativa (black seed) seeds, Trigonella foenum-graecum (Fenugreek) seeds, and Gymnema sylvestre (Gymnema or Australian cowplant) leaves. All of these are already known to have antidiabetic properties.

The study recruited 150 participants, who were divided into four groups: healthy (non-diabetic) volunteers, diabetic patients without complications, diabetic patients with neuropathy, and diabetic patients with nephropathy. All diabetic participants were already taking the standard drug metformin. The key intervention was that all subjects, including the healthy controls, took the polyherbal formulation twice a day for a period of twelve weeks. A wide range of blood markers was measured both at the beginning and at the end of this twelve-week period to track the formulation’s effects.

The results showed statistically significant improvements across a broad spectrum of health indicators for the diabetic subjects taking the polyherbal formula. When comparing their post-treatment results to their own baseline values, the study found that markers of diabetes control, inflammation, antioxidant status, and specific complications all improved. The levels of inflammatory markers like C-reactive protein and IL-6 dropped significantly. Crucially, the primary target of the study, E-selectin, showed a particularly noticeable decline. This reduction was observed not just in the uncomplicated diabetic group but also in those already suffering from neuropathy and nephropathy, confirming the powerful anti-inflammatory and vascular-protective effect of the herbal combination.

The study concluded that the polyherbal formulation works by reducing E-selectin levels, which in turn prevents the infiltration of inflammatory cells into blood vessel walls. This mechanism directly tackles the root of diabetic vascular damage, leading to a reduction in both oxidative stress and the progression of complications. The findings are significant because they suggest that E-selectin can be a novel therapeutic target, and that a carefully designed polyherbal blend can effectively hit this target. The research highlights the advantage of polyherbal combinations over single herbs, as the synergistic action of multiple phytochemicals from different plants appears to deliver a more potent and effective therapeutic outcome for complex conditions like diabetes.

The study’s outcomes provide strong scientific validation for the ancient Ayurvedic concept of using combined herbal formulas. By demonstrating a clear and safe mechanism of action (targeting E-selectin to control inflammation), the research bridges traditional knowledge and modern molecular medicine. It suggests that adding this specific polyherbal formulation to standard metformin therapy can offer significant additional protection against the long-term microvascular complications of diabetes. The improvements in neuropathic and nephropathic profiles are particularly promising, as these conditions are notoriously difficult to manage and severely impact a patient’s quality of life.

This work opens a promising new avenue for diabetes care, offering a safe, non-pharmacological add-on therapy that addresses the underlying inflammatory process. The significant drop in E-selectin levels across all diabetic groups implies that the polyherbal formulation has a fundamental, protective effect on the entire circulatory system. The researchers present this as a novel strategy, where a traditional polyherbal approach is used to achieve a very specific modern therapeutic goal. Future research can build on these findings to explore the long-term benefits of this formulation, its effects on other diabetic complications like retinopathy, and the detailed synergistic interactions of the seven herbs within the blend.

Commentary: This is good news for people with diabetes, especially if they’re at risk of being cut-off from western medicine or find it inaccessible. To be fair, the research hasn’t discussed the use of herbs instead of western medicine, which would be necessary in collapse scenarios. But the idea that people can self-help to some degree if the health system collapses is reassuring. While the researchers’ cocktail isn’t available (yet), all the ingredients are commonly available as herbal medicine. I was easily able to locate black seed, fenugreek, licorice, gymnema, and amla as herbal tablets, and heart-leaved moonseed and Tanner’s cassia as powders. In terms of growing or wild-foraging, only licorice and black seed grow easily in colder climes, but all of them can be grown in greenhouses. They will grow easily in warm-temperate climes and some are adapted to the tropics. Not surprisingly, they’re all native to India or nearby areas. Someone living in a warm temperate region (southern US, Mediterranean, parts of India) should be able to grow all seven and produce the researchers’ tincture. People living in urban areas and cold temperate areas might find it easier to buy the seven herbs individually, or else need a greenhouse.

Evaluation of anti-adipogenic activity of Vacha rhizome (Acorus Calamus Linn.) in 3T3-L1 cell line, by Ashwini D Sonalkar, Jayshree Changade, Poonam Sable, Ramesh Bhonde, Avinash Sanap, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 25 no. 2, 2026.

A new study has scientifically evaluated the traditional Ayurvedic use of Vacha, also known as Acorus calamus or sweet flag, for treating obesity. Obesity is described as a major global health problem, significantly increasing the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and depression. In the ancient Ayurvedic text Charaka Samhita, Vacha is classified within a group of herbs known for their “scraping” or lekhaniya action, which is believed to reduce excess fat tissue. The research aimed to move beyond this traditional wisdom by investigating the anti-adipogenic activity of the whole rhizome extract in a laboratory setting. Unlike previous studies that tested isolated chemical compounds like α and β asarone, which can be toxic, this study used the whole herbal extract to leverage the natural “entourage effect” of its many constituents, potentially making it safer and more effective.

Buy me some herbs!

The research was conducted in vitro, using the 3T3-L1 cell line, taken from mice, which is a standard scientific model for studying fat cell development. These pre-adipocyte cells can be stimulated to mature into full adipocytes, or fat cells, which allowed the researchers to test if the herbal extract could block this process. The team prepared both ethanolic and aqueous extracts from the Vacha rhizome using a Soxhlet apparatus. The first step was a cytotoxicity test using an MTT assay to find a safe concentration that would not kill the cells. A dose of 50 micrograms per millilitre was determined to be optimal, as it allowed the cells to continue growing normally without any signs of cellular toxicity. This non-toxic dose was then used for all subsequent experiments to evaluate the herb’s effect on fat formation.

To visually confirm and measure the anti-adipogenic effect, the researchers treated the differentiating fat cells with the Vacha extracts and then stained them with Oil Red O, a dye that specifically colours lipid droplets red. The results, observed under a microscope and quantified using Image J software, were striking. The cells treated with the ethanolic extract of Vacha showed a significant and visually obvious decrease in lipid accumulation compared to the untreated control cells, which filled with large red-stained fat droplets. This qualitative and quantitative analysis provided direct evidence that the herbal extract was effectively suppressing the formation of fat within the cells, stopping them from maturing into full adipocytes.

To understand the molecular mechanism behind this anti-fat effect, the study performed a gene expression analysis using real-time PCR. The focus was on two key genes: PPARγ, which is the master regulator of fat cell development, and GLUT4, a protein involved in glucose uptake. The analysis revealed a dual and highly beneficial result. The treatment with Vacha extract caused a significant downregulation of the PPARγ gene. By turning down this master switch, the extract actively blocked the signalling pathway that tells pre-adipocytes to turn into mature fat cells. At the same time, the treatment led to an upregulation of the GLUT4 gene, suggesting an improvement in the cells’ ability to take up glucose, which is a positive indicator for metabolic health.

The findings from this study strongly demonstrate that the ethanolic extract of the whole Vacha rhizome possesses significant anti-adipogenic activity. This means it can effectively reduce the formation of new fat cells by suppressing the key genetic driver of adipogenesis. The research provides a clear scientific validation for the ancient Ayurvedic classification of Vacha as a lekhaniya, or fat-scraping, herb. By establishing a non-toxic dose and mapping the effects on both the physical accumulation of lipid and the expression of crucial metabolic genes, the study builds a convincing case for the herb’s mechanism of action.

The researchers concluded that this work establishes Vacha as a promising natural herb for the treatment of obesity and its associated disorders. By proving the activity of the whole extract, the study also suggests a potential advantage over using isolated, potentially toxic molecules. This scientific validation bridges traditional Ayurvedic knowledge with modern cellular and molecular biology. It paves the way for further research, including more detailed in vivo animal studies and eventually clinical trials in humans, to develop Vacha into a safe and effective alternative or complementary therapy for handling obesity.

Commentary: It’s interesting that these kinds of methods exist. I suspect the western health industry isn’t very interested in finding non-lifestyle means to rectify something they take as a lifestyle problem. Also, this isn’t the first case where a traditional medicine has been unconvertible into western medicine because the active component is toxic at higher doses. I think it’s a limit that it hasn’t been tested on human cells; I’ve never seen an obese mouse. I also wonder where the excess fat goes. Still, it sounds like this is worth trying if someone wants to lose weight.

Effectiveness of non-pharmacological interventions on quality of sleep of breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy: a systematic review and meta-analysis Non-pharmacological interventions on quality of sleep of breast cancer’s patients, by Intan Rismatul Azizah, Tintin Sukartini, Ira Suarilah, Iwan Ardian, Nutrisia Nu’im Haiya, and Niken Tri Winarti, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 25 no. 2, 2026.

Buy me a herbal tea!

A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to determine how well non-drug treatments can improve sleep for breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Insomnia is a very common and serious problem for these patients, affecting up to three-quarters of them, which is two to three times higher than the rate found in the general population. This poor sleep can be so disruptive that it leads some patients to drop out of their chemotherapy treatment. While sleeping pills have been used for many years, non-pharmacological approaches are now highly preferred. However, previous reviews on this topic were limited because they only told a descriptive story of the results or mixed patients with many different types of cancer into a single analysis, making it unclear how well these treatments work specifically for breast cancer patients on chemotherapy. To be very clear, this isn’t a study of whether certain therapies cure cancer. It’s a study of whether certain therapies improve sleeping, in the case of people whose sleep is disrupted by chemotherapy for cancer.

The research team set out to fill this gap by performing an up-to-date analysis following strict international guidelines. They searched four major scientific databases, CINAHL, Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus, for relevant studies published up to February 2024. The review was carefully designed to include only high-quality randomised controlled trials that involved women with breast cancer who were receiving chemotherapy and were given a non-drug therapy such as acupuncture, acupressure, tai chi, aromatherapy, or massage. After a thorough screening process by six independent reviewers, a total of thirteen trials were deemed suitable for the final analysis. These studies involved a combined total of 942 participants, most of whom were in stage II of their cancer, with an average age of about 56 years.

The quality of each included study was rigorously checked using the standardised Joanna Briggs Institute tool. The researchers then used a specialised statistical software, STATA 17.0, to pool the results from all thirteen trials together. A random-effects model was used for the meta-analysis, which is a method that accounts for the expected differences in results between the various studies. The effect of the interventions on sleep quality was measured using standardised tools like the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Insomnia Severity Index. To make a fair comparison across different measurement scales, the researchers calculated the standardised mean difference, which shows the size of the treatment effect.

The results of the combined analysis showed a clear and significant benefit from the non-drug interventions. The overall standardised mean difference was -0.91, indicating a large positive effect on improving sleep quality and reducing insomnia. This result was statistically significant, meaning it was highly unlikely to have occurred by chance. The analysis also highlighted that the specific methods used included a range of traditional and complementary practices, with acupuncture, acupressure, electroacupuncture, tai chi, aromatherapy, and massage therapy all contributing to the positive finding. This provides strong, quantified evidence that these approaches can be effective tools for managing one of the most distressing side effects of cancer treatment.

However, the study authors also noted an important limitation to their findings. They observed a very high level of variability in the results across the different trials, shown by an I² value of 94.82%. This suggests that while all the interventions were grouped as “non-pharmacological,” they are quite different from one another in how they are applied, their intensity, and their duration. Because of this diversity in the treatment methods, the authors state that the findings cannot be simply generalised to every non-drug intervention. For instance, the effect of acupuncture may not be identical to the effect of aromatherapy. While the overall conclusion is that these approaches are effective, more research is needed to confirm the specific benefits of each individual therapy and to establish the best ways to deliver them.

Commentary: The study shows that the general idea of using non-drug therapies to reduce insomnia in people on chemotherapy is sound. But it would have been more interesting if they had found a way to compare the impact of different kinds of therapies and determine which are more effective. Also, I wonder how different the problem of insomnia related to chemotherapy is from other kinds of insomnia. It would have made sense to me to try to apply existing findings about general insomnia to chemotherapy patients, looking specifically for any differences.

This article argues that African philosophy must expand its scope to include the study of iconic cultural symbols, such as monuments and ancient artifacts. The author suggests that the history of African philosophy has been held back by an old, exaggerated fear of being associated with “ethnophilosophy,” the study of collective traditional thought, which was once harshly dismissed by some academics. This fear created an unnecessary hesitancy to explore non-written traditions. The article contends that this rigid division between professional philosophy and traditional thought is now widely seen as overstated, and a constant review of past cultural creations is essential for the field to grow and remain relevant.

Buy me a stairway to heaven!

To demonstrate this point, the paper focuses on the enigmatic soapstone birds found at the ancient Great Zimbabwe monument. There are eight of these sculptures, carved from soft green-grey soapstone, each about thirty centimetres long and perched on a pillar over a metre high. Their appearance is deliberately unnatural. The birds are not realistic copies of any known species but strange combinations of human and avian features. One has lips instead of a beak, and all have human-like limbs and toes rather than the talons of a raptor. An art historian once dismissed them as inarticulate and unresolved works, not part of any established artistic tradition, simply because they did not fit into a familiar genre.

The paper challenges this view, arguing that understanding the true meaning of these sculptures requires deep cultural and historical context. For the Shona people, who are linked to the monument, art was not just for beauty but a way of preserving complex truths about life and existence. The strange combination of bird and human features is interpreted as a deliberate artistic choice to represent messengers that bridge two worlds. In Shona culture, certain birds like the Bateleur eagle are seen as divine messengers that can travel between the physical world and the spiritual realm of God and the ancestors, conveying the needs of the living.

The sculptures are also connected to a sacred Shona discourse. The phrase “zvinoera - ndezvechivanhu,” meaning “these things are sacred and belong to the indigenous belief system,” is key to unlocking their meaning. This phrase instantly communicates that an object is tied to a hidden world of spiritual forces and ritual power. It indicates that there are taboos about what can and cannot be said, or revealed, about the birds. The deliberate mystification of the bird-human form, the article suggests, reflects the secrecy surrounding sacred knowledge. The sculpture of a crocodile climbing a pillar towards one of the birds further reinforces this, as the crocodile symbolises the ancestral forces believed to reside in deep pools, placing all the vital forces of the Shona cosmos into a single, unified artistic creation.

The article concludes that these soapstone birds must be treated not just as curious artefacts but as valuable philosophical texts engraved in stone. They are a narrative of the Shona vision of the universe, where the physical and spiritual worlds are inextricably linked. To decode this ancient record, scholars must turn not to grammar books but to Shona religion, myths, and language. By doing so, African philosophy can reclaim these non-verbal, expressive objects as a legitimate and important part of its own memory and history, finally paying its debt to the places and cultures out of which it has grown.

From top to bottom: several images of the Zimbabwe birds; a Bateleur eagle, seen as a messenger to the heavens; and a fish eagle, a historical totem of the Shona people.

What it means for radicals: Part of the difficulty here is that the philosophical meaning of the birds is either lost or obscured. Also, the philosophical discussion is so entwined with political positioning that its distinct stakes are lost. From my viewpoint, cosmologies, myths, and religious systems are forms of philosophy or have philosophical significance. However, this significance is rather different from what passes for philosophy in most universities. The birds are widely speculated to represent a totemic animal of the ancestors of the Shona, either the Bateleur eagle or the fish eagle. Totemism is relevant to philosophy if we’re working with Continental approaches such as Deleuze and Guattari, Freud, Marx, Durkheim, Heidegger, or Stirner. However, its significance for analytical philosophy is rather limited because of this approach’s rationalistic and deductive bias.

The author, indeed, hints at three different views:

1) the birds had a definite meaning, but it’s been lost,

2) the birds still have a definite meaning, but it’s a secret which Shona people aren’t allowed to tell outsiders,

3) the birds are a philosophy text with meaning decipherable in and relevant to world philosophy.

Evidently these are not compatible. If the birds can only be understood within an indigenous cosmology, or within a past cosmology which is no longer accessible, they can’t also take their place in world or even African philosophy. They remain restricted to the past or present group which can access their meanings.

The statues aren’t realistic depictions, but neither are most of the artworks of pre-modern cultures anywhere in the world (including Europe). The author thinks the mysterious nature of the birds is part of their philosophical significance. But it seems to me more likely that they were clearly coded and easily recognisable within the culture in which they were made. An outsider might find something uncanny and disconcerting about Donald Duck or Pikachu; that doesn’t mean they’re designed to produce such an effect. It seems likely to me that the birds are designed in relation to liminal or altered-consciousness experiences, and that they involve elements of intensive states or inclusive disjunctions in Deleuze and Guattari’s sense. In other words, they aren’t so much ambivalent between human and animal as representing/expressing a state of being which is not specifiable as distinctly human or animal. Perhaps one “becomes-bird” when ascending to consciousness of the divine in proto-Shona religion. Alternatively, hybrid creatures (which are also common in cosmologies/myths everywhere, including Europe) might be encountered in altered consciousness states (dreams, visions, etc.). The birds also have a rather phallic look to me. And they seem closer in shape to a fish eagle than a Bateleur eagle.

Therapeutic efficacy of Majoon-e-Aarad Khurma (poly-herbal formulation) in anaemia associated with hypothyroidism: A randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial, by Faseeha Eram, Mohammad Aleemuddin Quamri, Uzma Siddiqui, Sanila Adil Zafar, and Saba Khanum, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 25 no. 5, 2026.

A recent clinical trial has investigated a traditional herbal remedy as a potential treatment for anaemia in patients with hypothyroidism, where conventional therapies can sometimes be problematic. Anaemia and an underactive thyroid gland frequently occur together, creating a complex health issue. Standard treatment with levothyroxine can be effective, but some patients find it hard to tolerate, and iron supplements given for anaemia can interfere with the absorption of thyroid medication. This has led researchers to explore alternative approaches, such as the Unani polyherbal formulation known as Majoon-e-Aarad Khurma, which is traditionally thought to have blood-producing and warming properties. Unani, also known as traditional Islamic, Persian, or Iranian medicine, is based on the thought of Avicenna and uses theories of humours similar to those in classical Greek medicine. Some of the ingredients, such as dates, have also been shown to increase haemoglobin counts in lab settings.

Buy me a herbal tea!

To test this remedy, the researchers designed a rigorous single-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Fifty participants with both anaemia and hypothyroidism were randomly divided into two groups. For a period of 45 days, the larger group received the Majoon-e-Aarad Khurma, a paste made from ingredients like dates, almonds, coconut, and long pepper, while the other group received an inactive placebo. Neither the patients nor the doctors directly assessing the results knew who was receiving the real treatment. The study tracked key blood health indicators, such as haemoglobin and red blood cell count, as well as thyroid hormone levels, to measure any changes.

The results of the study did not show the hoped-for benefit. Although there were some minor changes in blood values within the group taking the herbal formulation, these improvements were not statistically significant when compared to the placebo group. This means the changes could have happened by chance and cannot be confidently attributed to the remedy. Similarly, the thyroid hormone profile and the crucial thyroid-stimulating hormone levels showed no meaningful improvement from the treatment. The study concluded that a 45-day course of this specific Unani medicine did not produce a clear therapeutic effect on anaemia associated with hypothyroidism under the conditions tested.

It is important to understand that this finding does not mean the traditional knowledge is without value. The researchers carefully noted the study’s limitations and suggested that this single trial does not provide the final word. The short duration of 45 days might not be long enough for a herbal remedy to show its full effect, especially for a chronic condition like anaemia. The small number of participants also makes it harder to detect smaller, but still real, benefits (which might be statistically significant across a larger sample). The dose might also have been too small. The study therefore suggests that more research is needed to properly evaluate the formulation’s potential.

Future investigations could address these limitations by using a much larger group of people and a longer treatment period. It would also be useful to select patients more specifically, perhaps those with a particular type of anaemia or a milder form of hypothyroidism, where a gentle, nutritive remedy might be more clearly effective. This study provides a valuable and honest scientific assessment, showing that while this particular trial did not yield positive results, it points the way for more targeted research to fully explore the clinical potential of this complex traditional formulation.

What it means for radicals: I suspect clinical trials are more likely to produce false negatives than false positives. The obvious way to read the data is that the remedy isn’t effective or is only marginally effective. But the data might also just show, as the authors say, that the effect happens over a longer time period, at higher doses, or is only statistically observable in larger samples.

Majoon-e-Aarad Khurma (usually spelt Majoon Ard Khurma) is also used for issues such as low sperm count, premature ejaculation, fatigue, and stress management. It’s widely available through Unani online pharmacies and health stores. It’s usually taken as a 10 gram spoonful once or twice a day, stirred into warm milk. Common ingredients are dates (dried dates and date powder), almonds, hazelnuts, dried water chestnut, pine nuts, Asparagus racemosus/shatvari, cottonseeds, nutmeg, mace, cloves, gum arabic, and honey or sugar syrup. Instructions for making it suggest finely grinding all the dry ingredients, and heating and stirring the honey/syrup in a pan before adding the other ingredients. The mixture should form a thick, jam-like paste.

I’m sure that’s an exaggeration… from here.

Evaluation of soil- based non chemical formulations against fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda on maize in Manipur condition, by Rani Asheibam, Jeti Konsam, Venna Surekha Reddy, Pramesh K h, S Dayananda, Nabakishor Nongmaithem, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 25 no. 5, 2026.

A recent field study has explored safer, non-chemical ways to protect maize crops from the destructive fall armyworm pest in Manipur, India. Armyworms aren’t actually worms; they’re large caterpillars which sometimes advance like an invading army, devouring crops. They’re considered a threat to maize and some other kinds of farming worldwide. While farmers often rely on chemical pesticides, their overuse is causing problems like pest resistance, environmental pollution, and potential health risks. This research aimed to find an effective, eco-friendly alternative by testing different natural formulations mixed with soil and applied directly to the maize plants.

Buy me a herbal tea!

The experiment took place during the 2023-24 growing season at the College of Agriculture, Central Agricultural University, Imphal. The scientists set up a trial with ten different treatments, which included plain soil and sand, soil mixed with natural ingredients like lime, and soil combined with three different biological insecticides. These biological agents were a type of natural bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis and two kinds of beneficial fungi. The soil mixtures were carefully applied to the whorl, or the central funnel, of the maize plants, which is where the fall armyworm caterpillars hide and feed. A standard chemical pesticide and an untreated plot were used for comparison to properly measure how well each treatment worked.

The results clearly showed that one treatment was significantly better than all the others. The soil mixed with the Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria outperformed every other natural method. Plants receiving this treatment had the least amount of leaf damage, the lowest number of caterpillars, and the smallest percentage of infested plants when checked at 7, 14, and 21 days after application. For instance, the caterpillar count on these plants was just a fraction of what was found on untreated plants. This demonstrates that this specific soil-based bio-pesticide blend is highly effective at controlling the pest without the need for synthetic chemicals.

However, all the treatments had some positive effects. The treatment with sand, for example, led to less than half as many caterpillars compared to the untreated control. The control crop had armyworms in almost half of the plants in the first fortnight, but the soil-lime and soil-sand groups were closer to a third. Reductions in damage were similar. The success of the treatment(s) translated directly into a much healthier and more productive crop. At harvest time, the maize treated with the Bacillus thuringiensis and soil mixture showed the least damage to the cobs. This treatment produced the highest grain yield, which was over 34 quintals per hectare more than the yield from the untreated control plot. The yield of maize per hectare was 51.44 q. for the untreated control, 55.22 when treated with soil, 62.03 when using soil, jaggery, sand, and water, and 86.36 using Bacillus thuringiensis.

In conclusion, the study provides strong evidence for a practical and environmentally sound solution for fall armyworm management. The simple technique of mixing Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria with soil and placing it in the plant whorl is a promising method that farmers can use. This approach offers a viable way to move away from reliance on harmful chemical pesticides.

What it means for radicals: Bacillus thuringiensis is already widely available, and used, as a “biopesticide”. It works by damaging the guts of insect larvae which consume it, and has no effect on humans or most other species. Some plants are being genetically modified to produce the bacteria, and quite a lot is known about its effects. Resistance build-up happens with natural poisons the same as with artificial ones, and in some cases, existing pests have been replaced by more devastating ‘sucking’ species (e.g. aphids) which are unaffected. In addition, this is a killing method which isn’t suitable for vegan farming. Using methods which deter insects, such as sand, is more humane and still effective to some degree.