I'm in the midst of an exceptionally bad migraine (one and a half days, so far); and (unusually) I can't think of anything I want to say.
So I have re-opened comments (moderated, of course) for readers to submit questions - which I may be able to respond-to...
14 comments:
I always appreciate your posts about what a spiritual awakening would look like. Any further thoughts on that would be appreciated
Feel better Bruce!
@SD - Do you mean what it would look like socio-politically, or personally?
Any thoughts or intuitions on the fate of the old dominions? (such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand)
Are they still bound up with Albion's destiny, or have they diverged from Britain's spiritual orbit enough that they will need to find their own paths?
(Living in Canada, I could form my own guess, but would be curious to hear a guess from the British side of the pond first.)
Dr Charlton,
I'm struggling with how to orient to occultism. In my circles Christians have a strong inherited aversion to it, as something that we should shun lest we open ourselves up to evil spirits. Reading Steiner's "Behind the Scenes of External Happenings" and following some of the references, confirmed what should be evident from how he writes about the spirit world: he's an occultist.
There are other strains of traditionalist thought that seem to connect to occultism. For example I recognized in Steiner's reference to the ages of Saturn, Sun, Moon, etc the same source as in Evola's writing.
Would you say the Christian tradition of hostility to occultism was wrong, or maybe that it was right for the time but not anymore? If so, would it be fair to say you're what they call a "dispensationalist" and that Barfield's "final participation" is intended to be a new dispensation for us? I suppose we might make an analogy that Christ's redemption was itself occult knowledge, being hidden from most of man for all of history until 2017 years ago. Maybe likewise new things will be revealed to us if we are open to them.
If we are open to a new dispensation, should we take any particular steps (beyond frequent prayer and repentance) to heed the traditional Christian warnings against occultism, to protect ourselves, to not open ourselves to the wrong thing?
@Seijio - My feeling is that these links are currently broken, just as the spirit of England is currently broken. But over the next year or two we perhaps have a chance to mend these breaks and brokenness - if we make that choice.
@Nathan - By no coincidence, William Wildblood has blogged about this today:
http://albionawakening.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/the-magical-battle-of-britain.html
I am no more worried about 'occultism' than about any other path. It all depends on the motivation.
Many modern occultists are anti-Christian - and some of them are seeking power to manipulate the world, gratify their wants and desires etc. - so it isn't surprising that the results are bad.
On the other hand, Steiner and Barfield were great Christians. Charles Williams's work was of great benefit to many Christians.
There are plenty of bad, anti-Christian, self-gratifying people who follow other paths - for example the current Bishop of Rome, and most of the senior clergy in most of the mainstream Churches - such people are as bad or worse than occultists - and far more influential and damaging.
In sum - there is no safe path for Christians, because it is a middle pathit means that one-sided avoidance leads to the opposite sin - therefore the unilateral avoidance of occultism is harmful - it must be balanced by the avoidance of materialism, scientism, insistence on mundane alienation and regarding the non-human (or non-organic) world as dead and unconscious - which is the view of far too many Christians.
Have you really not noticed any decline in readership since turning off comments? I find myself much less interested in reading if I can't participate, and have gone from a daily reader to a semi-weekly one.
Any thoughts or intuitions on the fate of the old dominions? (such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand)
Are they still bound up with Albion's destiny
As a matter of fact I've been thinking a lot about this over the past few months, after I read a book about the Magna Carta and its influence on the US Constitution - and on Canadian Confederation.
I highly recommend it: here. If, because of the way that politics have unfolded over the past decades-centuries, you were unaware that every Anglo nation has a right to expect the God-given freedoms that the USA enjoys above all others, then have a read; you won't be disappointed (and it's short).
I lately find myself in the position of a Canadian who believes that the USA has been "specially blessed" because it embraced Albion's destiny more than the other Anglo nations did - and yet I do believe that the Dominions could recover their share of blessings if they would cleave more closely to the Almighty's plan for Albion. (This would include, inter alia, a greater emphasis on religion in public life.)
@SJ - There has never been any discernible correlation between comments and readership numbers. And many posts were getting zero comments - and I was ot publishing more than I did publish - so I was wasting a lot of time over non-comments! I have been getting rather more personal e-mails about the blog - which I prefer.
Just thinking about some of the anti-Trumo marchers at the weekend and the antics of certain celebrities such as Madonna. I wonder how long it will be before Satan's standard is actually raised at a public event and held aloft by a well-known person? It'll be all done 'ironically' at first, of course - a post-modern jibe social conservatives and traditionalists (Christians mainly) but I don't think it would be too long before he gloves came off properly. This would be a major symbolic event in my view.
@John - Well, if it is going to happen - and I don't see whay not - then it may happen soon. Clearly, explicit demon-worship is a goal (evil is good), and this would be a step toward it. My feeling is that Brexit and Trump and signs of rebellion elsewhere are creating panic; and making the enemy strike before they have fully prepared the ground, and when there is a greater risk of failure. But they will still need to be defeated, and that will only happen if the choice is made to resist them and instead pursue The Good.
@ Nathan
Mike Heiser has a really amazing series of videos on getting back tot he Bible and what it actually says. There definitely are several classes of non-corporeal entities that have varying levels of power and malevolence or good intent towards humanity.
His scholarly work is second to none and his view of Christianity is amongst the cleanest and most honest I have ever come across. And like our host he seems to simply call himself Christian, rejecting any specific denomination.
I ended up struggling in the back of my mind to summarize what I've felt lately about Canada. Somewhere in the comments of this blog, it was said that all existing Canadian 'nationalism' is defined through a double-negative (not United States and not Britain). This is obviously a weakness, a symptom of the fact that no one knows what to do with the fourfold connections that actually define what Canada has the potential to become, in a substantive manner (these being, Albion, Quebec, the First Nations, and the United States). Canada has to strengthen and restore all four of these spiritual connections in order to be worthy of being called the True North. Breaking or forgetting even one of them will lead to destruction.
This is further complicated by the fact that the country consists of multiple regions in which these influences combine in different ways, the fact that there were many groups of First Nations which affected the spirit of each region differently (e.g. Pacific Northwest seems very distinctive), and so forth.
No idea what the situation is Down Under.
@SJ -- I would give the USA more credit and say they've found (and have the opportunity to follow) their own ideal rather than that of Albion. Places of beauty and power in the US have a very different feel than analogous places in England or Canada.
@Seijio From a secular and nationalistic perspective, Canadian identity sounds mathematically weak and unstable - but if rooted in and derived from spiritual and Christian awakening, then it could work.
Well, there's my own synchronicity! It seems I have been guided to something here, because I also happened to read about the "law of attraction" and Hermeticism this week, on America.org. "What is prayer" has long been a sticking-point for me. Seeing prayer as a kind of magic is a revelation that might help me get un-stuck. Many thanks.
Quebec, or more properly French Canada, was, not long ago, a spiritually mighty and glorious Christian nation. Those of us with ties to French Canada should look to that legacy and reclaim the national mission, being (paraphrasing one writer from 1918), the hearth of the Catholic Faith on the North American continent.
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