A walk through Charlton country (North Tyne valley, near Bellingham)

Recently, my wife and I took a delightful walk through the upper North Tyne valley, in Northumberland; which is where my Charlton ancestors come from. 

This walk has several especially appealing aspects, and on this particular day things were at their best. I didn't take a camera, and the (functional, rather than artistic) photographs below are taken from the geograph.org.uk web pages. 

There is a walk up to the ride on the east of the valley, that makes a turn at a boulder where we once had a picnic. There is a view up the river towards its source on the Scottish border, that I find very evocative both of the poetry of the border ballads, and the harshness of the border reivers (poetry and violence side by side; the genuine heroic era of Britain).

Coming down off the ridge, there is a beautiful copse of relict ancient oaks called Riding Wood, in which we stumbled across what looked like an ancient stone enclosure, with evidence of several round buildings. On that day, this place had an atmosphere of extraordinary intensity and brooding. 

Later research revealed it was dated to Romano-British time - in other words, it was a Celtic defended dwelling, from around the time of Arthur and (more relevantly) Merlin - in his Scottish border origin of Lailoken: the mad prophet and seer of the Caledonian forest. Hence, presumably, the enchantment hanging about the place. 

Then across a footbridge over the long-since abandoned railway line:

And down to the banks of the idyllic River North Tyne.

Across the river could be seen Hesleyside Hall - beautiful Georgian residence of the head of the Charlton surname ('clan'), with its landscaped gardens by Capability Brown  

And then back to Bellingham. 

Why did so many devout, church-involved nice-good Christians end-up actively supporting the Satanic global totalitarian Establishment agenda?

Such a failure of discernment from So Many of those who might - until 2020 - have been regarded as The Best Christians seems to demand explanation. 

How could the devout, church-involved nice-good Christians not notice the totalitarian coup, the evil motivation behind the birdemic and its peck, the actual intent of antiracism/ multiculti/ mass migration, the reality of the climate change agenda?

Such colossal failures invalidate any amount of 'good' stuff; in the same way and for the same reason that a single un-repented sin self-excludes from resurrection and Heaven. 

The failure to know sin leads to no repentance. And enthusiastic embrace and zealous promotion of any of the above evil-motivated ideologies and projects is even worse. 

I think we need to engage in an act of imagination to see what happened, from the perspective of a church-involved, nice-good Christian. And, after all, most Christians have tried to be this at some point, and have admired those who achieved it so much better than we ourselves could manage. 

My understanding is that this failure indicates that their church-discernment was overwhelmingly external and social - and boiled-down to mere obedience to some kind of institution that self-identified as a Christian church. 

This would include those who claimed to 'follow scripture' in their lives; but reveals that they were in truth just following scripture-as-interpreted-by-some-institution. 

Church Christians have sometimes noticed (especially in relation to sex and sexuality) that value/ moral-inversion was now official, and increasingly mandatory (legally and via employers and service providers - evil is the new Good, and vice-versa. 

And some of these that devout church-goers have noticed this is sustained (in part or in whole) by all political parties, bureaucracies and the mass media.  

Yet these same self-identified Christians have enthusiastically and zealously embraced one or all of the agendas of birdemic-peck agenda, climate change, and antiracism/ mass migration - which emanate from exactly the same Establishment source; 'evidence' for which has exactly the same origin; and which form elements of the same ideology of leftism.

I think this is probably due to the way that Christians have come to regard Christian morality as a legalistic, quasi-bureaucratic checklist; imposed-upon naturally evil and self-deceptive individuals from without, and sustained by social mechanisms. 

The individual is regarded as the root of evil; kept in check only by the group. God's inspiration and guidance is seen as coming to the group, and reaching the individual only via the group - at least, when it concerns major and serious matters. 

Individual revelation (from the Holy Ghost) is allowed in some personal matters that aren't covered by explicit rules and regulations; but not for matters of the group: whether that group be global, national, institutional or church group. 

In serious matters, individual revelation and personal discernment is regarded as merely/ always/ necessarily a cloak for self-interest and self-justification of sin. 

The idea that each Man's primary guidance could (let alone should) derive from the divine within each of us (by virtue of our status as Sons of God) and from the direct knowledge of the Holy Ghost - is seen as a snare.

Ultimately, Man's duty is to subordinate himself willingly to A Group - and the only legitimate question is Which Group? (for which specific matter)? 

For devout, church-involved nice-good Christians; individual discernment is a sign of stupidity, mental illness or evil when it conflicts with the group. 

It is literally nonsensical and incomprehensible to such folk that The World including all the major institutions, and the leadership of all major churches - could be wrong; and that some very small proportion of individuals would nonetheless be right. 

For these church Christians, there is no debate, no issue to be addressed; they have decided as a fundamental assumption Not To Trust Themselves; but to surrender their judgment to some or many institutions. 

And because they regard obedience to groups as the only true virtue; the possibility that all groups are evil cannot be allowed even as a possibility; therefore no amount of evidence of evil could ever convince them it was the case.

The demonic strategy of equality - William Wildblood explicates

 Equality is only one of the strategic ideologies that the demonic powers have used to take-over world government and the major functional social institutions; but equality was one of the first and most influential of such principles. 

For example; socialism/ communism has been a vastly powerful force of increasingly net-evil since the 19th century; until now 'equality' (whatever it is supposed to mean) is regarded as platitudinously true, to the extent that anyone denying equality explicitly is officially treated as a moral monster. Suicidal altruism - often, but not always, in the name of 'equality' - had become the officially-sanctioned and -imposed religion of the masses. 

Now, of course - as with all leftism - the concept of equality is incoherent and implemented only as expedient; so that equality policy often creates deliberate inequality, supposedly in pursuit of a higher and ultimate equality. Yet through all this, equality is maintained as a metaphysical good-by-assumption. 

For some time now; William Wildblood has been probing-away at the concept of equality, and exposing the evil of its roots and application. 

He has recently reached what seems to me a very deep understanding of exactly why equality has proved so adept to the purposes of evil, so comprehensively hostile not just to all transcendental Values or Goods (i.e. virtue, beauty and truth), but more fundamentally to God and divine creation.

Wildblood's most recent post suddenly made this clear to me, in a few words (excerpt):  

Equality is the great dogma on which liberal Western democracies are built. It might have seemed like a step forward at a time when the gap between rich and poor, powerful and weak was as great as it was, and the movement towards less inequality surely did bring certain benefits in the short term. 

But the flaw that lies at its heart is now being revealed. If equality, and equality alone, is taken as the foundation of a culture then that culture will collapse into the lowest common denominator and it will eventually collapse altogether. 

Equality is totally contrary to human nature and to enforce it is to force human beings to live against both their natural and their spiritual instincts. It becomes a tool to push the higher down to the level of the lower. 

This does not mean that the higher should dominate the lower (except spiritually) but liberty and equality are not natural bedfellows despite what the ideals of the Enlightenment may pretend, and it is liberty that is the great spiritual quality as far as human beings are concerned. 

Equality is often said to be rooted in Christianity. If it were how strange it is that it is never mentioned in the Bible and was only discovered to be a Christian virtue 1800 years after the time of Christ. Oneness in Christ is a Christian virtue but that is not equality which is a materialistic distortion of it. 

Equality is actually a property of unformed matter, matter untouched by the creative breath of spirit, which is why you see it most at lower levels of evolution. The more life evolves, the more unequal it becomes because the freer it becomes and yet within that inequality there is also a spiritual oneness. 

To realise the truth of this apparent contradiction is one of the major goals of the spiritual path. It and it alone explains the mystery of love.

I have highlighted the key phrases. For them we can see what lies behind the drive for equality - a spitefully destructive hatred of creation itself; the desire to reduce creation to chaos. 

This is exactly the core motivation Tolkien attributed to Morgoth (Melkor) - the Satan of his universe.

Thus equality - which sounds to Modern Man as an obvious and major virtue; is actually an instance of ultimate evil. Characteristic of which, is exactly this kind of value-inversion - where an ultimate virtue is actually an ultimate evil.  

And a world where such value-inversion is ever-more mainstream, official and compulsory; is exactly what is meant by the End Times. 

Four steps to understand these times

1. Totalitarian

2. Global

3. Evil

4. Supernaturally evil

1. It is an observable fact that we live (for 18months) in a world where there is (leaving aside supposed reasons for it) more and more surveillance, control and compulsion - extending into what used-to-be regarded as private and autonomous life. Society is objectively totalitarian.  

2. This qualitative increase in totalitarianism happened everywhere in the world at pretty much the same time (a span of a few months); compatible with this being globally coordinated and administered.

3. The vast, repeated, systemic, un-repented lying of the leaders and representatives of the global totalitarian system is solid evidence that they are purposively evil.   

4. And this purposive evil is primarily of supernatural origin. The global totalitarianism has no coherent materialist plan - too much chaos is encouraged to be aiming at total-order; is too bureaucratic and controlling to be wholly aimed-at destruction; the 'elites' are simultaneously feathering and fouling their nests. This is explicable if human leaders are functioning as the servants and dupe of supernaturally evil demonic being.  

The above is intended as a potentially-helpful model to clarify your existing understanding; it is not meant to be an off-the-peg template for evangelical purposes. 

The specific identity of God and Jesus Christ is a fact (not logically necessary and nor entailed)

There is one God who created this reality. That is the proper meaning of 'one' God - despite that I believe the one God consisted of the dyad of Heavenly Father and Mother. 

Beyond this, and apparently since shortly after the death of Jesus Christ, Christians often feel a need to argue monotheism - that there can only be one God, that the oneness of God is entailed, that God is an indivisible unity.

However, my metaphysical understanding is that the oneness of God is a simple matter of fact. The fact that one God created this reality within which we dwell. 

There is one God because there is one God. 

What about Jesus Christ? There was one Jesus Christ who - again as a matter of fact - was the person who made possible our resurrection and ascension to Heaven. 

Before Jesus, resurrection was not possible; after Jesus it was possible (including for those who lived and died before Jesus). 

But did The Christ have to be Jesus - or could it have been someone else? 

What 'qualified' the pre-mortal individual spirit called Jesus to become incarnated and become The Christ? 

My understanding is that Jesus was the first and only pre-mortal spirit who could become The Christ, who could do the job. God always knew there was this job to be done, presumably this was known among the pre-mortal spirits; and it was some time before any of the pre-mortal spirits were ready and capable of doing the job. 

Jesus was the first and (at the time) only pre-mortal spirit to be fully-aligned with God's plan of creation - to be willing to do the job in full accordance with the plan. 

So Jesus was - as a matter of fact, but not a matter of necessity - the saviour. 

But... if that particular personage of Jesus had not been the Christ, then presumably - later on - somebody else, some other pre-mortal spirit - might have been able to do the job. 

I regard it as a deep philosophical error that so many Christian, for so long, have felt the need to argue that the oneness of God and the oneness of Jesus are necessary in some kind of ultimate philosophical-metaphysical sense; rather than as matters of fact. 

This error apparently came into Christianity quite soon after the death of Jesus - but after the writing of the Fourth Gospel; which is our only written source of what Jesus did and said written by an eye-witness, and one of the closest disciples. 

I presume (but don't know) that what became the Fourth Gospel was not known by Paul or the authors of Matthew and Luke - who provided the philosophical basis of later theologians (plus their carry-over of fundamental assumptions from Judaism and/or Greek-Roman pagan philosophy).  

By my understanding, the explanations of God and Jesus ought to be much simpler and more common-sensical than they have since become. There is one God because one God made this creation and we dwell in a creation made by one God. And there is one Jesus Christ because he was the first pre-mortal spirit who could do the job and wated to do the job - and now the job has-been-done, so there will never be "another Christ": jesus was the one and only. 

Is God good? Two common errors by/about Christians

To answer the question Is God Good? requires first understanding what God is trying to do with creation. Many/ most people get this wrong. 

People try to evaluate whether God is Good by examining this world and drawing up a balance sheet of good-things versus bad-things - and seeing which comes out top. They ask questions like whether this is 'on average' a good world; or whether the good things that happen/ have-happened outweigh the bad. 

They assume that God sent Jesus Christ to make a better mortal world, and they try to evaluate the truth (or success) of Christianity by 'calculating' whether the world was a batter place after Christ; or whether Christian people or places are better than non-Christian.

And implicitly judging 'better' by criteria - usually 'utilitarian', to do with inferred mass happiness or suffering - that are assumed to be above (or prior to) the truths of Christianity.

But this line of thinking is nonsense - as would be obvious except that Men have been misled for a long time. 

Jesus came to bring Men the chance of everlasting resurrected life - not to make this a better world (let alone perfect, or a paradise). 

So, the first common error is to regard this transient mortal life and world, as if it was the aim and end-point of God's creation. 

The second common error is to regard this mortal life as merely preparation for admission to eternity.

The idea that nothing matters about our mortal lives except that they prepare us to take a test set by God, to pass a judgment by God. 

The background assumptions to this error is that everybody in the world and who has ever lived wants to go to Heaven. Earth is a 'pre-school' that prepares us for that divine examination which all Men want to pass. But God only allows those worthy to proceed to Heaven - the rest are consigned to Hell. 

This is wrong because not all men want to go to heaven, and many or most Modern Men in particular reject Heaven prefer to choose Hell. 

The proper way to understand this mortal life and world is as a place of opportunities for learning - a 'school'. Like an idealized school, the basic rationale of what happens in mortal life is directed toward the eternal life after 'school' - i.e. Heaven. 

The main thing we are supposed to learn is about love - love of actual persons, typically starting with the family. Heaven is for those capable of love, who commit to put love first - eternally; which is what we mean by love of The Lord, and of Jesus Christ. 

There the school experiences of this mortal life, and what we have learned from them, are not forgotten; but are brought into eternity. 

So, this life and world are created for those who want to go to Heaven - this world provides each of these with experiences from which they can learn and which will prepare them for Heaven. 

But this world contains many Men who are not sure that they want to go to Heaven, and some who have already decided that they do not want Heaven. 

For them this world, the school of mortal life, has a different purpose - which is to provide the experiences from-which they can learn whether or not they want Heaven. 

All Men are free and each decides his or her own fate - decide whether to accept the gift of Heaven - or whether they want... something else, which may be (and in 2021 probably is) hell. 

Mortal experience cannot make somebody want Heaven - certainly not if they are incapable of love or reject love. 

But it can provide each person capable of love with experiences from-which they may become clear about their decision concerning what happens to them after death. 

God can engineer a situation in which this choice is made conscious - albeit perhaps only briefly; so that every-Man is compelled to make a choice, but no Man is compelled to choose one way or the other. 

So, the second common error is to regard God as a gatekeeper of a universally-desired Heaven - permitting some to proceed, and casting others down. 

The reality is very different. All those who really want Heaven, who are capable of love and prepared to make an eternal commitment to put-love-first, will go to Heaven. 

Admission to Heaven is not by examination; but by self-selection. 

God wants as many as possible to choose Heaven, and God's problem is that many reject it. 

Therefore, this mortal life is designed to encourage as many people as possible to choose Heaven after death - each soul in its own way, each person's mortal experience designed for such goals; and this mortal life was created for that purpose. 

Why not convert to leftism? (You know it makes sense...)

Why don’t you convert to leftism? 

Since you can't do anything about global totalitarianism, why not just make the best of it? 

Why not exploit the situation instead of moaning about it? Do what is expedient - why not? 

Why not make a successful career out of leftism - like so many others? Why not surrender your private mind to leftism, in the same way as you have already surrendered your public behaviour? By having any reservations at all, you are making yourself miserable - why not simply cast-aside those reservations? 

Just say an inner yes to what you will, anyway, be forced to do (sooner or later)... 

Since you necessarily inhabit the thought prison that is leftism – then why not, at least, become one of the ‘trustys’ among the inmates – to assist with the smooth running of the gaol, and get yourself a few privileges? 

Why not, indeed, strive to become one of the prison guards? Somebody has to do the job? Maybe you could temper the severity of the regime? 

(And herein lies the particular temptation for the intellectual elite – a temptation few resist. That (literally) soul-destroying pragmatism by which (for eminently sensible reasons) we quietly, by gradual degrees, change sides in the spiritual battle of the world: that unseen warfare between The Good and that which opposes The Good.)

Well why not? 

There is no earthly reason why not. 

In a world of pervasive and powerful PC, there is really only one compelling reason for holding back and resisting in any way, shape or form - which is that embracing leftism will shrink your soul. 

If you do not believe in the soul, this reason will carry no force at all: so by your own calculations you are stupid to resist leftism. Or, if you believe the soul is inviolable, and that nothing you think or do can affect the soul: then also, by your own calculations, you are stupid to resist leftism. 

If you do not believe in Natural Law (innate knowledge of The Good), and that breaking Natural Law harms the soul: then logically you should learn to love leftism. 

If you do not believe in the reality of transcendental good - then you might as well go with the flow, allow yourself to be re-programmed: learn, by regular practice, to re-label lies as truth, ugliness as beauty, evil as virtue; until leftism has entered into your heart and soul, as well as pouring into your ears and out-from your mouth. 

But leftism is nihilism; therefore it is not merely political: it is also existential. 

To fight against political correctness is therefore ultimately an existential act: a battle to preserve the eternal soul. 

But if you do not believe that political correctness will harm your eternal soul: then you would be well-advised to suck it up. 

Why not?...

(The above is adapted from the closing passages of my 2011 mini-book Thought Prison.)

"be kind" (pass the sick bag)

I just checked on Google, and there are more than 92 million usages - so far - of the passive-aggressive-leftist phrase "be kind". 

The meaning of this term is best encapsulated by that fact that you can buy a 'pastel rainbow' birdemic face-mask featuring the slogan - printed in lower-case, girly-looking, faux-handwriting. 

So what is the meaning of "be kind"? 

In narrow terms "be kind" could be translated as "stop disagreeing with me, else I will report you" - 

More broadly, it translates as "I submit (eagerly) to totalitarian evil - do thou likewise". 

Stuka!

I am quite a fan of (although no expert on) World War II military aircraft; and one of my absolute favourites (which include the Mosquito, Beaufighter, Tempest, and F4U Corsair) is the Junkers Ju-87 'Stuka' dive-bomber. 

I have always regarded the dive bomber as an under-rated concept, due to their much greater precision than high level, horizontal bombing. The Stuka could pick-out and (often) hit very small targets such as ships, buildings or groupings of troops. The dive bomber was best used as a form of directly-aimed, aerial artillery; or ground-attack craft.  

The Ju-87 was the consummate dive bomber in particular because it was (I think) the only aircraft designed to dive vertically - which, of course, allows for maximum accuracy. 

Its gull-wing shape, non-retractable undercarriage, air brakes and general robustness all helped make this possible. And a special bomb release mechanism ensured that they were released clear of the aircraft itself. 

The pilots were a physical elite selected to cope with the extreme negative g-force on pulling-out of the dive, that drained blood from the brain and caused sensory distortion at least and often unconsciousness. Consequently the Stuka had an 'automatic-pilot' recovery mechanism to bring it safely out of the dive even when the pilot was temporarily incapacitated.  

Supplementing the Stuka's operational effectiveness in precision bombing to support Blitzkreig, and for destroying specific targets on land or sea; was the fact that it was - by design - one of the most potent terror weapons of its era. 

The aircraft was equipped with a very loud, screaming siren, whose pitch increased during the dive as the plane accelerated; and its bombs were fitted with whistles so that their falling would continue the auditory assault.

Depending on the morale and training of those against whom the Stuka was deployed, these sounds could greatly amplify its military value; as depicted in Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk movie. 

In the UK the Stuka has an incorrectly poor reputation because of heavy losses in some of the actions of the Battle of Britain. The aircraft was indeed slow and - like almost all bombers - very vulnerable to high quality fighters such as the Hurricane and Spitfire - and therefore requiring a fighter escort. 

Nonetheless the Stukas inflicted considerable damage - especially on British shipping. 

Significantly, by-far the most prolific air ace of all time - indeed, the most highly-decorated soldier of the most efficient military of WWII - was a Stuka pilot.

An ugly, terrifying beast of a plane - supposedly obsolete even before 1939; it was nonetheless the supreme example of its kind.  

How to persuade other people of the global coup of the evil totalitarian dictatorship? You can't.

The Thing about these times, this era, is that it really is down to individuals - each person can and will decide for himself, and only for himself. 

That seems to be how God has set it up - and why. 

When there has been a global totalitarian coup to install a world government that is strategically and systemically pursuing evil under the flimsiest and most incoherent of rationales (birdemic, climate change, antiracism, sexual revolution) - Yet Most People Do Not Notice (and deny the obvious when it is pointed-out)...

When this is the situation, when someone has-accepted the mainstream modern (self-contradicting) basic premises of a universe without purpose or meaning; then persuasion, argument, reason, logic, evidence are all utterly powerless.   

I think the best we can then do, in practice, is negative... 

We can Not Encourage/ Support evil in others. 

We can Not join-in with the assumptions behind the social interactions on the birdemic and peck and other Litmus Test issues (as they arise). 

Because to encourage sin in others, to normalize sin - to make it an unconscious habit - is (surely?) the worst of sins. 

Not to do so, may be all that we can usefully do.

(And even that little is, in practice, difficult.)

Creative Destruction versus Destructive Creation (Sorathic evil emergent)

Creative destruction was probably (in broad terms) the main mechanism of the industrial revolution; whereby a new and overall 'better' (more functional) industry displaced the previously existing form. 

Thus railways displaced canals, and roads displaced railways. Or TV displaced radio, then the internet and recording technologies displaced live TV. The later expands (grows) and (more-or-less) destroys the former. 

Creative Destruction might in principle, be a spontaneous phenomenon, but it can easily be shaped by lawmakers and the wealthy. 

For example, the canals and railways were built by private money -while the road network (for motor vehicles) was built by the state using tax money. Cars and lorries were thus subsidized in a way that railways were not. The internet likewise - although the manner of its creation and nature of its subsidy has been covert, and dishonestly presented.

The cancerous global bureaucratic takeover has been an example of Creative Destruction - by-far the largest ever. Bureaucracy grew and grew, and destroyed other forms of organization - such that only large institutions employing professional managers and administrators can thrive in the modern economy. Even small clubs, even families, are now subject to a growing-web of bureaucratic regulations.  

The thing is that Creative Destruction is not really 'creative' - the word creative is here merely a synonym for 'growth'. That which replaces is not necessarily better than that which is replaced, nor is it necessarily a product of creativity. 

The essence of the phenomenon is simply that the growth of one form displaces and thereby destroys another.

The sequence is that growth causes destruction. 

Growth comes first and destruction may follow. 

Because sometimes what went before does remain, but shrunken - most inland canals were commercially destroyed by railways in the UK; but railways were only shrunk by roads. Radio still remains in 2021, but with an importance greatly reduced now compared with 80 years ago. 

So the essence of Creative Destruction is in the sequence of growth 'causing' a tendency towards destruction. Growth +/- destruction.

But what we are seeing very clearly from early 2020 is a reversal of this causal sequence. 

Instead of growth ('creation') causing destruction, destruction comes first - and growth (creation') is asserted to come afterwards. 

This I term Destructive Creation because the idea is that destruction comes first, and creation of new forms may follow. 

However, what actually follows destruction is conjectural. There may be growth of some new form that replaces the old, or there may not be. 

An example of Destructive Creation is the self-styled sustainable energy economy. The generation of electricity by coal and gas is being destroyed by laws and taxes. Its replacement by windmills and other devices is conjectural, has not happened, and is indeed impossible. 

Personal cars powered by the internal combustion engine are being squeezed towards extinction by regulations and taxes; and urban road transport is being expensively crippled by 'bike lanes'. 

Vast resources in the current world are being devoted to destruction. But the replacements are conjectural, and may or may not happen. 

There will be (already has-been) a vast shrinkage of power generation - and therefore electric cars will not be possible for mass transport. Cars are being cleared to make way for bicycles etc; but the bicycles cannot functionally substitute for cars, so the net result will be reduced efficiency and effectiveness (then prohibition) of all activities that depend on mass usage of private cars. 

So, just as Creative Destruction actually amounts-to Growth first and for-sure... plus or minus destruction; so Destructive Creation really means Destruction first and for sure, then maybe (or maybe not) Growth to replace that which has already been destroyed... 

From 2020 we are seeing a decisive shift from Creative destruction to Destructive Creation, as announced by The Great Reset, Build-Back-better and Agenda 2030 of the UN. The new strategy is to to clear-the-ground of what is, allegedly to make-way for growth of what-is-to-become. 

But all that is certain is the destruction of what has-been and is. 

Thus the economy of the world has already been substantially destroyed on the excuse of the birdemic. Destruction is certain. 

But the assumption is that that which has been destroyed can and will be replaced by something, let alone something better, is wholly conjectural. 

Destruction is a fact; but the following Creation/ Growth is just a hope or a vague intention - or not even that... 

Another example is the cancel culture of antiracism. There has been (and continuing) a mass destruction of public arts, literature and media - a clearing of the ground of any-thing deemed to be 'racist' - which actually means anything of the past, of The West, by white men (or for any reason disapproved by Them - especially Christianity). 

The assertion/ assumption is that these creative works will be replaced by something as-good, or better. But this is conjectural - maybe it is not possible, maybe it never was genuinely intended; and meanwhile the only fact is destruction.  

The mentality of Destructive Creation is, indeed, a perfect mask for Sorathic evil: the 'purest' form of evil which is simply the spite-motivated destruction of all that is of God - divine creation, any-thing partaking of The Good.  

When, in 2020, the Global Establishment decisively shifted from the Creative Destruction of cancerous global bureaucracy; to using its new totalitarian powers to destroy; this was a symptom of Sorathic takeover. 

All talk of the Agenda 2030, Great Reset or Build-Back-Better - i.e. strategies that put destruction first, and assume future compensatory growth only conjecturally - is further evidence.

Here-and-now destruction is primary. 

That is the current nature of world leadership. Destruction of marriage, family, community, small business, village, and functional social institutions...

We also see destruction of the apparatus of world government; of the military, the police, and nations. Mass immigration and the mixing of heterogeneous populations is destructive by its nature - any advantages are purely theoretical, and almost certainly will not happen. 

Likewise the birdemic response, the peck, the antiracism agenda, the sexual revolution, the Climate Change agenda - all are massively destructive up-front and for certain. What comes after this wholesale and planetary destruction? Meh...  

The Global Establishment have-been and are investing colossal resources (many trillions of dollars) into destruction. That is their primary activity. 

Destruction is primary - and what happens afterwards... well 'They' do not know, neither do they care because whatever remains will merely, in its turn, become the subject of further destruction. 

Because to the Sorathic mind, destruction is self-justifying.  

If you want to know why so many people choose hell - read The Great Divorce by CS Lewis

It is pretty well recognized that if you want to understand how demons think, the CS Lewis's The Screwtape Letters - followed by Screwtape Proposes a Toast - are the best source. 

It is much less widely appreciated that the best understanding of why so many reject Heaven and prefer to choose Hell can be found in Lewis's later The Great Divorce - text version here, and downloadable ebook from here.  

The story has the protagonist (Lewis himself) visiting Heaven on a holiday from Hell with a group of other (self-) damned souls, with the chance of remaining in Heaven - if only they will repent their sins.

The meat of the book is an exploration of the foothills/ outskirts of Heaven and series of encounters between Lewis and a range of representative unrepentant sinners (insubstantial ghosts - by comparison with the hardness and density of Heavenly beings and landscapes). 

What comes across - in a way that I found revelatory and unforgettable - is why people will not give-up and be cleansed-of what seem quite 'trivial' sins, even when the reward is Heaven. 

It is shown how people come to build their life and self-image around some particular sinful activity, such that they can scarcely imagine putting it aside - even when it makes them miserable. This is a fact of everyday life, found in many people around us - and we can surely see it in our-selves. 

A few examples include a 'liberal Christian' Bishop whose self esteem is so based upon his delight in debate and skeptical analysis, that he does not want to know the real answers to his questions - but only to go on showing-off his cleverness and discussing them forever, without end. 

A particularly hard-hitting instance is when a ghost from Hell meets a man who was a murderer in earthly life but repented and chose Heaven; whereas it emerges that the ghost is kept in Hell by his own consuming resentment against the murderer, and the 'unfairness' that a murderer can be forgiven. He chooses Hell rather than forgiveness. 

A woman who spent her life micro-managing her miserable husband into someone more in-line with her own wishes, wants nothing more than to be 'given him' so she can continue the process forever. Unless she can continue to tyrannize over this husband (now one of the happy and blessed in Heaven) - she insists on remaining in Hell. 

A ghost man called Frank meets his Heavenly wife who has become a saint and is followed by a joyous 'family' of those whom she loved and sustained during mortal life. But this man will not speak to his wife directly, but only via a kind of Shakesperian ham-actor 'tragedian' puppet; who is always speechifying to make her feel sorry for him. 

Lewis here quotes some deep insights about this particular sin, through the mouth of the sainted wife (slightly edited by me):

You are using pity, other people's pity, in the wrong way. 

We have all done it a bit on earth, you know. Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity... 

Even as a child you did it. Instead of saying you were sorry, you went and sulked in the attic... because you knew that, sooner or later, one of your sisters would say, 'I can't bear to think of him sitting up there alone, crying.' You used your pity to blackmail them, and they gave in in the end... 

"And that," said the Tragedian, "that is all you have understood of me, after all these years!..." 

"No, Frank, not here!" said the Lady. "Listen to reason. 

Did you think joy was created to live always under that threat? Always defenceless against those who would rather be miserable than have their self-will crossed? 

For it was real misery. I know that now. You made yourself really wretched. That you can still do. But you can no longer communicate your wretchedness. 

Here in Heaven, everything becomes more and more itself. Here is joy that cannot be shaken. Our light can swallow up your darkness: but your darkness cannot now infect our light. 

No, no, no. Come to us. We will not go to you. Can you really have thought that love and joy would always be at the mercy of frowns and sighs? Did you not know they were stronger than their opposites?"

This is marvelous stuff, making points I've never found elsewhere, and there is a good deal more of it; making The Great Divorce one of the key books in my Christian understanding...

Because it is a very common stumbling block that people literally cannot understand why anybody would choose hell over Heaven; and therefore they jump to the conclusion that God is keeping people out of Heaven and that our task on earth is to persuade God to let us in. 

The truth is almost the opposite. God's intention is, through the experiences of our mortal lives, to persuade us to set aside sin and accept the offer of resurrection (which leaves-behind sin) and follow (as a sheep follows the Good Shepherd) Jesus Christ to Heaven. 

Yet it seem to be the hardest thing in this modern world to persuade Men that it is worth giving up their favourite sin to receive the blessings of Heaven - which can only be Heaven when inhabited by Men who have, voluntarily and by positive choice, set-aside evil.

Probably it has not always been thus - and in the ancient world Men merely needed to be told of Heaven and believe it was possible, to wish to follow Jesus. 

Indeed, those who come to know the truth about Jesus and the possibility of Heaven only after their death, and who then recognize and love him, can also make the choice.

Anyone who loves and wishes to follow Jesus, and is prepared to pay the 'price' of repentance, is welcomed by God. 

But Modern Man does not want this - he prefers to hold onto his favourite sin (often some resentment disguised as a political 'ism'; perhaps a sexual sin - a preference for lust over love; perhaps a clinging to mortal life and the refusal to regard death as a portal to everlasting life; perhaps that despair which prefers extinction to eternal participation in creation)... and to take the miserable consequences. 

And if the above does not make sense to you; then you need to read and ponder CS Lewis's The Great Divorce. 

The eco-thriller - more merely double-negative heroics, leading only to a life ruled by fear then despair

The iconic moment from Edge of Darkness when the antihero brings together two lumps of plutonium to give all the baddies radiation sickness (and kill himself)

The eco-thriller - saving some-place or the world from an ecological disaster - is a subgenre of the disaster movie; but with pretentions of being deeper, more thoughtful, more idealistic. 

The genre got going in the 1970s, I think; for example I have just read Raven (1977) by Jeremy Burnham and Trevor Ray; which is a modern Arthurian adventure for children, with the specific objective of saving sacred ancient caves from becoming a nuclear dump. 1985 saw a high impact adult TV drama called Edge of Darkness - again about nuclear waste contamination. The eco theme has since become a staple of Hollywood blockbuster movies, and B (or C) movies.

But - like everything else in modern culture; the eco-thriller tries to present a positive message from ingredients that are actually double-negative: the hero is not making life better, but is saving life from a threat.

Such double-nativity is, of course, the entire basis of all mainstream modern politics. There are now no utopians. 

Consider the mainstream Litmus Tests - climate change is entirely about 'saving the world' from (what is asserted to be) human caused and harmful raising of the average global temperature - there is no positive message at all. 

Antiracism (or feminism, or the gaytrans agendas) all claim (only) to be against negative-discrimination (or even, bizarrely, compensating for historical injustice) - and they do not even attempt to sketch out the kind of 'better future world' that they are supposed to be aiming-at. 

And the latest and greatest left-mania of the birdemic-peck alleges its motivation to be nothing more than keeping (almost entirely) already-old and -sick people alive for a bit longer. There is zero consideration of what used to be the leftist mania of 'quality of life'. And any serious consideration of the adverse future consequences of this present policy is ruthlessly stamped-down. 

We have arrived at a point where the world is ruled by fear, and must be ruled by fear, of death - because there is no positive, remotely-plausible better future towards which we must strive. Thus an already demotivated population is further reduced to mere survivalism; grasping and gripping at their few remaining 'allowed' pleasures and freedoms.   

I do not contradict this pessimistic vision of The World, and this mortal life - it is a real thing. Of course, there is (for Christians) real hope, and the assurance of a (much) better future - but not in this world and mortal life; but on the other side of death, and only attainable by dying. 

Here is another instance of the black and white nature of life, now. The world offers us only fear and despair; only Christianity offers us optimism. 

Either we place hope in this world, which world does not even anymore pretend to offer grounds for hope - but rules only by ever-bigger sticks compensating for ever-smaller, ever-fewer this-worldly carrots. This can only end in despair - there is nowhere else it can end.  

Or, we place our hope in the next world, sustained by determination to follow Jesus Christ to resurrected life in Heaven.

Here and now, there really are no other actual, living, motivation alternatives. 

This spiritual war is to be fought by thinking, primarily

The primacy of primary thinking! - To argue and clarify this counter-intuitive yet vital fact of reality was surely the great achievement of Rudolf Steiner. 

There is nothing more important than our thinking - so long as that thinking is of the most important kind... 

The obvious difficulties are first that almost-everything in our culture and habits tells us that thinking is trivial, is merely an epiphenomenon to the 'real' stuff which is all about action, material things - the perceived and measured world. 

And yet... Why is it that 'thought crime' became a phenomenon in the evil totalitarian dictatorships? And why is it that this crime has returned to dominate 21st century life. After all, what is a 'hate crime' (which can get you sacked, mobbed and imprisoned) except a crime of thinking. 

Even if you don't believe that your thinking matters in the modern world, even if you believe that thinking is just something that goes on inside your head - the Establishment, the Authorities disagree. They believe that thinking what they regard as the 'wrong' thing is a serious crime, and the legal system (and employment law) has been reshaped to accommodate this. 

So - officially - thinking affects reality; and it is assumed that specific kinds of thinking can be inferred or imputed.

But a Christian will recognize that the Establishment/ Authorities/ Officialdom/ Media are evil; and are imposing a system of increasingly inverted values - where lies are truth and truth is 'fake news', where vile ugliness and mutilation is beauty and beauty is oppressive, where purposive evil rewrites morality so that marriage, family and Christianity are presented as breeding grounds for racism and terrorism. 

What They say is good is always evil (in implemented practice, if not theoretically), and what they excoriate most systematically and over the long-term is the genuine good.  

So, when They create (or reintroduce) the concept of thought crime; they are acknowledging the primacy of spiritual warfare; but taking the side of evil. 

Christians, on the other hand, all-too-often ignore or deny that we live in a state of spiritual war - and especially that the side of evil in this war rules the world, including all the major social institutions, including the major Christian churches. 

Such are the End Times, and Christians cannot claim we were not warned. Although the prophecies turned-out very differently than expected - they have turned-out exactly as claimed in the sense that almost all the world has taken the side of Satan, including most (almost all) self-identified-Christians! 

The inverted-fake-Christians (who follow the ideology of The World) persecute the few remaining real followers of Christ, in the name of Jesus!

But how to fight our side in the spiritual war? Primarily by thinking. By primary thinking. 

Most of thinking is passive and shallow and Of The World; either being mere habits of association - drilled by socialization and propaganda, or externally imposed concepts and 'facts'. Small wonder that so many people regard thinking as unimportant and actions as the only 'real' activity. 

That is exactly what They want you to believe! 

While They regarding Your thinking as of ultimate importance, They want You to regard Your thinking as merely trivial, subjective, internal.  

It is a strange aspect of these ultra-materialistic, globally-bureaucratic, corporate-dominated times - that real, primary thinking is probably the single most valuable force for good in the world, now. 

Because such thinking is not 'in the head' or cut-off-from reality; but actual participation in the ultimate reality of divine creation and create-ing. 

It turns-out to be a good deal more difficult to think properly, primarily, intuitively, from our true (and divine) selves, from the heart (rather than intellect or instinct) - yet that is what we most need to do to fight the hourly and daily spiritual battles in the war of good and evil, now and tomorrow.  

Just how clever are the demonic overlords?

Just how clever are the demonic overlords who now run the whole world at a strategic level - their few possessed, many servants, and multi-millions of dupes running things at the national and local scale? 

Are the demons, as many have claimed, supernaturally intelligent? 

The question arises because to recognize the decades of long-termist planning and manipulation (and construction of the systemic instruments of planning and manipulation) that went into the Global coup of 2020 - is to recognize an order of sustained purpose, insight and cleverness that appears to go far beyond that of the intellectual ruling classes.

(Many of whom I have known or interacted-with personally - and can confirm that they are grossly inadequate to have planned and manipulated the world in the way that it has been; and are indeed themselves dupes of the most extreme kind.)

The masses now lack even that minimal level of capacity for coherent thinking to recognize that there was a coup, or that they are now ruled globally by purposive evil, or that their very existence (and salvation) are imminently threatened! 

The masses have just enough intelligence and analytic ability, falsely to deny the obvious.  

So are the demonic masters of this world super-intelligent, perhaps by virtue of being immortal spirits?

I would say - Certainly Not. 

What they have-done and are-doing is readily grasped by any 'normal' adult intelligence rooted in a core belief in God and Jesus Christ*. 

The human problem is not a relative lack of intelligence, but an absolute deficit of coherent rooting of human intelligence.

Thus, Satan and his army of demons are merely humanly intelligent and insightful; but that ability is organized and directed over the long term of many human generations by their sleepless malice. 

Demons have nothing to do but plan and scheme for the malefit of Man and the gratification this brings to them; and that is precisely what they do do.   

This is why the powers of evil were, for so many human generations, held at bay; and only after Mankind had become so incoherently-materialistic as to deny the reality God, creation and therefore to deny Satan (who, by his nature, opposes God and creation), and thereby to deny the reality of evil...

Only then could the demons outwit Man. 

It is only because Modern Man is self-blinded and self-maimed by his (denied) metaphysical assumptions, that demons have come to seem supernaturally intelligent and clever... 

To the extent that Modern Man finds it literally inconceivable that anybody (any being) could contrive the 2020 Global coup and devise this totalitarian world. And, because it is inconceivable - Modern Man reaches for anything-but the simple, obvious explanation*.

Notes: 

*The experience of 2020 shows that many fewer self-identified Christians actually do have a core and rooted belief in God and Jesus Christ than I, at least, would have guessed. Since early 2020 there is now a wedge driven-between (on the one hand) those whose Christianity is externally located in a church/ scripture/ tradition/ theology; and (on the other hand) those whose Christianity is inner-based and primarily upon a direct relationship with the divine and especially Jesus (who is the Holy Ghost). Either we rely essentially on being-told; or we rely on the discernment of God from-within. Although the one does not exclude the other - and ideally both should be active; only inner or outer authority can be primary. And when authority is primarily externally located, then it will now be corrupted by totalitarian evil.   

**This (together with an incapacity coherently to conceptualize evil) accounts for the popularity of purely-hypothetical and question-begging 'emergent phenomena' as pseudo-explanations for apparently (and actually) teleological, purposive and coordinated evil leadership. Such hypotheses ('like flocking' or chaos/ complexity theories) always have a deep structure which assumes, but covertly, that which is to be explained. 

Animating the landscape - thirty years experience

The Devil's Beef Tub - a powerfully-evocative hidden valley near Moffat

I was very 'sensitive' to country landscape in my middle and late teens, but this capacity was one of the casualties of my young adulthood - when I became city-orientated. It was in the summer of 1991, thirty years ago, that I began to recover - or re-forge - my capacity to know the mindscape as alive and implicitly conscious and purposive.  

This happened through a series of explorations of the English-Scottish borders - which at that time I was approaching from the Scottish side (I was living in Glasgow). And the medium was a mixture of history and folklore. 

In retrospect, what I seemed to be doing was to view the here-and-now landscape through a lens of a past in which I was personally involved, mainly due to the many ancestors who inhabited this part of the world. I was reading every book on the region I could lay hold of - gleaning whatever ideas and impression fed the magic.

At the same time as this retrospective angle, I felt that there was something occult (hidden but discernable) about this place which pointed to a better future. 

This future was vague, but had to do with a re-integration of life and spontaneous-warm community - a kind of 'neo-pagan' aspiration for a life of more immersive engagement, although I was not initially aware of that term or movement.

At the time, and for long afterwards, I conceptualized this landscape sensitivity in terms of an immersion, an attunement; a lowering of barriers between my-self and that which the landscape contained. 

There was therefore a sense of self-hypnotically reducing my conscious awareness of what was happening - but not too much; enough to 'liberate' the associative powers of the mind, but with enough consciousness retained so that I would be aware of, and then remember, what was happening. 

This was a difficult balancing-act - and could never be retained for long. But such is mortal life...

This may all sound very theoretical, but it was effective - to a significant extent, sometimes. I was sometimes able to be in a kind of magical mood for considerable periods of time (a few minutes usually, up to an hour or two).

That it was objectively effective was evidenced by the synchronicity of these moods - I would move from one such experience to another; would move through the landscape from one discovery to another; discoveries not known, not seen, but with the inevitability of a dream and recurrent deja vu even for places I had certainly never been.   

It was all very encouraging, but of course habituation soon sets-in and repetition of action loses its effectiveness; the experiences became less reliable, less intense, less frequent - and in general I needed to know what (if anything) they meant for me and my life. Or was it just a kind of pleasant delusion, a self-deception...

In retrospect I can see that I was recapitulating the search for Original Participation that was evident in neo-paganism as it developed from the late 19th century, and in the likes of CG Jung and Robert Graves; and indeed that was the direction in which my reading was drawn - for example I recognized the state of mind I sought as being Jung's Active Imagination. 

It was evident that this quest could never be more than partially and dwindlingly effective and very intermittent. An activity for holidays, essentially. And an expensive one - meaning that I had to work at alienating jobs in order to achieve these moments of brief engagement and fulfilment. 

Plus, they were solitary; and yet I was prone to loneliness and boredom.  

And - most decisively - I recognized how much of this was me, was brought by me to the situation; and this undercut the experience, reduced and invalidated it significantly. 

It was a paradox: one part of myself sought to engage in self-examination to try and exploit my own disposition and sensitivities of another part of myself! This splitting was sustaining the alienating divisions that I was (supposedly) trying to overcome. 

It was a psychological equivalent of the split between work - needed to get the money (and car) needed to pursue these Border explorations; and the bought-leisure in which such explorations could proceed.    

This struck me as not just a practical limitation, but a fault in the whole project; the whole idea. It was ultimately incoherent - and therefore not a valid basis for life.

I have now conceptualized this experience as Final Participation. It is not a 'recovery' of ancient ways of being or thinking; it is a moving forward to a new way of being and thinking, that exists in a new kind of thinking. 

I recognize that I bring my-self not only this these magical moments; but to all moments - all meaning, and lack of meaning, comes from me; yet is not merely-subjective, because of God and because this is a creation.

All meanings, purposes, and relationships in God's creation always-have-been the consequence of 'minds', of consciousness - thus the integration of all things is a fact, not an aspiration. 

What is an aspiration is the awareness; from which comes the magic, the enchantment. 

 

Ear Mullets - a proposal

As modelled by Ian Botham - one of England's best cricketers

The mullet hairstyle was most popular in the early 1980s, essentially as a working class and low status fashion - much reviled by the intelligentsia then and since. 

It comprised short hair everywhere except the back - where there was a broadly-rectangular flap of long hair, rather like the headwear of the French Foreign Legion:

So, the defining feature of a Platonically ideal mullet is the rectangular back flap, in a context of generally short hair.  

Interestingly, as a consequence of the widespread mental derangement induced by the 2020 birdemic, the mullet is currently making a (not-entirely-ironic) comeback among English university students. 

But this can be put down to the mindless recycling and rotation of fashions under the continuing Modern (demonic) compulsion that there Must Be fashions - in 'science', 'art' and 'literature', as much as clothes and hair. 

But if we lived in more genuinely creative and original times - we would have explored the full range of possible men's hairstyles before engaging in mere revivalism. 

And true and authentic ear mullets have never yet been given a proper trial. 

The 'ear mullet' name has been falsely given to what are merely a revival of the orthodox Jewish side curls in front of the ear. 

However, the genuine ear mullet style would comprise short hair all over but with a rectangular flap of hair - one covering each ear - something rather (but not exactly) like this:

So, I am proposing that Ear Mullets - defined as rectangular ear flaps, completely covering both ears, in a context of generally short hair should be given at least a reasonable try-out.

(Ideally, each flap should be long and wide enough completely to obscure the ear - but no larger.) 

It strikes me as the perfect hairstyle for late 2021 - something which encapsulates the spirit of this era; especially when worn with a face-mask. 
 

Consciousness raising? Communications and direct knowing

It is interesting to reflect on how many proposed 'methods' there are for 'raising consciousness'. 

In the mainstream, this refers to use of the mass media, education and propaganda to manipulate public opinion. It means, roughly, getting people to think about some-thing - in either a positive or negative way. 

For example, to become aware of some rare type of disease, so that they might contribute money to organizations purporting to 'do something' for sufferers or carers. Or to turn public opinion against to actual or virtual group of people by linking a name with alleged acts of meanness, crime, terrorism. 

This stuff is the staple of daily public discourse in all modern institutions (including most Christian churches). 

A small version of the mechanism can be seen in this blog, or any communication medium including speaking. 

I used to think of my writings as potentially able to spread to almost anywhere, on the basis that such things have happened: a few words written in a specific place have propagated and been reproduced to reach vast numbers of people (who maybe 'needed' them, or alternatively were vulnerable to them) - and these communications (words, images, music etc.) have an apparent effect on them.  

Another version of the idea is that God works through us - and God can and will amplify our works to reach many people - when this is helpful for God's purposes. The creator need not worry or concern himself about 'spreading the word', or 'reaching an audience', but only about creating some good communication - and God will do the rest. 

In New Age type spirituality circles, raising consciousness often refers to a proposed mechanism whereby the spiritual level of large numbers of people (or all people) is lifted by some kind of external effect. A divine being or tendency may increase the frequency or vibrational level acting-upon human - which is presumed to awaken or spiritualize their thinking and living. 

Or an individual who meditates (in the proper fashion) is assumed to have a very general and beneficial effect on everybody in the world; implicitly perhaps by some (probably very small) enhancement of an sort of 'spiritual ether' that is 'bathing' all our consciousnesses... 

So when that medium of consciousness is enhanced by the mental efforts of one or many spiritual persons, it is suggested that we all experience this enhancement (or could do, if we became attuned to it).

I think of these are 'physicsy' ways of thinking; which regarded spirituality rather like the radiations of the sun, incident upon the earth - perhaps some kind of cosmic ray that passes through the earth but potentially interacts with welcoming or susceptible minds en route. 

The way in which I tend to suppose consciousness can be raised posits a 'world of thought'. Or, more exactly, not all thoughts (which are mostly trivial, passive, 'automatic') but a world of 'real' thought, primary thoughts, thoughts that originate from our true and divine selves when we are living as free agents. 

This world of thoughts is contributed-to by many thinking Beings (living and 'dead', incarnated and spiritual, human and otherwise). This world of thinking may be accessed by anybody (any Being) who actively chooses to communicate with it. 

Such a concept privileges thoughts and their direct sharing or interaction, mind to mind; above the indirect and multistep processes of public communications and media. This I call 'direct knowing' and I regard it as the basis of genuine intuition. 

By this account, if I have an idea or an insight; then it is the having of it that matters more than the physical expression. For instance, it is implied that having the idea for this blog post was more important than writing and publishing that idea.  

Did I then really need to write and publish this post? Would it not have been just as good - maybe better (because more direct) to think but not publish it?

Yet there is a middle ground; which is that (for me, anyway) writing is thinking - at least to a significant extent; and further that writing-thinking is (for me) improved by the intent to publish, or share, it. 

In a sense, often (but not always) I do not really know my idea until I am writing it, or have written it. The process of writing seems to accelerate the evaluation and clarification of ideas. 

So consciousness is raised primarily by thinking, and this may secondarily amplified by communication. 

And at the other end - the way in which we may each directly attune to the 'world of thinking' is (for most of us) difficult, intermittent - and only able to cope with simple concepts. 

For instance, by direct thinking and knowing it is much more likely that we can discover a 'Yes or No' answer to a simple and precise question like 'should I quit my job?; than we could discern a plan of action in response to a question like 'what should I be doing with my life?'

Thus, given two Beings, both aligned with God and in sympathy, a physical communication like a blog post might be able to make a bridge to the world of thinking and direct knowing. So we might read (or listen, or view) a communication; and then (immediately upon comprehension) we may experience an intuitive confirmation of its validity.

The communication is therefore affirmed by direct knowing. 

In this way, by accelerating our intuitive grasping of things, communications may help us discover and evaluate our primary assumptions concerning the world - establishing a metaphysical basis upon-which all other kinds of knowledge depend. 

Note added: It is probably significant that I forgot to include what may have been the most prevalent or important form of consciousness raising at times and places in the past - which is by supernatural/ paranormal communications - such as dreams, visions (visual and auditory), visitations (by spiritual beings) and mediumship generally. 

In sum - by perceptual contact with the spiritual world: e.g. an angel speaks, a vision is shown. And any communicated perception is subject to distortion at many stages.  

I forgot to mention these, because such methods have become progressively less common, impossible for many people - and usually only attainable by deliberate practice or deliberate consciousness alteration. And all of these make any communications more liable to be misperceived or misunderstood; and which tend to impair discernment concerning the source and value of communications, and impair memory. 

I believe that direct knowing is both superior - because it is direct and cuts-out the problems of distorted perception, misunderstanding etc - and also that direct knowing is the destined way that modern Men in modern conditions are intended (by God) to have consciousness raised. A way that cannot be interfered-with by evil external powers. 

Why do Men replace elves in Middle Earth, when elves are so much better?

This is a question which surely must strike all lovers of Tolkien's world at one point or another, and which Tolkien fails satisfactorily to answer (explicitly) in his published work. 

But there is an implicit simple answer - an explanation of why and how Men are better than elves, despite all contrary appearances - an answer that is clear, beautiful and of universal relevance. 

Over at The Notion Club Papers blog...

What does it mean to consent to evil? The danger of generic-abstract thought experiments

As Christians, we can be sure that God will not put us into a position where we can be 'made evil' against our consent. 

But if we consent to evil and do not repent; then we can make ourselves evil. 

One way in which people consent to evil is by entertaining generic-abstract thought experiments; and by concluding that is such a thing happened, they would capitulate to evil (or even that it would be better or right to capitulate to a specific evil as less than the alternative).  

Lets take a specific example - the birdemic peck. You know the kind of thing...

If somebody really recognized it as an evil, he would not consent to it. But then somebody suggests a thought experiment - 'supposing that' you found yourself in such-and-such a position, and if you did not take the peck then something terrible would happen (maybe threatening your loved ones)... Wouldn't it be okay to consent then? 

Or, if there were some thugs in white coats who credibly threatened to wrestle you to the ground and force the peck into you - then you might as well go along with it. 

My first point is that there an open-ended number of possible scenarios of what 'might' happen - and once you take any one of them seriously, then you open-up the possibility of being confronted by one after another without end - with the expectation or obligation that you examine and explain each. 

But my main point is not to examine any such scenarios; nor to recommend a 'reasonable' course of action for them. But instead as to point-out that this whole way of thinking represents a lack of faith in the goodness and power of God. 

Not (of course) because God 'would not let such things happen to anyone' in any kind of general way. But because God does not work in a general way. 

God's providence works on each individual person in the context of his own life and needs. God created and is creating this world moment-by-moment - and with the needs of each individual person in mind - because each is a beloved child of God. Thus he creates situations from-which each individual person is intended to learn. 

Such a God will not create any situation in which any person ought to be evil. 

But - I am not expected to take a God's eye view that encompasses the population of the world - and certainly I am not supposed to consider and pre-decide every abstract-generic possibility of what might possibly happen to anybody.

I am expected to attending to my own life and experiences and to learn from what actually happens to me in real life - especially here and now. That, specifically, I what I am supposed to learn-from. 

My job is to discern evil from good, and to know evil for what it is - not to consent to evil; but if I have consented to evil to recognize and repent the fact. That is, to be clear that what I did was evil, and that I therefore, for that reason, repudiate it.  

This is what a Christian must do to attain salvation and resurrection; because Heaven is a life without evil. For Heaven to be Heaven, all evil (no matter how small-seeming in the abstract-generic scheme of things) needs to be repented and discarded from the resurrected soul. 

We can therefore personally be sure that if we do not consent to the peck because we know it to be evil, then our salvation is secure. We can be confident that that is how our actual life will work out, somehow or another. 

But if we consent because we allowed abstract-generic considerations (e.g. based on thought experiments) to convince us that 'resistance is futile', all paths are evil, or whatever... then by thinking this way we have joined with The Enemy's agenda. 

We have decided, in advance of events, that God will allow our-selves to be put into a situation where evil choices are 'inevitable' - and therefore pre-empted actuality by probabilistic extrapolation: pre-empted divine providence with worldly calculation.  

Mass Modern Man is living in the present

It is very striking to observe how Modern Man lives in a perpetual present - in the sense that the future has all but disappeared and people think only a few weeks ahead at most. Consequently, all ideas of future utopia (or even any conceivable future world) have gone - and Mass Man cannot even recognize that he lives in a version of dystopia. 

The past has also lost all reality, being continually redefined for reasons of expediency or simply to reinforce the conceit of moral superiority. Clearly, there is no sense of a real past if it can be destroyed, forgotten, inverted at will. 

The present view has dispensed with all attempts at coherence, common sense is regarded as an oppressive evil, personal experience and observation is either merely misleading or else requires to be interpreted in light of concepts from The Establishment (the linked global bureaucracy, world government, mass media). 

Each day, Modern Man wakes-up to be informed of reality by mass and social media - who present their versions of 'science', 'statistics', and 'expert' analysis and advice in general. This (here-and-now) is the truth about the world - and it is a truth which is defined & redefined daily, hourly, moment-by-moment - as required.

There is no other truth, and no source of officially good and legitimate authority other than this present truth - which encompasses (by re-shaping, deleting, adding-to) past and future, continuously. All other claims of truth are not just 'fake' but evil - therefore other truth-claims must be suppressed, and the people who make them must be suppressed. 

Suppression is simply a means to the end of eliminating them from the current, today's, official truth  otherwise truth claims have no autonomy - have no real-reality. 

(Thus, a truth claim may be moved from the fake-evil provenance to official validity - or the other direction - without a problem; because truth is just for today. Identical forms of words that were officially evil-fake 'hate fact' last week, may this week become authoritative-mandatory - or the opposite. This is not regarded as a problem because today's-truth is the only truth. Today's distinction between good and evil ideas or people is the only valid distinction.) 

The characteristic mood of 20201 is therefore a peculiar combination of hedonistic optimism and fearful despair - and today's particular combination of optimism and fear, optimism and despair is unique, evanescent and compulsory.

It seems that most people in the West, including most self-identified Christians, have accepted the above arrangement as being real-reality; and as such have rendered themselves passive slaves of the linked global bureaucracy, world government, mass media - and foes of God.

 

 

Christianity in England - deep past, and the present

My understanding is that Christianity came to England very early, within not-many-years of Jesus's death - to Glastonbury in Somerset - and western parts of England have been continuously Christian since. Whether Christianity was brought by Joseph of Arimathea (as legend states) or by someone else, I don't know - but I think it arrived very early. 

England has therefore been continuously Christian for a very long time - perhaps about as long as anywhere outside the Holy Land. 

Christianity stayed in England after the withdrawal of the Roman Empire in 410; initially through the whole country, but later it was pushed westward by the Anglo-Saxons - who arrived from 449 and were pagans. 

This 'Celtic' Christianity had the characteristics of the early church, which was much like Eastern Orthodoxy - that is, it was based around ascetic monks ruled by Abbots in rural settings (rather than Roman Christianity which dominated the rest of Christian Western Europe was based on priests ruled by Bishops, and mostly rooted in the urban cathedrals). 

It took the Saxons a long time to get as far as Glastonbury in 658 - and by that time, the Saxons were already Christian. Therefore at Glastonbury there was an amicable transition-fusion of the residual Celtic Christianity of the Ancient Britons and the newly-converted Anglo-Saxons, which (in the South) was more Rome-influenced via St Augustine. 

At the same time, Celtic Christianity had been converting the northern Anglo-Saxons, coming from Ireland, via Iona, reaching England from St Aidan at Lindisfarne - the Holy Island off the coast of Northumbria.  

By the middle 600s the dividing line between Celtic and Roman Christianity was within Northumbria - with St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne in the northern part and St Bede of Monkwearmouth (who became Cuthbert's biographer) about 50 miles to the South. Relations were mostly amicable. 

But gradually the Romans imposed their system (and their more astronomically accurate calculation of Easter - accomplished by Bede) on the whole nation starting from the Synod of Whitby in 1664. Cuthbert became bishop of Hexham further South in Northumbria, where the Abbey was at that time the largest stone building west of the Alps, and a centre of Roman Christianity. 

My point is that the deep history of Christianity in England is very deep. While at the same time, the leftism that has proved to be Christianity's most successful foe (and Satan's most useful and strategic stalking horse) also substantially had its roots in England. 

England has therefore been one of the leaders of Christian apostasy - and the faith is by now very weak both numerically and in terns of strength of conviction (2020 revealing the situation as even worse than almost anyone would have expected, when some of the most apparently devout Christians were revealed to be more profoundly leftist than Christian.   

In sum - England has been a place of major contention in the escalating spiritual war of these End Times. Although it would superficially seem that the battle of Christians has long since been lost - the roots go very deep; and the continued special attention paid by the Satanic forces to England suggests that things are not yet done-and-dusted, not yet over-and-done-with. 

'They' clearly perceive a potential threat from England to Their evil plans.  

England still has a part to play in the End Times - if we Christians so choose, one way or the other. And, although events are desperate here-and-now for the followers of Jesus - they are not quite so bad as they were this time last year. 

Which I find surprising and encouraging. 

I have no general theories about how men and women *ought* to relate here-and-now, in the world of 2021

Unlike many Christian bloggers, I have little to say about how men and women ought to relate - here and now, in 2021, in these End Times... Or more exactly, I have almost nothing positive and advisory to say which is also generalizable. 

I feel rather like saying that the only valid generalizations are so gross as to be unhelpful in individual instances and daily life - and therefore may do considerable harm to your actual chance of having a good marriage - which is the point of it all. 

Valid and generalizable principles also tend to be negative (prohibitive) and too crude to be of value in the actual business of having and growing a permanent loving relationship. For example - 'do not commit adultery' is valid and generalizable, but is obvious. It is a bit like the prohibition on murder - well yes, of course; but not-murdering people does not get you very far in actually living life. 

The important daily realities are so much subtler and more numerous as to be impossible to list. This impossibility actually means the positive requirements are not truly categorical or law-like, but are instead the multiple and unbounded consequences of positive love. 

In sum - I think the vital matter of relationships between men and women comes under the spiritual context of this era; which is that the traditional and external forms of guidance have both lost their capacity to motivate people strongly enough to resist the prevalent evil influences of these times. And also that the external forms of general guidance are themselves corrupted by these times, and are therefore likely to be significantly wrong in significant ways. 

In a negative sense; I would say that all general behavioural and psychological advice is highly likely to do more harm than good in these times - because it will almost certainly (in order to be general) be based upon secular assumptions. 

But even when a generalization is based upon Christian assumptions then it will be derived from an attitude to guidance that is external and objectivizing - which I regard as a hazardous way to proceed in current situations. 

Thus, for example, generalizations derived from the Bible fall under the problem with all forms of scriptural guidance. We can no longer read scripture objectively and spontaneously (although this was possible in the past - in some times and places). 

This is clear from the fact that those churches and individuals who claim to be working-from objective readings of scripture have shown themselves - again and again but especially in 2020 - inadequate to resist the evil encouragements of bureaucracy and the media. Their motivations are either unclear, corrupt or simply too weak. 

Bible based churches are full of people (including pastors) who have thrown aside scripture when it was expedient in their own sexual lives - or simply to join with the prevalent social imperatives of 'affirming' and privileging all forms of sexual activity outside marriage, and the sexual mutilation and hormonal poisoning of children. The same people threw aside scripture when it came to supporting the dictates of the atheist-materialist totalitarian coup of 2020 - the birdemic and peck, climate change, antiracism...

If taking the Bible as an inerrant rule-book cannot prevent these forms of societal sin, it surely cannot prevent sexual sins where the motivations are typically more personal and immediate.   

In sum, a man and woman cannot rely upon scripture to guide and sustain their relationship. But neither can real Christians rely upon the lead of the church - whether that lead be based on traditional, theology or church authority. 

In the first place, it is likely that the guidance will not be traditional, theological or authoritative - nor will it even be Christian. 

But even when guidance is Christian and valid, such sources of external control will be jettisoned as convenient by one side of the relationship. And this rejection is unlikely to be socially-sanctioned but more likely be socially-supported. 

Nowadays, everything that is strong must come from the individual; and to be strong enough must be based upon intuitive heart-thinking of the individuals involved. So, in the case of a relationship between man and woman, the strength must come from those two individuals. 

All individual persons are different in an ultimate and deep sense - although these differences are concealed by the failure of coherence and courage; which stem from inadequate personal motivation due to mass atheism and too-feeble Christian faith. 

But once you really know somebody, for example a family member; it is clear that nobody is much like anyone else overall - each of us is truly unique, and from birth. 

No two good marriages are alike either, and partly for the same reasons, but amplified by interaction. Just as the participants is each an unique man and woman, so is the basis of a good relationship and marriage. 

In conclusion; each good marriage is unique - if you really know the participants. 

You can see why I find the apparently large quantity of relationship and marriage advice on the internet to be deeply dismaying. Apart from the fact that most of it comes from covertly evil motivations based upon false and demonic assumptions and desires; even the genuinely well-intentioned and Christian advice makes-up an irritating mixture of clumsy, negativistic, feebly-effectual - and is, in my opinion, more likely to harm than help by the kind of habits and expectations that are induced.  

What is wrong are the assumptions. We live in a demon-dominated society, by far the most evil in history - and indeed these are the End Times. Traditional advice about relationships and marriage that are based on the assumptions of a coherent Christian society where individuals are of a naturally communal type of consciousness; both cannot work and should not be striven for. 

I am sure that a good relationship and marriage must come from within the souls of the man and woman involved. With this, positive generalizations are misleading and destructive, and likely to lead to relationship failure at all stages; but lacking this, all advice is futile. 

Ace of Wands and Children of the Stones - Glamour versus enchantment in 1970s children's television

Ace of Wands was a very glamorous children's TV program from the early 1970s - a fantasy themed series with a leading character named Tarot: a stage conjurer whose powers were real and who solved crimes and thwarted magical villains. 

It also has one of the best ever title themes - very characteristic of the early 70s (which was an extension of the late 60s):

Here is the song in full:

Ace of Wands was a deliberately trendy and cool kids programme, and left this mark. For me, the lasting impact was a desire (unfulfilled) to live in a house that had a balcony bedroom overlooking the main room, and also to have a pet owl:

So Ace of Wands was all about glamour, about image, fashion, style... It evoked day dreams of a wish-fulfillment kind. 

By contrast, The Children of the Stones was genuine enchantment. Set in a fictional Avebury, it was a Very Scary tale of ancient magic persisting in the modern world, and the battle of good and evil played out in miniature. It has a script, strong story, excellent actors, powerful visuals - and utterly compelling music. It combined references to the new science of black holes and geophysics in archaeology, and the new alternative sciences of ley lines and earth mysteries. 

Its lasting effect was to do with the idea of there being more than meets the eye to life - more than materialism; that spiritual factors, ancient powers and perils are under the surface and affecting the whole.

By 1976 - when Children of the Stones was made - the national mood had changed away from the 60s hippies to include many example of what has been termed Weird Albion or Folk Horror. This was also related to a strong interest in self-sufficiency, rural life; folk music and dance; neo-paganism and folklore. 

How about this introduction to grab attention and create an instant atmosphere of menace? Especially when aimed at young children just before tea time? Little wonder everybody remembers it.

 

The story is foreseen and summarized by a strange painting which was stumbled-across by the boy protagonist, just before he and his father went to the fictional Avebury to do some scientific research on the megaliths. Again - once seen, never forgotten:

Both Ace of Wands and Children of the Stones were good children's TV, both memorable, and both were lastingly influential in the memory. But the one from an ultimately superficial and delusory glamour - while the other was a bit of genuine enchantment - which yet may prove to be deep and permanent.