People have not even begun to wake-up to the implications of subfertility

When I recently wrote about the severe and increasing subfertility of the populations of all developed societies in the world; I had not realized that this was becoming a topic in the mass media... Sort of. 

Because the discussions reveal that people have not even begun to consider the implications of subfertility.   

The implications of subfertility go way beyond the currently permissible discussions of human psychology, sociology, and economics - the true implications are biological, they affect people as functional and reproductive beings.  

Fertility is a big topic, much too big to summarize here; and it takes a fair while to think-through - but the subject has been (I think) well understood by some people for some decades; and some outcomes of differential- and sub-fertility are (I believe) baked-in and highly predictable. 

Differences in average fertility is natural selection of human beings; and such differentials Just Are evolution in action. 

Subfertility is extinction - but a subfertile population suffers massive declines in functionality, long before the actual extinction, although of course this will accelerate the extinction. 

I don't talk much about all this stuff, because people don't like to talk about it - and are enmeshed in their own feelings and their need for optimism in order to escape what would otherwise be despair. 

Because those addicted to optimism do not want to know that the damage is largely done, and we are just awaiting for the implications to unfold. There is little that anybody can do about it - not least because nobody really wants to do anything about it. 

So much so, that the only reason to think about the subject at all, is if you really want to understand what is happening, and what will happen to human beings as biological creatures. 

And not may want to understand stuff, for its own sake. 

Dance Stance aka. "Burn it down" - Dexy's Midnight Runners

As a Northumbrian (by inheritance, conception, and residence - if not birth!) who yet has a better claim to pretend to be Irish than most of the show-biz people who make such a big thing of it...

[The Irish can do what they like to celebrate their patron; but I am referring to the international, US-derived and disseminated festival of lurid green and paralytic drunkenness et sequelae - that began here, today, in an adjacent suburban street (and major road artery) with literally thousands on the streets and queuing at bars from 10am.] 

Perhaps it is timely to remember this great single by Dexy's Midnight Runners * - as a response to this B.awful anti-Saints Day of shameless ignorance, embarrassing condescension, exploitive materialism, desperate hedonism, and cultural nihilism.  

Other than that, it's just good fun!

I'll only ask you once more 

You only want to believe 

This man is looking for someone to hold him down 

He doesn't quite ever understand the meaning 

Chorus:

I never heard about Oscar Wilde 

I don't talk about Brendan Behan 

I don't think about Sean O'Casey 

I don't care about George Bernard Shaw 

He doesn't care about Samuel Beckett 

He won't talk about Eugene O'Neill 

Edna O'Brien and Laurence Sterne 

Shut it! You don't understand it 

Shut it! That's not the way I planned it 

Shut it! Shut your mouth 'til you know the truth 

[Repeat, with extra names] 

Sean Kavanaugh and Sean McCann 

Benedict Keilly, Jimmy Hiney 

Frank O'Connor and Catherine Rhine

* Leaving aside authorial intent - my general impression of this song when it came out was a push back against stereotypical and derogatory Oirishness. Thus I don't think much of the choices for the list of authors in the lyrics! - I think a much better could be assembled, even while maintaining the rhythm.  

https://www.discogs.com/release/1185203-Dexys-Midnight-Runners-Dance-Stance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Stance

Christianity is Not, never truly was, about morality - except secondarily

Over the past eight years; my reading-of and brooding-on the Fourth Gospel (called "John") has had many and profound effects on my understanding of the differences between what Jesus said and did, and the Christian churches that came after. 

In particular, that the core of Jesus's work was to provide Men with the possibility of resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

This means that the primary concern of Jesus was to save mankind from entropy and death - therefore Jesus's primary concern was not to save us from evil. 

To repeat: For Jesus salvation means from death, not from evil. 

However, most of religion before, during and since the time of Jesus is about morality - about the behaviour (and attitudes) of people. 

Such religion is therefore therapeutic - it is "about" minimizing suffering and/or maximizing human happiness in this world and mortal life. 

That is what all those Laws and rules are about, the propitiations offered to divinity, the abasements and obedience - they are trying to make this world a better place, and ourselves to have a better place in it. 

And this is why all religions have considerable overlap in the approved behaviours. 

But this was Not what Jesus was about. 

Jesus came essentially to save us from death, not from moral sin.

Jesus was primarily against death, not evil - but his cure for death was also a cure for evil. 

For Jesus the problem of death (of entropy) was more profound than that of evil; because in this mortal life and world, death is absolutely universal and completely unavoidable; destructive change may be slowed, but is always at work...

Jesus was necessary and unique because he offered a solution to death; not because of his moral teaching, not because of his moral laws and principles, not because people could make a church from the moral laws and principles. 

This was and is very difficult to grasp; because most people (including most early Christians, including those who formed the Christian churches, apparently) - want morality.

Or else they want immortality Now in this world, and without dying first. 

People do not, therefore, usually want what Jesus actually offered... Or, at least, they think they don't want it; or they do not want it as strongly and urgently as they want other things - such as relief from suffering, or happiness now-or-soon.

But relief from suffering and positive happiness in this mortal life are not the core of Jesus's message - because these are promised for post-mortal resurrected life, not for this life. 

The error of making "Christianity" primarily moral distorted it from very early and has led to its current near-destruction. 

Those who made Christianity continuous with Judaism (including the authors of the Matthew and Luke Gospels, and Paul); tried to conflate the primacy of resurrection with their continued primacy of morality...

Leading eventually to the bizarre concoction of Original Sin - in order to pseudo-explain why Jesus was both unique and necessary. 

In other words, they made Jesus primarily "about" morality; and resurrection was made conditional upon the approved morality...

And morality was made to be why Jesus came, and curing morality was made to be what Jesus fundamentally did...

This-world morality was made of core importance to the Christian churches; and morality was made to come first - such that resurrection was relegated to a secondary status as reward for good-morality.  

But morality is about this-world, here-and-now and before death...

Whereas the advent of resurrection was of cosmic and eternal significance - it is a change in the nature of reality. 

Everybody everywhere has their ideas of proper morals; and this is continually contested. And morality does not require resurrection. 

So morality is both regarded as primary by almost-everybody; yet morality is detachable from the reality of Christianity...

And morality has, in fact, already-been detached-from Christianity! - even (or rather, especially) in those lands historically (or nominally still) Christian. 

As of here-and-now; Christianity is just one of many competing this-worldly moral systems; and gets evaluated in terms of its material "success" in producing good behaviour.  

But if we are talking about Jesus Christ, rather than social institutions and traditions; then this is wrong, a mistake, an ancient error. 

Jesus brought the possibility of resurrected eternal life in Heaven - and that fact should come first and foremost, and be kept at the core, of our Christian discussion and teaching. 

Colin Wilson podcast resource

An interesting and useful resource has appeared on the excellent Fourble website: a collection of 45 podcasts featuring or written by Colin Wilson. 

I have sampled a few - and enjoyed them all. 

I am not sure who is responsible for making this compilation, but Thanks, whoever you are!  

The Baron of Jesmond - for nearly thiry years!

I thought regular readers might be interested to see the official document by which I became Baron of Jesmond, some three decades ago. 

This entitles me to the hereditary title of Lord - or just "Jesmond" among my close friends and equals (if any) - and those to whom I have given permission to use this familiarity.  

Strange to say; some have, over the years, expressed doubts as to the validity of this peerage; and refuse to use the correct form of address... Indeed everybody I have ever known falls into this category. 

Nonetheless, I would point out that the distinction was properly purchased from a monarch - as is traditional with aristocratic privileges. 

And that monarch was the proper King of the nation: which is to say the King in Hay on Wye, His Majesty the late Richard Booth:

He is depicted above sitting in front of his palace, which is a real castle - and since he has a crown, sceptre, and orb - plus a fancy cloak - I don't think there can be any legitimate doubt of his authority to grant me the status of Baron. 

Crown jewels of Hay - publicly displayed in a glass box, with a caption; like all real crown jewels

The grave of John Pritchard, a Victorian "Tragedian", St Andrew's Cemetery in Newcastle upon Tyne

John Pritchard, Tragedian: 1830-1868 

Seems to have been a rather handsome chap, and rather too obviously proud of it - given that this is the only sculpted head of the deceased in any of the three Jesmond cemeteries. 

A "Tragedian" was a (self-styled*) serious actor of the Classics; and this is referenced by the masks at the foot of the stone.  

If you look very closely, there are a few subtle hints that Pritchard may - perhaps, allegedly - also have been a Freemason...

*I say "self-styled" because the man generally acknowledged as the worst poet ever in the English language - William McGonagall - also called himself a Tragedian.  

The problem of Life: Do quantitative improvements make a qualitative difference? Ultimately - Not at all

The problems of this mortal life are (essentially) evil and entropy. Those who are honest and give the matter thought, acknowledge that these problems are intractable, incurable - they always have been, everywhere. 

Some people assert that this is good enough, Life as it is and has-been is basically fine... 

But in practice it's "fine" only so long as you don't think about life too hard or too honestly; don't care about other people, animals, plants or the world; and only so long as you are feeling completely happy and healthy at this moment.

Otherwise you will recognise that this mortal life as-is, is not enough, insufficient - which is why it is so easy and frequent to imagine Life being much better. 

It is uncontroversial that Life can be somewhat improved in some respects. 

And it is uncontroversial that such quantitative improvements can make us feel proximately better about Life: that is we feel-about-Life, somewhat better - for a while...

However, no matter how much and how many are the quantitative improvements; the facts of evil and entropy remain in the world, and in ourselves - so ultimately, no amount of quantitative improvement makes an ultimate difference.  

This can be seen in listening to a progressive, radical or reformer - who tries to enlist support by claiming to cure some "injustice"; yet no matter how many quantitative improvements of the kind they want are attained "towards" this supposed-cure... The problem remains always - ultimately - exactly as bad as ever it was. 

Whatever the issue chosen, the pattern is the same.  

A US antiracist in the summer of 2020 regarded racism as a 100% burning and urgent global priority, exactly as much as his kind did in the "civil rights" era of the 1960s; or a century earlier during the abolition, Civil War then "reconstruction" eras of the 1800s. 

Somehow a couple of centuries of quantitative "progress" in the antiracist agenda, also, and at the same time, qualitatively amounted to... nothing at all. 

Analogous scenarios can be constructed for ideologies of freedom, class, feminism (or any other sexual liberation or "rights" issue). That's easy enough to see.  

But this also applies to religions and spiritualties - and that is harder to acknowledge. 

There is same - usually implicit - claim that quantitative progress will make a qualitative difference; that a bigger and better church, a society run on more Christian lines, more devout people who sin less - will amount to something qualitatively better...

Yet it never does! 

No amount of short-term proximate improvement ever makes an ultimate difference!

The best and most Godly people, in the best church of the best religion of the best nation at the best time in history... Such people were always powerfully aware (indeed they were more aware than anybody else!) that ultimately the human condition did not suffice and could not suffice in an ultimate sense. 

Hence the absolute need for what Jesus made possible: the Second Creation: an eternal Life built wholly on Love; therefore a Life without entropy or evil.  

2020 - The year of the double global revolution; the year of two successful international coups

2020 was the year when there was a completely successful coup in which global-totalitarianism took-over all the nations of the world; conclusive evidence for which was that the various previous governance procedures of nations were displaced by diktat - and under such a system the peoples of the whole world were "locked down". 

Early 2020 was an extraordinary moment in history! 

Not least because (it seemed at the time) hardly anybody noticed or recognized that it had happened - a perfect, silent takeover had been accomplished; under cover of fake-necessity concealed by the stalking horse that was the Birdemic. 

So... A silent coup, an unopposed takeover, and therefore almost entirely un-noticed at the time - and indeed hardly acknowledged since. 

By the early summer of 2020; the world was (almost literally) under-the-thumb of the totalitarian leadership class: confined to quarters, mentally terrorized into compliance, physically separated, masked and anonymized - utterly pacified! 

And the expectation was that this was only the start of such-things, and the situation would surely be made complete and permanent... 

Allowable public debate was confined to discussing whether all this was enough to make people "safe", or else whether conditions should be made more restrictive. 

The expectation was for "more of the same" - a world under a single authority; a world of omni-surveillance and micro-control. 

Then, quite rapidly in the high summer of 2020, and even less recognized then and since: a second coup! 

Into this situation of triumphant totalitarian control, of top-down pacification, was injected the phenomenon of race war. 

Suddenly, the world's unity and obedience was severed by mandatory antiracism...

Hostile groups were created, encouraged, subsidised, given legal immunity - and very swiftly, what had been a distinctively American species of mutual destruction; was spread across most of the world, and bureaucratically-incorporated into all the major social institutions (officialdom, mass media, law, religions, education, science etc. - and even sports, even cricket!...)

The divisive chaos of a manufactured US race war was deliberately imposed on the world; by that same new-formed, centrally-controlled, bureaucratic-media system that had been created and enforced by the Birdemic.  

Evidently - as so often happens in revolutions - the first and successful coup had been co-opted by a second revolution - with different aims. 

Whereas the first Birdemic coup of early 2020 was aiming at a totalitarian controlled world of order; the second antiracism revolution was aimed at dis-order. 

Whereas the first revolution had used centralized power to make all the nations and the peoples of the world one for the first and only time in human history! One in their obedient docility...

The second revolution seized the new-forged instruments of surveillance and coercion and encouraged division, mutual hostility, break-up, violence...

And the same centre of globalist totalitarianism (but now "under new management") began to kindle resentments and fears that had been almost wholly suppressed by the Birdemic-coup.

They have since fanned into flames the embers of those many and highly lethal post-2020 inter-national, inter-ethnic, inter-religious conflicts, gratuitous wars - with multiple provocations, escalations, fake pennant events - and so forth. 

Because the second revolution was silent, unnoticed, unacknowledged - it has not only been able to present its own plans for destructive chaos as if they were part of the first revolutions program; but also to subvert and invert the established plans for totalitarian surveillance and control. 

The biggest and best example is the phenomenon of "AI" - which is regarded by the advocates of the first, Birdemic, revolution as a tool for surveillance and control; but which is actually an agent of socially-destructive chaos. 

2020 was indeed a watershed year in which "everything changed": the year of two silent and invisible and imperceptible international coups; the year of successful double global revolution: first the making of a system for world control; and then the seizing and usage of this system to induce global chaos... which continues and increases, on a daily basis.

 

Note: The ultimate, and causal, reality behind these proximate political phenomena was spiritual. It was an evolutionary change from the ascendancy of one form of evil to another. Evil is "progressive" - unless repented, it feeds upon itself and gets more-evil. As the "Ahrimanic" evil seeking power reached its apex of success; it began to be displaced by the more advanced and purer "Sorathic" evil that spitefully sought the suffering and eventual destruction of all that is of-God, Good - of divine creation and its aspects of Men and other Beings, of Nature... eventually everything. 

The "AI" propagandists payroll: You can't possibly persuade people whose pay depends on Not being persuaded

The vast and endless stream of drivel on the subject of the supernatural superpowers of "AI" continues - and it will continue until the funding dries-up. 

Those many thousands of propagandists on the "AI" payroll will keep doing what they are being "paid" to do (remembering that "payment" comes in many shapes and forms) until the totalitarian system has other priorities, or that part of it collapses. 

But "AI" pockets are deep - because the "AI" money comes from you and me, and millions of others like us. They are spending our money on their project spiritually to destroy us, and materially collapse the civilization. 

This is an area in which it is wise to recognize that analysis and argument is futile, logic and evidence are futile, insofar as these oppose or fail-to-support The Agenda. One cannot persuade those whose livelihood and status depend on not being persuaded - try as you might.  

I have, in earlier years, wasted a good deal of effort on trying to accomplish this Quixotic task of trying rationally to persuade professional manipulators of opinion - and can attest that it is both frustrating because futile; and that - even worse, it is playing into their hands. 

By allowing dissent, yet maintaining the torrent of evil-motivated AI-dolatry regardless; the "powers that (should-not) be" create an impression that logical and evidential counter-arguments have all been thoroughly aired and considered... but these counter-arguments have been overcome!

What I try to do nowadays; is identify the totalitarian strategies as they emerge; from which point all work of analysis and clarification is done from my own interest in the problem, and for my own spiritual benefit.  

 

When people keep on making the same Big Mistakes, over-and-over - we should at least consider that it is being done On Purpose

All over the media (mass and "alternative") are explanations of how the such-and-such Big Nation has made a Big Bistake, because badly advised, because influenced by X, because over-optimistic, because poor intelligence, because too greedy... or because whatever. 

It's all "A Big Mistake" of some kind... supposedly; Just like all the other Big Mistakes of precisely the same kind over the past decades. 

Or some Small Nation has supposedly made a Big Mistake in embarking on some action that leads to its own destruction - because of greedy-corrupt elites, because some ideology or religion, because it is actually the puppet of some Big Nation...

So some Small Nation ends-up essentially destroyed; because they begun something they could not finish, and it is another Big Mistake. 

So, it seems that Small Nations and Big Nations keep on-and-on mutually wrecking and destroying one another, thanks to Big Mistakes. 

Informed people, many facts, complex analysis... and they always infer that it's a Big Mistake, a terrible error.

(Or done for short term profits - to benefit X or Y; which is always a permissive and proximate factor, but never The Originating Reason). 

And the informed analysts never-but-never seem to consider the possibility that - when these Big Mistakes happen over-and-over and with increasing frequency - then maybe, just maybe, it is being done On Purpose. 

Done On Purpose, not by Little Nation nor even Big Nation - but by somebody (or some-thing) operating at a level above Nations, and above multi-national organizations. 

Somebody (or some-thing) that is engineering mutually destructive events On Purpose - and is able to do so repeatedly exactly because nobody even considers that this could even be possible. 

The biggest problems in the world are invisible, because they are spiritual - and they are the biggest problems exactly because they are invisible. 

First step is to regard On Purpose as genuinely possible; second step to perceive it - recognize it...

Only then maybe, perhaps, it might be possible to do something constructive about it materially. 

But the spiritual must come first, because the spiritual is first. 

Celebrating "Aunt Grace Day" on 3rd March - a new JRR Tolkien anniversary for Newcastle

Last week my wife and I were the first to celebrate a new festival that we originated: "Aunt Grace Day"...

JRR Tolkien's Aunt Grace 

Can we know from direct personal experience that "the immortality of our soul" is real?

Assuming that we acknowledge it as a real possibility, and have not pre-decided that it cannot be true; we can know that our soul is is not bounded by mortal life (our conception and death). 

We can know this directly and for-ourselves - simply by remembering our past experience. 

If we have personal knowledge of being-alive (in some way) that extends back beyond our incarnation; then we know that "we" (whatever makes me me) are not only mortal Beings. 

(I am saying nothing here about the specifics of our past existence, such as the forms in which we existed. Whether as spirits of some kind...Whether we were previously incarnated in some human or other form - or how many times. Such specifics may not be knowable... But surely are much harder to establish accurately, and are much less reliably knowable, than the simple fact of having existed.)

In sum: we can know our immortality going-back-in-time, by direct personal experience. 

And there is nothing more sure than direct personal experience.    

What about life after death?

What about immortality going-forwards? 

Can our future potential state also be known for ourselves - known despite that we personally have not yet experienced it? 

(And despite that any and all "reports" of post-mortal life are subject to all the uncertainty, error, manipulations, lies, and varieties of interpretation that are common to all forms of second-hand, third-party, "public knowledge".)

We can potentially know about possible future states from those we love who have died, and with whom we have established direct and personal contact. 

We can know this, in just the same way we know of those we currently love in this mortal life; but with whom we are not at this moment, here and now, in sensory contact. 

This contact is not available to everybody. 

It must, of course, be acknowledged as possible, if it is to happen and be taken seriously. Also it depends on being capable of love, and on actually loving someone who is now "dead" - and also that the person who died is in a post-mortal state in which contact can be established.

It is not the same when contact with the dead is claimed by other-people (such as spiritualist mediums - who almost certainly do not love those whom they claim to contact); nor by means of visions, voices, nor any intermediate symbolism - all of which require interpretation. 

What is most convincing is not to have conversations with "the dead"; but instead to have a living and loving relationship by direct (mind to mind) contact - just the kind of relationship (to repeat) we may currently be-having with someone we love and who loves us.

In other words, this is not a matter of "getting information" about post-mortal conditions from the so-called dead whom we have loved; it is knowledge that arises in the course of having a loving relationship.  

I think this may be the best (and only) sure way we have, personally to experience the possibility of resurrected eternal life in Heaven - to be in a direct and personal relationship with someone who currently lives thus.  

The point about such direct and relational personal experiences is that they by-pass all concerns about errors, deceptions, manipulations and dishonesty of third parties - or the consequences of misunderstanding, fear and wishful thinking in imagining and interpreting... Those problems that beset all discourse on such matters in public. 

Of course, the consequence is that in knowing by personal experience, we can't convince other people that we are right! 

Indeed we should not try to convince them of the reality of past or future existence - only, as I am trying now, to convince them to discover for themselves. 

 

The biggest problems in the world are invisible

The spiritual is primary, and includes the material. 

Therefore every material problem necessarily has a spiritual dimension. 

But mainstream modern materialism denies the reality of the spiritual - and insofar as the spiritual is acknowledged (e.g. by churches) it is secondary to the material.

(e.g. Churches attitude to the Birdemic and lockdowns of 2020.) 

Consequently, the modern world is plagued by invisible spiritual problem - problems that are not and cannot be acknowledged as existing. 

For instance, our wars and rumours of war have primarily spiritual causes and motivations; but these true causes are undetected, never considered - excluded as unreal. 

Indeed; all of the most severe and intractable problems in the world are these invisible spiritual problems; because it is their invisibility that has enabled them grow to become severe and intractable.    

Some maxims for current geopolitics

Not so much preferring "the lesser of evils" - because how could we really know which was lesser? More like recognizing that one side actively seeks to destroy good wherever possible (at home, and abroad) - and at whatever cost to itself. 

Not so much wanting one side to win and the other to lose; as it being overwhelmingly important that one of the sides does not win. 

"Unfinished business" in dreams

I often have unpleasant dreams just before waking; and if I try to go back to sleep after one such, I simply return to the dream. 

At one level, I take this to be telling me "You have had enough sleep: time to get-up!"

But if I set aside the specific content of the dreams, and instead consider what the dream makes me think-about and how it makes me feel; I can often recognize that the unpleasant qualities of a current dream derive from unhappy aspects of past times, decisions, situations, relationships, or the like.

The dreams are about "unfinished business" from my past. 

The "rawness" of such dreams, their power to evoke sharply unpleasant feelings; is, in particular, a response to highlighting my own defects, weaknesses, errors, and sins relating to particular events or eras of earlier life. 

Underneath these dreams is an insight that much of those problems I experienced from bad situations and events and people; was rooted-in - or at least made much worse - by problems in myself... 

The unpleasant dream nearly-always draws my attention to negative aspects of myself - aspects that (it seems) need to be recognized and acknowledged...

My bad character traits and selfish, short-termist mistakes; that require to be registered as indeed... bad character traits and selfish, short-termist mistakes. 

And I need also to note that these problems remain; as evidenced my my continued inability to come to terms with the situations and events... 

It is this persistence of the problems - and the attempt to deny my own part in the matter - that gives bad memories their continued raw power to annoy and irritate!

Of course, this can be considered at the psychological level - with the "therapeutic" aim either of stopping the bad dreams, or else of stopping their power to annoy, irritate, induce misery etc. 

But this is to miss the point; which is that these dreams are spiritual phenomena; if we are able to recognize the fact and to respond spiritually. 

From a spiritual perspective; these dreams are doing an important job; and that job is open-ended - so we should neither expect nor want such dreams to stop!

(At least, not if we want to make spiritual progress throughout our mortal lives.)  

The dreams need to continue because our defects of character, the errors and selfishness of our past sins, are not finite! There are more genuine and significant problems about us than could possibility be dealt-with. There is always "room for improvement".  

The matter of acknowledgement and repenting is always good-for-us; but does not have any end-point - we are never finished with repenting so long as we are alive: there is always more such work to do. 

However; I am not suggesting that this ought to be a full-time occupation or anything like it! 

That would be a lop-sided, unbalanced, distorted life. And a life that seems extremely unlike that of Jesus Christ during his years of ministry - which was a life which had many aspects and facets; many positive, loving, and creative; as well as those that were negative, sorrowful, and reactive. 

But I am suggesting instead that for some of the time, and some-times more urgently than others, and some-issues more urgently at some times (when some specific unrepented actions/ attitudes/ sins etc. are - here-and-now - e.g. blocking spiritual progress or causing us to advance in evil) - we ought to give attention to our unfinished business. 

So there is a question of priority, or even necessity, about the particular issues that each of these dreams are raising for our attention and consideration. 

After all; dreams (largely) come-from us; therefore usually have meaning-for us. 

In sum - when we have such dreams - it is probably worth thinking about them in the spirit of learning from them... Rather than simply forgetting about them ASAP; or "curing" the bad memories with a strong cup of coffee! 

Sergeant Aircrew of Bomber Command in World War II (and other NCO aircrew): a cull of the elite among British working class men

The crew of a Handley Page Halifax heavy bomber - some Sergeant's stripes evident

The extremely high casualties in RAF Bomber Command, throughout the Second World War - with roughly half of crews killed, more than 50,000 men* - was mostly among Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs)

All RAF aircrew were volunteers; and (soon after the war began) NCOs were awarded the rank of Sergeants or higher. Most of the personnel (and resources) of the RAF were in Bomber Command. 

Indeed most of the total UK expenditure and military effort in WWII went into Bomber Command (i.e. more than the totality of the Army, Royal Navy, and RAF Fighter and Coastal Commands combined).  

Whereas RAF Officers were mostly selected from the upper class, especially those who had been in Officer Training Corps at public-private schools or university; NCOs were promoted from those who entered the services as Private. 

In practice; NCOs were substantially recruited from among the skilled working class (e.g. trades and craftsmen), and lower middle class (shopkeepers, small business owners)...

In other words; NCOs - especially in the elite military groups such as aircrew, paratroopers etc) could be taken to represent "the salt of the earth", "the backbone of the nation", "the Yeomen of Old England". 

Becoming an aircrew member of the RAF was extremely competitive. 

This meant that aircrew took only those men who had passed rigorous physical and intellectual tests, and who could pass a range practical examinations. 

So, Bomber Command (which was most of the RAF) represented an elite of the non-officer class... and then most of them were killed.  

My point is that this cull of so many of the best of "Lower Class" men in WWII could be compared with the much better known and investigated - and very real - losses of men of the upper classes in the First World War.

(i.e. Those junior officers - e.g. "Subalterns" - Second Lieutenants - whose job was to lead their men in hazardous advances, patrols, raids and the like. The astonishing casualty rate of this group can be seen in the length of war memorial lists from 1914-18; that are displayed in - for instance - public schools and Oxford and Cambridge colleges).  

It seems likely that the loss of so many of the best of upper class men had a definite detrimental effect on that became evident after 1918. 

It seems likely to me that some of the evident decline in British society following the 1939-1945 war - analogously - a consequence of the exceptional casualty rates in Bomber Command.  

*It has been said by credible historians I have read; that such a casualty rate sustained over such a long period in a large cohort, may be the highest in history. I don't know whether this is correct - but as a percentage killed in a substantially sized selective volunteer military force, Bomber Command was certainly extremely high in terms of the wars of the twentieth century. 

Subfertility is willed biological extinction - an intractable fact. What then?

People are apparently unable to grasp the very simple fact that the "subfertility*" of all the populations of all the developed nations is a strategic choice of biological extinction. 

The peoples of the modern world are willing their own annihilation. 

Of course, the averaged population choice in favour of death is composed of multi-millions of individual choices - which have, presumably, thousands of specific reasons and motivations. 

Nonetheless, if we are talking at a population level, in terms of group averages of reproduction - then the deep psychological (indeed spiritual) problem; is that the population has chosen its own destruction. 

At every level from the family, through the tribe, clan, nation - religion, or ideology. 

This seems to me a far more significant fact than real-but-temporary issues such as an ageing population. It is very solid, biological, evidence of the short-termism and self-focus characteristic of all modern populations. 

This is, in itself, a product of the changes in human consciousness that have happened everywhere - which could be described as alienation, or as the autonomous consciousness. 

In the past, people felt themselves part of a group-consciousness. Much of behaviour was unconscious, automatic, and flowed-into each person from the group-mind. 

The group-mind could be resisted, but such resistance need to be active. 

Individuals did not therefore consciously "decide" to have "at least three children" (e.g. weighing the options, calculating the risks and benefits) - instead it was not experienced as a choice, certainly not an individual choice. 

Wanting children was just "what people did"; and "I" am "people"... so I want it too.  

Modern consciousness doesn't work like that. 

We modern live "inside our heads" - looking-out. 

We often pretend to be concerned about other-people-in-general and in-the-long-term; but endemic subfertility shows that we don't genuinely and powerfully experience such oft-expressed care and concern. 

Ultimately, we don't care about the extinction of our kind; and we don't care so deeply that we cannot even notice or acknowledge that it is happening!

If we don't care about the extinction of our people - And We Don't! - then all the other altruistic and planetary concerns are revealed as puffs of wind! 

This relates to the currently so-evident "wars and rumours of war" - which are also symptomatic of the same underlying spirit**. These wars, and their gratuitous and gleefully spiteful nature, are a consequence of profound facts of human spirituality - here-and-now. 

To be clear - I am not suggesting that we "ought" to be less selfish, more long-termist, more group-minded: the reality of our situation is that these are impossibilities. 

We can in theory ask for them, recommend them, incentivize them - but because people do not want them, they will not happen - just as all attempts, everywhere, to reverse subfertility have utterly failed (but mostly, they are not even attempted). 

These are facts of the human condition in this earthly mortal existence. 

Sins are fact - they cannot be evaded; but that does not free us from the responsibility to acknowledge and repent them.

Why do we find it so difficult - impossible, even - to acknowledge and repent facts which will not be changed? Usually because we do not fundamentally desire to change the facts; or if part of us does want to change - we cannot make ourselves do it.

Why are we so eager to pretend these are soluble problems, why expend such energy in evasions?

Surely this intractability of mortal Life is at the very heart of Jesus's message, and the reason for his great gift (or offer) of salvation? 

What we need to do is something that we think is "too easy" or "not worth" doing...

Therefore we do not do what actually-is needful, and possible for everybody - and thereby reject salvation.   

*Anything less than two-point-something children per woman, on average. The point-something is (approximately) to account for children that do not survive to adulthood, or are otherwise infertile. Biologically speaking, it is very probably necessary to have considerably more than an average of two children per woman to replace the human population - if significant and cumulative genetic damage is to be avoided.  

**The world is breaking down. When that happens the structures of civilisation develop cracks and start to fail after which the normal forces of entropy and decay take over and do the rest. 

Recent wars are the result of a loss of centre. The centre is the spiritual focus of a society, what it is grounded in and what sustains it. When that no longer holds then things do fly apart, as the poet says. 

We have had no centre for a long time in the West which is why we have pitiful replacements such as human rights and democracy but these have no real substance to them. They are feeble ideological substitutes for what we have lost or rejected and they don't really inspire anybody for long. 

Wars come about because of ambition, and that is certainly a factor with the present one. But there is something else going on which is a simple desire for destruction. 

When the world has no meaning, and it has none without a sense of something beyond itself, we can find a crude purpose of sorts through destruction. Destruction is easy and it's exciting. It can stimulate the jaded palate and thrill the mind that has become bored and without a deeper goal.

From William Wildblood

Escapism is a good thing - so long as we follow-through...

Escapism is a good, and perhaps spiritually-necessary, basis for Life. 

The desire to escape, the evaluation that escape from this actual-Life is needed, is an aspect of any person of depth and wisdom... 

Which implies that not to be an escapist is to be a shallow, dishonest fool (and there are plenty of these!).   

To be an escapist is to recognize and to feel that Life - as it actually is - is tragic; such that if there were nothing better to hope for, then we need to escape Life. 

The mass majority of mainstream modern materialists - the people who affect to despise escapism, and who pose as hard-nosed realists that revel in sordid cynicism - are all In Fact and ultimately escapists; but escapists of the worst kind. 

Such people, most people, deny the reality of the spiritual; and want death of their own body to be followed by total annihilation of themselves. 

In other words; such people, and I mean most people, so much fear and loath actual Life, that they desire complete and irrevocable and inevitable escape... Not only complete escape from Life, but total escape from them-selves.  

Thus; even though escapism is "a good thing" (and in a sense an inevitable thing for any honest Being capable of Love); escapism is not necessarily a good thing - consequently; there are bad, because dishonest, because half-baked, forms of escapism. 

Having discerned that escape from Life is desirable; the dishonest escapist then tries to ignore the fact - not to think about it; and instead tries lose-himself in Life by attempts at distraction. 

Yet no matter how strongly distraction is sought (e.g. by wishful-thinking, media immersion, immersion on social interaction or sex, extreme busyness, or obliteration of consciousness through intoxication) - all such are half-baked - because partial or temporary. 

Although common, this strategy is incoherent and self-defeating - because it tries to escape the innate tragedy of life, by attempting total immersion in the business of Living. 

Unsurprisingly; all such dishonest or half-baked escapism gravitates towards the desire of permanent annihilation: that mainstream modern death-wish that underpins the suicidal self-hatred of contemporary Western Civilization: a yearning for death-as-the-end. 

Honest and rigorous escapism - on the other hand - leads the escapist towards God and Jesus Christ... 

Towards acknowledging that we inhabit a created reality, made by a personal and good God; therefore escape from the tragedy of this-Life is both meaningful and possible. 

And towards to the possibility of an eternal and complete "escape" from the innate tragedy of our present mortal Life within creation - an escape by following Jesus Christ to resurrection in Heaven. 

Note added: I am not saying that everybody will eventually choose the salvation of Jesus Christ. For a start, Heaven has no interest for those incapable of Love. And Heaven does not appeal much to those who have some other and higher-priority than the divine principle of "loving-creation" that is the necessary eternal commitment for those Beings who choose Heaven. 

However; I do think that many people who acknowledge the primacy of the spiritual and the need for escape; will choose Heaven, when it comes to the point. 

For example, some of those who in their earlier lives declare a preference for reincarnation into a future series of mortal lives will change their minds. When a post-mortal spirit looks back at the totality of his mortal life, including the immediate pre-death experiences, and considers the prospect of more-of-the-same - for many people the prospect of reincarnation will be much less appealing than it seemed in their busy and pleasure-dominated early- or middle-lives. The here-and-now prospect of instead choosing resurrected Heavenly life may be much more attractive!

Those who expressed a desire to discard the incarnate body, and become "pure spirit" - perhaps to live in contemplative bliss, or become assimilated into the divine; may feel differently when the alternative is a resurrected body; and when Heavenly life is known to be the escape from both evil and "entropy" (loss/ sickness/ degeneration/ death).  

Similarly for the long-term atheist-materialist. When faced by a choice between on the one hand (apparently) eternal extinction of his self, his consciousness, all potential for experience... And on the other hand the real possibility of a living world of love and creativity; and in a world perhaps inhabited by some of those he most loved and who loved him? 

I am not saying - and I do not believe - that all will eventually choose salvation. Not least because I assume every human (and every other being) is unique. But I do believe that when the prospect of salvation is known to be real, understood, and constitutes a genuine possibility - even lifelong expressions of intention may change.    

What are the most evil sentences in The Lord of the Rings?

Tolkien depicted the nature of evil with a depth and power only possible to a good Man. But what is the extremity of evil as depicted in The Lord of the Rings? 

Which sentences would you nominate?

My candidate is quoted over at The Notion Club Papers blog. 

Auriga - the unjustly-neglected pentangle constellation

To my eye, drawing lines between the five brightest stars; Auriga (the charioteer) is a great pentangle in the night sky; and one that includes Capella (meaning "chapel") - which one of the brightest stars, and one that is usually high overhead. 

Because I have "a thing" about pentangles; my keen-ness is easily explained. 

Plus, when visibility is good; Auriga includes the little isosceles triangle of "the Kids", which points at Polaris - "the North Star". 

Are we seeing the beginning of the end for world civilization? A massive collapse in functionality?

I have begun to think so. 

It is impossible to be sure, because the whole world of communication is full of lies and fakes; as well as sheer ignorance and honest error. 

But the attempts to maintain some kind of civilization outside of the West - which is long-since committed to suicide - are apparently unravelling by the day.

It seems that positive feedback may have set-in, when one problem leads to several* - multiplying in a series; and the response to each problem actually makes it worse...

And, if this is so; then collapse will accelerate and soon become undeniable - and unstoppable.  

The new-ish factor is that the self-loathing Western civilization has become so consumed by resentment and spiteful sadism; that a significant portion of the Western-globalist ruling class have decided to do everything possible actively to bring down the rest of the world, during their own self-inflicted death throes. 

These people are negatively-motivated: they do things primarily in order to harm others - and they will do them, even when their own actions will harm themselves - and even when their actions will harm themselves even-more than they will harm others. 

Nowhere is exempt - the scope is as wide as their fear, resentment, and spiteful sadism... which is continually widening. 

And in this entropic world; destruction is just so much easier to accomplish than generating and sustaining functionality - that effort and resources invested with intent to harm, may go a long way and achieve a great deal. 

But I could be wrong again, as I have been wrong before; because I don't know - and nobody knows - what is really happening, and what is important, or how people will react. 

It should become clear, one way or the other, quite soon. 

*Each shortage leading to several more; one supply failure leading to several others that depended on the first; a war that leads to more wars, in more places etc -- all such iterating and interacting. And when resources are mobilized to solve one lethal problem, then this creates other fatal weaknesses elsewhere.