It's Christmas, and in England that means compulsory Rucking Futter

Looking very pleased with himself - And No Wonder!

There is an composer of church music, including some Christmas carols and songs, called John  Rutter - and it is mandatory that at least one of his songs must be performed in every Christmas concert throughout England - as well as in every evensong in every cathedral every week. 

Rutter was very prolific, and his work is of a consistent standard - and that standard is meh.

His music is not terrible, but it is never much good. 

Rutter seems to have been around forever, or maybe that is just what his music makes me feel. Yet apparently the old cove is still with us, and only eighty years old!

How he achieved such a vice-like grip on Anglican choral music, I'm not sure; but my suspicion is that he has incriminating photographs of every Vicar in the Church of England. 

Keeping children safe? - Oh yeah, sure...

I need not bother to provide evidence of how little the Establishment cares about the safety of children in the UK. 

All their favourite strategic policies tormented, harmed and killed children on a truly colossal scale; and then condoned and concealed this - directly, and indirectly. 

So when there is legislation that purports to be motivated by concern for the "safety of children", we should immediately know that this is a lie - and the motivation is certainly quite other.

And know too that the real motivation is certain to be evil - or else it would not systematically, and by saturation and coordination, have been lied-about.

(And also, we know with certainty it is evil because, everything that our Western leadership class is pursuing seriously over the long-term - is strategically and intentionally evil; and I mean Every Single Thing.)  

It seems that the access to media is already more explicitly and aggressively restricted in the UK than any other Western nation - especially after geopolitical events in early 2020, and then again from early 2022. 

A lot of stuff that can be read online from the US, Commonwealth and Europe; has been blocked in the UK for the past three-to-five years.

You didn't realise? 

Well that is significant - one way or the other.    

Q: What kind of stuff is blocked? 

A; Stuff critical of the major programs of UK Establishment policy, of course!

Those Litmus Test issues I linked early. 

So far this past week I have noticed several blog posts blocked by a message stating that the problem with content is child safety - when actually the content is related to some kind of analysis of (privileged and powerful) social and ethnic groups. 

Would-be readers are sometimes asked to provide "age verification" (i.e. to create an account and explicitly identify themselves), in order to read this anti-Establishment material.  

Well, I expected nothing else - the West is now, after all, a fully-totalitarian society, just closing a few remaining loopholes of un-restricted discourse.

And They are only interested in doing things to Us; and not-at-all in what We want; and it has been like this for many years.

As always, the truly vital thing is is that we:

1.Recognize the situation.

2. Recognize it for what it is - i.e. They are lying in order to harm us - physically, but mainly spiritually.

3. Recognize the net-evil strategic motivations of our leadership class - whether institutional, national, and global leadership. 

4. Realize that therefore the worst spiritual harm comes from Our consenting to the validity of Their imposed world-view and motivations; and from consenting to Their authority to control Our world-view and motivations. 

5. Be confident that They cannot spiritually harm Us... unless we invite Them into our hearts. 

But that is exactly what So Many people do in excusing Them as having naïve good intentions, or being merely selfish and greedy, or being merely stupid and ignorant and short-sighted. 

Things are much worse than that. 

In truth; Our leaders do bad things to Us, for bad reasons. 

What we need to do is be clear and explicit in our own minds as to what is going on and why; and then to reject it as evil*!

Too many people jump to advocating effective organized opposition... Not that this ever actually-happens! - but that does not stop people calling for it, automatically; like a speak-your-weight machine. 

But opposition as such is futile and indeed counter-productive, especially when opposition is itself motivated by some strategically net-evil programme, inevitably rooted in the hedonic materialism of all public discourse. 

Corrective and good social action may or may not be possible in practice; but whether possible or not, good action cannot possibly happen without a prior and sustained inner act of discernment, responsibility and courage. 

While of course we should strive not to cooperate or support evil; organized opposition will be futile or counter-productive unless genuinely motivated at every level; because to evil does not lead to good, unless there is motivation to good.  

And at the bottom line, as this process expands and envelops, we should recall that, in net-effect; mass/social media do vastly more harm than good.

All restrictions on mass media will almost-inevitably make it less popular overall, less engaging, less addictive.

So that, by pursuing short-term expediency, evil is (to a significant extent) thwarting its own long term success.  

After all; to be denied some particular external inputs, and to be thrown-back upon our own personal experiences, evaluations, personal contacts, and individual reasoning - is probably just what we most need. 

In our civilization and nation; things probably need to get worse before they can get better - but they will get better only if we first understand enough of what is going-on.  

*(That is what is required of Christians for salvation - it is indeed, all that is required of us, in a negative sense. Of course, the reality is that to move on to resurrected eternal Heavenly life, we must commit eternally to live only by love - and the rejecting of evil is really just a means to that end.)

Thoreau in Walden - emergence of modern consciousness

Thoreau by Wyeth - depicting one of the earliest spiritual adolescents

I have been re-reading HD Thoreau's Walden (1854) - starting at the very beginning with the chapter "Economy". (I've been reading this book, on-and-off, for fifty years!)

First, I was struck afresh by the muscular brilliance of the writing - this is prose of the highest level! 

But secondly, it struck me how modern is the expressed perspective of Thoreau. He writes from the position of mainstream modern alienation, one which looks-out upon the world and deliberates how to get the best deal from our interactions. 

And Thoreau's idea of a life-well-lived is rooted almost wholly in feelings; in his own responses to ideas and situations. And, much like New Age spirituality; Thoreau seeks to engineer his environment, and himself, such as to achieve the highest possible level of personal gratification - and minimize the inevitable degree of personal suffering. 

The chapter is called "Economy" because it focuses on how to get the most gratification from life - which for Thoreau entails as much unstructured time as possible, to be spent in and around Concord and often alone; while paying for this with the least investment of of time and unpleasant-effort in "work". 

This attitude was something new in mid-nineteenth century USA when the book was written and published, because so individualist; even Thoreau's direct-mentor RW Emerson (just c. 14 years older) was much more communal and social in his perspective.  

Yet nowadays the argument of "Economy" is (more or less) what almost every adolescent considers at some point; although the conclusions most modern Westerners reach are typically very different from Thoreau's idea of reducing his material needs to the lowest minimum, so that he needed to perform the least amount of paid labour.

I would call Thoreau's attitude to the world "instrumental" - he was trying to use the world to attain his ends - to get as much as possible back from the least possible investment; even though Thoreau used his freedom to pursue a Romantic agenda - and it is as "a poet of nature" that he is most remembered. 

And Thoreau is a pioneer and exemplar of the "hedonic" morality of mainstream modernity, in which goodness is calibrated against the current feelings of the observer. 

Only in terms of a kind of pantheism does Thoreau depart (somewhat) from mainstream modernity - I mean that he seemed to assume a deistic, ordered, and therefore meaningful (although not purposive) backdrop of ultimate reality. 

Consequently, because reality is not a creation, nor is it going anywhere; Thoreau was a "contemplative" - which we might term a "consumer" rather than a creator. 

His aspiration was to enjoy nature; not to participate in creation. 

He saw no role for himself or other individual persons in shaping reality - because that reality was going nowhere. 

Therefore his highest spiritual experience was to forget himself and time and the world in extended-moments of ecstatic bliss: each of which was understood as an epiphanic-revelation of the ultimate stasis of oneness - the realization that he was part of this oneness, and had re-joined it, for a while. 

Of course, I am exaggerating the simplicity and clarity of Thoreau's perspective and aspirations; because he was of course a mortal Man - and one who had been brought-up and educated in a Christian nation, town and city that retained considerable Theistic Calvinistic elements, as well as a more recent deistic Unitarianism. 

Nonetheless, Thoreau is a strikingly modern figure; although his early death somewhat prevented the full implications of his world view from working themselves out in his life... 

Post-Civil War USA - which Thoreau did not live to experience, starkly revealed many of the unpleasant consequences of Thoreau's perspective and assumptions - although he may of course have denied and ignored most of these ill-effects, as did most of his circle. 

But I feel that Thoreau's mind-set was an inevitable phase in human history; one analogous to the arrival of adolescence. 

Thoreau was, then, an expression of the adolescence of Mankind - emerging, in his era and culture, for the first time in a recognizable form. 

And there is nothing intrinsically wrong with spiritual adolescence! - so long as it is indeed a phase, leading towards spiritual maturity; and does not become (as it has in the modern West) a lifelong state.

Life Hacks and Bucket Lists are symptoms of profound spiritual degeneracy

Get them while they're young...

Sometimes the massive popularization of a term is symptomatic* of deep civilizational disorder: two instances are Life Hack and Bucket List.  

Superficially these are harmless diversions - trivial rather than deadly. 

The problem is in what lies underneath the pervasive chatter; the assumptions upon-which these terms are built. 

A Life Hack is an instant, easy, short-cut or cheat; to deal-with some everyday problem of living. 

The assumption of which this is a surface symptom, is that this is how Life ought to be dealt with. 

A profound but concealed assumption of Life Hacking is that human Life consists of a multitude of discrete, immediate problems; and our job is to find the most efficient way to deal with these problems. 

The implication is that our actual Life will incrementally and qualitatively be improved (ie. made more pleasurable, with less suffering) by implementing more and ever-more such Life Hacks. 

The degenerate quality of Life Hacks; is that Life is the kind of thing for which we ought to be seeking quick and easy tricks - that Life is ultimately a set of problems of living that we need to solve.

So the best way to approach Life is to be armed with plenty of Hacks - applicable to the widest possible range of "challenges".

Life Hack attitudes and methods have, it seems, already taken-over student attitudes in formal education. Learning is just too slow, inefficient, and hard work. "Education" is now seen as a set of immediate problems, Tasks; for which the most effective approach is to have a tool-kit quick, easy short-cuts. 

Also academic attitudes in "science". What gets called science nowadays has nothing to do with seeking or speaking truth. "Research" is all about Hacks to get funding, get the necessary results, get published, get cited and invited - get personal security, status and salary.  

And Life Hacks are open-endedly extendible: For instance much Self Help, spiritual teaching of a New Age type, and including the "Manosphere"; is Life Hack thinking applied to human relationships, to love, marriage, family and friendship. 

The same can be seen in discussions of religion.  The Birdemic response of mainstream churches was that their religion was reducible to efficient and convenient Life Hacks; such as live-streamed and recorded "services" or sermons; and no-travel-required online interactions. 

The best ending to a well-lived Life, as depicted by two civilizational role-models

Bucket Lists derive from the idea that somebody is about to die - i.e. "kick the bucket"; and consists of a list of the things I most wish I had-done before I die. 

As if someone is on the deathbed, looking back - and gaining satisfaction or plagued by regret over his accomplishments. 

The underlying idea is that death is annihilation; and/but "therefore" a Good life is one in which we have done as many things that we "really want" to do, before the curtains come down. 

A Bucket List is meant to be a public thing too; so that we can get status (and provoke conversations) by making public a Bucket List - preferably one that is suitably impressive to other people.

And then adverting via social media - or mass media if you are a "celebrity" - our progress in working-through that List. 

You win the game by having an impressive-to-other-people List and completing the List: this is implicitly "to have had a Good Life".

Alternatively; people are invited to feel "sad" with you if, for some reason, you cannot or do not tick of an item - it terminal cancer prevents that bungee jumping, if an insufficiently supported "Kickstarter"-funding prevents you taking that African Safari... 

This is implicitly to have had a "tragic" life.    

Life Hacks and Bucket Lists are both degenerate fads because of their strategic dishonesty. And implicit evil!

Life Hacks are instrumental thinking. 

They are predicated on "using" the world and other people for our own short-term ends, to fulfil our current desires. 

If Life was the kind of thing susceptible to Life Hacks - Life would consist essentially of individuals efforts at learning tricks to exploit each-other; to get satisfaction at their expense.

Life would not be worth living. 

And if Death was the kind of problem that could be In Any Genuine Way ameliorated by the successful completion of Bucket Lists, then death would not be final - death could not be an annihilation. 

Because if Death is the end, then what we have done or not done in life makes no difference.

How we happen to feel about our previous Life, on our death bed, just about to die, looking-back -- would be utterly irrelevant;  because dying would be just one temporary blip of emotion, among multi-millions of others - doomed to nothingness. 

I

f after Death we will be gone utterly - then it cannot possibly matter either way whether or not we watched the sun rise, or set, off the Florida Keys.  

Yet, if Death is not really the end; and we will survive in some form, to be affected in some way by our completion (or not) of Bucket Lists...

Then Life after Death is something that needs explicitly to be acknowledged, and its implications explored. 

 

So yes; at one level these are trivial fads; "just" a harmless way of passing the time or having something to gossip about... Yet Life Hacks and Bucket lists are evidence of the deep, unacknowledged, and contradictory malaise of our civilization: of the ways in which we persistently refuse to think-through implications. 

*A symptom is produced by the underlying pathology (in this instance, spiritual degeneracy); but a symptom is not conclusive evidence for the underlying pathology. So, you can have the pathology without the symptom, and vice versa. 

Just how important is Free Will (Agency)?

William James Tychonievich has written a blog post about a fictional book that (as part of its story) attempts (albeit from a Jewish rather than Christian perspective - it was written by a Rabbi) to provide an intellectual model that combines the attributed omniscience and omnipotence of God, with human Agency, or Free Will.  

But, as William argues (endorsed by comments from myself and Francis Berger) the model actually, by its assumptions and implications, sacrifices human agency in order to sustain the Omni-God assumption. 

In this respect, and in common with nearly-all Christian theology (including mainstream Roman and Eastern Catholic and Protestant theology); it is evident that the omni-nature of God is primary - and an understanding of human agency and freedom is something that is, in practice, sacrificed to the need to ascribe omni attributes to God. 

This is confirmed when the Rabbi author (Shaul Behr) responds to the post with a couple of comments; finishing with:

Like those who came before me, I am content, as you say, to leave it as an unresolved "mystery of God".

The Rabbi's response is therefore essentially identical with that of most Christian theologians over the past couple of millennia; and I translate it as follows:

We are sure and certain that God is omnipotent and omniscient. We also recognize that Men must be free agents in order that each Man's choices have meaning. But, although we can provide confusing, complex abstract pseudo-explanations of how this might be possible - none of these explanations really make sense. And we cannot provide a clear, simple, coherent account of how free agency is possible with an Omni-God. So we call the situation of Man's freedom in the context of Omni-God "a mystery".

The question I ask is: is this good enough? 

And I answer: No it is not good enough. 

It is, in practice, treating the matter of coherently understanding human agency as trivial - and not something that needs to be understood. 

It is commonly asserted that all Christians (and, apparently, all Jews) must believe in the Omni-God, or else they are not Christians (or Jews) - because Omni-God Just Is God - because supposedly nothing else makes any sense... 

Man's freedom, in stark contrast, becomes something that must be taken on faith, as a form of words; by the asserted necessity for each of us to trust in the validity of theological authority. 

Apparently; Omni-God is mandatory; while by contrast free agency is something that needs to be asserted but does not need to be understood - and, because of Omni-God, freedom cannot be understood. 

Unsurprisingly, in practice, traditional Christian theology has always tended to assert God's omni-nature as interpreted by "the church" (whichever church prevailed); while human agency was considered to be a problem.  

Indeed, human agency is blamed for the evils of this world. 

It seems that the only proper role of human freedom - in traditional theology - is to make the right choices from among those presented by God.

Unsurprisingly, since there is only one right answer among choices, and all possible answers are God-given; it has seemed to many Christians that it might be better if humans had simply been pre-programmed to make these right choices. 

It has thus seemed that the only significant role of human agency is negative: freedom is seen as the freedom to do wrong. 

Which fits with the pointlessness of human life when God is Omni... Since such a God is everything, then human beings can add nothing to creation; which implies that creation of humans was futile - because (from this perspective, at the bottom line) the best a human can do in life, is to follow a pre-determined path of correct choices. 

Apparently; freedom has no positive role. 

Thus, by such accounts; the problem of Omni-God and human freedom has been "solved" by reducing human freedom to an expression of negative resistance to God's reality.

Freedom becomes regarded like a disease; something wrong with Men... Hence the centrality of "original sin". 

However, if the logic is followed - we get the bizarre assertion that this supposedly Omni God, for some "mysterious" reason, created flawed human beings who can only mess-up.       

The things is: our freedom, our agency as human beings, is experiential; something we know innately and directly. 

Whereas the Omni-nature of God is something inferred as a consequence of non-intuitive abstract assumptions; and via logical procedures that many or most people cannot follow, or regard as flawed. 

And that is a problem! 

It is a problem that will not go away: Christians know we are free, and yet we are told that this knowledge of agency is subordinate to the assertion of Omni-God.

Officially - we are told that the ultimate answer is that common sense cannot comprehend this situation - tha tthe situation is necessary and unavoidable - therefore "it is a Mystery".  

And yet this mystery is made to be foundational to being-a-Christian (and also perhaps a Jew)!

Well, in the end, the only responsible way to address this situation is for each of us to plumb the depths of our primary assumptions concerning the ultimate nature of reality - to establish what we really suppose to be known, and sure, and foundational. 

Is it what we have been told, or what we experience?  

Upon this hinges a great deal. 

What is the IQ of "AI"? Answer: None at all

I don't go looking for trouble, so I had not realized until now that people are confidently saying that such-and-such an "AI" has some particular level of IQ, apparently as measured by the program's performance in some or another Intelligence Test... 

From this is inferred that such-and-such an "AI" has a measured intelligence in (say) the top 10%, or 5%, or 0.01% of the UK population, or whatever... 

From which it is stated as a solid objective fact that "AI" is already at "genius level" IQ and will soon surpass all human capability...

After which comes various pseudo-concerned hand-wringings of the plight of human beings in this world where "AI" has inetellectual mastery; or else a techno-triumphalism asserting that humans must now "make way for the rule of machines" etc. 

But this is utter nonsense. 

That it is nonsense really ought to be obvious*.

If people can't realize this, then I'm afraid they are putty in the hands of those who strategize to destroy us - worse, they are complicit in their own proximate degradation and ultimate damnation.

I feel embarrassed at having to explain (and it is seldom possible to explain the really obvious); but here goes...

"AI" has no "IQ", because it has no intelligence.

None At All. 

Computers don't have intelligence. 

It is reasonable, and has been done, to measure using IQ tests (specially devised) the comparative intelligence of chimpanzees, or dogs, or other animals - because animals are living beings, and beings have intelligence...

But not computers, because computers don't have intelligence. 

Intelligence (i.e. "general intelligence" or "g") is an inferred underlying attribute behind all cognitive abilities - and IQ tests infer this from one or a range of cognitive tests used to put people into a rank order - to which the IQ number is applied on the basis of an assumed normal distribution. 

The test is not the intelligence, it is just a way of ranking the intelligence among beings with intelligence. 

The IQ test score does not mean anything at all, of itself....

After all, if a person had been provided with a cheat sheet containing all the answers to an IQ test, then the test would would not be measuring intelligence, would it?

Correct answers are not the ability, are they? 

An "AI" doing an IQ test is just an elaborate cheat sheet.

Computerized cheating to provide the right answers to a cognitive test is not intelligence. 

The validity of an IQ test as a measure of intelligence depends on the fact that the person (or other being) doing the test is actually working it out, by using their intelligence-correlated cognitive abilities.  

Computer mechanisms for answering IQ test papers have nothing to do with intelligence - computers don't think; they are nothing-but cheat-sheets when it comes to intelligence testing. 

The only intelligence involved in "AI"-cheats on IQ testing; is that of humans; who are needed to provide the computer with the right answers - and programmers who engineer the algorithms for matching the right answers to the test questions. 

+++

*I mean that when people are claiming that current "AI" has very high, or above possible, "intelligence" this is a stark reductio ad absurdum - at least for someone capable of understanding the world spontaneously from-themselves and directly-known (rather than through distorting lenses supplied by the totalitarian Establishment).  

Spiritual History - The compulsion and demand - And the Impossibility, here-and-now

There is an activity that might be termed Spiritual History; by which I mean a purported history that derives from within a particular spirituality. 

And this Spiritual History will typically become regarded as "objectively true" by adherents of the spirituality: true for everybody (not just for the adherents). 

So, what is a Spiritual History? 

As one example; Helena Blavatsky described a vast, detailed, and complicated panorama of supposed world history, which became integral to the Theosophical Society she founded. 

This includes descriptions of creation from its earliest stages; many historical "races" of proto humans (the earliest very un-like modern humans; and lost civilizations such as Lemuria, and Atlantis -- indeed; it is mostly because of Blavatsky that so many people have heard-of, and been-discussing, Atlantis over the past century-plus. 

Blavatsky's Spiritual History was very influential on the emerging occult societies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; was expanded and reshaped (and extended millennia into the future) by Rudolf Steiner into his Anthroposophy; and has since become a part of the vast and diffuse New Age movement of the past several decades. 

My point is that in the past a spiritual society - or a religion - would nearly-always tend to elaborate (or as it is presented "discover") a vast, detailed ,and complex historical picture; which then forms a kind of metaphysical backdrop to the everyday practices and beliefs.  

We can see something similar among the best-documented of the recent world religions, Mormonism; particularly stark in that the Book of Mormon* came before the beliefs and practices that distinguished Mormonism from mainstream Christianity had been elucidated and fixed.  

An analogous process of elaborating a Spiritual History apparently applies to mainstream Christianity, in that the process of elaborating a justifying and explaining vast/ detailed/ complex historical backdrop was apparently separate from, but in this case later than, the foundational teachings**. 

In other words, the Gospels (especially the Fourth, and earliest, Gospel) depict a very different - far-briefer/ less-detailed/ much-simpler "religion" from the colossal artefact that Christianity became over the following centuries - which means that mainstream Christianity also discovered/ developed a Spiritual History. 

So far as I know, something similar applies to all religions - not to the same extent, but to a significant degree. 

This suggests that - at least in the past, and especially until about a century ago; a detailed Spiritual History was probably both necessary-to the establishment, and sustaining, of a successful church; and was demanded-by the members of a church (e.g. to answer their natural questions regarding their religion's origins, purpose, and validity). 

But that was then, this is now; and Spiritual Histories (especially the historical factuality of The Bible) have been undergoing systemic challenge, subversion, and destruction from mainstream secular "scholarship" - for at least 200 years. 

And this continual challenge has its effect whatever the conclusion; because the process implicitly regards the religion as disprovable by the same secular mechanisms as other knowledge-claims. 

(Most of the most-effective attacks on religion are implicit; and these are pervasive and unavoidable. Because the entirety of the systems of modern society are based upon secular - God-excluding - assumptions. This includes religions, which survive only by compliance with multiple laws and regulations of a secular type: to do with personnel and employment, "human rights", "hate speech"; buildings; taxes and exemptions and subsidies... many, many such.)    

The process of evaluation of Spiritual History accepts the definitive nature of secular scholarship - so that religion always and necessarily loses - religion has pre-conceded defeat, by assumption. 

Yet the "fundamentalist" approach of asserting the validity of Spiritual History does not work, either! - it just puts the History into a sealed capsule where Spiritual History cannot (therefore does not) have anything to do with the mainstream secular world of history. 

Consequently, even the most fundamentalist church Christians are just as subservient to the processes and procedures of totalitarian secular society as everybody else; believing and supporting nearly-all of the main strategies of totalitarian evil - except for a symbolic handful of dissenting denials that adherents merely-say, and a handful of self-reassuring dissenting-activities that are (currently) tolerated by The System. 

In other words; Spiritual History has, in the modern era, come to represent an unprotectable Achilles Heel for all religions - and the bigger, more detailed, and more complicated the History, the more points that will be attacked - both explicitly and (even more powerfully) implicitly. 

Consequently Spiritual History no longer convinces many people; and those who remain "convinced" are not substantively affected by their encapsulated dissent - because they live "in" a society with which these Historical assertions are incompatible.  

My conclusion is that Spiritual History needs to be abandoned as a requirement of a spiritually viable, and sufficiently-motivating religion***. 

I feel that we simply cannot afford to open ourselves to the process of refutations, in a situation where we cannot ourselves deny the validity of that process. 

Or, to put it differently: our belief in Alternative Histories must be made independent of the processes of Historical validation. 

And this includes beliefs concerning the foundation of our church or the origins of our scripture - because these are just as vulnerable to secular assumptions and processes as are the "factual content" of the Spiritual Histories...

I mean that we cannot argue the validity of our church on the basis of History; because that historical "evidence" is itself vulnerable. 

And we cannot argue the validity of the Bible, for the same reason. 

My conclusion is that we need to rely for our deepest and most-motivating convictions, only upon "evidence" that is derived personally and by criteria that satisfy our-selves primarily, and for which only self-validation is necessary. 

I mean, in other words, Direct Knowing - which might also be called a kind of intuition - needs to be our "bottom-line". 

This also means that - by eschewing external "evidences" - we cannot convince other people that we are right!...

But we can't do that anyway! 

So we are not being asked to give-up very much. 

+++

*I am not saying that the Book of Mormon is entirely or even mostly fictitious - IMO it does seem to include a good measure of objective fact and other phenomena that suggest that at least some of it was divinely inspired and "true", rather than "made-up". Nonetheless it is a valid example of Spiritual History because of the BoM's provenance and role in Mormonism.  

**As with the BoM; I am not suggesting that there is zero objective fact in the post-ascension Spiritual History of Christianity - but that its development is separable from the beliefs and practices of core- "Christianity". 

***We can continue to derive benefit from Spiritual History - as, for instance, I do from the Christmas Story. But, for this to be safe and personally-effective, we must regard the truth and reality of Spiritual History to be a qualitatively different and more personally-validated thing than that of secular history. And this in-turn is something we will need to sort-out for, and from, our-selves. As a favourite example; I regard The Lord of the Rings as a true and real history of the world and Men; but not as an objective or "evidenced" history.   

Still miss my Mini car...

Mine looked somewhat like this

My family had a series of (about five?) Minis across about twenty-five years, and starting with a very early model - about when I was a baby.

I learned to drive and passed my test on one of these - a mid 1970s model.

I always enjoyed driving the Mini. 

Road-holding was good; engine-braking was so marked that you hardly needed to use the foot-brake; it was good in the snow; and I found it quite acceptable even on long journeys (e.g. Edinburgh to Bristol, about 400 miles). 

The seating was comfortable - or at least did not give me a backache (as so many car seats did), despite me being 6ft tall.

(And Mini's were small - only about 10 ft long, with tiny wheels - taking up less space with wheel arches; but a miraculously clever maximization of internal space, that owners other similar-external-sized cars could only envy.)

Early Minis had more and better design features such as sliding windows allowing large door pockets; a boot lid that opened with a hinge at the bottom, to make a shelf for extra luggage (number-plate was hinged to remain vertical and legal!); hydrolastic suspension would stick the car to the road.

I later inherited a late 70s/ early 1980s model that was the only car I've owned with which I had a kind of personal relationship.

I still miss the Mini - the only care I ever owned who I feel this way about.

See what I did then? I said "who" about a car. That's it, really.

Review of: Strange - Paranormal realities in the everyday world (2025), by Andy Thomas

Andy Thomas. Strange: Paranormal realities in the everyday world. Watkins: London, 2025. pp 288.

When it comes to the paranormal - as with science, medicine and everything else important - I regard the source of purported information, of reported observations, to be vitally significant. 

In practice, this means that I only take seriously (which does not mean believe!) information from those few people who I have reason to believe are capable and motivated to provide the best information they can.   

Andy Thomas is one of these people; being something of a penfriend, and someone whose lecture presentations I have watched on video, and some of whose books I have read. I have formed the judgment that he is an honest and well-informed chap, who is usually worth listening to!

I have read quite a few books on "paranormal" stuff over the years, especially those by Colin Wilson (also much more widely). But a problem with Colin Wilson is that his sources on paranormal/ occult matters are mostly (more or less) well known people, mostly writers - and I tend to regard their reports as having a literary and contrived flavour. 

What Andy has done here is something that not many could do; because of his experience. For several decades he has travelled around Britain giving lectures on many subjects to all sorts of audiences, often in intimate venues. As an author and conference organizer, he is also very "well-connected" in the more "professional" world of the paranormal. 

So it would be plausible to suppose that Andy Thomas is probably in the best possible position to provide a representative overview of paranormal matters in Britain today.   

In particular, Andy has personally met and spoken with probably thousands of people, of many kinds, including many "ordinary" people; by which I mean, not people who make a living or work professionally with paranormal matters, nor professional communicators such as journalists or authors. And he has talked with these people on many paranormal themes. 

Of course Andy's contacts are not a "random" sample of the UK - which would be impossible since many people would not go to lectures of any kind, nor would they speak of paranormal matters to any stranger - but it's probably as good a cross-section of the nation as is viable. 

So, what makes Strange unique; is that it is a book about paranormal matters that consists substantially of the results of these many person-to-person meetings and communications with ordinary people -  people who have approached Andy in various ways to tell him of "something strange that happened to me". 

Apparently, he says; this happens a lot. 

After every talk mentioning paranormal matters he gives, there are those who speak from the audience and others who stay behind to share some experience; as if the subject matter of the lecture has jogged a memory, and "given permission" to speak or write. 

So one basic thesis of this book is that "Strange" is normal - or relatively so. 

In other words; a high proportion of ordinary modern people have had some kind of experience that they regard as "paranormal". 

What does Andy Thomas mean by paranormal? He describes some of the commonest themes, in approximate order of frequency:

1. Ghosts and poltergeists

2. UFOs

3. Out of body and near death experiences

4. Psychic phenomena (such as telepathy)

5. Premonitions 

6. Synchronicities

7. Crop circle events 

8. Prehistoric-site events (stone circles etc)

9. Sighting of "cryptids" or anomalous creatures

Reports arranged in a similar thematic way form the structure of the book; interspersed with reflections, analysis, and summaries from the author. 

Thomas's assumption throughout is that paranormal phenomena are real; but on the question of what they actually are, how they're caused, and what they mean he is usually "agnostic" - presenting various theories but mostly without choosing between them. 

He does not rule-out religious or simple-spiritual explanations - and mentions them; but generally he seems to exhibit a preference for materialist/ scientific explanations. For example, he several times mentions "quantum entanglement" as a putative cause of instant interaction over a distance. 

I mention this because I regard t as an example of a practice I have commented on before; by which writers on difficult-to-understand strange phenomena "explain" them by means of some idea (usually derived from physics) which is itself nigh impossible to understand! Colin Wilson's Faculty X, or Rupert Sheldrake's morphic fields and resonances, are other examples. 

My own preference is instead imaginatively to try look at such things in the simplest and most instinctive way possible: that which would probably occur to a young child or tribal person. 

In other words; I favour an explanation that is usually animistic/ anthropomorphic - and relates to the relationships between living beings. 

From such a perspective there simply is not a problem in "explaining" many paranormal phenomena - since they are naturally and spontaneously taken-for-granted. 

Most of these "problems" arise from the recent models of modern science and materialism, and modern cultural ideas of what is supposedly impossible. 

So that (for instance) from an "animistic" perspective; ghosts, communications with the dead, telepathy, psychometry, out of body experiences and the like; all become something expected and normal. They need no further explanation - although they may benefit from further clarification. 

Having appreciated the range of reports in Strange - and accepting that the subject is real and worth investigation and consideration; the question arises as to the implications. 

What does it mean? How should we react to such a range of paranormal accounts?

The way I would proceed is the same as I did when I was active in theoretical science; which was carefully to distinguish the "provenance" (i.e. the sources and lineage) of proposed information; with the aim of including only those sources who were evaluated to be honest and competent.  

This means, in practice, ignoring most sources, most people - because most reports from most people cannot positively be established to be both honest and competent. 

Thus I would take seriously Andy's own reports; but most of the other reports I would not include in my analyses; because I simply don't know whether I personally would regard Andy's secondary sources as valid. 

Then, even after excluding most (in usual practice almost all) of the putative information; I would need to distinguish between, on the one hand; the "appearances" of what that person had experienced (e.g. what they had seen) - which may be generalizable...

And, on the other hand; the theoretical explanations of these experiences (the identity and behaviours of what they had seen) - which may well distort what has been perceived*.   

This isn't easy to achieve, and there is no standard method for doing it. It is a matter of judgment. 

Nonetheless such discernment needs to be done in order to cope with the many contradictions between accounts - even among accounts by those who are competent and honest. 

And finally, or rather before this process has even begun! - we need to sort out our own ultimate metaphysical assumptions concerning the basic nature of reality. 

This means that it is not really possible to be agnostic on this or any other matter; since every person actually and inevitably interprets reality from some perspective that is ultimately rooted, not in evidence, but in assumptions. 

And if we don't already know our own primary assumptions concerning reality - these will need to be discovered, made explicit, and evaluated. 

Such are my reflections provoked by reading Andy Thomas's Strange.

*Note: An interesting example of the way that our assumptions affect our understanding of perceptions related to the mythical "scarecrow shells" of World War II. RAF aircrew had been officially informed that the Germans had developed demoralizing anti-aircraft shells that exploded to simulate the destruction of a British bomber. Such shells did not exist. The actual cause of such explosions was probably RAF bombers destroyed by Luftwaffe night-fighters approaching from below with upward-firing cannon. But many expert and competent aircrew were absolutely sure that they had observed scarecrow shells.  

The extreme difficulty of winning a war against opponents who are forbidden to surrender, and therefore must be annihilated

What follows is meant to provide an historical analogy for a current real world situation - i.e. the Western proxy-war against the Fire Nation. 

The Paraguayan War of 1894 was apparently one of the most destructive wars in history - in terms of the proportion of the Paraguayan population killed. Broadly speaking (because precise numbers are not known) more than half of the entire nation of Paraguay were killed, including nearly all men. 

This happened because Paraguay was a small and relatively weak nation whose (apparently crazed or psychopathic) leader Lopez attacked three much larger and stronger surrounding nations (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay) - simultaneously. 

Despite this one-sidedness; the war continued for more than five years because Paraguay was not allowed to surrender. 

It takes much longer to annihilate a population than to defeat a nation militarily. 

When a nation is being used as a proxy by a superpower - an easy matter to do by imposing a superpower-puppet leadership by coup, and controlling them by bribery and blackmail - the proxy nation is in a similar situation to, but potentially worse than, Paraguay. 

The proxy nation may be militarily defeated, but forbidden to surrender. Then the war can only end by annihilation of the proxy nation.

And conducting a war to the point of annihilation of the enemy, is bound to be far more costly and destructive even to the victorious side, than would be the case of fighting only to the point of military defeating the opponent. 

Hence the appeal to superpowers of using proxies to fight their opponents, rather than doing so oneself.  

Suppose then that the superpower has several further proxies lined-up and waiting in the wings; and who will be compelled to fight until each of these is also annihilated...

And suppose further that the superpower actively despised, resented, or otherwise hated the proxy nations...

This is why being a proxy nation used by a superpower may be worse than Paraguay. 

I presume that the Paraguayan leader did not actually hate his people, and did not desire that they be annihilated - but those controlling a superpower may actively hate the people of the nation they are using as proxy. 

The superpower may be glad that the the people fighting as their proxy, are being slaughtered en masse and their country ruined.  

In this case, the annihilation of a series proxy nations used in wars against the Fire Nation would actually be a positively desired result! 

Finally; we should add that a supra-national-globalist leadership class is actually controlling the geopolitical strategy of the West - this is a group without any national or other group loyalties, but instead motivated by a destructive hatred of all nations and peoples.

(A group, I would add, whose members are mostly in service to demonic powers, rather than pursuing human interests.) 

Therefore, it is desirable for such a group that this planned sequence of proxy wars should also damage the superpower who is proximately contriving and conducting them.

What I am talking about is therefore a blueprint for incremental worldwide annihilation by mutual destruction.

Because, once lethal conflict has begun, then (so long as those in power remain in power) nobody will be allowed to stop and there will be no victory.

This business of contriving an unending sequence of unwinnable proxy-wars designed for mutual destruction is, I believe, the actual situation in the world today. 

I assume that this fact is understood by at least some participants at the highest levels of geopolitical strategy - but most people in most places simply will not accept that things could possibly be as bad as I describe. 

Time will tell.  

 

Transhumanism - a cure for entropy? No - transhumanism is a faith-based ideology

Like most Men though history; I regard "entropy" as the fundamental problem of this mortal life on earth - in other words, what the IV Gospel called "death" or "sin". 

Entropy is the tendency of all entities to undergo change, degeneration, and dissolution - loss of form; for Men to suffer disease and death. 

Entropy is the fundamental problem of mortal life, because it cannot be prevented - or, at least, it never yet has been prevented. 

But transhumanism claims that entropy can be cured - by human effort, and the application of science and technology. 

And transhumanism is - mostly implicitly, and for lack of any "acceptable" alternative - perhaps the dominant ideal and ideology of the developed world today. 

The main basis of this claim to be able, in principle, to cure entropy; is that disease and degeneration has been delayed in many places; and the average age of death has been been delayed considerably. 

In other words, some of the symptoms of entropy have been - in some cases - quantitatively alleviated by extension of technologies of exactly the kind we already have - drugs, surgery, genetic manipulations and so forth. 

On the other hand, the waning of one disease means the waxing of another - e.g. as a smaller proportion of otherwise healthy old people died of pneumonia in their sixties; a much greater proportion of decrepit older people died with dementia in their eighties. 

While average human lifespan has indeed greatly increased globally, and especially in developed nations; maximum human life span seems to be the same as ever (or hardly changed). 

And while people in their fifties and sixties look and behave younger than those of that age did 100 years ago; if they live long enough the signs of extreme old age will come upon them - and with greater rapidity (somewhat as Aldous Huxley described in his Brave New World). 

So, transhumanism is not based on any fundamental insight or empirical discovery; rather it should be considered an ideology (i.e. a "religion" minus the divine) that is intended to, and sometimes does, replace religions - especially Christianity.

In the IV Gospel; the work of Jesus Christ is rooted in his offering an eternal and complete cure for entropy (which is called "death" or "sin") - but on the other side of death and by resurrection.

Transhumanism offers its cures for entropy on this side of death, and without the re-making of self that is resurrection - which is probably the basis of the appeal of transhumanism.

The promise of transhumanism is one of alleviation of suffering and abolition of death soon, and without having to die first.

If this was possible, and true, then the appeal of transhumanism is obvious to anyone who desires above all to escape from disease, degeneration, and death. 

However; at root the transhumanist proposed cure of entropy is purely imaginary, a "nice notion", a wave of the hand, an unfounded assertion...

If entropy is real, then it cannot (cannot) be cured by any possible technology - because all technologies are subject to entropy - and so on, all the way down.

And if entropy is not real... well, that would be something that transhumanists would need to argue explicitly. 

Yet transhumanism passes-itself-off (with its quantitative analogies) as "hard science" or more like "applied technology"; a thing attainable with bureaucratic reliability, by a sufficiently large and well-funded project management of research effort: by directed human effort. 

With transhumanism we have, as so often, unacknowledged metaphysics as the basis of an assumed ideology - an ideology that pretends to be a consequence and inference of solid and inescapable empirical facts. 

Thus people are choosing to be transhumanist purely on the basis of wanting to escape the effects of entropy, and then assuming that it is possible to abolish entropy in this mortal life and world. 

The assumption that entropy can be cured is the basis of all that follows in transhumanism; and, as an assumption, it cannot be disproved - it is a matter of faith.

What I ask is that such an assumption be regarded as an assumption.

The assumption should be made clear and explicit and up-front; rather than hidden-away, implicit - or falsely denied to be "an assumption". 

And consequently the ignorant or dishonest pretence should be dropped that transhumanism is a rational extension of further-developing science, medicine, or technological breakthroughs. 

It is no such thing:   

Transhumanism Just-Is a faith-based ideology; and should be acknowledged, evaluated and judged as such. 

 

We ought to be honest and explicit about what we regard as impossible

One of the problems about a discussing the supernatural or paranormal with a typical mainstream modern materialist-atheist; is that he regards all such things as: a created reality, god/ gods, spirits, life after death, miracles, ghosts, UFOs and aliens, out-of-body-experiences, pre-cognition, telekinesis, and telepathy... as not just improbable but impossible. 

He thinks that such phenomena are not real, simply do not exist. 

Therefore he is immune to "evidence" - and can never be convinced by any account of them; because since he is decided that such phenomena do not exist, all such evidence Must Be mistaken or dishonest.

All reports of phenomena can only be explained by being explained away with normal materialist causes; or else ignored because the Must Be mistaken or dishonest.  

But while it is easy to criticise materialist-atheists for such exclusions; we all use this method of reasoning. 

For instance I will always interpret claims of pre-cognition, of being able to "see the future", in ways that preserve the irreversible and sequential nature of "time". 

I simply cannot be persuaded that somebody already knows the future in that sense; because for me "time" is an intrinsically part of my most fundament assumptions concerning reality. 

That is, because I regard eternal living Beings as the fundamental units of reality; the livingness of Beings is dynamic and developmental - such that what be abstractly call "time" is an attribute of all Beings. 

Therefore I Will Not accept any explanation of phenomena that regards all time as simultaneous, or posits a situation outside of time, or includes time travel into the future. 

I am not persuadable otherwise; and I ought to make this clear before engaging in evaluations of phenomena that appear to, or are presented as if they, challenge the directionality and sequence and pervasiveness of time. 

I am - on this theme - Immune To Evidence!

It would be a good thing if everybody did this: if everybody who excluded all supernatural or paranormal phenomena was explicit about their immunity to contrary evidence...

Because, in a sense, such a declaration can be "the beginning of wisdom" about one's own most-fundamental, metaphysical, assumptions; and that they are indeed assumptions.  

I am happy to endorse my own assumptions about time; but when I realized (in 2008) that I was believed that God could never provide revelations to Men, and the reason for this belief was that I had pre-excluded the existence of God...

Then I realized this was an assumption; not an inference; and as-such was immune to all possible evidence about the reality of revelations. 

Having realized that my views about the divine were rooted in assumptions - and were not the consequence of evidence - I then (after further thinking) realized I did not believe those assumptions were true; and I later abandoned those assumption; and began to believe in God. 

If we are clear and explicit about our assumptions and that they are assumptions - this can be the beginning of wisdom - of many kinds.

But until we get this clear - we shall remain slaves to whatever assumptions we happen to have absorbed, from whatever source, and for whatever reason.  

Two short WWII movies about RAF Bomber Command

The Wing Commander in Target for Tonight - master of 1941 Received Pronunciation and British Officer understated not-acting

I am aware of two fascinating and contrasting (and charming!) documentaries about RAF Bomber Command during World War Two. 

The first was Target for Tonight, which was a government propaganda movie made and first-shown in 1941; then seen by vast numbers of people in cinemas during the war. 

The context was that the UK had experienced the Battle of Britain the year before, and the German bombing campaign of the Blitz continued into 1941. 

Target for Tonight was intended to show Britain as aggressor instead of victim: hitting back at the German mainland. 

Furthermore, as is obvious; the film did not use actors but real RAF people. 

This was part of the sub-theme of demonstrating the "British way" of fighting the war - getting the job done; in a manner that is calm, efficient, humorous - and without personal hatred. 

The bombers are Vickers Wellingtons, usually called Wimpys. This was a two engine, five crew aeroplane, produced in greater numbers than any other UK bomber; rather slow and increasingly outdated; but tough and highly-adaptable, with a good bomb load for a twin-engined aircraft of 4,000 lbs plus. 

The Wimpy was a workhorse, and operated effectively in many different environments.  

You can see that at this stage, night bombing was very much a matter of a few individual aircraft (in raids measured in tens), each finding its way to the target, as best they could; and using highly unreliable methods of navigation such as "dead reckoning". 

Consequently, it was extremely rare for bombs to land within even five miles of the target during night operations - and the precision illustrated in Target for Tonight was almost unknown. 

Indeed, in retrospect, it is clear that for at least the first two or three years of the war; in strategic and attritional terms; night bombing was far more damaging to the RAF and Britain than it was to Germany - although the benefit to national morale of perceived "hitting-back" against the enemy also needs to be put into the equation. 

The Avro Lancaster is, somewhat by contrast, recognized as the premier heavy bomber of WWII - mainly due to its unmatched bomb carrying capacity (up to 22,000 lbs - but more often about 14,000 lbs). 

Compared with the earlier movie; by 1944 RAF night raids had increased by an order of magnitude to hundreds of aircraft, each of which was carrying several fold greater loads of bombs than in 1941. Furthermore night bombing accuracy had greatly increased by 1944 - due to various radar and radio aides, better training, and "pathfinder" marking.

If you do a rough calculation of 10X aircraft numbers, 3X bomb load, and maybe three-fold increase in accuracy - it can be seen that something-like 100-fold increased weight of bombs was being delivered onto a designated target area, compared with just three years earlier. 

But, on the other side; German deployment of radar, flak, searchlights, and night fighters had also greatly improved. Therefore, what had not much changed in 1941 was the mortality rate of RAF bombing aircrews and losses of aircraft; which remained very high all through the war - except in the last few months. 

Night Bombers is a movie compiled from multiple short takes of colour footage, covering many aspects of RAF wartime life, and filmed with a clockwork (no sound recording) camera in 1944. 

This footage came from an RAF bomber pilot - who later (1981) edited it, and added sound effects, to make the narrated story of a "virtual" air raid. 

The result is a very accomplished, as well as authentic-feeling, little movie; which demonstrates the vast increase in scale and effectiveness of Bomber Command aircraft and operations between early 1941 and three years later. 

In both movies, there is a poignancy in reflecting on the dedication of the participants, and the courage of aircrew who suffered appalling mortality and loss rates over a long period (five percent of aircraft failing to return per mission, was regarded as acceptable*). 

Such that many of the aircrew depicted in these movies will have died in action; the most famous of whom was probably Percy "Pick" Pickard - playing the pilot of "F for Freddie" in Target for Tonight.

Pickard was one of the greatest and most decorated of WWII RAF Bomber Pilots. He was shot-down and killed during the famous Amiens prison raid.   

*This was, almost certainly, untrue in terms of war strategy. 

With "AI" the whole paradigm is false and needs to be rejected

One thing about "AI" is that whenever someone points out a drawback, people will try to frame the opposition as opposition to just that specific thing. The salesmen will try to present things as if, of course everyone agrees that "AI" is good and inevitable, but they just have doubts about the implementation. 

But no, it goes beyond that. The whole paradigm is false. That replacing people and thinking is good, that it is an advance, that it is inevitable, that the people selling it actually know what will happen in the future, that we should organize our lives based on their projections. The whole thing. 

Likewise with social media. The whole paradigm that virtual interaction can equal or replace real interaction is what is wrong. Not some quibble with the implementation, but the whole thing. And along with the whole thing the fact that the people promoting it are trustworthy or know anything. 

Yes, there is a great deal of money and propaganda behind both of those things as well as (unfortunately) widespread adoption. But if the paradigm that these things are good and inevitable is wrong, if the whole philosophy is false, then things will not work the way people say they will. 

The future will not unfold the way they say it will and people are mistaken to build their lives around such predictions.

Commenter NLR at Francis Berger's blog

The above paragraph seems to encapsulate much of what I believe about "AI" - its nature and intent -and why I have blogged so often on the subject.

Francis Berger then continues: 

Unfortunately, people seem unable or unwilling to reject whole paradigms, even when they detect the falsehood within them. 

There are probably many reasons for this; none of them good. I suspect most are just stuck in some kind of "go with the flow" mode of existence and will go wherever the wind takes them. 

Others appear to be aiming at some sort of expediency or chance at gain. 

People don't seem all that interested in thinking anymore. Thinking is simply not valued. 

Nor do they seem all that interested in forming real relationships with real people (and even when they do there tends to be an aura of unreality or virtuality in it, as if the person before them is but an avatar). 

Francis Berger's comment also encapsulates something I feel strongly: the lack of interest in thinking. 

The way I understand this is that people are utterly fatalistic and negative about their ability to resist or influence The System as it impinges upon them. 

And their inner reasoning goes something like: 

Because" [they assume] I can do nothing to stop anything bad, "therefore" there is no point in me thinking about it. 

Thinking about "that sort of thing" will just make me miserable - it can do nothing else; "therefore" it is better not to think... 

Best just to focus on the happy stuff and make the best of the inevitable. 

This is the end-stage of the mainstream official "materialism" of our fundamental civilizational assumptions. 

Thinking is just regarded as a free-spinning cog inside our brains, unless it eventuates in observable change. 

Our personal discernments and evaluations, our inner sense of truth and values - are regarded as simply irrelevant - because they are assumed to make zero difference to anybody or anything else. 

Many people are currently approaching a Ground Zero of human spirituality.

For vast numbers; all possibility of religion has already been abolished by their own assumptions.

By implicitly accepting the AI-paradigm, and by refusing to think,  people are voluntarily and actively destroying their livelihoods, their lives, and themselves. 

**

Note added: It strikes me that all the top-down totalitarian-imposed "Litmus Tests" share this attribute of requiring "whole paradigm" rejection. For instance, the 2020 Birdemic was an entire paradigm of untruthfulness (from the unwarranted assumptions that there was a pandemic, through its identity, and the false measures taken in response, right down to the incoherent nonsense of "testing" and disease status. Therefore - at the time - the Birdemic could not effectively be opposed by critique and resistance of any specific aspects, at any specific level. It was framed as accept-all - or reject the package. 

Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House, for Radio - 2001

The remarkable character of Captain Shotover speaks some of Shaw's wisest and deepest words

If anyone is inclined to try out one of Bernard Shaw's best (and most serious) plays; I have found an excellent radio version of Heartbreak House - which can be streamed or downloaded from that marvellous resource Archive.org. 

As well as reading HH; I think I have watched at least two productions, one of them live at the Bristol Old Vic in 1975, another one on TV, plus maybe another on radio... 

But this audio production is the best version I have encountered. All the cast speak their lines superbly (except perhaps the actress playing Ellie) - and the direction was fluid and compelling throughout. 

Writers who always (by their own account) have a Great Time

There is a very great deal of untruthfulness in the world today! More than there was even as recently as forty years ago - although, of course, there has always been a good deal of lying and even more misleading - even in the most honest places (which used-to include England). 

In everyday social life there are some people who claim always to have had a Great Time, whatever they have been doing - at a play or concert, a party or holiday. By their own account - their lives are one fun thing after another. 

The valuation is not accurate - as you realize if you ever happen to observe them in such situations. Indeed, nobody who was not in the grip of chronic hypomania could possibly regard their own life in the way they claim to! 

Such people would be outraged if accused of lying, or even exaggerating, their own responses - yet, in their own way, each is systematically misleading other people about the nature of reality. 

We, as social listeners, need to realize that such people are not speaking accurately; and the same applies to writing.     

Social media has greatly increased the amount of Having A Great Timers among writers; just as, on the opposite pole, there are many more high-volume pathographers - indeed the same person may alternate their accounts of themselves, oscillating between accounts of exaggerated happiness and misery. 

Although it is true that a false impression is being deliberately created; the audience are complicit - because the audience wants to believe that a life of continual fun is possible, and achievable by themselves. 

And this is the basis of the exploitation: the apparently-hypomanic social media "influencer" is in some sense "selling" the method by which the audience expect to have as much as fun as the influencers appear to be having. 

And this claim-hope forms the basis of whatever is "for sale".   

But what applies, in a crude and rather obvious way, in the world of social media; also applies in the world of "serious" writing: of theology, philosophy, and spiritual writing generally.

Some authors (and these include some of the best, as well as most of the worst) project a personal of Having a Great Time; and describe their own exquisite responsivity to place and situation, to books and music; their intense and frequent religious experiences, their ecstasies and transcendental exaltations*. 

And readers need to recognize that this is as false and misleading an artefact; as contrived a construct; as the over-acted excitements of social media influencers. 

I did not recognize this as an adolescent; but (to an amazing extent) took authors at their own evaluation and projection. 

It was a valid learning process to realize (eg. from further experience, critical analysis, or biographies) that literally nobody I have ever known of - IRL or by writings - ahs "solved the problem of living" in the way that so many such imply that they have.

This insight has been vital in realizing that there is no solution to the problem of living in this mortal life and earth; and that attempts to emulate constructed authorial personae do more harm than good.   

It's a kind of laziness (to which I am also prone) to try and pick-up a purpose and meaning of one's own life in any second-hand, or emulating, kind of way. 

Certainly we can learn from other people - but we'd be wise to learn from what is true, rather the fantasies they try to convince us are true. This involves acknowledging that almost everybody with whom we interact is not just habitually and by social-conviction dis-honest, but is making no serious or sustained attempt to be honest. Especially not about their own motivations and responses.  

If we can sustain this realism; we might then be able to learn the right lessons, and make the right choices, relevant for our unique actual life and situation. 

+++

*Some other writers adopt a chronic and pervasive pessimism and/or affectation of misery - which, if sincere and chronic, would have long since led them to obscurity and death; rather than the fame and esteem they bask-in. Schopenhauer and Samuel Beckett spring to mind. This negative propaganda has only ever been popular among a sub-sector of upper class (or would be upper class) intellectuals... But that's another story.  

Family history photos - farming in the north of Ireland

This is my great grand-uncle George Graham (1870-1956), from Ballynagilly, County Tyrone, Ireland. He bought "Woodview" - where I spent some of a magical summer holiday as a child, when it was being farmed by his son Robert. 

George did some boxing in his youth, and still cut a formidable figure at the age of 85.

These really excellent photos come from a family history collection made by Anne - a second cousin, once-removed - who descended from the above George Graham (I am descended from George's older brother Nathaniel). 

Why are the totalitarian Establishment spreading predictions of "C.W." (= INAC: intra-national aggressive-conflict)

Some very high-up members of the totalitarian Establishment have recently been seeding the mainstream mass media with predictions and warnings of "C.W." - in the UK, especially.

(I will here term C.W. as INAC - meaning intra-national aggressive conflict; if you know what I am getting-at.) 

Clearly, INAC predictions coming from the Establishment are not the consequence of truth-seeking analysis or altruistic concern; but are instead some kind of an incitement and manipulation. 

So, what's going-on? 

My best guess is that this is part of the leadership-struggle and C.W. afoot within and among the Establishment - that between servants of two-kinds of evil agenda*. 

...The C.W between the bureaucratic totalitarians, who want a world of omni-survelliance and micro-control (and who reached the peak of their power globally, in early 2020); and the rising "Agents of Chaos (AOC)" - who are motivated by a spiteful desire to induce suffering and destruction.

I regard recent INAC predictions and "warnings" as a signal from the totalitarians to the Agents of Chaos, that the Establishment is ready, willing and keen to crush the AoC (and their minions) by coordinated force. 

In other words; that the "soft" totalitarianism of propaganda, bribery and demoralization (which has grown over the past half century to dominate the West; is preparing (if "necessary") to revert to old style, "hard", mid-20th century, coercive dictatorship. 

At least I think that is the intent. 

But materialist-atheistic-Leftism cannot force their genie of hedonic-despair back into its bottle. 

The actuality is that the 20th century dictatorship is no possible anymore, due to major changes in (especially Western) nations and their peoples; and the attempt to re-introduce it will instead play directly into the agenda of the Agents of Chaos. 

In other words, any approach towards INAC will fail to restore totalitarian-order; but will instead do the opposite - by fuelling the motivations of spiteful destructiveness on a widening scale. 

The totalitarian era is past - because of the nature of materialist-atheist-Leftism; which has been undermining and degrading its basis for many decades; so that our societies are not just deeply dysfunctional in multiple domains...

But also, at the level of individual people - as well as institutionally, have destroyed the basis for coordinated and long-termist action.

Instead; the mood in the West is one of self-hatred and civilizational suicide - and the strongest motivations are immediate-term, oppositional and negative - and this equally applies to whatever agencies (including military and police, law and administrative) by which it is indented that order be restored.  

Unfortunately, the masses (you and me, and those we care about) will as always be the primary victims of any intra-Establishment C.W. 

Yet, after all, that was an implicit inevitability, after Western civilization chose to reject and deny all possibility of purpose and meaning in life - in order to pursue our dreams of short-term material and sexual gratifications without being trammelled by divine considerations. 

My take home message is that we all ought to remember that the Establishment (both sides) and its mainstream media are not providing honest information or wise guidance for our benefit - but are trying to manipulate our psychology for their own ends. 

*Note added: The fracture lines interestingly revealed by the location of proposed violent conflict - intra-national or inter-national. Thus, the totalitarians are playing with the idea of INAC; while the AoCs have been pushing to expand and escalate WWIII on multiple fronts - especially since 2022. I guess that each side hopes that their favoured conflict will act to prevent the other - i.e. that inter-national conflict will be too urgent and demanding, to allow INAC on one side; or that intra-national conflict will weaken countries too much for them to engage in significant and long-term external combat. 

Media fasting is getting easier!

I have given-up on So Many blogs and vlogs and user-groups lately!

As everything fills-up with adverts, and funding requests, and buy-my-merch requests...

Including subscription streaming services, including YouTube (++), including videos, blogs, essays (Substack!) - and just about everything almost everywhere I turn. 

It's all variations on a signal saying: I'm not interested in communicating with you, so much as I am intent on extracting money from you*. 

Well, it all makes it easier, indeed spontaneous, to do what I should be doing anyway - which is watching and reading much less of this stuff - or indeed none at all.

Every little helps!

NOTE: For obvious reasons; I also swiftly give-up on those who recurrently feature, use, or promote "AI", or who insist on discussing "AI" outputs in a positively-valued or hopeful way.

*It could be argued that this was always the case - more or less; and that is true. But nowadays (as the Christian West recedes ever further from living memory) the gloves have come-off, people are more naked in their motivations - consequently their selfish motivations are less mixed with that spontaneous, largely-unconscious, spiritual-level communal concern, which constrained people in the past. 

By his metaphysical choices, Modern Man demands to be manipulated by rulers

Everybody nowadays complains about the lies, bribes, coercions and other psychological manipulations of the leadership class. 

But Modern Man has made the metaphysical decision to regard reality as without purpose or meaning...

So; if there is to be any human society of any kind it can only operate at a psychological level. 

By his metaphysical choices; Modern man demands to be manipulated by propaganda. 

In modern society, people do things for reasons that tare psychological merely: temporary "feels", because (by his metaphysical choices) there can be nothing else. 

In other words; if Modern Man says and acts as if there is no purpose or meaning to the human condition; then everything social reduces to a kind of manipulative "behaviourism" or "conditioning" - because it must be.

Because - by assumption - it cannot be anything else. 

(What else could Life be when things are not going anywhere nor for any particular reason?)

Modern Man wants and hopes that the socio-political "manipulators" (the leadership or ruling class) will be kindly, will want "us" to be cheerful and comfortable - rather than suffering miserably...

In a world where there is nothing deeper than "current feels"; we desire to be ruled by effective manipulators that are dedicated to inducing "us" to experience pleasing and gratifying psychological states. And that is what we call "good government". 

But there is no compelling reason why "the manipulators" would want "us" to be happy; after all (by our metaphysical assumptions), to them, "we" are just useless strangers, or numbers on a spread sheet*. 

Why should the manipulators want a mass of abstract people to be happy? Why should they manipulate our "feels" so as to maximize our gratifications and minimize our sufferings?

There seems no realistic psychological reason why they would. 

Given what Modern Man believes is the nature of reality; it is not surprising that instead the real-life manipulators more often want to exploit "us" for their own gain (whether for individual gratification - aka corruption; or for their collective gain aka totalitarianism) - because at least exploitation is psychologically comprehensible.

Even worse; we are increasingly getting "manipulators" who are spitefully motivated; who happen to enjoy tormenting and killing us. 

 And none of this ought to be surprising! 

Modern Man has decided that Life is about nothing more or deeper than current psychology; has made a system of socio-political control based upon that assumption; and is now reaping the inevitable consequences of that world view. 

*Note: We need to grasp the sheer absurdity of what most people are hoping-for in their political aspirations - given their metaphysical assumptions concerning reality! While it is, of course, normal for the leadership class to affect a great concern for the happiness and well-being of the masses - for leaders to claim in words that they are motivated by altruism; it is a plain fact that mainstream modern materialistic atheism provides zero  rational basis for such altruism. And yet people are astonished and disappointed - again and again, not learning from repeated experience; when leaders never fulfil their "promises" of working for "our" benefit!

Party politics - bribery and blackmail

Now it is evident that the party political system is a bribery and blackmail machine; it may be possible to understand the Right-Left divide more  accurately. 

The Left party consists of those controlled mainly by financial bribes and blackmail. 

The Right Party consists of those controlled mainly by sexual bribes and blackmail. 

Of course, this is only a generalization - and, after all, the Right and Left always drift leftwards, and often swap over. 

The mechanisms for financial corruption vary by time and place - nowadays financial corruption is hidden in plain sight: bribes comes from (e.g.) book advances, lectures and consultancy; blackmail may simply be an audit. 

And the sexual basis for control have, in some instances, inverted. That which used to be blackmailable is now mandatorily supported. Such that anyone who opposes activities that used to lead to blackmail - can himself now be blackmailed! 

But my point is that perhaps we could consider political parties as being convenient ways by which those with real power, deploy to group together those political puppets, figureheads, and rubber stamps who are to be controlled.