We can choose what we want to be, but we cannot choose to be it Now

We can choose what we want to be, but we cannot choose to be it. 

This is a fundamental basis of what Jesus taught and made possible.

That we cannot, in this mortal life, be what we want to be is innate common sense and confirmed by observation and life experience... Yet it is often denied. Promises of ways of enabling our will for ourselves to be enacted in mortal life Now, are recurrently dangled...

What Jesus promised relates to what we can choose to become After Death. 

But people (including, for instance, the Apostle Paul) want what they want Now, and get Very frustrated when it does not happen Now. 

Countless numbers of people have been put off, driven away, from Christianity - because it failed to enable people to become what they wanted to become, or "ought" to become, during mortal life.

Having projected their misunderstanding onto Jesus, they then regard Jesus's "failure" to transform their mortal lives in the desired fashion Now, as a refutation.

This mortal life Now is highly relevant, vital, to choosing what people want After Death; and what we experience and learn in mortal life affects our eternal nature.

But the reason Jesus promised resurrected eternal life in Heaven After our death, is that this outcome is not possible in This Life Now.

Salvation is therefore about choosing what we want to be.... But if we want what Jesus offered -  i.e. resurrected everlasting Heavenly life; then salvation cannot be about achieving Now, that which we desire for eternity.

Indeed, if we desire salvation; we can choose to want it, but cannot be what we want to be without Jesus. 

Our job in mortal life is to want salvation, and then wanting-it, we will realize that we cannot have it except by Jesus. 

We have the innate capacity to Want salvation, but cannot be Be saved - without Jesus. 

Jesus was necessary that resurrected eternal life be possible; and Jesus is necessary that we personally can be saved.

Understanding Christianity - the role of the Fourth Gospel ("John")

The role of IV Gospel in my understanding of Christianity is of a means to the end of understanding. 

Once I had grasped that understanding, from then the validity and authority of the gospel became almost irrelevant. Much as if it were a work of explicit fiction that expressed truth, like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

But! In order really to engage with IV Gospel, I needed to be convinced it was worth the sustained and intense effort that was required.

Of all the Bible, I was most sure of the authority and value of IV... That was my starting point. I felt sure that, if truth were to be found, that's where it would be.

So I was able and keen to put in the effort of grappling with IV, and then it yielded a clear and simple understanding... 

But the truth of that understanding was then discerned by "intuition" - by my deepest attainable sense of inner sureness.

This intuition was something tested across time and in whatever was emerged or struck me, as life continued, as challenges were encountered. As I used my new IV Gospel understanding in living.

The new understanding "worked".

And at a certain point I felt a strong sense of Yes - This is real and true.

That's how thing happened for me.

What caused the surprising re-normalization after the 2020 global coup (Birdemic and Peck)?

I was and am amazed at the remarkable degree of re-normalization within Western societies; that followed after the successful early-2020 global totalitarian coup which was effected under the excuse of the Birdemic, and the giga-imposition of the (unnecessary, ineffective, harmful) Peck.

That the significant collapse of the world state was Not due to any kind of positive spiritual awakening is obvious from the mass failure to understand and learn from 2020; from continued strategies of Western self-destruction by multiple means; and from the gratuitously destructive, Western-caused, wars that are continually sustained and escalated.

My best guess of the cause of totalitarian recession post Birdemic is of increased dissent among the ruling class, causing loss of governmental cohesion and control.

To sustain the 2020 coup required that members of the "elite" ruling global government would suppress their own selfish short-term inclinations; and instead pursue a long-term group-agenda of mass surveillance and population control.

But instead, the erstwhile world rulers have broken down into multiple hostile factions, each pursuing a more local agenda.

Plus - rampant and accelerating individual-level self-gratifying corruption among members of the elite ( e.g. self-enrichment, and indulgence of spiteful personal resentments); has combined with the runaway factionalism, to destroy the cohesion of the 2020 worldwide totalitarian takeover.

In other words - although this relative  relief from the tyranny of 2020 is welcome, there is no cause for celebration at Good Triumphant.

There is no positive reason for betterment; the Western trend toward evil has not reversed; and the partial collapse of 2020 global totalitarianism is Not a valid reason for civilizational optimism.

Final Participation is a conscious consecration of this-moment to our eternal resurrected life

For the past decade or so, I have been trying (in multiple ways) to understand the implications of Owen Barfield's concept of Final Participation - as being the destiny and proper aim of our spiritual life. 

Some modern people seem wholly enmeshed in mundane materialist thinking and feel detached and alienated from the living world - trapped inside their own heads. Their only relief is temporarily to forget this in sleep, intoxication, psychosis - and in occasional moments when there is a resurgence of a child-like sense of belonging and involvement. 

These brief times are what Barfield calls Original Participation, because they were our original state of consciousness as young children, and also (it is believed) the normal state of the earliest ancestral Men.  

Original Participation is - pretty much - the same as Novalis's Sehnsucht and CS Lewis's Joy; Gurdjieff's self-remembering, Maslow's Peak Experience, or Csíkszentmihályi's Flow state are psychological reductions of the experience.  

Such moments may be pleasant, indeed there have been times and places (e.g. some of the Romantic movement around 1800, or the 1960s counter-culture... still ongoing) when many people aspired to abandon modern consciousness and return to Original Participation. 

Although this return to the spontaneous, natural, child-like, primitive, here-and-now consciousness is powerful and alluring to many people; it has always failed - and must be assumed impossible (except briefly).  

However it makes a difference how we regard these brief moments. 

If they are regarded as merely pleasant psychological states, then Original Participation can only be therapeutic - like taking a short holiday from the "real world" of mundane materialism.

Yet Barfield asserted that Final Participation was not just a pleasant interlude; but in some deep sense absolutely necessary - necessary if we personally, and our society as well, were to avoid being overwhelmed by evil.   

However, Barfield was vague about how this might be achieved (he usually advised consulting his mentor Rudolf Steiner's work - but Steiner's techniques seem obviously ineffective, and Barfield never claimed that decades of practicing Steiner medications had led to any very significant effect on Barfield's own thinking in terms of Final Participation. 

Indeed, it seems that FP is not really achievable in a lasting and dominant way. 

So we seem rather to be trapped between impossibilities! We cannot go back, cannot stay as we are - yet the destined path forward seems blocked...  

Yet anyone who conceptualizes life as bounded by conception and death will find himself bounded by exactly such impossibilities. We cannot escape the constraints of entropy (and death) and evil. 

But this is forgetting the reality that we are eternal Beings, and this mortal life can be (should be) seen as a finite transitional phase between eternities before and afterwards. 

Furthermore (and here I depart from Barfield, with his ideas of multiple future reincarnations) a Christian sees his eternal future as including resurrected Heavenly life, following after this mortal life.

My idea of Final Participation is that it is the conscious choice to consecrate those moments of Original Participation.     

So that when moments of OP happen; we choose to regard them as sacred. 

In such a "consecration"; the momentary experience of OP is consciously recognized as being of potentially eternal significance to divine creation - and is actively taken-up into ongoing thinking.

This contrasts with, say, the sixties counter-culture response - which is to stay inside those OP moments, and perpetuate them or as long as possible. 

I would regard this as akin to a religiously-contemplative response to Original Participation. Contemplative because it is deliberately passive and self-negating. The moment is primary and we intend to stay with it, dissolve-into it. 

This is analogous to the contemplative kind of meditation where people seek a "blissful" state of consciousness and try to maintain it for as long as possible. 

The ideal is of stasis in perfection.  

But Final Participation is active and creative - hence is is both dynamic - like divine creation; and aspires to join-in-with and influence ongoing divine creation.

And all this is a choice, not a surrender. It is an affirmation of the self, not an attempt to lose the self. 

It is the choice to be a Son of God, a sibling of Jesus; one who want to join with God in the work of creation, and add to to that creative work whatever is unique in himself. 

So, Final Participation is an active self-confidence; confidence that by the "process" of resurrection after this mortal life we can be transformed such as to be able, worthy, and trust-worthy of eternal participation in creation.

Thus, FP is a state of being only achievable permanently (as a normal state) after our death, and only among those who have then chosen to follow Jesus through resurrection to everlasting Heavenly life.  

But Final Participation does have a vital role in this mortal life; because it is when we can add to our resurrected life. 

FP represents our choice to learn from experience in such a way that our immortal soul is permanently transformed.

We are talking about our immortal souls, not the conditions of our mortal lives on earth - so the fact that our modern experiences of participation may be relatively few, infrequent, brief - does not invalidate these experiences... 

FP experiences are of permanent value not because they last a long time; but so long as we choose to consecrate them.

Consecration would go something like this:

1. Original Participation happens. 

2. We recognize that it is happening. 

3. We acknowledge that this happening is of potentially permanent importance to our resurrected Heavenly self. 

This needs to be done when Original participation happens - Now: here-and-now. 

Not put-off until later. 

If we do not do it at the time of Original Participation - it will (probably) not be done. 

However... An intense imagined re-living of the moment, could also be used to consecrate that moment retrospectively. Because then the moment is not merely "retrospective" but a re-experiencing here-and-now - which is perhaps one reason why we may recollect and meditate on such moments... Why they may last so tenaciously in our memories. The experiences may be re-presenting themselves for consecration. 

Maybe, if we do this on principle and habitually; then this will act as a positive feedback and establish a "spiritual reward system" - so that such opportunities will become more frequent? 

The thing is: we modern Men are terribly demotivated, prone to despair - and any spiritual advice that diminishes or delays our gratification seems doomed to fail*. 

Consecrating our moments of Original Participation generates an immediate spiritual reward as well as a hope-full anticipation. 

Instead of OP being a tragic joy; doomed to be short-lived, doomed to be forgotten and lost by age, disease, death... Instead of this; the act of consecration transforms it into a moment of permanent and positive significance.  

As far as I can understand; only a follower of Jesus Christ who lives in confident expectation of resurrection can do this; and it will not "just happen" but must be done by conscious choice. 

All then depends on making that choice. 

NOTE: It may be objected that because Original Participation is spontaneous and natural, it is not necessarily good. This is true; and if an OP experience is not good, then it cannot and shall not be consecrated to resurrected eternal life - so any such attempt will fail. Christian discernment - knowledge of good and evil, God and that which opposes God; is a necessary part of Christian life - and always applies. 

* The mass of people are (quite literally) spiritually-dying of despair, for lack of any genuinely positive purpose in life. It seems obvious that the double-negative (e.g. therapeutic) values that are exclusively propagated, including by nearly all religions (eg religions rooted in avoidance of default divine punishment), including most Christian churches - are simply ineffectual; leading to short-termist this-worldly hedonism now, and ultimate despair eventually. 

Is following Christ truly a case of "Myth made fact" - Is Christianity, indeed, "a myth" at all?

CS Lewis's conversion, as is pretty well known, had much to do with an idea he got (mostly) from JRR Tolkien that in Christianity Myth became Fact. In other words; that various of the myths of the ancient world came true in the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

This is one reason why Lewis regarded Christianity as the completion of paganism (as well as of Judaism) - because in essence it took much of paganism and transformed it by the addition of specifically Christian values - in particular "Faith, Hope, and Charity".

I was greatly influenced by this idea in my own conversion to Christianity; but have now come to regard the "Christian myth" as a misleading distortion of what Jesus actually did and taught. 

My interpretation nowadays is that Christianity is in its essence about the possibility of following Jesus to resurrected eternal life in Heaven - and that this was something new under the sun: an unique possibility; that was (at its core) neither foreshadowed nor foreseen among the ancient religions: neither among Jews nor among Pagans.  

I agree with Lewis that Christianity can be and actually was (especially in the earliest years of Jesus's ministry and the early period after his ascension) an add-on, easily adopted by Jews and Roman or Greek pagans alike...

But I think the reason for this was not because Christianity was aligned with Jewish expectations of the Messiah, nor that it was a completion of Greco-Roman Paganism - but simply because Christianity was a new idea about what happened after death. 

At least initially, therefore, a new Christian convert could (and apparently did) continue to practise his previous this-worldly religion; but with the additional expectation of resurrected eternal life after death...

Instead of (for instance) dying in expectation of the underworld ghost-life of Sheol or Hades, or returning by some version of reincarnation. 

Of course, Christianity as it became, developed and accreted very large and complex mythic elements - for example about Jesus's miraculous conception and early life, and expectation of his second coming. 

So Christianity-as-is has mythical aspects with all sorts of derivations and similarities to other mythic religions. 

But I believe that this was not the case originally, as Jesus lived and taught. 

And presumably this was a major reason why people found it so very difficult to understand what Jesus was actually telling then - i.e. they could not (or would not) discard their existing myths, such as The Messiah. 

And either rejected Jesus for failing to embody the prior myth, or adapted the prior myth to fit Jesus - or else adapted what Jesus did to fit the prior myth (as with the Second Coming, notion) 

I don't know if others agree; but in the IV Gospel I see Jesus trying to tell people something very simple and clear - which they repeatedly fail to comprehend; and this, in part, because they are caught-up in already-existing religious assumptions including myths. 

After Jesus's ascension, things could have (should have, perhaps) gone in the direction of the Christian after-death expectation being added-onto various existing religions - and then modifying their content in a kind of retrospective way (as the expectation of resurrected Heavenly life worked upon the pre-existing religion).

However, this did not happen; and instead Christianity became so elaborated by mythic elements that its clear and simple essence was swamped; but also the confident expectation of being able to choose resurrection was inverted - into the necessity to submit to the judgment of God/Christ-as-King to be-fearfully-hoping to be chosen as worthy of inclusion in Heaven. 

Only in recent generations has it become conceptually and consciously possible to understand that Christianity does not need to be regarded as a true myth; but instead Jesus's work can be recognized as a cosmic transformation, a new post-mortal possibility: a Second Creation -- accessible to those who commit to following Jesus, into and beyond the transformation of resurrection.

On mass media censorship and propaganda - If we need to be told major stuff by the mass media, then we are already lost

The UK mass media are censored and controlled - both openly and explicitly (eg. wrt the birdemic dissent, or Fire Nation news sites); and by news blackouts wrt mass immigration and its consequences.

And, of course, this censorship and propaganda usage of media is increasing rapidly in scope, completeness, and coercion.  

There is a great deal of complaint in the alternative media about this - but the complainers are part of the problem.

The real problem is that people have come to rely on the mass media for basic information and understanding of the world and their lives. 

If we need to be supplied by the mass media with information on matters of direct human observation and experience, and if we need to have its implications explained to us by the mass media - then we are already lost.

We are lost; because because we have handed-over responsibility for our fundamental understanding of the nature of things. 

Even worse; we have chosen to hand-over responsibility for our basic assumptions and values to the worst possible external influence: to evil-motivated people, who work in corrupted and converged institutions/ organizations/ corporations that constitute the bureaucracy of an intrinsically evil totalitarian system.

(Evil in itself; and which is also in service to the agenda of demonic supernatural powers.)

Complaints that the mass media are censoring their output are dangerously misplaced - after all, what on earth do people expect from the mass media in the Western world as it is now? 

Clearly, the complainers have grossly underestimated the pervasive extremity of evil as it actually is in the world now, and has been for many decades - and worsening. 

It is not as if knowing more "news" about the horrendous corruption and us-hatred of the leadership class, has done or would make any difference to "their" aims and conduct - their desire to corrupt, torment, and spiritually-annihilate the nations and their peoples. 

And it's not as if there are a great mass of good-motivated "ordinary people" who are being hoodwinked by media censorship, but who would otherwise compel significant and positive reforms in public affairs. 

Ordinary people "know" (in the sense that the information has passed through their eyes and ears) all kinds of terrible stuff, more than enough! And/yet it makes no apparent difference whatsoever to their fundamental assumptions, world view, values, behaviours... 

"Concerned" words are cheap, but human priorities tell a different story. 

The Western masses are, even if much less evil as the leadership class; deeply complicit and accepting of major strategic agenda themes of the recent decades; and have a system of values that do not rise above the level of the farm yard (i.e. this-worldly hedonism, fear driven avoidance of suffering, addiction to convenience, and craving for continual distraction). 

There has never, in the history of the world, been such shallow, trivial, and cowardly (because demotivated) people as there are in the West, now. 

And if people need to be told something so invasive and everywhere - things we all know from observation and our daily personal experiences (and the observations and experiences of our direct social circle) - then clearly it is already too late. 

So, what to do? 

Forget about "effective political action", resistance, reform: that is absolutely Not a possibility, when basic understanding and proper motivation is so completely absent; when indeed the actuality is of a widespread and accepted social ethic of value-inversion.

From where we are as a civilization - spiritually and morally; all social action going forward must be net-evil. There is no source for it to be anything else. 

 

We must first want what is good, or no good will eventuate. 

Real understanding follow only upon proper motivation...

And then, when it comes to important matters, such understanding follows easily and swiftly.

To know and desire a human life based on good aims and conduct; we need-not, and certainly should-not, depend on anything produced by the mass media. 

More on the "contact" aspect of Primary Thinking

Continuing from yesterday's post:

The idea that Primary Thinking will only happen if it entails contact with another mind, another being, another Real Self - fits with some other stuff. 

For example, if thinking is Not in contact - then it is purely personal and subjective - because thinking is something that is done by beings: thinking is an attribute of beings. 

Thinking isn't an energy or electricity, a physics-like thing or chemical changes - but even if physics/ chemistry/ biology were a good analogy for thinking, these also require beings. The notion that there can be an autonomous domain of "science" without regard to living and conscious beings is incoherent: see Owen Barfield's Saving the Appearances. 

(When there is knowledge, there is no escaping consciousness.)

So, you can't have abstract thoughts floating-about in reality, without beings to think them.

A being that thinks without contact is in a pre-creation situation. 

Pre-creation there were beings (as it were...) floating around in chaos - either unaware or indifferent to one another. It was one of the events that went with divine creation that thinking began to be shared, began to happen as a direct contact between beings - and this, I presume, as a consequence of love. 

I envisage God (the prime creator) as primordial parents, whose mutual love initiated - and itself was - divine creation. 

This could also been seen as the beginning of primary thinking - which fits with m conviction that Primary Thinking is a direct form of participation with ongoing divine creation. 

Also; if primary thinking is, as I believe, a participation in the work of divine creation - then primary thinking cannot be private - cannot be confined to one mind. This also confirms that primary thinking must be something that is happening in more than one mind. 

Creation can be considered the loving harmony of many beings in such terms as the aims and methods of creation - just like an ideally loving family that remain in harmony through time: the mutual love makes the family cohere, and ensures that aims and methods are sustaining of love. 

It seems that, if we want to engage in primary thinking; then mind to mind, direct - and loving - contact, is a pre-requisite.  

Pure Protestants and "Bare Salvation"

A serious problem that besets (what might be called) Pure Protestants, is the minimalist desire for Salvation-only - a life dedicated to Bare Salvation, and (ultimately) nothing-else-matters. 

This is a consequence of that strand of Reformation theology that focuses (almost exclusively) on Salvation by Faith - by the Grace of God. 

The Pure Protestant inference is that salvation is the only thing that matters, and salvation is achieved by faith in God during this mortal life - indeed specifically faith at the end of this mortal life. 

For a Pure Protestant: "As the tree falls, so shall it lie" - eternally. In other words, by the state of our soul at the moment of death, so shall our eternal destiny be decided.  

This has some appalling consequences in practice; because the whole of our mortal lives up to the moment of death is hazardous and futile at best.

The optimal thing in a mortal life would be to die at the instant of conversion; to eliminate the risk that subsequent experiences would cause us to backslide and lose faith*. 

Presumably; it is only the prohibition on suicide that prevents this being a normal post-conversion sequela - but anyway, a PP would be very likely to pray for the deliverance from the threat of damnation by wanting Death ASAP, for as long as he has faith.

 

What then should a Pure Protestant do with his life? 

Just about the only valid activities would seem to be - 1. to guard one's faith, and 2. to seek the conversion of others: evangelism. 

And this is, indeed, the tendency of Pure Protestants: faith is guarded by repeatedly re-visiting, re-living, re-experiencing the conversion experience; and by engaging in whatever evangelical activities are deemed (by current theological theories) to be likely to succeed at inducing the maximum number of conversions. 

That is the theory, or aspiration - yet (looking around at PP-tending churches as of 2025) it clearly does not work, and has not worked for some decades. 

The reasons is that with PP there is no such thing as legitimate positive, constructive, creative spiritual activity. 

And a faith-defending life spent under continuous, increasing, inescapable siege from the extreme and pervasive evil of modern Western societies can only lead to defeat - sooner or later. 

By denying the value of any this-worldly spiritual activity; Pure Protestantism creates a values-vacuum which is almost inevitably occupied by the hegemonic, secular, materialistic (and nowadays leftist) socio-political morality - which perhaps explains why self-identified Christians of this type are often strikingly successful in terms of status, money, and power. 

And this brings with it the besetting modern-Western sins such as untruthfulness, resentment and despair - and many (if not all) of the the characteristic value-inversions of totalitarianism. 

Holding-out against some of the inversions of the sexual revolution is one positive thing; but when Pure Protestantism eagerly embraces socialism, antiracism, climate-environmentalism, birdemic-healthism etc etc - then there is no cause whatsoever for self-congratulation.

Such churches have-been and are decisively assimilated into supporting the strategic demonic agenda.

   

The answer lies in examining the false assumptions at the root of Bare Salvationism. 

If God sustains us alive, then there is work he wants us to do; and that work must surely be spiritual in its nature and individual in its focus. 

It's up to each Pure Protestant to discover what that spiritual work must be for himself, personally, here-and-now. 

* That wonderful story in Acts of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, really ought to end (if Bare Salvationism was true, and if it were to have a genuinely joyful ending) with the eunuch slipping underwater and drowning, the instant after he was baptized... Rather than, as reported, going on his way "rejoicing". (And then, according to Ethiopian Orthodoxy - as I understand it - returning home to found the church in that country.)

The mind-to-mind contact of primary thinking is always mutual, shared; involving two (or more) beings

For some years I have been trying to understand the distinction between what might be termed primary thinking and mundane thinking...

In which primary thinking is assumed to come from our real/ eternal/ divine selves and is objectively real (primary thinking affects reality, and does so in a direct way - i.e. without needing physical modes of communication)...

While mundane thinking is the ordinary subjective stuff that grinds-away (sometimes unconsciously, sometimes as the stream of consciousness) in response to memories, outer perceptions, external manipulations etc; and in accordance with psychological mechanisms. 

Mundane thinking is "merely" subjective in the sense that it is inner, personal, cut-off; and (of itself) does not directly influence any other beings or the world in general. 

For me; this is a matter of absolutely core interest and concern - fundamental to my life and its purpose. It's a subject I cannot leave alone, nor do I want to neglect it 

Following-on; I have often explored why primary thinking is so difficult, so rare, so hard to initiate and continue. 

Yesterday it struck me that the answer may be implied by the fact (or assumption) that primary thinking is not private and subjective; but that primary thinking, on the contrary is linked-with, actively participates-in, ongoing divine creation.

This implies that we are not doing primary thinking unless we are in direct contact with another Being. 

Put negatively; we cannot do primary thinking unless our thinking is being-shared with another being. 

Or, positively expressed, we are thinking primarily when we are in a situation that I've sometimes called direct knowing. 

What is meant by "direct" is that there is no intermediary. Normal mundane knowing works by communication - by a message being sent, received, interpreted etc - but there is (indeed there must be, for there to be any knowing at all) potential for a direct, mind-to-mind way of sharing thinking, of simultaneous thinking. 

But it wasn't until yesterday that I realized this implies, or rather it entails, that primary thinking can only be done "in collaboration". 

We cannot do primary thinking on our own ("in our own heads"), which is perhaps why primary thinking so often seems impossible  no matter hard we strive for it... 

Indeed the striving for it often seems to block primary thinking; presumably because it merely intensifies the cut-off and subjective nature of mundane thinking. 

What I'm saying is that primary thinking happens, and only happens, when we are in "mind to mind" and direct contact with another being - which might be a living human being, or some other kind of being.

This "other kind of being" could be almost any kind of being; e.g. a deceased and resurrected human, animal, an angelic spirit, the Holy Ghost...

But (as I've said elsewhere) primary thinking is intrinsically good in the sense that it is a participation in divine creation. 

So, the "other kind of being" could not be an evil-affiliated being; at least not while such a being, is currently-actively rejecting-of or hostile-to God and divine creation. 

In sum, primary thinking is a dyadic activity at minimum - or could involve more than two beings that are actively, currently, in real time - actually sharing thinking directly and without mediation. 

To do primary thinking we must first be aligned with God's creative will, and secondarily must mutually be participating in thinking with another God-aligned being. 

(I'm not sure; but it might even be that primary thinking is only possible when there is some degree of a love relationship between beings.)

This could explain why primary thinking is rare and tends to be brief; but also suggests how it might become more frequent and sustained - in that our striving should be aimed toward discovering the right kind of "contact" with the right kind of other beings - and this contact essentially needs to happen at a spiritual (not material) level. 

I'm not suggesting "a recipe for primary thinking", and I don't possess one...

Indeed, since I am saying that primary thinking is rooted in fundamental mutuality, harmony with divine creation, and indeed perhaps love; it cannot be attained by any standard method or procedure! It is another kind of thing altogether. 

But maybe this "dyadic" perspective will stop me from pursuing futile and counter-productive efforts; and perhaps point me in the right direction. 

If it isn't how the best (and ideal) families work - then it isn't how God works

So much false, distorted, and misleading information in and around Christianity, and human attention and abilities are so limited, that we need ways of swiftly recognizing and disposing-of clear wrongness (regardless of the vast volumes are teaching and commentary that affirm the wrongness).

Because of human inattention and inability; the most effective way of disguising and perpetuating wrongness, is by combining complexity and abstraction - therefore our best antidote is to keep things personal and direct. 

Christians have the great advantage that Jesus made it clear (in the teachings and recorded behaviour of the close-friend eye-witness account of the Fourth Gospel "John") that we should think of God's relationships with Men, in terms of a family. 

Since nearly everybody has sufficient experience, backed by innate knowledge and instincts, to know how an ideal family ought to behave; then we can evaluate statements/ assertions about God and divine purpose by this family comparison. 

Such a comparison disposes of a great deal of common (mainstream, official, and traditional) assertion about the basis structure of the plan of salvation for Mankind in context of the spiritual war of this world. 

In particular, we can infer that salvation is not really "a plan" - at least, not if a "plan" is the kind of thing that is used by a national military leader in order to win a war. 

The proper analogue of "victory" in the war of this world ought to be (not one nation defeating another, but) the salvation of an individual person: which is their transformation into resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

This fits with what Christian-committed parents wish for each and every one of their beloved children. 

Such parents are Not seeking a spiritual "group-victory", analogous to the material victory of a tribe or nation; because such a victory would reasonably (and necessarily) require the spiritual sacrifice of one or (almost certainly) many of their beloved children in order that the family-as-a-whole might defeat then enemy, and triumph in some (hoped-to-be) overall way.  

However; loving families don't aspire to work by such "spiritual sacrifices"; they do not consign one or more children to damnation (perhaps hell) in order that the others, or the group-as-a-whole might be saved. 

No!... instead, ideally loving families would seek always for the best - spiritually - for each and all members. 

The family conceptualized as a group is of secondary concern, and the "unit" of family is derived from the individual members and their mutual love.  

The family analogy reveals the wicked ultimate consequences of talk on the lines that God has "already won" the spiritual war of this world; and/or the common assumption that salvation is groupish - of tribes, nations, Mankind.

Such talk is analogous to saying that a nation has "already" won a war, despite that fighting continues and thousands are still dying and being hurt and maimed. 

Such a statement makes sense on in terms of the the primacy of nation; but when individual beloved persons are primary, then a war is "won" only person by person.

And a war continues uncertain for as long as there are any persons whose spiritual destiny is not decided. 

So, in following Christ; the only "victory" is the salvation of particular persons, and such victory is actually an eternal transformation of that person's nature - and this is not an end-point for him, or the world; but a new beginning.

Life itself, family life (where the persons involved are all eternal beings), is the unending participation of each individual in ongoing divine creation. 

And divine creation is an aspect of love; the consequence of love, the purpose of love - which is why the ideal family is so exact an analogy. 

Divine creation is not of its nature "winnable". Creation is to be lived; and lived well; with each individual who chooses resurrection making his own unique contribution towards its open-ended and ever-lasting growth.    

Initiation by participation in imaginative fictions

Over at The Notion Club Papers blog; I discuss how a genuine participation in the process of reading imaginative fictions - including many children's classics, fairy tales, some sci-fi, and works in the fantasy genre - can be a process of initiation through various stages and levels of broadening and deepening experience. 

Such experience may stay at the level of the strange and marvellous, or ascend right up to an initiatory of experience at the level of deity. 

Necessity does not obviate the requirement for repentance

As Jesus apparently tried to make clear; following Him to resurrection ought to be about repentance of all sin; not the literal impossibility of ceasing from sin, nor even the (salvific) irrelevance of ceasing from some list of particular sins. 

Because they have the idea that Christians are supposed to stop sinning, or at lease reduce it considerably; self-identified Christians are too-often very concerned to explain that most of their sins are trivial, that it would be unreasonable to expect that they be ceased; or that this kind of sin is necessary - that it is unavoidable to sin in some particular way. 

(The subtext often seems to be that because sins are trivial, coerced, needed - then they are "not really" sins, and don't really count. Not so long as Big Sins - murder etc. - are avoided.) 

It's not that this is false (in a way) but that such arguments are essentially beside-the-point.  

The truth is that mortal beings on this earth, in the actual situations they/we find ourselves, just aren't aligned with God's will, with divine creation; and that is sin. 

We can't validly enumerate sins, because life isn't divided-up in that way - thoughts, speech, actions etc are linked, there aren't qualitative separations between sins, or between sin and virtue. 

This is because the underlying reality is motivation - motivation to be on God's side in the spiritual war - and nobody can be on God's side all of the time in all situations. 

What we are required to repent is "all the ways" in which we diverge from living wholly by love... The idea that we need to avoid (or strive to avoid) some particular list of sins is wrong. And the idea that someone who avoids the worst sins is set up for salvation is likewise a mistake. It doesn't matter how good we are relatively to others - in the ultimate and vital sense, we are all sinners. 

All that isn't fatal to salvation, because Jesus came "to save sinners" - which is another way of saying he came to save potentially all men who "follow" Jesus, acknowledge that they are sinners, and know what would be needful not to be sinners.  

But while we live, while God maintains us alive; we must have useful work to do. 

That work isn't stopping sinning; but part of it is discerning, acknowledging, and repenting sin - whenever possible. 

This is just a by-product of knowing what we ought to think, say, do - and knowing that we aren't doing it - and that we would do it it that were possible. 

This is particularly important when it comes to the sinning that we are incentivized, coerced or even compelled to do. For instance (my favourite example) untruthfulness - dishonesty, lying; deliberate misleading of others by repetition, hype and spin, and by selective omissions. 

Nearly everybody does this a lot of the time, and the leadership class and most professional class people (including priests, pastors, ministers and the like) do it for a living. They do it much of the time, and the must keep doing it if they want to get and keep their jobs. 

Indeed; calculated and systemic untruthfulness is essential to much modern work, mandatory for employment; necessary to obtain and retain one's position, and get prestige and promotion. A very large slice of the modern population therefore "lie for a living". 

These are sins that are active, purposive, obtrude into our consciousness many times every day. 

People do them, and have zero intentions of stopping doing them. Indeed, they could not stop doing them without abandoning their responsibilities. Without "giving up". 

And even then, they would still be sinning in innumerable other ways - and would very likely be required to commit more of other kinds of sin. 

(In practice, stopping one sin very often entails ramping up other sins - and the balance between decrease and increase is often unclear even when not negative.) 

The first thing to acknowledge is that there is no way out of this - as we actually are, on this mortal earth!

The second thing to realize that the many and various excuses of why we "have to do sins", do not make any difference to salvation even when they are perfectly true! 

What we should do about all this is quite simple, and described in the Fourth Gospel! 

We start with our commitment to follow Jesus to resurrected eternal Heavenly life. 

And recognize that this will require us to be remade and transformed into "beings of love"; which also (negatively) means becoming without sin. As Jesus explained to Nicodemus, is only possible on the other side of death: we must die and then be born-again.  

Therefore, one of the most significant things we can do, here-and-now, in this mortal life; is to notice and acknowledge when we are actually sinning.

This is important for our salvation, and the state of our souls, to acknowledge this actual sinning; much more more important than to focus and expend our finite efforts and attention in (Oh So Admirably!) diminishing one or a few selective sins - in what Jesus might have called the Pharisee Strategy. 

Showing off about one's (supposed) immunity to this or that temptation or sin may be an effective way of manipulating other people - it might (less often) even be a good thing for particular or overall social functioning. 

But is not the way to learn spiritually, to improve one's soul - and it has almost nothing to do with salvation. 

If the requirement for repentance is regarded in this way, then we will all find that there is no shortage of material for learning! 

If we are not much tempted by one kind of sin, there are plenty of other sins which we are doing some or most of the time - and which we have (for whatever reason, good or bad) have no intention of stopping. 

And there are sins that because of our nature, and/or circumstances; we cannot stop, we do not have the ability to stop. 

Jesus Christ did not ask the impossible of us; indeed he made salvation possible for anybody capable of love. 

Ultimately, those who attain resurrected eternal life need to desire themselves to be remade wholly good, without sin. 

We can't do this on this side of death; but can always and everywhere be learning what that will entail. 

This is time well spent. 

Each and every recognition and repentance of our sin is both an affirmation and strengthening of our ultimate commitment to follow Jesus after death; and also a (small but significant) proximate betterment of our souls as they now are, and shall be carried forward into eternal life.

Free will is Not the cause of evil

It is a mistake when Christian theologians explain evil in terms of God's gift of free will. 

Because free will is not a cause of evil.

I mean: free will is not even potentially a cause of evil.   

Evil comes from evil: evil acts come from an evil nature. 

A good Man would be free, but would do no evil.

Proof? 

Jesus Christ: He was free and did not evil. 

If Men also had good natures, Men would freely do only good. 

Therefore the cause of evil is the nature of things; the cause of evil in Men is the evil nature of Men. 

If, therefore, you believe that God created everything from nothing (ex nihilo) - including Men - then this entails that God must have created the nature of Men capable of evil.

(This has nothing to do with free will. Free will does not come into it.)

But since God really-is wholly good, and also Men obviously do evil - then it follows that God did Not create Men from nothing. 

The evil that is in Mens' nature is not of God. 

Thus there is something within Men that is not of God. 

Conclusion: Men are not wholly created by God. 

(And the notion that God created everything from nothing is refuted.)

Even Heaven isn't ideal... Total and perfect completion is not even conceivable - let alone achievable

One of the reasons that some people do not want salvation and post-mortal eternal life in Heaven; is that Heaven is imperfect and incomplete. 

For example, not everybody gets to Heaven, so that some people we want to be-with in Heaven, will not be there. 

A related imperfection is that some of those who won't be in Heaven will be suffering - and this can be seen as an imperfection - in that we can imagine a reality without suffering, and yet some kind of hell will continue to be forever. 

So, for these and other reasons Heaven is incomplete and imperfect, and may be rejected on these grounds. 

Yet if Heaven is rejected as a goal for such reasons, then (presumably) this is because something better is imagined and desired?  

However; all conceivable situations are incomplete and imperfect. We cannot coherently conceptualize a state of perfection and completion, and therefore cannot really desire it. 

For instance; the idea of oneness spirituality is an attempt at conceptualizing a state of perfect completion - the idea that in reality all is one and there is nothing lacking.

Yet this is incoherent because there is, at least, the fact that we recognize a lack of oneness in our yearning for it - and if all is really one there could be no such lack, or yearning, or even self awareness. If our dissatisfaction is put down to delusion, then how could there be delusion in a state of oneness? 

If reality really was one, there would be nothing else. 

If the incompleteness of Heaven, the fact that it leaves-out some (or much) of reality, is to be solved by conceptualizing a future state of the perfection and harmonization of every being, including every being and thing left-out of heaven; then the necessary (divine) power to perfect and complete reality is being assumed to be constrained by delay... for some reason. 

And that reason is itself a breaking of oneness/ perfection/ completeness.

If all is one, why has perfection and completion not already been achieved? 

(Why must we and others continue to suffer its lack?)

For that matter - if perfection and completion really are attainable by God, then why create anything else that perfect completeness? What is the point? 

Why should deity create this imperfect and intermediate world with its entropy and evil, and where all gratifications are incomplete and temporary?

That itself, whatever the answer proposed, is a break of perfection and completeness.  

My point is that, although we may imagine and desire perfection and completion of all reality; this wish is incoherent and cannot - even theoretically - be attained. 

The insistence on total, perfect completion is indeed, a disguised form of double-negative ideology. 

I mean that "perfection" is actually the negation of our divine impulse towards creative love; which is a dynamic and developing thing, future orientated. 

Instead of regarding this fundamental quality of being as an attribute of reality - the lack of a permanent state of perfect completion is re-interpreted as a problem. A problem that is insoluble, because it negates creation, life, consciousness, love... 

The same for completion. Completion is a negation of the potential for eternal growth, development, increase of love. There is no end to creation... But this possibility is being re-interpreted negatively, as a current state of incompletion. 

The insistence upon completion is, again, a denial of the most profound nature of reality - which is why it leads nowhere but paradox. 

In sum: when people reject Heaven because it is incomplete and imperfect; they have fallen into a trap - a spiritual prison that has no escape... 

Incoherence is a reductio ad absurdum - a conclusion revelatory of false premises. 

No escape except by becoming aware-of, examining, and rejecting their most fundamental (metaphysical) assumptions regarding the nature of reality. 

 

"The Hanging Signs of Huddersfield" - On the magical significance of specialized factual books, by Irish Papist

...Imagine, for instance, a book called The Hanging Signs of Hudderfield. Not a novel with a quirky title (I hate those), but a book literally devoted to that subject. 

In a way (as I see it), such a book would bring something new into the world. The hanging signs of Huddersfield already existed; now they have become the subject of a book. 

This might seem like a throwaway sort of claim, somewhat smart-alecky and idle. But I actually mean it with all my heart and it's one of the ideas that brings me most pleasure in the world. 

The joy I take from scanning a book of shelves and seeing that someone has written a whole book on this or that subject (which one might not have expected them to) is immense, bottomless. Within the confines of that book, the author and the reader are primarily concerned with only one thing. 

If you are reading The Hanging Signs of Huddersfield, everything else recedes into the background. World War Two is important. Dinosaurs are important. Laurel and Hardy are important. But within the covers of the book, nothing gets top billing over the hanging signs of Huddersfield. 

There is something here that penetrates to the very essence of life and reality; the magical fact that every place and every moment and every soul has its own irreducible importance.

From a post at the Irish Papist blog

**

One of my currently favourite blogs, as I mentioned recently, is Irish Papist. 

This seems to be going from strength to strength, with its quirky, buttonholing, insightful essays on... whatever takes the IP's current fancy.  

The above excerpt makes a point about specialist factual books I don't recall seeing before, that I recognised immediately as true - and which I don't think I shall quickly forget. 

A blog for browsing. 

Learning, understanding, awareness? What should Christians do in daily mortal life?

I've said elsewhere on this blog that we each need a purpose for this mortal life; and that for Christians (followers of Jesus Christ) our individual purpose in this mortal life should be "framed" by the confident expectation of  resurrection into Heaven. 

That still leaves-open the question of what we are supposed to be doing on this side of death; given that we would not be sustained alive by God unless there were reasons that were good for us - meaning eternally good for our immortal souls. 

I have expressed what we should do using the term "learning" - learning now for a "pay off" in post-mortal life; and this can be further expanded by the concepts of understanding and awareness.

(This presumes that God, by the continual action of creation, "engineers" the kind of learning-experiences that we each need, or could benefit from.)  

It seems to me evident that Christianity includes a great deal of emphasis on the positive value (and perhaps even essential nature) of understanding and awareness. 

So, it is not enough (or at least it is sub-optimal) for Men simply to experience mortal life unconsciously, passively, and without reflection - because that is unfree: such an "automatic" life does not entail the needful positive decision to align with God and work in harmony with divine creation. 

What is required then is a kind of learning that has risen to some level of understanding of what has been learned; and this understanding of what has been learned should rise to a level of awareness. 

This is what enables freedom to have its vital role. 

(And such freedom can most profoundly be understood as a bringing to bear of our own divinely creative selves - such that God's creation is expanded and enriched by the creativity of individual beings in voluntary alignment with God's aims and methods.) 

With respect to the need for understanding; it would, of course, be unrealistic (if not impossible) to suppose that we can attain anything much like a final and comprehensive understanding of this world - not least because the reality is of a world massively causally-interlinked; such that any specific understanding is bound to be deficient and distorted to some degree. 

Nonetheless, I think many will know by experience a kind of understanding that might be called an epiphany, an insight-into or showing-forth-of reality; a creative moment underpinned and endorsed by intuition. 

This seems to be close to the kind of thing we most need. 

Now, it is also essential to realize that the constraints of this mortal incarnation mean that - at least in our physical and material manifestation - this kind of epiphanic insight can be misremembered or completely forgotten in a bodily sense; we might suffer all kinds of accidents, sickness or degenerative disease. 

It would (after all) be pretty worthless if our needful spiritual learning/ understanding/ awareness depended on such fragile things as the functionality of human brain and body. 

Therefore, we must assume that true knowledge is never forgotten in a spiritual sense; that our intuitive epiphanic insights are permanently stored as part of our spiritual-person, our immortal soul.    

A further constraint that needs acknowledging is that most actual people most of the time, are "victims of" (in thrall to) their innate personality, abilities and circumstances. Such that they (we) will mostly be making bad choices and leading lives that are not just un-virtuous - but considerably more sin-full than they "ideally" might be. 

The message I get from the Fourth Gospel and other confirmations; is that this does not matter ultimately; and that a Christian life is possible for everyone capable of love, who value love most highly and who desire above all to follow Jesus to Heaven. 

Ultimately, it need not matter how weak, mean and corrupt such a person might be, or what terrible kind of life he leads. Jesus came to save (even) sinners - not perfect, nor even better-than-average Men*.  

It is crucial to note and absorb that Any bad circumstance of this world, including the self-inflicted, can be (and actually is) overcome by faith - sustained by hope and driven by love. 

But although all manner of spiritual guidance and support are available when needed; none of this happens automatically, nor can it be achieved by any external power. We cannot be "made" to live in a worthwhile way; just as we cannot be compelled to salvation. 

The crucial aspect is always in our-selves, in our freedom (properly understood as the creative agency of our real self, in chosen-alignment with the divine); and the basis of freedom includes learning, understanding, awareness. 

There is always something eternally-valuable to be learned from any person's actual life here-and-now; and/but this learning always requires to be driven primarily by the free spiritual life of each person...

Indeed by the free spiritual life of each being of any kind; since Heaven is populated by those Beings of all kinds who - after their mortal deaths - commit eternally to live primarily by Love.  

*It is not really relevant here - but I suppose that I need to comment on the fact that none of this is meant as an excuse for being selfish, sadistic, spiteful - doing evil. But the usual problem with those who do evil is that they deny that what they are doing is evil, or (nowadays, invertedly) say that the evil they are and do is good. The take home message is not that utter impossibility that we should cease from sinning, nor that "real Christians" are better (more ethical) people than others on average, nor that becoming a (real) Christians entails becoming a "better person" -- but that Christians need to acknowledge and repent the evil that they (we) inevitably do; and that (in principle) nobody is so bad in their behaviour that they cannot become a Christian. What excludes so many modern people from salvation is not that they are worse than past people in their behaviours; but that modern people Do Not Want Salvation.  

How does Melkor get to be evil in Tolkien's Silmarillion?

There is a problem in explaining the origin of Melkor's evil nature, in the creation myth Ainulindale of The Silmarillion . 

If Eru is wholly good, and if Eru was wholly responsible for creating Melkor - then Melkor's evil nature and choices must derive ultimately from Eru...

(Which apparently means that Eru is not wholly good.)

I discuss this, and some possible answers, over at the Notion Club Papers. 

The Hedonic-Therapeutic, Right-Left axis of morality

Because the assumption of modernity is that human existence is bounded by conception and death - outwith there is nothing of our-selves - therefore the morality is one based upon living human experience. 

The relevant aspect of human experience adopted by modern morality (perhaps inevitably) relates to pleasure-pain - in motivational terms this is hedonic (pleasure seeking) or therapeutic (suffering avoiding). 

This roughly corresponds to what people term as Right and Left of the political spectrum - those on the Right are broadly orientated to maximizing positive and pleasurable experiences while those on the Left have a more therapeutic stance - in that their ultimate justification is the relief of negative experiences, alleviation of suffering. 

And this is why the Left sees itself as a higher morality than the Right - in that therapeutic alleviation of suffering is seen as more sophisticated, altruistic, compassionate etc - than trying to create as much positive emotionality as possible.

The Right sees our finite life as something we should make the most of (for ourselves and - some- others; the Left as something we should get through with the least misery (for ourselves perhaps, but mainly justified in terms of therapy for others). 

All this is bizarre and incoherent and unfounded as a basis for "morality" - but that is what we've actually got. 

Why does Western/ Globalist ruling ideology have no name?

It has often been noticed that the morality, ethical system, ideology; that rules the Western world and globalist institutions Has No Name - indeed it will acknowledge no name for itself as valid.

It is typically atheistic, materialist, politically leftist, totalitarian in aspiration etc etc - but the most powerful and pervasive ideology of recent generations does not attempt to describe itself, and will mock or muddle any attempt to do so. 

This is rooted in the reality that the dominating ideology is oppositional - so that it does not have an essence; and that what-it-opposes (i.e. ultimately God and divine creation, in all manifestations) cannot be acknowledged; or else the evil-affiliated nature of our world leadership class would become explicit. 

In sum: the true name of the dominating W/G ideology is "evil" - which is The Reason that it has no acknowledged name.

So most people, and all people who deny the reality of God and divine creation, live in a state of perpetual confusion and perplexity with respect to what has happened and where we are going.

Any possible particular name for the Western/ Globalist ideology would be incomplete and misleading, would fail to capture the protean and fluid nature of an inverted morality that opposes (ultimately) all that is truly good. 

While the above describes the ultimate nature, at any given place and time (proximately) the Western/ Globalist ideology is necessarily opposing something or another; some-thing much more particular and specific...

But this thing can and will change according to context and expediency, and there is no positive and coherent logic behind its multiple and shifting oppositions. 

Last week there it was pacifist, today and here it is warmongering; a few months ago it was passionately environmentalist but before that it had been implementing massive and lasting radioactive environmental contamination; once upon a time it was aggressively feminist but lately its long-term policies ensure increased violence-against and rape-of of women.

And so on... 

No mystery, no paradox, nor any kind of self-contradiction is involved here: That just-is the nature of what we are dealing-with, for the simple reason that that is the nature of evil.  

 

Reversing death, or resurrection? What Jesus did with Lazarus wasn't "a miracle"

Jesus was a prolific miracle worker - but far from unique in that. He was also a remarkable healer, but far from unique in that. 

Most accounts of Jesus's miracles put the raising of Lazarus at the pinnacle of achievement and note that it was this action which brought upon him the implacable hostility of the official Jewish priesthood. 

But most accounts fail to understand the qualitative distinction between miracles of healing, food production etc - and what happened to Lazarus. 

This is missed because the raising of Lazarus is presented as if it was "merely" a reversal of a recent death - which might be framed as an extreme form of miracle; whereas it was instead the first example and public demonstration of resurrection. 

Nobody had ever resurrected anyone before, because it was something that only Jesus could do. 

Jesus's Father, i.e. God the primary creator, did not and could not resurrect anybody ever; which was why Jesus's incarnation and work was necessary if Heaven was to be possible. 

A miracle is something done to the world; but the raising of Lazarus was something Jesus did with him. 

Lazarus could be resurrected because he loved Jesus, knew Jesus was divine; and therefore was led by Jesus through death to life everlasting.

Lazarus was the first Man to die who fulfilled the conditions that Jesus described* as necessary for resurrected eternal life.  

The distinction is between a Lazarus brought back to mortal life, temporarily - but destined to die like everybody else...

Or on the other hand, a Lazarus who has died mortally and desired to be transformed to eternal resurrected life; to become fully a Son of God, and the first potential inhabitant of Heaven. 

The first inhabitant of Heaven was Jesus himself, he made Heaven possible and then actual. But after his resurrection Lazarus was ready and able to ascend to Heaven, at any time.  

So the raising of Lazarus ought not to be considered "a miracle" - rather it was a public demonstration of what Jesus came to do for all Men who desired resurrection and who loved and followed him.  

*From the IV Gospel: As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name... God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned... He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life...  I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die... That ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

Christopher Langan - still producing good insights

Q: What should I do in my life? CML: Search for God. Ask God to establish a personal relationship with you. 

It's available! - you're attached to God by your soul. 

I hadn't looked at Christopher Michael Langan's work for a while, so I dropped-in at his CTMU Radio channel on YouTube, and browsed a few recent postings. 

The first thing I did was watch a three minute video called "Satan"; which I regard as excellent: concise, clear, decisive! 

The video is illustrative of the major differences in metaphysical assumptions between Langan and myself; in that his models of reality are highly abstract, and use the language of physics and mathematics. 

Whereas I am recurrently (whenever I remember) trying to understand and express reality in terms of Beings and their motivations - I regard the universe as ultimately "animistic" not abstract. 

Yet behind the different assumptions and expressions, I find myself in a high degree of agreement with CML. He is surely on the right side of the spiritual war; and, despite major personality differences between us, I certainly regard Langan as A Good Bloke. 

I can't claim to have read or watched more than a sliver of Langan's prodigious output, but here are some sources for those who wish to explore further. 

Is it ultimately incoherent when Western Civilization says, in effect: "We are superior because we know we are inferior"?

It must be a bizarrely conflicted life to be one of the Western leadership class who are engaged in geopolitics! 

(Small wonder that they bear the hallmarks of self-damaged/ deleted souls.) 

On the one hand, the "external" rhetoric of Western powers is one of implied superiority... 

The West intervenes everywhere in the world and attempts to destroy other societies +/- remaking them in "our" image; on the basis that other places are morally inferior - because they do not sufficiently adhere to "our" Western ideology, laws, values and morals. 

On the other hand, the "internal" rhetoric is of definite inferiority and self-abasement. 

The West, the people of each and every Western nations, are (by a vast inner propaganda of politics, bureaucracy, mass media, education, academia, corporations...) routinely assumed to be ethically inferior to people from... anywhere/ everywhere else. 

Such that our primary duty (for which we ought to sacrifice almost anything) is to enable any number of people without limit, from anywhere in the world but especially Not the West; to come to Western nations; there to be supported by the native populations (fed, housed, paid, educated, kept healthy...) to the same or higher level than the native population - and at the expense of native Westerners.  

So, there is a massive rhetorical incoherence between the arrogant and violent self-assertion of Western "foreign policy"; and the pervasive self-hatred and strategic self-destruction of the "home affairs" of Western nations. 

It is as if that ideological superiority which makes it our ethical duty to subvert, terrorize and make war on everybody-else; is rooted in the awareness of our moral inferiority to everybody else...* 

What explains and solves this apparent paradox and conflict of interest at the material level is quite simple. 

The answer lies in is that "our" and "us" used in relation to the West - the explanation is the "we" who does all this stuff... 

It is that the Western leadership class (and their agents and clients among the other nations) regard themselves as morally superior to everybody else in the world, and at any point in history.  

Themselves as superior - i.e. the leadership class only - and emphatically not the nations that they lead. 

This conviction of superiority to everybody else is why They strategically aim to destroy and impose Their values on all other civilizations and nations; and simultaneously destroy and impose their values on their home populations. 

This is why They do whatever They want, while subjecting everybody else to ever more invasive laws and regulations. 

This is why They destroy economies, impose "equality" or "diversity", reduce and limit housing and transport etc etc - while reciprocally leading jet-setting lives of international travel, multiple residences, mega-consumerism, colossal and wasteful extravagance of lifestyle - and vastly enriching themselves personally.

From the perspective of the Western rulers; all this is natural, logical and wholly consistent with their own qualitative and separate superiority of nature. "They" are not like Us, and see deeper and further - so of course different rules apply to Them.   

Strategically, They are simply trying to conquer and subdue the entire world, to bring the entire world under Their good ideology; and to create an impenetrable defensive bubble around Themselves.

It justifies itself: Looking-down from their high vantage point and with vast quantities of secret intelligence information, the Western rulers are convinced that they can see farther and deeper than anyone else. And with an touch of compassionate regret (which emphasizes Their moral depth); They nobly accept the necessity of destroying most of the people and nearly-all of the places of the world - because the alternatives would be... well, un-think-able. 

(And therefore they accept the need for coercing and deceiving the masses into doing whatever is required for this goal. After all the mass majority could not be expected to embrace their own messy annihilation if this was honestly explained. Obviously, we must be lied-to.)  

Sad, perhaps; but such a supreme "sacrifice" is required in order to make actual the dream of a good world of superior beings.  

So the Western leadership class regard themselves as superior, and also as hard-nosed realists who are prepared to take (covert) responsibility for sacrificing almost-everybody/everything in order to achieve the kind of world that they regard as Good...

(Hence the snake-eyes.)

And yet they are pawns and dupes and suckers - because the real plan behind "the plan" is not human - but demonic; and the global destruction and sacrifice therefore is intended to include all the humans, including every man jack of the Western leadership class - every last one of them, and all their descendants.  

The demons are motivated by fear and hatred of divine creation in all its aspects; and (as un-incarnated spiritual beings) they do not require the people of this world, except for pleasure, as a gratifying source of "energy"; and demons do not need the planet earth.

In the meanwhile, the demons feed-upon the terror, lust, resentments, and despair of those who serve them, and those whose evil affiliations and acts are un-repented - especially the Western ruling class.

Thus apparent self-contradiction, paradox, and incoherence of aim and action at the human level...

Makes clear and simple sense at the spiritual level. 

NOTE: It may seem that I am blaming everything on Them. But this is not so. Evil must be invited into the human heart; therefore the Western masses (i.e. Not the leadership classes) are deeply complicit in the geopolitical and internal strategies, in enough key ways that the continued spiritual domination of the leadership class is guaranteed. And at the root of this complicity are the materialistic, hedonic, atheistic, and anti-Christian assumptions; that have been embraced by the vast majority of Western masses of all kinds and regardless of whether they call, and believe themselves to be, spiritual, religious, or Christian. 

* This is especially obvious when moral behaviours of other civilizations or nations in their own countries is used to as rationale for destruction or takeover; but allowed and encouraged when the same peoples enter Western nations. Perhaps the most extreme example is slavery (although systemic and lethal violence against women is more common). Allegations of slavery in any other nation is regarded as evidence of their moral inferiority; yet when foreign populations enter Western nations they are allowed to practice slavery - so that slavery has now returned to the West in significant numbers and for many years, with full official connivance.  

A real creative scientist: Graham Cairns-Smith

1931-2016

It was probably 1990 or 91, while I was a lecturer at Glasgow University, Scotland; when I first met Graham Cairns-Smith. 

At that time he was a Reader in Physical Chemistry, and I interviewed him for an article that (I think) was published in the Glasgow Herald newspaper. 

That interview led to further discussions; because I realized quickly that GCS was not just a real scientist (truth-seeker, truth-speaker) - I had already met several of these - but a creative scientist; one who original in a genius way, and orientated towards developing new and true theories; rather than doing ever-more (and more expensive!) experiments. 

What jumped-out was the way he talked, the quietly sustained focus, that he went back to first principles, talked about theories; and the extreme clarity and simplicity with which he expressed his thinking. 

He very quickly explained his Big Idea, which was related to the origins of life on earth having have occurred via the replication of simple molecules, probably siliceous, possibly clays -- necessarily much simpler than the usual candidates of nucleic acids or proteins - which he ruled-out on chemical energetic grounds and the vastly improbable complexity required for their production. 

His ideas were accessibly published for a general audience in Seven Clues to the Origin of Life (1990) - and became widely influential, albeit often in somewhat garbled form - even in mainstream science fiction.

(Those many silicon-, instead of carbon-, based aliens mentioned in various media, might well be derived ultimately from GCS.) 

The way Graham discussed natural selection made me realize that I had never previously encountered anyone with his level of understanding; and with just a few deep insights - he made me begin to realize my own fascination with the subject; and set me onto the path whereby I worked on evolutionary theories for more than decade - worked with greater intensity and mental effort than I ever worked at anything else.   

Graham's quality was recognized at a high level among other real scientists, and he would (for instance) participate in meetings, symposia, lectures etc. where nearly-all the other people were Nobel laureates.

And/yet this status was not matched in terns of career, which was very modest. 

GCS was apparently almost obscure within Glasgow University. He rose to Reader but not Professor. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, but not of the (then) much more selective London RS. 

Many thousands of industrious but mediocre researchers garnered more elevated positions, greater system prestige, and achievement-awards - over his head, and those like him. 

This, because GCS was quiet, modest, and interested in "the science". 

I should make it clear: Graham was not at all bothered about promotions or prizes! -He was very happy with what he had. 

All that he asked for, was to be able to do the scientific work he was motivated to do. Anything else in the way of rewards was a bonus, a gratuity: nice, but inessential. 

And - because GDS retired before things got too bad around 2000, he was just able to have that minimum needful support from the UK university system. 

By the 1990s there was already a wide and increasing gulf between achievement in real science, and the system of rewards accorded to professional researchers in the bureaucracies that had once been genuinely scientific.

Going into the next millennium; it soon became evident that real science was dead and gone; and internally-motivated, creative people like Cairns-Smith could not longer expect even his moderate and delayed success; but had near-zero realistic career prospects of any kind within professional "science".     

I didn't know Graham well, and not at all on personal level. But his example made a decisive difference to my life and work. 

Also the fact that he recognized me to the extent of asking me to review and comment on the developing texts of his subsequent works, was a great confidence-booster, indicating that he believed that I too inhabited the same world of "real" scientists. 

Yesterday, in sorting through my library, I came across the copy of Evolving the Mind (1996) that he had sent me; and read the hand-written inscription thanking me for help with it. 

I then belatedly realized that a personal tribute of thanks to this creative, brilliant, honest and significant scientist - had become long overdue. 

What to do about "the re-entry problem" in relation to Christianity

Names and describes the re-entry problem - but doesn't suggest a valid Christian solution

Back at the beginnings of this blog I wrote a rather heart-felt post derived from what author Walker Percy termed "the re-entry problem":

What is not generally recognized is that the successful launch of self into the orbit of transcendence is necessarily attended by the problems of reentry. What goes up must come down. The best film of the year ends at nine o’clock. What do you do at ten? What did Faulkner do after writing the last sentence of Light in August? Get drunk for a week. What did Dostoevsky do after finishing The Idiot? Spend three days and nights at the roulette table.

A brief escape, to rise above our normal level - but then comes re-entry...

This re-entry problem applies to Christianity. 

For instance, a new convert will typically experience a great sense of exaltation and possibility on considering the profundities of his new faith. 

But what then? A crash-down into the mundane realities of joining and attending a church, and being expected to conform to a lifestyle so very dull and niggling - when compared with the great cosmic ultimates by which the Christian may have come to faith. 

This is not just emotionally disappointing, but the everyday experiences of (what he is told) means "being a Christian" is typically experientially utterly un-related to the original conversion. 

This problem is not unique to conversion, of course; we get a deflationary come-down after any exceptionally positive experience. 

But it hits hardest in relation to religion - because of our expectation of a qualitatively "more spiritual" life post-conversion. 

Most churches will argue that this expectation is false, and that real-life is what it is, and our job as Christians is to understand and value it accordingly...

But I do not fully agree; because I think this is usually just an excuse for the fact that church religion is almost-wholly assimilated to the mundane world, its values and priorities - and indeed even explicitly aspires to this "relevance".

The worldly aspects of church are propagandized and strongly insisted upon; while in contrast the spiritual aspects are vague aspirations, "just words" - and there is no pressure or encouragement towards pursuing them, nor do they affect church conduct - especially not if spiritual considerations interfere in any significant way with everyday church functioning. 

Well... it's facile to be critical about this world, and the many ways it falls short of our aspirations - and as of 2025 it is misguided to look for higher spirituality from any social institution (except in its unofficial and minor counter-currents to the Zeitgeist). 

Furthermore; it has proved impossible for most people, most of the time, to become spiritually better overall - which was probably why Jesus in the IV Gospel emphasized aspirations and repentance - rather than reform of behaviour - as necessary and sufficient for salvation. 

Yet the re-entry problem will not go away, and is a major difficulty for many people - such that recommending negative stoicism is probably counter-productive: the fact is we must each be motivated in Life, and that means the pursuit of some positive enhancement in our everyday spiritual aspirations and sense of spiritual achievement. 

Instead of giving-up on a spiritual life (and assimilating to the mundane), or aiming for the spiritually impossible (and despairing at the lack of progress); I think we should address the re-entry re-examining what the spiritual quest ought to be in accordance with our Christian goals. 

This may lead to re-framing our personal spiritual quest into something where genuinely valuable progress is realistically attainable, on a frequent, everyday basis. 

For me this implies that, because spiritual progress is not evident in this world; spiritual progress therefore instead "must be" logged and accumulated with reference to our future resurrected eternal life in Heaven.  

So that - whatever brief specific things we achieve in the here and now - in terms of love, understanding reality including evil, thinking from our real selves, participation in divine creation, repentance, aspirations and commitments, good-motivated actions, the attainment of an eternal and "cosmic" perspective to frame this mortal life etc... 

I strive to recognize that every and all such brief, partial and specific spiritual attainments shall be retained and stored; and will be added to the resources of our post-mortal resurrected selves. 

The conclusion: There are always such things we might be doing at any time or place; and they are always worth doing. 

Rather than such palliatives as getting drunk (Faulkner) or immersing ourselves in trivia (Dostoevsky); that is how we might positively respond to the re-entry problem - whenever it rears its ugly head. 

Taize "worship" - the dark side of Liberal Christianity

Artist's impression of a Liberal Christian priest about to perform the "Taizing" ritual

Various "Liberal Christian" churches around here are openly advertising so-called Taize services*.

I have become convinced that Taize is a crudely-obscurationist French translation of Tazer; and that this apparently innocuous form of "worship" must involve ritualistic electrocution.

Covert surveillance is required, but success in this aim has not yet been achieved.

Not many things illustrate the degree of demonic influence on present-day churches more vividly than that such (presumably?) sado-masochistic practices should so blatantly be performed in consecrated ground, under cover of quasi-liturgy.  

*Why openly advertised? This will surely be an example of the Law by which demons must operate by consent and be invited-into the soul - To be spiritually-effective; sin must announce its intention. 

"The problem of evil" just won't go away for Christians

It's remarkable that mainstream orthodox traditional Christian theology has been wrestling with the "problem" of explaining evil for the entirety of its recorded history*. 

Officially the origin and presence of evil has long-since been explained, to the complete satisfaction of theologians; who cannot understand why people continue to harp-on about it. 

Yet - somehow - it just won't go away! 

It seems that everybody who accepts the definition of the Christian God as omnipotent and omniscient, and creator of everything from nothing - rapidly and unavoidably crashes-up against the problem of explaining how this-God is also supposed to be wholly Good and loving of each and every one of his children - all the time.  

Again and again, later if not sooner, people find that - in this collision of principles included in the definition of "Omnipotent plus Good" something has-to give-way. 

Again and again, people insist that to be "God" - God must be omnipotent and creator from nothing; and this primary and prior assumption inevitably makes people realize that therefore God cannot be "Good" in the same way that human beings understand Good...

For Omni-God to be Good either pushes us towards a redefinition of Good as it applies to God - so that our human evaluations become irrelevant, and we must just submit (preferably uncritically) to God's incomprehensible Goodness...

(Christianity tends towards Islam...) 

Or else we are pushed towards a version of Oneness spirituality in which everything that has ever happened or could happen is actually Good - if only we could understand it; and again our own personal evaluations are declared worthless.

(Christianity tends towards Hinduism/ Buddhism...)    

Again and again; thoughtful people are pushed away from Christianity, because they recognize that their own profoundest understanding of Good and evil is being declared irrelevant. 

Of course there is the alternative of challenging the definition of God as omnipotent - but that has been declared not-Christian by nearly all the major Christian churches. 

And since most people believe that Christianity is derived from (one or another) Church - and the individual person's understanding must be subordinated to (one or another) external authority; then redefinition of the nature of God is disallowed.

Something must give-way - and something does give-way - and what gives-way is (nearly always) the possible validity and human desirability of Christianity itself.   

   **

*It is not a problem to explain evil if one regards the Fourth Gospel (John) as the prime and unique overall-valid source of Jesus's life and teachings. Jesus's depicted relationship both with his Father and his disciples are personal and loving - human-like; but raised to an ideal and eternal degree. God is stated and assumed to be wholly Good; but in the IV Gospel's substance, there is nothing to insist upon God's omnipotence and omniscience. Consequently; Jesus and his followers do not seem troubled in the slightest about how to explain evil. The problem of evil apparently comes from post-Jesus theological and philosophical definitions of God, and is apparently related to the development of Christian churches - including the notion that to-be-a-Christian (to follow Jesus, to attain salvation) one must be a member of the true Church.

NOTE: Mormon theology does not posit the Omni-God, nor creation from nothing; and evil is easily explained by Mormonism's pluralist metaphysics. It should be noted, however, that the extremely radical and distinctive qualities of Mormon theology and metaphysics do not much impinge upon the CJCLDS - where the emphasis is very much on doctrines and practices.