Is there "free energy"? Are there "perpetual motion" machines? Yes! (I'm one, and so are you.)

I suddenly had this thought in the bath. (...Where else?) 

That there have always been "way-out"/ "crazy" theories and claims concerning the existence of "free energy" - unlimited energy for no thermodynamic "cost"; and also claims to have discovered or invented a "perpetual motion" machine. 

And yet, my best understanding of metaphysics is that the ultimate reality of Creation consists of Beings in relationships. 

So, free energy/ perpetual motion simply basic properties of all Beings - including you and me. 

I mean that all beings are "powered" by unlimited and cost-free energy - and are themselves perpetual motion "machines". 

When Beings are known as the primary "units" of ultimate reality (Beings are alive, conscious, self-sustaining, eternal); then of course they (we) have properties that include an infinitely-renewable "free" energy... How else could we and other Beings be eternal? 

And, because all Beings are "dynamic" (not static), and all Beings exist "in" Time, in the sense that Time is property of Beings - then some kind of "perpetual motion" must be a feature. 

Another way of thinking about this is the divine creation does not (cannot) depend on any external source of energy else it could not be eternal; because any externally-supplied energy implies entropy, which is the opposite of creation). 

And creation is dynamic, entails change - and eternal change is perpetual motion. 

Because (by my pluralist metaphysics) all real creation is divine in nature (whether that creation is of-God or of some other Being) - that is, all creating partakes is an action of free agency, hence represents the operation of divine qualities - then, it must be a property of Beings to behave like free energy "devices" and perpetual motion "machines". 

So these don't need to be invented or discovered: we all already know dozens of such entities - including our-selves. 

 

NOTE ADDED: Why am I saying this?

Well, the ridiculing of ideas of free energy and perpetual motion has become mainstream exactly because it is a soft-sell (i.e. an indirect and implicit promotion) of the primacy of entropy in reality; and thus the denial of creation. 

The fact we have come to regard these ideas as not just untrue but actually insane, is evidence that we have made false metaphysical choices at a very deep level. 

And it is these fundamental errors in understanding the basic nature of reality that trap so-many of us in nihilistic and despairing materialism.  

Herbert Ernst Groh - Another glorious "German" tenor

I have long been a great lover of the German tradition in classical singing (including Austria and Switzerland), with Fritz Wunderlich being among the candidates for my favourite-ever singer, and Richard Tauber a more recent "discovery" (i.e I have only recently appreciated his genius). 

Following this line, I came upon this delightful recording of a piece by Lehar sung by Herbert Ernst Groh, who was apparently a Swiss tenor of the middle twentieth century. He has a naturally lyrical and high-lying tenor voice, with wonderfully sweet, ringing, and controlled top notes (on display at the end of this piece). 

One strength of the German tenor tradition is that even with such a light and high voice as Groh's, there is a masculine strength and virility. This seems to come from a throat-focused and "muscular" (rather than "resonance") based method of production. This is seldom the case for such types of tenor among Italians (or Russians, or English for that matter!). 

Speaking more generally; to my ear, the German and Italian (which includes Spanish and South American) operatic tradition gives an utterly different vocal sound and method, with very different strengths. 

I could not say which I prefer - and fortunately, I do not need to choose between (say) Wunderlich and Pavarotti! I certainly prefer Pavarotti in Verdi, Donizetti or Bellini; or Luigi Alva in Rossini; but clearly Wunderlich in Mozart, Weber or Handel - and Germanic singers are clearly better (usually) in Richard Strauss or (especially) Wagner. 

The point is that the operatic tradition, and indeed all classical singing, is mostly divided between German and Italian: nearly-all of the best and most-performed pieces are from these two traditions.

I say again: we are fortunate not to be compelled to choose-between them!

 

William James Tychonievich - a clerihew*

William James Tychonievich

Once blogged on matters Mormonish

But since his dreams achieved lucidity

It's 24/7 "synchronicity". 

*Clerihew

Speculations on the elvish strain in Men

H/T Meddlesome Art

Stimulated by reading Red Tree, White Tree by Wendy Berg, at the same time as JRR Tolkien's Letters, I present some reflections on the distinctions between elves and Men - and the potential ultimate unification of the human sub-species - over at The Notion Club Papers blog. 

This-worldly pride of some Christians

A very serious problem that I see emerging among Christians - in these testing times - is a deadly pride rooted in a division between Good versus evil people, and Good v evil institutions (by "institutions", I include churches; but also every form of organization, corporation and formal group). 

As this totalitarian world moves ever closer to destruction; if it really were the case that there were Good and evil people/ institutions/ churches; then we could reasonably hope that Creative Destruction must prevail after a collapse. 

That seems to be what a lot of this-worldly Christians are hoping-for: they are hoping that after a collapse they-themselves (and those people they regard as Good) and/or their Good institutions (mostly churches, but sometimes another group) will survive, thrive, grow and repopulate the earth. 

In other words; their optimistic notion is that destructive collapse will "clear the decks" of evil people/ institutions; and afterwards only (or mostly) Good people/ institutions (implicitly or explicitly Good entities such as them-selves, their pals or followers - and their particular Churches) will be destined and tasked with taking-over the world to rebuild civilization. 

But this is gross and fatal pride at work; because there are no Good people, and no Good institutions either; not in the way that would be required for such a scheme to be valid. 

There are At Best No essentially-Good people/ institutions - there are "only" some people/ institutions "with some Good in them" and who have also made a commitment to love God and fellow Men, and to follow Jesus Christ. 

The fatal pride is belief in oneself being so essentially-Good that our Goodness is qualitative, set-apart; while the evil of others is likewise categorical, such that they can (and should) be discarded. 

This may be combined with a delusion that some institutions (especially some Church or another) just-are, or can-be-made, so essentially and permanently Good that the institution can incorporate Goodness; such that this incorporated-Goodness can (and will) be socially-implemented and handed-on to others...

And this can be made to happen with a kind of inevitability that denies both the free agency of Men, and the mixed Good-and evil of all human hearts. 

Pride is often regarded as the worst of sins, because it is the sin which is most likely to lead to rejection of salvation and the willing embrace of damnation. Perhaps because pride may so easily be overlooked; and perhaps too because actual pride is so often mis-identified and regarded as a virtue.

(e.g. As self-respect, confidence, indomitable will, energy, courage... Or materialist optimism gets confused with spiritual hope.).  

At any rate, Christians need to be much more wary than many are, of the danger of pride that results from a - primarily - this-worldly attitude - an attitude that places our-selves and human institutions as the priority; when the reality is that Christ's Kingdom is Not of this-world. 

Especially in this world ruled by evil entities, and where that evil permeates all political systems (which are now, substantially, one totalitarian political System); none of us are clean of evil, and very few are even "mostly" Good*. 

And all socially-integrated institutions including Churches have been corrupted to the prevalent evil, such that none are a safe repository of this-worldly hope; nor are they a reliable guide to the next world. 

*This does not matter, from a salvation-perspective; because Christ came to save sinners - which includes even mostly-bad people; in the sense that salvation depends on following Jesus - not on prior or present good behaviour. 

Salvation is post-mortal

Salvation is post-mortal: that is to say, the decision to accept Jesus Christ's offer of resurrection to eternal Heavenly life is made after our death. 

(Of course we can decide positively to follow Jesus at any time during this mortal life, but then we can also change our mind at any time; and we change all the time and the world changes - so that can't be final.) 

I realize that I have arrived at this understanding of salvation over the past years, and have not wavered from my conviction; yet I'm not sure that I could retrace the steps of how I arrived at it. 

It may have been through reading the Fourth Gospel repeatedly through 2018; but it may also have been through a process of inferring how God "must" have arranged things such that the scheme of salvation had the best change of achieving its goals in the context of Men as they actually are, and this world as it actually has-been and is. 

At any rate, I find this conviction immensely consoling. No matter how distracting and evil our world becomes, how weak we are as Men, the time of decision will be after all this; will be based on a retrospective of our life and knowledge and choices. 

I also expect that it is in this post-mortal situation when other positive influences may also be brought to bear on our decision about salvation; specifically, it is when love of fellow Men may become effectual: our love for others, and the love others have had for us. 

This because the positive choice of salvation is a choice and commitment to live eternally and wholly by love. 

It makes the best sense to me that our fullest awareness of the fact of love would come after mortal life is ended, and in retrospect.

In particular, most effectively I suppose, we would then be able to share the experience of any persons (or indeed other non-person living Beings) who love us and whom we love who have already been resurrected. 

I cannot imagine any-thing more positively persuasive than such an experience.

Of course, salvation is always a choice, and may be rejected. 

Is such rejection of salvation permanent? - Well, I can't see that rejection would have to be eternal (and surely God would not want that?). 

Also, there need not be a 'symmetry' between on the one side the ability that we have (since the work of Jesus Christ) to commit eternally (irrevocably) to love; and, on the other side, the capacity to reject love. 

(Indeed, it may be that there is no eternal way that love can be rejected, no way that rejection can be made eternally, permanently, binding.) 

So - the theoretical possibility of salvation may always remain... but only so long as a Being is capable of love; and it may be that the capacity to love may have been absent from eternity, or be destroyed in the course of time. 

But while a constitutional incapacity to love may be inferred from behaviour; it cannot be known directly and with certainty - such is the nature of agency. 

At any rate, it seems clear that anyone who is capable of love and desires salvation can have it - whatever their nature and the circumstances of their past life. The work of Jesus Christ made possible exactly this everlasting state of living-by-love. The Big Question is whether or not a Being actually wants this: wants it enough to make the eternal commitment.

 

Reality and the absolute necessity of Motivation

Way back in the olden days when this blog began, I used to harp on the subject of motivation, and that this was something very lacking among the great mass of people in this era of modern atheistic materialism. 

So many (nearly all) of the plans and schemes for the betterment of individuals or mankind fall-down because of the feebleness of motivation that drives them. 

Of course, motivation of some kind can be manufactured - either from-within or (more often) imposed externally - especially by the mass media and corporations. Or else people would not do anything, would not get up in the mornings, would wither and die. 

But there is a world of difference between someone who has a strong innate, robust, and long-lasting  motivation - and someone (most modern Men) who are just temporarily reactive to short-term and socially-acceptable incentives - motivated just so long as this does not require too much immediate effort or sacrifice. 

By my evaluation, the problem of deficient motivation undercuts and renders destined-to-fail all sorts of ideas for social and personal betterment - from vast schemes of political and economic reform or reaction, down to plans for spiritual and religious renewal or awakening. 

It seems like a plain fact that we cannot conjure strong and lasting motivation "on demand" - no matter how much we may want to, or how "right" we thing that motivation is. 

This implies Christians are confronted by a stark choice between living as a manipulated pawn in the hands of the most powerful social engineers - in which case they are not Christians... Or else discovering what are the actually-operative (or potentially effective) profound motivators in our-selves; and from among these latent motivators, trying to identify and build-upon those which are Good: those which are harmonious with God's creation and Jesus's offer of salvation.

Discovering, selecting, and putting our best efforts behind our profound Christian motivations is an inner quest and maybe the most necessary quest of all, since upon it depends all possible other action. 

And (like most real-life quests) there is no recipe for success; beyond sustained honest effort.

Indeed; the first step has to be a Christian motivation to discover one's own strong and lasting Christian motivations... Which sounds paradoxical, and would actually be paradoxical - except that this is exactly the kind of where a faithful Christian should confidently expect God to step-in, and help us (personally) directly with guidance and reinforcement, whenever that is necessary*.

*Bearing in mind that this-world-now seems clearly to be set-up in accordance with God wanting us to do as much  as is possible of this seeking and discovering for-ourselves - by trial-error-repentance and then trying-again. Presumably because this process is the best, and sometimes the only, way to learn. 

The evil of Literature, Music, Visual Arts...

As an adolescent and young adult I was extremely idealistic about the possibilities of "the Arts" - which, for me, were particularly literature and classical music, but also the visual arts (fine arts, architecture etc). 

It seemed to me that creating, understanding and appreciating these, were the best possibility for a good life, and  - at any rate - represented the highest ideal of which I was aware. 

I now find my views almost at the opposite - except that I can see that the Arts have some kind of valid role as a developmental phase - an opening our of consciousness towards... 

Well "towards what?" is the whole point at issue. 

It is, for me, the personal and spiritual world of Christianity that now occupies the "ideal" mental territory once occupied by the Arts; and I can all-too-readily perceive that the Arts have (long since) been incorporated into the Totalitarian System - incorporated every bit as thoroughly as the legal system, education, science, and the mass media. 

Indeed, the Arts Today seem, mainly, just a sub-department of the mass media. 

Now, as with any System-included activity; the process of incorporation is incomplete, which means that a selective and discerning approach can find much that is good and spiritually helpful in that vast treasury of the Arts. 

But the Arts - on average and overall - are here-and-now a part of the value-inverted anti-Good, anti-creation, anti-God "side" of the spiritual war - as is readily conformed by considering a sample of its creators, performers, exponents, critics, scholars, broadcasters, administrators... 

Almost-everybody who is professionally a part of the Arts sub-System, or set-up, is - very obviously and explicitly - on the Wrong Side.  

This means that I have no "faith" in the Arts; no faith that they are good on the average or overall, no sense that the Arts (here and now) are A Good Thing; including no belief that experience or devotion to the High Arts is ennobling, or can validly be distinguished from Low or Popular Art. 

And this is a big change for me, and certainly leaves a sense of loss, a vacuum - and one that I have not discovered any wholly-satisfactory way to fill. Spiritual Christian activity does-not and cannot simply slot-into that existential-hole which the Arts have left-behind. 

I'm not happy about the situation that the Arts have been subverted and inverted; such that they mostly need to be avoided, supped with a long-spoon, or taken unseriously! 

But, so far as I can tell, that's how things are; and have been for many decades by-now.

 

Yet, if there is a vacuum where once stood the vast edifice of the Arts of Western Civilization; we may be consoled to recall that this always was a symbolic edifice; that the Arts were a form of mediation between Man and divine realities. 

While symbols functioned effectively as an objective link between Man and the divine (i.e. specific symbols being linked, by human consciousness, with particular spiritual realities) - then the inevitable distance between symbol and reality (i.e. the incompleteness and intermittent nature of Art as a secondary representation of the divine) - was less evident. 

Symbol seems almost as good as reality; the actual gap was less evident, but the gap was still there. 

A positive way of regarding the loss of validity of the Arts is that now the underlying reality of the situation is more evident. 

Insofar as we desire personal knowledge and experience of the divine, we must seek it directly - rather than symbolically by via intermediaries.   

Perhaps - knowing this; and having (pretty much) no alternative; we may be more motivated, and more accurately orientated-towards, that which we ought to be doing, anyway. 

Un-resurrected Men are not perfectible and there can be no Heaven on this earth (Jesus Christ is the only Way to eternal love)

I have often come across variations on the theme that this world and the Men, animals and plants who dwell here are perfectible: that this mortal life can be transformed into Heaven. 

The transformation has been variously expressed; one idea is that the gross materiality of bodies will be transformed into light; or that matter becomes spirit; or (in New Age type thinking) that the vibrational-state or frequency of the planet and everything on it will be raised. 

The underlying idea seems to be that this world as-it-is is "entropically" subject to death, decay, disease, and sin; but that the corruptible "stuff" of mortality and imperfection can be transformed and replaced by in-corruptible stuff... Thus Earth is changed into Heaven.

I regard this metaphysical belief as an early manifestation of Mankind's alienation, of our diminishing participation, of the loss of primal "animism" by which we knew that this reality is constituted by Beings - loving, conscious, purposive beings - and these are the bottom-line explanation. 

Because reality is Beings - therefore restatements of ultimate reality in such terms as vibrations or frequencies, of matter-spirit distinctions, or of light or any other physical property - are all abstractions. (All "physicsy").

That is these ways of understanding reality are all distanced, symbolic, representative - but not reality itself; and only a secondary form of understanding.

If, instead, we embrace the original and spontaneous human understanding of reality in terms of Beings, then we can recognize that what prevents Heaven on Earth is not a matter of matter, not about the "substance" of this world (as if it could be separated from the spirit). But instead that death, sin, insufficiency, "entropy" are a consequence on the inharmoniousness of relationships between Beings. 

In a nutshell: it is the lack of complete and eternal love that prevents our eternal lives and Heaven. 

We must rectify relationships and enable eternal Love to have Heaven. 

Heaven can arise only by Loving God first - that is, recognizing and committing ourselves to God's creation and creative methods and purposes. 

And second: by loving our neighbours/ fellow-Men - in other words Loving All Other Beings - forever.

These are the two Great Commandments articulated by Jesus Christ; and can be seen as shorthand for the eternal and irrevocable commitment to live by Love; in harmony with God's creative will. 

When beings live by Love, this is eternal - because there is nothing in Heaven (thus conceived) to disrupt or destroy divine creation.  

Since Love is what is needed, and since Love is a choice - we need to recognize that Love is the free act of a Being with agency as an essential attribute. 

Therefore (because Love cannot be imposed, top-down, from-externally); everlasting life and Heaven cannot be imposed, but must instead be chosen: indeed there must be a commitment to live eternally by Love. 

To make our lives eternal and dwell in Heaven is therefore a matter of relationship, and that relationship is voluntary (again, Love cannot be imposed)... 

Thus Heaven cannot be imposed on Earth by any means - what must instead happen is that all the beings of Earth (including the being of Earth itself) must choose to live by Love.   

I cannot see any way that such a lot of choices would be simultaneous, and Heaven cannot be partial; which would seem to mean that either Heaven must be delayed until every Being has chosen it -- which delay seems contradicted by Jesus's teachings (esepcially in the Fourth Gospel - of "John"). Or Heaven is elsewhere. 

(And also there is the fact of at least some apparently eternally-self-damned demons; which would prevent Heaven ever from happening - if indeed all must repent before eternal life can ensue.) 

Heaven surely cannot be partial; because the dwelling in Heaven of selfish or cruel Beings would not be Heaven! It would lead to destruction of that Loving creation which enables both perfection and eternity - and is itself the state of Heaven.

So, it seems to me that Heaven, and our eternal resurrected life therein, must be elsewhere than this earth; and segregated from this world of sin/ death - such that those Beings who have not committed to Love, do-not and cannot affect Heaven. 

My understanding is therefore that this-world cannot be other than it is; which is a consequence of God's Loving creation in a context of primal chaos, creation in the context of Beings that all have some tendency to death, to selfishness, to sin (and some Beings apparently incapable of Love). 

This world is temporary, and creation here is like the rule of a wise and wholly-Good parent imposed on children (i.e. Beings) who vary in their innate degrees of Goodness, and obedience. 

But for eternal life and Heaven to exist, these Beings (us, you and me, included) must be released from obedience in order to choose freely whether or not we want Heaven. 

So, this world is mixed: and has in it both evil (primal chaos, entropy, selfishness...), and also Good - vast and renewing manifestations of God's creative Love. 

Therefore; every Being or entity in this world has direct and personal experience of evil and Good. 

Every Being in this world is in a position to make the eternal commitment to live wholly by Love in a wholly Good "other place" that is Heaven - a Heaven that already exists, and to which we each can go by following Jesus Christ through resurrection, after death.

In other words; we can, will, and must choose either Heaven; or else "more of the same, mixed, kind of thing".  

But this world is not staying the same. 

This world apparently accumulates evil through time, because evil just-is cumulative, and Beings that choose evil become more evil..

(Unless the Beings repent; which means precisely making a commitment to follow Jesus to Heaven.) 

Also; Beings that commit to Good are incrementally being removed from this-world and segregated in Heaven. 

In other words; this mixed world already contains Hell in part and in places; but is becoming more Hell-ish with time. 

In conclusion; Beings such as our-selves can choose Heaven or Hell - both of which we all have experienced in this mixed world. This is the choice between eternally living only by Love; and not making this commitment. 

We can choose Heaven, or we can choose to reject Heaven. 

We can also choose to "delay" our choice -- but this is, in its actual effect, a here-and-now rejection of Heaven, and embrace of this mixed-world, which is tending towards Hell. 

We can go-back on this rejection of Heaven at any time: repentance is always open to every Being. 

But, in this mixed but evil-accumulating world, and given that un-repented evil will become more evil; delaying the choice of Heaven does make salvation more and more difficult. 

Repentance is never impossible, but always gets more difficult with delay. 

Golden Minutes: This moment may count for all, and yet there is no hurry

Two things both seem true, although - in a way - they might superficially seem opposite. 

One is that every minute counts, in the sense that a minute is a long time in the depths of our thinking. A really tremendous amount of thinking can be done, without any sense of hurry, in a minute - if we are in the right circumstances and frame of mind. 

So, it is as-if time expands to allow thinking - if or when that thinking is of high quality. It is as if all of our mortal life might be transformed, or justified, in one golden minute.  

The other thing is that we don't have to be efficient in Life. Indeed, the attempt to use our life efficiently can be a terrible mistake. 

So it would be accurate to say that we cannot be efficient in life as it is meant to be lived. 

It's a bit like the error of being always "busy". To be busy and efficient and yet to live our life well, would require that we already knew in advance what ought to be the aims of our life (at various ages, circumstances and stages) and how that ought to be achieved...

Clearly it is not a good idea deliberately to waste time in our finite life that may end at any moment. Yet, on the other hand, should we really try to be worrying, timing, and organizing every minute for optimal efficiency?  

An "efficient" life, with every moment, every day, every year (!) "well used" would require that we already knew just exactly what we ought to be doing - and the problem was simply to Do It...

Yet, that isn't the case for many people - perhaps it isn't the case for anybody at all. We are actually finding our way through life; and (it seems to me) that:

The Most Important Thing is to be ready for those "golden minutes" when they arrive.   

This must mean leaving a broad margin to the business of living, so that such things can happen, and that we can recognize when they do - and "drop everything" to attend to them as they deserve and need.

There must be a lightness of spirit and a real seriousness about the ultimate things; which seems at an opposite extreme from the too common, too generally-approved, busy, "every moment purposive and filled", focus on the expediencies of everyday living. 

Yet if our life becomes a matter of acting-out a play that we ourselves have written - then there is not much point to actually living it; since all "best" possibilities are fore-known! 

Maybe something like this is a problem for serious Christians - the mistaken ideal of filling life with "Christian things", so there is no room for anything else (e.g. any "sin"). 

(Much of this Christian busyness seems to be about "justifying ourselves"; either to other-people - IRL or maybe online; or perhaps justifying ourselves to our-selves. As such; this is largely negative - a matter of trying to avoid criticism/ self-criticism. It seems obvious to me that following Jesus is not meant to be negatively-motivated - however much churches may imply or enforce otherwise.) 

On the other hand; the opposite is perhaps the besetting sin of mainstream secular people - that is drifting passively along the surface of "life" - as "life" is defined by some combination of the mass media, officialdom and the work-place; and/or or by other external pressures and motivators such as "social media", gossip, responding to requests, or even good works. 

Such things also "fill" life, and create exactly the wrong kinds of circumstances and mind-set for the golden minutes to arise and occupy.

(I hope the inadequacy and harmfulness of living in accordance with the mainstream is obvious to readers, without requiring further detail or argument.)  

It seems to me that although mainstream drifting, while immersed in the evils of mass-social media - is the most obvious form of passivity with respect to Life - an ignoring of the real business of living; on the other hand, busyness and efficiency is also a subtle snare: a less-obvious but perhaps lethally-effective way of wasting life, and ensuring that the Reallest and Goodest things (those Golden Minutes) are much less likely to happen; and (if they do happen) our minds will be preoccupied with "other business", such that we will not want to break-off from our planned-programme, and Actually Live Them... 

There is no formula for life - not even the formulae of Good Christians - and, because there is no formula, busy efficiency is not a valid life-strategy. 

(As usual...) It turns-out that living and values are about motivations, ultimately. 

This actual world we inhabit is - in a global and comprehensive way that is literally-impossible to avoid - deeply unconducive to Christian living. So that insofar as we are busy and efficient and planned; we will almost certainly be doing the wrong things, and blocking the right things. 

But equally any form of passivity, or living by reacting, of acting from external guidance and motivation - is also wrong. 

Maybe we should consider the most important thing in our life to be Golden Minutes, so that our first job is to enable God the Creator to arrange-for these in our particular lives. 

Our second job, and the completion of the opportunity, is then to recognize our Golden Minutes, and be ready and willing fully to engage with them.  

Lake Wobegon genius

We judge artists by their best work - or, at least, we do if we have the sense of new born kittens - since the worst stuff of even Shakespeare or Mozart is pretty worthless, just like anybody else. 

At at its peak, the Lake Wobegon stories read aloud by Garrison Keillor, are as good as any such things possibly could be; perfect little miracles of humour and sadness, laughter and tears. 

This best can be found on the - now almost unattainable, I'm sorry to say - 1989 BBC double audio-cassette Leaving Home. This is far superior to the first-released (more novelistic) collection "Lake Wobegon Days", and to most of Keillor's later and more discursive work. 

Like so many authors; Garrison Keillor never seemed to understand the nature of his gifts, which were essentially bardic ; and apparently he most wanted to be a writer of books more than a speaker, and a "proper" novelist more than an orator of twenty-minute stories. 

At any rate, the slender and time-limited best work has been pretty-well swamped by the rest. 

Thus as an oral teller of tales, Keillor is unsurpassed. But when he stepped away from the combination of his own voice and the short stories, he was largely unremarkable - not bad, but nothing special.  

The danger is therefore that Keillor will be judged on his average, or most-accessible, work; rather than his best. 

Another danger is that the best known (most quoted) thing about Lake Wobegon is the mediocre, pandering, ill-judged, opposite-of-valid sign-off line: "Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average". 

I cringe every time I hear that - but it constitutes early evidence of Keillor's self-destructive tendencies. 

For various tedious and irrelevant reasons that you can research for yourselves; it seems that Keillor's work has been suppressed and even purged; so I am glad to have retained some old cassettes (and an old machine that can play them). 

Meanwhile, you can get a taste of the good stuff here - not the very best of its kind, but still better than almost anyone else. 

Newly published joke from JRR Tolkien

Provokes one of those "supertruth" laughs (as RM Pirsig called them) - at my Notion Club Papers blog. 

What psychology does New Age Spirituality, globalist totalitarianism, and traditional Christianity share? The fantasy of passive overwhelming

One might suppose that New Age Spirituality, globalist totalitarianism, and traditional Christianity would have nothing in common. 

But at the level of psychological aspiration they share what I regard as the atavistic yearning for a passive, automatic, spontaneous, immersive, largely un-conscious - and (here-and-now) happy relationship with life and the world. 

The problem (as I see it) is the yearning for passivity, the implicit assumption that only what is imposed upon us, and to which we are all compelled to yield, is real and authentic; and the basis for a stable and satisfying world.

This derives from the common (but false) belief that reality is that which overwhelms us; and anything in which we actively participate, and which we consciously choose, is merely delusion, wish-fulfilment, or the result of being-manipulated. 

By this way of thinking; all that we personally need to do is consent; and then we will be happy and the world will be much, much better. 

New Age sees this in terms of a cosmic millennial transformation of consciousness (raising the vibrational, or frequency, level...) that will happen everywhere to raise mankind towards the divine (as soon as enough people are ready for it)...

Globalist totalitarianism (the Agenda 2030, Great-Reset, Western Establishment ideology) sees this in terms of Them creating a sustainable, equitable, inclusive (etc) world for Us to dwell-within (if only We will allow the multi-mega-rich to organize this for-us and do what They say)...

Traditional Christianity sees it in terms of a restoration of (approximately) medieval theocracy, with the one-true-church shaping all of society, and educating all people in the necessary attitudes and habits (all that we all need to do is believe, practice, and obey).    

I understand all of these three world-views to be rooted in the assumption of essential human passivity; that the scope of our free agency (or "free will") is to consent; and that anything real and viable cannot (and should not, if it is really-real) depend on our individual creative efforts and personal choices.

Yet, contrary to the three listed ideals; my understanding is almost the opposite: that the divinely-destined (God-intended) path ahead is one in which individual creative efforts and personal choices - made explicitly, and with the fullest consciousness, are Absolutely Vital. 

(Lacking which, salvation shall be rejected, damnation will - passively - be consented-to.)

I believe that we need to set-aside the hopes or fantasies of being rescued from suffering, made happy. 

We also need to be aware that salvation (resurrection to eternal Heavenly life) must also actively be sought and chosen, in the most fundamental way. 

Christianity is no longer a Thing to which we might consent, yield and obey: it is now necessarily the objective of a personal quest.  

Both Personal; and a Quest. 

  

Fake elections of non-leaders who represent not-nations

"Elections" are a mind-trap, a PSYSOPS: more so than ever. 

An election by mass vote-counting is a fundamentally immoral form of decision-making. But anyway, whether regarded as evil or good; fair and genuine elections are not on offer in The West - not in the UK nor the USA.

Neither are Leaders in evidence - that is, none capable of actual leadership; since all Western leaders are middle managers, psychopaths, or (increasingly) merely-puppets. 

Or the nominal leader is a rubber-stamp in a human form. One suspects that even a signature is probably beyond one notorious person: more a case of signed: The President...X... (His mark).  

And there are no National leaders - that is, none who even try to represent the welfare and interests of the nation that (supposedly) elects them; the nation that they (ahem) "serve".

Instead we have mixtures of people who serve the interests of globalist totalitarianism, of Sorathic globalist factions, of other-nations, of specific races... 

In sum: the Modern Western Leadership Class serve the interests of almost-anybody or any-thing except the nation that they nominally "serve". 

So... Fake elections of non-leaders who represent not-nations. 

The reality should be recognized, stated, rejected...

And then is best ignored - insofar as possible. 

Bomber Command, World War II (1939-45); and the lies and corruptions of Geopolitics

Regular readers will know that I have fairly recently become very interested in the aircraft of World Wars I and II - which is the re-ignition of a similar "craze" when I was aged about 11-13. 

I have never known or understood much about WWI except that both sides had dubious motivations; but I did think that I broadly understood WWII - especially since I remember and had read a fair bit of historical material from before the massive distortions of the 1960s began to bite. 

But this re-visitation has been one major eye-opener after another; at the end of which my main conclusion is that my previous understanding of WWII was very defective and that I am not-at-all-sure my present understanding is correct either!

What is clear is that HUGE facts about the war - which were often once widely known (some, in a sense, that I did know but misinterpreted), really ought to have been either obvious, or were easy to ascertain - have made an equally-huge different to... well, if not my understanding, then to my confidence in my understanding. 

Naturally, given my starting point, most of these revisions have been at the expense of a previous stance of confidently regarding the British (and allied) side as clearly "superior" in some general sense. This has not reversed, but neither is it secure. 

There have been many surprises - but I will just outline one here. A particular aspect has been the strategic bombing of Germany - by Bomber Command. In a sense I was familiar with the criticisms of the strategy of bombing German cities - both the idea that it was not very effective, and that it was morally... dubious. 

What I had not realized until recently was that strategic bombing was By Far the major British war effort and expenditure - dominating all RAF policy, consuming most of RAF expenditure, and using more resources than the entire British Army and Royal Navy put together! 

Think about that for a moment... 

The major and (literally) overwhelming British strategy to win WWII was - for most of the war - quite simple: that Britain could destroy the German capacity to wage war solely by means of heavy bombing - after which the Army could essentially just stroll-in, and take-over.  

This was the extraordinary conviction of the RAF, and of Churchill. I say "conviction" but it had more of the attributes of a delusion - in the sense that the doctrine was not true, there was no actual evidence to support it (and never had been anywhere or at any time); And Yet belief in the doctrine held with absolute conviction and was immune to the evidence of experience. 

Britain crippled her war effort overall, almost lost the war at least three times* and bankrupted herself for decades afterwards, in pursuit of a delusion! 

This doctrine of The Bomber as a war-winner dated back to pre-war times, and its strength came from the fact that it was the major military justification for maintaining then expanding the RAF into by-far the most resourced UK military service. 

The delusory nature of the Bomber strategy was perfectly obvious at the time to empirically-minded people who studied the accumulating and consistent evidence of gross inefficiency and lack of effectiveness of bombing at its task destroying the German "war machine" such that Germany would collapse. 

In the early years of the war, there inaccuracy of bombing (and the inadequacy of the aircraft and bombs) meant that precision bombing of military targets was impossible - and night bombing meant that even hitting particular cities was not reliably achieved. 

After moral objections to the mass slaughter of (overwhelmingly) civilian non-combatants - a major breach of the rules of war - led to arguments that (what we would now call) genocide of the Germans was a valid goal of bombing. This was increasingly achieved as the war progressed and equipment and improved technologies and techniques (such as using radar-guided pathfinders to mark targets, and creating firestorms by phased types of bombs).

However, the fact is that - by the time the ability to annihilate cities was perfected (especially by the USAAF in Japan - where the building were flimsy and wooden) - it was too late significantly to affect the course of the war in Europe.  

The above discovery (or perhaps fuller realization) about Britain and strategic bombing in WWII - which seem to have the status of objective fact attested by multiple credible authorities - by-itself makes a big difference to my attitude to that war; and there have been several other equally major discoveries of a broadly similar nature. 

My take-home message from this is not that I now know the truth whereas previously I was in error; but that I have concluded that the truth about such matters is not something I can be sure of. 

Geopolitics - including war - at the scale of modernity; is by its nature almost-always a domain of dishonesty, and of insufficient and misleading information; whose morality is therefore nearly-always a choice of lesser evils.

This, despite that war is also a domain in which great courage, hope, endurance, comradeship, patriotism, and other human "goods" are probably commoner and more highly achieved.  

But - looking around at a world in which WWIII has apparently begun, I hope to keep these lessons in mind - and (despite the encouragements and temptations) to refrain from making Geopolitics a central feature of my system of values and hopes.  

*First was the Battle of Britain - where the RAF resisted almost until too late the provision of enough fighters to defend Britain - believing that fighters were almost unnecessary, and that the airforce ought to be about attack not defense. And two times more (1940-41, again in 43) when Britain almost ran out of essential supplies due to the U-Boat campaign; while the RAF deliberately starved the highly-effective Coastal Command of adequate resources (CC was a kept-small branch of the RAF that provided aircraft to protect shipping - especially the Atlantic sea lanes) - again on the excuse that nothing could be spared from the task of bombing Germany. The telling point was this happened twice - apparently nothing was learned from the first near disaster. The strong conviction/ prejudice of RAF high command, and crucially of Churchill; was that Coastal Command was an unnecessary and defensive diversion of scarce resources, that ought to go into the vital and war-winning activity of bombing Germany.) 

Why the development of consciousness, or its denial, makes a Big Difference

The conviction upon which much of my thinking has been based over the past decade, has included that human consciousness has developed, or evolved (to a plan), or transformed - and I mean actively developed, from inner (and ultimately divine) causes - through the modern era. 

This is a metaphysical assumption; and so is the usual and opposite mainstream idea that human consciousness now in the West is the same consciousness as human beings everywhere else in the world, and at all points through history. 

(Another fairly mainstream metaphysical assumption - of totalitarian modernity - is that there is no such thing as human consciousness, that it is some kind of misunderstanding, or maybe a temporary accident; or that the human can and should be "transcended" by something "better" - by adding or replacing-with computers, genetic manipulations, AI &c.)  

Both the development of human consciousness and the universality of human consciousness are assumptions: metaphysical in nature. 

Neither assumption is provable by any kind of evidence (because evidence depends on assumptions: the empirical depends on the metaphysical) - we can just point-out observations that are easily compatible, or not, with these assumptions.  

But if one believes that consciousness has changed, one important consequence is that modern Western Man cannot go back, he/we cannot revert to an earlier stage or phase of civilization; since earlier stages were manifestations of a different consciousness. 

For example to fit Modern Man (with his different consciousness) into a medieval European type of society, would be like hammering a square peg into a round hole. 

Modern Man would need to be "made to fit" medieval structures and systems - they would not ever come naturally to him. In other words the need for hammering, represents some extremely different kind of social control and enforcement - which would mean that the resulting society was Not the same as in medieval Europe. 

This would be because - at a fundamental level - Modern Man experiences the world differently, "processes" his perceptions differently, has a different and greater self-consciousness... And therefore responds differently to incentives and sanctions. 

So, it is important to consider the validity of the - often unconscious and unexamined - assumption that "Men are functionally and essentially the same always and forever"; because if that is Not true but you believe it; then you will find yourself assuming possibilities that are actually impossible; and perhaps in trying to attain the impossible, you will be doing significant harm. 

Furthermore; if God has indeed made things such that Men are different in different places and times, then it is reasonable to infer that God has a different destiny for different times and places. 

...What is valid for one time and place may then be evil for another. 

This is not proposing any kind of "relativism" - quite the opposite! 

What I am advocating is to believe that there really is a divine destiny for places and times, for nations and eras; as well as for individual persons - and that it is our job to discover and live-by the divine destiny that applies to us, personally. 

(And, insofar as it is relevant; to be aware that our divine destiny may not be identical with everybody else's!)

 

Free e-books by Charles Williams and CS Lewis, from fadedpage.com

 Links are posted at my Notion Club Papers blog. 

The twentieth century idea/insight/error that men need to "balance" their animus with anima ("feminine" with "masculine") - what is the way ahead?

Jung's terminology can be used to describe an idea that had great currency through the twentieth century; which was that men had a female "side" (anima), and women had a male "side" (animus), and that it was healthier/ more-balanced/ better-integrated/ more spiritually-advanced when the sexes became aware of their opposite archetypal qualities - and achieved some kind of "blend" of the two sides.

Looking back, 21st century Christians can readily see that this idea has been socially-deployed in many evil ways; to confuse and even invert the sexual self-understanding of the population. 

And indeed that, in practice, the idea was applied one-sidedly as asserting the need-for/ benefits-from men to become more feminine, and traditionally male social structures to become feminized. 

This has been a disaster. 

So it seems necessary to conclude that making men/ institutions/ society "more feminine" is a very bad idea, with consequences that are turning-out to be spiritually, psychologically, and physically lethal. 

But, the widespread nature of the basic idea or feeling behind the anima/ animus suggests to me that there was "something" in it; and that the false and demonically-hijacked implementation was nonetheless rooted in a genuine insight (albeit misunderstood and distorted) concerning the nature of individuals and society. 

This true insight was (I think) largely negative and critical; and it was that men and women's psychology and social roles, Christianity itself, and Western institutions generally; were all one-sided and incomplete in their basic nature - in ways that made them partial, incoherent, and spiritually-stultifying at an individual level. 

In other words; there was indeed by the twentieth century "something wrong" (at least most of the time, for many people and situations) with the pre-modern separation/ segregation/ division of the sexes in the context of the distinctive twentieth century consciousness.  

So, we may be able to agree that there were serious, indeed fatal flaws with the understanding and actuality of "sexuality" a century-plus ago; and that explains why counter-revolutionary/ reactionary attempts to reverse the changes of the past century, and restore the previously-existing system and psychology have been almost completely ineffectual. 

(Much talk, but near zero effect! Much posturing, but mostly (unintentionally) revelatory of its fakeness.)  

By my analysis, the twentieth century demonstrated that Christianity lacks the theological and metaphysical resources to deal with the challenge of the anima/ animus insights. Such mainstream ideas as the androgynous/ sexless angels, the loss of meaningful sexual identity after death, the dissolving of all marriages by death, the uncreative and non-procreative activities of resurrected men and women... 

When combined with modern consciousness; all of these assertions of traditional Christianity seem like positive inducements to the sexual confusions and distortions of the 21st century!  

With such a confused and feeble basis in theology; "Christians" divided into those Liberals who passively followed the secular trend of individual and social feminization; and Traditionalists who tried to maintain and restore pre-modern forms...

The liberals ceased to be Christian; while the traditionalists failed - and continue to fail - to address the underlying inadequacies and deficiencies of pre-modern Christianity.

(Which is why people don't really want traditionalism, and why it never goes anywhere.) 

I believe that some of the most valuable clues to valuable answers can be found in Mormon theology (and I mean Mormon theology - not the actual current practice of the CJCLDS - which is mostly very different, and increasingly liberalized). 

When God is recognized to be a man and a woman, and when the highest spiritual form of heavenly activity is recognized to be an eternal marriage of resurrected man and woman; then there is a (simple and clear) theoretical basis for a way of considering masculine and feminine that is both new, and also seems to fit with what we know of pre-civilizational tribal Men.  

As always, we need to by guided by what Mormons call Personal Revelation; and which I have characterized as the explicit and conscious recognition of the primacy of an intuition that is rooted in Primary Thinking leading to Direct Knowing. 

The answer to what each-of-us individually should do; cannot, therefore, be discovered from general rules about sexuality and sex. There are so many exceptions to general rules of this kind, that the exceptions typically outnumber the valid applications! 

While eternal marriage of a resurrected man and woman in Heaven is the spiritually-highest state; not all of us currently (or foreseeably) desire, or are suited to, such an outcome. And although all human lives ought to be rooted in love; mortal marriage is not, and never has been, the right thing for everybody. 

(For instance, for many people - past and present - family love, that is love within ones birth family - is and should be primary.)

It is learning the divinely-destined life-lessons of our experiences in this actual current mortal life which ought to be our primary concern: here-and-now. 

It is what we are here for. 

But - in this evil-dominated world of official lies and officially-sanctioned sins - those lessons can best be learned when we have a coherent and spiritually-valid understanding of the ultimate basis of masculine and feminine.

 

A moth-eaten, mangy varmint - again

The first Doctor Who suffered similar problems

A few years back I mentioned my terrible, terrifying, experience of a moth-attack that left me without woolen clothes. 

Since then I have been engaged in a years-long extermination-attempt on these evil lepidoptera; involving old-sweater clearances, rigorous hygiene of clothing/ wardrobe/ drawers, pheromone sticky pads, instant and long-acting sprays and - in general - bug-eyed destructive fanaticism. 

Followed by careful replenishment with brand-new jumpers - each pre-treated with assorted insect poisons, each lovingly cared-for to maintain cleanliness and freshness. 

All utterly futile. 

I had just recently thrown-out two plain crew-necks, which were presents; and was down to a single patterned-lambswool pullover; when, just yesterday, I found the tell-tale ragged hole that means the vile vermin had gotten my final jersey. 

Once again I am a moth-eaten, mangy varmint. 

That's it. I give up. The Moths Have Won. 

I love wearing wool - it is the queen of fabrics as far as I am concerned. But not for me. 

No More Wool 

- Henceforth clammy cotton, awful acrylic, and sweat-inducing polyester fleece shall clothe my miserable torso.  

Sins and repentance - (properly understood) an easy problem, and simply solvable

The main problem of the modern West is the inversion of sin; which is that the traditional sins (especially sexual, but also pride, envy, greed etc.) are not sins, but instead virtues. 

And the reciprocal invention of new "deadly sins" that are not sins, such as (the actual current usage of) racism (seemingly now regarded as the sin of sins - unless the recognition of traditional sexual sins as sin, is even worse). 

But value-inversion is made worse by a legalistic understanding of sin, in terms of categorical lists with operational definitions. This is literal rending of sins is necessary if any "sin" is to be made the basis of our totalitarian System.  

For example; the not-sin of racism is a specific concept referenced in bureaucratic strategies, regulations and laws - operationally defined in measureable terms; such as specific words, or percentages of personnel (pre-divided into good/ disapproved and bad/ being-promoted races); and by mandatory active participation in defined antiracist initiatives and actions (e.g. mass genuflecting, parades and speeches, display of posters and flags etc.). 

So, although the not-sin of racism is supposed to be a thought-crime, a wicked motivation; in practice it gets operationalized in quasi-objective terms: you are guilty of racism by saying or writing this taboo, or by failing to join with that ritual, or in terms of percentage "representation". 

In strategic spiritual terms; this legalism and literalism represents the reduction of (imperceptible) spiritual conceptualizations of sin, into a controllable material manifestation; in a world where official and public discourse recognizes only "the material" as real and significant. 

By the sustained operations of actual social reality; the populace are trained to regard the legal and bureaucratic definitions of detectable and measurable material manifestations of sin, asif they Just Are the sins themselves. 

In other words; because society treats sin legalistically and objectively in categories; that is how people habitually, unthinkingly, moralistically regard the reality of sin. 

 

Of course; what I have described as the current materialist-totalitarian reality of values; is a simple inversion of the old religious system of values, which was dominant from the medieval era until recently - which also regards sin in a legalistic and categorical way. 

Sins were conceptualized in terms of categorical lists of behaviours that would send someone to hell, unless he specifically repented each of them. Repentance was often understood as going through the entire list of one's sins, and repenting them each and specifically - before being allowed-into Heaven. 

(I find it bizarre to suppose that the whole world of creation and our-selves can thus be cut-up into discrete chunks, some of which are sins! My understanding is instead that reality is only validly divided into separable Beings; but sins are part of the continuous field of divine creation - they can be distinguished in terms of emphasis, but cannot ultimately be separated and divided.)  

Such a linear and sequential procedure of repentance might need to be done during mortal life (e.g. by confession and absolution) or afterwards (for instance in a Roman Catholic purgatory, or the "toll-booths" of Eastern Orthodoxy).

In practice; such a way of thinking and behaving was so dominant that people also came to believe that only these categories of official sins were real or significant sins. 

Consequently; many of the besetting sins of modernity - such as dishonesty, existential fear, and resentment - became invisible, ignored, denied. 

So that habitual and expedient exponents of untruthfulness (such as nearly-all modern managers, politicians, bureaucrats; and professionals such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, the police and military, and church leaders); will mislead, be dishonest, and outright lie systematically and for-a-living - on a daily, or even hourly, basis - while having a clear conscience! While regarding themselves as good-people, including Good and exemplary Christians. 

One side-effect of this categorical way of thinking about sin has been that people come to regard themselves and others as not-sinners (and other people as sinners) - the world of Mankind being divided into sinners and the Good. 

Such people regard themselves as basically good human beings; so long as they refrain from the listed sins (or the worst of them, at least) - or else repent them specifically. This leads to a sense of self-righteousness that is a gross distortion of the realities of our mortal life. 

On the other hand; the ubiquity of some of the listed sins can lead to a sense of despair and helplessness; and other people react-against this by asserting that if a sin is universal, or very common - then it can't really be a sin! - and is simply being used by religion to control the population. 

This also applies to modern value-inversion - for instance when white people are officially regarded and regard themselves as inescapably racist, and therefore experience inescapable white guilt - rendering them demoralized and obedient to those who offer rituals of expiation.

  

My point is that - from the Fourth Gospel Christian perspective which I believe is true - legalism and categorical description is a basically mistaken and itself-sinful way of thinking about and conceptualizing sin. 

From Jesus's teaching, we are all sinners all of the time; because we are not wholly-and-always motivated by Love. We are thereby misaligned with God's creative will, hence all of us (as we are) are utterly unsuited to dwell in Heaven. 

But this is Not a cause for demoralization, demotivation or despair; because Jesus has said that all who follow Him shall be resurrected to eternal life in Heaven.

The best way to think of sin is very generally; as whatever would prevent us (as individuals) from accepting the gift of everlasting life. 

We may each have one or more besetting sins that we find difficult (or impossible) to give-up in order to enter Heaven - but this is ultimately a matter of not loving Jesus enough, not wanting Heaven enough. 

If we love and desire above all to follow Jesus Christ; if we take the side of God and divine creation in the spiritual war, and wish to participate in creation eternally - then quite naturally we will repent, shed, leave-behind any and all sins (named or unnamed) in order to attain our deepest desire. 

If we desire to be re-made (i.e. resurrected) such that we become motivated only and always by love eternally - then sin is just the name for anything and everything which would prevent that process of re-making. 

Repentance is the word for our agreement to having stripped-away and left-behind all that would otherwise prevent resurrection into Heaven.  

It is really very simple. 

Christianity is a positive (not double-negative) religion; it is opt-in (not a matter of passing a test); God is our loving parents (not a judge administering laws), Christianity is a family (not a monarchy). 

We are not meant to worry over sin! Jesus came to save sinners - we need to focus primarily on the saving, not the sins: we will know the sins in consequence of our desire for salvation. 

If we understand Jesus's teaching in the way it was intended and exemplified (and which can be confirmed here-and-now by the guidance of the Holy Ghost); 

and if we therefore base our faith on positive love and the choice of following Jesus Christ to Heaven -- 

then we know that everything important about "our sins" will be recognizable clearly and simply, and we will know what to do, and we will do it - when the time of choice arrives. 

We do not think the work of God; but of Satan

Reality consists of Beings - in relationships. Beings are alive, conscious, self-sustaining, eternal. 

If something knowable is not a Being, then it is part of a Being or a consequence of relationships - but everything needs to be related to Beings.

(Outwith Beings and their relationships, nothing in knowable - there is by inference chaos.)

We know Beings by inferring their character, motivations etc - and causality is (something like) the kind of things that a Being wants and does...

The point of all this is that we modern people think we know stuff without reference to Beings - indeed that is the only stuff that is taken seriously as knowledge in the modern West. 

I mean so-called science, evidence, data, programmes and the like... What is studied is ripped clear of any reference to the Beings that generated this stuff - the stuff has a line drawn around it, and is treated as pure abstraction...

Except that it isn't really - everything knowable comes from beings -- but the input and sustaining activities of Beings (including the fact that it is Beings who are discussing these things) are just ignored and excluded. 

Real science is (or was) of course done by Beings (human beings) and interpreted by other Beings - but that is now forgotten or denied. Science is now supposedly (by implication) done by anybody or anything that is following some method, formula, algorithm - it is regarded and treated as a process ("science tells us"... "scientists say"... "follow the science"). 

And other attributes of Beings are supposedly processes - treated in abstraction, regardless of any Beings - like intelligence: so any-thing can be "intelligent" if it follows some process, yields some kinds of result. 

We can't stop doing this! We are thinking the work of Satan!

Love is (surely?) something to do with Beings, but it is talked about and dealt-with either as a temporary emotion, a kind of pulse of neurotransmitters and hormones. 

Or maybe Love is treated abstractly - as if it was a branch of occult physics, some kind of force-field, or vibrational state; which has impersonal properties such as being "unconditional" or "universal" - so that mere people, mere Beings don't affect Love. 

Such ways of conceptualizing Love mean that it can't be genuinely important, not really, to "society" - not when it comes to serious decision-making about serious matters... 

People yammer incessantly about Love in their gossip, in the news, and in songs, stories, and soaps; but what impact did this emotional-Love have upon the management of the birdemic in 2020 - the lockdowns, social-distancing, masking, pecking-campaigns? 

How did Love affect the closure of Christian churches in 2020; the fleeing of priests, the shut-down of Lourdes; the churches refusal to administer the Eucharist, wed people, conduct funerals? 

Despite everybody asserting its immense importance all-the-time; despite the constant whittering of pseudo-Christians and materialist-hedonists alike over "God is love", and that Love is "the most important thing of all": Love made not the slightest perceptible difference to anything at all when something that the Establishment regarded as serious was at stake. Neither did Love lead to rebellion or even dissent in thought or in deed; among the docile, obedient masses. 

We have created and we sustain a world in which (more and more) everything important is abstracted from actual people. 

Actual individuals are, indeed, regarded mainly as a threat, as potential errors and selfishness. 

Goodness comes from pure abstractions and rigorous processes. The most important decisions are made either by algorithm, or by pooling and averaging individual judgment - as with voting, committees, "democracy". 

What is needed is such a fundamental change in our current and recent attitudes and understanding as to be mind-exploding; a living world, a conscious world, a world primarily of Beings, a world primarily of spirit, a world that is God's creation and directed towards Christ's salvation... 

Yet anything less leaves us exactly where we are. 

For far too long, Christians have been pouring the new-wine of a life of Love following Jesus, into the old-bottle of abstract, materialist thinking that posits the irrelevance of Love and regards following Jesus as just-another-set-of-processes - firmly located within the usual kinds of social process. 

Christians do some different things; but they think in the same way as everybody else - so that when times are tough, their ingrained and habitual materialistic-abstract-externally-driven mode of thinking limits and controls everything they do. 

Christians shall persist in getting absolutely nowhere - except to remain a "lifestyle option" within a hell-bound totalitarianism; unless and until we begin and continue to think the work of God. 

Clutching at Fake Straws...

Clutching at fake straws seems to be a favourite activity among those who might regard themselves as "conservatives" or "on the Right" or "based" - those sensible, moderate, realistic, constructive, pragmatic folk; who prefer actions to words; who seek to roll-back leftism, atheism and materialism bit-by-bit and by traditional means. 

I mean those incorrigible optimists (i.e. those who fail to realize the severity of the situation, and refuse to learn from experience) who continue to take an active interest in mainstream politics in general, and elections in particular. 

Those who get excited by the positive possibilities of allegedly-dissenting persons who participate in public discourse and feature in the mass media.

Those who seek radical change from reforming current institutions; by infiltrating and re-occupying enemy-held ground. 

Those most vocal in criticizing and boycotting those that seem most-extremely-evil among powerful, wealthy, high-status corporations and bureaucracies. 

Those who seek support for building new more-functional, more-effective, more-efficient organizations to outcompete the current market leaders.

And so on. 

Putting energy and resources and hope into such activities; is not just clutching at straws in relation of the vast bulking haystacks of current trends; but it always turns-out - over-and-over again - that these are fake straws...

Pseudo-straws whose covert connections and this-worldly motivations mean they are just another part of the haystack - part of the problem; not an alternative source of "nourishment".

Grasping at fake straws is not just a waste of time, it is a consuming distraction from what we ought to be doing..

Not just a distraction, but The Wrong Thing Altogether. 

Things are much, much worse than such people think; and failure to grasp this is fatal, because it reveals a failure of discernment; which is itself revelatory of corrupt collusion. 

This is a spiritual war; and if we are not fighting the war spiritually - then we are not fighting it at all. 

 

The most important life-learning is un-learning; and of deep metaphysics not surface experience

I've often written that the "function" of this mortal life on earth is to learn from the experiences that The Creator ensures we have during our lives. God can provide the experiences, but only we can learn from them. 

This learning is a positive thing. In the sense that ultimately, we don't Have To learn in order to follow Jesus Christ to Heaven (salvation does not depend on theosis). 

But the more truth we learn, the more of our-selves we can carry-through resurrection into eternal life; because we must leave-behind all of-us that is not-of-love. 

That's what learning is for - in a nutshell: the more we learn about Love*; the fuller and more complete will be our resurrection. 

*(Love is perhaps better understood as loving-creation -- Love is Not just some emotion, neither is Love something like physics - a force-field or frequency/ vibration state).

But a great deal of learning in this world and civilization is a matter of un-learning. 

A great deal of what we know in the Modern West is false and evil. 

A great deal of our "common sense" is actually propaganda and mind-games. A great deal of our motivation has been socially and by the mass media inculcated artificially and with  malign intent. 

Another way of thinking of un-learning is that modern people like us believe that many sins are virtues and virtues are sins; that is, our values are inverted; and we need to unlearn this inversion.

What this points-at is that our un-learning is mostly about basic assumptions rather than "empirical" facts: we need to unlearn our deep, false and evil metaphysics rather than surface ideologies and religions.  

So if you are puzzled today about what you are supposed to be learning from your actual and present life; it might be worth considering that it is probably more likely your basic assumptions need to be un-learned, than that there are necessary and positive life-lessons to be learned from the surface level of your life: from stuff like evidences, facts, and explicit theories. 

Because evidence/ fact/ hypotheses are all downstream from metaphysical assumptions - and when the deep metaphysics is wrong, then you cannot learn from surface experiences. 

Exactly because the Fire Nation is the most/only Christian country - it is a misleading example for Western Christians

Fire Nation envy is apparently common among Western Christians, and indeed even the "secular Right", for fairly obvious reasons. 

Their leader, Advlay Ootinpay, is by far the most competent and effective world leader, the only one who espouses traditional and Christian values. 

And the Fire Nation is incrementally re-orientating itself away from suicidal, self-loathing Leftism and towards Christian common sense values; and towards national effectiveness and efficiency rather the the active self-destruction of The West. 

It is fairly natural to fantasize about what might be possible in The West if such leadership and policies were applied here. 

But such fantasies are not realistic: they cannot happen, and should not be attempted.

The Fire Nation is different from The West: qualitatively different. 

 

Before the 1917 revolution, The Fire Nation was almost certainly the most Christian nation in the world. 

Seventy years - more than two generations - followed; of what was quantitatively the most savage and sustained religious oppression in world history; with near-total annihilation of the religious leadership (which apparently numbered an unequalled 2% of the population - about twice that of Medieval Europe - bishops, priests, monks, hermits, and many nuns); plus uncounted tens-of-millions of devout lay Christians.  

Even so, after decades of this (albeit varying in intensity) - and also the infiltration and subversion of the remnant church hierarchy by anti-Christian spies; when communism collapsed, Christianity arose like a phoenix; and is again integrated with the running of the nation, permeating society from highest to lowest levels - in a way that continues to increase... 

At the most obvious level, The West cannot replicate this, exactly because the Christian social basis of the Fire Nation is utterly lacking. A Christian leader of The West could not lead but only impose; and would be widely and vehemently opposed. Christian laws would neither be obeyed nor implemented. 

Why the difference? 

Well; in the Fire Nation the hearts of the people are Christian; and the nation is "a people". 

Ultimately, this reflects a difference in the innate national consciousness. 

The Fire Nation has much more of an unconscious, spontaneous, immersive, communal consciousness - something that has long since dissipated in The West. In the FN is less individualism, and - via their religion - the people feel themselves to be fundamentally a part of their country. 

The root of this difference in national consciousness is, I believe, some difference in the divine destiny of the Fire Nation compared with the Western nations. 

For The West to try and replicate the Fire Nation (which will not happen anyway, because neither the Western Establishment nor the masses actually want it) would be to go against our divine destiny; and would be trying to put the genie of individual consciousness back into the bottle of group-ism. 

The genie would fight against such perceived unfreedom tooth and nail - and rightly so!

Our Western consciousness is set-up differently than in the FN, and our divinely-intended destiny lies with that actual consciousness - not pushing against it. 

Our best and only hope is to go beyond the alienated isolation of the materialism and hedonism of Western atomized individualism; by discovering and living a spiritual and Christian individualism - what I call Romantic Christianity. 

Whereas the children of the Fire Nation validly regard themselves as obedient sons and daughters of one people; we of The West cannot legitimately avoid accepting a fully personal responsibility for our ultimate beliefs and values. 

We can respect or even admire the Fire Nation and its social organization, and their socially-integrated church and religion; but it is not a template for The West. 

Following our properly Christian path ahead starts with you and with me, and our relationship to Jesus Christ; that path does not lie with our nation or people, nor with any unified church. 

This is about as obvious as evil gets

We have now reached the point where those who are motivated by evil (i.e. by their opposition to God, divine creation and The Good) are now being about as obvious and explicit as evil ever gets. 

Whereas in the past those who intended evil would do so under the pretense of doing good (e.g. early socialism); we are now at a stage where the people who intend evil tell us explicitly, and pretty much exactly, what it is they intend to do - before they do it and while doing it. 

They do not do so under the guise of doing good; but instead they now simply tell us that the evil which they intend, is actually Good. 

In other words, we are now in a situation of very pure, very simple, value-inversion. 

The recent wars and mass invasions have been remarkable for the way in which those who have provoked and escalated them (i.e. globalist totalitarians based in The West); have actually "said out loud", have described, the destruction of people, property, nations and land that they intend and regard as acceptable. 

And this intended destruction is sometimes described in terms of near complete annihilation: they want to have no more such people, no such culture or nation, buildings and artefacts will be removed or destroyed, the landscape wrecked and polluted... That's the stated strategy. 

Now, they don't say such  things every time they speak or all at once - but they do make explicit official statements, and say them several times; they incorporate these goals bureaucratically in laws, rules, agenda items, mass/social media policies; they boast about their intentions, and baldly assert that their plans will induce greater human happiness*...  

And they do the same inversion for Goods. 

Any-thing and every-thing which is truly Good (for Christians; and indeed also things recognized as good in all known societies through all of history) is now routinely, systematically, explicitly; stated to be evil, wrong, a threat, the cause of oppression, exclusion, suffering and death. 

The (seven?) classic virtues are now officially vices; common sense realities are treated as wicked hypotheses, basic assumptions of Mankind such as a spiritual world, or continued life beyond death, or a created reality; are now treated as lunatic notions or sinister manipulations. 

 

You may say that things are not so clear as all that... 

That there are many and frequent statements that contradict what I have said above. That the modern world is characterized by inexplicit unclarity, by deliberately induced confusion...

Sure - there is also plenty of that. Evil lies and misleads as its basic mode: habitually and manipulatively. We dwell in a fog of dishonesty. Untruthfulness is the besetting sin of our era. 

All true.

But what is really striking about here-and-now is how very clear, explicit, and detailed the leadership class so-often are; about exactly what they consider is good and necessary, and who they consider is evil and why; about what they intend to do to us (and "for" us) in the near future. 

What this tells us is how deeply corrupted we of the West have become.

"They" baldly, bare-facedly, tell us that good is evil and sin is virtue. They fully expect to get-away-with-it, thereby gaining our implicit consent.

 

And that is exactly why They are so obvious about their evil.

They tell us of their evil intentions. And we hear, but do not listen.  

They get-away-with-it because we give our consent. 

This - here-and-now, on a daily basis - is evil with the gloves-off; as clear, obvious and explicit as it ever will be. 

Have you noticed yet? 

* "The fifteen minute city" is an excellent example. They describe their detailed plan for a world prison in permanent lockdown; then tell us that this is A Good Thing, for our benefit, to make us happy.