Why is there So Much evil in the world today? - Much more than ever before?

The inevitable accumulation of evil through history leading to the End Times, seems to have been something that was apparent to various prophets of the past. 

It does seem very evident here and now; in that we are alive in the most evil time in history, and things are getting more evil by the month. This, I think, is a fact - not an opinion.

There are far more people alive now than ever before - now more than seven billion when the world population was less than a billion through history up until the early 1800s. Since early 2020, the whole world is clearly run as a single polity - and this polity has a global leadership and all social institutions that incorporate increasingly inverted value-systems in the realms of truth, beauty and virtue. 

So, our unprecedented state is that the entire world has a vast population who are mostly-and increasingly living by an increasingly inverted system where evil is regarded as good; and good as evil; and this demonic reversal is (by revealed preference) substantially supported by the masses.  

Therefore I conclude that there is a really tremendous amount of evil in the world today, and that this evil has the upper hand - and evil has been able to overturn not only all traditional religious practices (including where differing religions overlap - such as core aspects of sexuality and sexual identity) - but even personal experience and common sense understanding and reasoning. 

Thus we live in an insane world that lives by Evil Lies. 

It is interesting to consider why this should be; and immediately there seems to be several important reasons - and many more that I do not mention; which suggests a convergence of multiple evil phenomena, that things are coming to a point. 

In an overall sense, I think the End Times have been prophesied for so long because evil is accumulative. It gets added to, incrementally. 

Why? I would suppose that much of this relates to the fate of demons and damned souls. That demons (fallen angelic spirits) are in some sense confined to earth - also that damned souls become likewise spirits who are - in some way - bound to the earth. This would explain that the spiritual presence of evil increases. 

Then, what about the mortal Men who are incarnated in this age? Why are they (we) so prone to evil that we are unable to discern the starkest inversions and unable to discern even the grossest lies? Unable or unwilling to respond to knowledge of evil...

Such gross incapacity as has become normal and average is a consequence of Man's denial of (or total indifference to) divine, creation and the realms of soul and spirit...

In other words, as well as the vast apparatus of top-down evil; there seems to be a matching evil among great masses of people on earth - which suggests that there is 'something wrong' with many of the billions of individuals who have been incarnated in recent generations - and (apparently) continuing. 

Why would God allow such a situation to occur - given that God is creator and also loves us each and individually as His children? 

The overall answer must be some combination of this being the nature of this world, and that the situation is 'for our own good' - given that this mortal life is a temporary state whose function is primarily (but not entirely) to prepare us for eternal resurrected life.

I think we must presume that - although God works at the level of individual persons, and the world as a whole is merely a sum of these individual situations; this evil world is the kind of world that is best suited to the needs of kind of people who have actually been born into it (including you and me). 

In a broad sense; it is comprehensible that a world full of evil spirits and damned souls is the kind of world in which mortal Men who have a nature that is grossly insensitive to evil might have the best possible chance of learning what evil is, and deciding to reject it. 

Since this world is built for those who choose to accept Christ's gift of Heavenly resurrected life - the purpose of this very evil world is to bring naturally-evil people to a realization of the consequences of their choice to reject Jesus. 

There are increasingly only the two choices of Jesus Christ, or evil. There is no neutrality and no other viable options - because all other options are collapsing into convergence with obvious and explicit evil. 

Good and evil have become more distinct and ever-further separated. The situation is unprecedented in clarity and simplicity. Clear and simple enough for even the most tainted of souls to know what it is that they are choosing. 

Men may (of course) still choose to reject Jesus Christ and join the side of evil - it is each person's individual choice and cannot be compelled; but they will know very exactly what they are doing.  

So there is a how so much evil accumulated? And there is a why so much evil? And there are reasonable answers compatible with the loving nature of God and the needs of his children - especially the kind of children that make up a majority.   

After which we need to step back and remember that this is ultimately a 'bespoke world', individually-tailored, so each person and situation is unique - and my job is mainly to learn from my situation. 

Spiritual versus physical activity

We need to become spiritually active - as distinct from materially active. 

In our civilization (as of 2021) the ideal is to be physically active, spiritually passive. Physical activity has been valued for several generations; but now, due to totalitarian lockdown, has become a high status marker. 

Spiritual passivity is necessary to avoid ostracism and suppression. Passivity is also an ideal among New Agers, Jungians, One-ness spiritual advocates, traditionalist religious (including Christians) - pretty much everybody... 

Spiritual activity is rare - mostly because it is actively avoided (the only permissible spiritual activity is to avoid it). It is regarded as a bad thing for the secular-left majority and the religious minority alike. 

But those who (like me) regard spiritual activity as an ideal are rare - because for it to make sense as an ideal requires ultimate metaphysical assumptions (i.e. concerning the nature of reality - its purpose and meaning) that are uncommon. 

Yet I want to be spiritually active - but not by pushing my thoughts, not by spinning theories, nor by seeking esoteric thrills (which is where it often degenerates into)... 

Instead... by starting from love; making evaluations; discerning realities; then working by active, conscious choices - while monitoring my own responses.

...By looking for results in the world of thinking - where that thinking is known to be reality (to be, itself, the 'stuff' of creation). 

Spiritual activity should not be (can not be) used for seeking esoteric thrills - but it is intrinsically thrilling: a great motivator and en-courage-er.  

Note: Rudolf Steiner's superb book The Philosophy of Freedom is also translated as The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. Either way; the book has much of importance to say about the possibility of being spiritually active. 

What, if anything, is outside creation?

For traditional Christians: God is outside of creation - and every-thing else is inside it (including, you, me, and every entity)

For some Eastern Religions (and their Western oneness/ perennialist derivations): nothing is outside creation (because it is one) - including that 'deity' is inside of creation (hence is not fully a creator). 

For me: God (as creator) is outside of creation - and so is somewhat of all Beings (including you and me). Beings are such that each has somewhat outside of creation (which is divine, original, generative) and somewhat inside. 

That of us which is inside creation is inside God's creation; and that of us which is outside creation can contribute to God's creation. 

Passive 'End Time' fantasies shared by New Age and Christians

When I read 'New Age' spiritual literature of the 1990s (approaching the millennium) I am very often struck by their conviction that a transition was approaching in which the level of consciousness of humans and the world itself was going to be raised in 'frequency' or 'vibration' (according to a scheme whereby high frequencies are better and more divine than low frequencies). 

We would all (like it or not) be raised-up in spiritual nature; and our task was to 'cope' with this.  

In fact, there was a millennial change, but in the opposite direction - by the massive expansion and interconnection of bureaucracies towards making a single global System - which excluded (by its very processes) the reality of the spiritual. 

An analogous fantasy among Christians relates to particular interpretations of End Times or Second Coming prophecies - and looks forward to mankind (or, at least, Christians of the right sort - members of the correct church) being 'rescued' en masse from the rising tide of sin and corruption in this world. 

We will be made more like God (theosis); or else set aside. 

This will accomplished by some kind of overwhelming, inescapable, global, cataclysmic 'event'.  

It is emphasized that this is done By God (not Man, indeed in despite of Man); and that our task is to cope with something that is (again) being done-to-us. 

These two prophecies/ predictions share an assumption of the passivity of you and me and Mankind in general; our helplessness in face of power and force beyond comprehension or any possibility of influence. 

As I said - we can only cope-with, adjust-to, make-the-best of things that are irresistibly compelled. 

Yet I would regard both of these (and other similar ideas) as passivity fantasies; and, as such, lethally harmful to the possibility of our salvation and resurrection. 

My understanding is that higher spirituality, salvation and theosis are alike in that we must consciously and actively choose them. We are free agents - and as such cannot be overwhelmed. 

We can not be damned, nor saved, nor raised in consciousness without choosing these. 

But if we are sitting back and waiting passively for something good to be done to us, done for us; then the default is that we will have chosen (unconsciously, by avoiding active decision) that which The World has chosen on our behalf. 

In New Age terms - that is the lower frequency consciousness that we see all around us; in Christian terms it is taking sides with the global totalitarian Establishment and their System or inverted values and unrepentant sin. 

The new birdemic narrative

As you know, I never write about current affairs...

The 'official' birdemic narrative is currently becoming one which acknowledges what was established (by several independent groups) at the beginning of 2020 - that the birdemic Just Is a lab-modified germ. 

Why now? Why acknowledge this obvious truth after denying it for so long and suppressing the discourse? 

We need to go back to the basic modus operandi of the modern mass media as described in my 2014 Addicted to Distraction book - that 'Good' - in this case Truth - is only ever given mass media Big Story coverage for a bad reason. 

So, what is the Bad Reason for speaking this factual truth? We will soon find out... 

Maybe it is to provide a second wave of birdemic-phobia by presenting the germ as a biowep? And 'therefore' Very Dangerous.

Yet in 'fact' (Ha! - Facts!) the birdemic is not and never has been Very Dangerous. 

The data is in (confirmed by personal  experience). No doubt remains. We now know For Sure that the birdemic is/was not any more dangerous than a moderately bad flu year. 

However, if people are now going to be told that it was engineered as a biowep (which is likely true) then perhaps the global state of blinding-terror can be sustained and amplified?

Engineering an intended biowep is very difficult and usually fails - as with the birdemic. 

One should judge engineering by results, not by intentions. 

Because if one germ function is successfully increased (difficult in itself) this is almost-always at the cost of reducing another function. Increasing a germ's spread-ability therefore comes at the price of reducing its dangerousness - and vice versa.  

Combining high lethality and high infectivity is a trick that remains unsolved.       

...Except with vector infections, like Falciparum Malaria - which is probably the worst chronic scourge of humanity, so far; because it is both highly lethal in naïve populations and very transmissible (without modern technology). 

Malaria is spread by mosquitos, and the germ does not depend on humans to survive. Such a vector infection might in principle make humans extinct before resistance could be evolved, yet not itself become extinct.

But for a human to human germ - it is a case of Either/ Or. Either an incredibly infectious but non-lethal disease like Noravirus. Or very lethal but not very infectious diseases - like first-contact Syphilis. Or very lethal and pretty infectious diseases like Lassa fever that make themselves extinct before spreading. 

But  none of these apply for the birdemic which is, in its medical effect; just a 'variant of normal, moderate, respiratory viral 'flu'. 

It Just Is... Intended biowep, or not. 

Note: My feeling is that the birdemic has begun seriously to run out of steam; despite that a large proportion of the population have been permanently mentally-damaged by the Big Lie and fake response (as well as becoming firmly committed to the service of Satan). Too many people seem to expect that 2019 'normality' will be returning soon... They need to find a another Big Lie if They are to continue to roll-forward their totalitarian Matrix world. Maybe the idea is to continue mutating the birdemic threat so that it becomes perceived as permanently growing? Or maybe the biowep concept, once established, will pave way for the next birdemic about-which They are continually warning us... coming soon to a theatre near you?  

Half-explanations: Seeking to explain the meaningfulness and purpose of life - and the answers led to theism

It seems to be a human trait that - at least in the short term (of a few years) we can get stuck accepting an incoherent and partial explanation that does not really explain. If we are honest, however; sooner or later we should realize our error and modify our convictions. 

The mainstream and official metaphysical assumptions of the modern world have it that life has no purpose or meaning; because the universe happened due to physical processes that are some mixture of rigidly determined and utterly 'random', and are indifferent to human life. Human life is due to an historical process of natural selection that was not aiming anywhere, and merely represents the operation of differential rates of reproductive success...

Yet plenty of people would assert that they Do have some sense of meaning and purpose in life - or, to put it negatively, that their lives are Not utterly random Nor arbitrarily determined by prior causes... That is not their experience.

How can this be, given the imbibed 'truths' (i.e. unexamined assumptions) that there cannot be purpose or meaning to human life? In particular - how can people assert meaning or purpose despite continuing to hold to the same assumptions that rule-out any such possibility?   

Here we come-up against a multitude of half-explanations; that in one sense seem at least to take-the-edge of the craving for meaning, if not to satisfy it - yet in removing the urgency tend to block progress towards a full and coherent explanation. 

One example of this is synchronicity - which at one point I 'got stuck on', while yet an atheist. I had the partial belief that the external events of my life were not just meaningless coincidences, but that they were a guide to what I 'ought' to do - at least in the sense of telling me what would make me happiest and most fulfilled. 

I held to another half-explanation that there was a 'path through life' which I again 'ought' to follow - and that when I was off this path, I would become more and more miserable and demotivated; which was meant to be a signal that I should seek my 'proper' path. 

So, I remained an atheist, and continued to hold the mainstream-official assumptions that life was - really and ultimately - meaningless and purposeless (a product of physics and biology, and nothing more) - yet I also asserted that my life did, in fact, have purpose (a 'destined path') and meaning (with synchronicities, not arbitrary coincidences). 

I needed to ask how this was possible. I needed to Get real. I needed to take my own assertions serious, and follow through to their conclusions. 

I needed to explain how a destined path and meaningful guiding events could possibly occur - to ask what kind of universe was implied if these were real and true?   

Eventually, I did ask these questions, and was rather disturbed to discover that the only coherent explanation was that there was a creator-god, who had-made and was-shaping the world. This was the only way that the tiny events of my life in a vastly complex reality be lined-up such as to communicate meaning. 

And further, that this creator-god must love me, personally; in order to accomplish this careful alignment of millions of events to my own life (among billions of Men and far more other organisms) for my benefit. 

...Because, there was no doubt that I regarded synchronicity and destiny as 'for my own benefit' - they were operating to tell me what it was 'best' to do, what would (in some sense) make me happier and more fulfilled, and would lead to better outcomes for people I loved and the world more generally. I regarded it as Important that I follow My destiny. 

These are what I assumed in my actual life; and I eventually acknowledged that my assumptions pointed at a personal God, who was creator and create-ing; and who loved me personally. 

Thus I became a theist - this was around the middle of 2008 - and after that it was merely a matter of 'choosing my religion' from among those who acknowledged that God was of this nature. 

Ragnarok - what's going to happen?

The Norwegian TV series Ragnarok on Netflix (yes, I know...) I find to be a very powerful and memorable drama, operating on a deeper level than apparent. Now in its second series.  

In the Norse myth of Ragnarok the prophecy is that, at the end, the gods will fight the giants; and will lose. So why do the gods fight?

The gods fight because that is how they win.

The gods are Men - the giants are demons. 

Ragnarok is the final battle of the spiritual war on earth. 

And Men will lose the last battle - on earth. 

(How could it be otherwise? The giants are just too powerful.)

But choosing to fight against the giants, the demons; we win in Heaven, and eternally.

So - like the Norse gods; we prepare for Ragnarok.  

Failing the birdemic test - and the consequences

To be on the side of God, everyone (and every organization) needs to pass the birdemic test - needs to know the global lockdown for what it is...

One way of failing the test is to regard the lockdown (etc.) as a great opportunity for... whatever you happen to like... less materialism, a more caring environmentalism, unity of purpose, apologetics and evangelism...

Without mentioning the massive historically unprecedented primary fact that the birdemic response installed the Satanic powers of Evil as political rulers of the whole world, including all its major institutions. 

The whole world is under one power for the first time, and that one power has its tentacles nearly-everywhere; therefore, we must discern the true nature and motivations of that one power. 

That is the Big Truth about 2020 - and unless this is acknowledged up-front and explicitly - unless this is made crystal clear; then for people or institutions focus on the potential good that may come from the birdemic is nothing less or other than to take the side of the demons against God and Jesus Christ. 

Because any-thing may be turned to some good - even the most evil possible things that you can imagine in your worst nightmares may be turned-to good...

But that does not make something Good in-and-of-itself! It may be a consequence of evil of the most extreme kind that God turns to Good - but no matter how Good the outcome, it was still evil. 

Life is always about making the best of things; but to make the best we must first know what we are making the best of - and which side it is on.  

Otherwise we will be supporting, sustaining and defending that evil which aims to destroy God's creation and damn all souls. 

And that fact of working-for-Satan is not affected by whether you suppose yourself to be A Christian, or any other kind of spiritual person.  

If you have not discerned evil intent when it rules and is rampant - you have damned yourself and betrayed God's world. 

Another three decades of atheism... A fork in the road, summer 1978, reading William Arkle

A key moment in my life - a fork in the road - seems to have happened in the high summer of 1978; on a day when I was lolling on the bed and reading William Arkle's A Geography of Consciousness, which I had borrowed from the Edinburgh City Library. 

I had read, and been really gripped by, the Foreword - which is a kind of prose poem concerning the various phases of consciousness, how it changes (and in many ways declines) from childhood to adulthood; and what may be hoped from future developments in consciousness. I assumed this Foreword reflected the views of Arkle, but I now believe this Foreword to have been significantly revised and edited by Colin Wilson.

I was also very interested by the Introduction by Colin Wilson, in which he described Arkle's 'lifestyle' (which very much appealed to me), and interpreted Arkle's views; but primarily (as I now see) in terms of Wilson's own vocabulary and intellectual project.  

In other words, this Foreword presented an a-theistic (non-God) perspective on the modern problem (my problem) of alienation, and how it might be tackled. It presented and continued and this was exactly the approach Colin Wilson himself had taken from The Age of Defeat (1959) onwards; and I found myself optimistic that it might provide exactly the answers I sought. 

Within a few days I had borrowed and read Wilson's The Outsider (1956) - and had the strong feeling that this was what I has been waiting for! 

This, then, was The Road Taken - the decision to follow Colin Wilson. But The Road Not Taken was to fully engage with William Arkle himself, to accept Arkle's primary assumptions... and this (as I retrospectively realize) was the fork in the road. 

As I read on into A Geography of Consciousness, beyond the Introduction and Foreword, I realized thta Arkle believed in God. That was an immediate block - since I would not take such an idea seriously, regarding it as an obvious error. Then again, Arkle was explicit that human life had transcendent meaning; that the specifcis our our actual lives were entwined with divine purposes and meanings...

In other words, Arkle struck me (and - it was implied in the Introduction - also Colin Wilson) as being a victim of Wishful Thinking; of a constitutional optimism about the significance of life (rooted in God and eternity) that was something that struck me as 'obviously wrong'. 

My interpretation of Arkle's  exemplary (and, to me, enviable) lifestyle was that it was rooted in this wishful-thinking-unrealistic-optimism. And that, while Arkle himself must be 'made that way' (perhaps due to upbringing?), these were ultimately assumptions which were 'nice for him', but could not provide a model for somebody like myself. 

So as I read Arkle talking about things such as God, eternal human purposes, life beyond death; and about getting to know and communicating with God - I just Blocked.   

All such passages were a solid block, I would not (felt I could not) take such things seriously. If I was 'honest' they seemed childish, silly, naïve, self-deluding...

I also thought such 'hypotheses' unnecessary; and that I could (following Colin Wilson) get 'what I wanted' without the absurdity of Believing in God.

As it turns out - I could not and I did not. 

But it was another thirty years before I finally acknowledged my failure and went back to re-examine Arkle's metaphysical assumptions (not 'hypotheses') of a real God; who is creator, and who loves his children in a personal relationship; and who is involved in the minute details and large strategies of every human life. 

Eventually, in the autumn of 2008 (and, inter alia, having rediscovered Arkle online, and especially his Letter from a Father) I then took The Road Not Taken.

If you don't want resurrected eternal life in Heaven - well, then you aren't a Christian (surely?)

If you don't want resurrected eternal life in Heaven - then you aren't a Christian. That seems straightforward fact - because, if you want something else, then you don't want this. 

Yet when I have previously written on this subject, I have received comments and communication that seem to emanate from a feeling of hurt or exclusion - as if I was somehow preventing access to people who (instead of resurrection and Heaven) wanted Nirvana, to be reincarnated to further mortal lives, to become a spirit, or insensible, or have their Self/Ego annihilated. 

(Positively to be a Christian needs more than wanting resurrected life in Heaven - because Christian also requires a conviction/ faith/ trust that this can only be attained by (in some sense) following Jesus Christ - although Christians differ widely in their understanding of what 'follow' means and entails.) 

Reflecting on this strange matter - whereby, for example - people seem to want both 1.) to be resurrected with an eternal body, living as a person in Heaven, in the presence of Jesus Christ and God the Father; and simultaneously after dying to become to be a spirit (with no body); not a person - because without agency or self-awareness; and assimilated-into or absorbed-by a God who is an impersonal deity.  

How could such contradiction and confusion arise? 

I think the reason is simple - which is that people do not think seriously about what happens after biological death - and self-identified Christians do not think much about what actually happens at resurrection and in Heaven. 

Resurrection has become so uncertain, people seem afraid to think beyond it. Furthermore, by some doctrines, resurrection is delayed - perhaps to the 'second coming', day-of-judgment (something not told us by the Fourth Gospel - where both Lazarus and Jesus resurrect within a couple of days, and there is no such thing as the 'second coming'). 

At any rate, resurrection is treated as if far-off, and in some sense is regarded as not-our-concern; and indeed there is a superstitious sense that it is presumptuous (hence unlucky) even to think about it but certainly to speak or write about it. 

I sometimes feel this myself - even though I don't agree with it; that I am 'tempting fate' by 'taking for granted' my resurrection to the extent of thinking beyond it- despite that (in the Fourth Gospel) it seems clear that Jesus wants us to be confident about our salvation (in the same way a young child should be confident about the love of his parents). 

At any rate; this mental block on resurrected life has many malign effects. For one thing, it makes for this confusion as it what is, and what is Not, Christianity. For another, it has made people massively over-focused on this mortal life - as if what happened here and now was the 'main point' of Christianity; whereas exactly the opposite is told by the Fourth Gospel.

Christianity is primarily about what happens after biological death; and that is made clear in principle: resurrected, eternal life, in Heaven, as Sons of God. It is by the implications of this other-worldly fact that we may infer what Christianity means for this-world.  

The effect that Jesus Christ has on this mortal life can be imagined as a glorious light cast back from the reality of our life-beyond-death; and this means we need to regard that resurrected life as real. 

We need to expect our own personal resurrection into Heaven with maximum confidence; need to dwell upon it - including the details and specifics, as best we may. Only thus can we combat the colossal weight of totalitarian materialism that presses-down upon us; a mass and detail of this-worldly-ness - that otherwise would tend to crush us into hope-less-ness and despair.  

Beatrix Potter stories with songs on EP (vinyl) narrated by Vivien Leigh

Perhaps the favourite records of our small collection of vinyl as young children were the HMV versions of Beatrix Potter's stories with superb songs. There was inspired music by Cyril Ornadel and first-rate lyrics by David Croft; and were narrated by Vivien Leigh. 

Everything about these EP records is still perfectly memorable (both tunes and words) several decades later. 

(EPs were 'extended play' records; they looked like singles, and spun at 45 revolutions per minute like a single, but each side lasted about twice as long as a single - presumably at the cost of lower sound quality, although that was not evident on the kind of record player we possessed!)  

In Squirrel Nutkin there is the immortal 'I've got a tail' sung by Nutkin/ Graham Stark - which often pops into my head whenever the subject of 'tails' comes-up. Also Nutkin's strange 'riddles' - which are of the same type as those in the Hobbit - and come to mind on country walks. 

Or Old Mr Brown (the owl) and his recipe song 'Take one mole...' which has very amusing lyrics (as might be expected from the co-author of Dad's Army). It was always a scare when kindly Old Brown was provoked into attacking Nutkin, and inflicting the the 'karmic' punishment of biting-off most of the tail about which Nutkin had been so conceited. 

There were six stories in the collection - and we had all of them. The dark side of Beatrix Potter's world is nearly always evident, with the cute characters in danger of being caught and eaten by predators - whether sly or stupid. Still, as with all the best stories, 'All's well that ends well'. 

All the Tales, except Mrs Tiggy Winkle, therefore have sinister aspects which used to frighten me (still do!); such as the cat in Johnny Town Mouse, and Mr Macgregor the gardener in Peter Rabbit and the Flopsy Bunnies. 

Perhaps the most chilling was Jemima Puddle Duck; with the annoyingly foolish Jemima ('a simpleton') being seduced (almost to her death) by the kind-seeming, seductive foxy gentleman (who ambiguously sings 'I'll have you for dinner'). This tale features a virtuoso performance of Jemima by the famous Cicely Courtneidge. 

As a kid aged about four, I was particularly impressed by her song 'I can fly'; which gave instructions on how-to-do-it. Naturally, I went outside to try this for myself - I can still picture the incident. In the event, I didn't manage to fly - but did not give up hope.

The special appeal of Mrs Tiggy Winkle was much related to the thrillingly-magical final comments when the author tells us that the story was real, where it all happened, and that she is herself 'very well acquainted' with Mrs TW.  

Nowadays, this comes to mind whenever I look out on 'Owl Island' on Derwentwater, across at Cat Bells mountain, or pass through the delightful village where Lucy lived. 

Owl (St Herbert's) Island by Keswick

"Because it is an Evil Lie."

Over the years I have developed this phrase and concept of an Evil Lie as a concise expression of my understanding of the specific aspects of our situation. 

It seems to be a correct and appropriate response to many "why not?" questions asked us - questions on the lines of: What have you got against the trans-agenda? Why don't you want a birdemic peck? What have you got against MLB antiracism? Why are you not in favour of recycling/ bicycle lanes/ wind turbines?...

At a micro-level, the managerialist and materialistic take-over of my working life in medicine, academia, science (but also everybody's life) - preparatory to the 2020 Global unification into a single world bureaucracy - was pursued by multiple incremental Evil Lies. 

These ELs were all known/ felt/ experienced as wrong, intuitively; yet were often small and could be presented as 'too trivial' to make a fuss about. 

Managerialism proceeds through Evil Lying steps, each step apparently too trivial to oppose - yet simultaneously each step was important enough to make mandatory! 

And thus we were led into the single, totalitarian, global bureaucracy. Yet at each step we could have known that what we were being asked to do was an Evil Lie.

Why Not? 

Because it is an Evil Lie.

Evil because that is the motivation - this particular thing is an aspect of the overall strategy of damnation. It is part of the plans by evil Beings to induce Men into Evil rather than Good; to prefer Hell to Heaven; to choose damnation and to reject resurrected Heavenly life eternal. 

'Lie' because all of these are deliberate untruths. 

What species of untruth varies. Whether the untruth is based on legalistic/ linguistic intent to mislead, exaggeration and manipulation, misrepresentation, selection, inappropriate and non-sequitur statistics... or simply a Big Lie invented in whole - does not matter, because the ruling intent is to lie.  

All lies are sins, all lies are evil - so it might be said that the phrase Evil Lie is a pleonasm - yet I am sure that the phrase including both words does some extra work compared with either component word alone. 

The lie is a particular kind of evil - perhaps the single most prevalent evil of the modern world. 

To call a lie intrinsically evil is correct - but 'Evil Lie' takes the particular and assigns it to a general category - when what is required is some response to that particular. 

Our damnation in modernity is, it seems, being accomplished mainly by lies. So, from 2020 there are no gratuitous lies; all lies are purposive. 

Every lie proposed and accepted adds to the apparatus of evil.  

Just to say some-thing is a lie, without also mentioning evil; is inadequate. Indeed, it can be counter-productive for a Christian. 

For instance the birdemic peck is a lie, built upon lies - everything about the birdemic is a lie (its identity, nature, origin, significance); everything about the birdemic response is a lie (that it is necessary, or useful, or the value of its components, and failure of cost-benefit consideration) - and the peck is a lie at every level from its necessity on down to embrace every substantive assertion and statement about it.

But to the modern mind, failure to go-along-with a web-of-lies itself requires justification; because, after all, the mainstream dominant political ideology of the world is leftism; which is itself a web-of-lies. To the modern mind, a web-of-lies is a 'good thing' whenever it is deployed to assist a leftist agenda (e.g. socialism, feminism, antiracism...). 

So, it is in practice necessary to say Evil Lies to 'explain' to people why we oppose this particular lie from all the other lies which rule us. 

Furthermore, we do not want to get the habit of opposing lies from expediency - even to our-selves. The fact that the birdemic peck is dangerous is an expedient reason to avoid it; but of itself expediency just sustains the narrative of fear: the idea that our responses are and should be fear-driven. 

To avoid the peck because it is harmful (merely) is to sustain the evil ideology of 'healthism'. 

So; we should not want to avoid the peck primarily because it is dangerous, but because it is an Evil Lie. 

If we avoid it (only) because it is dangerous; then all that the Authorities would need to do to make the peck 'right', would be to ensure that it is more dangerous not to have the peck than to take it. A simple matter. 

Sufficiently intense persecution of the non-pecked would then (apparently) make the peck 'right'; and expediency would make pecking the preferred option; and therefore the 'right' option. So much for principle...

The problem is therefore not primarily to avoid the peck, but to know that the peck is evil. And it is evil because it is a lie. 

And knowing that it is evil; the problem is not primarily to avoid having the peck (after all, we might be overpowered and compelled to have it) - but to repent evil. 

Man cannot always, or even usually, avoid evil; but Man can always repent evil. 

And to be clear in the mind that X is an Evil Lie is a solid set-up for repentance. 

God does Not want beautiful, obedient children - just sitting around, waiting to be told what to do... William Arkle and the Prodigal Son

It’s the friction between the things we love and the things which vitiate against those things which enables us to actually grasp the value of the things we love. 

Without an ability to grasp the significance of these values we could never grow up to be as God is, to become ‘Prodigal Sons’. We would only remain beautiful, obedient children who would continually be sitting around saying: ‘Now what do you want me to do next?’ 

But what God wants is somebody out there to say: ‘ Come on God, let’s go and do this for a bit!’ 

And God would say: ‘That’s an idea! I never thought of doing that before!’ 

I know that’s looking ahead, and we haven’t got to that stage yet; but I think that’s what we’re working towards.

Commentary: The above striking paragraph is transcribed and slightly paraphrased from a recorded talk given by William Arkle - perhaps in the middle 1980s. 

Arkle is trying to explain why in this mortal life we experience vices as well as virtues, misery as well as joy, evil as well as Good. And he explains this in terms of what God is hoping for from us ultimately; what God is hoping we will eventually become. 

 

God is hoping, and planning, that eventually at least some Men will become grown-up gods; original sub-creators on-a-level-with God the primary creator of this reality. 

Arkle illustrates this by interpreting the Prodigal Son story as a parable of God and mortal Men.   The father in the story represents God, the prodigal son represents us men who choose to be incarnated into mortal life, while the other son represents the pre-mortal spirit-men who declined incarnation on earth remained in Heaven bathed in divine beauty and exemplary in obedience. 

The interpretation suggested is that the prodigal son has, through learning from his experiences - which were bad, as well as good - 'grown-up' and become closer to what his father hoped for than has the other son. 

The other son has experienced only good things, and therefore does not know their true value. The other son has always obeyed and knows no other, and has not overcome the temptation of pride. The other son never left his father ('God') and so never chose freely to return.

It is the other son who Arkle lightheartedly caricatures as: beautiful, obedient children who would continually be sitting around saying: ‘Now what do you want me to do next?’  And the picture evoked helps make clear why this would not be a plausible goal for God to design for Man. After all; what would be the point of God creating such merely-ornamental self-reflections as these beautiful, obedient children?   

God instead created disobedient children, and a world full of temptations and sufferings; in hope that some of his children would choose to dwell in it, and would then learn from their experiences: good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant - and return to occupy a higher place in Heaven than would otherwise have been possible. 

Such grown-up children - if we choose to return to the divine plan, to embrace resurrection into Heaven; there to live and work alongside God - have the knowledge and uniqueness that they (we!) could eventually become original generative agents. 

Grown-up Sons and Daughters of God. 

And then we would be able to make contributions to divine and eternal on-going creation that could surprise and delight God. So he might say: ‘That’s an idea! I never thought of doing that before!’ 

Added Note: Perhaps William Arkle's greatest contribution to my understanding comes from his trying to understand God's motivations as creator. Arkle recognizes that, as well as the deepest explanation that God creates from an abundance of love; we can also consider what God as a divine person (or persons) would want from creation - and that is 'other divine persons' not just to love but also to work-with and 'play'-with. Arkle indeed focuses on play to a rather extreme extent at times! - but it seems an important and perhaps unique insight that (across the span of eternity) God would want not just immature children in his Heavenly family, but also grown-up children to interact with; ideally children who have developed to a level with himself. And we can immediately infer that Jesus Christ was the first of these, but that it would be hoped he is not the last.  

Rumours of war - more Sorathic subversion?

On the one hand; we have the first ever global government; which has imposed the same mass oppression all over the world - disguised as birdemic sanctions  and based on nothing but lies, and impervious to knowledge/ facts/ evidence.

On the other hand; there is more talk of superpower war than I can remember for several decades. 

Could it really be possible that a world war would tear-apart all the carefully planned and elaborately constructed 'consensus' which has agreed upon a single ideology to be implemented by a coordinated, multi-agency plan?

How or why would there be a threat of war when the world has been 'unified' under a single totalitarian bureaucracy that encompasses all the functional social institutions? It seems irrational to build a world government, only to have it torn apart so soon after completion... Surely 'wiser heads would prevail'?

Yet we have this talk of war in high places, and with a casual quality about it all; as if nothing ore were being contemplated than a product marketing scheme. Does this mean that it is 'just talk' or that - for the people who now run things - war seems no different from their routine scams and lies. 

To me, this all looks like another Sorathic phenomenon, such as I have inferred before. As all the nations, major institutions, corporations and churches of the world have been conquered by The System of atheist-materialist-leftism - so evil evolves to a further and more extreme type which aims at destruction. 

And when destruction is the intent, and the only big thing there is to destroy is the global System - then it is the global System that will be destroyed. What else is there, after all other significant social institutions have already been destroyed or assimilated? 

...Destruction of as much as possible, as soon as possible - for which purpose a world war (or at least a superpower war) would be the surest route.

W.W. III would be primarily a spiritual war of a new type; even though it might be rationalized by the promise of material gain. Historical wars often evoked great human virtues (courage, love, loyalty, self-sacrifice...), and sometimes led to major religious revivals. So the further-sighted among the powers of evil were wary of wars for that reason. 

But such benefits of war seem very unlikely in 2021; because we have experienced several generations of mass religious apostasy and atheist public discourse; and the birdemic response imposed the largest/ most-rapid abandonment of religious practice in human history, which was eagerly implemented by the world religious leadership. 

So the world of 2021 has just demonstrated that spiritual and religious considerations mean almost nothing to modern Man - are, at any rate, utterly swamped by one-eyed irrational fears of illness and death... 

Therefore as of 2021 - it is unlikely that war will lead to courage or self-sacrifice. Therefore there is little to hold back those demonic powers who have become tired of the dull, strategic, long-termism of the prevalent bureaucratic/ Ahrimanic evil. 

By contrast, the ground has been prepared for those who are most motivated by immediate resentment and urgent destructive spite directed against first those they hate; then absolutely any-thing that is beautiful, true and virtuous. 

Ultimately against all that is divinely created. 

War, then, becomes a distinct possibility. Not war for any 'good reason' - although it could and would falsely be rationalized by what counts as good reasons in today's debased and incoherent world of media hype and corporate corruption. 

Instead war for bad reason - that is, war for no reason except the personal gratification of those who would be satisfied to see the destruction of that which they hate. 

After all, the populace have been trained by decades of political and media encouragement of resentment-based ideologies such as socialism, feminism, and antiracism - and these ideologies are now subsidized and enforced on an international scale. 

My guess is that the ground is prepared for war - whether this was intended or no. 

And if (or when) enough individual people with enough power or influence want to start a war, for whatever personal reason - then I don't see who or what would stop them. 

If it was at all risky or costly to stand personally against war - then who have we seen among the powerful of this world, that would have the higher principles and the courage to take risks or experience costs in order to 'do the right thing'? I know of none.    

When Men are motivated by little but fear, expediency and spite - and are (literally) incapable of consecutive thinking; it is easy for spite to get the better of fear and expediency; and then there will be a war; and one thing could easily lead to another until war encompasses the world. 

Once under way; a war based on vengeful resentment on all sides would not have any reason to cease until a very complete level of destruction had been reached - and could reach no stable end-point. 

In sum - although there is no good reason for war, that doesn't mean a thing. There was no good reason for smashing the world economy and destroying basic human interaction (forever?); yet it happened last year. 

There is no good reason for most of what happens in the world, now- yet it happens, with ever greater frequency and severity.  

Why, then, not war? It it, after all, far easier to destroy than to create: anyone can do it. 

The Total Christian Society - gone forever, but not forgotten

When I first became a Christian, I was focused on the demotivation and incoherence of The West; and thus very much drawn to the idea of what might be termed the Total Christian Society. A society in which every aspect of life (and thought) was not just permeated with Christianity - but was actually based-upon it. 

In a crude sense - this ideal is to create the closest possible approximation to Heaven on Earth (as Heaven was then understood). 

Probably the closest approach to a Total Christian Society happened at the high-points of the Eastern Roman Empire centred upon the New Rome of Constantinople - which existed from 324 to 1453. This was ruled by an Emperor who was regarded (by himself, and the populace) as having the status of an Apostle. Their ideal was an integrated society of maximum harmony between the monarch and the church - and all institutions and individuals. 

After the fall of Constantinople; this model of Total Christianity was then transferred to the Third Rome - Moscow - with the first Tsar Ivan IV ('the 'terrible') - who was grandson of Sophie Paleiologina -the last Emperor of Constantinople's niece. This was Holy Russia, and it endured to 1917 and the Russian Revolution - after which the long lineage of Total Christianity died-out - apparently forever.

Other approximations to a Total Christian Society include various periods of the Medieval Western Roman Catholic nations - where there was nonetheless an ideal of separation between a national monarch and the international Pope of Rome. 

Or John Calvin's Republic of Geneva; or Brigham Young's Mormon republic of Deseret. 

My understanding is that there was a period in the history of Man's spiritual development when the Christian ideal was to subordinate oneself to legitimate external spiritual authority (thus obedience was the primary virtue). Therefore Christianity aimed at complete immersion of each individual - from cradle to grave - in a particular Christian way of life.

But from continued reading and reflection I became convinced first that this was now impossible, then that it was also undesirable. 

It was impossible because I believed that it would need primarily to be based on 'tradition' - as the eastern Orthodox assert; yet my primary modern guide to Orthodoxy - Father Seraphim Rose - was explicit that the tradition had been broken in 1917 with the Bolshevik revolution. And the thing about tradition is that when it is broken it cannot be restored. This was why Fr Seraphim asserted that we had entered the End Times, where decline was inevitable and irreversible. 

This meant that the Total Christian Society of the Byzantine type was gone forever - even according to its own reasoning. What remained of Eastern Orthodoxy was merely a variant of the 'going to church in a non-Christian society' - the type of religion that I knew already from the Church of England, or any other modern denomination.  

A few years later I also became convinced by the ideas of Owen Barfield and his mentor Rudolf Steiner that Man was divinely destined to develop through stages of consciousness; and that the medieval consciousness - which sustained the Total Christian Society - had dwindled, all-but disappeared, and would never return. 

If we did try consciously to return to the earlier phase; this would indeed be harmful - much as consciously trying to re-adopt the life of a child or an adolescent would be harmful for a mature adult - spiritually harmful as well as physically impossible.

The events of 2020 have emphasized that any return to traditional, immersive, Total Christianity is not going to happen - since the large and (supposedly!) powerful Christian denominations have all willingly subordinated themselves to a wholly materialist and secular ideology; and to the dictates of a leftist (hence anti-Christian) globalist bureaucracy and media. 

We both need and should instead try to move forward to a different and unprecedented kind of Christianity. The alternative is to continue on our current path to chosen self-damnation for ever-more of the world. 

So, in the space of a decade, I have gone from being one whose primary hope and intent was to restore a Total Christian Society; to one who regards this goal as impossible and undesirable. 

A pretty big change of heart!

Christians cannot 'Be Good' in 2021 - but Can avoid being corrupted by evil

Christians have long had a confused and confusing understanding of the relationship between 'being Good' and following Jesus. 

Although the core and radical message of Jesus's teaching would seem certain to be that 'being Good' - approximately equivalent to adhering to religious law -  had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not someone was a follower of Jesus, and whether or not they would end-up in Heaven; nonetheless there are apparently contradictory sentences scattered even in the Fourth Gospel - and more abundant in Matthew, Luke and Paul's Epistles... sufficient to enable Christian churches through history (in some times and places especially) to equate 'being a Christian' and salvation with adherence to the prescribed rules: i.e. with Being Good. 

Much of this is surely to do with the worldly requirements of running a church, which is at least partly a human institution. Experience of attempting to remove or de-emphasize 'the rules' have nearly-always led to churches dwindling and declining; and, by contrast, churches that have a multitude of strict and strictly-enforced lifestyle rules (only tenuously, if at all, traceable to the practice or teachings of Jesus - such as the absolute forbidding of wine consumption) have often been the churches that grew fastest and functioned best. 

But now, we have entered a post-religious era in which all major churches (including Christian) have aligned-themselves explicitly with The System . There is now - in essence - only one, unified, global bureaucracy - and it is multiply-linked to the atheist, materialist, leftist, value-inverting world government. 

All institutions, organizations and corporations of any significant size and power are already willingly, enthusiastically, integrated with this anti-Christian (indeed Antichrist) System. And this System is what publicly - backed by force of propaganda, regulation and law - defines what is Good. 

This is new territory for Christians. There is now a widening opposition between between Being Good (as defined by religious authorities) versus Being a Christian. Already and increasingly those who are Good are on the side of the Satanic System; while those who are Christian are regarded (by Christian Churches) as Not Good. 

Yet Christians cannot discard the ideal of being Good, and advocate or embrace an 'anything goes' life; because unrepented sin is corrupting. Unrepented sin allies us, each and individually, with the evil agenda against God, divine creation and The Good. Indeed that is what sin is, by its nature - sin is that which turns us away from God's purposes. 

It is, indeed, unrepented sin which has decisively corrupted the major Christian churches by such a quantum leap over the past year. By explicitly and willingly putting material 'health' as their priority above the spiritual, churches gravely sinned - and have neither acknowledged nor regretted their sin. 

This came on top of decades of increasing, denied and never-repented, dishonesty among religious leaders and 'Good' Christians - which has a continually-increasing and ramifying consequences of corruption. 

This is closely linked to the pervasive take-over of Christian values by leftist ideologies, that are intrinsically rooted in multiple Big Lies (about class, sex, race, environment etc.) and therefore require always-expanding dishonestly to cover the propagating lies. 

By incremental degrees; dishonesty has destroyed discernment so that now self-identified Christians cannot recognize even the most extreme and explicit evil. 

The answer to Christian living in this Systemically-evil world, in which the church institutions are fully (because actively) implicated, is very simple and solidly Gospel-based - because it is to recognize that in Being Good (by worldly standards) we are sinning. 

This is closely analogous with the Pharisees who Jesus so excoriated; Men whose Being Good was actually setting themselves actively against God and divine creation. 

The answer can never be to 'stop sinning', because that is impossible - and because impossible - clearly not the plan of God the creator. If God had wanted men to stop sinning, he would have made it possible!

The plan is that we learn from our sinning, and - by acknowledging and repenting our inevitable sins - we continually affirm our personal 

We cannot cease from sinning, and in this world of 2021, we are required to commit more, and more severe (because value-inverted), sins with every passing month. 

That is The Plan of the new demon-allied totalitarian government: they plan to force everybody to commit and endorse more and more, increasingly severe sins; to endorse (rather than repent) these sins - and thereby corrupt and damn the world. 

The world will - by this plan - by stages come actively to choose damnation. All unrepented sin is - in its effect - an active choice of damnation; because it is affirming sin as Good, it asserting inversion of the created-order.

(Once a Man asserts that sin is virtue, vileness is beauty, lies are truth - he has chosen his own damnation by allying with Satan against God, divine creation and The Good. This situation is, of course, the 'new normal': mainstream, common, approved.)

We cannot refrain from all, or even most sins - but there are some sins which we know that we cannot do without corruption; without embracing damnation. 

And those are the sins that we must not do - and which we should be prepared to die rather than do. 

In 2021 all Christians are - in effect - slaves of an evil Master, in a world where all Masters are evil. 

Because we are slaves, our evil Master can and will (sooner or later) compel us to sin in order to live - to sin in order to stay-alive.  

There is a point at which we must accept death and martyrdom rather than commit a sin that we know would break our spirit and be lethal to salvation - but until that point we will sin and sin, probably more and more - and must therefore repent and repent. 

We are all sinners: You are a sinner. 

Therefore, in order to stay alive; we must sin and repent. 

This is a matter of survival - and since You are alive, this is what You are doing. 

If you do not realize that this is what You are doing, here and now and as a normal, routine thing - and that you will continue to do this for as long as you are alive; then You are a self-damned, because unrepentant, sinner. 

And that is the only truly lethal kind of sinner. 

How meaning and motivation derive from belief in a loving creator God - and vice versa

If you know that reality was created by a God; and that the creator God is a person who loves you as a person (because God is your spiritual parent) - then this is a good reason for believing that your life has purpose and meaning. 

Why? Because God has both created your world and you - and because that God is loving (like an ideal parent), thus you can assume that there is some purpose for your life specifically, and some meaning to the details of your life. 

A civilization in which many or most people believe that the world and their own life has meaning and purpose, will have reason be motivated to live, and to live in certain ways that accord with the assumed intentions of God. 

One who believes in a loving parent creator will regard reality as not just purposive and meaningful - but overall benign. He will believe that the good things of life are deliberate, and the bad things of life are either not intended or in some way necessary (if when this is not understood).

 

Conversely - if a person decides that 'God is Dead' - that there is No-God and never was; then reality is not created but instead regarded as random, unintended, and indifferent to him personally. 

He regards his life as ultimately accidental - he is adrift. 

Stuff happens but means nothing. Anything that seems good is not really good. Truth, Beauty, Virtue may seem to be things in the world - but are Not really real. 

Any apparent purpose or meaning, any-thing that appears hope-full; are actually a deceptive superficial appearance. They will be taken-for-granted. There is no reason to feel grateful for your life - because there is no intent to do you good.

By contrast; all adversity and suffering are to-be-expected (because, why not?). 

Indeed - the adversity and suffering of life are taken as evidence that there is No-God. 

In essence: When it is assumed there is No-God; all that is good and pleasant is explained-away as the delusive surface appearance of random or determined indifferent processes - while all that is bad and unpleasant are taken as evidence that there is No-God... 

After a while, in a world where God is excluded as a reality from all serious public discourse, God is forgotten. 

The assumptions are inverted; and people forget the inversion has happened (has, in fact, been chosen) - and forget that it is an assumption. 

The assumption of No-God becomes reinterpreted as an inference from what seems like evidence...

The inference of the atheist is that I am (of course!) alienated in a world with neither purpose nor meaning; and the reality of life is quite naturally adversity and suffering, because there is No-God.

When things are bad - why not? What do you expect as an insignificant speck in an infinite world? But when things seem good, you are just fooling yourself. 

Evidence wherever he looks! (Any counter-evidence is just wishful thinking.) 

For the atheist; there is no reason to do anything in particular unless there is a rapid, sure and significant pay-off in terms of feeling better. He lives in a world only of micro-motivations - because no other motivations can be really real, all must be manipulations or illusions. 

Whereas the original inference was that because there Is God (creator and loving parent) - therefore, the deep reality of my life is always and everywhere one of ultimate meaning and purpose.  

The contrast between God and No-God is between the reality of purpose, meaning and a benign world - and the problem is to know this; and the reality of existing adrift in an arbitrary existence where only short-term personal pleasure or pain are solidly-real. 

A taste of Merry England c1500 - the BBC Tudor Monastery Farm

From 2005-2013 the BBC showed a series of year-long demonstrations of 'experimental archaeology' by re-creating a year in the life of a farm at various points in history from 1500 (Tudor Farm) to 1939-45 (Wartime Farm - which I have not yet seen). 

These constitute one of the very best documentary series I have seen; both extremely informative and very enjoyable; and with a likeable and well-informed 'cast' including Ruth Goodman (historian, practical expert at household tasks) and Peter Ginn (archaeologist). 

I have been interested in historical agriculture since my middle teens - when I was hoping that the modern world would soon be returning to something like either the Medieval or the 18th century system of farming, as the basis of a restored rural civilization (along the lines of The Shire). Yet every episode taught me plenty that was new. 

The Tudor Monastery Farm also has the additional joy of integrating the account of farming and household practicalities with the Christian year around 1500 - in the reign of Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch; and the last King of 'Merry England' with its integrated and pervasive Catholic national life. 

The presenters pretend to be tenant farmers of a monastery - and continually emphasize the way that the farming year was interwoven with the church calendar; with its many fasts and feast days, and community celebrations. Inter alia they stage a village fair, a market day, harvest festival, processions, singing and dances, and a Mystery Play.

At one point they parade into a delightful church that has been decorated in the colourful style of 1500:
 

Altogether, this is the most convincing picture I have seen of life at the cusp between the Medieval and the Early Modern - with a realistic sense of the Chestertonian national ideal of a Merry England. This is rare, because even the most detailed modern accounts of the Middle Ages, fail to depict this life as it was experienced at the time: through a Christian lens. 

Catholic readers will find this nostalgic and sad; and Protestants will be forced to admit that much which was good was lost forever at the Reformation in England; with Henry VIII's 'dissolution' (i.e. wholesale looting, destruction - and murder) of the civilization based-around religious houses: monasteries, abbeys, nunneries, friaries and the like.

A world of micro-motivations

I have often repeated my belief that demotivation is perhaps the biggest negative reality in the world today. Its causes are obvious enough - in that 'religion' has been Man's primary motivation throughout human history; and a world without God defaults to much lower-level motivations of a selfish nature, which mutually conflict - and invariably weaken due to repetition, habituation and boredom. 

Finally the nihilism of Godlessness leads to the ultimate demotivated state (and self-damning sin) of incurable despair. 

For a few generations after religion was discarded but before it lost its cultural and psychological effect; there was a partially successful attempt to replace religion with nationalism and/or socialism - which initially had positive goals that could provide some social coherence and meaning. But these motivators always weakened as the implications of no God, no spirit, no afterlife began to become fully accepted and assimilated. 

We now find ourselves in a world with no positive purposes and instead only a range of futile, incoherent, negative oppositional projects - e.g. trying to 'eliminate' the birdemic, sexism, racism, climate change, and the various *'phobias'.

Or, for a minority; opposing these oppositional projects - by protesting in favour of 'double-negative' goals eg. against censorship, cancel-culture or other recent negative restrictions. Others are against mass immigration; against the destructive and mutilating 'trans- agenda, against the closure of churches... All valid values; yet multiple double-negative motivations cannot replace an over-arching positive one. 

As for positive motivations; there are now only a sequence of micro-motivations, to be taken-up and set-aside in a open-ended series and going nowhere in particular. 

Little things like hoping to go abroad, visit some particular person; and in lots of little ways return to (semi-) 'normal' life by eating-out, sitting in cafes, going to a bar, driving a car, attending the cinema or a lecture, resuming a sexual life... whatever. 

Even the known-to-be-unsatisfactory delusional life goals of the past few decades - like a 'rewarding career' - are now destroyed as genuine possibilities; although people still pretend to be interested by them. Perhaps the only currently-valid long-term job option is to join the growing hierarchy of the secret police, or rise to seniority among the burgeoning concentration camp guard bureaucracy. 

But this is a downward spiral leading to civilizational collapse, and the better that people 'cope with' the new totalitarian world by pursuing ever-more-micro gratifications - the faster it will spiral down towards destruction. 

Because without strong motivation there is no courage - as can be seen in the world leadership in all the different institutions: government, politics, the media, the churches, law, medicine, science, education, the police and military etc. They are all unprincipled cowards because none have a strong and primary religious motivation. 

Without motivation, no courage; without courage only expediency - and in the totalitarian world expediency leads (by various but converging routes) to the Satanic agenda against God, divine creation and all that is Good.  

The only escape is to find motivation in the divine - and the only realistic motivations must be rooted out-with the Global System - which means rooted in the life beyond life. 

Courage needs hope, and hope needs faith - which must become our first priority. 

If faith is not first, it is nothing. The first commandment for a Christian is to love God - and God is our Father, the creator. 

The only escape from the self-destroying System is to follow Jesus Christ, and he leads us through death to resurrected life eternal. 

If we are to have the hope that provides motivation and courage to do anything Good; resurrected heavenly-life eternal must be the destination. It should be the source of all strong motivation.  

Cool, ironic 1980s Postmodernism - and its transformation to the 2021 world

In the middle 1980s I came under the spell of the Anglosphere version of that postmodernism which had been building up for several decades. My entry was via the theologian Don Cupitt, philosopher Richard Rorty and the religious studies professor James P Carse. 

Their thing was that life had no depth, and no purpose. And the idea was that the problem is in the people who regard this as a problem. 

Their goal was - like a therapist - to cure us of the irrational desire for more than what this life now had to offer; and to encourage a value-system which was wholly satisfied with the transient here-and-now which appeared and disappeared leaving no trace. 

Because there was no purpose to living; the focus was moved from vertical justification (based on meaningful history pointing at a desired future), to evanescent horizontal justifications concerned with how the present world fitted-together - to be suggested and discarded unendingly, and which strove to be stimulating, amusing... to generate an edifying affect (albeit temporarily, and needing frequent and novel replacements).  

In lucid and calm prose; Cupitt relativized all of Christian history and possibility (except for his own authority as relativizer!). Under the assumptions of a cleverly concealed leftist morality; all religious activity was unmasked as being motivated by power-seeking, money or psychological need. 

The suggestion was that Christianity must be reconceptualized and reorganized in pursuit of these taken-for-granted moral ideals - with the new church as something like a Cambridge college: an educationally-orientated dining and conversation club, organized by some charming rituals.  

Rorty said life was a conversation - and the purpose of living was to 'keep the conversation going' in as pleasant, amusing and 'edifying' a way as possible; characterized by an even-tempered, humorous and ironic tone. 

Carse - in his book Finite and Infinite Games - regarded living as playing; and the challenge as making this play 'infinite' - so that the game never ended, but instead regenerated itself, by continually changing the rules. 

In their differently flavoured ways, all these men were advocating that life become explicitly a matter of pleasure-seeking - of hedonism. Yet their underlying socio-political leftism shaped this hedonism, in line with contemporary ideology; so that this hedonism must be pursued within frames of socialism, feminism, sexual liberation and environmentalism - for instance. 

But all these writers affected a cool, ironic, witty detachment; and their core ideas came across as heartless, demotivating and nihilistic. If they hadn't been personable and charming chaps; their message was very close to the kind of psychopathic exploitation and selfish manipulation which much the same ideology supported in some French authors such as Foucault. 

In practice, and Rorty was specific about this; the positive, hedonic pleasure seeking became replaced by the negative program of avoiding suffering - both physical and psychological; and this slotted-into the New Left program of victim politics and lifestyle critique. This was more motivating and provided some basis for altruism, since intellectuals could get angry on behalf of the humiliations allegedly suffered by those defined as oppressed, marginalized, excluded etc. 

Thus a cool, hedonic philosophy advocating a life of pleasurable distractions; evolved into this world we see around us. Where anger and resentment are the prevalent emotions, and ultimately everything is justified in terms of opposition. 

And they all tried to deal with the inherent nihilism of their views by suggesting that death did not really matter because in reality everything was temporary; that life was simply self-justifying; and that the way to cope with the fact that everything was futile was... not to think about it, but to become utterly absorbed in the business of living. 

Their vision of the ideal life was, indeed, much like their own lives: pundits who straddled academia and talk-shows; a life of lectures, workshops and parties; a life of public speaking and publishing. 

Keeping busy, keeping active and productive; trying to get as much 'fun' as possible from life, work hard to cram-in as much enjoyment as possible - without harming others, they would hasten to add (as if that were possible!); which meant, in practice, vociferously and explicitly supporting leftist causes while engaged-in amusing/ playful/ pleasurable talking, writing and teaching.  

(The dark fact that many-or-most people engaged in a life of pleasure and novelty-seeking will sooner-or-later engage in some kind of serial, escalating and manipulative sexual promiscuity was only very indirectly implied; except by a few such as Foucault, who did this to the highest degree; while being philosophically rationalized and praised for his ruthless and aggressive selfishness in a 'radical' cause.)   

And what then? What if or when one is sick, old, tired?... 

Keep going, if at all possible. Keep 'engaged' - and die 'in harness' while in the middle of one's latest book... Regretting nothing except lost opportunities for playful pleasures...

Of, if the miseries outweigh the pleasures - presumably hope to die quickly and painlessly - whether by luck - or, if not, by assisted suicide or euthanasia. 

So, here is a vision of life. A positive vision? Well, not really; because it is explicitly futile and doomed to end in death and to leave nothing behind. So amount to a moment-by-moment intent to live with enjoyment and without suffering; pursued under cover of ideological altruism.  

This cool postmodernity is now mainstream among those few remaining intellectuals who espouse any positive goals in life. But mostly it has been discarded in practice as something that just doesn't work. Its positive ideals are just too feeble, and too difficult to sustain - because nothing is more physically and psychologically impossible than a life of continuous pleasure.

In practice, cool postmodernity invariably subsides into the expedient careerism of bureaucrats and celebrities, passively bobbing-around in the currents and tides dictated by the Global Establishment - yet accompanied by a self-gratifying and marketable pose of courageous radicalism.

Are these really the End Time? Yes! - and William Wildblood explains why

I regard William Wildblood as one of the wisest and most insightful of bloggers - but today he has exceeded even his own high standards! 

Some edited excerpts: 

There is something different about the present times. For one thing, the spiritual collapse is universal. It is global and though some individuals hold out, no society or even section of society has done. For another, there is not just spiritual collapse but actual inversion of spiritual values and truths which have all been transferred to the material plane where they have no meaning and actually work against their spiritual reality. 

At no previous time have atheism and materialism taken such a hold. They are not just options. They are the no longer needing even to be discussed as the bedrock of everything, even religion. For religion now sees itself in the light of the beliefs of this world. Spirituality has become a subset of materialism...

Whether you see these as the End Times or not is a matter of spiritual discernment. This is not something that can be conclusively proved in the way we normally understand proof but those who are meant to see will see. A strong intuition will work within them, maybe always present but maybe called forth by the extraordinary days we currently live in...

Many people will carry on as before. We have seen that most have done precisely that over the last year, the circumstances of which should surely have started to wake more people up to the reality of the situation. Most continue to sleep. 

But some will start to wake up and when they do it is important that they wake up completely. It is not enough to see through the lies of those in power, whether they be politicians, scientists, artists, the media, in short, everyone in positions of authority. It is not enough to see that human beings chase money and power and a small percentage will do anything to get those. 

You must go beyond this self-evident truth to see the spiritual causes behind things. You must wake up to the reality that this world has become a spiritual battlefield... 

During the End Times the dark powers spread their evil over the human mind like a sickly miasma. None are immune who have not turned to God who is the only protection against the lies and deceit that spread throughout the world... 

You must rise above the present time and present attitudes and take a longer view. Then you will be able to see how we have got to where we are now, spiritual beings who have gradually allowed their minds to be closed to their true origin and destiny. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we are being taken for idiots and, with all due respect, many of us are behaving like that. Perhaps we need a John the Baptist like figure to call us to repentance but that is not going to happen. Human consciousness has progressed and so the call to repentance must now come from within. From within our own hearts...

Read the whole thing...

Play in Heaven?

Is there playing in Heaven - do resurrected immortal Men play?

Well, play seems to be a spontaneous expression of vitality that in most evident in the early years of human development (and some other animals). 

So the question of whether we play in Heaven might be answerable by considering the extent to which we are 'like' children in the context of Heaven. 

Play is fuelled by the vitality of childhood - and children who are ill, sleepy or fatigued lose interest in  playing. But vitality is just fuel - a means to and end: so, what is the purpose of playing? 

Spontaneous child's play is enjoyable - which is why it is spontaneous - but why? Often, animals enjoy things that are helpful to survival and reproduction. 

Characteristically; young children's play is make-believe, or what adults term 'role-play'. Even formal sports among the young tend to be played with a strong element of make-believe - as when the child is pretending (whether secretly or publicly) to be a sporting hero. 

Make-believe is a kind of fantasy; and fantasy play is about expanding and modeling a child's own experience to include whatever he seeks and enjoys. Adventure, talking animals, fairies, heroic fighting, cooking, families, exploration, toys that are alive and conscious and can communicate... 

All such things can be understood as something from which the child is learning - as well as being fun. They are, in other words, part of the development of a child - which is why some animals (particularly mammals) also play when young. 

In heaven we expect to be immortal, and never sick or fatigued - and so can expect to have unlimited vitality. That is not a problem.

So the question of whether or not we will play in Heaven depends on whether we consider resurrected Men to be developing towards some higher spiritual state - analogously to the physical and psychological development of children in earth...

Or whether we consider resurrected Men to have arrived at a steady state of being; beyond which there is no possibility of qualitative development. 

Since I regard resurrected Men in Heaven to be on a potential developmental trajectory towards higher levels of divinity (becoming more like Jesus Christ and God the prime creator) - my inference is that we shall indeed play in Heaven - spontaneously - for much the same reasons as children play on earth.

Maybe a phrase attributed to Jesus might be taken implicitly to confirm this? 

Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3) 

Imagination has become social reality - with horrible results

We tend to assume - following decades of mass media propaganda - that 'imagination' is always a good thing. Probably, that was the case in the past, when imagination was used to 'to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature' - that is, to imagine variants based-upon the natural. 

But since the Romantic era, imagination has extended beyond nature, and from the early 20th century has become autonomous. From the early 20th century, with modernism, surrealism, Dadaism etc - imagination became often a parody, subversion or inversion of the natural. 

Furthermore, as modern Man became alienated from the divine and spiritual (that is; at first able to ignore, then unable to perceive, the divine and spiritual realms) this cut-off imagination became reality.

So that in the modern, official and mass media, legal and corporate world - un-real, aspirational, asserted and enforced ideas very rapidly become normalized, accepted and then (to all intents and purposes) 'real'. 

In other words, humans now - as a matter of mundane everyday practice - imagine and make their own reality. The world is convulsed and organized according to these imagined and made realities such as the birdemic, antiracism, climate emergency and the trans-agenda. 

Apparently any-thing - any statement, any morality, any imperative, can be made-real now, and generally accepted as real - with little or no strain or sense of dissonance - even when it is a complete fabrication or an inversion of the natural. 

Indeed; that official-reality is a total invention or an inversion of natural-reality is generally taken to indicate its moral superiority (consequently; to privilege the natural is termed 'fascism'; and is demonized and suppressed). 

From this we may see that modern Men are so constituted that they will believe what they imagine; and they can be induced to imagine almost anything - especially by means of the mass media with its combination of fake-news, gossip and ideologically-shaped entertainments. 

And people do not distinguish between sources of imaginations and assertions - and seldom recall or discern-between the provenance of 'knowledge' - so that beliefs are as likely to be shaped by overt fictions (a movie) as by supposed facts (taught at school).

(Although, with institutional convergence - all sources of imagination/ fact are being forcibly harmonized to the leftist, materialist, anti-Christian ideology.)

People are psychologically-made such as to privilege this media world as objective and primary, because it is widely-shared and enforced by the powerful - and they subordinate and ignore their own conscience, observations and reasoning, because these are (merely) private.

In sum - Modern Man imagines his reality; and his imagination is fed to him by the mass media; so, for modern Man; reality is whatever assumptions the mass media is currently operating on. 

(And by 'currently' I mean 'the last few days' - and today's mass media assumptions may be the opposite of last week's, or the assumptions may imply the opposite of the media interpretation - but none of this matters: today's assumptions rule whatever.) 

This is why the media can report as reality un-natural phenomena such as the imagined birdemic plague or climate catastrophe, can invert racial and sexual realities, can state that men and women are flexibly- and wholly-interconvertible - and will be believed; to an unrestricted degree... To the extent of structuring and administering the whole world policy and human micro-interactions alike. 

Life is made, and re-made, on the basis of these (and any other potential, equally arbitrary) imaginations.  

The capacity to make imagination into reality is thus a double-edged sword which pushes the world towards extremes of good or evil. Good imaginations can be made real - but so can evil imaginations; and indeed imagination can abolish or invert the distinction between good and evil. 

Armed with this power; Man is called-upon, each as an individual, to imagine the good - and to eschew the evil; to imagine the beautiful and true and coherent... 

But in practice, the opposite has happened. 

Man has refused to acknowledge or exercise his power to imagine God, good and divine creation; has refused to imagine a living and conscious universe in which each of us has an unique contribution to make...

And therefore has opened himself to become a passive conduit for the imaginations of the evil powers who have taken-over the public world .

And this remains un-recognized because of Man's capacity to imagine evil as Good; and undiscerned because of Man's willed self-subordination to external, evil-aligned, values. 

See Owen Barfield's book - Saving the Appearances (1957) for a source of the above ideas. 

Passive-believing-machines... Modern Men can, do and must believe - whatever we *choose* to believe

It is the special and unprecedented feature of these times that Men choose what to believe. 

It is evident that Modern Men believe whatever they want to believe - and having made that decision they simply rationalize it - effortlessly explaining-away whatever threatens that belief. 

This means that each person is wholly responsible for what he believes, and what he does not believe; in a way that was not the case in the past. 

For example; someone who says 'I would like to be a Christian, but I can't believe it' is wrong - he has chosen not to believe in Christianity, just as he has chosen to believe vast quantities of arbitrary and incoherent lies and nonsense.

We are all like this, we are all (pretty much) in the same boat, we are all rationalizers. 

Nobody (and I mean nobody) nowadays genuinely derives their beliefs from evidence, observation and common sense. In the past that was possible, but not any more. 

Belief is always chosen; but what distinguishes people is whether they are intuitive heart-thinkers or passive-believing-machines. 

There are no other alternatives. 

It is our primary choice whether to give primacy to the thinking of the heart; or else to try, and fail, to base belief upon impossible and obsolete, rationalistic 'brain-thinking'. 

The vast majority of Men pretend to base their belief on brain-thinking, and the consequence is that they become incapable of brain-thinking - because that is not a viable option. It is one of the most striking aspects of modern life that Men cannot think. 

Sometimes this seems like a sheer incapacity, sometimes it seems like a phobia of thinking, sometimes it seems like a dishonest calculation - perhaps for purposes of manipulation. But the fact is they cannot think - and this inability applies to financiers, scientists and philosophers every bit as much as to  politicians, celebrities and the uneducated masses. 

Men have developed through the centuries, and we in the West reached a point when we became detached from spontaneous, unconscious knowledge, based on personal observation and common sense. For example; Men began to able able to doubt the reality God; then later men reached a state that (whether they liked it or not) they lost a belief in God. From that point, faith became an active choice only. 

This was ordained by God as a part of our destiny, so that Men could, for the first time, become believers wholly by their own free personal decision. Men had become unable to perceive the spiritual in life, and no longer passively absorbed it from nature and society - and this was needed in order that there was no compulsion. 

But on what grounds could Men then believe in God, once they had become detached from the world of the spirit, once there was no compulsion from observation and common sense? 

The divine intent, Man's destiny, was that the time had come when Men should undergo a transformation in the basis of their choices; from the external to the internal; from brain-thinking to heart-thinking. 

This transformation was superficially observable in the movement of thought termed Romanticism - with its origins evident in the likes of Herder, Goethe and Novalis in Germany; or Blake, Coleridge and Wordsworth in England. 

Now - because this is a developmental transformation - it is non-optional; it is like adolescence: it happens - unless prevented by some pathology.

And if the transformation does not happen, then there is pathology. And that is what we see. 

The transformation did not happen, it was (almost wholly) refused - and therefore what we observe is a mass pathology of thinking. People refuse to think from the heart, and have lost the capacity to think with the brain. 

People who refuse heart-thinking (and that is all of us, for much of the time - but for most of us: all the time) have mostly become passive-believing-machines; mere conduits for external influence; believing... whatever happens to be going through their minds at present. . 

We constantly, but dishonestly, try to rationalize these current belief by reference to old head-thinking criteria such as evidence, logic, knowledge - facts and figures. But observation of people over time reveals that this is a fake; and their beliefs are incoherent, inconsistent, meaningless and purposeless.   

Hence people are pervasively dishonest, but have become cognitively incapable of detecting their own gross dishonesty. 

But - Men are all sinners; and to become a heart-thinker entails swimming against a rising tide of evil rationalization. So even someone who - like myself - tries his best to practice heart-thinking end-up tries to rationalize beliefs with 'evidence' and 'facts' and 'logic' in a way that is misleading at best, but ultimately dishonest, by its denial of the true origins of these beliefs.  

As usual, we try and will usually fail, and will continually fail - so the first necessity is to recognize and repent our failures; and to return again and again to heart-thinking.