So-called "AI" (Artificial Intelligence) is a case of "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"

Because so-called AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a top-down-imposed, totalitarian Establishment imposed, lying fake; it is always a product of some or another "man behind the curtain" (or institution behind the curtain) - someone who is trying to distract attention from himself and deny responsibility for whatever AI is trying to do. 

And what AI is trying to do - the reason for its existence, the reason it is being coercively implemented by multiple social institutions and puppet-leaders all across The West - is overall and by intention evil... of various types and kinds. 

Sometimes the evil is exploiting society in a parasitic fashion for money, security, power, lust etc. 

Sometimes it is to create helplessness, passivity, fascinated horror; or to sow fear, resentment, despair.

Sometimes the evil is to destroy that which is Good - the true, beautiful or virtuous. 

Sometimes the evil is in destroying life itself, divine creation - or what it is to be human. 

And overall AI is part of the demonic strategy of damnation to induce people to go along with, accept, defend, argue-for, and finally embrace these evils. 

Because, in the end, to be damned, we each must choose damnation. 

So, whenever confronted by AI, in theory or in practice; ask yourself who is the being behind the curtain of technology; and ask yourself what evil that being is attempting to induce you to do to yourself.  

The tragedy of historical (and modern) misrepresentations of the Basic Set-up of Christianity

I've said it all before, in different words; but it really was and is an epic tragedy to comprehend how Christianity has been so profoundly misrepresented throughout most of recorded history - with consequences that may be worse than if Jesus as a person had been forgotten, and Men had had to reply upon direct contact with the divine within themselves and with the Holy Ghost. 

(A false understanding often being worse than none at all, especially when complacent error become a delusion that closes-off the quest for truth about reality.)

Of course; there are multiple ways in which the basis of Jesus's work and our salvation have been twisted and inverted; but perhaps the worst is that which regards salvation and something earned by our behaviour in this world; and of God as a judge of our performance in this task.  

(God, our loving Heavenly parent - cast in the role of a heartless, remorseless "hanging judge" addressing each Man as a terrified villain, pleading for mercy!)

This was partly overturned by the clarity of the Reformation of recognizing salvation as a consequence of God's grace for an individual directly, not as something earned or requiring intermediary or intercession. Yet this insight was twisted and inverted by resurgent background assumptions of Man's core depravity and spiritual helplessness - which negated the fact and necessity of Man's freedom in the matter of salvation. Even going so far as the monstrously anti-Christian notion of regarding each Man's fate as pre-destined, and each Man's freedom as an irrelevant illusion.

So many perversions of simple reality! 

Some have rejected the false "weighing in the balance" idea of salvation as earned only to assert the equal falsehood that our actions are somehow irrelevant - as if the material had nothing to do with the spiritual! As if what we did in this mortal life was of zero consequence to eternal life. 

A modern version is one of salvation as un-chosen because universally imposed upon everybody and everything; who are then utterly compelled to become Good according to God's idea of good - again, falsely denying the inexorable reality and necessity of each Man's freedom; and inverting Heaven into a Brave New World totalitarian dystopia. 

I acknowledge that the devising of a coherent metaphysics of Christianity is something no church has yet achieved, something we must therefore do for ourselves (or do without) - so that there never has been an off-the-peg, externally available, understanding of Christianity. 

That this was not an utter disaster is because, for most of history - really until the "modern era" (commencing gradually from the 1500s and evident to all in the West by the middle 1800s) Men were much less self-aware and much more groupish in consciousness; that "group" including aspects of spiritual reality as well as other Men. 

...Such that Men un-consciously participated in truth, even when their theoretical understanding was variously false or opposite. 

Not any more! 

Now our nature is such that our theories dictate our inner realities; so false theories need to be detected, acknowledged, and revised. By us ourselves, because nobody else can be trusted to do it, and because we are each (and nobody else) ultimately responsible.

Freedom is a reality, a fact - not a gift, privilege, benefit or curse. 

And on the flipside, we are able to do what needs to be done, to take personal responsibility for our religious assumptions; in a way that was not really possible for pre-modern Man. 

But for this to happen we have to choose to do it; and therefore must want to do it - and this is the test for Christians. 

Do we actually personally cast-aside the errors and deceptions of the ages and of our time; to make the choice of following Jesus to resurrected eternal life in Heaven; which entails discovering for our-selves what that really means?

Or do we prefer... something else?

In the spiritual war, motivation is All that matters

In the spiritual war of this world, motivation is all that matters

It applies to all times and places and nations - including here, and now. 

This principle obliterates the value of all politics and mainstream public discourse; because this is all done with bad motivations*.

Differences between the political parties and political ideologies is merely the difference between different species of wrong motivations. 

One of the currently sad and pitiful things about so many US folk who regard themselves as on the Right, and who have allowed themselves to be manipulated into optimism by the announcements of the latest US President; is that these folk have forgotten that it is all about motivation. 

Good and evils are not acts or facts, nor policies nor strategies. Good and evil are sides in a spiritual war: the side for God, versus the side against God.

When people are operating on the side of evil, they are (strictly speaking) incapable of good. 

(Of course this is a mixed world, and we are all inconsistent about the sides we support - to some extent; such nobody - except Jesus Christ - has been always on the side of God; while even the most committed servants of the demonic agenda are occasionally liable to find themselves on the side of God and divine creation - however partially and briefly.)   

Life is not symmetrical because while there are evil policies, there is no such thing as good policies; because goodness depends on motivation. 

(By motivation I mean that whole complex of a Being's (including human beings) nature, intentions, disposition, affiliation, aims etc.) 

There has never been a policy so sensible, or valid, or logical, that evil motivation could not turn it to evil; and there are a limitless number of ways in which this can be accomplished. 

(Surely we know this from experience? When some policy of which we support and of which we approve; is adopted yet - inevitably, it seems - gets twisted to accomplish the opposite? For many people in the UK Brexit is an example. Britain is supposed to have left the EU some years ago, yet immigration continues to ratchet up; and last year there were one million net-immigrants by official (under)estimates - the highest ever. The decision to Brexit was mostly motivated by those who wanted to stop mass immigration - yet implemented by those who wanted to increase it. Guess who got their way?)

So, when people have self-duped into accepting and celebrating as good the products of evil-affiliated Men and Institutions, these people are not merely delusional - but in a core sense wilfully so, and therefore have chosen service to the agenda of Satan. 

Luckily, even wilful delusion in service of evil is not fatal when the sin has been recognized, acknowledged and repented. It is never "too late" for this - never too late from the perspective of God. Even last-nanosecond repentance will suffice. 

But very sadly this seems seldom to happen (as far as may be judged), and it is apparently more usual for people to double-down on their first sin, refuse to admit their self-gratifying error; thereby compounding it with further sins, and cementing these into place. 

So it is useless to try and persuade such people to change their minds - and certainly I have no intention of doing so. In the end we are each responsible for our own souls destination, and not that of others - which is freedom. 

On the other hand, discernment is a vital and unavoidable spiritual challenge and an experience from which we can learn. 

It is worth reminding ourselves that much of modern life in this collapsed Western Civilization entails being assaulted by evil masquerading as good under a multitude of disguises; and in such a way thaht those most prone to fail in discernment are those who engage with the specific lies and detailed untruths and distortions of the demon-affiliated leadership class and their minions. 

In reality, discernment is perhaps too simple to be truly easy; because the goodness-or-evil of some-thing is a matter of motivations, which are a matter of provenance - an attribute of the origin. 

We only need to know, or guess, from-whom or from-where to detect motivational evil.

But those who demand grounds for optimism - who demand an external saviour from in this-world, those addicted to believing the world is getting better - such will be deluded, and by their own choice. 

 

*Note added. I am talking about here and about now - The West 2025 - it was not always thus in the past or in some other places. Indeed some public discourse was well-motivated (overall) even within my lifetime - science in the UK, for example, was motivated by truth-seeking and truth-speaking. But that was then, this is now. Now, "science" (i.e. professional accredited "research") is merely one department of the bureaucratic-media totalitarian System, which is net-motivated by evil intent. Science is a good example, a test case, of why we must continue to practice discernment; because corruption is a real thing, and in our world a normal thing.   

This creation we inhabit depends upon compulsion and unconsciousness - hence the need for Jesus Christ and the Second Creation

Lazarus was apparently the first Man freely to choose the Second Creation

One big problem with this divine creation, the "primary" creation, the one we inhabit here-and-now; is that it depends upon an inevitable degree of compulsion and unconsciousness.

This is a problem that God acknowledged implicitly; by sending Jesus Christ to make a Second Creation, and ensure that all who wanted-it and chose-to, would be able to move onto that Second Creation after their biological deaths. 

 

God began with a universe of Beings, living without mutual awareness, without cohesion. Creation proceeded by God endowing these Beings with the beginnings of conscious awareness, and by coordinating them with His own divine love - binding them together and providing a direction, and principles of interaction.  

In this, it resembles a Man's young childhood with loving parents. 

The child is born-into this world mostly unconscious, and his life is given shape and direction by the parents' love. (In an idealized childhood...) While still hardly conscious the child lives and develops immersed in the atmosphere of parental love - and the child is required to do little more than return that parental love, and therefore be obedient to the greater wisdom of his parents. 

(This corresponds to the situation of early Man, and the earliest phases of true religions - obedience to God was core.)  

In a negative sense, the child is compelled to go along with parental guidance; but this compulsion is concealed by the child's unconsciousness of it. 

In other words, a young loving child in a loving family just accepts the situation in which he finds himself.  

However, it is a common destiny of babies to develop and mature, to become more conscious; and often to become aware of their situation. 

In other words, as a child becomes more conscious, he becomes aware that he is living in a world he did not choose, and which he is compelled to fit-into - if he wishes to survive and thrive. 

This is a microcosm of the situation in this divine creation that we currently inhabit. Insofar as Beings are unconscious and immersed in divine loving-guidance, they simply go-along-with divine creation. 

But as a Being becomes more conscious, he becomes aware of the essential element of compulsion in this world, this creation. 

This happens in the development of a human, and it has happened to Mankind (overall, on average) throughout history. Primordial Men were more like young children, with little self awareness or freedom of will; and knew God (and the spirit world); and when capable of love - they went along with it, hardly aware there was any alternative.

However, through recorded history, there has been an increase in Man's conscious awareness analogous to the development towards adolescence - Man became more conscious that this universe was based on a compulsion, that he need not obey. 

More conscious Man could, and sometimes and increasingly did, opt-out of creation.

Thus; Men ceased automatically to ally with God's creation - it became a choice whether to join-with God's creation - or else to oppose it, exploit it. 

Or sometimes the reaction was a desire to opt-out of Primary Creation altogether - and return to that primordial unconscious separateness which prevailed before creation began. 

This is, by my understanding, the ultimate but implicit teleological basis of Buddhism, and some kinds of Hinduism -- as well as of some who would call themselves Jews, Christians, or Muslims (I mean the traditions respectively of Qabalah, Via Negativa, and Sufism - for instance).     

I presume that this development was foreseen by God as an inevitable consequence of Man (and other Beings) increasing in consciousness. 

Sooner or later; the First Creation would be know for what it was, which is a top-down and imposed scheme - and as consciousness increased in created-Beings, sooner or later some Beings, some Men, would desire to opt-out of it. 

Therefore; the divine plan was for there to be a Second Creation, which would be individually chosen, an opt-in scheme.

This happened with the work of Jesus Christ; and the way-into Second Creation was to follow Jesus through death into resurrected eternal life. The Second Creation is, therefore, Heaven. 

The Second Creation both required, and was necessitated by, the increase of consciousness of Beings that was a consequence of ongoing divine creation. 

In sum: This "first" creation we inhabit here-and-now depends upon compulsion and unconsciousness; but Man (and other beings) are destined to increase in consciousness - hence the need for Jesus Christ and the Second Creation. 

We now can choose the Second Creation - but the Second Creation can only be chosen - it is not, and cannot be, imposed. 

And choice must be free, which entails conscious. 

Spiritual relationships should primarily be loving, not functional (or, Why is the Holy Ghost called "the comforter"?)

If our relationships ought to be loving; this means that thy ought Not primarily to be functional. 

Yet this is easily forgotten - plus, of course, the functional aspects of friendship and relatedness may lead to, and synergize with, the loving. Yet, for Christian ideals, the loving must be first and foremost. 

For Christians the Holy Ghost is a Being (I personally believe the Holy Ghosts is Jesus Christ, ascended) to whom we appeal for guidance, strength, help in time of need etc; yet the Holy Ghost is also called the "Comforter" in the Authorized Version of the Fourth Gospel (called "John") - especially in Chapters 14-16. 

To provide "comfort", in the modern sense of the word, sounds pretty feeble and insipid as the job of a divine Being!

Yet I now think that - properly understood - this "comfort" is, or should be, the primary aspect of our relationship with the Holy Ghost. 

I have come to understand "Comforter" as meaning the primacy of a loving relationship with the Holy Ghost; such as we might have - at the best - with a parent, sibling, child, spouse, best friend or similar. 

Such a relationship ought to be loving first and foremost; and therefore not to have its foundations built on a basis of functionality, nor of providing useful this-worldly service to each other. We ought to be visiting our parents because we love them, rather then to get a good meal, clothes washed, or for presents. No matter how sustaining and mutual such exchanges may be; they have to be secondary if they are not to be corrupt.  

After all, whatever we might do for each other in this mortal life and world is temporary and expedient, and will (unless resurrection follows) be lost at biological death -- if not (usually) before death.

I think the "Comforter" should therefore be understood as  meaning that there is a primary - and potentially eternal - comfort - encouragement from faith and hope - to be had from the basic fact of contact, and awareness of contact, between us in this mortal life, and the spirit of the Holy Ghost. 

We ought not to regard the Holy Ghost as mainly about helping us navigate through mortal life by the giving of good advice, nor even by providing us with the wherewithal to do  the right thing; these should be regarded as valuable by-products of the simple fact of our awareness of here-and-now contact with the Being that is the Hoy Ghost. 

"Comforter" can then be taken to mean the faith and hope that we might reasonably hope to derive a recognition of the reality of the Holy Ghost; that derives from experiencing contact between our conscious thinking, and the actuality of the Holy Ghost.   

Note added: I would not like to give the impression I regard love as a static state, a kind of time-less bliss or something. Love is inter-personal (including inter-Beings, Beings of all kinds). Indeed, I regard love as bound-up with divine creation, and therefore purpose and direction. This is why (as I understand it) love of God is given primacy in Christian theology - because it is by our love of God that we become part of the whole purpose of divine creation; and also part of the whole "method" of that creation - which "works" by means of the cohesion and desire that is part of networks of mutual loving. To state it very simply; our love of one another provides the cohesion of creation, and our love of God provides its direction. Neither being sufficient without the other... meaning they are inseparably linked in the choice to affirm love as the primary value; that-lovingness upon which the origin and progression of divine creation rests. 

Death and entropy are more fundamental than evil - JRR Tolkien agrees

Over at my Notion Club Papers blog; I discuss how Tolkien's great poem "Where now the horse and the rider" was explained by the author as being about the ultimate poignancy of the transience and oblivion of all that is Good in this mortal life; more than it is a lament for the wickedness of Men and the harshness of this world. 

In my jargon; JRRT seems to agree that The Fundamental Problem which is solved, for those who choose it, by the salvation of Jesus Christ; is death, rather than evil. 

Current-wave AI ("Artificial Intelligence") is just simulated humanness

The current wave of Establishment-styled AI ("Artificial Intelligence") is a fake and a cheat, designed and implemented for the malefit of Men - as must be the case given its provenance.

(i.e. Given the sources that have funded, devised, advertised and imposed these technologies). 

Current-wave AI is not, of course, intelligence; but what is its relationship to intelligence? 

Current-wave AI is a simulation of human intelligence, it is a set of computer programming technologies specifically designed to mislead human beings into supposing they are dealing with another human being. 

Current AI is, in other words, designed to be a way of successfully cheating at the Turing Test.  

But for current-AI to be an effective simulation, for it to fool humans as successfully as it does; entails that humans are operating in such a pervasively reductionistic and computerised environment that this cheating becomes almost undetectable; and that such humans have habitually assimilated computer-like patterns of thinking*. 

The success of AI entails that the full scope of the natural human world has become stripped-down to such a minimal level - for instance; that the fullness of Man's sociality has become brief and hurried interactions with de facto strangers on restricted themes, via type-written media. 

So impoverished, so unnatural, have become our worlds, our relationships with other people and with nature and the cosmos; that within-this-context, it is possible for the outputs of computers to be indistinguishable from the real people who are hamstrung in multiple directions, by the compulsion to operate in such constricted and artificial situations. 

As a thought experiment, imagine current AI technologies being introduced to historical societies - even just a few generations ago, but more obviously some centuries in the past - and then ask yourself whether in such a total-context AI technologies would have been able to pass for human beings? 

Of course they would not; and considering this fact brings to the surface the extremity of reductionism of culture, within which current AI is making its claim of intelligence.   

*See Jeremy Naydler's In the shadow of the machine. 

Supposing you are God, setting-up the world for Men's salvation...

Supposing you are God, setting-up the world for Men's salvation, then how would you devise things? 

You must take into full account that each man has "free will", agency; and also that modern Western adults are cut-off from the spontaneous knowledge of the spiritual and supernatural, and belief in the divine, of earlier times. 

This means that Men must actively decide to seek and engage with God.

Given such constraints; what would be the best way to engage with modern, Western adults?   

Would it be via the mediation of one true church, or even via several valid churches (as churches actually are) - I think not. That would be an exceedingly bad way of providing for Mans salvation. Church is intrinsically indirect, and subject to corruption. 

What, then, about relying upon a sacred scripture, such as the Bible? Again - this would be a highly suboptimal plan; given that there are multiple translated and distorted texts, the sheer difficulties of the texts; and the variability of textual interpretation. Scripture, like church, is both indirect and corruptible.

Or perhaps by relying upon a True tradition, that Men would absorb unconsciously? I think not - traditions are too easily, and too often, subverted - even inverted. 

What about logic and reason? Setting-up a world so Men can work-out their place and role by philosophy, by dialectic? Well, obviously, that would only be possible for a small minority of specially-gifted Men in particularly advantageous situations - and these sages would then need to transmit their conclusions by Church, Scripture or Tradition - and we have already seen how these are inadequate.   

It seems clear that the best and most reliable way to set-up this world for the salvation of all Men, of all kinds and circumstances, to cover all contingencies - would be to provide Men with direct knowledge of God; by a communication that was un-mediated - as some kind of wordless/conceptual telepathy or thought-sharing; and provide all Men with sufficient ability to access this knowledge. 

If Beings are primary, and physics is Not fundamental - then entropy needs to be reconceptualised in terms of relationships

I have harped-on about our civilization's false assumption that physics (or mathematics) is the ultimate reality - whereas I regard Beings as primordial. 

On teh other hand, I am about as prone as the next Man to continue the ingrained habits of thinking that regard the universe as having begun as a world of dead "matter" - of particles, fields and forces. 

Consequently, the picture in my mind of the concept "entropy" - to which I attach such importance, including as the fundamental reason why Jesus made available the Second Creation - is indeed, pretty much, the usual physics/ mathematical formulation. 

But if Beings are primary, then the causality of science is just a pragmatic model of reality, therefore not True (no matter how useful it may be, for certain purposes). 

So, entropy must be reconceptualised in terms of the relationships between Beings. 

(Which I am currently doing.)

 

Attitude to politicians (and other leaders) is All about assumed intentions and motivations - unaffected by actions and facts

People have assumptions concerning the intentions and motivations of politicians; and it is in the light of these assumptions that people evaluate what the politicians do, what actions they take, the facts of their policies. 

The shaping effect of assumptions is so great - so absolute - that it matters very little what actually happens. There is always a way of interpreting events so as to conform-with, and confirm, what has previously been decided about the politician.  

The big and unasked questions relate to our actual but unconscious assumptions: 

What exactly and explicitly are our assumptions about the nature, intentions, motivations etc. of any particular politician? 

Why have we, personally, adopted these assumptions?

And, do we regarding it as valid that we have done so?  

This can be seen in psychiatry, where people may develop persecutory delusions focused upon a particular person or group; and once the patient had made the assumption has been made that this person/group had malign intent towards the patient - then everything that happened (or could happen) was interpreted as evidence of their malignity. 

Alternatively, a man might begin to assume his wife is having an affair, and from then any and all her activities can be understood as further evidence of her infidelity. 

And what is visible so starkly and strangely in psychiatry, is a normal and unavoidable part of human thinking. 

It can be seen in the baddies and goodies of political discourse. The baddies are regarded as malign in the same way as happens in persecutory delusions. 

But the political goodies, in contrast, are assumed (for whatever reason) to have begin and positive intentions towards ourselves; assumed to share our personal values - so that everything they say and do is regarded as evidence of their rightness. their actions either being straightforwardly right and approved of, upfront; or else approved-of on the basis of indirectly aiming-at the right outcomes; but unable to do good directly because constrained by matters of possibility and pragmatism... 

Consequently; a lifetime of personal experience, political transformation, variation in persona and policies, U-turns and betrayals... typically make zero difference to political affiliations; or indeed to faith in the potential power of politics to do good.   

This explains why, although we expend so much time and energy generating, seeking, sifting, and arguing over "facts" and "evidence" - none of this matters; because the real differences lie at a conceptual level from-which the facts get their meaning and are interpreted. 

The implication is that we ought to be focusing on our assumptions, and whether these are reasonable -- whether, indeed, we really choose to endorse and believe-in our own assumptions - once these assumptions have been isolated and exposed to the light of awareness. 

Without such self-awareness and self-examination of their own underlying conceptual assumptions, people can easily and permanently be manipulated - even against their will. 

Because false and evil assumptions may be (and are) implanted unconsciously; so as to shape a person's whole outlook, whole way of understanding the world - in ways of which he is unaware. And because unaware, unable to evaluate or change. 

The fact is that we choose our assumptions - but the choice is not arbitrary, because assumptions are values, and as values they can and should be evaluated. yet assumptions cannot be chosen until they are known. And assumptions cannot be known unless each individual desires to know his own assumptions. 

That is the big blockage - that people do not want to know their own assumptions, and strenuously resist and deny such knowledge. 

And, in a world so permeated by the powers of evil; such an attitude is spiritually fatal. 

 

Charles Williams and Magic

Charles Williams, the Inkling, had been a high level initiate or "adept" in the Golden Dawn tradition of ritual magic. Some thoughts on this subject are posted over at my Notion Club Papers Blog. 

 

The poet Stevie Smith

Stevie Smith (1902-1971) was one of the last of the real English poets. Indeed, one of a relatively small number or women who were (by my criteria) genuine lyric poets (Emily Dickinson is another). 

I have been re-reading the 1988 biography by Frances Spalding, which is good on information - although I found its literary criticism to be rather uninspired. 

Stevie was a superb performer of her own work; with a peculiar upper class, sing-song way of speaking; and in the nineteen-sixties she was to be found performing alongside trendy pop poets forty years her junior, in major venues. 

She was also fairly typical of women geniuses in being semi-insane in real life, and much in need of looking-after - which was mostly accomplished by her beloved aunt in the suburb Palmers Green where she lived her entire life from age three.   

She was unmarried and mostly, perhaps entirely, celibate; although she knew almost everyone in the literary scene, and went to all the parties. At one point had some kind of relationship with "George Orwell" who features, as two characters, in her last novel The Holiday. 

Steve Smith's great appeal, apart from her poetic gift (here is a selection and some more here), is her unique and uncompromising perspective on life and (especially) death; which was unlike anyone else's, and derived from her absolutely centred-on-self nature, and her unflagging desire to give this expression in all its minutiae and contradictions. She often included peculiar, apparently naive, illustrations; which sometime add considerably to the poems.

The theme and tones veer between extremes; encompassing (or rather hinting at) flippancy, despair, bitterness, joy. Some are very harsh and shocking, like The Face:

There is a face I know too well,
A face I dread to see,
So vain it is, so eloquent
Of all futility.

It is a human face that hides
A monkey soul within,
That bangs about, that beats a gong,
That makes a horrid din.

Sometimes the monkey soul will sprawl
Athwart the human eyes,
And peering forth, will flesh its pads,
And utter social lies.

So wretched is this face, so vain,
So empty and forlorn,
You well may say that better far
This face had not been born.

Captain Hastings on Jazzy Flute

Hugh Fraser, the actor who so definitively portrays Captain Hastings in David Suchet's ITV Poirot, and is a superb narrator for many Agatha Christie audiobooks; was a musician in younger days, and played jazzy flute - and guitar (below) - on the theme tune of TV's Rainbow programme, for pre-school kids in the 1970s. 

Rainbow is probably most remembered for the legendary, "naughty" and boastful, character of Zippy. 

(Note: Zippy is the one above, with the orange head... and zippable mouth. 

Zippy was the instigator of most of the trouble that led to the plotlines (his abrasive character being refreshing and necessary, given how soppy and insipid were his co-stars); and he had an distinctive throaty and whining voice - somewhat like a deeper-toned, and English, version of Kermit. 

Miles Mathis's "credo": On Jesus and Fear

Miles Mathis has written his "credo" - a long, somewhat sprawling, but honest and probing examination of his guiding principles and assumptions. 

Most interestingly, to me, this focuses on the nature of Jesus - especially in relation to an overarching theme that Mankind has been manipulated by Fear primarily, for many centuries and continuing. 

(This is something I have also become convinced of - including that fear should be known as a sin.)  

The essay also describes how, despite Jesus's teaching and example to the contrary; the Christian churches have all too often been co-opted as agents of this evil agenda.  

I have written about Mathis before, on a couple of occasions, and my mixed feelings concerning his writings. 

But when I say "mixed", I mean that there is a significant amount of very good stuff in his writings, as well as plenty that I regard as wrong. The test being that I keep returning to read his articles. 

And his personality, too, seems a mixture of admirable traits, with other attributes I find off-putting. But the strengths are more important.   

In this latest essay, I found a good deal to appreciate. It strikes me as an exceptionally honest and self-revelatory piece of writing; and such writings are rare, and always of considerable interest to me. 

Because such writing is well-motivated, his  particular current conclusions are less important to me than than a particular revelation of the process of an individual person earnestly trying to sort-out his understanding of the basic human condition. 

Caveat: MM's interpretation of Jesus, Jesus's example, and Jesus's core teaching; misses-out the single most important fact - i.e. that Jesus claimed to offer resurrected eternal Heavenly life to those who followed him. 

I think this is because (unlike me) Mathis is not interested by resurrection and everlasting life in Heaven, apparently because he is one of those (apparently rare) people who regard this mortal life as ultimately sufficient... He is satisfied by his life and by life in general; as it has been and is. 

Of course this overall satisfaction may, or may not, survive to the end and into post-mortal existence - but it seems clear that as of now, MM has no desire for a qualitatively different way of being. 

Consequently, Mathis genuinely (it seems) wants nothing more or other than to have more of the same-kind-of-thing, recurrently, forever - i.e. a continuation of the cycles of reincarnation, not resurrection. 

MM himself wants repeated mortal lives, not eternal Heavenly life. 

Accepting this difference of desire and motivation as real and valid; Mathis has some excellent (and clearly heartfelt) comments to make about how Men must strive to overcome fear - or else be manipulated and tormented by the powers of strategic evil...

Powers that he here calls the Phoenicians (and which I would regard as Satan and the demons, and their servants among Men).  

It is, of course, necessary to "read the whole thing" to appreciate its qualities - even if some parts of the essay are at a lower level, this is a necessary part of any honest exploration. 

But here are a couple of excerpts, that may whet your appetite: 

**

What are people most afraid of? Death, torture, loss. 

Well, of course Jesus and the other prophets taught there is no death, since your spirit lives on. 

Like matter, spirit cannot be destroyed. It simply changes forms. 

The Modern definition of death as a stark and final end was invented by the Phoenicians, and it was invented on purpose to scare you and control you via that fear. Jesus was among the first to counter that definition, reminding you we have no evidence for that and a lot of evidence against it. 

Tribal and pre-Phoenician peoples never believed that, and it wasn't because they were ignorant savages. It was because, given everything we knew then and everything we have since learned, the default assumption was for continuance, not a final end.

*

Same for torture, which Hollywood shoves down your throat year after year to keep fear high. About half the movies now released have an nearly unwatchable torture scene. 

One problem: in reality, torture isn't very successful, due to a little thing called shock. The body can only take so much pain or stress before it goes into shock. 

Shock is another gift of Nature, and you can understand it most easily by again looking at animals. A zebra in the jaws of a lion almost immediately goes into shock. 

What is shock? It is the disassociation of the animal from the pain. The mind separates from the body, so the pain never makes it to the brain. It is sort of like a dream state. 

So in real life (not Hollywood), torture is generally more stressful for the torturer than the tortured. The torturer has to stand there and watch the proceedings, while the tortured has drifted into a dream state and doesn't even feel it. 

When you watch a torture scene in a movie, it is far more stressful for you, the viewer, than it would be for the victim, because you aren't in shock. So if you think about it that way, many Hollywood movies are a form of successful, low-grade torture of the audience. And you are so messed up from a life of that, you pay for more of your own torture. I suggest you stop doing it.

*

The Phoenicians learned a lot from Jesus. . . namely how to most efficiently prevent people from developing that character. They could see that character was dependent upon being fearless, and the reverse, so job one for them became instilling fear of death and loss, and inverting everything Jesus taught. 

Some of that they did by rewriting and bastardizing scripture directly, but most of it was done over the centuries by infiltration. Within a few decades or centuries they had infiltrated the Church, and in this position they didn't need to rewrite scripture. They could achieve the same thing by stressing some things and downplaying others. 

They sold Jesus as the Prince of Peace to further pacify the masses, while importing a hell of tortures into the afterlife, to make sure the fear remained. 

Jesus was trying to dissipate the false fear of this life, but the Phoenicians brilliantly transported that torture into the after-death, making it almost universal. In that way, even death was no escape from the Phoenician gaslighting: they could frighten you retro-actively, from beyond the grave. 

Overnight, Jesus' good news or glad tidings had been flipped into an infinite future of dread and punishment, one that many Christians still believe in. The fear hadn't been mitigated, it had been magnified a thousand times, while seeming to keep Christianity. 

Surely the greatest reversal in history.

I am Not a relativist about Christianity - Here's an explanation why

I have recently been having some discussions in the comment sections at Derek L Ramsey's blog, initially in relation to The Trinity (as conceptualized in mainstream Christianity); interactions that have been helpful to me - and apparently to him as well. 

In particular, I responded to his question about whether my brand of Romantic Christianity would become relativistic in practice, if it were to become common. He found my answer helpful in clarifying my beliefs - so I reprint it here, edited somewhat:

Question from DLR: 

It isn’t that you hold an explicitly relativist philosophy—you obviously don’t—but that, IMO, the consequences of your beliefs lead to relativism, despite your intentions or stated beliefs. 

Imagine there were 100 copies of you, scattered throughout the world. Each one would be gaining divine knowledge directly, but unless you were historically unprecedented, they’d all come to a set of (ultimately) mutually incompatible positions. Without any objective standard, there would be no way to determine what knowledge was correct and what was imagined.

This is ungrounded. Each one of you would think they were right. This is indistinguishable from relativism where truth, morality, and knowledge are not found in the absolute. I don’t see how you avoid this problem. 

Am I explaining myself well enough?

Answer from BGC:  

Oh yes, I understand you perfectly – and I asked myself the same question. 

Recall that when I converted I did so because I thought Christianity could be (and was the only hope of) the basis for a good (or at least good-seeking) society. That was my priority for a few years, and why I found it hard to find a church (either within, or outside, the CofE), why I changed direction a few times. 

It’s a matter I have addressed in my blog scores of times; but my answer is not acceptable – nor even regarded as a real answer! My answer is apparently invisible. 

One answer is to consider the primacy of motivation. 

I believe that, insofar as Christians are honestly motivated, there will be sufficient convergence on the essence of truth to enable salvation at least, and probably a good deal more than that. 

Another answer is that this line of questioning derives from a world view that seems the truth of Christianity, the truth that Jesus provided and taught, as bound-up with social organization – that it is bound-up with mechanisms for ensuring (or at least incentivizing) uniformity of beliefs. 

In other words; a world view that sees Christianity as church primarily – then state. That sees Christianity as primarily social not individual. 

Like the Judaism of the OT – such a Christianity is tribal – the tribe is the nation. For the Ancient Hebrews, the Messiah was understood as primarily a tribal/ national leader. The individual’s spiritual job was merely to serve the tribe. Salvation was of-the-tribe. 

And this role was externally forced-upon Jesus during his life, and after (especially by the evangelist Matthew) – pretty successfully!

I do not believe that this Christian tribalism or groupishness is any longer possible; my evidence being – look around and consider the past couple of centuries! 

I also believe, more controversially, that the attempt to reintroduce mechanisms for unity of belief can (here-and-now) only lead to evil. 

In other words, it is possible even nowadays in The West to enforce unity of belief (e.g. 2020) but this Will Be evil. 

Good (i.e. taking the side of God) can no longer be enforced top-down. 

I suspect that the only path to good (at least in The West, for you and me) is therefore non-institutional, much more like a family than an organization or nation. 

This must develop bottom-up, and from love. 

What such a human society would look like if it happened, I do not believe can be foreknown – because there can be no blueprint for it, just as there is no blueprint for a loving family.

On looking like "other people"

All through my adult life, I have "suffered" from being mistaken for other people. 

Friends and acquaintances claim that they have seen me in places where I have never been, that they waved to me from passing cars but I did not wave back, that they went up to somebody on the street and spoke to them - but they turned-out to be... somebody different. 

This is, I presume, due to having a somewhat nondescript face with rather indistinct features - a type common enough among grey-eyed, fair-haired, light-skinned, North Europeans and Scandinavians. 

It has also led (especially during the nineteen eighties) to people saying that somebody or another in the public eye looked "exactly" like me. 

For instance, Andy Partridge - lead singer of the pop group XTC: some giggling teenage girls on a train once thought I was him; and sang "Senses working overtime" at me, as I walked past.

Watching life of Bryan with friends, when the Michael Palin character who keeps saying "Crucifixion? Good..." came on screen, my pals simultaneously turned towards me claiming that he not only looked but was "exactly" like me:

Then was Ghostbusters, when Dan Ackroyd was another, supposed, lookalike:

And later still, Kenneth Branagh in the TV series Fortunes of War, was again "exactly" like me:

In later decades, there were no celebrity comparisons; just unfortunate bystanders and blokes in corridors, on pavements, in workplaces or social gatherings; who got mistaken and variously accosted. 

(At this point the problem was exacerbated by the fact that (due to baldness) I always wore a hat - preferably with a broad and shading brim. Any rubber-faced chaps in a big hat in Newcastle, might then expect to be assailed.) 

The moral is that some people look distinctive (once seen, never forgotten), while others Do Not - apparently I am, or was, one of the latter. 

And, with the advent of bogus "face-recognition" software - I suspect that my troubles are just beginning... 

US public opinion being successfully prepped for war

The current patriotic mania apparently escalating among so many of the erstwhile disaffected US population of anti-leftist instinct and European descent - so far fits with my hard-timeline geopolitical prediction of an imminently upcoming fake pennant event being used to trigger massive US involvement in a Middle Eastern war. 

If so, this has been a clever manipulation - because just a few months ago there would have been little enthusiasm for a "Patriotic" war (for "US interests") among the class of Americans who are most inclined to support the military. 

But currently, these oh-so-recent cynics about state-led political projects, have become wildly enthusiastic supporters of the government; and pin great hopes upon the capacity of official power to turn-around the nation, and recreate the kind of conservative-materialist-utopia of prosperity and accomplishment that they associate with the 1950s, or 1980s. 

The ex-cynics would, in this prevailing mood, surely support their adored Leader in whatever military venture he regarded as necessary.  

Time will (and soon) tell whether or not the prediction turns-out correct. 

Where are the earwigs and red ants?

I was born and brought-up in the opposite corner of England from that I now inhabit - in the South West. And, even though England is a small nation, there are differences in the animals perceptible across its length and breadth. 

In childhood, there was a fear of red ants and earwigs - but we don't see these in the North East (or, only very rarely). 

We were afraid of earwigs in case the pincers at the back might be able to nip us*; and red ants were (although tiny) supposed to be keen on biting or stinging (I was never sure which). 

My instinctive response was to kill these beasts at every opportunity - which is rational; although some of the ways that I killed them entailed a deplorable mixture of curiosity and sadism. 

Anyway, I had been living up here for many years before I realized that I hadn't seen any earwigs or red ants for ages; whereas in Somerset you just had to sit down on some grass and they would come swarming - or so recollection informs.

I hated them, but I sort-of miss them. 

(Same with Starlings.) 

Thus nature balances itself...

+++

*We also vied to spook each other with stories about how "a man" once had an earwig crawl into his ear, and "they" couldn't get it out, and it ate through into his brain, and made a nest which was only discovered after he was dead and "they" cut his head open. Or something. 

Baseless Conspiracy Theory!

One famous BCT claims that the NASA moon landings were staged in a TV studio 

I love that phrase "Baseless Conspiracy Theory" - which is used by the mainstream mass media to label any attempt to challenge the (always false and misleading) Official Narrative regarding anything The System regards as important. 

It's that "Baseless" which is so delicious - so nakedly pompous; so assertive of illegitimate and unearned authority; emanating from such dishonest and incompetent toadies to power! 

Except, of course, that the mainstream media realized that they were making things too easy for the masses, by labelling every more-honest, more-truthful, more-competent alternative interpretation to their Big Stories as a BCT. 

So nowadays the Mass Media and State Bureaucrats have begin pre-emptively labelling a few of their own genuinely-baseless conspiracy theories as... BCTs. 

A sort of double-bluff; a "bizarro world" version of "opposites day", a game beloved of small children. 

At least, I believe that to be the case; albeit this particular conspiracy theory may indeed be baseless. 

New Today: The greatest and most successful case of Controlled Opposition in recent history

In other news... In the United States today (apparently, according to mainstream news); Donald Trump was sworn-in as President. 

Controlled opposition, obviously - And Yet, the jubilation of many/most of those online who oppose totalitarian leftism seems unbounded - even among some serious Christians. 

Distinguishing Christianity from a/The Church

We just have to learn to distinguish Christianity from Church - whether that be "a Church" - churches in general; or The Church - which is your particular choice of church to believe-in and serve. 

This is a Must Do - or else, soon, there won't be any followers of Jesus left in the West (there are exceedingly few already, as it is). 

When Church is mandatorily (and willingly, apparently) incorporated into the bureaucratic and therefore value systems of globalist totalitarianism - Churches are (overall, on average, by general intent) part of the Satanic agenda. 

So, obviously we must stand apart from, and discern, and judge, our Churches! 

Non optional - if you are serious about being a Christian. 

And if you are doing this, then you also need to be clear and honest about the fact of it - and not pretend you are a "faithful servant" of the-real-true Church which is in fact a product of your discernment. As when somebody (or some small minority) define and redefine what the real-true church really is, such that they (the tiny minority) are the only real-true adherents of the real-true church...

That is plain dishonesty. That is actually standing outside of Church; it is personally discerning and judging that Church - but then dishonestly claiming that you are merely, being obedient to that real-true Church's objective and eternal divine authority!

So, if you are a serious Christian - you are already doing this. You are already half-way to being what I term a Romantic Christian...

But you are not all the way, because you are lying to yourself and other people about the core principles of your faith. 

Why do people say these lies? Partly from worldly motives. They want an objective and external Church as the basis foe a decent society. 

I understand this desire - but it is not on the table, it is not an available option - so it needs to be put aside. 

They also lie to themselves because they can't make sense of how to be a real Christian without objective external authority that demands obedience. They think that Christianity Must Be like that, because that was how it was regarded in the past.

These people need to do some hard thinking - about God. They need to make themselves believe what they say, that God is the creator and our Heavenly father - we are all his children; And that Jesus Christ really has offered us resurrection to eternal Heavenly life. 

They need to go back to this kind of deep and fundamental Christian conviction, and then try to see the world in that light; in the light of how such a creator must have made things, and how Jesus Christ must have set-up salvation so that all who desired it (i.e. who primarily wanted that which he actually offered) could achieve it. 

It's a stark choice between fundamental personal reflection on the essence of Christianity; and joining the side  of the devil - which is now, I'm sorry to say, the ultimate and spiritual side which has been taken by your Church... However much your Church pays lip-service to the language and concepts of Christianity.  

 

Instant Christian!

Over the centuries, the business of becoming a Christian has been made ludicrously complex and difficult - compared with the examples portrayed in various parts of the New Testament. 

There are - apparently - several instances of people becoming "instant Christians" in the Gospels. Jesus meets somebody, has a short conversation, that person makes a decision - and he or she becomes "a Christian" - spiritually, a follower of Jesus. 

Even in the descriptions of Acts of the Apostles, after the ascension of Jesus, when baptism seems to have been inserted as an extra requirement - there is the (implicitly permanent and transformative) conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch in the course of a single conversation. 

There are clear, simple, and apparently obvious lessons from this we ought to learn, concerning what is - and what is Not - necessary to be a Christian. 

To be a Christian, you don't need a priest, don't need a church, don't need to know the Bible. 

Do not need to do anything in particular - do not need to be baptised, nor perform any sacrament, nor subsequently follow a specific life-path (indeed, it is implied that Jesus's followers included continuing "sinners" - i.e. those regarded by the Jewish Law as beyond the pale). 

We do not need to adhere to any specific metaphysical doctrine (such as The Trinity, or regarding the nature of God). We do not need to affirm any particular philosophy 

There is no requirement to be a particular kind of person, not a Jew, nor to know anything at all about Judaism - such as the Old Testament books, commandments, laws, rules of living. 

The simple inference from the actual "conversions" seems to be that anyone can become a Christian by wanting what Jesus makes possible, and by the commitment to follow Jesus to attain it. 

This primary requirement is, indeed, the only necessity - but it is also a thing, the nature of which is not obvious to our modern minds. 

We do not grasp what it means to follow Jesus - and in trying to articulate this, we are often led into vast needless complexity and spurious difficulty. 

This means that we need to set-aside the truly vast weight of accumulations that by-now hems-in the idea of being-a-Christian. 

But it also means that, in setting aside the colossal superstructure of the unnecessary, distracting, and inverted; we do the work of thinking and discernment for ourselves. 

When we (rightly) reject the authority of "other people" and of institutions to dictate our salvation and mortal destiny; we must instead do the work ourselves - otherwise we will not truly have set-aside the needless, but will simply become manipulated by a different (and probably worse) set of external authorities...

As when apostate Christians, who reject the authority of their church/ theology/ tradition - instead, and typically, become servile Leftist-materialist socio-political activists. They merely switch their unthinking-obedience from their church, to the totalitarian demonic agenda.  

This matter of following Jesus is therefore a thing we each need to work-out for ourselves. 

But work-out in a way that recognizes the true answer needs to be recognized as clear, simple and obvious... 

Such that its meaning can be conveyed sufficiently in the course of a single, brief conversation with a stranger. 

In this bureaucratic totalitarian public world, the appeal of the virtual world is obvious - But...!

This public world we inhabit in the world of work, officialdom, mass media etc. has been progressively bureaucratised to include all major institutions (and even family, and social interactions); and the bureaucracies incrementally made to interact and become compatible; and brought under the same auditing rules, therefore the same ideology and central control. 

Consequently, this functional aspect of human existence has been drained of personality and the spirit - it has become thin, superficial, mundane - and completely materialistic.

Therefore; this major (and vital) aspect of life is experienced as a dead weight of coercive oppression, with no large or lasting place of escape. 

When the public and social world is so utterly purposeless, meaningless, and dull - it is natural that people look to the virtual world for escape into something richer, more exciting, more fulfilling...

And yet, of course, the virtual world is a product of - and controlled by - the same totalitarian bureaucracy from which people are yearning to escape. 

So, he virtual world is always being subverted; always becoming more and more like the world of work-officialdom-mass media - increasingly sharing exactly that thin, tyrannical futility from which the virtual world offered some degree of escape.  

What this means is that more people are becoming more aware that their actual experienced world is never going to provide what they most deeply desire and need...

Or, more exactly, this actual world will provide less and less, briefer and briefer, weaker and weaker doses of what they most want and need.

Ever less Joy. 

What makes this spiritually-lethal (which is, of course, the ultimate demonic purpose behind All This); is that even these small, infrequent, enfeebled experiences will be interpreted as unreal, meaningless escapism, evidence of weakness, cowardice and psychopathology merely.  

And that is when people ought to consider the validity and implications of the Argument from Desire. 

Why is Modern Man spontaneously alienated - naturally cut-off from participation in reality?

Although people nowadays take the fact for granted, and hardly seem aware of it; it was much discussed in the early and middle twentieth century that Modern Man was uniquely alienated. 

Modern Man was cut-off from participation in reality; he experienced himself as separated from the natural world, other people, even his real self. Life was experienced as taking place in the bubble of his own self-awareness. 

Modern Man is not spontaneously and naturally religious - at least not after early childhood - in the way that Men throughout history were naturally religious. The world of god/s, spirit, the livingness of nature, even the values such as truth, beauty and virtue - are all experienced as separate, alien, arbitrary. 

Why should God make things so that alienated people such as ourselves are incarnated at all, but in particular why are we incarnated here-and-now (and in the recent past)?

My best answer is that we Modern Men were pre-mortal spirits with these characteristics; and that we are incarnated now so that we are autonomous of pervasiveness and extremity of the evil of this world*.

Historical Men passively absorbed the group and societal values in which they were raised, because they could not detach from them. But these values - although varying between times and places - were always good enough for Men to choose salvation. 

The usual default was salvation - because that was what most people wanted (when they realized it was real and possible). 

However; social values here and now are opposed to salvation; so that only Men who are detached from them can choose salvation. 

Our social values lead Men to reject salvation...

If we passively, unconsciously, uncritically absorbed our modern social values - then we would by-default choose damnation. 

This means that our best and only chance of salvation is to choose salvation from a situation of detachment - i.e. of alienation, of isolation. 

We Modern Men are spontaneously outside of this evil world - and therefore it is possible for us to choose resurrected eternal Heavenly life. 

And this is (I think) why people like us have been incarnated at a time and place like this. 

*I am assuming here that the Modern World, especially The West, is the most evil society ever to have existed in history - or before. There is no space to argue this - and indeed, it cannot be "proven"; but the main "evidence" is that our official, global, top-down, systemic, and socially-pervasive values are (from a Christian perspective) inverted, actively anti-Good, and incoherent.

The Most Reluctant Convert (2021) - Max McLean in a short movie about CS Lewis's conversion

Lastnight we watched "The most reluctant convert" a short (90 minute) movie about CS Lewis's life and conversion - written-by and starring the excellent Bible Gateway performer Max McLean. 

It is a meaty and uncompromising piece, which managed to interest me and hold my attention; even though I have read the contributing texts, especially Surprised by Joy; and indeed I've seen several earlier movies that covered much the same ground. 

Like many adult converts to Christianity over the past seventy years - CS Lewis's writings played a significant role in this process. 

Looking back, I can see several respects in which Lewis's experiences, and his answers, seem wrong to me now - including his experience of having to resist being-converted, his orthodox-traditional-classical theology, and the way he equates being-a-Christian with joining a (mainstream) church. 

Nonetheless, CSL (and a few others) got me over the line, which is What Matters! 

(The rest was, necessarily, Up To Me.)

I was pleased that the movie's take-home message, spoken by Lewis during in the last few minutes, focused on what was, for me, the most effective of the "arguments" that Lewis made (with Tolkien) - the argument from desire, as it is called: 

The final step was taken... It was like a man who, after a long sleep, has become aware that he is now awake. 

My conversion shed new light on my search for Joy. The overwhelming longings that emerged from reading MacDonald's Phantastes, and seeing my brother's toy garden when a child; were merely signposts to what I truly desired. They were not the thing itself. 

I concluded that; if I find in myself a desire that no experience in this world could satisfy  the most probable explanation? I was made for another world. 

At present we are on the outside of that world, the wrong side of the door. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. 

But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the news that it will not always be so; that one day, God willing, we shall get in.

Meanwhile: the cross comes before the crown. And tomorrow is another morning.  

A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of this world. And we have been invited to follow our great Captain inside. 

Following Him is, of course, the essential point. 

Dion Fortune's description of Direct Knowing, from the 1930s

I have quite often tried to describe what I call Direct Knowing, which I regard as the most fundamental form of understanding, the bottom line, the ultimate (and divine) way of knowing. 

Yesterday I found a passage of writing which seems to describe how Direct Knowing feels and operates, written in the 1930s by Dion Fortune. 

She says there are three basic ways that the mind works: in words, in picture images; and a third and higher type of mentality, "which comes to all of us occasionally at times of stress". 

This is a thinking in terms of pure idea, in which the idea arises in the mind complete and does not have to be thought out; but comes in a flash of realization which we apprehend in a sudden glimpse of insight; which will then gradually unfold and realize in all its implications. 

Edited from page 21 An Introduction to Ritual Magic by Dion Fortune - edited by Gareth Knight, 1997/2006.   

"The hand follows the eye" - To navigate life, we need to look where we are going

The only way to talk with the subconscious mind is through the pictorial imagination, because it has a very archaic mode of mentation that developed before speech had been thought of. It is unresponsive to logic, or argument, or appeals to its better nature. But show it a picture, and it understands and is only too ready to cooperate - now that it knows what is required of it. 

This is an exemplification of the well known maxim that the hand follows the eye.

If you look over the hedge when driving a car, you will end up in the ditch because, all unconsciously, you will steer in the direction in which you are looking. 

The novice keeps his eye on the kerb in order to avoid running into it, and follows St Paul's example in doing the thing he would not. 

The expert looks where he wants to go, and gets there. 

Edited from page 21 An Introduction to Ritual Magic by Dion Fortune - 

edited by Gareth Knight, 1997/2006 

**

This is a metaphor for the role in our mortal life; "where we want to go" means our desire for, and confident belief-in, salvation. 

The hand follows the eye... "The hand" is what we do in life - all that complex and potentially bewildering combination of attitudes, and knowledge, and actions. 

"The eye" is what is the subject of our attention. 

If we "look over the hedge", looking around instead of looking ahead; we shall be distracted by the temporary contingencies of mortal life, and will end up in a ditch... 

If our attention is focused on the close-up and specifics of life - such as the avoidance of sins, or doing particular good works - then we will drive into the kerb... 

We need instead to focus on where we want to go. 

And for a Christian: where-we-want-to-go comes after death: and is Resurrected Eternal Heavenly life.  

When we know where we want to go, are confident that we can get there; when we look at it and keep this vision before us - then we will get there. 

For most Christians, officially, Omni-God is mandatory - free will/ agency... not really

The problem for traditional, orthodox mainstream Christian Churches is that they make a very Big Thing about the creator deity being Omni-God - but when it comes to the free will of Men... Well, freedom is accorded much, much less significance. 

On the one hand; Omni-God is absolutely mandatory - the church member must swear to that concept. 

On the other hand; each Man's freedom... well, it is supposed to be present and effective. Christians are supposed to be able to choose our values, commitments, behaviours - either because we get divinely evaluated on them, or else simply because these decisions have consequences related to salvation. 

However; both in theory and in practice, freedom may be (more, or less) dispensed-with by this type of Christianity. At the very least least, Man's freedom gets so hedged-about with so many caveats, that when it comes to the crunch - e.g. when it comes to a conflict between Man's Freedom and God's Omni-status... well, agency means little or nothing. 

Omni-God Must Be - but Man's Freedom is something rather difficult, something we are allowed to doubt and debate... 

In the crunch, Omni-God prevails and freedom is imprisoned, and perhaps forgotten. 

Looking at a couple of Protestant documents: The Thirty-Nine Articles of 1571 are (in theory, if not in practice) the confession of the Church of England, and all the other churches in the Anglican communion - third largest in the world. This has as its first item of faith, the Omni-God:

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible.

The Westminster Confession of Faith from 1646 is the basis for several nonconformist groups, including the Presbyterians. This is more explicit, and hard-line, in its Omni-Goddism than the 39 Articles; and requires affirmation of a conception of the God that would (of itself) probably satisfy the most ardent pure-monotheist: 

There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory, most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; and withal most just and terrible in His judgments; hating all sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty. God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of Himself; and is alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which He hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting His own glory in, by, unto, and upon them; He is the alone foundation of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom, are all things; and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them, whatsoever Himself pleaseth. In His sight all things are open and manifest; His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature; so as nothing is to Him contingent or uncertain. He is most holy in all His counsels, in all His works, and in all His commands. To Him is due from angels and men, and every other creature, whatsoever worship, service, or obedience He is pleased to require of them.

Having established the absolute requirement of belief in an Omni-God - what do these documents say of Man's freedom?  

39 Articles: The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith; and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.

Westminster: Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto. When God converts a sinner and translates Him into the state of grace, He freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and, by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so as that, by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly, nor only, will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil. The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone, in the state of glory only.

We see that, in contrast to the much-emphasized and freedom of God elsewhere described in these documents; in this earthly mortal life, Man is characterized mainly by un-freedom. 

Man is describing here as lacking the freedom in the divine sense - that freedom which is necessary for creation, and indeed (I would say) for love. 

In these confessions; Man cannot will good, but can only will a kind of double negation of rejecting evil, or will acquiescing to the good that is done-for-us and given-us by God the Father and Jesus Christ. 

What I see; is how far from the situation described in the Gospels, especially the Fourth Gospel (John) Christianity had developed by the time of these confessions. How close Christianity had come to the pure monotheism of Judaism or Islam; by which Man's freedom is (so it seems to me) almost solely related to the choice of obedience and submission to God's will, law, and commandments. 

Even this minimal version of human agency as obedience is, by my understanding, impossible when God is truly Omni. 

When God is everything necessary, Man's existence and "choices" mean nothing of real value.

When God is absolute and infinite in knowledge, power, and presence; this eliminates any need, space, or place for Man's agency to exist - so it gets ignored.

For orthodox, mainstream, traditional Christian Churches; the Omni-God is absolute, compulsory, officially-required, built-in. 

Human free agency - by contrast - is treated like an optional extra, a mere embellishment or decoration on the rock of faith; nice but (when the chips are down) not-really-necessary.   

Therefore; if a Christian believes in the reality and vital importance of his own free agency to salvation and theosis - to living this earthly mortal life...

Then, in order to be honest and coherent both; such a Christian ought to set-aside the Omni-God concept, or at least relegate Omni-God to subordinate status. 

And instead seek an understanding of God that acknowledges - and clearly and coherently explains - the nature, origin, truth, and goodness of each Man's freedom. 

Note: I leave it to the members of the two largest Christian communions - Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox - to do the same exercise for the confessional documents of their own institutions. 

So-called "AI" is a world of virtual virtuality: a copy of a copy...

Edited from a sharply-insightful Comment by NLR at Francis Berger's blog: 

A common claim is that (So-called) "AI will usher in an endless frontier of creativity". 

There's plenty of reasons to disagree with this, but I want to discuss the assumptions associated with this view of creativity. The core distinction is that the assumptions of mechanistic creativity are false at a fundamental level.

The idea that the virtual world would become a world unto itself has been presented over and over again for decades, in both fiction and nonfiction. 

And yet how can that be true when the virtual world takes everything it has from the real world? 

What actually happened is that the virtual world has shrunk more and more over the years and so-called AI is just increasing this. 

Since AI works by copying what's on the Internet, its products are a copy of a copy, creating a world of virtual virtuality. 

Power and corruption - Is the evil of power an amplification, a temptation, or the fundamental nature of things?

In ancient times, it seems that power was regarded as A Good Thing - the only problem was getting it! The assumption was that gaining power simply enabled good people to do good things. 

Power was wanted for Us, and Our power was good. The evil of power was when They had it, and exercised it on Us. 

When someone with power did evil, then the ancient assumption was that power simply revealed their real nature - which had previously been thwarted of expression. 

Power for the ancients was thus an amplifier. 

It was as if goodness and evil were innate qualities; "a good man" given more power would, by his nature, do more good; and vice versa. 

The best society was therefore one such as King Arthur's Camelot; in which there was a good and powerful ruler. 

The era of power-as-amplifier also includes the assumption that the goodness of the ruler's power would permeate the people (as if the people would inevitably absorb the goodness of power, like a sponge). So, a good and powerful ruler, would lead to a better people. 

The idea that power corrupts, was a product of the modern era; and became socially dominant especially in the middle 20th century. 

We see it in literature such as the depiction of the Emperors and their courts in Robert Graves's I Claudius and Claudius the God - when many basically-decent individuals such as Augustus, Tiberius and Claudius himself, become corrupted by their power. (And those who are not corrupted get eliminated.) 

The corrupting effect of power was supposed to work such that a normal, or even good, person who got enough power, would strongly tend to be corrupted by it. So that a powerful monarch, or in the 20th century a secular dictator, might start out doing overall good; but would tend to become worse, get more selfish and paranoid, and do increasing harm...

The more power someone had, and the longer he wielded that power - the more corrupted he would become. 

Thus, in contrast with the ancients; the "power corrupts" idea was that power would itself tend make individuals evils: power was understood as a temptation. 

The more power, the longer the power was wielded: the greater the temptation.

From the late twentieth century the idea began to emerge that power was intrinsically corrupt: power just is corruption. 

While it is true that power amplifies innate evil, and also corrupts; in this most recent era there is more to power. It is not just a question of power bringing-out evil, plus tempting people to evil; on top of (and underpinning) these: power always is evil in its fundamental nature. 

This analysis asserts that power cannot be good, that power always is evil - because of what power is. 

Such an idea can be seen emerging in the depiction of the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings - where the temptation of power is, in practice, unstoppable in its corruption- such that even the most good and pure of people (Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf, Aragorn) know they they would be unable to resist it.  

Here we may see hints of the current concept that the very nature and operation of power is evil (yet not quite fully in place, because the legitimate monarchical power of Aragorn is regarded as unproblematically good). 

Yet now, the situation is that power is regarded as coercion; as operating by compulsion of one by another; or of the masses by the minority rulers; or of people by the totalitarian System or "machine". 

A literary exponent of this vision of fundamentally evil power is Philip K Dick; with the depictions of future (and present day) dystopias as the Black Iron Prison; in which the whole structure of societal power is regarded as evil incarnate, set against each individual - who is a victim of power regardless of his position within The System. 

The operations of power are therefore such as to spread evil; in that power compels. Power propagandizes, coaxes, and forces behaviour - power deploys punishment for failure to obey; and power allocates rewards for compliance.  

In other words: power is all about bribes and sanctions and the like - these are not means to an end; but propaganda, bribes and sanctions, and brute force are what power is. 

The corruption spreads; because power is about getting others to behave in accordance with fear and greed, and the lust for power. 

This development in the understanding of power is, I believe, a consequence of the changing nature of human consciousness - the development by which human behaviour began as spontaneously and unconsciously immersed in the group-mind; and then (via transitional stages) became a alienated modern situation, in which each human experiences himself as cut-off from other people, from reality - even from his inmost self.

Whereas ancient power was diffused among the group mind - so that it was intrinsically shared-between the members; now power is experienced as external compulsion of one upon others.

Power makes everybody worse - the powerful, and those upon whom power is exercised! 

This is why the making of structures of power - power to shape, destroy and compel the world (as its people) - has been so much the focus of demonic strategy through most of the modern era. 

This has many and deep consequences; such that whereas the ancients could do good by power; we moderns cannot - power only does evil in the modern world, and can only do evil because of its nature. 

This applies to all humans with power - all are evil; and to all institutions with power, including Christian churches. 

Insofar as a Christian church is powerful, it is evil - it can only be evil. Whatever Christian churches do to increase their power is based on the false argument that power will enable them to do more good... The reality is that more-power simply makes churches more-evil. 

Because power is evil by its nature in the context of modern consciousness; institutional activity to "do good" that was normal in the past, is impossible in the present. 

Even when the intent to do good with power is genuine; insofar as power is attained, evil will in fact be done. 

This corruption of power is not just a temptation that might (in theory) be eschewed; the corruption of power is unavoidable, because it is in the fundamental nature of power. 

**

Note: What of the future? Well, it seems clear to me that, when power is known as innately evil; Christians need to lose their past keenness on getting and wielding power via - whether personally, or via institutions. The antidote to a world of power, is a world of love - and that is Heaven; and the mortal realities of Heavenly love that we may experience on earth. But even our idea of Heaven needs to be purged of past infatuations with power. We should also distinguish between the zero-sum games of power, which is all about arranging what is already created; and our potential for adding (eternally) to the sum and varieties of divine creation - through our own divine freedom, in harmony with ongoing creation. Of course, in our mortal lives in this mixed world, permeated by entropy and evil; we cannot eschew power, and necessarily participate in it - but we can and should recognize and repent the necessity. 

Further Note: Lest I be misunderstood - the situation is Not symmetrical. Although power is evil, power-less-ness does not mean good-ness. To be wholly good, power must not be operative. To put matters positively - goodness works by love, not power. Power is the destruction of loving relationship. 

However; in this mortal earthly life, love and power are always mixed in actual Men and their actual relationships, in a manner analogous to the inevitable mixture of good and evil in the hearts of each Man. Only after we have been remade and transformed by resurrection can Men (and other Beings) become wholly-loving. So, the situation in this earthly mortal life is that we cannot Be goos and loving (except partially and intermittently) but we can , and should, to affiliate to the side of love, just as we can/should affiliate to the side of God. It is not a matter of total reform and purification (which is impossible in this world) - what matter is a matter of taking sides; and, when it comes to values and matter of taking the right side.   

Acknowledgement: My awareness of the changing understanding of power originated from Tom Shippey's discussion of the One Ring in his magisterial The Road to Middle Earth, and some further discussion in the essays Roots and Branches.