If we accept that everything is alive and that reality consists of Beings (which is what we, apparently, all spontaneously believed as young children, and which all tribal nomads assert)...
If, that is, we go back to and re-accept the unconscious, built-in assumptions of Man - but this time in awareness and with our modern consciousness; various consequences are implied...
One is that modern Man is surrounded by Beings that he ignores; he is surrounded by living consciousnesses whose life and awareness he denies.
What might be the consequence? Well, in general, such an attitude from Men is likely to elicit unconscious anger, maybe resentment, from the surrounding Beings. At the least, they will provide some kind of reflex negative feedback, intended to resist and correct this materialistic attitude of understanding the near-universal assumption that (apart from humans, some humans) the world as dead, random, mechanical.
There would also be a neglect of many causes in Life; so that many things would happen apparently 'randomly' and without reason - things which, if we would acknowledge and recognise other Beings and their motivations, we might make-sense-of and predict.
Existentially, because of our assumptions, we suffer from an ineradicable disconnection between ourselves and our world; ourselves as alive and conscious and capable of relationships with other people - but everything else as just a background, a blank canvas, raw material to be interpreted and shaped and exploited...
A whole world to which indifference is the appropriate attitude; and from-which we expect indifference in return.
Yet all such things could be addressed, life would be transformed from bottom to top; if again we were to acknowledge that which we already, spontaneously, deep-down know about the universe.
But we are contending with a lifetime of bad habits, and a pervasive and invasive culture of reality-denial.
Nonetheless, much can be done.
Thursday, 13 December 2018
The meaning of flowers
William Wildblood offers-up an inspiring meditation on the lovely subject of flowers, at Albion Awakening.
Dad jokes - They work on so many levels...
I am a great fan of Dad jokes; which are something that everybody 'enjoys'; enjoys making, laughing the first time, groaning or complaining in response the next score times, enjoys noticing the recurrence, enjoys making-fun-of, enjoys campaigning to try and stop... and so on.
A Dad joke is one that keeps on giving, year after year.
Here's a good example, from Junior Ganymede, of a Dad joke that mutated and started to evolve, to invade new ecosystems...
A Dad joke is one that keeps on giving, year after year.
Here's a good example, from Junior Ganymede, of a Dad joke that mutated and started to evolve, to invade new ecosystems...
Wednesday, 12 December 2018
Fear is now prohibited
However things may have been in the past; fear is prohibited now. It is the demonic plan to use fear to gain their objectives - the public realm has been turned into a discourse of fear; therefore Christians cannot use it.
This is difficult, I personally fail and lapse often - but it is a deep truth: fear is prohibited, absolutely.
Therefore, Christians cannot use fear to persuade, or to warn. I think we all feel this to be a fact of life?
We cannot use arguments of the If-Then type that depend on inculcating fear to avoid something - even if such arguments are effective in changing behaviour in the desired direction, the overall consequences of the argument having done so by the use of fear will more than negate any such benefit.
We must be able to present our Christian message without threats: we Just Must. It is the use of fear to manipulate that characterises our modern totalitarian world; but the use of fear is built-into the deep assumptions of The System; thus it is deniable and denied.
Anyone coming from outside the system, like Christians, who need to challenge the deep assumptions; can only hope to succeed in improving things overall if the outcome is a reduction in fear. The old method of inculcating 'holy dread', fear of hellfire' - then showing the way to escape... well, that will not do At All.
Not least because, in the current climate of endemic fear, to be effective the Christian would need to threaten something that induced even more fear than the high background level of fear. This would entail first convincing people of a world of premised upon more terrifying assumptions, greater dread and worse horrors than the modern media public realm... Well, you can see where this is going.
This is perhaps why the Fourth Gospel should be our Bible - since (with only a few and dubious exceptions among its many verses) here we get Jesus bringing and offering a positive addition to human life.
The Jesus of the Fourth Gospel does not argue by threats nor by inducing fear; not by threatening 'or else!'; but by offering something better than people already have, something wonderful - and simple: Heavenly eternal life.
And what should we do to get it? Simple. We get it by 'believing-on' Jesus, knowing he is the Son of God; by loving and following him through death into Life Everlasting, as a lost sheep follows a Good Shepherd.
We must not be drawn into the If Not side of things, the 'what will happen if I Don't follow Jesus', 'what will happen if I can't or won't believe he is the Son of God?' The simple answer is that Jesus has made an offer - and if you want it, you can have it. If you don't want it; well, you are not compelled to take it.
But what happens then - people will ask. What happens to me if I choose to reject Christ's offer/ The exact answer is not made explicit in the Fourth Gospel, and the outcome probably will vary from person by person; so each must work-out the answer for himself.
If not? The proper answer is a shrug?... You Tell Me?...
The mission is simply to tell what Jesus positively offers, what he adds to our earthly mortal lives, the cosmic, eternal, loving perspective... And what to do about it. Assuming that is what you want.
This is difficult, I personally fail and lapse often - but it is a deep truth: fear is prohibited, absolutely.
Therefore, Christians cannot use fear to persuade, or to warn. I think we all feel this to be a fact of life?
We cannot use arguments of the If-Then type that depend on inculcating fear to avoid something - even if such arguments are effective in changing behaviour in the desired direction, the overall consequences of the argument having done so by the use of fear will more than negate any such benefit.
We must be able to present our Christian message without threats: we Just Must. It is the use of fear to manipulate that characterises our modern totalitarian world; but the use of fear is built-into the deep assumptions of The System; thus it is deniable and denied.
Anyone coming from outside the system, like Christians, who need to challenge the deep assumptions; can only hope to succeed in improving things overall if the outcome is a reduction in fear. The old method of inculcating 'holy dread', fear of hellfire' - then showing the way to escape... well, that will not do At All.
Not least because, in the current climate of endemic fear, to be effective the Christian would need to threaten something that induced even more fear than the high background level of fear. This would entail first convincing people of a world of premised upon more terrifying assumptions, greater dread and worse horrors than the modern media public realm... Well, you can see where this is going.
This is perhaps why the Fourth Gospel should be our Bible - since (with only a few and dubious exceptions among its many verses) here we get Jesus bringing and offering a positive addition to human life.
The Jesus of the Fourth Gospel does not argue by threats nor by inducing fear; not by threatening 'or else!'; but by offering something better than people already have, something wonderful - and simple: Heavenly eternal life.
And what should we do to get it? Simple. We get it by 'believing-on' Jesus, knowing he is the Son of God; by loving and following him through death into Life Everlasting, as a lost sheep follows a Good Shepherd.
We must not be drawn into the If Not side of things, the 'what will happen if I Don't follow Jesus', 'what will happen if I can't or won't believe he is the Son of God?' The simple answer is that Jesus has made an offer - and if you want it, you can have it. If you don't want it; well, you are not compelled to take it.
But what happens then - people will ask. What happens to me if I choose to reject Christ's offer/ The exact answer is not made explicit in the Fourth Gospel, and the outcome probably will vary from person by person; so each must work-out the answer for himself.
If not? The proper answer is a shrug?... You Tell Me?...
The mission is simply to tell what Jesus positively offers, what he adds to our earthly mortal lives, the cosmic, eternal, loving perspective... And what to do about it. Assuming that is what you want.
Tuesday, 11 December 2018
The demons do not want the Left to win...
My knowledge of 'what is going on' according to public discourse is restricted to headlines; but from them I can see that those who oppose the Left are still talking politics; and thereby playing into the hands of the demonic overlords of the Left.
Demonic objectives are related to the best conditions for the damnation of Men's souls - and not about which side 'wins' in politics. They will succeed insofar as Men regard life as being about politics; rather than about salvation in an eternal spiritual context.
Defeating the current Global Establishment conspiracy does not matter either way, unless the result is for Men to come to their senses and realise the peril of their souls and recognise the everlasting scope of the human condition.
We need to recall that the perfect result for demons is not the success of the Left, and the subordination of the masses; but that the whole of humanity be embroiled in materialist politicking; such that it matters more than anything else; such that Men's hopes and fears are all to do with material conditions and emotional states experienced in this mortal life.
That would indeed be victory for the demons. Whoever happens to 'win'.
Demonic objectives are related to the best conditions for the damnation of Men's souls - and not about which side 'wins' in politics. They will succeed insofar as Men regard life as being about politics; rather than about salvation in an eternal spiritual context.
Defeating the current Global Establishment conspiracy does not matter either way, unless the result is for Men to come to their senses and realise the peril of their souls and recognise the everlasting scope of the human condition.
We need to recall that the perfect result for demons is not the success of the Left, and the subordination of the masses; but that the whole of humanity be embroiled in materialist politicking; such that it matters more than anything else; such that Men's hopes and fears are all to do with material conditions and emotional states experienced in this mortal life.
That would indeed be victory for the demons. Whoever happens to 'win'.
Romantic Shakespeare and Fantasy (the supernatural)
Brian Blessed as the Ghost in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet movie - and whispering, not shouting!
In the preface to Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, the 'romantic' was given a definition in terms of Wordsworth focusing on the numinous qualities of Nature, and Coleridge upon the Supernatural. So the Fantasy aspect of Romanticism - such as we see in The Inklings - was present from the start.
Shakespeare had a role in Romanticism, in that his renewed popularity came from a German reappraisal (probably originating with Herder, who worked from translated excerpts of Shakespeare - and greatly amplified in England by the Shakespeare lectures of Coleridge) that saw Shakespeare in such terms; as a 'wild', spontaneous, natural genius.
Shakespeare was often linked with the then extremely high valuation of the strange, semi-faked 'poems' of 'Ossian' - which were a 'translation', plus very extensive reworking and expansion, of Gaelic songs and stories collected in the highlands and islands of Scotland by James Macpherson and published in the middle 1700s. So that Homer, Ossian and Shakespeare were found linked in a 'bardic' lineage - for instance, this is later referenced by Emerson and Thoreau.
Shakespeare came from a 'recusant' Catholic, and therefore pre-Reformation, sensibility on his mother's side. She was Mary Arden, and members of the Arden family were part of a concentration of families trying to practice the Old religion; Ardens even involved in, and some executed for, spying, rebellion, and assassination plots.
So, Shakespeare had an interest in magic, fairies, ghosts, witches and the like; that can be seen from A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest (the only plays whose plots were essentially original) and others of his greatest work such as Macbeth and Hamlet. And, in general, many of the plays have a strong 'premodern' element of fate or providence governing the affairs of Men. However, as Tolkien noted with disappointment, such elements are seldom given full value or treated with full seriousness - it is mostly a matter of hints and epiphanies.
With the dawning of the Romantic consciousness, Shakespeare was therefore ripe for revival and reinterpretation in this light - despite that in other respects, his work was often very 'artificial', ironic, fashionable, or simply derivative (in terms of basic plots and subject matter).
Shakespeare can therefore be seen as spanning from the Medieval consciousness, which simply took magic and the supernatural for granted as a real and objective part of the external environment; the early modern consciousness, which treated such matters ironically and satirically - as being unreal and delusional - purely a part of subjective consciousness; and the Romantic consciousness which (in its highest development; e.g. Coleridge, Novalis, Blake) returns to the pre-modern in conscious thought, with a realism that includes as necessary, both the subjective and the objective.
In other words, the Romantic concept of the magical-supernatural is that these things are real; and/but - like all real things - their reality is neither wholly in the external environment nor the internal consciousness, but in the necessary apprehension of the environment by consciousness. They (both the supernatural and all real phenomena) are indeed out-there, and/but they require the subjective consciousness to be known; and only the known is real. (Only the known is part of Creation - all else is unknowable chaos.)
The magical is real, but reality has a new location, in the realm of thinking. Neither purely out-there nor in-here, but in a new conception of the potential of the world of thinking to know directly and perhaps participate in divine creation. This is the thinking of the 'creative genius', who is seen by Romantics as (potentially) the proper mode of all Men.
So the ghost in Hamlet is 'really there' but requires someone to see and hear it; if there was no consciousness present, there would be no ghost.
Multiple re-readings of recent books
Enzo Cilenti (excellent) as Childermass in the (overall not excellent) BBC adaptation of S&N
Over the past four years I have 'discovered' at least five books that I have felt impelled to return and re-read more than three times (i.e. at least once a year).
Since such books are, in my experience, rare treasures, they seem worth noting.
1. The Philosophy of Freedom by Rudolf Steiner
Partly I have re-read this in order to understand it - but it is also a pleasure, an excitement, to read.
2. Unancestral Voice by Owen Barfield
Again, the re-reading has been partly to get to the bottom of this; but also because I seem to uncover new and unnoticed things with each reading.
3. The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson
This is a young adult book, the first (of many) I read/ listened-to by this author; and one I find a sheer delight.
4. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell/ The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke
I am currently listening-to/ reading S&N for at least the fifth time since Easter 2015, when I started reading it on a walking holiday in the Yorkshire Dales (although I more often look at favourite parts). I have never been so impressed by any work of fiction since Lord of the Rings more than 40 years ago - I just love it. LGA is a short story collection, in the same 'world', which I have re-read almost as often.
Monday, 10 December 2018
John the Baptist was needed so that Jesus could know-of and consciously choose his destiny
I have often written here about the fascinating yet enigmatic person of John the Baptist, who is presented as an extremely important figure (second only to Jesus) in the Fourth (and other) Gospels.
But the nature of John's importance, the deep reasons why he was crucially important; are, by my judgement, poorly explained in the sources I have encountered.
I have previously suggested several explanations of John's importance - but now I think I have finally reached to the bottom of the matter!...
The key is that Jesus was only potentially the Messiah until John recognised then baptised him.
So, Jesus was already a sinless Man, perfectly aligned with God's plan and purposes, 'destined' from before his incarnation to be the Messiah; but as such, Jesus could not recognise himself as the Messiah.
Jesus needed to be told that he was the Messiah - and he needed to be told by a person of authority, discernment and total honesty: that is by a true prophet.
John was the greatest religious figure of his day, universally respected and revered, probably the only acknowledged Hebrew prophet for hundreds of years. John was uniquely qualified to recognise Jesus as the Messiah, and to tell him and be believed.
Only then could Jesus actively choose to embrace his destiny; and he did so by requesting baptism from John. We could say that, at the moment of baptism, Jesus (as an adult, of supreme intelligence and scholarly knowledge) made a fully 'informed' decision now to become who he already-was potentially.
And at this moment, John saw the spirit descend upon Jesus and stay upon him: at the baptism Jesus became divine.
And John's work was completed.
John 1: [29] The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. [30] This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me. [31] And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water. [32] And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. [33] And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. [34] And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.
But the nature of John's importance, the deep reasons why he was crucially important; are, by my judgement, poorly explained in the sources I have encountered.
I have previously suggested several explanations of John's importance - but now I think I have finally reached to the bottom of the matter!...
The key is that Jesus was only potentially the Messiah until John recognised then baptised him.
So, Jesus was already a sinless Man, perfectly aligned with God's plan and purposes, 'destined' from before his incarnation to be the Messiah; but as such, Jesus could not recognise himself as the Messiah.
Jesus needed to be told that he was the Messiah - and he needed to be told by a person of authority, discernment and total honesty: that is by a true prophet.
John was the greatest religious figure of his day, universally respected and revered, probably the only acknowledged Hebrew prophet for hundreds of years. John was uniquely qualified to recognise Jesus as the Messiah, and to tell him and be believed.
Only then could Jesus actively choose to embrace his destiny; and he did so by requesting baptism from John. We could say that, at the moment of baptism, Jesus (as an adult, of supreme intelligence and scholarly knowledge) made a fully 'informed' decision now to become who he already-was potentially.
And at this moment, John saw the spirit descend upon Jesus and stay upon him: at the baptism Jesus became divine.
And John's work was completed.
John 1: [29] The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. [30] This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me. [31] And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water. [32] And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. [33] And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. [34] And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.
Christianity in relation to paganism and monotheism
We can analyse paganism, monotheism and Christianity from the perspective of the implied relationship between Man and the divine (and an understanding of the nature of divine).
Paganism is hugely varied, each tribe and locality having its own version, and most are fluid and loosely defined - with no real attempt to hold it constant. The gods (the many little 'g'-gods) are more powerful than, but not qualitatively different from, Men. The gods are subject to the same virtues and sins as Men; have the same kind of strengths and weaknesses - therefore the religion is one of divination and propitiation - of Men discerning the will of the gods, and attempting to influence the gods by flattery, sacrifice etc
Monotheistic religions (such as Judaism and Islam) have a creator deity - a capital-G God; and the practice is underpinned by obedience to that God (obedience to laws/ rules/ rituals as revealed by prophets who are merely mouthpieces of the divine). The relationship between Man and God is one of the infinitely-lesser submitting to the incomprehensibly-greater - and how people feel about this is pretty irrelevant. The religion is therefore one of practice, not belief; and the ethic one of strict adherence to the rules of practice.
(There is no divination or sacrifice in monotheism, as such - since God is so infinitely removed and great; that it would be impossible to understand, predict or influence such a God.)
What of Christianity? Well, although self-identified Christianity is often corrupted by Monotheistic or Pagan elements - the intrinsic nature of Christianity is different from either.
Christianity focuses on Jesus - and on the one hand Jesus was not 'a god' (as he might be in paganism - e.g. a god in human form) - because, for Christians, Jesus lived in a reality where there was a unified creator deity - a prime God who was not Jesus.
But Jesus was divine, and brought the teaching that all Men could (by following him) also become divine (via death and resurrection).
In what sense was Jesus, the Man, also divine? Because by some means - such as the divine spirit impregnating Jesus's Mother, or the divine spirit descending upon Jesus at baptism - Jesus the Man was made god. But not just made-into 'a' god; but made a god-creator who could, and does, work-with God the prime creator.
Therefore Jesus became 'fully divine'; that is, he eventually joined-with the divine creator in the work of creation, while remaining a Man; and Jesus made it possible for other Men to do the same.
So, Christianity takes the understanding of God as the single, original prime creator from monotheism; and takes the continuity between gods and Man (the possibility of a man becoming a god) from paganism, and made a new category of god-creator - the two being brought-together in and by the centrality of Jesus Christ.
(Of course, I am assuming here that Christianity is Obviously Not a type of monotheism; which many theologians have always asserted it is - fudging the issue by Trinitarian incoherence. Evidence for the wrongness of the idea of Christian monotheism is that when Christianity has been so regarded, it takes on the qualities of monotheism - becomes essentially like Judaism and/ or Islam; that is a religion of obedience, law, ritual, submission - as contrasted with being distinctively 'Christian', as Jesus was and taught.)
Paganism is hugely varied, each tribe and locality having its own version, and most are fluid and loosely defined - with no real attempt to hold it constant. The gods (the many little 'g'-gods) are more powerful than, but not qualitatively different from, Men. The gods are subject to the same virtues and sins as Men; have the same kind of strengths and weaknesses - therefore the religion is one of divination and propitiation - of Men discerning the will of the gods, and attempting to influence the gods by flattery, sacrifice etc
Monotheistic religions (such as Judaism and Islam) have a creator deity - a capital-G God; and the practice is underpinned by obedience to that God (obedience to laws/ rules/ rituals as revealed by prophets who are merely mouthpieces of the divine). The relationship between Man and God is one of the infinitely-lesser submitting to the incomprehensibly-greater - and how people feel about this is pretty irrelevant. The religion is therefore one of practice, not belief; and the ethic one of strict adherence to the rules of practice.
(There is no divination or sacrifice in monotheism, as such - since God is so infinitely removed and great; that it would be impossible to understand, predict or influence such a God.)
What of Christianity? Well, although self-identified Christianity is often corrupted by Monotheistic or Pagan elements - the intrinsic nature of Christianity is different from either.
Christianity focuses on Jesus - and on the one hand Jesus was not 'a god' (as he might be in paganism - e.g. a god in human form) - because, for Christians, Jesus lived in a reality where there was a unified creator deity - a prime God who was not Jesus.
But Jesus was divine, and brought the teaching that all Men could (by following him) also become divine (via death and resurrection).
In what sense was Jesus, the Man, also divine? Because by some means - such as the divine spirit impregnating Jesus's Mother, or the divine spirit descending upon Jesus at baptism - Jesus the Man was made god. But not just made-into 'a' god; but made a god-creator who could, and does, work-with God the prime creator.
Therefore Jesus became 'fully divine'; that is, he eventually joined-with the divine creator in the work of creation, while remaining a Man; and Jesus made it possible for other Men to do the same.
So, Christianity takes the understanding of God as the single, original prime creator from monotheism; and takes the continuity between gods and Man (the possibility of a man becoming a god) from paganism, and made a new category of god-creator - the two being brought-together in and by the centrality of Jesus Christ.
(Of course, I am assuming here that Christianity is Obviously Not a type of monotheism; which many theologians have always asserted it is - fudging the issue by Trinitarian incoherence. Evidence for the wrongness of the idea of Christian monotheism is that when Christianity has been so regarded, it takes on the qualities of monotheism - becomes essentially like Judaism and/ or Islam; that is a religion of obedience, law, ritual, submission - as contrasted with being distinctively 'Christian', as Jesus was and taught.)
Sunday, 9 December 2018
There is no plan or blueprint for how to live well - 'the next step' becomes evident, a step at a time
People (including myself) often seek for a blueprint of how to live, a set of methods, a step-by-step plan so that we know in advance what to do and when. But this is an error.
The proper attitude to life is one that acknowledges as ideal a kind of steady state in which we are living, experiencing and learning; and therefore changing. As we change, this is growth. As we grow, the next step in growth becomes evident in a way that it could not have been before we grew.
We can know this is happening by our experience of this growth - with an ability to look back with a new comprehension. But, however far we have come - we can only look one step forward.
This growth is 'theosis' or 'divinisation' - the becoming more like to God, by learning from our mortal experiences, according to God's purpose in creation. This being the way that we grow in spiritual maturity towards the ultimate goal of being grown-up children of God.
The goal is very long term, and we are transformed in the process, so a blueprint is impossible. Because each person is different (from the beginning, and as a consequence of different experiences) there can be no generic stepwise plan - we, personally, can only know our next step after taking the previous step and receiving the validation of experience.
The first step is actually to experience, self-consciously, a higher level of consciousness; and to learn from that.
And that first step leads onto the next.
Life is not something to delay, we ought not to wait to enter-into life; we need to be doing life now, and all of the time; as fully as we are now capable of doing.
No matter how low we start; once begun, that capability will increase, incrementally.
That is what we are here for.
Note: Reflections after reading that most dense and pregnant chapter of William Arkle's A Geography of Consciousness, 1974 which is entitled 'Astrology'.
The proper attitude to life is one that acknowledges as ideal a kind of steady state in which we are living, experiencing and learning; and therefore changing. As we change, this is growth. As we grow, the next step in growth becomes evident in a way that it could not have been before we grew.
We can know this is happening by our experience of this growth - with an ability to look back with a new comprehension. But, however far we have come - we can only look one step forward.
This growth is 'theosis' or 'divinisation' - the becoming more like to God, by learning from our mortal experiences, according to God's purpose in creation. This being the way that we grow in spiritual maturity towards the ultimate goal of being grown-up children of God.
The goal is very long term, and we are transformed in the process, so a blueprint is impossible. Because each person is different (from the beginning, and as a consequence of different experiences) there can be no generic stepwise plan - we, personally, can only know our next step after taking the previous step and receiving the validation of experience.
The first step is actually to experience, self-consciously, a higher level of consciousness; and to learn from that.
And that first step leads onto the next.
Life is not something to delay, we ought not to wait to enter-into life; we need to be doing life now, and all of the time; as fully as we are now capable of doing.
No matter how low we start; once begun, that capability will increase, incrementally.
That is what we are here for.
Note: Reflections after reading that most dense and pregnant chapter of William Arkle's A Geography of Consciousness, 1974 which is entitled 'Astrology'.
Incarnation is part of the ordering of creation
For there to be order (rather than chaos) there is organisation. Part of this is Time, and the other part is Space.
We began as spirits, living in Time; and when we become incarnated - as mortal Men on earth - we become organised in Space.
Initially, it is only possible to incarnate in mortal form, with bodies that change, decay, are subject to disease and death; but - thanks to Jesus Christ - we may choose to be resurrected into Life Everlasting, with immortal and indestructible bodies.
This represents a further - and sufficient - ordering of reality.
As mortals we grow in consciousness, experiencing change in the environment of other beings, and also in our selves, our bodies; after resurrection we continue to experience the first but not the second.
This is mostly a great enhancement, and sets-us up for eternity - but there is also a closing-off of certain possibilities that we have in mortal life - the experiences of living with internal change due to our own bodily growth, development, disease, degeneration and death.
We began as spirits, living in Time; and when we become incarnated - as mortal Men on earth - we become organised in Space.
Initially, it is only possible to incarnate in mortal form, with bodies that change, decay, are subject to disease and death; but - thanks to Jesus Christ - we may choose to be resurrected into Life Everlasting, with immortal and indestructible bodies.
This represents a further - and sufficient - ordering of reality.
As mortals we grow in consciousness, experiencing change in the environment of other beings, and also in our selves, our bodies; after resurrection we continue to experience the first but not the second.
This is mostly a great enhancement, and sets-us up for eternity - but there is also a closing-off of certain possibilities that we have in mortal life - the experiences of living with internal change due to our own bodily growth, development, disease, degeneration and death.
Saturday, 8 December 2018
Silly Wizard - Donald McGillavry
I was a big fan of Electric Folk music in the 1970s - this is perhaps the only truly first rate example of the genre I have heard performed since that era. It features the (literally) incredible accordeon playing of Phil Cunningham.
Note: I lived for several years in Scotland (Penicuik and Glasgow) - so I understand the dialect... you may not!
Old Left-New Left... Modernity-Postmodernity - surface changes masking a constant deep motivation against God
It is easy to make too much of the change in mainstream socio-politics that happened in the mid-1960s. Leftism has been increasingly mainstream in The West for a couple of hundred years - but within that project, there was a change in the 1960s; and on the surface it seemed to be a qualitative change.
Some contrasts... The Old Left was about economics, the New Left was about the sexual revolution and antiracism; equality of opportunity versus affirmative action and group preferences; nationalisation versus globalisation; planned economy versus free trade; protectionism versus mass-unlimited population migration; the native workers versus immigrants...
For a while the idea became fashionable that this was a shift from modernism to postmodernism; where modernism was seen as a kind of Enlightenment Rationalism and progress; and postmodernism was seen as relativism, loss of all values, loss of all explanations, loss of all sense of purpose and progress - a world of change but no meaning.
However, although the surface change was indeed qualitative; underneath the change from Old to New Left/ modernism to postmodernism, can be seen as an unfolding of the same underlying impulse.
How do we know this? Because many millions of individual people on The Left, en masse, made this exact transition in their beliefs; and very few of them refused to do so.
The same individuals who in their youth championed white, native-born, working class men as the oppressed 'proletarian' heroes of society... by the time they reached old age had demonised this group (as racist/ sexist/ homophobic/ Christian bigots etc.), and now champions everybody except them.
Another example is eugenics. Before 1960 pretty much All intellectual Leftists (except Roman Catholics) were ardent advocates of eugenics: i.e. of state control of human fertility as an essential means towards improving genetic quality, and therefore social functioning. By 1970, the same group of people, often the same individuals, regarded eugenics as a hallmark of 'Right Wing', 'Fascist' evil; and anyone proposing eugenics was aggressively, often violently, excluded from public discourse ('deplatformed' as people would now call it).
The same happened with 'feminism'. Before the transition; Leftists regarded feminism as subsumed within socialism (racism too) - the sexes being unified by equality of opportunity. From the 1970s, women were increasingly split from men as a victim group with opposite interests than men; and with different laws and rules applicable to women and men; so as first to equalise sex outcomes, then to make women's outcomes higher than men's - in one area of public action after another. The ideal of equality has been replaced by an ideal of inequality.
Yet although these aims (sex equality of opportunity versus sex inequality of outcome) were extremely different, almost opposite; Leftists remained Leftists - with very few exceptions they obediently followed 'the party line', and (in their multi-millions) set-aside honesty and consistency.
And Many millions more joined them - as the Left took-over all mainstream politics, government, all all major social institutions.
The fact that people on the Left so easily, seamlessly, changed - and even reversed - their superficial opinions and their policies; and did so dishonestly, claiming that they were not doing so; tells us that the roots and motivation of Leftism are not at the level of obvious opinions and policies.
The roots of Leftism are much deeper - and are, indeed, at the level of metaphysics. That is, at the level of basic assumptions concerning the nature of reality.
The basic assumptions of Leftism have unfolded over the past couple of centuries (and were foreshadowed before that time). The most fundamental assumption is a set of linked assumptions rejecting divine agency and the immaterial. These are along the lines that there is no God, and no objective truth, beauty or morality; that the material (perceptible, measurable) realm of things is the only reality; and that human emotion (pleasure-suffering) is the only valid measure of goodness (aka 'utilitarianism').
(You should note that materialism and utilitarianism are ultimately contradictory - because other-people's emotions do not exist according to materialism, being objectively unobservable, not-measurable, unquantifiable; nonetheless this combination of assumptions is universal in mainstream public discourse for the past century and more.)
On the positive side of 'what was wanted', Leftism probably began with pacifism among mid-18th century Nonconformists, the abolition of slavery spreading from this same group, and a mounting demand for relief of the new kind of poverty and misery that was caused by the industrial revolution by means of state redistribution of wealth...
And from the beginning the sexual revolution was a strong element, although initially only among the upper class radicals (e.g. Lord Byron, Shelley); who immediately used a political rationale for advocating their own practice of unbounded sexual relations outside of religious marriage.
We need to recognise that, even though its early advocates espoused some good causes, and many individuals at the low level of the movement were basically good-but-misguided people, the Left always was from its very roots a basically false (hence evil) human motivation.
By excluding or marginalising the divine perspective; by placing mortal life, materialism and human emotion as the focus of human evaluation and action; it was always inevitable that Leftism would unfold to short-termist hedonism, despair, and nihilism - and would lead its adherents (at first unconsciously, but increasingly explicitly) to seek their own self-annihilation - both in general - by working actively for the destruction of their own marriages, families, institutions and nations) - and individually.
This self-annihilation is rationalised by a publicly enforced cancerous compassion. Compassion is, objectively, a minor virtue intended as a duty in relation to a person's immediate circle of family, friends and neighbours. But post-60s Leftism has raised 'universal, unbounded compassion' to be the ultimate virtue to be striven-for - and, of course, this is a form of suicide - both at a group level and for individuals.
Self-annihilation therefore also operates personally - with its compassion-driven focus on abortion/ infanticide, and euthanasia for an expanding and open-ended scope of indications. The ideal of unbounded non-procreative sex is also justified by compassion for those with 'unconventional' desires.
Ultimately there is the increasingly-accepted/ wanted transhumanist project of destroying and replacing humans (by drugs, genetic engineering, implanted social-mass media, microchipping, downloading etc) - again, advocated mainly on the basis of compassion for suffering.
All these 'new' phenomena have their motivational roots in the centuries-old and basic assumptions of Leftism; they were implicit from its very beginnings.
Which tells us that the origin of Leftism lies in the demonic; in immortal purposive evil with foresight.
And this is why Leftism has been by far the most successful of all evil strategies in the history of Mankind.
Some contrasts... The Old Left was about economics, the New Left was about the sexual revolution and antiracism; equality of opportunity versus affirmative action and group preferences; nationalisation versus globalisation; planned economy versus free trade; protectionism versus mass-unlimited population migration; the native workers versus immigrants...
For a while the idea became fashionable that this was a shift from modernism to postmodernism; where modernism was seen as a kind of Enlightenment Rationalism and progress; and postmodernism was seen as relativism, loss of all values, loss of all explanations, loss of all sense of purpose and progress - a world of change but no meaning.
However, although the surface change was indeed qualitative; underneath the change from Old to New Left/ modernism to postmodernism, can be seen as an unfolding of the same underlying impulse.
How do we know this? Because many millions of individual people on The Left, en masse, made this exact transition in their beliefs; and very few of them refused to do so.
The same individuals who in their youth championed white, native-born, working class men as the oppressed 'proletarian' heroes of society... by the time they reached old age had demonised this group (as racist/ sexist/ homophobic/ Christian bigots etc.), and now champions everybody except them.
Another example is eugenics. Before 1960 pretty much All intellectual Leftists (except Roman Catholics) were ardent advocates of eugenics: i.e. of state control of human fertility as an essential means towards improving genetic quality, and therefore social functioning. By 1970, the same group of people, often the same individuals, regarded eugenics as a hallmark of 'Right Wing', 'Fascist' evil; and anyone proposing eugenics was aggressively, often violently, excluded from public discourse ('deplatformed' as people would now call it).
The same happened with 'feminism'. Before the transition; Leftists regarded feminism as subsumed within socialism (racism too) - the sexes being unified by equality of opportunity. From the 1970s, women were increasingly split from men as a victim group with opposite interests than men; and with different laws and rules applicable to women and men; so as first to equalise sex outcomes, then to make women's outcomes higher than men's - in one area of public action after another. The ideal of equality has been replaced by an ideal of inequality.
Yet although these aims (sex equality of opportunity versus sex inequality of outcome) were extremely different, almost opposite; Leftists remained Leftists - with very few exceptions they obediently followed 'the party line', and (in their multi-millions) set-aside honesty and consistency.
And Many millions more joined them - as the Left took-over all mainstream politics, government, all all major social institutions.
The fact that people on the Left so easily, seamlessly, changed - and even reversed - their superficial opinions and their policies; and did so dishonestly, claiming that they were not doing so; tells us that the roots and motivation of Leftism are not at the level of obvious opinions and policies.
The roots of Leftism are much deeper - and are, indeed, at the level of metaphysics. That is, at the level of basic assumptions concerning the nature of reality.
The basic assumptions of Leftism have unfolded over the past couple of centuries (and were foreshadowed before that time). The most fundamental assumption is a set of linked assumptions rejecting divine agency and the immaterial. These are along the lines that there is no God, and no objective truth, beauty or morality; that the material (perceptible, measurable) realm of things is the only reality; and that human emotion (pleasure-suffering) is the only valid measure of goodness (aka 'utilitarianism').
(You should note that materialism and utilitarianism are ultimately contradictory - because other-people's emotions do not exist according to materialism, being objectively unobservable, not-measurable, unquantifiable; nonetheless this combination of assumptions is universal in mainstream public discourse for the past century and more.)
On the positive side of 'what was wanted', Leftism probably began with pacifism among mid-18th century Nonconformists, the abolition of slavery spreading from this same group, and a mounting demand for relief of the new kind of poverty and misery that was caused by the industrial revolution by means of state redistribution of wealth...
And from the beginning the sexual revolution was a strong element, although initially only among the upper class radicals (e.g. Lord Byron, Shelley); who immediately used a political rationale for advocating their own practice of unbounded sexual relations outside of religious marriage.
We need to recognise that, even though its early advocates espoused some good causes, and many individuals at the low level of the movement were basically good-but-misguided people, the Left always was from its very roots a basically false (hence evil) human motivation.
By excluding or marginalising the divine perspective; by placing mortal life, materialism and human emotion as the focus of human evaluation and action; it was always inevitable that Leftism would unfold to short-termist hedonism, despair, and nihilism - and would lead its adherents (at first unconsciously, but increasingly explicitly) to seek their own self-annihilation - both in general - by working actively for the destruction of their own marriages, families, institutions and nations) - and individually.
This self-annihilation is rationalised by a publicly enforced cancerous compassion. Compassion is, objectively, a minor virtue intended as a duty in relation to a person's immediate circle of family, friends and neighbours. But post-60s Leftism has raised 'universal, unbounded compassion' to be the ultimate virtue to be striven-for - and, of course, this is a form of suicide - both at a group level and for individuals.
Self-annihilation therefore also operates personally - with its compassion-driven focus on abortion/ infanticide, and euthanasia for an expanding and open-ended scope of indications. The ideal of unbounded non-procreative sex is also justified by compassion for those with 'unconventional' desires.
Ultimately there is the increasingly-accepted/ wanted transhumanist project of destroying and replacing humans (by drugs, genetic engineering, implanted social-mass media, microchipping, downloading etc) - again, advocated mainly on the basis of compassion for suffering.
All these 'new' phenomena have their motivational roots in the centuries-old and basic assumptions of Leftism; they were implicit from its very beginnings.
Which tells us that the origin of Leftism lies in the demonic; in immortal purposive evil with foresight.
And this is why Leftism has been by far the most successful of all evil strategies in the history of Mankind.
Friday, 7 December 2018
What makes modern people 'naturally' disbelieve in God?
(My answer; speaking from the experience of several decades, in the middle years of my life, as an atheist...)
The fact that all modern public discourse excludes the divine.
As a modern child grows up, he becomes socialised, he becomes trained in modern public discourse of many kinds: school work, everything to do with the mass media, sports, pastimes, hobbies... and all of these exclude the divine.
It Just Isn't There. The lexicon of objects that function in the system exclude the divine; the causality of the system excludes the divine.
As the child reaches adolescence - these modes of thought become more dominant, and they become habitual to the extent of being simply taken for granted; and eventually they become so habitual as to be extremely difficult to break out from.
This process is exacerbated in the world of work, where nearly all jobs exclude the divine (in whatever social system, the law, medicine, science, government, politics, police, the military, engineering - as well as the mass media and academia) - becoming competent means internalising these 'materialist' ways of thinking; thus, excluding the divine.
So, the more expert I became at public discourse; from the level of everyday socialising, through my education and professional practice in science, medicine, literature, philosophy... The better I got at 'work' and interacting; the more I internalised the systems... the more adept I became at working-within and extrapolating-from the systems... the less time and space there was in my thoughts for God.
So, modern people - after early childhood - tend to become habitual atheists at the level of their thought processes. And this happens most to those who work in the congitive realms; and tends to increase with expertise.
And long-term, frequently practised, and socially rewarded habits can be very, very, Very difficult to break (if/ when you want to break them, which too-few do).
From such considerations, I regard modernity (with its division and specialisation of function) as intrinsically hostile to the divine; hence it carries the seeds of its own destruction.
The fact that all modern public discourse excludes the divine.
As a modern child grows up, he becomes socialised, he becomes trained in modern public discourse of many kinds: school work, everything to do with the mass media, sports, pastimes, hobbies... and all of these exclude the divine.
It Just Isn't There. The lexicon of objects that function in the system exclude the divine; the causality of the system excludes the divine.
As the child reaches adolescence - these modes of thought become more dominant, and they become habitual to the extent of being simply taken for granted; and eventually they become so habitual as to be extremely difficult to break out from.
This process is exacerbated in the world of work, where nearly all jobs exclude the divine (in whatever social system, the law, medicine, science, government, politics, police, the military, engineering - as well as the mass media and academia) - becoming competent means internalising these 'materialist' ways of thinking; thus, excluding the divine.
So, the more expert I became at public discourse; from the level of everyday socialising, through my education and professional practice in science, medicine, literature, philosophy... The better I got at 'work' and interacting; the more I internalised the systems... the more adept I became at working-within and extrapolating-from the systems... the less time and space there was in my thoughts for God.
So, modern people - after early childhood - tend to become habitual atheists at the level of their thought processes. And this happens most to those who work in the congitive realms; and tends to increase with expertise.
And long-term, frequently practised, and socially rewarded habits can be very, very, Very difficult to break (if/ when you want to break them, which too-few do).
From such considerations, I regard modernity (with its division and specialisation of function) as intrinsically hostile to the divine; hence it carries the seeds of its own destruction.
Who is the best blogger?
Blogs are clearly on the way out, and many of the best bloggers have gone - but let's just express our opinion on who is - overall - the best blogger...
Leaving-out myself (!) and also my co-bloggers at Albion Awakening and Junior Ganymede (because we are really the best :) - then who do you think is the best?
My vote goes to Vox Day (Theodore Beale) - whose blog is quite remarkable in terms of posting very frequently, across a wide range, and with great 'originality' - in the sense that he is so inventive and so good at discovering, elaborating and refining ideas.
I can understand it when people don't like his pugnacious style, but that also has its compensations - and is anyway far outweighed by his (rare!) bedrock virtues of honesty and solid, evangelical Christianity.
It should-not need to be said (now, or ever) that this endorsement does not imply that I agree with Vox on everything, or even on most things - because I don't agree with anybody in the world on everything (I am in a minority of one); but I do agree with him on the important issues, and that is what matters; and that is why I read Vox Popoli more often than any other blog.
But the question is - what is Your favourite blog, and why?
Leaving-out myself (!) and also my co-bloggers at Albion Awakening and Junior Ganymede (because we are really the best :) - then who do you think is the best?
My vote goes to Vox Day (Theodore Beale) - whose blog is quite remarkable in terms of posting very frequently, across a wide range, and with great 'originality' - in the sense that he is so inventive and so good at discovering, elaborating and refining ideas.
I can understand it when people don't like his pugnacious style, but that also has its compensations - and is anyway far outweighed by his (rare!) bedrock virtues of honesty and solid, evangelical Christianity.
It should-not need to be said (now, or ever) that this endorsement does not imply that I agree with Vox on everything, or even on most things - because I don't agree with anybody in the world on everything (I am in a minority of one); but I do agree with him on the important issues, and that is what matters; and that is why I read Vox Popoli more often than any other blog.
But the question is - what is Your favourite blog, and why?
Thursday, 6 December 2018
How Albion failed to learn from 1970s utopianism and disillusion
...When I turned 17 I did not bother learning to get a driving license, because I was confident that cars would not be around for much longer: I believed that the demise of our industrial society was imminent, and that was what I wanted. I envisaged a village-level and more communal life - much like Medieval times but minus the Warrior Lord and the Priests.
This absence was important, because I understood that without this needless and counter-productive expenditure of resources (money, food, time and energy) I thought we could:
1. Raise the standard of living of the ordinary peasants above subsistence to a reasonable sufficiency.
2. Increase the amount of discretionary leisure from minimal to ample.
3. And, thereby, enable people to do what they deeply wanted to do; which was (I thought) to replace the business of fighting and religion with a great expansion of arts and crafts - and, implicitly, sexual freedom too, although I did not articulate this.
...As the seventies proceeded (the balance inflecting probably from 1976-7) was that this vision gradually soured and darkened - and dystopia became more and more dominant; and has stayed.
The village idyll of my hopes was replaced by a rotten pastoralism that saw the countryside as a fake, concealing dark and sinister goings-on - mind-controlled rustics engaged in ritual mutilation, rape, murder; or secret business and government agencies concealed in forests or underground. A totalitarian future of surveillance, manipulation, poisoning, destruction, massification...
The hedonic, creative paganism of my vague daydreams was replaced by instinctive savagery or actually demonic activities...
Read the whole thing at Albion Awakening.
This absence was important, because I understood that without this needless and counter-productive expenditure of resources (money, food, time and energy) I thought we could:
1. Raise the standard of living of the ordinary peasants above subsistence to a reasonable sufficiency.
2. Increase the amount of discretionary leisure from minimal to ample.
3. And, thereby, enable people to do what they deeply wanted to do; which was (I thought) to replace the business of fighting and religion with a great expansion of arts and crafts - and, implicitly, sexual freedom too, although I did not articulate this.
...As the seventies proceeded (the balance inflecting probably from 1976-7) was that this vision gradually soured and darkened - and dystopia became more and more dominant; and has stayed.
The village idyll of my hopes was replaced by a rotten pastoralism that saw the countryside as a fake, concealing dark and sinister goings-on - mind-controlled rustics engaged in ritual mutilation, rape, murder; or secret business and government agencies concealed in forests or underground. A totalitarian future of surveillance, manipulation, poisoning, destruction, massification...
The hedonic, creative paganism of my vague daydreams was replaced by instinctive savagery or actually demonic activities...
Read the whole thing at Albion Awakening.
Wednesday, 5 December 2018
The Byzantine cure for bureaucratic cancer
It is interesting that the Eastern Roman ('Byzantine') Empire, which lasted for 1000 years in Constaninople - much longer than any other polity since Christ - managed to get the benefits of bureaucratic organisation but without suffering its tendency to unchecked metastatic growth; by the simple means of restricting membership to eunuchs.
Life as a eunuch bureaucrat was pretty good - and although you were not allowed to be Emperor, you could rise to being Patriarch of the church (e.g St Ignatios) or chief general of the Imperial army (Narses); and (on average) you would live longer (and healthier) than an uncastrated man.
On the other hand...
Note: A further important factor in its longevity was the highly religious devoutness of Byzantine life, which seems to have continued pretty-much unabated throughout the 1000 years. This motivated people; and to a significant unified and directed this motivation outside the individual mortal life and indeed the world itself; which maintained cohesion and kept a check on wholly-selfish short-termism.
Life as a eunuch bureaucrat was pretty good - and although you were not allowed to be Emperor, you could rise to being Patriarch of the church (e.g St Ignatios) or chief general of the Imperial army (Narses); and (on average) you would live longer (and healthier) than an uncastrated man.
On the other hand...
Note: A further important factor in its longevity was the highly religious devoutness of Byzantine life, which seems to have continued pretty-much unabated throughout the 1000 years. This motivated people; and to a significant unified and directed this motivation outside the individual mortal life and indeed the world itself; which maintained cohesion and kept a check on wholly-selfish short-termism.
Any-more More-Questions?
Following my offer to answer reader's questions, and the follow-up...
Are there any more?
Note: If you want; you might like to pretend (for the sake of the exercise) that I am a some kind of Eastern guru (!) who allows one question per pilgrim, and who will therefore ask each person: 'What is your question?'
Supposedly, this restriction to a single question is implicitly intended to provoke reflection in the asker; so that he must first learn what it is that most matters to him - and in that lies most of its benefit of the whole process, regardless of the answer given.
The consequence is, perhaps, that once you have decided for sure The Question you will ask, you could, maybe should, at that point turn-around, leave the queue, and go home.
But then what would you tell the folks?
Are there any more?
Note: If you want; you might like to pretend (for the sake of the exercise) that I am a some kind of Eastern guru (!) who allows one question per pilgrim, and who will therefore ask each person: 'What is your question?'
Supposedly, this restriction to a single question is implicitly intended to provoke reflection in the asker; so that he must first learn what it is that most matters to him - and in that lies most of its benefit of the whole process, regardless of the answer given.
The consequence is, perhaps, that once you have decided for sure The Question you will ask, you could, maybe should, at that point turn-around, leave the queue, and go home.
But then what would you tell the folks?
Mainstream modern metaphysics: Goodness is Vitally Important! (But it is not real)
Mainstream modern morality includes such as: Love is Important... Justice, Compassion, Equality... these things are Terribly Important. Art and Culture is important, Science is Important. Ethics are Even-More Important...
But none of them are really real.
Because there is no Objective reality - or if there is we can't know it. There is no purpose to human life; or if there is it is just something we make-up each for ourselves (which means there is zero objective purpose).
Because, for mainstream modernity; if something can't be seen or heard or touched - if something can't be detected and measured by Scientific Instruments - then it is not a really real part of the Universe...
So that rules-out God, the soul, morality, beauty; and it rules-out truth (which is imperceptible) - so it invalidates all-of-the-above.
What then is real? Feelings are real! But Other People's Feelings aren't really real because they can't be seen, heard or touched - or detected by Scientific Instruments... Other People's Feelings are just something we guess, or read-about in the mass media or official propaganda - who must also be guessing it.
So what is real? My feelings, here and now: they are really-real ... But I'm not sure about my feelings in the past - just memories, and they may be wrong; and I have no idea about my future feelings either.
But are my here-and-now feelings really important? ... given that they may be gone in an hour; or that they may have been manipulated by other people, or drugs, or be a result of sickness...?
Clearly my feelings here-and-now are the only real thing, therefore the only important thing; and yet I also know that they are Not really-real, not Objective and can't be measured; hence my feelings are also trivial.
This whole modern Public World is based on assertions - very strong assertions backed up with threats and force - concerning what other-people want, what other-people like and dislike, what makes other people happy or causes them suffering. Assertions about what must 'therefore' be done to these other-people. Yet the basic modern assumptions tell us that we cannot ever know such things - and that these are all, therefore, purely-arbitrary assertions.
The entirety of the modern world, therefore, is - By It's Own Criteria - based-upon Nothing-But arbitrary assertions.
All the asserted 'good' things of our mainstream world - such as social justice, feminism, antiracism, the sexual revolution - all of these things (and every other possible thing) are Not really-real - by our own modern assumptions and definitions.
This is the normal, mainstream, modern 'Western' world that I am describing - as it appears in all public discourse - the mass and social media; in political, governmental, legal, medical, educational, legal, business and all other public domains.
Everything Important is unreal; and the only reality is unimportant.
And people wonder why we are voluntarily going extinct, and seeking (by several routes) our own annihilation?...
But none of them are really real.
Because there is no Objective reality - or if there is we can't know it. There is no purpose to human life; or if there is it is just something we make-up each for ourselves (which means there is zero objective purpose).
Because, for mainstream modernity; if something can't be seen or heard or touched - if something can't be detected and measured by Scientific Instruments - then it is not a really real part of the Universe...
So that rules-out God, the soul, morality, beauty; and it rules-out truth (which is imperceptible) - so it invalidates all-of-the-above.
What then is real? Feelings are real! But Other People's Feelings aren't really real because they can't be seen, heard or touched - or detected by Scientific Instruments... Other People's Feelings are just something we guess, or read-about in the mass media or official propaganda - who must also be guessing it.
So what is real? My feelings, here and now: they are really-real ... But I'm not sure about my feelings in the past - just memories, and they may be wrong; and I have no idea about my future feelings either.
But are my here-and-now feelings really important? ... given that they may be gone in an hour; or that they may have been manipulated by other people, or drugs, or be a result of sickness...?
Clearly my feelings here-and-now are the only real thing, therefore the only important thing; and yet I also know that they are Not really-real, not Objective and can't be measured; hence my feelings are also trivial.
This whole modern Public World is based on assertions - very strong assertions backed up with threats and force - concerning what other-people want, what other-people like and dislike, what makes other people happy or causes them suffering. Assertions about what must 'therefore' be done to these other-people. Yet the basic modern assumptions tell us that we cannot ever know such things - and that these are all, therefore, purely-arbitrary assertions.
The entirety of the modern world, therefore, is - By It's Own Criteria - based-upon Nothing-But arbitrary assertions.
All the asserted 'good' things of our mainstream world - such as social justice, feminism, antiracism, the sexual revolution - all of these things (and every other possible thing) are Not really-real - by our own modern assumptions and definitions.
This is the normal, mainstream, modern 'Western' world that I am describing - as it appears in all public discourse - the mass and social media; in political, governmental, legal, medical, educational, legal, business and all other public domains.
Everything Important is unreal; and the only reality is unimportant.
And people wonder why we are voluntarily going extinct, and seeking (by several routes) our own annihilation?...
The System has learned, and now focuses on corrupting leaders
I caught the headline that yet another effective leader of dissent against The System has been neutralised (Nigel Farage of UKIP - the man who is credited/ blamed by the mass media for getting the EU referendum which led to the Brexit vote).
This is something that The System has learned from the 1960s counter-culture dissent; dissenting movements depend on their leaders, and leaders can be corrupted and co-opted.
This is especially easy when the leaders are Not religious - as all modern leaders (including/ especially of mainstream Christian churches) are Not-religious; because their principles are unrooted, based on personal expediency and pseudo-calculated utilitarian considerations; and therefore their view will always shift over time; and this shift can be induced toward The System in response to bribery/ subsidy, and propaganda/ perception-control...
Pressure, threats and coercion of leaders is also possible, and effective; but seldom required (except in an emergency) - and a leader who has been gradually corrupted into obedience (for what they suppose to be 'good reasons') is more useful to The System (e.g. functioning as a Fifth Columnist, an infiltrator, a subverter) than one who has been terrified into obedience.
All modern leader with significant influence over important groups are now on the side of The System. There aren't any exceptions (at least, not in the UK). If we think there are exceptions, we are very-probably wrong - if not now, then soon.
Anyway, unless change happens very rapidly and completely; leaders will be corrupted and turned. We know this, and ought to expect it; and we ought to work from the implications.
But it seems that not many people yet do; and almost everybody still expects to be led to a better world.
Until that expectation stops; the prospect seems certain to be worse than the present, and much worse than it needs to be.
This is something that The System has learned from the 1960s counter-culture dissent; dissenting movements depend on their leaders, and leaders can be corrupted and co-opted.
This is especially easy when the leaders are Not religious - as all modern leaders (including/ especially of mainstream Christian churches) are Not-religious; because their principles are unrooted, based on personal expediency and pseudo-calculated utilitarian considerations; and therefore their view will always shift over time; and this shift can be induced toward The System in response to bribery/ subsidy, and propaganda/ perception-control...
Pressure, threats and coercion of leaders is also possible, and effective; but seldom required (except in an emergency) - and a leader who has been gradually corrupted into obedience (for what they suppose to be 'good reasons') is more useful to The System (e.g. functioning as a Fifth Columnist, an infiltrator, a subverter) than one who has been terrified into obedience.
All modern leader with significant influence over important groups are now on the side of The System. There aren't any exceptions (at least, not in the UK). If we think there are exceptions, we are very-probably wrong - if not now, then soon.
Anyway, unless change happens very rapidly and completely; leaders will be corrupted and turned. We know this, and ought to expect it; and we ought to work from the implications.
But it seems that not many people yet do; and almost everybody still expects to be led to a better world.
Until that expectation stops; the prospect seems certain to be worse than the present, and much worse than it needs to be.
Tuesday, 4 December 2018
SJWs, deplatforming and political correctness aren't at all new; just more widespread
Just a point of information - political correctness and deplatforming by SJWs began from the middle 1960s in relation to (physical) attacks on IQ researchers such as the (world famous and highly prestigious) academics Hans Eysenck and Arthur Jensen - and these have continued since.
The reason that IQ researching psychologists was first to be singled-out for suppression; was that the core of mainstream Left (labour, liberal, socialist, democrat) political agenda since the middle sixties has been driven by outrage at the 'injustice' of evidence of group inequalities in salary/ education/ status/ health and other outcomes; inequalities which can be explained-away by differences in average intelligence and personality.
The evidence for this is vast and (by normal and rigorous standards) conclusive - so the research had to be suppressed, and it has been suppressed; by means of demonising, attacking and deplatforming the researchers and publicists.
This is important if we want to understand the current daily and increasing deplatformings, service denials and sackings of a wide swathe of even vaguely (or merely allegedly) dissident individuals and groups.
The reason that IQ researching psychologists was first to be singled-out for suppression; was that the core of mainstream Left (labour, liberal, socialist, democrat) political agenda since the middle sixties has been driven by outrage at the 'injustice' of evidence of group inequalities in salary/ education/ status/ health and other outcomes; inequalities which can be explained-away by differences in average intelligence and personality.
The evidence for this is vast and (by normal and rigorous standards) conclusive - so the research had to be suppressed, and it has been suppressed; by means of demonising, attacking and deplatforming the researchers and publicists.
This is important if we want to understand the current daily and increasing deplatformings, service denials and sackings of a wide swathe of even vaguely (or merely allegedly) dissident individuals and groups.
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