Christianity needs to emphasize cosmology more urgently than morality

Nearly all of Christian discourse seems to be focused on morality - indeed, before I was a Christian that was all I could perceive of it. Yet - as I then realized - to discuss morality in isolation is all-but meaningless; and especially when the prevalent 'cosmology' is entirely materialist and scientistic. 

In other words; Christian morality makes no rational sense if the universe operates and life evolved on the basis described in mainstream science - and assumed to be The Whole Truth (in some kind of crude form) by the entirety of influential public discourse in all developed nations. 

What is needed is to relate Christian morality to our understanding of the nature of reality. 

(A better - because more general - word for what I mean is metaphysics; but I am focusing here on the cosmological aspect - on how the universe happened, and - in particular - how life and mankind happened.) 

An anecdote may help clarify: Whenever (as an atheist) I thought about some aspect of Christian morality - such the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, or any distinctive Christian church teaching in conflict with the mainstream - I would be faced by the incompatability of this with the way the universe worked. 

By what possible mechanism - I thought - could we get specific moral teachings, relating - for example - to sex and sexuality - from a universe that had formed on the basis of physics, and a life that had evolved by natural selection? 

Where could any real, objective, true morality possibly have come-from - given these materialistic ingredients for he world and everything on it?  

In sum - you can't get morality from the ultimate explanations of physical reality - such as quantum theory, relativity or whatever; neither can you get morality from natural selection properly understood (at most, natural selection can yield a delusion of morality).  

By failing to tackle and express Christian cosmology; Christianity relegates its morality to the level of an arbitrary construct - merely a matter of opinion or expediency. 

If not - then what? What ought Christians to do instead? 

In the first place - Christians need to start at the beginning, and emphasize that this is a created universe; and that God is The Creator. 

Only in such a context can we discuss any real, objective, universal morality. 

And lacking such a context All morality will be arbitrary and expedient - as indeed mainstream, modern, secular-left morality explicitly acknowledges itself to be - when compelled to answer the question*. 

But secular morality has the vast proximate 'advantage' over Christian morality of being backed by most of the world's power, propaganda and money...

The only expedient reason, therefore, for accepting Christian rather than secular-left morality is that Christianity is true, and that truth matters. 

And that is a matter of ultimates: including of cosmology.  

*Note: If the universe (and life) originated and is sustained by 'science explanations'; then reality has neither purpose nor meaning. Without purpose and meaning, there can be no real morality; but only arbitrary human constructs. There can then be no coherent discussion of morality at all. Attempts to construct a morality based on pleasure-pain probabilities (e.g. utilitarianism) are equally arbitrary; since there are no grounds for saying either than pleasure is better than pain, or that the happiness of the community is more important than that of an individual - and no grounds for arguing against short-termist selfishness and unconstrained manipulation and exploitation. All possible values hinge on this question of whether reality is created, or 'just happened'.  

Re-reading Owen Barfield's "What Coleridge Thought"

I am currently re-reading various Owen Barfield works, including What Coleridge Thought (1971); which had a massive impact when I last read it in 2016. This reading led eventually to my still current metaphysical system (based on the eternal existence of Beings). 

Both in 2016 and now, I gave the fullest and most active attention to my reading; which for me entails reading, in a cafe, at the 'best time of day' for me - which is before 11.00 am. I sit wit the book on one side and a notebook on the other; and read a bit but keep breaking-off to  write comments in the notebook about as much as I read. And I take as long as it takes to work through the book in this way. 

When I first read this book, I was mainly trying to understand 'what Coleridge thought'; but this time I am comparing this with the ways in which I have extended or modified my own philosophy - in which I was triggered by the ways in which I regarded Coleridge as 'dead right' and the ways in which I felt he was still captive to the philosophy he had learned as a younger man. 

In particular, Coleridge (and indeed Barfield) seem to me to suffer - to a relatively worse degree than I do myself - from what Barfield termed Residual Unresolved Positivism. Coleridge was a great genius pioneer, and was making a trail for the first time; such that things were made easier for those who followed.

(Including that Coleridge had, by his work, permanently affected and added-to the world of divine creation - which we can now discover intuitively for ourselves - if we are able to ask the right questions.)

Thus, Coleridge's extremely abstract and difficult exposition of 'polarity' or 'polar logic' and of his schemata for describing human mental activity, can be simplified greatly (I believe) by the simple assumption of having the metaphysical assumption that the 'basic unit' of reality are Beings, which have properties such as life, consciousness and purpose - and who are 'defined' as existing through-time - which means that we should eschew discussing them without reference to time and transformation. 

I have found this to be (so far) extremely powerful and satisfying - partly because it is an explicit elaboration of how I recall seeing the world as a young child; and it chimes with my understanding of the 'animism' of hunter-gatherer tribal people. 

So, this time of reading, I am fitting Barfield's understanding of Coleridge into my own understanding - which is, in a sense, the opposite of what I did first-time-through.

Imposing sexual values

It was always an element of Leftism, but from about the middle 1960s, anti-Christian, anti-traditional, anti-functional and anti-biological concepts of sex and sexuality became a recurrent and core strategy of Leftism. 

As a young Leftist; I personally found this strategy difficult to take seriously - and that was because I was of the Old Left persuasion, that regarded politics as properly concerned with economic and social arrangements. 

I failed to notice that Leftism lacked any genuine socio-political-economic goal; and was of-its-nature subversive, oppositional and intentionally destructive; and for this purpose sex/ sexuality is an ideal tool.

(Although the Left also has several other tools of similar value, including healthism, antiracism and 'environmentalism'.)

As I wrote a while ago; in natural Man, sexuality seems to be the second-most powerful motivator. Second, because Religion is - historically, and properly, the primary human motivator. 

But in a post-religious society, such as we inhabit; this means that sex tends to become the strongest motivator for many or most people. 

I think we can observe that this is broadly true, and that sex-as-motivator has been for many decades strongly encouraged, indeed enforced, by the major social institutions and corporations, mass media and the arts. 

Such sexualizing of culture is a self-reinforcing positive feedback cycle; since many of the majority of secular people (including many of those who affect to be religious and identify as-such, but who in practice always put religion in a subordinate place to dominant - therefore Leftist - social mores) are already primarily motivated by something-to-do-with sex - and the encouragement of a sexual focus has the effect of continually adding petrol onto smouldering ashes, and then permanently fanning the resultant flames. 

Even the reluctant and media-avoidant are unavoidably assailed by sexual stimuli and propaganda from all sides, on a daily (hourly) basis; which they cannot really ignore. This is why sex/ sexuality is nowadays primarily a motivator rather than something that someone does. 

In other words, the overwhelming importance of sex in modern life is its role in thought; in imagination and day-dreams and (mostly) in personal and secret 'fantasies' - which are seldom 'successfully' enacted yet still exert a powerful, albeit mostly negative, effect on people's actual lives and decisions. 

The modern sex/uality that so dominates modern societies is Sex In The Head - and may have little or nothing to do with the body; although such themes may (whether directly or indirectly) occupy a good deal of social interaction.  

 

Yet, of its nature, personal motivations to do with sex are unsuitable as a basis for changing social arrangements - therefore sex/ sexuality first needed to be assimilated into a Leftist ideology; directed at society-as-a-whole.  

This ideological assimilation of sex was accomplished from the 1960s (initially as 'free love' with easy divorce, then feminism, then campaigns to support various forms of unnatural sex/ sexuality, now the transagenda); by an army of ideologists, journalists, writers and artists, social scientists, critics, and bureaucrats. 

These sexual commissars were (apparently) mostly personally core-motivated by sexuality, and they were supported (materially and by attention and encouragement) via multiple channels - commercial, official, and overtly political; presumably by those who were similarly motivated. 

Thus, in a post-religious society; we have experienced a continual increase in concern with sex and sexuality; an increase which feeds upon itself - and is especially targeted on adolescents (and the increasing numbers of perpetual-adolescents) who, for biological reasons, are usually spontaneously focused upon sex and sexuality. 

Sex has therefore proved to be the single most effective battering ram used against the residue of religion; almost certainly responsible for most of the epidemic of apostasy that has over the past several generations afflicted and destroyed first The West, then The World. 

This means that - in a society increasingly dominated by Leftism - sex and sexuality are mainly pursued via ideology; and that people are strongly motivated by sexual ideology since (in absence of serious religion) sex represents their most powerful motivator - and they have been convinced that the attainment of their major life-motivations must run through support for Leftism. 

Thus the sexual revolution has been one of the most important Litmus Test issues, determining whether someone is pro-The System, or pro-God (which are, increasingly, the only possible choices). 

To understand this - and why it is that sex is such an important human motivator - yet properly not the most important motivator - is now a vital spiritual task for most people; and a task for which there is no help (but much hindrance) from the mainstream and mass media, and not much help from the mainstream of traditional churches. 

As usual - this is a task that needs doing for (almost) every person; but external sources are corrupted; therefore we must take personal responsibility and do-it-for-ourselves and from-our-selves - which is possible, with guidance of the Holy Ghost. 

 

Note added: It strikes me that I have relied on readers to join the dots here. Current news in the USA is about who gets to impose their sexual values on everybody else; and - in the context of our post-religious, hence sexually-motivated society - this is a set-up by The Establishment/ The System - intending further to undermine, scapegoat and destroy the residue of faithful Christians. But especially (as we perceive from evil-Leftist words and actions) the faithful in the Roman Catholic Church. Non-Catholic Christians should take note that the demonic powers (and despite the horrific extent of RCC corruption) nonetheless regard the Roman Church as a significant obstacle to their goals, worthy of specific attention. This I take as confirmation (for those who doubted) that there yet remains a significant and specifically-Christian force-for-Good in the RCC, as is. 

Further note: As so often in these End Times; if the current situation is looked-upon as a learning opportunity - provided by God in context of the world as people have chosen; it provides a yet further, yet clearer example of the purposive and strategic evil of the global ruling Establishment and The System they control. 

The imperative to re-connect; and the choice between passive immersion and active Love

The stage that Modern Man has reached in his evolutionary development is one where, sometime in adolescence, his consciousness becomes cut-off from the collective consciousness in-which he used (in early childhood) to be immersed (as was 'early man'). 

Modern Man becomes alienated such that his only direct experience is self-consciousness. There is coherence within his mind; but outside his mind is an incomprehensible chaos - and all communication are uncertain and prone to distortion and 'wishful-thinking'.  He finds himself alone, isolated. 

What does he do? Man cannot be alone, and so he must somehow reconnect with the collective, with other Beings... 

There are two options - one is mainstream and common - the other rare and regarded by the majority as childish and dumb wishful-thinking. 

The mainstream attempt to reconnect is to open the mind to dominant external influence. 

Each Man reconnects with the collective by voluntarily immersing himself in the dominant, powerful, most authoritative current-opinion; and thereby alleviates his lonely isolation and again feels a part of a greater whole. 

This mainstream strategy is a chosen passivity; a decision Not to think, but instead to be... what ever the collective is currently dictating. 

In the modern West, this is the decision to live in accordance with The System (the decision that most people have clearly made - including most self-identified Christians) - by this; one's facts, concepts and attitudes absorbed-from the powerful bureaucracies, officialdom and the mass media. 

And by this - to some subjective extent - one escapes isolation and becomes a part of the human collective: a materialist world backed-by a de facto monopoly on propaganda/ education and coercion/ bribery, and therefore assumed to be 'real'. 

And now that all of these institutions agree monolithically on all issues that They regard as essential; and now that individuals are plugged-into communicatiouns systems for most of every day - it has never been easier to feel a part of the collective by the simple decision to be passive and absorptive. 

Of course; this sense of belongingness is impaired by the covert fact that such cohesion is man-made and arbitrary - and by the intermittent awareness that the unity of perspective is (substantially) manipulative and exploitative. 

Nonetheless, it is regarded as the only alternative to utterly alienated isolation - so such doubts are suppressed or ignored; on the basis that 'there is no alternative' - at least none that are real. 

But there is an alternative to the mainstream outer-to-inner, switching-off thinking and opening one's mind to external meanings; and that alternative is to work from the inside outwards. 

In other words; the alternative is to start from the cohesion of one's isolated mind, and then choose to align this inner coherence with divine coherence. 

By choosing to align with God's creation; we thereby reconnect our inner mind with the larger world, and escape from alienation by re-joining God and God's people, the inhabitants of Heaven and those who have chosen (while on earth) to follow Jesus Christ to resurrected Heavenly life after their deaths.

So these are the choices. We are driven to escape the isolation of modern consciousness; and can choose either to open our minds to the external; or to connect of inner divine natures with the greatness of divine creation. 

This inner-outer reconnection is done for the sake of Love - or else it is not done at all. We must want to live by-Love. 

And why would we want this? Because, in essence, we have chosen to believe the hints and glimpses of a life rooted in Love (hints and glimpses from family life, romantic love or intense friendship) that are afforded by this mortal life. Those who choose to believe that these point-at the possibility of Men living eternally with the divine (and other Men); having made an eternal commitment to live-by-Love.  

 

Conversely (and this seems to be the normal, mainstream, dominant view of Modern Man) we can choose to regard the hints and glimpses of a life lived by Love as merely delusions or manipulative deceptions - such that the only realistic decision is to subordinate our-selves to whatever currently are the dominant external influences. 

What possibilities were opened-up by the incarnation of Jesus Christ?

That Jesus Christ was incarnated, embodied, ought to be a decisive clue from Christians that the world of (unembodied) spirit is inferior in terms of divine possibility. 

Yet clearly this mortal incarnate life of ours, now, is intrinsically flawed and not viable. 

Thus mortal life should be understood as a time of learning and choice - essential for resurrection, but transitional. 

If the body is considered to be bounded-spirit; we can see that boundedness has advantages in terms of the capacity to operate from our-selves.

...In contrast to a discarnate spirit which interpenetrates, and is interpenetrated; influenced and influencing - immersed in a world of other-spirits.  

It therefore seems that incarnation is necessary to personal and individual creation; and in the world of pure spirit there are only the two possibilities are going-along-with divine creation - or opposing it. 

Traditionally 'the angels' - who I regard as never-yet-incarnated spirits of Men - divide between those angels who serve divine creation and are willing conduits of God's creative will; and those demons who oppose the divine. 

Mortal, incarnate Men (such as you and me) have a positive creative potential beyond angel or demon; we can (because of incarnation) contribute-to - actually add-to - divine creation from our unique-selves; because of the freedom that is associated with incarnation. 

Man's creation is always (at least implicitly, even when without awareness) associated with Love: Love of God and fellow Man - it is Love that harmonizes individual creativity with the creativity of other Beings and with divine creation.  

By contrast, demons cannot be genuinely creative; but can only simulate creation. Having determined to reject Love and oppose the divine; all demonic thoughts and actions and other activities will necessarily be dissonant and destructive to divine creation and to the creating of others. 

But demons themselves cannot even have their own ideas! Thus demonic ideologies are always double-negative in form; like socialism, feminism, antiracism, environmentalism. Such 'ideals' merely oppose some supposed injustice or wrongness (which is actually some obstacle in the path of self-gratification); and have no genuinely creative alternative or aim. 

Because to be genuinely creative means to be an agent capable of creation (which requires incarnation) and also harmonious with existing divine creation. So demons merely oppose, while demon-affiliated Men cannot create positively, but only act selfishly (i.e. from their unique selves, but necessarily in conflict with other unique selves).

 

This is why Good and evil are not symmetrical; Good has many possibilities denied to evil; while evil has the easier 'job' of subversion, destruction and inversion - and indeed evil is incapable of anything else. 

It is up to each of us to see-through the disguises and simulations of evil pseudo-creativity; otherwise we will become unwitting dupes of the anti-God agenda. 

Bluebell woods

Bluebells are the last of the wild forest flowers in a Beech wood, before the leaf canopy blocks the light. English people are very fond of this plant, and many localities have their own 'Bluebell Wood' named after the appearance at this time of year. 

My family generally go to the Bluebell Wood adjacent to Durham City, which also has many glorious beeches and oaks. This year was perhaps the best display we have seen; and the walk was enhanced by eating our picnic next to a Durham University cricket match; and seeing a segment of a rowing regatta on the River Wear. 

Coxless sculling pairs were featured as we walked-by; and these seem difficult to steer along the winding Wear, if the number of collisions with the river bank (and a capsize!) are anything to go by!

The last of the wildflowers should come along in the next few weeks, which are the Buttercup meadows - perhaps my absolute favourite flower of all (along with the greenish-white Snowdrops, first sign of the new year). After which we have the Heather blossom to look forward to. 

It has been a glorious spring around here, with little rain and some warm days; and the newly leafed trees still have that pale, almost golden as Robert Frost noted, green translucency. Typically, for reasons to do with the solstice and the Atlantic, such springs are often followed by a drenching wet summer... 

Presumably, we shall see in due time (if we are spared!). 

Inverted conflict: Now we know what it's like to Be on The Wrong Side, and to Know it...

Something I used to speculate about as a young child, was what it would be like to be on The Wrong Side in a war - and to know that you were on the wrong side. I used to feel thankful that (as I supposed) such a thing could never happen to me; and that 'my' side had been, and always would be, the Right one.

This is, I suppose, an innate and spontaneous tribalism; which is rooted in a kind of 'biological' loyalty that in fact defines 'right' as 'us' - so that 'we' are always in-the-right - whatever happens. 

But, of course, we do not now live in a society structured around mutual loyalties within families and (more broadly) clans - but pretty-much the opposite; and our officially-dominant social ethic is an inversion of biological affiliations. Primacy (for the Western Man) is given to the alien, the other, to what I am Not; to whatever opposes family, reproduction, and indeed basic functionality. 

So, the deep structure of the ruling leftist ideology of The West is that 'we' are innately on The Wrong Side; even as this ideology itself originates and rules specifically in The West.

Thus a contradiction - as usual when we are dealing with evil. Evil is rooted in lies and manipulations, therefore it deals-in contradiction, revels in it!

And anyone in The West, especially if a white man of biologically-functional sexuality - knows with one part of his fractured mind that he is always on The Wrong Side; even as he knows that he is always on the side of 'right' only when he pursues policies predicated on self-hatred, personal and familial suicide, and promotes whatever and whoever is most alien and 'other'. 

'Doing-good by self-harm' - might be the motto for the likes of us - and certainly the self-harm done on our behalf (by The System) is invariably immediate, primary and definite - while any supposed-good is remote, conjectural, and vague to the point of invisibility. 

Then there is the wrongness of our goals in war; which are nowadays to impose the inverted-values of the Global Totalitarian System (and its financial, economic and legal tools) upon any who resist in any way. 

For instance, a current explicit goal of wars is to ensure that as many as possible of the youngest possible children (everywhere in the world) are sexually corrupted and opened to maximal exploitation; and are poisoned, mutilated and biologically-neutered - and that no society should be able to opt-out of such imperatives.  

So now we all know what it is to be on the Wrong Side, and to know it...

Consider the 'justifications' for recent and current wars compared with the past. In the past wars were to defend the homeland (especially women and children): now it is a matter of covert policy to oppose marriage, families, reproduction and the innocence of children; and of explicit moral principle to send women to be killed on the front lines. 

In the more recent past, other wars were justified on the basis of ethnic, religious or national interest - nowadays, it is asserted that we are going to war for the benefit of 'other people' about whom little or nothing is known (except via the media, government officials, and other known-liars), and about whom (until the war began) nobody in The West had any traditional care or concern. 

Thus, the narrative is that our motives must be pure and the reason must be impartially-just; exactly because 'we' ('we' meaning, in practice, 'you' - i.e. the subject-masses) have nothing to gain and everything to lose from war. 

We are nowadays paying, fighting, and dying for the asserted 'benefit' of others - not ourselves. 

(And when there is such profound ignorance and actual-lack of genuine care of these others 'on behalf of whom' we are supposedly acting; then the fact of war actually causing gross harm, instead of benefit, is easily ignored.) 

Modern war is highly abstract and ideological; therefore something approaching the complete inversion of past war - in terms of its justification and what is supposed to motivate. The modern motivations and justifications are naturally, therefore, a combination of the arbitrarily-manufactured, and the opposites of what used-to motivate war. 

The prime casualty of abstraction and inversion is enfeebled motivation - and indeed this is the most demotivated society, ever. Western motivations are now so shallow and so weak that they can almost-instantly be manipulated and pointed in any arbitrary direction - by crude media-bureaucratic propaganda. 

And these System-imposed-motivations are mutually contradictory hence net-destructive; so that the masses are utterly disempowered by first their demotivation and secondly by the gross and self-destroying incoherence of what feeble motivations the leadership class do posses (which are shorter-and-shorter-termist and careerist in nature; plus the gratification of increasingly-corrupted sexual desires/ fantasies at the highest levels - plus fear). 

Consequently, the West is ruled by negative, oppositional weakness - and that rule is increasingly totalitarian and dominant exactly-because the subject-masses are even-more negative, self-contradicting and demotivated. 

Consequently, the trend is for more chaos, greater weakness, gross untruthfulness - masking deliberately-induced collapse. 

(In brief; I think that many of the plans and schemes have the proximate and materialistic Plan A of increasing the power and wealth of some few, specific members of the ruling humans; but if/when this does not happen Plan B supervenes, which is the spiritual imperative to destroy Good and increase chaos. This is ultimate; because The System is ruled by demons, by supernatural entities, whose ultimate goals are negative-spiritual - not positive-material.) 

We know we are on the side of Wrong... Then what is to be done? - especially considering that a negatively-motivated Global Strategy is easy to accomplish; since it is relatively facile to destroy; while it is difficult to create.  

Clearly, the single most vital response is understanding; to see-though the fake-justifications to the evil motivations beneath. 

Without such understanding, nothing Good can be achieved. 

But when the odds are so heavily stacked in favour of evil, and when evil is anyway far easier to accomplish than good; then even knowing we are on the side of wrong does not translate into large-scale, organized, 'systematic' opposition to that wrong-side. Because when we are engaged in an inverted conflict, then such opposition actually increases motivation and cohesion on the side of evil. 

As usual in these times; the proper consequences of seeing-through lies and discerning evil is first of all the spiritual result of thinking and knowing truly - and to achieve this should not be underestimated, since it is the prime way in which we personally contribute to God's creation. 

But secondly, genuinely Godly-opposition needs to be about 'doing-Good' rather than the 'double-negative' of 'opposing-evil'. 

And Good can (as a strong generalization) now only be done by individuals doing very specific and personal acts of Good with other individuals - aiming for spiritual benefit primarily. 

This is not easy to discern, and the possibility may arise only seldom; but we should aim to be prepared and fortified for when such an occasion presents-itself - as it surely will, sooner or later.   

The System is Not going to impose and enforce Christian ethics for Christian reasons

If we understand the demonically-led nature of the global totalitarian System; we will not fall into delusions about specific policies that seem to favour Christian moral principles - and we will recognize them as the traps they certainly are. 

In the first place, there is a profound asymmetry about Good versus evil policies: it is much more difficult to accomplish Good policies. This because Good is attempting to build in harmony with divine creation; while evil is against divine creation, and any form of subversion, damage or inversion of creation counts as evil. 

It is hard to build and maintain any functional entity - but trivially easy to destroy functionality; very difficult to be an engineer, very easy to throw sand into functional machinery. 

Evil policies can therefore be of many, many kinds. They are almost-never upfront evil; almost always the evil is disguised but overwhelmingly dominant. 

Evil policy can have surfaces or mixtures of upfront 'good intentions' masking underlying covert evil; can be short-termist Good locally - but evil over times and more widely; and evil policies may be Good--tending in some material sense, but actually being-done for evil motivations (and encouraging evil motivations) such that evil is what will eventuate. 

This is why it is so difficult actually to do good through politics - because the System is so thoroughly corrupted. 

For instance; in 2016 the English people made some attempt to do Good by voting overwhelmingly for Brexit; but the political process was utterly negated and dissipated by the hostile System; so that after years of fudge and under-the-table wrecking, the result was 'Brexit in name only' with near-zero perceptible change and absolutely zero detectable benefit.  

When it comes to Christian morality, it is simple foolishness to suppose that The System will reintroduce Christian values, and will enforce them. The System is anti-Christian root and branch; and White Christians are the only wholly reviled scapegoat social grouping. 

When any superficially pro-Christian policy appears to emanate from The Establishment; we should be confident that it is In Fact intended to harm Christians; and that the System itself will ensure that this is what happens. 

Since this is a negative goal, there are innumerable ways in which The System can attain its destructive objectives - far too many ways to be detected and defeated by excluded and disempowered Christians. 

Therefore, if Christians want to do Good, it must originate and be done outside The System, and Not reliant upon the support and cooperation of The System. 

Anything that comes From the System will be hostile by intent, and in its implementation.

The evil of The System absolutely needs to be recognized by Christians; or else we will stupidly continue to collude in our own destruction - as has been happening for decades and continues to accelerate. 

From "everybody has always been the same" to a world of individual differentiation

It is a pervasive and influential - albeit unacknowledged - assumption of most Modern people; that everything, and everybody, has always been the same everywhere. 

At most, some who regard themselves as 'realists' (usually supposing themselves to inhabit 'the Right') will acknowledge differences in ability and personality - for instance significant differences in intelligence between individuals, races, sexes; and similar hereditary personality distinctions. 

Yet, there is often an extreme reluctance to acknowledge that people in other times and places had a different relationship with 'the world', and were differently motivated*. 

The sameness of people is clearly an assumption, that is a structuring and metaphysical assumption - prior to evidence - not a consequence of examining 'the facts'; because the facts can equally 'prove' the opposite when examined on the basis of the opposite assumption: i.e. the assumption that the consciousness of Man has developed through history, and different among different places and races.  

Another, and related, Modern assumption is that each individual man is ultimately to be understood as the member of a group (or several groups). This is found in the leftist identity politics which has utterly taken-over the highest level of global leadership - such that an individual is defined by society (and, more importantly, by himself) in terms of group-identification - sex, race, sometimes class, sexual alignment or identity, political affiliation etc. 

Consequently, the ultimate goal in human life (or the 'bottom-line' of existence) is seen (albeit vaguely) in terms of gratifying group ideals. Once a person has identified 'itself' by group affiliations; then hopes and aspirations are focused on group arrangements - that is, on social and political arrangements. 

There is an ethic that nobody can be, or ought to be, 'happy' unless and until some particular socio-political arrangements are in-place - and this is the basis of the waves of leftist, top-down crusades. It is an absolute and wholly uncompromising ethic - while any particular 'crusade' is active; such that the moral individual must be (in principle) prepared to 'pay any price' to achieve... whatever it happens currently to be... elimination of the birdemic, global antiracism, climate cooling, a massive increase in transidentification, and annihilation of the Fire Nation are recent/ current examples. 

We can see that all these share the structuring assumption that groups are primary. The individual has no identity or validity aside from the identity with group - and this has become the prime act of choice. 

We must choose our group identity from a range currently 'on offer'; and those group identities which are positively valued are based on inverted values, are anti-natural, and/or subversive/ destructive of whatever Christians would regard as Good. 

Group identities based upon self-hatred and a covert suicidal motivation are particularly highly-valued. 

 

Resistance to the mainstream 'offers' and value systems are almost-always also framed in a way that gives primacy to the group; not least because this is regarded as the only way that power can be matched and overcome. 

The general idea is to generate Good Groups to oppose and defeat Evil groups - thus people hope (and work) for Good groups based on particular Christian Churches, or particular nations or races - or esle they hope (and work) to 'convert' particular churches/ nations/ races away from evil leftism and to something better and net-Good. 

Ad this is done on the basis that Men are essentially (deep down, primarily) the same now as ever we were; and thus the lessons and practices of The Past (of some particular past and place) can be re-animated and re-applied to the Present and Future. 

However, if Man's consciousness had changed throughout history, differs in different places - and is, indeed, differentiated down to the level of individual persons - then the world and its prospects are very differently understood. 

What this entails (for Christians, anyway) is a structuring conceptualization (i.e. a metaphysical assumption) that God is concerned primarily with individuals, and not therefore primarily with groups - not even with those groups we call churches. 

For this to be true, it seems that each individual is likely to have an unique 'destiny'; which he presumably brought-into this mortal life; and which has developed in life as a consequence of choices. 

And if Man's Life is indeed to be understood in this individual fashion, then we will also assume that God is 'running the world' in ways that primarily take account of individuals; of individual persons each in a relationship with God. 

If so; then the world changes for the better by means of this individual relationship and action. 

And, conversely, to regard the world primarily as composed of groups will intrinsically drive the world (and the lives of individuals) towards the worse; whatever those groups may be. 

We then cease to seek group-solutions to world problems - and cease to seek group-motivations; or, at least, cease to regard group-level analyses and policies as the Main Thing. 

We assume, instead, that The Action is driven by individual persons; and that God's positive interventions in The World operate via the actions of individuals - by the choices, thinking and doing of individuals.   

*The largest and most obvious difference is that Men of the past saw their lives and the world (as it were) through religious spectacles; whereas now this is very seldom the case. So alien has this become that many recent depictions of Medieval life are grossly unrealistic in their distortions - either all-but ignoring religion, or assuming that the churches were wholly cynical and manipulatively directed at modern objectives. 

How did the Riders of Rohan dress? (according to Frank Frazetta, 1975)

 

The above illustrations by Frank Frazetta (1975) depict Eowyn battling the Nazgul Witch King and his flying steed. 

Eowyn was, of course, disguised as the male rider Dernhelm, and we are told she blended-into the mass of other riders, indistinguishably. 

These pictures therefore inform us that the Riders of Rohan fought the Battle of Pellennor Fields wearing metal basques with twin conical 'breast'-plates, that fully revealed their legs and buttocks... 

I must admit that this was not how I personally saw the Riders of Rohan with my minds eye; and I rather wish I hadn't discovered the fact. 

True personal creativity is only possible when originating from the True Self, in alignment with already-existing divine creation

When I think rigorously about what is required for 'true creativity' by a Man, then it seems that a pretty extensive set of pre-requisites must be in place; such that true creativity is only possible to some people, at some times and places in history. 

Human creativity is possible because of divine creativity: we dwell 'in' God's creation; so, for a Man's creativity to be real entails first that it comes from the Man himself - from his unique personal 'self'; and second that it harmonizes with divine creation. 

If creativity does not come from the Man himself, then what we have is just an instance of divine creation. 

Through most of history (in most places) Men did not claim to be creative, because their experience was that creativity came from God (or the gods). This was sometimes called inspiration; reflecting that it was breathed-in from some other source - from the divine, from the muses or whatever. 

So most of creativity in the past was not the product of an individual person - because the individual was merely a conduit for the divine; a tool or instrument of the divine. 

This kind of creativity is therefore real - and it harmonizes with divine creation - but it is not personal, its creative aspect is of-God, not of-Man. 

On the other hand; every-thing (every thought or action) which comes from a person innately, from his Real (hence divine) Self; is not of God, is indeed personal - but it is not creative unless it harmonizes-with and adds-to divine creation. 

Thus, most things we do from our-selves is merely personal, is not from God but instead a product of a Man; and it is Not creative. It is indeed anti-creation. 

In other words; of itself, that which originates from Man will Not, of itself, be creative - because it will be individual and out-of-harmony with divine creation. It will therefore be (to a greater of lesser degree) damaging or subversive to divine creation. 

In order, therefore, for a Man to be genuinely creative; he must be sufficiently an independent agent that he can generate thought/action from-himself (rather than simply being a conduit channeling divine creation); and top be genuinely creative, he must also make the choice to align himself with divine creation by a voluntary act. 

All independent acts of a Man that are aligned with divine creation are therefore instances of true personal creativity - but the magnitude of achievement varies between a world-historical genius; and someone 'minor' or altogether unknown, who has lesser ability and application but who nonetheless does 'make a difference' (and an eternal difference) - but a small difference, yet in a positive direction. 

Thus all acts of true personal creativity add-to divine creation, but the amount by which they add to divine creation varies hugely in accordance with the 'stature' of individuals. 

The business of aligning with divine creation is what happens when a scientist is devoted to 'the Truth' or when an artist is devoted to 'Beauty' - both of these are types of alignment with the Reality of divine creation. 

The long period of attunement, learning, practice and preparation which leads-up to a work of genius is exactly this process of alignment. Once the individual is aligned with divine creation; then his spontaneous creativity will contribute to overall creation. 

This model also explains why recent generations of supposedly creative people have the form of the 'evil genius' - in that these are people of great ability who are Not aligned with the Reality of divine creation; and who therefore inevitable do harm to creation. 

When every available 'job' involves working for Team Satan

One consequence of living in a totalitarian world administered by evil leaders (evil being defined as in-opposition-to God and divine creation) - is that we are all either working for Team Satan - or else (if we don't work) dependent pensioners supported by Team Satan. 

This means that our productive efforts are components of the various evil strategies by which Team Satan is pursuing its goal of subverting, destroying and inverting all that is Good. 

When all major organizations and groups (institutions, corporations, nations... bureaucracies of all types) are elements in The System; and when that System is motivated by evil; this situation is inescapable. 

In other words; we are all - overall, in a strategic sense (whatever short-term and localized activity we may be doing at this moment, which may be a constrained counter-current, moving towards Good) - working-for the implementation of evil plans, and/or from evil intentions. Whatever our 'job' may be - it is always (more or less) that of an operative in a branch of Team Satan.

This is apparently a difficult situation both psychologically and spiritually; but on reflection it has been quite normal in most times and places throughout history. Many slaves have worked for evil Masters; while citizens of evil Kings have been compelled to prosecute evil policies. 

The choice for both slave or citizen was reducible to: Do evil, or else die.  

This just-is the human condition for many or most people - and this reality is becoming more evident and less deniable or ignorable as the world degenerates and corrupts; and as evil becomes more inverted in values. 

Indeed, what I have described is simply The Christian Condition: i.e. that we are all sinners, and that sin is unavoidable.

It is startling when we realize that sinning includes our personal and active participation in attacking that which is Good: that we ourselves are troops in the army directed against God, and against God's plans and hopes for this world.

Yet all of this was built-into Christianity from its beginnings located in a net-evil Roman Empire and emerging among a net-evil Jewish religion. It is why Jesus emphasized that he came to save sinners (not Men without sin) - all sinners who would repent...  

With such repentance meaning that we need to recognize that we are in fact sinners - by our actions, by our efforts, we are (nearly-) all substantially on the wrong side in the spiritual war. 

(I say nearly all to account for the existence of genuine saints; some of whom were, I assume, net-Good.) 

Since we are 'all' compelled to fight on the wrong side (in part, even when not overall); then the primary question is whether we recognize and acknowledge that fact. 

It is a question, mostly, of whether we are honest enough to acknowledge this fact of life; or whether we instead tell-ourselves consoling and self-excusing lies. It is that upon which our salvation hinges.

God knows perfectly well our actual situation - flawed men in a flawed world; and our life is not supposed to be a futile attempt to achieve the impossible (sinlessness) despite the corruption of everything. 

Whatever the lessons we (as individuals) are intended to learn in this mortal existence, they are all genuine possibilities - possible for everyone, including the weakest characters in the most extreme of evil circumstances. 

Whatever the situation; we can, and need, honestly to recognize and acknowledge our own sins - and make the choice of affiliation in our hearts to the side of God and divine creation.

It is the heart that is decisive for Christians. 

We can always choose to follow Jesus Christ both now and after our deaths - nobody and nothing can compel us to yield-up this ultimate Hope. 

It is an inescapable decision - Yes or No - and indeed everybody has made that decision already (and can re-make it, in either direction). 

 

In fact; that decision whether or not to follow Jesus Christ is the ultimate; and includes the question of our affiliation to the side of God and The Good. One who has chosen to follow Jesus is already on the right side, the side of right. 

Understanding the world in terms of God's plan of creation and Satan's opposition is a complex business - and can seem abstract and dependent on specific information. Luckily for us - we don't need to get that analysis exactly correct; because with Jesus Christ the choice of sides is made simple, concrete, comprehensible. God has made it as easy as possible for us - but in the end each person must and will decide. 

"Maybe the meaning is drained from this world as it hellifies?"

This thought-provoking comment was made by "ben" in the course of a discussion over at Francis Berger's blog. 

It immediately set off a train of thought. 

Obviously this statement is true, in the sense that real meaning (and divine purpose) is deliberately being 'drained' from all of the world by the actions of the global establishment; and being replaced-by evil-motivated manipulative pseudo-meanings; fed to us and forced-upon us by the daily onslaught of mass media, bureaucracy and officialdom. 

Thus, one who is passive will find his world incrementally leached of meaning and of the motivations that derive from meaning - such that only those who actively seek for meaning will nowadays discover it. 

And that available-meaning will not be found where it used to be found, nor will it be found by the activities that used-to discover meaning - but only in other places, and by other means. 

The mainstream has tried pre-emptively to thwart this active seeking and creating of meaning in our world; by the slur that such is merely the wishful thinking of weak minds. 

We must therefore decide whether to believe Them that the true reality is indeed the official world of less-and-less meaning, in which we can only obey whatever is the current Thing...

Or not to believe this; and instead to replace from our inner and from divine resources, what is being denied us from external and societal indoctrinations. 

From gut-feelings, instinct and the unconscious; to the consciously understood and chosen

One way of understanding the evil that dominates this world, now; is in terms of various unconscious instincts - or 'gut feelings' - that have arisen in more and more humans over the past few hundred years - and the ways in which these 'new' unconscious instincts have been brought into culture. 

The corruption that now dominates the world, has successfully grown over the past couple of centuries (in particular), by taking advantage of these recently-developed 'gut-feelings' - and distorting them to evil while acknowledging them and bringing them into psychological, cultural and political manifestation. 

For example, there are 'new instincts' that have to-do-with each individual person being the proper basis of his own ultimate spiritual destiny ('individualism' of conscience and understanding) - which are also related to a belief that in this respect all Men are alike, therefore each is (and ought to be) his or her own master. 

The churches of the world (Christian and, so far as I know, other), have, by contrast, either broadly denied the reality of these (and other) 'new instincts' - and regarded them as intrinsically evil (the 'traditional' response). Or else the churches have accepted the secular and materialist interpretations of these instincts, and changed the religions accordingly (the 'liberal' response).

So; these new instincts to do with the individual and his relation to his soul, have been materialized into various leftist doctrines and philosophies - socialism, feminism, antiracism etc. 

My understanding is that what was going-on has been that a genuine (and very widespread) change in Men was of unconscious and unarticulated nature - and Men became aware of it by being told its implications were socio-political in nature. 

Therefore, Men look to the satisfaction of these new instincts in terms of changes in 'society'. 

Yet, these new changes to Man's 'gut feelings' cannot be satisfied by external socio-political material changes of any possible type - because the 'new instincts' are in fact individual and spiritual in their nature; and seek gratification in terms of the spiritual. 

And, what is much worse than the social-material just not-working as a satisfaction, is that this has become an open-ended method of manipulating people into evil. Since the leadership class became substantially corrupted into leftist-materialism (which happened by the early 1900s in Britain); the mass of people have been led-by-the-nose into greater and greater evils in pursuit of an ever-receding world in which (it is asserted) 'social justice' will at-last satisfy these powerful new instinctive yearnings. 

Meanwhile, this corruption has been more-and-more evident to the shrinking and weakening traditionalists among the churches - until indeed the outcomes (and, even more so, aspirations) violate basic common sense and biological functionality... 

But too-late; because the externalization and objectification of these new instincts has become so complete that people now take all their interpretations from externally (as their way of participating in life 'outside' their own thoughts in a world where God and spirit are regarded as subjective wishful thinking only). 

As culture has become more-and-more completely monolithic and centrally-controlled; and as the central control has become more-and-more demonic (anti-God, anti-creation) in its motives and plans; thus has corruption proceeded. 

And the traditionalist churches have looked on helplessly - in effect self-crippled by their incapacity to acknowledge the change in human consciousness, in human nature; and thus without the capacity to win many arguments except logically and leaving-out the heart. 

My contention is that the way out from this impasse is by rendering the unconscious conscious, and by recognizing the need to regard the inner and chosen as essential and the external and imposed as secondary. 

This, in turn, requires an explicit metaphysical explanation. It is not enough to leave instinct unexplained, it is not enough to operate at the level of gut-feelings, of 'psychology'. 

Instead, the whole needs to be related to God's plans for the world as a whole and for each of his children in their mortal lives - which itself entails an explicit explanation in terms of the primacy of children, as a multitude of individuals.

Modern Man is to be saved as an individual, not as 'a people' - as of Now; this socio-political world is ultimately merely the sum of individual salvation quests and conflicts: the Real Action of our times is 'located' in each Man's heart; and the task is to understand this consciously and make the choice in accordance with God and creation.

Now is the month of Maying... The City Waites

The classic May-day song, by one of my favourite bands of the 1970s. 

For several years in the 70s, I would rise at about five in the morning, and take a walk through the woods on Backwell Hill - even if (especially when) it was a school day. 

I looked forward to this annual ritual because it seemed as if something magical was always just about to happen (and change everything for the better); although it never actually did - except for that magic itself. 

In other words Sehnsucht - although I did not know the concept at the time. 

The Antichrist promises this-worldly, here-and-now, material happiness

William Wildblood had a recent post that provoked me into some thinking about The Antichrist, and what we might expect such a Being to be like and to do in our current context. 

When he appears he will not be obviously evil like some of the despots of the 20th century. He may even appear benign by the materialistic standards we have built up over the last 2 centuries. But he will seek to divert us from true divine understanding and spiritual life. We need to understand that anything or anyone that promises happiness and fulfilment in this world, whatever it calls itself, is not of God.

This meshed together with what strike me as absurd expressions of optimism from some Christians at the prospects from Elon Musk having taken-over that most egregious of all social media: Twitter. 

Apparently; Christians are supposed to rejoice that the prime apparatus of societal corruption will now be operated more efficiently and inclusively! 

Yet, EM is, of course, precisely the kind-of-person we would expect in an Antichrist figure. That is, Musk seems to be among the more-pleasant and less-evil of the obscenely rich globalist oligarchs. His is the 'acceptable face' of the Great Reset - despite implementing the 'Skynet' infrastructure - surely one of its vilest aspects. 

My point is that Musk is just the type of individual who can serve an Antichrist function; whereas anyone who is an obvious villain or psychopath (or actively and explicitly anti-Christian) is not suitable. 

You might suppose that Christians would be alert to the problem, because Musk certainly is not a Christian. Yet, with EM, people are always adding 'but at least'...

As Wildblood makes clear; the core objective of evil in these times is materialism and denial of the primacy of the spiritual - of God and creation. To focus men's minds exclusively on this-mortal-life in this-world.

Exclusion of the spirit can effectively done by channeling concern into 'good causes', potential utopias, vast social aspirations... as well as the more usual tyrannical oppression, induced self-hatred and 'gaslighting'.  

I don't believe that EM is the Antichrist - but Antichrist is a type; and Musk is of that type. 

If or when 'The' Antichrist does emerge onto the world stage - we should expect him to appear as just such an apparently personable, Christian-friendly, social idealist.  

Where are universal 'inner worlds' such as the 'dwat' or 'collective unconscious' located? - and can we participate in them, as well as observe them?

A question that recurs to me, is how top conceptualize (visualize, imagine) the 'location' of inner world concepts. The ancient Egyptians had a core and vital concept of the 'dwat' or underworld, where lived gods and the dead. Every living being had dealings with the dwat, and indeed it was the ultimate reality. 

Yet it has become very difficult to imagine the reality of something with such properties as the dwat - something which is 'inside' everybody, and yet also everywhere. 

A more recent example is the collective unconscious of Jung; a realm of universal archetypes, which is supposed to be accessed in dream and artistic creation, to be expressed in myth, and to emerge during insanity. 

I found it very difficult to imagine how the collective unconscious was supposed to work - where it was located, how we could get access to it...

Such difficulties are compounded when one wants to add that each of us as individuals are capable to changing the content of the dwat, or the collective unconscious. It is easier to imagine merely observing a kind of diffuse sea of mythic archetypes and gods floating around and doing things - of coming to 'know' the contents of such inner worlds or underworlds. 

But that you or I might potentially alter this collective reality; and to do so my some 'inner' act of ours, such as thinking... well it seems difficult to imagine even how such a thing might work (leaving aside the secondary issue of whether it is possible or plausible). 

I find, when pressing on this problem; that the whole thing has a tendency to become very abstract and detached, and unconvincing to myself. 

My conclusion is that there are very deep and difficult-to-eradicate assumptions in my way of reasoning that block a kind of basic human understanding, which was once widespread. 

For instance, it brings-out the extent to which we moderns almost 'cannot help' imagining our thinking as going-on in our brains and inside our skulls - with no possible way of really interacting with any kind of universal domain.  

It also brings-out the corresponding assumption that thinking is cut-off from the world; so that we cannot imagine our own thinking affecting the world... Except, maybe - in a crude sci-fi sort of way - as something like a 'telepathic beam' of 'thought energy' that affects matter (which we don't believe actually happens, or else it would be detectable and measurable). 

It seems, it feels, 'obvious' that the contents of 'my' thinking is something cut-off from the world; such is the nature of our alienation.

And yet I can recall young childhood when it seemed equally obvious that my thinking could be known to others, and that it could affect the world. For example, fear on my part could attract the attention of bad beings, bad events - and in that sense could make things happen. 

Or my secrets could be 'read' by others - I could not contain them 'inside my head', even when I wished; but they could only remain secret if I was able to 'forget' them.

Thus in early childhood, I naturally understood the way in which all Men (and god/s, spirits, angels, demons, the dead etc) could indeed be both within and also everywhere - albeit I could only envisage this as a passive and one-way process. 

I could not imagine - or believe - that I myself could, by my own thinking, affects this 'collective spiritual underworld'; including affect it for the better. 

I am talking here of the way of thinking variously termed positivism, materialism, scientism or reductionism; and the problematic phenomenon I describe above is what Owen Barfield called RUP - meaning the Residue of Unresolved Positivism which modern Man has as a deeply-ingrained habit; and which is so very difficult to eradicate even among those who - theoretically - fully-recognize the incoherence and evil of positivism. 

It is not too difficult to detect RUP in other people; but a far more difficult/ impossible prospect to eradicate it from our-selves. 

My best guess and hope for doing so is to try and re-discover, learn and extend ways of thinking that correspond to the 'animistic' thinking of ancient history and early childhood - that is, a world populated by intentional, conscious, living Beings - in a web of relationships. To try and translate the positivistic conceptions into these terms. 

But I still tend to 'feel' this in a passive fashion; and have not succeeded in achieving a way of understanding that corresponds to the active and creative engagement of the individual with The World that is Final Participation.    

Although I believe Final Participation is real, and I recognize when it is happening/ has happened; and it is a major aim in my life - it is certainly a disadvantage Not to be able to think-about or conceptualize it in a way that I find both convincing and comprehensible. 

Work yet to do...

The System as a pseudo-spirituality-simulacrum

Since it has penetrated, and dominates, almost everywhere in the realm of finance, the media, economics, politics, the military and police, law, religion, science, arts, health etc; it is easy to regard The System as a physical entity only; and to neglect that The System has also come to replace the spiritual by a simulacrum. 

In other words; for most people The System provides their only escape from alienation - their only sense of belonging, connection, participation in the world around them. 

This is one deep reason why the masses will believe whatever The System is currently telling them - no matter how incoherent, vile and inverted; because only by joining-in with today's-frenzy of communications can they escape their profound existential isolation and feel a part of the world, the community. 

Of course; it is only a very partial and temporary alleviation; but that fact merely fuels the addictive dependency - and explains why social media have become integral to life for so many. 

What we are instead supposed to be doing is consciously to participate in the world of God, angels, spirits, and other Men's 'divine-minds' by voluntary and chosen acts of our individual consciousness. 

Then; individual men may know directly and by personal experience the wider world outside their own minds. 

But for this to happen, we must (first) believe that such a world is real and accessible - and not merely a delusion, a manipulation, or wishful thinking. 

We must also have realistic expectations of 'what it is like' to access such a world; in particular setting aside any fantasies or hopes of reversion to a prehistoric/ primitive/ tribal (or early childhood state) of passive and unconscious immersion in the group mind. 

We also need to eschew any covert hope that such access will bring us personal power, statsu or other kind of success; and also forget any notions that we can (or should try to) convince other people about what we discover in such experiences. 

The essence of what is possible (and desirable) is that each needs to do it for himself. 

These are, I believe, the only two possibilities: Either we accept The System as 'our god' and salvation from the existential horror of alienation; or else, we decide to reconnect with the wider world by means of our chosen conscious thinking activity. 

By The System we are densely-connected - but any connection is indirect (via language, image, symbol - which must be interpreted). 

But by the deployment of our chosen conscious activity, we dwell in the wider world of Beings directly and unmediated - we may live-in that spiritual world, for a while. 

Harsh spiritual and psychological lessons from my recent illness

Without going into details (and making clear that it was in-no-way life-threatening); my recent illness was an existential challenge, and unique in my life so far. 

This was because it combined the most extreme malaise I have experienced (exhaustion, demotivation, anhedonia, anorexia); with at least two simultaneous unremitting and severe forms of pain/ dysphoria (of several types, throughout). 

(Note - I use dysphoria to mean the opposite of euphoria - as a generic term that includes all types of pain, but also all other acutely-unpleasant pain-like symptoms such as nausea, heaviness, and that drained and 'washed-out' sensation characteristic of 'flu').

Consequently, for a week, I was always in an acutely miserable state; plus I always lacked energy, concentration and drive. 

The horrible result was that for that week I was horribly selfish and self-centred; and insofar as the wider world impinged on me, my attitudes to everything were wholly negative and pessimistic. I was disgusted at myself for this; but such disgust merely added to the negative-mix - it did nothing to combat the fact. 

The fact that I understood, theoretically, just why this should be: why (in a pathological sense) it was happening; this was of surprisingly little or no help - certainly it did not make me feel significantly better. Thus I could only escape the horribleness of the closed-world of selfish-self-centredness for a few moments - after which the default state inexorably re-imposed itself. 

Furthermore, I was reduced to an almost-wholly non-spiritual level of functioning. Meditation and (meaningful) prayer were eliminated; all the perspectives of a joyous and hopeful nature were experienced as mere forms-of-words or futile actions - and anyway lasted only for very short periods before the mind would return to its miserable brooding. 

Some of the lessons I took from this included that there are situations when circumstances are stronger than resolutions and convictions; and where positive efforts are so feeble and short-lived as to be swamped. 

I see how some kind of illness, sufficiently sustained, could easily overwhelm whatever defences were in place; and could poison even long-term and deep patterns of good attitudes and behaviours.

I hope that in future this makes me more empathic towards those who have become narrowed and petty as a result of sickness or circumstances, too strong and lasting for their resources to resist.  

In retrospect; the experience has confirmed my understanding of this mortal life as a time for spiritual learning - and not (or only very seldom) a phase of solid, incremental, spiritual progression. 

In other words: theosis is properly understood in terms of what we have learned spiritually during mortal life on earth, being recognized of value to our immortal resurrected life in Heaven. Theosis is not, therefore, about making ourselves better Christians throughout mortal life - such spiritual improvement being detectable and evident during mortal life. 

If I had previously supposed that I had made significant spiritual progress as a Romantic Christian - then it would have been devastating to see it all swept-aside so 'swiftly and effortlessly' by a combination of physical symptoms. 

Instead (now that I have emerged from it) I can see that this state of malaise-dysphoria (during which I could find no positives and was crushed by negatives) functioned as an experience that was intended to be learned-from - but learned not while-it-was-actually-happening; instead, learned in retrospect. 

My main conclusion is that life can get the better of us! 

We can find ourselves in situations where no amount of positive thinking and spiritual hope (nor of medical intervention) can alleviate the situation. 

Unavoidable suffering just-is part of life, part of the divine plan for each of us (and for some more than others). 

We will sometimes find ourselves 'inside' an inescapable adverse situation - and while that situation continues we can do nothing more than cope as best we may. 

The challenge comes afterwards - looking-back; when we are called-upon to make sense of it. 

That is when our Christian faith should come into its own.  

Note: I am here trying to draw general conclusions from a personal experience - I am not soliciting advice or sympathy. Also I will not publish any comments that aim to be reassuring or consoling: that is not the point of this post. Nor am I looking to compare notes with others having had what seem like similar experiences, except insofar as they contribute to this overall aim. 

Placeholder post

I have not been blogging for while because of a spell of debilitating illness/ illnesses; from which I seem gradually to be recovering now. I intend to resume posting as and when possible. 

Doubling-down on the motes: The traditionalist, church-orientated Christian dilemma

It is a very difficult time for traditionalist Christians, whose churches have already aligned with the evil global agenda and who are becoming more converged all the time. 

In times like these a strong, secure and really-Christian church would be more valuable than ever; but such an entity is not on offer. 

The large churches are net-evil-aligned, and the only 'pure' churches are small and weak - in worldly terms (and there may be none of these available, even if such would be regarded as acceptable). 

The dilemma I wish to discuss is that it has been noticed (e.g. by Rodney Stark) that the successful churches of the middle 20th century were demanding of their members - that is, they demanded significant changes to lifestyle. 'In return' such churches gave significant social support; so that membership 'made a difference'.  

By contrast, those churches that did not demand any significant changes or sacrifices from members ('liberal' doctrine, any lifestyle tolerated) were declining, collapsing; becoming numerically heavily-dominated by older women - and without many men, families or the children that are signs of a thriving church. 

But this is (or rather was) a sociological explanation for strong churches - not primarily a spiritual one. And the recently-strong churches have over more-recent years (and especially since the birdemic) suffered (or had imposed) a disconnection between the church as a social group, and the church as a genuinely Christian group. 

In other words; group-cohesion of the church has been maintained by social/ lifestyle elements and at the cost of spiritual Christian elements. 

This means that church-orientated Christians find themselves in a repeated dilemma where the church authorities introduce anti-Christian practices - but to oppose these will cause fracturing and schism of the church. 

In different words; church cohesion is maintained only at the cost of core Christian values; while maintaining core Christian values will tend to break apart churches, and will also entail that the church members must discern and discriminate within the church - perhaps even rejecting most or all of the leadership (priest or pastors).

This is something that very few traditionalists are willing to do - especially not explicitly; because it goes against the (inevitably) group-ish explanations regarding the special and distinctive rightness and truth of their own churches.  

One reaction I have noticed is traditionalists advocating a doubling-down on the tougher and more demanding aspects of their church - which tends, or until recently tended, to reinforce group strength. 

But the problem is that these lifestyle or theological aspects are (mostly) only 'incidentally' Christian, should not be regarded as core to the faith; and are practices that distinguish and divide the various Christian churches. 

So - at a time when Christianity is at just about its weakest and most corrupt in history, and when the (small) minority of faithful Christians who have resisted the socio-political convergence of (for example) the Litmus Test issues; some of the traditionalists among these faithful Christians are dividing this small remnant of sincere and courageous believers by their core insistence on that which makes their own church different. 

I think this doubling-down on the inessentials (and the consequent hostility among Christians) happens as a way of 'dealing with' the traditionalist problem of evil-aligned leaders and the need for discernment within the church. 

By this means, the church leadership can continue to be supported by traditionalists - because the leaders mostly sustain the cohesion of the churches while discarding core Christian alignment with God, creation and The Good - by retaining and emphasizing 'church order' issues that emphasize the specific distinctions between types-of-Christian.  

The 'beam' of vast and escalating core-corruption in one's own church is thereby neglected by this doubling-down on the 'motes' of lifestyle micro-issues and church-order/ church-unity matters. 

This strikes me as an insidiously-effective demonic strategy for further weakening and corrupting what (comparatively-little) remains of the Christian churches after the repeated onslaughts of socio-political Litmus Tests; by ensuring that Christians in traditional denominations expend a great deal of their time and energy on emphasizing their differentness-from and superiority-to other types of Christian - to the point of denying that the other types of Christian really-are Christians.