The peck is a spiritual issue (ultimately and primarily) - because by Not imposing it universally, consent to pecking has been made into a spiritually decisive affiliation to evil

Francis Berger has highlighted a crucial negative fact, easily missed: that the peck has not been imposed on everybody in the world.  

Since early 2020 (and under the blanket excuse of the birdemic) there is a global System of totalitarian governance that has shown itself capable of rapidly (by mere diktat) imposing and enforcing international economic closures, house arrest of vast majorities, all manner of blocks to travel and basic human contact... 

Furthermore, it is able to impose ludicrously incoherent and labile 'narratives' that disguise and justify its own activities - by a monolithic control of all mainstream news and social media sources. 

In other words; we can observe here-and-now an orders-of-magnitude greater accumulation and concentration of both physical and psychological power than ever before in the history of the world. 

Therefore, and given that opposition to this centralized and totalitarian power has been rare and feeble, it is quite reliably possible to infer the intentions behind those who wield this power. It is possible, in other words, to infer what the powers are trying to do from what they have done - and in particular from what they have Not done. 

The peck has Not been forcibly imposed. 

The world population has been compelled to do, and not to do, a zillion things since 2020. 

Yet, people have not been forced to take the peck, despite that it certainly seems to be the number one agenda item for the global powers. 

I assume that the peck is physically harmful and the ultimate (top level) motivation behind its introduction and promotion includes the intent to harm billions of people in various possible ways, including death.

Includes this intent - but the intent to harm physically is not the ultimate intent. 

The ultimate intent is spiritual, not physical, harm - in other words the intent of the peck is damnation, not disease or death. 

As Francis Berger has explained lucidly; the peck could have been imposed on everybody in the world, everywhere in the world, but it was not. 

Many, many things have been imposed - but not the peck. 

The powers clearly desperately want all the masses to agree to take the peck. 

Propaganda to this effect is extreme, pervasive, unscrupulous, grossly dishonest, and relentless. 

Vast and elaborate systems of incentives have been put into place - so that people are rewarded for asking to be pecked; while those who refuse the peck have been punished with multiple and severe sanctions. 

Yet, the peck has not been imposed. 

From this can be inferred that it is of vital importance to the powers that each person (as many as possible) makes a personal choice to take the peck. 

Even the propaganda has been tailored in a personal way. It has been made a cause for celebration, an act of personal and moral development, of altruism and social solidarity. It is an officially-validated advertisement of virtue to take the peck. 

Conversely, the peck-refusers are depicted as selfish, dumb, cowardly, psychopathic - evil. 

All this makes clear (to spiritual discernment) that the peck is ultimately, but decisively, a spiritual choice - which in official materialist discourse translates as a choice of values. 

The peck is presented officially as a spiritual choice, and it is seen as a spiritual choice by many serious Christian - indeed, by serious Christians of all denominations. 

Therefor the choice about the peck is a choice of value-systems - which, for Christians, means a proxy for the choice between the two sides of God and Satan the spiritual war. 

The dispute is  about the nature of the two sides pro- and anti-peck. Which side is Good and which is evil? 

The peck is a product of The System, and is being advocated and implemented by essentially-all major institutions, corporations, governments and media - everywhere in the world with unprecedented sustained aggression. 

Therefore, one side in this spiritual war of values is clearly the side of The System. 

Therefore, our choice about the peck is necessarily a decision either for, or against, The System; because compliance with the peck is a choice in favour of System values and goals. 

Agreeing to the peck is a spiritual act of affiliation to The System, its values and spiritual intent. 

Therefore, every Christian in the world needs to decide for himself whether The System is Good or evil; in service to God or Satan.

Every Christian needs to decide whether The System is motivated towards our salvation or damnation; our help or our harm.

Such choices always are personal, never can be compelled. 

The System could have removed the peck from the arena of choice and forced it upon the world. But then it would not have been a spiritual choice. 

Instead The System decided to leave the peck unenforced,  exactly so that our choice of yes becomes a spiritual choice, a decision of affiliation to The System.

Because when The System is ultimately demonic; then to choose system values is also to choose our own damnation.    

Note: It is, of course, possible for a Christian to repent any sin - any choice of affiliation to the side of evil - and thus attain salvation. But repentance has to be chosen -and that requires acknowledgement of having-sinned. 

Evil must, like a vampire, be invited-in. The greater the degree of choice, the less the degree of compulsion - the less likely is repentance. 

The peck strategy tries to present itself as-if mandatory, to provide an untrue excuse for peck-choosers; while ensuring that in reality consent has been chosen. 

The peck-complier may say that he 'had to' take the peck, that he had 'no choice'; which rationalization conceals his own decisive act of consent, his own sin. 

This insidious combination makes repentance less likely. 

Divine revelation includes 'built in' knowledge (innate, initially unconscious)

Because God is our creator and Heavenly Father - he has placed us in this mortal life on earth with a good deal of inborn knowledge. 

This knowledge - essential for our spiritual survival and salvation - is built-in. 

In other words, a vital part of divine revelation - indeed the foundation of all divine revelation - is innate; and because we begin as babies, this knowledge is initially unconscious. 

Therefore, Men have a natural set of assumptions - and these (for many human generations) formed the universal and inevitable basis of any chosen assumptions. 

This situation was universal and inevitable, because unconscious.  

As we grow older, some of this built-in revelation becomes conscious. 

But there have been times in past ages where, it seems, not much of inbuilt revelation became conscious - the further back, the less conscious (it seems) Men were of this innate basis. 

Much of divine revelation was therefore accepted passively, without any awareness; and therefore such knowledge was also built-into all the spiritualties and religions of the world, and it was the common property of all Men of ancient times. 

(This is what CS Lewis called the tao, in his lecture series The Abolition of Man )

This innate, natural revelation was also a fundamental part of all traditional (pre-modern) forms of Christianity.

Other forms of revelation such as The Bible and the inner guidance of the Holy Ghost were built-upon this built-in revelation. 

Thus, for instance, Scripture does not explicitly contain all that we need to know - because The Bible takes-for-granted a great deal of the common inheritance of all Men of 2000 years ago. 

Scripture requires assumptions - but the necessary assumptions used to be very common, were unconscious; probably universal. 

Therefore; Christian revelation (pretty much) 'just' adds-to (but in doing so, sometimes supersedes) the traditional revelations of the religions of the Ancient Hebrews, Greeks and and Romans. 

(In different words: Christian Law is built-on Natural Law.)

It is sometimes said, for instance, that the Virtues are essentially common to all religions; except for Faith, Hope and Charity - which are the new and distinctively Christian virtues. 

My point is that without our already built-in divine revelation; Christianity becomes not just arbitrary - but almost incomprehensible. Christianity becomes a house without foundations - which is exactly how mainstream modern Men regard it. 

What has happened through the modern era is that Men have become increasingly conscious of innate revelations. These have come to general awareness and thus have ceased to be unconscious, spontaneous and natural. 

The process of becoming conscious of our innate revelations was, of itself, an advance in human consciousness - it made us more grown-up in our divinity, and more free. 

What God intended and hoped-for was that - having become aware of the nature of our built-in divine revelation - we would then consciously choose (from our new freedom to do so) to live in accordance with this foundational basis of all values. 

But what instead happened was extremely different; and in accordance with Satanic and demonic intentions - rather than divine. 

Modern Man became aware of one after another of the inbuilt revelations; but on observing that they were primary and not derived from this world; re-interpreted revelations as arbitrary and unjust prejudices. 

And this has led to the rejection of more and more of innate divine revelation - its relabeling as unjust prejudice - and the attempted eradication of that which is built-into Men. 

Instead there is the (stunningly successful) demonic project of the New Assumptions - which are intended to replace (now, supposedly discredited) built-in divine revelation. 

Consider 'traditional' sexual knowledge, attitudes, values and morality. Over the past c250 years these have emerged into more and more general human consciousness. Men have become increasingly aware that they are assumptions - and in becoming aware have inevitably needed to make the choice of whether to accept them, or not. 

Modern Men have become conscious of many details of their own sexual assumptions (mainstream modern culture points these out, repeatedly), and that these are innate assumptions - common to almost all Men.

But modern mainstream culture interprets these traditional assumptions as nasty, because they can be argued to lead to bad consequences. 

In particular, traditional assumptions about sex/ sexuality often lead to reduced possibilities of short-term selfish pleasure. This meant that there was a ready audience for any attempt to discredit them - and a willingness to accept almost any rationalization that allowed individuals to think and do things that they wanted, but which went against innate revelation. 

The (demonic) consequence is to regard (in principle) all that is an inbuilt, spontaneous, natural basis for our lives as being 'evil'; and we are in the midst of a vast (global) program to subvert, discredit and ultimately delete our built-in divine revelations. 

The divinely built-in foundations of all knowledge are then - sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly in the process of being replaced by a new, modern, Leftist system of values that has zero foundation and no natural or spontaneous basis - indeed, quite the opposite! 

The New Assumptions' unnaturalness and conflict with 'common sense' and common decency and whatever is universal and innate is regarded as evidence of their superiority!  

The New Assumptions must therefore be imposed top-down by propaganda and coercion - as we see all around us.    

The above analysis explains why we cannot 'reset' culture to the traditional assumptions based upon built-in divine revelations; because these are now conscious. 

Because they are conscious, and because our consciousness shows them to be assumptions; the built-in knowledge with which God provided us must be chosen. 

Never again can we live in spontaneous unconscious accord with innate divine revelations; never again can we regard the natural as necessary. 

Instead, the path out from our current demonic system of imposed anti-divine assumptions is for us consciously to choose to base our lives, and our religion, on the inbuilt assumptions of divine revelation. 

Christianity cannot be strong without foundations; and the foundations have been destroyed and replaced with evil, anti-divine, demonic assumptions. 

It is our task (the task of each person reading this, for himself or herself) to rebuild the foundations provided by built-in divinely-revealed knowledge; through understanding what has happened, and then choosing to have God's revelations as our foundations. 

And only on such a solid base - which we our-selves must participate in constructing - can future Christian Faith, Hope and Charity be built. 

Only on such a base can Scriptural revelation again be effective, and the guidance of the Holy Ghost be known for what it is. 

The choice is all or nothing - no nuance is possible

It is understandable but grossly mistaken to want to take a reforming, rather than rejecting, view when it comes to the dominant evil ideologies of our world - such as the litmus test issues. After all, these are all cunning misrepresentations such that 'good intentions', bits of truth, are woven into the Big Lies. 

The usual idea is to keep the good and reject the extremism of evil; 'not to throw the baby out with the bathwater'. 

But this will not do - not when an evil lie has been elaborated and permeated the entirety of social institutions. 

If we are not to be destroyed spiritually and physically, by the birdemic, antiracism, climate change and the sexual revolution (for instance) then hey must be denied and extirpated from our hearts. 

There can be no moderation in this, because these are evil by intent, and used to justify and implement evil on an unprecedented scale and degree - I mean the top-down and global evil that reaches the extreme of actual inversion of values: inversion of truth, beauty and virtue. 

These must explicitly be repented and eradicated. 

And the same applies to the social institutions that have become corrupted and inverted - to the institutions of science, law, religion, medicine, the arts, the police and military etc. These institutions are beyond reform, and are weaponized for evil - therefore the is simply no alternative to their removal and substitution as a definite goal.

I do not for a moment suppose that this will happen! But if it does not, then even when these systemic evils are rolled-back; they will simply regrow - and very rapidly too. Each evil sustains and rationalizes  the others - so that and restraint or reform will simply be bypassed. 

The world is an a much worse situation than is recognized, even by Christians. Minuscule triumphs are seen as harbingers of victory - yet again and again they turn out to be utterly insignificant - like Brexit or Trump, or the current feeble stirrings of resistance to the birdemic-peck agenda, and tiny retreats. 

Of course, I am pleased to see any resistance, and pleased with any easing of the totalitarian iron prison - but it is ridiculous to imagine that these are anything but temporary and localized blips in the unrolling global agenda of evil - unless there is a much greater, more decisive, and more complete clarity of understanding coming around the corner. 

   

Satan's scheme

Maybe the goal is to convince all people that they are things. 

(Once that's done, the work of damnation has been achieved - and the rest is just Satan having fun.)

To do this by making the world on that treats all-of-reality as things - only things are really-real.

And to make all things inter-convertible (e.g. by money and bureaucracy). 

Then to make all the inter-convertible things into 'equal' units.

Then to do whatever-is-fun with the things - including exploiting, tormenting or eliminating them...

Because - Hey! - it doesn't really matter, does it? 

Because they admit they are just things; and things don't mind. 

(How could they mind? They are just things, after all!).

And there's always plenty more (equal) things, where those came from.  

"Training the mind" - double-edged effect at best, and preventive of Final Participation

The Romantic will always come-up against the fact that for most of the time he is mundane. Of course, life and (especially) surrounding people are often a real drag upon any aspirations to Higher Consciousness. 

After all, our world is built upon assumptions of anti-God, anti-spirit materialism - and when we are engaged with the world, our minds are entrained to this pervasive mundanity. 

Yet, even with as near a perfect 'environment' as this mortal world offers; the Higher Consciousness of intuition/ heart-thinking- mysticism that is desired sought by Romanticism; is always an intermittent state - and often disappointingly infrequent.

Indeed, some Romantics have ended-up being more distressed by the evanescence of Higher Consciousness, than encouraged by the occurrence of such states. 

Especially; if one is aiming at Final Participation as the goal of consciousness - the destined and necessary stage in human evolutionary development - then there are neither methods nor training to achieve it. 

It is tempting, indeed usual, for serious Romantics to try and escape this - apparently - unsatisfactory situation of endemic failure, by some or another method of 'training the mind'. 

This is what lies behind the grades of initiation beloved by some esoteric societies, the prolonged and daily practice of meditation; and external aids such as ritual, script, music, architecture.  

There seems little doubt that these are at least somewhat effective in training the mind; the question is: what is the effect of such training? 

My distinct impression is that all methods of training the mind that are aimed at Higher Consciousness will fail. 

Either they will just 'not work', will fail to achieve anything sufficiently powerful and lasting to make a significant different to the problem of mortal life; or else (more insidiously) they will succeed in imposing a System upon thinking. 

And this System will either become unconscious and habitual, thereby subjecting thinking to uncontrolled lower consciousness (while terming this state 'higher'). This would apply to Jungian-derived methods; based on lucid dreamlike trances; and also to meditation practices that aims to eradicate 'the self' or 'ego' or discard 'thinking' itself. 

Or else, it will subject thinking to the conscious will, yet this conscious will is merely ordinary mundane consciousness - and subject to the external influences of mundane consciousness. This would apply to the types of meditation that focus on training concentration, imagination and 'visualization' - such as those of ritual magic societies and Steiner's Anthroposophical 'exercises'. 

The apparent 'success' of training may generate increased gratification in life (make people 'feel better' in some way) - but do not achieve the objective of Final Participation.

Both the System and the training in 'concentration' may be effective in producing change - but they are not effective in encouraging Final Participation. And, in failing, they lead to that contamination of genuine insight and achievement with confident error and vast delusion which has been so characteristic of those who aim at Higher Consciousness. 

The limitation is a consequence of Final Participation being a participation in divine creation; which can (for obvious reasons) only happen when a Man is fully aligned with divine purposes of creation. 

This alignment with God happens seldom and briefly, is easily blocked or reversed; which limits the frequency of this state of consciousness. 

But when a Man is fully aligned with God's creation - what a man is following his destiny and that of providence; then Final Participation will happen - spontaneously, without effort or intent. 

Our main job is to recognize when this is-happening and recall when it has-happened. 

And for the Romantic Christian these are the key moments of our mortal life - vital life lessons from which we ought to learn. 

So; these Final Participation experiences will not happen often, and we cannot 'make' them happen by training.

Attempts at training and beliefs that training is efficacious are, indeed, counter-productive. 

But we can notice Final Participation states, value them, learn from them.

No such thing as "chaotic good" - those who oppose The System yet are Not for-God, are therefore on the side of evil

This is the end of an era for many more reasons than are usually comprehended. It has become a standard view that 2020 marked an inflexion point: things have changed, permanently. 

Almost everybody who has thought about it agrees on that - but there is a near-total divergence as to whether this social transformation is a good thing, or a bad thing. 

Ultimately, this is a spiritual war between those whose affiliation is to God/ divine creation/ The Good; and those who oppose God/ creation/ Good. 

Everybody has taken a side and there are no other sides. 

For-God or anti-God is the fundamental division; and for-the-System versus for-God is another way of describing the mainstream conflict. 

But... What about those who are against-the-System - who hate surveillance, control, bureaucracy, censorship etc... But who are not on the side of God and divine creation?

Does an 'agnostic', or 'anarchistic' position of being simultaneously anti The-System but Not For-God really exist? 

Well, yes such a position does exist. It is the Sorathic evil position; when evil has become its own end, has discarded plans and schemes, and become short-termist and self-centred; destructive rather than constructive; seeking as-soon-as-possible dissolution of all that is created. 

So 'universal opposition' is a type of evil. 

Because there is no way of being against both God and The System - and yet being Good. 

Because Good just-is the creative agenda of God, our Heavenly Father - that is the source and origin of Good, without which there is no Good.

Because, to be against both The System and also God is to be pro-chaos; and chaos = anti-creation. Divine creation was divinely imposed-upon pre-existent chaos, by the 'organization' of what was chaotic: thus chaos is the opposite of divine creation. 

Beyond The System (which is only partly evil, and serves as a temporary means to a proximate and partially evil end); the ultimate goal of Satan is negative and destructive; it is to to reduce all of God's creation to a state of meaningless, purposeless chaos - ultimately including the devil himself.  

In terms of the alignment system of Dungeons and Dragons ; in reality there is no such thing as chaotic good - because chaos just-is ultimate evil. 

Post-mortal life - What would suffice?

For me, this mortal life does not suffice. But what would?

Not reincarnation - because if one mortal life is not enough; then why should several suffice?

Not an endless continuation of this mortal life - because if this mortal life does not suffice, then why should its perpetuation?

...Even in paradise; because although 'the world' is a problem solved by eternal paradise, and so is mortality, the problem of myself remains. Me, even in paradise, would soon be hell. 

But if what survives into post-mortal life is not me, then it is a substitution for me - so this is just a kind of death 

(I myself would die, and be replaced by... someone/ some-thing else). 

(This also applies to 'transhumanism' - if my humanity could transcended technologically, then it would not be me - I would not be there to 'enjoy' it.) 

So... if post-mortal life is just me, perpetuated it would not suffice; yet if it is not me - then it amounts to death (which does not suffice).

Therefore; to suffice, what survives post-mortally needs to be a transformed continuation of me. For example, resurrection.

(Thus a partial definition of Heaven = a transformed continuation of me, living in paradise, among transformed continuations of other Men.)

The weight of tradition - our task

These extraordinary times are made the more so by the stunning inability to see what is plain. We are living through the end of a great tradition and long history of Western Civilization; rooted in Greek and Rome, and, for some 1700 years, the Christian church - in its various forms. 

Insofar as this reality is known at all; it is experienced as a weight; and that weight can be felt either as an astonishing (but intimidating!) litany of unsurpassed achievements in human endeavor - or as, just, an oppression. 

On the one hand, such a long and astonishing tradition is stunningly impressive; yet on the other hand it has been overcome. 

Has been... This overcoming of Western Christian Civilization has already happened, and we stand at a point when the implications are being worked-out. Our world has moved from a long phase of collapsing, into its current phase of active destruction. 

Western civilization has-been overcome; yet the ideology that overcame it, which hates that heritage (of Classicism, but even more so of Christianity) does not acknowledge this fact - and indeed, with the right hand, presents itself as both steward and patron of exactly that civilization which, with its left hand, it is destroying as fast as possible.  

If there is a dominant ideological mode by 2022; that mode is untruthfulness, dishonesty, misrepresentation, lies - our world is built from lies, and by lies. 

The spirit of negation has triumphed over the spirit of creation; and (such is this mortal life) negation has the purer and clearer motivation, feels itself the more justified. 

The long history of Western civilization has greatness of creative achievement; and also greatness of horror - its motives always mixed, its triumphs always disputed. (Such is mortal life.)

But the spirit of negation which has, as a matter of fact, brought-down Western civilization, operates from a baseline assumption of absolute purity and coherence of motive; it demands nothing less than absolute perfection - and when it fails to find this, it destroys. 

Such is the ideology of negation - it is able to be and demand purity and perfection exactly because its sanction is destruction. 

The world has changed sides; everybody with power, status, influence is (more-or-less so, but always) of the party of negation*; hence (most of the time) nobody is questioning where this is going, what the destruction is supposed to achieve. 

Recent attempts to describe the goal of the party of destruction - the nature of the world being-aimed-at - are risible, and largely ignored. Nobody asks the ultimate purpose, everybody is engaged in the proximate work of 'clearing the ground' under the (vague) assumption that something not just better but perfect will spontaneously grow to occupy the ruins of The West; will (presumably) grow from the pure seeds of motivation possessed by the destroyers...  

When such 'where?' questions are being-asked; the right hand briefly brings-forward and points-at some goal of the Old West - like science, education, art - and the powers of negation briefly masquerade as steward and patron, guardian and sustainers of all that is good. 

They have, after all, long since taken-over all institutions (bureaucracies, corporations, organizations), all the social functions. Whatever remains of the long tradition of Western Christian Civilization is in their 'care'...

Yet as soon as the discourse moves-on, the directionless work of destruction recommences.

The world now stands-within this ideology of negation. 

Looking outwards from it at the collapsing ruins of tradition; it sees nothing but oppression, hypocrisy, failure. Against such a litany of injustice and disaster, their task is obvious - the necessity of destruction is clear. 

And no matter how much has been destroyed, there is (so far) always more yet to do; the spirits of negation feel that little or no progress has been made, since so much of Western Civilization, of tradition, still stands.

Hence the raging impatience, the urgency that characterizes those on the side of negation!  

So this is the shape of our times. A defeated civilization, the achieved triumph of negation, the zeal of destruction. 

Our choice would seem to be a broken tradition versus nihilism. 

But neither will do. The one is terminally ill and living in a hospice administered by those who would murder it; the other, the mass majority, are destroyers - fuelled by a morality of opposition and inversion. 

Against such a world, each of us can bring the alliance of our-selves with God. 

We can oppose both senility of civilization and the nihilism of negation by taking the side of divine creation, and a providence that works from individual souls rather than from the crumbling sweep of history or the accumulations of negative, oppositional, destructive power.

This can happen only if the base of activity is withdrawn from the arena, and if the mode of operation is lifted above the material. 

Its 'effectiveness', as a life-strategy, depends on our capacity to align with the divine, which depends on our motivation to do so. 

Success (or failure) we must discern and evaluate for our-selves - mindful that this-world is on the one hand 'only' the means to an end; yet on the other hand, so long as we personally remain alive, we have something of potentially eternal value to achieve. 

Since God is the creator - maker of this world, and our loving Father; we need not seek for this personal task:

Life will bring our work to-us. 

Our job (yours, mine) is 'merely' to recognize that task; then to choose well.

*Note - 'The party of negation' is more commonly known as Leftism - but it must be understood that as of 2022 all parties are Leftist; including not just all socialist, liberal, progressive parties, but all centre, moderate, right-wing, libertarian and officially-religious (including 'Christian' church) parties. This because Leftism is rooted in the anti-spiritual/ anti-Christian metaphysics of materialism/ positivism/ scientism and reductionism - which assumptions pervade and dominate the entirety of public discourse. 

Atheism, taken seriously and/or under external evil pressure, makes people become worse

This is adapted from a comment I wrote at William Wildblood's blog in answer to his question - Are Atheists Bad People? 

From my perspective, of having been atheist most of my life; the badness was in what I wanted rather than what I did (and in many ways, most people would probably regard me as more good - certainly more likeable and friendly - when I was an atheist than after). 

But in retrospect what I wanted was the problem, and I was often trying to overcome my 'natural' and spontaneous ('pagan') goodness so as to be able to be more expedient, experience more pleasure, cease to feel guilty or inhibited about things that I didn't want to do or think - stuff like that. 

I was/am since childhood naturally rather puritanical and easily shocked, and this got in the way of fun. So from early adulthood I was pushing against this; trying to persuade myself that life would me more enjoyable if I was more relaxed about things that felt wrong; trying to desensitize myself against that which shocked me. 

Also, in a 'cosmic' sense, I tended to assume that there was a purpose to life, that something survived death, that truth was real and important. But my atheist metaphysical assumptions told me that there was no purpose to life and I should forget about everything except This Life - and being truthful was an obstacle to this. 

The fact that I just couldn't convince myself that truth was unreal was maybe the factor that broke my atheism - as I observed the whole of science becoming untruthful and corrupting all around me. 

In sum; I think that is the worst thing about atheism from the perspective of people 'being good' is that taken seriously it tends to encourage people to get worse, and not to be worried about this. 

And if atheism is not taken seriously, not thought-about (as is more common) - it makes people cowardly and compliant to external influences because Why Not? - as we see all around us today. 

The de-facto-atheist world (The Global System) now is worse than ever before in recorded history in terms of what it wants; because what the world regards as good and evil are already-and-increasingly inverted; so that we actively seek evil but call it Good. 

Bach, Gould - the A-flat major prelude from Well-Tempered Clavier Volume 1

Bach's Preludes and Fugues from the Well-Tempered (i.e. equally-divided-octave tuning) Clavier (keyboard instrument) comprise two volumes (each of 24 pieces) of a prelude and a fugue in each of the twelve major and minor keys. 

The first volume of WTC is generally fresher, more varied in style and substance, and more spontaneously-fluent than the second - and I prefer it. 

The above prelude is an example of why I love WTC Volume 1. It is a short, simple, two-part 'invention'; making considerable use of 'perpetual motion' semi-quavers in the bass, to drive a melodic line that transcends its typically baroque-era use of sequences to combine (or alternate) joy and yearning-pathos in a deliciously bittersweet fashion. 

It also represents very lucidly what is special about Glenn Gould, because this two-part texture lets the listener hear everything that is going-on; in terms of the crisply-detached separation yet subtle phrasing of each individual note - even the decorative flourishes; and the over-arching shape and mood that Gould creates. 

In other hands, this tiny piece can seem merely pleasant - even trite; but Gould's musical concentration and insight raises it to a level that has given me repeated happiness for the past 44 years, and counting. 

Paradise is Hell... in experience, in practice

A religion might offer some version of Paradise to its faithful adherents, it might give them exactly the experience they have asked for - and yet this may also be a demonic bargain. 

If paradise is considered as an experience (that is, a 'subjective' experience) then there is the fact that getting 'what you asked' for can in practice be an appalling outcome - as can be seen from the sexual revolution over the past 60 years. 

Western people (in one country after another) asked-for and were given no-fault divorce, unlimited promiscuity, same sex and any perverted 'sexuality', the recognition of changed sex... Asked that these be not only tolerated but praised and rewarded... 

And now these people have exactly what they asked for. They have been given Paradise. 

But do people like what they have been given? Has Paradise made them happy? Seemingly not. 

Yet will they admit their error and give it up? Seemingly not. 

To refuse to give-up that which makes you miserable, is to be addicted to sin. 

And that is Hell, in microcosm. 

I suspect almost any "Paradise" would have exactly this Hellish quality, in practice. Yet people are, after all, being-given what they have asked for... It is 'just' that when they get what they have asked-for, actually have the experience they wanted; they find it is not what they expected.  

And people are even given the chance to repent and be saved from their self-chosen Hell... Yet they choose not to acknowledge their error, their sin... (This refusal is sometimes called Pride.)

Instead, they assume they are miserable because they do not have enough of what they asked for; they just want more of what they want. 

This can be seen all around, as a matter of daily observation; and it is more than an analogy of what induces Men to choose Hell rather than Heaven, and to keep making that choice. It is the actual mechanism of self-damnation.

And it explains why any religion that offers Paradise without the self-transformation, purification by love, and divination of Resurrection; is offering a kind of Hell - even-though/ exactly-because it delivers on its promises. 

It is indeed by delivering on the promise of Paradise-experience for un-resurrected Man that Hell is made. 

Who would choose reincarnation in preference to Heaven?

I am not sure how many people in the modern world really believe in reincarnation; because so much reincarnation talk seems to operate at a superficial and 'lifestyle' level... Something to chat-about and speculate-on - or a stick with-which to beat mainstream Christians. 

But presumably some people at least have reincarnation as a deeply-motivating kind of belief, that might sustain courage in the face of adversity? 

But I must admit that I find it hard to imagine why a Christian who believed in Heaven (at least, who believed in heaven as I understand it to be) could want to be reincarnated after their biological-death,  instead of being resurrected.   

To my way of thinking, reincarnation is a natural and spontaneous way of thinking in childhood and during human history - and therefore I suppose it to be true: I suppose that Men (or at least some Men) were reincarnated after death, through much of human history. Reincarnation is therefore true, or a real possibility - or, at least, it was. 

Although I also note that beyond the mere fact of reincarnation there are many and very different 'schemes' of reincarnation. Perhaps there were different reincarnations in different types of human society? I tend to think this is likely.  

But what I do find difficult to understand about reincarnation for a modern Man (although here I will make an attempt to understand it) is why someone who knew of the reality of Heaven and the possibility of his own resurrection - and who also desired resurrection into Heaven... 

...Why such a Christian would instead want to defer resurrection, and be reincarnated, and live another life in this world (in which this current life would not be remembered)? 

When Heaven is both within one's grasp, and is wanted as an ultimate destination (and a situation in which the real business of living can begin, full-time) - it seems like a strange choice to defer entry. 

I know-of, and greatly esteem (overall), several real Christians who also believe-in reincarnation, and apparently want to be reincarnated - who believe in reincarnation as both true and good: examples include Rudolf Steiner, Owen Barfield, and William Arkle - who are among my spiritual mentors.

This is find it hard to understand - because at best it seems like merely delaying - putting-off an achievable perfect outcome available Now - in order to engage in yet-more preparatory stuff. 

But at worst it risks that my next incarnation might choose damnation and reject Heaven altogether - which would be the ultimate disaster. 

However it may have been in the past; the hope of reincarnation nowadays strikes me as akin to kicking-the-can; as if just wanting to delay and defer the unavoidable and final decision.

And that strikes me as rather uncomfortably close to that delayed repentance, that refusal to repent Now; which is actually just a disguised refusal to repent. 

The plea of Augustine of Hippo "Lord, make me chaste - but not yet" has often been misunderstood as a viable life-option for Christians. Of course, it merely means that Augustine was not yet a Christian when he said that (and meant it). 

Analogously, when thought-through to its implications; for a modern Christian to desire reincarnation after death seems close to asking God for "Salvation - but not yet!" - which may well be functionally identical with rejecting salvation. 

Note: It may be that some Christians regard reincarnation as something that just happens, that God 'does to us' (for our own good) whether we want and choose it, or not. Something that we need in order eventually to be allowed into Heaven and to assume the place God desires for us. If so, then this would surely be a cause for sadness and an attitude of resignation to God's will? Yet, many of those who argue for reincarnation clearly do not see it as a sad thing thus to be compelled to delay our admission to Heaven - on the contrary, they apparently have a positive and enthusiastic interest in the subject. This seems to me to display an implicit positive preference for reincarnation as their personal destination post-mortem - which I what I am criticizing here. 

Heaven - bliss or creating?

Some (many?) people seem to want Heaven to be a place of bliss, in which all is euphoric; and there is nothing unpleasant, nothing 'dysphoric'. 

A place and state in which all the possible modes of being are absolutely happy; and unhappiness is impossible.

But I regard Heaven as essentially a place of eternal commitment to love, in which our 'work' is to participate with God in creating. 

To be motivated to love and create seems to entail that we must be able to suffer considerably less-than-blissful states of being; we must Not be continually euphoric but must also experience (in some sense, albeit not exactly the same as in mortal life) the unpleasant, the unhappy; else we would not be motivated to create. 

Even love (the pre-requisite of Heaven) is something that is dynamic, happens through-time, moves through modes of being including the less-than-blissful. Heaven is like an ideal family; and even the best family at its best necessarily contains many emotions of sub-optimal happiness.

This is obvious and necessary, in that if happiness is optimized; then creation cannot be optimal - and vice versa. If we really do regard Heaven as the place where we work with God, with Jesus Christ, in the eternal and joyous task of creation - then we would not want to be blissfully happy at all times. 

I am not saying that in Heaven the nature of suffering is the same as earth, because that is not true. Much of our earthly suffering is due to sins such as fear, despair, resentment, guilt and so forth. These are absent from Heaven. 

Yet Heaven will include the good, divine passions, and the passions may make us sorrow and weep; even as Jesus sorrowed and wept - but in a context of absolute faith, hope and love. 

We should learn from earthly mortal life that times of the highest creation - whether that be the raising of young children, or works of art; or crafts, building, making... 

These states are not characterized but continuous unremitting bliss - even though they yield the deepest and most lasting satisfactions. 

In other words; the common idea of Heaven as nothing-but-bliss-forever... is something that needs to be set-aside and superseded if we are really to want what Jesus Christ is actually offering. 

As of 2022 - group destiny and 'the side of history' can only be evil

A great deal of the appeal of Old Left Socialism/ Communism/ Marxism in the early 20th century, was the idea that to become a part of it was to be "on the side of history". 

The 1960s New Left took-over this idea but applied it to 'identity' and 'lifestyle' rather than economics; in that they propagated the principle that to favour the sexual revolution, feminist and antiracist identity politics, 'environmentalism', diversity and suchlike; was to be riding an inevitably-triumphant wave.

To oppose the inevitability of 'history' was (and is, commonly) regarded as not just futile, but also wicked. Even as late as a decade ago, BH Obama used repeatedly and explicitly to assert this - and was apparently believed by many. 

Opposition to the Left agenda has dissolved under this acid of 'historical destiny', said to be driving the Left agenda. 

In more general terms, there is a long tradition of ideas that destiny-for-the-good operates at a group level. At first this was the tribe (the ancient Hebrews of the Old Testament, for instance), later the nation or empire. 

Such group destinies can be seem as having more recently been extrapolated to an idealization of the 'global' perspective' and 'humanity' about-which we hear so much from the mainstream officialdom and media. 

In 2022; to be less than global and universal is regarded - among the ruling Establishment - as atavistic, morally-limited, dangerously partial, reactionary - and futile.  

In the past, when Man's consciousness was not individualized as it is now but Men were (more or less) spontaneously immersed in a group identity; the idea of group identity was natural, not avoidable - and therefore right and proper for such times and places. 

But nowadays, I would assert that ideas of group destiny can only lead toward evil. 

This, indeed, is exactly why such ideas have been pushed and propagated so hard by The Left. 

This is a tough lesson for many Christians (and other religions) who have come to regard the group destiny of their church or denomination as necessarily, unavoidably, the 'unit' of divine destiny. 

Yet, ideas of group destiny include (covertly, when not explicitly) the ultimately anti-Christian idea that individual agency, free will - the choice of salvation - ought-be-be overridden and swept-up into the group! 

Ideas of the church's eventual inevitable triumph cannot avoid containing the assumption that Men Will choose this path - and therefore these choices are absolutely predictable, therefore un-free, and therefore coercible. 

I think many Christians are as prone to fantasies about being on the side of history, being a part of an irresistibly powerful rising tide: a tsunami of destiny that crushes all opposition - as are Leftists. 

The fantasy that God will intervene directly, and will overwhelm the world with his infinite majesty and splendour so that Men will recognize He cannot be opposed and will flock to his cause.  

   

My conviction is quite different, and opposed; and indeed I regard such ideas as actively preventing the progression of Men (individual Men) to love and wish for the promises of Christianity. 

I regard the group-history/ destiny idea as a version of the evil wish to abrogate personal responsibility for salvation - and instead to adopt a passive, reactive attitude to live; the desire to reject grown-up consciousness and its individual destiny of freedom and responsibility; and instead to become unconscious again like childhood and the early ages of Man - to return to unconsciousness by immersion in a great and absorbing movement. 

With such ideas; Men seek to predict and pick the eventual 'winning side' in the great conflicts of the world; and obediently to serve the masters of this side. 

In our totalitarian world - it may readily be seen how easy it has been for those with worldly-power to gather-up all fantasies of backing the winning horse - whether secular or religious - into submission to The System. 

This is why I regard Romantic Christianity - based upon the individual and his personal relation to the divine; based upon the absolute requirement for individual understanding and choice - to be the only form of true Christianity; with all group-ish and church-based forms having already-been, or in  process of being, assimilated to the agenda of evil. 

As of 2022, historical inevitability and group-destiny are become integral ideals of the side of evil. If we choose to be on the side of history, that path will lead us to damnation. 

By believing in historical inevitability - we make it so; but only for evil. 

Instead of believing that the individual destiny is encompassed by the group; Christians-now need to believe that the individual sets the agenda-for Good (for God) - and a Good-motivated group is 'merely' an abstraction of many individuals.   

Taking personal responsibility for one's destiny does not - of itself - lead to salvation' but it has become a necessary step towards that goal. 

 

Anglo-Concertina... my new quest

I have just bought myself that gorgeous little thing depicted above - a Stagi M5 Anglo-Concertina. For scale; it is hexagonal and about 7 inches diameter across the points, and expands to about 15 inches when the bellow are opened. 

I have always (since age about 14) wanted a concertina, but instead I played different free-reed squeeze-boxes; the piano accordion because I could borrow one free from school; and later I got a melodeon, because it was similar to the accordion. 

And at the time when I was keenest to get a concertina - there were only available cheap semi-toys, and very expensive hand-made or refurbished antique instruments.  "Intermediate" quality concertinas - such as the one I just bought - either did not exist, or were inaccessible. 

You may think the melodeon experience ought to help me play the anglo-concertina because they are both push-pull instruments, giving a different note in and out - both use the same diatonic (major key) system of tuning of C and G rows (with assorted accidental notes in the third row to enable playing in some other keys). 

And indeed each concertina row of 10 buttons in C or G is the same as the 10 buttons in each row of my melodeon except being arranged with five buttons going up the left side, and down the right side of the concertina - as if the melodeon's right hand buttons had been folded over and cut in half! 

But I am actually rather intimidated by this little box! Because I have such a lot to un-learn - which is always much more difficult than merely learning. I am embarrassingly inept, considering the decades of similar experience. Everything I try to play - even the simplest scales or tunes - goes wrong...

It is already apparent that I will need to go right back to basics, and build a technique from the ground upwards. It's going to be a long-haul, no doubt. 

That is the challenge - my new quest. 

In a time of unprecedented spiritual warfare - maybe spiritual causal hypotheses ought to be first-line and primary?

Maybe the most difficult challenge of living as a Romantic Christian is to bridge the gap between theory and practice. 

As Owen Barfield so often explained; by socialization, training and societal practice we all have deeply-ingrained habits of positivism/ materialism/ scientism/ reductionism (termed Residual Unresolved Positivism - RUP). 

Thus - while in theory I am confident that here-and-now, we live in an era of unprecedented spiritual warfare; where the powers of purposive evil are dominant in the world, and are engaged in a vast plan for corrupting the world to desire evil instead of Good - by the inversion of valuations of evil and Good... 

Nonetheless, the pressure of evil propaganda and practices is continuous and unrelenting and much of the time I fail to live-up-to my best understandings. 

As I say, all this I acknowledge in principle; and in principle I recognize that we should therefore be always alert to the spirit  and be aiming to keep the spiritual at the forefront of thinking and experiencing - yet in when it comes to daily functioning, I mostly fall back into going-along with the mainstream materialism/ positivism of explanations and understandings... 

This means that when something bad happens in my environment, or when I feel bad - all-too-often I spontaneously reach for material-causal explanations; and I strongly tend either to regard the spiritual as a secondary explanation (e.g. when material reasons do not suffice), or else I forget and neglect the spirit altogether.

Yet, surely, in 2022 especially, we ought to be considering spiritual explanations first? - and only when they do not seem to apply or suffice, then moving onto material explanations? 

If I am feeling bad in some way - demotivated, fatigued, in some kind of pain or dysphoric state - should I not immediately - and as a first-line - consider that this may be something like a manifestation of evil from myself, or an evil spiritual attack?

Should I not start my making a spiritual hypothesis for life's problems? 

(I mean, instead of jumping to explain my dysphoria or other problem by thinking first of physical or psychological sickness, or some environmental or political factor - or blaming other-people.)

This mini-insight came to me with an immediate power of intuitive conviction; and so far (when I have remembered to implement it!) I have found it to be astonishingly and rapidly effective in alleviating problems. 

As soon as I think something like - "Could this - now - be a spiritual phenomenon, caused by some spiritual problem?" I have sometimes found an instant clarification of spirit. 

This would fit with my (theoretical) conviction that the single most important thing we can do at present is to understand. 

Because that understanding is not merely theoretical but also effectual.

To understand-truly, is to fight the spiritual war; and sometimes to win it. 

What about the Muggles? The three kinds of people

Bill Ryan (on left) in 1976 as an Outward Bound instructor supervising a five day expedition through the The Cairngorms, Scotland  

(I was behind the camera)

I was browsing the Project Avalon Forum yestereve, looking at some threads concerning (a friend from the late 1970s) Bill Ryan, its founder. 

(Bill was the man who recommended and lent me Robert M Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - which had a big and positive effect through my early adulthood.)

In a thread; Bill discussed the idea that there were three kinds of people on the planet - a small minority of Good-affiliated/ 'awakened' people, a larger minority of those in service to the evil globalist establishment - these being the two sides in the spiritual war. 

And then there is the third group, by far the largest, the majority whom Bill jokingly termed Muggles. 

The perspective from which this three-part division was derived was broadly gnostic-Christian; in that it accorded a primary position to Christ, but in a philosophical framework derived from the dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library. 

This is not my own understanding - nonetheless, the simple division brought to mind this question of the spiritual status of the spirit-denying/ spiritually-insensitive Muggle majority - especially in this post-international-totalitarian era. 

The mass of Muggles are now on the side of Establishment evil. From the perspective of the Establishment the Muggles are functionally regarded as a mixture of useful-idiots and useless-eaters. 

The useful-idiot Muggles generate the wealth and do the work upon which the Establishment parasitize. The useless-eaters are regarded as a waste of resources; and the plan is to keep them docile in the short-term and eliminate them - as soon as (deniably) possible.

Spiritually speaking, however, it is the Muggles over whom the spiritual war is being fought. 

From my perspective; the awakening are the real Christian, who are 'saved' because they have decided (at least as-of-now, but this may change) to accept Jesus Christ's offer of resurrected eternal life - and who therefore the their lives in that context. They naturally want as many as possible of the Muggles to join them in Heaven, because the more (and more various) the inhabitants of Heaven - the bigger, and better - more loving and divinely-creative it will be. 

The Establishment want as many as possible of the Muggles to reject Heaven, to live and die in fear, resentment and despair; and therefore eventually to adopt the value inversions of purposive evil and affiliate against God and creation. 

Meanwhile, the Muggles become less and less spiritual, more and more mundane and materialistic in their perspective. Indeed the mainstream 'evil plan' seems to be that the Muggles will in the short-term regard themselves as purely material, and therefore become controllable by material manipulation - but once attained, they will be induced into an inversion of Christian spirituality, with an inverted value system which sees Heaven as evil, and will therefore (with open eyes) deliberately choose their own damnation. 

In other words - the two minorities are engaged in recruiting Muggles to their own sides; the difference being that (as of now) the evil side is doing so by pretending that there is no spiritual war, and that the sides are therefore purely material - ie. socio-political. 

This is Leftism in its many facets, which now wholly occupies all the mainstream of politics and public discourse. There is only leftism in mainstream public life - whether that Leftism self-labels as socialism, feminism, antiracism etc - or self-labels as conservative, republican, libertarian, fascist or whatever: all are Leftism, all just parts of the anti-God mundane-materialist ideology. 

Leftism is (in essence) the dominant Establishment anti-spiritual ideology for the Muggles; which opposed the (variously defined) 'awakened' real-Christian spiritualties on the side of God.  

I was interesting to see that Bill's positive suggestions were not all that different from mine - although differently conceptualized. He regards the main spiritual work as clear and true understanding of the situation in this mortal life on earth. 

And the 'method' for positively influencing Muggless being primarily that of 'morphic resonance' - by which is meant that true understanding and good intent in 'awakened' individuals will have a direct beneficial effect on the mass of individual Muggles - especially insofar as there is any serious intent to understand on the part of specific persons. 

In other words; although the awakened try to communicate truth and Goodness to other people by speaking, writing etc; the primary and most powerful way that things work is by a direct influence of a spiritual (invisible, imperceptible) kind. And some of the spiritual warfare is aimed at trying to disrupt such direct influence - eg by attacking the awakened via seeding confusion, spreading doubts of reality, and encouraging fearful-insecurity. 

In sum - I was surprised and pleased to find myself broadly on-the-same-side with Bill Ryan and the Project Avalon grouping - despite innumerable difference of understanding and tactics. And this was encouraging! If indeed such very different assumptions and methods can converge onto essentially the same set of basic 'answers' and attitudes, then 'we' are stronger than I had previously suspected. 

Cosmic effects of Jesus Christ and the establishment of Heaven

What was the effect of Jesus Christ on subsequent reality - his 'cosmic' effect on the world?

One way of thinking about this is that Jesus established Heaven (mad it happen) - by enabling resurrection to eternal life; and to examine the effect of Heaven on the totality of things. 

A consequence was that Heaven became a possibility for all Men. This potentially affects the life of every Man - but only if the possibility of Heaven is believed.

Once established, Heaven became inhabited by (more and more) ex-mortal Men. If we assume that those in Heaven are not cut-off from mortal Men; then there is a new potential for contact between the living and 'the dead' - between mortal and immortal Men. 

Furthermore, when Jesus ascended to Heaven, this made possible the Holy Ghost - to comfort and guide all Men. From that point, no Man (wherever, at whatever time) would ever need to be alone or cut adrift from the divine.

But Heaven also had a effect on the purposive powers of evil: on Satan, the demons and their servants and slaves among mortal Men. Because heaven represents an eternal and indestructible reminder of the ultimate defeat of evil - by those who desire its defeat. 

Heaven is an eternal escape from evil, a place without evil - so whatever may happen elsewhere, evil can never triumph fully or finally. 

This means that the motivation of beings of purposive evil can only be: 

1. For themselves, a continual and recurrent hardening of their will to reject Heaven - the continual and unending justification of this rejection and the seeking of c one after another temporary compensations. 

2. Externally - to manipulate other beings to reject the eternal offer of Heaven, and to do so fully and finally. This by asserting the attractions of sin; such that sin becomes the core focus of life, and the elimination of sin a thing to be avoided at any cost. 

The last point I will mention is that after Heaven came into existence, then Men could potentially have glimpses of Heaven - and if they then came to desire Heaven for themselves, then this desire might permeate their mortal lives. 

 

Seeking motivation - what kind of thing are we looking for?

I have often said that motivation is what is decisively lacking in modern (post-Christian, post-religious, post-spiritual, materialistic) Men; and (e.g. this morning) I inferred that the search for motivation is therefore one of the most urgent of all imperatives. 

But people often have the wrong idea about what it would be like to discover a strong and deep motivation appropriate to these times. They tend to seek an overpowering motivation - that is, they test the authenticity of a motivation by the evaluation that it is irresistible. 

I regard this as a mistake; because for Men to want this is (I infer) a covert wish to have motivation taken-from them. They want Not to have to think-about motivation, not to have to make a conscious choice. 

In other words, to seek to be overpowered is to seek the avoidance of responsibility ("I can't help myself, it is irresistible!").   

What is instead needed is a motivation that we recognize and can affirm (de profundis - from the depths) to be primary, core to our highest aspirations, and the bottom-line for how we ought to be. 

Thus we would not be overpowered; but we would acknowledge that this motivation is real/ true/ beautiful - and in general Good - and feel this as deeply and solidly as we know. 

Such a motivation need not be observed (not necessarily read, heard or seen) it may simply "come to us" or "strike us" as a thing directly-known, Just Known. 

And then consciously chosen. 

I hope this may be helpful in knowing what to look-for - and when you have found it. 

Folklore also eradicated by the birdemic fakery

Straw bears in Whittlesey on Plough Monday - but not this year... 

I have always been very keen on 'folklore' - even when I am not present, and even when the practices are revived or 'instant tradition', I find it comforting to know that such things are happening. 

On the one hand, folkloric activities are a link with the past; on another hand, they seem to serve a function of connecting people to the present, to nature, to something a bit more and other than the mundane. 

Naturally, therefore, the New Global Totalitarians have focused on suppressing (and ultimately eradicating) all types of public folklore: costumed 'guisers' or mummers, country fairs and agricultural shows, processions, morris/ molly/ country dances - such things have fallen to the birdemic imperatives. 

Folklore is a practical expression of much that the Leftist Mainstream most desire to eradicate from human life. 

The situation is a microcosm of the bigger picture. Such happenings are nowadays administered by committees - i.e. bureaucracy. Committees are intrinsically totalitarian - voting (and all such matters are decided 'by vote') works by eradicating judgment and responsibility, which can only be personal. 

What the birdemic has revealed, here as elsewhere, is how shallowly- and weakly-motivated modern secular people really are - whatever they may claim. How externally-controlled are their desires and convictions. How how temporary and feeble are their enthusiasms and principles. 

When a whole civilization officially and in public discourse believes that the universe has no purpose or meaning, then the same applies to each individual person's subjective life. 

It is then natural that short-term expediency becomes the 'ultimate' moral principle; and cowardice become the norm - after all, in a senseless reality, what is there to be courageous about? 

As soon as any practice, tradition, hobby, art, personal relationship or other 'valued thing' becomes a threat to someone's immediate sense of security and well-being; then it will be discarded. Life satisfaction narrows down to some combination of terrorized obedience with spiteful scapegoating.

The lesson is clear. When there is no help but only harm from 'society' - each individual person must discover his own real, deep, solid motivation; and if this is lacking must re-examine the assumption that have led to this state of existential suicide. 

This requires some kind of a personal quest; a prolonged process of inward discovery of truth to be done in the face of pervasive discouragement. But an inward search seeking objective - indeed cosmic - purpose and meaning, and seeking our personal link to that purpose and meaning. 

Nothing else will suffice; unless we really are content to watch everything we once valued be eradicated from life - and not replaced. 

Cricket bowlers should Not be allowed to target the batsman's head

Steven Smith just after being hit in the neck by a fast bowler

In cricket, the bowler should not be allowed to target the batsman's head. 

This really ought to be common sense, because a high speed hard leather cricket ball can cause severe, permanent, or even lethal damage. But a practice has grown-up which allows this to some extent in some forms of cricket; because it can be very exciting for the spectators. 

In the longer forms of the game, even a very fast bowler is allowed to bowl at the batsman's head or neck - so long as the ball bounces first. 

(Bowling that arrives above shoulder height has usually not been permitted in the one-day types of cricket, or has been strictly limited. But not for safety reasons but because when a ball is very high it is difficult to score from.)

The problem of this kind of delivery was highlighted when the Australian batsman Philip Hughes was killed in 2014 by a ball which struck his neck and broke an artery. Hughes died soon afterwards. 

But the damage of being hit in the head or face may be more subtle. 

Edited from an article by Jarrod Kimber:

There was a five-year period from September 2014 where [Steve] Smith averaged 96.2 against seam bowling (with a minimum of 1000 runs in that period). The next best was Kane Williamson, averaging 55.8. Smith was nearly double his nearest contemporary. 

He transformed from a part-time legspinner who Ricky Ponting didn't think could be a top-six player, into the greatest modern batter, and not even by a little bit; the runs he scored were incredible. Making a hundred every 2.1 Tests. His overall average in that period was 78.7. Eight scores over 150. The whole thing was crazy. 

[And then Jofra Archer hit him on the neck, and things changed...]

Since September 2019, Smith has averaged 40 in Tests, which in recent times is not terrible. It is only terrible for him because he was so much better than anyone else... 

Kimber does not mention even the possibility that being hit on the neck by Jofra Archer produced lasting physical damage, and was potentially the main factor in impairing Steve Smith's batting ability over the past two years - yet surely that is an obvious possibility?

After being struck, Smith was clearly dazed and had to retire for a while; and when he later returned to bat (which - medically speaking - he certainly should not have been allowed to do) he seemed functionally impaired in his behaviour. 

Smith then had prolonged concussion reported lasting several days, with measured mental impairment; and he had to miss the next Test match. Since then, he has 'never been the same'...

Since Smith continues to average about 40 runs per innings, which is good, we are not talking about a gross impairment. But compared with his almost superhuman abilities before that concussion; it could be that there was some subtle and lasting damage to nerves or brain, which has been sufficient to reduce his ability from incredible to just very good. 

There are also other examples of batters who were 'never the same again' after being hit in the head or neck by fast bowling - Jimmy Adams, captain of the West Indies, was hit in the face (causing broken bones) and went from being the top-rated Test Match batsman in the world to relative mediocrity. 

Cricket writers always attribute the lasting effect of being hit in the head/ neck to 'psychology'; to a loss of 'confidence', a failure of nerve; but that is not a legitimate inference when there is a possibility that there has been permanent physical damage. 

Maybe the degree of harm would not be noticeable in a normal person, or even a normally-competent batter - but at the very highest level of human physical attainment, among the very best sportsmen - even a little neural damage may be enough to take the edge off reaction times and/or coordination - to reduce ability from the very best to... just okay. 

In other words, I suspect that the amount and duration of damage to a batsman from being hit in the face or neck has been seriously underestimated - because the possibility of permanent neurological harm from this kind of injury has not even been considered. 

Of course, accidents will continue to happen. For instance, sometimes a batter gets hit on the head because he accidentally ducks into a waist high ball. But the potential for permanent physical harm can certainly be reduced by making it illegal to deliver the cricket ball to arrive above the shoulder. This would stop such bowling being used as a deliberate strategy. 

It must be acknowledged that such a change would have an effect of making an aspect of Test cricket less exciting. Some of the great and memorable 'duels' of Test Match cricket involved a fast bowler targeting the head, and the batter fighting him off. The 2019 Smith Archer duel was one of these. 

But, Roman gladiators fighting and killing each other were doubtless even more exciting... 

In the end, cricket ought to be a game of skill primarily; rather than a 'life or death' struggle not to be smashed in the face or on the neck by a hard leather sphere travelling at 90-plus mph. 

Harry Potter illustrates that the sides of Good and evil are primary; and that personality and behaviour are secondary

The original Harry Potter series of seven books, completed by the superb "Deathly Hallows" volume, is probably the major Christian fantasy fiction since the Lord of the Rings; because (as well as its many incidental delights) it has a deep moral structure, and this deep plot concerns depicts matters of primary and transcendental importance for Christians.  

As such, the Harry Potter (HP) books can illustrate and clarify some of the most important questions of value that confront us in the world today. 

One such is that the single most important choice a person makes is which side to take: the side of Good or that of evil - and there are only two sides. 

In the HP books, Voldemort is a picture of Satan, and his side includes both a cadre of Death Eaters (analogous to demons), and a great mass of people who just go-along-with the agenda of evil for various motives - serving its overall goals, and passively absorbing and adopting its core beliefs and motivations. 

In life, as in Harry Potter, there is no value-neutral position, and sooner-or-later it seems that everybody (even the non-human magical 'creatures such as House Elves, Centaurs, Goblins and Giants) is compelled to pick his side, and choose one way or the other.

And also as in life; in the fictional world of HP - some nice people chose the side of evil; while (more or less) many of those on the side of Good are (more or less) nasty people   

This aspect of Harry Potter has particular value in these times, since our situation seems to be that most of the nice (decent, sensible, hard-working, intelligent, kind..) people are on the side of evil; while many of those on the side of Good are more-or-less nasty.

Perhaps the major nasty person on the side of Good is Severus Snape; who is represented throughout as a thoroughly nasty man - yet one who by his great courage and genuine love (for Lily Potter, Harry's mother) has heroically chosen the side of Good. 

Another less obvious example is Dumbledore; who emerges as a greatly flawed character, with a strong tendency towards deception and manipulation and who struggles with a temptation for power and an almost paralyzing sense of guilt for his past affiliation to evil and its consequences; yet who is more solidly on the side of Good, and working-for Good, than almost anyone. 

An even less obvious example are the Weasley Twins - Fred and George. These share a tendency to callous cruelty, indeed sadism, which is a serious character flaw. In general they are hedonistic and manipulative without regard for the consequences for others, although because they are charming and 'cool' they are generally well-liked. But Fred and George are always staunchly and courageously on the side of Good - because they are sustained by an indomitable fraternal and familial love, which is their bottom line. 

And while the Death Eaters are almost always very nasty people, there are several on the side of evil who would be regarded as 'good guys' in terms of everyday social behaviour. 

For instance, Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic (in the earlier books) is a kindly and avuncular character, and his faults would seem to be mostly minor: cowardice and untruthfulness, unacknowledged incompetence, and wilful blindness to the reality of evil emergent. Yet these faults are unrepented such that that he ends-up working for the triumph of Voldemort and against those who oppose him; this despite believing himself to be motivated towards Good. Fudge is a type seen frequently these days - heading-up major social institutions of all kinds (including leaders of the self-described Christian churches).

The later Minister of Magic - Rufus Scrimgeour - also ends-up on the wrong side despite his admirable courage and staunch opposition to the Death Eaters; because he subscribes to various Big Lies, and becomes corrupted by the doctrine that the end justifies the means.  He wants Harry to participate in various official lies, tries to blackmail and bribe him; and attempts to make Harry subordinate his 'chosen one' mission to the current 'needs' of propaganda and the magical bureaucracy. He also dishonestly imprisons (with torment) the naïve and innocent Stan Shunpike, on the pretense that SS is a Death Eater, because Scrimgeour believes this will help the cause.  

Ludo Bagman - the Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports - is another 'type' seen among the nominal leaders used by the Global Establishment nowadays (e.g. Boris Johnson). A charming, popular man - for whose incompetence and stupidity people are usually prepared to make excuses because they find him likeable. "Ludo" emerges as a self-interested gambling addict and defrauder; one who bought his position by providing secret insider information about the Ministry to a Death Eater; and who abuses his position for his own pleasure and profit. Bagman (the name implies a criminal go-between) overall, in many ways, aids the ascent of Voldemort.  

JK Rowling is clear that the determinant of a person's status of Good or evil is which side they take; and also that the two main virtues that most matter in this choice are love and courage. 

Love is, of course, the core Christian virtue which 'drives' all that is Good - while courage is necessary for that virtue to remain dominant, and to resist the insidious, pervasive and powerful forces of corruption when evil becomes dominant - when "The Ministry has fallen".   

Lack of courage - cowardice, represents a lack of faith in the cause of Good, and concern with the expediencies of this world rather than fundamental values; so that fear unrepented and unopposed is the root cause of a great deal of corruption. 

Self-sacrifice is required of all the Good characters at some point in the series; and this is not possible without the right motivation of love, and the key virtue of courage in that cause. 

Harry himself is naturally the greatest moral exemplar. A very flawed hero; throughout the books he comes to a clarity and conviction of what matters most - what must not be given-up; and eventually he makes the ultimate sacrifice by which the world is saved from evil. 

Charities are evil!

It is supposed to be an innately Good Thing to give money (or time and labour) To Charity - but no activity is intrinsically Good - and in a totalitarian evil world all charities are conformed to that evil. 

I used to keep searching around for a charity that was not operating in net-support of the global agenda of evil. I sometimes thought I had found one or a few. But over the years all of these have serially been revealed as merely less-evil than average - yet qualitatively still motivated by the prevalent evil motivations; for example as revealed by the 2020 Litmus Tests. 

This ought not to be surprising, because charities are institutions, and all institutions are now linked to the global bureaucracy by many links (e.g. legal, financial etc.). All bureaucracy is intrinsically evil; and the global bureaucracy is the primary instrument by which evil attitudes are encouraged, Big Lies are disseminated, and evil actions are implemented by rewards and sanctions. 

(...Because although no action is intrinsically Good - in practice some actions - such as the classic sins - are strongly-likely to induce evil. As so often the situation is asymmetrical. On the side of Good motivations are primary; but Good may be opposed by many things; including, but not restricted to, motivations. For instance the beauty of some aspect of divine creation may be destroyed, and this destruction may be done without the motivation to destroy divine creation - and yet such destruction is still an evil.) 

So charities are evil; and, since 2020, even 'church charities' - as is clear if you read the boastful lists of "good works" that churches claim to have done - many of these are actually evil-works, and an organization that does evil-works when claiming these to be good is on the side of evil.  

This is not a difficult discernment! 

...Yet people allow themselves to be confused (fatally) by what charities (and churches) used-to-be; rather than noticing the obviousness of what charities (and churches) actually are, here-and-now. 

Of course this is yet another personal loss from the possibilities of life. (That's what evil does when triumphant!) 

Much of human gratification used to come from working with people in good causes; and from the sense of solidarity which brings security. These are things that we are now called-upon to do-without - if we are to remain on the side of God, divine creation and Jesus Christ. 

With The System now under the thumb of Satan, and with the infection of evil spreading perceptibly; only that which is outwith The System may be Good - and the need for discernment never sleeps.

Of course, all sins and evil we may do may be cancelled by repentance - that is a great gift of Jesus Christ. But repentance requires that we repent! 

Which means we need to recognize evil, and recognize evil as evil - then reject it as such.  

The continual difficulty is that we all must engage-with evil in the Systems of this world if we are not to die - now including charities, now including church charities. 

Therefore - to stay alive while avoiding self-chosen damnation, we need to avoid being seduced into cozy assumptions that any organization or activity is intrinsically Good. 

There will be some Good in any institution - but we personally can only do net-Good via a charity when we recognize that 'the institution itself' - in its bureaucratic character - is motivated by evil. 

No activity is intrinsically spiritually good for you. (Not-even lifting weights!...)

At Adam Piggot's blog there is an interesting and important post about the question of first things first, and our motivations for doing things. 

For me, this is one of the matters that has come to a point recently - in other words, the gray areas have disappeared, and all activities are ruled by the consequences of a stark black-or-white choice between two sides: the mainstream of global totalitarian leftist materialism, or Christianity. 

This means that no activity is intrinsically good, but only good insofar as it is motivated by, and rooted in, having made the choice of God, divine creation and Jesus Christ. Without that motivation, any activity you can think of will be turned towards evil by the overwhelming wickedness of The World. 

The  particular activity under discussion was lifting weights specifically, and in general training in regimes designed to encourage toughness and fortitude. The primary debate was whether such activities would intrinsically tend to make a man more masculine, or more effeminate.  

This (slightly edited) is the comment I left at Adam's blog, where I try to widen the discussion to any and all activities - but to understand its context, do go and read the original post. 

**

One of the great lessons of my life is that no activity is intrinsically good. None At All. 

For me - the temptations were (at various times) literature, classical music, medicine, academic scholarship and science - I had the idea that doing these, learning and practicing them - would be 'good for you' - make you a better person, make you deeper, nobler... whatever. 

But I found that greater knowledge and experience was totally disillusioning. For example, meeting and conversing with musicians in the best orchestras, people whose lives had been dedicated to their high craft and whose days were spent playing the greatest music under the greatest conductors... was usually a stunningly disappointing experience! The best doctors and scientists I met were usually shallow and trivial. I got to know plenty of more-or-less famous authors - one or two were interesting and independent-minded; but most were unbelievably superficial, unthinking and naïve doctrinaire leftists! And so on. 

The past two years have extended this even further and into the churches. 

All religions and All Christian denominations have overwhelmingly (with but few noble individual exceptions scattered across the churches) apostatized, supported globalist totalitarian agendas - and eagerly ceased their supposedly-core spiritual activities. 

What is stunning is that this happened across the board - from Roman Catholicism that is rooted in the Mass and rigorous philosophy, through evangelical Protestants who base everything in the Bible's inerrancy, through Mormons who built a parallel society and focused on good works and clean living, through Eastern Orthodox who claimed that tradition would be a sure safeguard against fashion and temporary pressures - to Anglicans who claimed that a combination/ synthesis of these would be the best defense of the faith. 

All these and others very rapidly capitulated to closures and ceasing of core activities, without time limit; and with their leaderships fully endorsing this shutting-up-shop, spouting leftist globalist lies (about the birdemic, climate, racism, trans etc) and their members overwhelmingly compliant. 

I interpret this as telling me that no Christian 'activity' or theoretical basis, or philosophy or any-thing - is decisive in keeping someone a real Christian, when a genuinely strong (courage-inducing) and individual motivation is lacking in its members. 

And when that motivation goes above and beyond the church considered institutionally. In other words, the dominant motivations need to be transcendental, spiritual and not-of-this world. With such motivations, many activities and beliefs may be spiritually-helpful (even including 'lifting!); but without it, none are helpful - and all become snares. 

It probably was not always thus - probably at one time in a different context, there were intrinsically-good practices.

But as of 2022, motivation is almost-everything. More exactly, the situation is asymmetrical: Some activities are certainly bad for you; but none are intrinsically good - unless also well-motivated.