Remember that Hollywood (mass media) villains are produced-by In-Real-Life baddies

Somebody once said about someone (Rousseau, perhaps?) that when a person confesses publicly to some act of wickedness; the thing to worry about is the un-confessed evil: that concealed act which was too shameful to confess.

 

We are all familiar with the motivations ascribed to what might be termed Hollywood Villains (whether on movies, TV or major novels) - motives such as greed (wanting money), or power (wanting to 'take over the world'). More recently, baddies may indulge in coercive promiscuous sex and be motivated by ideas of racial 'supremacy'.

But we need to realise that Hollywood Villains are produced, funded and censored by mass media moguls specifically, and facilitated by The Establishment in general.

Our major fictional villains are - in effect - written by the major In-Real-Life villains.

Which is to say, the people who have been, for decades, providing our conceptual models of evil are the same group responsible for the covert global coup of 2020. 

 

Since They are prepared to advertise their own lust for money and power, sex and racism; what evils are they shielding by this confession? 

If Big Finance is happy to be depicted as obsessed with money and willing to murder for it - what horror is that concealing? If Big Pharma is happy to be seen putting profits above health - what is their covert motivation that is worse? If media bosses are happy to depict themselves as involved in dystopian surveillance, propaganda and manipulation in order to expand their own businesses - what is it that they are keeping back? 

 

In general - what is being left-out is active-evil, evil for-its-own sake: 'pure' evil. 

Active-evil is when Big Finance arrange murders despite losing money; Big Pharma diligently engineer human disease and suffering despite losing profits; when senior media executives bankrupt their organisations by relentless propaganda. 

What is not depicted is villains who put evil first: whose delight is to destroy virtue and beauty, whose satisfaction is to lie and corrupt, who lust to foment fear and mutual resentment; and for such goals who are willing to work hard, destroy corporations, suffer financial losses... 

Villains and baddies who will risk their own livelihoods and lives in order to do evil.

 

For example; we know one specific actively-evil practice: that (to a remarkable extent, and especially at the very highest levels) The Global Establishment are motivated by what is euphemistically termed 'human trafficking'; including the kidnapping, brainwashing and sexual abuse of children. 

For this they are prepared to expend vast time, energy, resources - and to risk disgrace and death.

When did you last see a Hollywood Villain thus depicted? By comparison with the reality of evil, the officially-sanctioned mass media baddies begin to seem like saints.

 

Defence against evil: negating the spiritual power of the Big Lie

The Big Lie (e.g. the birdemic, antiracism, CO2 global warming)  is usually analysed in terms of its practical benefits - i.e. that lying is instrumental, that dishonesty assists the attainment of certain goals. But the Big Lie is primarily and ultimately spiritual - regardless of whether or not it is strategically helpful*. 

It has become vital consciously to know the Big Lies as lies... And because the lies are conscious; so muct the knowledge of their falsehood be conscious.

(Instinctive resistance to lies, based on unconscious urges, is spiritually insufficient.) 

 

A lie is a sin and a Big Lie is a fundamental sin by which a person (a civilization) may be overthrown and self-damned. Satan was called the father of Lies for this reason. The Big Lie is a temptation.  

If we focus only on the practical (e.g. sociopolitical or psychological) effects of the Big Lies, we will neglect or forget the spiritual dimension - which is primary. 

And if we are (in practice) unable to resist the material roll-out of the Lies, then we will be tempted to give-up on resistance altogether - to go-along-with the lie spiritually as well as practically - and that may well lead onto spiritual acquiescence to the lie. 

 

But the reality is that Thoughts Have Power: spiritual power first, and thence practical power. 

Thoughts indeed have ultimate power: Conscious knowledge of a Big Lie is a power against Satan, demons and supernatural purposive evil; and consequently power against what they plan to do.  

(Totalitarianism aims to be total for exactly this reason. There must be No Dissent - because each dissenter wields a spiritual weapon.)

 

There is a limitation of evil, to do with its needing the consent of those whom evil intends to corrupt. 

(This limitation has to do with the primacy of God and creation; and that evil is negative, hence secondary: Evil is opposition to already-existent Good.)   

This limitation is symbolised in mythical terms by such phenomena as the assertion that a vampire must be invited to cross the threshold of a house; or that the super-villain must 'monologue' his plans to the superhero, before he can execute them... People need to be told what evil intends, before evil can do it. 

The reality behind such myths is, of course, spiritual not verbal. The reality is that when evil is known as such and rejected, then it is ineffectual - it has no power to fulfil its wishes. 

Victims must therefore (spiritually) agree to the evil done to them: victims of evil must become complicit with their spiritual corruption.

(Although, of course, victims may physically be corrupted despite spiritual resistance - since mortal life is about learning directed towards Heavenly eternal life - and experiences of this life happen for this reason. Yet even the physical and this-worldly practical evil is - to some extent, for reasons perhaps not known - repelled or thwarted by spiritual refusal; since the physical is secondary.) 

In resisting the Big Lie we are often up-against established habit, and habit may lead us unthinkingly (un-consciously) to go-along-with the practical implementation of evil. Nonetheless, direct divine intervention will (sooner or later) alert us to the reality; and then each person will be brought to the point at which he must agree consciously to evil - or reject it. 

(Consciously to 'delay' making that decision is In Fact to agree to evil, here and now, and to advance its corruption in oneself. Repentance has infinite power, but is binary. There is no neutrality about evil.)

And it is never too late to repent, therefore never too late to resist evil. 

Better late than never is a true saying - when better has an ultimate and spiritual sense; and 'better' is true however the practicalities of this-world evil implementation work-out. 

Any individual person that consciously knows evil - who knows the reality behind a Big Lie - is thereby weilding a real spiritual effect upon the power of evil: a power to resist evil - including a power against the practical implementation of evil strategy.

Which is why many, many bad things that might have happened - that were planned to happen - in fact have not happened!

*Note added: This is why the mass media always lie, even when They don't need to; in the major, headline news stories.

Frodo Baggins and the Barrow Downs sword, the Morgul knife, and Sting

Have you ever wondered how and why the Nazgul Chief magically destroyed Frodo's sword from across the River Bruinen at the Ford of Rivendell? Me too! I explain my theories over at The Notion Club Papers. 

 

How to fight modern evil: Huxley versus Orwell, Ahrimanic versus Luciferic evil

Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. Letter from Aldous Huxley to George Orwell, 1949

Making allowances for the fact that both Huxley and Orwell were here implicitly taking an ultimately political, hence evil, point of view; and thus they stop their analysis at 'power' when they ought to recognise that power is just a means to spiritual ends...

Then this passage highlights that we need to be aware that with evil beings it is 'lust', or motivation, that is being gratified. 

Huxley was correct that we need to appreciate that demonic beings enjoy the corrupting of Men into 'loving their servitude' - i.e. desiring their own damnation - as much or more-than inflicting short-term misery. They enjoy long-term manipulation leading to value-inversion (evil seens as Good, Good as evil) - as much as or more-than inflicting acute physical torment and death. 

 

That is indeed the primary motivation behind the Ahrimanic evil that is dominant in the world here and now. 

It is an error to suppose that the global Establishment are motivated by a desire to torment and kill the masses - Their primary motivation is to make the masses love their servitude, embrace a wholly materialistic and this-worldly understanding; and thus to desire damnation. 

In different words; the agents of Ahrimanic evil enjoy being regarded as Good; and hate more than anything being exposed as evil. 

 

Ahrimanic evil intends that it should be unknown, unseen, denied, hidden; and its agents therefore conceal their own activity behind what is presented as objective, materialistic, abstract Good. 

Thus whenever we perceive something evil-seeming presented as wholly-impersonal, just a 'process',/ procedure; mere 'randomness', luck, statistical 'probability', unintended consequences, accident or error... 

Whenever causes are put-down to mechanical operations of alogorthm, computer, committee/ bureaucracy... a mere outcome of The System; then we should suspect the presence of Ahriman. 

(In effect: Ahriman lives in the imuted impersonal: that is where he hides himself.)

 

Ahriman, or Satan - as Christians more often call him - never wants to be known for what he is.

He and his servants fear above all being detected; being detected and known as real; being known as beings who are evil in motivation. 

That is the weapon with which Ahriman's goals may be fought - whether in our own souls, or more widely.

Seek Ye Satan in the impersonal, in the 'merely' automatic; in the un-conscious, the ignored and the denied...

My enemy, my adversary, the adversary of us all, is The Lie - from Exegesis by Philip K Dick

The clear concept of the liar... when I looked through my reference books I came across it and recognized it at once when I turned to a passage about Zoroastrianism. The God of Light versus the Master of the Lie. 

There it was. I could not recall ever having known that before. Perhaps I did, but it was no longer a conscious part of me. I realized something I'd never realized before.

I had never thought of it like that before. My enemy, my adversary, the adversary of us all, is the Lie; pierce that and see the truth and the situation alters in a radical and astonishing way. 

 

And from this has come months of new insight for me, as you know. It was, really one of the most important moments in my life. My faith in the Lie, my willingness to participate in it by accepting it as if bound by some kind of implicit oath of loyalty to it, my collusion that disappeared. 

There is no requirement of honor that obliges us to believe a lie, even when told to us by a person we love or have loved. 

 

What this discovery brought about was an unraveling of a long-term slavery to the Lie, to my own lie and to all lies, wherever they came from and for whatever purpose. 

Certainly in our national life; the life of our Republic, we have virtually been destroyed by the Lie; by its powerful signs and miracles, as Paul puts it in Second Thessalonians. 

The peculiar power that people have exercised over me, which I could not comprehend nor cope with, was based on (one) their willingness and capacity to tell the Lie and (two) my willingness and capacity to accept it: a compact between us, in which we jointly and in unison, as if we were one party on one side of the table, admired and nodded in agreement at the goddam thing.

For me it abolished one life, a sad and truncated life, and began an exciting new one. 

 

Needless to say, honesty was valued by the Persians as the first virtue, after piety (which was needed to justify honesty, evidently, since in those days everything had to be assigned to a supernatural cause to make it stick). 

I'm glad to say once released from the power of the Lie I saw passivity, resignation and despair as intended by products of the Lie, and any system of thought or religion which taught those as virtues (Christianity included) as a manifestation of the Lie. 

Any system which says "This is a rotten world, wait for the next, give up, do nothing, succumb" that may be the basic Lie and if we participate in believing it and acting (or rather not acting) on it we involve ourselves in the Lie and suffer dreadfully - which only reinforces that particular Lie.

Edited from the Exegisis by Philip K Dick (published 2011)

There should be no need to explain Why bad things are bad...

One of the most psychotic aspects of this insane world, is that people need to have everything explained to them. 

Modern people even need to be told why bad things are bad! Indeed, they often demand 'evidence' that bad things are bad. And by evidence they mean something 'official', probably 'statistical'... 

But mass rejection of God and 'the spiritual' means an implicit denial of life-purpose; hence ultimate meaning in life; so 'why' questions can have no real answer. 

The situation is that when people 'need' to ask why something bad is bad, they can never get a coherent answer - and the badness of the bad is dissolved-away (...along with the goodness of the good, and for the same reasons).

Here and now; most people are unable to recognise even blazingly-obvious badness for themselves. Even their natural, spontaneous, evolved moral instincts have been (deliberately) suppressed. We have weaker morality than an animal.

And once this situation is reached; people are helpless against even the crudest forms of socio-political manipulation. They are unable to recognise when they, personally, are being directly harmed.

When it needs to be explained; people are unable to distinguish between good and evil. If explanation is required then which-is-good and what-is-evil depends on the explanation; and therefore good may become evil and vice versa, when re-explained. 

When bad needs explaining, the loop is complete; Men are sealed from life. Their world is virtual.

As is surely very obvious... 

Or, it would be obvious, if Men were capable of seeing for themselves.  

Our culture of pervasive dishonesty reflects the decline of the objective symbol - How to overcome it, and live by truth

In the past, symbols - such as words, images, rituals - had an objective power that did not depend upon the mental state of the individual - in effect the symbol caused the mental state (an reality generally) in a reliable and irresistable fashion. 

This was especially seen in religion - where the effects of - for instance - Baptism or The Mass, did not depend on the individual subjectivity of the participants. The 'procedure' had an objective effect on reality, changed the world; whatever individuals may think about it.

Later, as marked by the work of Jung; there was an era in whiich objective symbols produced fairly specific effects - but only with the subjective participation of persons. The cross had a specific meaning, as did other 'archetypal' symbols; but only when the individual had faith or consented to participate. The combination of objective and subjective produced a specific effect.

 

But now, symbolism has become so weak as to be ineffectual and ineffective. People regard - for example - visual symbols such as the Rainbow, as arbitrary signifiers whose meaning can be defined and redefined at will (by the usual methods of mass persuasion - via public relations, advertising, 'education', and propaganda). Thus the rainbow went from a symbol of Christian hope, to pro-QWERY, to 'support the NHS' within a decade - and next week it may be reallocated meaning again.

In other words, symbolism is now wholly determined by power: specifcially the power to affect psychology - which includes coercive power (police, military, mobs), 'education', law, advertising, mass media, the arts and the (so-called) sciences. 

Words are likewise affected; and the meaning of words changes very rapidly - a particular word may be mandatory in public discourse and then a few years later taboo; or taboo for one group and allowed by another - such as Black, or the N word. 

The name of an entity, likewise; re-naming (of products, institutions, groups of people) is a primary tool of modern management, advertising and public relations - again the ideologies of sexual revolution and antiracism provides many examples. 

 

This is the state of consciousness of modern Man, increasingly over the past few decades; very completely-so by now. 

Consequently, the idea of honesty; the idea that one ought to use words truthfully - has all-but disappeared from public discourse. Because now words are only arbitrarily attached to things; therefore people feel no compulsion to be accurate with words (what does 'accurate' even mean?); nor to use one set of words rather than another. 

There is no dividing line between honesty and lies; indeed no meaning to the distinction - since the content of categories may be contested, swapped around, made opposite (like 'Fake News'). 

Or, more exactly, because the situation of maining is in constant flux; there is a possibility of using words to refer to a predicted future state of affairs, to a future set of relationships between words and things. 

In particular, it is permissable to use words as instructed by power; because power can and will soon be redefining things just as they wish, and the mass population will go along with this (because they always do).

 

This is perhaps a major reason why those closest to power, and who serve power, are nowadays always and habitually dishonest - why they use language wholly rhetorically (i.e. to manipulate behaviour); and yet are unaware that this is what they are doing.

(They may be angry and indignant at the 'accusation' that they are dishonest, despite that their dishonestly is an hourly-repeated objective fact, and they are Not Even Trying to be honest - the reason being that they are never honest, so have no basis for comparison.)

And this is surely why the attempts of traditionalists to hold to a fixed and objective scheme of symbolism have failed so comprehensively (even in an institution like the Roman Catholic Church, that is itself built-upon a set of fixed symbolisms).

 

This is a situation of tyranny, where power defines meaning open-endedly; and of arbitrary tyranny - since the power and meanings are circular. Naturally, purpose is abolished, along with meaning - since purpose depends on sustained values. 

All this fits with the negative and destructive nature of mainstream Establishment leftism; i.e. the global bureaucracy, which is continually and progressively destructive of all meaning, including all Good. 

The System is intrinsically evil - The System is allied to the Satanic (anti-God) agenda. Two equivalent statements...

 

The way out is Not to focus on the surface symbolism and language - which cannot be effective; but to align with the side of God, creation and The Good. 

To assert and support the reality of reality as directly (Not symbolically) apprehended. 

To live by the primacy of direct knowing, of intuition. By which truth is not 'fact' but reality. 

And we are not loyal to words, but realities.

 

Honesty is therefore to ally with God's creation and to live by its reality. 

Thus 'the death of the symbol' is itself by-passed, trasncended, rendered ineffectual.  

Are there lessons for us - here, now - from CS Lewis's That Hideous Strength?

Kristor at The Orthosphere has suggested several ways in which he believes that CS Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength provides relevant comparisons, inspiration and guidance for our current situation. 

I very much like THS - but I don't think it has anything strategic to tell us about the current situation. In our world, unlike that of THS, the enemy has already won - and has been (very obviously) ruling the world since early 2020. And there is plenty of active support for the Satanic rulers among the general population - especially (nearly unanimous) among the professional, technical and managerial classes.  Almost everybody else is passively-compliant.

This comes on top of many decades of accelerating Christian apostasy, and the crushing blow against the Christian churches this year - so that they are barely operating, and have all but ceased their core functions. Judging by words and actions, and ignoring their assertions and claims; there are (here, now) extremely few Christians.  

Many people I know of that I would have supposed to be serious Christians this time last year, I now realise are not, and were not. They may not realise it; but I realise now that they have joined the side of Satan: and are doing his work with great zeal and diligence. 

But worst of all - it seems that hardly anybody has even noticed this greatest change in the world since 1939 - perhaps greater in scope and significance; and many of those who have noticed are (on the whole) fine with it, or believe that it will lead to good. 

In such circumstances, calls to arms sound empty: Fight who? And how? And with which army? 

And if we do fight, it is as 'resistance' in an already-defeated and fully-occupied nation; not as national defenders. 

The best example I personally derive from THS is that 'the resistance' comprises half a dozen only-modestly-effective folk (the St Anne's group), whose 'power' is spiritual not temporal, and is personal rather than organisational - it comes mainly from their mutual support and encouragement (St Anne's is not even a community of beliefs or ideals). 

If we have as much as this, we are fortunate. But it is enough: because this war is spiritual, not material; and its outcome is decided after this mortal life. 

The fact is that we are in unprecedented territory and past comparisons are mostly misleading. It greatly adds to the difficulty that we must work-out what to do without help from tradition. 

But that is our situation; and it first needs to be recognised and faced. And indeed that is half the battle.

The commonest conspiracy theory...

 ...Is: that The Establishment - e.g. global agencies such as the UN/ WHO/ EU/ WEF (the Great Reset people), National governments, the Mass Media - are united in a massive (but non-obvious) conspiracy to Do Us All Good. 

 

No matter that They seem (to personal experience and common sense) to be united in the strategic destruction of civilization, economy and country; an international totalitarian regime of omni-surveillance and micro-control; and the creation of a universal mood of fear, resentment and despair... 

No matter these and other superficial appearances, the great majority of people solidly-believe that The Establishement has our best interests at heart. 

 

Even when we are compulsorily confined to a single room for weeks (forever?), compelled to be masked (for months, forever?), denied basic medical and social services, denied singing/ dancing/ theatre/ sports/ music; and forbidden even to touch our family and friends (until given official permission) --- the conspiracy theory says that They are doing this for Us. 

(And to save the planet and the ecosystem, natch.)

And all is actually Good (in an ultimate sense).

 

This for our health, for our well-being, for our long-term best-interests...

 

Wow! That is just the kind of people these billionnaires, politicians and media moguls really are. 

They may seem short-termist, selfish and sadistic - but this is on-the-surface. Inside the iron fist that is crushing the life from us, is a velvet glove stroking us. The cold mask of arbitrary authority covers a warm face of empathic concern.

And so it is that the masses of the world solidly, immovably, believe-in a vast conspiracy theory that the Global Establishment are deep-down, behind the scenes, and contrary to appearances; united in an alliance devoted to the Good of the World.

 

(Against such stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.)

Why this good? Swingle Singers live in the 60s

First of all, you would have to agree that it is good; and not everybody would agree. There is undoubtedly an element of kitsch about the Swingle Singers, about what they are trying to do, and about how they actually do it. 

Yet for me, as for Glenn Gould; work it does. 

Now; the more typical successful Swingle arrangement is a contrapuntal piece - like a fugue; but with this particular soprano (Christine Legrand) they sometimes went in for a sinuous melody supported by simple, homophonic, block chords. 

The reason this worked is that - as with all the best musicians - Legrand phrases with great, unteachable, uncopyable lyricism - and can sustain this phrasing through the long-line of the melody. 

Of course she also has a sweet tone, very large range, nimble technique, and perfect intonation (tuning); but so do lots of other singers. 

Her singing of Ward Swingle's melodic decorations (he was the group's founder, arranger, and lead tenor) is simply gorgeous.

But what she has that is special; is this gift (and it is a gift) of lyrical phrasing of the melody. 

Note: This is a transcription of the Swingle's version of the Gmin Fugue from Bach's Art of Fugue; also featured in the above link.  

What if you fail the 2020 Litmus Tests?

A couple of days ago I listed what I consider to be the three Satanic Litmus Test issues that are dominant in 2020: these are the birdemic, antiracism and global warming. 

I think it is worth reiterating that what these Tests do is detect and identify those who are objectively on the side of Satan in the current spiritual war. 

The question of whether you are (overall) a nice person, or what is regarded as a 'good' person is irrelevant; whether you are a pious and observant church member is a separate issue; whether you live by Christian ethics to a higher degree than many or most people makes no difference at all. 

If you fail the litmus tests you are working-for Satan's triumph in this world, you are aiding his agenda - know it or not, like it or not, deny it or not. 

This ought to be very obvious to you, since the evidence is truly collosal and indeed overwhelming - and the fact that it is not obvious to you shows the depth of your unrepented sin. 

And it is unrepented sin that is decisive - as Christians ought to know.  

Note: Failing one (and if one, usually all) of these tests identifies a person as actively against God; but passing the test does Not (of course!) mean that one is a real Christian. To be a real Christian is a positive and voluntary committment; one must want and decide to follow Jesus to resurrected eternal life. Being a Christian doesn't happen (nowadays) without you knowing it (although it could happen after death).

My first and last words on the US election...

...Are simply an endorsement of today's comment by WmJas Tychonievich (who, unlike me, is American by family, birth and upbringing).  

Still, although it is none of my business; as we know, since Vietnam and up to this anti-fa/racist summer - every small thing that happens, or is (dishonestly) alleged to have happened, anywhere in the USA - is the immediate and mandatory business of every person in this world. Hence my right and duty, ignorantly and impotently to comment.

 

I am, apparently, always dreaming - unconsciously; a parallel dream self and world

Last night I was trying to write in my notebook; but couldn't stop myself from falling asleep for multiple brief micro-sleeps - with a longer period embedded. Meanwhile, I was writing notes! 

The record of the experience is nearly illegible; but it seems that I had a chunk of dream about my having-written a novel and submitted it to a publisher - to an editor who was some kind of friend. I did not remember having written the novel or why (when I know for sure, even in the dream, that I am incapable of doing so...). 

I got the novel typescript back in a large envelope which I opened, and I saw there were some detailed handwritten comments from the editor on the top-sheet. However, I was embarrassed about the whole thing, and unwilling to read exactly why this story (which I couldn't even remember having written or sent) had been rejected - so I put the thing onto my bedside table. 

At that point I woke; and decided to take a look at the comments after all, and rolled-over to find a notebook on my knees, and nothing on my bedside table - and after a second or so, I realised it had been a dream. 

So I started to write this into the notebook - but periodically kept on 'dropping' back into the same dream... rejoining it at various further points; having - in the dream world - forgotten how matters had reached this point, but recalling enough when I awoke to recognise some link. 

Periodically; I would wake, for a few tens of seconds, start writing (scrawling, rather) as the memories ebbed-away - and then drop off to sleep again. 

The dream was not really going anywhere specifically, but was meandering-along by some kind of free-associative process; all the while my memory was fading 'behind-me' so that I was continually puzzled and struggling about how I had gotten-into the current situation, although I knew that I used-to know. 

(This mood is what the old time psychiatrists called 'perplexity' and is characteristic of many pychoses.)

 

Anyway, not to labour the point; this is another of many confirmations I have had over the years that I seem to be dreaming all of the time; and by falling asleep I am able to 'sample' the ongoing dream. It is like dipping-into a fast running stream-of-consciousness that runs below my wake state. 

The ongoing dream crams a great deal more into clock time than does the awake state - something like a hundred times more stuff happens in a minute of sleep, than a minute of being awake. 

The dreaming mind has a very poor memory - it apparently has a working memory of some tens of seconds, but after that period, everything rapidly fades-away (like walking along a road that is always crumbling-away a couple of hundred yards behind, so that I cannot look-back any further than that) - in much the fashion seen with people suffering dementia or in a delirium. 

And the awake and dreaming states are kept apart by some kind of 'software incompatibility'; such that a dream may seem clear and comprehensible immediately upon awakening; but cannot be recalled, transcribed or 'translated'... There are exceptions, when I do remember chunks of a dream well, but these exceptions are exceptional - and may happen when my sleep is shallowest - as when I am at the end of the night's sleep and ready to wake fully. 

 

It is interesting to me that there is an unconscious dream life running through all of my waking life (and maybe also in deep sleep?); and further that this dream narrative crams in far more detail, emotion, and incident than does the waking state. 

In this sense; I have much more dream-experience in my life than I do waking experience - but this experience is not available to the waking mind. 

However, I think that it is available to the dreaming mind. In other words, while in a dream I seem to remember my other dreams - there seems to be a separate 'dream memory' store, inaccessible to my wakening mind. 

For instance, there are dream places that I inhabit, and recall, only in dreams; dream incidents; indeed I probably have a 'parallel but distinct' dream nature or personality, who has different aptitudes and has led (is leading) a different life. 

And - presumably, since it happens; this stuff is significant and important - in some unknown way.

Values are a product of System - but which System?

It is a plank of the post-modern mood that values are a product of System; and that there are no values outside of System. 

If someone asserts values that are not part of System, then these are essentially private, delusional, psychotic - an arbitrary, personal and unshared morality; and such an individual is, of course, potentially dangerous to those who participate in the System morality (dangerous to the extent he or she has power). 

And values also include the standards of truth and beauty; so that System defines what is beautiful or ugly, what is fact or lie.  

All valuations, in other words, come from System. 

This is true; but what is disputable is that there is only one System; and that is the one System of mortal human society in this world - including its cultural and technological elaborations. 

 

The mainstream assertion that governs life in the modern world is that life is material (there is no 'spiritual' domain, no soul, no god/s, nothing 'supernatural'); and that life is (therefore) bounded by biological conception-birth at one end and by death at the other end. 

A more recent development of the concept of System is that the cultural and technological elaborations are more real, more objective - because more powerful and widely-known, potentially more stable and longer-lasting, than the human beings of the world.  

Thus System has become abstract: impersonal, and indeed increasingly anti-personal. 

 

Because values derive-from System, and the worldly-System is increasingly abstract and with increasing not-human elements (computers, technologies, statistics...); the System can and does generate values that benefit the System considered as an abstract-whole, but not the human beings. 

Thus the modern world; in which we increasingly relate to the System only via bureaucracy (systemised humans) and electronic mass-social media. The question of whether this is good for humans does not even arise; because values come from the System, and only one worldly System is acknowledged.

It is either the System or psychosis - and therefore neutralisation, hospital or prison. There can be no exile, no independence; because nowhere is outside or beyond the System. 

And, because non-System values are dangerous to the System; anyone with values outside is necessarily selfish and mad - thus will be sought, labelled, and their threat eliminated. 

 

And Yet - the worldly System is arbitrary. It does not have purpose, it does not have meaning: it Just Is. 

Thus, modern reality is a mandatory morality, a compulsory and inescapable system of values - that is, at the same time, arbitrary; without foundation, going-nowhere, and meaning-nothing. 

Our choice is mandatory meaninglessness or de facto death. 

This reality is dawning upon more and more people, because the compulsory System is changing so rapidly, is so obviously incoherent, is so increasingly either indifferent or hostile to actual human happiness or suffering. 

Yet, if the System assumptions are accepted - and they mostly are accepted (whether unconsciously or consciously); then There Is No Alternative. 

Modern life = slavery to the arbitrary System, with no hope of anything else; becuase there Is nothing else.

All this follows with apparent inevitability, until it is recognised that there is a System beyond 'the System', and which includes and transcends the worldly system. 

We then recognise that the wordly System has been and is made by exclusions; especially of God the Creator - and we recognise that there is a transcendent world beyond and containing the material.

We recognise that the supposedly monopolistic worldly System is actually within, and subordinate to, the Divine System.

 

Once that larger Divine System is recognised; all the above crumbles to dust. 

Once we recognise that life extends back before conception and forward beyond biological death...

Once we recognise that this material reality was made by God, from spirit...

Once we recognise that this worldly System is a part of Creation; and may be judged by the values of Creation...

Once we recognise that there is an escape from this worldly System into God's greater reality of Creation - and that most of our lives lies beyond biological death...

...Then we are free.  

 

In 2020 you are objectively Leftist/ anti-Christian if you support any of the following three...

Currently, as of 2020, the ideological-religious Litmus Tests - i.e. the three major planks of acute, 'emergency' Leftism - are, in order: 

1. To believe in the deadliness of the birdemic and the need for societal lock-down-social-conditioning-masking-etc; which schema justified the Leftist totalitarian global coup, and the consequent near-annihilation of Church Christianity, across all denominations.

2. To assert the antiracist ('MLB') agenda. Indeed, not explicitly to repudiate this ideology is (in practice) sufficient evidence of Leftism.

3. To believe the Anthropogenic Global Warming/ Climate change ideology - which is the basis of the UN Agenda 2030 and the 'Great Reset'. These are intended to lock-into-place the New Normal.

If you support any of all of these; you are objectively on-the-side of mainstream, global, totalitarian Leftist Establishment: which is the side of Satan and against God. And obviously, therefore, you are anti-Christian - despite whatever you may believe or assert. 

 

See also This follow-up. 

Note added: William Wildblood has very helpfully expanded on the spiritual meaning of these Litmus Tests in a blog post that I would recommend reading. 

 

Why I am so confident that JD Salinger's unpublished late writings will not be any good

I have recently re-read JD Salinger's Raise high the roof beam, carpenters (1955), and a long, mostly oral, biography by Shields and Salerno (2013)*. Raise High is confirmed in my estimation as just about my favourite short story/ novella ever - only rivaled by the same author's Zooey (1957). 

JD Salinger (1919-2010) is famous for having spent the last 50-plus years of his long life in near total seclusion and privacy - and for not having published anything at all after 1965. At present several books are apparently being prepared for posthumous publication, although nothing much is known about their content. 

To say that Salinger's late stories are long-awaited and eagerly-anticipated by his fans, would therefore be a massive understatement! Many apparently hope for some more work along the lines of the novel Catcher in the Rye; or, at least some more short stories as good as For Esme, with love and squalor (1950) or Franny (1955).

But I am personally confident that there will be no good unpublished work by Salinger. Why am I confident? Because Salinger only published his best work for a very short period between Esme in 1950 and Zooey in 1957. His earlier short stories are often fine, but nothing special; being either clunky or contrived - and lacking depth. 

And, much as a love Zooey, its ending doesn't work, and is evidence of the beginning of a decline. This was confirmed by Seymour: An Introduction - which was published in 1959. And Salinger's final publication - Hapworth 16, 1924 is really, truly, appallingly bad - embarrassing, unreadable.    

So on the graph of decline, there are three data points; and the decline was steepening such that Salinger went from fascinating but very difficult and barely coherent with Seymour in 1959, to horribly terrible by 1965.

Given the brevity of Salinger's period of genuine excellence, and the mediocrity of work outside that period; I hold-out no hopes at all, that work written after 1965 will be any good. 

Indeed, I doubt if they will be worth reading, except for documentary purposes. 

 

*Note: The Shields and Salerno book is well worth reading for the significant new evidence they uncover, many good interviews and memoirs printed, and photographs. But the text by Shields and Salerno - their opinions, interpretations, lit crit - is really dreadful; especially that by David Shields. As so often with modern biographers, they dislike their subject and lose no opportunity to snipe and denigrate. As so often with modern people, they regard religion (any religion - in this case mainly Vedanta Hinduism) as evidence of psychopathology. The perspective from which the book is written is mainstream journalistic wokeness - and therefore the quality of thought is inevitably incoherent, materialistic, anti-spiritual, politically-correct (in a nutshell: actively evil). 

Big Brother loves us - or so (nearly) everybody believes

Mr Punch (on the puppeteer's right hand) defunds the police (on his left hand)...

It is characteristic of modern, Godless, Man that he is incapable of connecting his thinking, incapable of following a line of reasoning, incapable of noticing inconsistency between ideas. 

This incapability is not a matter of unintelligence, although modern Man is much less intelligent than he was 150 years ago. It is not about illness either, although modern Man is riddled with genetic mutations that have damaged instinctive socially- and sexually-adaptive behaviours.

Modern incapability is existential, spiritual, metaphysical: its ultimate origin is a false and incoherent world view. Since our everyday thinking is 'underpinned' by the fundamental incoherence that this world has neither purpose nor meaning - thinking has rotted from the bottom-up. 

For a while, this incoherence was concealed by unconscious traditions and habits from earlier generations; but these traditions and habits were systematically and incrementally destroyed. Unstoppable metaphysical putrification set-in as soon as tradition and habit was consciously examined and challenged. 

The lack of any ultimate basis of meaning, worked-through to our current lack of proximate meaning for anything. 

 

Consequently, incoherence rules public policy and discourse. 

Known habitual liars are believed and trusted. Those identified as selfish and short-termist are given charge of global strategy. The explicitly amoral and hedonic are given charge of public ethics and law. And the masses combine theoretical radicalism and sensation-seeking with unprecedented passivity and obedience to arbitrary diktat. 

And the whole situation is incorrigible - unreformable, incurable; since the incoherent masses can neither detect nor oppose evil - even when evil is being inflicted upon them on a daily, hourly, escalating basis. Psychosis (living in an unreal, subjective - virtual - world) and dementia (decline across many cognitive and intellectual functions, disorientation) are the norm - and worst in those nearest to power, status, and prestige. 

 

In 2020 the New Normal is of an international totalitarianism, and the experience of life under an Establishment, omni-bureaucratic, mass-media-manipulating Big Brother; who regards us partly as tools, partly as experimental animals, and partly as potential victims for lust and torture. 

Yet the mass of people love their opressor: love Big Brother - under his many fronts, guises and manifestations: UN, WHO, EU, World Economic Forum etc. Officials spokespersons of all stripes. The 'voice' of the major mass media corporations. The national political mouthpieces, mannequins, suits and scarecrows. Institutions, pseudo-radical pressure groups, self-described victims, pseudo-scientists, concerned celebrities...

The masses have-faith-in, trust implicitly, the mostly-anonymous billionnaires and media moguls who rule this world from the shadows. 

Such vague, impersonal abstractions are where the Establishment flunkies and functionaries, servants and serfs, seek their version of 'salvation'. 

All the little-people demand is a voting choice between those various Establishment tools who they are allowed to vote-for: a choice between Punch, Judy and the Policeman (despite that all are controlled by the same puppeteer).

 

And - from their point of view, given what they believe - why not? 

In a universe without direction, purpose or meaning; then coherence is impossible whatever. 

If one's life is based on fear, resentment and despair; if the future being planned is one of mass misery and suicide; if there is nothing to look-forward to but annihilation; if the actual God-of-this-world is the devil... Well, why not? 

To ask why is a question that has no meaning in an incoherent world; there can be no answers to sense-less questions. 

Trust in God - yes! But in what way?

I am finding the self-exhortation, or rather self-reminder, to Trust in God - to be of extraordinary value just at present. In a sense, it is the single 'thing' I most-often find myself reaching-for. 

Probably this is because I have come to regard all plans, schemes, strategies, blueprints, procedures, manuals and guide-books to be intrinsically evil: intrinsically on the side of Satan. Probably this was not always the case, probably at some times and places such things were valuable: but not here, not now. And when I set such ways of thinking aside; what replaces them is Trust in God...

But I have become sharply aware that when other people say Trust in God, they often mean to suggest that God will fix problems in this mortal life, or with respect to particular institutions (such as churches) or civilizations; whereas my trust in God is that he will seek my personal best situation in the long-term of post-mortal, resurrected, eternal life. 

To me, it seems obvious that all things of this mortal earthly world are temporary. They are indeed of infinite value, but their value is cashed-out only after biological death, in Heaven. 

Therefore, I think that people are misunderstanding if they Trust in God to save their life, their families, their church, Western Civilization, life on this planet or indeed the planet itself. All these things are destined to perish - and before they perish will surely undergo change, corruption, decay... such is the nature of mortal life. 

Ultimately, this life is a time of learning; and this applies to every-thing at every level of organisation and consciousness. We should not be supposing that God is primarily concerned with any mortal thing. Neither is God indifferent to this life and world. 

Rather, God loves this life and world for what they contribute to eternal life. 

And that is where are trust can/ should/ must be placed. 

Repentance is why individuals can (still) be good, but not (any more) institutions

The special teaching of Jesus is that sin is inevitable and unavoidable, and the key to salvation is therefore repentance. By repentance we recognise sin, and that we have sinned; and we take the side of God and creation, which we affirm as Good.

We live in a world where the totalitarian global bureaucracy is evil: that is, it takes the side of Satan against God and creation. To be an institution here-and-now (in 2020) entails engagement with The System; therefore all institutions (of every kind, including Christian churches) are operating on the side of evil. 

 

The same applies to individual persons, but individuals can repent. As an individual who, like every other individual, engages in sin every hour of every day - we can/ should/ must acknowledge the fact of sin and repent.

If not, we have embraced damnation. 

Repentance is sufficient for salvation, but it is also necessary. 

 

Thus if we personally lie (and every middle and upper class person lies for a living, on a daily if not hourly basis), then we can and should acknowledge that we lie, and that lying is a sin.  

To be honest is thus to repent one's (inevitable) dishonesty.

Individuals can do this; but institutions cannot repent - or rather, they can do it, but (here, now, 2020) it would be the last thing they did before ceasing to be an institution. Because repentance of an institution must be 'official', explicit, recorded in the organisation's 'minutes'; made public, made clear.  And this is not tolerated. 

(Some lies are mandatory, and to repent them is punished with the full severity of the Establishment.)

 

Because 'official', explicit, recorded, announced... is how institutions 'think'. Qua institution (or rather, a modern institution), knowledge must be clear and explicit, or else it does not count as knowledge. 

Therefore, institutional repentance must be clear and explicit or it is not real. And if institutional repentance - e.g. for lying, accepting known lies, propagating lies - is clear and explicit - then here, now, in 2020 that institution will be destroyed. 

An honest church would be destroyed, therefore all actually-existing churches are dishonest; all actually-existing churches are unrepentant sinners; and the same applies to all actually-existing social institutions. 

 

This is one reason why Christians can (here, now) operate only as individuals; and why a Christian cannot allow institutional loyalty and obedience to be his or her bottom-line of values - not even L&O to churches. 

Loyalty and obedience as windows for Satantic entryism

By and large, most people would count loyalty and obedience as virtues - albeit minor virtues; and that it what they are: minor virtues, whose virtuousness is seondary to the end for which they are deployed. 

When, however, loyalty and virtue are deployed for ends that are evil (i.e. ends that take Satan's side in the ongoing spiritual war of this mortal life, the side who are against God and creation), then loyalty and obedience become evil. 

 

Obviously so - one would suppose. Yet L&O are among the deepest and most spontaneous of minor virtues, being reinforced by evolved instincts to do with Men being 'social animals'. The archetypical situation in which loyalty and obedience are natural and spontaneous are the feeling of offspring towards parents: rightly so. 

Yet, here we can also see the limitations. L&O to loving parents is absolutely right; but when the parents aren't loving, or when caregivers are not parents, then L&O may be an instument of evil. For example, L&O to the surrogate parent Fagin in Oliver Twist is to live in service of evil. 

Also, the parents may change. Parents may begin good and become evil: start by leading their children in the path of salvation but then lead their chidlren towards damnation. Surely we have all seen this? And if loyalty and obedience prevailed, the child would follow the parent into Satanic-affiliation. 

 

And this is the analogy most appropriate to our current situation. Many of us have begun life with a sense of loyalty and obedience to some social institution that we believed to be net-Good (i.e. overall-Good). For me, as an atheist until middle age, my loyalties (and partial obedience...) was to such institutions as my school, college, 'science', 'medicine' and the universities. These I regarded as essentially good, well-meaning, groups. 

But over the decades all of these changed radically. If these were indeed (as I supposed) net-Good institutions forty-something years ago - they are now (obviously!) in service to the evil agenda of the Global Establishment and its unified bureaucracy. If I had remained loyal and obedient to any or all of them, then I would by now be following the demonic path that all of these institutions support and assert. 

 

But if I had been a Christian, and my primary loyalty had been to a church, then much the same would have happened if I had retained my L&O to the institution - since the main churches and denominations have all embraced the anti-Christian, leftist totalitarian agenda. 

As I said yesterday, all that is required is a single window for Satan to enter-in and take-over a person: or an institution - and (obviously!) churches are not exempted. 

Over the past few decades the way-into churches has usually been the sexual revolution, in its various aspects. Churches that supported any of the major planks of the sexual revolution (whether abortion, 'no-fault' divorce, feminism, QERTY, trans or whatever was fashionable) have all joined the dark side. 

 

At present the wedge-issues by which demonic entry is forced are antiracism and the birdemic.  

Unless your church has explicitly, unambiguously and totally rejected the Big Lies and False Assumptions that drive the antiracism and birdemic issues; then your church has already accepted the primacy of the evil agenda. Your church has joined-with the mass-majority, mass-media and Establishment... Your church has joined the anti-God side of the legions of Satan.  

Unless you cease to live as-if loyalty and obedience to your church were the primary virtues, unless you discern; then you will (like so many tens of millions of other ex-Christians before) surely be led down the path to damnation. 

 

A couple of musical discoveries - Yuan Sheng and Lauri Volpi

 

One cannot always be listening to Glenn Gould playing Bach; plus some of his pieces are excessively experimental and don't work over the long term. In the past, I have generally turned to Andras Schiff for a different and/but excellent way of  performing Bach's keyboard works. Schiff has a very smooth and lyrical, light and sensitive way of playing - as well as deeply thought. 

But just yesterday I stumbled upon a modern Chinese pianist called Yuan Sheng who may turn out to be (only time will tell) my back-up Bach pianist. He has a lyricism and delicacy much like Schiff, but a more clearly articulated (stunningly so!) and rhythmically secure basis. There is clearly a deep musical intelligence at work, evident bot hin the phrasing and the architecture.

Early days yet (and YS doesn't seem to have recorded 'The 48' yet) but I thought I would pass his name on, since he does not seem well known. 

 

Lauri Volpi is one of the acknowledged great operatic tenors of the recording era; but for some reason (that I cannot begin to explain!*) I never knowingly engaged with him until a week or two ago - when I heard him spoken of as The Master in an interview with one of my favourite modern tenors in the lyric Italian style: Alfredo Kraus.  

 

This is truly one of the most remarkable pieces of singing I have heard in the belcanto style - so beautiful that I get an almost reflex 'tearing-up'! 

The production of tone never seems to cease between notes; as if all the notes were linked by an inexhuastible, inaudible, 'glide' of the voice, which floats from note to note. Hear also the control of breathing, to produce effortless long phrases; and the display of what is termed "mezza di voce" in which the volume of a note is increased or diminished smoothly but without any change in tone quality, vibrato or pitch (this is apparently the single most difficult technique in operatic singing). 

Volpi also had immense power right to the top of the normal tenor range, and slightly above - which he did not unleash in this particular aria; although he easily goes up to what I think is a top C# (above top C, the normal highest note for large-voiced tenors) interpolated in the second verse; with beautiful ringing tone - but not at full voice. Apparently his top notes were, when he chose and in real life, louder and more resonant than any other great singer, ever. 

(Note, LV was apparently at his greatest as a singer in the 20s and 30; later he became much less subtle and more showy - although still with impressive power and control). 

*This may be related to the fact that my impression has been that most people, including most professional music critics, talk sheer nonsense when discussing the excellence or otherwise of singers. I must have read LV praised many times in the past; presumably by people whose judgment was worthless. But such praise from Alfredo Kraus (who singled LV out above all other tenors) is a different matter...