William Wildblood analyzes the nature of evil; and concludes:
Reality is primarily spiritual and the contemporary attack on the soul is every bit as evil as the evil of the Nazis. It is just evil manifesting in a different sphere, spiritual rather than material.
Our refusal to recognise spiritual evil and the hubris that goes along with this is why the Western world is dying. It cannot be saved but that is not important. What is important is individual souls and these can be saved but only if they renounce the world as it is and do what I believe is called in the terminology of mobile phones and other electronic devices, a factory reset in which all or most of the accumulated data is wiped clean and you start afresh.
This is repentance or, to use a word I prefer because it signifies something more comprehensive, metanoia, a total change of mind and heart driven by penitence.
The need for metanoia means that a vague, generalised, intellectual kind of spirituality is not the answer. There's plenty of that about but it does not reach to the bottom of the soul and can often by engaged in without the renunciation of worldliness. It's a new suit when we need a new mind.
The true religious goal is not to make us happy in this life but to prepare us to enter the next. Too much contemporary spirituality is therapeutic when it should be transformational and this is part of the form evil currently takes in our world.
Monday, 11 May 2020
Sunday, 10 May 2020
Can there be heroes in a bureaucratic totalitarian world where Resistance is Futile?
Not in the traditional sense, there can't.
There cannot be a hero leading a fellowship of fighters for freedom and The Good; because there is nothing specific for them to fight, or beat; no wicked Emperor (or Vizier), no all-powerful dictator (just replaceable suits, puppets and drones), not even The Party nor a Ministry of Magic...
Instead a nebulous, all pervasive, globally-interlinked, bureaucratic-abstract System; to-which all are linked, with-which all are complicit, and from-which nothing stands altogether apart.
Indeed, with things as they are; the idea of a hero defeating evil on behalf of a silent oppressed majority of the good masses, is unrealistic. The modern materialist masses overwhelming desire their own oppression - mostly tacitly and implicitly, but often-enough explicitly and aggressively.
So, even if the fellowship somehow did defeat the many-headed system - and succeeded in 'Scouring The Shire'; the would-be heroes could not expect the gratitude of the populace; but quite likely the opposite.
So if group rebellion and mass resistance just isn't going to happen - because unwanted - what should Christians actually do?
Some principles are that whatever is done, we must do alone, or with (at most) a handful of like-minded folk (who we would need already to know). Our advantage is that we do not need to wait on persuading others, or developing consensus: we can get on with it immediately!
What is 'it' that we should do? Well, for our-selves 'it' must be to develop personal understanding: knowledge of what is happening in a spiritual sense.
As for evangelism, this understanding and knowing is also what must be encouraged.
It would be unwise, as well as futile, to encourage action in a situation when so many people are so wrongly, as well as feebly, motivated. Right motivation must precede that strong motivation necessary for effective action.
And if this 'plan' sounds just as futile, or even more futile, than trying to organise resistance; then we need to bear in mind that God works through-us - and anything of value that we personally do, can (and will) be amplified and directed by divine providence - to whatever degree is best.
Always bearing in mind that effectiveness will be calibrated by the divine against the eternal condition of post-mortal Heavenly life; and will not be aimed-at optimising our immediate comfort and pleasure in this mortal world.
Thus hope is sustained by faith.
There cannot be a hero leading a fellowship of fighters for freedom and The Good; because there is nothing specific for them to fight, or beat; no wicked Emperor (or Vizier), no all-powerful dictator (just replaceable suits, puppets and drones), not even The Party nor a Ministry of Magic...
Instead a nebulous, all pervasive, globally-interlinked, bureaucratic-abstract System; to-which all are linked, with-which all are complicit, and from-which nothing stands altogether apart.
Indeed, with things as they are; the idea of a hero defeating evil on behalf of a silent oppressed majority of the good masses, is unrealistic. The modern materialist masses overwhelming desire their own oppression - mostly tacitly and implicitly, but often-enough explicitly and aggressively.
So, even if the fellowship somehow did defeat the many-headed system - and succeeded in 'Scouring The Shire'; the would-be heroes could not expect the gratitude of the populace; but quite likely the opposite.
So if group rebellion and mass resistance just isn't going to happen - because unwanted - what should Christians actually do?
Some principles are that whatever is done, we must do alone, or with (at most) a handful of like-minded folk (who we would need already to know). Our advantage is that we do not need to wait on persuading others, or developing consensus: we can get on with it immediately!
What is 'it' that we should do? Well, for our-selves 'it' must be to develop personal understanding: knowledge of what is happening in a spiritual sense.
As for evangelism, this understanding and knowing is also what must be encouraged.
It would be unwise, as well as futile, to encourage action in a situation when so many people are so wrongly, as well as feebly, motivated. Right motivation must precede that strong motivation necessary for effective action.
And if this 'plan' sounds just as futile, or even more futile, than trying to organise resistance; then we need to bear in mind that God works through-us - and anything of value that we personally do, can (and will) be amplified and directed by divine providence - to whatever degree is best.
Always bearing in mind that effectiveness will be calibrated by the divine against the eternal condition of post-mortal Heavenly life; and will not be aimed-at optimising our immediate comfort and pleasure in this mortal world.
Thus hope is sustained by faith.
Saturday, 9 May 2020
Mass misdirection: How come - after so many dystopian novels, TV shows and movies - people still can't recognise evil totalitarianism when they are living it?
The thing is: They are clever! Not all-knowing, certainly not all-powerful - and highly fallible; but They are clever. A lot cleverer than most of their pseudo-intellectual critics who will explain-away the biggest, fastest, most universal and comprehensive change in the history of the world as some kind of random coincidence of something or another.
I mean that, just four months ago, the world was qualitatively different; and now almost everybody is living under an extremity of control and restriction that would have been literally incredible, just four months ago. All the talk is that this change will be permanent, in some form.
It happened. And - fundamentally - hardly anybody has noticed; and hardly anybody who has noticed can see the obvious cause; but instead grasps and holds-tight onto the transparently inadequate and incoherent excuse that everything is necessary because of the deadly birdemic plague - and the totalitarian world must continue because of the birdemic plague...
This is all the more surprising since - for the entire last generation - the best-selling, and biggest impact media have been all-about evil totalitarian dystopias; from Harry Potter and the Hunger Games through innumerable other variants of the same idea. And this was building upon the past century of similar products - The Time Machine, 1984, Brave New World etc.
These have been massively disseminated, in multiple media. Now, why would the Global Establishment be so keen on making and sustaining mass media phenomena describing totalitarian dystopias, if that is what they were planning to impose upon us?
The answer, I think, is misdirection.
We have seen many, many evil totalitarian dystopias; but the evil-ness of these societies has always been portrayed as militaristic, violent and murdering. (That is, Luciferic evil.)
This is indeed natural, because in a godless and secular society; directly causing physical suffering seems to be the only kind of evil that people recognise. Thus in these modern dystopias, the baddies are bad because they torment, torture and kill lots of people.
Therefore, when a totalitarian society arises that does not (any more than usual) torment, torture and kill great masses of people - and what is more, was implemented without any uniformed, marching armies and by consent - then it just isn't noticed, and is indeed denied.
Misdirection has worked.
A godless materialistic society has no belief in any purpose or meaning to life; therefore the idea of evilness as micro-control of behaviour and thought has no reality. It cannot be grasped.
Such a society denies the non-material, the spiritual - indeed it barely acknowledges the autonomous free agency of human beings; who are continually redescribed and modelled in terms of being wholly-determined or statistically-random in their actions. The existence of evil spirits is regarded as being childish, dumb or an insane delusion.
In such a world - and this is mainstream and mandatory in Western discourse - there can be no genuine intent, not even of humans; and everything is explained by the forces acting-upon humans.
One would have supposed that the indescribably vast evidence of humans planning and scheming throughout history and into the present might have had some traction - but no.
The only acceptable view is that stuff just happens, either because it must - or for no reason at all; but at any rate, evil strategies are ruled-out a priori (by assumption) because evil Men are not self-motivated and evil spirits don't exist.
The actually-existing Ahrimanic nature of modern evil is beyond comprehension; hence unrecognised; hence unopposed. The evilness of a society of omni-surveillance and total-control is seen only when this is used to pursue violence; and there is no conception of materialistic reduction being evil in itself.
In sum; when reality is spiritual, but Men are materialistic, then the basic nature and point of life become utterly invisible to consciousness. At an unconscious and inarticulate level; Men retain an awareness of spiritual realities - and it is this that causes the demotivation, fear and despair underlying much of the world today. But unconscious and inarticulate does not suffice.
Therefore, the best and most important thing that we can do is to bring to explicit consciousness these vague feelings and hunches about what has happened and the nature of this current situation. We need to make our-selves aware of that understanding already latent in us.
This is the indispensable first step... But towards what? The answer is: To the salvation of our souls, to life everlasting beyond death.
Those who don't want Heaven can get what they want under totalitarianism - they have no problem with being misdirected.
Those who want Hell or self-annihilation for themselves have no problem with totalitarianism, because it is a demonic mechanism of damnation. They can continue to live under misdirection.
But you may be different. If you want Heaven, if you are a Christian, you need to understand.
I mean that, just four months ago, the world was qualitatively different; and now almost everybody is living under an extremity of control and restriction that would have been literally incredible, just four months ago. All the talk is that this change will be permanent, in some form.
It happened. And - fundamentally - hardly anybody has noticed; and hardly anybody who has noticed can see the obvious cause; but instead grasps and holds-tight onto the transparently inadequate and incoherent excuse that everything is necessary because of the deadly birdemic plague - and the totalitarian world must continue because of the birdemic plague...
This is all the more surprising since - for the entire last generation - the best-selling, and biggest impact media have been all-about evil totalitarian dystopias; from Harry Potter and the Hunger Games through innumerable other variants of the same idea. And this was building upon the past century of similar products - The Time Machine, 1984, Brave New World etc.
These have been massively disseminated, in multiple media. Now, why would the Global Establishment be so keen on making and sustaining mass media phenomena describing totalitarian dystopias, if that is what they were planning to impose upon us?
The answer, I think, is misdirection.
We have seen many, many evil totalitarian dystopias; but the evil-ness of these societies has always been portrayed as militaristic, violent and murdering. (That is, Luciferic evil.)
This is indeed natural, because in a godless and secular society; directly causing physical suffering seems to be the only kind of evil that people recognise. Thus in these modern dystopias, the baddies are bad because they torment, torture and kill lots of people.
Therefore, when a totalitarian society arises that does not (any more than usual) torment, torture and kill great masses of people - and what is more, was implemented without any uniformed, marching armies and by consent - then it just isn't noticed, and is indeed denied.
Misdirection has worked.
A godless materialistic society has no belief in any purpose or meaning to life; therefore the idea of evilness as micro-control of behaviour and thought has no reality. It cannot be grasped.
Such a society denies the non-material, the spiritual - indeed it barely acknowledges the autonomous free agency of human beings; who are continually redescribed and modelled in terms of being wholly-determined or statistically-random in their actions. The existence of evil spirits is regarded as being childish, dumb or an insane delusion.
In such a world - and this is mainstream and mandatory in Western discourse - there can be no genuine intent, not even of humans; and everything is explained by the forces acting-upon humans.
One would have supposed that the indescribably vast evidence of humans planning and scheming throughout history and into the present might have had some traction - but no.
The only acceptable view is that stuff just happens, either because it must - or for no reason at all; but at any rate, evil strategies are ruled-out a priori (by assumption) because evil Men are not self-motivated and evil spirits don't exist.
The actually-existing Ahrimanic nature of modern evil is beyond comprehension; hence unrecognised; hence unopposed. The evilness of a society of omni-surveillance and total-control is seen only when this is used to pursue violence; and there is no conception of materialistic reduction being evil in itself.
In sum; when reality is spiritual, but Men are materialistic, then the basic nature and point of life become utterly invisible to consciousness. At an unconscious and inarticulate level; Men retain an awareness of spiritual realities - and it is this that causes the demotivation, fear and despair underlying much of the world today. But unconscious and inarticulate does not suffice.
Therefore, the best and most important thing that we can do is to bring to explicit consciousness these vague feelings and hunches about what has happened and the nature of this current situation. We need to make our-selves aware of that understanding already latent in us.
This is the indispensable first step... But towards what? The answer is: To the salvation of our souls, to life everlasting beyond death.
Those who don't want Heaven can get what they want under totalitarianism - they have no problem with being misdirected.
Those who want Hell or self-annihilation for themselves have no problem with totalitarianism, because it is a demonic mechanism of damnation. They can continue to live under misdirection.
But you may be different. If you want Heaven, if you are a Christian, you need to understand.
Friday, 8 May 2020
Despard and Margaret's duet from Ruddigore
From 22:25
Ruddigore is one of the Gilbert and Sullivan Savoy Operas that contains some of their very best (and most distinctive work), has an unique and appealing flavour, and can be wholly satisfying in performance. But it requires a good production to yield its full promise.
(By contrast, shows like Trial by Jury, HMS Pinafore and The Mikado are extremely robust, and almost production-proof.)
There are many delights, but my favourite is the above duet between the reformed villain and sobered-up madwoman, Despard and Margaret. Despard used to be a professionally evil (in an operetta way) squire, and Margaret was his crazily-in-love sidekick. Due to the usual plot nonsense, they change and lead a stiflingly respectable life; which is described in the song "I once was a very abandoned person".
This is remarkable for its striking melody and dark, plangent orchestration, which is like nothing else I have ever heard; the wonderfully witty lyrics; and the idiomatic musical setting of these lyrics - so that they yield their full humour. (Which is even better in performance, after seeing the earlier behaviour of these characters.)
I once was a very abandoned person –
Making the most of evil chances.
Nobody could conceive a worse 'un –
Even in all the old romances.
I blush for my wild extravagances,
But be so kind
To bear in mind,
We were the victims of circumstances!...
That is one of our blameless dances.
I was once an exceedingly odd young lady –
Suffering much from spleen and vapours.
Clergymen thought my conduct shady –
She didn't spend much upon linen-drapers.
It certainly entertained the gapers.
My ways were strange
Beyond all range –
Paragraphs got into all the papers...
We only cut respectable capers
I've given up all my wild proceedings.
My taste for a wandering life is waning.
Now I'm a dab at penny readings.
They are not remarkably entertaining.
A moderate livelihood we're gaining.
In fact we rule
A National School.
The duties are dull, but I'm not complaining...
This sort of thing takes a deal of training!
If you stick-around after the duet, you will hear the famous patter trio "My eyes are fully open"; each verse of which has no space for breathing, and so needs to be sung as-rapidly-as-possible in order to get through without dropping a beat or omitting a word.
My eyes are fully open to my awful situation –
I shall go at once to Roderic and make him an oration.
I shall tell him I've recovered my forgotten moral senses,
And I don't care twopence-halfpenny for any consequences.
Now I do not want to perish by the sword or by the dagger,
But a martyr may indulge a little pardonable swagger,
And a word or two of compliment my vanity would flatter,
But I've got to die tomorrow, so it really doesn't matter!
If were not a little mad and generally silly
I should give you my advice upon the subject, willy-nilly;
I should show you in a moment how to grapple with the question,
And you'd really be astonished at the force of my suggestion.
On the subject I shall write you a most valuable letter,
Full of excellent suggestions when I feel a little better,
But at present I'm afraid I am as mad as any hatter,
So I'll keep 'em to myself, for my opinion doesn't matter!
If I had been so lucky as to have a steady brother
Who could talk to me as we are talking now to one another –
Who could give me good advice when he discovered I was erring
(Which is just the very favour which on you I am conferring),
My existence would have made a rather interesting idyll,
And I might have lived and died a very decent indiwiddle.
This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter!
(By contrast, shows like Trial by Jury, HMS Pinafore and The Mikado are extremely robust, and almost production-proof.)
There are many delights, but my favourite is the above duet between the reformed villain and sobered-up madwoman, Despard and Margaret. Despard used to be a professionally evil (in an operetta way) squire, and Margaret was his crazily-in-love sidekick. Due to the usual plot nonsense, they change and lead a stiflingly respectable life; which is described in the song "I once was a very abandoned person".
This is remarkable for its striking melody and dark, plangent orchestration, which is like nothing else I have ever heard; the wonderfully witty lyrics; and the idiomatic musical setting of these lyrics - so that they yield their full humour. (Which is even better in performance, after seeing the earlier behaviour of these characters.)
I once was a very abandoned person –
Making the most of evil chances.
Nobody could conceive a worse 'un –
Even in all the old romances.
I blush for my wild extravagances,
But be so kind
To bear in mind,
We were the victims of circumstances!...
That is one of our blameless dances.
I was once an exceedingly odd young lady –
Suffering much from spleen and vapours.
Clergymen thought my conduct shady –
She didn't spend much upon linen-drapers.
It certainly entertained the gapers.
My ways were strange
Beyond all range –
Paragraphs got into all the papers...
We only cut respectable capers
I've given up all my wild proceedings.
My taste for a wandering life is waning.
Now I'm a dab at penny readings.
They are not remarkably entertaining.
A moderate livelihood we're gaining.
In fact we rule
A National School.
The duties are dull, but I'm not complaining...
This sort of thing takes a deal of training!
If you stick-around after the duet, you will hear the famous patter trio "My eyes are fully open"; each verse of which has no space for breathing, and so needs to be sung as-rapidly-as-possible in order to get through without dropping a beat or omitting a word.
My eyes are fully open to my awful situation –
I shall go at once to Roderic and make him an oration.
I shall tell him I've recovered my forgotten moral senses,
And I don't care twopence-halfpenny for any consequences.
Now I do not want to perish by the sword or by the dagger,
But a martyr may indulge a little pardonable swagger,
And a word or two of compliment my vanity would flatter,
But I've got to die tomorrow, so it really doesn't matter!
If were not a little mad and generally silly
I should give you my advice upon the subject, willy-nilly;
I should show you in a moment how to grapple with the question,
And you'd really be astonished at the force of my suggestion.
On the subject I shall write you a most valuable letter,
Full of excellent suggestions when I feel a little better,
But at present I'm afraid I am as mad as any hatter,
So I'll keep 'em to myself, for my opinion doesn't matter!
If I had been so lucky as to have a steady brother
Who could talk to me as we are talking now to one another –
Who could give me good advice when he discovered I was erring
(Which is just the very favour which on you I am conferring),
My existence would have made a rather interesting idyll,
And I might have lived and died a very decent indiwiddle.
This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter!
Choice phrases from a Church of England Bishop's letter to priests, concerning the birdemic
Following from my previous selection; the following phrases are from a non-public letter - there is no web-link. You will just have to trust me about accuracy; or not. Quotes are in plain text; my interpretative comments and emphasis are in italics:
For many people, the restrictions imposed on the use of church buildings has been of particular concern, and a source of sadness.
Sadness... Well, of course, the sadness of priests is primary. Laity... not so much. And sadness is, of course, the main thing; not - errr - salvation, or anything of that sort.
The House of Bishops has now agreed that individual diocesan bishops can issue guidance about the first stage of a gradual easing of restrictions on the use of church buildings, whilst keeping our church buildings closed.
Only essential buildings are remaining open in the UK (such as bicycle shops); and the House of Bishops does not regard churches as essential - hence they need to remain closed.
Incumbents and priests in charge, or area deans where there is no incumbent, can in consultation with their churchwardens and bearing in mind their specific location, appoint one person for each church in their benefice to enter that church building...
Other organisations like supermarkets can have plenty of people inside their buildings; but not churches. In churches only an appointed person may enter. Because... well... presumably because of the danger that if two or three are gathered together - something Christian may occur.
The appointed person should be entering the church building for any or all of the following (i) pray the Daily Office and/or celebrate the Eucharist on behalf of the community they serve, (ii) live stream or pre-record worship, (iii) ring one bell to mark prayers being said or mark events (e.g. Clap for Carers...)
Because the modern Church of England's focus of worship is the National Health Service?
...The church should be near to where the appointed person lives and a visit should generally be part of their daily exercise....
In other words; priests must choose between visiting church and exercise. Other workers are 'allowed' to exercise in addition to travelling to and from work; but not priests.
Only the appointed person (and any of their household) should enter and the door should be locked.
Because it is vital to keep people out of the churches.
Consideration should be given to what cleaning will be needed to make our churches safe (e.g. bat, mice and rat faeces, mould spores, dust, legionella disease in water systems, as well as disinfecting gates and door handles etc). This will need to be done by the appointed person.
The priest may pray the daily office or celebrate Eucharist; but only if there is time left-over after sweeping-up the bat faeces...
When adopting this guidance, our priority must be to act responsibly and safeguard ourselves and other people from infection.
Yes, we understand. The Bishop's priority is this world and not the next, the material and not the spiritual, safety of bodies but indifference to souls.
We get it. Really, we do.
For many people, the restrictions imposed on the use of church buildings has been of particular concern, and a source of sadness.
Sadness... Well, of course, the sadness of priests is primary. Laity... not so much. And sadness is, of course, the main thing; not - errr - salvation, or anything of that sort.
The House of Bishops has now agreed that individual diocesan bishops can issue guidance about the first stage of a gradual easing of restrictions on the use of church buildings, whilst keeping our church buildings closed.
Only essential buildings are remaining open in the UK (such as bicycle shops); and the House of Bishops does not regard churches as essential - hence they need to remain closed.
Incumbents and priests in charge, or area deans where there is no incumbent, can in consultation with their churchwardens and bearing in mind their specific location, appoint one person for each church in their benefice to enter that church building...
Other organisations like supermarkets can have plenty of people inside their buildings; but not churches. In churches only an appointed person may enter. Because... well... presumably because of the danger that if two or three are gathered together - something Christian may occur.
The appointed person should be entering the church building for any or all of the following (i) pray the Daily Office and/or celebrate the Eucharist on behalf of the community they serve, (ii) live stream or pre-record worship, (iii) ring one bell to mark prayers being said or mark events (e.g. Clap for Carers...)
Because the modern Church of England's focus of worship is the National Health Service?
...The church should be near to where the appointed person lives and a visit should generally be part of their daily exercise....
In other words; priests must choose between visiting church and exercise. Other workers are 'allowed' to exercise in addition to travelling to and from work; but not priests.
Only the appointed person (and any of their household) should enter and the door should be locked.
Because it is vital to keep people out of the churches.
Consideration should be given to what cleaning will be needed to make our churches safe (e.g. bat, mice and rat faeces, mould spores, dust, legionella disease in water systems, as well as disinfecting gates and door handles etc). This will need to be done by the appointed person.
The priest may pray the daily office or celebrate Eucharist; but only if there is time left-over after sweeping-up the bat faeces...
When adopting this guidance, our priority must be to act responsibly and safeguard ourselves and other people from infection.
Yes, we understand. The Bishop's priority is this world and not the next, the material and not the spiritual, safety of bodies but indifference to souls.
We get it. Really, we do.
Understanding the Ahrimanic distinction
The Ahrimanic-style demon Balthazar from the (enjoyable) movie Constantine (2005)
If you do not already understand the distinctively 'Ahrimanic' nature of modern evil; then I think it would be time well spent for you to look-into this.
One quick and enjoyable way - which I wrote about a couple of years ago - is to study Screwtape Proposes a Toast (1959) by CS Lewis (PDF version here) - and indeed the character of Screwtape as contrasted with his nephew Wormwood in The Screwtape Letters (PDF here).
Throughout the Letters Screwtape is recurrently trying to reign-in Wormwood's naive, short-termist and (for Wormwood) personally-gratifying evil of tormenting, frightening and playing-nasty-tricks-on his 'patient'; but losing sight of the fact that the ultimate (and proper) goal of demons is damned dead souls, not miserable living humans.
By this analysis: Wormwood's is the old-style 'Luciferic' evil; Screwtape represents the modern, totalitarian, bureaucratic, soft-sell, incremental Ahrimanic evil - much less spectacular and obvious; but in the end much more powerfully damning for exactly those reasons.
In Proposes a Toast, Screwtape comments:
The quality [of Ahrimanically-damned souls] may be wretched; but we never had souls (of a sort) in more abundance....
We are tempted to say that such souls — or such residual puddles of what once was soul — are hardly worth damning. Yes, but the Enemy (for whatever inscrutable and perverse reason) thought them worth trying to save. Believe me, He did.
You youngsters who have not yet been on active duty have no idea with what labour, with what delicate skill, each of these miserable creatures was finally captured.The difficulty lay in their very smallness and flabbiness.
Here were vermin so muddled in mind, so passively responsive to environment, that it was very hard to raise them to that level of clarity and deliberateness at which mortal sin becomes possible.
To raise them just enough; but not that fatal millimetre of “too much.” For then, of course, all would possibly have been lost. They might have seen; they might have repented.
That is exactly the nature of modern Ahrimanic evil - it is pathetic in its passivity of evil-ness (it is evil minus the courage and motivation of great villains of the past); but there is such a lot of it!
Thursday, 7 May 2020
Three things I have missed most?
Don't get me wrong; my recognition of the birdemic fake crisis is not based on its having made much of a difference to my own life: it has not. I already led a very restricted life due to illness; so not that much has changed. Indeed the recent spell of fine, dry, spring weather, quiet roads (I live within a mile of the city centre) and the return of the song thrush have all (for example) been major personal enhancements. So, it's nothing personal.
What I have missed most are threefold:
1. Trips by car to walk in the countryside.
2. Going to a cafe in the morning for my reading, writing, meditation.
3. Cricket.
What I have missed most are threefold:
1. Trips by car to walk in the countryside.
2. Going to a cafe in the morning for my reading, writing, meditation.
3. Cricket.
"It is as if the earth there is cursed" - Tolkien, Ireland and the Roman Church
George Sayer wrote the best biography of CS Lewis; and he was also a significant friend of JRR Tolkien. Sayer wrote a fascinating memoir later published in Tolkien: a celebration edited by Joseph Pearce (1999).
In one section Sayer recorded:
[Tolkien] had a very low opinion of his own merits and fairly easily got into a depressed state when thinking of his faults and deficiencies.
Life was a war between good and evil. He thought the sacraments freed one from enthrallment to Sauron.
Once he spoke to me of Ireland after he had spent part of a summer vacation working there as an examiner:
"It is as if the earth there is cursed. It exudes an evil that is held in check only by Christian practice and the power of prayer."
Even the soil, the earth, played a part in the cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil...
[Tolkien] found little or nothing wrong with the pre Vatican II Church, and therefore thought the reforms of the 1960s misguided and unnecessary...
The context is that Tolkien, by choice and with enjoyment, made many visits to Ireland both on holiday and as an external examiner for several universities; and said in a letter to his son Michael that he was always happy while there.
My inference is that Tolkien's love of Ireland was bound-up with its being a Roman Catholic nation - and one of the most deeply and devoutly Catholic in the world.
And, just as Tolkien would have been very distressed by the state of his church nowadays; likewise he would have probably have been strongly averse to the modern, secular Ireland; which was built-upon rejection of the church, and embrace of the European Union and its ideals.
This is as clear an example as may be wished of how things have changed and reversed over the past half century; how so many institutions and nations that were then net-good have since become net-evil.
And an example, too, of how this is related to the end of traditionalist, institutional Christianity - which once permeated the minds of Men. By Tolkien's analysis, the cursed nature of Ireland is no longer held in check and transformed by the church - so what remains after this subtraction is (overall) evil.
Something analogous, but different in detail, has happened everywhere. Once good nations become inexorably horrible, decadent, depraved; after the influence of their traditional Christian church is removed.
Yet, as with Vatican II, the churches removed-themselves from their various nations (or at least actively colluded in the process).
So, the experiment has been done; all over the world. And we can each of us see, all around, in exaggerated form (if we have the capacity think and make the choice to be honest) the terrible consequences of Christian apsostasy and unopposed materialism.
It turns-out we all live on 'cursed ground': when Christianity is deleted and materialism is triumphant.
This has become undeniable in the past weeks; with the truly despicable spectacle of most-of-the-world embracing totalitarian, materialist monomania; and the masses succumbing to fear, resentment, spite and despair.
Yet we can get no help from the churches, nor from any other institution. That era is finished.
So we must do now what we probably should have done long ago; which is to take direct and personal responsibility for our Christian faith; to make it a faith of the heart, fuelled by the fires within.
In one section Sayer recorded:
[Tolkien] had a very low opinion of his own merits and fairly easily got into a depressed state when thinking of his faults and deficiencies.
Life was a war between good and evil. He thought the sacraments freed one from enthrallment to Sauron.
Once he spoke to me of Ireland after he had spent part of a summer vacation working there as an examiner:
"It is as if the earth there is cursed. It exudes an evil that is held in check only by Christian practice and the power of prayer."
Even the soil, the earth, played a part in the cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil...
[Tolkien] found little or nothing wrong with the pre Vatican II Church, and therefore thought the reforms of the 1960s misguided and unnecessary...
The context is that Tolkien, by choice and with enjoyment, made many visits to Ireland both on holiday and as an external examiner for several universities; and said in a letter to his son Michael that he was always happy while there.
My inference is that Tolkien's love of Ireland was bound-up with its being a Roman Catholic nation - and one of the most deeply and devoutly Catholic in the world.
And, just as Tolkien would have been very distressed by the state of his church nowadays; likewise he would have probably have been strongly averse to the modern, secular Ireland; which was built-upon rejection of the church, and embrace of the European Union and its ideals.
This is as clear an example as may be wished of how things have changed and reversed over the past half century; how so many institutions and nations that were then net-good have since become net-evil.
And an example, too, of how this is related to the end of traditionalist, institutional Christianity - which once permeated the minds of Men. By Tolkien's analysis, the cursed nature of Ireland is no longer held in check and transformed by the church - so what remains after this subtraction is (overall) evil.
Something analogous, but different in detail, has happened everywhere. Once good nations become inexorably horrible, decadent, depraved; after the influence of their traditional Christian church is removed.
Yet, as with Vatican II, the churches removed-themselves from their various nations (or at least actively colluded in the process).
So, the experiment has been done; all over the world. And we can each of us see, all around, in exaggerated form (if we have the capacity think and make the choice to be honest) the terrible consequences of Christian apsostasy and unopposed materialism.
It turns-out we all live on 'cursed ground': when Christianity is deleted and materialism is triumphant.
This has become undeniable in the past weeks; with the truly despicable spectacle of most-of-the-world embracing totalitarian, materialist monomania; and the masses succumbing to fear, resentment, spite and despair.
Yet we can get no help from the churches, nor from any other institution. That era is finished.
So we must do now what we probably should have done long ago; which is to take direct and personal responsibility for our Christian faith; to make it a faith of the heart, fuelled by the fires within.
Wednesday, 6 May 2020
Why is motivation primary?
Motivation is primary because life is 'dynamic'; all is alive and conscious, ultimate (metaphysical) reality is of beings and their relationships.
This is The Spiritual - and materialism is wrong and evil because it denies this primacy.
Reality is thus dynamic - and also participative.
It is the fact of our participation in the creation of reality that makes motivation primary; because when we are participating in creating reality it is our motivation that shapes the nature of that reality.
(I mean this literally - it is not our subjective impression of reality that is shaped by motivation; but objective reality iself.)
A person of good motivation (aligned with God and divine creation) will make the world in harmony with good.
By contrast, a person of evil motivation (aligned with the personal powers of evil, and their intent to subvert, destroy, invert good, reducing creation to chaos) will pursue an anti-creative way of existence.
An evil-motivated person will - in his existence and overall in outcomes - be net-undoing creation, in effect working-against good.
Motivation describes which way we are pointing in our living...
We each are pointing either towards contributing to the harmonious development of on-going creation... or Not.
In all our doings, we are each aligned-with God's creative purposes, or Not.
It is not each individual action or type-of-action (as if these could truly detached from the stream of time...) that is crucial, rather it is the dynamic 'process' of creat-ing (in time; time is intrinsic to the dynamic).
To use different words; the actuality of participation is a weaving-in of our personal creating (through time) with God's creating (through time) - this harmonious weaving depends on aiming in the same direction, at the same goal.
Motivation therefore describes the direction of our intent.
Only when our direction is shared with God's, is our motivation the correct direction. Only then will our living be joined-with creation.
In sum: morality is dependent on our motivation; and motivation is our direction-of-pointing; and direction is our choice of 'alignment' in the spiritual warfare of mortal life.
Note added: It is interesting to consider why (and this goes back some decades) people-in-general absolutely refuse to consider the question of motivation - despite that without knowing (i.e. inferring, because it can never be 'known') motivation, most actions cannot be evaluated.
We know this from 'real life' - plus good fiction: it makes all the difference whether Gandalf says something, or if Saruman speaks the same words.
This refusal to discern and judge motivation is so pervasive, and goes so strongly against self-interest, that I regard it as pathological. In other words, it is part of a widespread/ all-but-universal 'mental illness'.
Which illness is the mainstream materialism/ secularism/ atheism... Once one has assumed that we life in a random-determined, purposeless and meaningless universe; then it seems peoples' motivations dwindle inexorably, and only the here-and-now behavioural-stimulus has any traction (and that not much).
This is The Spiritual - and materialism is wrong and evil because it denies this primacy.
Reality is thus dynamic - and also participative.
It is the fact of our participation in the creation of reality that makes motivation primary; because when we are participating in creating reality it is our motivation that shapes the nature of that reality.
(I mean this literally - it is not our subjective impression of reality that is shaped by motivation; but objective reality iself.)
A person of good motivation (aligned with God and divine creation) will make the world in harmony with good.
By contrast, a person of evil motivation (aligned with the personal powers of evil, and their intent to subvert, destroy, invert good, reducing creation to chaos) will pursue an anti-creative way of existence.
An evil-motivated person will - in his existence and overall in outcomes - be net-undoing creation, in effect working-against good.
Motivation describes which way we are pointing in our living...
We each are pointing either towards contributing to the harmonious development of on-going creation... or Not.
In all our doings, we are each aligned-with God's creative purposes, or Not.
It is not each individual action or type-of-action (as if these could truly detached from the stream of time...) that is crucial, rather it is the dynamic 'process' of creat-ing (in time; time is intrinsic to the dynamic).
To use different words; the actuality of participation is a weaving-in of our personal creating (through time) with God's creating (through time) - this harmonious weaving depends on aiming in the same direction, at the same goal.
Motivation therefore describes the direction of our intent.
Only when our direction is shared with God's, is our motivation the correct direction. Only then will our living be joined-with creation.
In sum: morality is dependent on our motivation; and motivation is our direction-of-pointing; and direction is our choice of 'alignment' in the spiritual warfare of mortal life.
Note added: It is interesting to consider why (and this goes back some decades) people-in-general absolutely refuse to consider the question of motivation - despite that without knowing (i.e. inferring, because it can never be 'known') motivation, most actions cannot be evaluated.
We know this from 'real life' - plus good fiction: it makes all the difference whether Gandalf says something, or if Saruman speaks the same words.
This refusal to discern and judge motivation is so pervasive, and goes so strongly against self-interest, that I regard it as pathological. In other words, it is part of a widespread/ all-but-universal 'mental illness'.
Which illness is the mainstream materialism/ secularism/ atheism... Once one has assumed that we life in a random-determined, purposeless and meaningless universe; then it seems peoples' motivations dwindle inexorably, and only the here-and-now behavioural-stimulus has any traction (and that not much).
Because motivation is morally primary, discernment and judgment are essential
Because motivation is primary in morality, discernment of the motivation of others is essential; we absolutely must be judgmental.
If we refuse to judge, we will not be able to choose validly who is motivated by good, and who by evil. We will not be able to pick the right side (the side of right).
We will not know whether we are working on the side of God, or of the devil.
(This is especially important here-and-now - when the side of evil is so dominant in the world; when evil dominates all large and powerful human institutions.)
Note: This is why one-ness teachings usually end-up preaching evil in modern Western conditions: because they argue against discernment and judgment. They try to convince people that we ought not to discern beautiful from ugly, virtuous from wicked, truth from lies... on the basis that all such are merely superficial illusions (maya). From a Christian perspective, this means that adherents of one-ness in practice go with the dominant flow: and thereby (albeit flaccidly) support leftist, totalitarian materialism, and fashionable 'causes'. This (under current conditions) generally means aligning-with the side of evil; neglecting to discover and work-with divine creation. Furthermore, anti-discernment, anti-judgment leads to enfeeblement of motivation generally; since it is not worth the effort of doing one thing rather than another - or some-thing rather than no-thing.
If we refuse to judge, we will not be able to choose validly who is motivated by good, and who by evil. We will not be able to pick the right side (the side of right).
We will not know whether we are working on the side of God, or of the devil.
(This is especially important here-and-now - when the side of evil is so dominant in the world; when evil dominates all large and powerful human institutions.)
Note: This is why one-ness teachings usually end-up preaching evil in modern Western conditions: because they argue against discernment and judgment. They try to convince people that we ought not to discern beautiful from ugly, virtuous from wicked, truth from lies... on the basis that all such are merely superficial illusions (maya). From a Christian perspective, this means that adherents of one-ness in practice go with the dominant flow: and thereby (albeit flaccidly) support leftist, totalitarian materialism, and fashionable 'causes'. This (under current conditions) generally means aligning-with the side of evil; neglecting to discover and work-with divine creation. Furthermore, anti-discernment, anti-judgment leads to enfeeblement of motivation generally; since it is not worth the effort of doing one thing rather than another - or some-thing rather than no-thing.
Tuesday, 5 May 2020
Each day - some new failure. But...
Days - by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdoms, stars, or sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
Each day has been, in recent weeks, probably less differentiated than any I can remember (because I can't remember being a baby). Yet there is no 'routine' - even if I were to want one.
Some days I think I have 'cracked it' and discovered the Key to this life; how to 'use my time well', how to improve my faults, how to live.
Sometimes at the end of the day I look back and think: That went pretty well. I just need to keep on doing that.
And I never can. Usually the very next day, the wheels come-off; and I have no-one to blame but myself. My motivation disappears, I'm irritable and sarcastic, I can't concentrate, my mind is just a buzzing confusion. My health collapses, and my spirits; or vice versa.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - all his life - felt that each day started with infinite promise (that early morning feeling!) - On such a day as this, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, or Beethoven his Third Symphony (or Emerson his essay Nature)... If him - then, why not me - now?
Each morning runs-down to an indulgent, bloating lunch and a turgid afternoon - and in the evening... well, we are lucky if we pick ourselves up from this stale slough,look at the stars and gird ourselves for the next day before lapsing gratefully into sleep - hoping to make a better fist of things tomorrow.
And we never do.
Well... that was Emerson; who sought to live each moment as if it was infinite in scope; and was permanently disappointed.
It is tempting to regard Life as a failure, and my life in particular; day by day, year by year, until death... But this is a profound error. Indeed, from my Christian perspective, it is a sinful error.
The only thing wrong with the actual days of my actual life, is when I lack faith and abandon hope.
If I have faith I know that God loves me and is making my acctual life into something from which I can benefit, day by day, hour by hour. If I have hope in Heavenly life I know that all experience undertaken in the spirit of faith is building towards a life of everlasting and cumulative satisfaction.
My life is a great situation for learning, a terrible situation for steady progress. A great opportunity for spiritual development, but rubbish at making us better people.
My life only intermittently and temporarily provides me with what I want - here and now; but has done a great job at dishing up what could do me good.
After that - it's up to me.
Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdoms, stars, or sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
Each day has been, in recent weeks, probably less differentiated than any I can remember (because I can't remember being a baby). Yet there is no 'routine' - even if I were to want one.
Some days I think I have 'cracked it' and discovered the Key to this life; how to 'use my time well', how to improve my faults, how to live.
Sometimes at the end of the day I look back and think: That went pretty well. I just need to keep on doing that.
And I never can. Usually the very next day, the wheels come-off; and I have no-one to blame but myself. My motivation disappears, I'm irritable and sarcastic, I can't concentrate, my mind is just a buzzing confusion. My health collapses, and my spirits; or vice versa.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - all his life - felt that each day started with infinite promise (that early morning feeling!) - On such a day as this, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, or Beethoven his Third Symphony (or Emerson his essay Nature)... If him - then, why not me - now?
Each morning runs-down to an indulgent, bloating lunch and a turgid afternoon - and in the evening... well, we are lucky if we pick ourselves up from this stale slough,look at the stars and gird ourselves for the next day before lapsing gratefully into sleep - hoping to make a better fist of things tomorrow.
And we never do.
Well... that was Emerson; who sought to live each moment as if it was infinite in scope; and was permanently disappointed.
It is tempting to regard Life as a failure, and my life in particular; day by day, year by year, until death... But this is a profound error. Indeed, from my Christian perspective, it is a sinful error.
The only thing wrong with the actual days of my actual life, is when I lack faith and abandon hope.
If I have faith I know that God loves me and is making my acctual life into something from which I can benefit, day by day, hour by hour. If I have hope in Heavenly life I know that all experience undertaken in the spirit of faith is building towards a life of everlasting and cumulative satisfaction.
My life is a great situation for learning, a terrible situation for steady progress. A great opportunity for spiritual development, but rubbish at making us better people.
My life only intermittently and temporarily provides me with what I want - here and now; but has done a great job at dishing up what could do me good.
After that - it's up to me.
ONE MILLION DOLLARS! - (30,000 people)
The birdemic is indeed a deadly plague, and apparently engineered by a (recently revived) Dr Evil - because the banner headlines are trumpeting that it has already (after 'just' a few months) killed (including thousands of deliberately-misallocated deaths) nearly THIRTY THOUSAND PEOPLE in the UK (alone!).
(Well - admittedly this is less than 0.0005 (0.05%) of the population; but if you say the number in a sufficiently Loud and Portentous manner, it sounds terrifying... or, at least, it is terrifying to dishonest people who will not think - which, apparently, is nearly everybody.)
Monday, 4 May 2020
Why must hope be located after this mortal life?
Because the nature of this mortal life is that it is transient - intrinsically prone to corruption (decay, disease, death). Our hope - to remain hope - needs to be in that which lasts.
That eternal life of Heaven which Jesus gave us, if we wish to have it; is not merely about you and me not-dying. It is about that permanence which cannot be had in mortal life.
Hope needs to be in some situation where we can build to last. Because on earth nothing lasts, not even the earth itself.
Mortal transience isn't some kind of a divine mistake nor punishment. Transience is essential. Our mortal life on this earth is always changing because it is designed for our learning. Here and now; we can create but it will not last: our mortal creating is for the purpose of our learning.
And, on the other side, heaven is about creating, not learning. Heaven is not much of a place for learning - Heaven is designed for creation.
So there is a polarity between learning and creating: one cannot have learning without creating, nor creating without learning; but earthly mortal life is strongly orientated towards learning, while Heaven is orientated towards creation.
On earth nothing lasts, and if mortality was everything then hope will die.
But in Heaven all good things last, and actual hopes stay true.
That eternal life of Heaven which Jesus gave us, if we wish to have it; is not merely about you and me not-dying. It is about that permanence which cannot be had in mortal life.
Hope needs to be in some situation where we can build to last. Because on earth nothing lasts, not even the earth itself.
Mortal transience isn't some kind of a divine mistake nor punishment. Transience is essential. Our mortal life on this earth is always changing because it is designed for our learning. Here and now; we can create but it will not last: our mortal creating is for the purpose of our learning.
And, on the other side, heaven is about creating, not learning. Heaven is not much of a place for learning - Heaven is designed for creation.
So there is a polarity between learning and creating: one cannot have learning without creating, nor creating without learning; but earthly mortal life is strongly orientated towards learning, while Heaven is orientated towards creation.
On earth nothing lasts, and if mortality was everything then hope will die.
But in Heaven all good things last, and actual hopes stay true.
When meaning was found in Middle Earth (but not my life)
I began to experience a kind of heightened awareness of myself and the environment in my middle teens - especially when out walking alone in the nearby woodland and hills (e.g. that above).
It was a powerful present feeling; but I had nowhere to go with it - since (as an atheist) I believed that I lived in an accidental and purposeless world.
Probably for this reason, the feeling became associated with Tolkien's Middle Earth; and I would project this feeling into that created world, shaped by divine providence, where all was alive and magic was natural. I would then inhabit that world in imagination.
This pattern characterised the following decades. My strongest and cherished feelings had nowhere to go; so I would imagine them into an imagined world.
It would be very surprising if a lot of other people were not, and are not, doing much the same as I was; having made the assumption that this world is dead, determined and random; they inhabit some fantasy land where things are the opposite.
It has certainly been an improvement to discover that this actual world I inhabit has all the essential characteristics that I sought in Middle Earth - and that Tolkien was describing reality, not just making-up-stuff.
Why groups are damned but individuals are not
Because individuals can be honest - and groups are not.
Any group in which dishonesty - i.e. anything less than the sincere attempt to seek and speak truth in all things at all times - is tolerated, is on the wrong side in the spiritual war (no matter how much good they contain).
(Dishonesty is - or should be - a sin for Christians; but it is not regarded as intrinsically wrong for most religions, nor for most atheists. Unless lying is a sin, then truth will only be attempted when expedient.)
This is the great probem of our times; in that there aren't any institutions that are honest: there aren't any that are even trying to be honest. Believing and obeying any institution will therefore lead to damnation; passive, unconscious, consensus living will lead to damnation.
No institutions are honest: certainly Not science or academia! But not the Christian churches either - as can be known from reading any paragraph of any press release from a major denomination.
As an individual, you can resolve to be honest; and you can follow it through (and recognise and repent your inevitable failures). In an actually-existing institution, this is impossible. Any honest institution would nowadays need to be a new foundation, including only honest individuals.
Historical experience suggests honesty is only possible for small groups under unusual circumstances - as happened in science for a while (this was the situation in the UK when I had just began as a scientist, in the early 1980s - but within a decade it had gone).
In a world of systemic and pervasive dishonesty; it is our Christian duty and neccessity Not to believe public discourse; since we know it is not-even-trying to be truthful. This is a duty that far too many Christians fail, spectacularly.
Any group in which dishonesty - i.e. anything less than the sincere attempt to seek and speak truth in all things at all times - is tolerated, is on the wrong side in the spiritual war (no matter how much good they contain).
(Dishonesty is - or should be - a sin for Christians; but it is not regarded as intrinsically wrong for most religions, nor for most atheists. Unless lying is a sin, then truth will only be attempted when expedient.)
This is the great probem of our times; in that there aren't any institutions that are honest: there aren't any that are even trying to be honest. Believing and obeying any institution will therefore lead to damnation; passive, unconscious, consensus living will lead to damnation.
No institutions are honest: certainly Not science or academia! But not the Christian churches either - as can be known from reading any paragraph of any press release from a major denomination.
As an individual, you can resolve to be honest; and you can follow it through (and recognise and repent your inevitable failures). In an actually-existing institution, this is impossible. Any honest institution would nowadays need to be a new foundation, including only honest individuals.
Historical experience suggests honesty is only possible for small groups under unusual circumstances - as happened in science for a while (this was the situation in the UK when I had just began as a scientist, in the early 1980s - but within a decade it had gone).
In a world of systemic and pervasive dishonesty; it is our Christian duty and neccessity Not to believe public discourse; since we know it is not-even-trying to be truthful. This is a duty that far too many Christians fail, spectacularly.
Big Lies are usually built on one simple false assumption - which is why no honest-thinking person would be fooled
We live in a Big World ruled by Big Lies.
People feel that they are excused from detecting these lies, because they are supported by a mass of 'official' opinion - yet I think all the Big Lies I have encountered have been erected upon a single false assertion: the falsity of which should have been obvious to anyone who was honest.
Of course, the primary false assumption is hidden by a mass of secondary information - and is seldom obvious. Indeed the sheer volume of secondary information is used to argue in favour of the primary falsehood - yet one Big Lie undercuts any amount of data derived from the assumption the error is true.
For example, the lie (upon which modern leftism is based) is that intelligence is the same in all classes and races, contradicts our personal experience that intelligence differs significantly between people and is significantly inherited from parents.
A related lie that girls and boys/ men and women are innately identical in personality and motivations; therefore inter-changeable in jobs and social roles, is contradicted by experience all the time and everywhere.
Evidence Based Medicine was based on the lie that averages derived from randomised trials of large heterogeneous patient and treatment groups provides precise information on how to treat individual patients. In other words, if you take the average of a measurement done on a crowd of 10,000 people, it can be exactly applied to every individual in that crowd. This is an error of inference.
The Global Warming lie is built on the false assertion that humans can control the earth's climate. This is not an inferential error, but more a matter of total lack of supporting evidence. There is, of course, zero evidence that anybody can control the earth's climate - indeed, the lie is shown by the fact that nobody even tries to check or test this assertion.
(It is also an unsubstantiated lie that the earth's temperature can be predicted, but this is covered by various fabrications claiming that it has been predicted - so maybe it is not-necessarily-dishonest if people believe this one - although it usually is.)
The birdemic lie is based upon another arbitrary assertion: That the only effective therefore necessary response to a (falsely-asserted) lethal plague is the completely untested hypothesis of national and global lock-down-social-distancing (rather than tried and tested effective methods of the past).
(See Note added, below.)
My point is that these Big Lies are obvious to any honest person who thinks.
The fact that they are so prevalent is because most people are dishonest and don't think.
And the increased prevalance of Big Lies through the twentieth century and still increasing, is that dishonesty and not-thinking are more common and severe in recent generations, in the developed world.
And that is because of mainstream modern metaphysical assumptions. In a world that is officially purposeless, meaningless, and where all lives are necessarily futile - there is neither reason to be honest nor to think.
And so people don't.
Note added: The birdemic response is actually based on two (linked) Big Lies. First is that it is a terrible deadly plague, despite killing such a small % of people. ('They' simply lie, solemnly, that small numbers are actually Big). Second that a global totalitarian coup is the proper and necessary response to a TDP.
Further note: Another topical birdemic Big Lie... Launched today in the UK 'contact tracing' by smartphone for a droplet transmitted viral respiratory disease. Ridiculous! Impossible! Don't make me laugh! It's just the usual thing: a lying excuse for the Establishment's insatiable monomani: permanent, invasive, detailed and extensive population surveillance.
People feel that they are excused from detecting these lies, because they are supported by a mass of 'official' opinion - yet I think all the Big Lies I have encountered have been erected upon a single false assertion: the falsity of which should have been obvious to anyone who was honest.
Of course, the primary false assumption is hidden by a mass of secondary information - and is seldom obvious. Indeed the sheer volume of secondary information is used to argue in favour of the primary falsehood - yet one Big Lie undercuts any amount of data derived from the assumption the error is true.
For example, the lie (upon which modern leftism is based) is that intelligence is the same in all classes and races, contradicts our personal experience that intelligence differs significantly between people and is significantly inherited from parents.
A related lie that girls and boys/ men and women are innately identical in personality and motivations; therefore inter-changeable in jobs and social roles, is contradicted by experience all the time and everywhere.
Evidence Based Medicine was based on the lie that averages derived from randomised trials of large heterogeneous patient and treatment groups provides precise information on how to treat individual patients. In other words, if you take the average of a measurement done on a crowd of 10,000 people, it can be exactly applied to every individual in that crowd. This is an error of inference.
The Global Warming lie is built on the false assertion that humans can control the earth's climate. This is not an inferential error, but more a matter of total lack of supporting evidence. There is, of course, zero evidence that anybody can control the earth's climate - indeed, the lie is shown by the fact that nobody even tries to check or test this assertion.
(It is also an unsubstantiated lie that the earth's temperature can be predicted, but this is covered by various fabrications claiming that it has been predicted - so maybe it is not-necessarily-dishonest if people believe this one - although it usually is.)
The birdemic lie is based upon another arbitrary assertion: That the only effective therefore necessary response to a (falsely-asserted) lethal plague is the completely untested hypothesis of national and global lock-down-social-distancing (rather than tried and tested effective methods of the past).
(See Note added, below.)
My point is that these Big Lies are obvious to any honest person who thinks.
The fact that they are so prevalent is because most people are dishonest and don't think.
And the increased prevalance of Big Lies through the twentieth century and still increasing, is that dishonesty and not-thinking are more common and severe in recent generations, in the developed world.
And that is because of mainstream modern metaphysical assumptions. In a world that is officially purposeless, meaningless, and where all lives are necessarily futile - there is neither reason to be honest nor to think.
And so people don't.
Note added: The birdemic response is actually based on two (linked) Big Lies. First is that it is a terrible deadly plague, despite killing such a small % of people. ('They' simply lie, solemnly, that small numbers are actually Big). Second that a global totalitarian coup is the proper and necessary response to a TDP.
Further note: Another topical birdemic Big Lie... Launched today in the UK 'contact tracing' by smartphone for a droplet transmitted viral respiratory disease. Ridiculous! Impossible! Don't make me laugh! It's just the usual thing: a lying excuse for the Establishment's insatiable monomani: permanent, invasive, detailed and extensive population surveillance.
Sunday, 3 May 2020
Understanding the surveillance monomania as a natural expression of Ahrimanic evil
There is a dominant monomania of surveillance: that everything everybody does, all the time, should be monitored and recorded.
I suggest that this is probably the dominant and overwhelming underlying motivation in the world over the past decades and continuing. There is a constant pressure to increase the scope and precision of surveillance - and a constant casting-around for more or less plausible excuses to do this.
There is both external surveillance - monitoring of behaviour by objective observation (especially by electronic media and 'artificial intelligence' algorithms); and there are the systems of self-surveillance ('quality assurance' as it is sometimes called) whereby individuals fill-in auditable 'forms' and other records about themselves - and these are then externally stored and perhaps checked for internal consistency.
The story of most jobs over the past decades has been one of ever-increased surveillance. And what is interesting is that far more data is collected than used.
To some extent, this is explicable in that the data is there if needed - for example, to sack an individual. But there appears to be a far deeper, and morally inflected, motivation to ever-more and more-thorough surveillance.
This is because surveillance is a part of the primary modern ideology of materialism; indeed surveillance is the expression of that world view. Surveillance is both the natural expression of materialism, and itself propaganda-for and enforcement-of materialism.
The surveillance society is the materialist society - the society from which spiritual and divine matters are excluded by unexamined and habitual assumption (which is the most effective of all exclusions).
A world in which most people participate in surveillance most of the time (often from both sides, as surveyors and as surveyed - monitors and monitored) - is a world of materialism; since the material = that which can be surveyed.
It is a world in which only that which can be surveyed counts as real and important.
The characteristic modern evil is 'Ahrimanic' - that is materialist - and this evil is seldom detected by modern men, because they live in bureaucratic systems that are the instantiation of this type of evil. And, as time goes by, all bureaucracies become linked to make a single entity: The System.
And this System has grown to occupy almost the whole of public discourse, and all the various social institutions (politics, civil service, law, military, education, media etc). The System links functions, and it links nations.
Indeed, ever less of the world is outwith The System. Now, pretty much only the individual's inner thinking (but only if he is exercising his agency, and thinking from his real and divine self) is outwith the System; and (to an important extent) the family. Therefore, The System substantially defines reality - in precisely analogous fashion to The Matrix or other virtual reality fictions.
This materialist evil of The System is vast, everywhere, and unavoidable - therefore, for most people (who suppose evil to be exemplified by violent and murderous individuals) evil goes undetected, and is indeed denied.
Evil is denied, because when God and the spiritual realm are denied, and when reality is seen as a consequence of accidents rather than a purposive creation, and men are seen as a type of animal rather than en route to becoming (small g) gods etc... then materialism is not seen as evil.
Materialism is seen as the hard-nosed, realistic truth about things, not as evil. If there is no God, not divine meaning nor purpose, then life just-is material (and the rest is stupidity, illusion and delusion).
So for Modern man there is nothing wrong with a materialist world! There is nothing wrong with a world of omni-surveillance, there is nothing necessarily wrong, therefore, with a totalitarian society.
(This helps explain why the recent global totalitarian takeover has gone largely unnoticed; and when noticed is not regarded as intrinsically bad. In the UK (perhaps the most materialist nation in the world); it seems that a very large majority of the population, as well as nearly-all of the Establishment - favour the open-ended continuation of the current totalitarian lock-down-social-distancing strategy. Omni-surveillance and micro-control are not seen as an intrinsic evil, but as an expedient benefit.)
It is helpful to recognise that, from the perspective of Ahrimanic evil and the imperatives of materialism; all surveillance is functional - regardless of whether any 'use' is made of the data.
Here is an example from my experience. Sixteen years ago, a new form of surveillance was itroduced in UK universities which is often called the Diary Exercise. For several weeks per year, academic faculty keep a detailed journal of their hourly activities; and a new sub-bureaucracy was installed at each institution and centrally to administer the scheme. Probably, many tens of thousands of man-hours per year (and many millions of pounds) are expended on this scheme.
Apparently, no use has been made of this data (which is, anyway, objectively worthless) - at least I never heard of any such. So let's assume what is probably true: that sixteen years worth of data has simply been collected, stored but never made use of.
Has the Diary Exercise then been a mere waste of time and resources? No! Because it means that for several weeks a year, academics are compelled to reflect upon and present their work in detail, in such a form and fashion as will satisfy management - that is, year-on-year, academics are being trained in materialist thinking, and made to practise it in relation to their own lives.
By the Diary Exercise (plus, of course, many and increasing numbers of other similar schemes) academics have been trained to regard their work as primarily materialist; primarily that which can be monitored - and gradually that conceptualisation has come to be the academics self-conception of their proper work.
Materialism of living has become the habitual and unexamined way of thinking - it has become a basic assumption concerning the nature of academic work: that is, real work is what can be objectively and defensibly described to a managerial system, on an hourly basis.
My point is that materialism is an end, not a means; and as an end, any activity which promotes materialistic thinking is valid from the perspective of materialism.
It becomes clearer why Mainstream modern people are unable to resist materialism - why, indeed, they broadly embrace it. This includes the majority of Christians in the majority of Christian churches.
And it explains why only those Romantic Christians who regard the divine and spiritual as a vital part of every-day (every-hour) can and do regard materialism as evil; and regard the totalitarian imposition of materialism as evil.
For most people (including most Christians) totalitarianism is only evil if or when it engages in violence and murder (at least, that is all the evil they ever talk about).
But for Romantic Christians, the evil of totalitarianism is the evil of materialism - thus totalitarianism is intrinsically evil.
A world of omni-surveillance is evil, and micro-control of behaviour is evil - because these are means to the end of universal and mandatory materialism. They are training us into materialism of thinking and communicating; they are enforcing materialism on all discourse, and as the basis of all activities.
And this is the major and dominant form of evil in the modern world - yet an evil that is invisible and denied by most people, all of the time.
Note added: I certainly experienced surveillance, especially self-surveillance, as an active evil - although (before I was a Christian) I was not able to explain 'why' this was so. Instead I explained my resistance in terms of surveillance being educationally and in terms of academic research, both inefficient and ineffective. But my (albeit slight and indirect - because of my dissent and boycotts) experience of participation in quality assurance exercises felt like I was being crushed under suffocating weight; meaning was drained from my vocation; I felt that my inner motivation and purpose was being replaced by the demand for submission to arbitrary or malign external plans.
I suggest that this is probably the dominant and overwhelming underlying motivation in the world over the past decades and continuing. There is a constant pressure to increase the scope and precision of surveillance - and a constant casting-around for more or less plausible excuses to do this.
There is both external surveillance - monitoring of behaviour by objective observation (especially by electronic media and 'artificial intelligence' algorithms); and there are the systems of self-surveillance ('quality assurance' as it is sometimes called) whereby individuals fill-in auditable 'forms' and other records about themselves - and these are then externally stored and perhaps checked for internal consistency.
The story of most jobs over the past decades has been one of ever-increased surveillance. And what is interesting is that far more data is collected than used.
To some extent, this is explicable in that the data is there if needed - for example, to sack an individual. But there appears to be a far deeper, and morally inflected, motivation to ever-more and more-thorough surveillance.
This is because surveillance is a part of the primary modern ideology of materialism; indeed surveillance is the expression of that world view. Surveillance is both the natural expression of materialism, and itself propaganda-for and enforcement-of materialism.
The surveillance society is the materialist society - the society from which spiritual and divine matters are excluded by unexamined and habitual assumption (which is the most effective of all exclusions).
A world in which most people participate in surveillance most of the time (often from both sides, as surveyors and as surveyed - monitors and monitored) - is a world of materialism; since the material = that which can be surveyed.
It is a world in which only that which can be surveyed counts as real and important.
The characteristic modern evil is 'Ahrimanic' - that is materialist - and this evil is seldom detected by modern men, because they live in bureaucratic systems that are the instantiation of this type of evil. And, as time goes by, all bureaucracies become linked to make a single entity: The System.
And this System has grown to occupy almost the whole of public discourse, and all the various social institutions (politics, civil service, law, military, education, media etc). The System links functions, and it links nations.
Indeed, ever less of the world is outwith The System. Now, pretty much only the individual's inner thinking (but only if he is exercising his agency, and thinking from his real and divine self) is outwith the System; and (to an important extent) the family. Therefore, The System substantially defines reality - in precisely analogous fashion to The Matrix or other virtual reality fictions.
This materialist evil of The System is vast, everywhere, and unavoidable - therefore, for most people (who suppose evil to be exemplified by violent and murderous individuals) evil goes undetected, and is indeed denied.
Evil is denied, because when God and the spiritual realm are denied, and when reality is seen as a consequence of accidents rather than a purposive creation, and men are seen as a type of animal rather than en route to becoming (small g) gods etc... then materialism is not seen as evil.
Materialism is seen as the hard-nosed, realistic truth about things, not as evil. If there is no God, not divine meaning nor purpose, then life just-is material (and the rest is stupidity, illusion and delusion).
So for Modern man there is nothing wrong with a materialist world! There is nothing wrong with a world of omni-surveillance, there is nothing necessarily wrong, therefore, with a totalitarian society.
(This helps explain why the recent global totalitarian takeover has gone largely unnoticed; and when noticed is not regarded as intrinsically bad. In the UK (perhaps the most materialist nation in the world); it seems that a very large majority of the population, as well as nearly-all of the Establishment - favour the open-ended continuation of the current totalitarian lock-down-social-distancing strategy. Omni-surveillance and micro-control are not seen as an intrinsic evil, but as an expedient benefit.)
It is helpful to recognise that, from the perspective of Ahrimanic evil and the imperatives of materialism; all surveillance is functional - regardless of whether any 'use' is made of the data.
Here is an example from my experience. Sixteen years ago, a new form of surveillance was itroduced in UK universities which is often called the Diary Exercise. For several weeks per year, academic faculty keep a detailed journal of their hourly activities; and a new sub-bureaucracy was installed at each institution and centrally to administer the scheme. Probably, many tens of thousands of man-hours per year (and many millions of pounds) are expended on this scheme.
Apparently, no use has been made of this data (which is, anyway, objectively worthless) - at least I never heard of any such. So let's assume what is probably true: that sixteen years worth of data has simply been collected, stored but never made use of.
Has the Diary Exercise then been a mere waste of time and resources? No! Because it means that for several weeks a year, academics are compelled to reflect upon and present their work in detail, in such a form and fashion as will satisfy management - that is, year-on-year, academics are being trained in materialist thinking, and made to practise it in relation to their own lives.
By the Diary Exercise (plus, of course, many and increasing numbers of other similar schemes) academics have been trained to regard their work as primarily materialist; primarily that which can be monitored - and gradually that conceptualisation has come to be the academics self-conception of their proper work.
Materialism of living has become the habitual and unexamined way of thinking - it has become a basic assumption concerning the nature of academic work: that is, real work is what can be objectively and defensibly described to a managerial system, on an hourly basis.
My point is that materialism is an end, not a means; and as an end, any activity which promotes materialistic thinking is valid from the perspective of materialism.
It becomes clearer why Mainstream modern people are unable to resist materialism - why, indeed, they broadly embrace it. This includes the majority of Christians in the majority of Christian churches.
And it explains why only those Romantic Christians who regard the divine and spiritual as a vital part of every-day (every-hour) can and do regard materialism as evil; and regard the totalitarian imposition of materialism as evil.
For most people (including most Christians) totalitarianism is only evil if or when it engages in violence and murder (at least, that is all the evil they ever talk about).
But for Romantic Christians, the evil of totalitarianism is the evil of materialism - thus totalitarianism is intrinsically evil.
A world of omni-surveillance is evil, and micro-control of behaviour is evil - because these are means to the end of universal and mandatory materialism. They are training us into materialism of thinking and communicating; they are enforcing materialism on all discourse, and as the basis of all activities.
And this is the major and dominant form of evil in the modern world - yet an evil that is invisible and denied by most people, all of the time.
Note added: I certainly experienced surveillance, especially self-surveillance, as an active evil - although (before I was a Christian) I was not able to explain 'why' this was so. Instead I explained my resistance in terms of surveillance being educationally and in terms of academic research, both inefficient and ineffective. But my (albeit slight and indirect - because of my dissent and boycotts) experience of participation in quality assurance exercises felt like I was being crushed under suffocating weight; meaning was drained from my vocation; I felt that my inner motivation and purpose was being replaced by the demand for submission to arbitrary or malign external plans.
Saturday, 2 May 2020
The karma of materialism: "From an academic point of view, it's a tremendous privilege to watch a civilization collapse in super-slow motion high-definition real-time"
The title comes from a recent comment by "Epimetheus" (brother of Prometheus, the word meaning 'afterthought'):
The whole situation is remarkable. For those who are paying attention, and from an academic point of view, it's a tremendous privilege to watch a civilization collapse in super-slow motion high-definition real-time. Not many people in history get to sit in comfy chairs, eating plenty of food, and watch what we are watching.
This captures my own view - at least some of the time.
Anyone interested in history must have wondered what it would be like to participate in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the suicidal eco-destruction of Easter Island, or any other of the catastrophic civilizational transitions.
We wonder - could the people not see what was coming - when it seems so obvious to us, in retrospect? Having seen, could they not at least stop actively making matters worse?
Apparently not. And we can now understand that the essence of these matters is that the collapse happens precisely because people can't see.
This kind of collapse is self-inflicted, and occurs as a direct consequence of the axiomatic assumptions of the people. They cannot perceive the collapse, and cannot stop causing collapse, because it is a product of their most cherished motivations.
To borrow and adapt a phrase from Rudolf Steiner: we are witnessing The Karma of Materialism.
In other words, for more that two centuries, and increasingly, the world has been embracing materialism (aka. positivism, abstraction, reductionism or scientism - equivalent to 'leftism' correctly understood, in its many manifestations); such that God is denied, the spiritual dimension is assumed not to exist, and life has become reduced to (ever more short-termist) personal gratifications.
This has built-up to become dominant; has instantiated in bureaucracy - which has interlinked into The System (world and national government and the mass media, plus all other functional systems) - and in the past generation such a way of regarding the world has been willingly, eagerly, assimiliated into the minds of the masses.
Our way of thinking is now materialistic - so that materialism now structures our world-view.
Much of reality is now invisible - by assumption.
And this crisis and the impending collapse is the destined consequence and revelatory fruit ("karma") of this Modern mindset.
In one sense there has been a top-down coup and takeover of most of the world (all the powerful, wealthy and influential bits, at any rate) by a tiny Global Establishment. But in another equally-important sense; the coup was invited, initiated, encouraged and actively-facilitated by the great mass of people from all over the world; which is why the impending collapse remains invisible.
Where I see the most obvious global totalitarian takeover imaginable; the masses see the world Establishment (at last!) working-together altruistically to defeat a deadly plague. Where I see a deliberate, active, coordinated and stubbornly-resistant policy of destroying civilization; most people see nothing more than a temporary - necessary albeit regrettable - suspension of unneccessary activities, as the alternative to extinction.
The people are getting, by and large, exactly what they want - and so are The Esablishment: so everyone is happy!
Yet, as so often, giving depraved and corrupted people what they want is a short-route to disaster.
This is, it seems to me, God's role in the current crisis. God has simply allowed the mass of people to have what they want, what they have chosen, what they insist-upon despite numerous attempts to teach them better and to provide experiences from which they could have learned better.
The sheer volume and intensity of actively-chosen and insisted-upon corruption in the world had been building-up for so many decades, and it is now so great - and all the signs are that it would-have increased further - that God has decided (for the good of our eternal souls; for the sake of those of his children who may thereby choose Heavenly resurrected life everlasting) to bring things to an end, by this means of allowing people what they demand.
(Or maybe the pressure of evil became so strong that stopping or reversing it was not possible, without massively and coercively encroaching on human free agency.)
But politics is a very simple and crude matter - it is never susceptible to fine-tuning: especially not at a global scale. Most things are (over the long term) all or nothing. And what the Establishment want, and was the masses of people want, is impossible.
Materialism has us in its grip. We deny the ultimate purpose and meaning of life; and the consequence is that our lives lack purpose and meaning; and people are reduced to fear and despair - and the pathetic attempts at propitiation (but of what?) by repetition of official mantras, observances of official rituals, displays of prescribed symbolism...
These constitute the shell of a pseudo-religion that nobody really believes. In actuality it represents the lineaments of the materialistic demonic cult of a selfish, cowardly hedonism that people are too dishonest even to acknowledge to themselves.
So what we want (as a civilization) will bring everything down on our heads; and this is what those who live long enough will be 'privileged' to observe: and it is a privilege (or could be).
We each need to take proper advantage of this privilege; derive proper benefit from it.
May it be that we will learn from the experience, rather than becoming consumed by the generalised fear and despair. The most important thing we can do is to maintain faith, hope and love - and to understand. Understand consciously and explicitly. To think clearly and honestly.
Whatever we can or cannot do; we can always think: and know that thinking is reality, with permanent objective consequences.
The whole situation is remarkable. For those who are paying attention, and from an academic point of view, it's a tremendous privilege to watch a civilization collapse in super-slow motion high-definition real-time. Not many people in history get to sit in comfy chairs, eating plenty of food, and watch what we are watching.
This captures my own view - at least some of the time.
Anyone interested in history must have wondered what it would be like to participate in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the suicidal eco-destruction of Easter Island, or any other of the catastrophic civilizational transitions.
We wonder - could the people not see what was coming - when it seems so obvious to us, in retrospect? Having seen, could they not at least stop actively making matters worse?
Apparently not. And we can now understand that the essence of these matters is that the collapse happens precisely because people can't see.
This kind of collapse is self-inflicted, and occurs as a direct consequence of the axiomatic assumptions of the people. They cannot perceive the collapse, and cannot stop causing collapse, because it is a product of their most cherished motivations.
To borrow and adapt a phrase from Rudolf Steiner: we are witnessing The Karma of Materialism.
In other words, for more that two centuries, and increasingly, the world has been embracing materialism (aka. positivism, abstraction, reductionism or scientism - equivalent to 'leftism' correctly understood, in its many manifestations); such that God is denied, the spiritual dimension is assumed not to exist, and life has become reduced to (ever more short-termist) personal gratifications.
This has built-up to become dominant; has instantiated in bureaucracy - which has interlinked into The System (world and national government and the mass media, plus all other functional systems) - and in the past generation such a way of regarding the world has been willingly, eagerly, assimiliated into the minds of the masses.
Our way of thinking is now materialistic - so that materialism now structures our world-view.
Much of reality is now invisible - by assumption.
And this crisis and the impending collapse is the destined consequence and revelatory fruit ("karma") of this Modern mindset.
In one sense there has been a top-down coup and takeover of most of the world (all the powerful, wealthy and influential bits, at any rate) by a tiny Global Establishment. But in another equally-important sense; the coup was invited, initiated, encouraged and actively-facilitated by the great mass of people from all over the world; which is why the impending collapse remains invisible.
Where I see the most obvious global totalitarian takeover imaginable; the masses see the world Establishment (at last!) working-together altruistically to defeat a deadly plague. Where I see a deliberate, active, coordinated and stubbornly-resistant policy of destroying civilization; most people see nothing more than a temporary - necessary albeit regrettable - suspension of unneccessary activities, as the alternative to extinction.
The people are getting, by and large, exactly what they want - and so are The Esablishment: so everyone is happy!
Yet, as so often, giving depraved and corrupted people what they want is a short-route to disaster.
This is, it seems to me, God's role in the current crisis. God has simply allowed the mass of people to have what they want, what they have chosen, what they insist-upon despite numerous attempts to teach them better and to provide experiences from which they could have learned better.
The sheer volume and intensity of actively-chosen and insisted-upon corruption in the world had been building-up for so many decades, and it is now so great - and all the signs are that it would-have increased further - that God has decided (for the good of our eternal souls; for the sake of those of his children who may thereby choose Heavenly resurrected life everlasting) to bring things to an end, by this means of allowing people what they demand.
(Or maybe the pressure of evil became so strong that stopping or reversing it was not possible, without massively and coercively encroaching on human free agency.)
But politics is a very simple and crude matter - it is never susceptible to fine-tuning: especially not at a global scale. Most things are (over the long term) all or nothing. And what the Establishment want, and was the masses of people want, is impossible.
Materialism has us in its grip. We deny the ultimate purpose and meaning of life; and the consequence is that our lives lack purpose and meaning; and people are reduced to fear and despair - and the pathetic attempts at propitiation (but of what?) by repetition of official mantras, observances of official rituals, displays of prescribed symbolism...
These constitute the shell of a pseudo-religion that nobody really believes. In actuality it represents the lineaments of the materialistic demonic cult of a selfish, cowardly hedonism that people are too dishonest even to acknowledge to themselves.
So what we want (as a civilization) will bring everything down on our heads; and this is what those who live long enough will be 'privileged' to observe: and it is a privilege (or could be).
We each need to take proper advantage of this privilege; derive proper benefit from it.
May it be that we will learn from the experience, rather than becoming consumed by the generalised fear and despair. The most important thing we can do is to maintain faith, hope and love - and to understand. Understand consciously and explicitly. To think clearly and honestly.
Whatever we can or cannot do; we can always think: and know that thinking is reality, with permanent objective consequences.
Friday, 1 May 2020
Clockwise rotation of the moon
I've observed that the full-ish moon appears to rotate clockwise a bit more than a quarter turn through the course of the night. So the rabbit's ears are near the top at the start of the night, and at or beyond three o'clock by the next morning.
I tried to find-out online why this happns.
I could not find any reference to it online (not knowing the technical term for this phenom); except for a group chat where someone asked for an explanation of this same observation, and the only answer he recieved was that the rotation did not happen, and he must be imagining it!
So, I tried to work it out for myself - and I think I came up with an explanation.
This is that - from where I am standing at 55 degrees north on the globe and at right angles to the earth's surface; when I look at the moon in the east I am actually seeing it from an angle leaning one way from the perpendicular - but when I look at the moon as it sets in the west I am now at an opposite angle from the vertical.
Since my visual system always assumes I am upright, despite that from the persepctive of the poles I am at an angle to the plane on which the moon orbits - then it looks as if the moon is rotating.
This seems to make sense to me. But if I am wrong, and the true explanation is different - do let me know.
I tried to find-out online why this happns.
I could not find any reference to it online (not knowing the technical term for this phenom); except for a group chat where someone asked for an explanation of this same observation, and the only answer he recieved was that the rotation did not happen, and he must be imagining it!
So, I tried to work it out for myself - and I think I came up with an explanation.
This is that - from where I am standing at 55 degrees north on the globe and at right angles to the earth's surface; when I look at the moon in the east I am actually seeing it from an angle leaning one way from the perpendicular - but when I look at the moon as it sets in the west I am now at an opposite angle from the vertical.
Since my visual system always assumes I am upright, despite that from the persepctive of the poles I am at an angle to the plane on which the moon orbits - then it looks as if the moon is rotating.
This seems to make sense to me. But if I am wrong, and the true explanation is different - do let me know.
A stressed system, chronically seeded with incompetence, dishonesty and corruption
That's how I see the world - The System, 'The Economy' as people tend, reductionalistically, to term it. It is all one, global, densely-interconnected bureaucracy. And for the past fifty years the personnel, the functionaries - and their aims, have been systematically degraded in quality.
That is the consequence of 'affirmative action'/ 'social justice' - of appointing and promoting people on the basis of identity rather than functional capability. There is a crisis of no leadership exacerbated by a crisis of collapsing expertise.
It is the consequence of enforced dishonesty, by the takeover of functionality by generic management, the use of quality assurance auditing methods, by rewarding hype/ spin/ deniable lies - and punishing honesty. When a system is riddled with dishonesty, 'information' is not reliable nor valid: all communication becomes useless - and is treated as mere 'rhetoric' or propaganda - hence real world capability collapses.
It is the consequence of enabling (and failing to detect/ adequately punish) corruption in all systems: from postal voting in elections; through non-examination evaluations in the education system; incoherent 'hate crime' and racial laws in the legal system; a system of targets, procedures and evidence-based medicine in health services... When a functional system is invaded by short-termist selfishness among its components, it soon ceases to be functional.
(On top of this is the decline in innate (genetic) human genetic quality - both within all nations and across the world; which has led to the progressive decline of intelligence, the cumulative degeneration of personality and sexuality, and the near extinction of that individual creative genius which bailed humanity out from so many crises in the past.)
None of this has happened by accident - but all the above have been explicit and strategic policies, that are regarded as necessary and good by a large majority of those with power, status and influence. The official explanations for these policies (the reasons given) have, of course, been different - but the increase in dishonesty means that such explanations need not be (and are not) coherent.
Thus, as a simple example, it is denied that systematically recruiting people of a lower educational ability (lower intelligence, less conscientious personality, lower standard in exams) - because of their sex or race - has any deleterious effect on average educational outcomes.
Quite the opposite: it is claimed that recruiting educationally worse people - of the preferred races and sex - leads to better educational outcomes. And the reality gap is simply bridged by lying or changing the subject - to make outcomes be about politics instead of education; all fuelled by the decreased competence consequent upon these policies.
The Global Establishment have been, for the past weeks, piling-up the stresses on this already-degraded System with incremental stresses - new ones are unveiled every few days.
The 'capital', surplus, reserves are being used-up (e.g. of food, buildings, working technology and equipment); and there is grossly insufficient repair, no replacement, and no innovation.
This has already continued for many weeks; and there is no sign of easing. We should therefore assume that The System is going-down, inevitably - sooner or later on a timescale of months at most.
Is this a good or bad thing? In the short term it will be a bad thing in terms of suffering and deaths. Overall, deaths are already rising and accelerating - as a consequence of our System-destroying reaction to the birdemic, not the birdemic itself.
Health Services are self-crippled in the UK, with very little needful health care; and the inevitable outcome is a huge increase in illness, disability, and fatal diseases - as well as the deaths already recorded. But - in a world of lies - these 'excess' deaths are blamed on the virus, and lead to ever-more of the System-smashing that caused them.
In other words, the birdemic response is a deniable way of deliberately killing people - although I don't regard this as the primary purpose.
But, my point is that such behaviour on the part of The Establishment seems to fit with the plan and pattern of System-degradation over some fifty years. The longer that lockdownsocialdistncing goes-on, the more rapid and irreversible will become the collapse.
Why are They doing this? It could either be as an intended Global reboot; or for the sake of destruction, death and suffering.
The New World Order, or Global Chaos?
The ultimate aim (since They are demonically guided) is the damnation of Men's souls - but there are various theories as to how this may best be achieved, and it is unlikely that They all agree exactly on which ought to be the strategy.
It is possible that some of Them want Order, while others want Chaos.
And, while extremely intelligent (They are certainly out-thinking the self-blinded Western elites - as well as the Western masses! - running rings around them!); evil is intrinsically limited in its understanding (as Tolkien shows in Lord of the Rings).
The limitation of evil is especially about motivation. Characteristically, evil cannot 'model' genuinely good motivations; because it 'projects' its own selfish and short-termist motivations onto others.
Evil beings (to the extent they are evil) know how evil would respond to a situation; but cannot predict how good would respond. Genuinely good responses and primary thinking - i.e. behaviours that are not 'responses', outputs arising originally and not caused-by inputs - are unforeseen and cannot be understood, so cannot be included in their strategies.
Good motivations are therefore invisible to Them; and if or when good motivations are actually important in a situation, then the plans and schemes of evil may fail: and a good outcome may eventuate.
That is the consequence of 'affirmative action'/ 'social justice' - of appointing and promoting people on the basis of identity rather than functional capability. There is a crisis of no leadership exacerbated by a crisis of collapsing expertise.
It is the consequence of enforced dishonesty, by the takeover of functionality by generic management, the use of quality assurance auditing methods, by rewarding hype/ spin/ deniable lies - and punishing honesty. When a system is riddled with dishonesty, 'information' is not reliable nor valid: all communication becomes useless - and is treated as mere 'rhetoric' or propaganda - hence real world capability collapses.
It is the consequence of enabling (and failing to detect/ adequately punish) corruption in all systems: from postal voting in elections; through non-examination evaluations in the education system; incoherent 'hate crime' and racial laws in the legal system; a system of targets, procedures and evidence-based medicine in health services... When a functional system is invaded by short-termist selfishness among its components, it soon ceases to be functional.
(On top of this is the decline in innate (genetic) human genetic quality - both within all nations and across the world; which has led to the progressive decline of intelligence, the cumulative degeneration of personality and sexuality, and the near extinction of that individual creative genius which bailed humanity out from so many crises in the past.)
None of this has happened by accident - but all the above have been explicit and strategic policies, that are regarded as necessary and good by a large majority of those with power, status and influence. The official explanations for these policies (the reasons given) have, of course, been different - but the increase in dishonesty means that such explanations need not be (and are not) coherent.
Thus, as a simple example, it is denied that systematically recruiting people of a lower educational ability (lower intelligence, less conscientious personality, lower standard in exams) - because of their sex or race - has any deleterious effect on average educational outcomes.
Quite the opposite: it is claimed that recruiting educationally worse people - of the preferred races and sex - leads to better educational outcomes. And the reality gap is simply bridged by lying or changing the subject - to make outcomes be about politics instead of education; all fuelled by the decreased competence consequent upon these policies.
The Global Establishment have been, for the past weeks, piling-up the stresses on this already-degraded System with incremental stresses - new ones are unveiled every few days.
The 'capital', surplus, reserves are being used-up (e.g. of food, buildings, working technology and equipment); and there is grossly insufficient repair, no replacement, and no innovation.
This has already continued for many weeks; and there is no sign of easing. We should therefore assume that The System is going-down, inevitably - sooner or later on a timescale of months at most.
Is this a good or bad thing? In the short term it will be a bad thing in terms of suffering and deaths. Overall, deaths are already rising and accelerating - as a consequence of our System-destroying reaction to the birdemic, not the birdemic itself.
Health Services are self-crippled in the UK, with very little needful health care; and the inevitable outcome is a huge increase in illness, disability, and fatal diseases - as well as the deaths already recorded. But - in a world of lies - these 'excess' deaths are blamed on the virus, and lead to ever-more of the System-smashing that caused them.
In other words, the birdemic response is a deniable way of deliberately killing people - although I don't regard this as the primary purpose.
But, my point is that such behaviour on the part of The Establishment seems to fit with the plan and pattern of System-degradation over some fifty years. The longer that lockdownsocialdistncing goes-on, the more rapid and irreversible will become the collapse.
Why are They doing this? It could either be as an intended Global reboot; or for the sake of destruction, death and suffering.
The New World Order, or Global Chaos?
The ultimate aim (since They are demonically guided) is the damnation of Men's souls - but there are various theories as to how this may best be achieved, and it is unlikely that They all agree exactly on which ought to be the strategy.
It is possible that some of Them want Order, while others want Chaos.
And, while extremely intelligent (They are certainly out-thinking the self-blinded Western elites - as well as the Western masses! - running rings around them!); evil is intrinsically limited in its understanding (as Tolkien shows in Lord of the Rings).
The limitation of evil is especially about motivation. Characteristically, evil cannot 'model' genuinely good motivations; because it 'projects' its own selfish and short-termist motivations onto others.
Evil beings (to the extent they are evil) know how evil would respond to a situation; but cannot predict how good would respond. Genuinely good responses and primary thinking - i.e. behaviours that are not 'responses', outputs arising originally and not caused-by inputs - are unforeseen and cannot be understood, so cannot be included in their strategies.
Good motivations are therefore invisible to Them; and if or when good motivations are actually important in a situation, then the plans and schemes of evil may fail: and a good outcome may eventuate.
Consciousness of the flowing direction of creation
Dualism is essential to human functioning; because even self-described monists are actually dualists, with their duality being reality versus illusion.
However, the monist type of dualism is paralysing, because there is no guide for thinking or acting - any potential thought or action is equally valid (or illusory); all is equally beautiful (or vile), all is equally virtuous (or wicked), all is true (or false).
The tendency is towards inert contemplation and yearning - mortal, incarnated life on earth is seen as intrincially illusory, and therefore ultimately meaningless, purposeless, a waste of time ('time' also being illusory).
So we need to take care in picking our dualism! These fundamental assumptions have implication for the everyday. Indeed, one primary aspect is whether our dualism is a static or dynamic dualism - whether we assume that reality is developing or just-is, whether time is real or just an appearance?
Assuming we have chosen a 'dynamic dualism': What then should I do - here and now?
I need to become aware of the flow of creation - feel its direction and get into harmony with that direction, by aligning my own will with that of The Creator. This may happen only through loving The Creator - it is love that harmonises my wishes with the potential direction of on-going creation.
I need to know (to experience) where creation (that bit of it relevant) has come-from and is going-to. I also need to know my-self and how my thinking, scting, creating can be included in that on-going creating. So I need both love and intuitive knowing.
Intuition is being-aware-of ongoing creating; and its meaning and implications for me - here, now.
The key insight is that there is creation, and that creation is not everything; there is also that which is outwith creation - we could call it chaos.
Creation is made-from chaos - through time; in an on-going process.
The intended direction of creation is towards greater consciousness on the part of beings such as you and me; greater awareness both of creation and of our own place in it: awareness of on-going creating and our own sub-creating within it.
This mortal life is therefore intended for increased consciousness - or else, if unawareness were equally desirable, there would be no need for bodily incarnation (we could instead be spirits); there would be no need for agency (since we could behave automatically, determined as a dependent part of creation); there would be no change/ decay/ disease/ death (because we would just exist in static harmony with creation).
Or, if consciousness did not matter; we need not exist at all; since our existence would then add nothing substantive to creation).
So, with an imperative of greater consciousness; there is always something for each of us to do: At any time or place or situation, we each need to be more aware of on-going creation and our own part in it.
However, the monist type of dualism is paralysing, because there is no guide for thinking or acting - any potential thought or action is equally valid (or illusory); all is equally beautiful (or vile), all is equally virtuous (or wicked), all is true (or false).
The tendency is towards inert contemplation and yearning - mortal, incarnated life on earth is seen as intrincially illusory, and therefore ultimately meaningless, purposeless, a waste of time ('time' also being illusory).
So we need to take care in picking our dualism! These fundamental assumptions have implication for the everyday. Indeed, one primary aspect is whether our dualism is a static or dynamic dualism - whether we assume that reality is developing or just-is, whether time is real or just an appearance?
Assuming we have chosen a 'dynamic dualism': What then should I do - here and now?
I need to become aware of the flow of creation - feel its direction and get into harmony with that direction, by aligning my own will with that of The Creator. This may happen only through loving The Creator - it is love that harmonises my wishes with the potential direction of on-going creation.
I need to know (to experience) where creation (that bit of it relevant) has come-from and is going-to. I also need to know my-self and how my thinking, scting, creating can be included in that on-going creating. So I need both love and intuitive knowing.
Intuition is being-aware-of ongoing creating; and its meaning and implications for me - here, now.
The key insight is that there is creation, and that creation is not everything; there is also that which is outwith creation - we could call it chaos.
Creation is made-from chaos - through time; in an on-going process.
The intended direction of creation is towards greater consciousness on the part of beings such as you and me; greater awareness both of creation and of our own place in it: awareness of on-going creating and our own sub-creating within it.
This mortal life is therefore intended for increased consciousness - or else, if unawareness were equally desirable, there would be no need for bodily incarnation (we could instead be spirits); there would be no need for agency (since we could behave automatically, determined as a dependent part of creation); there would be no change/ decay/ disease/ death (because we would just exist in static harmony with creation).
Or, if consciousness did not matter; we need not exist at all; since our existence would then add nothing substantive to creation).
So, with an imperative of greater consciousness; there is always something for each of us to do: At any time or place or situation, we each need to be more aware of on-going creation and our own part in it.
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