Saturday music suggestion - William Boyce (1711-1779)

William Boyce was a Handelian English composer - at Boyce's best, he was as good as his master at his best. As here in his 6th 'Symphony' - in particular the second movement starting at 4 minutes, which is a pure delight:

What makes Boyce ultimately third-rate as a composer is that - to my ear - he was never able to sustain his inspiration to include a whole work; he is a composer of excellent movements. 

On the other hand, his instrumental orchestral music (the Symphonies and Overtures especially) is nearly always enjoyable; and I find I can listen to them again and again over the years - which can't be said for everybody. 

Here is a generous selection of mostly decent perfomances (Handsome chap wasn't he? Not!):

 

How to live 'spiritually'?

Clearly it is not enough to Be A Christian nowadays - we must also live spiritually, from the spirit - that is, we need to have direct and personal experience of that vast area of life which lies beyond the materialist stuff to which modern public discourse is ever-more-tightly restircted. 

As the world becomes more-and-more a single, global Leftist-bureaucracy-media complex; we can handily define the spiritual realm as everything ignored, deliberately left-out, or excluded from serious consideration by that uni-world of public, official discourse.  

But most people are addicted to this world, and have developed deep habits and unexamined primary assumptions that rule-out the spiritual - treating it variously as childish, insane or evil - nipping in the bud any nascent emergence of the spirit into consciousness. 

How then to begin to live by the spirit? Clearly (here-and-now) it must be a deliberate and conscious choice - it is not going to Just Happen - not any more. So first make that choice. 

And remember that it is not enough to think About the spiritual, it must be Experienced to be valuable. 

Start by noticing. Feelings are a good place to start noticing. All kinds of things - knowledge, discernments, impulses - are being (at present) un-consciously signalled to us. 

When we feel a mood, a premonition, a dream, a synchronicity (a strange 'coincidence'), feel an impulse which does not apparently derive from externally... When we seem to discern some speial good or sinister evil in a person, institution, communication...

Take it seriously. Consider it further. 

But let that consideration not be on the one hand based on 'evidence, nor on the other hand based on gut-feelings; but instead try to consider that thing with your real self, your heart, your truest being. This again requires conscious intent.

To know what that direct-heart-intuitive knowing feels-like; it may be worth considering the most significant events of your past - significant in your own private soul - what I have termed The Golden Thread. 

All this is not easy - because it is going against external constraints and internal habits - but it is possible, and it will succeed - although neither permanently nor with overwhelming effect. 

In this mortal life we are here to learn; and that learning is only cashed-out in-full beyond biological death. But every-thing learned will be of value in Heaven - if Heaven is what you choose*. 

 

*(If, instead of accepting Jesus's gift of resurrected life eternal, you instead choose some destination other-than Heaven; then indeed this mortal life is not of value, and the above advice does not apply. I that case you really are On Your Own - but you have nobody to blame for the fact but your-self.)    

Choose your religion...

As far back as my 2011 mini-book Thought Prison I have been saying that the primary decision (which few make) is to 'choose your religion'; any other decision is futile, since all other real and possible decisions end on The Left and therefore in support of purposive evil. 

But the choice of religion remains; and cuts across different religons and denominations. I think much can be gained by considering What You Want - given that God is both creator and loving parent, hence will try to give what we most want, within constraints of what is good for us and God's other children. 

So, it is reasonable to assume that we will get what we really want, therefore it behoves us to consider what that is: to give the matter some serious consideration. 

And I specifically mean: want across an eternal timescale; consider what we want for our-selves after biological death: That, I believe, is a key question, the answer to which frames this mortal life and affects our understanding of everything in it.  

For example, do we most want eternal peace, or to do stuff - to work?

Do we want bliss, or family living (like marriage, children, close friends - sociality)?

Do we want stillness, or creation?

Do we want deity, or Jesus? 

 

Experience is more important than proof - a prophetic remark by Rudolf Steiner (1919)

Edited from a lecture of Rudolf Steiner in 1919 - a point of vital relevance to life in 2020 in our global world of Big Lies, systematic disortion and manipulation, and compulsory virtuality: 

...Once it is realized that conflicting political party programs can be proved equally correct, our attitude of soul will be that we do not set out to prove things, but rather to experience them. For to experience a thing is a very different matter from attempting to prove it intellectually. 

Deep penetration of the Gospels is necessary through spiritual science. The literal, word-for-word acceptance of the Gospelspromotes Ahrimanic culture. 

Even on external grounds it is obvious that a strictly literal acceptance of the Gospels is unjustified. For as you know, what is good and right for one time is not right for every other time. What is right for one epoch becomes Luciferic or Ahrimanic when practiced in a later one. 

The mere reading of the Gospel texts has had its day. What is essential now is to acquire a spiritual understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha [i.e. the work of Jesus Christ] in the light of the truths enshrined in the Gospels. 

Listen to a modern socialist speaking about social questions and then, immediately afterward, to a Catholic preacher speaking about the same questions. It is very interesting to find two levels of culture existing side by side but using the words in an entirely different sense. The same word has quite a different meaning in each case. 

You can read countless treatises today about what is needed in social life. It is often said that without the spirit nothing is achieved, that the very course of events shows that the spirit is necessary. 

Yes, but what does such a man really achieve? He gets as far as to utter the word “spirit,” to pronounce the abstract word “spirit;” but he refuses to accept, indeed he rejects, anything that endeavors to make the spirit really take effect. 

For that, it is essential above all to realize that wallowing in abstractions, however loud the cry for the spirit, is not yet spiritual, not yet spirit! Vague, abstract chattering about the spirit must never be confused with the active search for the content of the spiritual world pursued in anthroposophical science [i.e. by personal, direct, intuitive experience]. 

Abstract talk of the spirit is a deviation from sincere striving for the spirit and that by their very talk, people are actually removing themselves from the spirit. Purely intellectual allusion to the spirit leads nowhere. 

What, then, is “intelligence?” What is the content of our human intelligence? I can best explain this in the following way. Imagine yourself standing in front of a mirror and looking into it. The picture presented to you by the mirror is you, but it has no reality at all. It is nothing but a reflection. 

All the intelligence within your soul, all the intellectual content, is only a mirror image; it has no reality. And just as your reflected image is called into existence through the mirror, so what mirrors itself as intelligence is called into existence through the physical apparatus of your body, through the brain. 

You are intelligent only because your body is there. And as little as you can touch yourself by stretching your hand toward your reflected image, as little can you lay hold of the spirit if you turn only to the intellectual — for the spirit is not there! 

What is grasped through the intellect, ingenious as it may be, never contains the spirit itself, but only a picture of the spirit. You cannot truly experience the spirit if you get no further than mere intelligence. 

The reason why intelligence is so seductive is that it yields a picture, a reflected picture of the spirit — but not the spirit itself. It seems unnecessary to go to the inconvenience of penetrating to the spirit, because it is there — or so, at least, one imagines. In reality it is only a reflected picture — but for all that, it is not difficult to talk about the spirit...

 

Comment: When intelligence and proof lead nowhere but to arbitrary ideological contradictions, they become (have become) mere intruments of social and psychological manipulation. 

A better solution cannot be found externally, because all human institutions are - here-and-now, especially since 2020 - obviously (yes?) corrupted to the evil Global Establishment agenda. 

And this applies to any type of supposedly-literalistic reading of any Scripture. 

A way-out-from mere intelligence and demonically-poisoned arbitrariness only be found in our own personal spiritual, intuitive experiences. For Christians, these must take priority, or else we have de facto changed sides and will be supporting Satan et al. All church tradition, theology, authority and scripture must be evaluated by experiential spiruality - which discernment is now primary. 

 

The anti-spiritual war of all against all: A brief, and fulfilled, Rudolf Steiner prophecy from 1919

Edited from a lecture by Rudolf Steiner at Bern, Switzerland - 4th November 1919 concerning the influences of Lucifer and Ahriman.

The phase of evolution beginning in our own time has a very special character. The present phase may be characterized in a general way by saying that all the experiences confronting humankind in the physical world during the earth's further existence will represent a decline, a retrogression. 

The time when human progress was made possible through the constant refinement of the physical forces is already over. In the future, too, humankind will progress, but only through spiritual development, through development on a higher level than that of the processes of the physical plane. 

People who rely entirely on the processes of the physical plane will find in them no source of satisfaction. 

We are heading for the “War of All against All”; its implications must not remain in the realm of theory but also come to expression in the actions, the whole behavior of human beings. 

The fact that people in the future are not going to get much fun out of developments on the physical plane, will bring home to them that further evolution must proceed from spiritual forces.

 

Comment: A hundred years later and we can see that Steiner was absolutely correct. Four generations of (mostly) development in the refinement of physical forces, clearly has Not brought about human progress. 

(Indeed the prevalent - and explicit - idea among the (demonically-driven) Global Establishment is trans-humanism, transcending the human; the abolition - and eventual genocide - of all humans, and their replacement with 'cyborg' human-computer hybrids. Why not? Does Satan care for humans?)

And the war of all against all has advanced so rapidly in recent years - and with unprecedented swiftness in 2020 - that implementing exactly such a Life has become the main plank of global public policy with barely any recognition and even less murmer of disconent that this should be. 

(Disguised merely by the flimsiest and least coherent of Big Lies, blatant fakery, and terrible consequences evident in the personal experience of every single individual on the planet.) 

Steiner knew and prophesied that the immediate post-1914-18 world war was the last chance for the dominant Western world to change its trajectory; but instead materialism/ reeductionism/ positivism was embraced and enforced with teh promise of a life without suffering and of greatly enhanced 'fun' - as was evident in the Roaing Twenties and the Swingin Sixties. 

Yet the underlying reality of the 20th century was unprecedented world was and atheist socialist/ communist (anti-Christian) regimes of staggering human destructiveness. And the self-destruction of The West primarily by increasing value-inversion with sub-fertility, and deliberate strategy social and suicide - which seems to have reached a decisive climax. 

Rudolf Steiner's great strength is not his analysis of distaster - but his pointing forwards towards The necessary, fundamental and potentially effective (Christian and spiritual) solution; which is why (for all his many faults) he remains one of very few genuinely vital thinkers of the past couple of centuries. 

In dream life, the ancient pagans lived among the starry realms - Rudolf Steiner

The following edited excerpts are from a lecture by Rudolf Steiner from 1919, which was later gathered into a collection called Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, and which I saw in a recent collection called The Incarnation of Ahriman. 

This lecture has a great deal of interest, and I have therefore excerpted and commented on several passages (above). 

It seems to fit a pattern that Steiner gave better lectures to better audiences. This one was in Bern, and I have seen other good ones from Zurich; but the great mass-majority of lectures from Dornach (the headquarters of Anthroposophy) are the worst; probably because that was the centre of cultic worship, and because Steiner's faults were therefore amplified. 

Even in this lecture there are tractlike repetitions of his 'crazy' (and wrong) micro-detailed theosophical schemas of vast sweeps of world history and future, and tediously vague, prickly, straw-man defensiveness against those who disagreed with him; and assertions that the colossally-massive ultra-systematised complexity of the 'facts' in his later work, was a sign of its superiority - implicity contradicting with other assersions that nothing of his was valid for another person unless intuitively checked.

(It would take several full-time, full-span lifetimes intutively to check every detail of the sheer bulk of what Steiner spouted in his later years!). 

Reading Rudolf Steiner (beyond his first three or four philosophical books) is therefore sifting for gold among dross - but there is real gold to be had - especially in his books and the lectures delivered outside of Dornach - and plenty of it!    

 

The nature of pagan culture can best be understood if we realize that it was the outcome of knowledge, vision and action born of forces much wider in range than those belonging to present earthly existence. this pagan culture was such that people felt themselves members of the whole cosmos. 

Human beings living on earth within the old pagan world felt themselves membered into the whole cosmos. They felt how the forces at work in the movements of the stars extend into their own action, or, better said, into the forces taking effect in their actions.

(What later passed for astrology, and does so still, is but a reflection — and a very misleading one at that — of the ancient wisdom gleaned from contemplation of the stars in their courses and then used as the basis for precepts governing human action.)

People living on the earth in those ancient times had a kind of instinctive soul life, in a certain respect more akin to the soul life of animals than to that of present-day human beings. But it is a very one-sided conception of human life to say that in those ancient times people were more like animals. 

Those human-animal bodies were used by beings of soul and spirit who felt themselves members of the super-sensible worlds, above all of the cosmic worlds. People made use of animal bodies as instruments rather than feeling themselves within those bodies. 

When they were awake, they moved about with an instinctive life of soul like that of animals, but into this instinctive life of soul there shone something like dreams from their sleeping state, waking dreams. And in these waking dreams they perceived how they had descended, to use animal bodies merely as instruments. 

People would say to themselves: When I am outside my body at night I belong to the forces of the cosmos, of the starry heavens; when I wake in the morning I make use of animal instincts in an animal body.

Then human evolution passed, figuratively speaking, into a period of twilight. A certain dimness, a certain lethargy, spread over the life of humanity; the cosmic dreams receded and instinct gained the upper hand.

The attitude of soul formerly prevailing in human beings was preserved through the Mysteries, mainly through the Asiatic Mysteries. The Mysteries were there, into which, through the powerful rites and ceremonies, the spiritual worlds were able to penetrate. And it was from these Mystery centers that human beings received continued illumination.

 

Note: I found that Steiner's description people felt themselves members of the whole cosmos struck an immediate chord of validity. This captures what I understand of the underworld 'dwat/ duat' of the Ancient Egyptians; and it also points at what is lacking from the Collective Unconscious concept of Jung - which is about archetypal human, instinctive and animal contents - and the 'cosmic' aspects are disregarded. 

The modern ideas of draem and the unconscious - from Freud, through Jung and more recent writers; almost always devolve to being 'therapeutic' - to making people feel or function better; to reconnection with the instinctive... 

But the cosmic aspect is lacking. I think that even now (albeit weakly and unconsciously) dreams - and deep sleep more generally - have an effect of reconnecting us with the totality of being; our place in the universe. 

A further aspect of this 'astral' quality of dreams, is that it directly refers to living among moon, planets, sun, stars, and other heavenly bodies such as comets - when these are known (as they were to the  ancient, and truly are) as Beings. 

Indeed, Steiner elsewhere usefully suggests that during sleep, we 'leave behind' the living physical body; and our 'astral' or conscious self travels to a different realm along with our personal 'ego' self of human self-consciousness. Thus, that part of our-total-self which is self aware and conscious of others leaves behind the alive but insinsible, unaware body; and 'travels' in an 'astral realm' - which goes beyond the personal. I find this a broadly accurate and helpful way of thinking.  

In dreams, therefore, ancient man primarily - and perhaps even now to some small extent - we experience, we know, the comos to be 'made of' living, conscious, purposive Beings; and we live among them and in relationship with them. 

This personal and nightly experience was, I infer, the basis of The Gods of ancient man; albeit imperfectly recalled and with personal and cultural distortions. But it explains why there always were gods, why they tended to converge on certain types, and why their importance was recognised. 

And it perhaps explains the detailed, functional angelic hierarchies of the early medieval era (e.g. Dionysus), when this kind of thinking (and dreaming) still had considerable influence - esepcially in association with 'mysteries' of monastic and eremetic (hermit) life.  

And this further seems to account for the uncanny effects that the night sky (in particular; but also the sky in general) has upon people - even now. We are being reminded of what we have experienced sometimes in sleep. 

 

Repenting our compelled obedience to Caesar (with reference to the church closures)

In this Global Totalitarian society; Caesar is becoming more powerful - and less escapable - by the day. 

Given that most people are not heroes (and never will be), it is reasonable to assume first that Caesar can, and will, compel our obedience to his dictates; and second that many of these dictates will be evil in both motivation and effect. 

What then should a (serious) Christian do, in this world where he stands alone against a vast monopoly of coercion - when, almost certainly, his church has sumitted enthusiastically to Caesar's yoke, and now lumbers towards hell? 

The answer is that we must repent; but in repenting we must be clear about the spiritual nature of repentance. We must distinguish between our actions - which can be, and are, compelled; and our spiritual discernment - which always chooses.

We may be, we actually are, compelled to obey evil laws; but we can choose to know their evil, can choose to repent our obedience to them - even as we know this state of sinning will continue. 

 

Most Christians leaders will, if pressed, advocate 'rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's'; but they are, in truth, advocating rendering unto Caesar that which is God's - with the excuse that they have No Alternative but to comply. 

What this actually means is that the (threatened) cost of non-compliance is too high for them to bear, or else they think the cost of disobedience is too high, and not worth paying. 

In sum - they are not heroes of faith. But then again - who is? But few ever, and fewer than ever now. The question is how to live in accordance with God's creation when one is Not a hero of faith.

What Christian leaders should (but do not) acknowledge, is that they have-been and are-being compelled to sin; and that sin requires repentance (and, I would add, the public sin of public figures requires public repentance). 

What they typically fail to acknowledge is that Caesar is - nowadays - on the side of Satan. That is  something they (and we) should be clear about from the start. However it may have been in Roman times; here and now, Caesar is in the business of propaganda for, and enforcement of, inverted values. Caesar serves Satan, not God.

 

Take the example of church closures during the birdemic. Any serious Christian should know by now (and indeed long since) that the birdemic is a Big Lie; and that this Big Lie is being used as a fake rationale for blocking, closing, and (ultimately) destroying all Chrstian churches. 

At this stage, anyone who cannot perceive this has de facto made a choice to join-with the Lie, and affiliate with the side of Satan and his agents. 

But let us say that a Christian leader is also a serious Christian. Unless he is a rare hero, he cannot (and most importantly he will not) resist the evil government regulations enforced upon him. This means that he has been compelled to sin. 

Very well, but this is not of itself a problem for the Christian: Jesus explicitly came to save sinners - those who sin. But this entails that the Pastor or Priest must acknowledge that by obeying Caesar - e.g by closing his church, ceasing to offer the sacraments, and ceasing his personal ministry - he is In Fact sinning. 

 

Sin must be repented - that is uncontroversial. Yet at the same time, Caesar will (in practice) nearly always be obeyed - because very few are heroes of faith. 

So this Christian pastor/ priest is in the position - common enough, indeed universal - and indeed a frequent complaint of the Apostle Paul - that he recognises sin, wants Not to sin, but continues to sin. Indeed, by collaborating with Caesar, he is actively enforcing sin.

That is, the priest/ pastor knows his church should be allowed to remain fully open and fully operative, and should prioritise the spirit above (actually fake) health issues; but in practice he obeys Caesar's rules - and closes the church and ceases to fulfil his pastoral duties. 

He knows sin, repents sin, continues to sin...

Yet surely this is just the human condition? And this is exactly what Jesus takes-account of. Jesus recognises that perfection is impossible, that we will sin, that we will continue to sin; but if we recognise our sin and continue to love and follow* Jesus - then salvation will be ours. 

In this world of 2020, we need to be much clearer about the fact that we will all, in many ways, be compelled to obey Caesar, and by this obedience we will be compelled to sin. We should not even pretend that we 'will do better in future' and will strive to 'cease sinning' because this is not true. 

We will not do better, nor will we strive to do better; instead we will carry on sinning just as we do now. However, we acknowledge and repent this.

 

What then? Well first we must repent. And a public sin - such as closing a church - ought publicly to be repented; the sin needs to be named, acknowledged, specified - else the flock are being taught a false doctrine; are being taught that sin is good. 

And this needs to be done with full recognition that the recognised sin will continue to be done. There should be no false consolation that 'in future' we are going to become heroes of faith. We aren't.

 

For instance. The priest or pastor stands up to address the congregation and informs them that he is closing the church next week; ceasing to offer Holy Communion, baptism and funeral rites; and he will not visit is flock**. 

Or, he says that - for the church to remain open; congregants must stand far apart and avoid each other, cover their faces, and refrain from human contact of all kinds. 

(We will all treat each other as the Pharisees treated lepers, and ourselves behave as lepers were required to: in future we will regard each other primarily as disease vectors; only secondarily as human persons with human needs.) 

Then the priest/ pastor must state clearly that these are evil changes, which he knows as evil and rejects; that he repents his continuing and future compliance with these evil policies - and he asks God's forgiveness for these sins. 

(He may go on to clarify that these measures are intended to drive men apart and to destroy the churches. He may advise his flock how best to cope alone, and essentially abandoned by the churches.)

But in the end the priest or pastor must be clear that he personally is sinning by his compliance with regulations, yet that he intends to continue compliance; and must repent this sinning. 

This kind of repentance ought to be almost a routine matter for all serious Christians, because this kind of sinning is routine. (Maybe that 'routine' is the trouble?) But modern secular leftist pseudo-ethics has ensured that any explicit failure to live by one's explicit belief will almost certainly be termed 'hypocrisy' (when it is, in reality, almost the opposite). 

Such behaviour may also be called cowardice, and in a sense that is a just accusation; but confessed and repented cowardice is alright. Probably nearly everybody is 'a coward', to a significant degree; especially when alone and confronted by the overwhelming powers of the Global Caesar of 2020. 

(Like all sins, cowardice is only lethal to salvation when denied. A confessed coward, one who fully acknowledges that cowardice is indeed a sin, is acceptable to God.) 

 

A priest or pastor who closes his church in obedience to Caesar's latest diktat, and for fear of the consequences of disobedience, needs to make all of this clear; needs (in some public way - whether at the pulpit, in the parish magazine, or face to face with individuals) to make clear that he is sinning; that he repents his sin, but nonetheless will continue to obey Caesar.

And we are all in exactly the same situation - to a greater or lesser extent. We all do obey unjust and evil-motivated regulations; therefore we all need to repent our continued wrong-doing, and acknowledge that we will continue to do wrong. 

(Just because an evil is universal and a matter of routine, does not prevent it being a sin. We all choose to comply with a routine - we have all chosen to sin.)

 

When we are compelled to live by lies, we must confess these lies. We must Not propagandise for these lies, must not excuse the lies, must not pretend that the lies are motivated by love of God. 

Why is it so difficult to say this? So difficult to say that we have bent the knee to Caesar, and we will in fact continue to do so; but that we know we do wrong, and we do repent and affirm our affiliation to God, and to the Good? 

Only thus can we render to God what is God's.   

*Note: 'Following' Jesus does not mean being like him - because that would be impossible, it would entail never sinning; and we do sin and cannot stop sinning. Following Jesus means something much more literal - as described in the Good Shepherd parable, and reinforced throughout the Fourth Gospel. Following Jesus is to love and trust the Good Shepherd to lead us through the portal of death to the joy of resurrected life eternal. We must follow where he leads. 

**Note added later: In general, the repentance should occur wherever and whenever the information about closures etc. is provided: whether 'live' in a service, or whether on church noticeboards, web pages, social media etc. An announcement of compliance with Caesar's evil rules is therefore accompanied by a statement that these are evil, and a statement of repentance for complying. The specific reasons for complying are not really significant, in a public forum at any rate.  

 

Understanding bicycle lanes - What is at the centre of the onion?

For the past decade and more, the road system of my ancient city (with London, the only modern major city in England that has been major since medieval times) is being systematically destroyed by the construction of more and yet-more bicycle lanes. 

(In fact, I should really write "bicycle lanes" in scare quotes - since they are nearly always empty of traffic). 

Recently, The Great North Road - that major artery which has, for hundreds of years, linked London to the south with Edinburgh to the north, has been reduced from two to a single lane of traffic; with predictable consequences. 

But the process is incremental and unrelenting, and affects roads of all kinds and sizes. Because the city is old, and expansion of roads often impossible, this sometimes involves making roads one-way (halving the traffic), blocking with bumps and chicanes, and sometimes removing pedestrian pavements - so cars and walkers are alike affected. Many, many roads of many sizes have been, are-being, closed-off, at great expense, for good reason or none. 

Congestion is worse, journeys are longer, fumes are worse, both driving and walking are more dangerous and less enjoyable. 

 

There are in fact extremely few cyclists, probably fewer than forty years ago; and those that are sighted are mostly sports and recreational bikers, or else people who have substituted cycling for walking. Extremely few people are able consistently to substitute a bike for a car (for many and - one would have thought - obvious reasons). 

And - cyclists being what they are (i.e. supremely entitled) they are more often to be found on the roads or 'sidewalks' than in their specially-contructed and allocated lanes.

So why are billions of pounds being spent on this transformation nationally? Peeling-off the excuses to find the core truth is an interesting exercise (unlike cycling!).

 

The official reason is to encourage cycling instead of motor vehicle usage, and thereby cut-down on CO2 (i.e. the gas of life) and thus 'save the planet'. 

The amount of CO2 actually saved is tiny or non-existent, and of course the entire Global Warming narrative is a Big Lie; but in such matters it is being seen to 'make the effort' that counts above everything.  

Behind this is a raft of legislation (mostly from the European Union) that pays local councils to install cycle lanes; regardless of the opportunity costs from lost time and wasted fuel (which would be even  more billions of pounds, if counted). 

Behind this is the archetypal leftist political activist of our day, those who staff the local councils - for whom Global Warming from CO2 is a religion, cycling is good in itself; and who hate-hate-HATE motor vehicles and will do anything, and spend any amount of other-people's money, to pursue this vendetta. 

 

And behind this? Well, eventually we have the Global Establishment of multi-mega-billionnaires, international and national politicians, and media moguls; who are making trillions from the Green Energy scam - its vast subsidies and the regulations that destroy rivals and centralise power and wealth in ever fewer hands. Their attitude to the planet and its people is expolitative - either they are indifferent to human and environmental destruction and death, or else they actually enjoy inflicting it.

Thus the The System is torn-down and pillaged for its resources. The two activities - deliberate economic collapse (currently by means of birdemic regulations) and the collosal spending on 'cycle lanes' from this rapidly shrinking economy - are merely two sides of the same coin. 

 

But what are these officially-looted resources to be used for? 

Here we approach the point where the noisy, polluting, expensive and misery-inducing destruction of my local roads; links-up with the Grand Strategy of the real rulers of this planet.   

Bad roads means that personal transport becomes more difficult, more expensive and ultimately almost impossible - and this needs to be achieved within the next decade, according to Agenda 2030; explaining the frantic, unprecedented and accelerating rate of destructive activity - even as the rest of the economy is strangled and collapses around it. 

Soon we really will not 'need' these roads, because there will be nothing allowed to drive on them, and anyway driving will not be allowed (except by specific permission for specific and approved reasons - enforced by enormous fines, arbitrarily enforced and without appeal). 

But neither will cycles be allowed, since the population will (again) be confined to their houses. 

(Of course, this was already the case for several months in early 2020, so we know what it will be like; and it will again be the case again soon; and soon permanently.)

 

The destruction of roads/ construction of empty bike-lanes are part of a multi-pronged strategy towards a world where the mass of people are confined to their allocated living quarters; except when a minority of them are (compulsorily) engaged in officially-approved activities - under constant monitoring and psychologically separated by walls, distance, masks, whatever... 

Again we ask why? And now we begin to approach the deep, underlying reason; we begin to cross the line between human and demonic agency. Humans (most of us) need some kind of 'good reason' to do evil - although admittedly, some people don't need very much of a reason. 

But in the end, at the core of the onion, we reach supernatural, demonic evil - for whom evil is the explicit goal, and whose purpose is for Mankind to live in mutual resentment, fear and despair; in accordance with their system of value-inversion - in which bad is good, ugliness beautiful, and lies are truth: all this more-comprehesively and more-extremely so, with every passing day.

(Because there is always more evil work to do in God's creation.)

 

By which point (so the demons intend) the mass of Men - self cut-off from God and the spiritual, communicating only by censored electronic media, fed only demonic propaganda - will choose to reject Christ's salvation, refuse repentance, embrace Satan's goals; and thereby choose damnation. 

Thus can be seen that the proliferating yet empty cycles lanes of Newcastle upon Tyne are a microcosm of the Grand Strategy of evil on this planet; and their unrelenting expansion (with its multiple, layered and ramifying consequences) is an index of the triumph of Satan in the world today.   

The "If not - Then what?" of 'alternative' politics in 2020

I am not talking about practical alternative plans to Agenda 2030/ Great Reset/ (First destroy then) Build Back Better - because better alternatives are not possible in a world ruled by Satan, his demons and minions; and where the great mass of people are unrepentant sinners who have embraced value-inversion and chosen to be the allies and servants of purposive evil. 

All the mainstream/ large-scale proposed alternative policies are based upon utilitarian considerations - that is, they (correctly) accuse the Global Establishment of cruelly inflicting fear, suffering, despair and death upon the masses - then (falsely) claim their own ideas would cause less misery and fewer fatalities; and thereby generate greater happiness for the greatest numbers. 

Falsely, because these alternative plans do not take into account that it is The System which sustains worldwide health, peace, comfort and prosperity for seven billion-plus persons - and because The Establishment control The System such that it is trivially easy for them to wreck it (e.g. by induced-chaos, violence, war, famine, genuine plagues and/or mass poisoning, economic and trade collapse etc. etc.). 

 

And wreck-The-System They surely will do; if ever They are threatened with genuine loss of control. 

They are more than capable of ensuring that there will be No 'happy ever after' (even if modern Godless materialism was capable of producing happiness - which 200+ years have shown it is not). 

From where we are, with the leaders we actually have and the masses which exist; in 2020, in this world, and this mortal life; and from a material perspective: there will not be a good utilitarian outcome for the masses. 

 

Yet obviously any (uncorrupted) Christian of discernment will oppose the mainstream Global Establishment's detailed, long-term plans for creating literal hell on earth: that is a totalitarian hell of value-inversion, mutual fear, mutual resentment, nihilism and despair. 

The way ahead is (as usual) first things first; and first things are spiritual and Christian; and to do with individual persons. 

There can be no alternative better socio-political strategy; no superior alternative plans or blueprints for an improved System - there can only be the rectification of individual souls by discernment, repentance and a perspective solidly based-upon the expectation of eternal resurrected life beyond biological death.

From that perspective (but only from it); any and all persons can see what should best be done in any and all specific circumstances. 

 

And, if achieved, that will displace 'politics'.   

Three basic possible ideal ways of 'being'

Three different ideals; none are ever fully achieved, but often one of these is regarded as the ideal*. 

1. Thinking-led

2. Instinct-led

3. Intuition

1. Thinking-led. The normal ideal of 'rationality', Enlightenment, science... now bureaucratic mainstream public discourse. 

We think about stuff, decide what to do, and then do it. 

Doing it requires 'will power'. We analyse, plan then consciously push our way towards the goal. Future-dominated: life plans, career plans, national plans, salvation plans... 

Satisfaction comes from looking-back, from the contemplation of objective, publicly-acknowledged achievement: hard cash, official titles and honours, bricks and mortar, facts and figures... 

2. Instinct-led. The idea is to elminate conscious choosing; and instead just to do whatever is spontaneous, natural, immediate. Plans are abandoned... 

If hungry: eat; if want something: grab-it; if bored: cease; if tired: rest. If it makes you feel pleasure: do more; if it makes you feel pain: stop... 

Live in the moment, here and now; ignore the past, ignore the future, other people are tools for gratification. 

The natural is good; short-termism the only sure reality. 

3. Intuition. We get an inner feeling that we should do, or not do, this. We become aware of a feeling - not a reason, not an instinct; but coming from the depths of the heart, from the inner self. Un-caused, original, self-generated. 

Negative examples: a persistent/ recurrent/ solid knowing that 'I am getting worse'; or that this place is wrong, this job is wrong, I am on the wrong track. This is a bad person.  

The knowing may be very general - wrongness - but acknowledgment and attention will make it become more specific (as specific as needed, as specific as possible). The knowing is known not to come-from anywhere external, but to arise in consciousness. 

Positive examples: Love. Being drawn to a person, a place; patriotism for something. 

The feeling is for-itself, self-justifying, a bottom-line (e.g. to love a person not for use, not for gratification, not to get something - but for himself, herself). 

Joy: delight in this/ here/ now - Not for pleasure, but for delight: a slow, strong current; a rising swell of the sea. 

This Is Important (although I could not explain why, rationally; and it isn't gratifying me emotionally - here and now). 

A knowing that has been trying to be noticed, maybe been in the background unconsciously; a recognition that you have been trying to ignore or over-riding (due to its being unsupported by rationality, or because contradicted by impulse). 

Or a sudden knowing, arising in consciousness and with innate conviction: one sees somebody or some-being, of thinks about them - and one knows some-thing: the knowledge is there, a fact.

A solid sense of this being From My True (eternal) Self; instead of the mass of usual stuff - coming from the false/ public/ constructed/ manipulated/ temporary and changing self.    

Leave aside, if you can, secondary (second-order) concerns about whether or not some ideal is true and certain, how one knows some-thing is true or certain. Try first (primarily) to understand the different nature of these ideals. 

Very few people ever get so far as to understand what exactly it is that they are trying to be certain about. Even fewer try...

...Like the many people who believe 'science' is valdi and certain - but don't know what science is, or what bits of science are supposed to be certain (Facts? Theories? - Which ones? How expressed? Who decides, and why?). But they believe in the need for certainty, they believe with certainty. 

They will, for instance commit violence and murder for the belief that "'racism' is evil"; but the word remains undefined, incoherent, fluidly- interpreted - and no attempt is made to solve this. Quite the opposite! 

Putting the secondary as primary; they believe in the certainty of... black box abstractions. In practice this reduces simply to certainty in My Opinions; public assertion of My Moral Superiority.  

The wisdom and discernment of Joseph Pearce

In this testing year of 2020, it has been one the the major sadnesses to observe how many Christians who I once respected have failed to discern the truth, and who have in consequence joined the side of Satan. But equally, it has been a great encouragement that others have shown themselves to be wise. 

One of these is the remarkable literary scholar and social commentator Joseph Pearce - about whom I have written several times. I mention him again firstly because it has become difficult to find anybody worth reading in these days; secondly because he is an orthodox and faithful Roman Catholic convert - but one which may not be known to my RC readers, and thirdly because he is an expert on JRR Tolkien and the Inklings.

Pearce is vastly productive, and it may be difficult to know where to start. Probably the best place is his essays for The Imaginative Conservative. 

Here is a taste from a recent essay by Pearce asking the question: Are we becoming a nation of gollums? This is a reminder of what has-happened and is-happening to so many of the Leftist-favoured "minorities" who have taken the Global Establishment-offered bait of identifying themselves as 'privileged' members of the victim class.

Here’s the paradox. Although we are halflings, we cannot remain halflings. We must either grow towards the wholeness of holiness or we must shrivel into the wreckage that Pride will make of our lives. 

Doing nothing is the sin of omission which leads to decay. We can either be Ring-bearers or Ring-wearers. We can either take up our cross or we can crucify ourselves. 

As we watch our culture succumb to the power of Pride, we are witnessing the gollumizing of our brothers and sisters. Demanding the right to self-destructive addiction, they are shriveling into pathetic wrecks of the people they are meant to be, while simultaneously making a wreckage of the society in which they are living the wreckage of their lives. 

Paradoxically, their only hope is to be found in the enemies whom they refuse to love. It is those who are striving to become more than halflings who are the only hope for those who have become less than halflings. As the gollumized souls are killing themselves with Pride, humble souls must lay down their own lives for their gollumized friends. 

As Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam learned to love and pity Gollum, and as Christ laid down His life for his friends who were determined to be His enemies, so must we do likewise. The only antidote to the poison of Pride is the healing power of humility. The only escape from the hell of hatred is heavenly love.

 

Life as a quest: Possibilities for the solo Christian

As I discussed yesterday; the combination of corruption and closure of most Christian churches means that many or most serious Christians will need to Go It Alone. And this in practice seems to imply (albeit does not require) the need for direct and personal spiritual experience; if faith is not to be feeble and ineffectual.  

Lacking the encouragement and support of a good church community; solo Christians may well benefit from a self-understanding of life as a spiritual quest; requiring heroic virtues such as tenacity, endurance and courage - but also with the hope of eventual heroic gratifications (albeit probably not in this life, not on this earth). 

So what should the modern Christian hero be doing on his or her solo quest? That can only have a very specific answer, which depends on the individual, and his or her exact situation : age and stage of life, and inner needs and yearnings. 

Ideas and instances can be obtained from reading about the lives, works and practices of those you regard as examplary Christians who also (for whatever reason) lived as solo Christians (maybe hermits, prisoners, or Romantic Christians). 

Some individuals benefit from more discipline and regularity - others from more impulsivity and spontaneity. Each must discover which he needs - and sometimes self-monitoring will reveal that an error has been made and a different - even opposite - practice is required. 

Because the key to all of this is a 'feedback process' of making (and taking responsibility for) using personal discernment, making personal choices and heroic efforts, and then self-evaluating about what has actually happened. Recognising, throughout, that you may have made a mistake, or circumstances may have changed, and decisions may need to be reversed -- and perhaps repented. 

Of course, in such matters we all - at all times and places - have the possibility of guidance by the Holy Ghost, in addition to the human-divine, God-within-us. 

We are never without guidance, and self-corrections is always made possible by God (so long as we really want it: in this as always, motivation is primary).

Thus armed we may embark on our personal quest of a Christian life with cheer, confidence and courage. 

Christians who are self-blocking the potential intensity and power of spiritual experience

With most of the mainstream Christian churches increasingly corrupted into the active support of evil; and most of them effectively closed anyway - the prospect for Christians is one of a solo spirituality. And this is something which has very seldom been seen before: Christians are in uncharted territory. 

Many people already (before 2020) found that church Christianity was insipid - even despite the potentially powerful effects of group reinforcement, singing and music, ritual and symbolism, architecture and tradition. Subtract these, and the prospect of a lifetime of solitary Christian practice may sound very unattractive - likely to be feak and weeble. 

Certainly, I personally feel a need for my experience of faith to be intense and powerful; and when this cannot be assisted by external stimuli; this situation naturally points towards the near necessity for direct and personal spiritual experience. 

This may be a reason behind my fascination with Philip K Dick's Exegesis - not in any specific way, but as an example of how intense and powerful Christian spiriual experience can be for a modern Man - one who was surrounded by a typical modern social environment that was mostly uninterested, actively-misleading or atheistically hostile. 

On the one hand, it is a snare for Christians to seek intense and powerful spiritual experience for its own sake, as a psychological 'trip'; on the other hand, many Christians are very obviously - by various methods, some metaphysical, some dogmatic, some psychological - actively blocking the possibility of themselves having intense and powerful spiritual experiences. 

In a context where institutional "Christianity" is either corrupt, absent - or both! - this self-blocking would seem to be a guarantee of too weak, too insipid, too feeble a faith to endure the current and future trials.  

The strategic aim of 'meditation'; compared with intuition's tactical role in the rest of life

Meditation is a black box term - and can mean almost opposites to different people; here, I use meditation to refer to a period of (subjective, relative) quietness and stillness in which the attempt is made to allow intuition the upper hand over consciousness. 

So, in 'normal' life, I think we lead with our consciousness - our awareness, will, 'logic' etc; and the spiritual aim (my spiritual aim) is to infuse normal consciousness with intuition. 

By intuition I mean the thinking of our real self (our divine self) - which is Not primarily conscious. We can only become conscious of intuition/ the real self after it has happened - consciousness is secondary. Yet to become conscious of our intuition, and to choose to be guided by it, is (I believe) a primary task of Modern Man.

I therefore accept that the business of everyday living must (broadly ) be led by the normal kind of thinking familiar to most people - but believe that this normal thinking ought to be (as much as possible) monitored, and commented-upon, by our intuition. 

So that intuition may (for example) endorse or veto our everyday thinking (and actions). 

Therefore, this aimed-at everyday role of intuition could be termed tactical: a moment-by-moment intervention with the detailed minutiae of everyday thinking.  

Whereas by contrast meditation (when intuition leads, instead of following) could be regarded as strategic, long-term - and about pointing our everyday behaviour in the best direction (and extricating us from wrong directions, getting us off wrong paths, reversing a wrong course etc).

Thus, meditation is something done relatively infrequently (once or twice a day - once or twice a week, or month? - as required) by which we remove the constraint of consciousness and the normal mind; allow and enable our intuition a free-hand; and encourage our intuition to take-the-lead - while remaining conscious of the process, so that we may best learn and remember. 

For example, in our everyday work, at our job for instance; everyday consciousness takes the lead - but our intuition ought to be telling us whether what we have 'just done' was right or wrong. The aim to to be aware of this tactical intuitive evaluation; so that we learn the most from our work, get the most spiritual value from working. 

And strategic meditation may - if that is what is of most concern to it - tell us that we ought Not to be doing that job at all; and additionally may notice that we are drawn toward some other specific work-practice or job, or some other kind of job - and that that should be our aim. 

Mediation is therefore a - from-time-to-time - pause, a short-period of mental quietness to allow/ encourage intuition to consider what our life is, and where it is going. 

 

(Perhaps it is inevitable that intuition provides stronger guidance about what we should Not do, than about what we Ought to do; nonetheless, there may well be inklings of the best direction and/or path for us to proceed.)

 

Is this world "what we deserve"?

In a way - yes, it is; but only in the sense that a loving father sometimes teaches his children by letting them take the consequences of their foolish decisions - knowing, all the while, that even the harshest lesson may not be learned; or learned only after many (nasty, tedious) repetitions of the lesson. 

Because that is just what people are like.

This world is created by God, but now we participate in its creation - indeed the intent is that we consciously choose to embrace God's creation/ creating. 

And, although in this current mortal world, many things are being 'done to' the mass of humans (and this living world generally) by a tiny minority of wealthy, powerful and demonically-inspired persons; by our responses and reactions this evil is being participated-in, and vastly assisted, by an apparent majority of the masses. 

That is: Things are done-to us - like it or not; but we can (and do) always choose whether we do like-it... Or Not. 

Consider the birdemic. The thing itself (as a package - stimulus and response) was planned and imposed by a small globalist Establishment - but it is the 'response' to the virus (Not the virus, or what it actually does) that is primary. 

In other words, the 'response' - lock-down-social-distancing-masking-etc - is the primary goal of the birdemic. The same pre-prepared 'response' might have been (would have been) attached to several other, and apparently different, causes - such as Global Warming, terrorism, MLB...  

So the key question to ask for determining whether this is indeed the world 'we deserve' is: how have 'the people', 'the masses', responded to the fake-response? 

Well, the experiment has been done, and the results are available. 

 

The masses were told that everything-else needed to be sacrificed to the 'aim' of reducing the birdemic, were told the nature of the sacrifice (including the lie that LDSDM-ing, pseudo-vaccination, omni-surveillance, global totalitarian police-state etc. was 'the science'); and first told that this sacrifice was temporary ('flattening the curve'), then that it was permanent ('the new normal').  

All in accordance with the plan.

Now, the consequences we all know; these include putting (in Britain) multi-millions of people (alike healthy and sick, young and vigorous, old and inform) into solitary confinement; preventing movement outdoors, travel to see family, friends, nature; outlawing human contact, human proximity; permanently denying the sight of faces and the touch of hands to millions who are forcibly confined to their rooms/ dwellings/ institutions. 

Let's say that a credulous population at-first believed the (known to be habitually- and manipulatively-dishonest) governments and media that the birdemic was especially dangerous. Nonetheless, if the mass of people had valued basic humanity and the humane/ compassionate/ personal aspects of life; they would have given them up with extreme reluctance. 

After which they would have been alert for any evidence that this cruel deprivation was unnecessary; so as to allow the vital human aspects of life to be resumed as soon as possible. 

A genuinely humane People would, in other words, have been continually pushing for the removal of the vast mass of restrictions on meeting, touching, and having facial contact with other people, and so forth. 

 

But they have not. The populace have, in fact, adopted the exact opposite attitude. They have - in large, probably majority, numbers; assumed that the ongoing suppression/ destruction of humane living was to be sustained, maintained long-term, and perhaps forever "if necessary". 

(The concept of "necessary" implicitly meaning that the birdemic shall remain the focus of all organised human endeavour (until They tell us otherwise and suspend restrictions temporarily, as with MLB), without any prudential or balancing considerations being allowed or even discussed. Prevention of birdemic deaths trumps every-thing - at least in theory, while this mind-set is being-applied. Any-thing else is 'putting money above lives'.) 

Indeed; among the opinion-leaders of the political Left (and Leftism includes the entirety of mainstream politics and public discourse) the wrong-to-be-righted is the preceding 'inadequate' birdemic response, the lack of severity, the softness of the totalitarianism; and the crusade has become for ever more, ever harsher and universal repression and destruction of... well, all-that-is-distinctively-human in society. 

 

In sum, the revealed preference of the masses is for a one-eyed abstract 'healthism' that sacrifices any number of actual individual human beings; including the pitiful birdemic victims; nearly all aged well-beyond the biological lifespan of c.70 - who are routinely tortured to death over weeks of artificial existence in 'intensive therapy' while deprived of consciousness and the sight and touch of spouses, families, friends - or human beings of any kind... 

Doped or anaesthetised, pierced with tubes and wires, surrounded by masked and gowned zombies and machines who are 'working-on them'. 

And if, at this advanced age, they 'survive' the horror show - then survival (merely) is the correct word to describe their remaining lives.    

This is an extreme; but it is a very common extreme; and one approximated in many thousands of nursing homes and residential homes - but my point is that it is a situation very generally supported even by those most affected. 

In sum; what is being imposed by The Establishment; is (in general) being supported by the masses - supported with varying degrees of enthusiasm from the career Leftist who wants more of the same forever; down to the stoic and obedient populace who have shown that in practice they agree with the ideology of the birdemic. They agree that the birdemic is, and ought to remain, the single global priority; all else to be sacrificed (including birdemic victims).

 

My point is therefore that it is true that we get what we deserve; or more exactly, our world as is, is the consequence of the prevalent values of the masses. 

The masses have shown that they do Not significantly value many things which were often said to be of great value - from real science, arts, medicine and churches; through theatres, museums, libraries; singing, dancing, holidays, sports; through freedom, work, nature; to marriage, family and friends. (The list is almost endless.)

There is, it seems, nothing which people are unprepared to sacrifice for the birdemic. 

In other words; ; people will sacrifice any-thing - up-to and including, their own dignity, autonomy and well-being - for the birdemic. 

 

And this bleak picture of a corrupt and evil world isn't a theory or a prediction; but what people are-doing and have-been-doing; the choices they already-made and continue-to-make. 

And the life we live, and the life planned for us (The Great Reset; Agenda 2030...) is a simple consequence of these choices, attitudes and actions. 

The best name for it is nihilism; the prevalent planetary emotion is fear-resentment, and the mood is despair (covert, but over-mastering); and the best description of the behaviour is willed-but-denied, individual-and-civilizational, suicide. 

(Suicide with expectation of death, and probability of Hell - because of the prevalence of value-inversion whereby Hell is regarded as Good and real - and Heaven as a repellent fantasy.)

None of which is At All surprising; in a world that denies God, creation, the soul and the spirit... 

And was, indeed, accurately predicted by many prophetic Christians over the past several generations.

 

The truly astonishing aspect is that all this time the door to repentance, and the prospect of a joyous/ creative/ loving life everlasting in Heaven, is being held-open by Jesus Christ! 

(Never too-late to accept this gift! A gift that instantly-positively-transforms our mortal life!)

Yet the masses angrily cling to despair and death with all their, ebbing, strength...

The disharmony between sleep experiences and waking consciousness - from Rudolf Steiner (1919)

"What a great difference there is between the way a man felt himself to be within the whole cosmos in the Egyptian age, let us say, and even in the time of Greece, and how he feels since the beginning of the modern age, since the close of the Middle Ages. 

"Picture to yourselves a well-instructed ancient Egyptian. He knew that his body was constituted not merely of the ingredients which exist here on earth and are embodied in the animal kingdom, plant kingdom, mineral kingdom. He knew that the forces which he saw in the stars above, worked into his being as man; he felt himself a member of the whole cosmos. He felt the whole cosmos not only quick with life, but ensouled and imbued with spirit; in his consciousness there lived something of the spiritual beings of the cosmos, of the soul-nature of the cosmos and its life. 

"All this has been lost in the course of later human history. Today man gazes from his earth up to the star-world and to him it is filled with fixed stars, suns, planets, comets, and so on. 

"But with what means does he examine all that looks down to him out of cosmic space? He examines it with mathematics, with the science of mechanics. What lies around the earth is robbed of spirit, robbed of soul, even of life. It is a great mechanism, in fact, only to be grasped by the aid of mathematical, mechanistic laws. With the help of these mathematical, mechanistic laws we grasp it magnificently! 

"A student of spiritual science is undoubtedly just the one to value the achievements of a Galileo, a Kepler, and others, but what penetrates human understanding and consciousness through the tenets of these great spirits in human evolution merely shows the universe as a great mechanism. 

"What this means is only revealed to one who is able to grasp man in his whole nature. It is all very well for astronomers and astro-physicists to present the universe as a mechanism which can be understood and calculated by mathematical formulae. This indeed is what a man will believe in the time from waking in the morning till going to sleep again at night. 

"But in those unconscious depths which he does not reach with his waking consciousness but which yet belong to his existence and in which he lives between going to sleep and waking, something quite different concerning the universe flows into his soul. 

"There lives in the human soul a knowledge which, although unknown to the waking consciousness, is yet present in the depths and moulds the soul — a knowledge of the spirit, of the life of the soul, of the life of the cosmos. And although in his waking consciousness man knows nothing of what goes on there; in communion with the spirit, soul and life of the universe while he sleeps — in the soul the things are there; they live within it. 

"And much of the great discord felt by modern man is derived from the disharmony between what the soul experiences and what the waking consciousness acknowledges as its world-conception."

From The Ahrimanic Deception - a lecture by Rudolf Steiner 1919. 

The woodlice come out at night...

Live and learn... It is strange that I have lived for so long without ever noticing how the woodlice come out at night, in large numbers - hundreds creeping over the wooden fence around the garden, with local concentrations of a score or more, including babies. And scattered more thinly - dozens of the seldom-seen millipedes. And quite a few spiders, too. 

I saw them only by chance - having forgotten to do some reorganising of the squirrel feeders during the day, I went out with a hammer and a head torch - and saw the above. Always had been there, presumably, but unknown to me. 

All of them freeze when a light is shone upon them - clearly, in darkness is their (relative) safety; albeit, they are presumably one of the reasons why so many small, insectivorous, mammals are nocturnal.

The everyday world is apparently full of many yet unnoticed, or still undiscovered, things: some of them almost under-my-nose. 

Every-other headline, every day

Supposedly; some notorious liar someplace, says something terrible is happening somewhere - and it's caused by the birdemic/ climate change/ racism...

And This* is what EVERYBODY MUST DO. 

NOW!

 

*"This" will require, entail or enable an increase in bureaucracy, omni-surveillance and micro-control.

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As is surely very obvious... 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

And we are not loyal to words, but realities.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The commonest conspiracy theory...

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

Why this good? Swingle Singers live in the 60s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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