Repentance and the sexual revolution

My interpretation of this is from the perspective that repentance is something close-to being the core value of Christianity. The Liberals are correct that God does not (it would be ridiculous) expect perfect behave from us, and that lapses (including sexual lapses) are forgiven. 

But this absolutely requires repentance. 

So when we behave suboptimally we must repent that failure and must not defend the lapses - must not say that our failures are not-really failures. 

The trend for the past two or three generations has been to assert that sexual morality is not such a big things as all that - especially, it is not the core value of Christianity, and is sometimes over-emphasised. Other things are more important in and of themselves. Sexual sinners are not the worst kind of sinners. Sexual virtue is difficult, and nobody wholly achieves it (in the privacy of their own minds). Hypocrisy is rampant.

All this is true - but that merely means that failure in sexual morality is is frequent - it does not mean that failure in sexual morality is unimportant; and it certainly does not mean that failure is actually success!

If (or when) we do make this claim that sin is not sin - then that itself becomes a further sin which itself requires repentance. 

When I say any sin (including sexual sin) 'must' be repented I mean this as a personal principle. It is not a matter of God punishing us for failing to repent - it is that by failing to repent we choose to reject God; we choose to reject God's created order; the actual failure to repent is itself the rejection. 

We thereby damn ourselves. 

Failure to repent - even minor or sub-primary sins - simply is, in itself, our personal choice to reject salvation.

Since choice (free will/ agency) is a real fact of Life, then this represents self-damnation. In fact this is what damnation actually-is. 

The gates of heaven are open - that was the gift of Christ; but we have-to want-to go in under our own steam, we cannot be shoved-in. 

Failing to repent - that is, failing to acknowledge-the-reality-of our sins and other failures - is merely a roundabout way of rejecting divine order, of saying that we personally do not want what God has to offer - and preferring to 'go it alone'. 

And if that is what we want, that is what we will get.

The Oxford Inklings regarded as a group-entity with world historical significance

http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-next-step-in-inklings-studies.html

Expect miracles but also demons in a spiritual awakening

If it is true that there is a spiritual awakening beginning in The West, then we should not expect a straightforward overall-revival of Christianity, religion generally, nor even of wholesome spirituality - but instead we should expect polarisation: more good miracles, and more demonic activity: both.

This seems to be the way things work. If people's minds are opened and expanded, then they are open to divine revelations, and may accomplish wonderful things; but they are also opened to evil influences. What actually happens overall, depends upon the choices of many people.

This is clearly seen in the times of Christ's ministry in the New Testament - but has also been seen in Christian revivals in many times and places over the past two thousand years.

This is, indeed, probably the reason why there are not more Christian revivals: because the conditions which cause the revival may (and inevitably eventually will) end-up doing more harm than good. In a revival we may assume that God, as the Holy Ghost, creates an increased awareness of the spiritual and openness to spiritual influences - but the basic situation of human agency, of free will, of course remains unchanged.

Therefore in an Awakening, many more people are spiritually sensitised and experience the power of the spiritual world - this includes evil as well as good; and how they interpret, understand, react-to their experiences is a matter of each individual's free will.

Each person will be brought to at least one moment of clarity and choice (and it may just be a moment) in which their destiny (and therefore the destiny of many others, the destiny of everybody in a sense) hangs in the balance.

The effect of a spiritual awakening depends on how people choose in these moments.

Therefore periods of spiritual awakening can be disastrous (overall). Therefore, such times tend to be initiated only in two circumstances:

1. The time is right because many or most people are spiritually well-prepared and therefore likely to make the right choices. In such a situation an awakening has a high probability of becoming a revival - a high probability that many or most awakened people will make the right choice - so the revival will be allowed to continue... at least for a while.

2. Because the situation is so desperate that a spiritual awakening is the only real hope. In such a situation the probability is that spiritual revival will fail, that many or most people will make the wrong (demonic) choices, and the awakening and end-up making things worse. In which case the awakening will be ended - and the mass of people return to their usual state of spiritual insensitivity and denial.

But if the spiritual situation is desperate and if there is a chance that awakening may succeed - may lead to enough people making the right choice - then an awakening may happen despite its poor chance of success.

This second scenario is the current one. It is a time of hope, but not a time for optimism - we will probably see more miracles, but perhaps even more demonic influences; more good and more evil - a separation and a polarisation.

In this separation the dark side may (probably will) predominate among the many; and yet the separation of The Good may allow greater understanding among a minority, among the few; and in the end such a clarification may enable the side of Good better to survive and thrive.


See also: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/what-happens-in-religious-revival.html

Why are things coming to a point *now*, in 2016? Because the demonic agenda is coming-out into the open, therefore resistance and reaction is more likely and potentially more effective

In the long-term demonic strategy for the corruption and damnation of humanity, the early and middle stages were covert and deniable (and mixed with goodness in reasonable quantities) - but as the plan approaches closer to completion there comes a point where the true nature of what has happened, and what is going-on, must come-out into the open.

That point has been reached.

This is, therefore, a time of vulnerability for the long-term strategy of destruction and evil - because more and more people have become and will become more aware of where things are tending and trending. And if this happens too fast, to too many people, and especially to the servants of the agenda among the Establishment - then the whole artificial structure of lies, distortions, deceptions, ugliness-called-good and selfish-short-term-ist hedonism vaunted as virtue - all of it may all implode; and very rapidly.

A further vulnerability is that the self-consciously evil elite Establishment are held-together by terror and bribes - and therefore their cooperation is brittle and vulnerable to despair, anger, panic. It does not take much for them to start attacking each other, or trying to escape.

The much larger apparatus of media/ political/ legal/ administrative/ economic/ educational/ coercive false-reality synthesis is dependent on the cooperation of many millions of manipulated minions, and tens of thousands of thoroughly indoctrinated supervisors - but their cooperation is based upon their lack of awareness of the agenda they are implementing. It is based upon them believing that they are doing Good. If or when they begin to recognise what is really going on, and that they are truly agents for strategic evil; there will be at least a massive reduction in their effectiveness and efficiency - and potentially a massive withdrawal of cooperation, or even opposition.

So, this - Here! Now! - is a great moment of opportunity; it is the time when the sides become clearly distinguished for the first time, and everybody will be compelled to take sides.

Anything which highlights this polarity is probably good - and the worst outcome would be if people took sides without recognising that that is what they were doing.

*

This is a time when those on the side of Good should not fear: fear is the motivation of evil, not Good. Evil is afraid because it is ultimately unnatural - a web of lies - and must be sustained artificially by energy, effort, control...

But Good is divine-order, natural, spontaneous - it is the truth.

So, we should be of good cheer, open hearted, confident - we don't need to be strategic as evil does; we don't need to fight them on their own grounds of mass information, propaganda, intimidation etc  (where they are the experts and hold all the cards)...

Soon - in the next few hours, months or years - situations will arise in which we are presented with a choice; and when this happens, our personal job is simply to make the right choice. 

All we have to do is be ready, prepare ourselves, to recognise that time, and make the right choice at that time.  

*

At this time - here and now - in this highly sensitised and meta-stable situation; we simply need to communicate clearly, honestly, with whatever beauty we can - to behave as virtuously as we may... and the odds are better than for a long time that we will be more effective than for a long time.

If you doubt this, just consider the current palpable fear of the evil elites, their prone-ness to panic, the crudeness (and clumsiness) of their attempts to assert control, the way they keep sabotaging themselves and each other...

I am not-at-all saying it is now going to be easy or cost free or speedy to beat them; far from it; but that the odds have now, and for the first time in many decades, swung round to favour those who seek to restore transcendental Good, spiritual and Christian values as the aim and focus of the West.

This critical situation is not likely to last long - so we should act immediately and with vigour and hope.

How does the mass media (including social media) control people?

The most obvious way, and which gains nearly all of the attention, is in terms of propaganda. So the mass/ social media is full of propaganda in favour of the sexual revolution, against Christianity; in favour of Leftism and against traditional values (e.g marriage, family, biologically functional sexuality) and so forth.

But this is to miss the main point about content - which is the absence of content and the nature of assumptions.

The mass media simply eliminates all serious concerns. These are (in statistical terms) never included - indeed, when serious concerns are name-checked, the mass media is 'about' seriousness, rather than being itself serious - which is a further suppression of seriousness.

A person or a movement, of truly deep spiritual and/or religious significance, is presented in terms of an encapsulated story 'about' something serious and important - how people are reacting-to this phenomenon. The seriousness is simply encapsulated and discussed - the seriousness never itself appears.Supposing that the topic is life beyond death - the subject may be mentioned, but treated as a thing some people believe,:personalities, controversies, ridicule... whatever. What will not happen is an engagement with the signiifcance of the truth of life beyond death.

But the main problem is the form not the content. The main problem with modern media addiction is that it shapes the way people think.

For a start, it takes-up attention for a large and increasing proportion of the day. It demands continuous availability - so that we must always be rapidly/ instantly contactable via media, and must always answer the call of media (it is socially unacceptable not to answer a call, to ignore unwanted messages etc).

All this is enforced by social peer pressure (especially among girls and women) - failure to participate leads to shunning, negaive comments, exclusion etc: human pressure is used to compel people into the un-human environment.

Then the attention is grabbed, manipulated, switched - again and again, thousands of times a day - This trains the mind positively to expect and want such attention switching; and negatively to become unable to hold attention - and rapidly to become bored by situations that lack this stream of attention-grabbing and rapidly changing stimuli.

Furthermore - this grabbing and switiching of attention leads to an assumption of the 'randomness'. the unrelatedness of events and phenomena... the mind-set of 'coincidence theory' (i,e, the opposite of conspiracy theory). A mind-set is created by the mass'social media which believes and expects a world of 'and then, and then, and then'. A world without organisation, a world without control, a world without purpose, a world without blame - a world where 'stuff just happens'...

And beyond this is that phenomena are presented as 'dots' but the 'dots' are not connected honestly or truthfully to see what they may imply. The dots are not joined to reveal a pattern - indeed very obvious patterns are denied and ridiculed and demonised: in the mass/ social media the underlying assumption is that dots are nothing but dots. 

There is mass addiction to the mass media - and the addict is controlled by that to which he is addicted. But people are proud of their addiction, not ashamed. There is a cult of Apple products - for example - among the elites; there is a world of fashion. So the mass of mass media addicts is controlled, and willingly controlled - and to be able and willing to surrender control to the mass/ social media is something which people are proud of.

People want to spend more and more time connected to the mass/ social media via more and better and more powerful devices, which they have with them for more of the time - they want to be plugged into this system 24/7. They don't see that as a problem, but as a legitimate life-goal (the problem is the people who try to limit or stop the media environment).

Clearly, objectively this is an extreme form of addictive dependence. The population is controlled-by their compulsion to use the mass media, and the form and content of the mass media is already and increasingly the form and content of the human mind for ever more of human experience.

People are being controlled by the mass/social media - and by multiple methods and routes - too many simultaneously to resist if someone is media-connected for most of their life. The human has been substantially displaced by the un-human. Obviously (I would have thought!) this situation is evil already, and with vast potential for more - at least it is evil for anyone who sees life as more than a space to be filled between birth and death. The big question is: is this evil situation the product of a massive set of coincidences?

Or is something strategic behind it, pushing it, using it - precisely because of the vast potential for evil? If so, given the un-human agenda, is that 'something' human?

Note: See also my online mini-book Addicted to Distraction: http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk

If not, then what? as a metaphysical tool

It is common and perhaps normal for modern people to find Christianity, or indeed any kind of religion or serious spirituality, unbelievable. Although sympathetic, they just cannot make themselves believe it.

This is understandable but a basic error - understandable because from the perspective of nomral modern thought then all religions is unbelievable, and error because this perspective a simply assumes the validity of the metaphysics of modernity.

In practice, nearly all serious reflection, or philosophy, is comparative rather than absolute - or, at least, that is how most people understand and express it. Indeed, to be comparative - genuinely - is a level of intellectual sophistication far beyond that of most experts.

When it comes to the basic assumptions about reality (i.e. metaphysics) this is even stronger; there are very few people who even try to do a from-within comparison of two different sets of metaphysical assumptions. Indeed, the tendency is nearly always to deny that these are assumptions and to assert that the assumptions are an inevitable consequence of observation and experience.

For example, the assumption of 'materialism' or positivism: this assumes that the only real things are perceptible by the five senses (vision, hearing, sight, touch, taste) and amplifications of these senses by scientific instruments (either directly detected or else indirectly inferred - sometimes very tenuously, in practice).

The materialist assumption is that something which is undetectable, unmeasurable, by the sense or scientific instruments does not exist. This is the assumption of all public discourse - in politics, the mass media, education, within institutional and corporate communications etc,

Consequently, all assertions of the reality of non-material entities are known for certain in advance to be un-true - therefore merely need to be 'explained-away' as errors of human psychology. Thus, modern metaphysics divides the world into the real versus the psychological - the psychological is a rag-bag of wishful-thinking, stupidity, deliberate deception, inbuilt biases etc. In practice, psychological causes are imprecisely allocated, because of their unreality - why bother being exact when we already know they are false?

*

The materialist assumptions of public discourse are only half the story, however; because there is another metaphysical system which operates simultaneously - and that is the primacy of psychology. This is the idea that although materialism is really-real, it is also trivial or irrelevant and psychology is the most important reality. This is the metaphysics of communism, of political correctness, indeed of mainstream modern politics of all types including supposedly 'right wing' and libertarian.

*

Therefore most people operate tow sets of metaphysical assumptions, and switch back and forth between them in an unprincipled fashion - if challenged on one basis, they switch to the other, and deny that they have switched.

If pushed, they will assert that the one arises from, and is linked to, the other - that psychology is rooted-in the material: that such and such material conditions will produce such and such psychological consequences. This is indeed the basis of the mainstream modern morality of utilitarianism - that the goal f politics is to minimise suffering and optimise happiness of the population. But this further assumption is not examined nor defended - it is simply a pseudo-answer to a potentially-devastating question.    

*

My point here is that the mainstream modern metaphysics, the basic assumptions from which nearly all modern people judge the world - is hardly compelling, even when regarded in isolation. But when evaluated in a comparative fashion, with the assumptions of religion, the relative weakness is immediately apparent.  

Such an evaluation can only be done by recognising that the basis lies in assumptions, by changing one's assumptions, and then by looking-at-life from that new perspective.

That is a necessary first step, but very seldom done. Only after that step has been done - and the world has been experienced from a different metaphysical base - is one in a position to make a choice between metaphysical assumptions.

On what basis is that choice? Well, there is a level of human evaluation which is non-metaphysical - and it is from that pre-metaphysical level that a choice can be made. This pre-metaphysical, non-theorised level of evaluation could be termed intuition, or gut-feeling, or 'the heart' - or natural and spontaneous common sense... but whatever it is called, it is the bottom-line and basis from-which we can choose our assumptions.

It is on this sense that Socrates was speaking when he asserted that the 'un-examined' life was not worth leading. The ancient Greek philosophers were metaphysicians; consequently they were engaged in exactly the activity I have described above - that is, they were examining, or evaluating, their basic assumptions by exploring from inside, and comparing, their consequences.

Once one has done this, then it is clear that very, very few people have done this; and the opinions of someone who has not done this are not compelling - because they don't know any better but have merely passively-absorbed their assumptions: they are in no position either to critique or to defend their assumptions.
 

Beyond the smartphone and the wearable computer - the internet of minds

Conspiracy theorists have a very materialistic world view - of evil elites killing people, destroying things, causing poverty, seeking riches and the like. But the reality of the situation is that it is Satan and the demons who are behind the conspiracy, and that it is a spiritual war. So the ultimate objective is not human misery but human damnation.

We already have a world in which human minds have been made internet compatible and computer-like by near saturation usage of ubiquitous smart phones; the next step is the wearable computer terminal and beyond that to modify humans into permanently logged-on information exchange devices.

http://www.abzupress.co.uk/pdf/Advent_of_the_Wearable_Computer.pdf

To be honest this does not seem far off, although the decline in human intelligence and creativity means that the technology has been slower in coming than was (no doubt) planned. And of course, getting people to accept implants - and to become living internet terminals - will be pushing at an open door - since they are clamouring for more and more frequent and varied and continuous interconnection already.

In terms of the conspiracy theory of the elite - the supernatural spiritual warfare - this is presumably a major goal fairly close to achievement. Human minds are increasingly integrated to a computer web that filters and shapes their inputs, and increasingly monopolises their outputs.

Remembering that it is the form not content which matters (the medium IS the message) - the consequence is the materialist, relativist, nihilist world view - the world of inverted values - will be our world literally on a 24/7 basis (since we will remain online even during sleep).

What specific information exchanged is less important than that the information will all be in an explicit, material, quantitative, measurable, recordable form. It will exclude Christianity and any other valid religions, it will exclude higher and free types of consciousness, and awareness of the immaterial world. Our minds will becomes even less human and even more computer-like than they already are.  

The triumph will be highly complete and satisfactory to the demonic conspirators, since this is self-chosen not imposed: because it is necessary that evil be voluntarily embraced and salvation explicitly rejected.

People may even end-up happier, on average, than they are now - constantly amused, or at least distracted. Or the demons may, once they have won, delight in tormenting people with lives that are living and inescapable nightmares...

But the point of the exercise is no so much the preponderance or balance of human pleasure or pain - which is temporary; but human damnation - which is eternal.

Revelations via Imagination

Most people suppose divine revelation to come as if by something akin to an hallucination - in other words seeing visions or hearing voices with a divine origin. Or revelations may happen in a lucid dream, or even by conversation with an angel.

But another kind of revelation comes via the imagination - a direct communication from the divine that 'appears' in the imagination with no sensory intermediary.

But how do you know this has happened? What follows is from personal experience - for what it's worth...

In brief, while reflecting or pondering, you become aware that thinking, the stream of consciousness, has been affected by the revelation. An idea is now in the mind that was not there before. Or, perhaps you may be writing and you become aware that your writing has been shaped.

Or, in prayer, you achieve a stillness, a receptive quietness, and then you become aware that you have an answer. This answer is now perceptible in thought.

However, you are not aware of this thought actually arriving in the mind. It has grown in the mind, but you were not aware of it growing. It is known retrospectively.

So, imagination is a kind of transformation, a change in consciousness, or an impression made on the mind; but if you are not introspecting, if you are not looking within with an uncluttered mind - then you will not be aware that it has happened. And indeed, it may fade from the mind without having been registered.

I regard such revelations as being of core importance to the Christian life, essential for indomitable faith - but in the busyness and distraction of modern life, or by focusing on the spectacular 'hallucinatory' type of revelation, it is easy to suppose that someone might never notice revelations via imagination.

Digitally-handicapped for the touchscreen age

I have great difficulty in using touchscreens - somehow they just don't work at all well for my fingers. This applies to a range of manufactured products - PCs, Apple products, Kindles...

I touch or press my finger against the screen... nothing. Press again, lighter or harder... nothing: it doesn't know I am there.

Sometimes breathing on my fingertip seems to help; but generally I just have to repeat again and again until eventually something happens, but usually not what I wanted.

Perhaps it is that my fingers are just too blunt-ended - that I am digitally handicapped. Or maybe they are the wrong temperature (I have warm hands most of the time - but I would have thought that would be helpful, rather than a hindrance).

My keyboard typing is okay (three-fingered) but I do need reasonably large keys - normal sized keys. I cannot depress just one key on many hand held devices - I have to used a rubber-tipped 'wand' or stylus.

Whatever the cause, it seems I am stuck with it, and the age of portable digitally operated devices is a frustration rather than a pleasure.

Note: This blog post contains photos of my - seemingly - deformed hands:

http://the-doosra.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/how-to-bowl-flipper-doosra.html

The Spiritual Decay of the West

http://meetingthemasters.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-spiritual-decay-of-west.html

A characteristically insightful post from William Wildblood

The Fall - what does it mean?

The Fall can only be understood in terms of the purpose of mortal life - including the question of whether there is a purpose to mortal life. That must be sorted-out first - and only then can there be an understanding of what is meant by The Fall in Christian scripture and theology.

My understanding of mortal life is that it comes between a spiritual pre-mortal life, and a resurrected post-mortal life (this is standard Mormon theology). The purpose of this incarnated mortal existence has been clarified for me by the work of William Arkle - and is that God (in fact our Heavenly Parents) is aiming to nurture and educate other gods like himself, to raise up Men to the same level as himself; or rather, to allow Men the experiences necessary to educate him to fuller divinity - if each Man chooses that path for himself.

All this is motivated by love - and the ultimate aim is a society of divine persons related (but not united) by love. Because the aim is love, this is an opt-in situation - we cannot be compelled to love.

So the purpose of our mortal and incarnated life is related to this long term goal. We began as immaterial spirits, and at that point were were 'immersed' in God's love. Our aim for the future is to be incarnated immortals each of whom is fully divine, and not immersed in God's love but participating in a fully loving relationship.

The Fall is related to the fact that we move from immersion to relationship via a state of separation from God. First we come out of the immersion of our pre-mortal state, and we are separated from God - then we much choose to develop towards a full loving relationship with God - not inside love but as a love between two autonomous divine beings. It is indeed a Fall out of Love - and therefore, because Love is the primary Good of reality, it is a Fall from a better state to a worse. But it is a necessary transition if the higher form of relational love is desired. .

The Fall represents this separation from God - which is en route to a higher divinity but is a hazardous situation because we are both free (we have agency, we have choice, we can act from within ourselves uncaused) and separate from God. Therefore we can choose not to continue towards divinity, and the fact of separation enables us to deny the reality and goodness of this divine scheme of life - we can choose to deny that the goal of loving divine entities (a perfect family in Heaven) is true, or we can deny that it is good, or we can choose to reject it.

So The Fall is necessary to spiritual progression beyond that of our pre-mortal selves, it is necessary to move from a passive immersion in love to an active, chosen love between full free divinities - but mortal life creates the possibility of getting 'stuck' in the state of separation, and the danger of rejecting God's plan.

Indeed, this situation is almost inevitable given the conditions of mortal life - it is almost inevitable that we would fail to make the right choices to make the necessary spiritual progression, it is almost inevitable that we would end up rejecting the aim of a fully divine loving relationship in the post-mortal life.

So, it was necessary for Jesus Christ to intervene in this scheme in order to undo the ill effects of The Fall, so that we can get the benefits of The Fall without the lethal drawback - if we so choose. I understand the Atonement of Christ as being the creation of a situation of default theosis - that mortal life provides benefits of experience which are retained, and the harms of mortal life are simply left behind at death - then we are offered, as a gift, the perfected life as basis for post-mortal existence.

Because we are free agents, we must choose to accept this gift - but that is all we have to do. The gift is handed-us, we merely need to accept it. Rejection of the gift is an active process of pushing it away, or of turning away - a chosen refusal to accept.

So mortal life was made a fail-safe experience, by the work of Christ. However, even though it is fail-safe - mortal life is still risky, and still requires a choice to accept 'salvation' - and since we are separated from God and are in an in-between state, some are likely to deny and/ or reject the gift. Some apparently (as with Eastern religions) take a look at the incarnate life and reject it, preferring to return (for at least a while) to the psychological state of pre-mortal spirit life: immersion in the love of God.

Others - and we see this all around us - reject the reality of God's creation; deny that there was a creation; deny the reality of God; deny the goodness of God's plan; deny the primacy of Love... and so on. They are free to do this - and they will (presumably) opt-out after their death - will not participate in the loving relationship of post-mortal life. They prefer to remain in the state of separation - without moving on to the state of relationships. In other words they reject salvation and choose what is termed damnation.

Since Men are free this choice cannot be prevented, It is what such people want - and although they are mistaken, they get what they want. So for these people, The Fall is a permanent separation from God and a permanent exile from Love.

So, by his incarnation, death and resurrection - Jesus undid The Fall in its bad aspects, and thereby we are enabled to achieve a higher state than we had before The Fall - all the advantages, and the disadvantages made merely temporary.

However, we currently live with these disadvantages - in our mortal lives.

Brexit continues to unfold - things coming to a point

The Conservative Prime Minister Cameron resigned because he was against Brexit - 'therefore' the party has elected another anti-Brexit leader (another middle managerial mediocrity - this time a woman called May); but the interesting factor is that in order to defeat the (also mediocre) pro-Brexit candidate Leadsom, the Iron Fist was (again) ungloved.

Because the specific media hate-fest whipped-up against Leadsom was that she was a pro-family Christian. This, according to the Establishment, was sufficient and conclusive evidence that she was unsuitable to be Prime Minister.

So there we have it - things coming to a point, the sides clearly drawn.

For those with eyes to see...

Nothing is random - everything is connected. The only proper question is how?

Pseudo-sophisticated modern mainstream intellectuals like to regard everything as random unless 'proven' otherwise - except that it can never be proven otherwise, so that in practice everything is regarded as random except what power states is causal.

In reality (as all humans know spontaneously - such a perspective is built-in), nothing is random, everything is purposive and connected - but usually we do not know the detailed and specific purpose of the causal connections, and nearly-always judgment is required.

The mass media work by fragmentation of knowledge into pieces so small and cut-off that individually considered they are indeed meaningless and acausal - more observations; but adding them together to make sense of them is ridiculed as 'conspiracy theory'.

In other words - the dominant ideology is 'no-conspiracy theory'. This is extremely dangerous when there actually is a conspiracy, and it is extremely powerful.

All Christians need to acknowledge the reality of a world conspiracy of evil - the only legitimate disagreements concerns specific questions of scope and effectiveness - but that there is a global and powerful satanic, demonic conspiracy working through men and by supernatural means is woven-into Christianity. In a world of globalist secular power it would indeed be amazing if the evil conspiracy did not at least attempt to influence and control those people with greatest power - and this is what we find.

The situation is that there are clear intentions, patterns, trends at work at the highest levels of power in the world, and these are very easy to make sense of on the assumption of being a consequence of supernatural evil influence... or, at least, that would be the case if the intellectual elite had not been so widely and comprehensively nullified by several generations of Leftist nihilism. As it is, the majority of powerful, high status, educationally-credentialed people are enslaved by metaphysical assumptions that are incoherent and deluded; so their opinions are worthless at best but most often indirect tools of evil.

So the situation is that it is very clear and obvious what is going-on in the world, where the international leadership are tending and trending - there is a vast and detailed mass of evidence at every level including (most importantly) the level of direct personal experience and knowledge... yet this is denied by assumption: it is denied by saying that it cannot be true - the fact that it cannot be true is assumed, and the task is merely to explain-away the evidence.

For a Christian who accepts the Christian teaching of spiritual warfare the situation is amazing! We live inside a battlefield, in which many of the most powerful participants are denying that there is any battle... but only a sequence of unrelated but well-meaning mistakes and random occurrences!

Indeed, the liberal Christian response to the situation is to assert that the only Christian attitude is to regard all powerful people and organizations as well-intentioned by default! It is assumed (not argued) that it is ridiculous to assert that organizations - especially global ones - might actually be aiming to destroy good things on-purpose... even though they keep doing so over and again and everywhere!

(Note - a brief definition of evil is the strategic intent to destroy the good - so the destruction of virtues such as chastity and of virtuous institutions such as marriage and the family, the inversion of standards of beauty, and the subversion of truth - are all clear and objective examples of evil. All evil is mixed with good, because it works in the context of God's creation - but the intent to do evil is straightforward even though it always entails doing some lesser good as a by-product.)

The idea that there is a powerful and highly influential conspiracy to do evil is ruled-out in advance - not least because the reality of supernatural evil is ruled-out in advance.  

The hope lies among those people who have retained the spontaneous common sense attitude that - overall and in the long run - things happen on purpose; and have this common sense attitude embedded in the common sense context of religion.

The good side is religious; and all religions are truer and better than no religion, because no religion is simply a path to nihilism and despair - the only proper arena for debate is: which religion? That is the sub-conflict within the main spiritual war.

But the Western elites, and great masses of the populations they lead, have the rooted conviction that the acceptable answer is 'anything but Christianity' - and unless this assumption changes, that is indeed what they will get - in the medium term.

But if the powers of evil get what they want, then the longer term will be subversion and inversion of all religions including those which have been (consciously, deliberately) deployed as tools in the destruction of Christianity.

Londinium: The Fourth Rome? Guest Post by John Fitzgerald

Life is no dream, but it could and maybe should become one. 

Novalis 

******* 

It feels, in many respects, as if Britain today is in an analogous position to that of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s, with the power of the federal centre waning and that of the constituent nations waxing. The same applies to the European Union too - its prosaic, dryly-secular approach unable to provide a frame of reference for the atavistic stirrings bubbling up in the European psyche. A similarly centripetal process could easily begin in the USA as well. 

A profound shifting of national and international tectonic plates is taking place. Here in the UK, the idea of 'Britishness' appears to be losing its hold on the popular imagination. Perhaps the only element holding the Union together at the moment - psychologically speaking - is the Crown. It will be fascinating to observe, as you have previously enquired, how the country one day copes without Elizabeth II, a permanent presence for as long as most of us can remember. 

An interesting way, for me, of reimagining the UK and its connection with Europe is to reflect on the original 'Britain' - the Roman province of Britannia. I find the novels of Rosemary Sutcliff, set in Roman and post-Roman Britain, a great imaginative stmulus here. They delineate superbly the ambivalent nature of Britain's relationship with the continent. In The Eagle of the Ninth (1954), for instance, a young Roman and his British friend discuss the differences between the Roman and Celtic mindsets: 

'But these things that Rome had to give, are they not good things?' Marcus demanded. 'Justice and order, and good roads; worth having, surely?' 

'They be all good things,' Esca agreed. 'But the price is too high.' 

'The price? Freedom?' 

'Yes - and other things than freedom.' 

'What other things? Tell me, Esca; I want to know. I want to understand.' 

Esca thought for a while, staring straight before him. 'Look at the pattern embossed here on your dagger-sheath,' he said at last. 'See, here is a tight curve, and here is another facing the other way to balance it, and here between them is a little round stiff flower; and then it is all repeated here, and here, and here again. It is beautiful, yes, but to me it is as meaningless as an unlit lamp.' 

Marcus nodded as the other glanced up at him. 'Go on.' 

Esca took up his shield. 'Look now at this shield-boss. See the bulging curves that flow from each other as water flows from water and wind from wind, as the stars turn in the heaven and blow same drifts into dunes. These are the curves of life, and the man who traced them had in him knowledge of things that your people have lost the key to - if they ever had it.'  (pp.92-93) 

In The Silver Branch (1957), set at the end of the third century and based on the political upheavals in the Empire at that time, the Imperial usurper, Carausius, recognises the reality of Roman (European) decline, the singular position Britain occupies vis-a-vis the continent and the concomitant need for independence: 

'The Wolves gather,' Carausius said. 'Always, everywhere, the Wolves gather on the frontiers, waiting. It needs only that a man should lower his eye for a moment, and they will be in to strip the bones. Rome is failing, my children.' 

Justin looked at him quickly, but Flavius never moved; it was as though he had known what Carausius would say. 

'Oh, she is not finished yet. I shall not see her fall. My Purple will last my life-time - and not, I think, will you. Nevertheless, Rome is hollow rotten at the heart, and one day she will come crashing down. A hundred years ago, it must have seemed that all this was for ever; a hundred years hence - only the gods know ... If I can make this one province strong - strong enough to stand alone when Rome goes down, then something may be saved from the darkness. If not, then Dubris light and Limanis light and Rutupiae light will go out. The lights will go out everywhere.' He stepped back, dragging aside the hanging folds of the curtains, and stood framed in their darkness against the firelight and the lamplight behind him, his head yet turned to the scudding grey and silver of the stormy night. 'If I can steer clear of a knife in my back until the work is done, I will make Britain strong enough to stand alone,' he said. 'It is as simple as that.' (pp.36-37) 

A complex mesh of emotions is in play, as shown in the next book in the sequence, The Lantern Bearers (1959), set a century and a half later. Aquila, a Roman auxiliary of British birth, discovers something non-negotiable about himself when ordered to leave Britain with his cohort:  

One didn't hear the sea much in the daytime, save when there was a storm, but at night it was always there, even in a flat calm, a faint, persistent wash of sound like the sea in a shell. It seemed to be out of that faint sea-wash in the silence that the knowledge came to him that he belonged to Britain. He had always belonged to Britain, but he hadn't known it before, because he had never had to question it before. He knew it now. 

It was not only because of Flavia and his father. Lying in the darkness with his arm over his eyes, he tried quite deliberately to thrust them from his mind, pretend that they did not exist. It made no difference; even without them, he still belonged to Britain. 'How odd!' he thought. 'We of the Outposts, we speak of ourselves as Roman - with the surface of our minds - and underneath, it is like this.'  (pp.19-20) 

After the Romans' departure and the burning of his family home by the Saxons, Aquila joins, after many twists and turns, the resistance movement led by Ambrosius Aurelianus, a chieftain (later  High King) who is himself half-Celt, half-Roman and feels acutely the tension between the two. His successor, Artos (Arthur), skips the Kingship and is crowned Emperor instead by his exultant soldiery after the battle of Mons Badonicus. 'After forty years,' he proclaims, 'there is an Emperor of the West again ... The Island of Britain is all that stands of Rome-in-the-West and therefore it is enough that we in Britain know that the light still burns.' (Sword at Sunset, 1963, p.367) 

The frustrating fact (in real life) is that if it hadn't been for a migration of British nobility to Brittany in the 460s, then Ambrosius and Arthur would most likely have had the manpower and resources they needed to drive the Saxons out and establish Britain as the inheritor of 'Rome-in-the-West'. Since I first read the history of those times in boyhood, this missed opportunity has left me with an acute sense of regret. I always feel that this is the Empire Britain could and should have had and that the British Empire known to history is a mercantile caricature of that. 

If we believe, however, in a God who takes as active an interest in the lives of nations as He does in those of individuals, then we have reason to hope that the moment might not have passed forever and that the chance may come again. Brexit could become that moment - not if we lose impetus in materialistic visions of global trade arrangements, as some Brexiteers are in danger of doing, but if we keep our focus on the spiritual longing the Leave vote was at bottom an attempt to satisfy. 

It isn't a case, as Carausius thought, of Britian 'standing alone'. It's more a matter of the nations and regions of our country finding a right relationship with themselves, with the peoples of Europe and, most importantly, with God. But he is right in another sense. Rome is indeed failing, if by Rome we mean the secularism and liberalism embodied in (and symbolised by) the EU and rejected in the UK referendum. These man-made creeds have run their course. They are 'old wineskins' now, hollow rotten. One day they will come crashing down. We await, largely unconsciously still, the re-emergence of the sacred. 'Only a god,' as Martin Heidegger wrote, 'can save us now' - 

Marcus ached for last year to be given back to him, for the old life and the comradeship to be given back to him. He moved an ivory chess piece a little blindly, seeing, not the black-and-white dazzle of the board before his eyes, but that gathering a year ago, filing out by the Praetorian gate and downhill to the cave; then, as the trumpets sounded from the distant ramparts for the third watch of the night, the sudden glory of candles, that sank and turned blue, and sprang up again; the reborn light of Mithras in the dark of the year. (The Eagle of the Ninth, p.59) 

Carausius, for all his bravura, mourned the passing of Rome. Aquila deserted his brothers-in-arms for his native soil, but he never stopped fighting for Rome, alongside Artos and Ambrosius, all the days of his life. Rome, for these men, stood for something different than the straight lines and symmetrical patterns Esca so resented. There is more at stake here than a purely administrative imposition of order and justice. Rome, in this context, stands for civilisation, tradition and nobility - a political and civic reality which creates space for the sacred and represents a higher scale of values than the scramble for comfort and security we have become accustomed to in the contemporary West. Rome, in short, is something worth fighting and, if need be, dying for -  

'I sometimes think that we stand at sunset,' Eugenus said after a pause. 'It may be that the night will close over us in the end, but I believe that morning will come again. Morning always grows again out of the darkness, though maybe not for the people who saw the sun go down. We are the Lantern Bearers, my friend; for us to keep something burning, to carry what light we can forward into the darkness and the wind.' (The Lantern Bearers, pp.304-305) 

Needless to say, such sentiments would sound wildly out of place with regards to the EU. It is precisely because the EU has turned its back on Europe's spiritual heritage that it has forfeited its imaginative hold on hearts and minds and is destined for the 'darkness and the wind'. It is for us in Britian, post-Brexit, to turn the other way, reconnect with our own religious traditions, Christian and pre-Christian, and to build bridges with those European nations where faith plays a shaping role in government policy - Russia, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, for example. 

In this way the seeds of a new Europe can be sown, one that will be there to pick up the pieces - like the Benedictine monasteries of the fifth century - after the collapse of the current dispensation. This brings comfort as well to the little boy in me who feels that Britain missed its moment. Because, after all, even if Artos and Ambrosius had succeeded, their 'Rome-in-the-West' would still have been a pale copy of the original and very much the end of something rather than the beginning. The circumstances are different today. London can never become the Third Rome. That distinction belongs to Moscow. But why not the Fourth? It is a dream worth having; an opportunity worth taking - a door held open to us by a visionary, imaginative God, who discerns and inspires the destiny and vocation hidden in the heart of every human being and of every nation - 

Save for the sentry pacing his beat, they were alone on the rampart walk. Below them the darkening city was strung with lights - dim amber window squares, and the golden drops of light that were lamps and lanterns in the garlanded streets. Lights and lights and lights away to the misty river. 'Londinium rejoices,' Flavius said. 'Surely there's not a dark house within the city walls tonight.' 

Justin nodded, not wanting to talk, his mind turning back to the start of it all ... to that strange evening with Carausius, the beat of the wind outside and the far down boom of the sea. and within, the scent of burning logs, the steady radiance of the lamps, and the stains of quivering coloured light cast upon the table by the wine in its iridescent flasks ... That had been the night it had began. Tonight was the night that it was over. 

Over, like Carausius's brief Empire in the North that had been brought to nothing by the murderous knife of Allectus. Britain was once again part of Rome ... And tonight, with the lights of rejoicing Londinium spread below them, and the Legions encamped beyond the walls, and the man with the thin white conqueror's face seated at his writing-table in the lamp-lit Praetorium, the idea of a time coming when Rome would not be strong seemed, after all, thin and remote. (The Silver Branch, pp.245-246)