Working with The Dead

The Dead (or the so-called Dead, as Rudolf Steiner usefully called them) are alive and sometimes need to work with us, and we with them. 

As with everything in life, this working-with is an individual business; so The Dead are not a generic category but composed of specific deceased individuals with whom specific living individuals ought-to be working in a collegial (or even familial) way. 

As of 2022 and for most people; this 'working-with' typically happens by Direct Knowing, happening in our Primary Thinking - and not through any kind of mediumship; although it is likely that The Dead with whom we are working will, like our living families and friends, make appearances in our dreams. 

I have found it fascinating to discover that there are particular persons among The Dead with whom I have this kind of 'working relationship' - and not necessarily those I most wanted or expected to work-with. 

It is striking the extent to which modern leftist culture works to thwart this natural and necessary work. It is more than thirty years since I heard some feminists discussing how they 'couldn't' read anything written by Dead authors - because of their attitudes to sex and sexuality. 

And now the whole process has become mainstream and official, with the 'cancelling' - banning and deletion - of any and all Dead people whose views conflict with today's totalitarian imperatives - especially with respect to the pseudo-sin of 'racism'. 

Indeed, this has sometimes spread from destruction of The Dead to include anything that happened to anybody last year/ week/ or even yesterday...

It has become clear that the current Global Establishment are urgently concerned that all living Men should be cut-off from any possibility of relationship with The Dead - by inculcating and rewarding generic attitudes of superiority, moral hostility, and resentment. 

Yet it is possible that someone (or more than one) among The Dead is seeking to work with you, now; as a matter of mutual benefit. 

And if you don't even consider this possibility, you will certainly deprive both living and dead of something that may be of great importance.  

Keeping focused on macro-, not micro-, issues!

We live in a world of micro-issues - and the world conspires to induce us to focus upon them. 

The macro-issues, by contrast, are related to God versus Satan, Good and evil, and salvation or damnation - and these are a different matter. 

The constant temptation is to focus on the micro-issues and leave the macro- put-aside until later... but once that decision has been made, somehow that 'later' never comes. 

Some of the micro-issues loom very large - the birdemic-peck, antiracism, climate, mass im/migration, and the Fire Nation for instance. These are 'geo-political' in import, civilizational in scale - and they are happening Now; therefore they seem to be of primary urgency... 

Yet they are all of them micro-, in the crucial sense that none of these Big Things will or can be dealt-with, unless and until the macro-issues have been decided. 

So - don't be too distracted by, or focused-upon, secondary micro-issues such as the End of The West and the Collapse of the World. 

There are qualitatively more-important matters that here-and-now, first-and-foremost, and without delay - demand your urgent attention: and the attention of everyone alive. 

"Everyone is an artist" - what did Joseph Beuys mean?

I have been reading the avant-garde 'artist' Joseph Beuys recently (who some authorities regard as the most important 'artist' of the late 20th century) - from my recognition that his work was an explicit continuation of the philosophical insights of Rudolf Steiner; as expressed most clearly in The Philosophy of Freedom. 

In other words; if one engages with Beuys from a basis in The Philosophy of Freedom; we can see his work - especially its quantitatively-major element, the teaching - as directly derived from the same insights as Steiner described. Indeed, these insights were described, advocated and put into practice by Beuys across a wide range of activities.  

I said 'artist' in scare quotes - because Beuys was not really an artist in the traditional sense; or, at best, a rather mediocre one. Having surveyed the span of Beuys's work, it seems obvious that as a sculptor or in terms of his drawings, he was no better than most decent art school graduates. 

Indeed, his surviving artistic productions are mostly unpleasant in effect - being mostly dull, drab, depressing - and, in many instances (and sometimes deliberately) decaying. 

Yet Beuys was a genius - and this was based on (at least...) three major attributes:

1. Beuys was extremely intelligent - far more intelligent than 99% of the people around him in the art world - including the artists, students, gallery owners, critics and scholars (partly because art does not attract the best intellectuals and does reward confident frauds).

2. Beuys was extremely creative in his thinking. This is obvious in his speaking - the records of interviews and accounts of lectures. He (rather like Steiner) did a truly colossal amount of teaching and discussing - at times apparently up to 10 hours a day in public discussions, day after day, week after week. 

From the combination of intelligence and creativity; Beuys always seems to have something to say about anything (again, like Steiner); was very quick on the uptake and in response, and had considerable general knowledge at his command. 

3. Beuys had an extremely dominant, charismatic and magnetic personality - such that people who were in his presence were often overwhelmed, but could never ignore him - and those who spent much time with him seems to have been affected for the rest of their lives. 

Beuys was very influential, and launched several projects and 'organizations' - although it seems clear that from his point of view these were not intended to be moral, 'functional' institutions; but mostly venues for conversation, stimulation, and endlessly developing ideas and thoughts. 

His most famous slogan was "Everyone is an artist" which was apparently intended to mean that traditional art - the production of beautiful artifacts that could 'stand-alone' - was to be superseded by Steiner-esque Thinking from a condition of Freedom (which I regard as the same as my understanding of Primary Thinking). 

In other words, while an artist (i.e. everybody) continues to do and make things; the focus ought to be on the creative thinking which was primary, rather than the products which derived from thinking. 

This creative thinking was revealed more by discussions and conversations about 'art objects' and the thinking behind them - than it was by the objects themselves; this activity being embedded in a context of the evolutionary development of human consciousness under divine providence. 

In other words - I would regard Beuys as aiming to move from the 'medieval' (Intellectual Soul) world view, to the other-side of modernist meaninglessness and isolation - to arrive at the condition of Barfieldian Final Participation - when Men consciously choose to participate with divine creation in the creation of their own world-view. 

For Beuys to assert and operate on the basis that 'everyone' was an artist, was self-destructive from the point of view of a Professor in an art school - and indeed Beuys was sacked from his position. 

He regarded teaching as by far his most important activity; and went on to found (or develop the concept) of a Free University as providing a forum. But this is oxymoronic, and could not exist without refuting its own premises. 

Beuys's other projects had a similarly paradoxical and self-contradicting nature. He was a founder of the German Green party, but left it when the party began to operate as a party - winning elections, getting power etc.  

He also often asserted Rudolf Steiner's Threefold organization of society; which nowadays operates in a realm of quixotic idealism - and functions mainly as the basis for that kind of radical and open-ended discussion which Beuys so much enjoyed and advocated.

It seems that Beuys was a comprehensive failure at his articulated goals (whether in art, education, environmentalism. politics) - but that this was inevitable and indeed 'part of the plan' - since he was in reality a spiritual philosopher aiming qualitatively beyond current societal possibilities.

In the artistic productions, 'actions', teaching etc; Beuys was trying to 'cast a spell' (which worked only partially, and intermittently - and was heavily dependent on his presence) through which to imagine a personhood and society beyond our totalitarian bureaucratic materialism; and thereby inspire individuals to understand and adopt a Steiner-like understanding of Freedom rooted in primary and creative thinking, and an unorthodox Christianity.  

My impression is that hardly anybody understood what Beuys was doing, despite his repeated explanations - just as hardly anybody understood Steiner, Barfield or Arkle. People had very different metaphysical assumptions and interests, and were mostly trying to get along in society as-it-was; and their bottom line was ideological and pragmatic, rather than spiritual and idealistic. 

Like everybody must; Beuys operated in this mainstream world of ideology and practicality; and of course - like everybody - was prone to lapses, selfishness, vanity etc. - since this mortal life is about learning, not achieving perfection. Among his writings (as with Steiner's) there is a good deal of pretentious nonsense, showing-off, and pandering to the audience. 

There was definite dishonesty - especially in Beuys's claimed life-story relating to his self-propagated legend of having been a Stuka pilot rescued from a crashed plane by Tartar tribesmen, smeared in fat and wrapped in felt for warmth - which so many critics took as the basis for biographical and critical understanding. And the surviving 'works' mostly come across as enervating and miserable. 

Yet there is an underlying, implicit, but directly-knowable energy, seriousness and Goodness about Joseph Beuys; which stands in stark opposition to the evil inversions of the art-world that has perpetuated his memory and legacy. 

Indeed; Beuys's motivational Goodness and Romantic Christianity has become indirectly more evident recently, by high-level critical attacks on the man and his legacy - that derive from the heart of darkness constituted by the propagandists for the mainstream modern establishment. 

These attacks take the usual form of slurs alleging Fascism, racism, colonialist appropriation etc. - typical 'deplatforming' stuff deployed against any person or institution from The Past by evil powers when they detect potential danger from true values.  

My point is that - with the correct assumptions, and a willingness to sift and discern - there is potential value in the work of Joseph Beuys - despite his having been, while he lived, the darling of some of the most ridiculous and pernicious folk on the planet - i.e. the trendy, lefty, commissars of the 'modern art' Establishment.  

When 'spirituality' become merely materialistic - lessons in "defense against the dark arts" from Rudolf Steiner in 1917

One of Rudolf Steiner's deepest prophetic hints was from a series of lectures in late 1917 which were collected and published in 2004 under the title Secret Brotherhoods and the Mystery of the Human Double. 

(All the lectures are also available free on the Rudolf Steiner Archive as GA 178, although these translations are less comprehensible than the 2004 collection.) 

I have been re-reading these remarkable works - as always sifting and reinterpreting Steiner's valid 'raw insights' from the (wrong) metaphysical schema and his frequent errors of overelaboration. 

Steiner's prediction was that through the twentieth century and into the next, the demonic powers, assisted by their human servants (i.e. the 'secret brotherhoods' of the book title - nowadays broadly corresponding to the highest human levels of component institutions of the global totalitarian System) would have the primary strategy of convincing the masses that this is a wholly material world. 

This is the ideology we may call leftism; but which is in essence identical with philosophical materialism/ positivism/ reductionism/ scientism. 

Indeed, so successful has this strategy been, and so dominant and habitual its world-view, that we do not have a generally-accepted name for it! Why name what (nearly-) everybody believes?

The reason behind this materialism project is demonic, in the sense that it is the most effective way of achieving mass damnation. 

In the past, it was necessary to induce Men to reject Christ and choose Hell in an explicit kind of way; but with global materialism Christ, God, creation, and the whole spiritual world are simply regarded as not-real, nonsense; a childish and foolish delusion.

The question of Jesus Christ has not been refuted by materialism, it has instead been rendered incomprehensible, meaningless, absurd! Which is far more effective.  

But the plan of materialism needed to account for Man's perennial seeking for 'spiritual' meaning; for something beyond the mundane - and Steiner perceived that therefore there would need to be ways of rendering and reducing 'the spiritual' to the material. 

So that people who regarded themselves as spiritual would actually conceptualize 'spiritual' in a materialist way - without realizing the fact!

And this is precisely what has happened with the New Age tendency in spirituality; which itself evolved and expanded from roots in 'Eastern' or 'Perennialist' Beat Generation in the 1950s, then 1960s Hippy spiritualties.  

What happens in such 'spiritualities' is that the spiritual is very rapidly 'operationalized' as something material. 

Most obviously there tends to be a focus on this world rather than life beyond death; thi world is seen as the most urgent, the most important, the most real - eventually the only really-real. Therefore, the New Age assimilated to mainstream Leftist political ideologies and projects...

Perhaps the commonest example is when spirituality or consciousness is interpreted as an abstraction therefore not as personal - and using terms from physics; as when New Agers talk - and think! - about spirit in terms of energy, light, vibrations and frequencies. 

Another spiritual reduction is when there is a focus upon Healing - and the bulk of New Age spirituality gravitates towards some model of Healing or Therapy - which is both this-worldly, and rooted in feelings, which are substantially material phenomena since they depend on the body and brain, and can be (to some extent) manipulated and controlled.

Thus we arrive at the typical New Age spirituality - rooted in this world, and in feelings; and spiritual practices (such as meditation) become a type of psychotherapy.  

Ironically, Anthroposophy has itself taken exactly this path into materialism; and (in its institutional manifestations) has consequently become assimilated into mainstream materialistic leftism. This tendency towards abstraction (including physics metaphors) is seem in Steiner's metaphysics, and his explanation of the nature of Christ. 

And the energies of 'Steinerism' became focused on the institution (Anthroposophical Society) rather the individuals; and on the 'applied' materialistic and this-worldly aspects in medicine, education, agriculture etc. 

Furthermore (and Steiner himself had encouraged this) the legacy of Steiner became materialistic - with 'expertise' being understood in terms of comprehensive and accurate scholarship of 'what Steiner said' on this, that and the other - regarded as de facto infallible. 

Therefore, Steiner's greatest 'disciples' - who are all more or less 'heretical' in terms of the materialist orthodox interpretations rooted in 'what Steiner said' - have been largely ignored, rejected or unnoticed - for example Valentine Tomberg (expelled), Owen Barfield (marginalized), or Joseph Beuys (unnoticed). 

Looking back over the past century we can easily see that Steiner was profoundly correct about the way in which materialism has triumphed - explicitly in the realm of public discourse; and implicitly in a great deal of the 'spirituality' of today; which is characterized by abstraction, usage of 'scientistic' vocabulary and concepts, and a focus on 'therapy and 'making this world a better place'.  

What is needed is almost the opposite - and Steiner also said this in these lectures; which is to regard the universe as a creation populated with personal Beings - not abstractions; and therefore true spirituality as consisting in a personal relationship with the many spiritual-Beings - such as God, Jesus Christ, angels, the 'so-called dead', and indeed aspects of other Mortal Men.  

And, on the other side - the side of evil; the capacity to recognize that evil is also personal not abstract; therefore purposive, not accidental. 

From this comes our only genuine defense against the dark arts of evil which is recognition, understanding, and rejection - rejection by means of affiliation with God, which (as of 2022) must come through commitment to following Jesus Christ.  

Note: the term 'defense against the dark arts' is a reference to the Harry Potter series of novels; which I am currently re-reading with pleasure and profit. 

Discerning synchronicity

Synchronicity may be an experience of divine providence. It may be a sign of God's personal intervention in our personal life; and therefore an indication that our live has purpose, hence meaning. 

On the other hand; some synchronicities seem to be meaningless and coincidental, in they seem to make no sense or seem merely trivial - so as to make a mockery of providence: on the lines of: "If God has nothing better to do that that, then what kind of a God is it?"

And apparent synchronicity can be faked (using information gathered through surveillance or 'stalking', for example) and our feelings thereby manipulated; and this can be done by human intervention - or indeed by demonic. 

Indeed; I think it likely that a considerable amount of evil is accomplished by strategic demonic manipulations of a synchronistic type - that are intended to lead to sin committed under the delusion of 'destiny', therefore un-repented sin, thus value-inversion. 

(This seems to have happened frequently among New Age spiritual seekers, - especially with regard to sex.)

So someone who was to regard all synchronicity as evidence of destiny, could be led into evil. 

In other words; synchronicity is not always A Good Thing. 

We need to discern synchronicity in our own lives - since, like most things, it may be motivated by evil; as well as being a potential manifestation of Good. 

We become what we think - for Good and ill; but what is Real thinking?

It was not always thus; but since around the millennium is has become evident that Men become what they think; and Men can choose what they think...

But we cannot think whatever we choose!

It superficially seems that we could think... whatever we wanted! - but this is not the case. In order to think most of the things that Mass men now think; each Man must choose to switch-off awareness of his own real-divine Self and plug-into external thought-control.  

This is why the masses are willingly addicted to the media - because it is the mass media that externally controls each Man's thinking, in the way that he has chosen to allow his thinking to be controlled. 

Consequently, Man has mostly become... whatever the dominant world power currently want him to become...

One who denies his own nature as a Man, his own divine destiny - and who instead chooses to regard himself (a bottom line) as a soul-less animal without free agency; an accidental collection of chemicals doomed at death to eternal and absolute annihilation. 

Or a frenzied and resentful partisan for one or another of the abstract, demonic, leftist projects that drive -forward the agenda of evil.  

The only compensation of Mass Man is from feelings; and feelings are also (and increasingly) controlled by the same external powers - who induce fear and despair or optimism and pleasure; social isolation or purposive-belonging; idealism or pragmatism... according to Their external goals.    

But God desires that we each be actively and consciously responsible for our own thinking. 

If you decide to do this; you will find it hard to break the habit of allowing external control, and to become aware of your Real Self thinking. 

And (far from being able to think whatever we want, and make ourselves whatever we thus think) we become aware that this Real Self is divine, and aligned with God's creative nature and plans. 

Thus we can only think that which is Good - yet that Good must still be chosen if we want Good to eventuate from our thinking.  

(Nothing Good happens automatically or passively; God works his creation by consent and choice.) 

If this inner-awareness of the Real Self Thinking can be attained (albeit briefly and infrequently) you will sooner or later (if alert for it) also become somewhat aware of another external source of guidance - The Holy Ghost. 

This is not something we can control: for instance, it is seldom we can get an answer from the Holy Ghost to any old question we try to put to Him. This is because most questions are meaningless or wrongly-motivated. 

But when a real and well-motivated question is formed - it is answered instantly and effortlessly. We will get the guidance we need, the knowledge we need - and nothing else!

To ask properly is to be answered. It is the asking of a proper question that is so difficult. 

I know of nothing more encouraging and energizing than the sense of range and positive creative value that is intrinsic to thinking from the real self (primary thinking, as I have termed it).  

It is that solid assurance which sustains faith. It is a knowing that dispels doubt. It underpins assurance purpose and meaning in this mortal life. It is of boundless scope, and positively-transformative value. 

Real Thinking, and that understanding which Thinking enables, is the most important thing we can do; and the most necessary - for our-selves and The World. 

Note added: The above discourse sounds as if each individual Man was isolated and alienated - but not so! Primary thinking is also what enables us to 'connect' directly with other Beings in this created universe - consisting-of Beings. Thus we can (to some extent - albeit only as frequently and only for as long as both Beings maintain alignment with God's creative will) experience direct-knowing of other Beings; including (but not restricted to) men and women (as well as the Holy Ghost). 

False and coercive intentions motivating the (Not-)consecration of the Fire Nation

Another thing wrong about the Not-consecration of the Fire Nation is the a consequence of wrong motivations folded-into whatever real Christian impulses may lie behind it. 

The first is the implicit assumption that the Fire Nation Is Not, and Never Has Been, a Christian nation; and therefore needs to be converted by this Papal act. 

I am aware that the term 'consecration' is not a synonym for 'conversion' but that is how it is being talked about - as if Russia is (and always had been) the USSR; and never had been a Christian nation; and that nothing substantive happened in 1989. 

(And as if Western Europe, the USA and Australasia weren't the most atheistic, and anti-Christianly-evil, societies in the history of the world...)  

The second is that an act of consecration of this kind can impose Christian blessing/conversion upon a nation that is simultaneously being officially/ institutionally and by goaded-mass- mobbing - actively despised, dispossessed and demonized like none other in history.

As if 'goodness' could be forced-upon those regarded as evil and unconsenting. This smacks of coercive black magical ritual rather than Christian prayer. 

It is also evidence of an atavistic spiritual sloth; by which the necessary and beneficial challenges of these times - which demand conscious choice of all Men - are being ignored in favour of a passive desire that the fundamental evils of this world be sorted-out and done for us by the actions of external authorities (who we continue to trust with our immortal souls and destinies despite everything). 

And as such; the fake-non-'consecration' reeks of arrogance, condescension, pig-ignorance, demonic-thinking and dishonesty - which is, of course, perfectly aligned with its originating-motivations.

Seductions of the spirit of Antichrist

I’m excited. I’ll be honest, it feels good not to be so cynical. I like being hopeful and feeling like the Church is uniting (other than the German bishops, of course.) It’s pretty rare that I get to write pieces about Pope Francis that are hopeful and joyful. I’m taking my opportunity while I can. I’ll say my morning rosary and then head to Mass. I don’t know if a parish near me is having people gather for the consecration or if I’ll watch it on EWTN. I’ve seen this “Joy of the Faith” guy before being interviewed. He’s my mood today. Upbeat. Almost Ned Flanders-ish. I’m hopeful and prayerful today. I should be like this more.

Thus spake Matthew Archbold talking of his positive emotional response to yesterday's fake-consecration of the Fire Nation . 

MA is author of a worthwhile, well-written, traditional Roman Catholic blog called Creative Minority Report (its title presumably referencing Benedict XVI hope for the RCC rebuilding from a small but faithful and motivated 'Creative Minority')  

I'm sure many readers can recognize and sympathize with the cause of Archbold's apostasy from real Christianity and convergence with The System; but it is seldom we get to see the event expressed so candidly and unaffectedly. 

When a Christian's faith and hope are located externally in a this-worldly institution - including any church; and when all institutions are progressively absorbing-into the evil totalitarian leftist Global System; then we are all (sooner-or-later) brought to a 'moment' when we must choose to go with the institution or stand-apart, and perhaps alone. 

And, we must face it honestly; it 'feels good not to be cynical'! Going with the worldly-flow, after feeling isolated from it, is indeed exciting. Such feelings can even seem 'hopeful and joyful' even though that is an illusion - since joining one's heart to The System is the negation of hope and joy. 

But Men are - with very few exceptions - not built to be solitary; and very few of us can endure psychological isolation for very long. 

We so-very-much want to 'belong' - and when the only option is to belong-with an evil-affiliated institution, then many people will take the evil option - rather than living-with the 'cynicism' of recognizing the world's evil and repenting it. 

I can see that those churches which have been most successful at building communities - for example Mormons in some parts of the world, or evangelical protestants in the mega-churches - have created such a complete 'sub-society' and a strong and sustaining sense of belonging that when the church leadership unmasked back in March 2020, and called upon their flocks to abandon Christ and join the anti-church of the birdemic-peck; so many church members followed. 

Having suddenly lost their church community life, they were desperate to 'unite' around something until it may be restored - and the birdemic was that something.  

Anything was better than than self-exclusion; than being left out in the cold; alone, embittered, cynical. 

For those Christians who 'held-out' for truth and faith during the birdemic years, who maybe even resisted both the blandishments of antiracism in the summer of 2020 and the constant drum-beat of climate-excused economic vandalism and the 'inclusionary' denial of sex and sexuality; this latest anti-crusade against the Fire Nation (of which the pseudo-consecration is a part) came as a very welcome excuse to rejoin the mainstream - again to feel part of something bigger ('the church is uniting'); to feel - after so long a drought - again 'upbeat'. 

This is a measure of what Christians are up-against. It is the spirit of Antichrist - which partially-simulates Christ as a way of turning the heart against Christ. 

Which rewards every step into apostasy; and inverts valuations to make the descent to hell feel almost-like a spiritual ascent: upbeat, hopeful, prayerful, a community... 

...Because, 'at least' in stepping onto the down-escalator we will 'enjoy' plenty of 'good company'; with loads of fun, sexy, and clever casual-friends; guided on our way by all the prestigious institutional leaders of the world - from Popes and Presidents, to CEOs, Generals, Police 'commissioners', Lawyers, Doctors, Scholars, Artists, Writers, Sportsmen, Actors... 

Everybody who is anybody in the world today*...

Therefore it is necessary to recognize the tough reality that when Christians argue for truth against lies, for God against Satan, for Heaven against This-world; we are also arguing (if nothing else changes) for a profound act of psychological isolation - including self-isolation from those institutions such as churches that have been focal and dominant in our lives. 

For most people this is felt as 'way too much to ask' - their personalities are not equipped to stand (almost) alone against The World. 

Too much to ask... unless something equal or better can provide compensation. 

And this is why I have come to believe that traditionalist concepts of Christianity cannot suffice except from a very small minority of heroes of faith; those who have the introverted detachment to survive psychologically despite the permanent misery of having everything they most value in their church taken from them, and turned against them - as the Papacy has been turned against faithful Roman Catholics.

(And the analogous has happened for Protestants and Mormons. And the analogous has happened when medicine was turned against real doctors, professional research against real scientists, the education system against real teachers, and universities against scholars - to give only example from my personal experience. What had once been a sustaining social environment with some significant dedication to high values was, in all instances, subverted and inverted into an Antichrist-parody of its former-self.)   

This is why I have come to believe that Romantic Christianity is our best (and indeed only) viable and effective path forward. 

Why? Mostly because it is what God wants of us (by my understanding). But a sign of this divine destiny is that Romantic Christianity can - by its recognition, nurturing and valuing of the inner-divine, and directly-known-spiritual - compensate and more for the necessary degree of societal isolation that staying a Christian requires of us here-and-now. 

In a sense, every Christian must become a mystic - in frequent and direct 'contact' with the divine and living-conscious world - which is all around and within us as well as in the persons of God and Christ; because otherwise there will be next-to-nothing to 'enjoy' in life. 

But with a mystical apprehension of Christianity, of reality - life (yes, even this mortal life - seen in the context of eternal resurrection) becomes a source of abiding joy and hope; as well as of excitement and adventure. 

This actual world is knowable, experience-able, as a place of High Drama, challenge and victory - Love and Courage. 

And the stakes get higher almost every day...   

Romantic Christianity is a choice, and a conscious choice - that any Christian of any denomination can make. Indeed, it is to encourage exactly this choice that these times are as they are. 

I expect to see traditionalist and church-orientated Christians continue to fall-away from faith in wave after wave; as each new Litmus Test is devised and implemented by Satan and his Establishment minions, in order to seduce them into the very temporary delights of sheer belonging. 

And this Great Apostasy will continue-to-happen until we consciously agree to learn what God is trying so hard to teach us. 

*Note added: The Romantic Christian need not be alone in his quest; however (if he is unfortunate enough to lack a loving family); he will himself need to seek, evaluate, discern and choose his companions for the adventures and tests of mortal life - this will not be done for him by any external institution.

Why was the Marriage at Cana the situation for Jesus's first miracle?

The Fourth Gospel tells us that the Marriage at Cana, changing water into wine, was the first miracle of Jesus; which raises the question of - why then?

By my understanding; Jesus's miracles should primarily be understood as evidence of his primary creative power; that Jesus was divine and shared in God's creative power. 

I also understood Jesus's baptism by John to be the moment when the Holy Spirit descended onto him and stayed; so that Jesus 'knew who he was' and also became divine (i.e. fully and permanently aligned with  God's will)... 

But if that was the whole story, then the question arises: why the 'gap' between the baptism and the first miracle? 

The answer - I now believe - is that it was Jesus's marriage to Mary (Magdalene) at Cana which made possible the miracles. 

The background to this can be found in my theological writings over the past years - and in particular my mini-online-book about the Fourth Gospel. 

There can be found the arguments as to why this is the primary source on Jesus's life and teachings (qualitatively superior to any other source - whether Old testament, Gospel, Epistle, Revelation or otherwise). 

Once this is acknowledged, it may readily be seen that we are clearly being told by the Fourth Gospel that Jesus married Mary at Cana; that 'this Mary' was the same as Lazarus's sister (Mary of Bethany) and Mary Magdalene; and that the resurrected Lazarus was author of the Fourth Gospel - Chapters 1-20 of which were written shortly after the ascension of Jesus (and, presumably, Mary his wife). 

The other necessary understanding is of the nature of God and creation. I understand 'God' to be the dyad of Heavenly Parents - of the prime, divine man and woman; and creation to be the manifestation of their Love. 

Taken together, this implies (although it does not entail) that the divine creativity of Jesus, as shown by his miracles, also required to be completed by a dyadic love between a man and a woman; which was made possible by the eternal/ celestial/ divine marriage of Jesus with Mary.

Until that point - Jesus could not perform miracles of divine creation; and this is why Lazarus took care to inform us in his Gospel that Cana was Jesus's first miracle. 

The Pope's Lady Day consecration

What are serious Christians to make of the intention of the Pope to 'consecrate' the Fire Nation today? - which is Lady Day.

...The day when Catholics celebrate the 'annunciation' (announcement) when the Blessed Virgin Mary is believed to have conceived Jesus (i.e. nine calendar months before Christmas day). 

Is this consecration-business a Good Thing? Or evil? Or is it a trivial distraction?

As usual, nowadays, the discernment is easy; despite that so many seem to fail the test. 

By a Good Thing - we refer to its motivations. We are asking: are the motivations Good? Which translates as: are the motivations towards alignment with God?

And the answer is obviously No. 

But why?

1. Provenance. This supposed consecration comes from one of The Global Establishment centres; from one of their major spokesmen.

2. Motivation. The timing of this consecration is politically-motivated; triggered by the Fire Nation attack last month.

3. Content.

This is the 'prayer' which is asserted to accomplish this consecration. Read it if you can (it is long, sprawling, and very boring). 

Discerning this an of evil intent is child's-play. In form and content it displays the hallmarks of a System-bureaucratic, New World Order - hence Satanic - production. 

Long when it should be short, unfocused when it should be precise, ambiguous where it should be precise, devious when it needs to be plain, studded with ephemeral leftist jargon, ugly when it should be a thing of beauty...

And the overall message is 'peaceifism'.

So, given that it is not intended to achieve any kind of consecration; what is the purpose of this exercise: what is it intended to accomplish? Two things, mainly: 

First the harm of those who pray it. This kind of prayer is ineffectual in terms of its claimed objectives, but participation in this kind of Black Mass inversion of Christian ritual is subversive of salvation. 

And secondly - this is intended to insert a wedge into the Great Schism - driving further apart Roman and Orthodox Catholics: to set Christian against Christian. 

This Catholic-versus-Catholic strategy has already proceeded rapidly over the past month (driven by the converged Roman Magisterium). 'Fire Nation attack' has quickly emerged as yet another Litmus Test of Christians, especially traditional Roman Catholics, leading (apparently) many into taking sides with the 100% Satanic-evil Globalists and wildly-demonizing the less-evil (less value-inverted and significantly more Christian) Fire Nation. 

 

So the pseudo-Christian, actually evil-motivated, 'consecration' today is not a trivial distraction but an invitation to participate in a corrupt inversion of Truth. 

The 'prayer' encourages converged-churchianism rather than Christianity; apostasy rather than conversion; and the peaceifism of allegiance to the inverted-value totalitarian system of the Western Establishment - and desire that it defeat and annihilate the Fire Nation qua nation.  

Of course it does! Consider who produced it and what it says - and doesn't?

This discernment is not difficult; but it is a Test - sorting-out the real Christians among Roman Catholics from those whose allegiance is merely to the current leadership of a (now) this-worldly and evil-allied global/ist institution. 

(And these Tests will just keep on coming. Be prepared and stay alert.)

Face facts!

A good face - JRR Tolkien

It is significant that leftism has, since the 1960s, been very keen to propagate the lie that you cannot tell anything about a person from how he or she looks.

The opposite is the truth of it - although the inferences are far from perfect; which is how the likes of con-men, gold-diggers and actors in general can succeed in public life. 

But even with skilled dissemblers and the misleading appearances; the deception is often superficial - and prolonged acquaintance in a range of situations will often reveal the nasty truth behind the appealing mask: and then it cannot be un-seen.  

I have posted before on the faces of Christian leaders, and Francis Berger recently did so for Health Ministers - albeit photographs are much more controlled and selected - hence less easy to interpret - than Real Life. 

Nonetheless, a pattern is clear. 

But it is clearly valid discernment more difficult now than ever before; and this is due to at least three levels of problem. 

One is a sustained campaign that 'appearances are deceptive' - which serves to shield obviously nasty-looking and evil people; to the extent that the more in-your-face nasty that they look, the more likely it is that they will be promoted as paragons of Good.  

Another is that the public realm is populated almost-entirely by nasty and evil-motivated people. We are unconsciously seeking-out Good people - and have an assumption that there 'must be' some of them; but there aren't. Therefore, discernment is merely between different kinds of nasty - and all that is being accomplished is sorting between attractive nasty, bland nasty, and unattractive nasty.  

And finally - most crucially - the atheism of modern culture and people means that most people have altogether lost the ability to discern evil - because they unconsciously and habitually operate on the basis of a leftist 'morality' which is oppositional, labile, relativistic, and rooted in vague utilitarianism. 

To recognize evil, from whatever data, one must first know Good - and to know Good entails belief in a reality created by a good and personal God.  

Lasting memories of Harold Hare's Garden Party

A favourite book when a young child was Harold Hare's Garden Party - long lost, and which I had not seen for more than fifty years until a found a few images on a (now defunct) website. 

I can immediately see why the this made such a lasting impression on me, because the illustrations are marvelous; containing just that kind of humorous and fascinating background detail that brings a child back to the book again-and-again. 

This kind of illustration is the child's equivalent to the seriousness and self-consistency of 'world building' that some adults enjoy and appreciate among the best High Fantasy writers.

 

"Overwhelmed" by 'science'? But there was never much Real science, and now there is None

For someone who is honest and well-motivated it is often easy to discover that very-nearly all of self-styled science is fraudulent. 

'Science' 2022 is analogous to the proverbial house (or grandiose mansion, in this case) built on foundations of quicksand. Consequently, it does not matter how intricate, elaborate, or carefully-crafted the building may be, when its foundations are non-existent. 

In terms of science; this translates to meaning that when the foundational assumptions are false or absent; everything that derives from these foundations is wrong...

(Because there are a boundless number of ways of being wrong - but only one Truth; so if you are not even aiming for Truth, you will Not find it.)  

This is how anybody can know that the climate or birdemic/ peck stuff is not just incompetent and fake science - it is not science At All. 

The fact that the simplest and most basic foundations of these vast structures of words and numbers are non-existent, and the fact that there is not even an attempt to identify and remedy this situation - tells you literally everything you need to know. 

What puts people off is the distraction of truly colossal quantities of 'research' that are completely irrelevant - firstly because nobody involved is even attempting to discover or speak the Truth; and secondly because the foundations are quicksand - so even-if the research was honest and competent (which it isn't), it is still literally meaning-less.

The proportion of such meaningless and dishonest research is 100% in many branches of science, and research more generally. And even in areas where some valid research is still conducted; it constitutes a such very small proportion that it becomes functionally-irrelevant. 

This makes it - as one example - impossible honestly and competently to teach science at a high level; because the closer one gets to current research, the more must be discarded. It is regarded as intrinsically unacceptable to teach honestly, when that would entail ignoring/ excluding all (or almost all) published research on the topic for (say...) the past 40 years. 

Yet the fact is that professional science has been destroyed by corruption to such as extent that the whole business is long-since unfit-for-purpose - when that purpose is genuinely Truthful understanding of real-reality.  

And what is true for 'science' is also true for every other branch of systematic discourse. All are corrupted beyond usage - if one is judging usage in terms of the functionality that (50-100 years ago) would have been taken-for-granted. 

(Of course, the real and aimed-at usage of 'science' 2022 and all other public and high-status discourses; is ideological and propagandistic.)

Law, economics, social sciences, the humanities are all broken, incoherent, functionally-useless - and the few remaining somewhat-functional discourses, such as some branches of engineering, are ever-more-rapidly being destroyed by subversion on multiple fronts...

And that destruction being covered up - or presented as progress - by bureaucracies and the media. 

Therefore, this is Not a self-correcting cultural pendulum-swing. So long as the decline in cultural functionality is not just ignored and denied, but instead celebrated by the criteria of invert-valuation ideologies, so long will dysfunctionality accelerate towards irreversible global civilizational collapse... 

A collapse which is actively desired by many including nearly all of those with power to cause it; and also many of those who are the intended victims. 

In such a situation it is facile but ineffectual - and wasteful of our finite attention and effort - to critique what calls-itself science. It is All Wrong - since even when 'factually correct' - it will be interpreted and/or applied wrongly. 

Best forget 'science'; and focus on more important - because eternal - things.  

Soprano saxophone transcription of Bach's A-minor violin concerto - live

 

This is a tremendously enjoyable live performance of the first movement from one of Bach's concerto's for solo violin; transcribed for soprano saxophone with with piano (instead of orchestral) accompaniment. 

The soprano sax is a truly delightful instrument - the same length as a Bb clarinet - which sounds more like an oboe than the lower-pitched saxophones, and is notoriously difficult to play in tune (the player must correct for the instrument's intrinsically unevenly spaces notes with varied pressure from his lips). 

Here, there are several extremely long passages of rapidly changing notes, during which I don't think Andre Tsirlin has time to breathe; yet he continues to play. I think (from the sounds) he is probably using 'circular breathing'; whereby the cheeks are puffed out as a reservoir and breaths are taken through the nose to top-up the reservoir; while a constant pressure of air is emitted through the lips. 

This, in a simpler fashion, is how a didgeridoo is sustained, and works on the same principles as the bagpipe.

Anyway, it all adds to the excitement of this live performance, which nonetheless manages to be very musically phrased and shaped. 

Science has always just assumed, thereby ignoring, metaphysics

When science 'got going' from the 17th century, it simply operated on the basis of the metaphysical assumptions of the Western European societies within which it grew - therefore science was rooted in Christianity. 

In particular, science was rooted in that distinctively-Christian ethical concern with Truth - which science took as its primary morality. 

Thus the morality was that science should be done by those who sought Truth, and who always communicated Truthfully. 

If asked why Truth ought to be honoured; the discourse immediately moved outwith science, and into the higher and deeper assumptions within-which science operated: that is Christianity. 

In other words; science could never answer "why science must be Truthful"; because the Truthfulness upon-which science depends was not a part of science. 

The Truth imperative was an aspect of the metaphysical assumptions that science derived from its original 'host societies' of Christian Western Europe.  

The problem was that the metaphysical - Truth-valuing - assumptions necessary to science were unconscious, habitual - in a sense taken for granted. 

Science was rooted in Christian metaphysics - but science progressively ceased to be aware of the fact...

This led to an error; which was to believe that science was autonomous. 

To believe falsely that science had superseded metaphysics; did not need assumptions, but was instead wholly based-on 'evidence'. 

(Neglecting that what counts as 'evidence', and the meaning of 'evidence' are dictated by assumptions!) 

To believe falsely that the success of science in understanding, predicting and controlling the natural world had demonstrated that there was 'no need' for metaphysical assumptions (which were regarded as nonsensical, manipulative, or even meaningless). 

In particular, science was asserted to have no need for Christianity; and eventually Christianity was seen as opposing, harming, destructive-of science!

Meanwhile, for several reasons, Christianity began to fade from Western European societies, and with it the Truth imperative that had underpinned the success of science. 

Through the twentieth century science became at first indifferent, then hostile, to Christianity - and scientists were no longer brought up to believe that Truth was a transcendental reality and a moral imperative.

Consequently, other imperatives emerged to regulate scientific practice... 

At the end of this process, science had ceased to be science. 

The activities of 'scientists' were pretty much the same kind of thing as in the past - observations, experiments, analyses etc. - but the activities were no longer directed and underpinned by Truth.  

What resulted is the modern institution that calls-itself science; but which has become merely a generic bureaucracy - motivated and regulated by the expediencies of modern society - politics, profits, status-seeking, careers, fame etc. 

Instead of seeking and speaking Truth; modern 'science' serves and is motivated-by... whatever happen to be the dominant secular goals; which have been ever-increasingly to do with the demands of leftist and totalitarian politics. 

Thus, having dispensed with truth; 'science' (like all other social institutions: religion, law, corporations, education, health  services, police, military etc.) now does... whatever the most powerful and wealthy institutions require of it. 

Science in 2022 is not a means to the end of Truth; but a means to satisfy the requirements of those who fund and regulate science... Expediency, not Reality, is the bottom-line.  

The only way out from this impasse is via metaphysics - that is by discerning and critiquing the most fundamental assumptions regarding the nature of Reality. Science must understand, acknowledge, and critique its own underpinning assumptions - those 'within-which' science actually operates. 

Unless science's ultimate assumptions value Truth as an absolute ideal; then there will continue to be no real science, but only fake 'science', in the world of public discourse.

Note: For more on this subject, see my book Not Even Trying.

Not polarization but two separate realities

Society is not 'becoming increasingly polarized' - what we are witnessing is far deeper, and amounts to two separate and rapidly diverging realities between-which most people have already-chosen; and over time the few remaining 'undecided' are being compelled to choose. 

These two realities are the mainstream, global, secular-left, official-public-media Virtuality; and the reality rooted in God. 

By now, these two realities hardly overlap at the level of public discourse, and are getting to be more-and-more opposed - which is natural and inevitable in that the Virtuality is based upon systematic value-inversion of the God-derived system.  

An important point to recognize is that the choice of realities really is a choice - because neither can disprove the other, and either can be sustained as true, after one has made the choice - and entered-into System-reality or Religious-reality. 

This is (briefly) because - increasingly over the past centuries, and especially since around the millennium - each Man co-creates his reality by means of the fundamental (metaphysical) concepts he assumes. 

'Facts' are neutral, indeed meaningless; so that it is our concepts (our religion or ideology) that make our world. 

This was not always the case; because in the past Men did not choose, but unconsciously and habitually used the concepts they had been raised-in. The 'common sense' of all Men was therefore very similar, and all religions had taken-for-granted broad similarities behind their detailed differences.

But now - this is not the case. 

Men can and do choose to believe anything or nothing; according to their allegiance to one of the two realities. 

To put it another way; the two camps divide upon whether they believe or reject the Virtuality: The System. 

Now, it is 'theoretically' possible for someone to reject The System without adopting a System based on God; but in practice this is happening less and less. In practice, it seems that the only sufficiently-powerful motivation to reject the Virtuality is God. 

And, for The West - sufficiently-powerful faith in God means (again in practice) Christianity. 

This seems to apply to a large majority of the population. By far the largest group accept the Virtuality; and believe and live by... whatever the Virtuality is currently telling them. 

The largest group who reject the Virtuality are those who have God at the centre of their beliefs. 

But there are a few still remaining who are neither wholly one nor the other; and what we have seen over the past couple of years is wave-after-wave of mass-propaganda - each of which sorts these 'stragglers' one way, or the other. 

So we have the leftist or liberal-sympathetic Christians - who, if they continue to put their faith in The System (even in one single respect - such as a Litmus Test issue of birdemic, climate, antiracism, sexuality or the Fire Nation) are getting sorted-into the Virtuality. 

And on the other side, there are a few 'secular Right' and not-Christian religious who - if they continue to reject The System, are getting sorted-into the reality of theism, then Christianity. 

At some point, almost everybody will either be whole-hearted believers in The System ideology (because whole-heartedness is mandatory); or else genuine Christians.

They will choose one or another reality - and those realties will continue to diverge; because the Virtuality is rooted in opposition to God.  

And once the choice is made; complexities and confusion falls-away, and everything becomes easy!  

(Living life does not become easy: of course not! But sustaining belief in one's reality becomes easy. Thus it has probably never been easier for a committed Christian to discern and reject evil than it is now. Therefore, those self-identified Christians who fail in discernment are - simply - revealed as having-been Not Really Christian.) 

The Fire Nation Litmus Test: Negativism and the Mass Media revisited

From the Introduction to Avatar: The Last Airbender: "Water, Earth, Fire, Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked."

A decade ago I suggested that negativism was the proper attitude towards the Mass Media when it came to the major 'stories' - and this just becomes truer and truer, by the month. 

The idea of negativism is that it is not sufficient to 'disbelieve' the Mass Media - because nature abhors a vacuum, and one must believe something.

The idea of negativism is based upon the following:

The major output of the modern international Mass Media is always value-inverted by intent; and consists of only four categories:

1. Good presented as bad 

2. Bad presented as Good 

(That is to say simple inversion) 

3. Good presented as Good for a bad reason 

4. Bad presented as bad for a bad reason 

(That is to say explanatory inversion)

Therefore, while the entire Western global and public world is God-excluding and therefore evil; we can be sure that anything actively promoted by the Mass Media will be a greater-evil; and anything opposed that is systematically ignored, demonized or suppressed will be a lesser-evil. 

This becomes more obvious as the Mass Media becomes more unified, and as it excludes dissenting views more effectively and aggressively. 

From two years ago; there was an international totalitarian coup by means of which the global Mass Media achieved an unprecedented uniformity and censorship with respect to the fake-emergency of the birdemic - this time propagandizing the inversion of a monomaniacal view of healthism. 

(Totalitarianism - capture and coordination of all major social systems - was necessary to give the media extra dimensions of physical enforcement; such as the many types of deplatforming, defunding, exclusion from services; as well as legal and police compulsion and sactions based on catch-all/ selectively-enforced concepts such as 'hate crime', 'workplace hostility', 'terrorism' and other deliberately-vague 'isms'/ 'hates'/ 'phobias'.)

This uniformity and aggression has since been ramped-up by stages to include all the core Global Establishment policies and strategies while ignoring the fact of the international totalitarian coup and systematic destruction of the world economy and civilization.

We had extra waves of control implemented successfully for the 'MLB' antiracism scam, then the birdemic-peck fake, and continual ramping-up of narrative-control with respect to climate and the transagenda (and the decade's long sexual revolution which it currently spearheads).      

 

We can see the results from a few weeks ago after everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.  

There has never been anything to approach the degree of uniformity and extremity of propaganda that was mobilized by the global totalitarian system immediately after the Fire Nation attacked. 

The Mass Media now completely eclipses what happened with the birdemic - if you can cast you mind back across those two long years. At the time the international coordination of Media was obvious and unprecedented; but it was measured, gradual and diverse compared with what happened when the Fire Nation attacked on 24/2. 

With our experience of wave after wave of propaganda for evil over the past two years; one might have supposed that this astonishing rapidity, uniformity and extremity of the Mass Media response to the Fire Nation would have made it very obvious which was the greater, and which the lesser, evil.

And maybe that is exactly what it did...

Maybe this new Fire Nation Litmus Test is just that; I mean, not of-itself a cause of transferring Men's allegiance from God to the demonic; but instead simply a 'test' or indicator that reveals the truth about each Man. 

Because anyone who knows that the world is ruled by evil Men in league with Satan (and if they don't recognize this fact by-now, then no proof will ever be sufficient) - who then sees in the Mass Media all of these evil Men (without exception) advocating a particular narrative - then knows that that view, that agenda must itself be evil by motivation. And more evil than the views which they oppose, suppress, demonize and punish (in a characteristically demonic frenzy - without limit or restraint). 

Therefore we should not strive for neutrality - which is, anyway, impossible; but may quickly and simply make a choice to reject the greater evil. And indifference may also be impossible; in face of a expansile totalitarian (thus pan-social-system) campaign to make this Litmus Test issue unavoidable in public discourse and life.  

But we should not, in our hearts, lose our grip upon what is, in fact, a facile discrimination.   

That does Not mean that we ought to support the lesser evil; because that too is a demonic snare. Yet it does mean being clear about the greater and lesser evils; which is part of avoiding getting sucked-into value-inversion - which is a primary tool of Christian subversion and mass damnation. 

Resurrection - Love versus Resentment, and the role of Forgiveness

What of us gets resurrected? 

The answer, I think, is essentially 'that of us which is love'. 

In other words, a person who has led a loving life will have plenty to resurrect (plenty from-which to re-create his immortal self); and by contrast, someone who is incapable of love, or has rejected it - cannot be resurrected, because there is nothing to resurrect. 

The 'opposite' of love - that sin which is most opposed to the essential-master virtue of love - seems to be 'resentment' (which is more usually called 'pride' - but I think resentment captures the essence better). 

Resentment cannot be carried into Heaven - so by repentance we must consent to its being stripped-away in the process of resurrection. 

But this means that every aspect of us which is dominated by resentment will be (must be) removed before we can enter Heaven. A Man who has, though his life, built up a mass of personal resentments, will therefore lose a great deal of himself in salvation. 

Hence the vital importance of forgiveness; because if we hold-onto a resentment directed against someone or some-institution; we are maiming our-selves now, and maiming the potential of our resurrected selves. 

But if we choose to discard this resentment (if we 'forgive') then there is more of us that can be resurrected - we will be a larger person after resurrection. 

Thus - the positive benefit from forgiveness is actually for the forgiver, not the forgiven. 

One who nurses his resentment (a 'resenter') is often operating under the spite-full (and demonic) belief (or fantasy) that his sustaining of resentment harms its subject - which harm he desires; and therefore he refuses to forgive. 

But at the worst extreme, the 'resenter' realizes that he cannot harm the subject of his resentment (either because they are in Heaven, or are no-more); and then a refusal to forgive becomes wholly negative, and necessarily spiritually self-harming. 

This is why resentment (or 'pride') is often regarded as the worst of all sins, and why it can be understood as the opposite of the Christian injunction to love. 

When indulged, when forgiveness is rejected; resentment can become the core of self-identity to the point where damnation is chosen.

Such is the situation of Satan; and such the incipient situation of those many Men for whom a resentment (and their own commensurate 'victim status') has been made their core value. 

What kind of difference to Life, is made by becoming a Christian?

Nowadays, most people are nowhere near being a Christian - because they do not even believe in 'deity', let alone a personal creator God, let alone Jesus Christ... 

So for people such as myself, becoming a Christian is part of a very big 'package' of beliefs; which amounts to such a profound reorientation that it took years to 'work through' my life, even to a moderate degree. 

Rudolf Steiner insightfully distinguished between dis-belief in God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost - emphasizing that atheism is a literal pathology - a profound spiritual sickness. Steiner is, I am sure, absolutely correct - and this is the primary explanation for the insane and unrepentant species of inverted-evil that plagues our world now. 

Just as one example: if we do not recognize that we dwell in A Creation - therefore a universe with purpose, meaning, and personal relevance; then we will be have no core or coherence to our belief and life. We shall be adrift, and probably oscillate between hedonism-to-forget, and despair-when-we-remember. 

Steiner said that to believe in God but not Christ, was a calamity. To believe in God and Christ but not the Holy Ghost was to live disorientated and dulled in a fog of incomprehension. 

But since the time of Steiner - at least in The West, but I suspect everywhere - to believe in God, one must be a Christian; and to be a Christian one must believe in the Holy Ghost - i.e. (by my understanding) must have a lively, active, interactive, direct personal relationship with Jesus via The Holy Ghost. 

(In other words, we must now actively believe in all three of God/ Christ/ Holy Ghost - and the partial forms of the past have become impossible. This includes that Christianity is the only Possible religion for now, in The West.)

And I believe that the nature of genuinely-Christian changes to the life of a Christian convert need to begin with this kind of deeply-rooted reorientation, and well-up into the specifics of what we do. 

Arising bottom-up and from inside-out - not vice versa.  

In other words; as of 2022 - we don't become a Christian by following a rulebook or recipe, or changing our lives. 

We might - like a devout monk - spend every hour, 24/7, following a strict Rule, engaged in prayer, meditation, worship, study, confession, fasting etc. - and (as of 2022) not progress a single micrometer towards being a real Christian. 

What once was effectual, is effective no longer. 

(As is, or should be, evident from the way such persons have actively allied themselves with work on the side of Satan - the totalitarian evil rulers of This World.) 

These things may be good from some people to do from grounds of expediency, and 'psychologically' to break free from evil influences and habits...

But the Real Thing (at the level of the soul) needs to come from some combination of solid and confident faith in the hope of resurrected life eternal (i.e. the decision to follow Jesus to Heaven after mortal death)...

And the guidance of knowledge of 'what to do' which can be conceptualized as a consequence of our direct and personal relationship with the Holy Ghost. 

The Christian life has become very simple, but that simplicity constitutes its great difficulty. And the simple make take a long time to work-through the confusion, complexity, and burgeoning chaos of Life Now. 

Mortal life as a high stakes gamble - a suggested explanation for our 'entropic world'

This mortal life is a high-stakes gamble because we live in an entropic world - a world dominated by the tendency for destructive change, disease, decay, corruption and eventual death. 

This is the world that our loving-parent God has created for us; and we must therefore assume that it is the best kind of world for His creative purposes and for our own individual ultimate benefit. 

In the first place we need to understand that this mortal world is for our learning - our life is a kind of spiritual school. But why should this school be entropic?  

The potential hazards of life in this mortal world are obvious - pain and misery in the short term, and damnation in the long term. 

This means that the potential benefits of our lives must be even larger, great enough to outweigh the hazards (because the creator loves us, individually). 

What is the advantage of entropy? 

Entropy is the innate tendency towards destruction - and, in a broad sense; one advantage of this mortal life is that of discarding what is evil in us. 

This is a conceptualization of repentance. By repenting sin, we 'leave it behind' when we are resurrected to eternal life. 

Thus, our eternal selves will be free from sin, and fitted to live in Heaven while being free agents. Because our free choices will then always be Good: always aligned with God's will. 

And this, in turn, means that we can be trusted with divine powers of creation, can our-selves become Sons of God and co-creators with God - adding to already-existing creation from our own unique (and sin-purged) selves. 

Anyone can enter Heaven who - by repentance - consents to having his sins purged, stripped-away; but the more sins, the more will be stripped away. 

Therefore, one of the hazards of mortal life is that we will become so sinful that, when it comes to resurrection, there will not be much left of us that is Good, and fit for Heaven. 

This does not bar anyone from Heaven - because the power of repentance is unbounded, and anyone who follows Jesus Christ can be resurrected; but the Man who has led a deeply evil life before final repentance will be a lesser Man after resurrection than would otherwise have been the case. 

This leads to one of the aims of the Devil. 

His primary aim is that Men should choose damnation and reject Heaven; but even among the saved, the Devil (and his demonic and evil-human henchmen) gets secondary satisfaction from corrupting Men: that is, from encouraging sins that will reduce and impair the resurrected Man; and thereby diminish what might-have-been as resurrected Men enter Heaven.

(This corruption of individual Men does not make Heaven less-good - because Heaven is wholly Good, nothing evil is there. But it does diminish the stature of those resurrected Men who enter Heaven.) 

So, this is a way of conceptualizing theosis - the process of becoming more divine in human life - because (to put it crudely) the more divine and less sinful we are in mortal life, the more of us there will be to resurrect and live eternally.  

So, the plus-side of this entropic mortal world is that we can leave-behind sin; and this is necessary to salvation. The negative-side is that we may fall so far into sin that we either reject salvation (are damned); or by the end of our lives have very little left that is Good, so that even if we accept salvation - we will need to repent so many and bad sins, that we start-out as lesser Men when we resurrect. 

So what of Heaven, which is a world of creation and without entropy? 

In Heaven all is retained, life is cumulative. 

Whereas in earthly life we change (partly) by leaving-behind; in Heaven we change by adding-to. 

In mortal and entropic life; Men may transform radically, by deletions; in Heaven resurrected Men transform only by additions.  

This scheme may help explain why this mortal life is entropic in its nature; and how such a hazardous life is nonetheless necessary and potentially useful, as a transitional experience between pre- and post-mortal existence, before a soul proceeds to the creative world of Heaven. 

It also helps us to understand our own role in this life; and how our choices during mortality make a permanent difference to our potential after resurrection.  

The channeling phenomenon of the twentieth century

Throughout the twentieth century orientated towards the millennium, and spilling over somewhat up until the 2012 'delayed millennium', there was a significant sub-culture of 'channeling' among spiritual-but-not-religious people - those who from the 1980s were gathered under the New Age label. 

The phenomenon was essentially a development of the spiritualist mediums from the 19th century; but instead of focusing on contact with the deceased on behalf of their surviving spouses and relative, the mediums of channeling purported to be contacting what might be termed 'spiritual teachers'. 

These channeled-teachers were of a wide range; from God and Jesus Christ, through angels, down to 'ascended Masters', prophets, and famous people of the past - or sometimes named, but imperfectly identified, spiritual authorities. Others were quoting from spiritually perceived sources (e.g. "The Akashic Records").   

I would regard Madame Blavatsky (Theosophy - late 19th century) then Rudolf Steiner (from about 1900 - Theosophy, then Anthroposophy) as probably the major precursors and originators of New Age style channelers. Steiner, in particular, exemplifies both the possibilities and pitfalls of the business. 

I have been investigating the literature on channeling for about 8 years - since I became engaged with the work of William Arkle and the circles he moved in. In his later years, Arkle took a serious interest in several of the channeled books which came out from the early twentieth century, and which were especially abundant in the 1980s and 1990s (Arkle died in 2000). 

Since I respect Arkle, and have learned so much from him, I thought this phenomenon was worth a look; even though Arkle's best work (in my opinion) comes from the period before his late-life engagement with the New Age and channeling.  

I got-hold-of - or took a serious look-at - all the books Arkle mentioned; including his particular favourite from 1931, an anonymous production called The Book of El Daoud, the Father-King, Which is the Gospel of Simplicity given unto his own. 

Others books included a series from 'Lord Mikaal' (i.e. St Michael) including Winds of Truth (from 1950s onward); The Only Planet of Choice from Phyllis V Schlemmer; MAPP to Aquarius by Nada Yolanda; Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsh - still ongoing. 

I also listened-to/ watched some famous channelers in audio or video.    

To keep matters brief; I was overall very much un-interested and un-impressed by the authority and accuracy of channeling; as a way of gathering objective spiritual information for the benefit of Mankind.

There were - of course - some bits and pieces of what seemed like valid and helpful perspectives, usually of a very general (indeed obvious) nature. And there was also some indication that the process may have been somewhat helpful to some of the people involved - at first. 

But overall, teaching-channeling seemed like a net-harmful activity - especially over the longer term, and the prophecies - especially relating to the millennium - were wrong both in general and in detail. 

In particular; in the 1980s-90s; it apparently became normal in New Age circles to expect a millennial raising of human consciousness - often described as a raising of vibrations or frequency - which would raise-up the entirely of mankind; or at least those would would accept it. 

The process was primarily something done-to (rather than done-by) humans - it involved varying degrees of eagerness or acquiescence - but was envisaged as an external intervention (sometimes from extra-terrestrials, who - in this kind of scheme - took on many of the traditional qualities of angels). 

Included was a general idea of the expectation increased 'spiritual help' such as paranormal activity (or awareness of paranormal events) such as UFOs, Crop Circles, channeling itself, synchronicities etc. 

And also an increased presence-of (and contact-with) helpful spiritual beings of various kinds including ETs, angels, Masters; and the birth of a new generation of especially spiritual children (sometimes called 'indigo' children - or some other colours). At its most mainstream - in 2008; plenty of people believed that Barack Obama was an elevated spiritual guide called a Light Worker - who would lead the world into the New Age. 

In the event; none of this stuff happened but the opposite. Especially after the deferred millennium of 2012 (supposedly the end of the Mayan calendar and a new astrological cycle.  

The New Age dwindled, and Men got much less spiritual and more materialistic, this-worldly and nihilistic. 

And (especially since social media) the masses have handed-over their minds to the Global Establishment, rather than to spiritual authorities. 

So - is channeling completely bogus? No - because I know of at least one valid example; which is William Wildblood's experiences, described especially in his book Meeting the Masters. 

A comparison with the mainstream New channeling shows why. Wildblood's experiences were personal and private, and not revealed until log afterwards. The teachings were personally directed - tailored to the young Wildblood's needs and development. The teachings were also relatively low volume, and simple.   

This contrasts with the (more or less) famous channelers - who address 'the world', make everything public ASAP; and generate a large amount of highly detailed 'information' on... every subject under the sun! There is also a strong flavour of pandering to the audience about these messages - they say what will play well with the kind of soft-leftists who make-up nearly all of the New Agers. 

Furthermore, the New Age channelers/ mediums (or their sponsors) adopt a 'careerist' moeny/ status. publicity-seeking stance - and some of them also espouse and practice sexual 'liberation'/ promiscuity/ revolution.  

In conclusion; I regard channeling as probably a real thing, a kind of spiritual experience, that happened to some people in the 20th/ early 21st century; and was probably related to that particular phase in the development of human consciousness. 

But it was meant to be a personal and private type of communication and intended to be understood in a Christian context. 

Channeling was Not a kind of objective information, nor a quasi-scientific form of 'knowledge'; understandable, learnable and applicable for adoption by 'the world'. 

To return to Steiner; in his early years, and intermittently thereafter; Steiner made major contributions to understanding our situation in the world. 

But in becoming a professional, addressing 'the world', building a movement, and channeling a vast body of quasi-objective Spiritual Science (which has since been learned and - mostly - applied like cook-book recipes by his followers); Steiner became mostly (but never wholly) a producer of pseudo-knowledge - as did the later channelers. 

(Indeed; a great deal of Steiner's purported Anthroposophical cosmology, history and prophecy comes from Blavatsky's Theosophy, or is modified ad re-shaped from her - naturally, as Steiner was an official Theosophical leader for many years.) 

William Arkle - on the other hand - never seemed to go all this way. 

He was apparently misled, by the consensus of channelers, into a false spiritual optimism - and his hard prediction of a massive enhancement of human spiritual consciousness around the millennium did not happen. 

But his reading and understanding of channeled sources was so selective and idiosyncratic, that mostly it functioned as a confirmation of ideas he had already arrived-at himself - from personal and private intuition/ direct-knowing. He kept his 'teaching' simple, stuck closely to what he had tested and affirmed; and therefore it was largely valid.  

In a nutshell; I think the main value of the channeling phenomenon - as evidence by William Wildblood, was insofar as it was a direct and experiential confirmation of the reality of the spiritual. 

By experiencing genuine channeling either at first or secondhand; some people were lastingly convinced that there was more to the world than the material.  

Thus, true-channeling is probably more a matter of form than content; therefore it is best regarded as properly a transitional spiritual phase, or step towards Romantic Christianity. 

Review of the recent Andy Serkis Tolkien audiobooks (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - both unabridged)

I review the recent Andy Serkis narration of Tolkien audiobooks - The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - over at The Notion Club Papers blog; making a comparison with the thirty-year-old Rob Inglis versions.

Which kind of evil is worse?

I have often posted on the progression of evil from Luciferic - traditional selfish evil; through Ahrimanic - bureaucratic evil; to Sorathic - chaotic evil. 

(For those who know The Lord of the Rings, the sequence can be seen going through to completion with de facto suicide in the character of Saruman.)  

That part of the world known as The West is well advanced in Ahrimanic evil, with its establishment of a System of omni-surveillance and micro-control in service of value-inversion. 

But, because the mass of the population are Godless (even when they self-identify as Christian) this mature, advanced, more-evil type of evil has remained all-but invisible, undetectable - indeed its reality is denied and it is instead asserted as Good (due to the value-inversion made possible by anti-Christian atheism).  

The progressed evil of Ahriman works by a pretense of being and doing Good, concealed by that pseudo-concern and feigned-niceness, empathy and compassion; which is all-but universal among public figures. 

Because so many (especially of the managerial and 'expert' classes) are assimilated to this way of thinking - gross evils have become undetectable, denied or even boasted of and propagated. 

A clear example is the brain-washing, poisoning, mutilation, sexual grooming, and trafficking of children - that goes on under the 'caring' label of the transagenda. And those who dissent from such historically-unprecedented systemic vileness are themselves labelled as evil!

Meanwhile, the Western masses are trained to recognize only Luciferic evil, mostly using the single dishonestly-selective and -projected, dishonestly-honed and -crafted, example of the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany - the consequence of which means that Nazis are detected and opposed everywhere among enemies of The System - except (apparently) where they actually exist! 

Thus the evils of The West are invisible to The Western populace, hence increasing without limit because they are regarded as good; whereas the more 'blatantly' Luciferic parts of the world, who are actually less advanced in evil - still retain some significant ability to detect and acknowledge evil (and thus a greater possibility of self-limitation or even repentance). 

This makes The West the most evil part of the world. 

Which is why the most advanced, chaotic, Sorathic type of evil is currently making its greatest strides in The West. 

Christians who are primarily loyal to their churches are being assimilated into The (Satanic) System

A Christian cannot for long stay a Christian nowadays; if he regards loyalty/ obedience to his church as primary. 

In a world where The System is evil in motivation and net-activity, anyone whose primary loyalty is to any institution will be vulnerable to being drawn to support The System - whenever their institution is threatened. 

And anyone who is drawn to support The System cannot for long be Christian; because The System serves Satan. 

 

And this conflict between Christ and Church will happen, is happening, as often as the powers of evil can contrive it. 

For instance; it seems apparent than many devout traditionalists Christians have chosen to support The System over the past few weeks; apparently because they perceive an existential threat to their church. 

But the fact is that The System can contrive events such that any church can be acutely threatened at almost any time; and indeed all churches, because they are institutions, are dependent on The System for their survival and sustaining. 

Churches are linked by many ties with The System bureaucracies and mass media - economics, finance, laws (employment law, workplace regulation, laws to do with buildings and utilities etc), with educational provision and may other links. 

Any church can therefore (in principle - if 'necessary) be subjected to a coordinated international official-media destructive hate-fest of lies, misinformation, fake news, hostile propaganda and PSYOPS such as we have seen for the birdemic-peck, antiracism, climate and the current Oceana-Eurasia frenzy. 

Whether at this extreme, or by a more attritional process; sooner or later, every serious Christian church has-been or will-be faced by an immediate threat to its survival - unless it complies with one or another (eventually all) of the priorities of The System. 

The church will then either orientate to The System, or acutely be destroyed as an institution. 

In other words; all that is worldly about churches will be assimilated or destroyed, along with those adherents who are loyal to it; and only that which is 'not of this world' will remain Christian. 

The adherents of that church will then face the choice between God and Church, Jesus Christ and Church, being a Christian and Church. 

Indeed, this has already happened, and is in the past for many Christians in many churches. Those who remain in these churches, and remain primarily loyal to the church, are in The System - and being led ever deeper. 

Some traditionalist Christians who survived the birdemic-peck have succumbed to System assimilation in the past few weeks - as they decide to support their church's here-and-now survival as first priority. 

All will come to this crux sooner or later, and the pace increases; as something that we personally love - yet which depends upon The System - is threatened. 

But church survival - the survival of any institution we love, is only acute and short-term. 

In the end, everything of this world depends on The System; can be destroyed by The System - and The System is destroying itself - and with increasing rapidity.

So survival of any institutional church is in fact only a stay of execution, a delay from destruction.  

Which means that those who accepted The System into their hearts in order that their church would survive; will see their churches be destroyed - and be left with nothing but The System.  

This we should expect; should regard as eventually inevitable. Christ's kingdom is not of this world, because this world is mortal, and resurrection comes after death. 

The kingdom of this world is Satan's - more and more obviously so; and insofar as any church is of this world, that church will be part of the Satanic System.

Thus, Christians cannot primarily be loyal to any church. Faith must be rooted in the next world, or perish.