Becoming a Christian is not the answer

People seem to think that becoming a Christian is an answer: the answer. 

They think; if they can only become the right kind of Christian - i.e. join the right church and believe and do what it says - then they will have the answers.

(Not all the answers, but all the most important answers.) 

Because people think that being a Christian is itself the answer, then they make-it-so - or try to make-it-so. 

If they succeed in making being-a-Christian the answer - then from-that-point-onwards, they hand-over responsibility for ultimate values to... whatever they consider to be Christianity. 

From-that-point-onwards their job is to understand and obey.  

They regard becoming a Christian as arriving, coming home: as the end. 

If, however, they fail to make-it-so, and discover that becoming a Christian is not the answer - then they stop being a Christian. 

However, I would say that becoming a Christian is Not the answer. 

Instead; becoming a Christian is to ask the right question.

I would say that becoming a Christian is not the end, but instead the beginning. 

 

The artistic genius of Buddy Christ

It is possible some of my readers do not know that remarkably... memorable image of our Saviour "Buddy Christ" - which was a briefly glimpsed statue, peripheral to the plot of a rather mediocre 1999 film called Dogma. 

Such is the genius of this movie prop that it has since become a lasting cultural phenomenon.

 

Francis Berger and I try to analyse the greatness of this icon in the comments to a post at his blog; which is primarily about another (for rather different reasons) striking image of Jesus:

 

Symbolic leaders: able, drooling, or crazy puppets

We know (ought, by now, to realize) that our leaders are puppets - but not all the same kind of puppet. 

The point is distraction - to have everybody looking-at and discussing the puppet - rather than noticing (or even asking!) who is people pulling its strings. 

Distraction can take many forms. Some are constructed as "strong" puppets - pseudo-competent, attributed with ability. Such a puppet may even be intelligent and hard-working as a person - but is still a puppet. 

Other leaders are constructed as incompetent, naïve, ignorant, or drooling idiots. We observe the incapacities and dysfunctions; empathize or mock the human wreckage; agonize about what is to be done. 

Others act the role of a crazy - firing-off opinions, assertions, threats, promises. People are confused, encouraged to try to make sense of it all - become enmeshed in discerning the puppet's strategic from his reactive nature - and so forth. 

Many kinds of puppet are possible; and the person deployed as puppet may be more or less convincing his role - may even really be what he is depicted as!

This doesn't much matter, because the point is distraction; and the totalitarian media collude in evoking, amplifying, and sustaining this distraction.

Since distraction is primary; it can work equally well to have a beloved and admired heroic puppet; or a hated and demonic puppet - or to alternate between them.  

Thus the job is done.  

It's a very flexible system! 

In some places leadership puppets are constantly being replaced; and that business takes-up a great deal of here-and-now attention and energy. 

In others, the puppet replacement is less frequent, and there is a long narrative attached to the process. 

In others, the puppet is supposedly permanent - and the debate is about whether rule by a long-term puppet is an unjust and intolerable imposition.  

Of course, when there is a puppet, then there are puppet-masters - those who choose the puppet, and pull the strings. 

Which means that the real societal power struggle is not between puppets, but between alliances of puppet masters. 

For the puppet masters, the advantages of puppet rulers are so great that they collude to maintain the public pretence that the puppet is "in charge"; and that policy U-turns and contradictions are due to changes of the puppet's mind, or corruption of the puppet.

(eg. When a drooling idiot is the puppet leader; then nobody asks - nobody with power, anyway - who chose that leader; and who was ruling when the leader was acknowledged incapable of doing so.) 

When we see self-contradiction, and unimplemented policies and the like; what is actually happening is that one masters-alliance has grabbed the strings and imposed control and pursue their agenda - only for another alliance to wrest the strings away, then make the puppet say or do... something else.

All of which public discourse attributes to the nature and motivation of the puppet. 

In sum; the puppets are, at most, superficial froth on the surface; while the direction of water flow is the product of puppet-master activity; and tidal changes of direction are a consequence of different groups of puppet masters in covert conflict, different of their parties achieving temporary dominance. 

The lasting influence of alchemical thinking on mainstream modern ideology

[The aim of alchemy was] to hasten the ... processes of nature by precipitating matter through stages of decay and decomposition into a new birth whereby it would become "perfect", in the Latin sense of "completed" or "fulfilled", and having once achieved this state, the new born matter could then be used to heal any sickness in the rest of nature. 

From Wizards: a history; by PG Maxwell-Stuart (2004)

This strikes me as a basic way of thinking that survived long beyond the discipline of alchemy. 

As I understand this passage; "alchemy" could be generalized thus:

This actual world is of-it-nature imperfect - only ever partly and intermittently as it should be; continually assailed by unavoidable evil, entropy, death.

The aim of the alchemist is to transform this actual world into a "perfect" state of fulfilled completion. 

And this alchemical transformation works by controlling and shaping the natural process of dying, death and rebirth.

So that the world (individual people, human society, nature itself) is alchemically-"perfected" by accelerating its "decay and decomposition", through dissolution, and into a new birth.

Imperfect matter is alchemically-transformed to perfect matter.  

The imperfect is therefore deliberately deconstructed, reduced to its fundamentals. 

In effect, it is destroyed.

But... this destruction is justified and idealized (for the destroyer) because that which is destroyed is intrinsically flawed; while the destruction is aimed at a re-made "perfection". Belief in the perfection of the re-made justifies the preliminary destruction. 

If perfection is desired, preliminary destruction must be accepted. 

The re-made, new-born, perfected entity produced by alchemy - which might be a person (New Man), society (New World Order), or an artefact like the "philosopher's stone" - will then alchemically work-upon, transform, and progressively perfect the un-transformed whole.

As I read the above passage; it suddenly struck me how often I have come-across this alchemical way of thinking (and justifying) among the ruling class - or more generally (and in a reduced and materialistic form) among managers and other bureaucrats. 

The idea of perfecting via destruction; of transforming by controlled decomposition and re-making.

This includes the real truth that things can (typically) only get better, via getting worse; and makes of it a universal justification for making things worse.

(Including when the real motive is personal benefit, resentment, or spite.)

Alchemical thinking provides a permanent rationalization for all possible harms inflicted by selfish manipulation or people and the world*. 

And, as I have noticed more recently; this idea of "alchemical transformation" can take the reality salvation from Jesus Christ - i.e. resurrection to into eternal and wholly-loving life in Heaven, on the other side of death - and appropriate it to this-worldly human will.  

Alchemy (thus considered, in its ultimate sense) can therefore be a fundamental alternative to Christianity; and one that has a special appeal to the leadership class of this mortal world.  

 

*I am certainly not saying that alchemical thinking is always or necessarily evil. I don't believe that is true. Plenty of good people, and Christians, have studied or practiced alchemy - which does contain significant truths, especially when regarded as a way of achieving limited, specific, partial goals. But I am saying that - as a general principle, alchemy is mistaken; it is ultimately not reality, ultimately untrue. 

And alchemical thinking actually-is used to contradict one of the fundamental assumptions upon which Christianity is based...

Which is that the evil, entropy and death in this world and mortal life are intrinsic, and cannot be transformed-away; and that the only true-and-real escape from entropy and evil is the salvation of Jesus Christ, on the other side of our personal death.  

Note added: The way to consider the value of alchemy is as a science. Science has been useful in many ways; but science is not just harmful but actually destroys itself when regarded as metaphysics - i.e. when scientific assumptions are regarded as necessary and universal. 

Why is seven *the* magical/ mystical/ mythical number? Geoffrey Ashe's answer...

I have previously written about the strange way that things fall into sevens; but it is also well known that seven is usually primary in a most (although not all) magical, mystical and mythical contexts - dating back to Medieval times, and far more anciently. 

Seven has some interesting properties arithmetically, and is notoriously difficult for children to handle, when it comes to times-tables and mental arithmetic - but these aspect of the number are hardly mystical. 

And the psychological origins of this primacy of seven is very difficult to explain, because there aren't any very obvious sevens in nature. 

Indeed, the seven-ness of things is often attributed rather than actual - as with the (supposedly, but not really) seven stars in the Pleiades, the colours of the rainbow, and the "planets"*...

(*To make seven planets required leaving-out the earth, and instead including the sun and moon; until, eventually, Uranus was discovered.)  

Furthermore, there are exceptions to the primacy of seven - so that any explanation of its role must take these into account. 

A few weeks ago I discovered a book that tackled this seven business head-on, analysed the phenomenon in great detail; and offered a plausible and coherent explanation: it is The Ancient Wisdom by Geoffrey Ashe (1977). 

Ashe's answer (as some will have guessed from the illustration) is that the number seven derives its importance from the stars of the most obvious and recognizable of all constellations of the Northern Hemisphere; known at the Plough, Big Dipper, Great Bear and Arthur's Wain - which has been used for a long time** to find the North Star - Polaris. 

(**If you go back far enough, Polaris was not always close enough to true north to be a useful guide; and it will not always remain where it now is - axial precession.)

Geoffrey Ashe's argument is too long, complex, and nuanced to summarize - but it convinced me! 

If you are interested in the origins of magic seven - you now know where to look. 

The "magical scientist": Ceremonial Magic and Science

From the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game

I am re-reading Wizards: a history, by Peter G Maxwell-Stuart (2004); and reflecting on the use of ceremonial magic throughout recorded history; including in the Bible itself, and other early Christian texts where the magic attributions were sometimes vastly amplified.

It all seems to confirm my strong impression that magic and science were pretty much the same thing through most of history, and constituted part of the "this worldly" and social aspect of religions. 

So how and why did they separate - or is science still actually a kind of magic? Maybe...

The virtue (or otherwise) of magic was mainly a matter of the (genuine) motivations of the magician - whether, for instance, these were selfish or spiteful; or else altruistic and intended to benefit good causes. 

And to a lesser extent, the quality of magic was influenced by the good, neutral, or evil nature; of spiritual beings that were contacted and summoned, and whose cooperation or aid was sought. 

But mostly magic was regarded as method; a way of getting things done; such as a means to learn information or accomplish a desired goal. As are science and technology nowadays. 

 

Therefore the main question about any particular usage of ceremonial magic* was - does it work?

And the answer seems to be - Yes! Magic did work... 

Which is to say that magical ceremonies worked sometimes - magic sometimes did what it was intended to do. 

But magic typically worked (it seems to me) partially; by which I mean that although effective, the effects were achieved with great effort on someone's part, sometimes achieved only slowly; sometimes the magic only partially solved the problem. 

And the outcomes were often controversial - accepted by some, denied by others. 

And the explanation of any specific magical effect was also controversial; as we see in relation to Jesus in the New Testament. 

We see differing views of miracles. Was the "magic" done by Jesus himself (as a divine being); by God via Jesus; by angels or demons Jesus had enlisted; was there a natural explanation; or was the miracle some kind of illusion, trick or fraud? 

Much the same could be asked of any magician - since some magicians claimed (or were asserted to be, by followers) divine avatars or emanations (i.e. themselves a god), or to have assimilated to the divine. 

 

Therefore, although it can be said that magic "worked"; there remains the deep question of what it means that magic works; and (in sum) it is evident that any evaluation of any kind of "working" cannot be made wholly objective and impersonal. 

That is: different people, different societies, different social contexts - all affect evaluations of whether a procedure is "working", and to what extent. 

But it is possible to regard modern science (say, from the 1600s onwards) as a systematic and communal attempt to make magic work more reliably by diminishing the personal and contextual. 

Such that a given scientific procedure can be counted-upon to produce a given result, to a greater extent than was the case with ancient magic. 

And this goal was pursued, over several generations of scientists, even when the results were more modest, less spectacular, than the results claimed for magic.

The point was that scientific results could be relied-upon in a way that was less dependent on the qualities of the scientist and the specific situation, than was the case with magicians. 

Science required much less training and knowledge than magic; and the accepted societal applications of science became much wider than achieved by magicians - indeed, science became almost universal. 

"Less" dependent - but still dependent to a degree; because any reflective and critically-minded real-scientist would know that the results of science still depend on many of the aspects of ceremonial magic: the knowledge and skills of the scientist, elaborate procedures and equipment etc. 

My conclusion is that the magical elements of science were never eliminated, and science could still, therefore, be regarded as a type of magic. 

However; the successful attempt to reduce the magical aspects in science came at a cost; because the trend led, incrementally, to the eventual elimination of the divine and spiritual from scientific discourse... 

The point at which the spiritual and divine were altogether eliminated from scientific thinking (in the later 20th century); was the point at which science ceased to be real and became, instead, merely a branch of the totalitarian bureaucracy; and scientists merely a species of research bureaucrat.  

In sum: Real science is a sub-branch of magic built-upon those areas of life where the desired effects can most reliably, and more completely, be achieved...

Which also means that many aspects of life are ignored by real-science because outcomes are unpredictable; or depend too much on individual persons and circumstances. 

*By "ceremonial" magic; I mean that requiring some combination of knowledge or scholarship; training and practice; and using some kind of (more or less complex) physical procedure, actions, words, and/or material artefacts.  

Sorting the results of three decades of publishing hypergraphia

It was in the middle 1980s that I began to publish scientific papers and publish them in professional journals. And this activity naturally spread to the related academic outputs; such as conference abstracts, commentaries, book chapters, book reviews, letters, and discussion pieces. 

A couple of years later this spilled-out from the specialist journals into more mainstream news-stand magazines (New Scientist, Times Higher Education Supplement, The Times newspaper and some others). 

But when you write as much as I did, and when that writing is for-publication; you soon spread into a multitude of that vast, submerged-iceberg of "little magazines" - with readerships measured in hundreds, rather than tens of thousands - of which most people are utterly unaware. 

Later a published some actual books; of which I wrote or co-authored seven - not counting some online pseudo-books published only in the form of blogs.  

It fairly soon became apparent that this kind of writing was something I could do, and increasingly enjoyed doing. 

Writing was a kind of thinking: it seemed to help me understand and discover. 

And I did this manic publishing for about thirty years - albeit dwindling considerably from 2010 - and finishing publishing altogether in 2017. 

(Albeit my hypergraphia affliction is not cured, as readers of this blog are all too aware.) 

I had become a case of publishing hypergraphia; as has become apparent to me while sorting through the boxes of papers I salvaged from my university office when I retired. 

I have copies of many, many hundreds of items - many of which I cannot remember thinking, writing or publishing. 

This should not really be surprising; because someone who publishes some-thing (no matter how small or trivial) even at a modest rate of once a fortnight; would produce 26 items per year, 260 in a decade, and 780 in thirty years. 

And I was publishing somewhat more than once a fortnight. 

But even that productivity makes a big, heavy heap of papers; especially when (as usual) I had made several copies of each item (so I could distribute them if asked for). (And even when not asked.) 

Thus I have been engaged in the melancholy task of throwing-out the excess copies; although I still cannot quite persuade myself to apply even minimal quality control about what is saved: I cannot, yet, rid myself of even the most trivial, most obscure, most ephemeral items - I'm still hoarding them sentimentally.

But in a few more years (if I am spared) I shall perhaps have rid myself of the delusional conceit that my every micro-emanation is worthy of preservation; and shall, no doubt, have developed the necessary ruthlessness to cull the drivel...

At least; that's what I tell myself.  

NOTE ADDED. I should emphasize that I made very nearly zero money from 30 years of writing. The best money was from New Scientist (especially when I once wrote a front cover feature, which paid about the same a month of my salary as a newly-appointed lecturer); and The Times, which paid 300 pounds apiece in the mid 1990s. But, as a freelance contributor all these decently-paid outlets dried-up and completely disappeared from the mid-1990s, due to internal changes in the way that magazines and journals operated. 

Why do people still have faith in inverted institutions? (Such as churches?)

Why do people still have faith in inverted institutions?

Why, that is, do people still assume - and live on the basis that - institutions/ organizations/ corporations/ nations of 2026; retain the same basic motivations and nature as they did 100 - or even fifty - years ago? 

Why don't people realize (and operate on the basis that) these institutions are (in almost all cases) long since subverted, corrupted, and substantially inverted in their basic quality? 

My own experience of this reluctance to recognize fundamental change was that - due both to upbringing and ideals - I had a faith and hope in universities and science (among other types of institution I "believed-in" - but these were perhaps the main ones). 

It took a long time before I recognized that these had changed their nature, ceased to strive for what they used-to strive-for; and were not going to reform - because the large majority people in them - and virtually all the leadership - did not want to reform. The large majority preferred the institutions to be corrupt; that is - to be subsidiaries of the single, generic totalitarian-left bureaucracy that controls the UK (and all other "Western" ex-nations).  

The original functionally-motivated people who pursued scientific truth and scholarship had been replaced by bureaucrats and careerists - and the politically-motivated. 

But for quite a while I carried on "believing" in the institutions; even though I realized that it was only me (and, at most, a handful of others - a tiny minority) who were carrying what I regarded as the spirit of the "true" institutions: the spirit of science, the spirit of universities. 

At first I had a quasi-magical belief, and hope, that my own faithfulness to the older nature and motives was keeping-alive the - otherwise lost, otherwise actually opposed - spirit of the ancient and original institutions of science and universities. 

Here, I don't intend "quasi-magical" to be utterly dismissive, but to recognize that mine was a covert recognition that in the material realm the institutions was lost, was gone - and that the "spirit" of the institution was now something that lived only in the mind; and only in the minds of a relatively very-few persons... 

And then I realized that - this being the case - the actual material institutions of science and universities - the professional career and educational structures, building, money, writings, conferences... the bureaucratic systems - all of these had become obsolete, unnecessary - in fact hostile to the ideal. 

In sum; the act of recognising a distinction between the spiritual and physical institutions - which was necessary in order to believe-in them - implied the irrelevance and counter-productive nature of the actually-existing 2026 institutions. 

To be true to "the spirit" and to resist short-termism, materialism, subordination to alien and hostile agendas; I needed to rely on my own discernment in choosing goals, selecting evidence and proof, in evaluating quality. 

I needed to rely on myself (and the sources I had chosen) in determining what and who was true to the spirit - and what or who was indifferent or hostile. 

Yet; if I, as an individual, could locate and sustain the spirit of science or academia - and if, indeed, it needed me as an individual to do so in the face of at first institutional indifference, then active institutional hostility...

Then the institution itself - actual universities, the actual structures of science - had become first obsolete, then irrelevant, then an enemy of the ideals they had once (albeit imperfectly) incorporated. 

Because of corruption and inversion, a wedge needed to be driven between myself and the institution; and that wedge drove the person and the institution ever-further apart. 

What applied to universities and science applies also, and more importantly, to Christian churches. 

Insofar as we depend upon our-selves to sustain the true spirit of Christianity against the indifference/ hostility of an actual church; insofar as we must divide the actual church into a material-organizational corrupt part on one side, and a spiritual-mystical "true" part on the other side.

Then exactly this activity and necessity implies - indeed entails - that we as individuals (and not any actual church) have become discerners, discoverers, and carriers of Christian truth. 

Churches have become first feeble, then irrelevant, now mostly hostile to the reality of Christianity. 

So it is up to us - each of us - as individuals; or many small handfuls of the like-minded.

The age of "good" institutions is dead and gone - and this inversion has been (by the majority) unlamented and indeed even celebrated.

It's about time, overdue, that Christians ceased evasive optimism and recognized the actuality.  

A Messiah could make no significant difference - leaves the problems of Life untouched

There has usually been, and commonly, a yearning for a Messiah - a deliverer or saviour of a people or the world. 

The deep problem is not that the Messiah never actually comes; but that even if there was or is a Messiah, and even if he actually liberated or saved his people or the world; then doing this would leave the fundamental problems of Life untouched.

This because even if "my people" or the world was somehow genuinely and lastingly saved from any kind of worldly-affliction such as enslavement, poverty, natural destruction, war, poverty... then there would still be entropy (disease, degeneration, death) and there would still be evil. 

This came to mind in reading Philip K Dick's Exegesis - and considering that for many years he yearned desperately for a Saviour; in the last weeks of his life, he announced his vision of "Tagore" whose role was vicariously to save the planet from Man's ecological destruction.  

But PKD was being short-sighted and overwhelmed by current emotion - like when we are sick or afraid; and imagine "if only" we could be well we would never be unhappy again. 

Even if Tagore had been true and had achieved exactly what Dick hoped he would - this would have made zero qualitative difference to the human condition. 

It is the problem of double-negative values; the Messiah is supposed to save-from - and no matter how many things he was able to save me or us from; then the problems of entropy and evil would still remain.

 

Indeed; no matter what I personally was saved-from - I would still have the problem of my-self and of my-death. 

Like everybody I have ever heard of; I am quite capable of tormenting myself into misery (even despair) even when I am currently un-afflicted by any significant problem - when I am free of pain, of hunger, when I am warm and comfortable and here-and-now secure. 

When I imagine or dream terrible things - I am doing this to myself, and the evil is from me. 

There is the evil in me; there are an uncountable number of bad things that could happen, that cannot be excluded - and there are the universal actualities and possibilities of entropy (especially death) and evil.

The most that could realistically be achieved by an actual Messiah would be to impose on his people (because few would accept it) a kind of irreversible blissful ignorance of the fundamental problems - which would need to be some kind of permanent annihilation of consciousness...

Which is, if not exactly death, then subjectively indistinguishable from being unalive; and amounts to the wish that we never had lived. 

This is the terminus of the primacy of any double-negative values: a preference for not-existence. 

Why "AI" is qualitatively worse than the internet/ social media/ smartphones

People apparently have difficulty understanding (or explaining to themselves) just why post-November 2022 "AI" is qualitatively worse than the previously-existing computer-media phenomena - such as the internet, social media and smartphones. 

The answer is quite simple: upfront and no secret. 

As usual; probably because evil must be invited into the heart in order to damage the soul; the agents of strategic evil always tell us what they intend for us, before they try to do it. 

In this case, "They" have told us explicitly that the purpose of "AI" is to replace human thinking, judgment, creativity - and loving-relationships. 

Again: "AI" is intended to replace humans in the realms of:

1. Thinking

2. Judgment

3. Creativity

4. Loving-relationships

In other words, the explicit intent of "AI" is to replace human beings in their most distinctive and spiritually-highest aspects. 

And that is what people are agreeing-to, when they defend and promote the "AI" project. 

The fact (and I regard it as a simple and sure fact) that "AI" cannot replace human beings in these aspects is almost irrelevant to the purpose of "AI"; because the purpose does not depend upon "AI" actually being able to do these things; but only on convincing human beings that "AI" can do these thing. 

In sum; the reason for the tera-dollar investment and subsidy of "AI"; the mandatory top-down societal transformations, the colossal pro-"AI" career and status incentivization of the intellectual, technical, and managerial class...

Is simply that people will believe that "AI" can replace human thinking/ judgment/ creativity/ loving-relationships.  

The endemic condition of AI-dolatry can therefore be defined the belief that "AI" can replace human thinking/ judgment/ creativity/ loving-relationships. 

Because if you believe that "AI" can replace human thinking/ judgment/ creativity/ loving-relationships; then you will almost-inevitably (sooner or later) conclude that "AI" should replace human thinking/ judgment/ creativity/ loving-relationships.

The "should" follows the "can", because "AI" is (and has been grossly subsidized, at our expense, so as to be) quicker, easier, and more reliable than human beings. 

In other words; if we believe "AI" can do X as well as (or better) than humans, then it follows that "AI" should do X.  

To conclude: It is the belief about "AI" that does the spiritual harm to human beings. 

We have been told explicitly what "AI" is intended to do, and there is a trillions-dollars international program tasked with implementing this...

Thus, those who justify and advocate "AI" just-are agreeing-with, justifying and advocating; the actual and on-going totalitarian strategy of replacing human beings in their most distinctive and highest aspects. 

This is the side the AI-dolators have chosen, in the spiritual war of this-world. 

And who could deny that the global totalitarian "AI" project and strategy has (so far) been overwhelmingly successful in convincing great swathes of people (especially in the managerial, technical, and intellectual classes) that "AI" can (and therefore, implicitly, should) replace human thinking/ judgment/ creativity/ loving-relationships? 

In three short years; AI-dolatry has become not just statistically normal; not just a functional requisite for tens of millions; not just ubiquitous and unavoidable on and around the internet and social media; not just socially-rewarded...

But AI-dolatry has become positively-valued. 

Given the provenance, intent, and effects of "AI"; we have here an explanation for the observation of a unique and qualitatively-enhanced nature of personal spiritual corruption; directly resulting from the high and increasing prevalence of AI-dolatry. 

Evil? Don't let it into the heart. If evil is already inside, then label it as evil

The problem with the most prevalent forms of mainstream, normal evil - such as the Litmus Test issues - is that they are invited into the heart; and once inside the heart they are regarded as good. 

There are many incentives - immediate and long-term, psychological and social-material - for supporting the net-evil totalitarian strategies that I call Litmus Test issues; there are many rewards for support, and many sanctions against failure to support. 

And when we inhabit a decades-old and pervasive-intrusive totalitarian ideology; almost all of public discourse is inhabited by one or another (or several - of all!) of the strategies of evil; such that it becomes all but impossible to survive and thrive without going-along-with one or many of the strategies of evil. 

Such is the nature of the human condition in a world where evil is dominant; and where that dominance of evil reaches down into the detailed workings of (almost-) every significant nation, institutions, organization, corporation - and nowadays penetrates even into friendship groups, clubs, hobbies, and the family itself. 

How can we inhabit such an evil world, without ourselves taking the side of evil in the spiritual war of this world? 

The (Christian) answer is very simple, I believe; because it "simply" involves that we recognize evil, and inwardly reject that evil. 

This recognition-rejection sounds easy, and it can be easy (a child can do it) - but in practice is apparently so difficult as to be not just impossible but incomprehensible. 

One difficulty is that "we are all sinners", as the phrase puts it; that is to say, we all practice evil. This is unavoidable not just because this is an evil-dominated world, but because we ourselves can only sometimes and partially desire and live-in-harmony-with divine creation. 

For much of our lives we cannot resist thinking, wanting, and doing evil.  

Therefore, to recognize and reject evil entails that we recognize and reject many aspects of our-selves, and those whom we most love...

And also that we recognize and accept that this situation will not (because it cannot) change: for all of mortal life on earth, we are and shall-be stuck-with our own and other people's deficiencies and wickedness. 

If the above is a broadly correct account of human life on earth; and if evil ought to be dealt-with by recognition and inner rejection; then we can see that it is a Big Problem - perhaps the biggest of all current spiritual problems - when people invite evil into their hearts and call it good. 

Instead, we should strive not to invite evil into our hearts. 

But when, inevitably, we do invite evil into our hearts - when we (inevitably) find ourselves supporting some evil strategy... then we must resist doubling-down on our sin, and calling that evil good. 

We must, especially, resist defending intentional strategic evil; or promoting it on the grounds that is a lesser evil than something else; or on the grounds that - like all evil, everywhere, ever - the strategic-evil contains some good, or potentially good, aspects. 

No - instead we must do that which is simple: recognize and reject. 

And when - and it is a case of "when" not "if" because everybody is a sinner, all will fail and fall; and fail frequently... daily, hourly - we are compelled, or cannot resist, going-along-with or even publicly-supporting some evil strategy...

Then inwardly, in the privacy of our souls, we need to make a clear act of recognition and rejection. 

Don't invite evil; and when we have already invited it into our hears; ensure that the evil does not become a familiar, habitual, acceptable, friend and companion. 

Ensure instead that the evil we have already invited, accepted, and already supported in our hearts; then gets acknowledged and labelled in accordance with its true nature: as an evil we inwardly reject. 

Is there any positive value to debating "AI"?

I have long been sceptical about the benefits of arguing; because the result of any significant argument is settled in advance by fundamental (metaphysical) assumptions concerning the nature of that reality under discussions. 

Unless the metaphysical assumptions can first be acknowledged, then the argument will necessarily be futile or counter-productive - at least in the short-term.

(Sometimes an argument may have a delayed beneficial effect - that can happen.) 

But since "AI" is the current major project of the global totalitarian leadership, which they devised, launched (on November 30th 2022), and have implemented internationally and coercively (at a cost (probably) of tera-billions of dollars and vast quantities of energy) - then an argument on the subject can hardly fail to be revelatory of the nature of personal assumptions. 

And, thereby - by observing somebody's quality and strength of attitude towards the actuality of "AI"; we can sometimes discover which side that person has chosen to fight-upon, in the spiritual war of this world.

And I mean the actual side that person is actually on - regardless of his self-identification and self-image; because the vast majority of those who believe they oppose the mainstream of Leftist are in fact actively in service to that agenda of this-worldly ideologically-hedonic materialism.

This can be valuable; because "AI" is one of those Litmus Test issues; which evidently has a strong tendency either to reveal, or indeed actively to shape, a person's entire ideology. 

I have myself observed, in multiple instances, the way that a failure to understand and inwardly-reject the net-evil of the globalist "AI" project; crystallizes an individual into assumptions, attitudes, behaviours etc. that sustain the totalitarian Establishment project.  

In a spiritual sense, what is happening is that external evil can only enter our hearts, souls, inner selves... by invitation. 

But, when we do invite evil into our heart - and especially when we publicly apologize for, defend, and even promote evil...

Then this is a capitulation that (un-repented) Will Have (and demonstrably does have) rapidly adverse consequences.

We then Just Are a servant of evil, in the spiritual war; and it does not matter that we may suppose or advertise ourselves to be based, or Christian, or whatever.  

Insofar as it is helpful for our own spiritual quest to identify such people, and not to be misled by their surface protestations; then debating "AI" has value.

It can hep us learn something important about another person.  

But argument does not help, or very seldom - and may actually hinder - any intent of persuading such people to abandon their support of an obviously-evil mass project.

NOTE ADDED: As usual, the problem with this latest strategy of evil is that it is so pervasive, so lavishly funded, and so multiply-incentivized; that people who are (whatever their protestations) fundamentally this-worldly and action-orientated, cannot help but get on-board with it. "AI" advocacy, including pseudo-debate that accepts the fundamental assumptions offers (at least in the short term) many opportunities for enhanced status, influence, and a sliver of the money. Because the totalitarian System is almost ubiquitous, it can effectively be resisted "only" spiritually (not materially) and by individual persons (not organizations or institutions), and in their souls (not in socio-politics)... I put scare quotes around "only" because this is the issue at stake. The Issue wrt "AI" (as with other Litmus tests) is about whether or not the spiritual, the individual and the soul are genuinely to be primary in our own personal spiritual lives; whether or not we inwardly affiliate with God, Divine Creation and following Jesus Christ. What I personally find so dismaying is that So Many public-Christians will willingly (indeed eagerly) subordinate their inner commitments to external pressures and propaganda.   

High- and Low-level functionality; Totalitarian control versus Chaos

If I am correct that the ruling class are divided between - on the one side - totalitarian bureaucrats with the aim of omni-surveillance and micro-control - mostly based on the motivation of power. Such people enjoy manipulating people into doing Their will...

And - on the other side - Agents of Chaos; whose agenda is destructive; and whose main motivation is resentment, hatred, and spite. 

They most enjoy immiserating, tormenting and killing people - and any affected purpose is a sufficient excuse for this activity. 

But these two kinds of evil are always mixed, in practice; and I think the way evil works at the geopolitical and national scale is that the two categories are defined by overall and strategic motivation at the high-level. 

And perhaps necessarily, each kind of evil at the strategic level tends to be "balanced" (and made short-term more effective) by the other kind of evil at the lower level. 

So, the totalitarian bureaucrat agenda is essentially ideological at the highest level - and that ideology is Leftist - with its various justificatory sub-strands such as socialism, feminism, antiracism, climate, healthism etc.  t strikes me that there is a kind of division between these groups. 

Consequently, bureaucratic totalitarianism at a high-level almost sabotages itself by destroying functionality at the lower level. 

This is the well known phenomenon whereby top-down imposed Leftist ideology destroys its own functionality in all kinds of institutions, corporations, organizations; because the low-level people are increasingly "doing ideology" instead of running the organization. 

This is why strongly totalitarian leftist organizations so often descend into chaos, and fail to yield their ideological intentions: and we get schools and colleges that do not teach; police indifferent to the law; media "entertainment" that does not entertain; scientists that hide truth and never discover anything useful etc. etc. 

Normal modern Western life...  

In other words there is a conflict between high-level totalitarianism, and always increasing low level-dysfunctionality - and indeed chaos.

The Agents of Chaos have almost the opposite problem; because in order to pursue the high-level chaos, they need to support functionality at the lower levels. 

So, in pursuit of global and national chaos; the AoCs tend to restore some degree of functionality at a low level - thereby creating a non-chaotic, indeed somewhat anti-chaotic, counter-current. 

In order to disrupt agriculture or international trade, or to induce wars; the AoCs may need to build-up manufacturing functionality, or improved military and intel capability; and they may need to deploy genuinely effective propaganda - these, at least in the short-medium term.

Thus, there is a conflict between high-level chaos, and the immediate low-level need for functional power to cause this chaos.

My analysis is not meant to be reassuring. Evil is not defeating itself by these conflicts. 

Instead, the internal contradictions and counter-currents just lead to more evil, of more kinds, in different aspects and places - and make this evil so multiple in nature as to be impossible to defeat by opposition!

As always, we are brought around to the truth that opposing evil is futile or counter-productive; and evil can be overcome only by Good...

(Remembering that there is, and can-be, no real and effective Good; without a personal and loving creator-God. While noting knowledge of such a God is necessary but not sufficient, for truly Good intentions.) 

My traditional anti- "New Year" post!

A message for all my loyal readers:

Pinch Punch First of the Month! 

(No returns.)

It's really no big deal in the scheme of things, a symptom rather than a cause - and I still (sometimes) wish people a Happy New Year* after the numbers click-over (and our 1:1 definition of New Year is plain numerological thinking, a discipline so beloved of the totalitarian Establishment)...

But it has become traditional for me to write a curmudgeonly post about the fake/ incoherent/ demonic practice of calling January 1 New Year.

Here 'Tis, yet again, and with some new added malice...

In our heads, for our-selves, we ought to have some other date for the new year. 

If we accept that a year is essentially astronomical, then the new year arrives after the winter solstice (whatever date we happen to assign to that, usually 21 December, having artificially made periodic adjustments with extra Leap Years)...

But, bearing in mind that through most of history the solstice could not be known more accurately than to a span of several days - we ought not to make a fetish of the precise astronomical instant. 

Solstice is (for the natural Man) more of a "season" than a day. 

If you are a Catholic Christian, you probably should consider celebrating Lady Day, the Feast of the Annunciation - currently March 25th in the UK - as your inner New Year...

As was done in England until 1752 (which was, by no coincidence, the time and place when modernity began to ascend to dominance).  

In essence, today really-is the New Year - only because They regard it as a New Year for the purposes of their demonic strategies.

In this bureaucratic world, where the elimination of human belief-in and contact-with the spirit and the divine is primary - the wholly artificial, simultaneously anti-scientific and atheistic date of Jan 1 does the desired job very well. 

Just bear that in mind. 

*In particular, from having lived for many years in Scotland among Scots; I have to make allowances for that more-deeply mind-controlled race than we English, and their post-religious pseudo-patriotic infatuation with Hogmanay!

Natural psychism - what kind of a thing is it?

A significant minority of people are, and more claim to be, naturally psychic - spontaneously in touch with the occult world of spirits. 

They naturally experience life (at least sometimes) as something the live immersed-in a spiritual world. 

This should not be surprising, because probably nearly all children are like this; and it seems likely that some will continue to be - in an unbroken way. 

While others revert to natural psychism under stress, or powerful stimulation - and/or when in a altered or clouded state of consciousness (half-asleep, trance states, psychosis, intoxication etc). 

The results of this kind of natural psychism are variously interpreted - some people take-up this kind of work "professionally" (whether paid or not) - whether altruistically, or for their own personal benefit. 

Others understand their psychic experiences within one or another religion, and so interpret them as religious experiences. 

Some try to learn objective knowledge from spiritual contacts and insights of one sort or another; and some of these try to teach others about their discoveries as spiritual insights, or even spiritual systems. 

My understanding of natural psychism is that it is a personal attribute, neither valuable nor harmful in itself - the value of which depends entirely on what is made of it. 

But I also feel that, and perhaps for exactly this reason, natural psychism is a bit of a dead end. 

A "dead end" in the sense that natural psychism is nothing to be proud-of and bragged-about, nor is it something to be ashamed-of, denied or concealed...

Either you have it or you don't; and therefore I regard natural psychism as not something that should be striven for. 

Seriously to set-out to on a course of training or personality-engineering, intending to make one-self more spontaneously spiritually sensitive; is the kind of attempt to change oneself away from what one actually is, that (whether effective or not - and it certainly can be effective) is almost sure to be badly-motivated at root. 

Furthermore, the fact that so many people are (here and now) not psychic, and utterly lack spontaneous psychism; means that the real problem is neither to try and revert to an earlier cultural or personal stage and phase...

Nor to accept that we are spiritually blind in a world where spirits are really-real...

But instead to work towards a spiritual awareness that is attuned-with (because rooted-in) God, divine creation, and our intent for salvation. 

The spiritual awareness that should be sought (i.e. by everyone) is not, therefore, a going back into immersive pre-consciousness and spontaneity; but forward into a freely chosen enhanced consciousness. 

 

"A chain of loving relationships" - How Christians may help those they love to get to Heaven

I am impressed and convinced by the way that the Fourth Gospel always describes Jesus's love in terms of specific and inter-personal loving relationships.

(This is a very different definition from the more usual understanding of Christian love as ideally having such attributes as unconditional, altruistic, even impersonal.) 

Given that I believe we choose to accept or reject Jesus's gift of resurrected eternal life after our death; this interpersonal understanding of Christian love has helped me to grasp how it is that our love during this mortal life, may help others whom we love to choose Heaven. 

It works as a chain of loving relationships.

In brief; once one person has chosen resurrected eternal life; so long as that dweller in Heaven has had loving relationships with others during his mortal life; then that first person to be saved sets-up a chain of positive influences for those who die afterwards. 

Salvation is always an absolutely free and autonomous personal choice, that can neither be compelled nor prevented.

But if we have had a loving relationship during mortal life with someone who has already attained salvation before we die; then after death, and at the time when we must choose whether or not to accept resurrection, that beloved person will "visit" us - will come into contact with our post-mortal spirit.    

It seems to me that Mormons are correct in their teaching that:

The most powerful incentive for Christian salvation is the desire to continue personal relationships beyond death with those we have loved during mortal life. 

So, when it comes to deciding whether to accept salvation, anyone whom we loved in mortal life (potentially more than one person - but one person is enough) can assure us of the reality of eternal life, its nature, and the presence of those with whom we might to continue relationships. 

There will always be a free choice; but my point is that knowing there is already some particular person whom we have loved that has made the choice of Heaven and who already dwells in that state - could be a positive and decisive influence in favour of accepting salvation.   

As an illustrative example, suppose there was a woman (a grandmother) who was exceptionally loving during her mortal life; loving her husband, children, sons- and daughters-in-law, and grandchildren - and that she accepted Christ's salvation. 

As her husband, children, grandchildren etc. died; she would be able to visit and assure them of what was possible beyond death; of how the loving relationships of mortal life could be continued, and could continue to develop eternally, post-mortally. 

The effectiveness of this influence, would presumably depend substantially on the strength of interpersonal love, during life - and this strength would perhaps (usually) be diluted with succeeding generations, and would cease after two or three generations.

This is where the "chain" aspect comes-in... If the grandmother firstly influenced her daughter to accept salvation; then the daughter would provide her own children with a (potentially more direct) influence of a mother's love (rather than grandmother's), when the time came for the grandchildren to die - and so on down the generations. 

The chain would also potentially branch, with loved husbands and wives - if the one who dies-first accepts salvation, then a loving spousal relationship could provide a link to Heaven.  

Once the "system" had been going for a few generations, it might resemble a web or network, rather than a chain - which would provide (potentially) more robust because multiple possibility of positive personal-loving influences; by which a recently deceased post-mortal spirit may be encouraged or convinced to choose resurrected Heavenly life.

   

"AI"-Christianity and other unfortunate predictions for 2026...

My prediction for 2026 is that "AI" will continue to subvert self-identified Christians (as well as everybody else); in particular that:

"AI" outputs will increasingly be cited as authority, evidence, or proof. 

This has, of course, already begun; but I am predicting that "AI" outputs will become put forward as publicly "official"; as the bottom-line reason why we should (or should not) believe, think, or obey X... 

This is the latest step in a long-term trend by which all forms of public knowledge - including Christian knowledge - have been:

1. First (a long time ago) made a matter of consensus (of some kind) - a "majority vote" kind of discernment. 

Then:

2. Consensus-formation was absorbed into bureaucracy. 

And up-coming:

3. Bureaucratic procedures will be (or at least this will be claimed) made objective and computerized - by the post-2022 version of globalist-generated "AI".

This is why Christians are failing the "AI" Litmus Tests; because most Christians have externalized their acknowledged source and nature of authority (e.g. in a church, or in a scripture, or in a theology); and all forms of external authority have been, are being, will increasingly be... sucked-into the consensus, bureaucratic, "AI" System. 

This means that mainstream church-orientated/ scripture-faithful Christians; will (step by step, but swiftly) soon find themselves believing one or another "AI"-Christianity. 

And "AI"-Christianity will be destructive to the possibility of that individual person actually following the real Jesus Christ...

Because "AI" is - by design and implementation, overall and overwhelmingly - an instrument of damnation.  

A sub- but related-prediction is that there will be a greater use of attempted, threatened, and actual physical-coercion in implementing public policy (including the "decisions" of "AI"). 

This will be "necessary" because the ruling class agenda is ever more obviously destructive and evil; and the propaganda/ education mechanisms for ensuring adequate brain-washed compliance of the masses, are breaking-down rapidly. 

Also because the "Agents of Chaos" party among the Western rulers wants there to be more violence, everywhere - so physical coercion and human suffering are, for Them, self-justifying. 

"Cool" has replaced necessary functionality

Because we live in a materialist and incoherent society; from the nihilistic despair of which we crave temporary alleviation - we are continually seeking enjoyable distraction, which is what people seem to mean by "cool". 

So if anything is enjoyably distracting it can be termed cool, and this "coolness" is not merely a justification - but actually that which is most-desired, by most people, most of the time. 

This applies to our discernment regarding current top-down funded, propagandized, subsidized (perhaps mandatory) societal trends. 

It is sufficient justification if we regard as cool phenomena such as Electric Vehicles; a Them-paid-for festival or building art-installation or landscape feature; an "AI" application; a provision or service or activity - or whatever.

It is also cool if some social or organizational change (typically enforced upon us by the totalitarian system, and incentivized for its adoption) offers us a reasonable chance of short-medium term enhanced personal earnings, status, or leisure...

Even when we know that the long-term effect will be destructive of all these... 

(After all, people reason; who really knows what the future holds? Maybe everything will be OK? And in the long term we are all dead anyway.) 

Coolness evaluations are possible and dominant because very few people nowadays are engaged in any kind of primary-functional activity like raising a child, growing-food, or making/ building/ transporting something genuinely valuable or necessary. 

New stuff (discoveries, inventions, technologies, media etc) is therefore judged by very subjective and easily-influenced criteria - and most of the most powerful influences, nowadays, are top-down emanations of the totalitarian system. 

So - as well as innovations being top-down devised and imposed; judgements of these innovations are also top-down controlled. 

New stuff therefore comes to people pre-packaged as useful and life-enhancing - or even pushed as civilizationally-vital* - on the vaguest of grounds.

(*To which opposition is idiotic or retrograde) 

When actually the new stuff is merely cool... at best!

Sauron-Saruman: Why did Tolkien make his two main villains have such similar-reading names?

I often got confused during my very first reading of The Lord of the Rings, because I was mixing-up Sauron with Saruman. 

So how was it that Tolkien allowed his two Big Bad villains to have such similar names - as they appear on the page; and this despite Tolkien being just-about the most deeply-informed and best "namer" among all authors? 

I propose a plausible answer over at the Notion Club Papers blog. 

Merry Christmas Day - Coventry Carol by Maddy Prior

The Massacre of the Innocents, by Pieter Breughel the Elder; this is the subject matter of the Coventry Carol 

Many people's favourite sad carol - the Coventry Carol - is here performed by the unsurpassed Maddy Prior. 

The song includes perhaps the most famous example of a "Picardy Third" cadence, at the end of the chorus. 

Coventry Carol is in a "tragic" minor key, as befits the subject matter; but the last chord includes a major third, so that the tune ends on a "happy" note. 

Apparently, this was normal in ancient times, when (presumably because of our expectation of salvation) it was felt inappropriate for Christians to end musical pieces in a tragic way. 

So the last chord of any piece should either be an open or "bare" fifth (sounding the tonic and fifth notes) or else needed to have a major third interval of four semitones; rather than finishing with a minor third of just three semitones interval. 

Merry Christmas Day.

Funniest Christmas novelty song?

Britain is plagued by Christmas Song anthologies that get replayed every year in places like supermarkets - most come from pop novelty records of the 1970s or 80s. 

None of the playlist novelty songs are much good - although I have a soft spot for Boney M "Mary's Boy Child" - but the one really enjoyable example of this kind of seasonal offering from the 70s/80s is never played in public nowadays, and seems to have been officially "forgotten"... 

For reasons that will become pretty obvious when you listen. 

I mean, of course, that comic masterpiece of smut and innuendo from 1974 by then UK's favourite family-friendly humourists, The Goodies: "Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me"; initially just the B-side of a forgettable single that reached #13 in the charts, then flipped into a Double-A side...  

Not even its most fervent advocates could say that FCDNTM captures the true Christmas Spirit, nor even that it instils good values or admirable ideals. 

But I just listened to it again; and again found myself almost crying with laughter - as much at the just-right background accompaniment, in the gaps between the "singing", as the actual song. 

Merry Christmas to one and all!