Beyond Problem-Reaction-Solution: When the establishment induce chaos, this causes a net-increase in chaos

Some years ago; David Icke insightfully described a behaviour and policy patterning that was repeatedly deployed by the leadership class, which he called Problem-Reaction-Solution- "PRS". 

The PRS idea was that the rulers would (repeatedly) create a problem, and this elicited a reaction from many "people" (i.e. in practice the mass media) and demands for something-to-be-done - and resulting action always turned-out to be a pre-decided pseudo-solution - a "solution" that was not really designed to prevent or cure the problem, but was something the leadership had wanted to do anyway. 

The "solution" was, indeed, always a further incremental step on the road to tyranny, intended to increase societal totalitarian surveillance and control. 

In other terminology: Problem Reaction Solution was, in a specific sense, a policy of Ahrimanic evil - which aims at the reduction of all thinking to materialism, and then control of this reduced thinking with the aim of pursuing the demonic agenda of evil. 

 

But I had not previously noticed that while PRS was usually tactically effective in enhancing top-down control of some specific domain of social living (e.g. increased control of the police, doctors, lawyers, or some type of corporation)... While PRS led reliably to the goal of  extending and deepening bureaucratic systems... At the same time, and inevitably; this local increase of "order" is attained at the cost of increasing overall and long-term dis-order/ chaos. 

Short-term and local increase in order is "bought" at the price of increased long-term and overall dis-order. 

This happens because the "problem" entails some kind of increase in chaos, some kind of break-down in functioning. 

And each time a problem is deliberately induced, every cycle of PRS - by deliberate design; the "solution" does Not solve the problem. (i.e. Because the "solution" was not intended to solve the problem, but instead to increase surveillance and control.) 

Therefore, every time PRS is deployed there is an unsolved problem, which means an increase in the problem; which means there is a long-term and a cumulative increase in social dysfunction and disorder. 

In sum; it can be seen that Problem Reaction Solution sequence can be deployed by the agents of Sorathic Evil to promote chaos and destruction under the guise of enhancing control. 

That is: repeated use of the PBS tactic actually promotes a net-destructive strategy. 

If we assume that the highest level of global leadership is Sorathic in motivation - that is, motivated to destroy, rather than to control - then it can be seen that PRS is a way of manipulating mid-system-level leaders, managers and bureaucrats. 

(Thus manipulating the middle-managers of totalitarianism as well as simultaneously manipulating the gullible masses.)  

The middle-management level of The System is therefore encouraged repeatedly to induce Problems: Problem after Problem! - to harm economies and trade (e.g. by sanctions); to provoke and promote wars; to organize and enforce mass migration into The West; to attack marriage and the family; to encourages hatred and resentment between races, sexes, classes... etc.

The Middle Managers believe that a PRS policy will enhance their control of society and the world - and they see the actual incremental expansion of surveillance and control bureaucracies (and their own wealth and high status) as evidence of the success of this strategy...

But meanwhile, the underlying reality is of civilizations, nations - and the world itself - collapsing into chaos.   

In other words: Problem Reaction Solution is a real strategy, at the mid-level of power structures; and superficially it seems to be "working"; in the sense that bureaucracy expands and expands to cover all aspects of life, and there are more and better paid jobs for the managerial class in administering The System - and indeed bureaucratic "power" continued to grow. 

But such bureaucratic power is only power within The System, and what The System recognizes. 

And the System recognizes only The System - all outwith The System is invisible to it, and treated as not real. 

The System does not, because it cannot, recognize chaos.

Therefore; when rulers deliberately engage in destruction, and the world consequently descends into chaos - the agents of Ahrimanic evil perceive only their own increase in System-control with an expanding System. 

Paradoxically; the overall-effect is that agents of total control are manipulated into implementing the agenda of total destruction! 

As the world collapses around them in consequence of their own purposive decisions and actions; the managerial-intellectual class (eg. of the UN, EU, WEF, Western national leadership, media Moghuls; financial and corporate executives and owners, academics, "scientists" and "artists") perceive only new chances for immediate personal enrichment, greater personal status, and opportunities to extend their bureaucratic empires. 

Note: This was triggered by a post from Francis Berger, and the response it elicited. 

If Christianity is... Then Christianity is already gone and finished

If Christianity is a society - some version of the late-Roman, or Medieval  European, of Calvin's Geneva/ Knox's Scotland, or Eastern Orthodox, or Brigham Young's Deseret... That is; if Christianity is a union of Church and State in spiritual harmony - then Christianity is long since gone, and finished. 

Also; if Christianity is a structure of authority; with a church defining the nature of what Christianity is, what scripture means, what theological concepts are true and mandatory, what traditions are valid and necessary... with Christians being the people who obey what that church says - then Christianity is finished.  

Also; even if Christianity is just a group of people of some significantly powerful size - all agreeing and acting-upon what Christianity is - then Christianity is already finished. 

Indeed: if Christianity is some ideal future situation or state which we should be working-towards, and for which we need to wait before we can be a really-real Christian - then Christianity is finished. 

Unless you or I can be a real and full Christian here-and-now, starting with ourselves as we are, in this situation; and not depending upon any other people or authority to instruct, validate, or cooperate-with us - then there is, and shall be, no Christianity. 

And unless we acknowledge this independence, and therefore take total and personal responsibility for ourselves Being Christian Now - then sooner or later we will Not be a Christian.

(Whatever we decide to call ourselves.)

Foundation ditch for an unfinished road: The Vallum of Hadrian's Wall explained At Last (by Geoff Carter, 2010)

The Vallum nowadays ("rems of" as they say on Ordnance Survey maps) 

I have been occasionally reading about, and intermittently visiting, Hadrian's Wall for over fifty years - but I have never (until today) seen an even remotely plausible explanation for one of its most obvious features: the Vallum.  

The Vallum is (or was) a wide, flat-bottomed ditch situated in straight lines at variable distances on the south side of the Wall - flanked by smallish mounds. There is another, v-shaped, classic defensive ditch on the north side of Hadrian's Wall: i.e. facing the potential enemy outside the Roman Empire. 

So the Vallum is on the non-dangerous side of the wall, it is not the right shape for a defensive wall, and is all-but useless - nonetheless it is an enormous earthwork, about 70 miles long; which took a vast amount of labour, far more effort than would make sense if the Vallum was intended as merely some kind of boundary line. 

So why on earth did the Romans build it - what did they hope to achieve?

Somewhere in the central section of the Wall. The Wall, some turrets and a fort, are above - which is situated to the north, at the top of a slope; the Vallum was here constructed in a valley, roughly parallel to the Wall. 

Until just now, I have never seen an explanation of the Vallum which was even plausible - let alone potentially true. 

But I have found one at last! - on the website of a chap called Geoff Carter, who seems to reside somewhere not far from me, and specializes in reverse-engineering archaeological phenomena. 

I suggest that anyone interested should Read The Whole Thing in order not only to evaluate the evidence-cited; but to experience what strikes me as an exemplary way of reasoning about this kind of archaeological problem. 

I found Carter's way of approaching the problem of the Vallum so impressive that - even before I had reached his conclusions - I felt confident that his answer would be coherent and plausible. 

So what is Geoff Carter's explanation for the Vallum? It is that the Vallum, as we observe it, represents a partially-completed road: more exactly the foundation ditch for a road planned to extend along the whole length of Hadrian's Wall. The parallel mounds are simply spoil heaps from this extraction.

Carter says that the vastly ambitious plan for a road (which, if finished, like the Wall would have endured hundreds of years: the Romans built to last) was abandoned very soon after the Wall was finished, within about a decade. 

After which brief timespan, the Vallum was often filled-in in places (presumably to allow easier crossing) and cut-across by later structures. 

I find this a completely satisfying explanation for the Vallum - and am looking forward to returning again to the Wall this spring (when the ground is less sodden than at present) to re-explore some of the favourite places, with this new understanding in the back of my mind.  

 

What size is the picture frame? Small to large: Mainstream Left, Secular Right, Ideological Left, Christianity

Expediency - Mainstream Left

The smallest picture frame is that of everyday expediency - in other words "what course of action is most is beneficial to me immediately and in the short-term?  

And this level is dominated (across the entirety of The West, and much of the rest of the world) by Mainstream Leftism. 

In other words, and overwhelmingly; the best path to achieve jobs, promotions, fame, money, status, power - in any and all social systems and organizations - is to embrace the Mainstream Leftist options - such as feminism, socialism, antiracism, climate stuff, birdemic-healthism, pseudo-environmentalism etc. 

Functionality - Secular Right

The next-largest picture frame is functionality - which is directed at the medium- to long-term; and that is dominated by the Secular Right. 

In essence, this frame broadly accepts The System as it is, and strives to improve efficiency and effectiveness within that system. 

If the economy is the subject; then the Secular Right focuses in profitability, productivity, easier trade, infrastructure etc. If the police are the institution, then the focus would be reducing crime, improving methods and personnel, clarifying and enforcing law.  

  

This-worldly Utopian - Ideological Left

The largest frame recognized by the God-excluding, Spirit-excluding and fundamentally atheistic System; is that of utopianism - which is the realm of the Ideological Left.

This embraces the intellectual realms of the United Nations, the WEF, highbrow journalism, academia, charities and other NGOs, think tanks, artists and authors, popular scientists, and the like. In other words, (nearly-) All the recognized and respected idealists, dreamers and Big Picture people. 

This is the realm of high-level Leftist ideology; about attitudes and aims concerning the planet, climate, life in the universe and on earth, all the people in the world; and fundamental assumptions about justice, sexual identity, sexuality, relationships... Offering answers to questions like who are the good people, and what is the good life? 

The Utopian level is unconcerned by the smaller-frame practicalities of expediency and efficiency alike - the Ideological Left is characterized by abstraction; by secular ultimates like social justice, equality, equity, inclusion, diversity, respect; and the long-view futures of everybody, everywhere.

The Religious Frame: Christianity 

The largest frame is that of true religion - Christianity; which is primarily concerned with ultimate and eternal matters such as God, creation, transcendental values, the meaning and purpose of each mortal human life, what lies on the far side of mortal death - and so on.  

*

The above scheme demonstrates how and why Leftism has triumphed; because the Left occupies both the most immediately-motivating short term; and the (apparent) highest ground of long-term utopian idealism - which is the largest frame that is recognized as valid and true by the entirety of global and Western national societal institutions and public discourse. 

In a world where both immediate expediency and the soaring realms of ideology are Leftist and where the inbuilt assumptions exclude God, creation and the spirit; the Secular Right, with its focus on mundane matters of efficiency and effectiveness, is regarded as (at best) a merely dull necessity, to be accorded the bare minimum of (contextualized) attention and seriousness. 

That is at best: more often, whenever the Secular Right perspective threatens to dominate; the worldly-Utopian frame is brought forward to demonstrate that the Secular Right's narrow focus on mundane matters represents an existential danger to all that is "highest and best" - and to the longest term future well-being of... everybody.  

To be of the Secular Right is therefore both to cripple one's own career and social status, and also to define oneself as sullenly (or sadistically) indifferent to the long-term, the highest-and-best, and the Big Picture.  

The only potential "answer" to the lock that the atheistic Left has established upon public life in The West - is to expand the picture fame to include the true and religious, which means Christian. 

This is the only way to take the high ground of ultimate values; and to contextualize the Left within a larger and eternal frame: that of creation including salvation.  

To do so would entail a metaphysical revolution - because metaphysics is the name for our most fundamental assumptions concerning the scope and nature of reality. 

Unless we expand our concept of reality to include God, creation, The Spirit etc. - then we will continue to lose and lose to The Left; until collapse and annihilation supervenes. 

However, I am not optimistic; I do not expect that the needful metaphysical revolution will actually happen. 

Nonetheless it is the one and only event that could save us - because within the secular world as-is, and so long as the Biggest Picture is denied, the Left has painted us into a corner within which we are trapped by expediency on the one hand, and idealism on the other.  

Ramer and Lowdham: comparing Tolkien's two main autobiographical characters in the Notion Club papers

Over at the Notion Club Papers blog; I contrast two of Tolkien's most revelatory fictional and partial self-portraits - and the implications of the narrative progression from the one to the other. 

If you don't Know you're doing it - you're Not doing it...

Natural goodness, passive goodness, obedient goodness... these do not suffice here-and-now. They are a thing of the past.  

Modern Human Beings of The West are structurally different from Men of the Past: our consciousness is set-up differently, our minds are differently made, we think differently.

Our alienation - the pervasive adolescent and adult starting-point of cut-off isolation from The World, from other people, from God; is not just a habit; nor is it simply the induced product of social training and propaganda - alienation is primarily something built-into modern Western consciousness. 

Thus we cannot revert to ancient way, because we no longer have ancient minds. We have become something-like a different sub-species of Men; so we do not truly desire the old ways; and cannot create, dwell-in, nor sustain ancient modes of living.   

Knowing this is helpful; because it clarifies that to live as God wishes us (i.e. in harmony with divine creation, living in accordance with our divine destiny) we/ here/ now require conscious-purpose, conscious-choice, an act of will, continued effort. 

Christianity does not Just Happen-to people any more; and indeed is externally-discouraged (including by self-identified "Christian Churches"). 

Therefore; when it comes to being a Christian, and leading a Christian life: if you do not Know you are doing it, if you are not continually-choosing to do it, and if this choice does not come from inner-intuition and motivation - then you are Not doing it. 

Crumbed chicken breast stuffed with melted garlic butter!

I fancied cooking a couple of crumbed chicken breasts stuffed with melted garlic butter tonight, and went to buy them at the supermarket... 

But they didn't sell any Chicken Kievs; only something called Chicken Kyiv - which seemed pretty similar, so I got that instead. 

On my way out, to be consistent; I also demanded a ready-made Mumbai Curry, and a portion of Beijing Crispy Duck. 

Real World versus Clown World is fatally-misleading - unless complemented by acknowledgement of mass corruption

One reason that the "Clown World" nomenclature (to describe "Them") has grown and grown over the couple of decades (I first came upon this distinctively American  usage of "clown" on Glenn Reynolds's Instapundit blog in the early 2000s) - is that it reinforces a comforting but utterly false idea that the root of The Problem is the Evil Clowns who rule "us". 

From this error, the argument concludes that the bulk of ordinary people are essentially OK - well-motivated and with a basically solid grasp of Reality. 

And the implicit (untrue) conclusion is that therefore some variant of "populism" (whereby the Masses expel or take-over-from the ruling-elite of Clowns) is the best cure and strategy for what ails The West*. 

But, of course, this is a gross underestimation of the severity, pervasiveness, and depth of evil in The West. 

Yes the Clowns are more evil than the masses; but this is merely a lesser of evils. The Western masses are overwhelmingly deeply evil in their basic assumptions concerning reality. 

They (we) are materialist (that is anti-spiritual and un-spiritual, throughout all our mainstream public discourses, across all our societal functions) by habit and in practice. We are obsessed by the triviality and lies of the official and media worlds; and compulsively engage-with these futile "battles".   

Most dismayingly; there is throughout The West a steadfast and stubborn refusal of individuals to take personal responsibility for their own ultimate convictions. 

Whether or not someone regards himself as for- or against- the globalist totalitarian agenda; he almost-always claims that his perspective and motivations are externally-imposed-upon him as a matter of objective necessity, rather than his own and ultimate moral decision.  

Thus he proudly and aggressively asserts his own and self-enforced value-enslavement! 

The spectacle is a chaos of atomistic individuals, blown hither and yon by the swirling winds of corrupted and evil-serving public institutions - all expending their best spiritual resources in justifying their passive crazes, evasions and compulsions as principled conformity to eternal realities! 

At one level Clown World is just a neat rhetorical term for Them; but at another level it is a species of pandering to the supposed but largely-absent virtues of those excluded from power. 

So, yes! our leadership and managerial-intellectual class are literal (and evil) Clowns. But these ECs rule-over a mass of self-deluded, self-blinded, liars and moral-cowards (that's us). 

From such an arrogantly-servile mass, no good can be expected; and even some (massively unlikely!) "triumph of the masses" would instantly reveal the short-termist, selfish hedonism of a spiritually-self-enslaved people. 

*Amazingly! - I can see online a large-scale recapitulation of the 2016 delusional-nonsense, that apparently regards a possible re-election of Trump (Really? After the 2020 "election"?) as if it were a genuine basis for optimism. Almost as if DT had not already been a President for four years and already comprehensively failed to stop, let alone reverse, the suicidal social trends -- instead presiding-over the unprecedented catastrophe of lockdown/ social distancing/ the peck. These are "the facts" and it takes a seriously distorted attitude to expect something different and better second time round: such behaviour is Stockholm Syndrome, not legitimate optimism! 

"Brian" reads aloud my entire Fourth Gospel book: Lazarus Writes

The world famous text-to-speech voice "Brian" - who often reads aloud from my ongoing Kindle books while I am shaving or cooking - has (somehow!) been coerced or bribed into reading the entirety of Lazarus Writes, my book about the Fourth Gospel; especially for those of you who prefer information to arrive through the ears instead of the eyes.

My thanks to New World Island for organizing this marriage-made-in-Heaven of subject matter and actor!

My half-century retrospective review of JRR Tolkien's book of poems: The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

My first copy of JRR Tolkien's poetry collection The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (illustrated by Pauline Baynes) dates from 1974; when it cost £1.20 - which would have been a couple of months pocket money! 

Over at The Notion Club Papers blog; I review this book in its 2014 annotated edition by Scull and Hammond. 

Be a spiritual warrior, not an "information warrior" - an essay by Francis Berger

Francis Berger has written a masterly essay that deserves serious attention. 

It begins by observing how the globalist totalitarians; such as those of the Davos/ WEF gang - or indeed essentially-all multi-national organization, Western governments, the mass media and large social institutions generally - have in recent months been "trailing their coats" (i.e. looking for a fight) on the subject of what they call "disinformation" - by which they mean facts inconvenient to Their strategies. 

As Berger describes; it seems natural for Christians to take up this challenge to The Truth by becoming - more or less - "Information Warriors": and thereby entering the globalists arena to content the nature of "factual truth". 

It seems natural... but it is a strategic mistake for Romantic Christians; because by accepting these terms of engagement, we have given ultimate victory to those who are asserting that Reality is merely the passively-imposed sum of our perceptions, of what we believe to be "true facts". 

This is the metaphysics of Information War: a world in which human beings are externally manipulated either into believing the truth, or lies - and where Christians ought to take-up-arms on the side of truth. 

However; by this metaphysics of Man's passivity; whatever the specific outcome of any particular battle over true facts might be; the world picture being accepted is one in which whoever controls public discourse, necessarily controls the minds of Men. 

Consequently, by such reasoning; to be an active Christian should mean to become some kind of Information Warrior, fighting the Information War. 

But the Information War is not the Spiritual War!

Thus; Berger goes on to re-locate discussion at the metaphysical level of our ultimate underlying assumptions concerning the nature of reality: which is the level from-which what counts as "true facts", versus what counts as "disinformation", is actually generated. 

(Because all "evidence" depends on assumptions as to what-counts-as evidence, and what-counts-as strong evidence, and what-counts-as winning an argument.)

Such an examination leads us to recognize that information is Not ultimate; but instead what is ultimate is "direct-knowing". 

Only from a basis in direct-knowing can there be information. Information - words, images, audio and every other kind - is "symbolic"; and symbols are intermediate in communication, standing between the communicator and communicatee. 

Information is mediated communication, and all symbols requires decoding - yet that decoding is into yet more symbols! - and so, unless direct-knowing is acknowledged as possible, there can be no escape from symbols! 

One who believes in the primacy of information is confronted by an infinite regress of interpretations, where "truth" dissolves into whatever people can be manipulated to believe.

Berger concludes that the implied invitation to Information War is designed to lure us into a spiritual trap; which is a version of "relativistic" or "subjectivist" metaphysics. 

We are being asked spiritually to endorse a world where everybody chooses to believe that Information is the primary reality; a world in which our minds, attitudes, beliefs, behaviours etc. are playthings and tools of those who control public discourse.  

Ultimately, Information War is conceptually fought between rival totalitarian tyrants; and Christians are being asked to support (that oxymoron) Christian totalitarianism*; as the alternative to Satanic totalitarianism. 

(*In reality; totalitarianism is always because intrinsically evil; that is, intrinsically opposed to Man's proper task in divine creation -- Because the assumption of freedom, of agency - and therefore the possibility and primacy of individual spiritual choice - is foundational to Christianity.)    

Therefore; Berger advises us to decline the implied "invitation" to become Information Warriors ("or else" accept the fate we have devised for you!); and instead to take our own thinking down to a level deeper than wrangling over "facts".

Read the whole thing: it is well worth it!  

What are the good things of life? (i.e. of this mortal life.)

The good things of life are not about pleasure, they are instead about Love. 

That is the fundamental insight. 

For those who do not already know it; this insight is something which we can (and are intended to) learn from experience and memory; but that-learning must freely be chosen - such knowledge cannot be forced-upon us.

And such "knowing" can only arise when supported by valid metaphysical assumptions; and insight can be undercut and thwarted by false assumptions: such that Love must be (ultimately) an emotion-merely, a product of material causes. 

(Which is a common falsehood nowadays: i.e. a false, incoherent, metaphysical assumption. Another common falsehood is that the ultimate-true meaning and value of our life; comes from the intensity, preponderance, or current domination of pleasure/happiness versus suffering/pain.)

Perhaps only if we understand (if we know) Love to be primary; if we know that Love is the cause of creation - and also know our-selves to be living in that love-caused creation; can we then really understand that life is about Love: literally and ultimately. 

(And that every-thing has an essentially spiritual being and meaning in that context of loving-creation - even pleasure!... Which is indeed a secondary, caused phenomenon.)

Death is the end of that which is evil or worthless; resurrection is the eternal life of all that is Good

The past is not gone (not necessarily gone) - yet neither is the entirety of everything that ever happened locked forever into reality. 

The past is taken-up into creation eternally -- yet not all of the past. (That would indeed be a curse!)  

This is because of death and resurrection (both): 

Death is the end of that which is evil or worthless; resurrection is the eternal life of all that is Good: all that is of-Love. 

Some Romantic Christian "don'ts" about courtship and marriage

I find the "manosphere" - including the "Christian" sub-type - always and increasingly wrong-headed - and indeed harmful. 

So I thought I'd add my two-penn'orth in a way that is intended to be a negative corrective to some of the most blatantly false attitudes and aims. 

(I do not feel it would be right - would indeed be absurd! - for me to offer positive advice of a "what to do" kind; and indeed that would be counter-productive to the desired attitudes and aims.)

This is from a broadly Romantic Christian perspective (implicit in everything that follows) - which means it is rooted in my own intuition and experience for which I take personal responsibility; which implies that I will not "defend" my convictions, nor argue with those who disagree - because public "facts" and "evidence" depend on prior assumptions; and all logic and reason can do is infer the consequences of assumptions. 

One assumption, behind all this, ought not to need stating to Christians - but, of course, does (we are all sinners); and this is that Love is By Far the most important thing in marriage; as it is in this mortal life and in Heaven. 

(And Love is dyadic - as I have recently tried to explain.) 

If Love is not the underpinning of marriage, then we will be dealing with a public institution; and that means - in The West, now - marriage will be subject to a System that is evil overall and by intent. 

(Context: There are no guarantees in this mortal life; and your life is probably not "about" what you currently suppose it is about. We live in a divine creation - therefore (over the timescale of mortality - which is seldom in the immediate short-term) probabilities are not relevant to those fundamental matters crucial to the real purpose of your life; I mean, concerning matters where God would be expected to "intervene". In short; God will make happen what needs to happen.) 

Courtship begins with adolescence, and - as of this time and place - we all start-out from an adolescence characterized by intense self-consciousness and alienated consciousness: a situation of bad faith, hypocrisy and fantasy. 

We are hyper-aware of our-selves - but that "self" is compounded largely of fantasy (what we think we would like to be, what we want other people to be like). It is very seldom our real or true "primal self" indeed it is often an opposition or even inversion of that real self. 

We need to learn from this original situation, and work towards something better; which is:

Making our public persona a genuine manifestation of our real self. 

The other characteristic of modern adolescence, is also a consequence of our alienation. This is our conscious experience of being cut-off from spontaneous participation in the consciousness of other people; which means we tend to experience others (including women) in an un-real fashion - rather like characters in a novel, movie or play. 

Too often; because our the standard modern set-up of consciousness and culture: we engage our own fantasies our our-selves, with other-people's own fantasies of themselves (including women); and this must be overcome as much as possible. 

Furthermore; the above leads to the familiar situation in which relationships are reduced to a hypocritical war of attempted manipulations. 

(e.g. We attempt to project our fantasy persona (of what we think we want to be like) to manipulate a woman who may be doing the same: the "winner" is the one who succeeds in fooling the other into accepting the projected persona, and thereby successfully manipulating him or her. Meanwhile, the primal self is cut out-of-the-loop altogether.) 

For a Christian to accept that adolescent and alienated situation and work with it, rather than against it - and to claim this as Christian; is in bad faith - as well as hypocritical, dishonest, psychopathic (i.e objectivizing others and attempting to use them for gratification). 

It also prevents us learning from the experience of our actual situation in this mortal life. 

More explicitly, a marriage built on projection and manipulations is a marriage based on a lie. Furthermore, the lie intrinsic to a projected persona will tend to attract a woman who is attracted to that persona - which is not our real self: any resulting marriage will probably be rooted in dishonesty and deception.  

One very small positive suggestion to round-off: if you succeed in making your public persona a genuine manifestation of your primal self; then a woman (and you are only seeking one woman, a single wife) who is attracted to marry you on that basis (or something near to it, tending towards it) - will be more likely to love you for your real nature. 

If you hope for that marriage to be strong, lasting, loving - a basis in truth is surely for the best?

Note: To any new readers; check-out the guide to would-be commenters in the sidebar. 

Why do I not feel warm enough?

Why do I not feel warm enough 

As I sit here and shiver?

Why do I quiver with cold? 

It's cos I'm clad in cotton

That's why I'm feeling rotten. 

A dressing-gown of fleece

Will make me warm and neece. 

Note: Came to mind this morning on rising at 05:15 to a cold house, waiting for the central heating to bite. But, overall; the clear, dry and frosty weather is very welcome after about three months of almost daily rain and near-solid cloud cover.

 

How should we try to relate to nature?

Since the advent of Romanticism some 250 years ago; it has been said that Man is cut-off from the world of Nature, making each of us alienated and prone to despair - and therefore wee should strive to re-connect. 

This is all true; but the problem has been - for those who genuinely tried to re-connect - that it doesn't work; or, more exactly, the method prescribed only works in (and by inducing) an altered, lowered, state of trance-like consciousness that is essentially passive and contemplative and cannot be integrated with the rest of life. 

At best, it makes for a kind of "holiday" from our mundane state of alienated despair - something we can later remember and day-dream about - or "recollect in tranquility" to paraphrase Wordsworth.

This just isn't good enough: it does not suffice. At best, we alternate between a dreamy holiday absorption in nature, and the usual isolated disconnection. 

What we want (or, at any rate, what I seem to need) is not such alternation (typically massively weighted towards the mundane) but to move towards integrating our whole life as well as re-connecting with nature.  

As an example, here is John Matthews describing the usual way that romantics have (over many generations) striven to re-connect with nature: 

There are many things you can do to bring about a re-connection. Begin by noticing the world around you. By truly looking. By seeing past the surface of things to the level of Spirit. 

At the moment when you go out into nature you see only the surface of things. Trees, grass, water, plants. Yet the reality of these things is far greater. Once you knew this. You can discover it again if you truly wish. 

Next time you are outside look around you. Try to see beyond the surface into the true nature of things you see. Though you may find it difficult to do so at first, in time you will begin to see more. If you continue far enough and deeply enough you will even begin to communicate with the spirit within the things you are observing. In truth you will cease to be observers at all and become part of the thing you are looking at. 

This is what the ancient bards of this land meant when they spoke of having `been` a thing. This was more than a poetic image, but a very real truth. To truly know a thing is to become one with it. Just as to become one with it is to truly know it. When you do this you will begin to understand the true nature of things, and of your own relationship to them. 

I would not say that this is bad advice, or that we should never do it - far from it! And John Matthews is a worthy chap, whose work I have appreciated and learned-from. 

But I would point-out that what he suggests often does not work, and - as a life strategy - it does not work very well... I have tried, and it failed; and (as I said) many people have been recommending this for more than two centuries - and here we are!

I think the root problem is firstly that this strategy strives to sink ourselves into oneness with nature - and therefore leads to all the problems of oneness spirituality. Instead, our attitude ought to be Christian - which entails that we have a relationship with the spiritual world, rather than merging with it. 

And secondly it does so by means of trying to re-shape our perceptions (seeing, hearing, smelling, touch) so that we begin to perceive the underlying spiritual realities - whereas we ought to be directly-knowing spiritual reality. 

Thirdly, it tries to re-connect through feeling, through our emotions; whereas we ought to be doing-so by our thinking: by "primary thinking". 

In combination, it can be seen that the attitude to nature that I believe is necessary - both when we are "in" it, and also when "recollecting in tranquility" our past experiences; is very different from that of traditional (and non-Christian - "perennialist") Romantics, like John Matthews, or many others. 

Understanding Modern Man's indifference to the question of an afterlife (from my own experience)

It seems hard to explain why modern people are so indifferent to, uninterested in, the question of an afterlife - continued existence beyond death. Yet I felt that way myself for many years. So I can understand it. 

I think it is because the assumption of death as annihilation of the self is, by now, so completely assimilated by our culture, so deeply built-in to our assumptions (at least from adolescence) that there has been an inversion of perspective by comparison with Mankind through known history.  

Historically; Mankind always assumed that something survived death - although there was vast disagreement about what survived and how. The fact that it was unavoidable made the afterlife a subject of of intense interest, and concern - especially insofar as the nature of this afterlife (how pleasant or unpleasant) could be affected by what we did in this mortal life. 

Nobody needed to argue if or how an afterlife was important, because it was simply assumed. 

But Modern Man sees things from a perspective of assuming that there can be, indeed will be, annihilation at death; and the expectation of an afterlife is expected to prove itself to be truer - and more desirable than - our taken-for-granted, confident expectation of annihilation. 

But the belief in annihilation after death is rationally impregnable - once established; as is the case with all kinds of nihilism. Once we assume nothing - then nothing can overturn that assumption; because whatever is tried, is itself regarded as ultimately nothing. 

In the end, extinction at death and nihilism generally can only be overcome by intuition; by a kind of innate revulsion at the artificiality and malignity of assumptions that go against our inbuilt nature; that contradict everything we come into the world already knowing.

For me, there was a sense of absurdity at my own stubborn desire to hold onto nihilist assumptions that offered nothing but a continual sense of violation of spontaneous values; nothing but the offer of utter annihilation at the end of a futile life in a purposeless universe. 

Why was I clinging so tenaciously to these assumptions which offered me literally nothing?

Once I had asked this question, the answer was obvious. 

Why was there nearly two millennia of neglecting and misinterpreting the Fourth Gospel ("John")?

I can conjecture what seems a plausible history and reason why the Fourth Gospel of The Bible (i.e. Chapters 1-20 of the Gospel usually called "John") has been so consistently downgraded, neglected and misinterpreted - in comparison what a focused reading of this Gospel (apparently) clearly and simply reveals to the 21st century reader.   

The reason is explained by my belief that the IV Gospel was written by the resurrected Lazarus; because, as a resurrected Man, Lazarus knows that each individual can have a direct knowledge of and relationship to Jesus Christ; and that there is therefore no necessity for Christianity to be mediated by a church or a priesthood. 

Lazarus knew this, because he had been resurrected and thereby had become a truly free agent: the only one (before Jesus's resurrection) who had seen both sides of the transformation of mortal life to resurrected life. 

Whereas the other Apostles were subject to the normal consciousness and expectations of the Men of their time and place - for whom it seemed both natural and necessary that the message and work of Jesus must be mediated by a priesthood, and that salvation was communal, and indeed "tribal" (albeit an open tribe) as it had been for the Hebrews of their time. It would seem natural that they (plus Paul) would proceed by means of establishing a new priesthood and church. 

And indeed; such a communal and mediated necessity was the almost-inevitable perspective of Men for many centuries afterwards - especially up into the "modern era" in "The West" and from the middling 1700s. 

But nowadays (and especially in The West) - after a belief in the necessity of a mediated communal salvation has dwindled, and the churches (and their apparatus of theology and scholarship) have been so widely and deeply corrupted; we can, as individuals cut-off from our fellow Men by modern alienated consciousness; perceive the clear and simple truth of the Fourth Gospel...

A clear and simple truth that was, in a sense, "always there" but heavily obscured by many combinations of buried assumptions - as well as by the placing of the IV Gospel bracketed by the Synoptics on the one side, and Acts and the Epistles on the other side; which are thereby allowed "outvote", to set the context; and in general subvert, distort and relegate the IV Gospel to the kind of optional-extra and "supplementary" status it has for mainstream, traditional, and in-general church-led Christians. 

The Empire Strikes Back! The current Ahrimanic (globalist) backlash in the United Nations

(For once!) I seem to have been correct in my prediction that the current Arrakis war is being exploited (and, very likely has been set-up) as a way of re-asserting globalist totalitarian bureaucratic control, especially via their long-favoured tool of the United Nations. 

The current quasi-legal proceedings against CHOAM is being accepted as A Good Thing by many supposedly awakened and skeptical radicals who, a mere few months ago, would have recognized the UN as an agent of Ahrimanic evil; an institution designed to be a prime agent of the intended internationalist tyranny of a System of mass omni-surveillance and micro-control. 

But now; this same UN is being regarded as a beacon of impartial law, defender of the weak and innocent, wielded against a rogue-state; and its powerful, wealthy, reckless and cruel Western backers*...

(*Although the worst that can be said against The West and CHOAM is true; on the one hand this was made so by those same powers who are now shrouding themselves in the mantle of Justice; while on the other hand the solution on-offer is as evil - in its different mode - as the problem it affects to address.)

To me, the situation has, very obviously, been manipulated into being by the Empire (that is, the Empire that never ended, the Black Iron Prison); who are fighting back against the chaos-loving, war-mongering, destructive Sorathic factions (arising within the Empire itself) who delight in human suffering and death for its own sake - and even at the cost of weakening or breaking The System; and who have are waxing ascendant in the ruling classes of The West since at least the summer of 2020^.

(^This may need clarification. My understanding is that The Empire is an Ahrimanic project; but that Sorathic individuals arise within it as a kind of psychopathic and parasitic element, and these individuals form a faction who band together expediently to indulge their purposively destructive agenda. This can be seen, perhaps, in US politics where a small but powerful faction within the leadership - successfully cooperate to create and amplify torture, war, famine, mass death - and other forms of chaotic destruction.) 

The Ahrimanic agenda includes the discrediting and elimination of all nations, especially those with power or who display any desire for autonomy. There is zero national loyalty among the totalitarian bureaucrats - although they are happy to allow and encourage nationalism insofar as it can be manipulated towards that destructive end. Which is precisely what is afoot. 

They are very keen to destroy all the Western nations, who are all very keen to be destroyed; and even keener to destroy any nations such as CHOAM (and the Fire Nation) who desire to survive. This is attempted by trying to reshape nationalism into resentment, and transform the desire to survive into the desire for revenge - both of which will be likely to lead to reckless and self destructive behaviour. 

So far this has failed in the Fire Nation, but succeeded spectacularly in CHOAM, which is behaving in ways almost guaranteed to lead to its own utter annihilation. 

So - the situation is set-up in which there is apparently a forced-choice between (Ahrimanic) global totalitarianism, and (Sorathic) global war; that is - between tyranny and death. 

(Indeed, in an ultimate sense, the choice between chosen slavery to Satan, and indirect suicide.) 

And, as always with evil - the choice is real in the sense that (to be spiritually effective) we need to consent to evil: to invite evil into our hearts. For example, by enthusiastically regarding as our saviour and supporting the UN... with all that implies+.  

In such a situation; the only escape from embracing one or another of the twin evils of worldly expediency, and thereby taking the side of evil; is a perspective that is Not of This World. 

As seems more and more often the case: the age of neutrality is passed, things have come to a point; we are being corralled into making an ultimate existential choice for God and Heaven - or actively enlisting against them.

  

+Note added: I do not think that this current Ahrimanic backlash will be effective in reversing the progression towards Sorathic destruction; partly because this trajectory is the inevitable direction of those who are allied to evil; and partly because reckless destruction is so much easier and more rapid than making and sustaining a System of global totalitarianism. 

Winston Churchill - a recent example illustrative of the spirituality versus materiality of national mythic archetypes

Yesterday I was discussing the Spiritual Church versus the institutional materiality of any particular (self-identified) Christian church. Much the same arguments I used there, also apply to the mythic archetypes that are so vital to our sense of belonging and participation. 

These mythic archetypes operate primarily at the spiritual level (sometimes for better, sometimes harmfully) - but it is at best misleading, and replete with significant hazards, when the physical/ material manifestation of an archetypal myth is given primacy over that myth. 

To regard the factual as the really-real destroys magic as such; and reduces it to the mundane: at worse it can corrupt, or destroy, any and all spiritual myths. 

An example relevant to England is Winston Churchill. There seems little doubt that in the summer of 1940, from Dunkirk through the Battle of Britain, Churchill was transformed into a national mythic archetype, which retains very considerable power even to this day. 

Churchill became like a representative character from history (King Alfred the Great, or Elizabeth I perhaps), or like a heroic character from literature (Shakespeare's Henry V) - like these in some respects, but also something new and unique. 

This Churchill archetype was crystallized in that time and place by some combination of particular national circumstances and perceived personal attributes; but once it had formed, then it became independent of Churchill "the man": independent in its reality, hence its value

However; because we moderns habitually regard the physical, material, factual, evidential as primary; this confusion or combination of Churchill the archetypal myth with Churchill the mundane person, has led to many and various problems. 

On the one hand; the material person of Churchill has been elevated and airbrushed in some minds to a dishonest degree, as if "the man" really was the myth; such that the too-old, too-ill, and barely competent, person of Churchill was elected Prime Minister in 1951.

On the other hand; a vast amount of material historical "evidence" concerning Churchill the man, has been amassed to discredit Churchill the spiritual archetype.  

Much the same degradation of magical to mundane, the material reduction of the spiritual; has happened to other archetypal mythic figures such as Sir Francis Drake, or Scott of the Antarctic; and nowadays is being incrementally extended to essentially every significant or admired figure from the nation's history on the basis of some or another asserted personal flaw, attitude, or association - or by virtue of their race, sex, class, job - or other personal classification. 

Although most often and most successfully done by "the atheistic Left", because they currently rule the West; the so-called "Right"* are also guilty of attempting exactly this reductionist tactic against the mythic archetypal heroes and heroines of socialism, feminism, antiracism etc.  

(*The "Right" are thus revealed to be in actuality merely a variant of The Left - since such arguments assume the primacy of left-atheist-materialist assumptions.) 

My point is not that mythic archetypes should never be criticized; but that they ought to be criticized for what they actually are - which is entities operating at the spiritual level. 

Therefore; to critique the national archetype of Churchill (for instance - or indeed any other mythic personage) should be done by a consideration of what that archetype really represents to the nation - and not by pretending that the historical personality is more important than the myth: which is implying that the material-physical-reduction is really-real but that the archetypal myth is merely derivative or a delusion. 

If Christians wish validly to challenge a mythic archetype of the left or any other evil spiritual entity; then that ought not be attempted by pointing-out the inevitable - because human, but strictly irrelevant - flaws of the material man or woman around-whom that spiritual archetype crystallized. 

But instead be done by a consideration of the spiritual evils intrinsic to that myth; and perhaps by suggesting better national archetypes, of which there are many. 

Where and what is the Mystical Church? (A Romantic Christian perspective.)

It has often been said that - for proper Christians - the real church is not the administrative bureaucracy but an entity termed the Mystical Church. 

But while many would agree in principle; the meaning of this is unclear. Perhaps most people would go no further than to say that it means Christians must be discerning and selective in their choice of obedience and support among the full range of organizational personnel, interpretations, assertions etc.

A somewhat deeper idea would be that the Mystical Church lies behind or below the surface of what goes-on in the institutional church - perhaps along the lines that the real/ true/ eternal spiritual aspects; need to be seen through the transitory, corrupted, and often-false physical/ material manifestations of the organizational church. 

But it is possible, and probably necessary, to take this further. 

The spiritual Mystical Church could be understood and having no necessary relationship with any particular institutional church's actual, current manifestation. That is: the spiritual may in practice be detached from the physical. 

In other words, it is the spirit that is real and which we ought to believe and live-by; while the physical/ material church may be fully dissociable from the spirit. 

Any material church institution should therefore be regarded as secondary to the spiritual truth and validity - so that any physical manifestation might in practice be helpful... Or alternatively it might be useless, or indeed actively-harmful, to the spirit. 

What this further implies is that whatever we perceive - whether with our senses or by the inner-eye of our imagination - should be regarded as secondary and not-necessary as compared with what we know directly: know without intermediates, without word image or symbol. 

If "the church" is regarded in this intermediary and symbolic way; we can then regard the Mystical Church as that which we know of the truth and reality of that church - what we know despite whatever that church may say and do, here and now, or in the past. 

Another way to think about this is that the idea, or ideal, of a church may continue to be a valuable - or even vital - factor in our Christian life; even when that church was in practice never much good, and is by-now thoroughly corrupted and serves an evil agenda. 

If this is the case; we should not feel obliged to defend the Mystical Church against supposed facts and evidence - because facts and evidence are material, whereas the church we value is spiritual; and its real existence as an ideal may have no relationship with the contingencies and limitations of the material world.  

Of course, we need to be consistent - and not thereafter try to smuggle-through expectations or assertions that the Mystical Church is to be valued because of its supposed effects (sooner or later) on this material world and our mortal lives. 

If the Mystical Church is to be sustained in its inspirational purity, it requires to be detached from the real world; and one who truly regards the spirit as primary will not object to this. 

The same principle can be extended from the church to any other human institution such as a nation, a city, or something like a school or a profession. There might be (and indeed is) a Mystical England (sometimes called Albion or Logres) - and also something similar for any other entity that we value. 

For this to work, and to be valuable in a world like ours - we need to refrain from our habit of making material assertion that are supposed to follow from spiritual ideals. 

If we are serious about Albion, for instance; then we should not derive it from the actual history of England, or from any particular things about current England - all of which are individually ambiguous and corruptible.

What we can legitimately say; is that some material thing - here and now, but not necessarily or always - helps inspire us to become aware of the ideal, the Mystical, the spiritual. 

Or; that the spiritual lies-behind that which is good in a material manifestation. 

After all: the material/ physical is always spiritual (is indeed a sub-set of the spiritual); but the spiritual is primary, and the spiritual does not require the physical. 

 

Christians are at each other's throats (metaphorically speaking) because of undeclared assumptions

It is a shame, but pretty much as prophesied, to see that in these End Times, when things have come to a point, and demonic evil rules The West in accordance with wild mandatory incoherence, stunning lies and repellant value-inversions -- a shame that Christians are - if anything - more divided, hostile and sectarian than they were even a decade ago. 

One stunner is that Roman Catholics, who used to present a united front - and often seemed to believe in their own unity; are schism-ing and schism-ing with spiraling rapidity - upping the rhetoric and scorn directed against their co-religionists... 

(All very like the Protestants whom they used to taunt for the same behaviour - and for much the same kind of reasons as applied to Protestants!) 

As I say, it's a shame; but something I understand and indeed fully expected as the gross corruption of mainstream traditional religion of all kinds. 

And a consequence of putting church (or other externalities) first, regarding "Christianity" as absolutely secondary to external authority; and basing one's faith on fundamental assumptions that are denied to be assumptions.

These assumptions are asserted to be either an objective necessity, despite that there can be no objectivity in such matters; or "logically" entailed, despite that logic only (at best!) tells us the consequences of assumptions - but cannot tell us which assumptions are valid.  

So Christians are not just declining in percentage, numbers, devoutness, and integrity; but are breaking-up into shrinking groups -- yet always staying primarily group-minded, and rejecting ultimate personal responsibility; always insisting that they are "just obeying orders" derived from their dwindling yet objectively necessary and essentially valid church...

How long can it continue? 

How long before people realize what they must do - on pain of sooner-or-later de facto apostasy - and identify their primary and fundamental assumptions: fully comprehend and "own" them. Personally, taking full and final responsibility, by whatever each experiences as the bottom-line intuition. 

How long before this? 

Maybe it will be a long time yet, maybe not until the end; when each individual is alone in his church, yet still church-led - maybe not even then... 

I can picture millions of Christians, each self-painted into his own corner, insisting - as night falls - that it must be so; that he cannot escape the constricting wall of unexamined, unacknowledged, un-owned assumptions - which is all that blocks him from the simplicity of a salvation he has long-since lost-sight-of. 

After all, free agency is absolute, and salvation is opt-in: so to receive it; "in" we, personally, must opt. 

The Mind Parasites by Colin Wilson (1967) - a brief consideration of issues raised

I have just read Colin Wilson's The Mind Parasites - the first of his three Lovecraftian novels, and a book which I thought that I had already read - but (for forgotten reasons) had not. 

I have owned the book for some nine years, and I have certainly read the two "sequels" (The Philospher's Stone, and The Space Vampires) and found them both enjoyable; but it turned out I hadn't read the MPs, as became apparent after I had finished a few pages. 

I found the Mind Parasites book not-particularly enjoyable, and not at all gripping - since it seemed rather long-winded and was hardly a story at all - being more like an account of some science fiction type happenings set in "the future". But, as nearly always with Colin Wilson, the book was nonetheless well worth reading, and provoked a lot of thinking, note taking, "philosophizing".

What it made me realize was that Colin Wilson, at this point in his life and work, was convinced that the problem of life (this mortal life, as I nowadays term it) would be solved if Man lived up to his highest levels, broke through the trammels on his thinking, gained absolute confidence; and thereby developed undying life (death being, as Bernard Shaw also believed, due to "discouragement" which he would deploy in largely creative and increasingly abstract mental activities.  

In the meanwhile - the Main Problem (the most urgent difficult and constraint) was that Men of genius (or potential genius) were thwarted by the oppressive and onerous conditions of modern life: this was the theme of his first book The Outsider and many more afterwards.

A theme that I first encountered in Wilson, and which continues to this day (i.e. with Romantic Christianity), was that mankind reached a point of development in the late 1700s in Europe that changed his spontaneous relationship with the world - the Romantic Era began. 

Wilson was fascinated by the ways in which various people (especially creative people, "artists" in the broadest sense) had tackled the problems of Romanticism - how all had ultimately failed, but how some might use their experiences to succeed... 

In other words, at this point, CW believed in the possibility of a satisfactory mortal life - at least for some people, if only XYZ were allowed them and if only they had the right attitude. 

I now feel that Colin Wilson failed to acknowledge, or really to grasp, the problem of death - and the phenomenon of "entropy" which pervades this world - failed to realize the limits this places upon all possible schemes of amelioration and improvement. 

I now firmly believe (what the ancients knew clearly) that Men literally cannot win in this-world: all lives are failures if we draw the line at death. 

Later Wilson seemed also to grasp this, at least implicitly - although he did not follow it through; by his belief that there is an Afterlife (the title of his 1987 book, which detailed his increasing conviction that psychical research proved that there was an existence beyond death). 

As I wrote earlier today (stimulated by reading Mind Parasites); my own conviction that it is specifically and necessarily the infinitely-wide frame of the Christian belief in an afterlife that makes it possible to live a truly successful mortal life - and which (potentially) uniquely solves the problem of Romanticism - and any other actual problem of any person's actual life.   

The Decline of The West - a thought experiment

Here's a thought experiment regarding the ongoing, inexorable (and primarily self-inflicted) decline of The West towards extinction...

Yes, it is terrible that so much that was once so great will be lost...

But would you really prefer that The West as it now is in terms of values and ideology was waxing in economic power and military might, increasing in global influence; once again replete with geniuses in science, technology, the arts; efficient and results-orientated in its societal institutions - and effectively led by Men of aptitude and charisma? 

**

Note: Of course, this "thought-experimental" combination of The West as is in terms of values and ideology - and The West as a great and positive human accomplishment; is actually an oxymoron, an impossible self-contradiction; because what has made the decline, is also what has destroyed all the goodness. 

How to live with a positive, light-hearted, fearless, and serious attitude - as modelled and taught by Jesus

If this mortal life is everything, and is terminated by death and the destruction of ourselves eternally; then this mortal life is worth nothing beyond our current feelings. Because if only this lifespan matters, then significance reduces to here-and-now satisfaction merely; and a "delusory" happiness of intoxication or disease is as-good-as "real life" - because only our now-feelings matter.    

But if real life lies after death, beyond death; and when this life after death includes the annihilation of our self, our distinctive nature and consciousness - then our personal mortal life is a waste of time, and (rationally) we should try to die as soon as possible. 

If this mortal life is a kind of examination leading either to eternal reward or eternal punishment; then this mortal life is by-design a miserable trial of existence, essentially negative - which implies a hostile or indifferent God (and is is reasonable to expect such a God to provide an eternal reward?) 

So; if these world pictures eliminate positive meaning from this mortal life. So; what would it take for this mortal life to be meaningful, to have positive goals? 

We need to be concerned about this life and world - not indifferent. There must be something positive to gain from life. And this life must potentially make a difference - not just in the moment or over a finite lifespan, but lastingly - indeed forever. 

Life after death needs to be everlasting and our life, a life where we remain our-selves; and when we carry forward into eternity the benefits of whatever positive experiences and lessons we have learned in this mortal life. And this post-mortal life needs to be our choice - we can have it if we want it. 

How would this expectation of this kind of post-mortal life (call it Heavenly Resurrected Life) affect this mortal life? - because it surely would affect this mortal life to live in expectation of Resurrection to heaven and knowing that our positive learning from experience would enhance our lives eternally... 

I think this would lead to a positive and ultimately light-hearted attitude to the experiences of this mortal life: our current experience potentially matters forever, but it is not everything. 

We can embark upon this mortal life in a spirit of Trial and Error, Learning and Repentance. 

But what trails are worthwhile, and which errors are valuable (when repented) rather than corrupting and destructive?

The answer lies in motivation. When we are following our good motivations, with goals intended to yield positive experiences of potentially eternal value; then errors and bad outcomes are OK. 

After all, there is no safe path through life - because it always ends in death; and often in decline, degeneration, disease. Especially in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus seems to advocate and model a serious but positive, and never fearful, attitude to this mortal life. 

The point is that an attitude of confident expectation of resurrected Heavenly life should (logically, if sincere) lead us to be bold and care-free in tackling our own life with a spiritually ambitious attitude. 

If we take our risks, make our mistakes, experience adverse consequences from the right motivations; then we will be able to recognize and repent our sins, and learn what needs to be learned from whatever happens (pleasant, boring, or horrible)... 

Then we are leading life in the same kind of fearless, positive, serious attitude that seems to have been most characteristic of Jesus, and his teachings; and is underpinned and sustained by his promises. 

Note added: I get frustrated when the debate about an Afterlife is confined to the broad categories of survival of something beyond death - or not. Because it makes a Huge difference what "something" of our mortal selves is posited to survive death, in what conditions it survives, what the surviving entity does after death - and what implications this something-survival has for mortal life. Modern people are often uninterested by the question of afterlife, because of their implicit understanding of what this afterlife would entail and what it would imply. In other words; there is an unexamined but inbuilt assumption that an afterlife would either make no meaningful difference to this life, or would reduce or abolish the significance of this life. And that is indeed true for some conceptualizations of afterlife. But not true (I believe) for the Christian afterlife - at least not as I understand the Christian afterlife (also as described in the Fourth Gospel) - although I am quite prepared to admit that many or most self-styled "Christian" concepts of afterlife are indeed futile or negative, for one reason or another. The main question is whether we passively accept one or other of the standard "Christian" understandings (as expounded by one or another of the modern churches); or whether we actively seek a Christian understanding from and for our-selves. My point in the above post is that the IV Gospel understanding of Christian afterlife is one that gives a positive meaning to this mortal life -- Indeed, I believe it is the one and only concept of the human condition among all the religions, philosophies, and ideologies that does explain and sustain a positive mortal life.    

Ultimately, all "oughts" reduce to a choice of affiliation

The idea that we "ought" to do something was once largely unconscious - it was obvious what we ought to do, and to question it was incoherent.

But part of modernity is that we become conscious of such things, and all imperatives are met with a question of "why should?". 

Of course mainstream-mandatory atheistic materialism fundamentally excludes all possibility of an answer to the question of why ought we to think, say or do some-thing - because there is no purpose or meaning to reality, because reality is a combination of mechanical causality and randomness. 

But the ideology survives and thrives exactly because the "why should?" also dissolves the old imperatives of religion. Or, at least, it reduces them to the same level as the sound-bite emotives, and arbitrary but coercively-imposed assertions, of mainstream totalitarian propaganda. 

("Yes, I hear your detailed descriptions of God and his plans and what He wants us to do; but why should I want all that stuff? In fact I don't want it - but something else instead") 

Religion may describe the structure of a universe, or describe the underlying nature of God and Man and divine plans - yet, at the end of the day, "why should?" still stands. Because, even if one accepts that every-thing is made by God for some divine purpose, and even if human deviation from this destiny carries unpleasant or miserable consequences for us and/or other-people - such arguments are mere expediency, and does not address the question of "should" any more deeply than in our worldly mundane life. 

I mean that if rejecting God, or violating divine law, carries a horrible punishment - then this is not qualitatively different in terms of values from the totalitarian rationale of Do This, Or Else. 

If religious obedience is ultimately enforced by carrots and sticks calibrated against gaining putative pleasures and avoiding pain; this hardly amount to a superior system of values. It amounts to "God Says This, Or Else" - competing with "the government/ the police/ my employers says This Different Thing, Or Else. 

Both are threats. One may be a worse threat, or a greater bribe than the other; one is here-and-now while the other is asserted to be eternal - but at root they are just competing expediencies. Who is to say that choosing one is morally better than choosing the other, if the choice is a calculus of predicted relative pleasure? 

Is there any escape from the "utilitarianism" of an individual seeking happiness (of some kind, in some way)?

Why is it ultimately better to to take the side of God, rather than to oppose God? 

Is there any way of framing this question such that we are not merely kicking the can a bit further down the road? 

We have reached the point where the question of what we should do has been stripped of all unconsciousness and unquestioned habit -- and we are faced by a stark existential choice between basing our affiliation on personal expediency; or else choosing on the basis of our own value system. 

In other words; we either choose on the basis of what makes us happier (in the short- or longer-term according to preferences); or else we choose on the basis of what we think is right...

"Right" - while accepting that this choice is not something we can justify to others; and, because it is rooted in a personal preference, it is not some-thing we can say that others "ought" (objectively, universally) to do. 

(Others may be set-up differently, desire differently... have different preferences.) 

I am saying that our decision of what we ought to believe, think, do - has become a matter so deep and so personal, that the choice becomes a matter of ultimate personal responsibility; a choice rooted first in what we-are; and then in what we desire to-be.

Even the business of how we make this choice has become personal. Some people (most people) apparently prefer to hand-over this choice to somebody else - whether society, the media, a church, a party, some implicit or explicit "authority" - or whatever. 

It seems wrong To Me that somebody should eschew personal responsibility for ultimate choice of fundamental affiliation; it seems better that we be aware rather than unconscious of our fundamental choices; it seems better too that the choices be made clear and simple and easily comprehended by me, rather than complex and in-obscurity -- but of course all such "wrongs" and "betters" are again definitions that depend on ought!

In the end; the only coherent way I can think about "ought" is that it depends on choices; and For Me the fundamental choice is whether to take the side of God, or Not. 

But even that choice depends on multiple other and linked choices to set-up that choice - regarding the nature of God, my relation to God... and so-on and so-forth. 

Taking sides is where the buck stops - but it is individuals who, one way or another, make the choices by which sides are taken, and indeed what are the sides that we might choose to take. 

Ultimately ought reduces to something like Thus I Choose - and I also choose (like it or not) to take the consequences of my choice, whatever they may turn-out to be. 

Objective reality (the Truth) can only be subjectively known - so Why the cultural assumption of an objectively true reality?

We are stuck with a false analytic division between the supposed realm of the subjective and personal ("just your opinion" "just your perception"); regarded as as distinct from objective, universal Reality (aka. Truth). 

This analytic division between subjective and objective is a deep, culturally-inculcated and -reinforced assumption that has become an almost-irresistible habit of thought.

But it is incoherent nonsense. Subjective and Objective are indivisible. 

All that is known or knowable, entails consciousness - which is subjective/ personal: the consciousness of a Living Being. 

There can be no objective/ universal that is not also subjective/ personal. Objective reality must be subjectively known. Subjectivity is the only objective knowledge.  

This means that there is no-such-thing as an objective, universal realm of reality - existing separate from consciousness and from knowledge of it. We think, talk and write routinely, as if there was such a realm - but all such thinking/ talking/ writing is (of course) itself done-by conscious, living Beings! 

We discourse often on the assumption that objectivity entails eliminating subjectivity, eliminating the individual person, eliminating human bias or error... But that is nonsense - hence impossible. 

So what is going-on with all this relentless chat about eliminating the human/ subjectivity; and claims to be discoursing with objective universal validity from from an imaginary realm of universal validity?

Well, once the question is put in that form - it answers itself. 

Such pseudo Truth-referencing discourse reduces to a covert war over whose subjectivity can be enforced as universal objectivity. 

 

But another answer is PSYOPS. 

When a society, a civilization, operates on the basis of incoherent falsehood; this creates a deranged sense of perma-confusion that prevents people from thinking towards a solid conclusion. 

And when people cannot think towards solid conclusion - they give-up on thinking; and instead function passively, in a hand-to-mouth fashion, operating merely on the basis of short-term expediency. 

Which is where we are. 

NOTE - I am aware that the above is a negative critique of the prevalent metaphysics; and I do not here describe the alternative metaphysics of a living creation inhabited by Beings in relationships from-which I am making this critique - that is available in scores of posts on this blog over the past decade. 

The power of concentrating the mind isn't the answer (because it's mundane will power, in disguise)

I have often noticed that there is an almost-opposite stream of therapeutic self-help to the oneness spirituality - and that is to propose that we need to improve our powers of mental concentration. 

This suggestion goes back to Nietzsche, and includes George Bernard Shaw and Colin Wilson - and also several strands of the Golden Dawn tradition of ritual, or ceremonial, magic*. All these (and many other self-help gurus) advocate training oneself (or undergoing systems of training) in 'habits' of mental control and concentration; as a kind of amplification of will power. 

This is a significant half-truth; because there is certainly a sense in which our inability to control our thinking is a real plague of mind. If we cannot focus, or concentrate, our thoughts - then we can't follow a line of reasoning, cannot analyze and critique, cannot resist the ubiquitous distractions of mundane life (especially now that the mass-social media is so prevalent). 

Also; people who have high powers of concentration - whether spontaneous or trained - may be impressive in their capacity for work, and also relatively socially dominant: they may be able to manipulate other people more effectively than would otherwise be the case, in a kind of "hypnotic" fashion. 

Concentration really can, therefore, be a kind of power - power over the natural world, and over social situation, and it is easily understandable that some people (at least in some moods) would desire this power. 

Yet such power amounts to self-assertion. It is a means to the end of imposing one's will on the rest of the world. 

In other words; concentration operates at the level of the everyday, mundane self - which self is ultimately passive, externally-controlled, un-free. 

What concentration bypasses is the Primal Self; and if you agree that this mortal life is "about" the learning and development of our Primal Self - then it can be seen that a focus upon focus, concentrating on concentration, is missing the point - and indeed amounts to a deliberate exclusion from purpose of the real meaning of life. 

In other words: because a focus on concentration is a means, not an end; then, to the extent that mental concentration is made a purpose in life - in making concentration our aim we are not discovering (leave alone following) the divinely-intended destiny of our spiritual life. 

Thus, to focus on enhancement of the will-power of concentration, is rather like making improved efficiency the goal of life while neglecting what the efficiency is aimed-at; instead of discovering what ought to be the purpose of life. 

Overall it is surely better to be inefficiently aimed at the right purposes of life, then to focus efficiently on achieving goals that have been passively absorbed from external sources. 

At root, a person with tremendously focused will power is not even serving his own interests - because the mundane self is not Primal nor essential, but merely contingent. In practice; will power operates as merely an effective servant of the powers that dominate this mortal world and life. 

The lure of successful self-assertion, of imposing oneself upon other people and upon Life; in practice turns people into mental slaves for this-world's demonic rulers. 

*An example of the power of trained "magical" concentration in the Golden Dawn tradition can be seen with the Inkling Charles Williams; of whom many accounts have been written of his hypnotic, charismatic effect. None more vivid than that of Lois Lang-Sims; who was an initially-complicit "victim" of Williams at his most "vampiric". Charles Williams demonstrates that a training in focused attention is a tool that can be effectively deployed - for good and Christian purposes; for the "Left Hand" path of selfish personal benefit - or for both purposes, at different times. Williams was aware of the temptations of such self-willed power, as is evident from several of his novels; yet despite such knowledge was not able effectively to resist the temptations to abuse such power - even in the last years of his life.   

People change sides, often get corrupted (or, sometimes, repent)

Good and evil are sides in a spiritual war: the sides either for or against God and divine creation. 

People take sides in the spiritual war - and nowadays the two sides are widely distinct, and it is essentially impossible not to take a side. 

But the sides were no so distinct in the past as they are now - because now things have "come to a point". 

Also, we need to remember that people themselves are always mixed; and someone who allies with God will surely be a sinner in the sense of having evil motivations and doing evil; and another person who takes the side against God will, in some respects- even though not overall, be working-with the divine*. 

*(The important Christian distinction is not whether people sin, nor how much they sin - but whether they repent their sins. That is; whether or not they recognize their sins as sins, and spiritually reject them. Ultimately sin is death, while repentance of sin is resurrected eternal life - so repentance means to follow Jesus Christ to Heaven.) 

Plus people change. Nowadays, in the West, people mostly change for the worse; that is, there are many-fold more people who change sides from Good to evil than the opposite. 

And, just as it is never too late to repent and follow Jesus Christ; likewise it is never too late for a follower of Jesus to become corrupted, and embrace expediency in this moral life and world as his de facto priority in life. 

I have seen this so often among friends and colleagues - and especially among human groups such as nations/ institutions/ organizations/ corporations/ churches - that corruption and affiliation with evil are (statistically) normal. 

Indeed the pattern seems almost like an inevitability (which is a reason why I regard these times as terminal, The End: the "end times"). 

What is particularly dismaying is that track-record seems almost irrelevant. 

Someone may have lived five, six, seven decades; or a social institution may be 100, 500, 1000 years old - and remained overall on the side of Good all those years; and yet (over and again) I find that they have crossed the line while my back was turned! 

This happened to many people and institutions and nearly-all of the (previously net-uncorrupted) churches (including "Christian") in 2020. 

 

The overall picture is indeed dire; yet there are other and positive implications less obvious. 

In the past, the line between Good and evil was much less distinct. This applies especially to pre-Christian and non-Christian societies. 

For example, going back some two and a half millennia: I am confident that Socrates was on the side of God; but Plato seems very mixed in his affiliations - and despite the deistic sublimity, much of what Plato said and advocated seems obviously evil-affiliated and corrupting; and the same could be said of Aristotle. 

Even nowadays; there may be great good that can be extracted-from the early work of people who nonetheless ended-up on the wrong side. 

An example for me is Rudolf Steiner. I would not want to be without some of the major insights Steiner attained in his earlier life - indeed I regard these as vital to my understanding. But he became corrupted by power and expediency; and overall Steiner was much-more wrong than right; and he ended up as overall a bad influence. 

I regard this as a frequent pattern. In science, literature, medicine... the areas I know best; there are people who made major and good contributions in their earlier years; before becoming corrupted and enlisted on the side of evil. 

The opposite is rare; and most of the disseminated examples of repentance and conversion are shallow or fake - and nowadays (when the West is a totalitarian and evil-led society) the best-known, most publicized and praised examples of late-life Christian awakening and behaviour, are (almost) certain to be deliberate and manipulative deceptions. 

The genuine article of a corrupt person on the side of evil changing to affiliate with God is rare, but real - and that is what we need to discern, and learn-from. 

As usual, we cannot rely on other people (and especially not on other institutions, including churches) to do this discernment for us. 

We must each discern for ourselves - which is to say, we each Just Are responsible for our spiritual choices - and that responsibility cannot be farmed-out or avoided.   

My conclusion is that we should be discerning and clear-sighted about where people stand in relation to the spiritual war, on what side. 

But we also need to be aware that in the past people were more mixed than they are now, and good and evil not so clearly separated as now. 

And aware, also, that people do change throughout their lives - nowadays usually changing for the worse, and crossing from Good to evil; and such a person's earlier work, dating from an era before they embraced corruption, may yet be of great value.  

All of which is to reiterate Solzhenitsyn's comments about the line between Good and evil lying not between people, but within the human heart of each Man. 

This means that - if we are being strictly accurate - there are no Good or evil people as distinct categories. 

What matters about a person (or institution) is which side they individually have chosen to affiliate-with in the spiritual war of this world: and what matters most which side they are taking here and now. 

Here, now; and Not what side they took yesterday, last year, or 2000 years ago. 

The pseudo-dilemma of being forced/ encouraged to take a side between evils; when we are being-manipulated by false-delineation of the sides

As I have often said; it seems to me that the Ahrimanic Sorathic struggle is very evident in the Arrakis war - with the Sorathic-demon servers current triggering extraordinary acts of nihilistic (and indeed suicidal) provocation; while Ahrimanic affiliates are trying to maintain control of the envelope, and daily re-applying veneers of geopolitical pseudo-logic. 

This is exactly the kind of characteristically "End Times" danger that I was brooding about a few years ago; when there are only two allowed options in public discourse - chaotic destructiveness or globalist-bureaucratic totalitarianism. 

It superficially seems obvious positively​ to take the side of Systemic evil - e.g. of favouring more "peace" instead of uncontrollable war - and then one too easily finds oneself, for example, pinning hopes on that deeply evil-motivated organization the UN!

I'm sure this kind of pseudo-dilemma (ie. trying to induce us to take one of two sides, both of which are ultimately evil in motivation and methods) is something deliberately planned and sustained.

One of "Their" tricks is to mis-describe the sides: to falsely delineate who is actually fighting whom. 

For example the Fire Nation is fighting the globalist West - and the West is merely using the nation that is the venue of conflict: using them to the point of annihilation and (currently) beyond. 

This is obscured by the suicidal complicity of those being-used; yet this is not a surprise because self-destructiveness is a standard feature of modern, Not Religious, Man. Self-destruction is the inevitable ultimate consequence of unrepented sin; and resentment is maybe the most powerful and common of unrepented sins of this era. 

False delineation of sides is also evident in the Arrakis war (where there are no good sides, and the Western Establishment is unequally split - and supports both of them). 

As in the Fire Nation war; the actual venue of conflict is not one of the two real "sides"; but is merely the location of a war between much larger powers - and thereby is currently, rapidly, being-annihilated. 

And, as with the FN war; the Western side is motivated by powerful, long-term, unrepented - indeed celebrated - resentments - fuelled by fear, which is itself deliberately fuelled. 

Something somewhat analogous applies to the other side - so that the desired outcome on both sides is annihilation of the other - but the most probable outcome is de facto annihilation of both sides: which is why I regard this as ultimately a Sorathic war. 

My point about the need for accurate delineation of sides is that the mainstream, official and media sources persistently misrepresent these conflicts as being "about" the smaller, venue-nations; whereas in reality the venue nations are actually victims (albeit, to a variable but significant extent, complicit victims) of external manipulation . 

"In a rational world" we would not personally be concerned by the doings of remote places; yet because of Western complicity, funding, intervention, geopolitical strategizing - we Just Are involved. 

Not having an opinion is hardly possible with mainstream mas and social media and official saturation coverage; as it was hardly possible with the birdemic-peck, or the antiracism of "MLB". No opinion, "neutrality" or a balanced-view is always - in practice - treated as taking a side.  

Therefore in practice; we must take a view. 

But we ought not to take a side in situations where both sides are evil (albeit evil of different types and motivations); when the choice of sides amounts to a choice between inwardly supporting either demonic chaos or demonic control - because that is precisely what They are attempting to manipulate us into doing. 

The dilemma is not, in reality, "di" - and there are other options and alternatives. By making it a choice of evils; the attempt is strategically-distraction from what we, as Christians and as dyadic direct-knowers, ought to be committing our-selves to.