The following applies to all major mass media stories, without any exceptions:
1. It did not happen as described.
2. It does not mean what they say it means.
The mass media pretends to be an impersonal system, functioning by objective algorithms; in reality it is personal - and must be recognised as such.
We should treat the mass media as we would any other proven evil liar; that is, we should not believe it. Ever.
You know the kind of person we call a spiteful gossip; and how she will only speak to you (for any length of time) in order to manipulate and poison your mind against somebody else; or to to make you admire someone despicable...
The mass media is that person on steroids. If they have made the sustained effort to go on-and-on about something-or-another; this will always be with malign intent. Since they are liars, they will lie; since they are evil that lie will aim at the subversion, destruction or inversion of that-which-is-good.
And if you can't see how, it doesn't matter. You can't know the details of their specific current agenda, or the exact blend of truth and falsehood they are currently using. You can't know, so you should not try - don't be pulled-in.
The only way to treat evil liars is to disbelieve them, primarily by refusing to listen to them; secondarily by consciously rejecting their story as-a-whole.
Monday, 1 June 2020
Sunday, 31 May 2020
The mass media are evil liars. This isn't exactly rocket surgery, but hardly anybody believes it.
As we slide blindly, and willingly, into the Apocalypse; the most striking evidence of the hollow, casual evil of nearly everybody, is the inability to believe that the mass media are evil liars.
Evil in the sense of being overwhelmingly evil in motivation; liars in the sense that every single major item in the mass media is substantially and calculatedly false in terms of selectivity, distortion and/or outright fabrication.
The more prominent the 'story', the more gross and obvious is this rule. All the major and sustained stories in the mass media are both evil in intent and grossly dishonest; there is no exception.
All Of Them... This is about as easy as it gets. There is no need for discernment.
All that is required is simply the capacity to know gross evil in persons and institutions on the basis of multiple sustained experiences.
Yet this simple capacity is almost wholly lacking. Most people believe the evil lies of the mainstream media; again, and again, and Again - forever and ever, with no end.
What can be done with such people? What can be done with such dogmatic, aggressively-defended stupidity?
Nothing at all, I'm afraid. Humans just-are free agents, and can defy God the creator of the universe, and their loving Father - and feel good about it. Most people in the world choose to believe and propagate the evil lies of the mass media - and feel good about it.
All that can be said is that evil has consequences, as night follows day; and those who freely believe evil liars are themselves evil liars.
And if such happen to be the overwhelming majority of people in the world today - then so be it.
Evil in the sense of being overwhelmingly evil in motivation; liars in the sense that every single major item in the mass media is substantially and calculatedly false in terms of selectivity, distortion and/or outright fabrication.
The more prominent the 'story', the more gross and obvious is this rule. All the major and sustained stories in the mass media are both evil in intent and grossly dishonest; there is no exception.
All Of Them... This is about as easy as it gets. There is no need for discernment.
All that is required is simply the capacity to know gross evil in persons and institutions on the basis of multiple sustained experiences.
Yet this simple capacity is almost wholly lacking. Most people believe the evil lies of the mainstream media; again, and again, and Again - forever and ever, with no end.
What can be done with such people? What can be done with such dogmatic, aggressively-defended stupidity?
Nothing at all, I'm afraid. Humans just-are free agents, and can defy God the creator of the universe, and their loving Father - and feel good about it. Most people in the world choose to believe and propagate the evil lies of the mass media - and feel good about it.
All that can be said is that evil has consequences, as night follows day; and those who freely believe evil liars are themselves evil liars.
And if such happen to be the overwhelming majority of people in the world today - then so be it.
New Age - and the inability to discern
Two things strike me about that vast and decades-long New Age spiritual movement in The West.
The first is that they are plagued and pervaded by the malign consequences of the sexual revolution - which is a sign of lack of spiritual depth and conviction. And, with the 'anything-but-Christianity' animus, evidence of a strong covert motivation of practitioners and leaders. In other words, the hostility to Christianity and embrace of Eastern, Jungian and therapeutic spiritualities is often rooted in a desire to escape the sexual constraints of Christianity.
But the second, and something I've not written about before, is the gross deficiency in spiritual discernment evident in pretty much everyone associated with the New Age style of spirituality.
The most blazingly obvious psychopaths and charlatans are able to pass for enlightened New Age gurus and teachers - able to survive and thrive for decades.
This is so gross that it is evidence of a very deep deficit in ordinary human judgment. These are people who set-off the alarm bells of every decent person who has any kind of moral core, any kind of ability to judge character and motivation from facial appearance, behaviour, body language, and tendency.
The New Age is, however, populated and led by people who lack this basic, biological, adaptiveness. And this accounts for many of its problems; its shallowness, incoherence, psychotic optimism, political stupidity and immunity to experience.
The first is that they are plagued and pervaded by the malign consequences of the sexual revolution - which is a sign of lack of spiritual depth and conviction. And, with the 'anything-but-Christianity' animus, evidence of a strong covert motivation of practitioners and leaders. In other words, the hostility to Christianity and embrace of Eastern, Jungian and therapeutic spiritualities is often rooted in a desire to escape the sexual constraints of Christianity.
But the second, and something I've not written about before, is the gross deficiency in spiritual discernment evident in pretty much everyone associated with the New Age style of spirituality.
The most blazingly obvious psychopaths and charlatans are able to pass for enlightened New Age gurus and teachers - able to survive and thrive for decades.
This is so gross that it is evidence of a very deep deficit in ordinary human judgment. These are people who set-off the alarm bells of every decent person who has any kind of moral core, any kind of ability to judge character and motivation from facial appearance, behaviour, body language, and tendency.
The New Age is, however, populated and led by people who lack this basic, biological, adaptiveness. And this accounts for many of its problems; its shallowness, incoherence, psychotic optimism, political stupidity and immunity to experience.
Heart thinking - negative and positive
I began trying to live by heart-thinking a good while before I became a Christian - but I found that it provided only a negative form of guidance - as in This Poem - by Robert Graves.
In other words, my heart would tell me when I was on a wrong path, had made an error - by the psychological consequences of meaninglessness, alienation, disenchantment... I would know I needed to get off the current track, and find a different way of living.
Different - yes; but how?
But it was no use at all in deciding what I ought to be doing - what my purpose should be - because, as a non-Christian, a non-theist, I did not acknowledge any purpose to reality, nor to my life. Or, that is; my purpose reduced to attending to my current psychological well-being.
That is the kind of partial (and unsatisfactory) insight into the need for primacy of intuition of, say, New Age, Neo-paganism, Jungianism and the like. That is; Non-Christian (or anti-Christian) romanticism - in general - of which Robert Graves was an exemplar.
Therapy is as far as this can take us.
Only after becoming a Christian, and indeed a Romantic Christian, was I able to see why and how the thinking of the heart could be a guide to the future.
In other words, for heart-thinking genuinely and fully to replace intellect as the primary (not the only) way of thinking requires Romantic Christianity.
In other words, my heart would tell me when I was on a wrong path, had made an error - by the psychological consequences of meaninglessness, alienation, disenchantment... I would know I needed to get off the current track, and find a different way of living.
Different - yes; but how?
But it was no use at all in deciding what I ought to be doing - what my purpose should be - because, as a non-Christian, a non-theist, I did not acknowledge any purpose to reality, nor to my life. Or, that is; my purpose reduced to attending to my current psychological well-being.
That is the kind of partial (and unsatisfactory) insight into the need for primacy of intuition of, say, New Age, Neo-paganism, Jungianism and the like. That is; Non-Christian (or anti-Christian) romanticism - in general - of which Robert Graves was an exemplar.
Therapy is as far as this can take us.
Only after becoming a Christian, and indeed a Romantic Christian, was I able to see why and how the thinking of the heart could be a guide to the future.
In other words, for heart-thinking genuinely and fully to replace intellect as the primary (not the only) way of thinking requires Romantic Christianity.
Saturday, 30 May 2020
"Hearts must begin to think" - Seems Rudolf Steiner was right
Some variant of the phrase "Hearts must begin to think" is scattered throughout Rudolf Steiner's work, including his very late summary Anthroposphical Leading Thoughts - which are bracketed by this assertion*.
My understanding is that it Steiner meant that the divine destiny of modern Man is to become a thinker with 'the heart' primarily: that is, an intuitive thinker; and with the feeling that our thoughts are located in the chest.
And the 'must' comes in, because Steiner also predicted that 'Head thinking', intellect, the thinking that we feel is located behind the eyes - would decline.
Therefore, if Men failed to to be hearth-thinkers, failed to embrace our destiny; then we would after a while hardly be able to think at all.
I feel this is demonstrably the case, here-and-now, very strongly.
It has been building-up, or rather crumbling-down, through my life. By now, people simply can't think: by which I mean think for themselves (because there is no other kind of thinking).
What passes for thought is just channeling and parroting mass media talking-points which themselves are dictated by a Global Agenda. All over the world, people are discussing the same things, making the same points, 'appropriately' emoting to order.
There is no use of analysis, comparison, memory; no learning from experience. No discernment about sources. No memory of lies and betrayals. Just empty chambers, echoing noises...
It is as if almost-everybody has disengaged their thinking, switched-off their brains - or else become demented; yet absolutely refused to develop their intuition - their primary thinking of the true self...
The result is: the pitiful state of uncomprehending, directionless, passive helplessness that apparently afflicts almost everybody in the developed world!
It seems to be absolutely futile to try and get people to think. Whether they really can't think, or whether they simply refuse to think; the fact is that they Will Not think; and especially not the formally-educated and educationally-credentialled managerial and intellectual classes.
They all-but stopped brain-thinking from about half a century ago; they have since had many chances and inducements to start again - but the situation deteriorates, inexorably.
Now, the minds of Men are empty, they do not select, do not process, do not analyse, do not compare, do not discern.
Such Men must begin to think with their hearts; or else they have no hope and will kill themselves, whether directly or indirectly, from (understandable) despair.
And Satan will have won their souls.
*Heart thinking was brought to my attention by Stanley Messenger in a recorded lecture I have mentioned before.
My understanding is that it Steiner meant that the divine destiny of modern Man is to become a thinker with 'the heart' primarily: that is, an intuitive thinker; and with the feeling that our thoughts are located in the chest.
And the 'must' comes in, because Steiner also predicted that 'Head thinking', intellect, the thinking that we feel is located behind the eyes - would decline.
Therefore, if Men failed to to be hearth-thinkers, failed to embrace our destiny; then we would after a while hardly be able to think at all.
I feel this is demonstrably the case, here-and-now, very strongly.
It has been building-up, or rather crumbling-down, through my life. By now, people simply can't think: by which I mean think for themselves (because there is no other kind of thinking).
What passes for thought is just channeling and parroting mass media talking-points which themselves are dictated by a Global Agenda. All over the world, people are discussing the same things, making the same points, 'appropriately' emoting to order.
There is no use of analysis, comparison, memory; no learning from experience. No discernment about sources. No memory of lies and betrayals. Just empty chambers, echoing noises...
It is as if almost-everybody has disengaged their thinking, switched-off their brains - or else become demented; yet absolutely refused to develop their intuition - their primary thinking of the true self...
The result is: the pitiful state of uncomprehending, directionless, passive helplessness that apparently afflicts almost everybody in the developed world!
It seems to be absolutely futile to try and get people to think. Whether they really can't think, or whether they simply refuse to think; the fact is that they Will Not think; and especially not the formally-educated and educationally-credentialled managerial and intellectual classes.
They all-but stopped brain-thinking from about half a century ago; they have since had many chances and inducements to start again - but the situation deteriorates, inexorably.
Now, the minds of Men are empty, they do not select, do not process, do not analyse, do not compare, do not discern.
Such Men must begin to think with their hearts; or else they have no hope and will kill themselves, whether directly or indirectly, from (understandable) despair.
And Satan will have won their souls.
*Heart thinking was brought to my attention by Stanley Messenger in a recorded lecture I have mentioned before.
Back to the Notion Club Papers; connections with the current spiritual war
By Afalstein
I am currently on an all-round diet of Tolkien - Reading The Notion Club Papers for the nth time (and dipping-into other things); and listening to the audiobook of Christopher Tolkien's thematic edition of the Beren and Luthien texts (2017).
Coming at the Notion Club Papers this time, I am much aware that Tolkien was writing this as a spiritual exploration, he was trying to solve some pressing personal problems by writing them. Instead of working these out in real-life conversations with the Inklings; he chose to do so through the the Notion Club - which were fictional-fantasy Inklings.
And then he would read what he had written to the actual Inklings, presumably to gather reactions; and return to do more Notion Club - all through the first half of 1946 until he again took-up The Lord of the Rings, never to return again to the NCPs.
What Tolkien was concerned by, was something that 'obsessed' him all through his writing life - which was the 'frame' of his fantasy.
The NCPs open with Tolkien's alter ego Ramer (one of his two alter egos in this work - the other being Lowdham) having just read a science fiction story about another planet to the Club; and being criticised for the clumsiness and perfunctory, unconvincing nature of the 'framing device' for travel to and from this planet - apparently in a spaceship of some kind.
Tolkien himself needed a way of relating, of explaining, the link between his stories and the modern world.
After considering various possibilities, the consensus is that some kind of mental travel is the best possibility - either telepathy or in a trance or dream state. A psychic link needs to be established between a human body here-and-now, and other times and places. This was actively being considered by Tolkien as the basis for linking his 'Middle Earth' (Arda) writings with modern Oxford - in which case the NCPs would have been, in effect, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings and/or The Silmarillion.
But in a larger sense, which soon becomes apparent; Tolkien is writing more generally about the relation between his imaginative fantasy and the modern mundane world. The Club's discussions branch off into considering how - as imagination goes back - history turns into myth. And it is clear that the mythic way of thinking is regarded as being of great value. Indeed, the projected NCPs seem to be about re-establishing the link between myth and modern life.
Following the telepathy/ trance/ dream line of thinking; this link is established by members of the Notion Club themselves, as a consequence of their conscious and purposive brooding on this theme. In effect, because they regard it as important and as possible - the Notion Club are able to bridge time and space in their own minds, thereby opening a 'channel' through which myth can re-enter modernity.
This at first happens by the storms that led to the drowning of Numenor, breaking-through to sweep the British Isles from West to East (Ireland bearing the brunt of it, but Oxford also severely affected).
What impresses me with the NCPs this-time-round, is that Tolkien was saying that thinking is real - and that purposive, conscious, sincere thinking has an effect on the world - primarily a spiritual effect, but also a physical effect (albeit something of a minor disaster in terms of wind and floods).
Also, I am appreciating the way that the Notion Club are engaged in a kind of intuitive searching. They don't know exactly what they are looking-for, nor do they know where or how to find-it. So they try this, and that - and follow hunches to see whether they lead to anything.
Ramer and Dolbear being by means of trances and dreams; and in the second part Lowdham and Jeremy extend this to a physical search for... clues and connections; travelling by boat and on foot in Ireland and the West coast of the mainland of Britain.
I am finding all this is encouraging me in my current efforts, as described recently. Because The Notion Club Papers is - in one sense - 'about' the need to combat the deathly, dead-ly materialism and reductionism of modern society; to combat it consciously and purposively (and effectively) by our minds, our imaginations.
Friday, 29 May 2020
Should Christians get married?
This is a subject on which my view has changed. Now I would have to say something like: Yes (as a generalisation) most Christians (except those who are called to celibacy, for various reasons) should be aiming-at one, permanent 'marriage' - but I have to put marriage into 'scare quotes'.
I would say that Chrstians should get really-married; which here-and-now has almost nothing to do with the institutions that call themselves Christian churches... in so far as 'Christian churches' may, at some point in the future, actually come back-into existence.
Because; let's not forget that the self-styled Christian churches have (for the past few months and currently) agreed that they are 'non-essential business', have closed themselves down, and ceased conducting marriages - and done so without any defined end-point.
So - the situation is that 'legal' marriage (civil marriage) is a sub-worthless, non-contract (not a contract, because its promises can legally be broken unliaterally without penalty) - under a continual process of subversion, erosion, re-definition, and indeed inversion. So legal marriage is clearly immoral.
What of church marriage? As a generalisation, it is no better than civil; because the major Christian churches are revealed to be net-evil institutions. To insist upon having one's marriage validated by - for example - the Church of England; is morally equivalent to approval from a government bureacracy, or the mainstream mass media - since that is what controls the CofE (or rather what the CofE is part-of - bureaucratically and psychologically).
So, a Christian couple should get married; but the moral and spiritual focus of their marriage must come from each-other or it will not be there at all.
Whether you want to call this 'marriage' or not, is up to you; but when external authorities are so obviously evil, then one should not regard this form of demonic approval as the essence of a transcendentally vital sacrament.
It is precisely because marriage is of such central Christian significance, that Christians cannot any longer allow marriage to be owned by external institutions.
I would say that Chrstians should get really-married; which here-and-now has almost nothing to do with the institutions that call themselves Christian churches... in so far as 'Christian churches' may, at some point in the future, actually come back-into existence.
Because; let's not forget that the self-styled Christian churches have (for the past few months and currently) agreed that they are 'non-essential business', have closed themselves down, and ceased conducting marriages - and done so without any defined end-point.
So - the situation is that 'legal' marriage (civil marriage) is a sub-worthless, non-contract (not a contract, because its promises can legally be broken unliaterally without penalty) - under a continual process of subversion, erosion, re-definition, and indeed inversion. So legal marriage is clearly immoral.
What of church marriage? As a generalisation, it is no better than civil; because the major Christian churches are revealed to be net-evil institutions. To insist upon having one's marriage validated by - for example - the Church of England; is morally equivalent to approval from a government bureacracy, or the mainstream mass media - since that is what controls the CofE (or rather what the CofE is part-of - bureaucratically and psychologically).
So, a Christian couple should get married; but the moral and spiritual focus of their marriage must come from each-other or it will not be there at all.
Whether you want to call this 'marriage' or not, is up to you; but when external authorities are so obviously evil, then one should not regard this form of demonic approval as the essence of a transcendentally vital sacrament.
It is precisely because marriage is of such central Christian significance, that Christians cannot any longer allow marriage to be owned by external institutions.
Rudolf Steiner and My-kie-ell (i.e. the Archangel Michael)
Regular readers will know that I regard Rudolf Steiner as an indispensable genius for our time and task. And/but also that I have considerable reservations about a great deal of what he did and said; and even more about the Anthroposophical Society (the AS) that he founded, and which regards itself as the guardians of all-things-Steiner now and evermore (or, at least, for the foreseeable).
One of my big reservations about Steiner concerns the massive emphasis he placed upon the role of the Archangel Michael in our world - and in the life of all of us in The West.
It all begins with the name. For English speaking Anthroposophists, it is necessary to pronounce Michael as something like My-kie-ell - with three syllables. You must do this, and if you don't - well it is a kind of blasphemy (only worse).
Why?
Because on a visit to England; Steiner once, in a personal conversation (that was lovingly recorded, repeated, and taught from thenceforth) expressed an aesthetic dislike of the usual English pronunciation of this name - which he regarded as too brief, slovenly, disrespectful.
That's it!
Here we encapsulate the problem with the followers of Steiner, in a nutshell. A century-plus years ago, Steiner casually opined concerning the pronunciation of a word (not in his native language) - and because everything Steiner ever said about everything* was literally and eternally true and vital - the Anthroposophical Society immediately fell into line, and enforced this practice on all members.
This kind of literalistic, legalistic fundamentalism is normal and mandatory among the mass of Steiner's followers - with, perhaps, expectations tacitly made for the (many) instances in which Steiner said something not-politically-correct about race, nation, sex or socialism (instances of non-woke-ness are explained away, re-contextualised out-of-existence, ignored or just not-acted upon - and given the pervasive Leftism of the AS, this is tolerated without dissent).
The pronunciation of Michael would not matter except that Steiner, in his later years, developed a version of Esoteric Christianity in which Michael takes an absolutely central and indispensable role. This centrality is based upon Steiner's assertion that Michael was personally promoted above the Archangel level in 1879 (following a war in Heaven) to take the lead in this current cultural phase; especially in opposition to the dominance of the Satanic demon Ahriman.
(Ahriman is - with some filtering - one of Steiner's great insights, and a tremendously valuable - I find it essential - concept for understanding our times. Here we see the characteristic Steiner at work - indispensable insights cheek-by-jowl with massed arbitrary assertions.)
I have read/ listened-to some tens-of-thousands of words by Steiner on the subject of the role of Michael; and his supposed intermediary job as the 'countenance' of Christ; and how we in the West are supposed to organise our spiritual lives around him - but despite my best efforts, I find the whole Michael theme tedious, unnecessary and essentially incomprehensible.
We are all (here-and-now) supposed to be living a Michael-centred spiritual life; but I canot see why. Especially given (for example) that Jesus Christ is personally accessible to each and every one of us, everywhere and all of the time. It is rather like those extra layers of bureaucracy that managers are so keen to inflict upon the modern world.
In sum; the Michael theme in Steiner is itself an aspect of the dominance of Ahriman.
So; the subject of Michael is representative of much that I find un-acceptable and un-interesting about Steiner - and also fits my narrative that Steiner (overall) got worse throughout his adult life after his towering philosophical achievements over about a decade from the middle 1880s to middle 1990s.
There is a Great Deal of value in Steiner's later work - right up to his death, so we still need to read with care and attention; but as time goes by, the nuggets of gold become more and more swamped by the (irrelevant, tendentious and just-plain-wrong) dross.
So, the serious reader needs to mine and filter a great deal of crude ore when considering the later Steiner. This is the proper approach; rather than the Anthroposophical Society practice of regarding every grain of dross - every casual comment - from The Master as a precious and binding jewel of revelation.
*In his 300-plus books, and all his recorded chit-chat.
One of my big reservations about Steiner concerns the massive emphasis he placed upon the role of the Archangel Michael in our world - and in the life of all of us in The West.
It all begins with the name. For English speaking Anthroposophists, it is necessary to pronounce Michael as something like My-kie-ell - with three syllables. You must do this, and if you don't - well it is a kind of blasphemy (only worse).
Why?
Because on a visit to England; Steiner once, in a personal conversation (that was lovingly recorded, repeated, and taught from thenceforth) expressed an aesthetic dislike of the usual English pronunciation of this name - which he regarded as too brief, slovenly, disrespectful.
That's it!
Here we encapsulate the problem with the followers of Steiner, in a nutshell. A century-plus years ago, Steiner casually opined concerning the pronunciation of a word (not in his native language) - and because everything Steiner ever said about everything* was literally and eternally true and vital - the Anthroposophical Society immediately fell into line, and enforced this practice on all members.
This kind of literalistic, legalistic fundamentalism is normal and mandatory among the mass of Steiner's followers - with, perhaps, expectations tacitly made for the (many) instances in which Steiner said something not-politically-correct about race, nation, sex or socialism (instances of non-woke-ness are explained away, re-contextualised out-of-existence, ignored or just not-acted upon - and given the pervasive Leftism of the AS, this is tolerated without dissent).
The pronunciation of Michael would not matter except that Steiner, in his later years, developed a version of Esoteric Christianity in which Michael takes an absolutely central and indispensable role. This centrality is based upon Steiner's assertion that Michael was personally promoted above the Archangel level in 1879 (following a war in Heaven) to take the lead in this current cultural phase; especially in opposition to the dominance of the Satanic demon Ahriman.
(Ahriman is - with some filtering - one of Steiner's great insights, and a tremendously valuable - I find it essential - concept for understanding our times. Here we see the characteristic Steiner at work - indispensable insights cheek-by-jowl with massed arbitrary assertions.)
I have read/ listened-to some tens-of-thousands of words by Steiner on the subject of the role of Michael; and his supposed intermediary job as the 'countenance' of Christ; and how we in the West are supposed to organise our spiritual lives around him - but despite my best efforts, I find the whole Michael theme tedious, unnecessary and essentially incomprehensible.
We are all (here-and-now) supposed to be living a Michael-centred spiritual life; but I canot see why. Especially given (for example) that Jesus Christ is personally accessible to each and every one of us, everywhere and all of the time. It is rather like those extra layers of bureaucracy that managers are so keen to inflict upon the modern world.
In sum; the Michael theme in Steiner is itself an aspect of the dominance of Ahriman.
So; the subject of Michael is representative of much that I find un-acceptable and un-interesting about Steiner - and also fits my narrative that Steiner (overall) got worse throughout his adult life after his towering philosophical achievements over about a decade from the middle 1880s to middle 1990s.
There is a Great Deal of value in Steiner's later work - right up to his death, so we still need to read with care and attention; but as time goes by, the nuggets of gold become more and more swamped by the (irrelevant, tendentious and just-plain-wrong) dross.
So, the serious reader needs to mine and filter a great deal of crude ore when considering the later Steiner. This is the proper approach; rather than the Anthroposophical Society practice of regarding every grain of dross - every casual comment - from The Master as a precious and binding jewel of revelation.
*In his 300-plus books, and all his recorded chit-chat.
Thursday, 28 May 2020
Irresistible force meets immoveable object in Christian theology
You may recall being about six years old when somebody asked you what happens when an irresistible force meets an immoveable object. It seemed like a deep question; but of course it isn't really deep; just evidence of how people can stun their own thinking by use of abstract infinites.
The paradox is no deeper than being puzzled by any other contradiction such that stating the sky is simultaneously bright red and sea green.
So it goes on. Abstract infinites are not realities - more importantly they are not the primary realities of existence. Abstract infinites are not, and cannot be, real-world-realities to the human mind and thinking.
Of course, within the tautological constraints of mathematics abstraction and infinites can be tools - despite that they are un-understandable and do not correspond to real-world-realities. But it is merely yet another abstract infinite-type assumption to suppose that mathematics/ geometry/ number is total reality, or real-reality - as some Platonist-types believe.
(This -despite the greater respectability of being an ancient error - is no more sensible nor valid than the more common modern assumption that evolution by natural selection is the ultimate reality; which - under the name of complex systems theory - is what I once believed.)
Under the influence of this kind of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy; at some point in its early centuries, Christianity saddled itself with the unscriptural, none-sensical dogma that God is an infinite abstraction - I mean the assertion that (to be "a real Christian"; to join our - true - church...) you must believe in the omni-God or Super God.
This God is like one side of the irresistible force meets immoveable object 'paradox' - it is God as the actual irresistible force. Leading, therefore ('logically), to the dreaded monism. Because no shield - no-thing - can resist an irresistible force; it overcomes every-thing: it is everything.
How unfortunate that such a bizzare, mind-numbing, Christ-destroying, freedom-obliterating, evil-denying-not-sense became established as definitional in the religion that purports to derive from the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus?
Wally Whyton Nursery Rhymes etc
I listened to this LP about 2000 times during the first years of my life. Since I worked the record player myself; it was soon covered in scratches and jumps - but never became unplayable. Whyton was a skiffle star of the 1950s, and in my early years he was a continuity announcer on the local Devon TV channel (Westward) - along with a cat glove pupper called Willum.
Certainly these are good performances, albeit in an American folk style. Note the sped-up mouse-voice songs - which could be played at 16 rpm to reveal Wally Whyton's normal voice.
When my kids were young, we had an excellent video of English folk style nursery rhymes - here is a sample:
Yes, that's (the great) Martin Carthy doing Over the Hills. And (the great) Shirley Collins...
Wednesday, 27 May 2020
The Silmarillion (1977) should Not be sold as a work by JRR Tolkien; because it isn't
The Silmarillion (1977) is to The History of Middle Earth, what Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare is to Shakespeare's plays.
This describes my (elsewhere elaborated) feelings about the net effect resulting from the extensive process of selection, compression, subediting and forced-harmonisation that was imposed on JRR Tolkien's original material by the 1977 Silmarillion.
(My understanding is that Christopher Tolkien did the selection and ordering, and Guy Gavriel Kay did line-by-line editing/ ghost-writing.)
Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare has some literary value by the critical consensus of the past, and was apparently popular with our ancestors. But there is a heavy price to pay in literary terms; as may be seen from its presentation of Portia's courtroom speech from The Merchant of Venice:
The importance of the arduous task Portia had engaged in gave this tender lady courage, and she boldly proceeded in the duty she had undertaken to perform. And first of all she addressed herself to Shylock; and allowing that he had a right by the Venetian law to have the forfeit expressed in the bond, she spoke so sweetly of the noble quality of MERCY as would have softened any heart but the unfeeling Shylock’s, saying that it dropped as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath; and how mercy was a double blessing, it blessed him that gave and him that received it; and how it became monarchs better than their crowns, being an attribute of God Himself; and that earthly power came nearest to God’s in proportion as mercy tempered justice; and she bade Shylock remember that as we all pray for mercy, that same prayer should teach us to show mercy.
Similarly; the 1977 Silmarillion is a partial, distorted and flattened 'nursery' version of JRR Tolkien's primary writing; which may be found in Unfinished Tales and the twelve volumes of The History of Middle Earth.
It is not that The Silmarillion is bad; but objectively, it is not a part of JRR Tolkien's oeuvre.
In all honesty; The Silmarillion should not be published and sold under the name of JRR Tolkien; but instead as a sort of 'condensed book' reduction and rewrite of the primary texts.
This describes my (elsewhere elaborated) feelings about the net effect resulting from the extensive process of selection, compression, subediting and forced-harmonisation that was imposed on JRR Tolkien's original material by the 1977 Silmarillion.
(My understanding is that Christopher Tolkien did the selection and ordering, and Guy Gavriel Kay did line-by-line editing/ ghost-writing.)
Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare has some literary value by the critical consensus of the past, and was apparently popular with our ancestors. But there is a heavy price to pay in literary terms; as may be seen from its presentation of Portia's courtroom speech from The Merchant of Venice:
The importance of the arduous task Portia had engaged in gave this tender lady courage, and she boldly proceeded in the duty she had undertaken to perform. And first of all she addressed herself to Shylock; and allowing that he had a right by the Venetian law to have the forfeit expressed in the bond, she spoke so sweetly of the noble quality of MERCY as would have softened any heart but the unfeeling Shylock’s, saying that it dropped as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath; and how mercy was a double blessing, it blessed him that gave and him that received it; and how it became monarchs better than their crowns, being an attribute of God Himself; and that earthly power came nearest to God’s in proportion as mercy tempered justice; and she bade Shylock remember that as we all pray for mercy, that same prayer should teach us to show mercy.
Similarly; the 1977 Silmarillion is a partial, distorted and flattened 'nursery' version of JRR Tolkien's primary writing; which may be found in Unfinished Tales and the twelve volumes of The History of Middle Earth.
It is not that The Silmarillion is bad; but objectively, it is not a part of JRR Tolkien's oeuvre.
In all honesty; The Silmarillion should not be published and sold under the name of JRR Tolkien; but instead as a sort of 'condensed book' reduction and rewrite of the primary texts.
These Anti-times await the Antichrist...
An excellent encapsulation of the reality of what I have sometimes termed the value-inversion from Francis Berger - an excerpt...
The dark forces seem intent on destroying the virtual world they have erected to hide Reality... They want to bring it all down - in one fell swoop. All the idols they deified - society, economy, politics, freedom, equality, humanity - are being pulled down, one-by-one.
For decades they worked to remake society, to make it kinder, gentler, and more accepting. They raged against social constructs, against oppression, against marginalization. They fought for an open world that would include everyone and everything but the Divine and those who live by the Divine; a society that would inevitably emancipate everyone - even the oppressors.
That society is now anti-society.
For decades they argued for open borders, the free movement of goods, the mobility of labor - all for the gradual but imminent enrichment of the world. Tens of millions have been shut out of work these past few months. Debts continue to increase. The infrastructure continues to crumble. People are going hungry. Yet stock markets around the world are once again close to all-time-highs.
That economy is now anti-economy.
And politics is now anti-politics. Nations are anti-nations. Laws are anti-laws. Culture is anti-culture. Religion is anti-religion. Truth is anti-truth. Beauty is anti-beauty. Virtue is anti-virtue. Goodness is anti-goodness.
Why? Because humanity is now anti-humanity. Humanity is not aware it has become anti-humanity. Humanity is unaware of nearly all antis. The bulk of them see nothing but pros.
Anti-humanity silently longs for its anti-savior. And when the anti-savior appears, the End Times will finally arrive.
The dark forces seem intent on destroying the virtual world they have erected to hide Reality... They want to bring it all down - in one fell swoop. All the idols they deified - society, economy, politics, freedom, equality, humanity - are being pulled down, one-by-one.
For decades they worked to remake society, to make it kinder, gentler, and more accepting. They raged against social constructs, against oppression, against marginalization. They fought for an open world that would include everyone and everything but the Divine and those who live by the Divine; a society that would inevitably emancipate everyone - even the oppressors.
That society is now anti-society.
For decades they argued for open borders, the free movement of goods, the mobility of labor - all for the gradual but imminent enrichment of the world. Tens of millions have been shut out of work these past few months. Debts continue to increase. The infrastructure continues to crumble. People are going hungry. Yet stock markets around the world are once again close to all-time-highs.
That economy is now anti-economy.
And politics is now anti-politics. Nations are anti-nations. Laws are anti-laws. Culture is anti-culture. Religion is anti-religion. Truth is anti-truth. Beauty is anti-beauty. Virtue is anti-virtue. Goodness is anti-goodness.
Why? Because humanity is now anti-humanity. Humanity is not aware it has become anti-humanity. Humanity is unaware of nearly all antis. The bulk of them see nothing but pros.
Anti-humanity silently longs for its anti-savior. And when the anti-savior appears, the End Times will finally arrive.
Initiation is a red herring (or red pill?) (Same with 'enlightenment'.)
One of the many aspects of Rudolf Steiner that annoy me (!) is when he harps-on about 'initiation' to a grossly excessive degree. I don't think this is helpful, and is indeed misleading - as is the related concept of 'enlightenment'.
What both of these seem to hinge-upon is the idea of a once-and-for-all breakthrough - whereby a person reaches a level of insight and understanding and from that point Is Transformed. Things are never the same again. His life is henceforward raised to a new and higher plane.
The false and misleading aspects of such ideas is that they are assumed to be permanent. The person is initiated, is enlightened - and that's that. The heavy-lifting has-been-done, from now onward he is a Different Person.
This may well have been possible and happened in the past and in other places; but I don't see anything to suggest it is possible or actually happens here-and-now.
On the contrary; those who claim (whether explicitly or implicitly) experiences of initiation and enlightenment are (it turns-out!) just like everybody else; they are not qualitatively raised, they operate in a not-significantly-different way.
We may seek special holiness, we may seek an initiate, we may seek an enlightened man in this modern world - but we will not find any such. Or, when something like this is found, it will emerge that the person has 'always been like that': in other words, innate constitution, not experiential initiation, was the cause of the difference.
I regard experiences of initiation and enlightenment as experiences like any other: that is, we need to learn-from them.
But we should not expect such experiences to 'transform' us; should not expect a life-long change in our mortal selves.
We should Not expect that such experiences will re-shape our minds and memories, change our thinking and feeling, solve our problems, raise us beyond former concerns. This will not happen - but even if it did happen, it would all be washed-away at death, or before death - by degeneration or disease.
The value of initiation and enlightenment experiences is like the value of any other experience in this, our mortal life; which is that we hope to learn from experiences such that we may benefit in our eternal (Heavenly, resurrected) life. Initiation or enlightenment may be more intense experiences than most; but they are 'just' mortal experiences - therefore transitory...
Except that 'just' experiences are potentially of ultimate, permanent and vital importance; they are, indeed, why you and I are still-alive now; rather than just incarnating and dying straight away whether in the womb or soon after birth (as have most people in human history).
In sum: initiation is something we need actively to learn-from; it is not something we are passively transformed-by.
As such; initiation/ enlightenment is a part of the evolutionary development of human consciousness towards becoming more a matter of active choice; and where we are free to learn or not; free to acknowledge reality or to deny it.
Free to choose to see-through the false world and acknowledge the vastly larger scope of divine truth; or free to choose to live-within almost any manufactured virtuality - for example by making the choice passively to surrender to external control by external (media) inputs...
What both of these seem to hinge-upon is the idea of a once-and-for-all breakthrough - whereby a person reaches a level of insight and understanding and from that point Is Transformed. Things are never the same again. His life is henceforward raised to a new and higher plane.
The false and misleading aspects of such ideas is that they are assumed to be permanent. The person is initiated, is enlightened - and that's that. The heavy-lifting has-been-done, from now onward he is a Different Person.
This may well have been possible and happened in the past and in other places; but I don't see anything to suggest it is possible or actually happens here-and-now.
On the contrary; those who claim (whether explicitly or implicitly) experiences of initiation and enlightenment are (it turns-out!) just like everybody else; they are not qualitatively raised, they operate in a not-significantly-different way.
We may seek special holiness, we may seek an initiate, we may seek an enlightened man in this modern world - but we will not find any such. Or, when something like this is found, it will emerge that the person has 'always been like that': in other words, innate constitution, not experiential initiation, was the cause of the difference.
I regard experiences of initiation and enlightenment as experiences like any other: that is, we need to learn-from them.
But we should not expect such experiences to 'transform' us; should not expect a life-long change in our mortal selves.
We should Not expect that such experiences will re-shape our minds and memories, change our thinking and feeling, solve our problems, raise us beyond former concerns. This will not happen - but even if it did happen, it would all be washed-away at death, or before death - by degeneration or disease.
The value of initiation and enlightenment experiences is like the value of any other experience in this, our mortal life; which is that we hope to learn from experiences such that we may benefit in our eternal (Heavenly, resurrected) life. Initiation or enlightenment may be more intense experiences than most; but they are 'just' mortal experiences - therefore transitory...
Except that 'just' experiences are potentially of ultimate, permanent and vital importance; they are, indeed, why you and I are still-alive now; rather than just incarnating and dying straight away whether in the womb or soon after birth (as have most people in human history).
In sum: initiation is something we need actively to learn-from; it is not something we are passively transformed-by.
As such; initiation/ enlightenment is a part of the evolutionary development of human consciousness towards becoming more a matter of active choice; and where we are free to learn or not; free to acknowledge reality or to deny it.
Free to choose to see-through the false world and acknowledge the vastly larger scope of divine truth; or free to choose to live-within almost any manufactured virtuality - for example by making the choice passively to surrender to external control by external (media) inputs...
Tuesday, 26 May 2020
More on how to fight and beat The System
More about how to fight evil, when evil is a System...
Be consciously intuitive - that is, practice bringing to awareness your innermost thoughts, the thinking of your real, true and divine self.
(This is our prime task, as Christians, in this modern era.)
The aim is that your intellect, instinct and will should serve (not over-ride and dictate above) these deepest and true-est motivations.
This isn't easy; because you have probably spent a great deal of practice and effort in living by 'will-power' which means basing your thinking on perceptions (inputs) and memories (recorded inputs), both of which can be (are being) controlled. Controlled, that is, by The System.
Meanwhile your real-true-divine self is in-there, thinking-away... but being ignored, denied, crushed.
So, this means reliance of 'providence', not planning.
We need to walk, without fear, into the darkening, hostile world; knowing it for what it is, but always aware
It means being like Frodo and Sam in their quest into and through Mordor. Dealing with each situation as best they could, as it arose; and constantly struggling (and from time to time succeeding) to see through and beyond the environment of demonic control, orkish cruelty, and arid vileness - to the love, beauty, creation and goodness beyond and above. (For Christians - resurrected life eternal in Heaven)
We are all Untouchables now (and for the foreseeable)
There are no plans to remove the regulations on 'social-distancing' - the laws by which every person must (with a handful of exemptions) treat every other person as if ritually unclean.
And there is little apparent desire from people that this should change. People are self-policing at all times, including in private and outdoors.
I went on a walk in Northumberland during which I saw just six people in two hours - two of them were coming along the path towards us; and they laboriously stopped and stepped-back a couple of yards to let us pass without breaching regulations.
This was in the middle of a forest, in the middle of nowhere, with nobody else around; and the attitude of the interaction was clearly one of being polite and considerate - as if this was the proper way for human beings to interact, and as if anything else would be rude, aggressive and reckless.
You see how a Godless people are helpless putty in the claws of evil? They have (we British have) long-since embraced evil in our hearts; by our solid belief in the meaninglessness and purposelessness of life - and consequently the mass of people experience very little friction when asked to treat themselves and each other as plague rats.
As Steiner correctly said a century ago; atheism is a disease, a sickness, a disability (albeit chosen, self-inflicted) - and it is no stretch at all for a society of atheists to live by their belief that sickness is primary and disease is universal.
The lesson? There is no resistance to evil when evil is regarded as good.
If we are (personally, socially) to escape the universal self-damnation of actively preferring this demon-administered totalitarian world; awakening must come first. There can be no positive change without motivation and courage for the Good.
As I have been saying for a decade - atheism is not viable, atheism is despair and death; religion is essential, non-optional.
The primary task for everyone who has not already done it, is to
Choose Your Religion.
Note - I would add that CYR is only a beginning; and having chosen, one must strive (daily, hourly) to put it first. The birdemic crisis has revealed that merely-self-identified religion (such as that of Bishops) is merely-atheism - indistinguishable in practice and under stress.
And there is little apparent desire from people that this should change. People are self-policing at all times, including in private and outdoors.
I went on a walk in Northumberland during which I saw just six people in two hours - two of them were coming along the path towards us; and they laboriously stopped and stepped-back a couple of yards to let us pass without breaching regulations.
This was in the middle of a forest, in the middle of nowhere, with nobody else around; and the attitude of the interaction was clearly one of being polite and considerate - as if this was the proper way for human beings to interact, and as if anything else would be rude, aggressive and reckless.
You see how a Godless people are helpless putty in the claws of evil? They have (we British have) long-since embraced evil in our hearts; by our solid belief in the meaninglessness and purposelessness of life - and consequently the mass of people experience very little friction when asked to treat themselves and each other as plague rats.
As Steiner correctly said a century ago; atheism is a disease, a sickness, a disability (albeit chosen, self-inflicted) - and it is no stretch at all for a society of atheists to live by their belief that sickness is primary and disease is universal.
The lesson? There is no resistance to evil when evil is regarded as good.
If we are (personally, socially) to escape the universal self-damnation of actively preferring this demon-administered totalitarian world; awakening must come first. There can be no positive change without motivation and courage for the Good.
As I have been saying for a decade - atheism is not viable, atheism is despair and death; religion is essential, non-optional.
The primary task for everyone who has not already done it, is to
Choose Your Religion.
Note - I would add that CYR is only a beginning; and having chosen, one must strive (daily, hourly) to put it first. The birdemic crisis has revealed that merely-self-identified religion (such as that of Bishops) is merely-atheism - indistinguishable in practice and under stress.
Monday, 25 May 2020
Rainbows and Union Jacks: The lability and shallowness of symbolism in this collapsing world
I was driving arund Newcastle and Northumberland today; and saw quite a lot of houses decorated with a combination rainbows and union jacks; and slogans in support of the National Health Service.
This is interesting as an illustration at the way symbols can be - all but instantly - re-purposed in this non-culture we inhabit. Until the-day-before-yesterday - the rainbow was a symbol of support for the agenda of sexual revolution (i.e. the global Establishment program for corruption and sexual abuse of children); while displaying the Union Jack was associated with working class skinheads specifically, and 'right wing' nationalism in general. Those who 'proudly' displayed the QWERTY rainbow would certainly not display the union jack, and would despise or hate those who did.
Yet here we are; the symbols of Left and (sort-of) Right instantly adopted with a different meaning, that apparently everybody instantly understands: solidarity behind the (if 'necessary') permanent agenda of lock-down-social-distancing.
This shows, on the one hand, that symbolism does not have the kind of objective power that it used to have; mainly because all symbolism is both weak and subjective; further, that human subjectivity is now porous to the mass of in-putting stimuli that is the mass-social media.
On the other side; it shows that the Establishment still have a use for this symbolism; not least because adopting it quickly and eagerly is a signal of obedience.
Because decorating one's home with flags and signs used to be (until very recently) regarded as an infra dig, lower class, 'blue collar' kind of thing - whereas the current rainbow-union-jackites include the upper middle class, professionals, public sector bureaucrats... Readers of the Guardian and Independent 'newspapers'; those who regard the BBC as an impartial organisation.
In sum; the new symbolism is of those who aspire loyally to serve the the new Global Totalitarian Dictatorship - and they don't care who knows it!
This is interesting as an illustration at the way symbols can be - all but instantly - re-purposed in this non-culture we inhabit. Until the-day-before-yesterday - the rainbow was a symbol of support for the agenda of sexual revolution (i.e. the global Establishment program for corruption and sexual abuse of children); while displaying the Union Jack was associated with working class skinheads specifically, and 'right wing' nationalism in general. Those who 'proudly' displayed the QWERTY rainbow would certainly not display the union jack, and would despise or hate those who did.
Yet here we are; the symbols of Left and (sort-of) Right instantly adopted with a different meaning, that apparently everybody instantly understands: solidarity behind the (if 'necessary') permanent agenda of lock-down-social-distancing.
This shows, on the one hand, that symbolism does not have the kind of objective power that it used to have; mainly because all symbolism is both weak and subjective; further, that human subjectivity is now porous to the mass of in-putting stimuli that is the mass-social media.
On the other side; it shows that the Establishment still have a use for this symbolism; not least because adopting it quickly and eagerly is a signal of obedience.
Because decorating one's home with flags and signs used to be (until very recently) regarded as an infra dig, lower class, 'blue collar' kind of thing - whereas the current rainbow-union-jackites include the upper middle class, professionals, public sector bureaucrats... Readers of the Guardian and Independent 'newspapers'; those who regard the BBC as an impartial organisation.
In sum; the new symbolism is of those who aspire loyally to serve the the new Global Totalitarian Dictatorship - and they don't care who knows it!
The inadequacy of consequentialist ethics - from commenter Ingemar
Imagine went back in time two years ago and told you that the government, media and bystanders forbade close human proximity, most types of business, worship and a wide number of outdoor activities.
What would past-you think think of such an arrangement?
My guess is that absent of any context, he would be horrified at such an arrangement. He would say "What gives those people the right to enforce such arbitrary rules?"
But say that I did provide a context--a killer disease is on the loose. Would he change his mind?
Sadly, I think that's the case. Such is the error of consequentialism. This is one of the prevailing errors of our times, the idea that human action has no intrinsic moral value, the result of which is that any action can be justified so long as a promised good is attained or a promise evil is avoided.
Thus Ingemar, in an e-mail that I publish with permission.
My comment:
By 'consequentialism' I understand him to mean an ethical system based on maximising the predicted consequences of current actions; these consequences being implicity defined in 'utilitarian' terms of optimising human gratification and minimising human suffering (sometimes, not always, including death).
As such, this is incoherent at many levels; but nonetheless is the dominant ethical system in modernity. Once consequentialism is accepted, everything hinges upon the predicted consequences of present actions - and these futuristic speculations are now defined as a reality by an Establishment consensus.
There are also all kinds of hidden assumptions about whose happiness/lack-of-suffering matters most, and whose does not matter at all. For example, the sufferings of those people who regard churches as an essential part of life count for absolute zero.
But consequentialism is pretty much inevitable if God and the spiritual realm are denied. Such denial reduces all of life to materialism, and all of ethics to psychology - what is even worse, to predicted psychology, and to inferred psychology (since nobody knows for sure what is going on in the minds of others); and what is even worse to the predicted, inferred psychology of large groupings of people such as 'The Public'.
In sum, consequentialism is public policy is in the first place intrinsically tyrannical - since it is defned by the Establishment; and also necessarily meaningless - since its bottom line is the nonsense of 'predicted, inferred, group psychology'.
In other words, we must have an ethic about the good and evil of actual decisions and actions (regardless of supposed consequences); and this means - to be better than the incoherent totalitarianism we have now - we must have, at least, a God; and must acknowledge that there is more to this world than the material.
What would past-you think think of such an arrangement?
My guess is that absent of any context, he would be horrified at such an arrangement. He would say "What gives those people the right to enforce such arbitrary rules?"
But say that I did provide a context--a killer disease is on the loose. Would he change his mind?
Sadly, I think that's the case. Such is the error of consequentialism. This is one of the prevailing errors of our times, the idea that human action has no intrinsic moral value, the result of which is that any action can be justified so long as a promised good is attained or a promise evil is avoided.
Thus Ingemar, in an e-mail that I publish with permission.
My comment:
By 'consequentialism' I understand him to mean an ethical system based on maximising the predicted consequences of current actions; these consequences being implicity defined in 'utilitarian' terms of optimising human gratification and minimising human suffering (sometimes, not always, including death).
As such, this is incoherent at many levels; but nonetheless is the dominant ethical system in modernity. Once consequentialism is accepted, everything hinges upon the predicted consequences of present actions - and these futuristic speculations are now defined as a reality by an Establishment consensus.
There are also all kinds of hidden assumptions about whose happiness/lack-of-suffering matters most, and whose does not matter at all. For example, the sufferings of those people who regard churches as an essential part of life count for absolute zero.
But consequentialism is pretty much inevitable if God and the spiritual realm are denied. Such denial reduces all of life to materialism, and all of ethics to psychology - what is even worse, to predicted psychology, and to inferred psychology (since nobody knows for sure what is going on in the minds of others); and what is even worse to the predicted, inferred psychology of large groupings of people such as 'The Public'.
In sum, consequentialism is public policy is in the first place intrinsically tyrannical - since it is defned by the Establishment; and also necessarily meaningless - since its bottom line is the nonsense of 'predicted, inferred, group psychology'.
In other words, we must have an ethic about the good and evil of actual decisions and actions (regardless of supposed consequences); and this means - to be better than the incoherent totalitarianism we have now - we must have, at least, a God; and must acknowledge that there is more to this world than the material.
Sunday, 24 May 2020
Father Christmas is real, part III: our task in mortal life
I have previously written - a couple of times - about Father Christmas being real: more exactly of how this is true, what it means that Father Christmas is indeed real. I think this is actually a very exact explanation of the main purpose of this our mortal life - between our pre-mortal spirit life in Heaven, and the resurrected life in Heaven to come.
We came from a primal paradise as spirits, as spiritual children; and chose to become incarnated as mortals here on earth. We can sometimes recall what this life was like from that residual memory that survives into early childhood. The rest of our mortal life is about our wish to return to this (dimly recalled) Heavenly existence - but in a different and new way.
How can we get back to that?
We can't get back and stay as a final and solid state in mortal life - because mortal life is change, decay and eventually death. So all states of mortal life are intrinsically temporary - by design. But we can sometimes and briefly be there - be in Heaven again.
We get there, we are there, and we lose it; but that loss again is part of the design. We can - and should - aim to return there; again and again. And each time we overcome a different challenge to get there. And thereby we learn.
That is the main reason for this mortal life. To learn how to overcome the constraints of mortality to return, again and again, to Heaven.
This learning is temporary, so far as this mortal life is concerned (we may forget, eventually we will forget); but the point is that: we learn in mortality to benefit in eternity.
That's what it is about; we are learning in mortal life where all is temporary; but the benefits of this learning will be in our coming life everlasting.
Our major challenge is therefore to overcome The World - repeatedly, on a daily, hourly, basis.
Our task of learning is therefore to rise-back-up to that Heavenly world we once inhabited; not to sink-back-into it.
To be a parent is (potentially) to rise-back-up into childhood.
To know Father Christmas as real, as a parent, is an instance.
It is a higher state to know Father Christmas is real as an adult than as a child; because as a parent we must participate consciously in the reality of Father Christmas. We must do this by choice, and actively; freely, knowing that we do it. This is Final Participation.
By contrast, the child knows Father Christmas is real simply by unconscious, passive absorption in a social world where Father Christmas is real - this is Original Participation.
The child is immersed-in that Christmas reality; but our task in this mortal life is to rise to embrace that reality; to co-create that reality, in harmony with God.
We came from a primal paradise as spirits, as spiritual children; and chose to become incarnated as mortals here on earth. We can sometimes recall what this life was like from that residual memory that survives into early childhood. The rest of our mortal life is about our wish to return to this (dimly recalled) Heavenly existence - but in a different and new way.
How can we get back to that?
We can't get back and stay as a final and solid state in mortal life - because mortal life is change, decay and eventually death. So all states of mortal life are intrinsically temporary - by design. But we can sometimes and briefly be there - be in Heaven again.
We get there, we are there, and we lose it; but that loss again is part of the design. We can - and should - aim to return there; again and again. And each time we overcome a different challenge to get there. And thereby we learn.
That is the main reason for this mortal life. To learn how to overcome the constraints of mortality to return, again and again, to Heaven.
This learning is temporary, so far as this mortal life is concerned (we may forget, eventually we will forget); but the point is that: we learn in mortality to benefit in eternity.
That's what it is about; we are learning in mortal life where all is temporary; but the benefits of this learning will be in our coming life everlasting.
Our major challenge is therefore to overcome The World - repeatedly, on a daily, hourly, basis.
Our task of learning is therefore to rise-back-up to that Heavenly world we once inhabited; not to sink-back-into it.
To be a parent is (potentially) to rise-back-up into childhood.
To know Father Christmas as real, as a parent, is an instance.
It is a higher state to know Father Christmas is real as an adult than as a child; because as a parent we must participate consciously in the reality of Father Christmas. We must do this by choice, and actively; freely, knowing that we do it. This is Final Participation.
By contrast, the child knows Father Christmas is real simply by unconscious, passive absorption in a social world where Father Christmas is real - this is Original Participation.
The child is immersed-in that Christmas reality; but our task in this mortal life is to rise to embrace that reality; to co-create that reality, in harmony with God.
How do we know God exists?
Obviously, in what follows, I am talking about how I conceptualise God. I'm perfectly aware there are other ways - here I am explaining my-self. Such a question as "How do we know God exists?" can only be answered after a series of counter-questions have been dealt with - so that the question-asker first clarifies his own assumptions about God and the world. Quite likely the asker does not know his own assumptions; or, even worse, assumes that his own assumptions are derived from 'evidence' - which is self-refuting nonsense if you think about it (but people seldom do). We can't know what counts as valid evidence, nor how to interpret it, until after we have assumptions to build-on. Until we know our own assumptions, we don't know whether our idea of evidence is one that we could genuinely endorse. So 'evidence' means nothing-at-all until after we know and endorse the assumptions behind it.
One way to approach this is to focus on the matter of creation; because (by my understanding) God is the creator. So, each person needs to consider: is there is a need to explain creation?
Do we, on the one hand, assume we live in a world with genuine, objective, purpose and meaning? Or do we believe that reality is simply some mixture of determinism (things deterministically causing other things) and randomness (things just happening, disconnected from causes)? Do we believe that creation is intentional, or that there is no creation and things Just Are.
And by 'do we assume' I mean to ask whether that specific person actually makes this assumption, for himself, or not; because this is metaphysics, which is a matter of assumptions and not of 'proof' or 'evidence'. So I am asking about your primary intuitions, your bottom-line beliefs about the nature of your life in this world and the nature of yourself and the world: do you (as a matter of actuality) assume meaning, or not?
Because only if you assume that this world has meaning can you know that God exists.
If you assume no meaning or purpose - you have already ruled-out the existence of God, and need not think about it any more.
Indeed, you have already (implicitly) assumed that your thinking is just a part of the reality of determined causes and/or randomness; so you are assuming that your thinking does not signify anything about reality: It Just Happens.
You need to think - therefore - about whether you really and truly assume there is no purpose and meaning to anything; because if you do assume this, then why are you talking about things like God? In fact, why are you trying to exlain anything to anybody? You have already decided it means nothing.
If things do have purpose and meaning, they are created; and if they are created then there is 'a creator' - but you have not yet decided what a creator may be.
The next question is whether the creator is a person or not.
This is again a matter of fact; so how can one find out such facts?
Again, there is no possibility of the question being decided by 'evidence'; so it must be a matter of intuitive assumption. You need to examine your own bottom line assumptions.
When you think deeply and clearly, do you know a personal creator? Or do you assume a creator that is impersonal - a force, tendency, some abstract principle?
At bottom: is reality (as you know it) personal, or not?
If you regard creation as personal; you are a theist - that is, you know God exists: you 'believe in God'; but you then you may feel the need to consider the nature this God.
(One could say, "I know there is a God who is creator", but I have no interest beyond that. Either you have the desire to know the nature of this God, or you don't.)
How to discover the nature of God? Is this even possible? More assumptions...
Well, you have by now clarified that there is a personal creator; and you can then clarify whether this creator has a relationship with us, or not; whether God is indifferent to you, or interested and concerned with you?
Either you will have a positive knowledge of God's personal relationship with you, or this will be lacking. (One cannot know that God is indifferent - one can only know that one feels no interest from God).
Again, this is an intuitive kind of knowledge. Since God is creator, he is present in all of creation (including myself, to at least some extent) - so if God does have a relationship with me personally, then I can know it. A God that has a personal relationship with me, can make this known to me (if he wishes - and if I acknowledge it).
And then - finally - one will know if the personal creator God loves us, whether he loves me personally.
If he does love me, then I can know this by knowing God in-creation (in everything created around me), and by knowing God in myself - insofar as I am created.
If, therefore, I know God the creator, who loves me, exists; and I know his nature; then I can see evidence for this all around and within me.
But if God exists but does not love me, then he may not want me to know about him; he may not care whether I know his reality - his existence may be hidden.
So it seems that the question "How do we know God exists?" can be answered; but that it can be answered only after assumptions have been clarified; and it can only be answered for some (not all) assumptions concerning the nature of reality and God, and on the basis of some of the possible assumptions concerning the nature of God.
For the assumptions that I personally have about creation, God and the nature of God; I can know that God exists. But that need not apply to you. Many modern people have already, implicitly, assumed God as creator does not exists: and it is then their assumptions that prevent them from knowing.
Before accepting any conclusion, we need to discover and clarify our own probably unconscious and unknown assumptions; because once these are made clear and explicit, it may turn out that we do not, after all, regard our unconscious assumptions as true.
Such is the value, the necessity, of thinking about metaphysics.
One way to approach this is to focus on the matter of creation; because (by my understanding) God is the creator. So, each person needs to consider: is there is a need to explain creation?
Do we, on the one hand, assume we live in a world with genuine, objective, purpose and meaning? Or do we believe that reality is simply some mixture of determinism (things deterministically causing other things) and randomness (things just happening, disconnected from causes)? Do we believe that creation is intentional, or that there is no creation and things Just Are.
And by 'do we assume' I mean to ask whether that specific person actually makes this assumption, for himself, or not; because this is metaphysics, which is a matter of assumptions and not of 'proof' or 'evidence'. So I am asking about your primary intuitions, your bottom-line beliefs about the nature of your life in this world and the nature of yourself and the world: do you (as a matter of actuality) assume meaning, or not?
Because only if you assume that this world has meaning can you know that God exists.
If you assume no meaning or purpose - you have already ruled-out the existence of God, and need not think about it any more.
Indeed, you have already (implicitly) assumed that your thinking is just a part of the reality of determined causes and/or randomness; so you are assuming that your thinking does not signify anything about reality: It Just Happens.
You need to think - therefore - about whether you really and truly assume there is no purpose and meaning to anything; because if you do assume this, then why are you talking about things like God? In fact, why are you trying to exlain anything to anybody? You have already decided it means nothing.
If things do have purpose and meaning, they are created; and if they are created then there is 'a creator' - but you have not yet decided what a creator may be.
The next question is whether the creator is a person or not.
This is again a matter of fact; so how can one find out such facts?
Again, there is no possibility of the question being decided by 'evidence'; so it must be a matter of intuitive assumption. You need to examine your own bottom line assumptions.
When you think deeply and clearly, do you know a personal creator? Or do you assume a creator that is impersonal - a force, tendency, some abstract principle?
At bottom: is reality (as you know it) personal, or not?
If you regard creation as personal; you are a theist - that is, you know God exists: you 'believe in God'; but you then you may feel the need to consider the nature this God.
(One could say, "I know there is a God who is creator", but I have no interest beyond that. Either you have the desire to know the nature of this God, or you don't.)
How to discover the nature of God? Is this even possible? More assumptions...
Well, you have by now clarified that there is a personal creator; and you can then clarify whether this creator has a relationship with us, or not; whether God is indifferent to you, or interested and concerned with you?
Either you will have a positive knowledge of God's personal relationship with you, or this will be lacking. (One cannot know that God is indifferent - one can only know that one feels no interest from God).
Again, this is an intuitive kind of knowledge. Since God is creator, he is present in all of creation (including myself, to at least some extent) - so if God does have a relationship with me personally, then I can know it. A God that has a personal relationship with me, can make this known to me (if he wishes - and if I acknowledge it).
And then - finally - one will know if the personal creator God loves us, whether he loves me personally.
If he does love me, then I can know this by knowing God in-creation (in everything created around me), and by knowing God in myself - insofar as I am created.
If, therefore, I know God the creator, who loves me, exists; and I know his nature; then I can see evidence for this all around and within me.
But if God exists but does not love me, then he may not want me to know about him; he may not care whether I know his reality - his existence may be hidden.
So it seems that the question "How do we know God exists?" can be answered; but that it can be answered only after assumptions have been clarified; and it can only be answered for some (not all) assumptions concerning the nature of reality and God, and on the basis of some of the possible assumptions concerning the nature of God.
For the assumptions that I personally have about creation, God and the nature of God; I can know that God exists. But that need not apply to you. Many modern people have already, implicitly, assumed God as creator does not exists: and it is then their assumptions that prevent them from knowing.
Before accepting any conclusion, we need to discover and clarify our own probably unconscious and unknown assumptions; because once these are made clear and explicit, it may turn out that we do not, after all, regard our unconscious assumptions as true.
Such is the value, the necessity, of thinking about metaphysics.
The Gendarmes duet - as good as G&S
Robert Tear and Benjamin Luxon were the performers I first saw doing this piece; the recording seems to have been filmed from the TV screen, some years later. Tear and Luxon were among the leading British operatic and recital singers of that era* - and revived many of the 'parlour songs' from the 19th and early 20th century.
The show depicted in the video was a long-running (30 years) and popular BBC programme called The Good Old Days, which was a pastiche Victorian-ish Music Hall filmed in an old theatre in Leeds.
The "Gendarmes Duet" is an excellent piece, with music by Offenbach (a good enough tune in its own right to become a favourite march in the USA) and the robustly witty English lyrics later added by HB Farnie. One of the few comic songs to match Gilbert and Sullivan.
We're public guardians bold, yet wary
And of ourselves we take good care
To risk our precious lives we're chary
When danger looms, we're never there
But when we meet a helpless woman
Or little boys that do no harm
We run them in, we run them in
We run them in, we run them in
We show them we're the bold [or beaux] gendarmes
We run them in, we run them in
We run them in, we run them in
We show them we're the bold gendarmes.
Sometimes our duty's extramural
Then little butterflies we chase
We like to gambol in things rural
Commune with nature face to face
Unto our beat then back returning
Refreshed by nature's holy charm
(Chorus)
If gentlemen will make a riot
And punch each other's heads at night
We're quite disposed to keep it quiet
Provided that they make it right
But if they do not seem to see it
Or give to us our proper terms
(Chorus).
*Tear and Luxon show the strengths and weaknesses of the voice training methods - and selection processes - associated with the English choral tradition; both were part of Benjamin Britten's clique at one time. Tear, for example, has a technically robust but hard voice, excellent diction and intelligent 'pointing' of the lyrics. He was best in 'character' tenor roles, rather than the usual heroic lead parts. To my ear, both voices have overtones that blur the focus of the notes, so that one is unsure whether the intonation is a bit off, or not. This is common defect of chorally-trained English tenors (notably Peter Pears!). These qualities seem to be derived from the nature of the chorister's job - he must be able to sing difficult music, at sight, on a daily basis; and be intelligent enough (like Tear) to get a singing scholarship at one of the leading universities. All of which means that sheer beauty of vocal tone is sacrificed - since many/ most of the most beautiful singers are not good at reading music, and are of modest intelligence.
Note added: I've come across an interesting 1982 interview with Luxon, which makes clear that his own background and abilities were very different from Robert Tear; for example he states that he does not have perfect pitch and was not a brilliant sight reader. But he says that most modern singers do and are; by contrast with earlier generations when all sorts of people became professional singers: people, at least in England in my generation or the generation before, just wandered into singing from just about every profession you could name. Hardly anyone “trained” to be a singer. It just didn’t happen. Most of my contemporaries were truck drivers or miners or engineers, architects, bank clerks, school teachers… What Luxon does not say is that there is a big price to pay for this technical expertise when it comes to solo singing - and that price is reduced beauty of tone; which is, after all, what singing is mostly about for most ordinary people.
Saturday, 23 May 2020
Tolkien - the only 'Two Hit Wonder'?
It seems to be one of the many unique aspects of JRR Tolkien as a writer, that nearly all of the vast numbers of people who have read him, have read only The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. They have not read any of the smaller works published during his lifetime, nor have they read any of the couple of dozen books of extra material published by Christopher Tolkien after his death.
Indeed, I would guess that a very large majority of those who read, and loved, and frequently re-read the LotR; have never read the Appendices of that book (and certainly do not re-read them).
I don't find this particularly surprising (not least because I am describing my wife!) but it does demonstrate the gulf between the majority of Tolkien lovers (not 'fans') and the minority such as myself who - from the age of 13 - read all of his fiction ASAP, and at least 'tackle' almost every scrap of writing (and drawing) he produced (including sitting down and reading the entire, in parts almost day by day, chronology of his life published in the JRRT Companion and Guide by Scull and Hammond.
(I have probably not read all his writings about the invented languages, because I can't understand them - that is, I looked at the words... but that doesn't really count as 'reading'.)
I think this is very interesting and distinctive. There are some writers - indeed most famous or influential writers - who are known for one book. (To be a 'one hit wonder' is The Norm, especially among dramatists - and nothing to be sneezed at!) There are others who are famous for several or lots of books/ works - Shakespeare and Shaw, Dickens and Austen... This applies to minor writers as well as major - either just one genre classic, or a great mass of popular works.
But to be very famous, very beloved, and very influential on the basis of two books; is perhaps unique?
Note: The only other example I can think of is RB Sheridan with two classic plays: The Rivals and School for Scandal.
Indeed, I would guess that a very large majority of those who read, and loved, and frequently re-read the LotR; have never read the Appendices of that book (and certainly do not re-read them).
I don't find this particularly surprising (not least because I am describing my wife!) but it does demonstrate the gulf between the majority of Tolkien lovers (not 'fans') and the minority such as myself who - from the age of 13 - read all of his fiction ASAP, and at least 'tackle' almost every scrap of writing (and drawing) he produced (including sitting down and reading the entire, in parts almost day by day, chronology of his life published in the JRRT Companion and Guide by Scull and Hammond.
(I have probably not read all his writings about the invented languages, because I can't understand them - that is, I looked at the words... but that doesn't really count as 'reading'.)
I think this is very interesting and distinctive. There are some writers - indeed most famous or influential writers - who are known for one book. (To be a 'one hit wonder' is The Norm, especially among dramatists - and nothing to be sneezed at!) There are others who are famous for several or lots of books/ works - Shakespeare and Shaw, Dickens and Austen... This applies to minor writers as well as major - either just one genre classic, or a great mass of popular works.
But to be very famous, very beloved, and very influential on the basis of two books; is perhaps unique?
Note: The only other example I can think of is RB Sheridan with two classic plays: The Rivals and School for Scandal.
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