Merlin reads The Hobbit (1974)

I review the 1974 abridged Hobbit by Nicol "Merlin" Williamson, over at The Notion Club Papers blog. 

Healthism, survivalism, dependence, and totalitarian control

Healthism is one of the Litmus Test issues for Christians, in the sense that Christians need to be clear that there are more-important things than health and longevity, including survival. 

Health cannot be the life-priority for Christians - if it is, they simply cease to be Christian. 

This was the underlying problem with Christian churches and the birdemic of 2020 and the peck mania that followed: not so much that it was a fake and a lie from the bottom upwards; and not that the whole thing damaged net health more than helping; nor even that it was a means to the end of (necessarily evil) totalitarianism...

The underlying problem was that "health" (and "health" by narrowly materialist and secular definitions) was made the over-riding priority of the churches. 

Religion was simply put onto indefinite hold. 

All this is understandable - as is the desire for Christians and their cultures to survive; yet it is sinful, nonetheless... and requires repentance. 

And even four years later, when the social pressures and sanctions are very much diminished, there is little or no sign of repentance from the Christian churches for their behaviour in relation to the birdemic and peck - more often the opposite. 

As the engineered collapse of civilization approaches, the pressure for survival increases: our own personal survival, and more insidiously the survival of our loved ones, or culture. 

It's not that survival is a bad thing; but that the situation has-been, is-being, engineered such that Christians are encouraged to prioritize survival as First Thing and at any price - including the abandonment of Jesus Christ.

Then there is the "addictiveness" of health and health services: we crave ever more of them, and also we need them. 

Yet it is a plain fact that modern medicine, drugs and procedures, research and marketing, professional structures of personnel, health services in general - are all a part of The System; all incorporated into the global totalitarian regime - which is evil of its nature. 

Many of us (myself included) are dependent on exactly this System of medical provision. In effect, as populations, we are "addicted" to that which only the System of Evil provides. 

Sooner or later; many people will come up against this stark reality: the reality that our continued health depends on a System controlled (Ultimately) by demonic powers, and orientated to damnation. 

There is little or nothing we can personally do to avoid such dilemmas (or which health is only one or many) because they operate at a civilizational level. It is delusory nonsense to suppose we can live outwith The System; and if we are not separate then we are a part of it. 

But we can be aware of the dilemmas - those unavoidable choices between God and Health; between First Things and Second Things, and recognize them when they happen. 

And since we cannot always do good, then we absolutely must repent the evils that we choose. 

   

Every mortal life is a failure - Don't cope with it: solve it!

Every mortal life on this earth has-been and will-be a failure, whatever you do. 

Of course! 

This has been known since ancient days by whoever is most thoughtful and honest. So we should acknowledge this from the beginning!

And then...?

And then solve the problem - don't merely "cope" with it by some combination of ignorance, wishful-thinking, gullibility, and projection - tactics that are so, so common (on-line as well as IRL). 

Ignorance and wishful thinking combined are what make many people (perhaps especially young people) believe that some person, somewhere, is living (or once lived) a life that Is A Success. 

Well, if you don't know enough about other people, gullibly assimilate whatever illusions you are told, or desperately need there to be examples of life-success - then you can make yourself believe anything is real and true - or at least possible. 

(And yes - "I was that soldier!") 

Furthermore, there are plenty of people whose way of coping with their own inevitable failure is to try and convince other people of their own successfulness...

By variously dishonest and distorted forms of direct and indirect boasting/ hyping - whether by spoken word, verbally, by image, through publicity, propaganda &c.

And then there is projection of one's own failure onto others. I mean that whole tedious discourse of pointing and naming "losers" and "retards" etc. - as if it any kind of answer existential failure, to convince oneself (or persuade others) that Somebody-Else is an even bigger failure that you-yourself certainly are...  

Okay - we're all prone to one or other such lapses; but the way-out from such futility and sin is to recognize that your mortal life is genuinely justified only in terms of eternity; not justified over the next few hours, years, or decades. 

And the justification of your life will be different from that of anybody else alive or who ever lived; because your environment, nature and experiences are utterly unique; hence your life-tasks or quest must be unique. 

The Answer is therefore to frame the problem from the perspective of your own unique situation in the context of everlasting life to come. 

That's the only basis for a valid and effective "answer" to your own (otherwise inevitable) failure. 

Halldor Laxness and Taoist Christianity

Having been tipped-off that the 2007 Halldor Laxness biography by Halldor Gudmundsson had been issued in paperback and Kindle; I bought myself a copy to re-read. 

Although I did not much enjoy the biography, because Laxness was such a "high psychoticism" kind of genius as to make uncomfortable company with prolonged contact, it has set me to re-read (for the fourth or fifth times) my two favourite among his novels: The Fish Can Sing, and Christianity At Glacier (re-issued as Under the Glacier).

(Both superbly translated by Magnus Magnusson - a name very well known to all Brits aged above fifty; for his role as quizmaster of TV "Mastermind".)  

The Fish Can Sing of 1957 is better literature, indeed a near-perfect novel; while Christianity at Glacier rather falls-apart structurally, as Laxness's mental powers began to wane; but both are well worth reading as imbued with "spirituality". 

In TFCS the spirituality is Taoism - in a Western manifestation, yet sincere and pervasive; and made tragic by awareness of its unsustainability beyond childhood. 

In CAG, it is "Christian" - or rather an examination of the Christian, an exploration or striving-towards a new/different kind of Christian spirituality. 

(Laxness was born into the tepid Lutheranism of Iceland in 1902, for a few years became a very keen  Roman Catholic (considering ordination); before discarding all this for USSR-focused Marxist materialism in the middle 20th century - then returning to a stronger and stronger spiritual focus from the later 1950s - re-assuming Roman Catholic practice in his last years.)

By the time of CAG, Laxness clearly rejected the symbolism and ritual of institutional Christianity; and seemed to desire a kind of Taoistic Christianity in which the religion was absorbed-into everyday life, without being made explicit in public discourse. 

I think this is what he wanted; although he didn't achieve it - perhaps due to confusion over what Christianity ultimately is (i.e. not-of-this-world and about post-mortal resurrected life).    

More exactly; what Laxness wanted from Taoism does correspond pretty-closely to Barfield's Original Participation, the primal spirituality of young children and the earliest cultures of nomadic tribal people - which is, in a sense, naturally Christian - in that such people will (when available) choose salvation quite spontaneously and unconsciously.

But Taoism is the attempt to make a symbolism or "model" out of Original Participation - which must fail because anyone self-conscious enough "be a Taoist" is too self-conscious actually to be a Taoist! The spiritual adolescent cannot choose to think as a young child, or hunter-gatherer.  

What might a Taoist Christianity be like? Well - it is a type of Romantic Christianity. One in which Christianity is not spoken of; and in which there is not participation in Christian-themed public discourse. 

(When compelled to converse on spiritual matters, the "Taoist" becomes poetic, enigmatic, obtuse, surreal, deliberately misleading...) 

Starting point: Modern Man is in a situation of existential freedom, because we need consciously to choose that which was once spontaneous. 

Furthermore, this conscious freedom is primarily in the realm of thinking, so that the hardly-thinking spontaneity of the young child or tribesman is replaced by a freely-chosen and explicitly-thought mode of being. 

So an actual Taoist Christian (rather than the Christianised Taoism that Laxness often reverts-into) would be lived in awareness of the living, created world of many Beings; a world of Good and evil and entropy; and a world in which we are called-upon consciously to discern and affiliate with the side of Good/ God/ Divine Creation. 

We would not be striving for Taoist immersion in the present moment, or for Taoist indifference to values and choices; because a Christian recognizes that this life is transitional and temporary; and properly aimed-at Resurrected eternal Heavenly life. 

But there is a possibly Taoist flavour to the idea of recognizing and appreciating our actual, living experiences - here-and-now - as opportunities for spiritual learning - rather than this-worldly betterment.   

Maybe something-like this was where Laxness was pointing in Christianity At Glacier? Maybe that accounts for the special flavour, quality, and appeal I get from the book? 

Francis Berger on the "Socio-Sexual Hierarchy" discourse

I would recommend reading Francis Berger's recent analysis of why the "Socio-Sexual Hierarchy" discourse is so abhorrent - especially among self-identified Christians. 

Berger captures most of the many reasons why I find the whole thing so stupid, and embarrassing! 

Embarrassing, because I don't think those who write this kind of material realize how unintentionally and unflatteringly self-revelatory their stuff is. 

In one sense because "real men" (of the kind being hyped) don't go-on in this way, and indeed would find it "gay". 

It is so excruciatingly whiny, short-termist, hedonistic, unrealistic, and entitled. 

And so very un-Christian! They state that it is all about finding a wife; but everything about the actual discourse howls a craving for maximal promiscuity, with low cost and no strings.

Creepy. 

The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff - the 1977 BBC children's TV adaptation

I recommend watching the (legiondary?) 1977 BBC adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth classic children's novel. 

This comes from that seventies Golden Age of serious children's TV; which probably began with the 1969 version of Alan Garner's The Owl Service and perhaps reached its peak with the original script of The Children of the Stones also of 1977, although there were further superb series after that.

From where we now are; The Eagle comes across as deep and powerful; with a genuine sense of the strangeness-but-coherence of the world-view of another time and place. 

The Roman soldiers' religion (Mithraism), and the Celtic and the Pictish religions are all presented sympathetically, memorably, and dramatically. The Roman soldier's code and the Britons warrior's code are distinguished, but brought together with mutual respect. 

Indeed; that is perhaps the underlying theme. The development of mutual respect between enemies. 

(There is also a dignified and chaste love story, as sub-plot - which explores a similar but different theme.)

From our perspective in 2024; the style is measured and uncompromising. Long, ambitious, uncanny scenes; that depend on the strong script and good acting. 

The Eagle of the Ninth requires a more active participation from the intended child audience than does adult drama nowadays. 

And the show is thus more rewarding: in a word better! 

God's problem in a universe built from love (and what Jesus Christ was needed-for)

If, as Christians believe, love is indeed the most important "thing"; that, in some sense, creation is "made-from" love - then I can imagine the first stage as God's love of the (already-existing) Beings of reality.

A state in which these Beings are only-as very-slightly self-aware as babies or infants, and they inhabit something-like a warm ocean of parental love. 

Each Being "bobs-around" in this warm ocean of God's love; which (like good and loving parents with a baby) brings to the Being what it needs, and takes away what it does not. 

This primal love is mutual (as love must be) - that is, parents and babies love each other (and must do, for the relationship to "work" as it ought). But from the babies' point of view, they "have no option" but to love the parents - because babies can conceive of no alternative.

From God's perspective; this primal situation "works", and every-Being is happy, with a barely-aware bliss in the present moment. 

But happy only because every Being is passive; and passive because un-self-conscious and therefore unable to conceive of anything other than the present moment. 

I think we need to understand that God yearns for love of a kind that such spiritual-infants do not provide: the love of an ideal marriage, or the ideal love between parents and their grown-up children, or the love between ideal adult friends.   

What God desires, and what is the basis of creation in the first place, is that as many as possible of these beloved divine babies become mutually-loving divine friends. 

This entails that spiritual babies grow up to spiritual adults; adults who each choose, from a condition of self-awareness and freedom, to develop a mutually-loving relationship with God.

This requires that the love that makes creation needs to change, to move-from the immersive and passive love between parents and infants; and move-to the voluntary love between self-aware adults.   

Unless we understand this yearning of God (and traditional Christianity does Not understand this) - then we cannot understand why God was not content to leave creation in its primal, passive, unaware stage. 

We cannot understand why the risk was taken to make Men self-conscious and free. 

We cannot understand why Jesus Christ was necessary. 

And if we ourselves, that is God's children, do not ourselves yearn for something more than to be barely-conscious beings - passively bobbing-around in the ocean of God's love; then we will not want what Jesus Christ made possible. 

(We will instead desire something like "Nirvana": to return to the primal infant spiritual state of a blissful passive awareness only of the present.)

What Jesus Christ made possible is for each of us fully and permanently to grow-up into adult Beings; adult Beings who can eventually enter into an adult and relationship with God: a relationship of freely-chosen mutual love. 

PP-Love versus UU-Love (i.e. Personal and Partial Love v Universal and Unconditional "Love")

Love is the major and ineradicable constraint on the Christian possibilities of this mortal life. 

By which I mean that it is the intrinsic limitations of our ability to love in this-life; that mean "Heaven on Earth" is not just difficult but impossible 

It is the limits of our ability to love that - to various degrees - constrain our ability to live a Christian life.

Our love - here on earth - is always and necessarily, due to the presence of evil and entropy - Personal and Partial. 

Our capability for love is incomplete, and often very incomplete; and the strength and endurance of our love is sometimes (or often) weak - so that the pressures and evils of this-world are capable of overcoming the strength of our love (sooner or later). 

And the partial nature of our love greatly limits the possibilities of goodness. For instance, love is needed for proper motivation; and our will-power and choices will be wrong if they are not motivated by love.  

Furthermore, some individuals are more loving than others, and some have more powerful love than others; so that some individual people are capable of only rather weak love of only a few persons or other Beings - perhaps loving just one single person, or animal. This does not prevent such a person from following Jesus to Heaven. 

(Only one who was incapable of love, or one who refused to love, would be unable - as well as unwilling - to attain salvation.) 

Furthermore love just-is, by its nature, personal - in the sense that real love is between particular Beings. This can be illustrated by the Fourth Gospel where, in every instance that it is mentioned, Jesus's love is personal and particular. 

This means that (in this mortal life on earth) our loving motivations are always particular; and (given the nature of our lives) this means that we are required to do many/most things for which we are not motivated by love at all. 

(And without love, there will not be Good. For instance, prayer or meditation not motivated by love, will do not Good - and may do harm.)

Indeed, we are all ineradicably prone to all kinds of un-loving attitudes against other people, animals, plants and "minerals"; from regarding them as un-alive and un-conscious, to desiring to manipulate and exploit them for selfish - or other - ends; to desiring to inflict harm from resentment and spite. 

Thus, real love is personal and during the earthly life it is partial; so that we cannot as mortals "live by love". 

Furthermore; this problem is not solved by reducing the actuality of real love to abstractions; e.g. by declaring that the "higher" love (the best, or really-real love) is Universal and Unconditional.

People try to evade the constraints of actual love in this mortal life, by declaring that love ought to be, and can be, Universal - so that we love everybody and every-thing; and that it should be Unconditional - coming from-us, all the time, in all situations, regardless of persons or motivations. 

UU-Love is just something else than real love - it  is neither Christian, nor Good. UU-Love is, indeed, associated with Oneness spirituality - which is not Christian but derives either from pagan sources (such as Pythagoras and Plato) and/or from "Eastern" religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. 

That which is universal and unconditional is not love, at least not for Christians; because real love is personal, between Beings; and not, therefore, the kind of thing that can be had by decision, declaration, or on-principle.

Heaven is a place or state in which love motivates all thought and deeds. That love is indomitable, permanent, and it remains personal in nature. But in Heaven, we love all the persons (all the Beings) in Heaven. 

That's what makes it Heaven - at resurrection, every Being has left-behind all that is not of-love  

(Loving not-equally, of course - e.g. the wholly-loving mortal Jesus loved some men and women more than others.)

As Christians we need not be ashamed-of, nor try to conceal, that our love in this mortal life on earth is PP-Love. 

Nor should we be tempted by that fake love which masquerades as Universal and Unconditional. 

After all; if a state of complete love of all were possible on earth; then the salvation offered by Jesus would not have required that we first die, then be resurrected to Heaven!

By the 1960s, the Romantic Impulse became too strong to suppress, and was instead re-directed

Romanticism began in the middle to late 1700s, among a few - mostly upper class - individuals in Western Europe; and progressively spread in its influence through the general population of The West.

I regard this as a surface manifestation of a development of human consciousness, which is ultimately divinely initiated, and innate to our mortal incarnations. 

Therefore the underlying impulse of Romanticism is an inescapable reality, that must have some effect of some kind. 

The powers of evil (including within the Christian churches) quite rapidly managed to separate Romanticism from Christianity; and diverted it into this-worldly and hedonic channels. 

The world was divided into (and between) the Classical and the Romantic; the mundane and the ecstatic; The System (which included the Christian Churches) and individualism - the joyful-useless and the functional-necessary...

Unacceptable choices: an insoluble dilemma.  

This was very evident by the 1960s, when the Romantic Impulse had become very strong and much more widely-prevalent in the Western Populations (and elsewhere). 

The sixties counter-culture (which continued into the early 1970s) could not be suppressed, therefore needed to be diverted - and it was. 

Into sex, drugs and rock-and-roll - that is, into short-termist and destructive hedonism. 

And, in particular, into the sexual revolution; which began as intentionally destructive of marriage and family, and has continued to being destructive of health and sanity. 

It is important to recognize that - although the Romantic Impulse was real, and in a sense irresistible - it was the mainstream culture that directed the counter-culture. 

It was The Establishment that channelled the Anti-Establishment - The System that chose and promoted and sustained the individuals and institutions who epitomized and theorized the 60's "rebellion". 

I don't mean that the Whole Thing was planned and managed in every detail, and that there were no spontaneous and sincere actors at all! - but we ought to recognize that the The System strategy succeeded. 

The strategy succeeded in channelling Romanticism away from positive Christian directions (and also channelled Christians away from Romanticism); and into self-destructive and socially-destructive directions. 

The double whammy was that non-Christians were damned by their explicit rejection of Christianity; while Christians were damned by their (willing, un-repented) participation in The System. 

Plus: a fair bit of Romanticism was also re-absorbed into The System, and thereby made dull, mundane, bureaucratic... 

It is hard to believe how Romantic (and genuinely individualistic) was "nature" and "self-sufficiency" in the middle 20th century - when now the fake-distortions of "environmentalism" and "climate change" are spouted 24/7 by the most turgid and mind-controlled of globalists, civil servants, and multinational corporations. When now all this is part of the totalitarian "vision" of the Great Reset, and United Nations Agenda 2030!

This is an index of the success of The System's channelling of Romanticism. 

(Which is evil's triumph over allegiance to God.)

The underlying Romantic Impulse is still at work, and indeed more powerful than ever; but since the sixties has progressively become a tool of The System. It cannot be suppressed, therefore Romanticism it is distorted and turned back upon itself. 

This strategy is sustained by all the major social institutions; including the "Christian" churches - who are now absorbed into The System, in all necessary System-significant respects. 

The impossible choice offered is between the soul-destruction of mundane bureaucracy and functionality; and the soul-destruction of hedonic short-termism. 

But if as Christians we think for-, and from-, ourselves; we need-not choose between Romanticism and Christianity; we ought instead to do what Christians always ought to have been done: and choose both.

This is perfectly possible, for anybody who desires to do it; but entails escaping from under the distortions and errors of centuries - especially including those whose effect is to trap Christians in the impossible dilemma of Romanticism v Christianity. 

Which is a pseudo-dilemma that has been set-up and sustained by Satan et al - not God. 

A recently published account of a lecture Tolkien gave on The Notion Club papers

A sketch by JRRT of the building where he lodged at Stonyhurst

A brief but interesting account of a lecture from March 1946, by Tolkien in Stonyhurst school and discovered by Oronzo Cilli, is given over at my Notion Club Papers blog. 

Aiming for worldly success and popularity is maybe the worst Litmus Test failure

I have often written about the Litmus Test issues of our time; those thin-end-of-wedges, those slippery slopes, those tips of evil-icebergs.  

A Litmus Test is an issue that is linked to the agenda of evil; the strategy of Satan and the demons. The issue itself may seem to be minor, subjective, or in principle not worse than a partial truth or distortion of some-thing valid - but the fact is that the issue links to a whole vast and systematic program of corruption. 

Therefore to fail even a single Litmus Test, and to join with the program that is attached to it, to lend support in social discourse, to become a propagandist or an activist; just a single Litmus Test fail is by-itself sufficient to corrupt a Christian to take the opposite side in the spiritual war. 

This can be confirmed by observation. For instance, all of the major Christian churches in The West have failed one or more Litmus Tests - and, although they may stand firm on other Test issues, this is never sufficient to prevent these churches becoming assimilated to The System and its evil-controllers. 

Partial Good is no defence against taking the wrong side, and becoming net-evil. 

Many of these Litmus Tests can be understood as linked to various types of worldly success, and (particularly among women) to social popularity. So, perhaps it is the striving for worldly success that is the underlying and master corruption. 

This is why the most extreme corruption of value-inversion is worst among the professional and leadership classes. Those who are most wealthy, educated, high status and influential. 

As of 2024 in The West, nobody can attain and remain in a high socio-economic position without publicly professing evil. 

Now, this does not - of course - mean that such people are inevitably damned; because repentance has (in principle) infinite power.  

We are all sinners, without exception - that is we cannot cease from sinning; but Jesus came to save sinners. 

But repentance is necessary. 

And repentance means knowing that sin is indeed sin; knowing and acknowledging to oneself and God that one is indeed sinning by failing that over-arching Litmus Test - by striving for worldly success.

So far as one can infer, this repentance seems rare - very rare; indeed there is not the slightest sign of repentance in most worldly self-styled Christians. 

No sign - even - that worldly success, even personal popularity, is nowadays something that requires repentance. 

**

Note added: An important first step is to cease being proud-of, and boasting-about (even indirectly, even humble-bragging), our own worldly success, and that of others. 

Or, at least, repenting when we do so!

Saturday music: Vikingur Olafsson plays Bach BV 528 (transcribed by Stradal).

I stumbled across this recording and was immediately gripped, and deeply impressed, by its musicianship. 

Once begun; I could not stop watching and listening. 

Indeed, this may be the single most impressive playing of a piece by Bach on piano I have heard since Glenn Gould - although the interpretation is extremely different from what Gould would (or could) have done; and the piece itself is not of a kind to interest Gould. 

The piece is a transcribed organ trio sonata movement, and in a mostly not-contrapuntal, arpeggiated style (broken chords), built mostly around sequences (explained here). 

I have heard about Vikingur Olafsson before, a few years ago when he was much hyped; but behind the ignorant praise of foolish critics (!) he is clearly capable of being an outstanding Bach solo pianist, in at least some of the repertoire.

Here Olafsson creates an ambience or halo of continuous sound; and the pulse, drive, forward momentum is utterly outstanding in its inevitability and yet suppleness. 

Note added: Some of the Bach performances I have heard by VO don't hold-together overall, and some lose intensity of focus - like all musicians, he does some types of music much better than others. But it is reasonable to note what he has done supremely well. His phrasing is very lyrical, which is a big plus in my book; and seems unusual in modern pianists.  

1963, Newton Abbot - my only regular passenger steam-train ride

 

Like many boys before the middle 1960s, I had a craze on railway trains, in particular steam trains - fuelled by the stories of anthropomorphic railways by the Rev W Awdry, and from watching the many "tank engines" working at the coal mine just opposite my Granny's house. 

But I only took one ride on a proper passenger service steam engine (i.e. not a tourist attraction) - from Newton Abbot station in Devon (top image). 

This featured a black, medium-sized engine much as illustrated - but without the side plates at the front - a very plain train... 

Only two "snapshot" memories have survived - the first is being terrified as the huge (to me), black, loud, steam-emitting train came into the station and drew-up at the platform right next to me. I burst into tears; which was a bad start to what was supposed to be a special treat outing for a little train-lover. 

It seems that trains in books, or observed from a distance, were one thing; but trains up close and personal were far more intimidating. 

I then have a blurry mental image of being inside the train, and moving. 

That's it: my total experience of the tail-end of the Age of Steam. 

Dystopias reinforce double-negative values

One reason that we are fed a relentless diet of dystopian books, movies and TV - i.e. why this theme is so lavishly funded by The Establishment; is that consuming dystopian fiction demonstrably has zero benefit in terms of prevention (but instead facilitates actual dystopias by psychological and spiritual means); while portrayal of dystopias reinforces the bottom-line double-negative value system that is destroying modern Man. 

By the depiction of horror and misery is inculcated the (mostly-unconscious) idea that if-only these horrors and miseries were removed (or, at least, greatly reduced) then everything would be fine. 

The news reports and analyses of ongoing wars have a similar role and effect: indirectly pushing the idea that if-only there was peace; then everything would be fine...

(It should be noted that the same people who believe this kind of pacifism, are in-real-life nearly-always active in support of whoever is the worst side in those foreign wars that have been promoted and escalated by The West.)

Of course this idea that everything would be fine without war is not made explicit, because it is obviously absurd; but it is implied; often in a disguised form where the double-negative is presented as a positive. 

For instance "peace" - which is really the mere absence of war - is talked-about (written and sung-about) as if it was a positive concept, a positive value, an end rather than a means. 

This should be tediously familiar to anyone who has sampled the late 1960s-early 1970s pop and academic culture - ranging from ubiquitous "Peace" signs and symbols, through songs about peace phrased as if it were a positive thing, to academics working in "peace studies"...

Because, in a society without positive values, it is not just a safe-bet - but the only possible stance - to oppose some or another form of suffering as-if this was the was self-evidently the best possible belief and activity; the highest human value, the reason for our being, the purpose of life...

(And it can easily be inferred, and observed, that when the prevention of suffering becomes the highest value, we have an ethic of unbirth, death and suicide.) 

Indeed; it can be hazardous nowadays to espouse any positive goal for one's own life - such as a religion, or nationalism. This is increasingly regarded as dangerous, and a form of terrorism; unless it is religion or nationalism for someone-else, in some other-place. 

That's allowable, because it is conceptualized either as just-another double-negation, such as freedom-from-oppression; and is "altruistic" hence conforms to the supreme modern Western values of self-hatred and -destruction. 

If one takes a step back and considers; it really is inevitable that our culture is so fixated upon dystopias, exactly because that we have no motivating utopias; in other words, we fixate upon hoping to avoid dystopia, exactly because the double-negation of avoiding-dystopia is the highest value we can conceive as real. 

Genuine utopias have become (literally) incredible to modern consciousness, and rightly so; because modern Men acknowledge only this-world and mortal-life, and this-world is characterized by evil and entropy such that no genuine and positive utopia can ever happen.

This-worldly pessimism about the possibility of u-topia, then turns into this-world fear of dys-topia - and here we are. 

The sequence is almost inescapable, unless there is a profound reorientation of metaphysics. Unless (that is) we personally, and then culturally, acknowledge and believe-in the reality of post-death personal existence; then we cannot even begin to escape from the futile paradoxes of double-negative values. And we will continue to obsess over dystopias and wars.  

Laeth on the Omni-God

Laeth's aphorisms are absolutely excellent! I find some to be witty and profound - in a "supertruth" way. 

But at present they are unorganized, and presented in a non-user-friendly fashion; so you will need to work at them. 

Here, I have extracted several aphorisms on the Omni-God concept that I have often discussed previously. 

(Laeth's aphorisms are all presented in lower case lettering, throughout a la ee cummings.)

omnigodists are like those women who are only into abusive and uncaring men. if he's not above it all and shows the least amount of humanity, they're not interested. 

according to omnigodists the uncaring foot trampling the lovely flower is the one worthy of worship. 

omnigodists gift stems rather than flowers. 

omnigodists don't really believe in free will, only in free would. 

the will is only free if we're willing to pay the price. 

the omnigod is the metaphysical equivalent of aphantasia. both can be remedied by opening one's eyes. 

God isn't faceless, you're just afraid to face him. 

omnigodism is a severe case of not getting that ideas are worth next to nothing and that it's all about the execution. 

atheism seeks non player characters, omnigodism seeks non character players.

 

This age of bespoke Christian spirituality

Romantic Christianity is the explicit acknowledgment that we live in an age - indeed, the first such in history - of bespoke Christian spirituality: in other words, each Man's religion must be "made-to-measure", because all of the "off-the-peg" spiritualties are unfit for purpose. 

"Explicit" is the key; because even the most traditional-minded and self-consciously "orthodox" and traditional Christians are, in-fact and in-deed, even when not acknowledged - arrived at by an unique path, with distinctive discernments, and containing unique elements. 

Traditional Christianity should therefore be defined in terms of what it aims-at; rather than what it actually is. It aims-at the kind of externally-defined and regulated religion of the past - it aims-at a Christianity rooted in subordination of the individual to the faith group, and obedience of the individual to legitimate authority. 

However; this aim is not achieved; because individual discernment must be, and is, deployed with a high frequency. 

This; partly because of the innate consciousness of modern Men; and partly due to the overall, deep and pervasive corruption (and trend towards more corruption) of all actual modern "Christian" churches.  

Beyond that - the aim is not good; because it is an attempt to become less conscious and less free. It is - in spiritual terms - the false and impossible attempt to become a spiritual child from a condition of spiritual adolescence. 

The proper aim of the spiritual adolescent ought to be spiritual adulthood; and that is to freely and consciously discern and choose our fundamental Christian assumptions - as well as to navigate a true path among the chaos and competition of institutional and personal life-style and organization.  

So; this just-is the age of bespoke Christianity - by duty as well as necessity. 

Christianity has-changed its nature. What was an off-the-peg warehouse for mass consumption of finished articles for broad categories of Men...

Is now an individual business; where each Christian must meet with the Holy Ghost in a personal relationship; to embark on a two-sided dialogue - a series of personal measurements and individual fittings; in order to develop a spiritual garb that is integrated, functional, beautiful, hard-wearing - and therefore unique. 

What does Jesus teach in the Fourth Gospel? - my renewed understanding and conviction

I have been re-reading the Fourth Gospel (in the Authorized or King James version) with intensity of engagement, and the large sweep of narrative - the miracles and the teaching - that runs from the third through the sixteenth Chapters: from meeting Nicodemus at night to just before Jesus's arrest. 

 

I am struck afresh and with great force what Jesus does and does-not speak of. Again and again Jesus explains who and what he is; and that he is asking to be believed, loved and "followed". 

(What "following" means is explained in the Good Shepherd section.)

Once his hearers know who Jesus is; they are asked repeatedly to love and follow him - and that is very much the focus and the core of the Gospel.  

Jesus apparently has great difficulty in communicating the simplicity of his message to the disciples; and only just before his arrest (at the end of Chpater 16) does Jesus seem satisfied that the disciples have at last grasped what Jesus has told them so many times.

 

Jesus does not talk about rules for living, does not talk of morality. Does not tell people how to behave in the details (or indeed the sweep) of everyday life. 

Indeed, this trait is very marked indeed. Jesus is hardly-at-all a moral teacher. When he refers to sin, he nearly always means death, and suchlike realities of this mortal life.  

And when Jesus speaks of "commandments" he essentially means to "love one another" (as he goes on to explain) and Himself - clearly a qualitatively different matter from the commandments of Moses. 

All this is very different from how Jesus is usually described. 

 

The shaping emphasis is on the life and world to come; not this mortal life and world - it is the post-resurrection reality that ought to shape our current goals and behaviours.

In other words; Jesus is usually talking about having brought a change in ultimate, "cosmic" reality; a change in the set-up of divine creation: new realities and new possibilities. 

 

Throughout, Jesus talks of his Father as a distinct person from himself: clearly with complete harmony between the two of them, but his Father absolutely as a real and separate person from Jesus himself; a person with whom Jesus has a relationship of the same kind as with the disciples, but vastly greater and perfected. 

Thus Jesus's message is cosmic; but the cosmic is personal - indeed a matter of many persons; because Jesus links God to himself, and to the disciples (broadly considered - not meaning some particular number of men); all those with whom Jesus shares mutual love.

Love is mentioned many, many times; and seems like the core term - a new and all-transcending principle of life - the new reality that Jesus made-happen. Reading this, one is immediately compelled to ponder this astonishing reality that Jesus has placed at the heart of creation  

The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, is described Jesus himself (not a separate person) after he will have ascended to Heaven - and who will be present to all who love and follow Jesus. The Holy Ghost is stated to provide - in a personal way - all that is required of guidance and knowledge.  

This is emphasized: everything the disciples need to know after Jesus has ascended to Heaven, will be provided by the Holy Ghost. 

 

Something that is very evident is that Jesus asserts the exclusivity of his message. That only by Jesus, via Jesus, can we attain resurrected everlasting life. There is no other way. 

This is asserted as a fact; although what that fact means is apparently very different from the usual way it has been taught in the centuries since - because the Fourth Gospel is utterly indifferent to any form of church. 

The gospel is all about relationships, and these relationships are personal - indeed Jesus declares (at some length, in detail) that they need to be the relationships of friends, rather than hierarchical or formal.  

 

But Jesus's insistence on the exclusivity of his role in salvation is absolutely hard-line. If resurrection is what people want, there is simply no alternative (when the time comes) to knowing and following Jesus.

The reason why is also explained; which is that those who reject Jesus do not want what Jesus offers. The monotheists (such as the Pharisees) want something altogether different from what Jesus offers: they are rejecting the new cosmic possibilities that Jesus brings. 

What this partial summary fails to do is to describe the power of this reading when I am able to give the engagement full and intense attention; the authority and conviction with which the words and actions of Jesus reach across the centuries; in which these words over-leap the vast complexity of "Christianity" that grew in the generations in-between Jesus and myself. 

Of course, yesterday and today is not the first time I have felt this (as I wrote previously) - but this was a fresh amazement - and evoked a fear that it might not be so!

...Leading-on to a new affirmation of faith and another experience of conviction; of direct validation. 

 

What Jesus is saying and offering in the Fourth Gospel is astonishing to me, breathtaking in its originality and radicalism.

For me it is something that I want deeply, something I therefore really want to be true! And the whole thing therefore hinges on whether I personally believe what Jesus is saying - whether I believe He was who he said, and whether I regard as true what he claimed. 

After which, according to the Fourth Gospel; I am told to turn to the Holy Ghost (that is; to Jesus himself, in person, as available to us here-and-now) to provide exactly that knowledge, and the comfort that derives from conviction of its truth.  

 

Note added: I see that I failed to complete the circuit of the above description; because no matter how overwhelming a spiritual experience may be at the time of experiencing it - such conviction does not last. Almost immediately, the experience is subjected to doubts, and indeed is readily explained-away by all kinds of familiar materialistic/ scientistic arguments (just a dream, a delusion, wishful thinking etc.). That is the situation of modern man - and not by accident. As men who have become conscious of much that was once spontaneous and implicit; modern Men must consciously choose. We must decide whether or not to believe our spiritual experiences; whether or not to regard them as an intuition of ultimate reality. This is a free choice, and one for which we ought to take personal responsibility. Specifcially; we ought not to desire to be permanently overwhelmed by a conviction so powerful and lasting that we never get out from under it. Nor should we regard such inescapable experiences as the most valid. Because that would be to desire to be un-free and to evade personal responsibility. Therefore - to complete the circuit - I freely choose to believe as real that religious experience of conviction: I choose to make its validity a bottom line assumption for me. 

You are a dangerously confused victim of profound self-mistrust: If you don't trust yourself then who, and why?

In this weirdly inverted world, most people spend several hours per day "informing" themselves about what it going on in the world by means of the mass and social media, supplemented by face-to-face gossip... mostly about the agenda established by mass/  social media. 

 

But people neither remember not think about this stuff. They do not even try to make connections, to draw inferences - to make the effort to remember whether their sources proved to be honest and reliable. They don't even try to check whether what is being said makes sense!

In a profound way, people do not trust themselves to understand the world; and therefore open their minds wide to... well, to whatever the world is currently deciding to pour-into their heads. 

This self-mistrust is reinforced by several decades worth of widely disseminated propaganda that there is no free will, that we live in a simulation (or Matrix). 

 ...And that we are fed a diet of lies by those who desire only to exploit us. 

 

In other words; we are supposed to believe the self-confessed liars who desire to exploit us are telling the truth, when they tell us that they are liars who desire to exploit us! 

Clearly, this "Cretan Liar" strategy - telling people not to trust themselves and of liars repeatedly telling you they are lying - has mind-warping consequences if not transcended. 

It is a PSYOPS; the consequences of which are a kind of numbed passivity; motivation becoming little more than moment-by-moment "coping". 

This experience, which we all share, can be regarded as a colossal life-lesson; from which we can and should learn that we ourselves are ultimately the only trust-worthy source. And it then becomes our task to understand how this can be. 

Thus, to avoid chronic despair; we are forced, eventually, into recognizing that we must assume that our personal judgment is the only possible basis of any kind of knowledge - and then to develop an understanding which explains how this situation arose. 

How do we find ourselves in a world where we simply must derive our ultimate beliefs by some kind of intuitive act; and how can we expect that this will potentially lead to reality - to true knowledge...

What are the pre-requisites for such a system of knowing? How can it operate?  

These are questions to which we need to find answers in order to function - yet the externally-provided sources are all telling us (repeatedly) that they cannot provide such answers.

 

Such questions seem to me to lead to a very different set of assumptions that those we started-out with, or which are available from the literature. So very different that Men of the past would regard it as crazy - after all, how can one person overturn, or rather transcend, the wisdom of ages... 

Well, it might seem like crazy if it was not for the extreme and unrelenting craziness of the mainstream, of The Normal, of the way that most people think, talk and behave for most of the time - of the incoherences that they assert; and of the psychological consequences of this situation of endemic self-contradiction. 

We cannot ignore the craziness, and it affects us badly - and if we desire to escape this torment-trap we are compelled to take total responsibility. 

 

So, it can be seen that God is probably allowing this situation of official and mandatory insanity with some valid purpose: in order that we are strongly encouraged to do, that which it is most important that we do. 

 

There is a way out-and-up, and we can each discover it; but we can only each discover it for himself. 

The understanding imperative: Denial is not ignorance - and, anyway, ignorance is not innocence

Something that is hard to grasp and keep-hold-of, is that one vital action we should take is to become conscious of the spiritual war - the war between Good and evil.

(Or God and evil - in which evil is defined by that which opposes God, Good, Divine Creation.) 

 

At this stage in human development, we need to become conscious of much that was unconscious in earlier states of human development; and with consciousness comes choice. 

This is very important. Modern Western Man is grown to spiritual adolescence, and does not inhabit that ancient world of spiritual childhood in which the unconscious and spontaneous are dominant; and in which Goodness comes from obedience to legitimate authority. 

That is gone and irrecoverable; just as our own childhood is gone. 

Us, Now, must become conscious, must understand - and we do choose.

 

We choose, and have-chosen - and to deny this does not wash; because to suppress and deny knowledge of our choices is not to be ignorant; and even if we were genuinely ignorant, as of here-and-now ignorance is no defence against evil.

(Our world is ruled by evil, so that we must know it, and resist it, for and from ourselves - not by obedience to the authorities of our world, which are all net-corrupted - and anyway how can we choose which authority is good except from our-selves?)

(Anyone capable of describing or arguing that ignorance is a defence against evil, is already in-denial, is therefore not ignorant, nor innocent; and has therefore already-chosen - one way or the other.)

 

However, making an inner choice between Good and evil does Not enable us to transform ourselves positively in this mortal life. 

This was apparent even as long ago as St Paul - who said (e.g. in Romans) that knowing what is right does not mean we can do it - indeed, to be blunt, we cannot actually do what we want to do - no matter how much we want it.

Paul (as an ancient, in an earlier stage of development) saw Goodness externally, as The Law - and was clear that we could not live in accordance with The Law; no matter how much we desired it, no matter how much we strove. 

And since we cannot live by The Law we would all without exception be condemned by The Law - if not for some other supervening cause - which is Jesus Christ; who has exploded as false, the previously-assumed connection between Good Living and Salvation. 

 

In simple words; our task in life is not to become better people nor to improve society. 

Betterment and improvement is irrelevant to the fundamental reality of this mortal life.

This is mostly because there is evil in each and all of us; as well as all sorts of other interference to our behaviours coming from (e.g.) sickness, circumstances, ageing, and death.

 

But while this means we cannot make either our mortal-selves better, or this world a better place - even when we know how to do it; nonetheless, knowing and choosing is exactly what we need to do in terms of the resurrected life after death - it is what causes us to accept Christ's offer of salvation - and we carry the consequences of such choices into resurrected eternal life.  

As I said; it seems terribly difficult not to fall into the recurrent error of assuming that we can fundamentally, significantly, improve our-selves and this-world - terribly difficult to give-up on this futile - and indeed counter-productive - quest. 

As so often, we can find inspiration in Jesus of the Fourth Gospel, and what he expects of the people around him. He really doesn't seem to be trying to improve people's behaviour much, at least in terms of their actual outer-behaviours; Jesus seems to accept people that people will-be pretty much as they are... 

Yet Jesus does make tremendous efforts to help other people understand their ultimate and real spiritual situation. 

With this goal he performs symbolic miracles, and explains them both as parables and explicitly. He aggressively attacks falsehood and delusion, and sets out an alternative vision of a life that is Not Of This World; indicates by poetry and symbol what this eternal resurrected is like, and how to get there - and how to get there is very much about love.

 

And with respect to love, Jesus's approach is very much about the understanding that love is the essential. Jesus knows that love cannot be manufactured to order, and that we can't become more loving than we are; but we can and should recognize and affirm that love is primary and essential (because that is the commitment we must make if we are to follow Jesus to Heaven). 

And it seems very important to Jesus that all this be explicitly known... 

Jesus is saying, I believe, that the saving act is to understand and to make the right inner choice and determination - and, implicitly, to know that this is what we are doing. 

 

One thing I draw from this is that anyone who claims not to know about evil, who claims ignorance of who and what is evil - and hopes thereby to be regarded as innocent and not responsible - is actually lying.

Probably lying to our-selves - the evil aspects of our-self lying, and we have chosen to believe these lies - and then denying our knowledge that these are lies.

And lying is a sin that goes against God and creation; therefore must be repented - but when we are denying that we lie, then we are not repenting. 

 

The place I am going with this is to address the question of what we ought to do - here-and-now, 2024, in The West - to Fight Evil and Do Good?

We are prone to do many wrong things instead... To look for some external authority to whom we can pretend to hand-over ultimate responsibility. To seek a gang for support and defence and better attack. Or perhaps to make excuses for why we do not do better in reforming our-selves and the world. 

All the time missing the point, and failing to do what we must. 

 

And perhaps even arguing that doing what is demanded of us is secondary, unimportant, a merely "private" matter (something merely going on inside our heads...) - and that instead we ought to be fighting to reform the world in the socio-political arena. 

This being not just futile, but actively harmful - unless a consequence of understanding explicitly who to fight, why and how. 

Because, as with "resist not evil", merely to fight evil is to compound evil by double-negation - unless done in pursuit of positive Good.

The task of understanding what is going on at the level of the spiritual war of this world and in our-selves is endless, and very difficult - it is, indeed, a lifetime's work and cannot be completed. 

Yet understanding is possible, positive, and cumulative; and is indeed what is really intended by Doing Good - but not Good for our temporary mortal selves in this temporarily-inhabited, temporary world.  

Whatever the way we currently explain this process to ourselves, however we explain why it is needful, understanding is the primary Good we ought to be doing - the fight we ought to be fighting. 

And given the multitude of false ideas and wrong advice that circulates; this task is worthy.

 

As a reminder; we can think about what Jesus did for his disciples; which was mostly to help them understand. 

Presumably understanding is exactly what the Holy Ghost does for us now - if we ask Him. 

To ask is to be answered - so long as we ask the right question properly; and that is what we most need to be working-on. 

The Opposite of The Litmus Tests: Four necessary positive metaphysical assumptions concerning the ultimate nature of reality

Four necessary positive metaphysical assumptions

A few years ago I suggested that there are several Litmus Test issues, which the demon-affiliated totalitarian Establishment uses to pursue its agenda of damnation (these agendas include the sexual revolution, climate change, antiracism and - more recently - hatred of the Fire Nation and its leader - and some others). 

It is necessary to reject these Litmus Test issues, if one is to avoid being absorbed-into the agenda of evil; however rejection of such specific evil strategies is insufficient; and indeed double-negative ideology (opposition to that which is regarded as wrong) is itself a part of the agenda of evil.  

 

What is important are positive convictions; or more exactly positive metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality - positive assumptions concerning the nature of reality (i.e. positive metaphysical beliefs) suitable to underpin, explain and guide a positive purpose to this mortal life.

I think there are at least four such assumption that it seems necessary to affirm; if one is to avoid being (sooner or later) sucked-into taking side with the agenda of evil. 

 

But in the first place, I need to clarify that "being a Christian", in what has until recently been regarded as the normal and socially-understood fashion of Christianity, has proved itself to be utterly insufficient. 

(This despite that Christianity is ultimately The Truth; and that a purposive and meaningful mortal life depends utterly on following Jesus Christ to resurrection to eternal Heavenly life.)

As of 2024 in The West; that a person identifies as, and believes himself to be, Christian and publicly states his Christianity; that the is an active member in good standing of a major/ large/ powerful Christian church or denomination - or is a priest, pastor, scholar or leader of such a Christian grouping... is Not a valid discernment anymore. 

2020 confirmed this to me: that one could be a practising, devout "Christian" yet firmly on the side of the agenda of evil (first the birdemic/ peck agenda, later the antiracism "MLB" agenda).

2020 saw a stark exhibition of the conformation of "Christianity" (that is, Christianity as defined by the church of which one is a member, this including any and all major churches in The West) to willingly and enthusiastic subordination of (supposedly) core church doctrines and practices to the then-expediencies of the evil establishment totalitarian agenda.

 

So - If not, then what?  

I suggest (at least) four necessary positive metaphysical assumptions that are needed to stay on the side of God, divine creation, and The Good in The West of 2024. 

Of course there aren't really four - and that these are separable and sufficient; and of course such things cannot briefly be explained or justified in a blog post. 

What I am trying to do is suggest (to a sympathetic reader) the kind of positive assumptions that are now required; and that these fit-together (as would be expected if they were indeed true). 

 

Four necessary positive metaphysical assumptions

1. That there is God, who is a person not an abstraction; and with a personal relationship with Men; and that we inhabit God's creation. 

Without these assumptions there is no purpose or meaning to life, and the universe has no relevance to our-selves - so we might as well shut-up and accept whatever happens to be happening. 

 

2. That we inhabit a living, conscious, developing universe. 

I believe that we cannot allow any-thing to be not-alive - if materialism is allowed even a toe-hold on our beliefs, it will end-up by regarding the universe as unalive and purposeless. We are compelled to choose. Either everything is "dead" - as modern science assumes; of all is alive; and, if alive, conscious, purposive, developing (evolving) through time. 

Eastern (including "Platonic") concepts of reality as a kind of stasis, play into the hands of the powers of evil; which is very keen on promoting oneness spirituality, Buddhism etc - for their own reasons. 

In other words: creation is alive. It seems evident, when I think about it, God would have zero interest in creating a universe containing "inanimate" stuff (or indeed "fields" or "forces") of the kind familiar from physics. 

 

3. This mortal life ending in death is followed by continued and personal existence. 

In some sense our "self" is immortal. Otherwise, there is no point to this mortal life.    

 

4. That purposive evil is real.

We need to assume, and believe, that there really is purposive (hence personalized) evil in this universe. 

 

That is, we need to recognize that there is a side of evil; a side opposed to God, divine creation and The Good. 

And realize, too, that evil is indeed a "side" in the spiritual war; the opposition in the spiritual war. 

For many generations, many people have tried to do without (to deny, mock, trivialize) the reality of purposive evil - but as-of 2024 this leads to de facto affiliation with the agenda of evil.

 

Evil is Not, therefore, particular Beings; but it is the side in the spiritual war to which any particular Beings give their allegiance. 

There are - strictly speaking - no Good or evil people in this world. All are mixtures. 

Therefore: Nice people can be (and mostly are, in The West) on the side of evil; Nasty people may be on the side of Good. 

 

(And, of course. Good people may be nice, and plenty of nasty people are indeed evil! We need to know all this, if we are not to be fooled by the 24/7 propaganda emanating from the agenda of evil, as well as our own likely prejudices and misunderstandings). 

 

If you consider that one of these four positive assumptions is unneccessary - or that there ought to be one or more further additions; you may wish to argue your case in the comments.

Suicide Pills will be welcomed by many/ most of the public, for at least three reasons

When (not if) the plan for mass free distribution of painless-suicide pills gets unveiled; it will be welcomed by many or most of the Western public - for at least three reasons:

 

1. Fear: Because so many people fear that they will suffer while dying. 

It doesn't matter that prolonged or extreme suffering is usually preventable - because some risk of a painful death cannot be eliminated... except by pre-emption. (Prevention is the best cure!) 

And 2020 shows how easily extreme fears can be whipped-up by the Establishment, and how resistant the most-terrified can be to reason or reassurance...

Probably because - in a world that believes death is annihilation - health has taken the place of religion (including for most churches); and current suffering (of almost any degree or duration) becomes regarded as an intolerable violation.

 

2. Altruism: Because some people regard the death of people such as themselves as a benefit for the world. 

"With me and mine out of the way; there will be more for everyone else."

Indeed, plenty of people claim to regard human beings as a plague on the biosphere - whose elimination would be better for all other living things... and much better for The Climate! 

Thus suicide is an expression of ultimate altruism! In a world where avoidance of suffering is the highest value - the best way permanently to reduce our carbon footprint, to walk lightly upon the earth, to minimize finite-resource consumption - is to offer our own death as a willing sacrifice to the goddess of environmentalism.

3. Despair: Because the mass majority are materialists who, at bottom, regard reality as purposeless and meaningless; and who therefore live only for the satisfactions of this-life. 

Such people have no strong reason to stay alive - because their life is going nowhere except death, and has no meaning except whatever comforting "delusion" they themselves try to invent. 

Therefore; as soon as life starts to go badly - overall; then why bother with it? 

 

For such reasons as the above; I suspect that plans for mass provision of painless suicide pills will find themselves pushing at an open door. 

Especially if the Western Establishment succeed in escalating the Fire Nation and Arrakis conflicts into all-out world war - with its high-likelihood of causing widespread violence, disease and famine; then the Western masses will be biting-off the hands of state-sanctioned death-draught feeders, in their eagerness to get hold of the medicine.

Indeed; it seems far more likely that the masses will protest against the ineffectiveness (or "inequity") of suicide pill distribution, then to protest against the Establishment encouraging suicide. 

A six year old child's understanding of solar eclipses

It is very important NOT to look at the sun during an eclipse - because the sun is (somehow) much MORE dangerous to your eyes during an eclipse than AT ANY OTHER TIME!*

..Presumably ('tho' the teacher didn't actually say this); when the sun is partly blocked by the moon, it focuses sunlight onto your retina like a magnifying glass onto an ant. 

 

*This is why an eclipse should only be viewed through at least five superimposed black and white photographic negatives, left-over from Teacher's holiday snaps.  

See also: Eclipse Facts by Frank J Fleming.

The therapeutic perspective on life runs so deep that we don't even notice; yet points (again!) towards mass suicide

It is deeply strange to contemplate the extent to which people believe that the main purpose of life is therapeutic - by which I mean, that people believe the main purpose of life is to deal with the problems of life. 

The fact of life and living is taken for granted, and the problems of living become the dominating focus. 

 

It's like asking: "what is the purpose of life?"; to answer: "striving to overcome misery and suffering". 

Yet - if this really was so: Why life in the first place? 

 

And yet, if you ask modern, high-status, kind, compassionate, and "enlightened" people; they would very likely state that some version of "striving to overcome misery and suffering" is the highest moral and ideal activity that they can imagine.

That - indeed - is the modern idea of what a "good person" would do. 

Twenty-first century "Christians" (if you can find one) would agree - and would regard Jesus as the best Man who ever lived exactly because he went around healing people, feeding the poor, raising the dead - and eventually set up a church that (allied with government), "made the world a better place" through taking practical action to overcome misery and suffering.

 

Apart from the philosophical/ theological/ ideological superficiality and weirdness of adopting a double-negative conceptualization of life and living - this is strategically-feeble as a motivator compared to some actual positive goal. 

And when the double-negative understanding of life and morality collapses; it often leaves-behind (the sin of) despair; because the realization dawns that if my life is striving to overcome suffering, then the only certain answer is death and annihilation of that life. 

 

In a world where death is understood as utter annihilation of the self; a life-focus on the alleviation of suffering is the precursor to a culture of death attained by suicide.   

The common attitude that Men in general, Western Man specifically, and people-like-us in particular, are a "cancer on the planet", likewise feeds the implication. 

 

And further; if anything like social apoptosis is going-on, such that the spiritually-defective are inclined to eliminate themselves; then the predicted mass distribution of Suicide Pills becomes not just rationally defensible, but something regarded as the highest kind of altruistic morality of which modern Man can conceive. 

     

The Great Gates of Wossit? by Mussorgsky - and other politically-corrected musical titles

First - from Pictures at an Exhibition - Mussorgsky's Great Gates of... Kviy, isn't it? 

 

Then, one of my favourites - Mozart's Praha Symphony:

 

That old popular classic warhorse: The Warszawa Concerto:

And that perfect synthpop single: Wien by Ultravox

In Case of War, take the Suicide Pills: When Social Apoptosis meets spitefully destructive totalitarianism

A few months ago I formulated the term Social Apoptosis as a model which may help to understand the way that Western Civilization is eliminating itself. 

The idea is that in the individual cells of multicellular organisms, or individual organisms in social animals such as humans; there are evolved mechanisms by which individuals (and probably groups of such individuals) delete themselves from society, by choosing not to reproduce. 

Such apoptosis can be understood as intended to pursue "strategic", long-term and overall benefit at the expense of short-term and individual benefit; so that the individual has some kind of built-in "programme" to sacrifice its own survival and reproductive prospects in order that larger goals may be achieved. 

 

Something of this kind certainly seems to be at work in Western Civilizations; both individually - where a majority of the native populations choose either not to reproduce at all, or to be subfertile (with much below replacement levels of offspring). 

Modern societies exhibit little in the way of what used to be regarded as natural instincts for self defense or survival - there is a much greater observable concern to avoid avent moderate or brief suffering and pain than to stay alive and leave-behind children. 

(The idea that it would be thought necessary to encourage people to defend themselves and their conditions, or to have children, would have seemed bizarre to most humans throughout history!) 

And apoptosis apparently also operates at a societal level, where whole nations (essentially all Western nations) have for some decades tolerated, and often enthusiastically embraced, multiple policies whose consequence is self-extermination - even when self-extermination is explicitly stated and aimed-at. 

 

Of course; there are many other external and top-down factors at work. But I feel that there would have been a great deal more in the way of mass resistance and refusal if it was not that so may individuals and groups apparently regard themselves are deserving of elimination. 

This widespread sense that "we" - as individuals and societies - deserve to be eliminated, meets with a leadership class that is increasingly motivated by a spiteful desire for destruction. 

A leadership class that demonstrates an implicit - and sometimes explicit - personal satisfaction at the suffering of individuals, and the decline of social institutions. 

 

One reason why unrestricted world war is now such a high probability, is this combination of a Western Civilization that feels it ought to be eliminated, and is motivated by the desire for elimination; with a totalitarian leadership class that would enjoy creating a situation in which this elimination would happen on a rapid and massive scale - accompanied by the greatest possible degree of human fear, misery and suffering. 

 

(While it is only The West that is ruled by a class many of whom are actively seeking destructive war on any excuse, or none; it only takes one side to make a war. Or rather, the only alternative to war in such circumstances, is passive acquiescence to being genocided.)

 

In a spiritual sense; this is understandable in terms of the elimination of religion, and indeed the reality of the spiritual, from the minds of modern Men. 

Our publicly operative metaphysical assumptions are utterly nihilistic; we are taught and believe that there is no purpose or meaning to our lives, or indeed to life itself. All is accident and determinism.

In The West it is fashionable, and publicly approved, to regard Mankind as a plague upon the planet - and the universe... 

The obvious conclusion is that we should eliminate ourselves. 

 

This is our situation here and now; and one reasons why the prospect of explosive and wholesale destruction seem to be increasing all the time.  

An implication of this spiteful-suicidal synergy is that The West will continue to destroy its own military capacity, even while trying to escalet wars on mutliple fronts. 

So "They" want war - but they are Not planning to fight a war... 

What does this imply?

 

To me it suggests that if, or when, They get the war they so much want, involving Western populations who deeply feel that they deserve to die; instead of trying to win the war by fighting - the leadership class will implement a mass distribution of "Suicide Pills". 

Thus there will be a war, and from fear and despair, encouraged by a monothematic propaganda onslaught; the Western masses will kill themselves in droves - the Suicide Pills enable the masses to kill themselves without suffering, and fear of suffering is the only thing that stands between many people and desired annihilation.

That is my prediction. Sooner or later we will be hearing about a plan to distribute Suicide Pills, freely, to the Western Masses - to be used "compassionately" in case of the third world war that is the leadership class's major current project. 

 

Of course, painless death will rather thwart the desire to inflict suffering - and the sadistic demons won't like it... 

On the other hand, the Master Agenda is that of Satan - and that is self-chosen damnation, of which a pretty reliable preparation is to die in deliberate and unrepented sin. 

To kill oneself in fear and despair (and, probably, in a state of seething resentment against God and Jesus Christ) is itself a rejection of Heaven, and the willed choice of Hell.   

Does advancing confidently in the direction of our dreams, lead to success unexpected in common hours?

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. 

He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. 

In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. 

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

 From the Conclusion to Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

**

I can recall the excitement, and optimism for my life ahead, with which I read the above passage in my middle teenage years. It seemed like I was being offered a key to open the locked door of life - a life that, since adolescence, had become more sinister and oppressive in term of how most people lived it. 

I have since read many similar passages and extended arguments. The point may be summarized as asserting that if only we would adopt the right perspective, the right attitude to living, then the fundamental problems of life are soluble. 

Such statements remain common - although less culturally influential than they were up to the 1970s.  A more recent example is the work of Joseph Campbell - whose slogan of "follow your bliss" was saying very much the same as Thoreau.

 

Although there is no mention of deity - such statements do assume a purposive and benign universe; because built-in are such beliefs as that "more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him".

In other words, there is an implicit assumption that the proper attitude in ourselves will elicit from reality an appropriate response - we will "make our own luck". 

This is strictly nonsense on the basis of modern mainstream scientistic materialism; where the universe and Men's minds are alike the accidental and undirected products of random and determined processes. 

Yet something deeper and unreasoned continues to evoke a response and expectation that, indeed - despite "rationality" - we might perhaps make our own luck. 

 

Looking back, I would say that Thoreau's statement is false ultimately and overall - and that his advice does not solve the fundamental problems of life: it did not for Thoreau himself, nor has it done so for anybody else of whom I have knowledge. 

This is because the fundamental problems are life are consequent upon the inevitability, and ineradicable nature, of evil and "entropy" (by entropy I mean the innate tendency, operating through time, towards disease, degeneration, and death). 

And false because we are not only surrounded by evil and entropy in our environment; but these are both also operative within us - so that, even if we lived in an earthly paradise, we would carry evil and entropy into that paradise. 

 

On the other hand; although fundamentally untrue; Thoreau's advice is helpful! 

It is an attitude that can lead to a more fulfilling life - especially if (as was not the case with Thoreau) it comes to be underpinned and explained by faith in a creator God, who is our loving Father.

And Thoreau's vision may become literally true and eternal on the other side of death; if we choose to accept the gifts of Jesus Christ. 

Do not tie your salvation to material things (it is a demonic temptation)

It is a major error to conflate the future of Western Civilization (or of the world population as a whole) with Christian and spiritual matters.

This is a mistake. 

Of course; the material and physical realm always has spiritual implications, because it is ultimately spiritual in nature. But the directionality of that relationship is that the material is a sub-set of the spiritual, and the spiritual encompasses and interprets the material. 

So the material neither defines its own spiritual consequences, nor does the material drive the spiritual - unless we spiritually choose to make-it-so.

 

This means that we cannot track the spiritual condition of the world by monitoring its material manifestations - at least, not unless we have chosen to make the material primary. 

For instance (and this is a very important example):  

If we choose to make the material churches the primary factor in Christianity; then the material chuirch will indeed define the spiritual nature of Christianity.

What happens to Civilization; e.g. whether The System becomes Sorathic and motivated towards its own self-destruction and the destruction of everything else; or whether some nations step-back from this, to seek either a functional and Ahrimanic totalitarian system, or perhaps try (maybe succeed) to revert to a more "medieval" kind of theocracy with religion as primary... All this kind of thing is not spiritually primary. 

Such changes will very probably affect whether we (and many others) will live or die sooner or later. And will affect whether our lives our comfortable and perhaps interesting, or miserable and tedious...

But ultimately suffering and death are inevitable facts of this mortal life and world - so that all such distinctions (while important) are quantitative and temporary.

Nor is the main question about optimism or pessimism (red-, blue, white- or black-"pill", in the current idiotic jargon) - whether "things" are-getting, or are expected to get, better or worse on average, or overall... 

Christianity is primarily about the spiritual and salvation - thefeore not about some person's current emotional responses.

 

Christianity is about resurrected Heavenly life; and that is a matter of personal motivation: about what we want, and how much we want it.

The nature of the Civilization or System, whether it survives, is repaired, or destroyed - is dissociated from the values of individual persons - unless we each choose to make it the opposite. 

As of 2024; the powers of evil overall and substantially control much of the material world. A major aspect of demonic temptation to induce a willed embrace of damnation, is therefore to induce people to tie their salvation to material things (including churches).

 

Yet the reality is that - at the extreme - the entirety of world civilization might collapse and Men suffer and die in their billions - yet (in principle) all souls might be saved. 

Or, at the opposite; the world might experience an unprecedented reduction in human suffering, an increase in human happiness, diminished disease and the extension of human life - and yet all the dying souls from this "Earthly Paradise" might (in principle) choose to reject salvation. 

First Things need to be put First - therefore be-ware and do not fall into carefully prepared soul-traps; spiritual snares built and maintained by demons.  

As near perfection... Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, by the Andrews Sisters analyzed by Fil from Wings of Pegasus

Regular readers will know how much I appreciate great singing; and in this respect I am finding Fil on the Wings of Pegasus YouTube site - to be a real education. 

He uses a computer tool to analyze recorded singing - past and recent - to see what is going-on from the perspective of sound frequency and timing. 

Here he turns his analysis tools to the appreciation of an absolute classic of virtuoso popular singing: the Andrews Sisters and Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from 1941. 

 

We all "know" this version; but it repays close and repeated listening - not only for the singing, but the superb arrangement. 

But one of Fil's recurring themes - and how I first came across this channel - is to reveal that performances labelled and presented as if "live" are actually using pitch-correction or "autotune". 

More recently, he discovered that ultra-expensive "live" public perfomances in mega-stadia, may be using a lip-synched pre-recorded vocal by the star. 

 

Lots of similar treasures - and, as I say, there is incidentally a lot to learn about the techniques of singing. 

Also I find his unpolished, benign, carefully honest, somewhat rambling, presentation style to be very endearing.