Man is a limited being:
1. He is a being among other beings.
2. He is located in space and time.
Therefore, only a limited part of the total universe can be given to man at any time - understanding is serial.
In sum, Man's knowledge is constrained by perspective of time, place and persons.
This may sound like a limitation, but every specific thing is linked with the other parts in all directions - so there is no limit to the possibility of knowledge.
*
Perspective is necessary to freedom; because if our existence were linked to all of reality, and all persons, simultaneously - then there would be no distinction between our-selves and everything else. Anything that happened would pass instantly into everything else - the cosmos would be an undifferentiated unity,
It is due to the specificity of our perspective that things appear single and separate, when in reality nothing is wholly single and separable. And it is this which creates the possibility of free agency by introducing distinctions within the totality.
Thus reality is a polarity: there are real distinctions within the unity; but that which is distinguished cannot ever be separated from the totality.
*
Because the primary basic reality is a unity, communications are not 'a problem'. Cohesion is not a problem. Knowledge is not a problem.
The only 'problems' arise because we can grasp only a corner of reality at one moment - and because we then try to detach this part-of-unity in order to do something with it. For example, if we personally, here-and-now, want to use some grasped-fragment of knowledge to achieve a specific purpose... then this really is a problem.
This is the problem of making a valid distinction into an arbitrary division. All possible divisions are ultimately false - since they are fragments of unity that ignore unity.
But there may be ways of using such false divisions pragmatically, for specific purposes constrained by person, place and time...
All of science (and all applications of mathematics) are working in this arena. All science is perspectival, all science operates with divisions treated asif they were separable.
Therefore all science (all possible science) is false; and all science will - sooner or later, in some place or another, some individual or another - break-down and fail in its specific, intended usages.
Note: The above is my paraphrase of a passage in Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy of Freedom.
Thursday, 31 August 2017
Never connect - do not comunicate
Half of the problems of modern life come from trying to communicate; when what is actually required is that each person grasp reality directly, for himself.
(The other half comes from trying always to exploit - for personal gain - that which is known.)
(The other half comes from trying always to exploit - for personal gain - that which is known.)
How many Christians are atheists? A test...
A lot.
Christians have often claimed that many atheists are actually (deep down...) believers in God; but I suggest the opposite: that here-and-now the problem is that most self-described Christians are really atheists.
How do I know? By application of an insight from Rudolf Steiner, which is that when someone denies the God - that is, denies a Divine Principle in the world - then there is an actual physical defect, sickness, and flaw in that person.
The atheist denies something that he should be able to feel, and feel naturally, simply by means of his actual bodily constitution.
And when someone denies that which gives him a healthy bodily feeling, namely that the world is pervaded by Divinity, then he is a sick man, sick in body.
By this test, as well as the large proportion of explicit atheists, many or most professed Christians are also atheists - and this is an objective, observable fact which is seen in their behaviour: that is, they behave as sufferers from the same physical illness which can be seen in atheists.
The effect of this illness is profound - indeed it accounts for the dominant and striking distinctive features of modernity... that blank, defocused, ungrounded, alienated affect which almost everybody displays (whether covered by a superficial striving, or not).
...This is the behaviour of someone who believes that reality has no meaning, but is merely a combination of change and rigid determinism; and therefore the behaviour of someone who inhabits a world in which only business of an individual is to maintain some kind of emotional adjustment to a senseless situation over the short-term.
This behaviour, characteristic of deep atheism, is the norm; so much the norm, indeed, that little else can be found anywhere - whatever convictions, or lack of conviction, an individual may profess. Just look-around, just speak to people with this in-mind...
By this test I discern that we inhabit a world of atheists, almost entirely.
Our problems go much deeper than we commonly recognise; and 'conversion' to normal Christianity believed in the normal way is grossly inadequate. To profess a belief in God is ineffectual when what is necessary is a new world-view, rebuilt from the ground of fundamental convictions and attitudes, upwards.
Christians have often claimed that many atheists are actually (deep down...) believers in God; but I suggest the opposite: that here-and-now the problem is that most self-described Christians are really atheists.
How do I know? By application of an insight from Rudolf Steiner, which is that when someone denies the God - that is, denies a Divine Principle in the world - then there is an actual physical defect, sickness, and flaw in that person.
The atheist denies something that he should be able to feel, and feel naturally, simply by means of his actual bodily constitution.
And when someone denies that which gives him a healthy bodily feeling, namely that the world is pervaded by Divinity, then he is a sick man, sick in body.
By this test, as well as the large proportion of explicit atheists, many or most professed Christians are also atheists - and this is an objective, observable fact which is seen in their behaviour: that is, they behave as sufferers from the same physical illness which can be seen in atheists.
The effect of this illness is profound - indeed it accounts for the dominant and striking distinctive features of modernity... that blank, defocused, ungrounded, alienated affect which almost everybody displays (whether covered by a superficial striving, or not).
...This is the behaviour of someone who believes that reality has no meaning, but is merely a combination of change and rigid determinism; and therefore the behaviour of someone who inhabits a world in which only business of an individual is to maintain some kind of emotional adjustment to a senseless situation over the short-term.
This behaviour, characteristic of deep atheism, is the norm; so much the norm, indeed, that little else can be found anywhere - whatever convictions, or lack of conviction, an individual may profess. Just look-around, just speak to people with this in-mind...
By this test I discern that we inhabit a world of atheists, almost entirely.
Our problems go much deeper than we commonly recognise; and 'conversion' to normal Christianity believed in the normal way is grossly inadequate. To profess a belief in God is ineffectual when what is necessary is a new world-view, rebuilt from the ground of fundamental convictions and attitudes, upwards.
Wednesday, 30 August 2017
What is old age for?
The current answer is - trying not to be old.
The current mainstream and approved idea of old age is that it ought to be a time of sport, travel, socialising and sex - the greatest compliment to pay an old person is that they seem (look, behave) younger than they actually are.
Thanks to technology and prosperity, old people do indeed - on average and especially at peak - seem younger than their chronological age would suggest - and celebration and assertion of this fact emphasises there is no doubt that being old has no function.
Biologically, of course, senescence (getting old) has indeed no function (at least, not for the individual) - it is merely an accumulation of damage, with a progressive increase in degenerative pathologies, and an increased probability of death.
Socially, old age has no function; since the elderly are less socially-useful than younger people.
Therefore, so far as mainstream secular society is concerned - old age is wholly a bad thing, except insofar as its effects can be compensated, hidden or delayed.
Yet the guilty secret of The West is that it is the oldest society in the history of the world.
*
So, from a spiritual and Christian perspective; what ought to be the function of old age? Well, CG Jung was on the right lines when he said that the last quarter of the archetypal lifespan (of approximately threescore years and ten) was a time for spiritual matters. In an ultimate sense this is so - ageing brings a kind of enforced simplification of the problem of living - as the errors and evasions of younger life becomes less and less viable.
Young people are wrapped-up in their desires or wrapped-up in The World - they are focused on pleasures and distractions.
Age is a simplification of the problem of living, a distillation towards its essence - even the mental changes of age.
Of course, in this corrupt and inverted culture - the facts and duties of age are resisted with extraordinary stubbornness: at resent, old people are no more spiritual than the young, and indeed perhaps less so. There has been a massive abandonment of the proper function and spiritual responsibilities of ageing.
As always, we must consider the matter in terms of each individual person's destiny, and the purpose that we gain important experiences and learn important lessons: the harshness of lives may be (as I say, in some individuals) harsh lessons in life.
For example; Mental decline with age may be a harsh lesson in inner priorities - a stripping away of capacities, that may be trying to teach the sufferer what is ultimately important, and what is not. Such lessons are needed now more than ever before, since so many people have led entire lives of the most extreme superficiality, evasion, worldliness, materialism and spiritual-denial,
All humans are free agents - and we must assume (since God is Good, our Heavenly parent/s, and has created this world for our progression towards divinity) that this is retained - inwardly, and to a sufficient degree - in everyone. In general we cannot understand the reason why things happen-to other people - but we should Not assume that things happen Only because of bad luck or for purely biologically-determined reasons.
In ourselves, and in those we know or love, we can (if we ask in the right spirit) know the workings of destiny at an individual level; we may sometimes know what is intended. From this perspective, the purpose of ageing is often clear enough.
The fact that the purpose is routinely unacknowledged and denied is a tragedy of our petty and trivial, and increasingly damnation-seeking, civilisation and society.
Old Age is therefore a barometer; a society's qualitative understanding-of and attitude-towards old age is a litmus test of its deep spiritual and religious health.
Unless or until we can learn the meaning and purpose of Old Age - not only in general terms but also but in each specific person we love; and in particular our-own-selves - we are indeed lost, adrift, self-damned,
The current mainstream and approved idea of old age is that it ought to be a time of sport, travel, socialising and sex - the greatest compliment to pay an old person is that they seem (look, behave) younger than they actually are.
Thanks to technology and prosperity, old people do indeed - on average and especially at peak - seem younger than their chronological age would suggest - and celebration and assertion of this fact emphasises there is no doubt that being old has no function.
Biologically, of course, senescence (getting old) has indeed no function (at least, not for the individual) - it is merely an accumulation of damage, with a progressive increase in degenerative pathologies, and an increased probability of death.
Socially, old age has no function; since the elderly are less socially-useful than younger people.
Therefore, so far as mainstream secular society is concerned - old age is wholly a bad thing, except insofar as its effects can be compensated, hidden or delayed.
Yet the guilty secret of The West is that it is the oldest society in the history of the world.
*
So, from a spiritual and Christian perspective; what ought to be the function of old age? Well, CG Jung was on the right lines when he said that the last quarter of the archetypal lifespan (of approximately threescore years and ten) was a time for spiritual matters. In an ultimate sense this is so - ageing brings a kind of enforced simplification of the problem of living - as the errors and evasions of younger life becomes less and less viable.
Young people are wrapped-up in their desires or wrapped-up in The World - they are focused on pleasures and distractions.
Age is a simplification of the problem of living, a distillation towards its essence - even the mental changes of age.
Of course, in this corrupt and inverted culture - the facts and duties of age are resisted with extraordinary stubbornness: at resent, old people are no more spiritual than the young, and indeed perhaps less so. There has been a massive abandonment of the proper function and spiritual responsibilities of ageing.
As always, we must consider the matter in terms of each individual person's destiny, and the purpose that we gain important experiences and learn important lessons: the harshness of lives may be (as I say, in some individuals) harsh lessons in life.
For example; Mental decline with age may be a harsh lesson in inner priorities - a stripping away of capacities, that may be trying to teach the sufferer what is ultimately important, and what is not. Such lessons are needed now more than ever before, since so many people have led entire lives of the most extreme superficiality, evasion, worldliness, materialism and spiritual-denial,
All humans are free agents - and we must assume (since God is Good, our Heavenly parent/s, and has created this world for our progression towards divinity) that this is retained - inwardly, and to a sufficient degree - in everyone. In general we cannot understand the reason why things happen-to other people - but we should Not assume that things happen Only because of bad luck or for purely biologically-determined reasons.
In ourselves, and in those we know or love, we can (if we ask in the right spirit) know the workings of destiny at an individual level; we may sometimes know what is intended. From this perspective, the purpose of ageing is often clear enough.
The fact that the purpose is routinely unacknowledged and denied is a tragedy of our petty and trivial, and increasingly damnation-seeking, civilisation and society.
Old Age is therefore a barometer; a society's qualitative understanding-of and attitude-towards old age is a litmus test of its deep spiritual and religious health.
Unless or until we can learn the meaning and purpose of Old Age - not only in general terms but also but in each specific person we love; and in particular our-own-selves - we are indeed lost, adrift, self-damned,
Tuesday, 29 August 2017
Why did God create people? A cognitive explanation
The main reason that God created people was related to love, the desire for children, the desire to raise up these children to (ultimately) full divinity to become co-creators...
But another sliver towards understanding 'why' is related to knowing, to the cognitive effects of creation. For Christians God is a person, a self - hence God has a specific perspective.
I think this is how Christians are supposed to conceptualise God - there is no real scriptural support for the idea of God as impersonal and universal in perspective: the Biblical God has a distinct point of view. Furthermore, this is endorsed (for me) by intuitive reflection - at any rate this is my starting point...
So - God has vast knowledge, vast power... but he has power and knowledge from a perspective. When Men were created, what ensued was a multitude of embryonic mini-gods, each with a perspective; and as theosis continues these persons become more divine.
So there are as many perspectives as their are Men (and angels) - and in some individuals these perspectives have been, and are, developing, evolving, increasing...
Therefore, creation has gone from a uni-perspectival universe (God only) to a multi-perspectival universe (as many perspectives as Men and angels) with each perspective becoming greater in scope and power and depth...
This is an overall increase in knowledge - but what binds these multiple perspectives? Well, they are not synthesised into one perspective (which would be self-defeating) - rather they cohere. What makes the multi-perspectives cohere? Well, that is love.
In sum, the totality of knowledge, of cognitive power, increases with time; but only via love. Love is (to reiterate earlier posts) therefore a metaphysical principle (not merely a feeling) - it is the principle of cohesion in reality.
Love is the principle by which multiple perspectives are harmonised, as a consequence of having the same aim, the same motivation.
And this applies to cognition, as well as to human affection.
But another sliver towards understanding 'why' is related to knowing, to the cognitive effects of creation. For Christians God is a person, a self - hence God has a specific perspective.
I think this is how Christians are supposed to conceptualise God - there is no real scriptural support for the idea of God as impersonal and universal in perspective: the Biblical God has a distinct point of view. Furthermore, this is endorsed (for me) by intuitive reflection - at any rate this is my starting point...
So - God has vast knowledge, vast power... but he has power and knowledge from a perspective. When Men were created, what ensued was a multitude of embryonic mini-gods, each with a perspective; and as theosis continues these persons become more divine.
So there are as many perspectives as their are Men (and angels) - and in some individuals these perspectives have been, and are, developing, evolving, increasing...
Therefore, creation has gone from a uni-perspectival universe (God only) to a multi-perspectival universe (as many perspectives as Men and angels) with each perspective becoming greater in scope and power and depth...
This is an overall increase in knowledge - but what binds these multiple perspectives? Well, they are not synthesised into one perspective (which would be self-defeating) - rather they cohere. What makes the multi-perspectives cohere? Well, that is love.
In sum, the totality of knowledge, of cognitive power, increases with time; but only via love. Love is (to reiterate earlier posts) therefore a metaphysical principle (not merely a feeling) - it is the principle of cohesion in reality.
Love is the principle by which multiple perspectives are harmonised, as a consequence of having the same aim, the same motivation.
And this applies to cognition, as well as to human affection.
Monday, 28 August 2017
Christian faith: The hot coal may be metaphysical - not social
There is a parable about the solitary Christian being like a single glowing coal removed from a fire which becomes dark and cold until replaced in the fire: the single Christian being regarded non-viable and his faith doomed unless or until he is warmed by the community of a church.
But this parable is only a valid analogy when the church is indeed a fire of faith and truth; when the church is cold, dark, dead - then there can be no sustaining of faith.
Indeed matters are much worse than that in most self-identified Christian churches - since the faithful coals are being gathered and extinguished and used for some other (and unChristian) purpose. As when the church leaders chill the church fires, and the resulting dead coals are used to surface a path leading to some Leftist political goal (African economic aid, climate-environmentalism, supporting socialism, encouraging mass immigration, extending the scope of the sexual revolution... whatever).
In modern conditions, in most places, for most Christians, most of the time - there is no social-fire of faith and truth which can warm and sustain them.
What then? Well, a great enemy of faith is incoherence; someone identifies and Christian, tries to be Christian - but some aspect of their belief system is at war with this and they end-up being incrementally corrupted; indeed may end-up being inverted and (overall, on average) anti-Christian.
What are the enemies of faith? Dishonesty is the most significant, neglected enemy of faith - many people, especially among the most educated segment of the population, have jobs that depend on positively asserting untruth, distorting and concealing the truth as they best understand it... This is cumulatively-lethal to Christianity unless it is acknowledged and repented - which seldom happens (instead people excuse themselves and rationalise the necessity of lying).
Another example is allowing left wing politics to underpin Christianity, instead of the other way around - to take politics more seriously than religion. Examples are legion - but one would be that the Church of England allows its clergy to deny the divinity of Christ/ the virgin birth/ the resurrection/ and be atheists and communists (which is an intrinsically atheist ideology) and to advocate sex not-between a husband and wife --- but CofE priests are not permitted to be members of (legal, semi-mainstream, moderate) English or British nationalist political parties. This demonstrates that the CofE leadership is rooted-in leftist politics, and not Christianity. Organisationally, it is not a true church, but a fake church.
(The same applies to most other mainstream denominations as much or more; I use the CofE as my general example because I know it best and am officially a member. And despite that the specific church I support is on-the-whole faithful and alive like a fire, and does sustain faith for several hundred people, in the style of the parable. Yet there are significant incoherences of belief and practise, and these do weaken and dissipate members.)
At the very least, to be a church member and a serious Christian requires an attitude of extreme suspicion, of mistrust - since otherwise one will likely be led-astray.
I would therefore revise the analogy of the coal and the fire to apply to individuals and their core beliefs; instead of individuals in their social organisations. I mean, if a specific Christian belief is a glowing coal, then it needs to be surrounded by other glowing coals of Christian belief in order that it does not fade and die.
Christians therefore need to work towards coherence in their beliefs, and to discover and change any beliefs which tend to isolate and chill faith. And each person can only do this for himself or herself - there may be nobody trustworthy such that it can be second-hand. Other people can help with pointers - but most other people are likely to do more harm than good.
In sum, for Christian faith to be strong, resilient and personally-sustaining; we now 'always' need to validate all important aspects of faith for ourselves, by direct knowledge and revelation - through prayer, meditation, contemplation and whatever method works for an individual.
And only by such validation can our faith become coherent and cross-linked and robust-enough to survive in a deviously-hostile world.
But this parable is only a valid analogy when the church is indeed a fire of faith and truth; when the church is cold, dark, dead - then there can be no sustaining of faith.
Indeed matters are much worse than that in most self-identified Christian churches - since the faithful coals are being gathered and extinguished and used for some other (and unChristian) purpose. As when the church leaders chill the church fires, and the resulting dead coals are used to surface a path leading to some Leftist political goal (African economic aid, climate-environmentalism, supporting socialism, encouraging mass immigration, extending the scope of the sexual revolution... whatever).
In modern conditions, in most places, for most Christians, most of the time - there is no social-fire of faith and truth which can warm and sustain them.
What then? Well, a great enemy of faith is incoherence; someone identifies and Christian, tries to be Christian - but some aspect of their belief system is at war with this and they end-up being incrementally corrupted; indeed may end-up being inverted and (overall, on average) anti-Christian.
What are the enemies of faith? Dishonesty is the most significant, neglected enemy of faith - many people, especially among the most educated segment of the population, have jobs that depend on positively asserting untruth, distorting and concealing the truth as they best understand it... This is cumulatively-lethal to Christianity unless it is acknowledged and repented - which seldom happens (instead people excuse themselves and rationalise the necessity of lying).
Another example is allowing left wing politics to underpin Christianity, instead of the other way around - to take politics more seriously than religion. Examples are legion - but one would be that the Church of England allows its clergy to deny the divinity of Christ/ the virgin birth/ the resurrection/ and be atheists and communists (which is an intrinsically atheist ideology) and to advocate sex not-between a husband and wife --- but CofE priests are not permitted to be members of (legal, semi-mainstream, moderate) English or British nationalist political parties. This demonstrates that the CofE leadership is rooted-in leftist politics, and not Christianity. Organisationally, it is not a true church, but a fake church.
(The same applies to most other mainstream denominations as much or more; I use the CofE as my general example because I know it best and am officially a member. And despite that the specific church I support is on-the-whole faithful and alive like a fire, and does sustain faith for several hundred people, in the style of the parable. Yet there are significant incoherences of belief and practise, and these do weaken and dissipate members.)
At the very least, to be a church member and a serious Christian requires an attitude of extreme suspicion, of mistrust - since otherwise one will likely be led-astray.
I would therefore revise the analogy of the coal and the fire to apply to individuals and their core beliefs; instead of individuals in their social organisations. I mean, if a specific Christian belief is a glowing coal, then it needs to be surrounded by other glowing coals of Christian belief in order that it does not fade and die.
Christians therefore need to work towards coherence in their beliefs, and to discover and change any beliefs which tend to isolate and chill faith. And each person can only do this for himself or herself - there may be nobody trustworthy such that it can be second-hand. Other people can help with pointers - but most other people are likely to do more harm than good.
In sum, for Christian faith to be strong, resilient and personally-sustaining; we now 'always' need to validate all important aspects of faith for ourselves, by direct knowledge and revelation - through prayer, meditation, contemplation and whatever method works for an individual.
And only by such validation can our faith become coherent and cross-linked and robust-enough to survive in a deviously-hostile world.
Sunday, 27 August 2017
The problem of Susan in the Narnia Chronicles
Some insights on why Susan Pevensey did not return to Narnia in The Last Battle, from William Wildblood at Albion Awakening.
Would you describe yourself as a person without spirituality? If so, you are wrong
If you suppose you are a person without a spiritual bone in your body you are wrong - you are merely unaware of what is happening in your thinking; and perhaps (as a theoretical act) prone to deny its validity.
You may suppose that you live merely by 'evidence', by the evidence of what is actually-there; but a few moments of reflection should remind you that perceptions-as-such have no meaning.
If spiritual is understood to refer to anything which comes from outwith the five-sense perceptions (whether or not amplified with scientific machinery) then you are spiritual, because the meaning of all perception comes from somewhere that is not perceived.
Ideas, concepts, all kinds of understanding... these are not perceived - so, where do they come from? Maybe you suppose they are 'subjective', they comes from the minds of people? Yes, but... it all depends on what you mean by subjective...
Real-reality, in actual practice, is always and everywhere and by everybody made-sense-of with - or by means of - the human mind.
So, we are not cut-off from the world outside, we are not cut-off from other people - we are not cut off from anything that we think about because we are involved-in making sense of everything that is made sense of.
And that also means that whenever there is agreement between people as to what is real - this is due to agreement in their minds. We share all ways of making sense of the world - indeed we could not even discuss the matter, we could not even disagree about interpretations! - unless we shared a basic understanding: shared a basic way of making-sense of our perceptions.
This is where things start getting interesting... because if there is any real-reality, then it means that the concepts, ideas, understandings must be objective - or else there would be as many realities as there are people, and each person's reality would change with age, mood, illnesses, and a thousand other factors.
So this analysis brings us beyond evidence and to metaphysics - to the point of basic assumptions which we must make on the basis of intuition, inner convictions - whatever you want to call it. Because we are, I think, forced to decide whether this is a world in which real, genuine, understanding is possible - or whether it is not.
If you, personally, assume that understanding is possible, then you are a spiritual person - whether you know it or not, whether you admit it or not.
(And if not - then why are you reading this?)
Note: The above argument is adapted from Rudolf Steiner's early philosophical works, especially The Philosophy of Freedom (aka The philosophy of Spiritual Activity/ Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path).
You may suppose that you live merely by 'evidence', by the evidence of what is actually-there; but a few moments of reflection should remind you that perceptions-as-such have no meaning.
If spiritual is understood to refer to anything which comes from outwith the five-sense perceptions (whether or not amplified with scientific machinery) then you are spiritual, because the meaning of all perception comes from somewhere that is not perceived.
Ideas, concepts, all kinds of understanding... these are not perceived - so, where do they come from? Maybe you suppose they are 'subjective', they comes from the minds of people? Yes, but... it all depends on what you mean by subjective...
Real-reality, in actual practice, is always and everywhere and by everybody made-sense-of with - or by means of - the human mind.
So, we are not cut-off from the world outside, we are not cut-off from other people - we are not cut off from anything that we think about because we are involved-in making sense of everything that is made sense of.
And that also means that whenever there is agreement between people as to what is real - this is due to agreement in their minds. We share all ways of making sense of the world - indeed we could not even discuss the matter, we could not even disagree about interpretations! - unless we shared a basic understanding: shared a basic way of making-sense of our perceptions.
This is where things start getting interesting... because if there is any real-reality, then it means that the concepts, ideas, understandings must be objective - or else there would be as many realities as there are people, and each person's reality would change with age, mood, illnesses, and a thousand other factors.
So this analysis brings us beyond evidence and to metaphysics - to the point of basic assumptions which we must make on the basis of intuition, inner convictions - whatever you want to call it. Because we are, I think, forced to decide whether this is a world in which real, genuine, understanding is possible - or whether it is not.
If you, personally, assume that understanding is possible, then you are a spiritual person - whether you know it or not, whether you admit it or not.
(And if not - then why are you reading this?)
Note: The above argument is adapted from Rudolf Steiner's early philosophical works, especially The Philosophy of Freedom (aka The philosophy of Spiritual Activity/ Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path).
Saturday, 26 August 2017
What was created first?
Owen Barfield argued, many times in several ways, that creation was first of the spirit, the non-material - and that only later did matter develop/ evolve.
In a sense, perceptible matter was concentrated- and condensed-from spirit.
Also, that consciousness came before matter: consciousness was present before bodies.
In the beginning there was spirit and consciousness...
Since I first took this idea on board about three years ago I have realised that it is necessary for coherence; and therefore that the standard 'scientific' view taught now (of matter first and consciousness later - spirit late or never), is one that blocks a valid metaphysics.
Note: The best place to read this argument is probably in Barfield's philosophical Saving the Appearances, or his Platonic dialogue World's Apart - depending on literary taste.
In a sense, perceptible matter was concentrated- and condensed-from spirit.
Also, that consciousness came before matter: consciousness was present before bodies.
In the beginning there was spirit and consciousness...
Since I first took this idea on board about three years ago I have realised that it is necessary for coherence; and therefore that the standard 'scientific' view taught now (of matter first and consciousness later - spirit late or never), is one that blocks a valid metaphysics.
Note: The best place to read this argument is probably in Barfield's philosophical Saving the Appearances, or his Platonic dialogue World's Apart - depending on literary taste.
Friday, 25 August 2017
A sketch of an abstract autobiography of consciousness and Christianity ('Bildung')
The German concept of Bildung refers to the partly experiential, partly willed, potentially destined; developmental unfolding of a person from the advent of adulthood in adolescence to some kind of viable spiritual maturity. In its highest form it describes a seeking for 'the answer' to living, and its finding (to at least some significant extent).
The proper form of Bildung is therefore some kind of linear, biographical account - necessarily in an abstracted, often actually fictionalised, form - and always, underlying, there must be autobiography: a true and honest work of Bildung must be rooted in personal experience or powerful imagination of the phases depicted and described.
Such a work only became both possible and necessary with the advent of Romanticism in the late 1700s - and the Bildungsroman, the novel-of-Bildung. This hit the European mind with Goethe's Wilhelm Meister novel, and has been theorised by many philosophers since.
A debased modern offspring of the Bildungsroman is the coming-of-age movie or series, which typically focuses almost wholly on sex. Indeed, the post-mid-twentieth century cult of youth seems to be a selective, distorted, fixated conceptualisation of the interest in the process of personal transformation.
*
It all began for me in my middle teens and associated with the area of Bristol which is centred on College Green - beside the City Library and Cathedral; and runs up Park Street past coffee shops and esoteric suppliers to George's Bookshop. JRR Tolkien was the first and enduring talisman, Robert Graves another, Thoreau followed soon after. There was a deep dissatisfaction with the thinness and futility of modern life, and a yearning for something deeper, more mythic.
This was the continuation into adulthood of that Golden Thread of the most intense, significant and memorable events and impressions of childhood.
Since then certain places have drawn me repeatedly - often with obscure reason - to live, to stay for holidays, to visit - while other places, books, music, ideas, themes, activities - theoretically, perhaps, better suited? - when experienced and lived left me... well, perhaps diverted; but at depth unmoved; they failed to ignite the fire which turned out to be so essential, and lacking which life was drained of meaning.
Life was a zig-zag of trial and error; knowing better what was wrong than what was right - indeed (in retrospect) I certainly lacked any correct or clear understanding of what was right: what I was and should be aiming at, and why. There was certainly, I see now, a lot less 'luck' in it than I supposed at the time; and much more of destiny, and consequences.
(Making mistakes, and suffering for them - making partially correct decisions but misunderstanding and following false leads until I bogged down in the slough of despond.)
There was, in fact, no possibility of getting anywhere until I became a Christian: the Christian context was vital. But, after becoming a Christian, there was (for me) no possibility of getting very far until I could escape the vitality-draining sensation and conviction of suffocation and constraint, the 'school dinners' aspect of churches etc, which came from my trying to accept 'on trust' and without personal revelation (without working through for myself) the spiritual authority of actual Christian institutions.
In sum, there was an absolute necessity that my Christianity be based upon personal conviction and personal experience; and that this was known to be non-arbitrary, indeed the ultimate authority.
In sum, I remained true to the aspirations of Romanticism, but needed to move beyond its errors: in particular the error of aiming for the past, at tradition. I explored this option, in imagination, to a possible conclusion, and found that it was mistaken and unacceptable in multiple ways, as well as being incoherent here and now.
The key was provided, in the past three or four years, by Mormon theology, the work of Owen Barfield, Rudolf Steiner's early philosophy, and William Arkle's overall context: all of these remain crucial, and continue to yield depths and delights; motivation, direction and purpose.
Key elements needed to come together, among which are the following... that there is a universal realm of thinking (pure thinking, primary thinking of the real/ true/ divine self), of think-ing, conceptualised as a dynamic activity that need perpetually to create-itself; and does so from polarities that are regenerated.
This conceptualisation means that our personal thinking is involved in this dynamic process of universal thinking - so that such thinking is true and universal reality. We participate in reality by this thinking - which means that we both experience and know reality as it already is; and at the same time from our unique perspective (and because reality is always re-making) we are reshaping the context of that universality. We add our personal selves to the multiple polarities that maintain the livingness and development of reality.
Since we may (in principle, although perhaps seldom or never in actual practice) participate in reality; then all problems and paradoxes of 'communication' are abolished - all concerns about the limitations, distortions, and misinterpretations of communication are deleted; all fears that there is no real and reliable communication... all these are superseded by the actuality of direct knowing, including direct person-to-person and person-to-God knowing.
So there is the incremental, then sudden, dawning of clarity and comprehension which comes as the conclusion of a Bildungsroman; and the motivated purpose that points forward to more Bildung. I
Isn't this what most thoughtful persons have wanted since Romanticism? - if they are honest with themselves, and are able to put aside paralysing fears? I mean a general understanding of their destiny and purpose, which is based in the reality of God, and aligned in accordance with God's hopes and plans; yet unique, personal, needing me-specifically?
Isn't this what is implied by 'the meaning of life?'
But/ And we also see that each of us must attain this meaning of life for himself or herself - it cannot be attained at second hand: certainly not for us here and now. Thus Bildung remains, as it has been for more than 200 years, the quintessential Western form.
The proper form of Bildung is therefore some kind of linear, biographical account - necessarily in an abstracted, often actually fictionalised, form - and always, underlying, there must be autobiography: a true and honest work of Bildung must be rooted in personal experience or powerful imagination of the phases depicted and described.
Such a work only became both possible and necessary with the advent of Romanticism in the late 1700s - and the Bildungsroman, the novel-of-Bildung. This hit the European mind with Goethe's Wilhelm Meister novel, and has been theorised by many philosophers since.
A debased modern offspring of the Bildungsroman is the coming-of-age movie or series, which typically focuses almost wholly on sex. Indeed, the post-mid-twentieth century cult of youth seems to be a selective, distorted, fixated conceptualisation of the interest in the process of personal transformation.
*
It all began for me in my middle teens and associated with the area of Bristol which is centred on College Green - beside the City Library and Cathedral; and runs up Park Street past coffee shops and esoteric suppliers to George's Bookshop. JRR Tolkien was the first and enduring talisman, Robert Graves another, Thoreau followed soon after. There was a deep dissatisfaction with the thinness and futility of modern life, and a yearning for something deeper, more mythic.
This was the continuation into adulthood of that Golden Thread of the most intense, significant and memorable events and impressions of childhood.
Since then certain places have drawn me repeatedly - often with obscure reason - to live, to stay for holidays, to visit - while other places, books, music, ideas, themes, activities - theoretically, perhaps, better suited? - when experienced and lived left me... well, perhaps diverted; but at depth unmoved; they failed to ignite the fire which turned out to be so essential, and lacking which life was drained of meaning.
Life was a zig-zag of trial and error; knowing better what was wrong than what was right - indeed (in retrospect) I certainly lacked any correct or clear understanding of what was right: what I was and should be aiming at, and why. There was certainly, I see now, a lot less 'luck' in it than I supposed at the time; and much more of destiny, and consequences.
(Making mistakes, and suffering for them - making partially correct decisions but misunderstanding and following false leads until I bogged down in the slough of despond.)
There was, in fact, no possibility of getting anywhere until I became a Christian: the Christian context was vital. But, after becoming a Christian, there was (for me) no possibility of getting very far until I could escape the vitality-draining sensation and conviction of suffocation and constraint, the 'school dinners' aspect of churches etc, which came from my trying to accept 'on trust' and without personal revelation (without working through for myself) the spiritual authority of actual Christian institutions.
In sum, there was an absolute necessity that my Christianity be based upon personal conviction and personal experience; and that this was known to be non-arbitrary, indeed the ultimate authority.
In sum, I remained true to the aspirations of Romanticism, but needed to move beyond its errors: in particular the error of aiming for the past, at tradition. I explored this option, in imagination, to a possible conclusion, and found that it was mistaken and unacceptable in multiple ways, as well as being incoherent here and now.
The key was provided, in the past three or four years, by Mormon theology, the work of Owen Barfield, Rudolf Steiner's early philosophy, and William Arkle's overall context: all of these remain crucial, and continue to yield depths and delights; motivation, direction and purpose.
Key elements needed to come together, among which are the following... that there is a universal realm of thinking (pure thinking, primary thinking of the real/ true/ divine self), of think-ing, conceptualised as a dynamic activity that need perpetually to create-itself; and does so from polarities that are regenerated.
This conceptualisation means that our personal thinking is involved in this dynamic process of universal thinking - so that such thinking is true and universal reality. We participate in reality by this thinking - which means that we both experience and know reality as it already is; and at the same time from our unique perspective (and because reality is always re-making) we are reshaping the context of that universality. We add our personal selves to the multiple polarities that maintain the livingness and development of reality.
Since we may (in principle, although perhaps seldom or never in actual practice) participate in reality; then all problems and paradoxes of 'communication' are abolished - all concerns about the limitations, distortions, and misinterpretations of communication are deleted; all fears that there is no real and reliable communication... all these are superseded by the actuality of direct knowing, including direct person-to-person and person-to-God knowing.
So there is the incremental, then sudden, dawning of clarity and comprehension which comes as the conclusion of a Bildungsroman; and the motivated purpose that points forward to more Bildung. I
Isn't this what most thoughtful persons have wanted since Romanticism? - if they are honest with themselves, and are able to put aside paralysing fears? I mean a general understanding of their destiny and purpose, which is based in the reality of God, and aligned in accordance with God's hopes and plans; yet unique, personal, needing me-specifically?
Isn't this what is implied by 'the meaning of life?'
But/ And we also see that each of us must attain this meaning of life for himself or herself - it cannot be attained at second hand: certainly not for us here and now. Thus Bildung remains, as it has been for more than 200 years, the quintessential Western form.
Thursday, 24 August 2017
An alternative explanatory model to explain reincarnation-type experiences.
Thoreau and Walden Pond, depicted by NC Wyeth
My understanding is that we began (pre-mortal) life as spirits, each of whom can trace their origin eternally; at some point we became sons and daughters of God (that is, of Heavenly Parents); and at some later point we were incarnated when these spirits took-on bodies.Thus, (with a few exceptions, probably) I believe that this is our one-and-only incarnate mortal life.
(To complete the sketch: when we die the spirit is severed from the body; and then we are resurrected with immortal bodies.)
I explain the typical experiences and memories that are usually taken as pointing towards reincarnation with previous earthly lives; as being actual occurrences of our pre-mortal spiritual existence - when we were a type of 'angel', each of us engaged in some distinctive way with work in God's creation.
So, when we have a sense that we really were present at some time and place in earth's history (for example) it is possible that we really were there, as pre-mortal spirits. We were not a specific historical person, but may have been present and intimately-involved with the divine destiny related to some people, some era, some location...
This may well explain my own very solid and long-term fascination and empathy for a few very specific places, times and persons; for which I seem to have memories of a spiritual, aspirational 'atmospheric' nature - but no solid, specific physical details.
Three examples are the English Lake District (specifically around Keswick) at the time of the Lake Poets such as Coleridge, Southey and Wordsworth; Concord, Massachusetts at the time of Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott; and Oxford at the time of The Inklings (especially Tolkien and the Lewis brothers).
Just to clarify, I do not feel any special identification with any of these individuals; but I do feel a strong identification with their core spiritual-intellectual aspirations and efforts.
Taken together, all of these make an obvious theme of romanticism, of escaping 'modern' alienation and breaking from materialism into a (mythic) spiritual awareness.
Despite the fact that this theme goes back to my middle teenage years, long before I was a Christian, and long before I could articulate this theme (which has, indeed, happened only with the past few years) - this is, and always has been, my most deeply-cherished theme and hope. And becoming aware of it - explicitly, and in a coherent fashion - is extremely encouraging, energising and orientating.
Of course, it is possible to write-off this notion as a wish-fulfilment fantasy, because it is based upon subjective conviction. About this I have nothing to say: I merely state my own understanding. The value is personal - my understanding of my situation is not necessarily or any interest or relevance to other people, especially strangers.
But you may yourself have a different set of fascinations, which may yield a different impression of pre-mortal concerns; and this may lead-onto a clarity about your business here-and-now, in this mortal life - the essence of what you, personally, are 'here-for'.
Wednesday, 23 August 2017
What is real freedom? How do you know for sure if you are free?
Freedom is to be found in thinking, primarily (since action is constrained) - or, more exactly, from thinking of a certain type - but most thought is not free.
Thus, each man is born with potential for freedom - but will never or seldom actually be free unless or until he learns it, does it, and knows when he does it (learns the nature of freedom, learns to be free, and strives actually to be free - in awareness of doing so).
Freedom is divine - it is a property of divinity; and Men are free only because (and insofar as) they are gods.
What kind of gods are men? Two kinds of god (or god in two ways). We are 'children of God' - therefore first we are of embryonic god-nature (else we could not be children of God), and secondly we have God-within-us, parentally: by inheritance. To put it differently, we are generically-gods because we have God-in-us, and we are also uniquely-gods because we have something in us which is eternally existent and was not created.
I mean - we were eternally existent before our mortal lives, and before we became children of god - and it is this unique divinity in which our capacity for freedom is rooted. I nother words, God created us by shaping our pre-existent selves; but God did not create us utterly (or else; being entirely made by God, we would not and could not be free).
For us, as individual persons, to be free is to think actively from-our-selves (and not merely passively in response neither to stimuli, nor from God (either as divine input or divine programming).
So, a free thought comes from our unique and eternal divine self, and is not determined by anything else (although it may be influenced by many other things - but any influence is not the free thought's primary origin).
To make sense of the above - the self must be a 'given'; the self needs to be understood as something characteristic and unique in its nature which can give rise to thoughts from that nature, and from nothing else.
(Thus free thoughts are not merely random - randomness is not freedom. Free thoughts are thoughts which originate in our-selves.)
Even if most of our thoughts are not from that unique self, it must be possible for such thoughts to arise; and only such thoughts are free.
A person might live out their life and have no free thoughts - it is at least imaginable. Another person might have free thoughts - but never be aware of the fact.
But if one can imagine freedom in thinking, then one can potentially be free; and one can know that freedom when it occurs. And nothing is more sure than that knowledge.
(Now, you can answer the questions in the title.)
Thus, each man is born with potential for freedom - but will never or seldom actually be free unless or until he learns it, does it, and knows when he does it (learns the nature of freedom, learns to be free, and strives actually to be free - in awareness of doing so).
Freedom is divine - it is a property of divinity; and Men are free only because (and insofar as) they are gods.
What kind of gods are men? Two kinds of god (or god in two ways). We are 'children of God' - therefore first we are of embryonic god-nature (else we could not be children of God), and secondly we have God-within-us, parentally: by inheritance. To put it differently, we are generically-gods because we have God-in-us, and we are also uniquely-gods because we have something in us which is eternally existent and was not created.
I mean - we were eternally existent before our mortal lives, and before we became children of god - and it is this unique divinity in which our capacity for freedom is rooted. I nother words, God created us by shaping our pre-existent selves; but God did not create us utterly (or else; being entirely made by God, we would not and could not be free).
For us, as individual persons, to be free is to think actively from-our-selves (and not merely passively in response neither to stimuli, nor from God (either as divine input or divine programming).
So, a free thought comes from our unique and eternal divine self, and is not determined by anything else (although it may be influenced by many other things - but any influence is not the free thought's primary origin).
To make sense of the above - the self must be a 'given'; the self needs to be understood as something characteristic and unique in its nature which can give rise to thoughts from that nature, and from nothing else.
(Thus free thoughts are not merely random - randomness is not freedom. Free thoughts are thoughts which originate in our-selves.)
Even if most of our thoughts are not from that unique self, it must be possible for such thoughts to arise; and only such thoughts are free.
A person might live out their life and have no free thoughts - it is at least imaginable. Another person might have free thoughts - but never be aware of the fact.
But if one can imagine freedom in thinking, then one can potentially be free; and one can know that freedom when it occurs. And nothing is more sure than that knowledge.
(Now, you can answer the questions in the title.)
CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien - writing styles compared
Lewis was a sprinter capable of short-middle distance races; Tolkien was a long-distance runner.
Lewis wrote and published far, far more good stuff than JRR Tolkien; but he never could have written a book of the length, complexity and excellence even of The Hobbit - never mind the Lord of the Rings...
Tolkien could 'hold' a work in his mind for months, years, decades... but the timescale Lewis was comfortable with was more on the level of hours, days or weeks - and then he wanted to move-on to some other project.
More at The Notion Club Papers: an Inklings Blog.
Lewis wrote and published far, far more good stuff than JRR Tolkien; but he never could have written a book of the length, complexity and excellence even of The Hobbit - never mind the Lord of the Rings...
Tolkien could 'hold' a work in his mind for months, years, decades... but the timescale Lewis was comfortable with was more on the level of hours, days or weeks - and then he wanted to move-on to some other project.
More at The Notion Club Papers: an Inklings Blog.
Pollution redefined - from broad and humanly-evaluated to physico-chemical measurements
The corruption and inversion of the middle-20th century 'back-to-the land'/ arts and crafts/ distributist/ 'ecology' movement into what it is now (i.e. a massive modern state/ bureaucratic/ billionaire-CEO -led excuse for ramping-up total population, monitoring and control, while converting the environment into a built-up and soul-destroying suburbia) can be seen in the redefinition of pollution from something evaluated by individual human beings into a merely physico-chemical measurement.
Pollution used to be broadly understood as including the full range of the remote human perceptions: vision, hearing, and smell. The evaluation was how sensory inputs affected an average, normal, impartial human being.
So, several decades ago, pollution implicitly (and it did not need to be spelt-out) included vile, monstrous and gigantic modern architecture and institutions - yet nowadays the buildings are bigger and more brutal than ever, and the same applies by orders of magnitude to modern institutions, corporations, governments, charities, schools and colleges - all of them vast, depersonalised ant-hills of mindless/ spiteful/ selfish officials either 'following orders' or else lining their own pockets and gratifying their own appetites. The shrinking countryside is sliced with roads and blighted with houses, crammed with people, ever-larger trucks, ever-increasingly studded with gigantic 'wind farms'.
Pollution used to incorporate noise - the ideal was a quieter world. But now the noise of traffic (especially), building works, amplified music, low-flying aircraft is louder than ever. On a typical city street, one must shout to be heard (adding to the pollution). So depraved are we, that most people fill their brains with further noise from their mobile media - recorded music, conversations, anything will do... (Perhaps they are trying to drown out the pervasive noise?) Anyway, none of this 'counts' as pollution nowadays.
Environmental damage used to include people - great masses, crowds, gatherings, concentrations of people.. But these are now defined as Good: modern Greens promote rallies, protests, and (especially) festivals - and the aim is to get many thousands of people together in one place; preferably shouting, chanting, making noise; and in general behaving as if they were a herd rather than as individuals. (Herds are much, much easier to control than individuals.)
Consider the idea of a polluted river - half a century ago a polluted river was one that was polluted as evaluated by a human being: the water was an unnatural colour, covered by froth, it smelled horrible - it sickened the stomach.
But now the paradigm of modern pollution is Carbon Dioxide! A natural product of all animals and a food for green plants; invisible, having no smell - and we have absolutely no idea of carbon dioxide concentrations unless we are told (whether or not accurately) by scientists working for state bureaucracies... But, wait a minute! Didn't they used to be The Problem?
And how about the monomaniacal obsession of modern environmentalists - Anthropogenic CO2 caused Global Warming? How do we know this is happening? Why, only because The Experts tell us it is happening. And based on their chemical measurements of carbon dioxide 'pollution' and the physical measurements - derived by vast teams of institutionalised technicians and statisticians, using various inputs of 'corrected' data from modern electronic devices, satellites and so forth. But, wait a minute! Didn't that stuff used to be The Problem?
In sum - pollution used to be obvious to everybody; now we are told what 'counts' as pollution and what does not, we are told whether it is getting better or worse - and we have to be told because otherwise pollution (by its modern definition) is imperceptible to human beings.
And the flip-side is that the blatant fact of you and I, as human beings, experiencing ever-increasing industrialisation, artificiality, manipulation and control, invasiveness, massification, brutality, visceral repulsiveness and vileness and the like; well, are these are ignored, trivialised or denied because they fall outside of the officially-defined, mostly chemical - but also physical, measurements.
Pollution used to be broadly understood as including the full range of the remote human perceptions: vision, hearing, and smell. The evaluation was how sensory inputs affected an average, normal, impartial human being.
So, several decades ago, pollution implicitly (and it did not need to be spelt-out) included vile, monstrous and gigantic modern architecture and institutions - yet nowadays the buildings are bigger and more brutal than ever, and the same applies by orders of magnitude to modern institutions, corporations, governments, charities, schools and colleges - all of them vast, depersonalised ant-hills of mindless/ spiteful/ selfish officials either 'following orders' or else lining their own pockets and gratifying their own appetites. The shrinking countryside is sliced with roads and blighted with houses, crammed with people, ever-larger trucks, ever-increasingly studded with gigantic 'wind farms'.
Pollution used to incorporate noise - the ideal was a quieter world. But now the noise of traffic (especially), building works, amplified music, low-flying aircraft is louder than ever. On a typical city street, one must shout to be heard (adding to the pollution). So depraved are we, that most people fill their brains with further noise from their mobile media - recorded music, conversations, anything will do... (Perhaps they are trying to drown out the pervasive noise?) Anyway, none of this 'counts' as pollution nowadays.
Environmental damage used to include people - great masses, crowds, gatherings, concentrations of people.. But these are now defined as Good: modern Greens promote rallies, protests, and (especially) festivals - and the aim is to get many thousands of people together in one place; preferably shouting, chanting, making noise; and in general behaving as if they were a herd rather than as individuals. (Herds are much, much easier to control than individuals.)
Consider the idea of a polluted river - half a century ago a polluted river was one that was polluted as evaluated by a human being: the water was an unnatural colour, covered by froth, it smelled horrible - it sickened the stomach.
But now the paradigm of modern pollution is Carbon Dioxide! A natural product of all animals and a food for green plants; invisible, having no smell - and we have absolutely no idea of carbon dioxide concentrations unless we are told (whether or not accurately) by scientists working for state bureaucracies... But, wait a minute! Didn't they used to be The Problem?
And how about the monomaniacal obsession of modern environmentalists - Anthropogenic CO2 caused Global Warming? How do we know this is happening? Why, only because The Experts tell us it is happening. And based on their chemical measurements of carbon dioxide 'pollution' and the physical measurements - derived by vast teams of institutionalised technicians and statisticians, using various inputs of 'corrected' data from modern electronic devices, satellites and so forth. But, wait a minute! Didn't that stuff used to be The Problem?
In sum - pollution used to be obvious to everybody; now we are told what 'counts' as pollution and what does not, we are told whether it is getting better or worse - and we have to be told because otherwise pollution (by its modern definition) is imperceptible to human beings.
And the flip-side is that the blatant fact of you and I, as human beings, experiencing ever-increasing industrialisation, artificiality, manipulation and control, invasiveness, massification, brutality, visceral repulsiveness and vileness and the like; well, are these are ignored, trivialised or denied because they fall outside of the officially-defined, mostly chemical - but also physical, measurements.
Tuesday, 22 August 2017
Nightmare consequences of assuming the exclusive validity of the Brain-Thinking model
The problem with Brain-Thinking - the mind as brain as information-processor - as I described it yesterday, is not that it is utterly false. It is not false - it describes well many aspects of thinking.
The problem is that, firstly, it is merely a model - hence a partial truth: necessarily incomplete and distorted; and, secondly, that Brain-Thinking has captured belief in public discourse to such an extent that other understandings of thinking are assumed to be, not merely false: but impossible. Thirdly, following-on from monopolisation of public discourse - the assumption has invaded and colonised the mind itself.
Because people have come to assume (assume, mostly without thinking) that Brain-Thinking is the only possible model of thinking; Brain-Thinking has become a self-fulfilling assumption. Any thinking which does not fit the model of the mind as a biological-computer is regarded as childishly-mistaken or actively-delusional.
Since people do not wish to regard themselves as dumb or deluded; this has, over time, meant that our culture has restricted first its communications about thinking, then later (and increasingly) actual thinking itself, to a form which fits within the Brain-Thinking model.
In other words, actual thinking is now (mostly) restricted to automatic and externally-determined processing of information derived from sensory inputs (or from memories of sensory inputs). Actual thinking has become passive. People regard themselves as functioning like computers, driven by inputs in accordance with their processing software.
The possibilities of human change are increasingly seen in a transhumanist frame; where improvements to Men are conceptualised in terms of re-programming, or being enhanced by upgrades.
It seems quite natural to younger generations that the essence of a person could - in principle, and 'soon', they assume, in practice - be down-loaded from the biological-computer of the human brain into a silicon computer; or even translated to pure information, encoded in whatever convenient form is available (binary code stored in a hard drive, or captured in a single complex artifact).
This is, indeed, a standard current trope of 'immortality' - that our-selves might live forever in the 'purest' essence of a characteristic pattern of information-processing.
Other types of thinking, especially Primary Thinking (for example genuine creativity or intuition, direct knowing, telepathic phenomena etc.) is either re-conceptualised into forms of information processing (which abolishes even the possibility of real creativity, intuition, direct knowing, 'telepathy'), or else they are rejected outright as naive or exploitative obsolete formulations - now superseded...
That Brain-Thinking is the only possible thinking has therefore passed swiftly from being an assumption - and an assumption which would be impossible to prove; into being treated as a fact: a fact-supported-by-overwhelming-evidence.
In other words, the exclusive truth of Brain-Thinking is (like the theory of evolution by natural selection) an example of metaphysics masquerading as a scientific discovery. As such, it is tyrannical - because a metaphysical assumption can never be disproved by any observation or experiment - since all possible (all evidentially-allowable) observations and experiments are interpreted within the metaphysical framework.
Consequently, many modern people are trapped by their assumptions into inhabiting a world of experience framed exclusively by Brain-Thinking - a wholly-determined world, with no possibility of freedom; a world which excludes the possibility of any reality beyond the five senses.
And - given inevitable imperfections and errors in bio-processing and memory; this is also a 'relativistic' world in which we can never be sure of anything.
In other words, an inescapable nightmare world; and a mind-set that makes it possible (for the first time in history) for rulers really to manipulate the thinking of everybody, forever.
(My echo of Orwell's phrase from 1984 is deliberate.)
The problem is that, firstly, it is merely a model - hence a partial truth: necessarily incomplete and distorted; and, secondly, that Brain-Thinking has captured belief in public discourse to such an extent that other understandings of thinking are assumed to be, not merely false: but impossible. Thirdly, following-on from monopolisation of public discourse - the assumption has invaded and colonised the mind itself.
Because people have come to assume (assume, mostly without thinking) that Brain-Thinking is the only possible model of thinking; Brain-Thinking has become a self-fulfilling assumption. Any thinking which does not fit the model of the mind as a biological-computer is regarded as childishly-mistaken or actively-delusional.
Since people do not wish to regard themselves as dumb or deluded; this has, over time, meant that our culture has restricted first its communications about thinking, then later (and increasingly) actual thinking itself, to a form which fits within the Brain-Thinking model.
In other words, actual thinking is now (mostly) restricted to automatic and externally-determined processing of information derived from sensory inputs (or from memories of sensory inputs). Actual thinking has become passive. People regard themselves as functioning like computers, driven by inputs in accordance with their processing software.
The possibilities of human change are increasingly seen in a transhumanist frame; where improvements to Men are conceptualised in terms of re-programming, or being enhanced by upgrades.
It seems quite natural to younger generations that the essence of a person could - in principle, and 'soon', they assume, in practice - be down-loaded from the biological-computer of the human brain into a silicon computer; or even translated to pure information, encoded in whatever convenient form is available (binary code stored in a hard drive, or captured in a single complex artifact).
This is, indeed, a standard current trope of 'immortality' - that our-selves might live forever in the 'purest' essence of a characteristic pattern of information-processing.
Other types of thinking, especially Primary Thinking (for example genuine creativity or intuition, direct knowing, telepathic phenomena etc.) is either re-conceptualised into forms of information processing (which abolishes even the possibility of real creativity, intuition, direct knowing, 'telepathy'), or else they are rejected outright as naive or exploitative obsolete formulations - now superseded...
That Brain-Thinking is the only possible thinking has therefore passed swiftly from being an assumption - and an assumption which would be impossible to prove; into being treated as a fact: a fact-supported-by-overwhelming-evidence.
In other words, the exclusive truth of Brain-Thinking is (like the theory of evolution by natural selection) an example of metaphysics masquerading as a scientific discovery. As such, it is tyrannical - because a metaphysical assumption can never be disproved by any observation or experiment - since all possible (all evidentially-allowable) observations and experiments are interpreted within the metaphysical framework.
Consequently, many modern people are trapped by their assumptions into inhabiting a world of experience framed exclusively by Brain-Thinking - a wholly-determined world, with no possibility of freedom; a world which excludes the possibility of any reality beyond the five senses.
And - given inevitable imperfections and errors in bio-processing and memory; this is also a 'relativistic' world in which we can never be sure of anything.
In other words, an inescapable nightmare world; and a mind-set that makes it possible (for the first time in history) for rulers really to manipulate the thinking of everybody, forever.
(My echo of Orwell's phrase from 1984 is deliberate.)
Monday, 21 August 2017
Mind-Thinking versus Brain-Thinking
The major psychological concept of thinking is the 'cognitive model', which states that thinking is a kind of information processing done by the brain: let us call this model Brain-Thinking.
Brain-Thinking is an automatic, computer-like processing that has either been learnt, or else is instinctive (i.e. built-in by natural selection, on the basis of evolutionary history).
But reflection informs us that Brain-Thinking is a model; and being a model it necessarily leaves-out a great deal, consequently is partial and distorted. Furthermore, if Brain-Thinking has validity, the theory cannot itself be merely a consequence of Brain-Thinking - because Brain-Thinking is merely a consequence of learning experience or selection for whatever is reproductively-expedient.
If thinking is to be potentially valid (as I am assuming) then thinking needs to be true; and to be true the thinking process must be directly tied-to reality - without any steps in between where there may be errors or misunderstandings of communication.
In other words, thinking needs to be reality.
In other words, thinking cannot - ultimately - be regarded as merely 'thinking-about, nor 'a-picture-of reality', nor any kind of secondary 'representation' of reality - because any picturing/ representing process is uncertain.
For instance, if thinking is supposed to be derived from perceptions, then there are errors and distortions of the perceptual apparatus and of the stages of processing of raw perceptions into comprehensible representations - all of which detach thinking from reality. Or if thinking is derived from memories, then there are all the problems of making a representation from sensory perception, plus all the processes by which memories are made, stored, located and read...
No - for thinking to be valid, thinking needs to be actually real in-and-of-itself, unmediated, directly.
In sum, thinking must itself be reality - at least potentially. But clearly this cannot be the base for Brain-Thinking, as it is understood by Psychology - brain thinking is not regarded as itself-reality, but at most about-reality.
If Brain-Thinking is an automatic process - causally-determined and therefore without possibility of 'freedom' or 'agency' or genuine creativity; then Mind-Thinking is (by contrast) conscious, willed or purposive, creative and free.
A Mind-Thinking capable of being understood as actual reality therefore needs to be conceptualised as qualitatively different from Brain-Thinking. If Mind-Thinking is reality it cannot be a material process - therefore it must be immaterial; it cannot be 'in' the brain - because reality cannot be subjective/ unique to one person - therefore must be objective/ accessible to many persons, simultaneously.
Indeed, Mind-Thinking needs to be reality itself which is not merely 'accessible' but itself the world of reality in which our own personal thinking participates. Thus, as we think, we are actually engaged-with and participating-in reality as it unfolds.
In other words, with Mind-Thinking, any single person thinking is actively engaged in making reality - objective, permanent, universal reality - as well as knowing reality.
This is only apparent if we become aware of the nature, constraints and limitations of the mainstream psychological model of thinking; and take accounts of the pre-requisites of valid thinking.
Of course, we might try to contend that thinking is not valid, but is arbitrary and unlinked with reality; but then this would undermine the thinking which contends it, since it rules-out any possibility of validity in the thinking which led to the contention that thinking is invalid.
If thinking is indeed non-valid, and has no necessary relation to reality; then there is nothing to be said - nothing to be said about anything...
Brain-Thinking is an automatic, computer-like processing that has either been learnt, or else is instinctive (i.e. built-in by natural selection, on the basis of evolutionary history).
But reflection informs us that Brain-Thinking is a model; and being a model it necessarily leaves-out a great deal, consequently is partial and distorted. Furthermore, if Brain-Thinking has validity, the theory cannot itself be merely a consequence of Brain-Thinking - because Brain-Thinking is merely a consequence of learning experience or selection for whatever is reproductively-expedient.
If thinking is to be potentially valid (as I am assuming) then thinking needs to be true; and to be true the thinking process must be directly tied-to reality - without any steps in between where there may be errors or misunderstandings of communication.
In other words, thinking needs to be reality.
In other words, thinking cannot - ultimately - be regarded as merely 'thinking-about, nor 'a-picture-of reality', nor any kind of secondary 'representation' of reality - because any picturing/ representing process is uncertain.
For instance, if thinking is supposed to be derived from perceptions, then there are errors and distortions of the perceptual apparatus and of the stages of processing of raw perceptions into comprehensible representations - all of which detach thinking from reality. Or if thinking is derived from memories, then there are all the problems of making a representation from sensory perception, plus all the processes by which memories are made, stored, located and read...
No - for thinking to be valid, thinking needs to be actually real in-and-of-itself, unmediated, directly.
In sum, thinking must itself be reality - at least potentially. But clearly this cannot be the base for Brain-Thinking, as it is understood by Psychology - brain thinking is not regarded as itself-reality, but at most about-reality.
If Brain-Thinking is an automatic process - causally-determined and therefore without possibility of 'freedom' or 'agency' or genuine creativity; then Mind-Thinking is (by contrast) conscious, willed or purposive, creative and free.
A Mind-Thinking capable of being understood as actual reality therefore needs to be conceptualised as qualitatively different from Brain-Thinking. If Mind-Thinking is reality it cannot be a material process - therefore it must be immaterial; it cannot be 'in' the brain - because reality cannot be subjective/ unique to one person - therefore must be objective/ accessible to many persons, simultaneously.
Indeed, Mind-Thinking needs to be reality itself which is not merely 'accessible' but itself the world of reality in which our own personal thinking participates. Thus, as we think, we are actually engaged-with and participating-in reality as it unfolds.
In other words, with Mind-Thinking, any single person thinking is actively engaged in making reality - objective, permanent, universal reality - as well as knowing reality.
This is only apparent if we become aware of the nature, constraints and limitations of the mainstream psychological model of thinking; and take accounts of the pre-requisites of valid thinking.
Of course, we might try to contend that thinking is not valid, but is arbitrary and unlinked with reality; but then this would undermine the thinking which contends it, since it rules-out any possibility of validity in the thinking which led to the contention that thinking is invalid.
If thinking is indeed non-valid, and has no necessary relation to reality; then there is nothing to be said - nothing to be said about anything...
Being a Good Person is not enough - not here and not now...
There is a common and complacent attitude that if someone (such as the speaker...) is a basically Good Person (by world historical standards - i.e. not a murderer, rapist, thief... and at least somewhat altruistic), then they have no need to worry about ultimate things; such as the soul, salvation, eternal life, or God. Such stuff can be put-off until after death we can discover one way or the other...
But this is not true, not here and now, in the modern West; on the contrary there is a great deal to worry about.
Not for the usual reasons given by too-many Christians - e.g. that one must be a Christian because otherwise a vengeful God will send you to Hell; but for the much more serious reason that most modern people will actively, in full awareness, with open-eyes, choose to reject Heaven; because they have simply absorbed the mainstream, standard, positively-demonic view propagated by our entire leadership class and in the mass media.
In other words, modern people may well behave as Good People but their motivations for doing so are evil; and in these matters motivation is everything...
Motivation is everything because motivation is our true inner self, it reflects our evaluations, our aims, our hopes and wishes - and the normal attitude of normal people nowadays is one of inversion of the Good - virtue is inverted, beauty is inverted.
But to focus on one specific: truth. It is not merely that modern people are thoroughly and habitually dishonest (especially in their public lives, and at work) - it is that they/ we regard many types of truthfulness as actually wicked.
Some of the most hated people in the modern world are those who insist on speaking truth as they honestly understand it, rather than what is politically-expedient. And anyone who tries to be consistently honest in modern Western public life will very soon be in very serious trouble. Even if you are truthful in private life, even in one sentence or just half a sentence; then you may be denounced, internationally vilified and punished with great severity.
It does not really matter whether you are a Good Person when, deep in your heart, you are devoted to the inversion of Good; and devoted to the point that you will not repent because you have come to regard the wickedness of your heart as virtue. After death, you will reject heaven with visceral loathing, absolutely insist on 'Hell', and join-in on the side of the demonic powers in the spiritual war.
By contrast, a Bad Person who knows the real nature of Good, and repents their sins, is assured of salvation - and of making the post-mortem choice for heaven rather than hell.
In the end it is mostly a matter of choosing sides; and almost everyone in the modern world has chosen to be on the wrong side. Unless this fact changes before they die, they are in severe danger of getting what they have explicitly asked for.
But this is not true, not here and now, in the modern West; on the contrary there is a great deal to worry about.
Not for the usual reasons given by too-many Christians - e.g. that one must be a Christian because otherwise a vengeful God will send you to Hell; but for the much more serious reason that most modern people will actively, in full awareness, with open-eyes, choose to reject Heaven; because they have simply absorbed the mainstream, standard, positively-demonic view propagated by our entire leadership class and in the mass media.
In other words, modern people may well behave as Good People but their motivations for doing so are evil; and in these matters motivation is everything...
Motivation is everything because motivation is our true inner self, it reflects our evaluations, our aims, our hopes and wishes - and the normal attitude of normal people nowadays is one of inversion of the Good - virtue is inverted, beauty is inverted.
But to focus on one specific: truth. It is not merely that modern people are thoroughly and habitually dishonest (especially in their public lives, and at work) - it is that they/ we regard many types of truthfulness as actually wicked.
Some of the most hated people in the modern world are those who insist on speaking truth as they honestly understand it, rather than what is politically-expedient. And anyone who tries to be consistently honest in modern Western public life will very soon be in very serious trouble. Even if you are truthful in private life, even in one sentence or just half a sentence; then you may be denounced, internationally vilified and punished with great severity.
It does not really matter whether you are a Good Person when, deep in your heart, you are devoted to the inversion of Good; and devoted to the point that you will not repent because you have come to regard the wickedness of your heart as virtue. After death, you will reject heaven with visceral loathing, absolutely insist on 'Hell', and join-in on the side of the demonic powers in the spiritual war.
By contrast, a Bad Person who knows the real nature of Good, and repents their sins, is assured of salvation - and of making the post-mortem choice for heaven rather than hell.
In the end it is mostly a matter of choosing sides; and almost everyone in the modern world has chosen to be on the wrong side. Unless this fact changes before they die, they are in severe danger of getting what they have explicitly asked for.
Thinking as a cure for alienation and a direct source of knowledge
Edited from a 1912 lecture by Rudolf Steiner:
1. The soul has a natural confidence in thinking. It feels that if it could not have this confidence, all stability in life would be lost.
2. The healthy life of the soul comes to an end when it begins to doubt about thinking. For even if we cannot arrive at a clear understanding of something through thought, we may yet have the consolation that clearness would result if we could only rouse ourselves to think with sufficient force and acuteness.
3. We can reassure ourselves with regard to our own incapacity to clear up a specific problem by thinking; but the thought is intolerable that thinking itself would not be able to bring satisfaction, even if we were to penetrate as far into its domain as was necessary for gaining full light on some definite situation in life.
4. The thinker who doubts the validity and power of thought itself is deceived about the fundamental state of his soul. For it is often really his acuteness of thought which, being overstrained, constructs doubts and perplexities. If he did not really rely on thinking, he would not be tormented with these doubts; doubts which themselves are the result of thinking.
5. Thought offers to the soul the consolation which it needs when face to face with the feeling of utter loneliness in the world.
- It is possible to experience the feeling: “What am I?... considered in the current of universal cosmic events, flowing from one infinity to another? - What am I? With my petty feelings, desires, and will? - All this stuff can surely be of merely subjective importance, of concern to myself only?”
- Directly the life of thought has been rightly realised, this feeling is confronted by another: “I am living-in those events when I, through thinking, let their being flow-into me.”
- It is then possible to feel oneself taken into the universe and secure therein.
6. It is but another step from this feeling to that in which the soul says: “It is not only I who think, but something thinks-in-me; the cosmic life expresses itself in me; my soul is the stage upon which the universe manifests itself as thought.”
7. It may be a good preparation for the apprehension of spiritual knowledge to have felt frequently what invigorating force there is in the attitude of soul which says: “I feel myself to be one, in thought, with the stream of cosmic events.”
It is not only a question of recognising what there is in a thought of this kind, but of experiencing it. The thought is recognised when once it has been present in the soul with sufficient power of conviction; but if it is to ripen and bear fruit, this thought must be made to live in the soul again and again.
**
Note:
If the power and scope of thinking can be grasped; if we can have confidence in the validity and potential of our thinking; if thinking can be clarified to its primary nature - the thinking of our true self: in full freedom, agency and creativity; if this thinking can then be practised - practised both in terms of repeated until habitual, and making it the basis of living -- then we have the answer to many of the deepest yearnings and the solution to the most intractable deficiencies of modern Man.
That is, by such thinking, we may (potentially, over time, with effort) participate-in reality without restriction, know true reality in the fullness of which we are capable; and do so in a manner that is autonomous of the corruption and lies of the world.
1. The soul has a natural confidence in thinking. It feels that if it could not have this confidence, all stability in life would be lost.
2. The healthy life of the soul comes to an end when it begins to doubt about thinking. For even if we cannot arrive at a clear understanding of something through thought, we may yet have the consolation that clearness would result if we could only rouse ourselves to think with sufficient force and acuteness.
3. We can reassure ourselves with regard to our own incapacity to clear up a specific problem by thinking; but the thought is intolerable that thinking itself would not be able to bring satisfaction, even if we were to penetrate as far into its domain as was necessary for gaining full light on some definite situation in life.
4. The thinker who doubts the validity and power of thought itself is deceived about the fundamental state of his soul. For it is often really his acuteness of thought which, being overstrained, constructs doubts and perplexities. If he did not really rely on thinking, he would not be tormented with these doubts; doubts which themselves are the result of thinking.
5. Thought offers to the soul the consolation which it needs when face to face with the feeling of utter loneliness in the world.
- It is possible to experience the feeling: “What am I?... considered in the current of universal cosmic events, flowing from one infinity to another? - What am I? With my petty feelings, desires, and will? - All this stuff can surely be of merely subjective importance, of concern to myself only?”
- Directly the life of thought has been rightly realised, this feeling is confronted by another: “I am living-in those events when I, through thinking, let their being flow-into me.”
- It is then possible to feel oneself taken into the universe and secure therein.
6. It is but another step from this feeling to that in which the soul says: “It is not only I who think, but something thinks-in-me; the cosmic life expresses itself in me; my soul is the stage upon which the universe manifests itself as thought.”
7. It may be a good preparation for the apprehension of spiritual knowledge to have felt frequently what invigorating force there is in the attitude of soul which says: “I feel myself to be one, in thought, with the stream of cosmic events.”
It is not only a question of recognising what there is in a thought of this kind, but of experiencing it. The thought is recognised when once it has been present in the soul with sufficient power of conviction; but if it is to ripen and bear fruit, this thought must be made to live in the soul again and again.
**
Note:
If the power and scope of thinking can be grasped; if we can have confidence in the validity and potential of our thinking; if thinking can be clarified to its primary nature - the thinking of our true self: in full freedom, agency and creativity; if this thinking can then be practised - practised both in terms of repeated until habitual, and making it the basis of living -- then we have the answer to many of the deepest yearnings and the solution to the most intractable deficiencies of modern Man.
That is, by such thinking, we may (potentially, over time, with effort) participate-in reality without restriction, know true reality in the fullness of which we are capable; and do so in a manner that is autonomous of the corruption and lies of the world.
Sunday, 20 August 2017
You cannot do everything all of the time - from William Arkle
Experiment and waste go together and lead to discovery, so don't become anxious about results...
More at Albion Awakening.
More at Albion Awakening.
The devil is father of lies - those who lie are the devil's children; and they cannot even hear the truth
The essence of lying is not in asserting false facts or denying true fact; the essence of lying is at the level of motivation - of concealed motivation, or faked motivation.
To be A Liar is not to be motivated by truth; and to lie about that fact.
Considered thus; our society is riddled-with, and permeated-by and structured-on lies. Very, very few individuals and zero mainstream institutions are truth-motivated.
Jesus was clear that lying is definitive of the devil - it follows that our society is demonic in its essence.
We need look no further (although clearly lying is not the only prevalent sin) - this is sufficient. To be A Liar - that is to live in a lying society and not to notice, to deny the fact, and not to repent - puts us into the devil's party.
And if we are liars we cannot hear the truth: we have already decided against the truth; and against salvation.
To be a liar is to be self-damned and with no way out.
It really is as simple as that.
To seek and speak truth, and repent all lies, is perhaps the single most radically Christian act imaginable: here-and-now.
Lacking-which, nothing can be done.
**
John 8: 31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. 33 They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? 34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. 35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. 36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. 37 I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. 38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. 39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. 40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. 41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. 42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. 43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. 44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. 45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. 46 Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? 47 He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.
To be A Liar is not to be motivated by truth; and to lie about that fact.
Considered thus; our society is riddled-with, and permeated-by and structured-on lies. Very, very few individuals and zero mainstream institutions are truth-motivated.
Jesus was clear that lying is definitive of the devil - it follows that our society is demonic in its essence.
We need look no further (although clearly lying is not the only prevalent sin) - this is sufficient. To be A Liar - that is to live in a lying society and not to notice, to deny the fact, and not to repent - puts us into the devil's party.
And if we are liars we cannot hear the truth: we have already decided against the truth; and against salvation.
To be a liar is to be self-damned and with no way out.
It really is as simple as that.
To seek and speak truth, and repent all lies, is perhaps the single most radically Christian act imaginable: here-and-now.
Lacking-which, nothing can be done.
**
John 8: 31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. 33 They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? 34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. 35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. 36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. 37 I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. 38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. 39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. 40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. 41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. 42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. 43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. 44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. 45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. 46 Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? 47 He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.
Saturday, 19 August 2017
In the modern West we live in an insane world of lies. We absolutely-must notice the fact and awaken to spiritual activity
The fact is that we modern people in The West live in an insane world
of lies; therefore if we adopt a passive attitude to human existence we
will develop and endorse and end-up deliberately choosing an insane and lying eternity - which we can do, because we are free agents.
More at Albion Awakening.
More at Albion Awakening.
Assuming before knowing - You (probably) cannot know the reality of God until you have assumed the nature of that reality
People are often, and correctly, advised to seek direct knowledge of the reality of God by direct revelation.
But the process of direct revelation is 'cognitively' very simple - I mean that it can be considered to be something like a binary or yes-no kind of answer.
That is, in general, for most people (and perhaps especially the kind of spiritual 'beginners' who would be seeking knowledge concerning the reality of God) - direct knowing of fundamental matters is only solid when we are seeking an answer to a question that can be framed in a form more-or-less like: Is This True?
This matter of making assumptions concerning the nature and motivations of God before seeking knowledge by revelation/ direct knowing is therefore crucially important. If we want to know whether 'God' is real, then we need to become clear in our minds as to what kind of God we are enquiring about.
In other words: There can be no satisfactory answer to the very general question of: Is there a God? - because it depends what we mean by God.
It would be perfectly reasonable and expected to seek of knowledge of the reality of God and be convinced that No, there is no 'God'.
Assuming there is a God; then if we were actually enquiring about a false conception of God, or if we are so unclear/ confused/ imprecise what we mean by God - then it may well be more true to say: No, there is no God (if that is what you mean by God); or, more likely, no knowledge at all will be forthcoming: no answer.
This was certainly my own experience through decades of being an atheist. Advise from Christians (and others) to pray for an answer was useless or even counter-productive; because people seemed unwilling or unable to be precise enough about what they meant by God (perhaps because they were unwilling to 'limit' the concept of God); perhaps because they themselves lacked genuine knowledge of God - and/ or perhaps because they themselves had a false or contradictory idea of God.
At any rate, once I had a reasonably clear and correct idea of the nature and motivations of actual God, then I rapidly received revelation and knowledge of its (overall) correctness; and then I was gradually able to become clearer and clearer about such matters by subsequent more precise questioning.
Thus faith was established, strengthened and developed.
But the process of direct revelation is 'cognitively' very simple - I mean that it can be considered to be something like a binary or yes-no kind of answer.
That is, in general, for most people (and perhaps especially the kind of spiritual 'beginners' who would be seeking knowledge concerning the reality of God) - direct knowing of fundamental matters is only solid when we are seeking an answer to a question that can be framed in a form more-or-less like: Is This True?
This matter of making assumptions concerning the nature and motivations of God before seeking knowledge by revelation/ direct knowing is therefore crucially important. If we want to know whether 'God' is real, then we need to become clear in our minds as to what kind of God we are enquiring about.
In other words: There can be no satisfactory answer to the very general question of: Is there a God? - because it depends what we mean by God.
It would be perfectly reasonable and expected to seek of knowledge of the reality of God and be convinced that No, there is no 'God'.
Assuming there is a God; then if we were actually enquiring about a false conception of God, or if we are so unclear/ confused/ imprecise what we mean by God - then it may well be more true to say: No, there is no God (if that is what you mean by God); or, more likely, no knowledge at all will be forthcoming: no answer.
This was certainly my own experience through decades of being an atheist. Advise from Christians (and others) to pray for an answer was useless or even counter-productive; because people seemed unwilling or unable to be precise enough about what they meant by God (perhaps because they were unwilling to 'limit' the concept of God); perhaps because they themselves lacked genuine knowledge of God - and/ or perhaps because they themselves had a false or contradictory idea of God.
At any rate, once I had a reasonably clear and correct idea of the nature and motivations of actual God, then I rapidly received revelation and knowledge of its (overall) correctness; and then I was gradually able to become clearer and clearer about such matters by subsequent more precise questioning.
Thus faith was established, strengthened and developed.
Friday, 18 August 2017
Living well, here and now, in the light of prophecy...
I do not believe that divine destiny is organised in terms of numbers, therefore it cannot be predicted from numerical patterns. I don't believe that God follows a timetable for human salvation and theosis; nor do I believe that theological history is following an abstract geometrical master plan expressive of specific proportions.
I regard time as serial and sequential; as implied by the fact that Christianity is an historical religion and the fact of free agency (hence non-predictability).
And therefore, I am sure that all prophecies of divinely-ordained events which are tied to specific dates are intrinsically wrong - because derived from false premises.
However, the validity of prophecy as such is not ruled-out - indeed it would be difficult and inconsistent for a Christian to rule-out the validity of prophecy, considering its emphasis in the Gospels (as well as elsewhere in the Bible).
All that is uncertain concerning the validity of prophecy as a general phenomenon (not each specific prophecy, of course) is the mechanisms by which prophecy is made to be fulfilled - and here there are presumably many ways and means by which a prophesied event can be made to come to fulfilment - ranging from predictions based upon extrapolation from a very complete basis of knowledge, to direct divine interventions (whether explicit and miraculous, or behind-the-scenes imperceptible)...
More specific aspects of exactly which prophecy I currently live by, and the aim of my living, can be found in the rest of this essay, at Albion Awakening.
I regard time as serial and sequential; as implied by the fact that Christianity is an historical religion and the fact of free agency (hence non-predictability).
And therefore, I am sure that all prophecies of divinely-ordained events which are tied to specific dates are intrinsically wrong - because derived from false premises.
However, the validity of prophecy as such is not ruled-out - indeed it would be difficult and inconsistent for a Christian to rule-out the validity of prophecy, considering its emphasis in the Gospels (as well as elsewhere in the Bible).
All that is uncertain concerning the validity of prophecy as a general phenomenon (not each specific prophecy, of course) is the mechanisms by which prophecy is made to be fulfilled - and here there are presumably many ways and means by which a prophesied event can be made to come to fulfilment - ranging from predictions based upon extrapolation from a very complete basis of knowledge, to direct divine interventions (whether explicit and miraculous, or behind-the-scenes imperceptible)...
More specific aspects of exactly which prophecy I currently live by, and the aim of my living, can be found in the rest of this essay, at Albion Awakening.
Thursday, 17 August 2017
How can loving God be *commanded* as more important than anything else?
Matthew: Chapter 22: 34-40. But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
There is no doubt that The Bible, including the Old Testament Ten Commandments and the Gospels, commands us to Love God as the first, greatest and most important thing we must do...
But how is this possible? How may love be commanded?
The apparent problem is that we assume Love is a feeling, and a feeling cannot be manufactured; but even if it could, what would be the good of manufacturing a feeling of Love for God?
My understanding is that the The First and Great Commandment is about metaphysics, not feelings; it is about our first principles as a Christian, our most basic assumptions concerning how things truly are, how reality works.
Therefore, we are being told that everything in the Christian life 'hangs' on our assumption that God loves us. That is why God made everything, why God made this earth, why God made men and women, why we are incarnated and placed in mortal lives, and why we experience all the things we experience including death. All this is because God loves us.
It implies also the the nature of God is such that he loves - however we envisage God, we must represent the deity in a way compatible with love being God's primary characteristic.
How we may do this is set-out: because the most frequent term for God in the Gospels is 'Father'; and we are described as Sons and Daughters of God.
In sum, the Christian must interpret life and the world in this way - as a product of God's love. And this is non-negotiable - it is not put forward as a proposition to be tested by experience or reason; it is a metaphysical assumption.
If we ever interpret anything as contradictory to the fact and assumption of God loving us; we are definitely making a mistake.
But how can each of us, personally, reach such an assumption? Well, how did we, as (let's assume) a child of a real life loving Father and Mother, reach a similar assumption about our parents? Not from evidence, clearly - not from some kind of balance-sheet.
Such convictions come from direct, intuitive knowing - beyond the senses, beyond logic, beyond measurement. And that this direct form of intuitive knowledge is valid, is therefore required by Christianity.
If you want to be a Christian, you must know that God loves us; and know it in the same kind of way that you know your Father and Mother love you. And live life on that basis. That is the first and great commandment.
And you must find this out by introspection, by intuition; you must just-know-it above and beyond and behind all other things you know; this solid assumption framing and interpreting all other things you know.
And that this direct knowing of God's love is possible and valid and achievable is also implied by the first and great commandment.
There is no doubt that The Bible, including the Old Testament Ten Commandments and the Gospels, commands us to Love God as the first, greatest and most important thing we must do...
But how is this possible? How may love be commanded?
The apparent problem is that we assume Love is a feeling, and a feeling cannot be manufactured; but even if it could, what would be the good of manufacturing a feeling of Love for God?
My understanding is that the The First and Great Commandment is about metaphysics, not feelings; it is about our first principles as a Christian, our most basic assumptions concerning how things truly are, how reality works.
Therefore, we are being told that everything in the Christian life 'hangs' on our assumption that God loves us. That is why God made everything, why God made this earth, why God made men and women, why we are incarnated and placed in mortal lives, and why we experience all the things we experience including death. All this is because God loves us.
It implies also the the nature of God is such that he loves - however we envisage God, we must represent the deity in a way compatible with love being God's primary characteristic.
How we may do this is set-out: because the most frequent term for God in the Gospels is 'Father'; and we are described as Sons and Daughters of God.
In sum, the Christian must interpret life and the world in this way - as a product of God's love. And this is non-negotiable - it is not put forward as a proposition to be tested by experience or reason; it is a metaphysical assumption.
If we ever interpret anything as contradictory to the fact and assumption of God loving us; we are definitely making a mistake.
But how can each of us, personally, reach such an assumption? Well, how did we, as (let's assume) a child of a real life loving Father and Mother, reach a similar assumption about our parents? Not from evidence, clearly - not from some kind of balance-sheet.
Such convictions come from direct, intuitive knowing - beyond the senses, beyond logic, beyond measurement. And that this direct form of intuitive knowledge is valid, is therefore required by Christianity.
If you want to be a Christian, you must know that God loves us; and know it in the same kind of way that you know your Father and Mother love you. And live life on that basis. That is the first and great commandment.
And you must find this out by introspection, by intuition; you must just-know-it above and beyond and behind all other things you know; this solid assumption framing and interpreting all other things you know.
And that this direct knowing of God's love is possible and valid and achievable is also implied by the first and great commandment.
Wednesday, 16 August 2017
What to do in the forthcoming eclipse?
Demons and their servants will - I guess - be very keen that people experience the eclipse only at second hand - via the mass media; and that the experience will be undermined by social media and technology (if someone is trying to get a good photograph of the eclipse, they will not be having a spiritual experience).
So, maybe what we ought to do is to experience the solar eclipse (whether the totality or more likely some degree of partial eclipse) in as simple, direct, quiet, thoughtful and solitary fashion as may be contrived...
More background can be found at Albion Awakening.
So, maybe what we ought to do is to experience the solar eclipse (whether the totality or more likely some degree of partial eclipse) in as simple, direct, quiet, thoughtful and solitary fashion as may be contrived...
More background can be found at Albion Awakening.
Fake news is good news: We should want a worse (not better) mass media: Spiritual repentance and awakening cannot come via the mass media - only in reaction against it
The mass media is a distraction from what Western Man ought to be thinking, experiencing, understanding, aiming-at.
Spiritual repentance and awakening must be an individual choice; a choice of each individual - and would constitute an extreme turn-around from current attitudes and assumptions. Because it amounts to a metaphysical revolution, this would either happen rapidly or not at all.
Awakening would require a disengagement from the mass media, based upon a recognition of its net-evil; and a turning-to the true-self and God-within.
The individual must attend to the most direct experience. Awakening therefore cannot come from anything which is second-hand, and reported in the virtual/ fake world of the mass media.
The mass media is (and must be recognised as) a demonic tool (overall); and the strategy of evil is therefore to keep everybody possible fixated-upon the media for as much time as possible - naturally there will then take their overall world picture from it.
Enlightenment cannot come even from the tiny minority of good bits of the mass media - except insofar as they trigger a withdrawal from the mass media in its totality.
Therefore, the worse the mass media becomes - the more extreme its fakery and oppression and censorship of truth, beauty and virtue; the more insistent and sickening its promotion of lies, ugliness, short-term selfishness and pride; the more its manufactured dishonesty clashes with directly-known reality etc. - the better is the prospect of stimulating revulsion and Awakening.
We shouldn't want a better mass media, but a more-obviously-worse one.
The media's only catastrophic error would be over-reach and premature extremism - such that too-many people too-quickly recognised it for what it is; and withdrew.
Of course, we are free agents - and many or most people might still decide to stick with media reality instead of what they know, no matter how bad the mass media becomes - and predictable consequences will follow; but the more clearly people recognise that that is the decision they are making - the more likely that they will repent and awaken.
Spiritual repentance and awakening must be an individual choice; a choice of each individual - and would constitute an extreme turn-around from current attitudes and assumptions. Because it amounts to a metaphysical revolution, this would either happen rapidly or not at all.
Awakening would require a disengagement from the mass media, based upon a recognition of its net-evil; and a turning-to the true-self and God-within.
The individual must attend to the most direct experience. Awakening therefore cannot come from anything which is second-hand, and reported in the virtual/ fake world of the mass media.
The mass media is (and must be recognised as) a demonic tool (overall); and the strategy of evil is therefore to keep everybody possible fixated-upon the media for as much time as possible - naturally there will then take their overall world picture from it.
Enlightenment cannot come even from the tiny minority of good bits of the mass media - except insofar as they trigger a withdrawal from the mass media in its totality.
Therefore, the worse the mass media becomes - the more extreme its fakery and oppression and censorship of truth, beauty and virtue; the more insistent and sickening its promotion of lies, ugliness, short-term selfishness and pride; the more its manufactured dishonesty clashes with directly-known reality etc. - the better is the prospect of stimulating revulsion and Awakening.
We shouldn't want a better mass media, but a more-obviously-worse one.
The media's only catastrophic error would be over-reach and premature extremism - such that too-many people too-quickly recognised it for what it is; and withdrew.
Of course, we are free agents - and many or most people might still decide to stick with media reality instead of what they know, no matter how bad the mass media becomes - and predictable consequences will follow; but the more clearly people recognise that that is the decision they are making - the more likely that they will repent and awaken.
Tuesday, 15 August 2017
Wonderful new Facebook resource on William Arkle
Some more pictures are at my William Arkle blog.
"We are not alone" - Indeed; but how may we detect the fact? Advice from William Wildblood
We are not alone.
The spiritual world is always with us and seeks to inspire us, but we must cleanse our hearts and minds to be able to detect this.
We must stand aside from 'this world' but not disdain it or our fellow men and women even when they are in thrall to the enemy (let's call a spade a spade). They are God's children just as we are. He wants to bring them to him however far they wander but, ultimately, it is their choice. God forces no one.
So listen for the voice within. Blot out the noise of this world, however persuasive and confident it sounds. Know that the darkness of this time was prophesied and so was the light that eventually follows after. Keep faithful, watch and pray and don't worry if you appear to be alone.
By and large the computer revolution is a weapon in the hands of the forces of materialism and atheism but you can take advantage of it too, as this blog does, if you recognise and stay alert to its predominantly negative aspect. Through this means you can connect to people around the world who think as you do and so know that there are others like you.
You may be heavily outnumbered but you are not alone. Through enduring this time of trial you have the opportunity of making greater progress than you might have done living in a more spiritually congenial time.
More of William Wildblood's essay, and a discussion in the comments, can be found at Albion Awakening.
The spiritual world is always with us and seeks to inspire us, but we must cleanse our hearts and minds to be able to detect this.
We must stand aside from 'this world' but not disdain it or our fellow men and women even when they are in thrall to the enemy (let's call a spade a spade). They are God's children just as we are. He wants to bring them to him however far they wander but, ultimately, it is their choice. God forces no one.
So listen for the voice within. Blot out the noise of this world, however persuasive and confident it sounds. Know that the darkness of this time was prophesied and so was the light that eventually follows after. Keep faithful, watch and pray and don't worry if you appear to be alone.
By and large the computer revolution is a weapon in the hands of the forces of materialism and atheism but you can take advantage of it too, as this blog does, if you recognise and stay alert to its predominantly negative aspect. Through this means you can connect to people around the world who think as you do and so know that there are others like you.
You may be heavily outnumbered but you are not alone. Through enduring this time of trial you have the opportunity of making greater progress than you might have done living in a more spiritually congenial time.
More of William Wildblood's essay, and a discussion in the comments, can be found at Albion Awakening.
Look to motives, not to words: Ignore the 'facts', attack the motives
The mainstream secular Left lies, all the time - in every paragraph; and that is an evil: both in itself, and because its creates a world where public truth is impossible.
But one thing they do which is right is to look behind the words and to the motivations of their enemies - and this is why their lies are effective.
They ignore what we actually say (the facts) and attack our motives. And that is exactly the correct thing to do.
(Correct assuming we are honest, which they are not.)
There is no point in arguing with the words of the secular Left - because they are liars. Their supreme idea of truth is the legal one of deniable-misleading.
It does not matter what people say, it does not matter what the official and media sources 'report', their statistics do not matter: the 'evidence' does not matter. It is all poisoned from its very root.
We need to focus on motivations. We must focus on motivations. We ask: 'What are the motivations driving what these people are saying and doing?' (Because everything they say and do is a product of these motivations.)
That is where the primary inference is made, which guides all other evaluations: what are the motivations of the mainstream secular leadership of this, our society?
This is what we must each of us decide, what we must infer (because nobody 'authoritative' can tell us - at least not until after we have evaluated/ inferred who is authoritative).
You don't need to - indeed should not - look at The News; unless you believe that the people who produce it are well-motivated. There are a limitless number of ways to lie and mislead - and if that is their motivation, that is what they will be doing.
When it comes to important matters (and indeed most matters) - Don't take any notice of the media, or of bureaucrats, or of the leadership class: Christians know (or ought to know) they are corrupt, liars who have actively-evil motivations or who serve the agenda of active evil - inverting of Goods: destructive of truth, beauty, virtue.
Focus on motivations; not 'facts'/ lies. Attack the motivations, not the specifics.
(And when people cannot or will not recognise evil motivations; there is nothing that can be done to convince them, no evidence, no logic - that is their decision, and they will take the spiritual consequences. Pass on.)
But one thing they do which is right is to look behind the words and to the motivations of their enemies - and this is why their lies are effective.
They ignore what we actually say (the facts) and attack our motives. And that is exactly the correct thing to do.
(Correct assuming we are honest, which they are not.)
There is no point in arguing with the words of the secular Left - because they are liars. Their supreme idea of truth is the legal one of deniable-misleading.
It does not matter what people say, it does not matter what the official and media sources 'report', their statistics do not matter: the 'evidence' does not matter. It is all poisoned from its very root.
We need to focus on motivations. We must focus on motivations. We ask: 'What are the motivations driving what these people are saying and doing?' (Because everything they say and do is a product of these motivations.)
That is where the primary inference is made, which guides all other evaluations: what are the motivations of the mainstream secular leadership of this, our society?
This is what we must each of us decide, what we must infer (because nobody 'authoritative' can tell us - at least not until after we have evaluated/ inferred who is authoritative).
You don't need to - indeed should not - look at The News; unless you believe that the people who produce it are well-motivated. There are a limitless number of ways to lie and mislead - and if that is their motivation, that is what they will be doing.
When it comes to important matters (and indeed most matters) - Don't take any notice of the media, or of bureaucrats, or of the leadership class: Christians know (or ought to know) they are corrupt, liars who have actively-evil motivations or who serve the agenda of active evil - inverting of Goods: destructive of truth, beauty, virtue.
Focus on motivations; not 'facts'/ lies. Attack the motivations, not the specifics.
(And when people cannot or will not recognise evil motivations; there is nothing that can be done to convince them, no evidence, no logic - that is their decision, and they will take the spiritual consequences. Pass on.)
Monday, 14 August 2017
The surest kind of knowledge
The surest kind of knowledge is inner, direct, unmediated - intuitive.
Not a 'communication' - not perceived in words, writing or images (all of which need to be interpreted; there is always a gap between seeing and believing).
But instead occurring in thinking, as knowing. Simple, known-fully and with no gap.
Requiring no 'evidence' because all evidence is uncertain, all inference is prone to error, all reasoning depends on the assuming of mapping reasoning onto reality...
But this is typically ignored, or explained away, nowadays - because modern metaphysics says intuition has zero reality and objectivity.
Not a 'communication' - not perceived in words, writing or images (all of which need to be interpreted; there is always a gap between seeing and believing).
But instead occurring in thinking, as knowing. Simple, known-fully and with no gap.
Requiring no 'evidence' because all evidence is uncertain, all inference is prone to error, all reasoning depends on the assuming of mapping reasoning onto reality...
But this is typically ignored, or explained away, nowadays - because modern metaphysics says intuition has zero reality and objectivity.
Saturday, 12 August 2017
A modern fairy-tale of winning the spiritual war - adapted from CS Lewis's That Hideous Strength
I am currently halfway through listening to the excellent audiobook version of CS Lewis's That Hideous Strength ('THS'), read by Stephen Pacey (who played Del Tarrant in the excellent 1970s BBC Sci-Fi series Blake's 7).
From a perspective and through a lens derived from CS Lewis's best friend Owen Barfield; I can imagine a revised version of THS, in line with my understanding of our situation some seventy years on from the publication of THS in 1945...
One major difference would be that Lewis has his heroes (the St Anne's fellowship) essentially passive in their obedience to orders coming from the 'angelic' helpers. Nowadays, we would not receive these orders. We would have-to work things out for ourselves, as best we could. Or, more exactly, we would need to develop the spiritual perspective and abilities which would enable this working-out. We would need to develop what Barfield termed Final Participation.
Final Participation is something which can only come from the choice and will or each of us, as individuals. It cannot be conferred upon us - indeed the essence of it is that we are free and agent. Final Participation is precisely a personal, experiential effort-full thing. We need to look-within to seek god-in-us, to find our divine self - and to become aware of this.
Here and now - we aren't going to be able to wait or hope for leadership; probably we will be literally on-our-own: alone... at least in many practical respects. This because our current situation is not a recapitulation of monasticism or the like; the destruction, subversion and inversion of groups is at the heart of the evil of our modern condition.
A modern THS would perhaps be about the good characters, the heroes of St Anne's, individually and dispersed. About moral choices made alone and in the context of an overwhelmingly large and powerful Establishment of Evil that is not recent (like The NICE in THS), but has been in place and in control for at least two generations.
The angels ('eldils') would not be perceptible in the necessary state of consciousness of Final Participation; they would not visit, we could not see them - and neither would we hear them speak in words; not even words formed in our minds. Instead, angels would communicate directly by joining their thinking with ours.
However, we - in our thinking - would always be free and agent - in control. Hence we could block contact with the angels, if we chose. And we could not (merely) open our minds to them. Rather, we would actively be thinking is such a way that we could share in their thoughts, and they in ours.
How could help come? In defeating a vast and powerful evil Establishment, clearly help is essential. THS had the Original Participation magic of Merlin, and direct and miraculous aid from the eldils/ angels. What might we have, now?
Well, it would be imperceptible to direct observation. It would be behind the scenes - by synchronicity. Natural phenomena (rain, wind, sun, tides, earth movements...) would - 'coincidentlally' - favour Good and be hostile to evil.
Enemies would be repenting (as the situation clarifies) and changing sides, ceasing to do their evil duties, turning to sabotage the evil plans.
There would be events of exceeding improbability - actually miracles, but always explicable in terms of chance. Perfect-Storms of 'luck' - both good and ill 'luck' - good fortune for the Good and adverse chance for the evil. Cumulatively piling-on, and on.
(These being proximal consequences of distal and subtle angelic interventions; behind-the-scenes changes of arrangements; altering small upstream occurrences to generate large downstream effects...)
How about our own personal strength, motivation, will - and love? How could these be sustained when we are on-our-own? I assume there will be positive-feedback reinforcements of such things. As the situation develops, evil becomes clearer, becomes un-masked. Because evil is a trial of our strength and a mode of spiritual development; it may be like exercising in a gym - immediate effort being rewarded, some time after, by greater strength.
The key and core is motivation; the guiding principle is honesty; and the goal is love (towards which we are pointed by the discernment of the heart; which knows truth, beauty and virtue - and their opposites).
We must be self-sufficient in terms of motivations; but this is only possible through the gift of repentance from Christ. Trial and error will get us where we need to be; but only when error is acknowledged and repented.
The war is between those who acknowledge and experience the spiritual world, the immaterial world, the world of God; and those who don't. Between those who know we are all children of God and destined to become free; and those who believe themselves and everyone else to be evolved automata subject to rigid determinism alleviated only by randomness. Between those who take ultimate responsibility and look to god-within; and those who hope for external intervention for rescue.
The happy ending of a new THS would be very happy indeed! A world of free, agent, people affiliated in loving families and with close friends; a world therefore open-ended, of creativity. Not a utopia; but an active, developing, expanding, deeply-rewarding world of perpetual interest, challenges, increasing awareness and understanding - making, doing and thinking.
From a perspective and through a lens derived from CS Lewis's best friend Owen Barfield; I can imagine a revised version of THS, in line with my understanding of our situation some seventy years on from the publication of THS in 1945...
One major difference would be that Lewis has his heroes (the St Anne's fellowship) essentially passive in their obedience to orders coming from the 'angelic' helpers. Nowadays, we would not receive these orders. We would have-to work things out for ourselves, as best we could. Or, more exactly, we would need to develop the spiritual perspective and abilities which would enable this working-out. We would need to develop what Barfield termed Final Participation.
Final Participation is something which can only come from the choice and will or each of us, as individuals. It cannot be conferred upon us - indeed the essence of it is that we are free and agent. Final Participation is precisely a personal, experiential effort-full thing. We need to look-within to seek god-in-us, to find our divine self - and to become aware of this.
Here and now - we aren't going to be able to wait or hope for leadership; probably we will be literally on-our-own: alone... at least in many practical respects. This because our current situation is not a recapitulation of monasticism or the like; the destruction, subversion and inversion of groups is at the heart of the evil of our modern condition.
A modern THS would perhaps be about the good characters, the heroes of St Anne's, individually and dispersed. About moral choices made alone and in the context of an overwhelmingly large and powerful Establishment of Evil that is not recent (like The NICE in THS), but has been in place and in control for at least two generations.
The angels ('eldils') would not be perceptible in the necessary state of consciousness of Final Participation; they would not visit, we could not see them - and neither would we hear them speak in words; not even words formed in our minds. Instead, angels would communicate directly by joining their thinking with ours.
However, we - in our thinking - would always be free and agent - in control. Hence we could block contact with the angels, if we chose. And we could not (merely) open our minds to them. Rather, we would actively be thinking is such a way that we could share in their thoughts, and they in ours.
How could help come? In defeating a vast and powerful evil Establishment, clearly help is essential. THS had the Original Participation magic of Merlin, and direct and miraculous aid from the eldils/ angels. What might we have, now?
Well, it would be imperceptible to direct observation. It would be behind the scenes - by synchronicity. Natural phenomena (rain, wind, sun, tides, earth movements...) would - 'coincidentlally' - favour Good and be hostile to evil.
Enemies would be repenting (as the situation clarifies) and changing sides, ceasing to do their evil duties, turning to sabotage the evil plans.
There would be events of exceeding improbability - actually miracles, but always explicable in terms of chance. Perfect-Storms of 'luck' - both good and ill 'luck' - good fortune for the Good and adverse chance for the evil. Cumulatively piling-on, and on.
(These being proximal consequences of distal and subtle angelic interventions; behind-the-scenes changes of arrangements; altering small upstream occurrences to generate large downstream effects...)
How about our own personal strength, motivation, will - and love? How could these be sustained when we are on-our-own? I assume there will be positive-feedback reinforcements of such things. As the situation develops, evil becomes clearer, becomes un-masked. Because evil is a trial of our strength and a mode of spiritual development; it may be like exercising in a gym - immediate effort being rewarded, some time after, by greater strength.
The key and core is motivation; the guiding principle is honesty; and the goal is love (towards which we are pointed by the discernment of the heart; which knows truth, beauty and virtue - and their opposites).
We must be self-sufficient in terms of motivations; but this is only possible through the gift of repentance from Christ. Trial and error will get us where we need to be; but only when error is acknowledged and repented.
The war is between those who acknowledge and experience the spiritual world, the immaterial world, the world of God; and those who don't. Between those who know we are all children of God and destined to become free; and those who believe themselves and everyone else to be evolved automata subject to rigid determinism alleviated only by randomness. Between those who take ultimate responsibility and look to god-within; and those who hope for external intervention for rescue.
The happy ending of a new THS would be very happy indeed! A world of free, agent, people affiliated in loving families and with close friends; a world therefore open-ended, of creativity. Not a utopia; but an active, developing, expanding, deeply-rewarding world of perpetual interest, challenges, increasing awareness and understanding - making, doing and thinking.
Friday, 11 August 2017
Who - exactly - are the (evil-motivated) Global Conspiracy/ Establishment/ Hidden Hand?
Why is it so hard (given the colossal amount of supporting evidence) for the Western population to believe that there is a group of very powerful people in the world who are not just trying to enrich themselves, not just incompetent fools - but who are strategically evil - that is, actively and explicitly pursuing an agenda designed to harm?
There are at least several reasons - and they are related to mass secularism, atheism, the rejection of Christianity - and the consequent incoherence, alienation, nihilism and despair.
1. Spiritual not material
The first is that the evil they do is primarily spiritual, not material.
Most conspiracy theorists assert that the Global Elite are trying to cause death, disease, poverty and misery - but they are not going to convince many people in a world where the opposite trends have been in place for decades: massive world population growth continuing, extending average lifespans, excess production of food and other essentials - as well as trivialities and luxuries, Western medicine everywhere, including the poorest places - the populations of which therefore continue to grow rapidly...
Either such an elite is not very powerful, grossly incompetent, or counter productive!
2. Minds not bodies
Only from a Christian perspective can we perceive that the trend is not material but spiritual; and towards a state of value inversion rather than physical suffering.
For instance; we can all recognise that we are living in a society of near-total surveillance (for most of the population - e.g. nearly every social media user with a smart phone) - but hardly anybody understands why.
The reason is quite simple: surveillance leads onto control - but it is minds that are to be controlled, primarily (not bodies). The System intends to convert humans minds into conduits for externally-derived information and stimulation; and has apparently persuaded the mass public that this is precisely what it most wants to happen.
When there is sufficiently high volume and rapid throughput of attention-grabbing stimuli - then humans will be unable to think for-themselves and will be completely at the mercy of those who control the throughput.
3. Damnation not death
The evil Establishment are, at some level and in some ways, demonically controlled - which means that their objective is spiritual warfare, not physical warfare; and their ultimate aim is damnation of souls, not the suffering or death of bodies.
So the Hidden Hand is quite happy to promote pleasure and prosperity, extend lifespan, pursue World Peace or anything else that may help in achieving their real goal of damning souls.
4. Damnation is difficult
It is, however, difficult to attain the damnation of souls - because the world was created and is sustained by a loving God, whose children we are. Since the time of Jesus Christ; there are many ways that we can escape damnation and accept eternal life and spiritual growth to becomes full sons and daughters of God.
The basic fact is that all damnation is self-damnation; so the problem for demonic powers is to induce people to reject salvation and thereby damn themselves.
The most potent cure for this world (in some way established, made effectual, by the life/ death/ resurrection of Jesus) is repentance - which is an acknowledgement of the rightness and desirability of God's plan for men and women.
5. Repentance
The big problem of the Enemy is that at any time, in any place, anybody may repent and accept the gift of Jesus - and escape the fate of damnation which is prepared for them. How, then, to stop Men repenting?
This is where totalitarian surveillance and control comes in. Once thought has been taken-over; then its content can be subverted then inverted. Good and bad are reverse; truth and lies, beauty and ugliness, virtue and sin... all can be upended and Men made actively to desire damnation on the basis that they judge it to be superior to salvation.
When effective, this pre-treatment will ensure that someone given a clear choice, knowing all the outcomes, will choose damnation in preference to salvation; will indeed regard salvation as evil.
So, who exactly are the Global Conspiracy? The answer is that it doesn't matter - what does matter is that you yourself are standing upon firm ground from which you can validly evaluate. You yourself must have a solid and coherent basis for judgment - and then whatever tricks are applied, from whatever quarter, you will be superior to them and able to rise above them.
Things are certainly bad, in a spiritual sense, in the world now - perhaps worse than ever before. But they are not too bad for us to cope. And if we do root ourselves in the stability of truth, beauty and virtue; and if we can find these within ourselves so that we are autonomous from corruptible institutions - then the multiplicity of threats and challenges will become transformed into a source of greater strength and clearer understanding.
By resisting that which seeks to overcome us, we grow; by overcoming resistance, we grow. With repentance, we cannot lose (so long as we want to win).
There are at least several reasons - and they are related to mass secularism, atheism, the rejection of Christianity - and the consequent incoherence, alienation, nihilism and despair.
1. Spiritual not material
The first is that the evil they do is primarily spiritual, not material.
Most conspiracy theorists assert that the Global Elite are trying to cause death, disease, poverty and misery - but they are not going to convince many people in a world where the opposite trends have been in place for decades: massive world population growth continuing, extending average lifespans, excess production of food and other essentials - as well as trivialities and luxuries, Western medicine everywhere, including the poorest places - the populations of which therefore continue to grow rapidly...
Either such an elite is not very powerful, grossly incompetent, or counter productive!
2. Minds not bodies
Only from a Christian perspective can we perceive that the trend is not material but spiritual; and towards a state of value inversion rather than physical suffering.
For instance; we can all recognise that we are living in a society of near-total surveillance (for most of the population - e.g. nearly every social media user with a smart phone) - but hardly anybody understands why.
The reason is quite simple: surveillance leads onto control - but it is minds that are to be controlled, primarily (not bodies). The System intends to convert humans minds into conduits for externally-derived information and stimulation; and has apparently persuaded the mass public that this is precisely what it most wants to happen.
When there is sufficiently high volume and rapid throughput of attention-grabbing stimuli - then humans will be unable to think for-themselves and will be completely at the mercy of those who control the throughput.
3. Damnation not death
The evil Establishment are, at some level and in some ways, demonically controlled - which means that their objective is spiritual warfare, not physical warfare; and their ultimate aim is damnation of souls, not the suffering or death of bodies.
So the Hidden Hand is quite happy to promote pleasure and prosperity, extend lifespan, pursue World Peace or anything else that may help in achieving their real goal of damning souls.
4. Damnation is difficult
It is, however, difficult to attain the damnation of souls - because the world was created and is sustained by a loving God, whose children we are. Since the time of Jesus Christ; there are many ways that we can escape damnation and accept eternal life and spiritual growth to becomes full sons and daughters of God.
The basic fact is that all damnation is self-damnation; so the problem for demonic powers is to induce people to reject salvation and thereby damn themselves.
The most potent cure for this world (in some way established, made effectual, by the life/ death/ resurrection of Jesus) is repentance - which is an acknowledgement of the rightness and desirability of God's plan for men and women.
5. Repentance
The big problem of the Enemy is that at any time, in any place, anybody may repent and accept the gift of Jesus - and escape the fate of damnation which is prepared for them. How, then, to stop Men repenting?
This is where totalitarian surveillance and control comes in. Once thought has been taken-over; then its content can be subverted then inverted. Good and bad are reverse; truth and lies, beauty and ugliness, virtue and sin... all can be upended and Men made actively to desire damnation on the basis that they judge it to be superior to salvation.
When effective, this pre-treatment will ensure that someone given a clear choice, knowing all the outcomes, will choose damnation in preference to salvation; will indeed regard salvation as evil.
So, who exactly are the Global Conspiracy? The answer is that it doesn't matter - what does matter is that you yourself are standing upon firm ground from which you can validly evaluate. You yourself must have a solid and coherent basis for judgment - and then whatever tricks are applied, from whatever quarter, you will be superior to them and able to rise above them.
Things are certainly bad, in a spiritual sense, in the world now - perhaps worse than ever before. But they are not too bad for us to cope. And if we do root ourselves in the stability of truth, beauty and virtue; and if we can find these within ourselves so that we are autonomous from corruptible institutions - then the multiplicity of threats and challenges will become transformed into a source of greater strength and clearer understanding.
By resisting that which seeks to overcome us, we grow; by overcoming resistance, we grow. With repentance, we cannot lose (so long as we want to win).
Thinking as the primary thing: as an end in itself (meditations in a migraine)
Yesterday - as not infrequently happens - I had a sustained and severe migraine which was not fully controllable: consequently I had a lot of time to think, but much of the time found it very difficult to think.
But at certain phases and balances of the pain and its treatment, again not unusually, I was able to think with exceptional lucidity; perhaps because (most activities being necessarily suppressed) the process of thinking then feels to be detached from other mental events; and can be isolated, studied, and simultaneously experienced...
Anyway, I then experienced (and made notes on) what I had previously often argued-for - that thinking is the primary thing and should be regarded as (pretty much) an end in itself.
Whereas typically we regard thinking as merely a means to some other end - as a thing justified by results. We try to use thinking to achieve some goal or another; we don't in general try to live-in our thinking, nor to enhance our thinking - to purify or strengthen the process... That is seldom or never the case.
In some ways it is hard to believe that a single person, thinking, is of prime importance in the vast scheme of things; in other ways - when it is actually happening - nothing seems more likely. It seems obvious and natural than that this thinking, going on here-and-now, is indeed the most important of things - is of universal and permanent significance.
When it is clear and strong, when I am alert and aware, the activity of thinking really does feel just like what I have worked-it-out it to be: the main thing.
But at certain phases and balances of the pain and its treatment, again not unusually, I was able to think with exceptional lucidity; perhaps because (most activities being necessarily suppressed) the process of thinking then feels to be detached from other mental events; and can be isolated, studied, and simultaneously experienced...
Anyway, I then experienced (and made notes on) what I had previously often argued-for - that thinking is the primary thing and should be regarded as (pretty much) an end in itself.
Whereas typically we regard thinking as merely a means to some other end - as a thing justified by results. We try to use thinking to achieve some goal or another; we don't in general try to live-in our thinking, nor to enhance our thinking - to purify or strengthen the process... That is seldom or never the case.
In some ways it is hard to believe that a single person, thinking, is of prime importance in the vast scheme of things; in other ways - when it is actually happening - nothing seems more likely. It seems obvious and natural than that this thinking, going on here-and-now, is indeed the most important of things - is of universal and permanent significance.
When it is clear and strong, when I am alert and aware, the activity of thinking really does feel just like what I have worked-it-out it to be: the main thing.
Thursday, 10 August 2017
Where Romanticism went wrong: the example of Thoreau, Walden and his journals
Thoreau was probably the first writer of the Romantic movement (called Transcendentalism in New England) that I deeply engaged-with, some four decades ago; and he has continued to be a favourite - I have read several scores of books by and about him. I regard Thoreau as one of the greatest prose writers ever, a genius of high rank, and one with whom I feel a special affinity.
But...
But if considered in terms of the evolutionary development of human consciousness, Thoreau was a dead-end; and indeed a clear exemplar of where Romanticism went wrong and failed to fulfil its destiny as intended the future of Man.
In the first place, Thoreau abandoned Christianity - replacing it with a very relativistic, fluid, not really serious, imprecise kind of deism and interest in Hinduism. This was a disaster, intellectually speaking; because it is never clear in Thoreau whether he regards nature as truly meaningful, or merely a 'projection' of his own psychological wishes. Indeed, there are passages of Thoreau in which he seems to regard the world almost solipsistically - as if the essence of his relationship with the world was only the maximisation of his own psychological gratifications. In the Economy chapter of Walden he explicitly depicts Life as a zero-sum transaction between his own selfishness and the world's demands on him; and expresses a determination that he will get the best of this bargain.
By abandoning any serious theism; Thoreau rendered his entire thought arbitrary - and opening his interpretations to the gravitational pull of the modern hedonic bottom-line of Life-as-therapy. It is in this sense that Thoreau can justly be called escapist; in that he advocates (and to some extent practised - although not consistently) the idea of avoiding responsibility, living for the moment (ie short-term gratification), living for oneself (pleasing oneself, self-training an indifference to the evaluations of anybody else).
But, putting that aside - let us concentrate on Thoreau's consciousness. In the autobiographical Walden, Thoreau's own consciousness is depicted in a very appealing fashion. The Thoreau character in the book lives in nature in a fashion and with a thoroughness that is most appealing to alienated modern Man: he notices everything in nature and is sensitive to the slightest changes, he responds powerfully, and is deeply-satisfied by his responses... His whole life is depicted as simply moving from one intense, epiphanic experience to another - all the while in an elevated, ecstatic stream of consciousness...
Of course this is writing. And Walden was written and re-written many times over many years - it is a carefully, brilliantly, crafted artifact - it is not an account of Thoreau's actual life or his mind. If we compare the book Walden with Thoreau's journals, we can see that his working life at about this time consisted of walking and writing; he would take walks, during walks he would make notes, and then he would write-up these walks for his journal; the journals were then the source of his books (some of them only published posthumously). The walks, the life, the experiences were (in a sense) fuel for the writing.
However, the point is that Thoreau's consciousness was a modern self-consciousness; he was not immersed-in nature in the way that American Indians were (or seemed to be). Thoreau had a great love for, and knowledge of, the American Indians - but the consciousness he saw in them was not his own consciousness. They were in nature in a largely unselfconscious and passively-accepting way that was utterly alien to Thoreau. By contrast, when Thoreau experienced nature it was purposively, to be remembered, reflected-on and written-about.
My point here is that this actuality is concealed in Walden and the other books. The Thoreau character is depicted rather as if he were himself an Indian.
In essence, Thoreau's consciousness - his experience of Life, including Nature - took place with full self-consciousness and in thinking. (And of course writing - but primarily in thinking.) Yet he did not depict himself as a man who experienced Life in the way he actually did; and furthermore, he seemed to regard the actuality as an intrinsically second-rate and still-alienated way of being.
My contention is that for Thoreau to have taken to completion the impulse of Romanticism, he would have needed to depict himself as he was: that is, a man who lived primarily in thinking. It was in thinking, self-consciously, in full alertness, that Thoreau was aware of Nature and of himself in nature - and the two were brought together deliberately, purposively, in the process of actual thinking.
Yet the yearning, the aspiration, the hope of Thoreau is seemingly for a life immersed and unselfconscious; a life like an idealised Indian who simply is, within nature, a part of nature.
What would have been needed for Thoreau to fulfil the destiny of Romanticism, would have been for him to develop a Christian understanding of the world as creation, as having meaning and purpose and himself as a part of this - but with his own unique role; an agent and an active co-creator, not merely a passive component.
And Thoreau would need to have recognised that his own self-conscious thinking was not only the place and activity within which he actually lived; but that this was a good thing, indeed the best thing! Instead of implicitly denying (by leaving-out) the aware observer, his world view should have recognised that this was exactly his destiny.
It would have been a matter of validating in theory what he actually did in practice.
And instead of trying to lose-himself in the epiphanic moment, and claiming that the moment included all; Thoreau should have aimed at strengthening his active, aware thinking so that it could match and surpass the power of the unselfconscious, passive, immersed experience.
This would, of course, have entailed a recognition that thinking is not merely a second-rate version of experience; not merely a pale reflection of the engaged life; but that thinking is Real Life; that thinking is real, really-real - that, in thinking, Man is potentially tasting the divine life and and becoming an actual co-creator.
In saying that about what Thoreau should have done, I am asserting also that Thoreau really could have done this. Had he made different choices, he really could have taken this other path I outline above.
Why did he not? Well, in a nutshell, because he made bad decisions, wrong decisions - he equated Christianity (and theism) with Calvinism and churches and rejected both; he accepted that thinking was merely theory and experience was superior; he focused more upon crafting a work of genius (Walden) and seeking recognition for this, than on living life as a genius; he came to regard politics, and telling other people what was right and what to do, as being more urgently important than Man living a truly spiritual life - or, at least, he dishonestly tried to conflate the two.
The work that Thoreau chose not to do has still not been done; although we who live now have the good fortune that Owen Barfield has been able to explain all this; building on the insights of the early Rudolf Steiner.
But the primary task remains; and the solution has been indicated in theory and our task is to realise it in practice; in our own lives. The task is to live spiritually, as the Thoreau character mostly does as depicted in Walden. But to realise that to attain this entails a new and better kind of thinking, which is more like that practiced by Thoreau in the process of writing Walden.
This entails achieving a metaphysical understanding of thinking which recognises its validity and potential; and then practising this in our own living, as best we can - and (while patiently) this as our first, most urgent and significant priority.
But...
But if considered in terms of the evolutionary development of human consciousness, Thoreau was a dead-end; and indeed a clear exemplar of where Romanticism went wrong and failed to fulfil its destiny as intended the future of Man.
In the first place, Thoreau abandoned Christianity - replacing it with a very relativistic, fluid, not really serious, imprecise kind of deism and interest in Hinduism. This was a disaster, intellectually speaking; because it is never clear in Thoreau whether he regards nature as truly meaningful, or merely a 'projection' of his own psychological wishes. Indeed, there are passages of Thoreau in which he seems to regard the world almost solipsistically - as if the essence of his relationship with the world was only the maximisation of his own psychological gratifications. In the Economy chapter of Walden he explicitly depicts Life as a zero-sum transaction between his own selfishness and the world's demands on him; and expresses a determination that he will get the best of this bargain.
By abandoning any serious theism; Thoreau rendered his entire thought arbitrary - and opening his interpretations to the gravitational pull of the modern hedonic bottom-line of Life-as-therapy. It is in this sense that Thoreau can justly be called escapist; in that he advocates (and to some extent practised - although not consistently) the idea of avoiding responsibility, living for the moment (ie short-term gratification), living for oneself (pleasing oneself, self-training an indifference to the evaluations of anybody else).
But, putting that aside - let us concentrate on Thoreau's consciousness. In the autobiographical Walden, Thoreau's own consciousness is depicted in a very appealing fashion. The Thoreau character in the book lives in nature in a fashion and with a thoroughness that is most appealing to alienated modern Man: he notices everything in nature and is sensitive to the slightest changes, he responds powerfully, and is deeply-satisfied by his responses... His whole life is depicted as simply moving from one intense, epiphanic experience to another - all the while in an elevated, ecstatic stream of consciousness...
Of course this is writing. And Walden was written and re-written many times over many years - it is a carefully, brilliantly, crafted artifact - it is not an account of Thoreau's actual life or his mind. If we compare the book Walden with Thoreau's journals, we can see that his working life at about this time consisted of walking and writing; he would take walks, during walks he would make notes, and then he would write-up these walks for his journal; the journals were then the source of his books (some of them only published posthumously). The walks, the life, the experiences were (in a sense) fuel for the writing.
However, the point is that Thoreau's consciousness was a modern self-consciousness; he was not immersed-in nature in the way that American Indians were (or seemed to be). Thoreau had a great love for, and knowledge of, the American Indians - but the consciousness he saw in them was not his own consciousness. They were in nature in a largely unselfconscious and passively-accepting way that was utterly alien to Thoreau. By contrast, when Thoreau experienced nature it was purposively, to be remembered, reflected-on and written-about.
My point here is that this actuality is concealed in Walden and the other books. The Thoreau character is depicted rather as if he were himself an Indian.
In essence, Thoreau's consciousness - his experience of Life, including Nature - took place with full self-consciousness and in thinking. (And of course writing - but primarily in thinking.) Yet he did not depict himself as a man who experienced Life in the way he actually did; and furthermore, he seemed to regard the actuality as an intrinsically second-rate and still-alienated way of being.
My contention is that for Thoreau to have taken to completion the impulse of Romanticism, he would have needed to depict himself as he was: that is, a man who lived primarily in thinking. It was in thinking, self-consciously, in full alertness, that Thoreau was aware of Nature and of himself in nature - and the two were brought together deliberately, purposively, in the process of actual thinking.
Yet the yearning, the aspiration, the hope of Thoreau is seemingly for a life immersed and unselfconscious; a life like an idealised Indian who simply is, within nature, a part of nature.
What would have been needed for Thoreau to fulfil the destiny of Romanticism, would have been for him to develop a Christian understanding of the world as creation, as having meaning and purpose and himself as a part of this - but with his own unique role; an agent and an active co-creator, not merely a passive component.
And Thoreau would need to have recognised that his own self-conscious thinking was not only the place and activity within which he actually lived; but that this was a good thing, indeed the best thing! Instead of implicitly denying (by leaving-out) the aware observer, his world view should have recognised that this was exactly his destiny.
It would have been a matter of validating in theory what he actually did in practice.
And instead of trying to lose-himself in the epiphanic moment, and claiming that the moment included all; Thoreau should have aimed at strengthening his active, aware thinking so that it could match and surpass the power of the unselfconscious, passive, immersed experience.
This would, of course, have entailed a recognition that thinking is not merely a second-rate version of experience; not merely a pale reflection of the engaged life; but that thinking is Real Life; that thinking is real, really-real - that, in thinking, Man is potentially tasting the divine life and and becoming an actual co-creator.
In saying that about what Thoreau should have done, I am asserting also that Thoreau really could have done this. Had he made different choices, he really could have taken this other path I outline above.
Why did he not? Well, in a nutshell, because he made bad decisions, wrong decisions - he equated Christianity (and theism) with Calvinism and churches and rejected both; he accepted that thinking was merely theory and experience was superior; he focused more upon crafting a work of genius (Walden) and seeking recognition for this, than on living life as a genius; he came to regard politics, and telling other people what was right and what to do, as being more urgently important than Man living a truly spiritual life - or, at least, he dishonestly tried to conflate the two.
The work that Thoreau chose not to do has still not been done; although we who live now have the good fortune that Owen Barfield has been able to explain all this; building on the insights of the early Rudolf Steiner.
But the primary task remains; and the solution has been indicated in theory and our task is to realise it in practice; in our own lives. The task is to live spiritually, as the Thoreau character mostly does as depicted in Walden. But to realise that to attain this entails a new and better kind of thinking, which is more like that practiced by Thoreau in the process of writing Walden.
This entails achieving a metaphysical understanding of thinking which recognises its validity and potential; and then practising this in our own living, as best we can - and (while patiently) this as our first, most urgent and significant priority.
Taliesin - Bard of Britain. Written by John Fitzgerald and illustrated by Rob Floyd
Three drops of inspiration, by Rob Floyd
There is a treat for those who love Welsh and Arthurian legend over at Albion Awakening - written by John Fitzgerald and illustrated by his friend and collaborator Rob Floyd:
The whole thing is at Albion Awakening
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