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. 

Alan Garner versus JRR Tolkien - the "Anxiety of Influence"

The book in which Garner decisively began to react-against Tolkien

I discuss Alan Garner's work in term of his Anxiety of Influence with respect to JRR Tolkien, over at my Notion Club Papers blog. 

The "AI" dupes: Thumbs in the scales

One of the difficult lessons, particularly emphasized by Owen Barfield, is that in every way the spiritual is prior to, and encompasses, the material. 

The spiritual world existed first - material and incarnation came later, and locally. Reality is spiritual - with some parts of it also material. The material is always spiritual, but the spiritual is not always material. 

Therefore, necessarily, the post-November 2022 "AI" phenomenon is spiritual... But that platitude does not tell you in what way any particular asserted-AI is spiritual.  

One deep problem with "AI" is that almost everything we are told about it (what it is, what it can and should do) is asserted by corrupted, lying, manipulative and evil-motivated sources (i.e. the leadership class in the major social institutions) - or by those who are on the payroll. 

This nearly-always means that our knowledge can only be negative and general - because, in a domain of untruthfulness, we cannot have valid positive and specific information.  

(One honest Man dwelling in a world of liars cannot rely on other-Men for valid knowledge.) 

We should therefore assume the problem of discovering the nature and capability of actually-in-place "AI", and even more its assumed future possibilities, this problem goes much deeper than recognized. 

It is obvious that people who interact with "AI" assume that everything it does is done by computers. 

But there is no reason to assume this is true - especially not in situations where it is advantageous to the "AI" agenda that human thumbs should be pressing down the scales in the desired direction, whenever that is useful. 

Of course, even the acknowledged mechanisms of "AI" rely on humans for all the heavy-lifting - the fundamental categorizations of phenomena that form the basis of all subsequent processing, the "AI" learning feedback etc. 

But there is every reason why human beings would actively, in real-time, be involved in so-called "AI" processing; when it is important enough to make the effort. 

After all, the funding and resourcing of "AI" is incomprehensibly vast - so paying people to add a human touch to "AI" processing is perfectly feasable! 

Human boosting of "AI" can be (and is) even explained-away - so that the actual people who are actually paid to do it, apparently do not necessarily realize (most often do not care) why they are providing human tweaks to the algorithms, nor what are the top-level planned consequences of their human-assists. 

There is a definite precedent with Search Engines; in which processes of ranking results that were advertised as objective and algorithmic, were in fact subjective and ideologically-driven. 

Big Tech is prepared to pay its myriad minions to subvert or distort its algorithms, when this is in aid of an agenda that they consider to be more important. 

And currently it is supremely important that as many people as possible be persuaded of the nigh-miraculous powers and capabilities of "AI", including ideas that "AI" has intrinsic functional capability, sentience, agency, and superior intelligence to human beings - and therefore that "AI" not only will but ought-to replace human beings. 

The PSYOP includes a strategy of convincing humans of their own inferiority to that mixed package of people and computers called "AI"; and therefore that this self-styled "AI" should replace the humans...

And in practice, therefore, to manufacture consent for the a centralized totalitarian System; in which those who own/ operate/ control the truly-colossal "AI"-enterprise are voluntarily accorded an objective right to rule the rest of Mankind... in whatever ways They "know" to be just and good.  

So we should expect human inputs and enhancements - a human thumb in the computerized scales - to be normal and routine whenever this is expedient for the success of the "AI" agenda.  

I Very seldom think about it, but I've always hated the "sport" of Curling

Ever since, as a young child, I saw a Scottish Curling game on TV (something like this), I have strongly disliked it - for one simple reason. 

Because of the characters running along with brooms, sweeping their brushes in front of the stone. 

If it was not for these sweeping guys, I would feel as cheerfully benign towards curling as I do towards lawn bowling. 

If the chaps that slid the stone across the ice did just that, and that was the game; if the stone was left to its own devices like in any other accuracy game - like a ball in bowls, the arrow in archery, or the dart in darts... 

That might be an elegant, aesthetically-pleasing thing to watch. 

But no. 

Those sweepers are fussing, pestering, and interfering-with the distance and the direction of the rock, creating a stupidly-frantic atmosphere. 

Worse; the very existence of sweepers creates create in my imagination a depressing picture of aristocratic oppression; much like the blokes who "beat" game birds directly into the shooting arc of a line of toffs with guns - who just stand there blasting-away at the pheasant or grouse - or the beaters... or whatever. 

Sport? 

I don't blame the sweepers... they are just servile lackeys, out for an extra shilling. 

After all; the Laird and his mates gets the fun of chucking the rock; then (I guess, at some point in the history of the pastime) some idle, devious gent got the idea of paying a couple of downtrodden crofters to make a pittance running around harassing his stone en route; making sure it went where he wasn't skilled enough to bung it - and then Sir Smug Git takes the credit for whatever happens at the target... 

Curling? Bah, Humbug. 

What's the difference between a fantasist and a liar? Self-deprecating versus self-aggrandizing.

Michael Green: self-deprecating comic fantasist - 1927-2018

People who are untruthful in a character-driven way, whose discourse (spoken or written, or perhaps visual) is not aimed-at correspondence with reality - seem to fall into two categories: fantasist and liar. 

A fantasist is not truthful because he is not aiming at truth, but at something else - perhaps entertainment, humour, or even art. 

Humour is a good example - a good "raconteur" tells anecdotes of his life; but these stories do not attempt to describe accurately the individual's past experience. 

Instead, some aspects or fragments of past experience are used as the basis for elaborating a fantasy - and the aim may be humour, or to thrill, to horrify - or otherwise engage with his audience.  

The liar, on the other hand, is untruthful for his own benefit. 

If a liar tells an entertaining story, its subtext is intentionally (whether by conscious intent, or by sheer habit) self-aggrandisement. 

The liar's untruthfulness is motivated by self-interest: the lie is to serve a selfish agenda. 

When there is anecdote, when the liar spins something that seems like a fantasy; the underlying objective is always to impress the audience with a conviction of "Nonetheless... What a fine fellow he is!"

The true fantasist can be distinguished by the self-deprecating nature of his stories.

I used to know a vastly entertaining Welsh chap, who spontaneously extemporized hilarious stories of his own experiences (to the extent of making me cry with helpless laughter) - and always with the assumption of himself as a hapless character, his own worst enemy. 

Of course these stories were 95% untrue in a literal sense - yet, they always had some actual observation or event as a trigger, and evoked a surreal sense of reality that made them compelling, and almost wise. 

Of course, to be able to tell funny stories against oneself requires a deep self-confidence, which is attractive. 

And in a deeper sense, the successful fantasist does project a positive image; at least some of the audience will assume that anybody who is so confident that he can afford to run himself down continually, must underneath it all be pretty confident after all. 

This applies even when a self-deprecating fantasist really is a kind of walking disaster zone IRL; as seems to have been the case with Michael Green, author of "The Art of Coarse..." series of books (e.g. Coarse Rugby, Acting, Sailing, Drinking etc) and his two excellent autobiographies*.

By all accounts, Michael Green really was a kind of walking disaster area, a bit of a "dope"; and continually self-sabotaging. He was, therefore, just the kind of well-meaning but hapless innocent that he described himself to be. His fantasies seem to have had a higher-than-usual percentage of literal factuality!

Yet of course Green was also a successful and much-loved humourist over several decades - therefore clearly an unusually competent kind of "fool".

When you laugh at Michael Green's crazy exploits, it is Michael Green who is making you laugh. 

By contrast, the liar's aim is to manipulate his audience in ways that benefit himself. 

Sometimes this is crudely done, a Hard Sell, that brow-beats and wearies his audience. 

(As when the liar is so insecure that he cannot bear, even for a moment, to threaten his own precious self-image.) 

Or sometimes the liar may seek to emulate the self-deprecation of a fantasist - taking the long-termist and Soft Sell approach to marketing. 

But whether Hard of Soft, the Liar is always selling himself -  because, at root, "himself" is the only thing he really cares about.

**

*The boy who shot down an airship (1988), and Nobody hurt in small earthquake (1990).  

Files don't prove... anything - and anyway, we should by-now Already Know what is needed

The Alt Media is abuzz about some "files" that have supposedly been released by the Establishment that "prove" the Establishment actively serves the agenda of purposive demonic evil.

And that the Western-Globalist Establishment leadership class are, personally, extremely corrupt.  

Let's be clear. Files, and especially officially-disseminated files, and especially files that are the product of evil; do not and cannot ever prove anything in the ultimate and spiritual sense that is necessary. 

But for Heaven's sake! 

We really, by now (and for at least fifteen years), ought not only to know that the globalist totalitarian Establishment is purposively-evil and personally corrupt; but this ought to have been absorbed into our world-view; and this reality ought already to form the basis of understanding socio-political actuality and events. 

Especially after the Birdemic-related events of early 2020 and subsequently. 

Files are, after all, merely data; and the provenance and accuracy of data is always contestable; and the interpretation of data is always contestable; and both accuracy and interpretation are a product of metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality. 

Therefore; anyone whose fundamental assumptions disallow (or regard as impossible) the literal evil and actual corruption of the Western and Globalist Establishment (and especially the leadership class) - cannot and will not be persuaded of their evil and corruption by any data of any kind in any amount.  

(As will very soon become apparent.) 

Those who suggest that The Files are (i.e. should be, they believe) a watershed in the history of Western politics; are engaged in their own kind of attempted political (and geopolitical) manipulations... Usually concerned with trying to enlist active support for some ideology or party or program of some kind (some ideology/ party/ program that the writer or speaker serves or desires to dominate). Advice which purportedly leads back, in a loop, to the kind of society of some decades (or centuries!) ago: a "movement" which is not even going to be attempted (because of how people actually are), but would not work if it was (because people are not what they were). 

If not, then what? 

I see zero need to engage with the content of purported Files; and many probable pitfalls in doing so; the most likely of which is to be encouraged into an attitude of resentful spite and/or despair. 

We should already know what we need to know (i.e. what we personally know suffices without Establishment-supplied "evidence"); and if we don't know it by now, then it is not the problem of lack of evidence that blocks our understanding.

 

To engage-with The Files would merely be to participate spiritually with a staged media-political event; thereby voluntarily to open our hearts to that evil; and to engage in Yet Another example of double-negative values; values that are lethally-characteristic-of and foundational-to the atheist-materialist Western mainstream. 

What we need to do instead; is accept as true the reality of the evil of The Establishment, and the extremity of personal corruption of the human leadership...

And (less spectacularly) the facilitation of evil and spiritual corruption of their servant class such as bureaucrats, media people, managers, intellectuals, professionals etc. 

Accept that this is the way that our civilizations actually-is; here and now. 

Such knowledge not a trigger for action; but is a basis for understanding primarily - and understanding ought to serve a spiritual agenda; which is, for me - by my free choice, the life of a Christian. 

Only after that understanding is assimilated will we personally know what is right and good; and only after we know that, can we know what we personally ought to do. 

Good action lies on the other side of spiritual understanding and personal commitment in the spiritual war of this world. 

But anyone who tells us what we ought to do ("because of" the Files) when they themselves have not assimilated that understanding to their own personal and Christian life, and/or when we ourselves have not done so -- is necessarily trying to manipulate us to believe and serve some external, pre-existing, and anti-spiritual (and anti-Christian) agenda...  

In sum: Good comes only from Good, and Good is a spiritual (not material) value. 

No combination of oppositional agendas can lead to Good in the absence of actual positive and spiritual motivation for Good.  

To be guided primarily by any secondhand "data" or any other form of externally located "evidence"; or to serve the agenda of any external ideology or grouping - is to be assimilated more deeply into the evils of the Establishment agenda of evil.  

We personally can only do Good from the basis of our own personal motivations rooted in our own actual understanding. 

Insofar as we our-selves attain understanding and choose to take the side of divine creation in the spiritual war of this world; we will know what Good we can do, and doing that Good will surely affect "the world" for the better. 

And this is a necessary faith; it is the faith that lets us know what to do, that doing it will work; and this faith is also necessary in order that our choices can do Good, because without such faith we will not be aligned with God' intentions. 

In a nutshell: we do Good in this world only spiritually; by personal alignment on the side of God, and by our active and conscious participation in ongoing divine creation. 

An auspicious Candlemass?

Yesterday could be considered Candlemass (nowadays equated with the Celtic cross-quarter day of Imbolc - coming about halfway between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox); which is a festival of burgeoning light (here, about an extra hour and a half per day, since the depths). 

Symbolised by harbingers of spring, if not spring itself - such as Hazel catkins and the Snowdrop flower - who first put-in an appearance a couple of weeks ago, but is now making its presence felt (at least in the city; it will not begin to peak in the countryside for a couple more weeks). 

It happened to be a rare day of mostly-clear skies; very welcome after a few weeks of cloud-cover and sharp showers. 

It was also the second full moon since the Solstice - and in the late evening she was almost dazzling, and cast a tremendous silver light. 

Nearby was Jupiter which is currently exceptionally vivid: as bright as I have ever seen him, blazing almost as brightly as Venus usually does. 

Candlemass is also associated with Ireland (and Glastonbury's) premier woman Saint: Brigid; who is regarded by many as having absorbed the character of a Celtic goddess of the same name. 

My "chore" for the day was a bit of a clear-out; which included sorting through a mass of photographs taken in my twenties and before I got married - which was a mostly pleasant and nostalgic activity; being reminded of my former self, family, old friends, girlfriends (linking, perhaps - implicitly, with the Brigid theme), places, events...

And a phase of my young adult development during which I was taking (and printing for myself) pretentious soi disant artsy monochrome pix; accurately reflecting my own self-aggrandizing self-consciousness and underlying alienation.

But I was in a broadly forgiving mood; and my present nature therefore (graciously) forgave the rather obvious conceit and self-dramatizing qualities of my earlier personhood.   

Altogether the day generated a diffuse sense of positive expectation: as if it were an auspicious day in a quasi-astrological sense... 

Although, if so; I am unclear and sceptical about how such things might operate in this world and in real life.    

There are no "good causes" in politics 2026: only effective excuses for an evil agenda

Dear oh dear; but people are so so gullible (and I include myself) when it comes to politics!

Some politician (whether national or international) merely has to present his policy or action as being in "a good cause" - and he will not lack support. 

Support coming from those who persist (in the teeth of everything) in assuming that there are individuals among the actual (or aspiring) leadership class of The West and International Agencies who are genuinely well-motivated, who truly desire to do good things. 

Well the simple truth is that There Are No Good Things. 

There are no policies or actions that are intrinsically Good; it always depends on the motivation behind them, on what the policies and actions are genuinely intended to accomplish. 

If the Good-est policy imaginable is in reality motivated by intent to do some evil, then a Bad Outcome is what will happen for sure in real life. 

When we have, as we do, a leadership class who are without exception servants of demonic evil - because exceptions don't want to become, or get to become, leaders; and/ or get swiftly neutralized or eliminated if (somehow) they do attain power/ influence/ wealth/ status...

When we actually have such a class in control; then all policies - both those that seem helpful (if that was the intent), as well as those more obviously harmful - will actually in real life and for sure...

Be used to do harm, in pursuit of one or another of the strategies of evil.

Note: The "strategies of evil" can be summarized in three ways: the most obvious one of individuals trying to gratify their short-termist personal selfishness (lust, greed, status etc); the bureaucratic imperative aiming at a global totalitarian system of omni-surveillance and micro-control; and the "end-stage" negative or nihilistic evil of the spiteful destruction of divine creation in all its aspects.