If you wish to attain a higher 'consciousness' in life - by which I mean to experience, perceive and understand more than the five senses 'reality' of mainstream modern materialism; then you will already know that while higher consciousness is attainable in moments (aka 'peak experiences'), these moments tend spontaneously to be infrequent and last only seconds; and trying to make such moments longer and more frequent, and ideally continuous, is very difficult indeed.
(This goal of enhanced being was the major focus of Colin Wilson's thought; throughout dozens of books from The Outsider of 1956 to Super Consciousness in 2009, at the beginning and end of his publishing career.)
Another thing you might realise is that what works for one person seems seldom to work for another person. The history of those who have (apparently) attained higher consciousness is a history of different individuals with different experiences.
The lesson is that There Are No Shortcuts - the path is usually long, and each person seems to need a different path (presumably because each is, in fact, starting somewhere different).
To illustrate this, you may wish to give an hour and a half of intense attention to this recording of one of the most 'enlightened' men of whom I am aware - William Arkle.
http://www.wessexresearchgroup.org/digital_08.html
Near the end, he responds to some questions from the audience (from the well known investigator Nigel Blair, who was the host of these proceedings) concerning whether meditation was necessary for everyone and beneficial for everyone. Arkle is very definite, even somewhat harsh, in refusing to make universal recommendations or even 'hints' or 'tips'; or to imply that there are quicker and easier ways to get where you need to go.
Each of us has to struggle, because these things are difficult to learn, because they are meant to be difficult to learn.
Because without the struggle we will not really learn them.
Note: To clarify, for new readers: Arkle is a spiritual Christian - not a New Age writer. His understanding is based upon God as Creator and Loving Father, we being his children; creation being for the purpose of raising us - like Jesus Christ - to ultimate full divinity of the same kind as God. Unorthodox Christian elements in Arkle include that - as with Mormonism - Arkle envisages a Heavenly Mother consort with the Father, and human divinity as potentially rising to the same nature and level as that of the divine parents, But unlike Mormonism; Arkle also includes a scheme of incremental reincarnation (whereas Mormonism achieves much the same explanatory function by positing a significant and evolutionary pre-mortal spirit existence for all men and women).
http://williamarkle.blogspot.co.uk
Friday, 23 June 2017
Thursday, 22 June 2017
The billion-fold global die-off - when will it come?
The population of the planet has grown from (approximately) one billion maximum, through most of world history; up to (apparently) more than seven billion at present - and this has happened since the industrial revolution and mostly in the past century.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-modern-world-is-selecting-for-pure.html
Six billion of the population are therefore sustained by the global system of technology, organisation and trade that we call Western Civilisation - and thus includes all of the 'third world/ developing' nations where population growth is so rapid.
For example, without Western civilisation (including medicine and public health) Africa would have less than a tenth of current population.
And of course Western Civilisation is going to end, and probably quite soon - for many, many reasons not least of which is that the majority of the world, including the global establishment, are extremely hostile to it - and to that which created and sustained it.
This means that billions of people will almost-certainly die, quite soon - although exactly how many billions and how rapidly is merely a question of how long the shrinking remnant can live-off accumulated, but also shrinking, capital stores.
However; 'civilisation' is (quite rightly) nobody's priority to sustain - not least because it is a by-product rather than a strategy; and is anyway a very long-term and remote problem - so it will always be made a low priority in competition with so many others.
The big question is not If there will be a collapse of technology and trade and a colossal extinction event; but why it has not already happened - given the malign intentions of the most powerful people in the world.
The answer is simple, albeit ominous.
The Global Establishment is - grudgingly - maintaining the international system of trade and technology because they are engaged in spiritual warfare, and they are currently winning.
In a nutshell, the Global Establishment are ultimately tools of the supernatural powers of evil - and because evil is winning more and more souls to self-damnation, they want the system to continue... at least for a while longer.
Think of it this way: Billions are going to die for sure - but what is in doubt is the fate of these souls: will they accept the salvation offered by Christ, or will they choose to reject this gift and instead opt for damnation?
Everything currently indicates that more and more people (most obviously in the West - where moral inversion is official and dominant; but seemingly almost everywhere else too - by their behaviour) are motivated by fear, resentment, pride and despair.
In such a state of conviction, the mass of post-mortem souls will not want Heaven, will purposively reject salvation... Certainly they won't want it at the necessary and inevitable price of personal repentance and faith (including admitting they had been fundamentally wrong in mortal life, and then actively joining with God's eternal plan for our deification).
What this suggests is that it is only the wickedness of the world which is keeping it going, and postponing the billion-fold die-off; and if there are strong signs of a Christian awakening in the hearts of Men, then that will be the time that the demons pull-the-plug on the vast, multiply-interdependent and therefore exquisitely fragile system that we call the global economy.
The mass death will come sooner or later, whatever happens - because its causes are probably unstoppable but in any case not being stopped - yet it may perhaps come sooner if many people do the right thing, than if they don't.
In which case there may be a stark choice between either extending this-world survival coupled with the expectation of an increased rate of eternal damnation; or alternatively accepting rapid collapse and death as the cost of saving more souls for eternal happiness...
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-modern-world-is-selecting-for-pure.html
Six billion of the population are therefore sustained by the global system of technology, organisation and trade that we call Western Civilisation - and thus includes all of the 'third world/ developing' nations where population growth is so rapid.
For example, without Western civilisation (including medicine and public health) Africa would have less than a tenth of current population.
And of course Western Civilisation is going to end, and probably quite soon - for many, many reasons not least of which is that the majority of the world, including the global establishment, are extremely hostile to it - and to that which created and sustained it.
This means that billions of people will almost-certainly die, quite soon - although exactly how many billions and how rapidly is merely a question of how long the shrinking remnant can live-off accumulated, but also shrinking, capital stores.
However; 'civilisation' is (quite rightly) nobody's priority to sustain - not least because it is a by-product rather than a strategy; and is anyway a very long-term and remote problem - so it will always be made a low priority in competition with so many others.
The big question is not If there will be a collapse of technology and trade and a colossal extinction event; but why it has not already happened - given the malign intentions of the most powerful people in the world.
The answer is simple, albeit ominous.
The Global Establishment is - grudgingly - maintaining the international system of trade and technology because they are engaged in spiritual warfare, and they are currently winning.
In a nutshell, the Global Establishment are ultimately tools of the supernatural powers of evil - and because evil is winning more and more souls to self-damnation, they want the system to continue... at least for a while longer.
Think of it this way: Billions are going to die for sure - but what is in doubt is the fate of these souls: will they accept the salvation offered by Christ, or will they choose to reject this gift and instead opt for damnation?
Everything currently indicates that more and more people (most obviously in the West - where moral inversion is official and dominant; but seemingly almost everywhere else too - by their behaviour) are motivated by fear, resentment, pride and despair.
In such a state of conviction, the mass of post-mortem souls will not want Heaven, will purposively reject salvation... Certainly they won't want it at the necessary and inevitable price of personal repentance and faith (including admitting they had been fundamentally wrong in mortal life, and then actively joining with God's eternal plan for our deification).
What this suggests is that it is only the wickedness of the world which is keeping it going, and postponing the billion-fold die-off; and if there are strong signs of a Christian awakening in the hearts of Men, then that will be the time that the demons pull-the-plug on the vast, multiply-interdependent and therefore exquisitely fragile system that we call the global economy.
The mass death will come sooner or later, whatever happens - because its causes are probably unstoppable but in any case not being stopped - yet it may perhaps come sooner if many people do the right thing, than if they don't.
In which case there may be a stark choice between either extending this-world survival coupled with the expectation of an increased rate of eternal damnation; or alternatively accepting rapid collapse and death as the cost of saving more souls for eternal happiness...
Wednesday, 21 June 2017
Why is modern politics so unpredictable? Dishonesty and stupidity (plus some notes on today's attempted coup)
The US and UK elections were wildly wrongly predicted, and so have been many other recent elections. Why?
Firstly there is so much systematic dishonesty that nobody knows anything anymore. Most obviously, the process of opinion polling is now very obviously corrupt - designed to influence voting, rather than measure it. It has become actively-misleading.
But also people, including political leaders, are more stupid than they used to be. The recent UK General Election was the easiest to win of any I can recall in the past 45 years - all that the Conservatives needed to do was make it a single issue election about Brexit; stating that they were the only party that would deliver it.
This was so very obvious that it didn't really cross my mind that it would not happen - but it didn't; and the election degenerated into a confusing mess; with the building impression that the Conservatives were unsure about Brexit and everything else.
The election ended-up so close that today the Revolutionary Left are planing a coup (they have announced it in the press) to take-over the government in the next days or weeks; by organising disruption, violent riots, a crisis atmosphere and fear of civil breakdown.
With such an incompetent and cowardly mainstream leadership class in Britain - the Bolshevik Left may well succeed (even if the leadership class didn't covertly want them to win - which is another aspect) - and we may soon have our first de facto communist government.
The unknown factor is the British people - and whether they will wake-up now; or perhaps later, after the reality of totalitarianism begins to hit; or perhaps not at all. After all, Leftism is our national Achilles heel - driven by class, sex, race and anti-Christian ressentiment; and we have so far shown zero ability to learn from experience on that subject.
If people really do not want to become agent and free - then they will get their wish.
That is: a life of mental passivity, of total surveillance and micro-managed behaviour and thought; justified purely in terms of the balance of attributed pleasures or sufferings; hoping desperately that the masters of our mortal destiny will be kind, while dreading that they are, in fact, cruel.
Firstly there is so much systematic dishonesty that nobody knows anything anymore. Most obviously, the process of opinion polling is now very obviously corrupt - designed to influence voting, rather than measure it. It has become actively-misleading.
But also people, including political leaders, are more stupid than they used to be. The recent UK General Election was the easiest to win of any I can recall in the past 45 years - all that the Conservatives needed to do was make it a single issue election about Brexit; stating that they were the only party that would deliver it.
This was so very obvious that it didn't really cross my mind that it would not happen - but it didn't; and the election degenerated into a confusing mess; with the building impression that the Conservatives were unsure about Brexit and everything else.
The election ended-up so close that today the Revolutionary Left are planing a coup (they have announced it in the press) to take-over the government in the next days or weeks; by organising disruption, violent riots, a crisis atmosphere and fear of civil breakdown.
With such an incompetent and cowardly mainstream leadership class in Britain - the Bolshevik Left may well succeed (even if the leadership class didn't covertly want them to win - which is another aspect) - and we may soon have our first de facto communist government.
The unknown factor is the British people - and whether they will wake-up now; or perhaps later, after the reality of totalitarianism begins to hit; or perhaps not at all. After all, Leftism is our national Achilles heel - driven by class, sex, race and anti-Christian ressentiment; and we have so far shown zero ability to learn from experience on that subject.
If people really do not want to become agent and free - then they will get their wish.
That is: a life of mental passivity, of total surveillance and micro-managed behaviour and thought; justified purely in terms of the balance of attributed pleasures or sufferings; hoping desperately that the masters of our mortal destiny will be kind, while dreading that they are, in fact, cruel.
Tuesday, 20 June 2017
Why are there no modern Utopias?
Because they cannot be imagined.
Modern people cannot even imagine a society of beauty, truth and virtue - because they do not believe, acknowledge or posses these values.
Instead, moderns can only imagine dystopias - and the dystopias are merely exceptionally-cruel societies where there is more-than-current levels of deliberately imposed suffering - the implication is that a 'utopia' is a society without suffering, of constant pleasure merely.
A Utopia of Emotions.
I say emotions, not feelings, because feelings imply consciousness, self-awareness - and in any modern utopia that must be destroyed - because consciousness implies worries about the past and (especially) future - whereas the modern utopia is the obliteration of everything by current pleasure.
The modern utopia is thus indistinguishable from the modern dystopia of a transhumanist, cyborg/ cyberpunk society in which human-machine, technologically-enhanced entities dwell in a paradise of genetic engineering, plastic surgery and drugs...
It will be noticed that the modern utopia is not a genuine utopia because it is not a human society - at most, it is the society of ex-humans, who have destroyed their own consciousness in order to obliterate suffering and thereby experience the totality of current pleasure.
Modern people cannot even imagine a society of beauty, truth and virtue - because they do not believe, acknowledge or posses these values.
Instead, moderns can only imagine dystopias - and the dystopias are merely exceptionally-cruel societies where there is more-than-current levels of deliberately imposed suffering - the implication is that a 'utopia' is a society without suffering, of constant pleasure merely.
A Utopia of Emotions.
I say emotions, not feelings, because feelings imply consciousness, self-awareness - and in any modern utopia that must be destroyed - because consciousness implies worries about the past and (especially) future - whereas the modern utopia is the obliteration of everything by current pleasure.
The modern utopia is thus indistinguishable from the modern dystopia of a transhumanist, cyborg/ cyberpunk society in which human-machine, technologically-enhanced entities dwell in a paradise of genetic engineering, plastic surgery and drugs...
It will be noticed that the modern utopia is not a genuine utopia because it is not a human society - at most, it is the society of ex-humans, who have destroyed their own consciousness in order to obliterate suffering and thereby experience the totality of current pleasure.
Monday, 19 June 2017
Christ within us - cosmic implications
To understand the meaning of Jesus Christ is a lifetime's work, and more than a mortal life!
One aspect that has been occupying me recently is what I term the 'cosmic' aspect - in other words the difference that the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ made for objective Reality.
I mean the sense in which 'things' everywhere and for everyone are intrinsically different AD from BC.
In other words, what differences did Jesus make aside from what we know of his life and teachings from inspired scriptures, tradition and the church (amplified by reason)?
One helpful concept is that since the death of Jesus and/ or the coming of the Holy Ghost (Pentecost) we have had Christ within-us; as a universal inner guidance system.
This means that, in principle - and perhaps necessarily also in practice - Anno Domini Christ is universally available and knowable by some kind of process of introspection and intuition; and available even to those who have not learned anything via there five senses (or who have been taught false things about him).
So, Christ is outside and inside, without and within, knowable by prayer and by meditation.
Furthermore, this kind of direct knowledge of Christ is probably both necessary and indeed sufficient for our understanding of The Gospels. What I mean is that the Gospels cannot be understood without the correct attitude and perspective for reading the Gospels - and also when the correct A & P have been established by direct knowing; then that is enough for us to understand the Gospels (not immediately in total - but to begin to build a correct understanding).
So the reality and nature of Christ is established in such a way that everybody, everywhere, can (in principle) can confirm their prayers via intuitions and vice versa. Can know the guidance both from without and from within.
And this is exactly what we need in a life of growth, development and transformation. We change, and are meant to change; and the agent of change can work from inside us as well as from outside us.
One aspect that has been occupying me recently is what I term the 'cosmic' aspect - in other words the difference that the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ made for objective Reality.
I mean the sense in which 'things' everywhere and for everyone are intrinsically different AD from BC.
In other words, what differences did Jesus make aside from what we know of his life and teachings from inspired scriptures, tradition and the church (amplified by reason)?
One helpful concept is that since the death of Jesus and/ or the coming of the Holy Ghost (Pentecost) we have had Christ within-us; as a universal inner guidance system.
This means that, in principle - and perhaps necessarily also in practice - Anno Domini Christ is universally available and knowable by some kind of process of introspection and intuition; and available even to those who have not learned anything via there five senses (or who have been taught false things about him).
So, Christ is outside and inside, without and within, knowable by prayer and by meditation.
Furthermore, this kind of direct knowledge of Christ is probably both necessary and indeed sufficient for our understanding of The Gospels. What I mean is that the Gospels cannot be understood without the correct attitude and perspective for reading the Gospels - and also when the correct A & P have been established by direct knowing; then that is enough for us to understand the Gospels (not immediately in total - but to begin to build a correct understanding).
So the reality and nature of Christ is established in such a way that everybody, everywhere, can (in principle) can confirm their prayers via intuitions and vice versa. Can know the guidance both from without and from within.
And this is exactly what we need in a life of growth, development and transformation. We change, and are meant to change; and the agent of change can work from inside us as well as from outside us.
Sunday, 18 June 2017
What does the up-coming Leftist revolution mean for you, and soon?
Take a step back from what - at least in the UK - is an explicit, unfolding, centrally-planned attempt at an extreme Leftist Revolutionary takeover from the Mainstream Leftists currently in charge.
(Note - ALL mainstream politics is Leftist, including all conservative, libertarian and nationalist parties. Because the only alternative to Leftism is religion: for the West that means a society based on Christianity. The Left - both mainstream and revolutionary - are the preferred means by which the global Establishment are working for a world totalitarian society of pervasive surveillance and micro-management; and the objective of this
(My assumption here is that this is ultimately a spiritual warfare; there is indeed an elite conspiracy; and at the very top this has been for several generations strategised by forces of supernatural evil - I mean actual demons. Their aim is, of course, the wholesale self-damnation of as many people as possible; by implementing an agenda which inverts Good.)
(See: http://thoughtprison-pc.blogspot.co.uk )
But why now?
Revolution is, after all, a high risk strategy - especially in the context that the Leftists are winning, winning and winning... and have been for fifty years...
I don't mean that failing to win a revolution is the high risk; the extreme Left might well win.
And I don't mean that a revolution will (it usually does) produce economic collapse, state violence, breakdown of law, starvation, disease and all the rest of it.
(Sooner or later, for bad reasons or good, collapse will come.)
I mean spiritually - a revolution, perhaps especially a successful revolution, is quite likely to trigger a clarification of perception of reality, serious thinking; and is the most likely thing I can imagine to lead to a spiritual and religious awakening.
So why has the Global Establishment abandoned a winning strategy?
In principle - it could be for one of two opposite reasons.
From strength. The Left is now so secure that it can massively accelerate its agenda.
If that is the case, and the Left have nothing to fear then really there is nothing can be done about it: we have passed the point of no return.
But this hasty revolution could also be a product of weakness...
The Establishment masters of the Left may have been panicked into premature revolution, before the ground has been fully prepared; because they fear that their agenda is under threat.
This current crescendo of revolutionary rhetoric against the may derive from fear rather than strength - it may be a huge gamble.
If so, we are not past the tipping point - but instead things hang in the balance.
What does this imply for Christians? Well, we know that, in times like these large forces are at work behind the scenes; such that small, local, personal, courageous acts of faith may lead to huge and spiritually beneficial consequences.
It is time to be brave. Sooner or later your moment will come - the testing time when you will be called upon to declare witness, make a stand, some seemingly tiny personal act that - if you but knew - is actually of massive potential consequence.
Be ready, it will come; and it might come very soon.
(Note - ALL mainstream politics is Leftist, including all conservative, libertarian and nationalist parties. Because the only alternative to Leftism is religion: for the West that means a society based on Christianity. The Left - both mainstream and revolutionary - are the preferred means by which the global Establishment are working for a world totalitarian society of pervasive surveillance and micro-management; and the objective of this
(My assumption here is that this is ultimately a spiritual warfare; there is indeed an elite conspiracy; and at the very top this has been for several generations strategised by forces of supernatural evil - I mean actual demons. Their aim is, of course, the wholesale self-damnation of as many people as possible; by implementing an agenda which inverts Good.)
(See: http://thoughtprison-pc.blogspot.co.uk )
But why now?
Revolution is, after all, a high risk strategy - especially in the context that the Leftists are winning, winning and winning... and have been for fifty years...
I don't mean that failing to win a revolution is the high risk; the extreme Left might well win.
And I don't mean that a revolution will (it usually does) produce economic collapse, state violence, breakdown of law, starvation, disease and all the rest of it.
(Sooner or later, for bad reasons or good, collapse will come.)
I mean spiritually - a revolution, perhaps especially a successful revolution, is quite likely to trigger a clarification of perception of reality, serious thinking; and is the most likely thing I can imagine to lead to a spiritual and religious awakening.
So why has the Global Establishment abandoned a winning strategy?
In principle - it could be for one of two opposite reasons.
From strength. The Left is now so secure that it can massively accelerate its agenda.
If that is the case, and the Left have nothing to fear then really there is nothing can be done about it: we have passed the point of no return.
But this hasty revolution could also be a product of weakness...
The Establishment masters of the Left may have been panicked into premature revolution, before the ground has been fully prepared; because they fear that their agenda is under threat.
This current crescendo of revolutionary rhetoric against the may derive from fear rather than strength - it may be a huge gamble.
If so, we are not past the tipping point - but instead things hang in the balance.
What does this imply for Christians? Well, we know that, in times like these large forces are at work behind the scenes; such that small, local, personal, courageous acts of faith may lead to huge and spiritually beneficial consequences.
It is time to be brave. Sooner or later your moment will come - the testing time when you will be called upon to declare witness, make a stand, some seemingly tiny personal act that - if you but knew - is actually of massive potential consequence.
Be ready, it will come; and it might come very soon.
Friday, 16 June 2017
Ignorance of Leftism (know your enemy)
One of the problems for self-styled Rightists is a shocking ignorance of Leftism. I'm not even talking about the centuries long historical perspective, but simply Leftism over the past century - back to the time of my grandparents.
A common consequence of this is the common wrong Rightist idea that Leftism is a religion.
Now, of course there are some respects in which Leftism is somewhat like a religion - but the falsity of the idea that it was a religion would be obviously untrue to anyone who knew what Leftism was like in the early Twentieth century as well as knowing what it has been (increasingly) like in the past fifty years.
It was not so daft to regard Communism as a religion - and like a real religion, the first generation of communists were often very highly motivated to the point of extreme courage and self-sacrifice.
This early type of Leftism was economic, at root. It was about the distribution of wealth and income, economic planning, the ownership of the means of production and so forth.
In Britain (which is where Leftism was invented) many early Leftists (socialists) were Protestant nonconformists of extremely strict morality: sexual morality, and they did not lie, gamble or drink alcohol. Many were skilled native working class men - the Trades Unionists - dedicated to self-improvement by education in the sciences and high art: they founded lectures, libraries, funded colleges, promoted literacy...
Old style Leftism was wrong, and contained the seed of greater wrongness - but it had many good qualities, and many admirable people leading it.
Compare this with Leftism now. It is almost completely different in almost every respect: no longer based on economics but instead on identity politics, femimism, antiracism, promoting the sexual revolution. It was post-mid-sixties Leftist parties in Britain which most aggressively promoted the culture of gambling, drinking, promiscuity, marriage-and-family destruction, native population replacement, hype & spin (ie. systematic lying).
Leftist politics is now something which would have been utterly revolting to the old style, high minded communists, Christian socialists and Trades Unionists.
Religions don't behave this way. They are far more stable, and their decline is characterised by corruption and apostasy; but not near-total ideological and social reversal in the space of a generation! (say 1945-75 - of course the generations overlapped and blurred the phenomenon).
Indeed, one has to look deep to discover the commonality of the Left throughout its evolution - it is there, but it is not a surface feature, and not captured by a single core aim. (Indeed, I believe the Left can only plausibly be explained as a consequence of supernatural, demonic leadership - working gradually and incrementally to demoralise, corrupt and invert people over multiple generations. Human agency is incapable of such long-termism.)
I was brought up as an old style Leftist through my extended family; and avidly studied the history of the movement in my teens - and also, time-lagged, participated in the transformation of the Left as it happened from the middle sixties. So I can see that it is not any more a religion - it does not do what a religion does for people; in sum Leftism is now almost wholly oppositional.
A religion must have some fixity of metaphysics, doctrine, scripture, goals, tradition, church structure... something! Time has revealed that Leftism has no positive content - it is merely oppositional, inversional; and ultimately what Leftism opposes is The Good.
That is its only unity.
*
For more argument on these lines see my book Addicted to Distraction:
http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk
A common consequence of this is the common wrong Rightist idea that Leftism is a religion.
Now, of course there are some respects in which Leftism is somewhat like a religion - but the falsity of the idea that it was a religion would be obviously untrue to anyone who knew what Leftism was like in the early Twentieth century as well as knowing what it has been (increasingly) like in the past fifty years.
It was not so daft to regard Communism as a religion - and like a real religion, the first generation of communists were often very highly motivated to the point of extreme courage and self-sacrifice.
This early type of Leftism was economic, at root. It was about the distribution of wealth and income, economic planning, the ownership of the means of production and so forth.
In Britain (which is where Leftism was invented) many early Leftists (socialists) were Protestant nonconformists of extremely strict morality: sexual morality, and they did not lie, gamble or drink alcohol. Many were skilled native working class men - the Trades Unionists - dedicated to self-improvement by education in the sciences and high art: they founded lectures, libraries, funded colleges, promoted literacy...
Old style Leftism was wrong, and contained the seed of greater wrongness - but it had many good qualities, and many admirable people leading it.
Compare this with Leftism now. It is almost completely different in almost every respect: no longer based on economics but instead on identity politics, femimism, antiracism, promoting the sexual revolution. It was post-mid-sixties Leftist parties in Britain which most aggressively promoted the culture of gambling, drinking, promiscuity, marriage-and-family destruction, native population replacement, hype & spin (ie. systematic lying).
Leftist politics is now something which would have been utterly revolting to the old style, high minded communists, Christian socialists and Trades Unionists.
Religions don't behave this way. They are far more stable, and their decline is characterised by corruption and apostasy; but not near-total ideological and social reversal in the space of a generation! (say 1945-75 - of course the generations overlapped and blurred the phenomenon).
Indeed, one has to look deep to discover the commonality of the Left throughout its evolution - it is there, but it is not a surface feature, and not captured by a single core aim. (Indeed, I believe the Left can only plausibly be explained as a consequence of supernatural, demonic leadership - working gradually and incrementally to demoralise, corrupt and invert people over multiple generations. Human agency is incapable of such long-termism.)
I was brought up as an old style Leftist through my extended family; and avidly studied the history of the movement in my teens - and also, time-lagged, participated in the transformation of the Left as it happened from the middle sixties. So I can see that it is not any more a religion - it does not do what a religion does for people; in sum Leftism is now almost wholly oppositional.
A religion must have some fixity of metaphysics, doctrine, scripture, goals, tradition, church structure... something! Time has revealed that Leftism has no positive content - it is merely oppositional, inversional; and ultimately what Leftism opposes is The Good.
That is its only unity.
*
For more argument on these lines see my book Addicted to Distraction:
http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk
Owen Barfield's Metaphysics
Owen Barfield regarded himself as doing a mixture of 'scientific/ empirical' and epistemological research - but to understand him I believe we need also to know (or infer) the fundamental, metaphysical assumptions which underpin and make sense of the rest.
By scientific/ empirical I mean especially Barfield's work on 'philology - the history of word meanings and their transformations; and what that history implies about the societies using the languages. And by epistemological I mean the philosophy of how we know, the basis or justification for understanding.
But underneath both of these are the metaphysical assumptions about the way that reality is 'set-up' - its structure, meaning, purpose etc; including what is our own personal stake in reality: e.g. Why we should care about this stuff! Why it is important to us individually and in what way?
More at:
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/owen-barfields-metaphysics.html
By scientific/ empirical I mean especially Barfield's work on 'philology - the history of word meanings and their transformations; and what that history implies about the societies using the languages. And by epistemological I mean the philosophy of how we know, the basis or justification for understanding.
But underneath both of these are the metaphysical assumptions about the way that reality is 'set-up' - its structure, meaning, purpose etc; including what is our own personal stake in reality: e.g. Why we should care about this stuff! Why it is important to us individually and in what way?
More at:
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/owen-barfields-metaphysics.html
Delusional optimism on the political Right
I see a lot of this, especially online. The 'tough' people who talk about 'winning' against the mainstream Left: some even believe that they are winning, that the tide has turned...
They pour scorn upon those who do not 'fight' - because they seem to feel that they can - from where we are now, and with people as they are now - actually 'win'! And roll society back to some earlier stage a few or many generations ago (which was, itself, in fact, a transitional phase en route to current Leftism).
It is delusional nonsense, however well-meant. The Left is not losing, the Right is not winning - because there is no 'Right' in the mainstream of public discourse: None. At. All.
Because even when a genuinely non-Left (i.e. religious) group speaks in the public sphere, that aspect is filtered; such that what appears has moved the debate onto the core secular Left ground of 'utilitarianism' - the calculus of human pleasure or suffering in this mortal life.
So the Right (whether actual or self-styled) is just proposing a different means to the identical Leftist goal of a comfortable and stimulating mortal life - full-stop - nothing else matters...
Therefore all supposed 'victories' of the 'Right' are merely reinforcing the deep-Left agenda.
The Right is Not winning, Nothing substantive has changed, Pessimism is the only rational calculation.
Yes, we must always hope and must never despair...
But someone can only be optimistic about the socio-political probabilities if they are deluded about the pervasiveness, depth and inertia of present realities.
They pour scorn upon those who do not 'fight' - because they seem to feel that they can - from where we are now, and with people as they are now - actually 'win'! And roll society back to some earlier stage a few or many generations ago (which was, itself, in fact, a transitional phase en route to current Leftism).
It is delusional nonsense, however well-meant. The Left is not losing, the Right is not winning - because there is no 'Right' in the mainstream of public discourse: None. At. All.
Because even when a genuinely non-Left (i.e. religious) group speaks in the public sphere, that aspect is filtered; such that what appears has moved the debate onto the core secular Left ground of 'utilitarianism' - the calculus of human pleasure or suffering in this mortal life.
So the Right (whether actual or self-styled) is just proposing a different means to the identical Leftist goal of a comfortable and stimulating mortal life - full-stop - nothing else matters...
Therefore all supposed 'victories' of the 'Right' are merely reinforcing the deep-Left agenda.
The Right is Not winning, Nothing substantive has changed, Pessimism is the only rational calculation.
Yes, we must always hope and must never despair...
But someone can only be optimistic about the socio-political probabilities if they are deluded about the pervasiveness, depth and inertia of present realities.
Thursday, 15 June 2017
Why do so few Outsiders end-up as Christians?
I was an Outsider more than thirty years before I became a Christian - having read Colin Wilson's book in 1978. Wilson himself never became a Christian, despite getting very close to it in his first two books (The Outsider of 1956 and Religion and the Rebel the year after).
Why should this be? - why should the inner-motivated Man, who regards himself as set-apart (for good, or more often for ill), perhaps having an unusual destiny, the 'existentialist'... why should such a person fail to recognise that his only satisfactory terminus lies in the truth of Christianity?
I think the reason is partly to do with the Outsider wishing to hold-onto his favourite vices (drink, drugs, promiscuous extra-marital sex and the like) but it is also the fault of Christianity - which has become identified exclusively with specific churches (with, quite often, each one stating that it uniquely holds the keys of salvation).
The Outsider sees Christianity as a choice of churches only. Now some Outsiders - such as GK Chesterton or TS Eliot - do find a home inside one of the established Christian churches (the Roman Catholic church being a favourite in the early 20th century). But they are clearly a minority.
There is insufficient awareness of the possibility of being Christian outside of any specific church. And/ or of becoming a Christian before, or without ever, joining a church.
For instance William Blake is an Outsider hero, and Blake was an absolutely devout and explicit and focused Christian in his Life and all-through his work. And (not 'but') Blake was a non-church Christian who was extremely unconventional/ heterodox/ heretical. Since Blake regarded himself as a solid and inspired and proselytising Christian outwith any church and with an unique set of convictions and practices; so too can any Outsider.
Furthermore, many churches conflate (link-inextricably-together) the possibility of believing in God, Christ and the immanence of God-in-all-things including ourselves (such as The Holy Ghost).
As that great non-church and heterodox Christian Rudolf Steiner said: to disbelieve in God is to be, in a real sense, insane; in other words, it is to disbelieve any possibility of coherence, meaning and purpose - which is to regard all of life as a delusion.
The reality and significance Christ is the only source of hope and ultimate happiness - all other religions are - if true, at their best and by their own account - miserable by comparison with Christianity.
And to deny God within us and the world is to live earthly life in a state of detachment - since we can only observe and never actually participate in reality: we can never know.
For an Outsider everything must, sooner or later, be tested by intuition in its widest and deepest sense; there must be a solid sense of personal conviction and relevance. With a church orientated Christianity, this is applied only to the question of whether a particular church is the one path to truth, reality and salvation.
Clearly, most Outsiders have the intuition that such claims are untrue, and therefore cannot and do not even wish to join a church for which they do not feel any such conviction.
But if existential conviction is the truest test, then it ought to be applied to sub-parts, and not merely to 'the whole package' as put forward by a specific church. Thus, an Outsider may be intuitively sure that there is a God who is creator.
He may additionally be sure that (in some vital sense) Jesus Christ is the Son of God and our saviour and central to our ultimate happiness (even though the exact meaning of the key terms is something he will need to strive to elucidate).
And the Outsider may also realise that his knowledge depends on there being something like the Holy Ghost - a divine spirit inside himself, and everybody else, and every-thing else - which makes possible true understanding and knowledge; and works over time to guide us to a more divine salvation.
Any Outsider who becomes a Christian is highly-likely to be heterodox, or regarded as heretical by many or most church members - but he ought not to be put-off by this: he should still become a Christian, simply because it is true (true in a real sense, albeit a sense that needs working-on).
Without Christianity, the Outsider is doomed to be merely a psychologist - since the most he can say in favour of anything is that it tends to make people happier... or at least to suffer less.
If the Outsider is to be able to use the concept of 'ought' then he needs to be a theist; and if he is to be someone who regards mortal life as important he needs to be Christian; and if he is to regard his own freedom and creativity as important, he needs to believe in the possibility of direct, unmediated contact with the divine.
What the Outsider gets from this kind of direct apprehension of the truth of Christianity; is great assistance in finding, sustaining and growing his true self - and then in discovering and pursuing his destiny.
He may well also become happier, more motivated and more confident in Life - but these are side-effects and never the primary aim.
In sum - the core reason for becoming a Christian is to convert an Outsider from being merely a Psychologist to becoming a real Prophet.
Why should this be? - why should the inner-motivated Man, who regards himself as set-apart (for good, or more often for ill), perhaps having an unusual destiny, the 'existentialist'... why should such a person fail to recognise that his only satisfactory terminus lies in the truth of Christianity?
I think the reason is partly to do with the Outsider wishing to hold-onto his favourite vices (drink, drugs, promiscuous extra-marital sex and the like) but it is also the fault of Christianity - which has become identified exclusively with specific churches (with, quite often, each one stating that it uniquely holds the keys of salvation).
The Outsider sees Christianity as a choice of churches only. Now some Outsiders - such as GK Chesterton or TS Eliot - do find a home inside one of the established Christian churches (the Roman Catholic church being a favourite in the early 20th century). But they are clearly a minority.
There is insufficient awareness of the possibility of being Christian outside of any specific church. And/ or of becoming a Christian before, or without ever, joining a church.
For instance William Blake is an Outsider hero, and Blake was an absolutely devout and explicit and focused Christian in his Life and all-through his work. And (not 'but') Blake was a non-church Christian who was extremely unconventional/ heterodox/ heretical. Since Blake regarded himself as a solid and inspired and proselytising Christian outwith any church and with an unique set of convictions and practices; so too can any Outsider.
Furthermore, many churches conflate (link-inextricably-together) the possibility of believing in God, Christ and the immanence of God-in-all-things including ourselves (such as The Holy Ghost).
As that great non-church and heterodox Christian Rudolf Steiner said: to disbelieve in God is to be, in a real sense, insane; in other words, it is to disbelieve any possibility of coherence, meaning and purpose - which is to regard all of life as a delusion.
The reality and significance Christ is the only source of hope and ultimate happiness - all other religions are - if true, at their best and by their own account - miserable by comparison with Christianity.
And to deny God within us and the world is to live earthly life in a state of detachment - since we can only observe and never actually participate in reality: we can never know.
For an Outsider everything must, sooner or later, be tested by intuition in its widest and deepest sense; there must be a solid sense of personal conviction and relevance. With a church orientated Christianity, this is applied only to the question of whether a particular church is the one path to truth, reality and salvation.
Clearly, most Outsiders have the intuition that such claims are untrue, and therefore cannot and do not even wish to join a church for which they do not feel any such conviction.
But if existential conviction is the truest test, then it ought to be applied to sub-parts, and not merely to 'the whole package' as put forward by a specific church. Thus, an Outsider may be intuitively sure that there is a God who is creator.
He may additionally be sure that (in some vital sense) Jesus Christ is the Son of God and our saviour and central to our ultimate happiness (even though the exact meaning of the key terms is something he will need to strive to elucidate).
And the Outsider may also realise that his knowledge depends on there being something like the Holy Ghost - a divine spirit inside himself, and everybody else, and every-thing else - which makes possible true understanding and knowledge; and works over time to guide us to a more divine salvation.
Any Outsider who becomes a Christian is highly-likely to be heterodox, or regarded as heretical by many or most church members - but he ought not to be put-off by this: he should still become a Christian, simply because it is true (true in a real sense, albeit a sense that needs working-on).
Without Christianity, the Outsider is doomed to be merely a psychologist - since the most he can say in favour of anything is that it tends to make people happier... or at least to suffer less.
If the Outsider is to be able to use the concept of 'ought' then he needs to be a theist; and if he is to be someone who regards mortal life as important he needs to be Christian; and if he is to regard his own freedom and creativity as important, he needs to believe in the possibility of direct, unmediated contact with the divine.
What the Outsider gets from this kind of direct apprehension of the truth of Christianity; is great assistance in finding, sustaining and growing his true self - and then in discovering and pursuing his destiny.
He may well also become happier, more motivated and more confident in Life - but these are side-effects and never the primary aim.
In sum - the core reason for becoming a Christian is to convert an Outsider from being merely a Psychologist to becoming a real Prophet.
The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan - a half-way review and overview
I am currently reading an extremely-long (14 volumes, each about 1000 pages) fantasy novel serial called the Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan (the pen name of James Oliver Rigney Jr. - 1948-2007) the totality of which was published between 1990 and 2013, having been posthumously completed by Brandon Sanderson.
I say 'reading' but in fact I am listening on audiobook - the readers are the husband and wife team of Michael Kramer and Kate Reading - who are first-rate exemplars of this difficult craft.
I came to Wheel of Time via the wonderful novels of Brandon Sanderson, who completed the series; and a further link is that Sanderson's audiobooks are also done by Kramer and Reading.
Apparently Jordan's The Wheel of Time is very well known in the USA, where it was a 'best seller' - that is not the case in the UK; where these books are not stocked by shops or libraries.
It is a large commitment to begin such a long haul, and I rather doubt whether I would have done it if I had had to read rather than listen; but I am delighted by the experience so far. First thing every morning, and doing doing chores, and at other times - I listen to the books and am transported into a vast world populated by numerous characters.
What I like best about the Wheel of Time is that the invisible authorial presence, behind and permeating the text, is one of a wise and good man. That makes a big difference for me; because I find most authors to be ultimately untrustworthy - most good writers are, indeed, bad Men. 'Robert Jordan' was clearly a fine person.
The structure of the narrative is more like a serial than a single multi-volume novel or sequence of linked novels; when there is such extreme length, the overall story is backgrounded, and functions mostly as a thread to join-up the various scenes, and from which to develop character. The books are capable of depicting beauty and horror, moving me to tears, making me laugh, and sustaining my attention and interest. As a prose stylist Jordan is therefore good-enough - but not great or special.
(Something similar applies to JK Rowling, and to several other major fiction writers such as Charles Dickens. Not all great novelists are great writers - and most great writers are not great novelists.)
Why is the book so very long? The main reason is that there is a large cast of characters - six main characters, but dozens of others from whose perspective we get to see things. The reason why the books are long is the detail - the scenes are described in more minute detail than I have come across elsewhere (except, significantly, in Brandon Sanderson - who I guess may have learned this from Jordan). Reading the scene therefore takes longer than the scene would take in real time - which is a 'Wagnerian' way of doing things.
(Wagner's operas, or at least the late ones, can be enjoyed only once it is understood that events on stage are happening in 'super-slow-mo'; the orchestra, not the voice, describing the smallest nuances of what the characters are thinking and feeling.)
The main strength of Wheel of Time is that it does extremely-well what Fantasy is supposed to do: it makes an inhabitable world in which the eternal and essential human things are dominant - a world of truth.
The importance of Fantasy is that the everyday modern world is one of lies and triviality; so people like myself almost need the Fantasy genre in order to 'exercise' the proper priorities and evaluations.
If you like the sound of what I have indicated, then I would recommend Jordan's Wheel of Time. Don't think of it as being 'like' some other author. WoT does what it does supremely well - and it is a delight to be able to enjoy it day after day, week after week, month after month... and still not have reached the halfway mark!
I say 'reading' but in fact I am listening on audiobook - the readers are the husband and wife team of Michael Kramer and Kate Reading - who are first-rate exemplars of this difficult craft.
I came to Wheel of Time via the wonderful novels of Brandon Sanderson, who completed the series; and a further link is that Sanderson's audiobooks are also done by Kramer and Reading.
Apparently Jordan's The Wheel of Time is very well known in the USA, where it was a 'best seller' - that is not the case in the UK; where these books are not stocked by shops or libraries.
It is a large commitment to begin such a long haul, and I rather doubt whether I would have done it if I had had to read rather than listen; but I am delighted by the experience so far. First thing every morning, and doing doing chores, and at other times - I listen to the books and am transported into a vast world populated by numerous characters.
What I like best about the Wheel of Time is that the invisible authorial presence, behind and permeating the text, is one of a wise and good man. That makes a big difference for me; because I find most authors to be ultimately untrustworthy - most good writers are, indeed, bad Men. 'Robert Jordan' was clearly a fine person.
The structure of the narrative is more like a serial than a single multi-volume novel or sequence of linked novels; when there is such extreme length, the overall story is backgrounded, and functions mostly as a thread to join-up the various scenes, and from which to develop character. The books are capable of depicting beauty and horror, moving me to tears, making me laugh, and sustaining my attention and interest. As a prose stylist Jordan is therefore good-enough - but not great or special.
(Something similar applies to JK Rowling, and to several other major fiction writers such as Charles Dickens. Not all great novelists are great writers - and most great writers are not great novelists.)
Why is the book so very long? The main reason is that there is a large cast of characters - six main characters, but dozens of others from whose perspective we get to see things. The reason why the books are long is the detail - the scenes are described in more minute detail than I have come across elsewhere (except, significantly, in Brandon Sanderson - who I guess may have learned this from Jordan). Reading the scene therefore takes longer than the scene would take in real time - which is a 'Wagnerian' way of doing things.
(Wagner's operas, or at least the late ones, can be enjoyed only once it is understood that events on stage are happening in 'super-slow-mo'; the orchestra, not the voice, describing the smallest nuances of what the characters are thinking and feeling.)
The main strength of Wheel of Time is that it does extremely-well what Fantasy is supposed to do: it makes an inhabitable world in which the eternal and essential human things are dominant - a world of truth.
The importance of Fantasy is that the everyday modern world is one of lies and triviality; so people like myself almost need the Fantasy genre in order to 'exercise' the proper priorities and evaluations.
If you like the sound of what I have indicated, then I would recommend Jordan's Wheel of Time. Don't think of it as being 'like' some other author. WoT does what it does supremely well - and it is a delight to be able to enjoy it day after day, week after week, month after month... and still not have reached the halfway mark!
Wednesday, 14 June 2017
It’s perfectly simple… A spokesperson for the British Establishment explains...
(Beep-Beep! Heavy-handed satire alert...)
It’s perfectly simple…
In the unprecedented event of a man with a knife killing people as fast as he can; we simply run away and hide until a policeman comes along to shoot him.
This might take quarter of an hour in the centre of London, ten or twenty times as long elsewhere. And only fit (and lucky) adults can successfully run and hide…
But the knifeman can only kill so-fast those unhidden who are unlucky, unfit, women, children and old people; and the police will, eventually, arrive.
Of course if the killer has a gun and plenty of bullets then a lot more people will be killed while we wait for the police – but that is unfortunately necessary; because it is better than the alternative of people defending themselves.
It’s perfectly simple – the government has a strategy to import extremely large numbers of people including a substantial proportion who will cause violence; and another parallel strategy to make self-defence high-risk and harshly-punishable.
The obvious answer is to have an extremely large number of armed police everywhere, at all times; total surveillance and micro-control of the entire population’s thoughts and actions. Problem solved!
Of course, some anti-diversity, Christian fundamentalist Right-wing white supremacist fascist Nazi literally-Hitler extremists would object to that state of affairs – but the answer to that problem is obvious as well…
I think that covers all the points?…
It’s perfectly simple…
In the unprecedented event of a man with a knife killing people as fast as he can; we simply run away and hide until a policeman comes along to shoot him.
This might take quarter of an hour in the centre of London, ten or twenty times as long elsewhere. And only fit (and lucky) adults can successfully run and hide…
But the knifeman can only kill so-fast those unhidden who are unlucky, unfit, women, children and old people; and the police will, eventually, arrive.
Of course if the killer has a gun and plenty of bullets then a lot more people will be killed while we wait for the police – but that is unfortunately necessary; because it is better than the alternative of people defending themselves.
It’s perfectly simple – the government has a strategy to import extremely large numbers of people including a substantial proportion who will cause violence; and another parallel strategy to make self-defence high-risk and harshly-punishable.
The obvious answer is to have an extremely large number of armed police everywhere, at all times; total surveillance and micro-control of the entire population’s thoughts and actions. Problem solved!
Of course, some anti-diversity, Christian fundamentalist Right-wing white supremacist fascist Nazi literally-Hitler extremists would object to that state of affairs – but the answer to that problem is obvious as well…
I think that covers all the points?…
Sleeping through to damnation for fear of awakening
I call for an awakening in The West, because people are asleep. Just look around: look at the eyes.
People sleep through life, which means they never actually think from themselves (but instead only 'process', automatically, passively - massive inputs of external stimuli).
The great demonic discovery of the 1960s was that modern people could be controlled (into damnation) by keeping them always asleep. Half the time they are asleep in a totalitarian regulated bureaucracy; and the other half in an instinctual world of primary process 'Id' fantasies (and nightmares).
And they do not want to wake-up, because of what they will find. What they will find is too overwhelming to contemplate without religion, and religion is The One Thing that modern people are Sure they do not want.
But even if they had or have, religion - it is not enough; because modern religion is rotten with the same corruption that affects everything else.
The only answer is to awakening to a religion in which we each have direct and personal engagement with the divine creative mind and process - how else could we survive as individuals in a world of near-total corruption?
Fortunately, exactly this is there for the asking - everything they most need... Unfortunately, everybody is asleep, and if they begin to stir from slumber they are aggressive in their attempt to resume unconsciousness.
What they want is only more sleep, deeper sleep, and better dreams (preferably never to wake up, preferably a blissful slide into extinction - to be on the safe side).
Unless they awaken, nothing positive can be done - because anything positive done must be with consent and indeed active agreement and effort. They cannot awaken unless they want to wake. They show no signs of wanting to wake.
Well - Because God loves us, people will get what they want - but what they want, won't be what they expect. This is not a threat - simply that God cannot override Man's agency (even if he wanted to, which he does not).
What we insist upon, in our freedom, will be; but it will be what we really insist upon - and not merely what we unreflectively and dishonestly 'say to ourselves'.
People sleep through life, which means they never actually think from themselves (but instead only 'process', automatically, passively - massive inputs of external stimuli).
The great demonic discovery of the 1960s was that modern people could be controlled (into damnation) by keeping them always asleep. Half the time they are asleep in a totalitarian regulated bureaucracy; and the other half in an instinctual world of primary process 'Id' fantasies (and nightmares).
And they do not want to wake-up, because of what they will find. What they will find is too overwhelming to contemplate without religion, and religion is The One Thing that modern people are Sure they do not want.
But even if they had or have, religion - it is not enough; because modern religion is rotten with the same corruption that affects everything else.
The only answer is to awakening to a religion in which we each have direct and personal engagement with the divine creative mind and process - how else could we survive as individuals in a world of near-total corruption?
Fortunately, exactly this is there for the asking - everything they most need... Unfortunately, everybody is asleep, and if they begin to stir from slumber they are aggressive in their attempt to resume unconsciousness.
What they want is only more sleep, deeper sleep, and better dreams (preferably never to wake up, preferably a blissful slide into extinction - to be on the safe side).
Unless they awaken, nothing positive can be done - because anything positive done must be with consent and indeed active agreement and effort. They cannot awaken unless they want to wake. They show no signs of wanting to wake.
Well - Because God loves us, people will get what they want - but what they want, won't be what they expect. This is not a threat - simply that God cannot override Man's agency (even if he wanted to, which he does not).
What we insist upon, in our freedom, will be; but it will be what we really insist upon - and not merely what we unreflectively and dishonestly 'say to ourselves'.
Tuesday, 13 June 2017
Introspection, Intuition, Imagination - (Imagination *is* knowing.)
That's the order of it, I think...
First we need to look-within - introspect - and that is difficult for most people. Which means we need to want to look within before it can be attained - want it enough to persevere.
Once Introspection is attained then there is the possibility of Intuition.
Intuition is a process - it is thinking with the real-true-divine Self. It is the most fundamental thinking of which we are capable; compared with which the great mass of what we call thinking is merely passive 'processing'.
Most of our thinking is 'caused', automatic, un-thinking - that is, it is 'programmed' by our environment and experiences - but the real-true-divine thinking is itself a cause and has no cause - it is a spontaneous origin coming from nothing prior (that is because it is divine, and that is what divine is).
But real-true-divine thinking is not just some different kind of process that happens to be uncaused - it is participating in reality, which means it is intrinsically true.
(Real-true-divine thinking is Freedom; it is indeed the only Freedom - the only time when we our-selves are agent, because autonomous from being-caused.)
So when we are thinking intuitively, our thinking is true; intrinsically true, necessarily true - as well as being creative. It is true because it participates in reality, it is creative because it is uncaused - and these attributes are indivisible because they all are consequences of its nature.
Let us call this real-true-divine thinking Imagination - using Coleridge's distinction of Imagination in contrast to 'Fancy' - which is merely passive, caused, secondary and not-true because relating to not-real things. Fancy is merely a product of normal, automatic processing, an output rearranged from inputs...
But when we define Imagination as the primary, creative thinking that participates in reality; we can see that Imagination is intrinsically valid.
Imagination is indeed primary - it is not merely useful or expedient, Imagination is knowledge.
Imagination is indeed the only knowledge - only that which is imagined (in the way and sense described above) is real and true; and other forms of thinking are not.
In normal discourse, Imagination is synonymous with 'imaginary' i.e. untrue, unreal - but now it is apparent that Imagination is our divine selves thinking in the universal realm of reality: Imagination is knowing.
First we need to look-within - introspect - and that is difficult for most people. Which means we need to want to look within before it can be attained - want it enough to persevere.
Once Introspection is attained then there is the possibility of Intuition.
Intuition is a process - it is thinking with the real-true-divine Self. It is the most fundamental thinking of which we are capable; compared with which the great mass of what we call thinking is merely passive 'processing'.
Most of our thinking is 'caused', automatic, un-thinking - that is, it is 'programmed' by our environment and experiences - but the real-true-divine thinking is itself a cause and has no cause - it is a spontaneous origin coming from nothing prior (that is because it is divine, and that is what divine is).
But real-true-divine thinking is not just some different kind of process that happens to be uncaused - it is participating in reality, which means it is intrinsically true.
(Real-true-divine thinking is Freedom; it is indeed the only Freedom - the only time when we our-selves are agent, because autonomous from being-caused.)
So when we are thinking intuitively, our thinking is true; intrinsically true, necessarily true - as well as being creative. It is true because it participates in reality, it is creative because it is uncaused - and these attributes are indivisible because they all are consequences of its nature.
Let us call this real-true-divine thinking Imagination - using Coleridge's distinction of Imagination in contrast to 'Fancy' - which is merely passive, caused, secondary and not-true because relating to not-real things. Fancy is merely a product of normal, automatic processing, an output rearranged from inputs...
But when we define Imagination as the primary, creative thinking that participates in reality; we can see that Imagination is intrinsically valid.
Imagination is indeed primary - it is not merely useful or expedient, Imagination is knowledge.
Imagination is indeed the only knowledge - only that which is imagined (in the way and sense described above) is real and true; and other forms of thinking are not.
In normal discourse, Imagination is synonymous with 'imaginary' i.e. untrue, unreal - but now it is apparent that Imagination is our divine selves thinking in the universal realm of reality: Imagination is knowing.
Monday, 12 June 2017
What is wrong with the Baby Boom generation? Two things...
1. We were brought-up in the first officially post-Religious (specifically post-Christian) society in the history of the world.
(i.e. The first in which religion was not, explicitly and by authority, the most important thing.)
That was our challenge. Then:
2. We failed to recognise, repent, and convert.
(And still do.)
(Note: The Baby Boom generation I take to be approximately those born between 1945 and 1975. By post-Christian - I mean to reference that the mainstream, official and media public discourse and culture was - inflecting from the mid-fifties onwards and accelerating to completion - utilitarian, secular and excluding of Christian assumptions.)
(i.e. The first in which religion was not, explicitly and by authority, the most important thing.)
That was our challenge. Then:
2. We failed to recognise, repent, and convert.
(And still do.)
(Note: The Baby Boom generation I take to be approximately those born between 1945 and 1975. By post-Christian - I mean to reference that the mainstream, official and media public discourse and culture was - inflecting from the mid-fifties onwards and accelerating to completion - utilitarian, secular and excluding of Christian assumptions.)
Pre-emptive conformity: More on modern (atheist) cowardice
When the British lost their belief in Christianity, they became victims of the national characteristic of being practical and common sensical.
Because when this characteristic loses ultimate hope and divine context; and reverts to materialist hedonism; then being 'pragmatic' means perceiving oneself as utterly powerless in the face of officialdom, bureaucracy, mass media and corporations and therefore doomed to obedience and conformity to their wishes.
If mortal life is all there is; and if - in this life - you know that (in the end...) you are outnumbered and out-gunned, and therefore you must and will (eventually) conform to the demands of power.
And when you deny any possible reality greater than such conformity, then there is no reason to think; and British people don't think - indeed they are extremely hostile to thinking.
The British are masters of pre-emptive conformity (because, what is the point?...)
By this I mean that there is considerable anger or fear at the prospect of thinking-through moral and spiritual matters to see whether current ideas are coherent, what their motivations might be... There is an aggressive uninterest in establishing what is really going on, where things are going and 'what I really think' about what is going on and where.
I think this is because British people perceive themselves as in a hopeless situation, now and until extinction at death - so any deep thinking can only waste time and energy, and make matters worse; by introducing futile discontent or despair or attracting the malign attention of authority.
Therefore, there is a single-minded and rather irritable strategic pursuit of pleasure and distraction in order not to think.
At root is rooted despair. Nothing really matters, reality is merely-material, and nothing 'I' can do will make any real difference to anything'.
Consequently, the British - who used to be renowned foes of arbitrary authority and totalitarianism; independent and eccentric - are now mostly short-termist, selfish and cowardly deep-conformists - who are living in denial of the resentment-motivated totalitarian society they have willed upon themselves - and who cannot even imagine any better way of thinking, feeling and living.
And, if life really-is as the ubiquitous atheists conceive it, then why not?
Because when this characteristic loses ultimate hope and divine context; and reverts to materialist hedonism; then being 'pragmatic' means perceiving oneself as utterly powerless in the face of officialdom, bureaucracy, mass media and corporations and therefore doomed to obedience and conformity to their wishes.
If mortal life is all there is; and if - in this life - you know that (in the end...) you are outnumbered and out-gunned, and therefore you must and will (eventually) conform to the demands of power.
And when you deny any possible reality greater than such conformity, then there is no reason to think; and British people don't think - indeed they are extremely hostile to thinking.
The British are masters of pre-emptive conformity (because, what is the point?...)
By this I mean that there is considerable anger or fear at the prospect of thinking-through moral and spiritual matters to see whether current ideas are coherent, what their motivations might be... There is an aggressive uninterest in establishing what is really going on, where things are going and 'what I really think' about what is going on and where.
I think this is because British people perceive themselves as in a hopeless situation, now and until extinction at death - so any deep thinking can only waste time and energy, and make matters worse; by introducing futile discontent or despair or attracting the malign attention of authority.
Therefore, there is a single-minded and rather irritable strategic pursuit of pleasure and distraction in order not to think.
At root is rooted despair. Nothing really matters, reality is merely-material, and nothing 'I' can do will make any real difference to anything'.
Consequently, the British - who used to be renowned foes of arbitrary authority and totalitarianism; independent and eccentric - are now mostly short-termist, selfish and cowardly deep-conformists - who are living in denial of the resentment-motivated totalitarian society they have willed upon themselves - and who cannot even imagine any better way of thinking, feeling and living.
And, if life really-is as the ubiquitous atheists conceive it, then why not?
Sunday, 11 June 2017
Overlarge institutions; bureaucracy and management - and Us; on our own...
British institutions are all too-big, waaay too big (except when they are collapsing - and begging to be taken-over by the state management).
This has happened especially over the past couple of decades. All UK universities have quadrupled in size or more - and the teaching classes within them have trebled (more buildings of all types - except for teaching facilities!). Hospitals likewise; schools, and pretty much everything. Professions (law, medicine, academics, scientists, bishops!...) have trebled or more, with massive decline in motivation and vocation and ability; and become permeated with part-timers who regard themselves primarily as for-hire functionaries.
Too may people indifferent, alienated, uninvolved.
The world is vast and mediocre - and always the shadow reality of bureaucracy.
Well, on the other side the previous state of affairs was far from perfect, and could never be really satisfactory; people could never really be satisfied by life as part of an institution - even a small, self-governing and elite.
Smaller is indeed more-beautiful; but a small village, college, school, factory, nation... is not really beautiful in any unqualified fashion.
Still all that has gone and we are left bereft - we are on-our-own now (most of us); life is a matter of gigantic bureaucracies (wo-)manned by mediocre drones and our-selves.
So be it; this is the hand we have been dealt; this is the world we must live-in like it or not.
That self needs to be found, sustained, strengthened; and not by institutional means by by direct contact with the divine - that's what we must do if we want anything other than a life dedicated to obliterative hedonism and distraction.
And, come to think on it; that it very likely what we ought to be doing anyway!
Not that this life is or ought to be solitary - but that 'soceity' is not going to support, but rather to subvert and corrupt, anything Good and creative that we are trying to do.
The mind is free: thinking is free - so long as it is our real and divine mind; and that mind is intrinsically creative; and we need to revel-in and explore that freedom, and be our own judges and enjoyers of the genuine creativity which eventuates from such living.
In this instance (and not by accident) what we must do and what we need to do are coincident.
This has happened especially over the past couple of decades. All UK universities have quadrupled in size or more - and the teaching classes within them have trebled (more buildings of all types - except for teaching facilities!). Hospitals likewise; schools, and pretty much everything. Professions (law, medicine, academics, scientists, bishops!...) have trebled or more, with massive decline in motivation and vocation and ability; and become permeated with part-timers who regard themselves primarily as for-hire functionaries.
Too may people indifferent, alienated, uninvolved.
The world is vast and mediocre - and always the shadow reality of bureaucracy.
Well, on the other side the previous state of affairs was far from perfect, and could never be really satisfactory; people could never really be satisfied by life as part of an institution - even a small, self-governing and elite.
Smaller is indeed more-beautiful; but a small village, college, school, factory, nation... is not really beautiful in any unqualified fashion.
Still all that has gone and we are left bereft - we are on-our-own now (most of us); life is a matter of gigantic bureaucracies (wo-)manned by mediocre drones and our-selves.
So be it; this is the hand we have been dealt; this is the world we must live-in like it or not.
That self needs to be found, sustained, strengthened; and not by institutional means by by direct contact with the divine - that's what we must do if we want anything other than a life dedicated to obliterative hedonism and distraction.
And, come to think on it; that it very likely what we ought to be doing anyway!
Not that this life is or ought to be solitary - but that 'soceity' is not going to support, but rather to subvert and corrupt, anything Good and creative that we are trying to do.
The mind is free: thinking is free - so long as it is our real and divine mind; and that mind is intrinsically creative; and we need to revel-in and explore that freedom, and be our own judges and enjoyers of the genuine creativity which eventuates from such living.
In this instance (and not by accident) what we must do and what we need to do are coincident.
Friday, 9 June 2017
Individuality and institutions (including churches) in the End Times
Back in 2010-11 especially, I was reading Father Seraphim Rose a lot - especially in relation to the End Times: that era of the world in which events move towards the end of this reality and the second coming of Christ.
The data of this is unknown and indeed unknowable - but the fact of us living in the End Times has been apparent for about 200 years, in a broad consensus across thinking Christians whom I respect.
One aspect is the corruption of human institutions, including the church; and the 'antichrist' phenomenon by which evil masquerades as Good: in other words persons and organisations that have evil motivations and intentions, deliberately and explicitly adopt and emphasise some good attributes in order to deceive Christians, and enlist their cooperation.
This is now very familiar from global political groupings, charities, NGOs and the like; but perhaps especially in the mainstream Christian churches - the current Archbishop of Canterbury (Justin Welby) is an exceptionally clear example.
But the meaning of the End Times for Christians is worth pondering - because the message is that there is no safe way to be a Christian.
Actually, this has always been the case - because Christianity cannot go to any extreme. But the fact that the churches are corrupted, and mostly from the top down, means that they will be organised such as to do net evil. A Christian who joins a church and then does what it says will - probably - be led away from Christianity and into de facto apostasy.
Yet of course, all the old strictures against Christians going-it-alone still apply! Several major churches assert (without much conviction, sometimes) that there is no salvation to be had outside of their membership and ministrations.Yet, all honest churchmen will freely admit than being inside, in and of itself does no good either - and there have always been acknowledged exceptions when the church was not vital.
What is vital to keep in mind is that God is the creator and our loving Father - hence it is inconceivable he would leave any one of his children without the means of salvation and the ability to discern it - IF our motivations are genuine.
Motivations are (almost) everything!
That seems to be the lesson of the End Times. Surface appearances, and indeed actions - mean very little by comparison. Bad motivations will contaminate any organisation and anybody; good motivation will win salvation and theosis in the end.
But of course the problem is in discerning motivations! Especially in these latter days; the surface of things is deceptive; there is more dishonesty than honesty - and what is most deceptive is that truth is cunningly mixed with lies to be maximally misleading.
There is no escape from the absolute requirement for individual judgement as the basis for life: this seems to be the great lesson of the End Times.
Nonetheless, if we work on the genuineness of our motivations; trying, failing and self-correcting; ensuring we learn from experience; then we have been given everything we need to navigate to where we want-and-need to be.
The data of this is unknown and indeed unknowable - but the fact of us living in the End Times has been apparent for about 200 years, in a broad consensus across thinking Christians whom I respect.
One aspect is the corruption of human institutions, including the church; and the 'antichrist' phenomenon by which evil masquerades as Good: in other words persons and organisations that have evil motivations and intentions, deliberately and explicitly adopt and emphasise some good attributes in order to deceive Christians, and enlist their cooperation.
This is now very familiar from global political groupings, charities, NGOs and the like; but perhaps especially in the mainstream Christian churches - the current Archbishop of Canterbury (Justin Welby) is an exceptionally clear example.
But the meaning of the End Times for Christians is worth pondering - because the message is that there is no safe way to be a Christian.
Actually, this has always been the case - because Christianity cannot go to any extreme. But the fact that the churches are corrupted, and mostly from the top down, means that they will be organised such as to do net evil. A Christian who joins a church and then does what it says will - probably - be led away from Christianity and into de facto apostasy.
Yet of course, all the old strictures against Christians going-it-alone still apply! Several major churches assert (without much conviction, sometimes) that there is no salvation to be had outside of their membership and ministrations.Yet, all honest churchmen will freely admit than being inside, in and of itself does no good either - and there have always been acknowledged exceptions when the church was not vital.
What is vital to keep in mind is that God is the creator and our loving Father - hence it is inconceivable he would leave any one of his children without the means of salvation and the ability to discern it - IF our motivations are genuine.
Motivations are (almost) everything!
That seems to be the lesson of the End Times. Surface appearances, and indeed actions - mean very little by comparison. Bad motivations will contaminate any organisation and anybody; good motivation will win salvation and theosis in the end.
But of course the problem is in discerning motivations! Especially in these latter days; the surface of things is deceptive; there is more dishonesty than honesty - and what is most deceptive is that truth is cunningly mixed with lies to be maximally misleading.
There is no escape from the absolute requirement for individual judgement as the basis for life: this seems to be the great lesson of the End Times.
Nonetheless, if we work on the genuineness of our motivations; trying, failing and self-correcting; ensuring we learn from experience; then we have been given everything we need to navigate to where we want-and-need to be.
Thursday, 8 June 2017
Why do we (you and I) live in this spiritual desert?
Since nothing is random or uncaused, and God is our loving Father; and since this modern world is a spiritual desert - then why are we here-and-now?
Why were we placed here, why - perhaps - did we choose to be placed here and at this most unspiritual and antireligious of times?
What possible spiritual benefit can a modern life bring us?
The answer, in a nutshell is: Living here and now compels us to reach inward to our true, divine self; because other (past) sources of Christian guidance are (for nearly all of the people in the world) either absent or corrupted.
We must become active agents, we must become spiritually - Christianly - autonomous to a degree not seen before.
*
Our faith tells us that God would not allow any of his beloved children to be placed in this era and situation unless there was a very good reason: something of which we, personally, have great need.
Yet this situation is one in which the Christian religion is absent (from many parts of the world), or essentially abandoned and corrupted (in the developed nations). All the usual sources of guidance are tainted - tradition, scripture, hierarchical authority, philosophy... all are much more likely to do us harm than good if we go to what is most available and accept it uncritically.
We can get nowhere without discernment.
Therefore spiritual passivity is - for us, here and now - ruled-out.
When the human aspects are all tainted or unobvious, then a policy of subordination and obedience are much more likely to do us harm than good; because we would probably be serving the Enemy rather than God.
*
In modernity we are brought to a state of utter isolation of our selves, and a loss of confidence in the reality of the world and of that self which is all we can experience. And our self and the world is dead, inert, passive and perceived as unliving - an accident, merely an illusion or delusion of our own limitations. We cannot perceive God, Jesus, angels; and even other people are merely shadowy entities justified only be the comfort or pleasures they provide.
We have so decisively lost the ability to know the external environment, that we regard it as a product of our minds; yet our minds are (in mainstream understanding) merely temporary, contingent, arbitrary collections of brain circuits - unreliable, prone to malfunction and doomed to extinction.
This is the state of nihilism when nothing is really-real and despair is inevitable and ineradicable.
*
So why are we here and now?
When there is no reliable external guidance, we must look within: and must means must, because there is no alternative.
Our Loving Father, the Creator would not have placed us here unless we had the resources to attain salvation and to make steps towards theosis (becoming more divine).
Since these resources are not to be found outside us, then everything we need must be found within - and by invisible, spiritual means of communication.
Specificially, what we need to begin is found within, and everything else follows as consequnces.
*
We must look within to find and feel our internal spiritual compass - that which is divine and eternal within each of us; that in us which is a child of God (still merely a child, but certainly that!).
Once we have located that inner reality; then - and only then - we can look outside; look (that is) not by our senses but directly to the world of spirit: open our real selves to to direct knowing and personal revelation from God, and the personal friendship of Jesus Christ.
*
That is why you and I are here and now; because what we personally most need, is to learn to find God within us.
Modernity is, indeed, a harsh spiritual lesson - but presumably that was the only kind of lesson that you and I were capable of learning.
(Earlier people in earlier generations, or people in different parts of the world, have other things that they need to learn . I am here talking about a reason why living in The West, the developed nations - is the best realistically-possible thing for some people; people such as you and me.)
And of course this is a lesson each and every one of us absolutely needs to learn if we are ever to develop from the passive state of being immature, externally-driven, dependent-children of God into what he hope for us to become: active, agent, autonomous grown-up 'friends' of God (and ultimately perhaps spiritual parents in our own right); at a level where we can fully participate - Son or Daughter of God - in the great and endless divine work of love and creation.
Why were we placed here, why - perhaps - did we choose to be placed here and at this most unspiritual and antireligious of times?
What possible spiritual benefit can a modern life bring us?
The answer, in a nutshell is: Living here and now compels us to reach inward to our true, divine self; because other (past) sources of Christian guidance are (for nearly all of the people in the world) either absent or corrupted.
We must become active agents, we must become spiritually - Christianly - autonomous to a degree not seen before.
*
Our faith tells us that God would not allow any of his beloved children to be placed in this era and situation unless there was a very good reason: something of which we, personally, have great need.
Yet this situation is one in which the Christian religion is absent (from many parts of the world), or essentially abandoned and corrupted (in the developed nations). All the usual sources of guidance are tainted - tradition, scripture, hierarchical authority, philosophy... all are much more likely to do us harm than good if we go to what is most available and accept it uncritically.
We can get nowhere without discernment.
Therefore spiritual passivity is - for us, here and now - ruled-out.
When the human aspects are all tainted or unobvious, then a policy of subordination and obedience are much more likely to do us harm than good; because we would probably be serving the Enemy rather than God.
*
In modernity we are brought to a state of utter isolation of our selves, and a loss of confidence in the reality of the world and of that self which is all we can experience. And our self and the world is dead, inert, passive and perceived as unliving - an accident, merely an illusion or delusion of our own limitations. We cannot perceive God, Jesus, angels; and even other people are merely shadowy entities justified only be the comfort or pleasures they provide.
We have so decisively lost the ability to know the external environment, that we regard it as a product of our minds; yet our minds are (in mainstream understanding) merely temporary, contingent, arbitrary collections of brain circuits - unreliable, prone to malfunction and doomed to extinction.
This is the state of nihilism when nothing is really-real and despair is inevitable and ineradicable.
*
So why are we here and now?
When there is no reliable external guidance, we must look within: and must means must, because there is no alternative.
Our Loving Father, the Creator would not have placed us here unless we had the resources to attain salvation and to make steps towards theosis (becoming more divine).
Since these resources are not to be found outside us, then everything we need must be found within - and by invisible, spiritual means of communication.
Specificially, what we need to begin is found within, and everything else follows as consequnces.
*
We must look within to find and feel our internal spiritual compass - that which is divine and eternal within each of us; that in us which is a child of God (still merely a child, but certainly that!).
Once we have located that inner reality; then - and only then - we can look outside; look (that is) not by our senses but directly to the world of spirit: open our real selves to to direct knowing and personal revelation from God, and the personal friendship of Jesus Christ.
*
That is why you and I are here and now; because what we personally most need, is to learn to find God within us.
Modernity is, indeed, a harsh spiritual lesson - but presumably that was the only kind of lesson that you and I were capable of learning.
(Earlier people in earlier generations, or people in different parts of the world, have other things that they need to learn . I am here talking about a reason why living in The West, the developed nations - is the best realistically-possible thing for some people; people such as you and me.)
And of course this is a lesson each and every one of us absolutely needs to learn if we are ever to develop from the passive state of being immature, externally-driven, dependent-children of God into what he hope for us to become: active, agent, autonomous grown-up 'friends' of God (and ultimately perhaps spiritual parents in our own right); at a level where we can fully participate - Son or Daughter of God - in the great and endless divine work of love and creation.
Spiritual inspiration to thwart the tendency of UK election day... from John Fitzgerald
Dunstanburgh Castle - Northumberland
On the one hand an ambience of restless activity, financial and emotional insecurity, and growing social and cultural fragmentation; and on the other the 'still centre' of the great cathedrals, the rugged coastline, the lakes and mountains, and the ramparts, hill-forts and 'tors' of pre-Christian antiquity. William Blake called this second aspect 'Albion', and it is his evocation of the primordial spiritual essence of this land that animates both his poetry and his painting and accounts, I believe, for his enduring popularity. This is the eternal Britain, the true Britain. It has always been here and always will be. Sometimes it is visible, other times not...
http://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/a-deeper-reality.html
Wednesday, 7 June 2017
Is it true that Man is a primarily religious being?
The literal insanity of mainstream public discourse, and the lack of insight of this fact, suggests that Man without religion is non-viable.
To put matters another way - religion is the most important thing in the human world.
Of course, a few individuals, in the short term, can survive atheism mentally intact; but there is no evidence at all that this is a possibility for human societies over more than a few decades - then the signs of insanity (incoherence, exitinction) become more-and-more obvious... or they would do so if loss of insight was not itself a prime sign of insanity.
So insanity shields us from knowledge of our own insanity, because insanity destroys insight as much as it destroys judgement - it affects the whole mode of thinking.
How, then, do we know we, as a society, are insane?
1. By applying older judgements, from the time before Men became insane - reading old books, talking to non-modern people...
2. By looking at the basic biological viability of atheist societies in terms of reproduction, demographics, response to direct and immediate threats, scale of priorities ... Compare societies and groups that are biologically viable, with the modern atheist societies that are not...
3. By reflecting on how we feel about Life. Insane people are almost always miserable - dysphoric, despairing, desperate... almost all of the time. Even the euphoric frenzy of mania is brittle, and crashes into suicidal self-destruction with a high frequency. Is there hope?
In conclusion - religion is the most important thing.
Religion is necessary for long term motivation, for social coherence, for purpose, and to enable the individual to be a part of the whole.
Since religion is necessary, if or when humans either dispense with religion or else place it anything lower than first in priority; then they as individuals and their societies will begin to fall apart and spiral towards alienation, purposelessness, inability to perceive or reason what is important, cowardice (i.e. short-term selfishness), desperation and all the rest of it.
Modernity is the experiment of Man living without Religion. The experiment has been running for several generations.
But the experiment of modernity has deprived modern people of the motivation, honesty and ability to evaluate the results of the experiment - by the always changing criteria of modernity, modernity sees no alternative to itself...
Conclusion: Religion is objectively necessary; and, by one kind of reasoning, therefore true. If you are not religious you are living in error. If you are not religious then you need to become religious. The question you must settle is not whether you should be religious, but which religion you will adopt.
To put matters another way - religion is the most important thing in the human world.
Of course, a few individuals, in the short term, can survive atheism mentally intact; but there is no evidence at all that this is a possibility for human societies over more than a few decades - then the signs of insanity (incoherence, exitinction) become more-and-more obvious... or they would do so if loss of insight was not itself a prime sign of insanity.
So insanity shields us from knowledge of our own insanity, because insanity destroys insight as much as it destroys judgement - it affects the whole mode of thinking.
How, then, do we know we, as a society, are insane?
1. By applying older judgements, from the time before Men became insane - reading old books, talking to non-modern people...
2. By looking at the basic biological viability of atheist societies in terms of reproduction, demographics, response to direct and immediate threats, scale of priorities ... Compare societies and groups that are biologically viable, with the modern atheist societies that are not...
3. By reflecting on how we feel about Life. Insane people are almost always miserable - dysphoric, despairing, desperate... almost all of the time. Even the euphoric frenzy of mania is brittle, and crashes into suicidal self-destruction with a high frequency. Is there hope?
In conclusion - religion is the most important thing.
Religion is necessary for long term motivation, for social coherence, for purpose, and to enable the individual to be a part of the whole.
Since religion is necessary, if or when humans either dispense with religion or else place it anything lower than first in priority; then they as individuals and their societies will begin to fall apart and spiral towards alienation, purposelessness, inability to perceive or reason what is important, cowardice (i.e. short-term selfishness), desperation and all the rest of it.
Modernity is the experiment of Man living without Religion. The experiment has been running for several generations.
But the experiment of modernity has deprived modern people of the motivation, honesty and ability to evaluate the results of the experiment - by the always changing criteria of modernity, modernity sees no alternative to itself...
Conclusion: Religion is objectively necessary; and, by one kind of reasoning, therefore true. If you are not religious you are living in error. If you are not religious then you need to become religious. The question you must settle is not whether you should be religious, but which religion you will adopt.
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