Merry Christmas Day - Coventry Carol by Maddy Prior

The Massacre of the Innocents, by Pieter Breughel the Elder; this is the subject matter of the Coventry Carol 

Many people's favourite sad carol - the Coventry Carol - is here performed by the unsurpassed Maddy Prior. 

The song includes perhaps the most famous example of a "Picardy Third" cadence, at the end of the chorus. 

Coventry Carol is in a "tragic" minor key, as befits the subject matter; but the last chord includes a major third, so that the tune ends on a "happy" note. 

Apparently, this was normal in ancient times, when (presumably because of our expectation of salvation) it was felt inappropriate for Christians to end musical pieces in a tragic way. 

So the last chord of any piece should either be an open or "bare" fifth (sounding the tonic and fifth notes) or else needed to have a major third interval of four semitones; rather than finishing with a minor third of just three semitones interval. 

Merry Christmas Day.

Funniest Christmas novelty song?

Britain is plagued by Christmas Song anthologies that get replayed every year in places like supermarkets - most come from pop novelty records of the 1970s or 80s. 

None of the playlist novelty songs are much good - although I have a soft spot for Boney M "Mary's Boy Child" - but the one really enjoyable example of this kind of seasonal offering from the 70s/80s is never played in public nowadays, and seems to have been officially "forgotten"... 

For reasons that will become pretty obvious when you listen. 

I mean, of course, that comic masterpiece of smut and innuendo from 1974 by then UK's favourite family-friendly humourists, The Goodies: "Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me"; initially just the B-side of a forgettable single that reached #13 in the charts, then flipped into a Double-A side...  

Not even its most fervent advocates could say that FCDNTM captures the true Christmas Spirit, nor even that it instils good values or admirable ideals. 

But I just listened to it again; and again found myself almost crying with laughter - as much at the just-right background accompaniment, in the gaps between the "singing", as the actual song. 

Merry Christmas to one and all! 

Nationalism 2025 is just another top-down (Leftist) ideology

Real bottom-up nationalism was a phenomenon of the late 19th and early 20th century - it was, indeed, the first attempt by developing nations to do without religion as the basis of social cohesion (specifically, it was the first post-Christianity ideology.

Instead of a common religion, the basis for social cohesion was intended to be racial and national identity - "blood and soil". 

This early nationalism sometimes worked as a primary motivator, perhaps because it necessarily included a residue of common national religion (e.g. in Ireland, or Spain - where, for a while, nationalists ruled in collaboration with the Roman Catholic Church) - but this strength was always brief, and faded after a generation or so. 

Since then (and this includes the post-empire forms); nationalism has been, like all other forms of mainstream politics, essentially a top-down, ruling-class-driven ideology. 

Later nationalism was (and is) a "local elites" project. 

That is; a matter of the local clerical and managerial class (often journalists, school teachers and clerks) trying to propagandize the masses to support their plans of fragmentation of a larger political unit, into smaller national groupings. 

This fragmentation brought new career and other opportunities for the local elites - who had previously been kept-out of power by the larger-unit's leadership class. 

But the bottom line is that such nationalism is just-another variant of Leftism: i.e. it is a type of secular materialism, with utilitarian values rooted in this-worldly hedonism (i.e. the claim to optimize human gratification - in this instance of indigenous members of the nation). 

Nationalism nowadays shares the arbitrariness and incoherence of other Leftisms: it entails vast efforts of propaganda to be disseminated by media and education, and enforced by laws and the state bureaucracy. 

It survives by pandering to the local elites, whose careers and status depend on sustaining the nationist fictions - however feeble.  

What is more, in the past several decades nationalism has failed everywhere from Ireland to Iceland to sustain itself. 

Indeed, even ideologically-"nationalist" leaders have in practice and overwhelmingly willingly and enthusiastically embraced the most destructive aspects of globalism, from self-subjection to multi-national groupings and agencies (EU, UN-WHO etc), assimilation into international finance and trade; and enforced native population subordination-to and replacement-by the necessarily destructive phenomenon of mass immigration. 

Self-styled nationalism in 2025, such as that in Scotland, Australia, New Zealand; is merely a film of window-dressing applied to conceal some of the most globalist servile and native-population self-destructive even in our corrupted world!

Nationalism as of here-and-now is therefore a false and delusional hope - futile at best, but most likely just-another agent for the agendas of international totalitarianism and/or societal chaos leading towards WWIII. 

  

Not just super-preppers. What are the covert assumptions of the high level globalist rulers?

Anyone who has a (more-or-less) coherent religious basis; can observe that the high level global ruling class is pursuing some kind of covert strategy - a long-term (multi-generational) hidden-agenda. 

This can be seen by examining the tenacity of the major ideological schemes - which I call Litmus Tests. 

In a world of fads and fashions and attention fatigue - mass immigration has been imposed upon all developed nations without exception over decades. The same applies to political Leftism (socialism, feminism, antiracism, sexual revolution), the CO2 Climate agenda, and now "AI" - and there are several other examples. 

All of these Just Are incoherent - both internally and between the strategies; and all are functionally-destructive at the international, national, and local levels. 

At a superficial level, these net-destructive programmes have all greatly enhanced the concentration of power and wealth among the globalist (and national) rulers - even as they dismantle the basis for that power and wealth, and accelerate eventual civilizational collapse. 

Some argue that this selfishness of "elites" is the primary cause of the Litmus Test strategies.

By this argument; the globalist rulers are merely a species of "prepper" - who are working together to ensure that they themselves and their allies; will be the ones to survive any major international downfall. Instead of remote mountain fastnesses, and little gangs based on self-sufficiency and low-tech...

The ruling-class preppers believe they can themselves best be preserved by town-sized survival zones, totalitarian control and organization; an elite supported and served by a small but powerful class of armed protectors/ enforcers; and an enslaved technological experts (apparently these are intended to do their work mostly by computers and the deployment of "AI" and robots...).

(NOTE: I do not regard this scenerio - or something similar - as actually possible in real life; but I do believe that They believe it and are motivated by it.)    

However; I regard it as a serious mistake to assume that selfishness is the primary motivating force behind these strategies.

Such a long-term commitment to the covert strategy, in the face of so many kinds of resistance; implies to me that "They" regard themselves as engaged in some kind of ultimately beneficial agenda... 

"Beneficial", that is, by a secular utilitarian argument; based on some very particular assumptions. 

What makes sense of the covert strategy is that They are convinced that there will be a massive and unavoidable collapse of global civilization; and that They suppose their plans are a rational and "best possible" response to this catastrophic inevitability. 

They are being told, and are telling each other, that the covert agendas are means to an end...

An end that is for the eventual benefit of "Mankind" - a course of action that will minimise the totality of inevitable suffering; and preserve as much of civilization as "realistically" possible.

They see themselves as tough-minded pragmatists and realists; who have the onerous responsibility of making very difficult choices - with the overall aim of getting the best achievable outcome from an unavoidably disastrous situation that will entail enormous human suffering and the deaths of literally billions - i.e. an assumption of looming certain death of a large majority of the world population. 

This kind of covert assumed and predicted framework, is probably the basis for the sustained cohesion and purpose of the globalist leadership class - and the basis for their energy, direction, and self-confidence - and self-superiority. 

Because apparently They see-themselves as noble rulers doing a dirty but necessary job that nobody else can or will do. 

And their personal enrichment and tyrannical powers are self-justified as necessary means to this necessary end. 

Yet; if that is indeed (more or less) the story They tell themselves; and even though it does contain some truth (for instance, I agree with an analysis that predicts that global civilization will collapse, and that billions will die) - that is not the whole story...

Because the story is rooted in secular utilitarian this-worldly assumptions and values, that are themselves intractably incoherent and cannot serve as a valid basis for any kind of "morality".

And this is what has led the global rulers into being willingly-manipulated into doing the work of demonic powers of evil. 

The real agenda behind the globalists covert agenda is one of the Satanic corruption and damnation of souls - and by this understanding: the globalist rulers are the first victims; eager dupes who, regardless of what happens in this-world in the future, have actually (as things stand now) chosen for themselves an eternal destiny of demonic servitude. 

The Corpus Christi carol

He bore him up, he bore him down, 

He bore him into an orchard brown. 

(Chorus) 

Lully, lullay, lully, lullay! 

The falcon has borne my make away. 

And in that hall there standeth a bed: 

It was hanged with gold so red; 

(Chorus) 

And on that bed there lieth a knight, 

His woundis bledyng day and night; 

(Chorus) 

And by that side there kneleth a may, 

And she wepeth both night and day; 

(Chorus)

And by that bed there standeth a stone, 

“Corpus Christi” written thereon.

(Chorus)

Key: "make" = "mate"; "may" = "maid"; "Corpus Christi" = "body of Christ"

There are many variants of title and lyrics, and even more of the melody.

But this is the tune I regard as definitive (although the performance is only adequate IMO - I can't find any better online). 

It is composed in the Doric/ Dorian Mode, which runs from D to D on the white notes of a piano; and is characterized by a minor third and a flattened seventh (no "leading note"). This lends a suitably "medieval" quality to the ancient song. 

This "carol" (it isn't really a carol) is very mysterious in its subject matter; seeming like an imaginary journey of initiation as we are led from scene to scene to a climatic revelation - none of which scenes are explained, and all of which seem "symbolic" in some way. 

Some ideas about the poem are that it is to do with a slain knight and his betrothed, the Holy Grail and the Fisher King; or Mary and Jesus (maybe the Blessed Virgin Mary, or perhaps Mary Magdalene) - or perhaps all of these at the same time. 

 

Why not lie?

We live in what must surely be the most calculatedly untruthful society and civilization in world history - where dishonesty is expected and demanded of many people in their work - on a daily, hourly, basis. 

So, given that it is so expedient to do so - why not lie, since everybody else does? 

In a neatly composed post; blogger "Rev Matt" puts forward a coherent psychological argument against lying...

Which is that a life built on lies is like that of an undercover spy: the liar always needing to be vigilant, anxious; ever vulnerable to exposure. 

This may psychologically be true of most individual persons who have constructed their lives based on dishonesty*, but it does not apply to the prevalent form of untruthfulness here-and-now - which is to sustain and defend the social lies of our totalitarian civilization. 

This is actually less stress-inducing, than it is to think - and maybe - speak truth**!

The harm is thus primarily spiritual, rather than psychological. It is the harm from sustaining systematic dishonesty and calculated misleading, and from defending-it-as-good; and doing so for our innermost selves: in conscience.  

Such is to invite evil into one's heart - with inevitable adverse spiritual consequences; consequences that will not be repented for so long as the lie is self-excused. 

That is the real reason why not to lie. 

+++

* There are - however - some individuals who positively enjoy living-a-lie. Some spies seem to be of this sort. Such people experience a sense of their own superiority at deceiving people. And, if they are caught in the lie, they likewise enjoy either worming their way out of the situation - by whatever means is effective; or perhaps brazenly admitting they have fooled so many people for such a long time, and laughing at the gullibility of others. 

** The same applies to science and academia more widely: it is much less stressful, and more immediately gratifying, to go-along-with whatever current untruths are prevalent among the leadership class; than it is to pursue truth and to speak truth.  

Don't envy tribal-minded peoples! It is futile; but also they are being manipulated into spiritual (and material) oblivion

Many of us are, or have been, nostaligic and indeed envious of the remnant tribalisms of this modern world; because we European-descended peoples are not spontaneously tribal by nature, have lost the cohesion of religion, and are nowadays psychologically immune to the top-down ideological phase of "nationalism". 

We each may feel the loneliness and apparent helplessness of social isolation. 

And anyway we can't do tribalism - no matter how hard we try! We can't even convince our-selves of it.  

But if we raise the debate above the pragmatics of short-termist materialistic thriving; it may be observed that we have the inestimable advantage of individual freedom. 

Because to be (more or less) immersed in the group mind is exclusive of, and on an opposite pole from, the absolute agency of our divine selves. 

The tribal live and die with the tribe; and are unable to dissociate from the tribal mind. 

And when that tribe is being manipulated (by the global totalitarian leadership class) into actions that are spiritually-destructive, and also tend towards their own long-term material annihilation... 

Well, the tribal person has little alternative but to go along with the process. 

The alienated modern European-descended Westerner will - and it often happens spontaneously - dissociate himself from any group; therefore he can spiritually stand-against, and inwardly oppose, the successful manipulations of the masses. 

In physical material terms, the alienated Man is probably doomed to destruction, just as much as the tribal Man - and maybe sooner...

But as of 2025 and pervasive rule of global totalitarian evil; spiritually, it is the alienated Man who has the advantage over the tribal Man - if he chooses to use it. 

Experiencing Winter Solstice in magical imagination

I regard the Winter Solstice as a phase of the year lasting about a week, rather than today specifically.

Because day length barely changes for several days - even up here in an extreme latitude (55 degrees north), on either side of an astronomical solstice. 

The solstices have the slowest rate of day-to-day change in day-length of any time of year, just as the equinoxes have the fastest. 

Such an insight means that one can (more often) legitimately mark and celebrate the solstice at a time when the skies are clear, and in places where ravening hordes of noisy and crusty neo-pagans are absent!

Or, even better - at least for me, and people like me - is to create the event in active imagination, from memories and previous imaginings.  

Such was what the great Christian occultist Gareth Knight recommended: that when we visit enchanted or sacred sites, we are only seldom in an exalted mood (we may be ill, frazzled, distracted), and the situation may not be conducive to a here-and-now spiritual experience (adverse weather, intrusive crowds). 

But we should be attentive, observant, give the place a chance to soak-into us...

And then use these memories - and other memories of a personal, literary, artistic, imagined etc. nature - to re-create and synthesize an ideal experience; at some time later - in meditation. 

In other words, we can follow the advice of William Wordsworth in that classic statement of Romanticism: the preface to Lyrical Ballads: 

I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.

We need, therefore, to put aside notions that meditative re-creative imagination is a second-hand or second-rate experience...

And realize that this is the definitive mode of enchantment, or participation, for people like us, here and now.   

Readings to get you into the Christmas mood...

FC Letters, JRRT

For those of you who have only begun reading this blog within the last dozen years - here is a reprise of my particular favourite Christmas readings, going back over several decades: 

1. The description of the feast at Sir Ector's castle in The Sword in the Stone, by TH White. 

2. The opening section of Sir Gawain and the Green Night - including the foundation of Britain, and up to the description of the feast at Camelot. 

3. The passages about the carol singers in Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee. 

4. The carol singers and surrounding parts of The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame. 

5. A Child's Christmas in Wales (in any of its several version) by Dylan Thomas. 

And, favourite of all:

6. The Father Christmas Letters - by JRR Tolkien.

The two millennial failure of Christian *Religion*

I admit candidly that my title is more than a little click-baitish! 

However; if Christianity is considered as a religion, then it has failed - epically; given that it has had about 2000 years to succeed.

So the sensational title hides a serious point - a very serious point. 

If Christianity really depends on church membership, then it has failed...

Because even after two millennia and being the official religion of several international empires; most people in the world aren't Christian church members.  

The situation is even worse when it is noticed that most of the main Christian churches have been (more or less) exclusive; and through history did not recognize each other's validity as "Christian". 

From the early centuries of Christianity there have been large sections of what was the Church that were excluded, divided, or destroyed - Monophysites, Arians, Pelagians, the Great Schism, the Reformation, the Nonconformists, Mormons...   

Consequently; in practice and throughout history, for any particular church member, the number of "real" Christians has nearly always been very small - both numerically and as a proportion of Mankind.

And Christianity in The West now is not just shrinking in terms of church membership and attendance, but is ever more feebly motivating - makes less and less observable positive difference to how people live. 

Thus we could add that if making a positive difference to how people live is supposed to be the essence of Christianity, then it has failed on that score.  

If we can imagine ourselves back to the last mortal days of Jesus Christ; what happened after the ascension could hardly be termed a success! The disciples and early Christians would surely have been very disappointed indeed, at how poorly Christianity has done.

Of course the same could be said about other religions; but the difference is that Christians believe that Jesus was divine, that that he changed the whole of creation...

If that is true (and I believe that it is true: i.e. that Jesus was divine and did positively transform creation), then the limited spread of Christian churches, and their schisms and mutual hatreds and hostilities; must surely be something approaching a refutation... 

I mean - looking at this world now and through the past 2000 years - does it really look as if Jesus positively-transformed creation?  

All the above refutations seems to be the case... if, if, IF Christianity really is supposed to be a this-worldly and institutional religion. 

If Christianity is supposed to be something that happens in this world, if becoming a Christian is a thing that must happen in this mortal life, if the definitions and membership of Christianity are in the hands of some self-identified Christian church (or even all Christian churches)...

Then Christianity must regarded as a failure.  

**

But, but, BUT if instead we take the Fourth Gospel seriously as as our primary source, and reason from it; then we would instead assume that Jesus changed creation in such a way that its benefits would be independent of any or all churches. 

But how did Jesus change creation? 

Even that is a subject of major disagreement...

Those who say that Jesus came to make better Men, better societies, and save the world - come-up against the stark fact that it hasn't worked. 

But I would say that Jesus made a second creation - Heaven - and offered all Men the possibility of resurrected eternal life in that Heaven...

After Our Death.

Jesus himself died before becoming resurrected and ascending to Heaven, and so must we. 

So - in an ultimate sense - it seems clear that when Jesus was doing his work of salvation, he would ensure that the situation in which any Man finds himself in this mortal life would not be allowed to prevent each individual from choosing resurrected eternal life.   

To my mind, this can only mean that the final decision for or against salvation needs to happen after this mortal life. 

It may happen during mortal life - any of us may choose to follow Jesus Now - but for all Men to have the chance and choice, Jesus would need to ensure that that choice does not have-to happen in mortal life. 

And (being a divine creator) this is what Jesus was able to do and did - or so I presume. 

By offering post-mortal resurrection into a new creation, and by making this a post-mortal choice; Jesus made "Christianity" into a society-proof faith. 

All the slow and incomplete growth of churches does not ultimately matter; the apostasies and feeble faith; the schisms and intra-Christian hatreds... 

These are bad; these have an effect on individual persons - but none of them have prevented the work of Jesus from happening at all times and everywhere over the past two millennia...

Every one of those who loved and desired to follow Jesus, all who would have wanted salvation - have-been and are-being given the chance to have this happen - because the choice happens after mortal life.  

So, even if the religion of Christianity has failed, and seems to be headed for more and greater failure - ultimately this does not stop anyone from following Jesus Christ - even if they are ignorant or misinformed about him during their mortal lives. 

The divine Jesus made sure that the evil of Men would not prevent the Good of his own work. 

Good News, surely?

This FOOT PATH - I mean FOOT "WAY" is closed...

Illegal signage!

I recently noticed the weird tendency for the local government to replace the ancient and universally understood term "footpath" with a new word - "footway" - on its signage. 

Decades of experience have taught me that there is always some covert agenda behind such apparently arbitrary changes to language - and I am now more than ever convinced of this*. 

Today I saw a sign stating "Footway closed" - but the word "path" had been crudely covered with tape, and "way" had been written over it with a marker pen. 

This demonstrates to my satisfaction that the change in name comes top down and has been imposed. 

And this tells me that the re-naming is part of some strategy for re-classifying the legal status of (what used to be) footpaths. 

I don't know what this strategy might be, but (given the UK local government zealous-obsession with the totalitarian "climate"-rationalized destruction of quality of life, and life itself); the strategy might be something to do with legally-allowing/ encouraging forms of transportation other than feet, and groups of movers other than pedestrians, to use those tracks that used to be foot-paths. 

Given the local government obsession with providing Rolls Royce (but nigh unused) facilities for cyclists (justified by climate-totalitarianism); and the recent de facto redefinition of cyclists to include electric motorbikes and scooters; I am suspicious that there may be a move towards including once-footpaths into the (already vast, all-but empty) network of "cycle tracks". 

Then pedestrians and women with baby buggies can be mangled and slaughtered en masse by buzzing hordes of 25-plus mph two-wheelers. Or, simply driven to stay at home cowering behind locked-doors... 

Result!

I await developments to see if I am correct. 

*NOTE: I have done a bit of "research" about this; however seems to be so much brain-washing, ignorance and dishonesty in what people say - that I found it pretty worthless. The only perhaps useful point was that apparently: "footway is regarded as a component of a road as a whole rather than a separate entity". Maybe this provides a helpful definitional "loophole" for whatever is intended? 

Litmus Test choices - a choice of totalitarian authority and surrender to that (versus heresy, versus Romantic Christianity)

There is a sense in which anybody that takes one step away-from obedience to an "authority", will continue to diverge - will continue to become more of what they have started. 

There is the observed fact that failure on one Litmus Test issue, or failure on a new Litmus Test as it arises, almost always leads towards greater corruption. 

And in this case, the corruption is an (in practice) assimilation towards the totalitarian program. 

So... people take a first step, and implicitly accept the authority of those who launched and perpetuated the Birdemic/ Peck international coup; or who provoked and escalated the Fire Nation conflict; or who propagandized and imposed the post-November-2022 "AI" pseudo-revolution...

Doing this involves both a decision to:

1. Accord authority to the powers who have devised and sustained these strategies; and

2. Also the decision to submit (to a significant extent) to that authority. 

(This applies to individual persons - but also to institutions - including churches.) 

So it is obvious why any single Litmus Test failure is usually a significant step towards further corruption; because the powers being accorded authority are overall-evil in their motivations; and the choice implies obedience to that authority. 

Authority to evil and obedience to that evil. 

To summarize: a Litmus Test failure is therefore both a decision to confer authority upon evil - thereby inwardly submitting to that evil; and a decision to think and act in accordance with that evil. 

In the short term, this "feels good" - exactly because totalitarian evil is dominant in our world (especially in The West); and in joining oneself with The System (even to what is, initially, a limited extent) there is a sense of becoming "part of something bigger", and of a larger world of increased opportunities for personal status, power, wealth...  

So (in practice) when someone chooses a Litmus Test failure; this is not something they do with shame and try to hide; but on the contrary, something boasted-about - and (as far as possible) parlayed into increased career, business or social opportunities.

The public discourse is currently full of people who have one or more radically dissenting opinions - but whose Litmus Test fails are actually the basis of their fame, or wealth, or other appeal. 

And this number is net-expanding with every new Litmus Test - so there have been many new recruits to the totalitarian agenda since "AI" began to be implemented across all major institutions, top-down.  

Some of these happy-successful-collaborators are individuals (entrepreneurs of one sort or another; whether would be "me cultists" or money-seekers, or combinations) - but many are church-Christians of one sort or another. 

This is how it looks to me. But I can see that there is a superficially-similar critique operating from the perspective of "traditional" Christian religious orthodoxy of the kind that sees "Christianity" as an entity authoritatively defined and controlled by some particular church (or system - such as a system of authority accorded to "The Bible" or other scripture; including a particular interpretation of it). 

Any individual who steps away from the institutionally-controlled and -validated orthodoxy of Christianity; can be seen (from this church/ system perspective) to be "on the road to heresy" - because, having rejected church-authority and been disobedient in one respect - nearly-always leads to further rejections and disobediences. 

Therefore, the traditional orthodoxy of the favoured church is defended strongly by asserting that particular church's primary authority; because perceived the alternative is likely to be a collapse of "faith", that (it seems) does not have an end-point - and leads (it seems) towards Christian apostasy: abandoning the Christian faith altogether... 

This perception of the anti-Christian consequences of rejecting the chosen-authority in any single point; is almost inevitable if and when somebody believes that Christianity Just Is embodied in an external institutional authority. 

For an individual instead to assert his personal authority to discern the nature of Christianity; and to accord primacy to (what he believes) is a personal, direct and unmediated relationship with Jesus Christ, and God - is therefore regarded by the traditionalist as amounting to "the same thing" as mainstream atheistic materialism and its accompanying New Agey "spiritual"-hedonism.  

For the trad-orthodox church-based religious person; true authority is always external, and true virtue always depends on voluntary obedience to external authority. 

The crucial distinction for church-Christians is between what they regard as the real and valid authority of their church on one side; and the false authority of global totalitarianism on the other.

No other possibility is recognized.  

So any heresy seems analogous to a Litmus Test failure. 

Yet from my Romantic Christian (Christian individual) perspective; I observe that the trad-orthodox church-based Christians have in fact failed one after another of the Litmus Tests, and continue to do so!

And for the simple reason that their churches are In Fact part-of the System of global totalitarianism.

As of 2025; a church cannot exist as a socially-significant institution, except by being mandatorily locked-into The Totalitarian System in a multitude of ways: 

...Financial and economic, legal and employment-wise, and as part of a dense network of regulations to do with buildings, gatherings, social interactions etc. 

All of which is enforced by the police, the bureaucracy, and the immense destructive power of the mass/social media.     

It is a question of whether one is opting-out or opting-in; and what is being opted-into or out-from. Into authority or out. 

Is the opting out-from one authority (e.g. a church) into another authority (...secular totalitarianism)? 

Or, is it an opting out-from the primacy of external authority. 

It is a question also of the decision about the location and nature of ultimate authority.

Is authority to be outer-institutional to be obeyed - or is it aspirationally-rooted in a personal relationship-with the divine? 

And answers to such questions are, in turn, based on what one regards as possible... Mainstream materialists regard the divine as false and impossible. Church-Christians regard the divine as necessarily institutionally-mediated. 

But Romantic Christians regard the divine as real and rooted in personal relationship. That is the basis of its claim to provide a third option with respect to ultimate authority.  

Star-watching - seldom effectively, but worth the wait!

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

From Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1936. 

I look for the moon, planets and stars from my back garden every morning and night, at those times of year when darkness allows (currently, we only get about seven hours of daylight - so that bit is easy!).

I say "look for" because we live nearish the centre of a biggish city, and in England - there is always light pollution and often clouds or mist. So I can only seldom actually get a good view of what I am looking for in the skies. 

However, somewhat as with Emerson's example above, this does make my rare instances of successful star-watching more special.  

Last weekend, I emerged in the evening and saw a shooting star streak across the eastern skies; then on doing later research I discovered this was part of the annual Geminid meteor display - so called because it is centred near Castor and Pollux the heavenly twins in the constellation Gemini - which was due to peak in another day or so. I saw no more that evening. 

Next morning; I walked-out at about six, and immediately saw a brief horizontal streak, then a long vertical meteor, which lasted a "long" time - more than a second - and changed colours as it descended in the south west. I watched it all the way. 

This seemed very special. Indeed, I may have been the only human to have seen it!

A few minutes later I saw another short quick streak, out of the corner of my eye.

So much for the Geminids 2025! Because through the whole of the next two days, the skies were obscured. 

That sustained and multi-coloured, vertical shooting star was my ration.

But all the more precious for its rarity.   

What are "Their" plans for 2026 (if not sooner)?

As I have often said; I believe that since late 2020 "They" are fractured into two main factions of evil: 

1. The totalitarians - who are currently mainly interested in implementing "AI" on the basis that they believe it will serve for detailed mass population surveillance and control. 

2. The agents of chaos - who have now taken-over and occupy most of the senior "leadership" positions in the UK relating to population coercion: military, intelligence, law, regulations, police etc (this seems also to apply to the other major nations of Europe); and whose main agenda is currently to start an all-out war with the Fire Nation. 

It seems the balance of power between totalitarians and AoCs varies between nations and regions. 

The Eastern (and Southern) national leaderships are solidifying around totalitarianism - and try to expand and maintain systems of bureaucratic inter-national cooperation; aiming at stability, economic growth, mutual enrichment and long-term security of the elites.  

The West (especially EU and UK) are escalating the rhetoric of war; and explicitly and (with increasing detail) prepping the population for voluntary slaughter to a really extreme degree in recent days and months. These are much less cooperative one with another - having an attitude more like pirates than bureaucrats; and aiming at gratifying short-term lust, grabbing immediate personal power, and spiteful pleasures such as destroying, harming, tormenting, and killing.  

But it is much easier to pursue an agenda of chaos, than to create and sustain a sustainable System - so, I would predict that there will continue to be a qualitative shift towards destruction (and its consequences) - rather than a successful imposition of top-down surveillance and control. 

What can "we" (you and me) do, when Their plans are all evil, and all intended at our enslavement/ destruction?

First we must recognize the evils that are being pursued, and (while it is reasonable to recognize lesser and greater evils) we surely need inwardly to reject both sides.

And then disengage our best-thinking from both of Their agendas. 

Since there is no realistic basis for optimism in the cause of Good at a large scale; there can no basis for large scale material action in a positive cause. 

No basis for virtuous politics. 

OK... If not; then what? 

Lacking any generic and groupish agenda; we will need to work from the basis of a specific and personal agenda. 

And here we (each and all) have - indeed must have - specific and personal guidance for what to do. This guidance comes from our own divine and creative souls; and from the Holy Ghost. 

From these we know what we ought to do; which is why we are sustained alive; here and now. 

The great thing is that when we are following divine guidance; then every thing that we personally need to do - can be done, and by ourselves as we are, in the situation we find ourselves.  

And they will be effective: which is to say - spiritually effective. 

They WILL make a positive difference. 

This is why spiritual faith is absolutely necessary to being-Good and doing-Good here-and-now; and this must be a faith in the individual personal in alliance with the divine; and a faith the the spiritual is primary and the material is always and necessarily spiritual.  

There needs to be a faith that real spiritual work is objectively and permanently real. 

Faith that - as individuals, and without any political influence at all - we make a positive difference to the world always and whenever we think (including do) whatever is harmonious with God's creative plans. Whenever we add our personal creativity to that of God's.  

(And personal do-ability is one of the ways we know what these things we should do - really are!) 

Christmas wonder, strangeness - and gratitude

The Christmas season, leading up to the day itself; can be a wonder-full experience - it can (and usually does) induce a state of wonder - more than this: a grateful wonder. 

Christians (me included) sometimes get so keen to explain how reasonable is their faith - how it makes sense, how it answers to both need and reason - that it gets neglected that the whole business is so wonderful that (when understood) it cannot help but evoke a response of "But that's unbelievable!". 

The Christmas story sometimes (and, for me, pretty reliably) has that effect, and maybe that is part of why it is so potent in attaining and sustaining faith?

The "basic facts" of Christianity will always have a quality of "too good to be true" about them; and the "evidence" - whether presented as history, or as logical inference - will never be solid or clear enough to convince us solidly of such a strange and marvellous thing. 

The more we realize how marvellous were the claims of Jesus Christ, the stranger the whole thing seems to be! 

So the better we grasp the reality of resurrection and Heaven - the less convincing seems any possible "evidence" brought out to support it! 

The only way that this can "work" (it seems to me) is when we grasp the-whole-thing all-at-once... when, or if, we understand what it is that Jesus did, and its wonder and strangeness, and simultaneously experience a deep conviction of its reality. 

That's probably what is meant by "faith" - not so much choosing to believe the extraordinary; as that we need to "get it" and "want it" at the same moment: by the same inner act.  

Put like that, it sounds impossibly complicated - because I have pulled the experience apart in order to explain what is inside it - and then tried to piece it all back together. 

And this doesn't really work, because (in trying to explain) I had artificially chopped the experience into pieces by a destructive act of division.

So the act of explanation is rather like attempting to revive a living being that I had just dissected. 

Of itself, taken alone; such analysis can't work. 

In other words; the experience itself is its own proof.

And what validates that proof is Love - the experience only seems to happen if we not only know, but also love, Jesus; which includes loving what he offers. 

So I am never surprised that (it seems) not everybody can or does experience this wonderful strangeness and also desire it for themselves, forever...  

Because (it seems) not everybody has a loving nature.  

Also, even among those who have a loving nature, and who can and do experience the whole thing, all-at-once - including the conviction of truth; we are free to reject it, and to prefer... something else.   

That's where something like gratitude comes-in. 

Our Christmas is also about presents - about giving and receiving presents - and presents only do their work when there is gratitude. 

Jesus has given us the chance of something wonderful and strange - but for it to happen we must be grateful for it, or else why would we want and accept such a gift? 

So I would add that this sense of "gratitude" is also an element of the whole and undivided Christmas experience. 

We get a picture of something wonderful and true - and are simultaneously grateful that such a strange thing really happened, when it might not have happened; and that we personally might not have wanted it.

But it did, and we do. 

  

'Tis the season to murder Christmas carols and songs

There must be a generation or two of people who have never heard a Christmas carol or song, sing straight. Sung, that is, at the proper tempo, and in a straightforward arrangement that allows the melody, rhythm and words to be heard as written. 

Instead, we get a parade of murdering carols and songs.

You know what I mean by murdering... Anti-musical activities like slowing them to half speed or even slower, adding decorations intended to show-off the singer's technical prowess - and then pitch correcting the voices anyway (cough... Pentatonix... cough), so that in the end it could be anyone singing. 

Arrangements that fragment into pieces, and recombine; embedding rap sections, beat-boxing, bass and drums... whatever. 

Worst of all; exaggeratedly emoting over the lyrics - including when the lyrics are trivial nonsense; and tortured soulfulness is utterly inappropriate. 

Such as Jingle Bells - which I one heard done as as if torch song: "Jin... gle aaahl the... waaay".

Or, a few days ago; "Oh Christmas Tree": "How lervly, How luurvly... are you... branch-es."

It began back before WWII with some virtues; when the great vocalists of the day such as Sinatra were "swinging" the classic carols (as Michael Buble does nowadays) - but once the process had begun it just got worse and worse with no bottom in sight. 

The Little Drummer Boy is essentially a lovely little song - I can recall a version by the Vienna Boys Choir, and another nice version on the Rankin-Bass stop-motion cartoon of that name.

But there are now innumerable anti-musical destructions of it; such as that I encountered last week, as the muzak while I was drinking coffee. This was a pre-meditated, first-degree, murderous travesty by a obliteratingly auto-tuned vocalist, I'm-being-tortured delivery.

And (of course) a rapping interlude. 

Why calls for boycotts and sanctions are a symptom of failing to understand that "things are much worse than that".

There are people, online especially but also IRL, whose response to the evil nature of the ruling classes is avoidance. 

It's the puritanical impulse (common to all religions, and found in all denominations); that ranks "sins" and makes a Big thing about publicly and socially avoiding those regarded as worst; on the assumption that this will make people and society overall better...

But given that all Men are sinners; the puritan impulse has its dark side.

Which is (to summarize) that of allowing or even encouraging the multitude of sins and evils Not singled-out for enforced surveillance and exclusion.

Thus a high status puritan (whether religious, or nowadays non- or anti-religious) may be mild-mannered and modest in dress, and strictly avoid alcohol and fornication...

And also be extremely spiteful, resentful and cruel. 

In practice; the avoidance of one or a few special sins, allows space and oxygen for the non-special sins to grow unchecked.  

This is a close analogy to the idea that it is an effective strategy for those who oppose (for instance) "leftism" to operate by avoidance and exclusion of (supposedly) exemplary wrongness. 

Such is the call for "activism". 

This stuff may have begun back in the 1950s, when such people often asserted "I don't have a television", which of itself is perfectly fine; but it was said in a way that implied those who do have a television are morally corrupted. 

When I was a teen, another version of this was people who would "boycott" some particular organization, because it "had ties" to some particular nation, that was supposed to be particularly evil - South Africa was the favourite example... 

And this, at a time, when China's "cultural revolution" was underway! But China wasn't what the right kind of people were talking about, while South Africa was.  

Nowadays there are people whose response to any currently highlighted instance of the evil-strategy of Western institutions is to assert that people "just" need to stop consuming their output. 

This amounts to picking one example (or ten, or a hundred) from among thousands or millions of equivalent evil institutions or persons; focusing on the supposedly special evil of that one...

And then assuming that if we stop consuming the product of that one we shall ourselves become better people and create a pressure for general improvement. 

Such an attitude is evidence of a gross failure to understand that "things are much worse than that"; we are way, way beyond any state at which singling out persons or institutions or nations for special disdain can be anything other than a personal idiosyncrasy. 

As such - as a personal idiosyncrasy - such disengagement and boycotting may well be significant and important. 

I certainly have particular entities - people, places, institutions etc. - that I avoid like the plague; often because they make me viscerally disgusted. 

It seems like obvious sense that we each should go-with such intuitive aversions; but let's not delude ourselves that this "makes a difference" in any systematic way

But the step from this to - for example - launching some kind of campaign to boycott or block some particular entity; is evidence of dangerously naïve ignorance concerning the actual state of our civilization - which is far more systemically and strategically evil than such people realize.

The vast volume of socio-political commentary that focuses on criticizing the absurdities and evils of the self-styled "left" political personalities and parties, is another such failure - because the leftism being critiqued pervades all major personalities and political parties. 

Similarly; when commentators focus on the supposedly special value-corruptions of a particular nation (Canada, New Zealand, UK, France...) this is another instance of dangerous incomprehension; because the real problem is qualitative, not quantitative. 

The problem lies with the entirety of Western civilization, and all its parties, and all its institutions, and all of its leadership class...

And their commonly assumed and shared and enforced atheism, materialism, hedonic-despair - and pervasive and long-term self-loathing and suicidality. 

If you don't grasp this; then you are part of the problem, enmeshed in and supportive of the strategic evils of The System - and have no grounds for self-congratulation. 

And if you do grasp the situation - that things are much worse than implied by assumptions of specific and encapsulated evil; then you will know that picking-out particular people or institutions, parties or nations for special and systemic exclusion - and assuming such "action" will "make a difference"; is not just futile, but dangerously delusional. 

Spontaneous "clairvoyance" and symbolic transcendence are unreliable, unconvincing and/or impossible for many - so it is in Thinking that we attain contact with the divine and the spiritual

Modern people are no longer (since their young childhoods) able to live spontaneously and naturally (and mostly unconsciously) in the realms of the divine and spiritual - as seems to have been (mostly) the case for our tribal ancestors. 

Neither does the intermediate symbolism and ritual of religion "work" as a pathway to the divine and spiritual in the way it did throughout most of history - the effectiveness of such intermediaries is either much weaker, much less consistent between people, or doesn't work at all. 

Therefore Modern Man has a problem!

I owe to Rudolf Steiner the insight that the proper mode in which "Modern Men" (such as you and me) can and should achieve contact with the divine, and the realms of spirit, is Thinking. 

But most of our thinking, most of the time, is utterly mundane in content and carries no necessary meaning. 

So, it is apparent that only some kinds of thinking can do what is needful - and these I have variously-characterized as Primary Thinking, Heart Thinking and Direct Knowing. (All these are intended to refer to the same phenomenon; variously approached and conceptualized.) 

Experience at trying to become aware of such Thinking (and observing the experiences of others) leads me to infer that this kind of Thinking can only happen when motivations are of the right kind - and that generic or abstract aspirations to be or do "good" do not suffice to produce the right motivations. 

So this kind of Thinking cannot be done by just wanting and trying; our motivations must really-be such as to align in harmony with divine creation. 

And when this happens; then Primary Thinking is what we are doing - if we can but recognize it. 

I also infer that exercises and techniques do not work when it comes to achieving the right motivations to contact the divine and the spiritual realm. 

Steiner himself produces great swathes of tedious and tendentious nonsense when he was wrongly motivated - despite his high mastery of meditational methods; and despite that he was genuinely motivated to "be loving to everyone" and to "help other people" - albeit in a necessarily generic and abstract way. 

Steiner seems to have supposed that his benign feelings towards the Anthroposophical Society; or his desire to help those such as teachers, doctors, agriculturalists who approached him for guidance; would be a sufficient motivation. 

But the results demonstrate that this was in practice insufficient to prevent his outpourings on these (and many, many other) subjects including a lot of memory regurgitation and sheer invention; and failing to rise to the level of reality (or even objective validity).

 

What can be done? 

Lacking a valid blueprint of what it is to Be Good, or even to Want Good - how can we proceed?

As usual, when there is no positive formula; we can only try to avoid that which is negative and preventive; seek and embrace our personal inspiration and aspiration in concrete situations, wherever it may be found; and then recognize and "go with" Primary Thinking when we are aware that it is happening. 

The Last Battle by CS Lewis (spoiler alert)

[Aslan said] "Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning." 

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. 

And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. 

But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

Final words of "The Last Battle" - the final volume of the Narnia Chronicles by CS Lewis. 

*

Theologically; I find a great deal to like about this beautiful ending to the seven Narnia books. 

I like that it places the proper goal of our lives in the eternal realm of Heaven. And that Heaven is a beginning, not an end. 

I like that is places Heaven and eternal incarnated life necessarily on the other side of death. That this must be so and cannot be otherwise, is surely a fact of creation - else Jesus would not have needed to die to be resurrected. 

I don't much like the idea that this temporary mortal life is just the Shadow-lands; it must be a great deal more than just Shadows (a secondary and derivative emanation of the reality) - else mortal life would either not be necessary in the first place (just as shadows are not necessary for objects to exist); nor would it be prolonged for so many people - for so many decades. 

No. I regard this mortal life as real, important, eternal too - or, some aspects of it are potentially real, important and eternal. 

And after all, Jesus spent thirty-three years as a mortal Man, before moving on to the next and final stage. 

But classical Christian theology does a poor job of explaining why some people live mortally at all, or for so long; while other persons do not even get out of the womb. 

This is one of those things for which - if it is important to us - we must each work out an answer our-selves. 

None of the available "off the peg" theological explanations will do the job - either by not explaining enough, and not accounting for the necessity and variation of incarnated mortal experience; or by explaining too too much and implying that particular ad prolonged experiences of mortal life are always essential! 

Creative engagement is the positive purpose of this mortal life

I have often written here that the purpose of this mortal life must account for the extended nature of life - the fact that our life may continue for many decades. 

This implies that it is not enough to regard mortal life as a matter of what happens at the end of it - i.e. for Christians a matter of attaining salvation - although it is partly that.

Also that mortal life is not just a matter of having experience of incarnating, of "getting a body" - although it is partly that.   

If salvation was the only reason for being alive, then we would die as soon as we had accepted the gift of Jesus, and determined to follow Him. 

Given that we all must die eventually; this implies to me that God always has reasons for sustaining us alive. 

If we are alive, now - there is divine work for us to do, now. 

In other words, that for as long as a person lives, he has something (at least one thing) he ought to do, something that he would benefit from doing. 

I have usually expressed this in terms of learning from our experiences. The idea here is that God shapes our lives such that we have experiences from which we can learn significant (perhaps vital) life lessons. 

These life lessons include making the choice of salvation; and that is my understanding of why so many Western people have been living such long (indeed "over-extended" lifespans in recent decades. 

Such people are being kept-alive for longer than in the past (despite increased decrepitude of body and/or mind) because they have so far rejected salvation. Their living experiences are being shaped to give them individually-tailored further opportunities inwardly to reject (i.e. repent) their false and self-harming ideologies; and to embrace a future of everlasting resurrected life in Heaven. 

I continue to regard this analysis as correct, but it is not the whole story - because it makes the purpose of life almost entirely passive; a matter of God setting the curriculum, albeit a curriculum unique for each individual - and then each person trying to do as well as possible to learning what this curriculum dictates. 

But life is not supposed to be a wholly passive business of dealing with the experiences that life brings to us. 

As each of us are Beings who existed as spirits for an eternity before we were incarnated into this life; we all bring our unique natures and possibilities into this mortal life...

In other words; just as God has an agenda, a curriculum, for each of us in this mortal life - towards which we have a formally negative and reactive role...

In a complementary fashion; we also each have a positive agenda that we bring into this life.

Because every individual Being has potential to add his own unique perspective and qualities to the growth of divine creation. 

It is important to recognize that we are all unique beings, and the fact is therefore that it is our nature that each can, in principle, add something to divine creation that - if we do not contribute it - cannot therefore will-not be contributed by any other Being. 

Put different; we are each, by our nature, unique creators - and because unique, our creative engagement with reality will necessarily make an irreplaceable difference that reality.

In engaging our life and the world; our innate creative potential will enlarge divine creation in ways that otherwise will not happen 

I don't mean to assert this positive creative engagement as "a duty" - because that would just be another external curriculum item! 

But we don't just "react to" - we also have potential to "act-upon".

I mean to emphasize that this mortal life is not just a matter of us "negatively" learning from life experiences that are presented to us; but also a matter of our divine-selves entering-into and engaging positively with this mortal life...

Us, our-selves; having thoughts, grappling with understanding, engaging in loving relationships, making and doing, freely committing to purposes etc. - each in our innately distinct way; and from the depths of our ultimately divine natures.

And thereby making a positive difference, a better reality; and not just to this mortal world and while we are alive; but a difference to divine creation and therefore eternally. 

The late poet Tony Harrison and the beliefs of characteristic 1980s liberalism

The poet Tony Harrison, who lived near me in Newcastle upon Tyne, has recently died (1937-2025); and then we also met some of his relations by marriage.

 

So he has been somewhat in mind lately, since there was a time in the late 1980s when I was on the left and also had a high regard for his writing. For a few years I probably regarded him as the best of living British poets. 

(Although - to provide context - I did not, and do not, rate any living poets very highly; so it was more a case of being the best of a relatively mediocre bunch!)

Consequently, I stumbled across this rather interesting discussion of Harrison as a representative of a type of Leftist writer with working class origins who - via education - became middle class and Establishment-approved - and who spent the rest of their lives brooding (without ever reaching a coherent conclusion!) on their own subsequent class alienation. 

There are many such writers, indeed just about all writers with such a social trajectory - another who I have discussed here is Alan Garner. 

This "problem" (if it is one) seems to be restricted to writers and certain other analogous types; because the many, many more people who not writers (such as my parents, many of my relatives and their circle of friends) who also experienced this class change - do not seem to have been much troubled by it! 

We lived a middle class professional family life for most of the year, and then spent visits and holidays staying with our working class grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins; without any of the angst or social friction so obsessively described in the post-war literature of Britain.

But my focus here is on the description of Harrison as a typical Leftist intellectual of the 1980s - a grouping to which I also belonged at that time (broadly, with a few reservations - as is usually the case). 

The author lists a set of beliefs that such people as Harrison and myself espoused: 

• strongly anti monarchy 
• strongly anti censorship 
• strongly anti religion 

• anti capitalist 
• anti racist 
• anti British Empire 

• anti America passively 
• pro feminist passively 
• pro gay passively 

• pro multiculturalism 
• pro democracy 
• pro welfare 
• pro miners / trade unions 
• pro learning, education, civilisation, civility 
• pro European Union

It can readily be seen that the 1980s was therefore a time of inflexion, between the (British originated) Old Left - focused on economics and class; and the (US originated) New Left (political correctness or "woke") that we have today - focused on antiracism, feminism and sexuality...

And "environment" - not mentioned in this list, but actually already very significant - albeit not near-exclusively focused on CO2/Climate manipulated delusion - which only became important from the 1990s. 

The Old to New shift also went from (supposedly) aiming at equality of opportunity; to (supposedly) aiming to enforce equality of outcome - and then to inverting outcomes to favour individuals who claim to be members of groups that were (supposedly) "historically under-represented". 

The fact that the 1980s Leftists beliefs were mutually incoherent and incompatible seems more obvious now than it did then - yet hostile incoherence somehow never did, or does, seem obvious to those of the Left. 

Extremely few people who were "socialists" in 1980, subsequently abandoned the Left over the next decades; despite that Leftism all-but inverted from idealizing native male working class men (e.g. in the 1984 national Miners' strike)...

To demonizing and attempting socially to annihilate (by multiple means) exactly the same group of people, accelerating from about a decade later (especially the Blair "New Labour" government of 1997 onward).  

This accomodationism of Leftists ought to be a matter of shame; because it was motivated by little more than unprincipled expedience and sheer mental laziness.  

A typical post-millennial Leftist is nowadays much more likely to idealize and aggrandize members of the hyper-wealthy "Davos" multi-billionaire class - than a coal miner or other manual worker!  

The history of Tony Harrison shows some detail of how this inversion happened; how these writers of working-class origin were co-opted into the globalist totalitarian strategy; a process marked by Harrison's lavish 1969 UNESCO "travelling scholarship" (six months fully-paid international travel for the whole family) - for a poet who who hadn't even published a book! 

In other words; Harrison had already been identified as a promising subversive New Leftist "asset", in his twenties - whether he realized it or not; or else (very probably) he would never have been awarded this luxury freebie in the first place. 

It is a sad reflection of the value-bankruptcy of Leftism that vanishingly few of the ex-working class writers who were used as totalitarian assets were in the slightest degree aware of their role, of their "raison d'etre" among those who published, praised, paid and awarded status to poets and other authors. 

Typically, such writers instead mistook their own chronic, obsessive, class-based resentments and spite - for anti-Establishment radicalism and righteous anger! 

And were encouraged in this by social incentives. 

And the same situation nowadays applies to writers who are - instead of being socialist ex-working class men - are women, racial or ethnic "minorities", or sexually non-biological.

 

I suppose one of the main jobs of such writers - from the perspective of those who "manage" their careers and sustain their livelihoods; is to spread through books, plays, TV, movies etc the typical and pervasive Left-intellectual milieu of negation, resentment, atheist-materialism, and a moralistic focus on this-worldly gratification. 

A skilful and cultured author like Tony Harrison performed this role very effectively. 

As do many of his less-skilled and uncultured successors. 

Well; we at least can observe such people across time; analyse and learn from their experiences - including when they themselves did not learn. 

When people behave much better than their beliefs: The reverse-hypocrisy of atheist-materialism

Mainstream, normal, modern Western people are atheist materialists, who believe (assume) that there is neither purpose nor meaning in the universe - and that death mean annihilation. 

This strongly implies that nothing really matters. 

Yet they behave much, much better than would be implied by their assumptions would entail. Indeed, some of the best behaved and most virtuous people are atheist/ materialist/ nihilists. 

In other words, they are reverse hypocrites! 

That is: they fail to live down to their beliefs!

While this is, of course, overall A Good Thing - it is in tendency a bad thing. 

Because over time this reverse-hypocritical atheist materialism has no principled grounds on which to oppose the continual erosion of morals and values. 

And therefore morals and values have not just become corrupted, but in many instances inverted: such that evil is advocated as good, and good demonized as evil. 

Furthermore; reverse hypocrites see no need to revise their beliefs; because at any moment in time they can plausibly deny the implications of their own assumptions. 

They can argue (to themselves) that (for instance) although they have no reason to refrain from lying and exploiting 24/7; they often tell the truth and genuinely try to help people.

They always behave much better than they need to ("need" according to their beliefs) - from which they infer that it doesn't matter that their own asserted values permit, or even encourage, short-term selfishness, and justify living for personal gratification here-and-now.    

Probably it is this reverse-hypocrisy of the Godless majority that has helped make ordinary hypocrisy into something regarded as an extreme form of wickedness...

Such that mainstream modern media stories have a common narrative trope; that excoriates "respectable" religious people for failing to live up to their public spirited high ideals; while heaping praise upon selfishly hedonistic people when they - very occasionally - behave altruistically.

Thus: an habitually altruistic and hard-working individual who preaches idealistic honesty but lapses from it into a selfish lie is a common villain of hypocrisy; while an habitual con-trickster or thief can become the reverse-hypocritical anti-hero by a single courageous act of truth-telling at the climax of the tale!  

In other words, reverse hypocrisy has become a cardinal virtue, while the hypocrisy of having higher ideals than can be reached in practice is treated as a cardinal sin.   

What is needed is for the reverse-hypocrites to do a bit of hard-thinking about why they behave so much better than their beliefs; and whether this is a good thing, or not. 

Because if we really do regard our good behaviour as really a good thing; then surely we ought not to embrace fundamental beliefs and assumptions that actively contradict our good behaviour?

Jesus made things worse - as well as better

It has been noticed (even including by me!) that a hell of torment seems to have arisen after Jesus offered the possibility of Heaven. 

Apparently, before Jesus; the Jews (mostly) had a common destination of Sheol, a ghostly underworld to which all souls went after mortal death. 

But this wasn't a place of hellish torment - rather a place of semi-conscious insensibility, forgetting of identity. 

It seems to me that the choice to reject the gift of resurrected eternal life, in which personal identity is retained and Love is the basis - therefore had spiritual consequences that did not exist before (or perhaps only seldom).  

The consequence of rejecting Heaven is not necessarily hell - there are other possibilities; and the choice to reject resurrected eternal life need not be annihilation after mortal death - there are other possibilities. 

( e.g. Reincarnation of some kind, Nirvana, some kind of paradise, ghost-hood; and obedient servitude to Satan that does not - at first - involve inhabiting hell.)

Nonetheless, the usual reasons, typical motivations, behind rejection of the offer salvation - may be what leads to worse outcomes than if salvation had never been offered and never been available.

The choice to reject Heaven has spiritual consequences that would not otherwise have arisen.  

Another potential way that Jesus made things worse is for those (many) who "use" Christianity - i.e. they use the religions that purport to define and administer the "following" of Jesus by individual people -  to pursue selfish and worldly goals. 

Under this category can be put all the many appalling characters who have been bishops and other church leaders; and who used the excuse of Christianity mainly to pursue wealth, power, cruelty and resentment; and the masses and mobs who have done the same kind of thing - either by their own choice, or by enthusiastic obedience. 

I don't suppose Christians are materially worse than other religions in this respect, and not as bad as some atheist totalitarian regimes of the past century  - although they were surely very bad, and from early in church history. 

But spiritually, it may be that there is something especially harmful about subordinating and deploying a kind of "public-Christianity" from motivations of personal gratification and this-worldly ends. 

This, in the sense that the dishonest abuse and distortion of what is essentially good, has a particularly nasty quality - as when truly spiteful or sadistic people affect the attitude and emotions of kindness and compassion.  

Probably; this is far more deeply damaging to the soul than would be an acknowledgement of one's own evil tendencies. 

In these ways; it may be that the advent of Jesus Christ, and the choice he gave us to attain a resurrected eternal Heavenly life of Love; served to divide more sharply the saved and those who rejected salvation, the sheep from goats... 

Even though there are possibilities other than sheep or goat - the rejection of sheep-affiliation may well be associated with an increased embrace of the goat-option. 

Mercy versus Justice, and Mary the Mother of Jesus

I am still reading Geoffrey Ashe's The Virgin - his dense, fascinating, and very stimulating book about the historical development and meaning of the Catholic veneration of Mary, Mother of Jesus. 

(Ashe was himself a Roman Catholic, and deeply involved with Marian societies - especially the Carmelite Friars' shrine to Mary at Aylesford in Kent.)  

This passage was one I found very striking. Ashe is describing the theology of Saint Germanus, who was Patriarch of Constantinople in the early 700s. 

Mary, Germanus maintains, does not simply put requests to the Deity on matters they could agree about; she actively and successfully opposes him. "You turn away the just threat and the sentence of damnation, because you love the Christians... Therefore the Christian people trustfully turn to you, refuge of sinners." 

The universe is split at the summit. God stands for Justice, and since we are all sinners more or less, most of us have little to hope for at his hands. 

Mary stands for Mercy, and it is only because of her influence at court, not because of love or goodwill on God's part, that Heaven is within reach for more than a handful of human beings...

The Byzantine Virgin seems the only friend close to the throne and the only rescuer from utter awestruck despair...

The Greek church agreed that Mary was indispensable to salvation. An edict issued from Constantinople in 724 condemns anyone who withholds worship from her... 

She is no longer the gentle Lady to whom Christians may turn for help. She is the unique being... to whom they must turn or be in peril of losing their souls forever.    

[From before 1233] the norm of Marian miracles in hardening. The people concerned are apt to be commonplace and sometimes repellent. 

The sole redeeming feature they have in common, "redeeming" quite literally, is their love for the Virgin. This protects them against the consequences of wrongdoing. Her devotees seem able to get away with anything....

It is unfair to treat this mythology as a license to sin; by saving misguided mortals the Virgin enables them to repent. 

But the moral is not always conspicuous... 

The medieval popular Virgin represented the all-too-human, the irregular, the exceptional. She was superior to the system and could break through every rule. Humanity had her on its side in its perpetual protest against divine law and human ordinance. 

For her, every case was a special case. She could draw "her" sinner up out of hell itself, giving him another chance.

Such considerations stimulated various thoughts. One is that - however theologically alien and contradictory the role of Mary in Catholic devotion; the effect of Marian devotion has often been exemplary from what I regard as a strictly Christian perspective (as well as this-worldly-expedient - in terms of sustaining and strengthening the churches). 

I understand the above descriptions to represent a spiritual correction to the not-Christian (i.e. not Jesus-derived) emphasis on Justice that has so often overtaken Christian churches of almost every kind. 

When Jesus is made into a divine ruler of the universe, he has often been attributed with the characteristics of an idealized human ruler in some particular society - hence the de facto primacy of justice, defined legalistically - despite this being multiply-contradicted in the Gospels. 

Furthermore, the tortured theology of Original Sin (which was only required because early theologians made it mandatory to conceptualize and define God as Omni) - led to the weird double-negative explanation of Jesus's work; as having been accomplished by a vicarious sacrifice (torture and death) demanded by Divine Justice to compensate for sin. 

Against this historical backdrop of systemic misrepresentation of the fundamental nature of Jesus Christ's work and the paths to salvation by love of Jesus; Mary seems to have emerged, with the consequence of  re-creating the truth of Jesus's salvation by personal love.

With the difference that the necessary love is displaced from Jesus, to his mother (but his mother having been re-conceptualized to possess the salvific attributes of Jesus). 

But I don't doubt that this displaced or indirect love was none the less effective in attaining salvation for Marian adherents ; so long as the motives were true. 

The simple heart of Christianity - i.e. resurrected eternal heavenly life to those who follow Jesus - has always been open to the kind of "license to sin" misrepresentation Ashe describes in the second excerpt above. 

This is a kind of parody of Christianity, along the lines of: I can do what I like, be as selfish and gratification-seeking as I like... yet Mary will save me if I love her... 

Such is the exactly the same type of criticism made of Jesus's teaching during his life, by those whose real concern was social order and sustaining the power of their church...

Popular with those who do not really believe that All Men are sinners including themselves; and that no Man good enough for Heaven without first passing through death and resurrection*.

(Or who may regard following Jesus as less a matter of love than of following rules.)

 

The parody is untrue, because it ignores that motivation is primary, and that the love really must come first. 

Salvation is not attained by using love as an excuse to enable the primary motivation of doing evil. That is to put this-worldly gratification first. 

But, on the other hand, salvation really is - not for those who successfully past some test of following some laws; but salvation is for all those who love and desire to follow Jesus more than anything else.

Or, in this instance... love and desire to follow Mary more than anything else - so long as Mary is conceptualized in the way she has been by some ancient (and some modern) Catholic Christians, as described in Ashe's book. 

*I suppose I should state that I regard it as theologically incoherent from a Christian perspective to claim that Mary was conceived and existed without sin, and was assumed into Heaven without going through death and resurrection. The necessity and work of Jesus - and the requirement that we are all  incarnated into mortal life - only makes sense when it is understood that death and resurrection was and is the only way to "fit us for Heaven". Nonetheless (fortunately for all of us!) theological coherence is not a requisite for salvation! 

"The future belongs to those who show-up" is both pragmatically futile, and spiritually counter-productive

It was in 2007 that I began to take an academic interest in the gross and worsening sub-fertility of native people in the entire developed world, and I did some research into what seemed like a possible exception (Mormons) from 2009. I have also written about the genetically catastrophic problem of human reproduction over the past several generations. 

So it would be fair to say I am aware of the problem*. 

But being aware of this biological problem, and doing something significant to reverse it; are very different things. I used to believe that certain kinds of religion pointed the way forward; but this has been hope has been dashed by the events of the past fifteen years. 

For instance, my positive example of US Mormons have now slid into substantial sub-fertility; and the events of 2020 demonstrate (as a strong generalization) that all religions across the world are now subordinate to the destruction-motivated global totalitarian strategy. 

My conclusion is that this matter of biological degradation and extinction, with the inevitability of civilizational collapse - while real - is insoluble; mainly because nobody At All is serious about even trying to solve it at the requisite large scale, plus that there are no known effective answers.  

Any plan to "save our civilization" is therefore futile - either ignorant, deluded or deceptive**

This has the effect of dissociating spiritual and Christian concerns. When the large-scale future is not going to be saved by our spiritual imperatives; this means that we are free to focus upon our personal situation - which is probably something that we ought to be doing anyway.  something that  

We need not, we should not, continually be trying to extrapolate from what we ought spiritually to be doing in the here-and-now; according to our deepest analysis and convictions. 

We need not, we should not, be trying to link our personal spiritual quest into some practical/ material/ "real world" supposedly-groupish benefit... 

As when people talk about some kind of imagined Christianity as the basis for some kind of future and viable Western civilization. 

That's all nonsense; because it is way too late for such palliations. 

Because things are much worse than such people believe.   

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* Indeed, the problem is that a few people are very-belatedly waking up to a situation that has been a solidly-established and relentless trend since the 1990s, and roots that go back considerably before that. These people have only recently noticed the top-down and multi-pronged and purposive quality of globalist strategies against Western nations. Consequently, they grossly underestimate 1. the profound and extensive damage already done; and 2. the extent to which the whole process has been driven by cowardice, self-loathing, and suicidal motivations among the hedonistic-godless-nihilistic Western masses. Such a situation does not respond to common sense suggestions, angry exhortations, or desperate pep talks.   

** One kind of deception comes from people whose real and mastering concern is to have a safe, comfortable, convenient, pleasurable, prosperous, or high-status life for themselves - but who want to dress-up such (understandable, but blatantly self-centred) motivations in some pseudo-tribal concern of a civilizational kind. 

Sussex Carol plus: Saturday Christmas music from "Magpie Lane"

A very nice version of the Sussex Carol follows an excellent syncopated instrumental version of Christmas Day in the Morning; from a folk band called Magpie Lane; after a narrow ginnel off the High Street in Oxford, where they live. More of their music can be found here. 

*

The first performance of Sussex carol I heard was broadcast live (and rough and ready) on radio from The Etchingham Steam Band - with vocals including the first lady of Sussex folk music - Shirley Collins.