Appeals to moderation are always futile

When someone is "extreme", in whatever direction; then appeals to be moderate, to take a "middle path", are futile. 

Think about it: there are an infinite number of possible points between extremes. On what principle should we choose that point at which we are moderate? Presumably it isn't always necessarily half-way between extremes - but even if it was, what does that actually mean? 

Some kind of dilution of each extreme, somehow combined? Or some kind of 50:50 alternation between the extremes? Or what?  

In practice, the appeal for moderation is a negative recognition that neither option on-offer (by "extremists" is desirable - but no alternative principle is being suggested. 

The appeal to moderation is therefore an acceptance of the theoretical framework of the extremes; which is why it is always futile.

So long as the theoretical framework is intact, then the extremes will carry the greatest authority - and no matter how well-motivated, moderation will be understood as an unprincipled and incoherent, hence  feeble and pragmatic, compromise. 

The real answer is never moderation or a middle way - but some higher principle; some framework that stands above, transcends, and contains the world-views of the extremes. 

Occult and Esoteric - what do they mean? How to approach them?

Occult means hidden, and often refers to hidden knowledge. Typically, this is knowledge that has been kept secret (e.g. by being sustained in a closed society) - or perhaps knowledge encoded, so that only those who know the code can discover it. 

But hidden knowledge may instead be clear and simple, not secret but instead "hidden in plain sight" - not encoded but simply ignored by the majority. 

Ignored perhaps because it is no interest, in some way unwelcome (opening a "can of worms" they'd rather not deal with); or indeed so clear and so simple, that most people regard it as necessarily wrong, because the knowledge strikes them as embarrassingly childish and simplistic. 

Esoteric means "for the few" - and mostly refers to groups to human societies. The term often refers to exclusive groups characterized by rigorous selection and prolonged training; and typically includes groups that claim to posses secret occult knowledge or the keys to understand encoded occult knowledge. 

But, analogously with the possible meanings of occult; esoteric groups "for the few" as such are not confined to the holders of occult knowledge; but characterize almost many types of functional human institution - such as some universities or colleges, and legal and medical professions - and these also implicitly claim to possess occult knowledge which is not understandable except by those who are trained, and have the "keys".

More significantly; there is the question of why some groups are "for the few" - which might be because only few regard the matter as real and important, or who have an active interest. An esoteric grouping may happen (or be attempted) because "the many" are indifferent or hostile to the subject. 

When the majority believe that which is false, and are evil-affiliated; then the possibility of allying with good is necessarily restricted to "the few" - or even to a single person.   

When it comes to evaluating occult knowledge or esoteric groups, it seems evident that the terms are descriptive rather than intrinsically evaluative. 

As usual; the valuation depends primarily on matters such as purposes and motivations, and whether these are on the side of God and creation - or against them. 

Whether the real and underlying motivation is for this-worldly power, wealth, sex, success and the like - or to manipulate others and nature? Or instead to seek potentially good-aligned goals such as self-knowledge, experiential understanding of reality, encouragement in pursuit of salvation etc.  

It seems to me that (as of 2025, in The West) most of the people who are explicitly involved in esoteric groups and engaged with occult knowledge are badly-motivated: they are on the wrong side of the spiritual war of this-world. 

But the same applies to most Christians; and to most Christians in any particular church or denominations: they are badly-motivated. That is most self-identified Christians are (overall) on the side that opposes God in the spiritual war. 

In this mixed world, by its very nature; all Men are sinners, all groups are corrupted and all knowledge is impure. 

It is not our task to attempt the impossible of redeeming, or even reforming, The World; but to navigate our way though our life by discernment and in accordance with our intuition and divine guidance; as we desire and commit to following Jesus Christ.

This may (and it seems likely, given the nature of the world, en masse, here and now) lead us at some point to some degree of engagement with explicit or implicitly occult knowledge and the esoteric: 

So be it.  

**

Note: The above was stimulated by re-reading Gareth Knight's biography of his great friend the Reverend Canon Fr. Anthony Duncan: Christ and Qabalah: or, The Mind in the Heart (2013).

One Heaven, many hells

There is one Heaven; the Second Creation that we inhabit by following Jesus Christ through resurrection to eternal life. 

But it is not a homogenous Heaven - almost the opposite. 

Heaven is "unified" by love - every "inhabitant" lives only by love. 

That means that Heaven contains as much variety as there are inhabitants. Every new person who ascends to Heaven adds to its variety. 

Some people - including Mormons - conceptualize Heaven as subdivided, or having "many mansions". 

That's not it; because it implies restrictions upon the saved, among the resurrected. 

And it is wrong insofar as it implies any homogeneity among the inhabitants of Heaven's supposed subdivisions. 

But there are many hells - in fact, they can't really be numbered. 

Hell is not a place, but wherever there is anyone (or any group) who oppose divine creation.

Only insofar as there is cooperation among those who oppose divine creation could there be said to be "one" hell; however; members of hell are unified only by their hatred of God; what they want is selfish - so there is endemic latent conflict within and between all hells. 

Hells are all in "this world"; all in the primary creation that you and I currently inhabit. 

Those "in Heaven" can go where they please, including this world, and any of the hells in it. 

Heaven is barred against all inhabitants of hell - unless they repent, and follow Jesus to resurrected eternal life. If they can't or won't repent and love, they will not experience Heaven. 

Only those who have made an eternal commitment to live only by love, can be "in Heaven". 

And that is one Heaven.

We can think of Heaven as like an ideal extended-family - every member is different in abilities and interests, and are at different stages of maturity; and indeed members each have personal preferences among the family. 

But just one family.   

Evidence depends on theory, theory depends on assumptions

If this is how it all began - then purpose, meaning and personal significance are merely trivial "optional extras"

Evidence depends on theory, theory depends on assumptions.

So; he who controls our fundamental assumptions concerning the nature of reality - controls everything that ultimately matters.

(Just a reformulation of an old thought.)

We live in a world of public discourse that pretends to be determined by evidence; but evidence is not determinative - and cannot be.  

Because what counts as evidence, and what an item of evidence means, is dependent on theory. 

And all theories depend on assumptions concerning the nature of reality. 

So that our assumptions concerning the nature of reality - i.e. metaphysics - determine all knowledge. 

And this is why totalitarian, materialist, atheism rules the world of public discourse, why all "evidence" seems to support it, and why there seems to be no evidence to support the spirit and the divine. 

It is why all "serious" theories acknowledged in public discourse lead in circles back to themselves; why "there is no alternative" and "resistance is futile".

It is why all discussion of purpose, meaning and personal significance seem arbitrary and feeble - and why hedonism, nihilism and despair are the pervasive moods of modernity...

Purpose, meaning, and the significance of the individual person are all excluded from the accepted and propagated picture of the nature of reality in this life and universe. 

For us; the ultimate assumptions of real-reality are of abstract impersonal particles, forces, processes, fields, energies, randomness... operating unknown and mechanically, algorithmically, in a world without consciousness, or life.   

These assumptions are built-into our public life, our pubic institutions; and from such ultimate metaphysical assumptions, any purpose, meaning, personal significance is arbitrary.  

Even for the self-identified religious; the purposeless, meaningless universe - indifferent to life and Men; is the real picture - much realer than that of God. 

Indeed God is regarded as having primarily created such a dead and futile world, without values: only later inserting some living beings, and finally humans. 

So, according to the mainstream and institutional reality; the purposeless, meaningless, impersonal world came first, and existed without our consciousness; by this we know which is most fundamental, which is most important - and is is not us.     

Thus the assumptions of our underlying metaphysical picture combine to rule-out the primacy and seriousness of  purpose, meaning, personal significance, and values in the universe and in our societies and individual lives. 

These are not regarded as fundamental, but merely "optional extras" - even for the religious. 

Public debate and discussions about evidence or theories relating to God, creation, good and evil etc. are all rendered necessarily trivial. 

Our motivations are poisoned at source. 

Those who controls our fundamental assumptions - control everything that ultimately matters.

This is one reason why the "alternative" internet makes no substantive difference; why those political animals who regard themselves as opposed to mainstream leftism make no difference; why even the most serious types of institutional religion make no difference.

Dig down; and they share the same deep assumptions as the globalist totalitarians - such that dissent is merely superficial, and ultimately irrelevant.

"Soft" totalitarianism in the Third Reich: or, How many Germans did it take to control three million Danes?

During WWII, the Third Reich invaded and occupied Denmark; and for the first few years (c. 1940 into 43) this was a classic example of what people nowadays call "soft" totalitarianism - meaning, totalitarianism imposed without use of violent coercion. 

Denmark had a population of about three million - so how many Germans do you think were needed to control this population?

The answer from military historian Rowland White's recent book (Mosquito: the extraordinary true story of the legendary RAF aircraft...) is... eighty-nine. That is 89. 

Averaging one German to administer more than 30,000 Danes.  

I found this very interesting; given that the Third Reich has (for obvious reasons) become a bye-word for the most purposively-aggressive and physical form of totalitarianism. 

Of course, the handful of Germans were backed by the threat of German military might and the rest of it; yet the numbers tell us that the imposition of totalitarian rule - even during a world war! - can be and was accomplished by "soft" methods...

Presumably some mixture of factors such as effective ideological propaganda, tacit support of the regime, and the calculations of fear and expediency in a situation where "there is no alternative" and "resistance is futile". 

The value of this insight is that most people doubt that we of The West inhabit a totalitarian system of governance, because we do not see the apparatus of violent physical coercion that we have been taught is a necessary feature of such politics. 

Yet, the example of Denmark proves that rigorous and efficient "soft" totalitarian rule is possible, and effective (at least, for a few years) by a tiny number of alien controllers; combined with the cooperation (or "collaboration") of sufficient natives of the national leadership class, and the tacit consent of the bulk of the remainder.

It also seems to prove that totalitarianism works best when it is "soft" - when it deploys soft-ideas rather than hard-violence. 

How many "outsiders" does it take to rule a UK of 60 million? 

Does it just scale up proportionately to... a couple of thousand aliens? Or are the economies of scale and fewer than 2K aliens are needed. Or do the difficulties multiply exponentially and maybe... tens of thousands are needed? 

Either way, it is salutary to realize that a thoroughly totalitarian system need not deploy large numbers of external-rulers, nor physical coercion, to be a very complete and effective mechanism of mass control. 

And, of course, this is exactly what we find, here and now - could we but recognize it.

Note: Rowland White's books tells a story of how this peaceful state of soft totalitarianism was deliberately subverted by British military intelligence by developing a sabotage network, that eventually grew to provoke violent German reprisals, and "hard" totalitarianism - which led to much greater Danish resistance; and the intended transfer of many more German personnel and resources to control Denmark. This effective intervention by another alien power - i.e. the UK - is also a demonstration of how a very few people who want to destabilize a system by guerrilla methods, can do so. The whole narrative seems to me one of elite external powers manipulating the Danish masses for their own ends.   

The magic of human institutions: Now absent, once always present; but never wholly sufficient

For most of recorded history until recently; many human institutions (organizations, formal groupings) were magical * - to some degree. 

The further back we go, the more magical they could be. The earlier in our life we go, the more likely that we would ourselves experience this magic. 

However, there were also not-magical groupings; and, no matter how magical the institution - there have always been those people who do not participate in it; being either immune to that magic, or susceptible but reject it. 

Furthermore, the innate magic of pre-adolescent childhood; means that - even now - groupings of such children often have a strongly magical ambience. 

The big difference across the generations relates to adult institutions - which used often to have a significant magical quality - but now are likely to be (almost entirely) soulless, dead, mechanical - and indeed purposively anti-magical... Zealous in their active destruction of any such qualities - typically by means of abstract and generic systems of bureaucracy and computerization. 

For instance; many educational institutions used to be strongly magical in their nature. This applied especially to small and localized institutions, or those with a mutually-selective character (i.e. both selected and selecting). 

Through my adult life I experienced educational institutions with considerable variations in the magical qualities; although I was also aware that most people were not consciously aware of such differences even when they spontaneously responded to them. 

Most people would speak against the reality and significance of such institutional aspects; and would cheerfully erode or eliminate magical aspects whenever this seemed expedient, from abstract ideology; or sometimes from sheer resentment-driven spite. 

Looking back; I could see that this institutional magic had, overall, been both more pervasive and common, and stronger (at least potentially stronger), the further back one went. 

Yet institutional enchantment was never complete. Human life was always and for everybody to some degree - marred by the "mundane" - this being the nature of our mortal state. 

The magic of institutions was therefore at its height (as I understand it) probably the major source of enchantment in human existence; while at the same time the very nature of institutions (plus the human beings who constitute them) meant that this magical quality was always both incomplete and contradicted.

 

And, through may adult life (from the 1980s) I could also see that this magic was innately ebbing - while also being purposively-expunged - from the educational institutions of which I knew. 

The difference across the decades was extreme. In my childhood and early adulthood the magical quality of (for instance) universities was (to me) palpable. By the time I retired from academia, the magic had been very-completely destroyed. 

Perhaps most evident when a soul-less, and indeed actively soul-destroying - institution, would attempt to cloak itself in the enchanted mantle of earlier generations. 

This would dishonestly be attempted using the mind-manipulating procedures of modern advertising and public relations; and would therefore fail to attain magic, but reduce enchantment to ideology, false promises of hedonism, fashion, and covert-appeals to status snobbery.  

While I devoted considerable energy to fighting this anti-magical trend, I now believe that a decline of that kind of spontaneous, largely unconscious, institutional magic was inevitable - due to the innate developments of human consciousness. 

When the human beings of an institution themselves come to lack spontaneous and unconscious magic; then enchantment is bound to wane from all institutions. 

The analogy with adolescence (nowadays) is close. Many children are spontaneously and unconsciously susceptible to enchantment; but the innate process of adolescence will abolish this; after which the capacity to know and live magically, must be the consequence of a conscious choice.  

In the later twentieth century, Western adults reached an "adolescence" of consciousness, so that spontaneous and unconscious magic receded - and if we were to continue to live any kind of enchanted life in our institutions; magic would need explicitly to be acknowledged as good, and purposively pursued.  

In sum: as we approached the millennium, magic needed to become self-conscious and consciously valued; or else there would soon be no magic.      

We know by now which of these happened! So complete has become the disenchantment of institutions, that (it seems) most people deny that things ever were otherwise! Most people assume that all institutions were always as they are now: spiritually-dead, exploitatively manipulative, habitually dishonest...

But such retrospective denigration is projection of our evil onto others; as can be seen if historical sources are experienced sympathetically. 

From where we actually-are; I find it hard even to imagine how institutions can be re-enchanted; because there is neither recognition of the problem, nor will to solve it. 

Furthermore; I am pretty sure that (from here, from now) institutional re-enchantment can happen only on the basis of Jesus Christ. 

Yet this needs to happen in a context where the churches are themselves very-thoroughly disenchanted - including by assimilation into the ideological materialism of totalitarian bureaucracy. 

This means that any future source of enchantment must primarily (i.e. as a first step) be sought outwith the Christian church institutions - and Christianity (plus/ minus specific churches) regenerated from that basis. 

From the spiritual place we now inhabit and the people we actually are; I cannot see any way that a Christianity rooted primarily in institutional affiliation (to any kind of institution, no matter how idealized) can succeed in doing what needs to be done.

On the other side; the attempt to do without enchantment; to construct a religion that operates at the level of institutional power, rooted in the mundane, rational, functional (e.g. a religion designed to implement a particular kind of society) - well, this will surely fail. 

Fail because it will inevitably assimilate to the existing mundane, pseudo-rational, quasi-functionality of that system of totalitarianism that characterizes our civilization. With Men as we are; any possible church-based, institutionally-rooted Christianity will be secular and materialistic, totalitarian and political, and spiritually dead.  

The only path ahead, is the right path ahead. 

**

*"Magic" does not mean Good - since there is black magic (intended to manipulate people and creation), as well as white (in harmony with God and creation). But magic is, of itself, good; in the sense that it recognizes the reality of our participation in creation; and by enchantment we are aware of this participation. Whereas the exclusion or elimination of magic is intrinsically an evil because rooted in falsehood, and the intent to cause spiritual harm.   

Bullied by Bullocks

Bullocks with attitude 

(Or maybe bulls? I can't tell.)

Bullocks are what we Brits call castrated male cattle, bred for beef. They may lack gonads, but they seem to have a good deal more testosterone than the females of the species.

I am not afraid of cattle as such, since I was raised in a dairy farming area; so I got used to repelling Frisians, when they were in my way. As a rule, a confident shout and waving the arms is easily adequate to disperse herds of cows. 

But bullocks are a different matter. They resist intimidation until one is almost on top of them, and even then glare at you, and only step back a couple of reluctant paces. After which they work together, and crowd around, with apparent intent to...

Well, I don't really know what bullocks are trying to do. I have never hung around to find out. 

They clearly want to surround - but to what purpose, exactly? 

They, after all, are herbivores; so presumably it isn't to devour; but maybe to stampede into pulp? 

So far, I have managed to get to a gate in time; unlike a friend of mine who was corralled by bullocks into a stream with steep banks in order to escape their attention. But as he stood shivering, up to his thighs in cold water; the evil beasts just continued to loom over him, refusing to go away. He was eventually compelled to wade half a mile downstream in search of a fenced-off field that would be safe. 

*

This is topical, because yesterday we were menaced by black bullocks, twice - when in Northumberland en route to the site of Stagshaw Bank Fair.

This once famous festival was founded in Anglo Saxon times, and for many years it was the largest fair in Britain; with people coming from all around the north of England and south of Scotland to sell livestock, have a wild time, and make an incredible mess. 

So that "like Stagshaw Fair" became a local term for anything in a state of chaos. The event was eventually closed down by the British government in the 1920s, after about a millennium of drunken disorder.

But now, like Shelley's Ozymandias, nothing much remains, except a bleak, tussocky wasteland, boundless and bare, stretching far away; enlivened only by some electrical pylons.

Not really worth the risk of death by hooves. 

   

Note: To the right of the pylon, you can see a whitish line - which is a shallow bog consisting of farmyard slurry (liquid manure mixed with urine), laced with diesel oil contamination. Our path consisted of large stone slabs, carefully laid a few inches under the surface of this poisonous morass (despite being an official public right-of-way). That was when I discovered that my waterproof walking boots had sprung several leaks.

Following Jesus - literally

As readers may know, I feel a need to understand Christianity so simply and clearly that it can be grasped as a whole, by a single act of thinking. 

I have previously explained what Jesus meant in the Fourth Gospel ("John") when he requires people to "follow" him; and I explained it in terms of the Good Shepherd leading his sheep from the front. 

I have also explained following in terms of us meeting Jesus post-mortally and being led by Him through the process of resurrection into Heaven.  

It now seems to me that Jesus might have meant  by "following", something even simpler and clearer because more literal.

We are enjoined to follow Jesus where he went. 

That is: if we want resurrected eternal life; we should follow Jesus to Heaven. 

That is: we should follow Jesus through the process of resurrection to get to that place or state of Heaven. 

But the main thing is to follow Jesus to Heaven. 

And we do that by wanting it. 

By wanting Heaven more than we want anything else, so that we will do... whatever is needful to get there; what is needful to achieve Heaven; and we will know what that is, when the time is right.

Following Jesus to Heaven is something we do after death, just as Jesus went to Heaven after his death.  

Here and now; what is required, is to be known in the context of having decided that we want to follow Jesus to Heaven. 

How we personally should live, is in expectation of following Jesus to Heaven.  

+++

*Note: "Following is Not therefore meant as instructions to follow a specific path or rules, nor modelling our life on Jesus's life, nor a matter of following any purported intermediary such as membership, words, rituals or symbols. In the past it was different since Men in those days were groupish by nature; and responded spontaneously in the right way to words, symbols, rituals. For us, here and now, we must follow Jesus specifically and personally - or, probably, we won't be following him at all.

The successful totalitarian global coup of 2020 has been breaking-up since - but world politics is still totalitarian

In 2020 those with the ability to perceive and learn, realized that we inhabited a totalitarian world: which means an evil world. 

In other words, our world is rooted in atheist, materialist, leftist assumptions; where all significant social institutions are interlinked and bureaucratically-subordinate to this ideology. 

This is why so many people have "politics" as their fundamental value; and why so many people behave as if everything is (at root) "politics". 

By "politics" they means the System of totalitarianism - "everything is politics" means that, bottom-line, everything in the public realm - discourse and behaviours, communications and actions - is part of this totalitarian system.

Since 2020, this unified world government has broken-up into two or more increasingly hostile factions; but the components are still totalitarian in their nature. 

This does not mean that all the totalitarian units are as bad as each other - they aren't, some (e.g. ours) are purposively worse than others. Some have hope of becoming better, more socially-Christian to be exact - while still ultimately totalitarian. Other factions are actively hostile to Christianity and its legacy. 

But all factions are bad in the way that totalitarianism is bad - which is a modern way (post 19th century): totalitarianism is only possible in a post-religious society, with highly developed and pervasive bureaucracy and mass media.  

What this means for religion is that all churches are part of the totalitarian system, therefore - insofar as churches are this-worldly institutions - churches are net atheist, materialist, leftist - and overall part-of-the-problem of institutional evil.

This implies that church-led "Christianity" will, overall and by net-effect, be totalitarian hence anti-Christian.

And so will church-rooted Christian people.    

Against this, and because of the nature of evil and its progression, there is an accelerating trend for the ubiquitous totalitarian societies strategically to self-destruct. 

The most evil parts of totalitarianism are those that are most pervasively and strategically orientated towards destruction in many forms - such as destroying nature ("the environment"), functionality (within and between social systems - i.e. destroying science, law, education, etc), agriculture, the health and lives of masses of people - and so on and so forth, right across the board. 

Destruction is not an explicit goal, however (except, presumably, at the power level above global totalitarianism); but instead totalitarian sub-groups are manipulated into mutual and internal destruction by their ideologies of opposition/ negation and value-inversion. 

The totalitarians are therefore induced by their ideological assumptions into incoherent sub-strategies, that accomplish the opposite of stated goals, and lead always to accelerated destruction. 

So, we find ourselves in a world where politics is everything, hence everything is politics; yet/ consequently politics is all evil - and political discourse is a clash between totalitarianisms.

It is extremely tempting to be drawn into politics, precisely because it is all-pervasive in functional discourse. This ubiquity makes it seem that politics (debate, analysis, choice, action etc) is fundamental and necessary.  

From inside The System anyone who refuses to share the assumption that "politics is primary and everything" is seen as shirking ultimate responsibility. 

Therefore we find, on the one hand, an expressed cynicism at politics; on the other hand - in practice - politics matters more to most people than anything else... 

Politics usually forms the basis of a person's world-view; and typically shapes all their other convictions and choices - including religious... 

Under totalitarianism, religion becomes primarily and mandatorily political - both in the mainstream and in dissenting groups.

Thus, subjectively; my life, my self, seem inescapably captured by The System - and the only way out seems to be political: a politics to end all politics, perhaps? 

My point is that we default to "political" discourse and convictions - under totalitarianism politics seems more important than anything, and more important than ever. 

But there is No Hope in this.

Spiritually, we must break out from the loop, which means we first need to disengage sufficiently to understand the nature of our situation: this understanding of our situation is the first and necessary step; and it is spiritually valuable in itself. 

What happens after understanding, is mainly a choice of affiliation; and when all the options in this world are evil-by-nature; then a Christian affiliation must be outwith this world.   

To me, this seems the only Good way to escape-from and subordinate the totalitarianism of "politics is everything". 

Corrupt the word associations: The best way to subvert Tolkien?

People often talk about how recent "adaptations" of JRR Tolkien's works and his world, seem to be attempting to divert or subvert his message into something qualitatively different; with devices such as Mary-Sue Girl-Bosses, nasty "hobbits", and sympathetic orcs. 

But probably a more potent subversion is less recognized: which is the use of Tolkien's names to label "tech companies" - corporations whose mission and activities are inversions of JRR Tolkien's personal values (and this applies whether it is good or evil names that are being deployed). 

In so far as such corporations achieve high visibility, this must have an effect of weakening and tainting, if not actually usurping, the nomenclature, when it is encountered in Tolkien's works.  

Is this just deranged fanboys cashing-in? Is the inevitable harm to JRRT an accident? Or maybe the corruption is intentional; because Tolkien is a threat to the corporate totalitarians? 

Well, make up your own mind. 

When it comes to phenomena like search engines and AI; we are being *strategically* manipulated - and this has major life-implications

What I find extremely important about things like search engines from the 1990s onward, social media from the mid 2000s, and AI currently; is that, from a high level, we are being manipulated strategically. 

By strategically; I mean over a timescale of many years. 

For this to be possible, the manipulation must be done by persons that have access to very large amounts of money. 

Money and other resources - including the ability to manipulate laws to permit - whatever they want to do, to reshape national/ multi-national policies, and to prevent competition.

For instance, the development of the best search engine/s was colossally funded and subsidized, for many years, by invisible (presumably military and intelligence) sources... Many years in which the technology cost a great deal of money, and made - no money at all. 

This is simply not possible without very long-term backing from very wealthy patrons. 

Then the unique status and power of this search engine was protected by laws and (presumably) other means - so that no superior competitor could emerge or was allowed. 

Regulations were shaped to allow exemption from all kinds of restrictions that applied to written material; and immunity to laws that had regulated publishers. 

Income without visible sources. Power without responsibility. 

And there is a closely analogous situation with respect to social media platforms; and with post-November 2022 "AI" systems. 

There was again colossal financial backing and investment for many years, from unknown sources, without visible or remotely commensurate sources of income adequate income. This transcends any "market". The consumers are not customers.  

With AI; laws have been changed (or tacitly side-lined) to allow industrial scale plagiarism with immunity from prosecution. The entire electricity generation system of the USA, and energy policy generally, has been re-shaped to accommodate AI. 

And all this must have been known and guaranteed up-front, in advance of implementation.  

So - someone, somewhere, with vast money resources that are not derived from customers; and having the power to make and break laws; is working across a timescale of more than a decade to provide these "tools" such as search engines, social media platforms and now AI. 

We don't know who these people are, we don't explicitly know what is their real motivation. 

But the motivation does not seem to be money; at least not primarily; because these technologies take unimaginably vast amounts of money to develop across long periods before there is any possibility of beginning to recoup expenses (and by then, there will be another, similarly vast project afoot).

At the very least, such giga-investors must be sure - i.e. totally confident - that they can reshape the laws, national strategies, and media coverage so as to ensure the success of whatever technologies may (or may not) eventually emerge. 

And this means that the investors in search engines/ social media/ AI; essentially Rule The World, already.   

My inference is that they indeed already rule the world, substantially - insofar as it can be ruled; and these technologies are (or were) therefore strategically intended to monitor and control the world...

But maybe now the investors are being hoodwinked, and there is a higher level of strategy than this - and that strategy is to destroy the world. 

**

H/T to a comment by NLR for triggering this post. 

Oxtail soup, Steak and Kidney Pie, Tapioca Pudding, Sardines

What did they do with the rest of the ox? 

Why do I get to eat its tail?

Several of the common and everyday foods of my childhood - things I would be served almost every week, like it or not - have all-but disappeared. 

These are many; and include canned oxtail soup, steak and kidney pies, tapioca pudding and tins of sardines. 

I'm not sorry to see the back of any of these. The flavour of oxtail soup always seemed a bit odd to me - with an unpleasant aftertaste. I never could understand why anyone would want to ruin a steak pie with bits of rubbery, urinous, kidney. Tapioca pudding was bland belly-timber. Sardines were okay, as small fish go (certainly better than the vile pilchards) but I never really miss them. 

I classify all of these as wartime foods; which were imposed on British people by the shortages and distortions created by totalitarianism: i.e. the combination of a U-Boat blockade, and the ignorant tyranny of the Ministry of Agriculture. 

I think the bad reputation of British food came from this era. The socialistic national government, then the ruling Labour Part, loved being able to control food production and distribution, and dictating what people could eat. 

The damage to food quantity and quality took many years to repair, indeed rationing was continued for a decade post-war, and the Min of Ag never gave up the reins of power (later enthusiastically embracing the most extreme lunacies of the European Economic Community/ EU). 

This cast a long shadow on the national diet, which extended into the middle 1980s; an attitude that mass institutional food would be to be mediocre, at best; and we ought not to expect otherwise (despite whatever we experienced in other countries). 

The best of English cooking was domestic, in those days; especially roasted meats, baked foods, and puddings. Foreigners seldom experienced this because it was essentially private - and, of course, it depended on the specific woman doing the cooking.  

So I presume that the reason I was fed so much animal offcuts and offal - like ox tails and tongues; hearts, livers, and kidneys - all of which I hated; and flavourless calories such as tapioca and semolina; and little fish in tins - was a communistic mind-set that instinctively regarded food as something that was sustenance and fuel for the proletariat; rather than potentially one of the good things in life. 

And of course the question arises: what was happening to all the good cuts of meat, to the great cuts of an animal's muscles rather than its organs and peripheries? Where was all that going; who was eating all the good stuff?  

As nearly-always with socialism and Leftism generally - the rules and restrictions were for the Little People; not for the communist leaders themselves; most of whom have always self-righteous and hypocritical toffs.

Of course, things have now gone too far the other way. It is boring, wasteful, and life-distorting to regard every meal as An Event; to be planned, discussed, photographed and shared online. 

There is a place for regarding food as routine belly-timber. I am happy enough with that...

Just so long as my belly timber is not offal.

   

Why do pre-mortal spirits - such as you and me - choose to incarnate mortally? Why don't we stay as spirit-Beings?

From the metaphysical assumptions of many religious conceptualizations, it is hard to imagine why anyone would want to incarnate as a mortal (for example, an embodied human being) - given all the intrinsic problems, as well as the possible risks? 

Why wouldn't spirits want to stay as spirits? 

Stay safe and sound?...

But if entropy is an inescapable reality in God's First Creation - then the alternative to incarnation is inevitable decay; the inexorable loss of whatever we gain in terms of memories, of learning from experiences.  

It seems that spirit Beings change more slowly than incarnated mortals; but presumably they do change - and in Primary Creation there is no escape.

So spirits are not really "safe and sound" - at least not in terms of staying "who they are".  

Spirit Beings are immortal, and divine creation will continually give life, vitality, healing, growth and so forth. But this cannot be cumulative, all created spirit Beings will continually be "losing themselves", even as they are being remade.

(Just as things are for us now, here on earth.)  

I understand incarnation to be a concentration. 

The spiritual is primary, and all the material/ physical world is spiritual - yet an embodied Being is like a concentrated-spirit, one in which things are more focused, change more rapid; and most importantly where the self is more bounded, hence more free. 

Incarnated Beings are more themselves (for better and worse) than the same Beings as a spirit - we are more differentiated from other Beings than are spirits; hence we can (in principle) understand more clearly, make personal choices, and see the basis for personal responsibility. 

So, if you are a pre-mortal spirit, you are faced with a prospect of inevitable change and loss of self; or else you can choose to take the risk and incarnate in hope that you will choose to move on to the Second Creation - to resurrected eternal life, or heaven; as described by Jesus Christ; a place and state where entropy is permanently escaped. 

(This happens, I have argued, because entropy arises from incomplete love between Beings; in the Second creation we permanently commit to live by love.) 

Tis mortal incarnated life is intrinsically an adventure, where we can succeed or fail, but where success or failure is a matter of free choice.

It seems that some people who have incarnated as mortal Men, most people perhaps; take a look at the Second Creation, think about it, and then reject it - preferring something else.

But whatever "something else" is preferred to Heaven, and whatever its advantages in the short term; it will entail continual loss-of-self. 

The Being that inhabits somewhere-other-than-Heaven will, over the long term, lose memory, lose the effects of experiences, lose its distinctive identity - will fade. 

Outwith Heaven; Beings do not die, because Beings are eternal; but they will always be tending to revert to that primal chaos of indifference - of simply "existing". 

Yet to escape this fate; to have everlasting, cumulative personal life as our-selves, entails living wholly by love; and it seems that only some people want to live forever on those terms.   

  

"AI" is strategically about destruction, not control - Francis Berger's post, Laeth's comment

Following an insightful post on "AI" by Francis Berger; in the comments, Laeth produced a simple and convincing re-conceptualization of what lies behind this global strategy 

I have edited this excerpt. 

Ahrimanic refers to a type of totalitarian/ bureaucratic/ systemic evil, that is materialistic in assumptions and seeks omni-surveillance and thought control. Sorathic refers to a more advanced, negative, and purely-destructive evil; that is motivated a spiteful hatred of humans, life, and all manifestations of divine creation.

**

(Laeth's comment, edited)...

When all this started my intuition was that the diabolic element here was mostly Ahrimanic, that is, the objective was pure control. 

But more and more I think I was wrong about this (even if Ahrimanic forces were channelled to bring it to fruition). 

It seems more likely to me now that 'AI' is actually pure Sorathic envious evil. A big fraud at all levels that won't really even be useful for control, only to debase and destroy everything - from its enormous consumption of earthly energy for its functioning to the consumption of human energy from the engagement of people. An all consuming strategy, really. 

I try to avoid even seeing anything of AI or about it. I even try to avoid speaking too much against it, because I fear that too is me being sucked into its web. But it's now impossible to not find it: it's everywhere. Even normal, (and older) people, have started to talk about it (and in the exact terms the system wants them to). 

Yet even my tangential acquaintance with AI is enough to see that it's terrible at its purported higher objectives. It will just jumble up things with no direction, no purpose and no coherence - and any minimally intelligent person can understand that it's all nonsense. it cannot 'manage' anything. 

If given any power to manage a system, AI will just run it to the ground'; and I see now that that it its goal. To destroy any possibility of management, while consuming every possible resource that could be used to correct it. 

I think Ahriman was tricked too, in other words. Full Sorathic destruction is its only route and possibility of it.

**

My Comment: This immediately struck me as correct. 

The globalist totalitarian Establishment who sustain "The System" is being lied-to and tricked-into the Trillions-Dollar-Project of AI, by demonic beings whose purpose includes the destruction of The System. 

Once pointed-out (but it needed pointing out!), the strategy seems clear. 

Because (given the actuality of AI, of what it is, of how it works) this is the only possible outcome of widespread usage of, and therefore inevitable dependence upon, so-called AI. 

AI is a kind of mind virus that has been introduced into the consciousness of managers, at almost every level - from national and multi-national leaders down to the multitudes of middling-myrmidons. 

In the immediate short-term, all the institutional incentives are lined-up to focus upon introducing and developing and expanding AI - regardless of its effect on institutional functionality. 

But in the medium to long term; AI will destroy management itself, in a very direct fashion; along with institutional functionality. 

So the mind virus of AI functions like an addictive drug that rewards its user by short-term euphoria, at the cost of actively killing the user. 

My reading of Western social trends is that the Sorathic agenda has been gaining ground since the summer of 2020; when the Ahrimanic-totalitarian global triumph of the Birdemic coup (with its international lockdowns); began to yield to the intrinsically socially destructive policies of combining multivalent institutional antiracism with a renewal and acceleration of mass immigration. 

Since 2020; the Sorathic destructive agenda has been doubled-down-on by those who control the Western leadership class. Especially, it has caused/ sustained/ escalated war in Eastern Europe; then rolled-out to the Middle East; now (being attempted) in South Asia (also elsewhere). 

All this gratuitous and self-annihilating destruction (eg "sanctions" that damage the sanctioner more than the sanctioned!) is "sold" to the managerial classes of the world as assisting their globalist totalitarian goals (Great Reset, Agenda 2030 etc.). 

They are told that inducing societal chaos will create a desire for order, and thereby facilitate a further coup (on-top-of the successful early-2020 Birdemic coup) to enable a stable and lasting dictatorship of the Left.

Yet this was never possible; because the materialist Leftist ideology of the totalitarians is intrinsically negative, oppositional, hence destructive. 

Even in its earliest and partly-good manifestations; Leftism always had Sorathic evil as its Secret Master. This canker of the heart was evident in that, whenever totalitarian control was (briefly) established, it was inevitably followed by accelerating disorder and destruction.      

 

While there is an almost irresistible Schadenfreude induced by watching the managerial state enthusiastically implementing that self-destruct button which is AI; observers need to be mindful that evil does not cancel-out. 

As totalitarianism is destroyed by spiteful sadism, the process yields no increase in net-good in the world. 

Good comes from recognizing what is going on in the spiritual war of this world; rejecting it inwardly (i.e. repenting our complicity); and then spiritually affiliating to God and divine creation - by following Jesus Christ to that salvation which is resurrected eternal Heavenly Life. 

The Left is winning, where it matters: Right triumphalism misunderstands the very nature of the Left

People who regard themselves as of the Right are displaying an insane and blinkered optimism that they are winning, and rolling-back Leftism. 

This is because they do not understand what the Left is, in its fundamental nature. 

If they did understand, those who proclaim themselves of the Right would realize that they are merely functioning as a subtype of the Left. 

The political Right supposes that the Left is an ideology rooted in some principles. They believe that the Left IS these policies that I call the Litmus Tests: I mean things like socialism, feminism, antiracism, anti-antisemitism, the Climate Agenda. 

In general terms, the self-identified Right define the Left in terms of Political Correctness, SJWs, Wokeness - and their manifestations in the mass media, law, employment regulations etc. 

Because they suppose that the Left is an ideology of "Wokeness" the Right imagine that reversals of specific social practices and regulations represent a rolling-back of Leftism in their nation, or in the world.

When the Right sees such laws, fundings, rhetoric being undone; they think the Left is being defeated. 

But this is completely wrong; because the Left is a negative ideology, an ideology of opposition, and none of the Litmus Tests are core features of Leftism - they might all, in principle, be undone and the Left still be as strong as ever.    

All the Left ideologies are negative in form: the Left is (in various times and places) against many things (capitalism, the bourgeoisie, inequality, patriarchy, European people, Christians) - but is not in favour of any state of affairs as an ultimate and real goal.  

In other words the Left is protean in nature, fluid, adapting - it is continually discarding old ideologies and taking up new ones. 

The Left used to be in favour of economic communism - but not any more; in favour of native-born male industrial workers  (the working class) - but not any more; in favour of equality of opportunities and unequal outcomes - but not any more. 

Leftism can and does discard anything that is currently inexpedient; because there are an endless number of alternatives.

And there is in fact no coherent thing as "the Right"; because the Right is merely opposition to the various Leftist oppositions. 

Leftist ideology is double-negative (i.e. against what they currently regard as bad things), the "the Right" is a triple negation (i.e. against those who are against what the Left currently calls bad things).

No wonder those endless essays striving to define the Right never gets anywhere!  

This is why the Right is so wrong about the rolling back of Leftism. It supposes that the Left abandoning some of its recent woke agenda represents some kind of a defeat, but it is just the usual slippery shape-shifting of Leftism; which now has other priorities - especially war. 

Since Leftism is fundamentally oppositional and negative - Leftism is essentially destructive. 

War is very destructive; hence world war is perhaps an ultimate expression of Leftism. 

(And it matters nothing that pacifism, anti-war, anti-violence; was one of the original roots of Leftism - from more than 200 years ago.) 

War can give Leftism everything and more of whatever losses it may suffer from dropping a few strands of political correctness.  

Just look at what the Leaders of Western nations are actually doing, where they are putting most of their effort - they are in practice (not in what they say, but in what they do over time) angling for more war. 

Not to win a war, but for the maximizing the destruction of war: destruction of economies, societies, trade, positive national identities, of nature (aka "the environment") - expansion of such negations as lies, resentment, and despair. 

We are - and have been for a few years - seeing more and more wars, and what war brings. expanding and escalating the already existing World War with its multiple fronts - but especially in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

We can see the globalist totalitarian leadership class at work engineering wars all over the place; recently on the Asian Subcontinent. This isn't easy to do, there are plenty of people who don't want war - for obvious reasons. But that is what "They" are serious about.  

Ultimately, of course, politics is downstream of the spiritual war of this world; Leftism is a tool of evil in its opposition to God and Divine Creation.

Yes, the sexual revolution was and is a deadly tool of corruption; but a self-righteous and hate-driven war of each against all would be deadlier still. 

When the Right celebrates a few small "victories" (many of which turn out to mere words, and no substantive change; they miss that the Left now has bigger fish to fry, and other things it care much more about. 

The woke agenda might be "forgotten" as thoroughly as the days (a century ago) when white European men were the Left's heroes! - but the Left is continuing to win, and win where it matters most. 

And this will continue until those on the Right recognize that they are part of the problem, and repent. 

  

Since Google's 2K search engine was far superior to any so-called AI; then why are people in 2025 so awed and submissive about AI?

Since Google's 2K search engine was far superior to any so-called AI; then why are people in 2025 so awed and submissive about AI?

It's an interesting question. 

There was certainly a vast degree of hype about The Internet in the 1990s, as well as many serious and thoughtful attempts to predict its consequences (which were spectacularly wrong in almost every instance!); and people who used search engines recognized that Google was a qualitative improvement on what had existed before (I recall that Altavista was the best engine just before Google emerged in 1997). 

And indeed the Google search engine rapidly became a superb tool; far superior to anything that has existed since around 2010. Google has almost completely destroyed its own search value, and nothing significantly superior has emerged - or, probably, nothing superior has been allowed to emerge.

But there was never anything like the quasi-worship and sheer mental derangement that is at present rampant on the subject of AI; where people I would have (until recently) regarded as sensible and decent, are spouting incoherent-impossible nonsense about what AI can/ should/ will be used for, and apparently being taken seriously.

Worst of all - they are looking forward to it! This reminds me of the 2020 totalitarian globalist who said that in his future we will "own nothing - and be happy" - but even worse: this time we shall instead (or as well) "be ruled, monitored and controlled by robot computers - and be happy".    

I take this as strong and solid evidence of the astonishing degree of spiritual corruption to which people in general have sunk. Not just the rulers, who have led and managed the avalanche of nihilism; but the masses as well. 

Common sense has gone. Simple two-step reasoning has gone. And the reason is that almost everybody, including almost all self-identified religious or spiritual people, has adopted the pervasive assumptions of inhabiting a purpose-less, meaning-less world from-which we are alienated, and with which we engage only materially. 

Inside people there is, apparently... nothing - a void; continuously filled up from externally by the media and institutions and superficial "cause and effect" interactions of "social life". 

And it turns-out that is makes no significant difference whether this inner void is filled by political ideology or church doctrine and guidance - these are all substantially converged, and it all comes to the same in the end.  

Of course there is not really a void inside us, but an eternal self; which is a part of God's living creation. 

But we have chosen to deny, disbelieve and ignore this in favour of mechanism, passivity, and ultimate, existential irresponsibility.   

That's why people are so very impressed by the real-world-useless, destructive, literally soul-destroying toy-master that is called AI. 

If ultimate reality is physics, mathematics, geometry... Re-reading The Place of the Lion, by Charles Williams

I have been re-reading (after many previous readings) my favourite work by Charles Williams - The Place of the Lion (1931)  a book that, I believed, profoundly influenced the writing of both JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, as well as being of unfailing fascination to me. 

But every time I read it, it feels almost like I am reading another and different book! 

I've shared a few reflections after the most recent encounter, over at my Notion Club Papers blog.

Disney Peter Pan (1953): one of the most perfect movies

Captain Hook - with his lantern jaw, five o'clock shadow, and double-cigar holder! 

Yesterday, I re-watched (maybe the fourth time?) Walt Disney's 1953 animated movie Peter Pan; and again it struck me as one of the very best of the Disney full length cartoons (running at about 75 minutes). 

Of course the source material of this adaptation is one of the great modern myths; which certainly helps. But what makes the movie so good is the script, pacing, and characterisation. 

The screenplay is coherent, sometimes very funny, and overall poignant and enchanting. It is objectively very fast paced, packed with variety and incident, and highly varied in tone, hence continually interesting. Nothing goes for nothing - there is zero padding. 

Yet this is achieved without the slightest sense of being rushed, all the important aspects are given full weight - the editing and pacing are immaculate. 

To my mind; Hans Conried's voicing of Hook (and Mr Darling) is maybe the greatest characterization of the dubbing-era toons (since Disney's Aladdin, modern toons animate the picture around the voice). The emotional range of Hook, displayed on such a small "canvas" is stunning. 

Peter Pan himself is shown with the complex moral ambiguity of the original - perhaps even more so. And Mr Smee is a tremendous, Dickensian, comic creation. Even such a minor character as Tiger Lily (who doesn't speak) jumps-out as a strongly-defined personality, simply from her facial expressions.  

The animation is less beautiful than - say - Snow White - and there is a degree of simplification evident in the basic pictures. Nonetheless the animation is impressively fluid (e.g. consider Tiger Lily's sinuous dancing), especially in the fast comedy sequences (the Smee slapstick is particularly well done), and the always inventive fight sequences. 

And whoever came up with, and executed, the "stuck record" interrupted scream of Hook as his final "words" of the movie; was some kind of genius. 

The economy and clarity achieved by the movie story is perhaps an improvement on the original, especially in its wistful and suggestive ending; I personally find the original Peter Pan ending to be rather messy, as if the author couldn't make up his mind, and wanted to cover all bases. 

Anyway, if you haven't yet watched the Disney Pan - or watched it inattentively - you are in for a treat!

Donald Trump and the latest Pope (for example): People grossly underestimate How Bad Things Are

As a solid and nearly universal generalization: "People" grossly underestimate how bad things are. 

We see this almost everywhere, including among those who regard themselves as radical, uncompromising, anti-Establishment, Christian-motivated - or whatever. 

Think of the past US elections, and the way that so many people really seemed to believe that the situation in the USA was such that DT might make (or would make, or indeed already has made!) a significant difference for the better! 

I can only shake my head in amazement. Do they really believe that the nature of the deepening and widening problems could possibly be reversed by DT? 

Do they honestly suppose that this was, or is, the genuine intention? 

The expressed level of enthusiasm and indeed hope (!) engendered among some Christians by Trump's early announcements was frankly embarrassing, when it was not merely ridiculous. And it is (to say the least) dismaying to realize that the observable fact of regime-continuity, and the failure of any positive overall US or world change to manifest, and the continuation of malignity in core strategies of the US-led West; are so easily and eagerly explained-away.  

Because - with things as bad as they are and worsening long-term; unless the trends were not just slowed or stopped but reversed - decisively and unambiguously reversed (and not in words but in observable overall results) - then any potential variation of "politics as usual" is utterly futile. 

So why discuss it? - discuss it frequently and endlessly, and with all appearances of regarding oneself as saying something fundamental? 

Or the new Pope. It's all "probably some improvement", "wait and see", "something to be said on both sides"; or "give the bloke a chance", "benefit of the doubt" kind of stuff. 

As if a (?) slightly-better Pope than Francis, would have the slightest benefit in a Roman Catholic Church that is collapsing like an avalanche, and putrescent with pervasive corruption and incremental apostasy at every level!  

If the new Pope does Not have what it takes, and that is 100% for sure; then why be so diffident and nuanced about stating the fact!

Clutching at fake straws, wherever you look. 

It really ought to be blazingly obvious that things are very bad indeed and have been continually getting worse for a long time, and with no hint of an upturn. 

This insight isn't exactly rocket surgery. 

When someone doesn't start with that level of recognition, then their discourse is revealed as merely compulsive gossip - whatever their pretentions of depth and seriousness.  

Vivaldi, Oboe, Holliger, I Musici - simply beautiful

A little treat for lovers of the baroque oboe - slow movement from a concerto by Vivaldi; played by the greatest oboist of whom I know - Heinz Holliger - and the lyrical and resonant strings of I Musici. The continuo harpsichordist is also improvising some lovely things. 

The melody is very simple and the orchestral accompaniment likewise; but Vivaldi was a master of string textures, and the deployment of occasional unexpected harmonic shifts. 

The writing for oboe offers tremendous scope for such a fine and creative soloist to generate a continuous melodic line, and introduce subtle decorations and dynamics (changes of volume). 

It's about as structurally-simple as classical music can be; and (in this performance) very beautiful to my ear. 

A charming collection of letters by CS Lewis's brother "Warnie" to Blanche Biggs, a medical missionary

I review this interesting and enjoyable volume over at my Notion Club Papers blog.