Was Jesus mainly providing information and teaching; or was Jesus a new creator?

One of the major difficulties that Christians now have* is in trying to explain clearly, simply, concisely: who Jesus was, what Jesus did - and, in particular, why Jesus was indispensable. 

(i.e. "Indispensable" to those who want what Jesus offers.) 

Jesus might be conceptualized in two main ways: either as someone who was a Teacher and Preacher of The Truth; or as a Creator who changed the universe - and thereby the possibilities for Men. 

Information

Historically, Jesus has been regarded mainly as a T&P who provided Information. 

This information was also backed-up by divine power - but the main thing (people assumed) was "the information". 

In order that this information be learned, understood, and acted-upon in future generations; it was assumed that Jesus constituted a Church (naturally, several/ many have claimed to be "the" Church that Jesus intended). 

In sum: To varying degrees and in various ways, the true information derived from Jesus and provided by this Church, would be backed-up by divine power. 

The Church's "essential" job was to discover, preserve, develop the information from Jesus; then to disseminate it, persuade people of its validity, make and enforce rules of conduct derived from this information. Ultimately, the Church would supervise construction of a human society that embodied, was built-upon, the information provided by Jesus.  

(The "essential" nature of Jesus was therefore bound to the "essential" nature of "the" Church that was the true repository of "the information" that Jesus provided. That is; Jesus was essential because of his information; therefore Jesus was essential insofar as "the" Church was essential to the knowledge, understanding, implementation etc. of this information.)

  

Creation

I suggest an  alternative understanding of "What Jesus did" is that he was a New Divine Creator ...

"New" because Jesus did not exist as a divine Man before his incarnation on earth; and "divine" because he was creating additional possibilities; he was creating an extension to pre-existing creation. 

"Primary " divine creation already existed before Jesus; and Jesus was born-into this creation and became divine in the context of that first creation. 

What Jesus did (the primary thing); was to make possible new a different future, a new option, than was possible before Jesus. 

This, I believe, is the truth about Jesus - it is the proper primary conceptualization of who he was and what he did, and its consequences. 

But. 

This (I would say true) way of understanding Jesus as a new creator of new possibilities is blocked by theological-philosophical assumptions, which were actually pre-conceptions (i.e. they were pre-Jesus ways of understanding); which have been (I believe) retroactively imposed-upon who Jesus was and what Jesus did. 

For instance:

Jesus's nature as a divine Man, incarnated into mortal life on earth, who creatively-transformed the possibilities of existence from his life onwards...

Was obscured and rendered incoherent by also insisting that Jesus The One God, who was eternal omniscient, omnipotent and unchangeable, impassible.

Nobody can explain (clearly, simply, concisely) how Jesus can be a mortal incarnate Man and also The One God - therefore this is made A Mystery. 

So the person trying to understand why and how This Man Jesus who lived and dies 2000 years ago is necessary to salvation now; is immediately told: It's a mystery.  

(Not a good start, I suggest.) 

The fact that therefore Jesus made-a-necessary difference, did something new, brought something to the world that did not exist before the time of Jesus...

Was terminally-confused by insisting that Jesus was always the One God, from eternity from forever-before his birth/ life/ death/ ascension; and (because of his "omni"-attributes) Jesus operated outside of time. 

Such that Jesus somehow always was, as well as always-is, and always shall be... 

Such that the explanatory sequence of creation before Jesus and then creation after Jesus; was said to be ultimately a kind-of mortal and earthly illusion...

Because in real-reality, outside of Time/ where Time-is-not, where the One God (including Jesus) existed... creation Just Was: Eternally and Perfect...

So the understanding of Jesus as a new creator that I regard to be true; was-and-is theologically regarded as false by prior philosophical assumption; because it was assumed that could be no ultimate change in creation; neither before nor after, no addition to creation. 

(After all, how could Jesus add-to or improve something that was already and forever perfect?)   

The consequences include that Jesus is nowadays, almost universally (among self-identified Christians as well as not), regarded as primarily a teacher, preacher, prophet... Jesus is seen as a provider of information. 

Christian debate therefore focuses mainly on "the information" - on the validity of its sources, whether the sources are being understood accurately, whether or what difference is made by societal changes; and the various claims by Churches or secular experts over the authority to decide these matters of information.   

Among self-identified Christians; debate also concerns the nature and scope of that divine power which (it is envisaged) backs-up and pushes "the information". 

Questions such as: What does God really want to happen to us - will reform be imposed, or perhaps our destruction? Is the divine power restricted to a particular Church, or particular parts of the earthly-institutional instantiation of "the" Church? 

Does divine power to impose information apply to all humans in the same way? Is divine power irresistible by humans, or does it depend on voluntary human cooperation?

Questions regarding Church authority; how it arose and how it was preserved and transmitted across many generations.   

Such are the kinds of question that concern many self-identified Christians: questions of information.    

Alternatively: It seems to me that when Jesus is understood as a divine Man whose work was essentially that of Creator operating in sequential Time; the story and sequence become clearer and easier to understand (and explain). 

It is realized that for Jesus the teaching and preaching and prophecy were an "optional extra" - information was secondary to his main work and achievement. 

In an ultimate sense, when understood as a Creator; if Jesus had lived and died in utter obscurity, and left no records or memories in earthly society - then his essential work of creation could still have been accomplished.

The new-created possibilities Jesus made, would still exist; and would still be available to all who desired them.  

+++

*Aside from the fact that modern Men have been trained, multi-generationally, to find the claims of religion incredible and ridiculous; while uncritically gulping-down endless drafts of incoherent/ self-contradicting nonsense from the Establishment media-conduit.

"What do I think about X? Excuse me, I'll just ask..."

The idea that what we think, believe, do; ought-to-be derived from some external authority - which is, in practice, always some institution/ organization/ corporation... some formal group of people - is something that we recognize in others, but seldom acknowledge in ourselves. 

I had a friend who had recently become a member, or some kind of associate, of the UK Trotskyite "Socialist Workers Party"; and he described to me how things worked there, ideologically. 

Whenever there was some big new news story - an invasion, an economic crisis, a strike, civil disorder - a meeting would be called at which the event was ideologically framed and explained, and members were told how The Party could make use of it: therefore what to think and do about it. 

This is how communists work, and this has been well known and obvious to others, whenever any argument with them is attempted.

It is why communists can and do, in lockstep, make 180 degree turns of policy as required by Part expediency; as when Hitler made a pact with Stalin, then again when Germany invaded the USSR.

In 2020 there were several such 180 degree No-then-Yes instant turns: whether Testing was needed; whether Masking was needed; was Christmas to be cancelled?

Analysis, debate, argument was futile: what was false, wicked, unnecessary yesterday; becomes true, good and compulsory today - and this is all rational, consistent and absolutely necessary. 

When authority lies with an institution, so does truth and legitimacy; so there are no valid grounds for dissent.

There is only either obedience, or just-punishment. 

This is also, by somewhat different procedures, how churches work when they are powerful in the lives of people. 

(This fundamental identity of control procedures is one reason why people - mistakenly* - assume that "ideology" and "religion" are the-same-thing - and that totalitarianism and theocracy are fundamentally identical.)

When some new "thing" emerges for which the church view is not immediately obvious; there is a some mechanism by which the churches framing, explanation and instructions are handed-down.

Because the church is the essential and only mediator of the divine; it is the ultimate repository of truth, beauty and virtue - so that all anyone absolutely needs to know is what the church thinks, and then to obey it.

Outwith which there is nothing but selfish, sin-rooted, individual will.  

This model of institutional authority represents a world-view - a mode-of-consciousness - for which the ultimate responsibility for important attitudes, beliefs and behaviours lies in some external and formal social grouping. 

It was (apparently) not always and everywhere thus, but it has been thus for recorded history: with ultimate authority variously - but always externally and institutionally - located.  

The "job" of each individual in such a System is to internalize as much as possible of the approved views and ways of reasoning that characterize "that social institution" there-and-then given custody of his conscience; and when the answer is not obvious - to seek and follow appropriate guidance. 

Such an external-authority-based set-up dictates the role of intellectuals in terms of the social institution. 

The job of an intellectual in this scheme is that of a commissar: to learn, defend, and transmit the institutional view. 

When there is dissent or opposition to the institutional view, the job of the intellectual is overcome it - by whatever means he can, by whatever means are effective - while staying within the institutionally-ratified assumptions, evidences and methods. 

The point is that the intellectual's own thinking is in service of this task. He will not think in any way that might lead to another conclusion than that of the institution he serves.

This is why institution-serving individuals will never, under any circumstances, acknowledge or even discuss their fundamental - including metaphysical - assumptions. 

They will only-and-always operate-from those assumptions; they will only assume the rightness of the institution they serve. 

This is the cause of a feeling we must all have experienced, must all have come-up-against - even if our own thinking is in service to a church or other societal institution. 

Perhaps the most usual encounter to evoke this feeling is with a bureaucrat who is trying to enforce the institutional will upon us; trying to get us into-line with the current strategies and priorities and behaviours. 

We may be lured into defending our case for dissent or disobedience (or inadequate enthusiasm!), or arguing against the institutional POV; but we Will realize (later if not sooner) that we are just talking into sand. 

Our interlocutor is not interested in what we think, not interested in the validity of our arguments - he already knows what we are supposed to think and do.  

His only interest in our arguments is to refute them using institution-approved arguments, to bring our views into-line with institutional views...

Or else to discredit our perspective (usually by discrediting us).  

Most of the people, most of the time, behave in this way - in all walks of life. 

It might be most obvious in political ideologies, churches, and bureaucracies - but it is the same everywhere nowadays; including the areas I worked in: medicine, academia, teaching, and science. 

This is proximately because in modern life all social institutions have become primarily bureaucratic; and all bureaucracies are linked to (and indeed form) the global totalitarian System. 

But it is also because many people, and nearly-all intellectuals in particular, regard ultimate authority as residing in some social institution such as their ideology, or employer, or their church (or The System) - and see their ultimate job to be defending and propagating that institutional authority. 

This reality is what underpins and causes the futility of argument; here and now. 

Most argument that we encounter in the media and professionally, is between individuals "representing" institutions. 

The main exception to this commissar-like situation, is when individuals are more or less "psychopathic"; when they are selfish, self-seeking, short-termist - and are using institutional camouflage - faked attitudes and assumptions, subverted/ inverted procedures etc), to pursue to their own personal agenda - seeking wealth, sex, power, fame, admiration; or whatever "turns them on". 

Anyone who is seeking spiritual truth, trying to understand his own situation in this world and larger reality; anyone who seeks a religion and a way of living - will come up against this commissar or bureaucratic externalization of authority. 

In effect; the seeker is supposed to strive for a situation in which he accepts the external authority of one church or another. 

In practice; this means that the seeker is supposed to accept some external authority (e.g. the truth and validity of Church X) as the first step - from which all-else follows. 

Because once a particular external institution is accepted as the fount of authority, validity, goodness and correct procedure - then the seeker can (and is expected to) hand-over his conscience and honesty to that institution.     

From then on - his ultimate role in life, or at least the role that dictates what counts as ultimate - is to himself learn, defend, and transmit the institutional view. 

It is difficult, it may be impossible, for any individual to find anyone who will engage on any other basis than that of first accepting (or being rhetorically-duped into accepting) the primacy of some external authority - some denomination, church or other institution. 

Life becomes a choice between actually-existing social institutions. 

Duty becomes a matter of serving the chosen institution. 

And if you are not happy about this situation - you will probably have no alternative but to accept responsibility for yourself.  

You can then expect to be attacked by everyone who serves any institution (i.e. almost everybody!)

But in a totalitarian-bureaucratic world where all social institutions are orientated towards evil; this path of personal responsibility is the only alternative to serving one or another (or several) organizations assimilated to the demonic agenda. 

You real choice is between serving overall-evil body, heart, and soul; or seeking a direct and personal knowledge-of and relationship-with something better.  

*"mistakenly"; because when religion is sincere, it is regarded by adherents as being ultimately spiritual and underpinned by the divine. This makes a difference. The question is how much difference - and in what ways different? The difference may be so feeble as to be ineffectual; the ways of difference may be for worse, as well as for better.  

Virtuoso Folk Improv - Johnny and Phil Cunningham

Even Silly Wizard could not look stylish when posed in the family front room with seventies decor 

Continuing today's musical theme with a very different thing: here are the ex-Silly Wizard brothers Phil (accordion) and Johnny (fiddle) playing various reels - reels being a fast folk dance in 4/4 time. 

Correction, as played here, a very very fast 4/4 folk dance. 

Nothing much to analyse here musically - here are two complete musicians, who know each others playing inside out - having fun. 

And their fun is irresistible for the audience. 

This is so exciting in its wild, confident, improvisatory verve, that I actually find it hard to breathe while watching and listening.  

I used to play piano accordion myself, as a folk music instrument (a smaller version) in a ham-fisted fashion (and a limited range of keys). 

Phil Cunningham is, for me, By Far the best player I have ever encountered on this instrument. 

It is admittedly a pretty lame instrument, most of the time... well, nearly all of the time, actually. And looked down upon even in folk music circles (where the button-keyed melodeon and concertinas are the prestige free-reed bellows instruments). 

But PC here makes the lumbering beast into something cool and exciting.

Fun Fact: the Cunningham brothers were brought-up as Mormons, living near Edinburgh: a rare mode of upbringing in Scotland.  

Real poetry - King of the Road, by Roger Miller (1965)

King of the Road, written and performed by Roger Miller, 1965

Trailer for sale or rent 

Rooms to let, 50 cents 

No phone, no pool, no pets. 

I ain't got no cigarettes 

Ah, but two hours of pushing broom 

Buys a eight by 12 four-bit room. 

I'm a man of means, by no means 

King of the road 

Third boxcar, midnight train 

Destination: Bangor, Maine 

Old worn out suit and shoes 

I don't pay no union dues 

I smoke, old stogies I have found 

Short, but not too big around 

I'm a man of means, by no means 

King of the road 

I know every engineer on every train 

All of the children and all of their names 

Every handout in every town 

Every lock that ain't locked when no one's around.

(Reprise)

A few weeks ago, I re-watched the Disney movie of Robin Hood, which features Roger Miller voicing the cockrell version of the Merry Man, Alan a'Dale. Miller whistles (etc.- seemingly with Phil Harris) the tune accompanying the excellent introductory animation, and a terrific song "Not in Nottingham" (from 1:13). 

This set me going back to re-listen to Miller's famous King of the Road, which was a childhood favourite - getting a tremendous amount of radio airplay, even in England.  

I was struck by the tremendous economy and poetry of the lyrics; which makes for evocative phrases that (for me) create vivid pictures (e.g. the first three lines); open romantic visas (Third boxcar, midnight train. Destination: Bangor, Maine); and are humorously expressive of simple pleasures (I smoke old stogies I have found - short, but not too big around); and human joys (I know every engineer on every train, all of the children and all of their names). 

I am also very impressed by the way that the pretty-much one-word-per-note-per-beat of the first two verses; is later delightfully varied by syncopated triplets ("but-not-too", "ev-er-y/ en-gin-eer", "all-of-the"; and a 6/8 beat behind EV-ry-lock-that, AIn't-locked"). 

In the refrain, there is a sudden "turn" of mood, and up-lift between the down-beat "I ain't got no cigarettes" and the almost smug cheerfulness of: "Ah, but two hours of pushing broom/  Buys a eight by 12 four-bit room". 

And "pushing broom" is a wonderfully economical expression of the ease and carefree quality of life of which the singer is boasting!  

Altogether a little masterpiece!

  

   

Why entropy is inevitable in this mortal incarnate life

Why is entropy inevitable, unavoidable in this mortal incarnate life?

The answer is because, in this transitional phase between a purely-spirit pre-mortal life, and resurrected eternal incarnated life in Heaven; our bodies are made from the substance of other Beings. 

Because ultimately there are only Beings. 

Because these Beings are eternal - the materials from which our bodies are made are only "lent" us, for a while, by other Beings.

Therefore we incarnate by a contingent, always-changing, inevitably temporary, alliance of Beings.  

There are no inert "minerals" - all "chemicals" are actually parts of Beings. 

And of course there are actual Beings incorporated into our bodies - such as many individual cells, for example the phagocyte white blood cells are essentially autonomous amoebae. 

But these (and other cells) exist in a dynamic kind of symbiosis, living and reproducing in the environment provided by our blood; (temporarily) controlled by our regulatory systems, which also include other Beings and parts of Beings.  

So; the innate tendency with time, is for the allied Beings and parts of Beings to revert to the purposes of the Beings themselves.

In other words; for these other-Beings, from-whom are bodies are made, to become autonomous agents with a divine destiny; at some point they must regain that primary agency which has been temporarily suspended in forming our bodies.  

In this Primary or First Creation that we all inhabit; the ultimate identity of Beings has not changed - even when one Being 9or some part of a Being) is "being used" by another. 

This is why entropy is a part of the Primary creation - inevitable, unavoidable. 

And this is why Jesus Christ was necessary to create a form of incarnated existence without entropy, without death. 

We can understand that resurrection entails a re-creation of our incarnate selves, purely from our own Beings. 

And therefore without a tendency for the components to revert to other Beings. 

And therefore we - because of the Second Creation of Jesus Christ - may choose Life Everlasting; without the entropy and death which are intrinsic to this Primary Creation...

A creation formed by the eternal commitment of whole-Beings to live in harmony, by love. 

Two prevalent errors about death - one materialist, the other spiritual

The mainstream and official modern view about death is that it is the complete annihilation of the person, after which nothing of that person remains. 

That is one prevalent error about death - it is the error of materialistic atheism. 

The other prevalent error is spiritual. 

It acknowledges that biological death of the body is not a complete end but that something of the person continues - and it concludes that "therefore" to the enlightened mind death is not really significant. 

This error states that any negative anticipation or attitudes - anything like fear, horror, or a sense of tragedy and loss - that people commonly feel concerning death; is based on misunderstanding. 

The erroneous assertion is that one who really understands death; does not regard death as important - it is just like going-to-sleep, passing through a door, just "another great adventure", moving to a "higher level"*. 

The spiritual error about death seems less obviously an error in the sense that it recognizes what humankind always has recognized (until very recently, and among a minority): that death is not the end of everything. 

But this recognition has a double-negative form: death is 1. not, 2. the end. 

So of-itself this does not move us towards a better understanding. 

The spiritual error is an error because it is an explaining-away; a denial of another universally-recognized truth...

That universally-recognized truth is that a human death death is significant, and indeed represents some kind of a tragedy. 

The spiritual error is in arguing that because death is followed by something better "therefore" we ought not to be sad about it. 

The error is in the "therefore" because this is a non sequitur; it does not follow. 

The world changes, we grow-up and apart, children grow-up and apart - all these may be inevitable and potentially good - but they are also sad - rightly sad: it is an impairment of sensibility if we cannot experience that sadness.

Such things, including death, are indeed tragic partly because they are inevitable, and especially when the change is overall good.  

It is tragic that overall good is attained only at the cost of particular loss and sadness. 

Mortal death is therefore significant, and rightly regarded as tragic; even when it is followed by something overall better; even when death is followed by resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

And this is explicit in the IV Gospel - which is all about the new hope Jesus has made possible, of eternal resurrected Heavenly life; but the sadness, the tragedy of death - whether of Lazarus ("Jesus wept"), or the impending death of Jesus himself, is explicitly (as well as by the structure of the narrative) treated with full tragic significance. 

Jesus knows that he will be resurrected and attain salvation, as did Lazarus; but he is still saddened and grieved by the losses involved in death.

So; let Christians avoid both of the false extremes of arguing: either materially, that death is an end to everything; or spiritually, that death is insignificant in the scheme of things. 

*Note: I am saying here that - for all Socrates genuine nobility during his death, as recorded by Plato in Phaedo; the attitude he taught concerning death was erroneous. 

The magic of analogue electronic technology

Similar to, but not the same as, my radio circa 1972

There was a magic to analogue technology, that is objectively absent from the digital. As an obvious example (that many discovered from themselves after many years of denial): an analogue-recorded vinyl LP record captures that which is recorded in a more complete and emotionally-engaging fashion, than does a digitally-recorded CD. 

Similarly, the old dial-tuned radio sets (short wave/ medium wave/ long-wave) had a magical quality about them, for those susceptible to such enchantment - something that was almost independent of whatever was being listened-to. 

An indelible and evocative memory of my early teen years was playing with the switches and dials of my black, vinyl-cased Philips transistor radio with earplug while lying on or in bed, just prior to sleep.

It had to be night; because at night, the atmospheric conditions favoured long-distance transmission of radio signals.  

What I most remember was scanning the short-wave and long-wave bands, seeking foreign voices from unknown places. 

For some reason, I most liked to listen to German speakers; although what I assumed to be Russian was also an exotic attraction - bringing a frisson that "the authorities" would disapprove, and I probably "ought not" to be listening to it*. 

Sometimes, somehow, messages would drift across the Atlantic, and I might hear snatches of American or Canadian accents. 

*Some things don't change, and now the UK blocks digital media from that nation. It was a further advantage of analogue radio that such top-down control could not easily be achieved. 

With short-wave, there was the phenomenon of the signal waxing and waning; so that I would hear a snatch of speaking, then it would fade - and I could almost never find that same source twice. With long-wave there was a steady signal, but a lot of background interference. 

I was also fascinated by the strange sounds, sometimes high pitched and morse-code-like. But I especially liked a low-pitched buzzing that was modulating in its quality; because someone had once told me that one such sound (on the SW frequency) was the planet Jupiter... 

(This was not necessarily completely fanciful.) 

I was forever half listening for this particular sound, and if I found it (or something sufficiently similar) - I would listen for minutes, as if trying to understand what the planet was telling me or "the world".

And, such is the nature of these things that I would always forget where on the dial I had found this Jupiter sound; so I couldn't ever go back again the next night, but would have to start my search afresh.  

Something about the simpler analogue technology made this experience possible - partly because the dodgy quality of the audio created space for the imagination, but partly also because the experience was very direct. 

The signal made hundreds or thousands of miles away, came directly to the little device in my bed - maybe bouncing off the ionosphere en route? - so there was an almost person-to-person quality in the experience.

And the wave movements generated by the person speaking into a microphone were translated into the movements of the diaphragm in my earpiece; again in a very direct fashion. 

I never had a "crystal set" radio of my own, and they were unsuited to bedtime, under blankets, usage - but these were even simpler, more miraculous and magical than my little transistor radio; because they did not even require a battery! 

Somehow, the power of the radio waves, generated so far away, and sleeting through us all, all of the time - was by itself and without an amplifier, enough to move the diaphragm when intercepted by the "diode"! 

It strikes me that all this stuff could be elaborated into a metaphor for what has changed and been lost over the past fifty-plus years - a microcosm of societal and technological change and its effect on the human imagination: but I shall leave that to you!

Note: A few years ago, I got another small analogue radio with a variety of SW bands; but this doesn't seem to work as it once did. Almost everything is drowned in crackles; perhaps due to interference from the many electronic devices, light bulbs, etc. around the house, and indeed everywhere else. Where once we had faint but meaningful voices, we now have a choice between curated and processed digital media, or electromagnetic chaos. 

Further Note: A friend of my father's (a dentist) was a Radio Ham. He had his own radio transmitter in an office at home, and a personal fifty foot aerial outside the house (plus the requisite official permissions needed for these). We visited one afternoon, and he demonstrated the equipment, and how he could converse with other Hams around the world. I found the whole thing intensely exciting, and firmly resolved to do the same myself as soon as could afford the kit. But, of course, never did. 

Neo-pagans (and modern pagans) are guilty of extreme double-standards with respect to "Christianity"

I have read a great deal of modern pagan and/or neo-pagan writings; and have some acquaintance with such people. Indeed at one time, for several years and some twenty years ago-plus, that is what I might well have called myself. 

This movement is, unfortunately, permeated and motivated by a resentment against Christianity that ranges from cold contempt to burning indignation - a phenomenon that leads to the deep and perception-structuring bias I have termed "anything but Christianity".  

I have recently been exploring some different and new (to me) avenues and individuals within the neo/ pagan world; and was again struck by this structuring bias. 

This anti-Christianity is expressed so strongly that one would suppose that the writers and speakers had been brought-up in either a medieval theocracy or the Puritan Geneva of Calvin - or (often) some unholy combination of the two... Instead of actually having been raised in one of the overwhelmingly atheist-materialist nations of the West; during the 1940s, 50s, or 60s! 

Furthermore, this is combined with depictions of the pagan past so fantastically wishful that they seem to have derived from Pollyanna wearing rose-tinted spectacles in Disneyland!

Anything and everything bad in reports of the pagan past is ascribed to spiteful Christian misrepresentation; anything and everything good about past Christian societies is attributed to residual paganism!  

What seems to be happening is that these folk are approaching "paganism" from within themselves: in a creative spirit directed at individual participation...

While simultaneously regarding and representing Christianity in the most literal, institutional, external terms; focusing on sometimes-real but "worst case" scenarios of tyranny, cruelty and atrocity; and making their definitions and descriptions of "Christianity" citing the most childish and/or obviously-manipulative time, places, and sources.   

They subjectively engage-with "paganism" in highly positively-selective, personal and optimistic fashion; while adopting a detached, cynical and condemnatory attitude to negatively-selective, cut-and-dried, "Christianity". 

While this is very, very obvious to me (especially given my history); almost by definition there is no persuading against such attitudes - which are common to much of modern life; and which pagans share with the mainstream of atheist materialists. 

Yet is is atheist materialists who run this world and have done so for many decades; and atheist materialists therefore are, or ought to be, the real spiritual enemies of sincere pagans...

In other words, by their revealed preferences and their ludicrous insistence on fighting dead battles and wars that Christianity lost long ago; pagans (despite any counter protestations) are actually of-the-Left and of-the-mainstream. 

Pagans indeed share the characteristically and definitively Left fundamental concern with this-worldly hedonism and therapy - i.e. seeking personal pleasures and happiness here-and-now, alleviating personal miseries and suffering; justified by a utilitarian altruistic ideology of "making this world a better place". 

What I eventually did, and would suggest to others; is that they instead approach Christianity in something of the same positive, subjective and engaged spirit with which they approach paganism; which ought to be a spirit of discovery and creativity. 

Spookocracy - a suggested anti-"word-spell" defence

The terminology of totalitarian evil takes many forms; one aim of which is to enmesh our consciousness in word-spells conducive to the evil strategy of subversion, corruption, destruction and inversion. 

Literally all of the Litmus Test issues - great and small - have used positively-inflected tendentious terminologies that beg questions in their own favour; only the latest of which is "Artificial Intelligence". 

The same "Intelligence" term crops-up in the names and descriptors of the surveillance and manipulation institutions, and their role in the totalitarian systems of "Western" nations and globalist organizations. 

As an act of inner (and sometimes) public resistance - a counter-spell, if you like - directed against the manipulative aspects of this term; I suggest that Spookocracy can be substituted and/or adapted to all relevant and associated institutional manifestations...

Which term has the needful negative connotations; including essential malignity, an unnecessary and parasitic existence, elements of bluff; and a kind of spectral spectral half-alive/ undead quality. 

Why do "global leaders" have so many in-person, face-to-face "conferences"?

I have often wondered why - despite three decades of the internet; "global leaders" have so many in-person, face-to-face conferences. 

The answer, I believe, is that the public aspects - speeches, lectures, symposia, workshops, seminars etc. are insufficient to account for the conference phenomena - acting as an only slightly relevant camouflage. 

The Real Reason so many (often) ancient/ unhealthy/ unfit individuals, go to such extreme lengths to be mutually-present in such numbers in particular places at specific times at a high frequency; is participation in black ritual magic, of various kinds. 

Magical Ritual serves a dual function, directed both inward and outward: 

The inward function is generating and enforcing group cohesion and loyalty - something which is otherwise difficult to achieve among such extremely self-seeking individuals. 

The outward function is attempting to influence (subvert, destroy, invert) institutional, national and world affairs by direct spiritual interventions.

Does it work? 

Well... They believe it works - so it probably works sometimes, and for enough people to make it worth the enormous effort.

(And after all; They also use a multitude of material methods of control and chaos, as well as dark magical ceremonial.)  

Note added: If you think what I am saying is false, then consider first whether you actually know what methods are used in ritual magic, and why. 

Once you do understand the nature of ritual magic, then you simply need to pay attention to what is being done To You. You may also discover that this is what They are telling us and showing us, over and again, all over the place. 

The trouble is that we are also being trained not to notice, and glibly to explain-away the obvious; being simultaneously distracted, confused, and gaslighted with dis-information; and inculcated via multiple official channels with a numbskull atheistic materialism that keeps us wilfully ignorant of fundamental spiritual matters that we were all born innately-knowing.   

"Writing is thinking" and "Thinking is participation" - Writing as a potential magical act

I came across the notion that "Writing is thinking" from post-Jungian psychologist James Hillman - in the mid 1980s; and the potentially-linked idea that "Thinking is participation" from Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield, in the past 15 years or so. 

Both are valuable insights, but partial truths: writing can be thinking, but usually is not; likewise thinking with respect to participation. 

The situation is that "writing is thinking" is true only when we are writing in a certain way - meditatively? Spiritually? 

At any rate, you know it when you are-doing it, if you are looking-out for it. 

Further, this is a real-time and dynamic experience between the writer and ultimate reality... 

This kind of writing must not be confused with possible later processes such as editing and publishing the inspired writing, or the potential effect of that published writing on various readers at various future times. For instance; published or professional writers certainly are Not thereby more profound or significant thinkers. 

The relevant "thinking" is that which happens during the writing.

And what about "thinking is participation"? 

This means that some kinds of thinking may be an active and mutual engagement in the ongoing divine creation: potentially, in thinking our-real selves are changed, the universe is changed... 

Another way of considering it is that (contrary to common ideas that thinking is sealed off inside the brain) thinking is an action, a behaviour.

Thinking therefore, like many other kinds of physical behaviour - Has An Effect. 

The double-insight is that active process of writing can - potentially, sometimes, while it is actually happening - make a difference to ultimate reality. 

It can change the world, and change our-selves: for better, but also for worse. 

So, even though nearly all of writing is insignificant, trivial, ineffectual; there is a writing-thinking which is a serious business; because it is a magical act for which we have an ultimate responsibility, and which has ultimate consequences.  

 

Totalitarian PSYOPS are literally black ritual magic

PSYOPS are regarded as top-down mass psychological/ sociological manipulations; and they are all evil by nature; because they are not motivated by love - not in harmony with divine creation. 

Also, since they aim to change "other peoples" behaviour in pre-determined ways, PSYOPS are intrinsically evil in that they are strategically un-truthful. 

In practice; all large scale top-down PSYOPS are also intentionally evil - even if/when those human-tools who implement the PSYOPS (the bureaucrats, managers, professionals, labourers) are ignorant of this evil purpose. 

In 2026 our lives are full of PSYOPS, and have been for decades, accumulating. 

These include the highly prevalent, major totalitarian strategies that I call Litmus Tests - such as class and inter-sex warfare, climatism, antiracism, the Birdemic, and currently "AI"-dolatry.   

There are no good PSYOPS. Supposed good intentions are fake excuses for evil. 

PSYOPS are like The One Ring, a tool of The Enemy, that and cannot be used to fight The Enemy. So, when PSYOPS are used purportedly for "altruistic" purposes - such as Health Promotion or Public Health - supposedly to "help people" in a scientific and medical spirit; if followed through they result in strongly net evil outcomes. 

But to what extent are PSYOPS actual ritual magical practices, performed by black magic techniques? 

In other words, are the methods and intended effects of PSYOPS all operating at the cause-and-effect level of human behaviour and thinking, using quasi-scientific models?

Or, are there spiritual methods at work, with intended spiritually harmful consequences?

Yes, there is a spiritual agenda. Despite that the masses of modern people deny and are ignorant of the spiritual world; nonetheless those at very very top of the totalitarian system are spiritual operatives. 

At the top of the power systems; the ultimate and primary agenda is spiritual warfare; and naturally spiritual methods are deployed - ritual, symbol, charged language, music, "modern" architecture and art, ... the works. 

The phenomenon termed "gaslighting" is pure spiritual warfare: it prepares the way for the necessary invitation for evil to enter the soul. 

Gaslighting induces people - by systemic methods - legal, economic, religious, social, physical (coercion) etc. - to espouse/ support/ propagate/ endorse false assumptions, false logic, stark contradictions, nonsense, paradox... 

Meaninglessness is made to be treated as interesting, amusing, wise; destruction is celebrated as creation; resentment and Schadenfreude are praised as morally exemplary. 

All these are ways by which people are brought to voluntarily open their souls and invite external corruption, occupation - ultimately to hand-over control of the soul to external spiritual authorities.

Black magic is not effective unless it is - to some extent - invited-in. 

Once inside a receptive environment; entities of evil tend to become self-amplifying, by a positive feedback process. 

Therefore spiritual PSYOPS are not effective, unless the masses welcome them... 

However it is apparent that they/we do welcome them! 

Every major new PSYOP has been (at least, to all appearances) - and continues to be eagerly welcomed by large swathes of the Western population. 

People are controlled partly by acknowledged psychological-material techniques; but also - and more effectively - by magical-spiritual methods that harness and direct the malign will of those at high levels of strategic influence. 

It is difficult to resist materialist manipulations, but these are very resource intensive, and limited in effectiveness when they go against human nature. 

By contrast; magical-spiritual manipulations need to be met by open souls, and received with positivity; but when this offer and response happens; black magic is a highly  efficient and powerful malign influence on human behaviour, thinking and feelings. 

 

"AI"-dolatry = Birdemic

Just as in the 2020 Birdemic - when utterly wild and deeply ignorant claims of lethal-danger emanating from serial manipulators and liars; were taken seriously, made into policies, and enforced upon the world; we are now seeing the same with "predictions" about "AI": and the endemicpandemic that is "AI"-dolatry.

There is an environment in which people can claim... anything about "AI" - its abilities and potentials -and be taken with equal seriousness by those who think all this SciFi invention is a Great Thing and desire to Bring It On ASAP; and also those who respond with a chronic panic attack, futile gestures, and personal despair. 

Just as with the Birdemic; people cannot grasp that the major crises, policies, and programs of the modern West are purely manipulative - and may be based upon almost-nothing factual. 

Little or nothing substantive, but a truly immense amount of re-labelling, hype, spin, invention, and inverted reportage. 

Whatever facts there were behind the Birdemic - if anything - they were trivial and insignificant compared with the truly colossal consequences of the coordinated totalitarian global response. 

Likewise, whatever computational breakthrough - if any - was behind the late-November 2022 global propaganda avalanche concerning the claimed qualitative and positively socially transformative breakthroughs of "AI" was and is trivial and insignificant compared with the truly colossal expenditure, impositions and implementation by the global totalitarian System. 

With "AI", as with the Birdemic, the unconstrained and universal claims over all domains of human life and functioning; sit upon little or nothing substantive, but a truly immense amount of re-labelling, hype, spin, invention, and inverted reportage.

"AI"-dolatry equals the Birdemic; for the clear and obvious reason that both emanate from the same sources, use exactly analogous methods of social and psychological manipulation, and both share the same strategically-evil aims. 

Both are operate as tests of our spiritual discernment because the success of both depend on dishonesties and errors at the very roots of our metaphysical assumptions. 

The mass vulnerability of Christians and mainstream people alike to both the Birdemic and "AI" PSYOPS; is evidence of deep wrongness in our understanding of reality, and the purpose of our mortal lives. 

To put it bluntly; insofar as we do not immediately see through these and like deceptions and instantly discern their grossly evil motivations - to that extent our basic life stance is defective; and needs to be examined and revised on pain of self-chosen damnation. 

Is that clear enough? 

**

Note added: To further the analogy; consider the way that during the Birdemic, the scale of health problems was incrementally amplified, month by month, and some orders of magnitude; through unprecedented and immeasurable global expenditures on pseudo-medical technologies and harmful societal transformations - topped by systematic misrepresentation and lies in the controlled-media... All of which was attributed to the progression of the Birdemic entity. We are seeing almost exactly the same phenomenon with the media reportage of the progress of "AI": unprecedented and immeasurable global expenditures on technologies and harmful societal transformations, with alleged (systematic misrepresentation and lies) orders of magnitude incremental improvement, reported month by month in the controlled-media - all of which are attributed to progress of the "AI" entity.

There are no "causes", but instead Beings.

If you agree that the primary unit of reality is Beings, then there are no "causes". 

If beings are the reality, then the first step in anything is the freedom of some Being as expressed spiritually; and that is not "a" cause. It can be thought of as some kind of action of their "self", their ultimate nature. 

This can't be explained, because it is the ultimate. If it could be explained, it would not be ultimate. 

"Causes" are abstractions, they are the product of some consciousness drawing lines around some chunk of living reality, of detaching something specific from a reality that is not thus divided. 

Beings are alive and always-living, and their "actions" are dynamic and a totality. If we divide the living behaviour of a Beings into causes, or events, or actions; then this is (just) a model of reality. 

The boundaries of the cause (its definition) are artificial and not really-real. 

Since we communicate by models, and by abstractions, this might seem like meaningless hair-splitting; but regarding causes as if they were real discrete entities has been the reason for much incoherent, confusing, and even demoralizing philosophical reflection, over centuries, perhaps millennia. 

People draw lines around causes, and do the same for "effects" - on the assumption that these are ultimate and real categories - on the assumption that these models are instead reality; and then they find that they can't understand freedom, or creation, or love, or anything fundamental when using these models. 

The confusion is caused by the (false) assumptions of the models, and it is therefore mistaken to infer that the confusion is as aspect of reality.  

I try to remember this when I find myself reasoning about causes and effects; but it isn't easy - because the cause and effect way of thinking is built into our assumptions...

To the extent that we use cause and effect reasoning to try and explain Beings - when reality is in the opposite direction!

 

Note: These notions were stimulated by some aside-comments by Laeth. Although I am confident of the reality of what I am saying; I'm aware the above points are hard to follow. The best I hope for, is that something of this will lodge in your mind, and you will think it through for yourself - next time you find yourself wresting with the paradoxes and contradictions of cause and effect thinking. 

The altruism fake

Altruism - helping others, especially at the expense of oneself - is widely regarded as the highest human value. 

This is especially on the Left, but in a modified form also on the self-styled Right - and very commonly among self-identified Christians (who may even claim that helping-others is the single core and essential Christian moral principle...) 

Yet altruism is a massive fake. 

It is not just an actually evil value - but it is also impossible; so the harm is multiplied when altruism is adopted and praised and sought. 

Since Men's minds have lost their spontaneous and immersive communality, since we all became (like it or not) alienated and cut-off; we cannot any more pursue "the group good" - because we do not experience that good in our consciousness. 

Furthermore; the actual human groups we inhabit are too large and too artificial for there to be any meaningful sense of group-good. 

So "altruism" can be recognized as an evil PSYOP (i.e. a manipulative concept originating from the powers of purposive strategic evil) that has been built, propagated and socially-incentivized - for the purpose of destroying people and damaging that-which-is-good wherever it may be found. 

But, of course, reacting-against altruism is also an evil fake! 

A double-negative is not a positive - but just another kind of negative: a sin against sin, advocating sinning against sinners. 

Indeed the supposed "Right wing" reaction-against altruism - i.e. the varieties of claimed political selfishness, enlightened self-interest, libertarianism, market economics etc... do not reject altruism, but actually sustain and reinforce the false value of altruism.

It can easily be seen that the rhetoric of the Right amounts to no more than the claim of a more realistic and effective altruism (e.g. the frequent claim that capitalism is better at abolishing poverty than communism, therefore better at "helping other people").

Or else the Right claims altruism, but for a different sector of the populace than the Left. The Left may claim an altruism directed according to class, sex, race; while the Right may claim to be altruistic on the basis of nation or religion. 

But both Left and Right self-justify in the same altruistic way. 

Even the Nietzschian-type (psychopathic) claim of individuals to be aiming at maximizing "my own" pleasure, power, lusts, status, Schadenfreude; and at the expense of other people -- cannot help but seek justification in altruistic reasoning...

Such as claiming the real world works this way, so that "it would be better" if this was explicitly acknowledged: that it is better for civilization if The System recognizes that people are motivated thus...

Or that civilization is itself a mechanism for oppression -- so that it is "better" overall "for everybody" if the selfish hedonist destroys civilization...

So, even extreme advocates of individualist selfishness* cannot help but ground it in some version of claimed-altruism.  

*(Which is intrinsically a fake thing. A genuinely extreme totally selfish individual would not advertise the fact, nor would he try to make is a philosophical principle to be taught to others! All such rhetoric has some other real purpose.)  

At an opposite end of the altruism fake is "therapy". 

Therapy tries to reduce "helping" to a lowest common denominator of palliating illness, sickness, death; so that "helping others" becomes public health (or charitable, or religious...) programs justified on the basis of alleviating suffering, preventing or curing diseases.

Supposedly this double-negative value is actually is such an obvious good that only a monster of evil could oppose a therapeutic agenda - could oppose "saving lives", "reducing suffering" (of deserving people) etc. 

2020 and its sequelae shows where all that stuff leads. 

Because altruism is fundamentally and inescapably a fake value, therefore all claimed attempts to "help others" - including attempts to alleviate suffering - will not be, cannot be,  motivated by altruism -- and will therefore inevitably and instead actually be motivated by some other covert value - typically selfish-seeking, and/or spitefully destructive.    

Wherever you turn, however you twist; it seems that some claim of altruism is lurking underneath all modern justifications for doing, or not doing, anything. 

And this is inevitable because our society utterly lacks any positive goal or motivation; because this can only be spiritual in nature - and our society is structured-around denial of the reality and significance of the spiritual. 

Altruism is a fake, because society is a fake; and therefore if you personally don't want to live a life pseudo-justified by the harmful, corrupting fake that is altruism - then you will have to find genuinely positive and therefore spiritual values to live-by - and you will have to do this for yourself. 

Family is the "master metaphor" for divine creation - William Arkle revisited

I was re-reading the Introduction I wrote for the second edition of William Arkle's A Geography of Consciousness (2019). 

In this writing I am explaining Arkle's spiritual philosophy, to the best of my ability - and Arkle has been a significant influence on my own understanding over the past fifteen or so years. 

Despite these large debts; to avoid reader-confusion (!) I should point out that my own understanding differs from that of Arkle in several significant ways. 

Nonetheless, it was helpful to revisit one of the main things that I learned from Arkle, which was that "The Family" is the best metaphor for divine creation... 

Indeed, Family is not just a metaphor, but describes the deep reality of what God aspires to in the work of Creating. 

Because ultimate reality consist of living Beings, and creation "works" by means of loving relationships between Beings; therefore an ideal Family-type relationship between Beings (an extended ideal Family, as it were - related by the commitment of marriage as well as by heredity, on the assumption that such commitments can be mutually-eternal in Heaven) may be recognized as the aim of divine creation. 

Since writing the Arkle essay in 2019; I have more recently reached an understanding of Jesus as having made possible a Second Creation which is resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

And this can be understood as the possibility of Beings opting-in to join a fully-loving, therefore actually ideal, Family of Heaven.  

I mean that the relationship between the Beings of Heaven can helpfully be conceptualized as that of an ideal Family; and part of this is that all members have actively and consciously chosen to join this Family...

Chosen also to be remade (in resurrection) such that they will always be motivated by Love* for all other members of this Heavenly Family. 

*(I will capitalize the word Love to emphasize that I am using it in the distinctive sense described below.) 

One point of talking in this way, is to try and enable us to grasp that Love is not only an emotion, but can be regarded as structural. 

...Almost as we might thing of an attractive "force", but Love is always personal, always the attribute of a living Being, always voluntary, necessarily mutual and between individual Beings.

It is Love by which creation began and by-which creation coheres, and it is Love that (combined with our innate and unique selves) provides the energetic-dynamism for further and open-ended creating.  

So, although Heaven is ideal, and although I talk of an ideal Family - those ideals must not be regarded as a static state of perfection. 

The ideal Family life is not a stasis, not even a blissful stasis - it is instead always developing. 

In this mortal world, we do not Love always nor fully; therefore in this-life dynamism is infected by selfishness, manipulation, and evil. 

But an ideally loving Family would always cohere, because the mutuality of Love would spontaneously ensure that everything which happened in Heaven came from Love and was aimed-at Love. 

Everything that everybody wanted to do would arise and operate in the context of Loving relationships. 

And the Heavenly Family will, because its mutual Love is everlasting; therefore both eternally cohere and eternally develop. 

I find it quite easy to imagine this in an ideal Family. I can imagine that such a Family would always stick-together from Love; and also that Family members would each always be pursuing personal projects of many kinds. Things would always be changing, and the loving commitments would always remain strong. Members would only desire to pursue loving projects; and not (as in this-life) often merely-selfish or coldly-manipulative projects! 

Many people imagine Heaven in such a way that it is boring, or even demeaning. But when The Family is a concept which includes all Beings - and when Beings are understood to be of many kinds (e.g. human, animal, vegetable, "mineral" etc) and each Being as unique - then Heaven represents an ideal situation for an everlastingly creative, hence interesting, living. 

Yet, no matter how appealing is this vision of Heaven for me; I must acknowledge it does not appeal to everybody - some people don't want that kind of thing - they want something else. 

Some even loathe Heaven to the extent that they want to discredit Heaven, and to persuade as many Beings as possible to reject Heaven. 

This is why following Jesus has never been for everybody, not when Jesus was alive as a mortal nor after his resurrection, and not since. 

"Christianity" probably never will be for everybody; but only for those who want... what Jesus offers. And that may be a minority, even a small minority. 

However, we should not reject the offer of Heaven until we know what it means. 

And Arkle's work provided me with vital clues to how Heaven can be understood in a way that I find to be ideal. 

And he does so by means of using The Family as his master explanatory metaphor. 

So Western Civilization is ending for sure. But is this part of a predictable historical cycle or pendulum swing, with recovery inevitable?

There is some kind of a consensus - especially among Christians - that Western Civilization is ending, and that this multi-stage collapse is substantially self-inflicted - partly suicidal due to hedonic materialism and cowardice of the unreligious-aspiritual masses; and partly the outcome of deliberate contrivance among the Western/ Globalist leadership class. 

Where opinions differ, is related to what happens afterwards. 

Many people apparently have the assumption that human history is either cyclical, or like a pendulum; and that Western Civilization is therefore destined to dwindle but (sooner or later) recover and be "reborn". 

And such people take hope from this - or at least they claim to.  

This cyclical/ pendulum assumption is popular even among Christians, which I find quite strange - given that pretty much everything that the New Testament says about human history states explicitly that it is destined to be linear, unidirectional, ending with the End Times. 

Some of the New Testament links the End Times with a "second coming", a return of Jesus Christ;  although the premier authority, and earliest secondhand, Gospels sources do not describe a second coming of Jesus.

I mean the Gospel called "John", which is an eyewitness account from a beloved disciple and (Chapters 1-20) was composed shortly after the events described; ; and "Mark" which is the first recorded of the second-hand, post-ascension Gospels). 

However, whether or not the End Times are also regarded as a Second Coming; the point is that for the New Testament the path of human history is linear. 

Linear and not repetitive. 

The Christian conception of history is therefore not primarily cyclical, nor a matter of pendulum swings - and if apparent recurrences do occur, then these can only be approximate; because they are  subordinate to an overall and basic linearity. 

And this, of course, fits with the pattern of human history as it appears spontaneously to the simple observer. 

My conclusion is that when (not if) Western Civilization begins to collapse quickly and undeniably; there will be no coherent "Christian" reason to expect that Western Civilization will ever re-develop. 

But even if there was, I find it very hard to believe that people who take consolation and derive hope from cyclical/ pendulum theories of history are being sincere! 

I mean: I find it hard to believe that they really do derive genuine consolation and real hope from their assumption that - although we shall collapse soon; nonetheless some future, unknown and unrelated, persons shall experience a return of something-like Western Civ.  

This is so feeble and remote an expectation that I strongly suspect it serves merely as an excuse for here-and-now mental laziness and cowardice; for current dishonesty and evasiveness. 

Anyway; that's how the stuff about cycles and pendulum swings strikes me; as yet another instance of clutching at fake straws. 

Taking sides: For, or against, divine creation? From love, or not?

Our creator is a loving God, and the divine creation is "built" with love; so to be on the side* of Good is to live from love. 

A person motivated by love, thinks and does things for other people (and other beings), because of love. 

This means that the Good person will often do something that sacrifices his own immediate pleasure, or causes himself to experience some degree of immediate suffering, or sub-optimality of feelings. 

This kind of thing is inevitable, when love motivates.  

Those who operate from other motivations that are not love, those on the side not-supporting or actively-against divine creation; see all this very differently. 

For them; love looks pathetic, pitiful, despicable. 

A life led, acts done, from love; look instead like foolishness, like being a dupe; love looks like weakness, subordination of my will to another's, service of somebody else's agenda, voluntary slavery... 

Those who are not taking the side of Good, i.e. not living by love - generally regard those who do thus live, as pathetic and despicable. 

But if love really is the real motivation for behaviour; then everything is different...

All that is done from love - no matter how small a thing that may seem - is an enhancement of divine creation. 

And that which is done from any-reason-not-love, will tend to diminish divine creation. 

Therefore, as examples: 

Things done to serve an agenda of "altruism" will diminish divine creation; same with things done for "my" power and/or wealth or that of others.

And things done for comfort, convenience or pleasure of myself or of others; shall likewise diminish creation.

(that is: Anything other-than love diminishes...)

And things done from resentment, fear or despair (and the like) are actually an attack on divine creation.   

+++

*"The side" references which of the two sides in the spiritual way of this world is chosen: either the side affiliated with God the creator; or else the side that is not thus affiliated. There are many ways of not being on the side of divine creation.

Note: almost all writing on the subject of relationships between the sexes, analysis and purported advice (all the "Manosphere" stuff, including that purportedly "Christian") is done from the perspective that love is not really real, not present, or is secondary in importance. Such speaking and writing is inevitably on the other side from God and divine creation. 

Because Men are free agents, it is Wrong to pretend otherwise

If you really believe that you personally are free, and you are a Christian; it follows that You Are Responsible. 

You are not a communal being; you cannot evade your ultimate responsibility by claiming unawareness, or automatic habits; because such a claim gives-away the lie. 

If you are responsible, then it is wrong to pretend otherwise. 

It is wrong to pretend that you are not responsible because it is a lie: it is false, untrue.

And that's bad; because to assert untruth about reality is in an ultimate sense bad: i.e. self-damning.

To evade your actual responsibility is a denial of that responsibility. You are pretending to be unfree.  

You are pretending that someone or some-thing else, outside you, is responsible for some-thing for which you are responsible. 

You are falsely blaming. 

Your freedom Just Is: its reality is not a valid subject for debate.

Although you might reasonably debate how it is that you are free, failure of a discussion to answer "how" freedom works, does not excuse you from the actual responsibility that the fact of your freedom carries.

To ask where your freedom comes-from, to ask who are what has "given" you freedom, is strictly nonsense. 

(And we know it is nonsense, because we must each first choose to believe that our personal freedom was given us by X; and if we must first choose to believe...)

You can only be free because freedom is not given; you are only free because freedom is innate.

Because freedom is innate, then it is a fact, and it always-was and always-is a fact; even when freedom is not being used, even when actively being denied.  

And we know freedom is real because nothing else can make sense. 

The fact of our freedom - my freedom, yours, and every being's freedom - is built-into reality. 

Since your freedom Just Is; it cannot be evaded by claiming that you must obey something external; because you have chosen that obedience. 

To claim you must obey e.g. Society, God, or The Church does not absolve you of responsibility; because in claiming suchlike; you have, from your actual freedom, asserted some kind of obedience as superior to your freedom.

This is not just wrong (e.g. for the reasons above) but also incoherent. 

It is simply a contradiction, not-sense, for a free being to deny his own freedom by asserting the superior authority of obedience to X; when the authority of X has been awarded and must continually be sustained by the freedom!  

To pretend that you personally are not ultimately responsible is spiritually lethal, because it keeps your relationship with the divine at a distance. 

You are choosing to interpose... Something Else - between yourself and the divine...

Consider - what Good reason could you have for doing that? 

No Good reasons for choosing to separate your-self from God, but a variety of bad ones...

You may be denying the reality of God the loving creator - and pretending that this is a fact of necessary objective reality, when the necessary objectivity of that reality is your own choice. You chose to make that fact factual - how then can you validly give that fact your responsibility? 

You may be pushing God away, pushing Jesus Christ away - interposing some-thing, and then pretending that you must just obeying this some-thing - when the authority of that thing comes from you, from yourself.

You can, of course, choose to carry on denying, evading, pretending you are not responsible. 

And nobody can stop you! - because you are free and have thus chosen...

And have chosen to lie about it.  

The answer to anything is... Metaphysics

The main reason why most would-be deep discussion (as well as superficial argument) is a waste is... Metaphysics. 

Metaphysics is our fundamental assumptions concerning the nature of reality; and when these assumptions are wrong, all answers will be wrong - even if they are superficially correct. 

All answers will be wrong because they all trend to wrongness; they will be wrong because all the answers will constellate around the wrong assumptions, making it appear that the wong assumption is true (when, in fact, the facts are all built around the wrong assumptions). 

The constellation of wrong facts, the patterns they make, will make us that they are true; when they are actually all wrong, but all wrong in the same kind of way - because rooted in the same false assumptions.

And none of this will ever change, or can ever change, for so long as people are unwilling to expose and acknowledge their own basic assumptions.  

Nobody else will do this for us! If we don't do it ourselves, it won't be done. 

Anybody can do it for themselves, simply by asking why, and then why and why again, we believe X - and sincerely answering their own query. 

But you have to want to do it. 

 

The ebbing of music in my life

While I still get intermittent great pleasure from music (as evidenced by my occasional postings here) there has certainly been a tremendous decline from the days of my teens and early early twenties, when music was probably second only to literature and ideas in its importance for my life. 

By music, I mostly mean "classical" music; but folk music and various types of popular music and jazz were also of considerable importance. 

For instance; in terms of performance, I sang classical music; but instrumentally I played mainly folk music; and for a couple of years, the rhythm and blues or soul type of pop. I also composed a few short tunes or songs in these genres. 

For this decade (approximately) I would think about music A Great Deal, would make great efforts to listen (whether to recordings; or live concerts, and especially operas); and when I listened - I would sit and do nothing else; giving the music my whole attention (sometimes - especially with opera - I would read a musical score while listening). 

I was continually expanding my musical experience, wider and deeper; and by experiencing different performers of the same music. I studied the theory and history of music; and engaged in many analytic and critical discussions with people more technically-expert than myself. 

At peak (aged around twenty) I would be singing-acting solo roles in Gilbert and Sullivan, singing in two classical music choirs - one small "chamber" choir, of which I was co-founder and still exists; and the other other a large and well-regarded city choir; and playing in folk clubs.

As well as listening to tens of hours of music per week, and reading books on the subject - all this in my spare time from being a medical student. 

Indeed; it was mainly my own many technical deficiencies that blocked me from an even greater engagement with music.  

But - as it was - I was looking to music for something much more than entertainment; something that could justly be termed "spiritual". 

I sought, and sometimes experienced, a very profound sense of aesthetic and mystical consciousness. 

However, over the past few decades, this interest and engagement has ebbed substantially: both fading and narrowing. 

I am now compelled to acknowledge that I have for years been living off the musical capital of my early life; although I have greatly enriched my appreciation of a few aspects. 

In some ways I regret this ebbing; but mostly not - because the value of music was related to its being an inner and spontaneous drive. 

And also because it was not so much a decline in music; as that music was displaced as a focus.

Music first began to be displaced as my focus by its other and greater rival - literature, also dating from early teens. As a young man; if there was anything I spent more time upon than music, it was literature. 

And when I myself began active and practical "literary" work - when I began to write and publish (mostly "essays" - i.e. non-fiction of many kinds), in my late twenties; then this increased engagement with the written word naturally expanded to take-up a good deal of what mental focus had been occupied by music.  

Later on, the "spiritual" role of music in my life also began to be replaced; as I got more and more motivated to think and write about spiritual, philosophical, and eventually religious matters. 

In other words; from middle age I became consciously and specifically motivated to engage directly with ultimate "existential" matters; matters that I had previously (in adolescence and my twenties) engaged with mainly secondarily - and mainly via music. 

I think this explains why I am no longer driven to the kind of intense and serious engagement with music that characterized my early life. 

I still respond strongly to some music, albeit much less frequently; and I do not seek out such experiences with hard efforts. 

But music doesn't have the spiritual-primacy it once did.