Fuzziness about assumptions and aims used to be okay, but now Christians need to be Clear

This is a thing that I assume; but not the kind of thing that can be proven. It is that in the past it was okay for Christians to have all kinds of wrong ideas, but now there are some particular core aspects of Christianity that it is necessary to become clear about. 

I regard this as a consequence of the development of a distinctively hard-edged modern consciousness. 

Whereas in the past, consciousness was more groupish, hence less personal; there was an inevitable fuzziness about concepts and aims because each individual's awareness was significantly subordinated to the groups in which he participated (his church, his clan, his nation...). Much of Cristian life was a matter of (often unconsciously) going along with group practices. 

Now, as I understand it, we Just Are primarily autonomous and isolated consciousness's. Some people can, temporarily and usually partially, re-immerse in a group mind - but only by some kind of temporary depression of consciousness - such as intoxication, trance states, getting carried-away by some crowd event - which might include a religious ceremony...

Or people blitz their own consciousness, with constant and distracting sensory inputs from social and mass media.    

But most of the time we are awake and aware, we experience consciousness as isolated, alienated from the world, and our-selves. 

This being fundamentally "on our own" is, I think, why we now need to be clear about the truth of things, and about our purposes in living. 

This is why, when we are wrong about essential matters; it seems to make a much greater difference than it used to. 

Apparently; we cannot help but follow-through our own ideas to conclusions and outcomes, that necessarily affect us. 

Errors will lead to further errors, lies and other forms of untruthfulness will propagate into consequences. 

There is (in a loose but necessary sense) a "karma" of our choices.   

That, at least, is how I see it. And it is is a very different business from the old theocratic way of defining a single permissible truth and way-of-living - and enforcing this upon the population at large. 

Now, the process of assumptions and consequences plays itself out in a multitude of individual consciousnesses.

Whereas in the past Christianity was a matter of externally mediated and inflicted threats and rewards; nowadays "the game of consequences" happens inside each person - and operates with a kind of determinism.  

In the past each group-immersed person was not fully responsible for his spiritual convictions, therefore neither was he fully responsible for the consequences; but now that responsibility is unavoidable. 

Understanding the spiritual corruption that is Fear

I have written a good deal, over the past years, on the subject of "fear as a sin". Some commenters have reacted immediately against this idea, pouring scorn on the idea; yet without (it seems to me) properly trying to understand the argument. 

That fear is a sin was not immediately obvious to me - I needed to think the matter through before becoming convinced. 

Francis Berger has added to the spiritual discussion of fear in a post today, taking a new angle and making several important points that had not occurred to me. 

Considering that fear is a besetting sin of the modern West -- such that public expressions of existential terror in relation to a variety of socially-approved subjects, are not just acceptable, but attract positive moral approbation -- I strongly recommend reading the whole thing. 

And thinking about it. 

Whatever happened to Poland? - 1980s poster child of a resurgent Roman Catholic Church

Just an observation. Those who can remember the 1980s might also recall that Poland seemed, very obviously, the poster child for the courage, vigour, relevance and positive qualities of the Roman Catholic Church. 

This was the era when there was a popular Polish Pope, active against communism; and involved spiritually with Lech Walesa and the explicitly Christian (and very trendy!) "Solidarity" movement within Poland. 

Then came the collapse of the Soviet Bloc from 1989; and I think most people assumed that Poland would go on to exemplify a tremendous and lasting resurgence of Roman Catholic Christianity. 

It didn't happen - and instead Poland became thoroughly Western-orientated, secularized, leftist, and a mass exporter of its most active young people as economic migrants. 

Indeed, most recently, the Polish Establishment has become actively determined to engineer national annihilation as the disposable tool of an evil cause; apparently determined to model the fate of Poland on that of its depopulated and nearly-destroyed southern neighbour. 

What a turn-around in the space of just three decades? From a distinctive and life-embracing Catholicism; all around to mainstream Western self-loathing, suicidal atheist-leftism.

By contrast, the Eastern Bloc communist nations that had been historically Eastern Orthodox, experienced a massive (and still lasting, at least in the case of the Fire Nation) emergence and growth of their national churches, and of Christian influence. Secularism and leftism was significantly held-back, and indeed rolled-back to some extent. 

What are the lessons of such contrasting trajectories? Well, there are too many interacting aspects to pick on any particular one. But for Western Roman Catholics in particular - such a reversal is something deserving of honest, serious consideration. 

The god of fear, who demands sacrifice, propitiation, worship, obedience - actually Implies a Good and Loving Creator God

There is that within human beings which believes-in a god of fear - a god who, in some sense "rules" the human world, and who demands sacrifice, propitiation, worship and absolute obedience... 

I mean that god who is a characteristic underpinning and default of much monotheism, including that of many Christians (of many kinds) throughout history. 

Because this is indeed a god of fear; people are afraid to give up their habitual attitude of sacrifice, propitiation, worship, obedience. 

Such fear as The ruling passion is very evident when interacting with many Christians - whatever lip-service they pay to God being our loving Father. 

Such Christians do not really trust God, because they are afraid of God; and they are afraid of God because their mental image of God - their understanding of God - is of an all powerful, all-knowing, yet incomprehensible and ultimately alien entity.  

As I said, this image of a god of fear seems natural and instinctive to humans - but, despite nearly 2000 years of confusion and conflation - this image is not the Christian Creator God as revealed by Jesus Christ. 

The God revealed by Jesus does Not demand sacrifice, propitiation, worship, or obedience; but instead "love" - or rather, Christ's God does not "demand" love, but is the God for those who recognize His love, and who love Him, and Fellow Men.

Such is the revelation - yet we need not depend on revelation to know the Good and Loving Christian God - because this loving creator God is implied by reality. 

For there to be creation, there must be love. (If you really think about it...!) Only a loving God would create. 

And we (you and me, as individuals) could only know this, if that loving God loved us (you and me, as individuals). 

To put it the other way around - the god of fear is a real god - which is why he is universally recognized and responded to. But he is not the creator God; he is not the primary god. 

The primary god (call him "God") must be the creator, and the creator must be loving, else he would not create - and must love us as individuals, else we could not know anything. 

The god of fear is a secondary god; one who hates creation, who uses creation for self-gratification instead of love, who inverts creation against itself.  

Therefore the reality of that god of fear implies the god of love as primary creator. 

But this argument that the god of fear implies that the God of Love is creator is not a logical entailment; it is an argument about persons. 

To accept my argument entails that we already, personally, value love above all. If we do not already value love as primary, as our highest aspiration; then we can just as easily accept the inversions of the god of fear. 

So, you can see how much of being a Christian hinges upon the fact that god is Not incomprehensible*. 

Knowing about God is not the same as knowing God - just as knowing-about some human being is not the same as knowing-him. 

Or, properly expressed, how vital it is to being-Christian that we each know God! - and know God as we might know other people such as close family or a deep friend - experiential knowing of an individual. 

Unless we know God we cannot love God; and this means we must be capable of such love. 

And if we do know God: when we are-knowing God, we know His love for us, and ours for Him - and then we will Not fear Him.  

(Although; in this mortal life we cannot always be in this state of knowing, nor even most of the time - and then we must be faithful to our memory of knowing. Thus the need for faith.) 

*Note added: To clarify. If God is allowed (by metaphysical assumption) to be incomprehensible, and if it is allowed for us to assume that God had no personal motivation for creation (because God is assumed to be an entity "without passions" an entity that therefore cannot be motivated); then the reality of a god of fear doesn't imply a primary loving creator God. In other words, if the creator god is assumed to be incomprehensible in His motivations, then we cannot exclude that the god of fear is the primary god. This is why those Christians whose faith is shaped by a core belief in god's incomprehensibility, posit a god whose characteristics seem to be essentially the same as those of god as understood and described by the pure monotheisms.  

Motivation is vital - but what is it?

I've been harping-on about the vital importance of "motivation" since I began daily blogging in 2010 - and repeating that this, our age is characterized by extremely (historically) low levels of motivation. So it's maybe about time I clarified what I mean, and what I do not mean, by "motivation"...

Motivation needs to be distinguished from power; indeed motivation is revealed when power is lacking; when there are stresses and adversity working against it; and over the course of time. when weak motivations inevitably fail.

Motivation is long-term; and continues despite lack of external encouragement or reward - and in the face of active dis-couragement and negative sanctions. 

Be clear that high motivation is not sufficient to good: it depends on what that motivation aims at, and someone might be highly-motivated towards evil. 

However, motivation is necessary to good; because without motivation, people merely conform to external incentives and pressures. 

Therefore motivation underpins long-term courage; and motivation is an aspect of "freedom" or "agency". 

Motivation is inner, ultimately; therefore needs to be distinguished from what people actually do in their lives; because actions are subject to external control. In an extreme case, a slave's actions may be almost wholly controlled (on pain of death), yet that slave can be motivated to good. 

Or, more commonly, a person may be prevented from "actioning" his motivations by many adversities such as inborn deficits or damage, sickness or accident, or a character that is weak-willed. 

Because will-power is not motivation. indeed, most people with exceptionally high levels of will-power - I have known several - use this to pursue socially-valued behaviours. Their will is thus subject to somebody-else's externally-supplied motivation. Such a life-strategy does not need real (i.e. inner) motivation. 

But a highly motivated person might we thwarted by his own deficiencies from achieving anything significant, or observable - and these deficiencies may include lack of "will power".  Such an individual's "aim is true", but his ability to action that aim is feeble.  

 

A highly-motivated person is one who sticks to his inner goal, his destiny (as he has chosen it); even when he is unfitted, or for any reason unable, to achieve that destiny - even when he acknowledges that he has failed.

High motivation is therefore indomitable: it cannot be beaten in this mortal life. 

And when motivation is aligned with God and divine creation, when motivation seeks salvation by following Jesus Christ - then we get the needful Christian combination. 

We get someone who will achieve resurrection to eternal life whatever happens or does not happen in the external world. 

And that is the vital importance of motivation. 

**

Note: The next question is perhaps: How then do I become a highly-motivated, indomitable Christian? That is a task in its own right; and one that involves meeting one's own innate and most-intuitive aims with a long-term and solid apprehension of the Goodness and love of God the Creator. Second-hand information and advice do not suffice. External influences and pressures are more likely to be deceptive than helpful. It is a personal quest. But one who recognizes the absolute need for inner Christian motivation, is guaranteed timely success - exactly because God is the Creator, is good, and loves us each individually.   

Next-worldly, but not world-renouncing - not ascetic but loving (Christian life)

I think it is a mistake when Christians present the faith as ascetic, world renouncing, world-rejecting; as if this mortal life was merely a matter of (whether patiently, or not!) waiting for death and resurrection.

This makes no sense to me, because if mortal life is about rejecting this world, then we would die as soon as possible - or indeed, not live mortally at all but would go straight to Heaven. 

I think the error ultimately derives from double-negative theology - of seeing life in this sin-full world as a matter of avoiding as many sins as completely as possible. The modern world is more this-worldly and materialistic than any society ever before, so the "natural" reaction is often to aspire to reject everything, all material things, all attachments... But that lands us in Buddhism or Hinduism - not Christianity. 

What about the example of Jesus's own life. Well, it depends on which source you regard as primary. If, like me, you regard the Fourth Gospel "John") as broadly authoritative, then there is no sanction for asceticism; since Jesus is depicted as living very socially, even feasting; and having very personal and loving attachments to family and friends. In this Jesus is contrasted with John the Baptist, who is depicted as much more of a world renouncing ascetic.

On the other hand, most people prefer to take the Synoptic Gospels, especially Matthew and Luke, as their primary sources - and these describe Jesus retreating into the desert for forty days and nights. Very ascetic. Either this actually happened as Matthew and Luke said, or it didn't as positively implied and negatively omitted by "John" (who could hardly have chosen leave -out such a major event!). 

The truth is not complicated; it is simply that we are supposed neither to be worldly materialists nor unworldly hermits (both red herrings, a false dichotomy); but to love during mortal life. That seems pretty clear, pretty straightforward.

Loving not rejecting. 

And to love means to love persons, beings, the living world; which is why we remain alive in this mortal life - and why we are not supposed to be trying to make mortal life into a second-rate version of being dead already.   

To love; is to love material things as well as spiritual things (except that there are no "things", not really - creation is alive). 

Of course love is a dynamic thing, and is two-way; which is why we never stop needing to learn about it. That is what we are supposed to be doing while we are alive; and we shouldn't be hankering after the next life when there is important work to be done in this life. 

But love is something we must do while living - although love is the purpose, it is not a purpose that can be aimed-at of itself. 

We must love while living - while doing all the material mortal things we need to do... 

Which, presumably, is why we are alive. 

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be - Past Times 1986-2012 (or, The ebbing of the Intellectual Soul)

The UK retail company (shops, and later a mail order web site) called Past Times, was very much a phenomenon of the 1990s and early 2000s. 

It was a kind of gift shop that specialized in nostalgia; and it did a pretty good job of both fuelling and supplying it; with modestly priced reprints and facsilimlies of old books, pictures and prints, replicas of old toys, artefacts, jewellery and the like. 

Around the millennium it was a prime browsing place to get presents (including for oneself), and seemed like a permanent fixture in the high rent zones of the city high street. 

Yet in 2012 Past Times went bust and was wound up altogether the year later. What's more it was not replaced. Nostalgia stores became a thing of the past...

 

As always there are multiple potential explanations; but my spiritual interpretation is that Past Times was the last gasp of Original Participation - of the ancient and early childhood experience of spontaneous immersion in the world - of belonging; which has gradually dwindled down almost to nothing through the centuries, and especially in the modern era. 

In its commercial way, the shop was providing a secular equivalent of the robes, rituals, music and poetic words of the churches; providing a kind-of "system" of symbols; via which individuals could relate to reality - as had happened so effectively at the peak of the middle ages.  

This medieval consciousness is termed the Intellectual Soul; and it worked by the individual learning (or being socialized-into) and then assimilating; the correspondences of a symbol system to particular aspects of the spiritual life. After which, the symbol will reliably, and powerfully, "trigger" the appropriate spiritual response.

Well nostalgia-systems, such as that provided by Past Times, did something analogous with the childhood memories of an earlier (and childhood) world where life had automatic purpose and meaning, where there was an almost unconscious sense of security and stability.  

Nostalgia continued to be effective for a while after the effectiveness of religious symbol systems had become a tiny-minority phenomenon; on the basis of common childhood experience having changed less, and more slowly, than the adult world. 

But childhood changed, people changed, consciousness changed - and nostalgia lost its instant-magic. Also, the Establishment stepped-up its subversion and suppression of nostalgia; to the point that now the past is assumed to be evil. 

In the mass media and among the ubiquitous bureaucracies of this era; "the past" is at-best apologized-for (e.g. those disclaimers before broadcasting old films, about the attitudes they embody being "worng now, and wrong then!"). In the mainstream; the past is edited, invented, and rewritten for "modern sensibilities.

And increasingly the past is hidden and destroyed. 

Symbol systems are weaker, little wanted, and are disappearing, everywhere you look: in religion, and in the social institutions generally. 

The "medieval-type" Intellectual Soul consciousness is almost extinct in The West: we are all alienated now. 

The Past Times era was therefore a particular phase in the development of human consciousness, and of Western secular materialism - the final ebbing of the medieval mind-set. 

It could not last, and it did not last; and enjoyment of past times has now become a secret and guilty niche pleasure - or a defiant act of socio-political resistance. 

NOTE ADDED: Lest I be misunderstood; I am not saying that the Intellectual Soul is utterly obsolete, nor that symbol systems ought to be eschewed; but instead that we cannot (therefore should not) expect too much from them. Symbol systems are much weaker than in the past, and also modern Man is far more aware that the medieval consciousness was always a compromise, a half-way house and transitional, and entailing considerable residual alienation. It is unideal, after all, for Men to relate to ultimate realities only and always via intermediaries. And especially when the intermediate symbol system is regarded as the sole and mandatory way to relate to ultimate reality; as with medieval churches. This never was true, although it was a good approximation in some times and places. But now, it is clearly false, and assertions to the contrary are incoherent and (ultimately) made in bad faith. In sum; I see Intellectual Soul symbol systems of various kinds as retaining a potentially helpful role in the Christian life - few can dispense with them, and certainly I can't! But going back to medieval consciousness cannot be the way forward from here; any more than the (sixties counter-cultural) attempt to return to the the un-conscious spontaneous and immersive spirituality (Original Participation) of tribal hunter gatherers.  

Building imaginary castles in the air, from fake straws

A while ago, I wrote a post about the determined optimists of "the Right" (especially people who still, falsely, believe there is such a thing as "the Right") - who busily build their optimism from "fake straws" they have clutched from the maelstrom of a collapsing civilization. 

Following the US election results, I can hardly believe the extent to which people are using fake straws to build grandiose but wholly imaginary castle in the air; that are supposed to represent their hopes of the kind of society that they want.

(Straw castles are bad enough, daydream castles are bad enough - but to daydream a castle made of fake straws! Well...)

Meanwhile... nothing has happened except words and emotions and speculations; and, by now, we ought to realize that (as of 2024) these do not amount to any good thing. nothing is cheaper than "words" in the West, in 2024 - being the most untruthful/ anti-truthful society in the history of the world. 

It should, however, be remembered that thoughts are real, even air castles made of straw - but not necessarily real in the ways intended; and certainly not necessarily real in A Good Way. 

What is apparently real, is that (perhaps) surprisingly large numbers of those who purport to oppose the totalitarian Leftist project; apparently believe (and are saying it) that decades of cumulative civilizational decline can be stopped and reversed by a mainstream election, leading to a new selection of mainstream political figures, being put in charge of an unchanged bureaucracy and media...! 

They are saying that! (Although maybe they don't really believe it.)

What is also apparently real, is the thoroughgoing mundane materialism of what such people want: they want so very, very little - just these politicians instead of those, these laws instead of those... just common sense instead of institutionalized insanity. 

The fake-straw optimists are therefore eminently reasonable - hence they cannot possibly succeed; because if almost-everything stays the same, then we will have the same, or worse.  

They accept geopolitics, but want a different arrangement of nations and distribution of power. They want "business as usual" - but without the weird excesses of the post-millennial era. They want people to be sensible - and "sensible" in a normal, mainstream, hard-headed context.  

They merely want, in other words; a different flavour of Leftism*. 

And Leftism is oppositional and necessarily destructive, because Leftism is fundamentally a-theistic and a-spiritual.  

"The art of the possible" is in actuality asserting the im-possible. 

It will never happen, it can never happen. It ignores and suppresses the need for motivation, and that motivation requires purpose, and that purpose requires the context of a purposive creation. 

And for creation to motivate us, requires that creation be of-God; and for God to motivate us we must have a relationship with God. 

And for our relationship with God to have implications of truth, virtue and beauty; that relationship must be one of Love. 

If we don't have that - we have no positive purpose, and insufficient motivation to do anything Good. 

Which is exactly our situation. 

And election enthusiasm is not merely irrelevant, but actively and powerfully hostile to what is absolutely necessary.  

*Note: there is a Left, but no "Right"; because Leftism is oppositional to religion-in-general, Christianity in particular - and the spiritual and next-worldly nature of Christianity, to be exact (Christianity - not churches, who are all of-the-Left). The only valid options in the West are therefore various flavours of Leftism - or Christianity. 

I'm sorry, Greg, I'm afraid I can't do that." The totalitarian "internet of things" here-and-now, and going-ahead, regardless...

"Greg" is a engineer/ pilot tech vlogger whose aircraft stuff is second to none. He also does things about cars, which I don't usually look-at - but I took a look at this one, about a new Ford Mustang. 

Specifically, it is about the data that the car collects from the vehicle, the driver, and what the driver does in and with the vehicle - including reading and recording his mobile phone. This information is used to enforce certain styles and practices of driving. 

If certain things happen; the car will compel you to leave the road, stop and switch off the engine. If the computer doesn't want you to do something, the car won't do it.  

The logged information is also shared with Ford, law enforcement, and anyone else that the company deems to be a responsible authority (plus, conditions of use are explicitly changeable in an open-ended way, without obligation to inform the owner). 

Your car can (and, soon, presumably will) report you for what it regards as any kind of traffic, or other, offences; and provides "the authorities" with the necessary "objective" information to prove your guilt. 

All of which you have "agreed to" in advance by consenting to the terms of service. Condemned by your own will. 

(The demons insist on it!)

The whole video is relevant, but the main information comes from 4:40. 

This video made quite an impact on me; because it is representative of the top-down, totalitarian agenda of omni-surveillance and micro control.

It is not something that might happen, "the internet of things" is here and it is now, it is the society we live-in; and - although nobody is asking for this stuff - people are nonetheless paying big money to purchase technology with these features. 

You can't get the latest tech without the totalitarian terms of service. And people really want the tech - or else get it forced-upon them by regulations.

As far as I can see, there is only one thing that stands between The West and a society of totalitarian Ahrimanic evil; and that is societal collapse. 

In other words; so long as The System remains, it will be implementing omni-surveillance and total control - to the best of its ability...

But that ability is declining, because The West has purposive self-destruction baked-in; and will sooner or later collapse. Already The System cannot actually implement its own plans (as was evident through 2020). 

There are many, many factors that guarantee that soon The System will enter a positive-feedback failure; when failure in sub-systems will compound, accelerate - and the whole thing will implode (with or without external intervention on top of that). 

(Also - because The System is destroying itself; the later the collapse happens, the more complete it will be.)

 I find it chilling to recognize (yet again!) that we are ruled by an obviously evil-serving ruling-managerial class on the one side - who are determined to impose a materialist nightmare on the masses (and themselves!); and with a short-termist, passively-servile, novelty-and-convenience-addicted mass population on the other - who see no further than to get increments of status, comfort and fun. 

And that's it! Because the "public morality" of the West is a tissue of (thinly-) disguised-wickedness. And those who oppose the officially-leftist Litmus Test ethic - are merely proposing a more efficiently hedonic System, a more nationally-functional totalitarianism.

As I said: it's a race between totalitarianism and collapse - will the one happen before the other supervenes? 

Things are much worse than (almost-) everybody thinks they are! 

What really dismays me is not so much that the die is cast - and there is nothing significant that you or I can materially do to stop and reverse this manic societal self-destructiveness... Because it is rooted in an overwhelming majority a-theistic nihilism; is, therefore, ultimately desired. 

What dismays me is the attitude. The mixture of denial and indifference. The dumb "farmyard ethic" of thinking that prevails. The bland-nice hand-wringing - the attempts to defeat totalitarianism by more regulation, more layers of bureaucracy. The grasping at straws of assuming somebody or another in the leadership class will save us from abuses - and that we can select these goodies through approved mechanisms such as voting, "direct action", pressure groups, whatever.  

All this is avoiding the essential. 

Spiritually we can and must understand - make explicitly conscious - what is happening and that it is evil; and instead of inviting evil into our hearts - inwardly reject (i.e. repent) the evil totalitarianism embodies. 

People must stop being stupid, lazy, and eagerly-distracted. Everyone has the God-given capability to think sufficiently to choose salvation and reject damnation in whatever situation he finds himself - and everyone is responsible for his own thinking.    

Habits and Love - in relation to Christian life and the churches

We cannot develop a habit of "following Jesus", any more than I could develop a habit of loving my wife/ kids/ siblings. Insofar as it is a habit, it isn't love.  

This is because the best analogy/ metaphor for the Christian life (the best, because literally true); is that of family and love. 

Family and love are primary - anything else (including habit) is secondary. 

Habit is indeed an aspect of System, and there are various aspects of System when it comes to family: one habit is rituals. 

(The relevant analogy here is with church rituals - gathering, prayer, sacraments etc.)  

Ritual can certainly have a valuable role in sustaining family love. For example taking meals together, going for walks, family holidays, and celebrating festivals such as Christmas. Such habits can be helpful in service to family love.  

But these rituals are just a potential basis for love, each particular ritual is inessential - and can indeed be counter-productive. Thus; it is vital to subordinate the ritual to the love - ritual must serve love. 

So that Christmas rituals (cards, presents, the meal etc.) must Not (as happens all too often!) become so complicated, rigorous, effortful; that they lead to argument, accusations, resentment... 

The ritual has become counter-productive; the attempt to develop a habit of family love has led to its erosion.

This happens with churches - and indeed with any kind of organization that uses System to pursue higher goals. For instance, when the correct conduct of ritual becomes the primary mode of evaluation of the higher goal, pursuit of that higher goal becomes impaired and may be prevented. 

As when the "objective" behaviour of a church ritual dominates Christian evaluations; meanwhile Christian motivation (being subjective, hidden) is in practice ignored (or mere "lip service" paid).   

To clarify the metaphor: ritual is an aspect of System - and churches develop Systems that are intended (initially) to serve and sustain the Christian life of love: the aim of following Jesus Christ to resurrected eternal Heavenly life...

Church Systems then try to develop "good habits"; but the tendency is for habits to become primary - and this usually whether their in-practice effect on love is helpful, or an obstacle - much like those overcomplicated and intrusive arrangements on Christmas Day actually lead to the opposite of what is hoped-for and intended.  

The fact is that habits in particular, and System in general, are just means to an end; and that end must come first. 

And unless the end of Christian life is made explicit and distinguished from the habit/ System - then it will get squeezed-out; and "Christian" churches will become (have, mostly, already-become) hostile to Christianity.  

"Contacts" seem to be the potential basis of experiential understanding; as well as participation in the world of spirit

For the past couple of years I have been reading considerably about what Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight (and other ritual magicians of their kind) call "contacts" - or sometimes "Masters". The experience is of individual communication, or sharing of consciousness, with a spiritual being. 

The phenomenon seems various in its details, and may occur in a full trance (i.e. when the human becomes unconscious, and speaks or writes without awareness of what is being communicated). Or it may happen in more alert trance states, with awareness of what is going-on. This is apparently broadly the same as "channelling" (i.e. what is channelled, is "a contact"). 

And contacts seem to underlie, and blend-with by degrees, much commoner and more normal phenomena such as an intense fascination, empathy, communion with some not-present personage; who might be alive or dead, real-life or fictional. 

Contact may be sensory (in the form of spoken words or conversation (clairaudience), of visual (clairvoyance - perhaps of visions, symbols, written words); or non-sensory - as what I call "direct knowing". 

What seems to be the essential common factor is experienced person-to-person (or person-to-being) contact. 

Having read quite widely on this subject, it has become clear that (contrary to common claims, and despite that contacts are often sought purposively as a path to knowledge and guidance) such contacts are not necessarily, indeed only seldom, the basis for accurate or valid information. 

This is obvious from the apparent wrongness of much specific (and indeed abstract and generalized) information of this kind; but it must be true from the wide range of contradictory information cited between different (but apparently honest and competent) people; and the same person at different times. 

So I have concluded that contacts ought Not to be regarded as a pathway to factual or conceptual knowledge or true guidance. 

On the other hand; I have concluded that experience of contacts are not only of potentially primary personal significance; but are probably necessary to the development of true knowledge. 

In other words, unless we experience a phenomenon that could be characterized as a contact, we shall never really understand anything. 

I concluded this from examining my own work in science and literature, as well as theology, philosophy, and mystical religious experience. Even from when I was an atheist - from more than a decade before I was a theist, or a Christian; I never really understood the meanings of things until I had had this kind of contact experience. 

For instance, if I was working on theoretical science; it was all just a matter of "comparing models" - an activity that had no end, and brought no sense of validity - until I had reached an empathic contact with those scientists (living or dead) whose work I was critiquing or using; and the same applied when I had developed a theory that I regarded as valid. 

Truth needed to be "checked" by a very inner process, much as I later called heart-thinking; and until a proposition had passed this "test" I was never confident of it. 

True knowing needs to be known in the heart, and no amount of head-knowing (logic and "facts") can replace this requirement.  

Something closely analogous seems to be at work when I am trying to understand a writer. Unless and until I can attain an inward sense of contact and communion with that person; then I never really feel I know what they are saying. 

For instance; it took me about a decade before I "got" Owen Barfield, and felt that I really understood what he was thinking and asserting - and this understanding came as a consequence of getting onto his wavelength by a kind of sympathetic resonance, by thinking "with" him as I read his words or contemplated his writings. 

Much the same applied with William Arkle; I had to immerse into his writings for some years before, quite suddenly, I "contacted" his spirit and had the basis for understanding. 

But with other authors - such as ST Coleridge - I have never attained this sense of contact, therefore I have never (so far) been confident of understanding him: it is all second-hand, hearsay, "models" of what he was doing. 

It is certainly Not the case that contact leads to correct understanding. Contact with Barfield and Arkle was just the basis for understanding them. I needed to study, read, re-read, and think hard. 

So having experienced "contact" should Not be used as a "proof" that one's understanding is correct. 

But without that contact, there never would have been genuine understanding.

Furthermore, once one has attained contact, and followed it with serious study; one can recognize when others have not attained contact; and are merely parroting and playing-with second-hand summaries and models.  

Contact therefore seems to be necessary but not sufficient to knowing. 

Contact is also perhaps one of the commonest and most readily available modes of direct spiritual experience: a kind-of evidence of the reality of the spirit world.  

And this is just how things would be expected, in an animated, living reality - in this created universe ultimately composed of Beings in relationships. 

In sum; I conclude that he ways that contacts are usually regarded, seem to be mistaken. It is usually an error to seek contacts as a source of factual information. 

However, contacts - properly regarded - can be an experience of the living world of spirits, an active participation a world of conscious Beings: recognition of a relational world, in which we are never alone. 

And a way of inhabiting a world where we can truly understand purposes and meanings - at least to the extent of our individual cognitive capacities, biases, defects and particular perspectives.

All this depends on our regarding it as metaphysically possible - that is, our fundamental assumptions need to allow for such potential: we need to realize that this fits how reality is structured and operates. 

Political optimism is an Antichrist phenomenon

Just a reminder, eight years on - referencing the current environment of optimism among the self-styled "based" online - that we live in a totalitarian civilization; and that to desire for its revitalization by the results of an election is the kind of sin implied by the Antichrist phenomenon - to place one's hope in one who is not Christ, but in important and fundamental respects - a this-worldly net-opposite of Christ*. 

Recall too, that this-worldly pessimism Is Not Despair. 

Nor is optimism a Christian virtue; indeed, it may be an evil coping-mechanism. 

With matters as we know they are in The West; we should hope for the best (because we do not know everything) -- yet our hope needs to be not of this world;  but we should expect things to get worse - because that is where we are+, and the trend for generations, with self-destruction baked-in; and "the worst" is what Western people deeply and overwhelmingly want.

*Of which the "queue a-none" PSYOP was a prime instance: its mantra being that we ought-to "trust" [i.e. assume the positive inner motivations of a mainstream politician, and team], "the plan" [i.e. The System - i.e. external and human guidance; and do not take personal responsibility for your value-discernment]. 

+Things are much worse than you think: progressing over more than two centuries, by now the rot goes very deep and very wide. Reset to an earlier phase is impossible - it has never happened, and it never will.   

Welby Watch no more...

Cool threads Bish!...

Separated at birth? The Archbishop of Canterbury (top) and Walter the Softy from the Beano (below)

I see that the egregious Justin Welby - surely the most completely-mediocre and corrupt individual ever to hold the position so far - has been forced to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury*; and this only seven and a half years after his complicity in systematic sexually abusive "training camps" was described in multiple and detailed reports in Anglican Ink dating back to early 2017, as well as the Daily Telegraph.  

Which means, as usual the media reports are deeply misleading; since Welby's role in "covering-up" abuse (as well as his active role as camp counsellor) will have been thoroughly known to the monarch and prime minister for all this time (ie. those responsible for appointing the Archbishop of C). 

They and other senior people have therefore been shielding and protecting Welby, and apparently maintaining him in his job for as long as they could; because he was doing their bidding, following their agenda, and doing what they regard as "a good job" - i.e. destroying the Church of England specifically, and attacking Christianity in general. 

Among Welby's multiple aggressions on Christianity, surely his greatest was during the birdemic; when the Church of England imposed probably the most stringent lockdowns of any British institution. 

This succeeded in its implicit aim of wiping-out approximately an extra quarter of church attendance, over and above the steady decline over which Welby has presided.   

God bye - and good riddance? Well, we shall see what happens next to the docile dope of Lambeth Palace, before deciding whether he has really been punished at all; or just translated to a "higher" sphere. 

Justin's The Fonz impression always gets a laugh

*Note: The position of Archbishop of Canterbury is not quite the joke-job it superficially seems. As well as being the senior bishop of the worldwide Anglican communion - which is the third largest Christian denomination (after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox); "Cantaur" (the Latin abbreviation of Canterbury) is an integral part of the UK constitution, second in precedence to the King (who appoints the Prime Minister) and required to anoint the legitimate monarch at his coronation. 

Numinous experiences are "objective" - yet also personal

From what I can gather (and assuming other people are telling the truth!) what elicits numinous experiences varies between persons - and in this sense the numinous is subjective. 

Yet for each person there seems to be an "objectivity" - in that particular places and people can sometimes be (more or less, at least for a while) relied upon to evoke the numinous in a repeatable fashion. 

(I am assuming - in all this - that one is, in the first place, open to the experience of the numinous - which, apparently, many people are not!)   

The numinous sensation of some kind of underlying spiritual, religious or divine quality; needs to be distinguished from liking, enjoying, and finding immediately beautiful. I think this must be because the numinous is something implied or behind the surface of things. 

Thus, the numinous feeling seems more associated with yearning than with gratification; it has elements of deep and lasting fascination; such that the numinous stays in the mind and recurs, and each recollection brings the feeling again. 

Furthermore, I have found that (assuming a receptive mood) the numinous is experienced first-time, rather than being a thing that develops with repetition.  

A recent example was driving along the B7009/ 709 beside Ettrick Water in the Scottish Borders (the same trip in which I visited Tam Lin's Well). 

This was only my second time along this road (and over thirty years apart) - and it was again the quietest, most traffic free, road I have ever encountered. 

I find the journey weaving beside the Ettrick Water extremely "numinous". The scenery is indeed somewhat conventionally-attractive, yet far from the most attractive, even in the immediate vicinity. 

Indeed, there aren't many pictures of Ettrickdale online, nor has anybody made a photographic book of the region. But for me this landscape is saturated with covert meaning and significance. I experienced a light magical "trance", while in the area. 

When we passed the watershed of the Ettrick and crossed west into Eskdale, the numinous sensation began to diminish. The scenery was at least as pretty, indeed conventionally better; and yet for me the underlying magical quality reduced.

I wonder if this has to do with a change of geography or geology; or some kind of memory or association... Who knows? But this is the way that such things seem to work. 

Another example is Oxford versus Cambridge. For me (at least until around the millennium, when it diminished quite sharply: a reduction in the spirit of the place) Oxford is a numinous place but Cambridge is not - indeed Cambridge is anti-numinous! (Despite Cambridge being prettier and much less traffic-ravaged.) 

There are historical reasons why this might be so (e.g. Royalist Oxford versus Roundhead Cambridge, Classical Oxford v Mathematical Cambridge), and again the geography is different - albeit in this case I find the west more numinous than the east. 

(Albeit rural East Anglia is numinous; as are Ely and Norwich.) 

But in the end, the numinous is a matter of experience - yet any explanation of the difference comes second and is not-necessarily convincing. Even locally, in my everyday life; I find some particular trees, buildings, streets... numinous; but most others not. But why this should be, I cannot even guess.   

I have found the same, throughout my life, with people. A few people had (when I met them) a numinous quality; while others seemed and remained stubbornly "unromantic"! 

This applied to both men and women, friends and acquaintances. And, like places, the numinous romantic quality could be lost, but was never gained after an initial absence.

And the numinous is attractive - but not necessarily conventionally beautiful or nice, or even necessarily likeable - while, conversely, a person could be attractive and likeable without having anything of the numinous about them.  

  

As I discussed earlier today - what this all means is a different matter from the fact of its reality. However it is, and always has been, important to me. I will go to efforts and inconvenience to experience the numinous, and will continue to puzzle over its implications - without ever getting anywhere in particular. 

I am convinced that something is going on in me, at some level, in these numinous experiences - and that it is of lasting importance...

And so long as I continue feel that, and am able to respond to places and people in this fashion - for so long will I continue to seek experience of the numinous.  

What to make of significant-moments/ peak experiences/ epiphanies/ revelations? ...Because they don't interpret themselves.

I have for decades had a strong interest in those moments of experienced "numinous significance"; those times and places where - either at the time, or in retrospect - we have a conviction that something-has-happened which is of relevance to our life, generally. 

It seems that many people have these "peak experiences" - they vary with age, circumstances, place and company; some people have them a lot, and some (apparently) not at all. 

The actual raw experiences - their emotional and sensory qualities - seem pretty similar and identifiable as such. Yet whether they are significant; and, if so, what is their significance seems to depend on the interpretative scheme that is applied - and a wide range of schemes are applied. 

I think it is Not the intensity of emotion that matters, but the lingering sense of significance - the way an event recurs in memory, and that "something important, and potentially good" happened. 

But understanding what happened, and what are its meaning and implications; is where there are such big differences between people. 

I have read many books and essays by mystical/ spiritual/ esoteric/ occult type people; and it is evident that most of them have these "peak experiences" and regard them as central to - whatever it is they believe. Yet that which they believe varies extremely widely and often in opposite directions! From atheism of an hedonic flavour, right through New Age spirituality to devout adherents of formal and traditional religions -  of many kinds and with perhaps opposite tendencies.  

From this; it seems clear that such experiences are not "evidence" or "proof" of any particular "system" or metaphysical assumptions. This applies even when the experience is one of "theophany" - a vision of God for example. 

Reading the reports from people who believe they have experienced the presence of God, it is clear that the believed experience alone does not really get them anywhere in the longer term; because they need to understand, explain, make sense of their experience - and that requires such larger, perhaps pre-existing, scheme of assumptions. 

There is therefore probably an excessive emphasis on the occurrence of mystical/ spiritual (etc) experiences, and a relative (or complete) neglect of the matter of making sense of such experiences. 

In other words: the significance of unitary, discrete experiences is not self-evident. 

The scheme by which one makes sense of peak experiences, and indeed of all kinds of life-experiences, is a different matter - and apparently a deeper and more significant matter; than even the most significant of moments. 

It is inevitable that churches become part of a totalitarian society - therefore obedience to a church here-and-now = damnation

If you consider the nature of the kind of totalitarian society we inhabit in The West, it can be seen that it is inevitable that churches - including Christian churches - will be parts of The System. 

This to the same extent that these churches exist in the public realm as legal/ economic/ financial/ employing/ educational etc.) entities. 

(The nature of a totalitarian society is that all significant social institutions are necessarily part of the system of surveillance and control - which means, part of the totalitarian strategy.)

Thus, in a totalitarian society, insofar as they are significant social systems; churches will be part of The System - that is, part of the totalitarian system. 

And, totalitarian = evil* 

Therefore (under totalitarianism, in The West here-and-now) churches are evil institutions: evil in overall-effect and by their overall-aim. 

 

The consequence is that (as a strong generalization):

Obedience to churches = obedience to evil.

...Which means a positive choice to reject the salvation of Jesus Christ, and instead to choose damnation. 

This is explainable on the basis that the totalitarianism is manifested materialism, and operates by "brainwashing" people (by multiple means) to regard the external and the material as primary - indeed as the Only Real; and to subordinate, ignore or deny the inner intuitive and the spiritual. 

Churches are readily encompassed into totalitarianism; insofar as they actually function on the basis of quasi-objective laws, rules, regulations, dogmas, written documents with fixed conceptual interpretations, on the one side; and requirements for particular publicly observable behaviours (speech, writing, actions...), on the other. 

Therefore; under totalitarianism, any church that operates on the basis of public obedience to publicly observable and regulate-able behaviours is doing the work of evil: doing evil in terms of training its members to regard "the external" and "the material" as primary and mandatory. 

(What is deadly is the doctrine that salvation depends on the principle of obedience to a church which is so pernicious, rather than the specific content of that obedience.) 

So; (here and now) any church is evil in requiring obedience to itself (which is a social institution) as necessary to avoid damnation - when in reality this obedience is itself, precisely, damnation. 

It can be seen that under totalitarianism; the churches (which are part-of The System) engage in the same institutionally-imposed value-inversion that characterize totalitarian evil. 

+++

*Totalitarianism is evil because it is a manifestation of that kind of "materialist", anti-life, anti-human evil I have termed Ahrimanic; therefore evil both by its demonic-aim, and also intrinsically - by its nature. 

+++++++

NOTE ADDED: I realize that real Christians who are (here and now) members of churches do not obey them (except selectively, and on the basis of intuition and spiritual guidance - which is precisely Not to obey, in a traditional sense). 

However, too many of these people are currently dishonest or self-blinded as to the foundational Christian necessity of their own and personal discernment; which is itself a weakness and/or a sin - doubly-so when they pretend to church obedience as necessary to salvation. 

It is therefore important that such people understand what they are actually-already doing, and why; and are explicit and honest about what they are doing (at least in their own minds, if not publicly).

As we may perceive all around us in everyday life: nobody can be argued or compelled to take personal responsibility for their own choices, nor can they be argued or compelled into becoming conscious of that which they prefer to maintain unconscious. And there is a significant chance that having "bad faith" pointed-out will merely lead to an escalation of the self-distraction and displacement-activity of attacking the messenger.   

It would therefore be much better if the kind of self-identified "obedient" church-first Christians I am talking about would reach a true recognition, each from- and for-himself. 

A droll music-video - Mission Impossible Theme from The Piano Guys with Lindsey Stirling

A blast from the past (11 years ago) - I remembered this today and enjoyed it as much as ever.

Christianity is ultimately Not about happiness, Nor the elimination of suffering

What is life "for" - it it to be happy - which implies a continual "timeless" state of bliss. 

If happiness is rooted-in the elimination of all suffering (which is the emphasis in some major religions); then there can be no needs, no desire, no "wanting"*. 

All Just Is, and what is, is good.  

Or else is life rooted in purpose? Purpose is dynamic, includes time; and purpose entails and some degree of dissatisfaction, yearning, wanting, desiring.

(Because if here-and-now was wholly satisfactory and sufficient, then there would be no reason to change it - no purpose.) 

Happiness (and the elimination of suffering) is in ultimate conflict with a life of purpose: one or other, but not both, can be the aim of spiritual life. They can't simultaneously be the aim. If we tried to conflate both in a unity, then one or other will - in actuality - be dominant over the other. 

So purpose is in-conflict-with the desire for a state of perfect happiness; and with the desire to eliminate all suffering - because purpose entails some degree of suffering. 

To live (always) with purpose, is always to experience some degree of dissatisfaction with here-and-now; in order to desire some, somewhat-different future state. 

Therefore the desire for happiness (including the elimination of suffering) is incompatible with purpose. 

This is part-of the incompatibility of, on the one hand, the many forms of oneness spirituality - of "Eastern" religion so-styled, yet actually far more widespread that the East, including being strongly, and from early, within Christianity) -- with, on the other hand, Christianity (properly understood).

Christianity is about purpose, ultimately. Therefore, not ultimately about happiness, nor about the elimination of suffering. 

What Christianity is about, is dynamic, purposive, taking place in-and through-time: it is about Love as the basis of creation. 

**

(But because Love has so often been defined in terms of a static state of perfect happiness, the dynamic purposive nature of Love - hence of creation - has become confused and/or occluded. To put is the other way about; there are two distinct ways of considering "Love" as the goal of existence: one is as a timeless, perfect-in-itself, blissful - and essentially impersonal - state; the other is as dynamic, purposive, creative - and essentially inter-personal.) 

*Note added: It could be said that Love (understood as participation in divine creation) is itself the ultimate happiness; and in a sense that would be correct - for those who choose to follow Jesus Christ. But it is not the ultimate happiness for everybody. It seems that for many people the highest happiness entails a changeless bliss. And there are others for whom the greatest gratification (if not exactly "happiness" entails that which Christians regard as evil - selfish gratifications of various kinds. 

The positive path, forward through life

If oneness is primary, why did oneness allow that oneness be fractured; only to permit or demand the restoration of primal oneness? 

Contra-oneness: life is linear and the future is open. Therefore; what we need above all is a way forward; and the inner motivation to pursue it. 

Most important in faith is that there is always - at every moment - a positive path ahead. This must be so; or else we would (by now) be dead. 

Avoiding wrong paths  (double-negative living) does not suffice, since wrong paths are limitless in number; and all living would be expended on error and repentance.  

Our path forward is for each of us to find, because it is not, and cannot be, externally provided from any source in this world. It must be sought (which is our responsibility), and be discerned (by our-selves, as much as is possible). 

There can be, and may be, divine rescue and the external imposition of a direction when our own efforts fail; but remember that this is seriously second-best. 

God most wants us to do it, so that we will learn it. Divine rescue may be useless or counter-productive in terms of what we are here for - promoting passivity instead of creativity.  

What is the bottom-line? Not one thing, because we are Beings, and Beings are complex (irreducible) by nature. 

The true complexity of this world derives primarily from the hearts of Beings; secondly from the relationships of Beings. 

In other words; the complexity of this world is rooted in extreme structural simplicity - therefore Not in complex theological-philosophical schemata. 

Unconditional, universal love is a benign disposition towards abstract "thought forms"; whereas Christian love is for particular and personal Beings. 

Personal and abstract are distinguishable, and vitally so; but are not completely separable. 

...Thought forms become inhabited by personal spirit Beings; thus unconditional and abstract love gets personalized (willy nilly); while personal Love contains the expansile tendency to seek more of itself, pressing towards other and (as yet) unknown persons.     

Jesus overcame the world*- but nobody else among Men has come near!

Including not the Saints (by their own accounts). 

Neither you nor I can overcome the world. 

It is a terrible, and terribly common, error to suppose that Men can overcome the world; or, even worse, that we should. 

That was-not/ is-not how the world is set-up in God's creation. It is not how things work. 

There is no such thing as enlightenment - we cannot overcome the world; but there is repentance, which (properly understood) is the path to eternal resurrected life.  

Men are God-intended to know, acknowledge, and repent sin - to learn-from mortal life; that we may thereby become better Men in eternal resurrected life. 

We should not strive to overcome this world, because Christ's "Kingdom" is not of this world.

Instead we should know and follow Jesus: out of this world and into Heaven.  

*John 16:33 - These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. 

My "kingdom" is not of this world... On being led by the Fourth Gospel (called John)

A couple of days ago I wrote that we should think of Jesus primarily as The Good Shepherd (leading those who will follow to resurrected life everlasting beyond biological death); and not as a King. 

Such is a natural consequence of the decision I made to base my Christian belief on the Fourth Gospel (called John) - the background to which decision is covered in my 'mini-book' from a few years ago, Lazarus Writes. 

I am aware that history took a very different path of putting the Synoptic Gospels, and indeed the Epistles of Paul, above the Fourth Gospel; and also of interpreting the Fourth Gospel in light of the rest of the New Testament. However, I regard this as an error, simply because I believe what the Fourth Gospel says about itself, and therefore put it first and above all other scriptures. 

The Fourth Gospel tells us, repeatedly and in many ways, that Jesus is Not a King, that it is a mistake to regard him as such. How then do I interpret the phrase "My kingdom is not of this world"? [See this verse in context below the post.]

Quite simple - in the context of the whole Gospel and of the section in which this occurs; I understand Jesus to be saying to Pilate something like: My "kingdom" is not of this world. 

In other words, Jesus is telling Pilate something like: "I am Not saying that I am a king - that is Your assertion, and that of Jews who have misunderstood my mission and role. 

"Furthermore what You might think of as the kingdom to which I belong is Not even part of this mortal life on earth. 

"I am, in other words, not primarily concerned with this mortal world. What I have to teach and do is concerned with life beyond death, the world of eternity: Heaven not earth". 

In other words, it is a radical misunderstanding to suppose that the Fourth Gospel asserts Jesus is a King. 

 

Of course, most Christians through history regard Jesus as a King because this is clearly and repeatedly stated in other parts of the New Testament. Jesus (after death and ascension) is often regarded as true ruler of this world ("Pantocrator"). But if the Fourth Gospel is what is says it is; then this must be an error - no matter how common. 

I completely understand that Christians who take the orthodox and traditional, church-led, view of Christianity; will reject this idea outright as being ridiculous. They have made very different assumptions concerning the relative validity and authority of Scriptures, and of the authority of their church - or of historical churches. 

I understand this perspective, and why people do not want to go-against the weight of tradition and church authority - but I reject it for myself; because I believe the Fourth Gospel and therefore think it is a mistake. 

Here-and-now (however differently it may have been in the past) I believe that understanding Christ as King of this world, first and foremost, may well lead to contradiction and adverse consequences.

Instead of a King - we need to grasp that Jesus is essentially the Good Shepherd, one who enables all who will follow him to attain resurrection into Heaven.   

John: 18 [33] Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? [34] Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? [35] Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? [36] Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. [37] Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. [38] Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?

Is BRICS the backlash of Lawful Evil?

As The West continues its path of (in Dungeons and Dragons terms) Chaotic Evil  - or what I would term spite-driven Sorathic self-and-other destruction; it seems to me that Lawful Evil (i.e. the Ahrimanic - control-motivated, hence totalitarian and bureaucratic type of evil) is making an attempt at comeback via the now world-dominant BRICS grouping. 

In other words The System ("the Matrix") is doomed to inwardly-driven (and actively-desired) self-destruction, and is already collapsing, in The West; therefore the powers of evil whose strategy is to impose a material mechanism for spiritual damnation, are shifting attention from The West to The Rest. 

Geopolitics is always evil, no matter its explicit purpose. 

While, from the POV of the dominant countries of the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom, BRICS seems to be a means towards the end of national sovereignty and the cultural autonomy in face of a monolithic globalism; the very facts and necessities of any multi-national compromise coalition, continue to push the existing and emerging alliance towards the nature of Lawful Evil. 

This is evidenced by several of the many recent statements of BRICS policy and strategy; which favour UN-type organizations to formulate and enforce "international regulation". 

It therefore seem like the demons of Lawful Evil have abandoned "The West" to the ministrations of Chaotic Evil, and are increasingly directing their main efforts towards "The Rest". 

From a Christian perspective, we are dealing with greater versus lesser evils (at best); therefore there is again the pitfall opening of inducing people actively to support that which is actually-evil, on the basis that it is a different, and maybe less extreme, kind of evil than that which preceded it.  

The danger is that Christians are actively supporting Lawful Evil on the basis that it is possible to be optimistic about its prospects in this-world, here-and-now. 

I suggest that Christians need to be much clearer than they currently seem to be, about the necessity actively to support only that which is Good by motivation and methods - no matter how weak that Good may be in this-worldly terms; and no matter how pessimistic the prospects of Good seem, with things as they currently are.

On the material and earthly level, Christians will inevitably lose - sooner or later; and it is on the spiritual level that are there solid grounds for realistic optimism. 

The grounds of our hope are sure, but Not Of This World. 

Once we have grasped this; then (but only then) can we see and know how such a spiritual and next-worldly expectation, can and will improve things in this mortal life. 

In D&D terms we should eschew not just evil, but the categories of lawful and chaotic, and pursue that which is creative. 

Go to Heaven - Go Directly to Heaven; do not pass through earth, do not collect 200 lashes

One of the questions that are answered inadequately (incoherently) by the off-the-peg mainstream religions is: What is the point of this mortal life on earth? 

Why don't we go directly to Heaven? Why must we mass-through mortal life, why must so many people endure (and, sometimes, enjoy) decades of earthly existence - what may amount to decades of suffering? 

Even for Christians: Why do some of us spend so-much time, effort (and, often, misery) tediously mucking-about in getting, conceived, born, growing-up, living, getting sick, maybe reproducing, getting old and dying (the whole complicated and hazardous rigmarole) - before we get to Heaven (maybe).  

There are indeed ways of making sense of this, but mainstream Christianity - with it's omni-God and double-negative Jesus - is not one of them. 

But do we really need (after 2000 years without!) a deep, metaphysical, theology that tells us positively what this mortal life is for, and what Jesus did, and how it fits into divine creation? 

Surely it is (as Jesus seems to have said) enough to love and follow Jesus Christ to salvation? 

Yes it is enough - for salvation; assuming that we can get through mortal life still wanting it, and not so corrupted as to reject the offer when it is made after our death.

Yet this world is full of ex-Christians, fake-Christians, self-identified by not-really Christians. The churches are collapsing, and those that remain "devout" are evidently on a path leading down and away from Jesus. 

But meanwhile? Are we really living through mortal life just for that final decision? - or is there something we ought to be doing here and now that will contribute to that eternal resurrected life we anticipate with confidence?

Important questions - vital questions - it seems to me. 

And if our society and our churches are not giving coherent answers - then what are we (personally_ going to do about it? Say "it's not my fault"? Or find answers?

(Or, is there something more important that you need to do instead?)

The darkest hour is just before the dawn... No it isn't!

 

From timeanddate.com/sun/uk/newcastle-upon-tyne

"The darkest hour is just before the dawn" may be psychologically true as a proverb - but is astronomically false. 

If dawn is defined as the sunrise; the night goes through three evolving phases of increasing light (defined by the sun's angle below the horizon), that are conventionally separated as such:

Astronomical dawn - Sun is 12-18 degrees below the horizon: when the sky lightens from black towards blue such that fainter stars disappear.

Nautical dawn - Sun is 6-12 degrees below the horizon: when, on a clear day, the horizon and brighter stars are still visible at sea.

Civil dawn - Sun is 0-6 degrees below the horizon: when all the stars (except, maybe, Venus) disappear, and it is light enough over land to do normal outdoor stuff.  

The truth is that it is darkest in the middle of the night, when the sun is at its greatest angle below the horizon. 

That doesn't fit the moral of the proverb - which is rooted in an archetypal narrative of eucatastrophe. 

Yet I can't help but suppose that "the darkest hour is just before the dawn" is a proverbial product of the kind of people who never look at the sky, or who have not been out of bed early enough to observe the dawn for themselves!... 

Relationships with the world of spiritual Beings: Characterizing stronger and weaker interactions between people (and other Beings)

Since I understand reality ultimately to consist of Beings (i.e. Beings are the only final and objective categories of reality); and creation to consist of their interactions and relationships* (so that the laws, processes, forces, fields etc) --  naturally, the question of what influences the relationship between Beings is of interest.  

I try to seek such understanding in what we spontaneously know (for example as young children) - or at least seek validation of my ideas in this (because I regard our genuinely innate and spontaneous knowledge as ultimately God-given - because a Good creator God who loves us would - I think - want to build-into us essentially-valid, as well as useful, knowledge). 

On this basis. relationships need to be possible between incarnated people - including those in remote places; and also between us and "the dead", and with un-incarnated spirits (angels, demons, other kinds of spiritual entity) - so we must go beyond the usual materialist ideas of how relationships work. 

So, on the one hand, it seems that there are no absolute physical limits to the possibility of relationships - which is what would be expected given that all Beings are first-and-foremost of a spiritual nature. 

Yet at the same time, I notice that the strength of relationships is influenced by a variety of factors. Most obviously spatio-temporal proximity is a factor that increases the likelihood of a relationship and tends to increase its strength. In other words, Incarnated Beings that are nearby, and are currently "alive", are the easiest to make relationships with, and indeed it may be difficult Not to have relationships with nearby incarnate Beings. 

(Nonetheless, modern city dwellers seem completely to ignore the vast majority of proximate living Beings - so the modern mind seems to block relationships as a default - hence our default state of alienation and isolation.) 

Consciousness also has a positive effect on strength of relationships; such that relationships are more likely, and more likely to be strong, when we are aware of an other Being - than when we are unconscious/ unaware. 

Attention is another positively reinforcing factor on relationships. When we are spiritually orientated-towards another Being, then we are more likely to relate to them, and more strongly. Attention, in turn, may be a product of motivation (and the factors that affect motivation - interest, impulses etc). 

Such a consideration of relationships can be helpful in understanding their strength, or weakness. And it can be helpful in understanding the nature and reason for incarnation - for the material instantiation of spiritual Beings (such as mortal Men) in bodies. 

An embodied Being increases the strength of spatio-temporally close relationships - the relationship between beings her-and-now; at the cost of weakening relationships between incarnate and discarnate (i.e. spirit-) Beings.

In other words; our default insensitivity to spirits that are unincarnated, with non-human and non-biological beings, and with people who are distant in time or space; is the flip-side of our spontaneous social bias in favour of the human beings around us, now. 

This gives insight into why few modern people experience spontaneous and strong relationship with spirits. 

It also explains why consciousness of the reality of spirits (of spirits in general, and also specific spirits - including "dead" humans), and directing attention to spirits, can overcome this default insensitivity. 

...Which fits rather neatly with my oft-expressed conviction that our task as modern Men includes increased conscious and explicit understanding of the ultimate nature of reality (ie. "metaphysics") as including the spiritual as primary; and also that we must make choices, exercise our agency, take responsibility for the bottom-line freedom of our situation in the world. 

In a nutshell: we need to acknowledge the reality of the spiritual world, and choose to engage with it.

But of itself this conscious engagement with the spirit world may be good or evil according to the side with which we affiliate in the spiritual war of this world. 

So, to be Good; all the above should take place in the context of what can briefly be characterized as "Christian Love". 

*NOTE: Relationships between Beings are a primary assumption of this metaphysics, which means that relationships cannot be defined. Relationships can, however, partially be described in terms of attributes - and this is of value in clarifying what is meant by relationships. Just as Beings can be described in terms of attributes such as purpose, life, consciousness, self-sustaining ability, possibilities of growth and transformation... These attributes are open-ended in number, and vary very-widely in quantity between Beings, hence they are not definitive. So relationships can also be described in terms of their attributes. That "description of relationships in terms of some of their attributes" is what this post is attempting. 

Fake garbage vegan pseudo-substitutes for Turkish Delight and Pease Pudding

"It shouldn't be allowed", but it has already happened, that two of my favourite foods have been eliminated and replaced with fake, garbage, vegan substitutes. 

As a kid, Fry's Turkish Delight (milk chocolate coated TD) was my absolute favourite sweet; and when I later discovered actual Turkish Delight (powdered with fine sugar) I liked that very much as well. 

But the stuff they sell under that name now is completely different, because "They" have eliminated the essential ingredient of gelatin, because it comes from animals. 

So the pseudo-TD is just gooey sugar-gel, flavoured with rose water - which I find so vile that I can't eat it.

Pease Pudding (as in the nursery rhyme*) is a traditional, working-class, North English garnish; which is traditionally made from the stock remaining after boiling a ham, ideally flavoured with onion, celery and a carrot. 

You boil dried split peas (which are a bit like larger, beige lentils) in the stock, until they have softened to a thick paste. It is the perfect accompaniment to ham; and makes an excellent sandwich. The only problem is that the process takes long time - more than an hour, and then the pease pudding should be allowed to cool - and this takes longer than roasting the boiled ham. 

So I have recently bought "pease pudding" from the local supermarket; and discovered a pseudo-product that is so bland and flavourless that it actually detracts from the meal. This is simply because it is not the same thing - unsurprisingly, because this vegan product is made of split peas and... salted water. 

And vegans wonder why normal people hate them so much!

*Pease pudding hot, Pease pudding cold, Pease pudding in the pot, Nine days old. Some like it hot, some like it cold, Some like it in the pot, nine days old.

...But nobody likes it with salted water, instead of ham stock. 

Alone, overnight, in Durham Castle

I once spent the night entirely alone in the ancient structure of Durham Castle, comprising scores of empty hallways, passages and a hundred-plus bedrooms; the kitchens, Feasting Hall; and both an underground Norman Chapel with peculiarly eroded primitive cravings, and a severely-dignified 16th century chapel. 

I was, at the time, a Resident Don, living in the junction to the Victorian-restored and residential Keep. It was, I think, the Easter vacation, when undergraduates were absent; and also, for reasons that I cannot now remember, the place was also vacated by postgraduates, the other Dons, and even the college porter and her family who lived in the gatehouse at the back-left of the above illustration.  

The porter told me that I was the only person remaining in residence for the one night; and gave me instructions for locking-up and security. 

On the actual night in question, at first I was unfazed - just getting on with my work. Then it became dark, and mostly very quiet... 

But there were, in fact, many noises of many kinds, of the kind one would expect in very old buildings; especially creakings and short deep thuds.  

Quite suddenly I became afraid; and experienced an involuntary picture in my mind of the many dark, empty rooms that surrounded me - and I felt very alone.

I considered going out, but did not fancy venturing through the empty halls and courtyard, and liked even less the idea of returning. 

I did not even want to speak to somebody on the phone - since this would somehow amplify awareness of the oppressive sense of the building around me. 

In the end, I adopted the cowardly tactic of distraction and hiding; I turned the television and music up loud until I went to bed; inserted earplugs, and took refuge in the oblivion of sleep. 

By the next morning, everything seemed normal and friendly, and I rather enjoyed the interval until people began to trickle back. But I still recall how thoroughly I spooked myself -- or else became aware of aspects of the situation that were normally drowned-out of consciousness by the intrusive presence, activities, sounds of many people.