If you are interested in hearing a one-hour radio dramatization of Charles Williams's novel The Place of the Lion (1931); then pop-across to my Notion Club Papers blog for a description and link...
Thursday, 30 July 2020
"What about the election?"
We are all those two naughty boys, bottom left - we now know there's an agendum behind the curtain
Which election? Any election, anywhere - but perhaps one in particular: the US. As usual, this election is being regarded as the most important ever, different from any before, etc. But now, in 2020, we know that on the contrary this is the least important election in the history of the world.
Why so trivial? Simply because we now know for sure (it isn't just a theory any more) that the whole world is being run by a Global Establishment for whom elections are no barrier to doing what They want.
After all, a supposedly radically-different, supposedly political-Outsider, supposedly-nationalist and common-sensical - apparently (by their hysterical reaction) genuinely anti-Leftist US President [Trade Mark: Most Powerful Individual in the World] was (allegedly) 'in power' when that nation, along with every other in the world, succumbed to an international, extreme Leftist coup.
And all nations (so far as I know), 'ruled' by all of the various different flavours of mainstream politics across a spectrum from nationalist, conservative, republican etc. to various types of explicit radical, socialist, progressive; and including first-world, third-world and whatever lies between... All of them conformed (almost simultaneously) to the same set of priorities and policies; and all of them are now en route to the same destination.
So now We Know, if we were previously in doubt, how stupid it was for so many anti-Left people to put hope in elections, to hope that any mainstream option could achieve any significant good.
(And, incidentally, how equally stupid were the angry Leftists, who were so utterly terrified about pseudo-opposition parties and leaders getting power! What fools to be at all worried by such a pathetic bunch of fakes, cowards and quislings!)
If not exactly marching in lock-step, the entire world is currently shambling-chaotically towards precisely the same Agenda 2030/ Great Reset destination; at somewhat varying speeds - true; but none are pushing-back against the mass movement.
The lesson has been given us - whether or not we choose to learn from it. And we should be thankful for such a revelation, such an apocalypse.
Just think how much time and effort you can now save by refusing to allow your consciousness to be colonised by the political Punch and Judy show that is democratic politics! - now you know that both 'antagonists' are controlled by the same puppeteer.
Wednesday, 29 July 2020
Because we are *already* living in the Black Iron Prison - 'resistance' really is futile
We are already living in the Black Iron Prison; and since earlier this year we know that this jail is global - with nowhere to escape into (only places where the restrictions and rules are currently somewhat less onerous).
Once you have taken this on board, you will realise that this ought to put to an end all this talk of socio-politically 'resisting' the imposition of worldwide totalitarianism. So far as our socio-political status is concerned; we are 'assimilated' into The Borg/ The Matrix/ The System; and Resistance Is Futile
Too late: it's happened. It has been imposed. (Past tense.)
The revolution has won. Any action to do more than delay the Great Reset - any action to change to a fundamentally different and better direction - would entail a counter-revolution; and seeing the broad support of the BIP it could not be a 'mass' revolution.
The ruling classes are on-board with the programme; and far too many of the masses are clamouring for more oppression, faster, please!
And anyway, a counter-rev to what we had before 2020 would not be worth having - since it was pointing and pushing this way. So it would need to be a new revolution. And to be better; it would need to be a new and Christian revolution.
But it turns-out that the Christian church leadership are in-bed-with the new regime, support the program, and have closed the churches and all-but ceased their activities (gathering, worship, singing, ritual... and - most significantly - sacraments).
There are individual real Christians distributed across and outside-of the pseudo-Christian churches; but when did scattered individuals ever mount a successful revolution? And (more importantly) when was such a revolution ever a change for the better?
So, let's stop pretending that there is any meaningful hope of resistance, revolution or any other socio-political mechanism for fundamental change. The System will have-to unfold according to its own evil, and thus self-loathing and self-destructive, tendencies.
Let us instead do what actually can be done - what our religion insists that we ought to be doing; as individual Christians, working on our selves and with those we love; and any real Christians that happen to be in our vicinity.
We are compelled, for lack of any viable alternative, to stop being political and to put everything into being spiritual. And is that such a bad thing?
Once you have taken this on board, you will realise that this ought to put to an end all this talk of socio-politically 'resisting' the imposition of worldwide totalitarianism. So far as our socio-political status is concerned; we are 'assimilated' into The Borg/ The Matrix/ The System; and Resistance Is Futile
Too late: it's happened. It has been imposed. (Past tense.)
The revolution has won. Any action to do more than delay the Great Reset - any action to change to a fundamentally different and better direction - would entail a counter-revolution; and seeing the broad support of the BIP it could not be a 'mass' revolution.
The ruling classes are on-board with the programme; and far too many of the masses are clamouring for more oppression, faster, please!
And anyway, a counter-rev to what we had before 2020 would not be worth having - since it was pointing and pushing this way. So it would need to be a new revolution. And to be better; it would need to be a new and Christian revolution.
But it turns-out that the Christian church leadership are in-bed-with the new regime, support the program, and have closed the churches and all-but ceased their activities (gathering, worship, singing, ritual... and - most significantly - sacraments).
There are individual real Christians distributed across and outside-of the pseudo-Christian churches; but when did scattered individuals ever mount a successful revolution? And (more importantly) when was such a revolution ever a change for the better?
So, let's stop pretending that there is any meaningful hope of resistance, revolution or any other socio-political mechanism for fundamental change. The System will have-to unfold according to its own evil, and thus self-loathing and self-destructive, tendencies.
Let us instead do what actually can be done - what our religion insists that we ought to be doing; as individual Christians, working on our selves and with those we love; and any real Christians that happen to be in our vicinity.
We are compelled, for lack of any viable alternative, to stop being political and to put everything into being spiritual. And is that such a bad thing?
The meaning of mortal life? Becoming Sons (and Daughters) of God
In the Fourth Gospel it is said that part of the mission of Jesus was to enable us to become Sons of God, as resurrected Men in Heaven.
Yet Jesus also makes clear that we are already children of God: God being both our father and Jesus's father, in what seems to be a literal rather than a metaphorical sense. Indeed, it is a new teaching of Jesus that God is our father in a personal sense, not only a tribal patriarch.
I make sense of this by assuming that we are born as spiritually-young children, and Jesus offers us the possibility of choosing to become spiritually grown-up children in our resurrected state.
This leads on to the question: why grow-up? Children are wonderful - and perfect in their way; so why go to the bother and hazard of growing-up? - especially as it requires negotiating the (extreme) spiritual dangers of adolescence.
This has to do with the Christian understanding of creation - which I take to be a more like a continual dynamic work-in-progress (a process) than a finished perfection. If creation were instead regarded as complete, then Man would have no active role... Man could at most aspire to contemplate the finished-work of creation (in some kind of blissful state) - and for this there would be no need to become spiritually grown-up.
Indeed, if contemplation was the ultimate goal; there would be no need for Man to incarnate - he would be better to remain a spirit; nor would there be any need for mortal life - he would be better to be created directly-into Heaven (like an 'angel'), and stay there.
And this is, indeed, the goal of some Eastern (oneness) religious ideas, and the Platonic tradition in the West - even within Christianity. These systems have no necessary function for mortal incarnate life, and no active role for Men: the ideal is passive, inactive, absorbed (ego-less, self-less) contemplation - for which angelic spirits in Heaven are presumably better suited than incarnate mortal Men on earth.
And it is hard to see even why such a God would want to create Men, or indeed angels, or anything else - so complete, self-sufficient, perfect, inclusive and desire-less is this God understood to be... Such a God is better described in terms of an abstract deity, defined in terms of divine properties (such as omnipotence and omniscience). But the God that Jesus speaks-with and speaks-of is addressed as a person - so it is hard to see why Christians should go down the path towards abstract deity...
To my mind, matters are clarified when it is assumed that God wants us to become active participants in the on-going-work of his creation.
That makes sense of why we are encouraged grow-up; we need to grow-up if we aspire to become our-selves active creators, rather than remaining as children - who are absorbed-in life, and are not creative.
My understanding is that we are all born as children of God - in a personal and 'literal' sense. We are initially passively-absorbed-in the ongoing creation. But by stages we separate from it and become self-aware; so that we may mature and consciously-choose to return to participating-in creation - but this time as active, contributing, co-creators with God.
(And indeed with Jesus - since this active co-creation is what Jesus did, first as a mortal Man from the advent of his divine mission at the baptism by John; then after his resurrection to eternal life, and ascension. Examples of co-creation by Jesus include, but are not restricted to, his miracles.)
Thus, the definition of spiritual adulthood or maturity, is one who participates actively in creation, who consciously contributes some-thing from-themselves - and this is to be a Son or Daughter of God in the sense that Jesus promised to those who follow him.
We may do such active participating during mortal life, in a temporary way, as a part of our learning.
We may, for instance, learn (as I have) that active participation in creation is the single most satisfying experience of life (outside of family love); and may wish to continue it fully rather than partially.
And such active participation is the life of those grown-up children of God who choose - after biological death - to commit themselves eternally to resurrected Heavenly life. If we want this, we can have it; and that is to grow-up, spiritually.
Yet Jesus also makes clear that we are already children of God: God being both our father and Jesus's father, in what seems to be a literal rather than a metaphorical sense. Indeed, it is a new teaching of Jesus that God is our father in a personal sense, not only a tribal patriarch.
I make sense of this by assuming that we are born as spiritually-young children, and Jesus offers us the possibility of choosing to become spiritually grown-up children in our resurrected state.
This leads on to the question: why grow-up? Children are wonderful - and perfect in their way; so why go to the bother and hazard of growing-up? - especially as it requires negotiating the (extreme) spiritual dangers of adolescence.
This has to do with the Christian understanding of creation - which I take to be a more like a continual dynamic work-in-progress (a process) than a finished perfection. If creation were instead regarded as complete, then Man would have no active role... Man could at most aspire to contemplate the finished-work of creation (in some kind of blissful state) - and for this there would be no need to become spiritually grown-up.
Indeed, if contemplation was the ultimate goal; there would be no need for Man to incarnate - he would be better to remain a spirit; nor would there be any need for mortal life - he would be better to be created directly-into Heaven (like an 'angel'), and stay there.
And this is, indeed, the goal of some Eastern (oneness) religious ideas, and the Platonic tradition in the West - even within Christianity. These systems have no necessary function for mortal incarnate life, and no active role for Men: the ideal is passive, inactive, absorbed (ego-less, self-less) contemplation - for which angelic spirits in Heaven are presumably better suited than incarnate mortal Men on earth.
And it is hard to see even why such a God would want to create Men, or indeed angels, or anything else - so complete, self-sufficient, perfect, inclusive and desire-less is this God understood to be... Such a God is better described in terms of an abstract deity, defined in terms of divine properties (such as omnipotence and omniscience). But the God that Jesus speaks-with and speaks-of is addressed as a person - so it is hard to see why Christians should go down the path towards abstract deity...
To my mind, matters are clarified when it is assumed that God wants us to become active participants in the on-going-work of his creation.
That makes sense of why we are encouraged grow-up; we need to grow-up if we aspire to become our-selves active creators, rather than remaining as children - who are absorbed-in life, and are not creative.
My understanding is that we are all born as children of God - in a personal and 'literal' sense. We are initially passively-absorbed-in the ongoing creation. But by stages we separate from it and become self-aware; so that we may mature and consciously-choose to return to participating-in creation - but this time as active, contributing, co-creators with God.
(And indeed with Jesus - since this active co-creation is what Jesus did, first as a mortal Man from the advent of his divine mission at the baptism by John; then after his resurrection to eternal life, and ascension. Examples of co-creation by Jesus include, but are not restricted to, his miracles.)
Thus, the definition of spiritual adulthood or maturity, is one who participates actively in creation, who consciously contributes some-thing from-themselves - and this is to be a Son or Daughter of God in the sense that Jesus promised to those who follow him.
We may do such active participating during mortal life, in a temporary way, as a part of our learning.
We may, for instance, learn (as I have) that active participation in creation is the single most satisfying experience of life (outside of family love); and may wish to continue it fully rather than partially.
And such active participation is the life of those grown-up children of God who choose - after biological death - to commit themselves eternally to resurrected Heavenly life. If we want this, we can have it; and that is to grow-up, spiritually.
Tuesday, 28 July 2020
What do I personally mean by 'God'
My personal definition of 'God' is The Creator. This entails that we inhabit a created reality - a created universe; and that this was created by a 'person'.
That definition is my understanding of what A God is.
While not universal, this basic definition is pretty widespread.
Then comes the nature of this personal God; which is perhaps unique to myself and has developed from a personal, intutive-revealed process. So I do not try to persuade others of the truth of it; it is up to each individual to discover such matters for himself. But for those who are interested...
My understanding is that God is not one individual but a dyad - specifically the eternal and loving creative relationship of Heavenly Father and Mother; our divine (actual, spiritual) parents.
This understanding also informs me of the motivation and method of God; in that the love of our Heavenly parents is what led to the purpose of creation being the procreation of spiritual children of God, and their developmental growth (via mortal life) into divine Sons and Daughters of God (as described in the Fourth Gospel). That is the motive.
The method is love: love is what makes creation possible, because it is love that transforms the primordial chaos into creation.
That definition is my understanding of what A God is.
While not universal, this basic definition is pretty widespread.
Then comes the nature of this personal God; which is perhaps unique to myself and has developed from a personal, intutive-revealed process. So I do not try to persuade others of the truth of it; it is up to each individual to discover such matters for himself. But for those who are interested...
My understanding is that God is not one individual but a dyad - specifically the eternal and loving creative relationship of Heavenly Father and Mother; our divine (actual, spiritual) parents.
This understanding also informs me of the motivation and method of God; in that the love of our Heavenly parents is what led to the purpose of creation being the procreation of spiritual children of God, and their developmental growth (via mortal life) into divine Sons and Daughters of God (as described in the Fourth Gospel). That is the motive.
The method is love: love is what makes creation possible, because it is love that transforms the primordial chaos into creation.
If motivation is primary - then obedience requires discernment
I keep returning to the fact that it is motivation that is primary; and/but real motivation must be inferred (since it is so easily denied, disguised or concealed). Such inference is called discernment, and it is unavoidable.
If you obey somebody or some-thing (e.g. some institution, including a church) then this does not absolve you of responsibility; rather it means that you have taken responsibility for that person or thing.
Specifically, when your belief in specifics is obedient to some external person-thing, then you are responsible for the motivations of that which you have chosen to obey.
Because you have-chosen that obedience (including having chosen not to choose, but just going-along).
For example; if you have chosen to make a master of an habitual or manipulative liar, and to obey a liar; and if you then believe the lies, defend the lies, propagandise for the lies --- then you yourself are a liar, and you are spiritually-responsible for those lies.
That's just the way it is; whether you like it or not.
If you obey somebody or some-thing (e.g. some institution, including a church) then this does not absolve you of responsibility; rather it means that you have taken responsibility for that person or thing.
Specifically, when your belief in specifics is obedient to some external person-thing, then you are responsible for the motivations of that which you have chosen to obey.
Because you have-chosen that obedience (including having chosen not to choose, but just going-along).
For example; if you have chosen to make a master of an habitual or manipulative liar, and to obey a liar; and if you then believe the lies, defend the lies, propagandise for the lies --- then you yourself are a liar, and you are spiritually-responsible for those lies.
That's just the way it is; whether you like it or not.
The Love of God, what it could mean to Christians
I tried to explain a couple of days ago why Jesus affirms in the New Testament that Love of God must come first - and what it means to 'come first'. But the picture is incomplete without the knowledge that God loves us, each and individually, as children.
Firstly, God is the creator; so that this world is God's work - and 'creation' includes create-ing, moment to moment.
Then God loves us as ideal parents love their children - all and each. God wants for each and all children to grow, spiritually, each in his own way - to become 'Sons of God'.
This means that the world has meaning, being organised around this principle and aimed-at this result; raising Men to become Sons of God by their experiences and choices; which means dwelling in Heaven and (at least some Men) growing-up spiritually towards greater divinity.
So this Love by God (who is creator) structures the world. Then comes our personal love for God. What this means is that we come to know that God is creator and loving parent; and, knowing this, we ourselves come to love this reality.
It is a close analogy with human families of the best sort. The parents will love the children - but for the family to work requires that the children also love the parents - which means the children wish to join with the work and purposes of the family. This is decided by each child as he matures - will I, do I, love my parents?
The wishes of the individual children are all the while being harmonised by their love for each other (i.e. love of neighbour) as well as the (primary) love of God (i.e. love of God: love of the basic set-up, full accord with Gods basic motivations in creation).
So love by God is a fact; but love for God is our decision.
And that's it.
Firstly, God is the creator; so that this world is God's work - and 'creation' includes create-ing, moment to moment.
Then God loves us as ideal parents love their children - all and each. God wants for each and all children to grow, spiritually, each in his own way - to become 'Sons of God'.
This means that the world has meaning, being organised around this principle and aimed-at this result; raising Men to become Sons of God by their experiences and choices; which means dwelling in Heaven and (at least some Men) growing-up spiritually towards greater divinity.
So this Love by God (who is creator) structures the world. Then comes our personal love for God. What this means is that we come to know that God is creator and loving parent; and, knowing this, we ourselves come to love this reality.
It is a close analogy with human families of the best sort. The parents will love the children - but for the family to work requires that the children also love the parents - which means the children wish to join with the work and purposes of the family. This is decided by each child as he matures - will I, do I, love my parents?
The wishes of the individual children are all the while being harmonised by their love for each other (i.e. love of neighbour) as well as the (primary) love of God (i.e. love of God: love of the basic set-up, full accord with Gods basic motivations in creation).
So love by God is a fact; but love for God is our decision.
And that's it.
Monday, 27 July 2020
The Antichrist will probe for your personal weaknesses
We all have our weaknesses! And - after decades, centuries, of developing The System - the Antichrist spirit has something to lure everyone.
I am intensely aware of this nowadays, with the ramping-up of evil in the world: a greater dominance by evil-motivated persons, their ideology more widely and deeply spread by the media and bureaucracies; more passively obeyed and passionately endorsed by the mass majority...
One of my weaknesses is on display just here: explaining social trends, thereby trying to define, understand and predict The System; thereby increasing my attention and involvement.
Following which; I become an advocate and defender of my latest 'model' of what-is-happening/ what-will-happen - despite that even the best model is always wrong (because a model is always - by its nature - grossly simplified and distorted compared with reality).
On the other hand, through the Gospels and Paul's Letters - as well as the teaching of the Holy Ghost, it is clear that we shouldn't be thinking this way - or, at least, if we do so think this way, it ought to be done lightly and without attachment.
Mostly we actually spend our lives alternating between worries and schemes for the future, and nostalgia and regrets about the past: oscillating between anticipation and memory.
But mostly we need (as always) to try and live here-and-now in the context of eternity: to live in the present and life-everlasting.
There are many snares of many kinds intending to stop this; but if we know what we ought to do, we can at least repent our (inevitable) failures and keep trying...
And that is something anybody can accomplish - if they wish; and (for salvation, albeit not for theosis) it is all that Jesus requires of us, after all.
I am intensely aware of this nowadays, with the ramping-up of evil in the world: a greater dominance by evil-motivated persons, their ideology more widely and deeply spread by the media and bureaucracies; more passively obeyed and passionately endorsed by the mass majority...
One of my weaknesses is on display just here: explaining social trends, thereby trying to define, understand and predict The System; thereby increasing my attention and involvement.
Following which; I become an advocate and defender of my latest 'model' of what-is-happening/ what-will-happen - despite that even the best model is always wrong (because a model is always - by its nature - grossly simplified and distorted compared with reality).
On the other hand, through the Gospels and Paul's Letters - as well as the teaching of the Holy Ghost, it is clear that we shouldn't be thinking this way - or, at least, if we do so think this way, it ought to be done lightly and without attachment.
Mostly we actually spend our lives alternating between worries and schemes for the future, and nostalgia and regrets about the past: oscillating between anticipation and memory.
But mostly we need (as always) to try and live here-and-now in the context of eternity: to live in the present and life-everlasting.
There are many snares of many kinds intending to stop this; but if we know what we ought to do, we can at least repent our (inevitable) failures and keep trying...
And that is something anybody can accomplish - if they wish; and (for salvation, albeit not for theosis) it is all that Jesus requires of us, after all.
Sunday, 26 July 2020
Love of God versus Anything else
What is the true category of a person, an institution, nation or civilization? The answer is that all of these can and should can be divided - and this division is clean - in terms of whether it is organised by 'Love of God' -- or Not.
Other attempted categorical divisions such as 'Left and Right', or subdivisions or refinements of such, are invariably partial selections and distortions of this reality...
Either we are trying to put Love of God (and everything to do with LoG - such as understanding the nature of God, and what loving God entails for us personally) as the focus; or Not.
And if not Love of God; then ultimately it matters little what different principle is primary: whether economic growth, equality, freedom, nation, diversity, political power, antiracism, social stability, the environment, human health or happiness...
Of course; if Love of God is primary; then this may differ between individuals, between denominations and religions, and over time - nonetheless it constitutes a category of life.
For those who acknowledge Love of God is the primary and proper First Thing; then any society that fails to put Love of God as its First Thing is wrong, is evil.
And this is a very easy discernment to make in the modern world! Because those who do not love God first and foremost, no longer even pretend to do so; but they are quite explicit about their other and different ideologies.
And even when they attempt to deceive on this point and pretend (for a moment) to be putting God first, their underlying true Not-God priorities are easily seen from their behaviours.
But the great characteristic of these times is their simplicity and clarity. It is easy to perceive, to know, that Love of God does Not motivate those who have greatest power, welath, status and influence... because they are increasingly explicit about the fact. Neither does Love of God motivate the great majority of the Western Masses. We live in a Godless/ God-denying and increasingly explicitly anti-God world.
Furthermore, such observations are not difficult and feel absolutely solid.
But it is confusing and over-complex, it is indeed a snare, to try to describe (and prove) just exactly what specifcially and explicitly does motivate the mass of modern people and their leaders... since (superficially at least) all this seems very changeable and incoherent, complex, multi-layered and deceptive...
Yet this difficulty in stating what People Really Do Believe (here-and-now) does not matter and should not delay us nor distract us.
It does not matter because we know for sure that whatever it is, it Certainly is not the Love of God.
All we need to know (at least as a beginning, but this is vital) is where sombody, some society, stands on this one issue of Love of God.
If they are not For it, then they are Against it; and if they are indeed against the primacy of Love of God, then it does not really matter in what exact and specific way they are against it...
By not being For the Love of God; they are on The Other Side. And that is what it is necessary to know.
After that? After one has decided to make Love of God the primary principle of one's Life?
Well then a whole new set of matters unfolds itself, varying between persons.
Love of God is a beginning, not a solution.
Indeed, Love of God is the beginning of the reality of purposive human Life - and anything else than this, is a refusal even to enter the arena of living.
Other attempted categorical divisions such as 'Left and Right', or subdivisions or refinements of such, are invariably partial selections and distortions of this reality...
Either we are trying to put Love of God (and everything to do with LoG - such as understanding the nature of God, and what loving God entails for us personally) as the focus; or Not.
And if not Love of God; then ultimately it matters little what different principle is primary: whether economic growth, equality, freedom, nation, diversity, political power, antiracism, social stability, the environment, human health or happiness...
Of course; if Love of God is primary; then this may differ between individuals, between denominations and religions, and over time - nonetheless it constitutes a category of life.
For those who acknowledge Love of God is the primary and proper First Thing; then any society that fails to put Love of God as its First Thing is wrong, is evil.
And this is a very easy discernment to make in the modern world! Because those who do not love God first and foremost, no longer even pretend to do so; but they are quite explicit about their other and different ideologies.
And even when they attempt to deceive on this point and pretend (for a moment) to be putting God first, their underlying true Not-God priorities are easily seen from their behaviours.
But the great characteristic of these times is their simplicity and clarity. It is easy to perceive, to know, that Love of God does Not motivate those who have greatest power, welath, status and influence... because they are increasingly explicit about the fact. Neither does Love of God motivate the great majority of the Western Masses. We live in a Godless/ God-denying and increasingly explicitly anti-God world.
Furthermore, such observations are not difficult and feel absolutely solid.
But it is confusing and over-complex, it is indeed a snare, to try to describe (and prove) just exactly what specifcially and explicitly does motivate the mass of modern people and their leaders... since (superficially at least) all this seems very changeable and incoherent, complex, multi-layered and deceptive...
Yet this difficulty in stating what People Really Do Believe (here-and-now) does not matter and should not delay us nor distract us.
It does not matter because we know for sure that whatever it is, it Certainly is not the Love of God.
All we need to know (at least as a beginning, but this is vital) is where sombody, some society, stands on this one issue of Love of God.
If they are not For it, then they are Against it; and if they are indeed against the primacy of Love of God, then it does not really matter in what exact and specific way they are against it...
By not being For the Love of God; they are on The Other Side. And that is what it is necessary to know.
After that? After one has decided to make Love of God the primary principle of one's Life?
Well then a whole new set of matters unfolds itself, varying between persons.
Love of God is a beginning, not a solution.
Indeed, Love of God is the beginning of the reality of purposive human Life - and anything else than this, is a refusal even to enter the arena of living.
Thursday, 23 July 2020
The Empire Never Ended and the Black Iron Prison
The Empire Never Ended is a maxim used often by Philip K Dick, especially in his novel Valis (1978), but also throughout the philosophical journal the Exegesis (2011).
The Black Iron Prison (BIP) was PKD's term for the manipulative, modern, totalitarian System based on bureaucracy and propaganda.
What I personally derive from this is that The Roman Empire was an institutional structure, a System, that has continued to this day. But, while continuous in The West; The Empire has changed considerably - especially in response to the breaking-in of Christianity; which was profoundly at odds with The Empire.
My summary understanding of what happened (not that of PKD) is as follows: Jesus Christ and his posthumous followers were a transformative force acting upon The Empire. Initially there was no 'church' but Jesus's followers worked like a family, based on loving personal relationships and without any abstract institutional structure.
The first stage in assimilating Christianity was to create an institutional church which could take its place among the other institutions of The Empire (the Emperor and his bureaucracy, the Military, the state religion etc). But such was the spiritual power of Christianity, that its church rapidly grew to take-over the Empire as its primary system.
Over the centuries, however, The Empire first assimilated then dominated Christianity - in multiple ways; until from the 19th century The Empire began to eliminate Christianty from the public realm altogether - first with the Communist and Socialist totalitarian Systems, then with the whole of the world.
At this point - where Christianity became almost-wholly corrupt, of fully assimilated at the institutional level - The Empire became The Black Iron Prison - an atheist totalitarian and global bureaucracy.
Just this year of 2020; the process came to near completion, with Christian churches closed and suspending core activities across the whole world.
The Black Iron Prison has won.
Edited from Exegesis 19:34-5:
The BIP is a vast complex life form which protects itself by inducing a negative hallucination of it: muddled thinking, loss of faculties and perception (as a protective mechanism). It has come here and because of its defensive devices we are not aware of it.
This BIP a sinister life form indeed...
1. First it takes power over us, reducing us to slaves.
2. Then it causes us to forget our former state
3 And to be unable to see or think straight so that the BIP becomes invisible to us, by reason of what it has done to us.
4. But we don't even know that we cannot think straight.
5. We cannot even monitor our own deformity, our own impairment.
Even the edifice of the church has been subverted by the BIP and made into an instrument of its occlusion of us. Ii is interesting how effectively the impairment works. If you derange the brain in precise ways, not only will it be damaged, but it will be unaware that it is impaired and will not seek to rectify the damage.
My note: At this point the BIP has become a single, global, exclusive and self-perpetuating system - based on the positive feedback of mutual reinforcement.
There is a primary concealment of the BIP controllers by using human puppets; true motives are hidden by a labile-rotating and incoherent pseudo-morality (e.g. healthism, environmentalism, antiracism, sexual revolution etc...) to mask the true selfish and exploitative nature of The System.
All autonomous institutions or groups are destroyed or assimilated - including the primary, natural and spontaneous human groupings of marriage and family, neighbourhood and nation.
The defences of the system are manyfold and are underpinned by a false metaphysical monopoly; such that all 'evidence' (itself heavily controlled, and overwhelming in volume) is seen to conform to the rigid cultural assumption that excludes God/ Spirit/ Objective values; and the whole BIP functions on the exclusive assumption that this is a materialistic, positivistic, meaningless and purposeless world - in which autonomous life and consciousness are essentially epiphenomenal illusions.
Further interventions (justified by the metaphysics and pseudo-morality) themselves also impair thinking and suppress motivation. The BIP deploys addiction, and dependence (on distraction; stimulation, sedation, hallucination) from mass media, entertainments and actual drugs.
As a relief, and to rationalise suppression, the BIP adds intoxication (pharmacological and social - eg riots).
Most recently, there is the general strategy of imposed social isolation such that individuals are single units within the official System; by means of 'untouchable'-style social-distancing, prison-style lock-down, face-concealment, driving all of 'life' into the remote, demotivating abstractions of online communications and interaction.
The Black Iron Prison (BIP) was PKD's term for the manipulative, modern, totalitarian System based on bureaucracy and propaganda.
What I personally derive from this is that The Roman Empire was an institutional structure, a System, that has continued to this day. But, while continuous in The West; The Empire has changed considerably - especially in response to the breaking-in of Christianity; which was profoundly at odds with The Empire.
My summary understanding of what happened (not that of PKD) is as follows: Jesus Christ and his posthumous followers were a transformative force acting upon The Empire. Initially there was no 'church' but Jesus's followers worked like a family, based on loving personal relationships and without any abstract institutional structure.
The first stage in assimilating Christianity was to create an institutional church which could take its place among the other institutions of The Empire (the Emperor and his bureaucracy, the Military, the state religion etc). But such was the spiritual power of Christianity, that its church rapidly grew to take-over the Empire as its primary system.
Over the centuries, however, The Empire first assimilated then dominated Christianity - in multiple ways; until from the 19th century The Empire began to eliminate Christianty from the public realm altogether - first with the Communist and Socialist totalitarian Systems, then with the whole of the world.
At this point - where Christianity became almost-wholly corrupt, of fully assimilated at the institutional level - The Empire became The Black Iron Prison - an atheist totalitarian and global bureaucracy.
Just this year of 2020; the process came to near completion, with Christian churches closed and suspending core activities across the whole world.
The Black Iron Prison has won.
Edited from Exegesis 19:34-5:
The BIP is a vast complex life form which protects itself by inducing a negative hallucination of it: muddled thinking, loss of faculties and perception (as a protective mechanism). It has come here and because of its defensive devices we are not aware of it.
This BIP a sinister life form indeed...
1. First it takes power over us, reducing us to slaves.
2. Then it causes us to forget our former state
3 And to be unable to see or think straight so that the BIP becomes invisible to us, by reason of what it has done to us.
4. But we don't even know that we cannot think straight.
5. We cannot even monitor our own deformity, our own impairment.
Even the edifice of the church has been subverted by the BIP and made into an instrument of its occlusion of us. Ii is interesting how effectively the impairment works. If you derange the brain in precise ways, not only will it be damaged, but it will be unaware that it is impaired and will not seek to rectify the damage.
My note: At this point the BIP has become a single, global, exclusive and self-perpetuating system - based on the positive feedback of mutual reinforcement.
There is a primary concealment of the BIP controllers by using human puppets; true motives are hidden by a labile-rotating and incoherent pseudo-morality (e.g. healthism, environmentalism, antiracism, sexual revolution etc...) to mask the true selfish and exploitative nature of The System.
All autonomous institutions or groups are destroyed or assimilated - including the primary, natural and spontaneous human groupings of marriage and family, neighbourhood and nation.
The defences of the system are manyfold and are underpinned by a false metaphysical monopoly; such that all 'evidence' (itself heavily controlled, and overwhelming in volume) is seen to conform to the rigid cultural assumption that excludes God/ Spirit/ Objective values; and the whole BIP functions on the exclusive assumption that this is a materialistic, positivistic, meaningless and purposeless world - in which autonomous life and consciousness are essentially epiphenomenal illusions.
Further interventions (justified by the metaphysics and pseudo-morality) themselves also impair thinking and suppress motivation. The BIP deploys addiction, and dependence (on distraction; stimulation, sedation, hallucination) from mass media, entertainments and actual drugs.
As a relief, and to rationalise suppression, the BIP adds intoxication (pharmacological and social - eg riots).
Most recently, there is the general strategy of imposed social isolation such that individuals are single units within the official System; by means of 'untouchable'-style social-distancing, prison-style lock-down, face-concealment, driving all of 'life' into the remote, demotivating abstractions of online communications and interaction.
Victims of The Zap Gun (Philip K Dick, 1967)
I am now reading some of the more minor works of Philip K Dick, most recently The Zap Gun from 1967. I bought and read this in, I think, 1984; expecting very little based upon its title and the cover illustration - I assumed it would be some kind of fighting adventure... Nothing of the kind!
All I could remember about the book until I took it up again a few days ago; was that it was surprisingly good, and surprisingly thought-provoking - and indeed that is the case. It is classic PKD territory, written at the height of his powers - and it is Not about a zap gun! - or, at least, the 'deadly' weapon turns-out to be very different from a gun, and very relevant for our current malaise.
Spoilers follow...
The world of The Zap Gun is one in which a cognitive elite ('cogs') rules the masses - pursaps, or 'poor saps' - by a version of the 1984 strategy of pretending perpetual war between Western and Eastern blocs. But this war is in fact a permanent state of mutual deterrence, secretly agreed by the governments, who pretend to be continually developing deadly anti-personnel, tactical weapons.
The process involves using rare individuals who have the psychic or mystical ability to go into a trance and return with accurate illustrations. These are made into blueprints and then fake weapons; shown to the masses via faked videos of them having terrible effects on human-lookalike androids.
The fake-weapons are always something else that is either useful (e.g. a household artefact) or amusing (a game), and this is reverse engineered from the plans; and the technology is 'plowshared' (referencing the proverb about turning swords into plowshares) into these new devices.
This situation is destabilised by the appearance of insect-like alien slavers in satellites who are incrementally taking the population of the planet - when a real weapon is needed to defeat them. Since this is a PKD novel - we never actually encounter the aliens (their nature is inferred); and the 'action' of their destructive slave raids, and their eventual defeat, are described only indirectly - happening 'off-stage'.
The surprising twist is that this alien-defeating weapon turns-out not to be any kind of gun, but a maze game toy; a toy made by an animated figure in a maze who cannot ever escape.
The game player comes (by a telepathic empathic field) to identify with the creature in the toy maze; and with trying to help it escape this unsolvable, because pre-emptively shifting, maze. The earth maze toy was originally manufactured with only a mild empathic field, to function as an enjoyable, educative pastime.
But to make it a weapon, the strength of the empathic involvement is amped-up. The mazes are put into the possession of the alien creatures, who cannot resist trying-out the game, by which they are quickly trapped in the endless, changing loop or this artifical world from which escape is impossible. The invaders soon lapse into a cut-off, psychotic state; and the invasion is defeated.
This maze game now seems exactly like an allegory for the many hand-held 'entertainments' of recent decades, beginning with the 'Game Boy' devices in the 1980s, and culminating in the smart phone - by a process of empathic amplification...
But of course this was actually PKD using his own remarkable intuitive 'precog' abilities to foresee and describe how individually- and socially-lethal such technology could be in a spiritually-empty world that has no motivating values higher than personal comfort, convenience and distraction.
Wednesday, 22 July 2020
Pointing-out the obvious; trying to save those who don't want to be saved
Much of my kind of blogging is a matter of pointing-out the obvious; the idea being that (at least for Modern Man) we need to be explicitly aware of that which is important - that it is not sufficient to operate on the basic of unconscious, unarticulated and implicit knowledge.
However, it seems pretty obvious that if this is indeed a creat-ed world; then it is one where God wants us to do most things for ourselves, and from ourselves. (That is how this world is set-up.) Learning which is merely passively-absorbed from other people, other sources, is not really the point.
So, unless (as RW Emerson correctly saw) we are stimulated to think for our-selves by it; reading generally does harm rather than good, even when what is said is true and well-motivated.
Such are these times. What good is done by pointing-out to people during many weeks of lockdown that they are now living under a totalitarian system of government?
If people confined to their houses for 23/24 hours for weeks on end, and who must daily engage with the mass media to be told of the latest (oscillating) change to the laws - if such people are not able to notice the fact from their own resources; then why try to impose this knowledge upon them by argument?
The same question on a civilizational scale arises when we try laboriously to demonstrate (perhaps with statistics!) that policy X (and Y and Z, simultaneously) will destroy our village, town, nation, civilization...
This stuff is typically blazingly obvious to the meanest intellect - and those who cannot see obvious harm, who indeed actively-deny and argue-against the obvious, do so because they desire that harm.
And that is the situation.
Nobody needs to be told that the changes of 2020 constitute totalitarian tyranny, which will lead to more bad things, because it is obvious; and when a person/ an institution/ a nation does not perceive the obvious, this situation is not helped by making it Even-More Obvious.
What must be addressed is that covert, implicit desire which underlies the denial and block.
I mean such desires as the widespread conviction of the futility of our actual, experienced life; and a hatred of that nation and civilization which imposes such a life upon us; and the inner blankness, fear and despair resulting from such convictions.
We would understand this if we observed it in animals kept in factory farm, zoo or laboratory conditions on an artificial and unnatural (increasingly artificial and unnatural) regime. When (despite plenty of food and comfortable shelter) such alienated and captive animals cease to reproduce and essentially Give-Up on living, we may be saddened but we are not surprised.
The fact that Modern Man has similarly Given-Up under conditions of ever-increasing phsyical, psychological and spiritual alienation, should likewise be easy to understand.
Modern Men are creatures that have Given-Up due to their alien environment; even worse, most of them have chosen to remain in this environment, to defend their environment against all substantive criticism, and to refuse to leave. To reason-with such confined and tamed creatures is futile; to inform them of the specifics of their dire situation is somewhat cruel.
What such creatures most need is to be shown someplace better to live and how to get there. As Christians we can try to do that - but that is all we can do.
We cannot make people want the better world, we cannot even make them pay attention for long enough to understand what is on offer...
In fact there is not much we can do!
But what little we can do - we should do. DO it, and then pass-on to continuing our primary work in this mortal life, which is ourselves to do exactly what we recommend to the lost souls.
Because the fact is that we ourselves are in a situation almost exactly as bad as the deluded Masses...
Just that We know why this is bad, that there really is somewhere Good where we aim to be; and that we know how to get there.
For us; knowing is Not the problem, but Doing.
In sum - our modern Western situation is indeed analogous to a wild animal in a factory farm, zoo or laboratory; but where the door to escape is open, and the animals could - if they turned and looked - see the world outside their captivity...
But some fear to leave their comfortable captivity, others find reality boring. Yet others among the confined creatures are so deep in despair that they prefer not even to look at the free and wild world outside, and assert it is just an hallucination, or a tormenting trick of their captors.
Ultimately, the captivity of Modern Man is self-chosen, self-imposed; which is why they cannot see the obvious.
Thus they despair, and pine, and soon become extinct amidst material abundance; thus they insist upon doing-so; thus they hate those who clarify that all this is their own doing.
The situation is what Christians often call 'Sin'.
However, it seems pretty obvious that if this is indeed a creat-ed world; then it is one where God wants us to do most things for ourselves, and from ourselves. (That is how this world is set-up.) Learning which is merely passively-absorbed from other people, other sources, is not really the point.
So, unless (as RW Emerson correctly saw) we are stimulated to think for our-selves by it; reading generally does harm rather than good, even when what is said is true and well-motivated.
Such are these times. What good is done by pointing-out to people during many weeks of lockdown that they are now living under a totalitarian system of government?
If people confined to their houses for 23/24 hours for weeks on end, and who must daily engage with the mass media to be told of the latest (oscillating) change to the laws - if such people are not able to notice the fact from their own resources; then why try to impose this knowledge upon them by argument?
The same question on a civilizational scale arises when we try laboriously to demonstrate (perhaps with statistics!) that policy X (and Y and Z, simultaneously) will destroy our village, town, nation, civilization...
This stuff is typically blazingly obvious to the meanest intellect - and those who cannot see obvious harm, who indeed actively-deny and argue-against the obvious, do so because they desire that harm.
And that is the situation.
Nobody needs to be told that the changes of 2020 constitute totalitarian tyranny, which will lead to more bad things, because it is obvious; and when a person/ an institution/ a nation does not perceive the obvious, this situation is not helped by making it Even-More Obvious.
What must be addressed is that covert, implicit desire which underlies the denial and block.
I mean such desires as the widespread conviction of the futility of our actual, experienced life; and a hatred of that nation and civilization which imposes such a life upon us; and the inner blankness, fear and despair resulting from such convictions.
We would understand this if we observed it in animals kept in factory farm, zoo or laboratory conditions on an artificial and unnatural (increasingly artificial and unnatural) regime. When (despite plenty of food and comfortable shelter) such alienated and captive animals cease to reproduce and essentially Give-Up on living, we may be saddened but we are not surprised.
The fact that Modern Man has similarly Given-Up under conditions of ever-increasing phsyical, psychological and spiritual alienation, should likewise be easy to understand.
Modern Men are creatures that have Given-Up due to their alien environment; even worse, most of them have chosen to remain in this environment, to defend their environment against all substantive criticism, and to refuse to leave. To reason-with such confined and tamed creatures is futile; to inform them of the specifics of their dire situation is somewhat cruel.
What such creatures most need is to be shown someplace better to live and how to get there. As Christians we can try to do that - but that is all we can do.
We cannot make people want the better world, we cannot even make them pay attention for long enough to understand what is on offer...
In fact there is not much we can do!
But what little we can do - we should do. DO it, and then pass-on to continuing our primary work in this mortal life, which is ourselves to do exactly what we recommend to the lost souls.
Because the fact is that we ourselves are in a situation almost exactly as bad as the deluded Masses...
Just that We know why this is bad, that there really is somewhere Good where we aim to be; and that we know how to get there.
For us; knowing is Not the problem, but Doing.
In sum - our modern Western situation is indeed analogous to a wild animal in a factory farm, zoo or laboratory; but where the door to escape is open, and the animals could - if they turned and looked - see the world outside their captivity...
But some fear to leave their comfortable captivity, others find reality boring. Yet others among the confined creatures are so deep in despair that they prefer not even to look at the free and wild world outside, and assert it is just an hallucination, or a tormenting trick of their captors.
Ultimately, the captivity of Modern Man is self-chosen, self-imposed; which is why they cannot see the obvious.
Thus they despair, and pine, and soon become extinct amidst material abundance; thus they insist upon doing-so; thus they hate those who clarify that all this is their own doing.
The situation is what Christians often call 'Sin'.
Tuesday, 21 July 2020
The importance of metaphysics
I have found extremely few people who share my conviction of the centrality of metaphysics in life! (Metaphysics being one's primary understanding of the basic nature of reality.)
For most people who can even bother to think about such matters for ten minutes (and these are extremely few!), metaphysics seems like almost the definition of that which is most remote and irrelevant to actual life. But to me, nothing is more relevant - and never a day - hardly a waking hour - passes in which I do not think about such matters.
The reason is that I see metaphysical assumptions behind almost everything of interest to me; and that I am continually aware that the basic understanding of others is nearly always very different from my own.
Here is an example (in italics; which I have edited for clarity and explicitness), from John Michell, at the end of his (excellent and inspiring!) book from 1990: New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury. :
One of the conventional symbols of earthly paradise is the union between two cities: the heavenly Jerusalem and the actual city of Jerusalem below. William Blake drew on that image in prophesying that the New Jerusalem would first become manifest in England...
Plato was more practical-minded than Blake. His imaginary republic was based on the archetype of heavenly paradise, and from there he descended into the world of matter; interpreting the ideal in the form of a social order which he considered to be its best possible reflection.
Due to its material nature, Plato's republic was necessarily structured, and was governed, by a code of laws.
It was, as Plato admitted, a mere third-hand version of the ideal; for the original is the heavenly archetype, and its clearest secondhand reflection on earth is that primordial paradise remembered in the Garden of Eden [and substantially experienced by historical nomadic tribespeople...]
From this secondhand version of paradise we have long been barred due to the necessary inhibitions of civilization.
Most people today enjoy the civilized state and its comforts, and therefore - like Plato - we are concerned in practice with the [third hand] reflection of paradise: a perfectly ordered, permanently settled human society.
This is not the innocent paradise of Eden, but is the next best thing; and Plato promised that, if its standards were scrupulously maintained, it would be almost as good and long-lasting as the original.
Thus we have the original and best - because perfect, permanent and unchanging - reality located in the transcendental realm of spirit; and all possible earthly and material manifestations as symbolic, temporary secondary and symbolic.
We are removed a step further by 'civilization' - which constrains the originally natural and spontaneous order of Eden (approximated by nomadic hunter-gatherer life) into hierarchy and law: a system into-which individual humans must be conformed.
By my understanding; this Platonic metaphysics has been adopted by mainstream Christian theology; and its assumptions underpin the Christian churches from most of the earliest records - because the Christian churches were themselves of a civilized nature, secondary and symbolic, hierarchical and derived-from laws - and expressing Christianity in the form of hierarchy and law.
In different words; this is an abstract metaphysics; in which reality is regarded as primarily spiritual and metaphysical. And so dominant is this way of thinking that few people can even imagine any alternative.
But that is the focus of my life work: I mean, to imagine and describe, and then to try and live-by, a different basic understanding of the nature of reality.
That is what I mean when I assert (over and again) the primacy of the Fourth Gospel, and emphasise that it embodies a profoundly, indeed qualitatively, different basic understanding of the nature of reality; and records this as being the teaching of Jesus.
This is the metaphysics in which Beings and their relationships are primary; reality is seen as developmental ('evolutionary'), with mortal life on earth as - not secondary, but a part of this primary reality.
Thus earthly material life is not secondary, nor is it ultimately abstract, nor symbolic; but part of a developmental 'process' (but 'process makes it too abstract) - a history of groth and development - which began before mortal life and continues after biological death.
And this very different metaphysics affects (or ought to affect, if believed and lived-by) pretty much everything that happens in every persons' life; in the most immediate and practical sense of transforming its meaning and relevance.
For most people who can even bother to think about such matters for ten minutes (and these are extremely few!), metaphysics seems like almost the definition of that which is most remote and irrelevant to actual life. But to me, nothing is more relevant - and never a day - hardly a waking hour - passes in which I do not think about such matters.
The reason is that I see metaphysical assumptions behind almost everything of interest to me; and that I am continually aware that the basic understanding of others is nearly always very different from my own.
Here is an example (in italics; which I have edited for clarity and explicitness), from John Michell, at the end of his (excellent and inspiring!) book from 1990: New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury. :
One of the conventional symbols of earthly paradise is the union between two cities: the heavenly Jerusalem and the actual city of Jerusalem below. William Blake drew on that image in prophesying that the New Jerusalem would first become manifest in England...
Plato was more practical-minded than Blake. His imaginary republic was based on the archetype of heavenly paradise, and from there he descended into the world of matter; interpreting the ideal in the form of a social order which he considered to be its best possible reflection.
Due to its material nature, Plato's republic was necessarily structured, and was governed, by a code of laws.
It was, as Plato admitted, a mere third-hand version of the ideal; for the original is the heavenly archetype, and its clearest secondhand reflection on earth is that primordial paradise remembered in the Garden of Eden [and substantially experienced by historical nomadic tribespeople...]
From this secondhand version of paradise we have long been barred due to the necessary inhibitions of civilization.
Most people today enjoy the civilized state and its comforts, and therefore - like Plato - we are concerned in practice with the [third hand] reflection of paradise: a perfectly ordered, permanently settled human society.
This is not the innocent paradise of Eden, but is the next best thing; and Plato promised that, if its standards were scrupulously maintained, it would be almost as good and long-lasting as the original.
Thus we have the original and best - because perfect, permanent and unchanging - reality located in the transcendental realm of spirit; and all possible earthly and material manifestations as symbolic, temporary secondary and symbolic.
We are removed a step further by 'civilization' - which constrains the originally natural and spontaneous order of Eden (approximated by nomadic hunter-gatherer life) into hierarchy and law: a system into-which individual humans must be conformed.
By my understanding; this Platonic metaphysics has been adopted by mainstream Christian theology; and its assumptions underpin the Christian churches from most of the earliest records - because the Christian churches were themselves of a civilized nature, secondary and symbolic, hierarchical and derived-from laws - and expressing Christianity in the form of hierarchy and law.
In different words; this is an abstract metaphysics; in which reality is regarded as primarily spiritual and metaphysical. And so dominant is this way of thinking that few people can even imagine any alternative.
But that is the focus of my life work: I mean, to imagine and describe, and then to try and live-by, a different basic understanding of the nature of reality.
That is what I mean when I assert (over and again) the primacy of the Fourth Gospel, and emphasise that it embodies a profoundly, indeed qualitatively, different basic understanding of the nature of reality; and records this as being the teaching of Jesus.
This is the metaphysics in which Beings and their relationships are primary; reality is seen as developmental ('evolutionary'), with mortal life on earth as - not secondary, but a part of this primary reality.
Thus earthly material life is not secondary, nor is it ultimately abstract, nor symbolic; but part of a developmental 'process' (but 'process makes it too abstract) - a history of groth and development - which began before mortal life and continues after biological death.
And this very different metaphysics affects (or ought to affect, if believed and lived-by) pretty much everything that happens in every persons' life; in the most immediate and practical sense of transforming its meaning and relevance.
Sunday, 19 July 2020
Relentless demonic pressure is the new normal
Tremendous post from Frank Berger today! Read the whole thing; but here are some choice snippets (lightly edited):
It's important to keep in mind that everything we are experiencing today in relation to the birdemic crisis is purposively designed to demoralize, depress, devitalize, destroy, and de-spirit in pursuit of one objective - damnation...
Our new totalitarian overlords want to break us because they want to break God. The campaign they have unleashed comes at us from multiple fronts and from every conceivable angle. It attacks the mind, restricts the body, and, most significantly tempts the soul.
What we are currently experiencing, ladies and gentlemen, is intense spiritual warfare...
This is what it looks like. This is what it feels like.
Our overlords have pressurized everything and they are working to make this pressure ubiquitous and inescapable. This relentless demonic pressure is our new normal. With it, they wish to make the pain threshold the sole measure of our existence.
How much can you take? How far are you willing to go?
Everyone's got a breaking point. What's yours?
Energy and elevation is the natural default setting for all serious Christians. How can it not be? After all, consciously recognizing and freely accepting the Truth is an energizing and elevating metaphysical phenomenon - a metaphysical phenomenon the forces of darkness hate with their entire being.
Is it any wonder that they seek to deaden this energy and prevent this elevation?
Whenever the demonic powers succeed in dragging us down, they succeed in dragging down the Divine...
Whenever we succeed in energizing and elevating our state of existence, we succeed in energizing and elevating the Divine.
It's important to keep in mind that everything we are experiencing today in relation to the birdemic crisis is purposively designed to demoralize, depress, devitalize, destroy, and de-spirit in pursuit of one objective - damnation...
Our new totalitarian overlords want to break us because they want to break God. The campaign they have unleashed comes at us from multiple fronts and from every conceivable angle. It attacks the mind, restricts the body, and, most significantly tempts the soul.
What we are currently experiencing, ladies and gentlemen, is intense spiritual warfare...
This is what it looks like. This is what it feels like.
Our overlords have pressurized everything and they are working to make this pressure ubiquitous and inescapable. This relentless demonic pressure is our new normal. With it, they wish to make the pain threshold the sole measure of our existence.
How much can you take? How far are you willing to go?
Everyone's got a breaking point. What's yours?
Energy and elevation is the natural default setting for all serious Christians. How can it not be? After all, consciously recognizing and freely accepting the Truth is an energizing and elevating metaphysical phenomenon - a metaphysical phenomenon the forces of darkness hate with their entire being.
Is it any wonder that they seek to deaden this energy and prevent this elevation?
Whenever the demonic powers succeed in dragging us down, they succeed in dragging down the Divine...
Whenever we succeed in energizing and elevating our state of existence, we succeed in energizing and elevating the Divine.
What the Christian churches Should have done in the birdemic (and what it means that they did Not)
The response of the main Christian churches to the birdemic was to close churches and cease all sacraments, communal and personal ministry. In both the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches of Britain, the Bishops agreed to shut-down without protest (but instead endorsement); indeed chose to impose (and continue to impose) greatly more extreme (and destructive) behavioural restrictions than even the government asked-of-them.
Thus Christianity - here and worldwide - has suffered the greatest destruction in its history; greatly accelerating the long-term process of secularisation driven on the one hand by corrupt, dishonest and anti-Christian leaders, and embraced by a majority of the laity.
The losers have been serious, devout Christians of all denominations.
But what should have happened? The church leaders should have objected to churches being closed and stopped from functioning; and should have made these objections clear to the laity.
They should have made clear that they complied unwillingly, and that serious Christians ought to be allowed to choose to continue worship, ritual, sacraments, group meetings and prayers - even if they believed that this increased their risk of illness.
The Christian leaders ought to have said that - for Christians - some things are infinitely more important than avoiding illness and/or death; and they and their churches ought to have been willing to accept the criticism and persecution that any such statement of principle/ desire/ intent would be likely to draw.
Among themselves, Christians would have made this clear in their interactions. That, for them, their faith was more important than issues of Health and Safety - and especially more important than the kind of dishonest, incompetent, incoherent, manipulative and counter-productive Fake Health and Safety rules that are imposed worldwide now (and, apparently - the intent is, forever).
But even if the rulers were honest and competent in pursuit of Healthism - impossible though that seems! - Christians would have been clear that this is Not the most important thing in life. Mortal life should be lived in the context of eternal life, not aiming primarily at extending our finite mortal life by a few days, weeks or years at any cost...
If something like this had happened; at a stroke, suddenly, Christians would have become the bravest and most autonomous group in The West. Genuinely Radical. They would have become self-identified as people of conviction, principle, courage; who were prepared to put Love above fear - and live by it. Those capable of seeing this, would have had a Great Example.
However, such a course of action was in fact not even considered and rejected; it was not even considered as a genuine possibility. It was not considered because the church leadership and mass of the Christian laity are corrupt hypocrites. That is now crystal clear.
Even worse - much worse - they are not even aware, indeed deny, that they are corrupt hypocrites. They continue to double-down on their corrupt cowardice and worldly enslavement.
Because Christianity is primarily a religion of repentance. Even if the church leaders and laity had, from fear of the birdemic, closed down and shut-up-shop but later repented; and spoken their repentance, made clear their regret, acknowledged their lack of conviction and courage - even this (so little and so late) would save them.
(Christ is always and infinitely merciful to those sinners who repent.)
But there is no repentance visible - quite the opposite; and unrepentant evil has, as usual, led to further and greater evil - as with the current embrace of the extremity of explicitly evil, explicitly anti-Christian, anti-family,' antiracist' Establishment-sponsored terror and destruction.
Such is the extremity of unrepented evil in the Christian churches that they cannot even see The Problem with what they have done, what they are doing!
Such an extremity of widespread spiritual blindness is not excusable as ignorance, but it itself evidence of a controlling darkness and coldness of hearts that is so very common, so nearly universal, among self-identified Christians - and especially those in positions of power, high status and authority.
This is the lesson that serious Christians need to draw from what has happened, and is happening, in 2020.
Thus Christianity - here and worldwide - has suffered the greatest destruction in its history; greatly accelerating the long-term process of secularisation driven on the one hand by corrupt, dishonest and anti-Christian leaders, and embraced by a majority of the laity.
The losers have been serious, devout Christians of all denominations.
But what should have happened? The church leaders should have objected to churches being closed and stopped from functioning; and should have made these objections clear to the laity.
They should have made clear that they complied unwillingly, and that serious Christians ought to be allowed to choose to continue worship, ritual, sacraments, group meetings and prayers - even if they believed that this increased their risk of illness.
The Christian leaders ought to have said that - for Christians - some things are infinitely more important than avoiding illness and/or death; and they and their churches ought to have been willing to accept the criticism and persecution that any such statement of principle/ desire/ intent would be likely to draw.
Among themselves, Christians would have made this clear in their interactions. That, for them, their faith was more important than issues of Health and Safety - and especially more important than the kind of dishonest, incompetent, incoherent, manipulative and counter-productive Fake Health and Safety rules that are imposed worldwide now (and, apparently - the intent is, forever).
But even if the rulers were honest and competent in pursuit of Healthism - impossible though that seems! - Christians would have been clear that this is Not the most important thing in life. Mortal life should be lived in the context of eternal life, not aiming primarily at extending our finite mortal life by a few days, weeks or years at any cost...
If something like this had happened; at a stroke, suddenly, Christians would have become the bravest and most autonomous group in The West. Genuinely Radical. They would have become self-identified as people of conviction, principle, courage; who were prepared to put Love above fear - and live by it. Those capable of seeing this, would have had a Great Example.
However, such a course of action was in fact not even considered and rejected; it was not even considered as a genuine possibility. It was not considered because the church leadership and mass of the Christian laity are corrupt hypocrites. That is now crystal clear.
Even worse - much worse - they are not even aware, indeed deny, that they are corrupt hypocrites. They continue to double-down on their corrupt cowardice and worldly enslavement.
Because Christianity is primarily a religion of repentance. Even if the church leaders and laity had, from fear of the birdemic, closed down and shut-up-shop but later repented; and spoken their repentance, made clear their regret, acknowledged their lack of conviction and courage - even this (so little and so late) would save them.
(Christ is always and infinitely merciful to those sinners who repent.)
But there is no repentance visible - quite the opposite; and unrepentant evil has, as usual, led to further and greater evil - as with the current embrace of the extremity of explicitly evil, explicitly anti-Christian, anti-family,' antiracist' Establishment-sponsored terror and destruction.
Such is the extremity of unrepented evil in the Christian churches that they cannot even see The Problem with what they have done, what they are doing!
Such an extremity of widespread spiritual blindness is not excusable as ignorance, but it itself evidence of a controlling darkness and coldness of hearts that is so very common, so nearly universal, among self-identified Christians - and especially those in positions of power, high status and authority.
This is the lesson that serious Christians need to draw from what has happened, and is happening, in 2020.
Saturday, 18 July 2020
Most modern people are, in effect, psychopaths
People can believe almost anything, and any number of incompatible things, for their whole lives - when they are 1. dishonest, and 2. have a short attention span. That's most people - including nearly all intellectuals.
But there are deeper factors at work in my opinion. One is that modern people are different (innately) than people in the past. We nearly all start-out with direct personal experience of the spiritual world as young chidlren, but quite soon become detached from it; and must consciously choose whether to believe in the reality God and the spiritual in general, and then perhaps choose further to believe on Jesus Christ.
For us modern adults (and indeed older children and adolescents) theistic belief is not spontaneous, nor unconscious - and cannot (under recent social conditions) be imposed on us.
This fits with the heart of Christianity, which has always been supposed to be a conscious and free choice - but the purity of that teaching became contaminated by its adoption as a state religion and means of societal control (maybe that was necessary in the past, but those days are gone forever).
On top of all this, I am compelled to acknowledge that there seem to be a much higher proportion of unrepentant sinners born now than ever before; I mean the mass of people who do not acknowledge that they are sinners.
Most modern people are, in effect, psychopaths - whose basic set-up is evil.
Clearly that is encouraged from the top-down by the global, national and other leadership; but it could not be so widely and comprehesively be imposed (without any backlash) unless most people were pretty much that way inclined already.
Thus we live in the most sinful times ever known - sin being the state of turned-away-from God; working against God, The Good and Creation. So much so that the reality of God, creation, goodness and sin are all denied - and people are utterly unaware of their denial, and deny this fact - although in principle all-this can be known by anyone.
Christians are - and this is much more obvious now than six months ago - in a tiny and shrinking minority; and have been betrayed by the leadership of all the major churches.
The prospects of any institutional revival of Christianity are worse now than at any time since the day of the crucifixion.
This is our situation, and it would be good to get used to it; and work from where we actually are.
But there are deeper factors at work in my opinion. One is that modern people are different (innately) than people in the past. We nearly all start-out with direct personal experience of the spiritual world as young chidlren, but quite soon become detached from it; and must consciously choose whether to believe in the reality God and the spiritual in general, and then perhaps choose further to believe on Jesus Christ.
For us modern adults (and indeed older children and adolescents) theistic belief is not spontaneous, nor unconscious - and cannot (under recent social conditions) be imposed on us.
This fits with the heart of Christianity, which has always been supposed to be a conscious and free choice - but the purity of that teaching became contaminated by its adoption as a state religion and means of societal control (maybe that was necessary in the past, but those days are gone forever).
On top of all this, I am compelled to acknowledge that there seem to be a much higher proportion of unrepentant sinners born now than ever before; I mean the mass of people who do not acknowledge that they are sinners.
Most modern people are, in effect, psychopaths - whose basic set-up is evil.
Clearly that is encouraged from the top-down by the global, national and other leadership; but it could not be so widely and comprehesively be imposed (without any backlash) unless most people were pretty much that way inclined already.
Thus we live in the most sinful times ever known - sin being the state of turned-away-from God; working against God, The Good and Creation. So much so that the reality of God, creation, goodness and sin are all denied - and people are utterly unaware of their denial, and deny this fact - although in principle all-this can be known by anyone.
Christians are - and this is much more obvious now than six months ago - in a tiny and shrinking minority; and have been betrayed by the leadership of all the major churches.
The prospects of any institutional revival of Christianity are worse now than at any time since the day of the crucifixion.
This is our situation, and it would be good to get used to it; and work from where we actually are.
Friday, 17 July 2020
Why is Jesus necessary (and for what)?
Monotheists, who believe in a God who is the creator - often see no necessity for Jesus.
They assume that God is capable of anything that is possible; so Jesus cannot be necessary; because there is nothing for Jesus to do that God could not do.
This argument is based on the idea of God as defined by attributes, specifically abstract attributes (such as unity, omnipotence and omniscience). Such a conceptualised God is not a Being primarily.
But if we escape the paradoxes of abstract infinites, and instead examine what strict-unitary-monotheists promise to their believers; we will perceive that strict monotheists do not 'offer' what Christians offer.
Christians offer everlasting resurrected life in Heaven - that is, after biological death we remain our-selves, have eternal bodies, inhabit a world of love (and, I would argue, creativity - as 'Sons of God, thus collaborators with God) - and we live with other such persons.
To say that Jesus is necessary should - I think - be understood in terms of what Christians specifically offer - resurrection.
Thus, Jesus is not necessary for creation, but Jesus is necessary if we want to live everlastingly as resurrected selves in Heaven.
If - on the other hand - we do not want what Jesus offered, then Jesus does not have a necessary role!
Monotheists who do not aspire to take-up Jesus's offer of Heavenly resurrection, can therefore rationally assert that Jesus is not necessary (that Jesus was 'just' a prophet, a teacher, an exemplar or whatever).
By this line of reasoning, we can see that Christians are those people who assert that Jesus is necessary, because (in addition) Christians personally desire resurrected eternal life in Heaven - for which Jesus was, and is, required.
They assume that God is capable of anything that is possible; so Jesus cannot be necessary; because there is nothing for Jesus to do that God could not do.
This argument is based on the idea of God as defined by attributes, specifically abstract attributes (such as unity, omnipotence and omniscience). Such a conceptualised God is not a Being primarily.
But if we escape the paradoxes of abstract infinites, and instead examine what strict-unitary-monotheists promise to their believers; we will perceive that strict monotheists do not 'offer' what Christians offer.
Christians offer everlasting resurrected life in Heaven - that is, after biological death we remain our-selves, have eternal bodies, inhabit a world of love (and, I would argue, creativity - as 'Sons of God, thus collaborators with God) - and we live with other such persons.
To say that Jesus is necessary should - I think - be understood in terms of what Christians specifically offer - resurrection.
Thus, Jesus is not necessary for creation, but Jesus is necessary if we want to live everlastingly as resurrected selves in Heaven.
If - on the other hand - we do not want what Jesus offered, then Jesus does not have a necessary role!
Monotheists who do not aspire to take-up Jesus's offer of Heavenly resurrection, can therefore rationally assert that Jesus is not necessary (that Jesus was 'just' a prophet, a teacher, an exemplar or whatever).
By this line of reasoning, we can see that Christians are those people who assert that Jesus is necessary, because (in addition) Christians personally desire resurrected eternal life in Heaven - for which Jesus was, and is, required.
Art - Intuitively (or, What's Good for Me)
I was pretty much a 'culture vulture' as a young man; which entailed gobbling-up the books, music, art, philosophy etc. that was regarded as canonical - or else, at least, 'relevant' and 'important' to my high-status contemporaries.
Overall, it was not good for me, and was a corrupting experience.
Because, on engaging with some artefact - for example watching a movie, or reading a novel, viewing some architecture - I would often feel a strongly negative impression being made upon me. I did not like the author, I was averse by what was being said, or the way it was being said. I felt badness...
On the one hand there was an apparent consensus of scholars and critics saying that This Is Good Stuff (even 'essential') - and on the other hand there was this hard-to-express feeling that this was Not Good, that it was of malign intent or effect...
So far as I remember, this intuitive feeling was always correct, and the impressions I got were valid; and sooner-or-later I would regret having 'given-myself' (by attention, concentration, and openness) to such and such a play, poem, philosophy, movie, artwork or whatever it might be.
Sooner-or-later I would need to dis-engage and un-learn; in order to escape from the distortion and corruption that had been seeded in me.
Maybe this is the proper and underlying source of the 'modern' way of skating-across and sampling the deluge of 'information' that comes to us each day? Perhaps what we are supposed to do is develop consciousness of these (maybe subtle, maybe fleeting) feelings of aversion (and the rarer opposite ones of validation and attraction) - and thereby be able to disengage immediately, before much harm is done?
This reminds me of Ralph Waldo Emerson's self-described method of reading by skimming and homing-in on 'lustres. He warned against expending too much attention and effort on what we read; because most of it was not worth it; and also because the giving of oneself was stultifying to one's own creativity. Emerson said one ought to be reading mainly in order to 'start your own team' - that is: we should read (etc) in order to fuel our own creative activities.
Such practice leads-on-to a way of dealing with the mass media and the propaganda that cannot be avoided. Of course we should limit our exposure to it; but essentially media propaganda cannot nowadays be avoided - therefore perhaps we ought to engage with it in the skimming spirit recommended by Emerson?
And we should also develop our own awareness of these evaluative intuitions that so quickly (and reliably) arise from our true selves to tell us of the nature of what we are reading; tell us of its ultimate sources; tell us what side it is on?
This stance mostly works to unmask the foul intent behind fair words; but also may lead us to the (few) good people (i.e. people on the side of Good) who are nowadays seldom concentrated in any particular place; but who are thinly-distributed - and sometimes in unexpected places.
Overall, it was not good for me, and was a corrupting experience.
Because, on engaging with some artefact - for example watching a movie, or reading a novel, viewing some architecture - I would often feel a strongly negative impression being made upon me. I did not like the author, I was averse by what was being said, or the way it was being said. I felt badness...
On the one hand there was an apparent consensus of scholars and critics saying that This Is Good Stuff (even 'essential') - and on the other hand there was this hard-to-express feeling that this was Not Good, that it was of malign intent or effect...
So far as I remember, this intuitive feeling was always correct, and the impressions I got were valid; and sooner-or-later I would regret having 'given-myself' (by attention, concentration, and openness) to such and such a play, poem, philosophy, movie, artwork or whatever it might be.
Sooner-or-later I would need to dis-engage and un-learn; in order to escape from the distortion and corruption that had been seeded in me.
Maybe this is the proper and underlying source of the 'modern' way of skating-across and sampling the deluge of 'information' that comes to us each day? Perhaps what we are supposed to do is develop consciousness of these (maybe subtle, maybe fleeting) feelings of aversion (and the rarer opposite ones of validation and attraction) - and thereby be able to disengage immediately, before much harm is done?
This reminds me of Ralph Waldo Emerson's self-described method of reading by skimming and homing-in on 'lustres. He warned against expending too much attention and effort on what we read; because most of it was not worth it; and also because the giving of oneself was stultifying to one's own creativity. Emerson said one ought to be reading mainly in order to 'start your own team' - that is: we should read (etc) in order to fuel our own creative activities.
Such practice leads-on-to a way of dealing with the mass media and the propaganda that cannot be avoided. Of course we should limit our exposure to it; but essentially media propaganda cannot nowadays be avoided - therefore perhaps we ought to engage with it in the skimming spirit recommended by Emerson?
And we should also develop our own awareness of these evaluative intuitions that so quickly (and reliably) arise from our true selves to tell us of the nature of what we are reading; tell us of its ultimate sources; tell us what side it is on?
This stance mostly works to unmask the foul intent behind fair words; but also may lead us to the (few) good people (i.e. people on the side of Good) who are nowadays seldom concentrated in any particular place; but who are thinly-distributed - and sometimes in unexpected places.
Thursday, 16 July 2020
The lesson of 2020: nobody will rescue you
So many people are awaiting rescue. They hope and hope that a political party, or a leader, or a church, or a spiritual revival... will arise to save them.
Among Christians, people hope that their particular church will be cleansed of its dominant corruption (because they are all essentially corrupt now, at leadership level - as witnessed by support for their own indefinite lockdown and external control); or that there will be a new movement of highly spiritual, brave and motivated Christians that people can join.
The lesson of 2020 is that None of these will happen; no-body and no group will arise to rescue us from the lying totalitarian and insane evil that grows more dominant daily - with solid support from world and national governments, corporations, the mass media, law, schools and colleges, the police and military.
Brexit was an example. Most English people solidly want Brexit and have done so for decades; but four years after a much-delayed vote; nobody - no party, no person - will lead Britain out from the European Union.
Donald Trump is the most powerful man in the world, he was supposedly going to rescue Us from Them; but under his watch we have experienced the universal triumph of The Antichristian Left; an accomplished global totalitarian takeover; and ongoing international race-war escalation, with incremental cultural erasure.
These are the facts - whatever the explanation it is clear that nobody will save us; there will be no rescue.
This is the nature of our situation. All people and institutions with power, influence, status, wealth - are corrupt and overall they are on the side of evil.
All Of Them.
Therefore none of them, and no selection-from them (like a new government) will rescue us.
2020 teaches us that any who claim that help will come from outside are wrong.
The lesson we are supposed to learn from 2020 is simple: that each person must cease to look to 'other people' for rescue and leadership; and must take individual, personal, freely-chosen and conscious responsibility for his own primary beliefs and assumptions.
The mainstream modern world is obviously a cult of mass damnation. If we go-along-with the mainstream, if we assimilate any of the prime assumptions of their ideology, then we are on the side of Satan. We now know that all the institutions have joined-with the forces of darkness.
If we try to vote our way out-of-trouble, we are on the side of Satan.
In general terms; if we choose to place ultimate authority in the hands of some other person, some institution, some church - we are on the side of Satan, and are embracing our own damnation.
But if we personally want salvation, if we want to follow Jesus Christ to resurrection and Heaven; then it is up to each of us individually to find it.
God our loving Heavenly Father is the creator; and therefore He is able and willing to ensure that every individual in the world always has what is needed for his own salvation; furthermore, the Holy Ghost is always and everywhere present to guide and comfort...
If damnation is what you want - then fine. It has never been easier. If not; then you have no alternative but to take ultimate responsibility.
This is the lesson of 2020. The future of your soul depends on learning it.
Among Christians, people hope that their particular church will be cleansed of its dominant corruption (because they are all essentially corrupt now, at leadership level - as witnessed by support for their own indefinite lockdown and external control); or that there will be a new movement of highly spiritual, brave and motivated Christians that people can join.
The lesson of 2020 is that None of these will happen; no-body and no group will arise to rescue us from the lying totalitarian and insane evil that grows more dominant daily - with solid support from world and national governments, corporations, the mass media, law, schools and colleges, the police and military.
Brexit was an example. Most English people solidly want Brexit and have done so for decades; but four years after a much-delayed vote; nobody - no party, no person - will lead Britain out from the European Union.
Donald Trump is the most powerful man in the world, he was supposedly going to rescue Us from Them; but under his watch we have experienced the universal triumph of The Antichristian Left; an accomplished global totalitarian takeover; and ongoing international race-war escalation, with incremental cultural erasure.
These are the facts - whatever the explanation it is clear that nobody will save us; there will be no rescue.
This is the nature of our situation. All people and institutions with power, influence, status, wealth - are corrupt and overall they are on the side of evil.
All Of Them.
Therefore none of them, and no selection-from them (like a new government) will rescue us.
2020 teaches us that any who claim that help will come from outside are wrong.
The lesson we are supposed to learn from 2020 is simple: that each person must cease to look to 'other people' for rescue and leadership; and must take individual, personal, freely-chosen and conscious responsibility for his own primary beliefs and assumptions.
The mainstream modern world is obviously a cult of mass damnation. If we go-along-with the mainstream, if we assimilate any of the prime assumptions of their ideology, then we are on the side of Satan. We now know that all the institutions have joined-with the forces of darkness.
If we try to vote our way out-of-trouble, we are on the side of Satan.
In general terms; if we choose to place ultimate authority in the hands of some other person, some institution, some church - we are on the side of Satan, and are embracing our own damnation.
But if we personally want salvation, if we want to follow Jesus Christ to resurrection and Heaven; then it is up to each of us individually to find it.
God our loving Heavenly Father is the creator; and therefore He is able and willing to ensure that every individual in the world always has what is needed for his own salvation; furthermore, the Holy Ghost is always and everywhere present to guide and comfort...
If damnation is what you want - then fine. It has never been easier. If not; then you have no alternative but to take ultimate responsibility.
This is the lesson of 2020. The future of your soul depends on learning it.
Wednesday, 15 July 2020
So, you want to try some Chamber Music?
Chamber Music is instrumental classical music for solo, duet or small ensembles. If you don't know any, this is probably a good place to start: Schubert's piano trios - that is, the combination of piano, violin and cello:
It is a good combination, because there is a high and a low instrument and the piano bridges between the soprano violin and the tenor of the cello; plus all instruments are good at playing melody (although the basic 'thing' is that the violin plays the tune, piano the chords, and cello the bass-line).
Consequently, the piano trio was a favourite ensemble for playing in small public venues; the first time I heard one live was at the Pump Room in Bath, playing a selection of Gilbert and Sullivan.
Judged by the strictest criteria, the piano trio is, however - as implied above - something like a 'cheap' or convenient substitute for a full orchestra; and maybe this criticism applies to most chamber music, except the highest flights of the string quartet (two violins, viola and cello). Because chamber music is essentially designed for home use by amateurs, rather than for public concert performance*.
Nonetheless, there is a great deal of top-notch chamber music (e.g. this was justly made famous by the play/ movie Amadeus); since it brought-out the best in some composers. So there is good reason to become familiar with it, to explore it - despite that it lacks the immediate surface appeal of orchestral music.
Certainly, I find a continuous place for chamber music in my own life; ever since I made a deliberate attempt to get the hang of it in the long summer vacation of 1977.
*One way of explaining this is to state that Chamber Music is (in origin) designed to be played, rather than listened-to; it is written primarily for the people who are actually playing it. And in this respect it differs from orchestral music. That is the origin - but of course CM has developed - nonetheless the distinction explains why Chamber Music has never had the mass appeal of orchestral.
It is a good combination, because there is a high and a low instrument and the piano bridges between the soprano violin and the tenor of the cello; plus all instruments are good at playing melody (although the basic 'thing' is that the violin plays the tune, piano the chords, and cello the bass-line).
Consequently, the piano trio was a favourite ensemble for playing in small public venues; the first time I heard one live was at the Pump Room in Bath, playing a selection of Gilbert and Sullivan.
Judged by the strictest criteria, the piano trio is, however - as implied above - something like a 'cheap' or convenient substitute for a full orchestra; and maybe this criticism applies to most chamber music, except the highest flights of the string quartet (two violins, viola and cello). Because chamber music is essentially designed for home use by amateurs, rather than for public concert performance*.
Nonetheless, there is a great deal of top-notch chamber music (e.g. this was justly made famous by the play/ movie Amadeus); since it brought-out the best in some composers. So there is good reason to become familiar with it, to explore it - despite that it lacks the immediate surface appeal of orchestral music.
Certainly, I find a continuous place for chamber music in my own life; ever since I made a deliberate attempt to get the hang of it in the long summer vacation of 1977.
*One way of explaining this is to state that Chamber Music is (in origin) designed to be played, rather than listened-to; it is written primarily for the people who are actually playing it. And in this respect it differs from orchestral music. That is the origin - but of course CM has developed - nonetheless the distinction explains why Chamber Music has never had the mass appeal of orchestral.
Humility *and* creativity
Perhaps humility - the humbling of pride - is what we modern, Western Men most need to learn. In this context; much of what appens in our individual lives - including much of what seems most negative - takes-on urgent and decisive meaning.
Deep-rooted pride simply must be taken-down - yet this is not easy for God to accomplish: not easy at all! We have so many wrong responses, so many excuses... I certainly do.
It is a case of God being cruel to be kind; sacrificing the short-term and temporary for the long-term and everlasting.
We are so addicted to finding the answers, to getting life sorted-out - and we resist being grateful for the grace of what is given us; we forget that our primary task is to know and follow Jesus.
It is a recurrent experience that the heady feeling of mastery, being-right, knowing-the-stuff and assuming a smoooth and delight-full future will be followed by a fall, a crash, set-backs, disasters, disease and the rest of it.
For our own good. This is precisely what we, each and individually, should learn-from. And if we do not learn... well then the lesson will be repeated until we do.
Yet humility cannot legitimately be pursued with monomania; because any virtue in isolation is a sin; and because passivity and mere waiting will lead to despair.
We moderns must be motivated if we are to resist the active evil of these times - and our motivations must be strong.
Thus for us here-and-now (although perhaps not for all everywhere nor in the past) creativity in our living is necessary. In the past and other places, creativity was generally felt to be a passive inspiration or even possession by deity - the human creator was merely regarded (regarded himself, too) as an instrument or conduit of the divine.
But not for us. We do indeed await grace from God, but we cannot wait inertly - we must meet God 'half-way'. Not an option, but a necessity. We must be active in pursuit as well as receptive to being-pursued.
This is what we need, this is what is required for modern consciousness - because we need to choose freely and actively that-which-we-need.
(Unlike the past when - it seems - what people need was often thrust-upon them. No good for us. We must seek and embrace what we need.)
So this is what must happen. The attitude towards life is creative, where creativity is in harmony with God's creation but not confined to it; where our own inner creativity is active. Where we add some-thing (albeit little, it makes a difference) to what is already there.
Active in whatever way we personally are constituted; and we can be sure that there is an inner creativity in every living person, a contribution each can and should make towards the Kingdom of Heaven.
Not - of course! - that kind of evil fake 'creativity' of the modern-arts or pseudo-science; but an active meeting-of some inner impulse and initiative with that which is divine in this world.
Nobody can be prescriptive about this. You may be the sole example of your kind of creativity. But we know it when we do it - even if nobody else can see it, even though nobody else admires it. Indeed, it is generally best to be unassertive about our own creating. Just be doing it, and leave its 'reception' to God.
(We need to be active in our creating, but not in our self-promotion!)
(And for many or most people, our creativity is not channeled into One Big Thing, one specific art, craft or expertise; but is spread across many things - many things at once, many things through time. But none the less, none the worse, for it. Like someone who does good in many small things over many years; compared with one who does One Big Thing, a single act of Great Goodness - perhaps composes a wonderful poem of melody, or who dies a martyr. The latter will attract more attention in this world; but we can be sure that the former will be regarded as equivalently valid in the eye of God - and the Right Thing whenever it expresses the true nature of an individual.)
Thus, on the one hand, pride is the deepest rooted of modern sins - for most people in the West. And much of our lives will be 'about' trying to teach us this fact. On the other hand - we cannot collapse into inert self-less acceptance, we cannot be merely passive and self-effacing; because that way we will conform to the prevalent evil.
The task, therefore, is to be both creative and humble; confident and active - but not For our-selves.
Indomitable in our creativity, inflexibly determined to do creativity - yet the products of that creativity need to be treated lightly and without possessiveness. Put them out-there, and leave it to God to decide whether they take any place or who (if anybody) they may reach in this mortal life and world...
It really is the doing that matters - while it is being-done. The products of creativity need to be recognised as themselves but straw.
Whatever is true and real about what we have-done is already eternal, and we need not concern ourselves about that.
Deep-rooted pride simply must be taken-down - yet this is not easy for God to accomplish: not easy at all! We have so many wrong responses, so many excuses... I certainly do.
It is a case of God being cruel to be kind; sacrificing the short-term and temporary for the long-term and everlasting.
We are so addicted to finding the answers, to getting life sorted-out - and we resist being grateful for the grace of what is given us; we forget that our primary task is to know and follow Jesus.
It is a recurrent experience that the heady feeling of mastery, being-right, knowing-the-stuff and assuming a smoooth and delight-full future will be followed by a fall, a crash, set-backs, disasters, disease and the rest of it.
For our own good. This is precisely what we, each and individually, should learn-from. And if we do not learn... well then the lesson will be repeated until we do.
Yet humility cannot legitimately be pursued with monomania; because any virtue in isolation is a sin; and because passivity and mere waiting will lead to despair.
We moderns must be motivated if we are to resist the active evil of these times - and our motivations must be strong.
Thus for us here-and-now (although perhaps not for all everywhere nor in the past) creativity in our living is necessary. In the past and other places, creativity was generally felt to be a passive inspiration or even possession by deity - the human creator was merely regarded (regarded himself, too) as an instrument or conduit of the divine.
But not for us. We do indeed await grace from God, but we cannot wait inertly - we must meet God 'half-way'. Not an option, but a necessity. We must be active in pursuit as well as receptive to being-pursued.
This is what we need, this is what is required for modern consciousness - because we need to choose freely and actively that-which-we-need.
(Unlike the past when - it seems - what people need was often thrust-upon them. No good for us. We must seek and embrace what we need.)
So this is what must happen. The attitude towards life is creative, where creativity is in harmony with God's creation but not confined to it; where our own inner creativity is active. Where we add some-thing (albeit little, it makes a difference) to what is already there.
Active in whatever way we personally are constituted; and we can be sure that there is an inner creativity in every living person, a contribution each can and should make towards the Kingdom of Heaven.
Not - of course! - that kind of evil fake 'creativity' of the modern-arts or pseudo-science; but an active meeting-of some inner impulse and initiative with that which is divine in this world.
Nobody can be prescriptive about this. You may be the sole example of your kind of creativity. But we know it when we do it - even if nobody else can see it, even though nobody else admires it. Indeed, it is generally best to be unassertive about our own creating. Just be doing it, and leave its 'reception' to God.
(We need to be active in our creating, but not in our self-promotion!)
(And for many or most people, our creativity is not channeled into One Big Thing, one specific art, craft or expertise; but is spread across many things - many things at once, many things through time. But none the less, none the worse, for it. Like someone who does good in many small things over many years; compared with one who does One Big Thing, a single act of Great Goodness - perhaps composes a wonderful poem of melody, or who dies a martyr. The latter will attract more attention in this world; but we can be sure that the former will be regarded as equivalently valid in the eye of God - and the Right Thing whenever it expresses the true nature of an individual.)
Thus, on the one hand, pride is the deepest rooted of modern sins - for most people in the West. And much of our lives will be 'about' trying to teach us this fact. On the other hand - we cannot collapse into inert self-less acceptance, we cannot be merely passive and self-effacing; because that way we will conform to the prevalent evil.
The task, therefore, is to be both creative and humble; confident and active - but not For our-selves.
Indomitable in our creativity, inflexibly determined to do creativity - yet the products of that creativity need to be treated lightly and without possessiveness. Put them out-there, and leave it to God to decide whether they take any place or who (if anybody) they may reach in this mortal life and world...
It really is the doing that matters - while it is being-done. The products of creativity need to be recognised as themselves but straw.
Whatever is true and real about what we have-done is already eternal, and we need not concern ourselves about that.
Tuesday, 14 July 2020
Tolkien and Chaucer
I review a very interesting new book on this subject over on the Notion Club Papers blog. Of course, the number of people who are interested in JRR Tolkien's detailed biolgraphy and also Chaucer, are likely to be few; but if you are one of them (or aspire to be) - or if you are interested by the minute details of Oxford academic life (and the University Press operations) in the middle 20th century - the Inklings era - then you might want to take a look at the book under review Tolkien's Lost Chaucer by JM Bowers.
Monday, 13 July 2020
Why are modern men so lacking in courage?
Why are modern men so lacking in courage?
The answer is; because they lack that which sustains courage - which is 'religion', which is some-thing deeply assumed/ lived-by that is transcendent to this mortal life.
Without this; the bottom-line is expediency; which is the opposite of courage.
Yet in addition, the nature of courage has changed - which is why even the few Christian and religious Westerners are lacking it.
In an inversion (one that complements and compensates-for the moral inversions of modernity) what used-to-be courage has now become expediency
In the past, courage was a social virtue. It was a type of conformity to the group. Its special characteristics were obedience and loyalty. Thus the courageous individual was not required to strike-out alone nor be independent; but rather to assimilate to the group ethic: the group defined the ethical.
Courage was standard recommended behaviour - and the problem was subordinating the individual preference to conform to the group preference. Courage was doing what the group recommended.
(Military courage is of this type; and so is the courage required of a saintly monk.)
In other words; in the past, virtue was defined by the group, and transgressed by the individual.
Now things are different and almost the opposite. Virtue is individual (or not at all) because society is corrupt.
To be obedient and loyal to any modern group (institution, corporation, church etc.) is expedient, and to lack courage: to be on-the-side-of evil.
Courage must therefore be individual, goes unrewarded (or is often punished) by society and social institutions; and the needful courage is cold rather than hot.
(Hot courage is short-term, unthinking and in the heat of the moment. But cold courage is considered, long-termist and must strive-against against the continual pressure of unrelenting opposed expediency.)
Modern courage is 'a big ask' of anyone; and only those with a supremely strong and inner reason for courage are capable of it. Extremely few modern people have any such inner reason; hence cowardice is not only the norm (which is not unusual) but is actually praised and regarded as virtuous by society.
Only a solid and powerful adherence to some-thing transcendent (something located outwith this mortal life and temporary earth) is able to sustain such individual cold courage.
So, courage is nowadays not something that can be recommended by worldly criteria; but only by and for those who fundamental perspective is 'not of this world'; for those who genuinely look for validation and reward primarily beyond this mortal life.
Note added: The fact that Modern Men are indeed lacking in courage ought to be obvious to the meanest intellect; however I became personally aware of this fact through many and sustained personal experiences in four main areas of contemporary life: Medicine, the National Health Service bureaucracy, Science (specifically medical science and biology), and Academia and Education more generally (since I was also engaged in English Literature and Philosophy; as well as having a professional interest in the history of education, education policy and scientometrics - i.e. the quantitative measurement of academic outputs).
The answer is; because they lack that which sustains courage - which is 'religion', which is some-thing deeply assumed/ lived-by that is transcendent to this mortal life.
Without this; the bottom-line is expediency; which is the opposite of courage.
Yet in addition, the nature of courage has changed - which is why even the few Christian and religious Westerners are lacking it.
In an inversion (one that complements and compensates-for the moral inversions of modernity) what used-to-be courage has now become expediency
In the past, courage was a social virtue. It was a type of conformity to the group. Its special characteristics were obedience and loyalty. Thus the courageous individual was not required to strike-out alone nor be independent; but rather to assimilate to the group ethic: the group defined the ethical.
Courage was standard recommended behaviour - and the problem was subordinating the individual preference to conform to the group preference. Courage was doing what the group recommended.
(Military courage is of this type; and so is the courage required of a saintly monk.)
In other words; in the past, virtue was defined by the group, and transgressed by the individual.
Now things are different and almost the opposite. Virtue is individual (or not at all) because society is corrupt.
To be obedient and loyal to any modern group (institution, corporation, church etc.) is expedient, and to lack courage: to be on-the-side-of evil.
Courage must therefore be individual, goes unrewarded (or is often punished) by society and social institutions; and the needful courage is cold rather than hot.
(Hot courage is short-term, unthinking and in the heat of the moment. But cold courage is considered, long-termist and must strive-against against the continual pressure of unrelenting opposed expediency.)
Modern courage is 'a big ask' of anyone; and only those with a supremely strong and inner reason for courage are capable of it. Extremely few modern people have any such inner reason; hence cowardice is not only the norm (which is not unusual) but is actually praised and regarded as virtuous by society.
Only a solid and powerful adherence to some-thing transcendent (something located outwith this mortal life and temporary earth) is able to sustain such individual cold courage.
So, courage is nowadays not something that can be recommended by worldly criteria; but only by and for those who fundamental perspective is 'not of this world'; for those who genuinely look for validation and reward primarily beyond this mortal life.
Note added: The fact that Modern Men are indeed lacking in courage ought to be obvious to the meanest intellect; however I became personally aware of this fact through many and sustained personal experiences in four main areas of contemporary life: Medicine, the National Health Service bureaucracy, Science (specifically medical science and biology), and Academia and Education more generally (since I was also engaged in English Literature and Philosophy; as well as having a professional interest in the history of education, education policy and scientometrics - i.e. the quantitative measurement of academic outputs).
Epidemic phobic avoidance
Continuing my psychiatric diagnosis of our situation; I observe a very obvious phenomenon of phobic avoidance in relation to the birdemic.
Indeed, this is a plain and obvious fact, and one that is well understood: If we respond to an irrational phobia by avoiding it, then that phobia will be strengthened by apparent confirmation of the strategy of avoidance, and the consequent lack of a possibility of being refuted by experience.
So, people are more afraid of the birdemic Now (when it is over, and deaths back to baseline) than they were when it was actually killing people (albeit at a rate some fifty-fold less than 'expected'/ 'officially-predicted').
But this should not be surprising. When there was no unusual threat to begin with (at the level of a bad influenza), and yet massive-wholesale avoidance was deployed; the innate tendency is to assume that it was the behavioural avoidance that 'saved' people from the imagined threat.
This is seen in simple-specific phobias. If a British person suffers arachnophobia (and there are no dangerous spiders in Britain), and responds by escalating avoidance of first spiders, then the places spiders characteristically inhabit, finally places where spiders might be... then a specific and circumscribed phobia develops into a generalised anxiety state; where fear is constant and the sufferer's life and behaviour are increasingly limited: dominated by futile spider-avoidance practices.
This is precisely the situation for the birdemic; where all casual social interactions among strangers are Now dominated by birdemic-awareness and orientated-around avoidance of a non-existent (i.e. normal, baseline) birdemic threat - and this behaviour is being first sustained and then amplified by the apparent success at avoiding the threat.
It would be foolish to suppose that this is an unintended consequence of policy - in other words, this is precisely what They have engineered by their colossal programme of evil-lying propaganda and totalitarian control.
Okay, but phobias are treatable - by 'behavioural therapy', which can easily be self-administered - and is indeed just common sense...
Behavioural therapy is so simple as to be summarisable in a sentence: To overcome a fear we must expose ourselves to that fear - we will then get-used-to that fear - and by repetition, learn to stop reacting to it.
The barrier to successful treatment is typically that the sufferer does not want to get better, is unwilling to suffer short-term discomfort for a long-term cure; therefore refuses to expose himself to that which is feared.
That is the current situation. The mass public do not want to get better.
Why? In a negative sense - cowardice. Modern Men lack courage because they lack the motivation of religion and will do nothing about that because - in a positive sense - Modern Men are wedded to evil, have embraced evil: are on the side of those who oppose God, Good and divine creation.
In another sense: conformity. In this totalitarian world, the fear is to be singled-out as Not conforming, to be detected as Not 100% onboard with the ideology.
In a world of mandatory and uniform phobic avoidance; to be brave, independent in thinking; to be loving, spiritual and Christian - is to be marked as an enemy of the World State.
So the massive, apparently world-wide, phobic avoidance is merely a rational symptom of mass corruption.
People could recover from it in a few days - but only if they actually wanted to recover.
The fact that people do not want to recover is a measure of the mass prevalence and dominance of evil. And that is something which cannot be reversed in a few days.
Indeed, this is a plain and obvious fact, and one that is well understood: If we respond to an irrational phobia by avoiding it, then that phobia will be strengthened by apparent confirmation of the strategy of avoidance, and the consequent lack of a possibility of being refuted by experience.
So, people are more afraid of the birdemic Now (when it is over, and deaths back to baseline) than they were when it was actually killing people (albeit at a rate some fifty-fold less than 'expected'/ 'officially-predicted').
But this should not be surprising. When there was no unusual threat to begin with (at the level of a bad influenza), and yet massive-wholesale avoidance was deployed; the innate tendency is to assume that it was the behavioural avoidance that 'saved' people from the imagined threat.
This is seen in simple-specific phobias. If a British person suffers arachnophobia (and there are no dangerous spiders in Britain), and responds by escalating avoidance of first spiders, then the places spiders characteristically inhabit, finally places where spiders might be... then a specific and circumscribed phobia develops into a generalised anxiety state; where fear is constant and the sufferer's life and behaviour are increasingly limited: dominated by futile spider-avoidance practices.
This is precisely the situation for the birdemic; where all casual social interactions among strangers are Now dominated by birdemic-awareness and orientated-around avoidance of a non-existent (i.e. normal, baseline) birdemic threat - and this behaviour is being first sustained and then amplified by the apparent success at avoiding the threat.
It would be foolish to suppose that this is an unintended consequence of policy - in other words, this is precisely what They have engineered by their colossal programme of evil-lying propaganda and totalitarian control.
Okay, but phobias are treatable - by 'behavioural therapy', which can easily be self-administered - and is indeed just common sense...
Behavioural therapy is so simple as to be summarisable in a sentence: To overcome a fear we must expose ourselves to that fear - we will then get-used-to that fear - and by repetition, learn to stop reacting to it.
The barrier to successful treatment is typically that the sufferer does not want to get better, is unwilling to suffer short-term discomfort for a long-term cure; therefore refuses to expose himself to that which is feared.
That is the current situation. The mass public do not want to get better.
Why? In a negative sense - cowardice. Modern Men lack courage because they lack the motivation of religion and will do nothing about that because - in a positive sense - Modern Men are wedded to evil, have embraced evil: are on the side of those who oppose God, Good and divine creation.
In another sense: conformity. In this totalitarian world, the fear is to be singled-out as Not conforming, to be detected as Not 100% onboard with the ideology.
In a world of mandatory and uniform phobic avoidance; to be brave, independent in thinking; to be loving, spiritual and Christian - is to be marked as an enemy of the World State.
So the massive, apparently world-wide, phobic avoidance is merely a rational symptom of mass corruption.
People could recover from it in a few days - but only if they actually wanted to recover.
The fact that people do not want to recover is a measure of the mass prevalence and dominance of evil. And that is something which cannot be reversed in a few days.
Wednesday, 1 July 2020
Death and what ends
I have fairly often seen it asserted in the products of modern mass media the idea, intended to be consoling, that we 'live-on' in the memories of those who live after we have died.
Strangely, this is often put-forward as if it was believed to be some kind of original insight, a notion that other people might not have stumbled across; apparently assuming that we moderns have discovered this (purportedly) new and satisfying form of life beyond our personal death...
Wheras the reality is surely that almost everybody who has given a moments thought to the matter has had this idea and rejected it because it is so obviously unsatifactory!
For a start, people who knew us and live-on may not actually think much (or at all) about us, they will surely misremember (with gaps and distortions), or have mostly unpleasant thoughts. And anyway sooner-or-later - naturally - they themselves will all die; and before long all traces of 'biological' memory of our-selves will be utterly lost from among the living.
So, what is death? How do we really feel about it?
From what one can read in old books and from recollections of early childhood, it seems that we are (once we have reached some years old - four or five?) born with some innate understanding that we ourselves will die and be lost from this mortal world.
In other words, there really is a thing called death, and - from the perspective of the living-world - it really is an end to our everyday selves.
Also that death really is a Big Thing. All attempts at reassurance by saying that our lives are trivial or that we are not personally present at our own deaths etc. are beside the point. We all know that death is real, and know that in some important way (or more than one way) death is a terrible loss.
On the other side (and again going on what past people wrote, as well as the spontaneous apparently-inborn understandings of childhood) there has always been a traditional wisdom that death is not the end.
Up to now (i.e. very recently in history) there seems a broad agreement, a human consensus: death is real, death is a loss; something comes after...
But it is at this point that opinions begin to vary; and vary widely. It is a further consensus that death is a transition - but transition to what?
Some-thing survives death; but what that 'thing' may be, and what condition it survives in, varies in many ways including rebirth into another human, or animal; loss of the self and reabsorption into divine spirit; a witless wandering ghost; a blissful spirit, or a suffering one; a person in permanent paradise, or one that is stuck in some eternally recurring cycle - and so on. Or the Christian Heaven.
Many ideas.
But modern Man has decided that these are all false and that death is an annihilation.
This means that a typical modern Man understands his life as being bounded by birth and death with nothing on either side.
This further means that modern Man is in an unique position of trying to make sense of his mortal life without any reference to anything outside. He is trying to live a life he 'knows' to be temporary and with nothing left-behind; and he is trying to make sense out of it: trying to discover (on this basis) some purpose, some reason for being.
He is trying to discover why to be moral - indeed whether to be moral because - why anything?
Modern Man is, indeed, faced by the question of, on such terms and with such constraints, whether life is worth having At All?
So far, the 'best' answer to this question seems to be that life is worth living if it is pleasurable here-and-now (or maybe the confident expectation that it soon will be) - but otherwise... Why Bother?
And it is on this slender and feeble basis that billions of modern Men are supposed-to get up every morning, work and do stuff, be nice/ kind/ compassionate to everybody, fall in love, raise a family, build and maintain a community/ a nation/ civilization; be a useful citizen...
Considering this; it is no surprise that the developed world is not just collapsing; but actively destroying-itself.
No surprise that life has become a progressive societal suicide.
After all, there is no reason for it not to be.
Strangely, this is often put-forward as if it was believed to be some kind of original insight, a notion that other people might not have stumbled across; apparently assuming that we moderns have discovered this (purportedly) new and satisfying form of life beyond our personal death...
Wheras the reality is surely that almost everybody who has given a moments thought to the matter has had this idea and rejected it because it is so obviously unsatifactory!
For a start, people who knew us and live-on may not actually think much (or at all) about us, they will surely misremember (with gaps and distortions), or have mostly unpleasant thoughts. And anyway sooner-or-later - naturally - they themselves will all die; and before long all traces of 'biological' memory of our-selves will be utterly lost from among the living.
So, what is death? How do we really feel about it?
From what one can read in old books and from recollections of early childhood, it seems that we are (once we have reached some years old - four or five?) born with some innate understanding that we ourselves will die and be lost from this mortal world.
In other words, there really is a thing called death, and - from the perspective of the living-world - it really is an end to our everyday selves.
Also that death really is a Big Thing. All attempts at reassurance by saying that our lives are trivial or that we are not personally present at our own deaths etc. are beside the point. We all know that death is real, and know that in some important way (or more than one way) death is a terrible loss.
On the other side (and again going on what past people wrote, as well as the spontaneous apparently-inborn understandings of childhood) there has always been a traditional wisdom that death is not the end.
Up to now (i.e. very recently in history) there seems a broad agreement, a human consensus: death is real, death is a loss; something comes after...
But it is at this point that opinions begin to vary; and vary widely. It is a further consensus that death is a transition - but transition to what?
Some-thing survives death; but what that 'thing' may be, and what condition it survives in, varies in many ways including rebirth into another human, or animal; loss of the self and reabsorption into divine spirit; a witless wandering ghost; a blissful spirit, or a suffering one; a person in permanent paradise, or one that is stuck in some eternally recurring cycle - and so on. Or the Christian Heaven.
Many ideas.
But modern Man has decided that these are all false and that death is an annihilation.
This means that a typical modern Man understands his life as being bounded by birth and death with nothing on either side.
This further means that modern Man is in an unique position of trying to make sense of his mortal life without any reference to anything outside. He is trying to live a life he 'knows' to be temporary and with nothing left-behind; and he is trying to make sense out of it: trying to discover (on this basis) some purpose, some reason for being.
He is trying to discover why to be moral - indeed whether to be moral because - why anything?
Modern Man is, indeed, faced by the question of, on such terms and with such constraints, whether life is worth having At All?
So far, the 'best' answer to this question seems to be that life is worth living if it is pleasurable here-and-now (or maybe the confident expectation that it soon will be) - but otherwise... Why Bother?
And it is on this slender and feeble basis that billions of modern Men are supposed-to get up every morning, work and do stuff, be nice/ kind/ compassionate to everybody, fall in love, raise a family, build and maintain a community/ a nation/ civilization; be a useful citizen...
Considering this; it is no surprise that the developed world is not just collapsing; but actively destroying-itself.
No surprise that life has become a progressive societal suicide.
After all, there is no reason for it not to be.
Either this world is a completely-unreal Matrix; Or we are headed for mass extinction
This point was very well made by Jacob Gittes in a comment yesterday.
To expand; everything we think we know about 'economics' - specifically, about the production and distribution of the essentials of human life, including the local/ national/ global organisation and coordination ('institutions') that make this possible - everything of this kind suggests that we are being driven into a massive crash and collapse of that which sustains the seven-plus billion people on this planet.
Bearing in mind that the population of the earth before the industrial revolution did not exceed one billion; and only reached two billion in the 1920s... it seems obvious that that which sustains these many extra billions is the product of exactly that system which is being deliberately crashed.
The assertion that The System is indeed being crashed is not a speculation, but is now being explicitly stated as policy by people representing the most powerful organisations on earth. They call it The Great Reset.
Why are They crashing it? They say it is to create a sustainable and just (leftist) future. For present purposes; I leave it to you to decide whether this is the real reason.
But whatever the real reason, They certainly want to collapse the system, and They apparently have the power to do so - therefore presumably the System will collapse.
And if we are correct in believing that the scientific/ technological/ industrial system is what sustains billions of people on this planet; then this must mean that some billions of people will be unsustainable.
In other words, billions will die, quite soon, and as a result of policies that are currently being implemented.
And if this does Not happen, and at the end of the Great Reset seven-plus billion people are still alive; then it can only be that we are wrong about our basic understanding of how the world works. It can only be that we are living in a wholly-unreal Matrix world, where (for example) people are not really alive, and don't really need food, effective medicine etc.
Now, I don't believe this; I think this world is real and so are the people in it - but I am aware that at least some of the people involved in The Great Reset say they believe we are software constructs living in a computer simulation, and are even prepared to assert it in public. Presumably there are others who believe this but don't say so publicly.
This kind of thinking - or something like it - may be how so many ultra-rich, ultra-powerful, vastly-influential people (who are currently engineering The Great Reset) are able so calmly to contemplate the consequences of their actions. How they apparently believe the Great Reset will be a great benefit to mankind...
Maybe They don't believe that reality is real?
Behind Them (i.e. the Establishment humans), I am sure that there are those who do know what is real, and that mass extinction is being (deniably) engineered by those whom they have bribed, intimidated and duped.
These unseen personages behind the Great Reset are, of course, the demonic powers (immortal spirits that are opposed to God, the Good and Creation); for whom what is on the menu (the covert agenda) is mass global damnation - led-up-to by an enjoyable side-order of human suffering, despair and corruption.
To expand; everything we think we know about 'economics' - specifically, about the production and distribution of the essentials of human life, including the local/ national/ global organisation and coordination ('institutions') that make this possible - everything of this kind suggests that we are being driven into a massive crash and collapse of that which sustains the seven-plus billion people on this planet.
Bearing in mind that the population of the earth before the industrial revolution did not exceed one billion; and only reached two billion in the 1920s... it seems obvious that that which sustains these many extra billions is the product of exactly that system which is being deliberately crashed.
The assertion that The System is indeed being crashed is not a speculation, but is now being explicitly stated as policy by people representing the most powerful organisations on earth. They call it The Great Reset.
Why are They crashing it? They say it is to create a sustainable and just (leftist) future. For present purposes; I leave it to you to decide whether this is the real reason.
But whatever the real reason, They certainly want to collapse the system, and They apparently have the power to do so - therefore presumably the System will collapse.
And if we are correct in believing that the scientific/ technological/ industrial system is what sustains billions of people on this planet; then this must mean that some billions of people will be unsustainable.
In other words, billions will die, quite soon, and as a result of policies that are currently being implemented.
And if this does Not happen, and at the end of the Great Reset seven-plus billion people are still alive; then it can only be that we are wrong about our basic understanding of how the world works. It can only be that we are living in a wholly-unreal Matrix world, where (for example) people are not really alive, and don't really need food, effective medicine etc.
Now, I don't believe this; I think this world is real and so are the people in it - but I am aware that at least some of the people involved in The Great Reset say they believe we are software constructs living in a computer simulation, and are even prepared to assert it in public. Presumably there are others who believe this but don't say so publicly.
This kind of thinking - or something like it - may be how so many ultra-rich, ultra-powerful, vastly-influential people (who are currently engineering The Great Reset) are able so calmly to contemplate the consequences of their actions. How they apparently believe the Great Reset will be a great benefit to mankind...
Maybe They don't believe that reality is real?
Behind Them (i.e. the Establishment humans), I am sure that there are those who do know what is real, and that mass extinction is being (deniably) engineered by those whom they have bribed, intimidated and duped.
These unseen personages behind the Great Reset are, of course, the demonic powers (immortal spirits that are opposed to God, the Good and Creation); for whom what is on the menu (the covert agenda) is mass global damnation - led-up-to by an enjoyable side-order of human suffering, despair and corruption.