Conscious will versus intuition?

It seems generally accepted that we change by conscious will; and indeed I would regard this as the distinctive destiny of Men of this "modern" age.

Yet it is from our intuition, from primary- or heart-thinking, that we experience divine guidance - from our inner nature as children of God and from the Holy Ghost.

This means that even our best intentioned schemes and plans (eg for moral reform, or to forward some intellectual or creative project); can be wrong for us personally, here and now. Wrong because not the thing needful.

Therefore will is essential and the agent of positive change, yet will must (to be truly good) be subordinate to intuition - both today and tomorrow.

We cannot live by formula (if we want to live by divine destiny) - and we cannot (also should not) live passively by unconscious and spontaneous instinct.

What we are supposed to do is live by Conscious Instinct - but its not easy, because disrupted by error, ignorance and sin.

Hence life as trial and experiment, repentance and renewal.

Worming out of a deal with Satan?

An aphorism by Laeth that I linked a few days ago, talked of the possibility that some pre-mortal spirits could make a deal with Satan, before incarnation*.

Thus, some Beings, some humans, might be born with commitment to an evil agenda.

This could be understood as someone born strategically evil.

Such a person would also be prone to "normal" evil, which is selfish short-termism - which is, itself found with widely varying degrees - but perhaps never wholly absent". (I mean - we are all prone to impulses of self-gratification.)

This combination of a deal to serve the general, "global" plans of Satan (with hope of some later and desired reward) is in conflict with "doing what I want - Now".

I think this is seen in most people who have a leadership, strategic role in implementing Satan's agenda of evil - they try to worm out of doing their job towards fulfilling the long term deal, and instead will grab what they want, now.

This is one reason why it it a mistake to try and infer a strategy for evil. Even when there is an agenda, it will continually be contradicted and undermined by "petty" and personal corruption.

From a Christian perspective it is important Not to misunderstand such conflict between personal and Satanic evil, between evil strategies and immediate self-gratification.

When the focus is on strategic evil - such as the global totalitarian plans - this is continually being sabotaged by the minions of Satan trying to worm out of their deals - including deals made pre-mortally.

But this is Not a turn towards good.

The totalitarian order ("clown world") may be, probably is, collapsing into infighting among selfish, self-gratifying sub-groups and individuals.

But welshing on a deal with Satan in order to seek immediate corruption, is not virtue.

*It might be asked Why any spirit being would make such a deal? There might be a total incapacity for love; or a feebleness of loving impulse such that the being rejects the core divine principle of creation  (ie. God is love), and therefore joins Satan in opposition to God's creation - on the best terms he can negotiate, given that being's capabilities.

From euthanasia to assisted suicide... Not so much a slippery-slope as jumping off a cliff

I have been observing the suicidal-turn of Western culture for considerably more than a decade. Its beginnings lie back many decades ago, while I was still a medical student. 

At that time, the issue was called euthanasia, and was focused upon people whose suffering was regarded as severe and intractable, and who were incapable of killing themselves - and their Right to have somebody-else kill them. 

More recently, there was a focus on dying "with dignity" - which meant without suffering; so that the debate expanded to include people who could kill themselves - but apparently only in ways that would cause them pain or suffering. The Right being requested was for somebody-else to kill such people pain-lessly, instead of them killing-themselves pain-fully. 

Now, we call it "assisted suicide"; and have reached the point where there is no question of "need", but instead the Right demanded is to be killed pleasantly by somebody-else. With the picture painted of a happy death by drowsing off into permanent sleep while outdoors in some beauty spot - such as a National Park. 

When the question of creating a bureaucratic system for legally allowing some people deliberately to kill other people; there were warnings that this was morally a slippery-slope. 

Well, if we examine the rationale behind such proposals, and the speed with which the Right to be killed has expanded from a handful of people per nation to... everybody; the issue has turned-out to be more like jumping off a cliff from strict-morality and unfortunate necessity, plummeting down into pure amoral (i.e. immoral) convenience and consumer choice. 

The reason for allowing legalized murder has gone from being a last-ditch and desperate remedy for those terminally ill or agonizingly suffering, to a lifestyle preference.    

This is one of those (many) situations in which a top-down strategy meets mass acceptance; because in our Godless materialistic society, the bottom-line for values, for morals, for laws is simply utilitarian human psychology - that is, what people want, what makes people happy, what makes them feel less miserable... 

And this is a matter of inference, unsupportable assertion, and subjective opinion. A situation in which the apparatus of propaganda and ideology has the greatest scope; and where the prevalent sins of this age - fear, cowardice, demotivation, resentment, dishonesty and (most of all) despair - can operate freely and without trammel. 

Unless the trends reverse (and encouraged by deliberately engineered war, civil violence, disease and starvation); we will surely soon be seeing suicide become a publicly explicit and media-favoured lifestyle strategy; with the Western bureaucracies providing whatever necessary facilities. 

In the spiritual war of this world; to have mass suicides of people for such reasons as loss of all hope, fear of the future, refusal to tolerate the possibility of pain, and despair at the present - is a Big Win for the powers of evil. 

Because these would be deaths happening in a state of self-chosen damnation: that is, dying while decisively rejecting the reality of God and the promises of Jesus Christ.

There is, I believe, the maximum possible scope given us for post-mortal repentance (however we die). Death is not the end...

Yet our decisions in mortal life make a permanent difference; and to leave this life in such a spiritual state as (apparently) those who express a desire to be killed pleasantly while contemplating a beautiful view...

Well, this is very far from a fertile seedbed for repentance.   

Analysis by cause and effect acting on categories of things is Not Ultimately True; because relationships between Beings are primary

The analysis by causes and effects, using abstract categories of entities, developed in the classical and medieval periods when there was still a great deal of spontaneous, unconscious "participation" of human consciousness. 

In other words, when these abstractions cause/ effect/ category were devised; even "things" were regarded - quite naturally, and by experience - as personifications, with the kind of innate nature and desires of a living being. 

But for the modern (especially adult) consciousness participation has dwindled almost to nothing; and even living beings, even human beings, are regarded as if non-living "things". 

Therefore, to seek understanding of people, the abstractions of category, cause and effects are deployed as if these are the primary and bottom line realities - more real and important than the relationships between people...

Indeed; relationships between people are themselves subordinated to categorical, cause & effect analysis. 

The mainstream Christian churches have largely apostatized into modern consciousness, but even the  most traditionalist of church Christians have continued to use the classical and medieval versions of abstract analyses - but nowadays, because modern consciousness is so different, these abstractions are not-participated, they are alienated and alienating. 

This is why, for instance, Scholastic or Calvinist theologies are so cold and material-mechanical to the modern mind: because we cannot help but take them literally, while when they originated the rigorous philosophy was experienced (quite spontaneously) in what we might regard as a poetic, mystical, animistic way.  

And would-be spiritual explanations for group prayer, ritual, sacredness are often explained (or, at least, asserted) in a kind of pseudo-scientific fashion: as if constituting a laboratory procedure, or a computer program: If you do this, then this, in such a fashion - then these will be the objective outcomes...

But if, as I believe, the ultimate (metaphysical) reality is that of beings in relationships; then we ought to be trying to understand in these personal and interpersonal terms.

After all, within a good and loving family; the members are Not understood in terms of categories, and their relationships are not conducted as if cause and effect recipes for producing desired results. 

Instead; we realize that we cannot, and should not, treat each other in this mechanistic way; and that our influences on each other are not of a cause and effect nature. 

To read many "Trad" Christians; one would think that getting married, raising a family and living in a family ought to be a matter of slotting members into the proper categories, then following the correct (and God-approved) procedures for implementing the desired changes and outcomes! 

But this is to reduce the family to a bureaucracy; and bureaucracy is intrinsically evil. 

And it matters not whether the particular bureaucracy is secular- or church-derived; or if purports to be conducted according to laws and regulations from some interpretation of the Bible, Church authority, tradition, theology, or whatnot.

The de-humanization, the reduction of Beings to things, is just the same. 

We have all been ingrained with bad habits, actively-evil habits, of depersonalization; of mechanizing humans and other beings - and regarding such mechanizing as not just valid but superior - as (supposedly) validated by our understanding of ancient law and practice.  

Yet such behaviour leads us away from salvation - and by a very direct route; by making salvation impersonal, actually non-personal; reduced to a business of the abstract operations of cause and effect on things. 

Fortunately, it is quick and easy to repent such habits - once we have noticed them, and understood their nature and tendency. 

We all have built-into us - innately, from childhood - the instinct and tendency to understand other people and the world by means of relationships between living, purposive, conscious beings. 

All we require is to know, to be clear about, to decide; is that this is indeed the right and good way of understanding and acting. 

Our inevitably many lapses can then be repented - which is (mercifully!) all that is absolutely required of us. 

**

The Example of Prayer:

An an instance of the above, we may consider the influence of prayer on other people, as explained by Christians. 

In the medieval past, the individual conscious was less differentiated-from, more immersed-in, group consciousness. 

Therefore a prayer did not come entirely from any individual, and did not express the personal wants of any individual; but all valid prayer was significantly from the group-consciousness, it actually arose from the group. 

Its effect was because of this - from the group, to the group. 

The medievals may have interpreted prayer in a cause and effect way if asked to explain it: e.g. I pray for this to happen to him and it happens. But in reality, when prayer was effectual, it was because prayer operated in an unconscious and implicit group context. 

The modern person has become detached (almost wholly) from the group-consciousness. This is our freedom and agency, it is part of our development (and growing-up in consciousness towards the divine) - but it also means that our prayers have a different origin. 

Our prayers may come from our selves alone - and without connection with other consciousnesses. There is no obvious reason why a prayer from our self will affect other selves - especially when those other selves are understood as (like our selves) free agents. 

If our prayers "caused" effects in others, then the others would not be truly free - and vice versa.  

Or our prayers (especially group prayers) may derive from second-hand and external sources, from perceived stimuli interpreted by learned-concepts. 

(Such as prayers aimed at changing phenomena, knowledge of which has been derived-from political propaganda and the mass media, or from social media. This accounts for many prayers in church concerning official-media accounts of wars, famines, diseases - as well as those prayers directed at enhancing the agendas of evil such as antiracism, anthropogenic climate emergency, supposed or actual atrocities.)  

In sum: Modern people lack a plausible or real basis to explain (to themselves, as well as others) the effect of prayers. Mainstream people probably regard prayers as operating on the consciousness of the pray-er, with a secondary "group-psychological" effect, derived from the (psychological) experience of praying as a group. 

Modern traditionalists regard prayer (and indeed the church) rather as if it were an engineering project: a matter of assembling appropriate personnel, performing particular words in a particular ritual and symbolic context - leading leading to particular effects...

Albeit and importantly by the Grace of God, and not effectual from purely human and material causes. 

Yet despite the necessity of God; there is a very considerable quasi-objective "positivism" (materialism, reductionism, scientism) about the way that prayer, ritual, sacraments - even miracles - are understood by modern traditionalists (who have, innately and like-it-or-not, the modern alienated consciousness). 

For Trads; our business as mortal men is to regard Christian realities as objectively-real categories with necessary cause and effect interactions -- yet this is, in practice and intrinsically, to reduce humans to things, whatever protestations otherwise.  

What I am suggesting is that we ought not to think of prayer in a cause and effect fashion, operating between our-selves and other people or other things. 

We should instead regard prayer in the context of those entities with whom we ourselves are bound by relationships of love - as we and they were of a family. 

Where there is not this inter-personal (inter-being) love, then there will be no real prayer - but with love, all prayer will be significant, will make-a-difference. 

Where there is love, then prayer does not work by cause and effect, but works on "the relationships". 

And by this, I means prayer works on the real and ultimate spiritual relationships, relationships that transcend and encompass physical relationships, and potentially extend to post mortal life, and potentially eternally. 

In everyday life, our beneficial relationships are those which are loving, and which regard the other persona as an unique person, our relationship as unique. 

Actual benefits in relationships are seldom planned, and seldom contrived; but are consequent on living our loving relationships. 

We live in accordance with Christian love - and what actually happens always benefits from that, in some way - but not in a cause and effect way, and not leading to predictable outcomes -- because we are relating to real people who are free agents. 

And that is how our prayers work also. 

More bits of Laeth - a demonic theme

Another selection from Laeth's aphorism garden: 

if you can make deals with the devil while you're here, you certainly can make them before you come here. a lot can be explained with this insight. 

the illusion of humanity will be destroyed because the devil always overplays his hand 

the first satan wanted to save everyone. the second wanted to damn everyone. the third wants to destroy the very idea of salvation. 

satan has armies, God has heroes

**

Note: These comments on the Devil/ Satan have particular resonance for me. 

I had never considered that pre-mortal souls might incarnate having (covertly) made a "deal with the devil" - but it would explain a lot. 

And why not? After all, even such a deal does not rule-out the possibility of salvation; so it need not be something that God would prohibit - even if God knew or inferred it had happened. 

The comment on Satan's attitudes to salvation is a compression and elucidation of what I understand about the progression of Luciferic/ Ahrimanic/ Sorathic evil; and clarifies that - when it comes to leadership of that party who oppose God and divine creation - there has probably been more than one.   

On reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre

Alec Guinness (illegitimate half-Norman!) as George Smiley in the superb 1974 BBC adaptation of TTSS 

I have just listened to a two-part audio recording of John Le Carre's famous novel of 1974: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; superbly read by Michael Jayston (who played Guillam in the BBC TV adaptation). 

As a novel, it has many excellent aspects; although the ending is disappointingly anti-climatic (the TV adaptation did this better). 

But then, there could hardly be any other kind of ending, given JLC's world-view. 

TTSS confirmed my earlier impressions of the profound human limitations - or, more exactly, deficiencies - of Le Carre himself, and the world he depicted. 

Not one of the TTSS characters is likeable or capable of love; and this applies even to George Smiley where Le Carre seems to have gone all-out to portray goodness in a man. 

A great deal of weight is put upon Smiley's long-term "love" for his promiscuous and cruel wife Anne; but Anne is portrayed as incredibly beautiful, popular, aristocratic and well-connected so the impression is that George is obsessed-with and dependent on her, rather than anything recognizable as genuine love.

All the other characters relationships are based on exploitation, manipulation, illusion, social cachet, and a kind of mindless status-seeking - or some kind of helpless, addictive and obsessive compulsion.  

Le Carre could not portray goodness for the simple and obvious reason that he was not himself good: he could only simulate goodness - but not convincingly.

Despite all these defects, and the claustrophobic - almost suffocating atmosphere - Tinker, Tailor is a very clever and well-structured "whodunnit" that gives the impression of an honest and accurate insight into the nature of life among the alien denizens of the Norman ruling class - what motivates and gratifies them: what makes "Them" tick...   

Think Ahead - Look Back. The spiritual perspective and The Problem of "Pain"

There is a spiritual problem with "pain" - especially if "pain" is understood to refer to the whole gamut of aversive emotions, and all kinds of sufferings. And this problem is that it is not then possible to think about complex matters, or follow a chain of reasoning. Instead the "pain" tends to monopolize attention and overwhelm efforts at other purposive activities - including spiritual. 

This may mean that our usual, and ideal, spiritual practices cannot (or at any rate do not) happen - and we may become habitually focused upon the material - on palliating or escaping the "pain". 

What is needed, in a spiritual sense, must be extremely simple - because otherwise it won't happen. 

A "mantra" is one traditional tactic - an over-and-over-repeated word or short phrase: for Christians, this has often been The Jesus Prayer, or (even shorter) the Name of Jesus. 

But these were devised during the "medieval" era when Man's consciousness was such that (to a significant extent) the word was that which was represented: "the word was the thing". Then; to speak the name of Jesus was itself to become aligned with Jesus. 

For modern Men this may not happen. Instead of the name of Jesus having a positive spiritual effect, it may be that the name of Jesus just loses all meaning and spiritual connotations when too often repeated. 

...It just become automatic, a habit, like humming an "ear worm" tune. 

Here is another possibility, that sometimes works... The aim is to get-out from the materiality of here-and-now, and to restore a spiritual perspective on the current situation. 

The tactic is:

Think Ahead - Look Back 

This simply means to Think Ahead in order to imagine being in resurrected eternal life in Heaven; then to Look Back from imagined salvation onto your present situation. 

If it works, this will - for at least a moment - put your current "pain" into an eternal and Heavenly perspective. 

It des not make the "pain" go away, or even diminish it; but it is a reminder that it cannot go on forever, and will come to an end: a Good end, that is a beginning.

Since Earth is "a school" and the eternal role of mortal life is as a time and place of learning; Looking Back is a proper attitude to enable this learning, during times that would otherwise be wholly negative. 

Think Ahead, Look Back is more difficult and complex than The Jesus Prayer; but if the prayer isn't working, it might be worth a try. 

"What have you got against AI?"

"AI" (Artificial Intelligence) has done a lot of harm by making it seem "necessary" for us to defend not interacting personally with AI entities and AI products! 

We need to notice and think about this. It reveals that an open-ended acceptance of "AI" into human society is already the default. 

We got here step-by-step over many decades, and centuries; and indeed all online communities (such as you, reading this) are already many steps along the way -- but general, consensus, default AI-acceptance brings us all the way. 

We Have Arrived.

What this means is that there is here-and-now a consensus (which may itself be mostly artificial) that it already is (and indeed should be) fine and normal for individual human beings to interact (inevitably personally) indiscriminately with some unknown and unknowable mixture of other-humans and AI entities and products. 

The key concept is "interact". 

From my perspective; this implicitly amounts to a denial of the ultimate reality and existential significance of this mortal life. 

Which is, of course, a great victory for the powers of purposive evil. 

And such a situation is not some future possible dystopian bogeyman state that may happen "if we are not careful" - for many, many people this is how things already are. 

For some of these people (and I suspect this has always been the case), I think there never has been any genuine inner distinction between interacting with other real beings, and with simulated-Beings (with projections, for instance) - because such people are ultimately solipsistic: they only really "believe in" themselves. 

But there seem to be more and more such people; because they are numerous and strong enough to demand that anyone who does not want to become one of them, must justify "why not".

When you are in a situation of trying to convince others "why not?" go along with their plans for you - you have already and decisively lost the rhetorical war; the battle of Public Relations. 

...At which point you either give-up and join the downslide to damnation; or else effectively fight-back: maybe materially, certainly spiritually.

  

Ultimate Outsiders - willingly so

In the sixty years since Colin Wilson published The Outsider - describing the state of sociological, psychological and spiritual alienation characteristic of the past couple of centuries - the situation has changed.

In 1956 it was possible to regard the Outsider as being rescued from his predicament by external change - but now he can only rescue himself. 

The current Outsider has only one place to look for help: within himself.

Thus - in politics and sociology there are no utopias, and all large institutions are thoroughly corrupted including the main churches. The intellectual elites are dishonest and incompetent. Science in 1956 was overwhelmingly successful - but has become a careerist bureaucracy. The universities seemed like a haven of privilege and leisure; but they are now the habitus of petty officials, dishonest spinners and box tickers.

We have no leaders - only middle managers and psychopaths - therefore, we must rely on ourselves. 

There is nobody else to turn-to. We must find what we need in our-selves - because it will not be supplied by any person or institution.

We, here and now, are the ultimate Outsiders because we have nowhere to turn - indeed, there are very few other people even to talk with about such matters. We are fortunate indeed if we have a marriage and family to sustain us - because these too have been destroyed over the past 60 years.

We we cannot trust anybody, we must trust ourselves. We are forced either to seek oblivion in distraction and intoxication or suicide - to escape alienation by escaping consciousness; or else to look within. 

But looking within is the answer! It always was - if only the Outsider allows himself to acknowledge the reality of God!

When we look within, and begin to dismantle the false selves and automatic thinking, we find God.

The old Outsiders such as Nietzsche regarded the God-within (the Self) as an alternative to God; but we know that the God within is God. 

Since we are God's children we ourselves are divine (Christians know this - or should), which means we have 'inherited' divinity. God is within us as well as without - the external God is denied us but God within is undeniable.

We can, should and will find Christianity within us - we can find Christianity despite being denied true and valid scriptures, tradition, legitimate religious teaching, rituals... we can find Christianity within us with total confidence because we know our loving God who created and sustains reality would not leave us unprovided for.

If within is the only place left to us; then within will suffice - we will find there everything we need.

We will find faith, courage, and motivation; we will find love.

We are in a situation where - if we honestly seek to answer the condition of alienation, nihilism and despair - there is no alternative to doing what we should anyway be doing: looking within - to find not only our true selves, but God and all the necessities that only God can provide.

We have the possibility of a degree of spiritual agency, freedom and autonomy seldom seen in the history of the world. And everything is channelling us towards exactly that.

We are fated to be the Ultimate Outsiders - like it or not. 

But we can solve the problem of alienation by willingly becoming the Ultimate Outsiders... By embracing, rather than avoiding, reality - we can become free, true and live from our divinity (albeit partially, with frequent errors and sins - but that is enough).

We cannot be made to make the right choice - we might instead continue to choose oblivion and the destruction of consciousness... drugs, social media, transgressive sex - even the destruction of our own persons by transhumanist technologies.

However, that choice is becoming clearer and clearer, more and more conscious - to the point of being unavoidable.

Yes indeed, things have 'come to a point'...


Note: The crux of my point is that God (as Christians understand God: creator, loving, and a personal God - concerned by every individual) would not leave anybody, at any time or in any place, bereft of spiritual necessities. The world, as we actually experience it, from our own point of view, is adequate. Indeed, since life is not a random accident; in some vital sense you and I personally (and everybody else) have been placed into mortal life in a time and at a place at-least-adequately suited to our individual needs for experiencing and learning.

Edited from a post of 18/7/17 - H/T Laeth for the reminder.   

CS Lewis on immortality - a misleading example and bad advice

Like many people in the past decades, I owe a significant debt to CS Lewis as an agent of my conversion to Christianity. Lewis is more than a beloved and much pondered writer for me - he is more like a friend. 

Nonetheless; beyond the basic fact of that conversion (which is, after all, the main thing), I also absorbed from CSL several elements of what I now regard as serious error, especially in terms of the ultimate question of "what Christianity is". 

Even before I became a Christian, and for a good while afterwards (many months, and indeed residually for some years) I would have subscribed to this statement by CS Lewis's in Surprised by Joy. The bolded sections I have added for emphasis: 

My conversion involved as yet no belief in a future life. I now number it among my greatest mercies that I was permitted for several months, perhaps for a year, to know God and to attempt obedience without even raising that question [i.e. the question of whether - and how - there was a connection between God and Joy]. 

My training was like that of the Jews, to whom He revealed Himself centuries before there was a whisper of anything better (or worse) beyond the grave than shadowy and featureless Sheol. And I did not dream even of that. 

There are men, far better men than I, who have made immortality almost the central doctrine of their religion; but for my own part I have never seen how a preoccupation with that subject at the outset could fail to corrupt the whole thing. 

I had been brought up to believe that goodness was goodness only if it were disinterested, and that any hope of reward or fear of punishment contaminated the will. If I was wrong in this (the question is really much more complicated than I then perceived) my error was most tenderly allowed for. I was afraid that threats or promises would demoralise me; no threats or promises were made. The commands were inexorable, but they were backed by no "sanctions". 

God was to be obeyed simply because he was God. Long since, through the gods of Asgard, and later through the notion of the Absolute, He had taught me how a thing can be revered not for what it can do to us but for what it is in itself. That is why, though it was a terror, it was no surprise to learn that God is to be obeyed because of what He is in Himself. 

If you ask why we should obey God, in the last resort the answer is, "I am." To know God is to know that our obedience is due to Him. In His nature His sovereignty de jure is revealed.

**

Lewis explains that it was a good thing for him - implicitly in a psychological sense:

1. That he was unconcerned by the question of immortality: of life beyond mortal life.

2. That he regarded his faith essentially as obedience; and obedience to a God to whom obedience was due impersonally - because he was God - (which I take to mean, the creator of everything from nothing, omnipotent, omniscient etc.)  - and without consideration of any personal values. 

And it seems clear, and Lewis himself confirms, that this attitude to God is closely analogous to that of Judaism - and, he might have added, to Islam.   

Lewis even goes so far as to say that it is corrupting to religion for "personal immortality" to be the central doctrine. 

Unfortunately (as it now seem to me) I imbibed this personal prejudice of Lewis's along with my conversion. Consequently, I found that reading the Fourth Gospel was extremely confusing - since it seemed obvious that "immortality" (of a particular kind - resurrected) was the focus of Jesus's teaching. 

(There are also accounts, which impress me, that suggest immortality was a primary means of conversion.) 

I am forced to conclude that Lewis's personal history and psychology led him into a very serious misunderstanding of Christianity - but I would add that it is not at all uncommon and I had exactly the same misconception. 

And for much the same reason - in that I became a Christian via monotheism. That is, through intermediate stages of recognizing that we inhabited "a creation", and recognizing the reality of transcendental values (truth, beauty, virtue, cohesion)...

In other words, again much like Lewis, I regarded the history of Christianity as essentially cumulative, and the nature of Christianity as added-on to pre-existent Greek philosophy and Hebrew theology. 

I now regard this as deeply wrong, in its essentially reality. Of course Jesus lived at a point in time, in which there were pre-existent cultural and religious realities. 

But I now see Jesus as offering something fundamentally simple (eternal, Heavenly, resurrected life), and qualitatively new - a second creation. 

I see the intellectual structures of pre-existent Hebrew monotheism and Greek philosophy as not just irrelevant but distorting to the real nature of the religion of Jesus Christ. 

In particular; it seems like bad advice to suggest that people ought not to be concerned with the question of immortality; and that we ought not to try and understand the relationship between their own values and the nature of God. Such ideas point away-from (not towards) Christianity as it ought to be understood - the teaching of Jesus Christ revealed in the Fourth Gospel; and (much more importantly) an understanding which is simple and clear enough to be knowable by direct personal revelation.   

Famously sloping sports fields

The top picture is Lord's cricket ground in St John's Wood, north London  - also known as HQ, or the Home of Cricket. 

The lower picture is Backwell Primary School's football pitch (you can see the dark coloured goal posts). 

Perhaps the Lord's slope is somewhat more famous, and less extreme, than Backwell's - but the latter was more familiar to me - being where I attended school throughout childhood. 

Backwell's strange conditions (a football placed on the grass would actually roll downhill if left unattended) provided us with much-needed home advantage due to familiarity, while playing other local schools. Few members of the opposition would be able to get over the shock and dismay at the sight of our pitch, before the game had been taken away from them.  

Lord's, by contrast, seems to work to favour visiting countries and work against England; perhaps due to the excitement of playing in such a storied venue - plus the fact that the Lord's crowd are traditionalists who (sportingly) applaud and celebrate the opposition's successes, as vigorously (or more so) than those of the home team. 

 

Was the British Celtic Church actually "Paganism with a veneer of Christianity" - or the opposite?

Edited from New light on the ancient mystery of Glastonbury, by John Michell, 1990 

Celtic Christianity has been called a mere reformation of Druidry. 

A unique and remarkable feature of the early Church in Britain in Ireland is that it claimed no martyrs through persecution by the religion it supplanted... 

The Druids had no difficulty in accepting the new religion, because it scarcely interfered with the existing religious and social order. 

The system of the early Church "was really Paganism with a veneer of Christianity". 

**

I have often seen this written; however, I think it more likely that the opposite was true*. 

And the reason for such opposite interpretations is due to very different concepts of what Christianity actually is. 

If Christianity is essentially The Church, and Christendom (a Church dominated and permeated society) - then clearly the newly converted pagans must have only a superficial smattering - a veneer - of the new faith over an substructure that can only be Pagan. 

The newly converted Celtic British Christians did not have a trained and ordained hierarchy of priests - these must have been few, and far between. The Britons did not have a comprehensive coverage by churches offering the sacraments. Nor had they experienced Christian teaching, nor did they live under a system of societal laws in conformity with the Church's understanding.

Instead; there inevitably must have been (for many years) mostly the residue of whatever actually was the system of Druidic religion - its sacred places, its Druids, its practices, and the effects of generations of its teaching. 

Furthermore; Christians seem to have had a deliberate policy of taking-over and re-purposing Pagan shrines or gathering-places. This strategy extended to making Pagan gods into Christian Saints - the best evidenced of which is the Irish god Brigit becoming the famous and beloved Saint of the same name. 

Surely (so this argument goes) all this means that for many years the British were still essentially Pagan - surely, their Christianity was, at first, merely a veneer of Christianized language and symbolism (such as a cross inscribed or erected-upon a megalithic standing stone) on-top-of what long-remained a Pagan religion? 

But if Christianity is accepting Jesus as Saviour, desiring resurrection to eternal Heavenly life, and embracing the intent of living by Love... then none of the substructure of Paganism really matters. 

By this argument; what makes someone a Christian is the choice to "follow Jesus Christ" (with what that entails in a "cosmic", eternal, post-mortal sense) - and the rest of religion is, at best, an optional extra. 

 

Of course, there would have been many aspects of Druidic Paganism that conflicted-with and contradicted the basic of Christianity in Love. 

But that applied to the Christian Church as well - much of its actuality contradicts the essence of Christianity, and always has. 

So long as the newly-converted Christian sought resurrection into Heaven by following Jesus Christ; instead of seeking whatever it was that Druidic Paganism had previously promised (generally regarded as having been some kind of reincarnation, perhaps involving metempsychosis) - then I would argue that the new Celtic convert was fully Christian. 

I think there are lessons for Christians here-and-now. 

Any Christian needs to navigate a world - a world including whatever Church he belongs to, and whichever religion or ideology rules his society - that is substantially hostile to his deepest convictions. 

Yet none of this prevents him from being fully a Christian - if that is what he most desires to be.

As Jesus himself said: Christianity is for sinners, not perfect Men; and for this actual sinful world, not some ideal society. 

Society cannot prevent anyone from becoming and being Christian...

Because ultimately Christianity is "not of this world" - and because resurrection and Heaven cones from Jesus, not from this world. 

What we absolutely need to do, and must do, is to want it.

*Note: Certainly, the Celtic Christian era in the British Isles led - over the following centuries - to a greater number and (even more so) concentration of Saints (and great Saints, still remembered as patron Saints, in church and city foundations, and festivals) - like Cuthbert, Patrick, David, Kentigern/ Mungo, and Brigit) than at any other time in the history of these parts. 

Mary Magdalene and the role of women in Christianity - mundane and cosmic

The role of women in religion can be examined from the point of view of the extent to which it is mundane - i.e. to do with the conduct of mortal life in this world; or cosmic - i.e. concerned with eternal matters and existence outwith this mortal life. 

A cosmic role for women could be a religion where the creator was a woman, or when one or more of the god's was a woman - and there are also other possibilities. 

My main interest is in Christianity. In historical Christianity we can see a cosmic role for the mother of Jesus in both the Eastern and Western Catholic churches. 

And Mormons regard God the creator as a dyad of man and woman - Heavenly Parents who manifested divine creation and (in some literal sense) procreated Men. 

Other types of Christianity among Protestants have essentially zero cosmic role for women; and this applies to Judaism and Islam.  

As regards a mundane role for women - this is seen in terms of supernatural help with everyday life. This could range from a theologically formal role of female saints and other holy women in helping with various problems of life; to all kinds of unofficial, popular and folk beliefs of the same kind; that shade-off into superstitions and "luck" (and may occur even in what are officially strictly monotheistic religions). 

At a further remove, there is the matter of women's role in the various churches. In some religions women have a essential role in churches, but in historical Christianity this has not been the case. 

Sometimes all essential church roles were restricted to men, but in all instances women were inessential to the work of the church. The religion can be conducted entirely without participation of women. 

Another vital aspect relates to Jesus Christ. 

When it comes to a cosmic role for women in the life and work of Jesus Christ, historical Christianity has either had none; or has focused exclusively on the mother of Jesus whose role is probably only of explicitly cosmic significance relatively late in the history of the Roman Catholic Church - with the doctrine of immaculate conception. 

Even the mundane role of women in the usual versions of the life of the adult Jesus during his ministry is minor to the point of being inessential. 

This is (variously) a consequence of taking either the whole-Bible, or the whole-New-Testament (or Synoptic Gospels, or Pauline Epistles) as the major basis for Christian assumptions, and also of deriving core assumptions of church authority, tradition and a lineage of theology and practice dating back to Church Fathers. 

However, my understanding of Christianity is focused upon the Fourth Gospel, regarded as the earliest and most authoritative source of knowledge. 

As such, I see a potentially cosmic role for Mary Magdalene; who I believe to have been the wife of Jesus, and brother of Lazarus - whom I regard as the author of the Fourth Gospel.

Here - in brief - is what I regard as the description of Mary Magdalene's cosmic role in the work of Jesus Christ - using the Fourth Gospel (see this link for further discussion and more detailed referencing): 

The Marriage at Cana (Chapter 2) is a rather garbled and tampered-with account of Jesus's marriage to Mary Magdalene - and it was the time of his first miracle. 

I assume that Jesus became aware of his divinity at the time of his baptism by John; but he did not perform a miracle until he was married to Mary; which marriage therefore implicitly has a cosmic dimension, far beyond any mundane earthly ceremony. 

Jesus encounters Mary on the way to resurrection of Lazarus (Chapter 11) - his profoundest and greatest miracle - the first resurrection. 

Then again at the episode of the mysterious episode of the anointing of Jesus's feet by Mary (Chapter 12) - when he realized and announced that his death was imminent.  

Mary Magdalene was present (with Jesus's mother, other women, and Lazarus) at Jesus's death on the cross (Chapter 19); and was then the first to meet him two days later when resurrected (Chapter 20). 

I take these descriptions - bracketing Jesus's death and resurrection - to imply that Mary had some cosmic role in these unprecedented and eternally significant events. 

The last we hear of Mary and Jesus is when he tells her: I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. 

Which I regard as an anticipation of the continuation of their eternal, cosmic marriage in Heaven, after Jesus's ascension and Mary's resurrection. 

Personality psychology has declined badly since the death of Hans J Eysenck

Many areas of science have declined substantially over the past several decades, and one of these is the field of personality psychology - where we have now given-up on the rigorous and multi-disciplinary approach best exemplified by Hans J Eysenck, and are back to the pre-theoretical indeed medieval - world of "that sounds like a good idea". 

The thing about inventing categories of personality, is that it is trivially easy, because they all have some predictive validity - therefore there is no end to the proliferation of typologies and categorizations. 

For instance: Young children can be classified into two groups by a ten minute test of whether they are able to defer a present reward (e.g. one biscuit) in order to get a greater reward a few minutes later (e.g. two biscuits) - and these groups have statistically different outcomes later in life. 

People can be categorized into groups according to the four humours (phlegm, black bile, yellow bile, and blood), of by Jung's categorization developed as Myers-Briggs, or by the Big Five or any number of others - all with some predictive validity with respect to future behaviour. 

A small research project I did easily showed that those with a tattoo had a significantly self-reported higher rate of drug and alcohol use than those without. 

Another little project showed that those who possessed digital bathrooms scales had a higher rate of reported eating disorders. 

The point is there are innumerable traits that are predictive. 

Almost any characteristic you can think-of has some value of this kind; and when characteristics have multiple components - i.e. when one creates a "syndrome" of characteristics - the correlations will be greater. 

For example; the typologies used in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM of the American Psychiatric Association) used in psychiatry; or for that matter the typical star signs used in astrology, they will usually demonstrate statistical differences in outcome. (e.g. Eysenck reported astrological differences many decades ago). 

The predictive validity of different schemes can be studied comparatively to seek higher statistical correlations, but this process is very sensitive to sample and population selection, and still lacks discriminative power. 

But only Eysenck (and those influenced by him) properly recognized that, in order to make progress, the scientific implication was that personality psychology must go beyond lists of characteristics to include as many as possible cross-correlations drawn from other biological sciences; such as cross-species comparisons, biochemical distinctions (e.g. in brain, or of blood), response to drugs, psychiatric correlates, medical correlates, evolutionary theory - and so forth. 

Eysenck made some progress in testing his categories (extraversion-introversion, neuroticism - and to some extent psychoticism) by such means; and more importantly he provided a programme by which this ought to be done.  

But Eysenck's programme was abandoned; and the predictable outcome has been a proliferation of personality typologies - each of which has its group of "believers", but none of which go beyond the trivial and common sense knowledge that how people behaved in the past may have an influence on how they behave in the future.  

Note: I invite readers to apply the above critique to currently common self- and other-categorizations (including their own favourites) relating to sexual typology and preference, lifestyle, consumer choices, race, ethnicity, residence, political and religious affiliation etc. etc. 

Values Consumerism is evil

Tools of Satan? 

The point at which I recognized "the beginning of the end" for genuine and nature-rooted "environmentalism" was when "Green Consumerism" emerged in the later 1980s - a concept that now dominates the Green Movement almost to the point of monopoly. 

The idea was that Green values would be promoted by properly-directed expenditure of Green consumers, by their buying choices. 

This replaced the earlier idea that those who aimed to preserve the natural world should reduce their consumption...

Half a century ago an archetypal environmentalist tried to be self sufficient by living as a modern peasant on "three acres and a cow"; nowadays he works as a sustainability bureaucrat - and inhabits a solar-panelled mansion with a hybrid and a electric car for each member of the family. 

Since the late 80s there has been a vast proliferation of "consumer guides", further shaped by totalitarian regulations; that advise and direct people on how to spend their money such as to support sustainability, diversity, feminism, or whatever totalitarian Leftist agenda item most takes your fancy... 

And these are mirrored - in a much smaller way- among those who purport to oppose Leftism (on the "Right"), and even among those who purport to support Christian values.  

The current world (including the blogosphere!) is therefore replete with advice and instructions about which companies and products we "ought" to choose, and which we ought to avoid.

This is very popular because, apparently, nearly everybody seems to enjoy moralistically advising other people what they should and shouldn't do with respect to their own particular hobby horse. 

...Especially while pretending that this is all morally highly-significant, and that the adviser's own lifestyle preferences are objective evidence of moral superiority. 

So public discourse is full of stuff about the need either to-buy, or to-boycott, this - or that.

In the UK, we have seen the ultimate reductio ad absurdum of training young children in schools to regard the issue of plastic drinking straw usage as a major issue of values; and to celebrate the "banning" of such instruments-of-the-devil as a triumph of environmental protection.    

This consumerist moral perspective is grossly inadequate as a life-goal; because it necessarily supports the existing system in a deep and qualitative way; while pretending to influence it by living in accordance with superficial, quantitative differences: supposed distinctions that are often too small, too temporary, and too uncertain to have even the potential to make a significant positive difference. 

Indeed; this perspective is worse than inadequate, worse than useless: it is a profoundly harmful way of living - because it is strategically stupid and deliberately dishonest.

And not by accident. 

The fact that Values Consumerism emerged when it did, and that it is supported by the globalist totalitarians (Western and International politics, Big Media, Big Finance, Big Corporations etc.); demonstrates that it is Values Consumerism which is literally and without exaggeration a tool of Satan, an instrument of the Devil... 

UPDATE on crumbed chicken breast stuffed with melted garlic butter...

I was trying to purchase a pack of what used to be called Chicken Kiev, and was recently renamed Chicken Kyiv (due to corporate Britain's obedient hatred of the Fire Nation). But I could not even find the imposter - and was instead directed to the following:

As you can see, the delicacy is now termed GARLIC & PARSLEY with (in smaller writing, even relatively smaller on the side of the box - which is displayed) CHICKEN KYIVS. 

What does this signify - on top of the anti-Fire Nation motivated change from Kiev to Kyiv?

Is it that nobody knows what a Chicken Kyiv actually is, and so there needs to be a description?

Or that support of the war against the Fire Nation is waning (among even the Wokest of UK corporations), as there begins to be an inkling among the ruling class that (thanks to their previous political position and propaganda) the Sorathic demons are now in charge of our national policy, and things hereabouts might be just about to get nasty? 

(Real) Diversity is a Good Thing: The variety of human consciousness around the world and through history

Because I believe that all Beings, each Being (including each human being) is unique in terms of its origin as an eternal spirit; the variety of people (and other beings) is not something that needs to be explained or justified. This variety is assumed to be a fact of reality; and, as such, something that God must "deal with". 

So, God doesn't "make" us different, we just-are different - and always have-been (from eternity). 

But that was originally a situation of separate and indifferent difference... What God is "working on" (through the span of creation) is how to create a reality in which all these different Beings work together by love. 

This is why "the family" is the best metaphor or model for reality - not just for human reality, but for divine creation as a whole.

In a good family (an ideal family, the best we can imagine) we neither expect nor seek for uniformity. The ideal family is one in which each member's differences from each other are harmonized and made good by their mutual love and shared "aims". 

I think this understanding is also applicable to the wide variety of types of Men, in the world now and through history. 

It is not so much that "diversity" is good, as that it is a fact. Indeed, the concept diversity - as used now - is an abstract summary of certain kind of group-difference, and either ignores love or else assumes love to be a thing that can be induced, ordered and legislated as required (as when religious leaders instruct their adherents to "love" such-and-such - insofar as they mean anything at all, it is not real love as understood by Christians, by Jesus). 

From God's point of view, there are a wide range of spirits that may benefit from incarnation; and the wide range of types of society that exist around the world, and across what is known of human history, can be seen as ways of grouping types of human beings to provided what (on average, because that is all any society can provide) conditions conductive to salvation of that-kind-of-soul. 

I think this is probably the reason for both the variety of individuals at any one time; and the variety of races, places and nations in God's creation; and the directional changes in human consciousness through history. For instance, the development of consciousness from that of hunter gatherers, through agrarians in larger and larger societies, to the modern consciousness which has emerged preceding and since the industrial revolution. 

God was (I think) trying to provide a wide range of environments for the wide range of human spirits that may benefit from incarnation. 

Different types of men were therefore (on the whole) born into different historical eras, and different places and races of the world...

The process was, of course, primarily individually tailored to the needs of specific individual persons - yet in practice this entailed a variety of societies both "vertically" (through history) and "horizontally" (in any given point in history).  

Of course, working against this ideal are the powers of purposive evil, the demons; and the aspects of evil in every Man. 

These are aimed at wrecking God's best efforts at providing certain broad types of individuals with broadly helpful environments. 

Nowadays, the main efforts are homogenizing - and are directed at destroying these diverse environments; and trying to impose a world where everybody (and eventually every "thing") is regarded as the same, and treated as the same. 

The strategy of evil is that men and women, children and adults, those of different race and nation, the actual environment in which people live, the rules and media under which they live... All of these are to be pressed into the direction of actual global homogeneity, by vast programmes of indoctrination, population movement and coercion.

(This homogenizing - totalitarian - programme is breaking-down rather rapidly; but still in operation; and still used to "justify" the emerging actuality of deliberately chaotic destructive evil, which is superseding it.)

Evil is effective only insofar as it contains some partial good ("good intentions" are so dangerous!) - which is why evil is always untruthful, and disguises its destructive (anti-divine-creation) aims by apparent good. 

So that the global program of reducing the world to a single and uniform environment for all people and peoples, is dishonestly - albeit superficially - disguised as its opposite! As supporting "individuality! As supporting "freedom"!

This kind of inversion of values, supported by subversion then inversion of terms and concepts; is nowadays a pervasive reality of everyday life - especially in The West from which the strategy of evil is administered. 

But I think we need to beware of reacting against that which is truly good, and in accordance with God's intentions; simply because the terminology and concepts have been captured and reversed. 

For instance, the reality of love (the core truth of Christianity) does not itself become evil, when the word has been captured and almost-reversed to mean in practice lust, self-gratification, or suicidal altruism. 

Likewise, diversity in the sense of the uniqueness of every human being, is a reality and part of God's creative endeavour.

Thus is is a serious error to respond to the evil-motivated modern "diversity" by advocating its opposite, by insisting upon the suppression of individual uniqueness by coercion: that is falling into a trap set by The Enemy - it is aiding The Enemy*. 

My understanding is that in Heaven there is great diversity (more than on earth) because every soul is unique (and always has-been) and this is positively valued. I think Heaven works as an ideal family - or rather, many ideal families; lovingly related into something like clans, tribes and a nation; each bound to each by eternal commitment to mutual love - but with that love stronger because more individual and personalized in the smaller dyads and groupings. 

In such a situation, the more differences between individuals, and the more these are developed (in the spirit of love, and so long as the differences derive from real nature) - the better; because the greater will be the potential scope of the whole. 

Every single new soul who enters Heaven then adds to the scope and possibilities. 

The "many mansions" of Heaven mentioned in the Bible, may be taken to refer to the probable situation of Heaven being a perfection of what we can glimpse on earth: large differences in consciousness, and environment; analogous to the differences through history, of races and nations, and between families. 

*Note: An example is the apparently very strong desire to arrange people by categories of personality and type - then for these categories to bleed across into the spiritual realm. I was (professionally) an intelligence and personality psychologist; and so I am aware of the pragmatic value of categories. It is, indeed trivially easy to invent categories that have statistical predictive value. For instance, young children can be divided into two categories by their response to a wide range of one-off and brief psychological tests - and these categories will (even decades later) have measurably different behavioural outcomes. Yet, I am also aware of the pitfalls and limitations of these tests at the level of individuals. And the exceptions may be important - as seen by the biologically-maladaptive (and/or socially negative) personalities of most geniuses. Yet such categorization is/was mainly a feature of an historical era of human consciousness: the medieval mind - with its "humours" linked to elements, its astrology, its castes and guilds - all of which had some level of validity, yet which have become less and less relevant as human consciousness has developed towards individual agency and self-awareness. More importantly, I am sure that what God wants from us - starting from here, and from now - is very different. We need to grasp firmly and with clarity that in an ultimate way (aside from the pragmatic social management (mostly related to efficiency, surveillance and control; which knowledge is now primarily used for evil ends, anyway) we are dealing with very diverse individual Beings; and these ought to be known essentially in terms of Christian values. It is not our Christian duty to assist with the effective administration of a society dedicated (top-dwn and pervasively throughout) towards evil ends. 

"Rave On" by Buddy Holly... I mean Steeleye Span

For those of you who like Steeleye Span but not folk music (!) - here is an encore piece from their early years - with Martin Carthy singing lead in an a cappella version of Buddy Holly's Rave On.  

Note: This is my son's favourite Steeleye track - which is rather a back-handed compliment I would think! 

Further note: Blogger will not let me embed YouTube videos at present, presumably due to some kind of update/ improvement. These things generally get sorted out - eventually...

Steeleye Span's greatest version of Thomas the Rhymer

The view up the Eildon Hills from near where Thomas probably met the Queen of Elfland

Steeleye Span's first and best 6:44 minute version of their interpretation of my favourite Border Ballad.

It comes from what is probably my favourite album of theirs - Now We Are Six from 1974 - favourite, not because of its being consistently good, but because of its unmatched ability - in several places - to capture a quality of uncanny and deeply-appealing magic that I seek from the very best of folk music.  

In Thomas the Rhymer, the rock section is balanced by a superb, quiet, close-miked section with acoustic guitar and flute and violin obliggato - repeated with quietly pulsing electric guitar and bass. 

This richly rewards intensive listening on stereo headphones - notable the section on the choice of three road (to Heaven, Hell, or Elfland). As a kid we didn't have headphones, so my friend Gareth and I would take turns to lie on the floor, with head sandwiched between the stereo speakers...  

Epic electric folk at its supreme best...

***

True Thomas sat on Huntly bank 

And he beheld a lady gay 

A lady that was brisk and bold 

Come riding o’er the ferny brae 

Her skirt was of the grass green silk, 

Her mantle of the velvet fine 

At every lock of her horse’s mane 

Hung fifty silver bells and nine 

True Thomas, he pulled off his cap 

And bowed him low down to his knee 

“All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven 

Your like on earth I ne’er did see.” 

(Transition to quiet section)

“No, no, Thomas,” she said, 

“That name does not belong to me 

I am the queen of fair Elfland 

And I have come to visit thee.” 

“You must go with me, Thomas,” she said, 

“True Thomas, you must go with me 

And must serve me seven years 

Through well or woe, as chance may be.” 

Chorus X 4: (Again rock style)

Hark and carp, 

come along with me, 

Thomas the Rhymer 

She turned about her milk white steed 

And took Thomas up behind 

And aye whenever her bridle rang 

Her steed flew swifter than the wind 

For forty days and forty nights 

They rode through red blood to the knee 

And they saw neither sun nor moon 

But heard the roaring of the sea 

And they rode on and further on 

Further and swifter than the wind 

Until they came to a desert wide 

And living land was left behind 

(Quiet section again - muted electric guitar and bass - the best bit of all!)

“Don’t you see yon narrow, narrow road 

So thick beset with thorns and briars? 

That is the road to righteousness 

Though after it but few enquire.” 

 

“Don’t you see yon broad, broad road

That lies across the lily leaven? 

That is the road to wickedness 

Though some call it the road to heaven.” 

 

“Don’t you see yon bonny, bonny road 

That lies across the ferny brae? 

That is the road to fair Elfland 

Where you and I this night must go.”

Chorus (repeat to fade): 

Hark and carp, 

come along with me, 

Thomas the Rhymer 

The cusp of a New Era? (but Not The Age of Aquarius)

It is very interesting to me that many people could foresee, before it had actually become evident, that the millennium would be the end of one age of the world, and the beginning of another. 

But it is not surprising that everybody who tried to describe what the new era would look like, got it very wrong. Indeed, it was usual to regard the post-millennium world with a diffuse (because dewy-eyed) optimism, as the dawning of an Age of Aquarius - peace and free-love, free drugs, constant rock music, and a great deal of singing and dancing. 

Well... Not exactly. Indeed, sixties style "freedom" is nowadays regarded as evil in the mainstream, and as for dancing... People dance less often (and less joyfully) now than at any time in history (including during the decade of Puritan Commonwealth!) - and far, far less than during the pre-millennial decades.   

Dancing aside; it is evident that we are now deeply, and it seems irrevocably, into the end of the present era of world civilization - and the end, too, of an age of the world. 

I say "irrevocably" because it is primarily an act of self-destruction - a willed destruction. 

Although most of those who will their own civilizational and (almost certainly) personal destruction would strenuously deny it; and will shrilly justify every single destructive policy and action of the vast and interlocking strategy of self-annihilation, by (what seems to them) reasons of values and necessity -- that this is mere shallow feel-good nonsense is almost instantly revealed when any honest attempt at understanding is embarked-upon.  

The leadership class live in a bureaucratic world of untruth, dual-dedicated to careerism while feeling good about themselves. Which combination is why they must be so pervasively dishonest... One can only feel good about deliberately planning and escalating gratuitous wars, by lying to oneself and everybody else - All The Time.

Meanwhile, the masses have chosen deliberately not to understand what is happening; which means not-even-trying to understand - and squashing one's own personal capacity to think and learn from experience; by self-drugging with mass media, addictive socializing, and assorted intoxications - these being perceived as the only alternative to becoming crushed by fear and despair.

The combination of an utterly corrupt leadership class with an utterly self-neutered mind-numbed population has led to the truly astonishing spectacle of a world that is today literally on the threshold of escalating mega-death from international war; with economic and trade collapse and famine - with far less public reaction or response than to a sporting event or celebrity scandal. 

There is, indeed, in England (who is currently closer to experiencing war than any other Western nation) no perceptible social awareness. 

We may hope for someone, somewhere in The West to have the basic common sense and capacity for consecutive thinking to step back and reverse the ongoing trends. But there are a complete absence of any such persons in public life - or indeed anywhere At All.  

Trends that have been advocated and celebrated for decades, driven by unified leadership and all major social institutions, would be very difficult to stop if there was a powerful and cohesive will to stop them - but there is not. 

By my judgment; nobody has any coherent or plausible idea of what is coming after this era; probably because the roots of the coming collapse are so deep and extensive, that it is almost unimaginable what might grow once these root have destroyed themselves. (Which destruction is currently ongoing, and soon will be all-too-obvious.)  

This is why we hear so many cyclical theories of civilizations - people simply can't imagine anything except a return to some previous situation. 

Of course, what this inability to imagine a plausible and coherent future may amount to, is that this could be the end of civilization. 

After all, in this entropic and increasingly-evil world, everything will have an end sooner or later, at some point - maybe this is what it is like to inhabit an end without prospect of a new beginning? 

And this is all covered by the words and actions of Jesus, whose kingdom is Not of this-world, and whose work specifically enables all those who follow him to transcend the end of this world - when (not if) it comes.  

So far as I can tell, this is the only antidote to becoming paralysed by fear and despair. 

We each (I think) need to be able to envisage the end of everything (and I mean every thing) in this mortal world; and yet realize that even this need not be the end for us (unless we choose to make it so) - but a transformation and beginning of something far, far better - and eternal. 

It is on this basis (from this basis) that we should live and "fight": not to save civilization, not even to save "the world" - because these cannot be saved (and our civilization as-it-is either wants nor deserves to be saved). 

But we should live and fight in this world in ways that contribute to everlasting life beyond this mortal life, Heavenly society we may enter after this corrupt civilization, and the for eternal divine creation rather than this world: which derives-from and sustains good, but mixes-in so much of evil and entropy. 

Morning café "meditation" uncut

Partly from idleness, and partly because it might interest regular readers*, I am putting down the notes I made during this early-morning's café meditation of some three quarters of an hour, which followed a half hour amble to reach the café. 

The "procedure" involves slowly drinking the largest available extra-hot cappuccino (no chocolate topping) while reading something, thinking, and making notes. This morning's book was On Quality by Robert M Pirsig - a posthumous collection of essays and aphorisms. 

It is from such musings and notes that I often generate blog posts - although usually these are done at home (by a similar procedure, early in the morning) rather than in a café. 

Editing is restricted to a omissions of personal data (...), additional spacing between thematic paragraphs, clarification [indicated thus], and some expansion of ungrammatical notes into sentences. 

Notes from Friday 13th September 2024

  ...What is ultimate right and wrong? It is objective - but still, always, "a matter of opinion". Because anyone might feel that love was evil, virtue was evil - that selfish hedonistic now was the highest value - even in a world that is objectively the creation of a God motivated primarily by love. [Such a person] might claim that he intends to build another creation, based on other principles that are not love. Or he might not value creation but hate it, and enjoy destroying it - and to be indifferent to the future, or else may not care if the outcome was to destroy his own world. 

The point is that the first creation was/is threatened by evil - even as by the continual erosion of entropy. A second creation was needed, in order that those who did value love above all, can love free from entropy and evil. 

Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality (explicit in Lila, implicit in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) is true enough - but just floats unsupported as an assertion - it can't explain 1. how we could know it truly 2. why we ought to value it. 

Why should we value values? - and one value over others? 

"Religious mystic" - falsely associated with Eastern, deistic, oneness. Whereas Christian mystics should know that deity is God who is ultimately A Man. 

- The problem with Pirsig is that Quality points at creation - a creator - and we could only know this is God loves us. 

The problem of [Christianity's greatest monotheistic rival] is - How do you know? If God is as they say, then nobody would know anything about God. 

For Christians it is - Why should I believe you, and do what you say? God is my "Father" as much as yours, and loves me.  

If all is one, then everything is one, there are no values, no truth, no anything. Death is life, pain = pleasure, action = inaction. 

But people use bits of religion 1. as palliative 2. to justify control - both by dishonesty and sleight of hand. 

Purpose is a problem for many religions. Why do this not that, anything rather than nothing?

To attain salvation? Yes, but why does it need to be attained? Choices? Yes, but why are there choices? And all this is passive.

Love, Yes, but then what? A further factor is needed - consciousness, creation, development - And our unique individual primordial self.  

That has a purpose, a teleology - inbuilt, as well as chosen. 

Unless "values", purpose etc are inbuilt innate, then life is passive.  

If life is passive, it is futile - it is not really-real. 

If self is unique, it includes purpose, as well as consciousness. 

The Material, boundedness, are "appearances" for what is real and physically unbounded. 

Yet the spirit seems to be affected by proximity. 

 If The Physical is concentrated spirit, this is explicable. 

When we incarnate, our spirit becomes concentrated. This increases consciousness. 

Maybe that's a rule?

Consciousness is enhanced by concentration of A Being. 

 

But perhaps also with concentrated/material Beings? 

Which is why/ how we are alienated. Why we are split, why self-consciousness reduces automatic awareness of other Beings as conscious etc. 

A physical Being's consciousness may seem absent - e.g. between liver and lungs, white and red blood cells, or molecules and atoms. This is because consciousness is more concentrated in modern Men. 

Until [eventually] consciousness is aware only of itself! Consciousness Soul [Steiner's term] - Good name for it. 

Metaphysics of Quality is true, and good - but unmoored and unjustified - dismissable as one man's intellectual construct. Needs God, creation, a loving God to provide purpose and value for MoQ etc. 

Pirsig was inexorably prejudiced against Christianity, against God - could not distinguish church from reality. 

Atoms are peripheral to physical/material Being, away from the concentrated consciousness. 

Dynamic Quality^ = Direct Knowing, or heart-thinking/ intuition.

^[A term of Pirsig's] 

+++

*And, no doubt, the experiment derived partly from a make-believe conceitedness on my part that - like Pascal, Thoreau, or Wittgenstein - a few people might actually be interested by my unstructured stream of consciousness. Cringe - but some truth to it... However, having done this experiment, and found that the business of transcription has taken much more time and effort than I hoped and expected, and that "the good stuff" (as it seems to me) is buried among the relative dross - today's practice may not be repeated.  

A Harry Potter Retrospective

Although the unprecedented "Pottermania" that gripped the Western world until approximately a decade ago has now receded; the opinion I formed of the Harry Potter series some 15 years ago as being a work of genius has by now survived multiple (six?) complete re-readings - plus further dippings-in. 

I find my appetite for the Harry Potter books undiminished, and get more from every time I encounter them. 

I was late to the series, having sampled and discarded a few of the "Philosopher''s Stone" and a couple of earlier books. 

I kept falling at the fence of The Dursleys - especially in the first book, where this part of the plot takes up many slow and tedious chapters before Harry eventually enters the Wizarding World. 

It therefore does not surprise me that this book was rejected so often before finding a publisher - if the editors were anything like me, they will not have got through the early section to reach the good stuff later.  

Those parts of the books featuring the Dursley family continue to strike me as mostly unsuccessful, and written at a much lower level than the rest. 

The Dursley characters are cartoonishly unbelievable, when they are not figures of oppressively heavy-handed juvenile satire. 

Furthermore, the way that Harry (who is believable, and with whom we empathize) is physically and psychologically tormented by the Dursleys in the first and other early books; is so appalling that it is either viscerally horrific and overwhelms the other elements of the story, or else we are compelled to adopt a superficial and appropriately cartoonish level of engagement in our reading (which is what most people seem to be doing). 

Thus it was not until 2009 that I actually read the Potter books; although I had watched the movies as they came out, with no great depth of appreciation - except for "The Prisoner of Askeban"; which is (in retrospect) unsurprising, since the movies had been almost completely filleted of profundity. 

Then in 2009 I read the second-to-last book "The Half-Blood Prince" before launching into the crowning glory and triumphant vindication that is "Deathly Hallows". 

After which I went back and read all the earlier five books, albeit probably not in order of publication.

And "I was hooked".  

Harry Potter has since, over a span of fifteen years proved to be robustly enjoyable across a wide range; from its large cast of memorable (indeed archetypal) characterizations; its abundant and delightful humour (surely this is an under-rated facet - these books are very funny in parts); the richness of invention, excitement, and adventure; the very impressive plotting (mastery of the full range of techniques of an expert murder mystery writer was evident); and most importantly these books spiritual depth and edification across the series. 

The accomplishment of such a long coming-of-age time-frame, for several major child characters as well as Harry, makes these books unique in my experience.   

While I have no idea how the Harry Potter book-series will fare in future; in terms of mass marketing and cultural significance; for me they have easily passed the test of repaying repeated engagements over a long time span.

The marvellous originality and profundity of the Mormon theology of eternal marriage

I have given-up on trying to persuade others of the wonders of Mormon theology! Instead, I will here merely vent some of my enthusiasm. 

Even Mormons regard their theology as very-much subordinate to specifics of this world practice in the CJCLDS. 

And hardly anybody else outside the CJCLDS (although, a few!) is sufficiently interested even to engage with the subject - often because of ineradicable ignorant hostile prejudice. 

But for me, I don't know that I have come across any richer source of metaphysical originality and genius across the span of Christendom, as in Mormon theology*. 

One of the greatest insights of Mormon theology was that God (The Creator) is the eternal and loving marriage of Father in Heaven and Mother in Heaven; in other words God is a dyad, not one. 

Properly understood and explored; this can be an astonishingly rich insight into the fundamental nature of reality - transcending centuries, indeed millennia, of false antitheses between monotheism and polytheism. 

The Mormon concept of God can be the basis of a positive metaphysical concept in its own right (not some combination or compromise of pre-existing concepts); as such, it needs to be understood in its own right. 

The Mormon church (the CJCLDS) has confused and distorted matters - in this as in several other ways - by claiming that such eternal "sealed" marriage is possible among mortal men and women, here on earth; and restricted to the administration and approval of the CJCLDS. 

This is understandable, perhaps it is and was inevitable - yet we must distinguish the reality and truth of things, as separable from the compromises and practicalities of organizing and maintaining A Church, in this world. 

But this is not merely something that demonstrably fails in practice (since many sealed marriages have ended in divorce); but is clearly impossible in theory, due to the basic nature of human beings and our life in this entropic and evil world. 

The basic nature of this mortal life cannot be transcended by mortal Men - and the fact of Men organizing into churches. 

Making claims of the church's transcendent power, or that church rules for living are mapped onto post-mortal and heavenly realities, are simply false - because they contradict the nature of this-world; and contradict too the whole rationale of Christianity as entailing death and resurrection. 

We cannot make Heaven on earth - else there would be no need for Heaven.

(And Jesus Christ insisted that there was need for Heaven, and by his work showed why and how.) 

We cannot replicate the eternal realities of Heaven with our mortal minds and bodies - and claiming that we can, acts against the core realities of what Jesus did and why. 

Churches - and their rules and rituals - do not control our access to Heaven; and indeed, the behaviours of church members (since 2020, especially) demonstrates that nobody really believes that they do. 

(They are merely too concerned at the implications of acknowledging they don't believe - which double-negative is not the same as - and much weaker than - positive belief. )

So, to understand the profound truth of the Mormon theology of God, requires that Mormons (as well as other Christians) set-aside the confusions related to how such spiritual realities are crystallized into material and mortal terms here in our lives on earth. 

Yet, our aspirations can and should be heavenly and spiritual - even as we acknowledge that their practice is mortal and corruptible (not just corruptible, but actually inevitably corrupt-ed - to some degree, sooner or later - by entropy and death - even when not by evil). 

(Thus the desire and aspiration towards eternal marriage in the Mormon sense is a new (as of 1830) beautiful and life-enhancing one - and a vital corrective to the destructive (indeed nihilistic) "mainstream" Christian doctrine that marriage is necessarily a temporary expedient that is dissolved by death, combined with the assertion that "there is no marrying in Heaven".) 

This aspiration is true and good; although eternal marriage cannot be actually attained until after we are resurrected and have become wholly and eternally committed to live by love. 

It requires resurrection to be able to make eternal commitments; for the reason that resurrection is itself the foundational eternal commitment - i.e. to live wholly by live (and leave-behind sin). 

Earthly marriage, and the innate desires and motivations we have in relation to it - even when we may be unable to find it during this mortal existence, provide the basis for understanding the reality of Heavenly marriage; and of the original, originative, creative nature of God (originating, that is, in love - with creation, including but not restricted to procreation, understood as a manifestation of love.)

When Joseph Smith had his vision of the dyadic nature of God, he was both a prophet and a philosopher of genius; but when he tried to make this vision a concrete reality among the members of the new Mormon church, he was merely a gifted and able leader, a kind of "king and judge" perhaps. 

Furthermore, the nature of God as from a Heavenly marriage need not be, and I think is not, a template for every man and woman - past, present and future. 

Christianity is for individual persons, and entails that each individual person affiliates to divine creation; I don't see that this entails that everybody ultimately wants the same thing - indeed that would seem vanishingly unlikely. Since each is unique - surely there will "always" be genuine exceptions? 

(As well as those making excuses to justify special treatment!) 

And what we be the point of a creation consisting of everybody doing the same thing! Multiplicity would then have no function or reason!

Another of Joseph Smith's great prophetic insights was that Heaven was A Family, in a literal as well as metaphorical sense. And a loving family - even here on earth - can and often does incorporate many kinds of life-motivations and self-chosen roles, among its loving members. 

Resurrected and eternal individual men and women will develop what is distinctive in their original and innate nature - and this may or may not lead them into eternal marriage of a kind analogous to that of God, our Heavenly Parents and the Primary Creators, and thence to procreating spiritual children - in the way that Joseph Smith seemed to regard as the proper goal of all people. 

I include this, not because I am necessarily correct in contradicting this particular aspect of Joseph Smith's revelations - but as example fo how we ought to engage with them, as realities.

Realities we may know-about now, and experience temporarily and partially in mortal life; but realities that are only do-able in resurrected post-mortal life    

 

*For all its essential insights (at least, they have been essential for me) there are significant deficiencies in Mormon theology. Two of the most important are an incoherent and double-negative understanding of Jesus's real vital importance and the true nature of his work, which error was (apparently) inherited from mainstream Protestant theology. Another mistake - I believe - is also inherited; which is to regard the Holy Ghost as a separate personage from Jesus Christ - which (as with mainstream Christianity) makes the HG into a nebulous abstract entity with no clear provenance or role.