What is intuition? Wildblood explicates...

I have tried to explain intuition myself, many times, over the years; but William Wildblood's analysis may make matters clearer than I could. 

Here are some edited excerpts, but: Read the whole thing: 

Spiritual knowledge comes from spiritual perception. It is not acquired through reason or deduction or calculation or even thought as ordinarily understood. It is intuitive. 

It is knowing by seeing. Seeing with the mind but from the heart. 

It is the very opposite to what drives much thinking in the world today which is ideological, meaning the mind attaches itself to an idea and frames its thought around that. Ideology is a kind of dark distortion or inversion of intuition, a false perception heavily contaminated by opinion, desire, resentment, envy and a host of other fixations and disturbances of the lower mind, the lower mind being the mind that can only operate in the material world because it is closed to the transcendent. 

Intuition is not a quality only accessible to a privileged few. It is open to all but it must be developed. It starts off in a small way but eventually becomes the dominant mode of cognition as one opens oneself up to the reality it reveals. 

The development of intuition is the most important task for any spiritual aspirant. However religious you are in terms of faith, however many good works you do, however much you may pray or meditate or whatever practise you engage in to become more aware of higher reality, whatever metaphysical knowledge you may possess, if you have not properly developed intuition you are on the outside looking in and therefore cannot truly be called a person of spiritual understanding. 

Of course, none of us can be called that really but there are degrees of understanding in the context of this world and so, within that context, this proviso can apply. 

Every state of being can be described in terms of its means of apprehension of reality. The animal state is instinctive, the human state is mental (intellectual/rational). The spiritual state is intuitive. 

Develop intuition and you see the world for what it is. Fail to do so and you remain in ignorance, however clever you might be.

 

Will King Arthur save us?

Sewingshields 'castle' beside Hadrian's Wall, Northumberland - our local site for Arthur's sleeping army

I have been reading and thinking about Arthur, as I often do! And it led me to wonder about the old prophecies that he and some knights are magically asleep under some hill (such as South Cadbury in Somerset), or in a cave' (such as Alderley Edge in Cheshire) and waiting the call to arise and save England.

To my mind, England is now in greater danger than since the Norman conquest, because in 2020 we have already experienced a near-total destruction of our culture. It has Already Happened... The only open question is whether this is permanent. 

But almost immediately I realised that the measure of England's plight is that - even if we assume that Arthur is ready and waiting the call - the call will not come, because the people have consented (often embraced) their own annihilation. 

This situation has, of course, been building for several generations. England created the industrial revolution, invented socialism, and for more than a century has been abandoning Christianity. 

The net result has been a pervasive nihilism, self-hatred, adoption of a system of inverted-Christian values, the embrace of ethnic replacement - and now 'finally' (perhaps) a clamouring zeal for the Global Establishment program of generalised social-economic destruction and psychological crushing. 

The signs are that They will not be content until most people are reduced to an extreme state of groveling terror and despair. 

The mass of the English  - and in particular the ruling and professional classes - have given-up, and now seem unconsciously to seek their own deaths - and will defend this death-seeking stance with extreme, angry, hysterical and almost frenzied tenacity. 

The birdemic has enabled people dishonestly to disguise their pursuit of national and personal suicide as a concern for life and health - by the simple expedient of an insane (literally psychotic); monomania concerning the birdemic, combined with a reckless (and lying) indifference to the major (and increasing) causes of suffering, sickness and death. 

So, if Arthur and his knights were to awaken and try to save us from incipient destruction and death; they would be met by the united defiance of the entire Establishment, backed a large swathe of the masses, who would certainly regard liberation as an attack.  

Arthur was, after all, a divinely-anointed King, and vicegerent of God on earth. Naturally those who serve the powers of darkness would oppose him!

So, fantasies of National rescue - even of divine rescue - are false; so long as the people do not want to be rescued; and have, indeed, chosen to be damned. 

What is my attitude to the idea of alternative mass media platforms?

What is my attitude to the idea of alternative Good/ Christian mass media platforms? My attitude is that there can be no such thing, at least not in the medium term. 

In a world (i.e. this world) where mainstream mass media platforms will exclude and suppress the truth (I mean, the Christian truth), then there can be no alternative mass media platforms - over the medium term. 

Of course the main mainstream will be the first to exclude and suppress; but in the kind of world that can and does convert the main-mainstream to the mouthpiece of Satan, there cannot be any alternative platforms at the mass level. Alternatives are trivially easy to find and destroy - and there are a million mechanisms by which they can be destroyed.

In the short term, They cannot do everything at once - and some Christian-compatible platforms will survive for longer than the main-mainstream - but we are talking in terms of a few weeks or months lag, being optimistic. 

My belief is that overall all mass media are intrinsically net-evil. Good can never be more than a counter-current; and the media are getting overall more evil, more rapidly.  

The lesson Christians ought to draw from their exclusion by the mass media, is that they ought not be getting their information from the mass media - because they imbibe such information only via mass media's conceptual interpretation which is (now and increasingly) an inversion of Christian values. 

This has, of course, been the situation for a long time - but people are slow and reluctant to acknowledge the fact. 

There do remain a few, a very few, Christian counter-currents still in the mass media (I hope this is one of them); but - if present trends continue - this cannot long remain the case. 

And - if present trends continue - there will be nothing that can be done about it, because mass media are a core part of The System; and The System is Satanic in its methods and goals - that is anti-Christian.    

If the short-term makes a decisive difference, then perhaps alternative platforms may make a decisive, overall positive difference. Maybe that is why They are engaged in a frenzy of exclusion, just now?

But at some point soon, there will be no possibility of making a decisive positive difference to The System. 

The System will soon have become too thoroughly evil for any 'reform' and Good can only be found on the far side of that destruction. 

Myself, I think we passed that point many years ago; but even if that point still lies ahead - surely that point is coming soon? 

Even if the tide is turned against Satan, and I believe that is still possible (that is indeed the big news of this day) - the turn of the tide will start small, and become evident from the wholesale transformation of that vast mechanism of damnation that we call The System... Including The System being massively downgraded in its power and significance (which would, of course, have many devastating material effects - including Satanic sabotage - en route to a better world).  

But if not, then what? 

If not the mass media, then what should we do instead? 

For example: Look out of the window, go from personal experience and common sense; rely on guidance from the Holy Ghost, our inner divine self (our conscience) and intuitive direct knowing. 

Make knowledge personal and inter-personal; trusting only those who are known to be honest and competent - no matter how few these may be.

What we thus learn will be simple and few compared with the deluge of media; but that is the nature of true knowledge. 

In sum - we should regard the exclusion of Christianity from the mass media as a wake-up call, belatedly to wean ourselves from its spiritual domination; so we should not try to replace it with alternatives - which endeavor is, anyway, futile... 

A world that needs alternative mass media is a world that will not tolerate alternative media.

Magic and will-power across the ages (or, How to do White Magic - as of 2021)

I feel it is necessary to clarify the status of magic from a Christian perspective; and specifically from a Romantic Christian perspective that sees human consciousness as having developed (evolved) through human history. 

Necessary, because if we regard magic as (something like) the attainment of human will by supernatural (non-material) means; then magic is real, important; and may be white or black. 

I define white magic as in accordance with God's will; that is, in harmony with ongoing divine creation. 

White magic is done by loving alignment of an individual's will with Good...

Whereas black magic is the attempt to impose one's detached and personal will upon other persons, other beings, or the world generally. 

Black magic can only be done with demonic assistance, and therefore (overall, eventually, inevitably) actually is done in pursuit of evil.

Black magic has not changed very much through history - it has always been possible, and apparently always follows the same 'Faustian' trajectory. Some person or group wants to impose their personal, selfish will upon the world; seeks to do so by supernatural means; and actually does so by means of employing demonic power. 

The black magician believes he can control the demons (despite that they are supernaturally magical, and he is not); by means of some technology or bargain. But the whole thing is actually a demonic snare by which the demon comes to control the black magician - who is therefore either a dupe, servant or slave to the Satanic agenda. 

And the end result is the same - the unrepentant black magician is damned; and apparently suffers more than the usual torments of the damned, for his presumption.

A somewhat conjectural history of white magic (which, nonetheless, I believe is broadly correct) has it that in our pre-historical hunter-gatherer past, God-aligned white magic was simply part of life.  

The individual human's will was neither detached from the human group-will and the group-destiny; and was immersed-in the divine will and having a mostly un-conscious direct knowledge of divine destiny.

Apparently, some individuals had a greater aptitude (what we now term the 'shamans') but the essential activity was universal: everybody did their bit, and contributed magically in some way - spontaneously and mostly unconsciously. 

As human consciousness developed, and humans became more free-agents, as in the Ancient Egyptian empire; this spontaneous knowledge and alignment with the divine was also lost. 

For the Pharaoh and priest-magicians of Egypt, magic required elaborately-selected and -initiated priests; who employed complex systems of ritual, symbol and many other 'technologies' (such as divination) to align their wills with the divine. 

These were overwhelmingly white magicians, who used the supernatural to benefit the society rather than themselves; and who (under the semi-divine Pharaohs) guided the society in harmony with God's destiny - and were able to accomplish (by magic instead of technology) advanced material achievements that still astonish the world. 

The development of consciousness continued, and as well as becoming more free, more of an agent; the individual Man's will became more separate from the divine will and the community will alike. 

As a result, white magic became more difficult, less powerful - and Men (detached from the divine) became more prone to black magic. 

The (all-but) end of the era of strong white magic was at the start of the modern era (Renaissance - 15th and 16th centuries in Europe); with the last of the white magicians (e.g. Paracelsus, John Dee and the Alchemists most of whom had ambivalent reputations or kept their activities secret (like Newton, Hooke and Ashmole). 

This darkening of magic was probably due to contamination of motive by the magician's more-detached personal will. This was the era when the Faust legend of black magic became archetypal; and the negative views of witches (motivated by spite, desiring to harm individuals and society) also became more dominant. 

In the fully modern era, white magic became almost impossible. 

Attempts to revive it in the 19th century, and increasingly through the twentieth century, were only partially successful (skeptical outsiders saw nothing). 

The practitioners found that the power and scope of magic was dwindling almost to nothing; and eventually was almost wholly limited to the psychological realm of the practitioners themselves. 

For example; in the last 19th and early 20th century magical rituals could change the consciousness of participants and sometimes produce quasi-objective 'manifestations'  - but by the late twentieth century this power was greatly reduced, and ritual magic work was all-but merged with imagination (art, narrative, music and drama) as technologies of consciousness. 

So, where from here? The way ahead to a resurgence of white magic was explained (albeit not implemented) by Rudolf Steiner and his 'disciple' Owen Barfield. 

Group magical work is rare, weak - and at present illegal (because groups are illegal for the masses --- although not among the Establishment, who continue to perform their black magic in groups); so nearly all modern white magic must be individual. 

Now that human consciousness is spontaneously and naturally detached from the divine; white magic requires conscious choice. 

White magic now does not attempt to influence by will the appearances of the world, or the behaviours of persons. Furthermore, it happens in thinking rather than (as in the past) by perception. 

This, because the white magician is no longer immersed in the divine - he must meet the divine halfway. 

Indeed, white magic needs to become detached from the individual's will; instead the individual's will needs to be aligned to God by conscious, chosen effort. 

In sum: White magic now should not try to operate at the level of changing God's primary creation - we should not be looking to change our sensorial-perceptions of reality. 

We should not be motivated by a desire to impose our will; nor to attain any particular end-result in this world (such as a change in human behaviour, or society, or weather). 

Instead, white magicians need to attain (and this will, of course, be temporary and usually very partial) alignment of their own conscious thinking with God's ongoing creation.

And if this is attained then white magic will 'Just Happen'.

What we will then be doing is contributing to God's creation; and contributing from our own unique divine Real Self. 

We will therefore be contributing some-thing (some Good) that nobody else could have contributed. 

We will be adding to the total sum of eternal actuality; adding some-little-thing from our own small corner of that actuality. 

Is this worth the effort? It may be. Because sometimes even the littlest contributions turn-out to be vital to the Big Picture.

Mass media and the subversion of noble death

In the past 20 years, it seems that Hollywood and mainstream TV has decided that noble death is not something that they want to show. 

If there is a noble death depicted in a novel, then we can be sure that the modern adaptation will wreck it by some kind a desperate pleading and hysterics from the one left behind. 

The third Hobbit movie (which is an almost complete shambles anyway) manages to ruin the death of Thorin - which is the emotional high point of the book and a really beautiful piece of writing:

There lay Thorin Oakenshield, wounded with many wounds, and his rent armour and notched axe were cast upon the floor. He looked up as Bilbo came beside him. 

 “Farewell, good thief,” he said. “I go now to the halls of waiting to sit beside my fathers, until the world is renewed. Since I leave now all gold and silver, and go where it is of little worth, I wish to part in friendship from you, and I would take back my words and deeds at the Gate.” 

Bilbo knelt on one knee filled with sorrow. “Farewell, King under the Mountain!” he said. “This is a bitter adventure, if it must end so; and not a mountain of gold can amend it. Yet I am glad that I have shared in your perils— that has been more than any Baggins deserves.” 

“No!” said Thorin. “There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!”

Beautiful! - and noble. 

Contrast (if you can bear it) this horrible subversion, which I think of as an exemplification of the 'Say with me!" trope:

In a deep sense, this kind of travesty is a simple consequence of the Modern spirit - atheist, materialist and Leftist. They can't help themselves - and that is very revealing. 

Even an heroic death by willing self-sacrifice is nowadays ruined by gibbering and emoting - or even fighting to prevent it; as in this horribly absurd anti-heroic scene from Avengers Endgame (2019). 

One thing seems clear. Modernity has a real problem with death - in general and specifically. Since death is seen as having no meaning and leading to nothing; it must be resisted - tooth and nail, second by second, no-holds-barred. 

Or else death is seen purely in terms of avoiding suffering - the 'peaceful' death of euthanasia, being killed by a state official; as if we were all veterinary patients. Better to die now, perhaps; or never to have been born...

Metaphysics will out! A self-fulfilling prophecy, it seems. 

The abstracting versus the personalising impulse

The abstracting impulse seeks ultimate explanations in impersonal, not-biological/ physical abstractions such as spirit, energy, vibrations/ frequencies. 

It is often associated with sciences such as astrology, numerology, systems of divination and healing. Also with expert priesthoods or magicians, sacred temples, rituals, texts. 

The abstracting influence is rooted in deity, and deity is regarded as non-personal (a personal god is regarded as ultimately an error, due to child-like or ignorant thinking). 

The personalising impulse seeks ultimate explanations in terms of Beings, who are living persons with purpose and some degree of consciousness; the structure of reality comes from the relationships between these Beings. 

It is associated with family-/ tribe-like arrangements; with mystical, spiritual, intuitive modes of thinking - and the conviction that there are no 'things' - but all is alive, aware, purposive. 

So, the personalising influence is rooted in god/ gods who are actual person, agents, conscious and purposive - and the change and changelessness of reality explained in terms of these Beings and the relations. 

The abstracting impulse regards Beings and persons as either illusory; or as temporary phases en route to the permanence of abstraction; because real Truth is abstract. 

The personalising impulse regards abstractions as ultra-simplified models of reality - sometimes useful for short-term and practical purposes - but never True, because they leave out most of reality. 

As may be seen, we are dealing her with different metaphysical assumptions. And such assumptions come first, are deeper than 'evidence' (because evidence is itself structured by these assumptions). 

My point is that the abstracting and personalising point in opposite directions. 

Christianity, as is, is an internally-contradictory and incoherent mixture of abstracting and personalising. 

The future of Christianity would seem to be in one or other of these directions; but not both. 

We need to ask whether we personally regard Christianity as ultimately abstract, or is it personal? 

And ask our-selves whether we ought to aim for consistency and coherence in the way we regard it?  

Whatever our decision - whether we take the abstracting or personalising path; there is work to be done, because there is much inherited and accumulated confusion to be sorted-out. 

 

Did Christianity make the world a better place; does it make better Men?

It is often claimed that Christianity is good for societies, and good for men - in the sense that societies are better places to live-in and Men are better behaved. 

But I was never much convinced by this; I cannot really see a qualitative change-for-the-better in history - dating from the time of Christ; nor in Men who become Christian. 

There seems to be evidence on both sides - and furthermore, it doesn't seem like the kind of claim where evidence should be relevant. Should we be basing our faith on our knowledge of 'history' and how we interpret it? 

I don't think so - and I don't find any ground of assumptions from-which Christians and non-Christians would be likely to agree on the objectivity of evaluations about better societies and better Men.  

After all, there are massively opposed views about how good a Man someone was. Was Winston Churchill the greatest ever Englishmen (he was voted number one in a national poll), or was he an incompetent fool, motivated by evil (as many have always argued)? 

And the same applies to societies. For example, there are plenty of people - apparently - who think that England in 2021 is overall a 'better' place than it ever has been - and is getting better. How can someone like me even begin to argue objectively with someone who reaches such an evaluation?

Anyway, when I read the Fourth Gospel ('John' - our primary text on Jesus's life and teaching) - I don't see any claim that Christianity makes people better; and the Gospel is unconcerned by the valuation of nations, empires. 

Christianity is about following Jesus to resurrected life eternal - and any relationship to changes in human behaviour is very indirect; indeed Jesus goes to considerable lengths to argue that good behaviour is Not the point; and that sinners can be saved by faith. 

To be clear; I believe that being a Christian can and should be of immense benefit to living life as it should be lived; indeed I regard it as essential for a proper understanding of life. 

Yet, I do not see any strong links between this and desirable-behaviour. 

However, while I doubt any general claim that Christianity is an effective means of intrinsically-beneficial psychological and social control; it does seem very obvious indeed that the loss of Christianity - apostasy in individuals or nations - is very bad for these things.  

So bad, in fact; that the capacity for recognizing and knowing badness is itself lost; and individuals, and societies, are set-adrift in a sea of incoherence which they cannot notice, therefore cannot escape-from.

People, societies, have lost values and the capacity for values. Therefore their values are arbitrary and externally-imposed; by others who have, themselves, at best lost values.

(But at worst - that is to say in reality by my judgment - a world where arbitrary values are imposed by those whose values are the inversion of Good.)   

At the deepest level, this is not really to do with the removal of religious constraints (as is usually argued); but is more more fundamental and dangerous a phenomenon. It is to do with the removal of faith; meaning those metaphysical assumptions that enable both coherence of thinking, and hope for life. 

When people really believe - believe so deeply that they are unaware of this belief - that they are adrift in a meaningless, purposeless world; where they themselves are just a temporary irrelevance --- then we get the kind of objectively-dysfunctional people and societies we see all around us. 

And that is Not 'a matter of opinion'; but a truth - a truth for those who are capable of coherence. 

Should we live in Fear and Trembling?

Philippians 2:12 "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."

But is that right? Should Christians really approach life in a spirit of fear and trembling? 

Of course, in practice, that is often how many of us spontaneously feel about life; but is it a Good Thing for a Christian to feel?

Well, no - it isn't. 

A Christian who had perfect faith in God - our loving Father and the creator; would not fear life. Because he would know that creation was being shaped around his needs. 

And one who had firmly committed to follow Christ to resurrected Heavenly life, would not be prone to trembling - but rather would have a sublime confidence borne of the prospect of an eternity of joy.

We cannot live up to this ideal at all times, far from it; but surely the times when we tremble fearfully about our present and future lives are times when faith is weak and sin has the upper hand. At a Man's best, he does not suffer so. 

In a world afflicted (with official and media encouragement and indeed enforcement) by fear, resentment and despair (and by mandatory guilt if you are a white man) --- at such time surely it is one of the greatest things a Christian can do to strive for the opposite frame of mind - to live in the light of love, sustained by faith and hope? 

And such a person would be mostly cheer-full and care-free (to the extent that this is natural to his nature, anyway). Why shiver and shake with fear when God is on our case, and Jesus is leading the way? A Christian - above all people - can afford to be discerning, active and decisive; since he is backed-up and covered by the power of repentance. 

This ideal Christian would cheerfully approach his actual life in a spirit of adventure - confident that God brings him what he most needs, and his job is to learn from it - trying his best but knowing he will repeatedly fail; therefore ready and willing to repent - and knowing that repentance is fully effectual. 

And contra that passage from Philippians; such an one would repent his lapses into fear, and trembling. 

Christianity is (properly) neither this worldly, nor un-worldly (and these are both snares)

To reject the unworldly - and to assume (because it is an assumption: a metaphysical assumption, for which 'evidence' is irrelevant) that this-world is the only reality; is the modern, mainstream basis of all public discourse. 

This-worldliness, as we can observe, is a recipe for fear, resentment and despair; because all that is of-this-world alone is subject to 'entropy'; by which I mean that all worldly things are evanescent, prone to degeneration, corruption, disease; and finally destruction and death.  

But to reject the worldly, to regard it as wholly an illusion (maya) or a fake (the Matrix); and to be wholly un-worldly - is to deny any possible purpose or meaning to our mortal earthly lives. 

This leads towards the conviction that this mortal life is futile (or a punishment); and the desire never-to-have-been-born; and to a death-wish - since only in the other-world can there be happiness, escape from suffering, and permanence. 

In practice - the un-worldly tend either to seek death or to behave expediently in this mortal earthly life. Since, for them, everything is false and evil they cannot have any real basis for discernment between Good and evil in this world; between truth and lies, between beauty and horror, between virtue and sin... to them all is, alike, a temporary illusion.  

Christianity is something different. Christianity is Not, however, a 'middle way' between worldly and unworldly - that is an error, with (as of 2020) spiritually lethal consequences.  

Instead Christianity is properly a qualitatively different way: that recognizes the validity and necessity of earthly, mortal life; since such a life was chosen by Jesus. 

Christianity also recognizes the necessity of death; since that is the path to the other-world of resurrection, immortality and Heaven. 

So, Christians should neither be worldly, nor un-worldly; but should look for the consequences of their oft-suffering and always change-full worldly lives, in the joy and permanence of the next-world of Heaven; into which they will follow Jesus. 

 

In case of blog deletion...

...My intention is to send a round-robin e-mail pseudo-blog to those commenters who ask to be included and are prepared to give me an email address (do this at the time --- Not now). 

So keep a note of my outlook e-mail address (on the sidebar) in case this happens. If so, just e-mail me then. 

If that doesn't work (i.e. my outlook email is also suspended); my co-bloggers (listed at the top of the sidebar) could perhaps be used as a second-line point of contact, if you check their blogs for info, or/and ask them nicely.

To Summarize: if it happens (but not otherwise) that is the time to email me. 

Outcomes are always (eventually) bad in this mortal life - but (for Christians) that's not the point!

From a this-worldly perspective, all possible outcomes are bad; because we will all die (and very probably will suffer on the way). 

This is a world of entropy, in which change and decay, disease, corruption and death will eventually end all love, all that is divinely created.

This is the nature of our mortal lives - if our perspective is bounded by mortal life; by our birth and death. 

This is vital to the question of taking side. 

If you are focused (whether consciously, or not) on choosing the 'winning side' to fight on; you will (like Saruman) always choose the side of evil, later if not sooner - since, no matter how big a battle is won by Good, evil will always eventually win In This World. 

This is why all the this-worldly-atheist-leftists eventually defect to the side of evil: to them, it is futile (and humiliating) to support a 'losing' cause. 

But if we take into account everlasting resurrected life in Heaven; we can readily see that what matters is Not the worldly outcome, but what we do, the choices we make, the virtues (love, courage, hope, faith etc.) that we exhibit during our time on earth.  

For those who choose Heaven; all virtuous choices are 'rewarded' - regardless of the eventual, inevitable, bad-outcome. 

The 'unity' of evil

The tracker 'snuffler' orc, and the soldier - just before their lethal quarrel (by Alan Lee)

One of the remarkable - and useful - aspects of the past few weeks, has been to observe the unity of evil. 

I mean, the fashion in which the most deeply and strongly evil-aligned (hence systemically dishonest) institutions have come forward - in lockstep - to show their flag of allegiance, to spout the same lies, to double-down on these lies. 

It is now trivially easy to perceive the side of evil, its size and extent; and some persons and institutions about whom we may have been unsure have now declared-themselves.  

A foreshadowing was seen last summer in the way that the large corporations and financiers stepped-up to signal their uncritical support of the MLB antiracism agenda; with its foundational dishonesty and upfront encouragement of looting, arson, violence and murder. 

 Given that evil is intrinsically fissile - all those on the side of evil hate and fear each other, and each aspires to manipulate and exploit all others; this demonstrates the actual, and most powerful, force of cohesion at work when evil is strategic - which is that evil entities hate, fear and aspires to destroy Good, even more-powerfully than they hate each other.  

This is illustrated by the episode in Lord of the Rings when Frodo and Sam are traversing Mordor and observe a quarrel between a large soldier orc and a small tracker orc, which ends by one killing the other.

Sam naively remarks that he hopes such 'nice friendliness' would spread around in Mordor - then 'half our trouble would be over'. 

Frodo more wisely observes that such mutual hostility 'is the spirit of Mordor'. 'Orcs have always behaved like that... when they are on their own. But you can't get much hope out of it. They hate us far more, altogether and all the time. If those two had seen us, they would have dropped all their quarrel until we were dead.' 

Such is the proper interpretation of the current unanimity of the side of evil on the subject matter of the US election: because they can clearly 'see' the side of Good, they have dropped their quarrels and are united by their fear of Good and desire to destroy it - which is more powerful than their hatred and fear of each other.  

And, while it is no doubt true that if Good is defeated the side of evil would rapidly break-apart and fight each other; this would not benefit the side of Good. 

Good can only come from those affiliated with Good, aiming at Good. So long as there are Good people, a Good 'side'; then they can indeed benefit from the quarrels of evil (as did Frodo and Sam); but without the reality of a side of Good, then there can only be an increase of evil. 

In this instance, if/ when The System eliminates all perceptible Good from the world; and tears itself apart by the increase of selfish, short-termist Sorathic evil - then the world will be a more evil place as a consequence.  

The lesson I draw is that the unified opposition of Good by evil (here and now) makes discernment of these two opposed sides very simple; and then there is this choice to be made between the sides (with no neutral ground): to which shall I, personally, affiliate?

So long as evil is united, the situation is not lost; because Good remains a genuine threat - we may not perceive our strength, but the powers that control evil do perceive a very significant obstacle to their plans: a very significant threat to their chance of victory. 

And so long as the side of Good is visible and as evil reveals itself more and more clearly by its ever increased lying, and other evil acts; there is an increasing possibility that those currently on the side of evil will awaken and repent and switch sides (bearing in mind that the door to repentance is always opened to those who choose to knock)...

This is also a great fear on the side of evil. The longer the current situation continues and exacerbates, the more likely it is that the unity of evil will be broken; and the side of Good strengthened. 

 

Blog not displaying properly - problem solved!

I am aware this blog is not displaying properly, but it has nothing to do with me, and I have no idea what (if anything) to do about it! I shall watch and wait.

Update - Thanks to commenter Islanti who diagnosed the problem and told me what to do! 

The root cause is apparently the new updated and 'improved' version of blogger; which allows such glitches to happen without the editing safeguards that existed for the previous dozen years, at least; and which I therefore took for granted. 

A supertruth laugh...

Theologians Find Going To Church Via Zoom Will Only Get You Access To Heaven Via Zoom

U.S.—Theologians around the country have finally come forward to publish their findings on church attendance over the internet. 

"Yes, faithful church attendance over Zoom still counts," said theologian Corby Mcgillicutty of Emory University. "But it will only allow you access to heaven over Zoom. 

Don't worry though-- it's basically the same thing. Heaven isn't a building! It's about being with the people you love, worshipping forever! You can totally do that over Zoom." 

 Experts say that faithful Zoom church attenders will be treated to all the same great worship, scenic views, and golden mansions that in-person Heaven attendees enjoy, but will simply have to access them from the comfort of their own home computer or cellular device. "Sounds super convenient!" said one faithful church attendee.

From The Bablyon Bee - of course

The concept of a 'supertruth laugh' is something I got from an old favourite book from my late teens, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig. 

Here the BB satirist 'says it all' with a brief joke...

If online church is real - then so is online Heaven. 

But if online Heaven would not really be real; then online Life is a fake too. 

And if online Life is a fake - the world consented to a kind of partial but substantial mass suicide in 2020. 

And if most people have not noticed the fact; then they are already - partly - dead.

To receive the guidance and comfort of the Holy Ghost - you need to be a Christian (i.e. committed follower of Jesus Christ)

My understanding of the nature of the Holy Ghost - drawn from the Fourth Gospel primarily - is that he is the spirit of the ascended Jesus Christ. 

The Holy Ghost can potentially be accessed by anybody, anywhere, at any time - and will provide us with the divine guidance and comfort of Jesus Christ... But

That is to say potentially. 

In practice the Holy Ghost is only 'accessible' to Christians; because, to understand and respond appropriately to guidance and comfort, entails that we know the identity and motivations of the source of communication. 

When a non-Christian accesses the Holy Ghost, seeks and receives a communication; then the guidance and comfort is Not acknowledged to be from our Saviour - but from some-one or some-thing else. 

How a person does regard that source of communications would, presumably, vary. He might regard the communication as the voice of his conscience, memories of some earthly authority (parents, mentor, guru?), or coming from some other God or gods (like Socrates' daemon - who seems to have been an emanation of Apollo). 

Yet, if we assume that the Holy Ghost really is from Jesus Christ; then to assume that HG guidance and comfort actually come from something else is a mistake. 

Having mistaken the identity; we are then bound to misunderstand the communications: to misunderstand the authority and purpose of the communications. 

For Christians; the guidance and comfort of Jesus Christ is 'designed' for our salvation; that is, so that we personally may follow Jesus to resurrected life in Heaven. 

That purpose - and not something else - is what such guidance and comfort is for. 

Because if we mistake the provenance of the guidance and comfort, then we will evaluate it wrongly. 

For example, we might suppose it was designed to make us happier here and now, or be more successful in earthly life, or that it was supposed to gratify our desires and ambitions. 

However, knowing that the Holy Ghost speaks for Jesus, we also know that the timescale of His communications stretches across eternity; and the source will therefore understand our specific present situation in this mortal earthly life in a Heavenly context - in terms of divine plans, meanings and purposes. 

Do not spiritually surrender for sure, Now, and voluntarily; so as to avoid being defeated - maybe, later, while resisting

From Frank Berger (slightly edited):

Sure, the enemy has innumerable means through which it can destroy us physically, but nothing it wields from within its vast array of firepower can destroy us spiritually.

The best the enemy can do is persuade us to spiritually destroy ourselves, and the most efficient means of achieving this is to have us abandon the side of Good and consciously join the side opposed to Good. 

The enemy very much wants us to believe that we cannot defeat it; that we are hypocritical, worthless sinners who don't deserve to be on the side of Good; and that joining its side represents the pinnacle of prudence and pragmatism. 

The enemy very much wants us to believe this because it knows it can do little else to prevent us from joining and remaining on the side of Good. 

With this in mind, the best way to beat the enemy is to remain committed to the right side of the battlefield.

We beat them by not joining them.

The spiritual war, and the material war, in the USA

There is, of course, a relationship between the spiritual and the material - they are aspects of creation; they are distinguishable but not divisible. 

The spiritual came first, includes the material, and is primary; but the resurrection demonstrates that the material is vital to God's plan of salvation and theosis. 

Thus earthly material events may be a visible manifestation of larger and underlying spiritual movements and conflicts.

*

From the global demonic coup of early 2020, the spiritual has been rapidly and very-completely excluded from public discourse. 

But - for those who discern the primacy of the spirit - there has been a convergence of the spiritual war with the material. 

That is why the 2020 Litmus Tests - which discern 'merely' on the basis of political opinions - are also extremely effective tools of spiritual discernment.  

The conflict over the US election is apparently the last, and most decisive, of these Litmus Tests. 

 

Things have 'come to a point' - institutions and discourse have converged onto a single, official-bureaucratic-media permitted and supported, ideology. 

This ideology is characterised by foundational and systemic untruthfulness about 'facts'; and accelerating value-inversion in concepts - hence is easily identifiable to Christians as a product of Satan (the father of lies).

Whole value systems (for God, creation and The Good - or against these) are separating, further and further, with less and less overlap. 

Therefore; there are now many material correlates of spiritual allegiance; and the correlation is a consequence of the material being a consequence of the spiritual. 

This is why I regard the current political events of the USA as being (more and more evidently, as days go by) a focused and key instance of the spiritual war of mankind. 

Since the middle of the 19th century, the USA have become the Christian and spiritual focus of Man - taking over from Britain, and as a development of the British spirit. It is not an accident that the US president identifies with his British descent. 

America has been, for about 200 years, the main arena of creative and renewing Christian developments - most notably the Mormons; but also Christian Science, Seventh Day Adventists, Southern Baptists, Pentecostals - and the many varieties of Evangelicals. 

Despite that all the major churches have now collapsed (willingly, mostly), and Christian church leaders have taken the wrong (i.e. demonic) side in the current spiritual war (as evidenced by failing one/ more/ all of the Litmus Tests); this historical perspective demonstrates why the US is the place for what seems to be the decisive, and perhaps even final, material battle between Good and evil.

 

This is a battle for the material aspect of the spiritual - a battle about whether the material world is to be a part of the spiritual - or whether the material world will be cut-off altogether (and, it is planned, irrevocably) from the divine.  

All other parts of the world (certainly Britain) have surrendered to the powers of darkness without a fight, indeed without any significant resistance of any kind. 

But the US has not surrendered; and - indeed - for the past weeks seems to be in the grip of a massive (probably tens of millions) awakening and clarification - which is increasingly and explicitly Christian; which has had the usual observable effect of faith: which is an increase of courage and cohesion. 

I have a hunch that - in these End Times - God's choice concerning the fate of the world has been delayed because of this positive development; which is perhaps the first sign of significant spiritual resurgence in The West, in Christendom, after several decades of accelerating decline and corruption.

 

The events of the US, although we cannot know them in detail, seem more and more obviously to be the decisive spiritual crux of our time; and for a long time.  

And, although the proximate battle is being fought by US Christians; the fate of the world is at stake - precisely because the sides are so clearly differentiated, and (over the past weeks and days) have reached a greater degree of conscious awareness of what is at stake.

Those on the side of evil, are more and more aware of exactly what it is they are fighting for; more and more aware of the depth and degree of lying, distortion, and intimidation being used. 

The evil side are increasingly composed of the bribed and the blackmailed, the terrorized and the psychopathic - of traitors and oath-breakers. 

 

That this evil side is a 'secret combination', a 'conspiracy' is firstly a daily-fact to the hundreds of thousands of people who have-been and are actively participating in wholesale and expanding lying on a scale never before seen on earth. 

Each of these manyfold individuals knows the sinful nature of his own motivations for doing such devil's work. 

And on the other side - that side fighting for Good* - all this get clearer and more evident; and they increasingly realise the vast scope of what is truly at stake in this local and specific battle.

 

To be precise: the current local battle over US election fraud is the material focus of the much-wider spiritual war over the future of the world. 

The material focus is not everything - and the true scope of that focus may not be exactly what we think; yet it is indeed the focus; and the outcome will - in some way or another - be decisive.

For whatever reason; the USA, Now is where It Is Happening - where it is being-decided; and the election is the proximate issue about-which it is happening.

This situation is broadly analogous to Frodo, Sam and Gollum in the cracks of doom; when the rest of the world holds its breath, and many strands of fate and choice wind-together to a decisive conclusion.

We who are not directly involved are, nonetheless, needed; in our prayers, meditations and Good Will - since (as Christians know) Men are not ultimately divided; and are in fact spiritually linked. 

(That is (of course) exactly what is at issue in this battle. Spiritual 'back-up' materially assists those engaged in the material fight.)

 

A final reckoning? Yes, in this war. 

Decisive? Indeed. 

Yet, not, of course a final conclusion - since life goes-on; one way or another, somewhere or other...     

   

Note: The above was written after reading John C Wright's wonderful and inspiring meditation on this subject, which was linked by WmJas Tychonievich. (In passing, JCW's writing is, in itself, further evidence from this past year of the spiritual vitality that remains among members of the Roman Catholic Church; to set against the treachery of its leadership.)

*Note. It is absolutely vital to recognise that the sides of Good and evil are Not composed of what are usually termed 'Good people' and 'Bad People'; nor even of better and worse people. The essence of the two sides concerns whether a person gives their allegiance to Good (i.e. to God and creation); or joins the 'evil' side which opposes The Good (God and creation). 

It is about there being only two sides, and a person's choice of which side he identifies-with. Matters of individual behaviour are a separate issue; so that some (or perhaps most) of the people on the side of evil will be better behaved, 'nicer' people than some (or perhaps most) of those on the side of Good. However, over time, those on the evil side will certainly become corrupted by their primary choice - as is currently very evident indeed.   

Making faces - Singing songs

 One of Kingsley Amis's real-life "faces" - some kind of 'upper class twit' like a retired Colonel, I guess?

In one of the best of comic novels - Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis (1954) - the eponymous hero is described as having a repertoire of 'faces' which he adopts in response to the vicissitudes of his constrained life. These are sufficiently elaborate and effortful that they grant Jim some degree of satisfaction: they seem a valid response to adverse phenomena. 

I have a rather similar thing, which is to sing the words "Mental Person" to the tune of Handel's Hallelujah chorus; whenever I see some characteristically "2020" bit of human behaviour - such as wearing a 'face covering' outdoors, or alone in a car. 

What actually happens is that I hum the tune audibly, while inserting the repeated Mental Person lyrics* internally.

I would not go so far as to recommend this tactic to anyone; but I have found that it converts a situation that would normally make me angry and frustrated, into a smile - or even a laugh.

 

Note: It is to Ron Weasley of the Harry Potter stories that I owe this usage of the term 'Mental'. This reminded me of the way that we used the same word for the same range of phenomena when I was a primary school kid in rural Somerset... which is, after all, just nextdoor to Gloucestershire, where JK Rowling spent her childhood only half a decade later.

*My exact © lyrics are Men-tal Person, Mental Person, Mental Person/ Men-tal Person - Oh Person that is Ment. 

A vision of life as a Christian, now

...It seems something-like a glowing, golden orb that is floating in dark space - floating without perceptible attachment to society - or to any of the forms of 'information' and 'evaluation' such as the mass media, official systems, science etc... 

 

I am now aware that whenever I partake of any aspect of The System (any aspect) I am being fed with an ideology - I am not getting information, not 'news' - and I am being drilled in mis-understanding. 

This is so, so obvious - and more so every day! Real and important things are utterly absent - ignored, denied, mocked, demonised. Utterly fake things are fabricated and treated as the most important matters in the world. Known truth is inverted in so crude and blatant a fashion as to be breathtaking! - then these inversions treated as common sense assumptions, that 'everybody' knows...

The subject matter is irrelevant - all subjects are merely bait for us to engage with a system that is evil in its purposes and methods. 

It is hard to grasp this high prevalence of evil and its pervasiveness in public communications; hard to grasp the degree of blindness (self-blinding) of so many people to this fact. 

 

My first reaction to this, is a sense of being cut-off from goodness. To ask how can I know? How can I evaluate, without help; instead with active hindrance everywhere? 

...That was when the golden orb picture arose, and what made it glow was divine 'knowledge'. 

 

When The System is so fully and obviously evil, it becomes much easier (and indeed more simply 'rational') to disengage, to ignore (rather than to engage and try to discern what is valid). 

I sometimes find myself very curious about what is 'going on', or what 'it all means' - and in the past I would have sought-out an 'authoritative' and honest source of information and interpretation... 

But now I know-for-sure that no such source exists. 

I know-for-sure that the sources which purport to do this 'for me', are simple propaganda units for Satan. 

I know - because I see it in their eyes - that the great mass of people in public and in public life, are agents of Satan - doing Satan's will whether as dead-eyed automata (mostly), or snake-eyed psychopaths. 

 

I also know that God will never leave me bereft of that knowledge and understanding which I need to live My life as best it should be led.   

This implies that my addictive craving to have opinions about what 'people' should do about 'issues' needs to be set aside. God has catered for my actual life and its actual scope; but does not provide me with group ideologies about what great masses of people (about whom I know nothing) ought to be doing...

 

I have often considered the several sources of divine guidance - God the Father as creator, who arranges my life and circumstances to bring the experiences I need; the Holy Ghost as my personal relationship with the ascended Jesus Christ - all around me all the time; that which is divine in my Self - my inheritance as a son of God. 

There is no shortage of knowledge and understanding to deal with everything real that happens to me.  

 

(On the other hand, there is no possibility at all of 'dealing with' a fire-hose deluge of 'news' and the supposed interests of millions of 'other people' - except by imbibing the System-approved attitudes and opinions along with the News. Which is simply imbibing evil: 24/7.)

Situations arise, and we know what is right to do; know this for our-selves and our situation. And knowing what is right is The Main Thing. 

Doing the right thing may not be possible, we may lack the courage.  But we can always know it.

 

More often, however, it is the opposite. We dwell in a sea of evil, including evil-serving people; yet there is near zero awareness of the fact; and the pervasive value-inversion means that the most evil-serving people are the most moralistic. 

As well as the most powerful, influential, high status...

In such a situation our primary duty seems to be: consciousness of evil. 

 

This does Not mean dwelling-upon, thinking-about, engaging-with evil. What it Does mean is that we need to know evil as evil; and we need to know this consciously and explicitly. 

 

In a core sense, I understand this knowing-of-evil to be itself Christian repentance. 

But the point I am trying to make is that if it is true that this world is one in which there is a System that is intrinsically evil in its workings (which are materialist-atheist-leftist); and furthermore the System as-a-whole is being manipulated into greater and greater purposive evil... Then (to live well) we must be able to discern this fact - both in general, and specifically. 

Since we are being soaked in a marinade of evil; if we are passive and unconscious of the fact - we can hardly avoid absorbing this evil, can hardly avoid becoming assimilated to it.

 

So there needs to be a known contrast between our recognition of environmental and pervasive evil on the one hand; and an active awareness of the sources of Good on the other. 

It can - indeed - be a beautiful thing to experience this very direct and autonomous sense of the presence and power of the divine; shining-out (like a golden orb) in an ocean of darkness...

Beautiful also to discern other glowing lights in the darkness, with which we may experience an immediate and direct link. 

Oneness is The System approved spirituality - why?

The possible spiritual paths in The West seem (in practice, if not in principle) to boil down to a choice between Oneness and Romantic Christianity. 

Oneness comes in many guises. It is the standard basis of New Age spirituality. Oneness is also the extracted essence of Westernised Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi mysticism and the like. 

And it is the core of that highbrow, relativised, symbolic, amoral-leftist derivative of mystical and ritual Christianity, popular among intellectual liberal 'Christians' such as Rowan Willams (sometime Archbishop of Canterbury).  

 

Oneness is (as a minority possibility) taught and supported by the Establishment. For instance some major state bureaucracies, educational organisations and private corporations offer Oneness teaching and/or therapy under various titles such as counselling and 'mindfulness'. 

And, at the intellectual and high cultural level; there are variants of the eclectic, syncretic 'perennial philosophy' derived from Theosophy with its anything-but Christianity tendencies - e.g. Prince Charles's Temenos academy or the Schumacher society. 

Positive features on oneness can be found in mainstream Leftist newspapers, on TV, in movies - its practitioners are at least acceptable, and may be accorded official honours and prizes.

 

What are its characteristics? Oneness teaching is against 'the Self'/ Ego, and against 'thinking'. 

It regards all men as One, indeed evrything that is - is One. 

The intention is to lose the thinking self into an apprehension this ultimate One-ness.

(In practice, this state-of-being is intermittent, recreational and therapeutic; and in-between times the Oneness practitioner will typically be well integrated into 'normal life' - which nowadays means The System and all it entails.) 

 

Why does Oneness fit-in-with The Establishment agenda of evil? 

Well, quite simply because the thinking Self - when that Self is our divine nature inherited as sons and daughters of God - is the only thing about us that stands outside of The System. 

The thinking of this divine Self is what we use to discern, judge and evaluate in accordance with God's values. The thinking of this divine self is what motivates us from a source in harmony with God's creation. 

The intention of Romantic Christianity is to locate, become conscious of, use and strengthen this type of intuition, this form of direct knowing.

 

Naturally, The System wants our divine, thinking Self dissolved away into nothingness! 

And is happy to encourage any philosophy which assists in such work!

'They' focus on outcomes; We should focus on motivations

For the materialist-atheist mind; it is measurable outcomes that matter. 'Outcomes' are what gets monitored, measured and controlled. For example, human behaviour is an outcome - it can be observed, and increasingly is observed. 

Power can substantially control outcomes - by means of incentives and deterrents. And what cannot be controlled can be faked - because, when the focus is on observation and measurement, then the desired observations and measurements can be generated from within The System (this is one of the main roles of 'science').   

 

If some-thing is Not observed by The System, then - from The System's point of view - it has Not happened and does Not exist; thus it cannot be a problem (even when it affects many individuals, even if it kills many individuals). 

Contrariwise; if The System observes a thing, and defines that thing as a problem - then it is a problem (even when the thing does not exist to individual observation).

 

What about motivations? Well, for the materialist mind, motivations are something than can be imputed as is expedient. What is the significance of an observation made by The System? The System will tell us...

(The System does not discover the motivation, instead The System defines the motivation - according to Syetm expedience.)

For instance; one person dies in one situation; The System observes this death, tells us the motivations of the individuals involved, and classifies the death as an instance of a global, systemic problem. The System describes how to address that problem, implements the solution; observes and measures the response... 

Another person dies in another situation; but The System does not observe it. Or it tells us that this death  has no general meaning, is an accident; and nothing systemic can - or should - be done about it. This other death is not classified as a problem, it is just the deletion of a personnel unit. This death is excluded from The System.

My point is that The System (which is the product and tool of purposive supernatural evil: of Satan and demons and their servants) is focused on materialistic 'facts' - on outcomes.  Motivations are secondarily manufactured as fake-explanations for the primary observations.

But as Christians - as specifically Romantic Christians, who seek authority outwith The System - that is from the Holy Ghost directly by intuitive prayer and meditation, and from our innate divinity as sons and daughters of God... 

As Romantic Christians we know that outcomes have been captured by The System. Therefore we focus upon motivations; and motivations are either for God, divine creation and The Good; or against these.   

We focus upon motivations - and these are Not inferred from 'outcomes'; but are known directly. 

And, because God always makes it possible for every person to know The Good; the necessary knowledge of motivations is here-and-now very easy to attain; and is getting easier, as evil gaims more and more dominance over the 'observations'; of this world.

 

This is Their weakness: That They mistake their own power to dictate outcomes with the actuality of motivation. 

'They' can indeed (pretty much) dictate outcomes; but they cannot direct motivations: They cannot - in particular - direct a person's affilitation for, or against, God. 

 

Motivation is a choice, but more than a choice: it is a commitment. Motivation is, ultimately, a judgment of truth, and an attitude to that truth.   

If an individual has detached from the power-dominated world of System-endorsed outcomes; including a detachment from his own 'outcomes'/ observable behaviours; then his motivation, commitment, way of thinking (his divine-affiliation) can be free of The System. 

This is the ultimate nature of Man's agency: Because Man is a god (albeit in a temporary and corrupt form); his true self is divine, and cannot be compelled. 

Indeed; Man's true self cannot be compelled even by God; much less by Satan. 

 

We do not have much power to control our own behavioural outcomes. But, we have the inalienable power - hence the absolute responsibility - to choose our affiliation and motivations.  

Therefore, I suggest that we resist all attempts to induce us onto the grounds of mainstream demonic materialism with its manufactured 'facts' and contrived pseudo-explanatory imputed 'motivations' ; and instead we should seek discover, encourage, strengthen our awareness of that indomitable divine self within. 

Our divine self knows true facts without observations, knows motivations without being told. What it knows may well be very simple, and apparently dysfunctional ('dysfunctional' in terms of immediate adaptation to this System-created virtual world)... 

But so long as we have both chosen to commit to the side of God, and are also motivated towards the resurrected eternal life in Heaven; then no worldly facts and considerations can make any difference - if we do not 'invite them in'. 

 

(And even if we do, in a moment of weakness, invite evil to cross our mental threshold; evil can always be expelled by the infinite power of repentance; that is, by recognising and affirming the Truth.)

 

We cannot lose, ultimately; so long as we know Good and our motivation is to win salvation. We can only lose salvation if we personally make that decision.