The two-fold mainstream modern critique of the beliefs of traditionalist Christianity (and, theoretically, any other religion) - Is it the main cause of Christian destruction and assimilation?

For a long time (in intellectual circles, well over a century) it has been common in the West to criticise the beliefs of Christians, in two ways: that they are wishful thinking; and/or that they are self-tormenting delusions. 

Wishful thinking

Christians believe things, such as a happy life after death, because these beliefs make them happy. The beliefs are not true, but believing them is personally gratifying - and this is why they are believed. 

On from this; Christians believe some things because these beliefs lead to the kind of society that Christian-type people want. 

(Some other - not-Christian, maybe atheist - people want this kind of society as well; and these people may pretend to believe what Christians affirm, in order to get this kind of society.) 

Christianity is therefore like a kind of daydream - Christians are foolish people who dream-up stuff they would like to be true, then make themselves believe it. 

Self-tormenting delusions

Christians are mentally ill (either spontaneously, or because their religion makes them so); and therefore torment themselves with needless delusions that make them miserable. 

Major examples include traditional Christian moral restrictions in relation to sex and sexuality. 

On from this; unless they are prevented, Christians will inflict these misery-inducing delusions on the rest of society. 

Christianity is therefore like a kind of nightmare - Christians are a mixture of self-destructive lunatics and psychopathic sadists, who make themselves ill with sick fantasies, then try to make everyone else as insane or depraved as they are. 

These attitudes are - as I said - very common; either individually or, most often, both-together. They may seem - and indeed are in some ways - contradictory! After all, how can Christians be both happy-clappy wishful-thinking idiots, and at the same time crazed self-tormented tormenters? 

But we are dealing with attitudes to Christian beliefs, not logic; and the attitudes are based on the assumption that Christians beliefs are wrong, and seeks various explanations of why. 

And once it is assumed Christians are wrong; then it is not irrational to suppose that there may be a variety of explanations, applicable to different people, or at different times.   

The Big Problem with this very common, indeed mainstream, critique is that it is self-destroying. It is applicable not just to Christianity, but to all - and apparently all possible - beliefs.

In effect psychology is thereby made the bottom line explanation, psychology gets used to explain everything else.

(This is, of course, an assumption - it is certainly neither evident nor obvious that psychology is the most profound of all forms of knowledge: supreme over all others!)  

But then what explains psychology? It turns out that psychology explains psychology!...

Our choices of belief (apparently) depend on our psychology, and our type of psychology depends on the psychology of belief - on environment (type of society, geography, historical era, social class, sex etc.); on heredity including genetic inheritance etc. 

It's circular, all-inclusive - meaningless. 

If psychology has "proved" that traditional Christianity is non-objective; then psychology also "proves" that psychology itself is non-objective. 

This means that psychology could not really have been the cause that has specifically disproved traditionalist Christianity. 

That this self contradicting and circular psychological (or, mutatis mutandis sociological/ political) critique was incoherent; was pretty much the anti-secular critique of mainstream modern secularism made by the likes of GK Chesterton and then CS Lewis in the early and middle 20th century. 

GKC and CSL believed, or hoped, that this clarification of the inadequacy of anti-Christian critique would then protect traditional Christianity and its churches from destruction. But this did not happen - in the event the churches and Christianity have both been eroded and corrupted. 

Furthermore, all positive non-religious ideologies have been eroded and corrupted: nationalism, socialism, "back to nature" agrarianism, and all the utopias proposed from the 18th to mid twentieth century, have all lost their power and integrity - have either dwindled to socio-political insignificance (e.g. agrarianism); and/or have become co-opted into mainstream secular totalitarianism (nationalism, socialism) and become negative and oppositional in their motivations.   

The anti-Christian intellectual crusade was real and powerful; and Christianity and the Christian churches have indeed been largely destroyed. But all kinds of belief in any purpose or meaning in life, personal significance, and any reason for life rather than non-life or death - have also been destroyed.

Furthermore, it is not just churches, but all functional social institutions that have been diminished and assimilated to a monopolistic bureaucracy - the legal system, economic activity, science, universities. police and the military; even clubs and hobby groups... 

Nothing has been untouched by the institutional trends that afflicted the churches. 

 

So, it seems that something else - some other big causal factor - was in fact going-on in the destruction of Christian belief; and that "something else" has affected secular ideologies in much the same way it affected religions. 

My belief is that this causal-something-else was in fact the developmental change of human consciousness -  broadly on lines as outline by Rudolf Steiner then Owen Barfield; and this is a Master Idea (a metaphysical assumption) that has permeated this blog for the past decades.

Of course, that too, is an assumption - but the advantage I claim for it, is that it is explicit and I acknowledge it is an assumption. 

In public discourse, metaphysics is important - but hardly anything else is

Whenever I mention (and this happens A Lot) that is is non-optional that mainstream modern people should explicitly discover and critique their own fundamental assumptions (i.e. we need to do metaphysics); the response comes that most people just can't do this. 

It isn't true. Masses or ordinary people have done metaphysics at many times and places in human history, and this is recorded. Of course they didn't so it in the exact way that modern people would - but they did it. 

Much of this was in terms of religion and theology. It was complained, for example, that the streets of Constantinople were at one point clogged with masses of people arguing about the fundamental nature of Jesus Christ. 

But even as recently as the middle 20th century, there was a lot of public mainstream debate in journalism and books (also novels, plays, movies) concerning "existentialism" or the nature of reality -- to the point that such discussion was part of fashionable youth cults such as the Beats and Hippies. 

None of this went anywhere much, because it didn't go deep enough and got mixed-up with institutional imperatives and incentives. However, the record shows that people can and did discuss fundamental assumptions in a way that almost never happened in the past several decades - so that people have come to believe it is nigh impossible!

. 

Yet things have indeed changed, with the corruption and collapse of public and institutional discourse; which is now rotted by corruption and dishonesty to the point that it does more harm than good. 

In the past, it made some kind of sense to claim that stuff like science, education, law, economics and the like were important; but now these are important mostly for the harm they inflict and the malign brainwashing induced by participation. 

What this means is that  not only is metaphysics important, but it has become just-about the Only important thing - in public discourse. 

The rest of public discourse in 2025 is light-entertainment at best - passing the time between our birth and death-annihilation in a more-or-less pleasant or exciting fashion; but the norm is that these social domains are a cancer on human existence and Western civilization.   

It's time people stopped making excuses! Most people consume vast quantities of their finite resources and money, and their limited life-energies, on malign trivialities or futile self-aggrandisements. 

It's time more people started doing what they must do... 

"Must", at any rate, if this mortal life is not to have been a literal waste of time; leading on to a post-mortal existence in which such people have - on the basis of their own unexamined and false assumptions - chosen something much worse than this life.  

Note added: Just to clarify or emphasize - I am talking about public discourse. IN personal and private discourse there are Many things important, as well as metaphysics. What I'm saying is that the surface level of public discourse is now so corrupted and inverted, that it should not ever be regarded as Good. To get good from public discourse now, entails considering its assumptions. Otherwise it is bound to do net harm. 

Pears soap - the one and only

 

When I was a kid, my Dad came home from a secondhand bookshop in Bristol one day, bearing several copies of the Pears Annual - an Edwardian-era publication. It was a large format (approximately A3 size), soft backed; and very quaint. The illustrations were fascinating although the stories were too densely printed and long-winded - but most interesting were the many pages of advertisements. 

This was the first time I heard of Pears Soap - the manufacturers of which published this annual; presumably as a way of promoting their product. 

I learned that the pronunciation was pares (not peers); but I never saw the soap or tried it - we didn't use it at home, and none of our circles used it either.

When I had grown-up, some years later; later saw some Pears Soap display in a shop and gave it a try. It came in a box and at that time (but not now) the bar of soap was loose in the box, no wrapper - which was unusual.  

Pears soap is transparent, has a distinctive (not-perfumed) slightly "medicinal" smell, is mild (non-irritant); and (especially with a brush) makes a thick froth (presumably from containing a lot of glycerine) - which makes it good for wet-shaving.  

In other words; Pears soap is one of those "people who like this, will find this the sort of thing they like" things. 

(It's moderately expensive - currently costing about one pound per bar.)

For those of us who like it, there is no competitor: our house is full of these oval bars and we even take them on holidays, so we never have to live without them. 

So be careful before you try Pears soap. It is potentially addictive; and once hooked you will not even want to quit. 

The pain-killing effect of "tubigrip" cylindrical elasticated bandages

Over many years, and confirmed within my family, I have noticed that a "tubigrip" cylindrical elasticated bandage can often reduce, or even eliminate, pain in a limb. 

This is worth revisiting for recent readers. 

For instance; yesterday I had a very severe continuous pain in my knee due to osteoarthritis (maybe a microfracture of an osteophyte, or something nasty along the joint line) - pain with a "burning" quality, and bad enough that I could not sleep nor find a comfortable position. 

The pain did not respond to pain-killing medications. 

But when I applied a tuboigrip bandage, the pain immediately receded to the point I could forget about it, and it ceased to be a problem. 

Over the years I (and my kids too) have sometimes found a similar effect for ankles, elbows and wrists. A cylindrical elasticated bandage of the correct length and diameter - firm but not tight - sometimes provides a very quick and worthwhile analgesic effect. 

It doesn't always work; but when it does work - then that's great! And yesterday's was the most severe pain that has responded to the tubigrip treatment.  

How it might work, I don't know. 

My best (tentative) guess is by some variant of the gating effect - by which stimulation of the fast-transmitting superficial touch receptors by the bandage, may block the reception of slower transmitting pain fibres; somewhat like immediately rubbing a bump helps to diminish the pain, when it belatedly arrives. 

Still, I pass on the tip as perhaps useful, and unlikely to do harm  -so long as the bandage is not too tight, and does not block venous return and cause distal swelling of the limb. 

Repentance = Know evil, then choose Good

The most important thing in being a Christian is to want for oneself resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

But maybe the second most important thing is repentance - because unless we repent our own "sins" - our own evil desires - then even one of these can block our desire for Heaven. 

This seems to be why the Fourth Gospel more-or-less equates sin with death - because the salvation offered by Jesus Christ saves us from the situation that follows death of our mortal body, when all that remains is a depersonalized ghostly spirit; so that sin leads to death - and salvation is eternal life of our re-embodied self. 

It does not need to be a very "severe" sin (e.g. something like murder) to block salvation; it could be anything that is not-aligned with God and divine creation, hence incompatible with Heaven; and which we refuse to give-up, when the choice comes. 

If the way this might work isn't obvious to you (e.g. due to the great mass of false and confusing information on the subject) the matter was clarified for me by CS Lewis's "The Great Divorce"; where we have illustrated how apparently trivial and private faults or flaws can induce a person voluntarily to reject the immediate offer of salvation. 

This salvation-blocking effect happens because any un-repented sin makes us Not Want Heaven. 

So repentance is vital - but what is it? 

I've written extensively on the matter; but here I'm trying to boil it down to the absolute simplicity of an equation: 

Repentance = Know evil, then choose Good. 

First we must know evil, which means recognize evil as evil, acknowledge that this is indeed evil. 

Second - knowing this instance of evil, we must inwardly choose Good. 

We need to realize there is a side that is Good (the side in harmony with the purposes of God and divine creation) and the choice is to affiliate with the side of Good. 

(And to reject the side that is against-Good = the side of evil.) 

That is repentance. 

The usual riposte is on the lines of "That's all very well, but what are you actually going to Do about it?"

But that action-focused approach is a serious mistake, indeed it functions as a demonic snare. The real question is whose side we have chosen, not what we can or will do. 

Or, more accurately, what we do must be Heaven-orientated, must primarily and essentially be spiritual in nature; and spiritual action does not necessarily nor always leading towards any particular this-worldly/ material outcome. 

After all; this mortal world is of its nature a sin-full one terminating in our death; and there is zero possibility of living without sin - as becomes obvious once we have really understood what sin means, and how pervasive it always is.

The point is not to "live without sinning", nor even to try such an absurd impossibility. 

(Jesus came to save sinners, after all - and did not require of disciples or followers that they cease from sinning, but that they "follow Him".)

The point is to know evil, and repent sin by choosing the side of Good. 

Repentance sounds simple and easy, maybe too easy? It is simple, but apparently it is not easy, or seldom so; since repentance is so rare. 

The proper approach to evaluating "AI" - From the comments...

From commenter No Longer Reading:

There's an idea that you need to have written the Summa Technologica to criticize technology. But it's a lot more basic than that. If it has bad effects or it's based on a bad ideology then it's bad. 

Techno-totalitarian mass surveillance has obviously had bad effects. There's no need to debate whether "the true mass surveillance has never been tried". It's also based on a bad ideology. So, it's bad. 

Also, there's a mixing up of two separate things. On the one hand there's the fact that the universe is set up such that a particular technology can be invented. On the other hand is the technology itself. Nature works how it works, but then humans choose what to investigate and what to try to invent within the bounds set by nature. 

Whether the universe is set up in a particular way is neutral, well, no living human being knows that, so it's a moot point. But technology is a human endeavour. 

If religion doesn't get a free pass that it's always good or at least neutral, why are we supposed to give such a fee pass to technology, which is every bit as human as religion?

**

My comments: 

I was struck by the incisiveness of that last sentence. It makes a telling point. 

The exact same people who are defending-promoting AI are often-usually people who are hypercritical of some religions (and of leftist politics, or its components such as the climate agenda). 

What they are doing is to regard some mass-scale coordinated human endeavours as appropriate to be evaluated morally in terms of their overall intent and nature... 

But other mass-scale coordinated human endeavours - specifically AI - are exempted from evaluation; and assumed to be neutral tools.

A further point that strikes me is the "but its only an incremental extension of... [something already existing]" argument. 

Such that AI is only an (admittedly multi-trillion-dollar and coercively implemented) incremental development of the already-existing internet. 

It is, of course, true that AI is a development of the internet - the problem is that word "only"! 

As if a vast and coordinated political/ administrative/ financial/ industrial/ mass media program was rendered insignificant - simply by inserting the word "only"!

Further; almost-all evil is an extension of pre-existing evil. 

In a sense; horrific world wars are only "politics by other means"; and politics is only interpersonal interaction writ large. Each increment of the sexual revolution is built on what went before, so that SSM is only an extension of no fault divorce. 

True enough in terms of lineage. But are we not, then, to notice when some big new evil is being imposed upon us? 

Or to pretend that - because a development of what already is - it doesn't matter; or that it is not evilly motivated?

This is why repentance is so vital. We made an error of judgment that leads to further errors of judgment - often to rationalize or justify that first error. We then find ourselves (individually or collectively) a long way down a path to evil.

But for a Christian, this is not too late - it is never too late!

This is when we ought to recognise and acknowledge that the first and subsequent choices were actually on the side of evil, although not recognized at the time they were made. 

It does not matter how we got here, or that we are far advanced in evil. We can always repent evil, at any time or place, and from any degree of corruption. 

It's not a matter of whether this repentance can or will lead to some positive change in the world as we know it - that is not the point. Repentance is about our attitudes and allegiances - repentance is not about palliating or reforming this mortal life.

Of course repentance may lead to betterment, and spiritual progress (in an individual or socially) can scarcely be made without repentance. But that is not the point of repenting; and anyway all such this-worldly benefit is of-its-nature extremely partial, restricted, and temporary.    

  **

BUT, as WmJas Tychonievich wisely opines:

Arguing the point with people who don't immediately and intuitively get it, unfortunately seems to be a waste of time. 

Let the dead bury their dead.

The "AI" Litmus Test Fail: Is it caused by a kind of Stockholm Syndrome? Projection? Managerialism?

I am intrigued by the Litmus Test failure of so many self-identified Christians to discern the grossly net-evil intent driving the current (post November 2022) wave of so-called AI. I want to understand it. 

"It's just a tool" - they say. Yes, and so are all the instruments of mass surveillance and population control "just tools"; from secret police and death squads, to smear campaigns, covert propaganda, and infiltration/ subversion. 

Of course, there are always potentially useful aspects to any tool, bureaucracy, technology - but so what? You can use thumbscrews to hold the door open, or a cosh as a paper weight. You need to ask - what are they designed for, how will they be used.  

The real questions at issue are things like: why did the global Establishment spend trillions of dollars on developing, launching, and implementing these "AI" technologies; what results are they intending to achieve from their investment; and what functions will they actually be deployed for, in the world as it actually is? 

Clearly; it is very important to some people with a lot of power and money, that these AI technologies be adopted and used very widely - whether they work well or not, whether we want them or not. 

Then, from our spiritual and Christian point of view we need to ask - honestly, and by learning from past experience - what will be the overall effect of mass usage of AI-technologies: what will they (on average) do to the way people think, Western society and its institutions, our attitude to the world, our aspirations?

Does the spread of AI technologies lead towards a more spiritual and creative, personal, loving and Christian perspective - or towards ever-more this-worldly manipulative materialism? 

To ask is to answer. 

 

The only honest conclusion from such questions regarding the evil provenance of AI, the fundamentally untruthful propaganda surrounding its emergence and spread (e.g. the word-concept "intelligence!), the coercive and totalitarian implementation - is that this kind of AI is a massive strategy designed to do harm of many kinds. 

Whether you personally believe you are personally exempted from general harm, that you can surf this wave of evil to your own advantage - well this is another matter altogether. 

But even if you can, and even if you actually do make the best of a societal state of waxing corruption (gaining more money, prestige, or power for yourself, perhaps?) - this does not excuse you when you argue in favour of what should recognized as a malign plan.

Otherwise you are no better than a stereotypical war profiteer; one who uses his influence (fasle information, bribery, blackmail etc.) to cause, expand and continue destructive wars - so that you personally can do well out of it. Even if some war is good for you here-and-now, does not mean that war is good in itself - and you ought not to believe or say that it is. 

We cannot defend ourselves against evil unless we recognize evil. Apologists for "AI" are not just harming themselves but others in failing to acknowledge an obvious and major demonic scheme. 

Why, then, do they do this? I think the reasons are psychological - not spiritual. 

There is, I think, a kind of Stockholm Syndrome at work. 

I discern that some of the most vocal advocates of AI themselves actually fear AI; AI makes them afraid - and they respond by trying to make friends with AI - they take the side of AI, defend it against its critics. 

I think this befriending, like the Stockholm Syndrome it so much resembles, is fear induced - a response to a threat they perceive to be potentially deadly, and inescapable. 

(You cannot beat 'em, so you might as well join Them.)  

One reason I think pro-AI advocacy is often fear-induced, is that such people project their fear onto others - inappropriately, wrongly. They taunt that those who do not embrace AI are afraid of AI!

But this is patent nonsense in general and specifically. Fear of AI is far from normal - which is why so much propaganda must be expended on trying to generate fear (via innumerable mass media fictions about evil AIs, and AI dystopias).

In real life the overwhelming response to AI is on a spectrum from moderate irritation and boredom, to mainstream everyday careerist attempts at exploitation of "the latest trendy thing". 

Therefore such an accusation of fear is a dead giveaway, a projection onto others of something within oneself - often emanating from those who really feel, personally, threatened by replacement or oppression with AI technologies. 

For instance those who hope (like generations before them) to escape this fate by vaulting-over the threat into a managerial situation: to position themselves as expert and enthusiastic "AI managers" in their particular field. 

To adopt an accusatory or "therapeutic", stance to those who see the evil motivation behind AI is classic managerialism! 

The managerial way of dealing with dissent is that real world (and spiritual) problem is reframed into emotions... 

The problem is not the global Establishment-driven mandatory AI take-over;  the "real" problem is those who criticize or resist AI, or who decline to engage with it. "They must have something wrong with them". 

AI-resisters are assumed to be ignorant, weak, or frightened - and the managerial answer is they need to be educated, soothed, or mocked and shamed - until they fall in line, and do what is good for them.

If you regard yourself as a Christian, and are currently an advocate of AI - you are Missing The Obvious; and it is time to take a step back. It's never too late to repent, and all spiritual learning from experience is a positive gain. It's what we are here for, after all.     

 

My useless natural talent - clay pigeon shooting

There are many things I can't do at all well - throwing is one of them. I was always well below average at throwing a ball, a stone or a javelin; and easily prone to hurt my shoulder if I tried*. I am distinctly sub-par at foreign languages. I have an aesthetic blind-spot for sculpture. And so on...

But I have sometimes discovered a built-in natural ability in some activities. 

The thing is, you don't know you have this, until you try the thing. And, even then, the ability does not always go along with an interest or drive to succeed in that domain. 

I had a natural ability as a journal editor and a genuine interest in the job. 

While I was put in charge of Medical Hypothesis, I found the work congenial, could do it efficiently, and the journal did very well - such that I was awarded two significant performance related salary increases. 

(Of course, ability and success did not stop me for being sacked when I transgressed PC taboos!) 

Another thing I seemed naturally gifted at, was clay pigeon shooting - which did not interest me as a sport, and which I did only once, on holiday in Ireland. 

Clay pigeon shooting uses a double-barrelled shotgun to blast ceramic discs - shaped like saucers - of approximately five inches diameter. 

These discs are fired out of a spring-loaded device two at a time; so they can fly away from the shooter, across his vision from one side to the other, or from in-front and passing backwards over his head.

I had never touched or fired a shotgun in my life; but I achieved almost perfect results in this weird sport. I even managed to hit both discs (one after the other, with each barrel) when they were going sideways, or backwards (which was apparently the most difficult, in that nobody else managed to hit any of the clays, during this procedure).

I've no idea how I accomplished this feat; especially the "deflection" aiming  - which is pointing the gun the right amount ahead-of, and above, the thing aimed at, to allow for the elapsing of time before the shots arrive, and their gravitational drop of the shot. 

But then, as I mentioned, it just came naturally. 

I never did the sport again - partly because of indifference, partly because it was way too expensive to be affordable or worthwhile. But the experience illustrated how people sometimes have some very strange natural aptitudes and I never would have imagined this was one of mine except for the accident of going on holiday to visit a friend, who had a friend, who was all set-up for clay pigeon shooting - and generous enough to let the rest of us do it for nothing.

*Interestingly, I inherited this deficit from my father, who was (in most respects) an exceptional all-round athlete - PE teacher, A1-fit infantryman - top performer of his basic-training intake, and a semi-professional football (soccer) player in the highly competitive Northern Alliance League. But he couldn't throw. Unfortunately, I inherited the deficit, but not the all-round sports ability.

Lion, Crown, St George - Bad (because Norman) symbols of England

Richard I - rapacious absentee landlord of England, in-himself epitomising nearly-all that is alien about Normanised English symbolism

For about a thousand years, England has been a nation under occupation by a hostile and alien ruling class: the Normans. 

Well... to be clear, this statement is somewhat of an exaggeration! - but it has a solid core of truth, as Tolkien attested, among others. 

Evidence can be seen from several of the the Symbols of England - which are as alien (hence spiritually hostile) as those who imposed them. 

Most countries symbolic animal, is one which actually lives in that country; but England is stuck with a foreign-dwelling creature: a Lion. At best the Lion is a symbol of Empire, not nation - but Empire was an alien project, and the near death of England... So there you have it. 

The Crown - which features all over the place as a symbol, including (alongside the Lion) the sports teams - is of course The symbol par excellence of secular and top-down imposed alien power - of Us under the yoke of Them. 

And then there is St George; a pseudo-Saint from the Middle East, wished upon England by the usual Normans in consequence of their usual Norman warrings*, in their usual Norman pursuit of overseas Empire (since Normans prefer almost anywhere else to England, and almost any other people to the English). 

The Norman-backed "George" then coercively displaced our home-grown Anglo-Saxon Saint Edmund the martyr.

Of course there are some real - albeit inevitably somewhat Norman-co-opted! - English symbols - oak tree, rose, Stonehenge, the flat cap...

But even the primary English folk hero of medieval times, Robin Hood, was distorted into being an exiled Norman aristocrat, and make to work on behalf of a disastrously-typical Norman monarch:

i.e. Richard I - Crowned King of England, "Lion" hearted, and the originator of St George's cult.        

*Normans excelled at two main things: fighting and architecture. However, they had a short-termist psychopathic tendency, so they lacked the capacity for loyalty - even among themselves. Consequently, they spent most of their time fighting each other (and forcing everybody else into it). It was not until after four centuries, when the Barons had exhausted themselves in the War of the Roses, that a monarch with administrative genius (Henry VII)  managed to impose himself on the other Normans... But after just a generation (Henry VIII) the Normans were despoiling and killing each other again; only this time it was so one-sided in favour of the Norman King as against the Norman Abbots, Priors, and Heads of Religious Orders; that the process and outcome resembled unbridled rapine and pseudo-legal execution, instead of the usual civil war.   

When someone very belatedly notices some specific problem, that has actually been massive and "obvious" for decades...

Every day, more than once a day, I come across somebody (IRL, or on media) who reports, tentatively - as if making some wild claim - that he has noticed something... some-thing that has been massive, and should-have-been grossly-obvious, for decades. 

Some people regard this level of insight as a promising sign of someone coming to his senses, and beginning to extract himself from the propaganda systems in which he is immersed...

But in practice this almost never happens. 

Instead - maybe - the first noticing leads merely to some very restricted insight into some circumscribed domain of Western society; with nearly all the rest of it being taken on trust, and regarded -indeed - as solid and true, so it is implied that if This-Problem could be fixed, then Life would be much better. 

Apparently, individuals get so smug about noticing some-one-thing, and so preoccupied with "fixing" it, that they feel no need to venture into more dangerous levels of understanding ^. 

Partial and superficial understanding, then blocks anything genuine; anything potentially of spiritual value. 

Hence we get the Single Issue (or handful of issue) Politics that plagues our age. Those people and organizations who always trace everything back to One Fundamental Cause: to some specific group of people, some particularly malign economic or social principle or motive, some particular form of persecution, some particular sin... 

Whatever. 

(And once decided upon, this "root cause of all our significant ills" becomes un-dis-provable - and supportive-evidence is found everywhere...! Such is human nature, and the constraints of argument and proof - which depend on assumptions far more than upon "evidence".)

What I find so dismaying about these partially-insightful, partly-aware, people is that - from my understanding - things-in-general are much, much worse than they suppose; the state-of-the-world is far more pervasively and deeply evil than they seem capable of imagining.

To me; these folk - who very explicitly regard themselves as clear-sighted, tough-minded, "red pilled", ready-for-anything - strike me as dewy-eyed optimists...

Too insecure and emotionally fragile to confront reality*. 

And this is simply because such half-awake, semi-realistic folk are viscerally invested primarily in their own status and success in this world - the same world that they pretend to critique savagely - yet the world from-which they yearn for recognition and reward.   

Such people cannot countenance the real nature of this world without despairing - so they cling to a distorted picture of our situation: a world-picture that is acknowledged to be faulty only to such an extent that they can convince themselves of the possibility of fixing it. 

If only - they assert - everyone-else would believe as I believe, do as I do, do what I tell them - then everybody would be So Much better-off. 

Any recognition of the deep, pervasive, and intractable nature of the flaws of this world in general and Western Civilization in particular (including, of course, its self-identified Christian churches) - is rejected with a savagery borne of a this-worldly idealism that feels itself to be on the cusp of becoming overwhelmed by incipient despair. 

+++

^ It is often asserted that "surely it will do some good" if the single-issue problem is fixed, or even ameliorated. This is a seductive argument, because in an idealised model of the situation it seems obviously to be the case that things would be better if such-and-such a problem were improved. But there are two usually-lethal difficulties: one proximate and practical, the other ultimate and even-in-theory. 

The practical difficulty is that there is always some very powerful within-System reason why any clear and serious problem (like open-ended mass immigration to the UK caused by European Union rules) that could straightforwardly be fixed, has actually not been fixed. This means that the totalitarian system does not want the problem fixed, which means that The System will fight hard against fixing, making even the slightest change extremely resource and time-consuming; and The System will do all it can to sabotage the process. So Brexit (voted for in 2016) was supposed to fix the problem of UK mass immigration at a stroke. But the totalitarian Establishment sabotaged Brexit to "BRINO" (Brexit in name only), and mass immigration has in fact increased very substantially since to reach record levels (admitted officially a million, but really more) in 2024. Mass Immigration indeed declined rapidly and substantially, albeit briefly. when The System had other priorities - i.e. during Birdemic lockdowns, proving that the problem was easily soluble. But because The System wants to destroy the UK - including by mass immigration, MI was resumed and accelerated very quickly from summer 2020. 

As well as such pragmatic limitations, there are ultimate and theoretical reasons why fixing a specific problem, or a few specific problems, will not work - which is that the system is totalitarian; and totalitarianism is both all-inclusive at the institutional level and evil by its nature. In effect, if any specific part of The System underwent significant improvement and became more Good; this would be detected by the whole System, and the anomalous part would be "healed" - would be brought-into-line with the aims and methods of all the rest. This destructive "immune response" is indeed irresistible (which is why all significant institutions of all types have "converged": become part of the totalitarian system). All institutions are bound to the rest of the system by multiple mandatory and motivational connections - formal (like laws, taxes, subsidies, regulations etc) and informal (mass media pressures, awards or slanders, discretionary harassment by bureaucrats, infiltration by hostile pro-Establishment agents etc.). No significant institution can opt-out of The System, as of 2025; because institutions are now parts of a societal and civilizational whole.    

* Such people will not see the obvious and long-term fact that we live in a totalitarian society; a society in which bureaucracy and management (and the mass media) links and coordinates all the major social institutions - politics, civil administration, law, finance and the economy, education, police and military, science and research, the arts and entertainments, charities/ pressure-groups/ NGOs; and of course the organized and economic manifestations of religions and spiritualties. 

All institutions are now linked by rules, practices, and a value-system. All are monitored, controlled, propagandized by a multitude of mechanisms. 

This includes everything you can think of in the societal realm; excepting (for some people, some of the time) our-selves (i.e. our divine, primal selves) and some primarily-motivating personal and loving relationships - such as the family.  

Thus, The totalitarian System is neither all-powerful nor all-knowing; yet to underestimate its scope and capability - to regard its flaws as if a fixable glitch - is merely to confirm that you are yourself inside The System . 

Totalitarianism means that all social-activity is linked; there is no discrete, detachable or specific problem - so there is no realistic possibility of significant reform within The System we actually inhabit.  

And The System is everything in the public domain (i.e. all those institutions described previously) - so that we all depend upon it for all of those functionalities. Casual talk of destroying The System fails to account for this destroying functionality, and the means of support. 

The real-reality is that we all depend - for nearly-all the many aspects of living - upon the same System that is purposively evil; and is purposively destroying itself, and destroying us. 

Such - nothing less! - is the scope and nature of our situation.

NOTE ADDED: The above is not a counsel of despair, not unless you believe that institutions and their practices are everything that is significant, and this-world is all-there-is. In other words; the real and true answers to our situation are non-institutional, and rooted in the resurrected eternal heavenly life to come. Such real answers derive from our-selves and our freedom, our direct and personal relationships with God and Jesus Christ and divine creation in general; and the answers work by love between persons and Beings.     

How do I know For Sure that things are Not getting better overall?

How do I know for sure that things are Not getting better overall?

Because, although God can turn evil events to enable Good to ensue; God cannot mix evils to make Good. 

For Good to ensue, there must be Good motivations in the mix. 

And Good motivations are spiritual primarily - not material, not this-wordily, not aiming at expediency, not trying to make some people happier, healthier, suffer less... Such are temporary palliatives at most; even when (as very seldom) the stated material intentions are sincere, potentially effective, and actually happen.  

From where we are here-and-now in Western Civilization; we do not even desire that which is Good. 

Our world view is materialistic and nihilistic; we reject God, the spirit, transcendental values, and do not even want what Jesus Christ offers. 

Therefore, from where we are here-and-now in Western Civilization; spiritual rebirth, awakening, repentance (i.e. a turning-around of understanding, belief, motivations) is absolutely necessary before any subsequent Good can ensue. 

Good must be added to the mix, so that God can work with it - can sustain and amplify it. 

This is non-optional: Repentance and embrace of Jesus Christ's gift and offer Must Come First. 

Must means must; so that when repentance and conversion has not happened (as now), we will continue to be motivated by our endemic and pervasive civilizational evil: by our false understanding of reality, and by our wrong intentions about our life and death. 

Good comes only from good; because God needs good to work-from - and work-with. 

And in this world of purpose-less, meaning-less, hedonic materialism: real Good means spiritual-Good. 

If we have not got spiritual Good as our basis and direction - then whatever socio-political-economic reforms/ changes may be imposed with whatever radicalism at whatever level of organization; we shall merely be exchanging one kind of evil for another.  

What is the point of petitionary prayer? Of asking God to make things happen?

It has often been asked by mainstream/ orthodox/ canonical Christians; "What is the point of petitioning God in prayer?" - of asking God for something to happen? 

Such prayer seems redundant, or even a mistake. It seems to make no sense. 

And this for strong reasons. Because, by standard Catholic and Protestant theology, God is omniscient, so He already knows what we want and what we need; and also because God is omnipotent, such that a loving and personal God will already be doing anything which He knows to be good for us.  

To ask for divine interventions in this world therefore seems at best futile; and at worse to imply that the person praying knows-better-than-God what God ought to be doing, as if God needed "reminding" of His duty! 

But petitionary prayer (by a broad definition) is exactly what would be required and valuable by a God who desires to enlist Men as participators in the work of creation. 

This because such a God recognizes that each Man has the potential to bring something new, additional, and unique to ongoing creation.

Man's participation in creation is thus not only temporarily beneficial for the Man doing it, but also of everlasting value for divine creation.  

From such an understanding of reality; it can be seen that in prayer we may actually participate in the ongoing work of divine creation, and thereby change its content and direction. 

This may happen, not by asking-for God to grant us favours and having such wishes granted; but instead via the (albeit temporary and partial) alignment of our will with God's will.  

If such alignment is happening in a prayer, then that prayer will change reality - and change it always in harmony with the direction and methods of divine creation (because such prayer is in harmony with the divine). 

Such a perspective changes and expands the concept of prayer, so that "prayer" will include all ways by which we might align our motivations with God's motivations; and in doing so actively (and it must be active for there to be participation rather than merely contemplation). 

If we can actively join-with God in our thinking and acting; then we are thereby joining in the work of divine creating.  

...Of course, even when this happens - in this mortal world of change, death and evil, it can only happen to some incomplete degree and for a limited time. 

Nonetheless; it is a foretaste, an actual experience, of the eternal reality of resurrected life in Heaven.   

 

Globalists - all over the globe, simultaneously - proclaim "The End of Globalisation..."

That's it - really. 

Says it all. 

Just think about it, please?

Fireball XL (Take-) Five

Regular readers will know that I have a fondness for musical pieces in the 5/4 time signature - when it is done well (which is usually phrased as a syncopated 10/8 - or 3/8, 3/8, 4/8 - rather than 5/4).

Well here is another, by the great theme composer Barry Gray - from the early 60s Gerry Anderson puppet show Fireball XL5; and called Formula 5. 

It's a pleasing pastiche/homage to the famous Paul Desmond/ Dave Brubeck tune Take Five.  

LATE BONUS FEATURE:

Alfie Pugh's arrangement of the Joe 90 theme - another Barry Gray classic; great tune and this version really builds!

It evoked nostalgia for the superb and danceable arrangement of the Joe 90 theme done by Arthur 2-Stroke and the Chart Commando's which I heard live at The Cooperage (Newcastle) one memorable in 1981 - as I recall the band included Arthur on vocals, plus two trumpets, tenor sax, maybe keyboards, electric guitar and base, drums, and bongos. 

The magical basis of High Elven agriculture in Lord of the Rings

Over at the Notion Club Papers blog; I speculate on how it is that the High Elves of Rivendell, Lothlorien and the Grey Havens feed and provide for themselves.   

The soulless mediocrity of current-"AI" is a consequence of blending and averaging in its industrial -scale plagiarism

One striking aspect of the industrial-scale plagiarism that is current "AI", is that the mechanism of generation leads inevitably to soulless mediocrity in its output.

This is because it samples, selects, blends, extrapolates from multiple sources. It is based on averaging - which entails removing the extremes that characterize genuine creativity, including genius. 

Consider: how would you plagiarize poetry such as to generate a work of genius? 

The only valid method is to re-label. 

You would need already to know of, a poetic work of genius (something which depends on prior human evaluation) perhaps a particular sonnet by Shakespeare. 

...Then to re-label this sonnet with your own name as author instead of Shakespeare - and convince other people that you (not Shakespeare) had written it.  

Such is the only way to ensure the production of a work of genius, of quality equal to the original. 

If instead you were to try and create a poem by sampling and combining several or many Shakespeare sonnets, then obviously the result would not be as good.  

If you tried to create poetry by (in some way, any way) averaging multiple Elizabethan poems of multiple authors, or many poems from all eras - the result would become less and less good, the more you added. 

The more you sample, and the more you average - the worse it gets. 

What this kind of multiplying and averaging can do, is create fakes that are hard to distinguish from mediocre poems - and can pass as an instance of the type, especially among people who are lack time, or aptitude, have little interest, or are weakly motivated. 

For example, if you were to combine all of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets - you could perhaps make something that was not easily distinguishable in quality from the mediocre or poor instances of his Sonnets - especially among those who were not really able to appreciate the quality of the best of the Shakespeare originals. 

And the AI approach is what successful forgers have done in the world of fine art. They do not try to forge the best Vermeer; not least because the forger could not do it. Instead, they attempt to forge a mediocre instance Vermeer, a variation on a known theme; something "good enough" that - when provided with a fake provenance by aesthetically-incompetent evaluators - can pass as a mediocre work by a great painter. 

Such mediocre forgeries can then sometimes be passed off as "great art" on the basis that they are superficially appealing to only-mildly-interested people with mainstream modern tastes - but that does not affect their artistic mediocrity - evident to those who can evaluate quality. 

But here we have another problem of AI, which is that it is mostly being casually used by lazy and conformist people who have little interest, ability or experience in the area of implementation. 

If all you are working at some chore, and all you want is background music, then genuine creativity is irrelevant - fakes and forgeries are fine. Computer-generated or AI muzak will suffice. 

If you are an average school kid, college student, post-graduate, professor; and all you want is to complete some assignment with the minimum of effort and getting the highest evaluation possible (without activating the plagiarism detectors - mechanical or human); then the truth and validity of what you write is irrelevant. Consensus-compatibility is very important, but ultimate value is not at all. Averaged mediocrity is indeed the ideal! AI will suffice. 

If you are a professional researcher in "science" or academia, who seeks career advancement and high status; then you will do or say whatever you believe will help pursue those goals. Developing, buying, using or praising AI will be embraced insofar as it seems expedient in terms of your immediate objectives. The fact that AI-output is boring, derivative and adds nothing substantive is all-but irrelevant; because that exactly characterizes the professional environment in which you already operate and in which you hope to thrive. AI will be fine for your purposes.  

 

It is evident that the set-up of current so-called AI - to sample (i.e. plagiarize) massively, combine and blend multiples, and generate an averaged-output; is necessarily soulless and mediocre. 

AI simply cannot-help but generate the soulless and mediocre - and is therefore a tool introduced and imposed by those who desire that society should be like that. 

Furthermore, this kind of "AI" can only spread and be used is a society where most people actually prefer the soulless and the mediocre; at least, when this is convenient. 

On top of this; Western Civilization is led and inhabited by shoals of Godless materialistic people who care absolutely nothing for Truth, Beauty or Virtue; are indifferent to quality and even functionality. 

These will implement AI even when it is functionally inferior or much worse, than existing systems and persons. 

It is a measure of our civilizational and personal corruption that AI is being so rapidly and pervasively imposed upon The West - and why so many, at so many levels, have embraced it. 

Current AI is "Industrial-scale Plagiarism"

A comment from yesterday by William James Tychonievich on the subject of the "creativity" of the post 2022 iteration of "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) is well worth highlighting:

Real creativity is impossible for a computer, but since “AI” is based on industrial-scale plagiarism, it’s possible in principle that it could “produce” something moving. In that case, it’s pale fire would have been snatched from the sun, the human beings from which it plagiarized.

Industrial-scale plagiarism is a useful phrase to remember. 

Current AI is Exactly That - and as with all forms of plagiarism, whenever it generates something apparently creative, that is merely a re-labelling of human-derived creativity - an unacknowledged theft more or less disguised through distortion by selection and recombination. 

It reminds me strongly of that "fake creativity" I discussed in The Genius Famine (word search for it); when humans (e.g. those working in in advertising, PR, journalism) claim other people's original ideas, but disguise the origins of their de facto plagiarism using similar strategies.  

Yet, as William goes on to say: All this is hypothetical, though. In the real world, “AI” products remain palpably and repellently soulless. 

That spiritual fact tells us much about the motivations behind AI. 

The intentional psychological and spiritual harm of current "AI" is located in the deceptive sleight of hand that pretends "intelligence" and creativity when dishonest plagiarism is done by computers. 

Because these machines are operated by mega-corporations that stand above-the-law and control the mass media and "science" in a closed-loop; they are enabled to steal brazenly, indeed with vast self-congratulation; larded with repeated assertions of their own brilliance and wisdom. 

Such behaviour would potentially lead to legal action and heavy fines if it was proved against ordinary human beings. 

But when done under the disguise of AI, this is supposed to make us stand in awe of the industrial scale plagiarizers; to induce us to acknowledge them as higher and better forms of "intelligence".

We are supposed to conclude that the Establishment justifiers, funders, and operators of AI; not only can and shall (by force majeure), but actually deserve to, take-over the running of the world from the minds and souls of (puny) individual persons. 

The idea is that post-2022 AI has successfully rendered obsolete those human beings from-whom anything that happens to be good in AI (including the existence of AI programs and engineering) has originally been stolen.   

PSYOP Thought Experiments: How would you react if you learned that a sad and beautiful poem that touched you deeply had been written by a computer?

You may think she's cute - but she's a replicant, you fool!

Thought experiments are usually pretty evil mind manipulations, as I've said before. 

The thing is that in order to respond to thought experiments, you must allow yourself to admit them as possible, as potentially real. 

I got the title of this post from an advert for an NYT "Best Selling" book of such questions - which provides a clear example of the PSYOP nature of Establishment-allowed and Mass Media-publicized thought experiments. 

"How would you react if you learned that a sad and beautiful poem that touched you deeply had been written by a computer?" compels us to admit (for the purposes of argument, in our own understanding) that the very highest realms of human creativity can - in principle - be replicated by computers. 

Of course there is no instance of any such creativity from a computer ever; for the good reason that it is impossible - impossible in principle, not in practice.

But we are supposed to take it seriously, and in doing so we take it seriously - and thus genius-level computer creativity becomes a social reality, even when a real impossibility. 

One could extend the thought experiment (and of course this has been done, is being done, on a near daily basis in the media and elsewhere); to even more subversive questions as: 

"How would you react if you learned that your deeply loved wife of twenty years was in fact a robot"? 

Or the Philip K Dick story The Electric Ant, in which the "how would you react" is to learning that you yourself were a robot*.   

Focusing on "how would you react" is a classic way of smuggling assumptions; of the "do you still beat your wife" type, or implicit character-assassinations like asking "what made X become such an murderous psychopath?". 

(Of course, PKD is the genius-originator of this line of thought-experiment; with a difference that he really lived it.)

The PSYOPS give-away is that this kind of supposedly-free-thinking-radical, subversive, confusing, delusion-inducing, doubt-generating, demotivating thought experiment is media mainstream - often mandatory in schools and colleges; and indeed currently a Major (Trillion Dollar) part of public funding, strategy and propaganda... 

Is actually located in an Establishment monitored and controlled public discourse; in which innumerable and ever-increasing everyday and obvious experiences and observations are treated as hate-facts: taboo, suppressed, slurred, dishonestly-denigrated, excluded, and increasingly punishable. 

This kind of detailed, long-term manipulation of discourse - such that the impossible must be taken seriously and the true must be regarded as a lie - is clearly intentional and strategic... Global and totalitarian PSYOPS, in other words. 

A dangerous product?...

 

I developed conjunctivitis in my right eye, and went and bought some treatment; and only after I had used it, too late, did I realize that the bottle was labelled infected eye drops. 

It's outrageous that such a dangerous product can be sold to the unwitting public. 

What is it about eye drops, anyway? 

Prayer addressed to Jesus is primary

For Christians; prayer addressed to Jesus is primary - because it is by-Jesus that we attain salvation. 

This world, this Primary Creation, is mortal, temporary; goodness is mixed with evil and death... Therefore eternal salvation to wholly-good Heaven without death is the most important thing - for those who want it. So, prayer to Jesus must be primary. 

Prayer to God the Primary Creator, is about our hope or intention to affect positive change in this mixed,  temporary, mortal world. 

Miracles and answered-prayers are the provenance of the God, Primary Creator: because God is creating this world, and it is by creation that miracles are effected and prayers answered.

Amelioration during this mortal life is potentially significant, especially if this leads to faith in Jesus Christ, or helps us to learn spiritual-lessons from the experiences of mortal life.

But prayer to God for present help, is secondary in importance to the eternal matter of salvation. 

 

First Creation is groupish - Second Creation is individual

The Primary Creation is groupish, because it is universal: the creation of everything that is created, for everything that is created.  

We all inhabit the First Creation - and can only "opt-out" in the sense of annihilating awareness of our self as a distinct entity. 

Second Creation is personal, individual... 

Because the Second Creation is "opt-in" - Heaven is accessed by a decision/ action of a specific person. Heaven is not universal; it is inhabited by those who have chosen it. 

Direct Knowing or Intuition... How I try-to Do It - in practice

In the past (and perhaps still, in other cultures) men spontaneously experienced "contact" with gods or God, the divine - more generally, spirits, the dead/ ghosts, and many other supernatural/ paranormal forms of interaction such as with remote persons or animals. 

These also include sensory/ perceptual experiences such as the seeing of spiritual visions, or hearing voices and having conversations 

But here-and-now it seems that adult and healthy (or healthy-ish) modern Men - and I count myself as pretty typical in this respect - do Not spontaneously have such experiences; nor can we have such experiences in alert, healthy, and clear consciousness; no matter how we strive. 

"Contact" of this sort only happens spontaneously to modern Men in states of lowered consciousness; such as dreaming sleep, trance, intoxication; or when there is brain dysfunction in psychosis (including with brain diseases, such as dementias). 

To my mind, the difficulty or impossibility of having these supernatural/ paranormal experiences of contact and interaction, points to the conclusion that the old sensory/ perceptual experiences (while they may lead to good) are ultimately retrograde, "atavistic", and often motivated by a nostalgia and desire to revert to an earlier (less conscious, more automatic, less free) phase of the development of consciousness (which we may recall from early childhood, or have imaginatively experienced).

But given the mundane and alienated nature of typical modern consciousness, and more importantly (indeed vitally) the necessity for each of us to receive personal guidance from the Holy Ghost in particular - given these needs, we must develop other ways of establishing some kind of experienced-interaction or "contact" with spirit Beings.

Indeed, I have often said that this kind of interaction is the basis for metaphysical reflection on the fundamental nature of reality. It is the basis of that "intuition" upon which everything depends - and which I have variously called "direct knowing", or sometimes "heart thinking" or "primary thinking". 

The point is How To Do It?  

In my experience, I think this contact works by an awareness of such contact while actually speaking, writing, or thinking. 

It is a "direct" form of knowing, because (unlike the past and other cultures) there is no sensory aspect.

What it is like is a deep and simple sense of affirmation or rejection, support or opposition, yes or no. 

Such a "feeling" is indeed the deepest awareness of which I am capable. 

This does not mean the experience is infallible, but that it is the best I can do - here and now. 

Because the experience is deep, it is not reached as a result of inference from other kinds of evidence, nor does the awareness come with "proof" of itself - although naturally evidences, proofs, excuses and the like can be derived or contrived secondarily - after the guidance. 

Since this mortal life is mostly about what we ought to try to do, here and now - in these particular circumstances - the experience-of-itself suffices.

    

As an example; this is how I have developed my fundamental theological convictions. For instance, I needed to decide whether "God" was single or a dyad: more exactly I wanted to know whether God meant a Heavenly Mother, as well as Father. 

I had come across the idea of God as originally eternally-married man and woman from Mormon theology, and then later the work of William Arkle. I had felt an immediate stirring and attraction to this knowledge, an experience that proved robust to re-acquaintance.  

To discover its truth, to discover whether I ought to assume such a reality; I wrote about it. Writing for myself, in a journal; candidly and without an audience. 

I also talked, a little, about the idea. But it is very rare to find anyone with whom such fundamental (metaphysical) subjects can be discussed in a way that is an be both unselfconsciously confident on my part, and with sufficiently engaged and sustained attention on the other person's side. 

So verbal discussion is, in practice, seldom of much value - which is why writing (or indeed speaking aloud to oneself, for those who cannot or do not write) can be so helpful. 

Furthermore; I thought about the subject in solitude and quiet (i.e. I prayed, in one sense of praying) - with attention to what followed in this deep level of awareness. 

To explain further: this is something done with a high level of conscious awareness; because it is necessary to have two "things" in mind simultaneously: both our question and the inner-awareness of a response from another Being.

To me, this puts a tight limit on the kind of question that can be asked - the question must be worked upon until I have it absolutely clear and simple in my mind; and as soon as I have done this, and made the decision to seek some kind of guidance or opinion, and have attained a quietly attentive and concentrated mind-set: the answer arrives immediately. 

The source of this inner endorsement (or rejection) is varied, and something we can decide - or, at least, we can decide "who we are asking" to the extent that we can validly conceptualize another Being. 

For instance, and most importantly, the Holy Ghost is (by my current best understanding) the ascended Jesus Christ and his spouse Mary Magdalene. If I address this understanding of the HG, then the response depends to some extent on the validity of my conception. 

If instead (like mainstream traditional Christians) I regarded the Holy Ghost as the spirit aspect of the Trinity; then this might well have an effect on the shape of my question, and therefore the answer. 

Indeed, if the question is "improperly addressed" then there may be no answer. 

That has been my understanding of what is going on when I am seeking an answer to a question rooted in false premises, false assumptions. Nothing happens. 

Then there is the problem of the source of the answer - in particular whether there might be a situation where a demon was to impersonate a spirit of Good (an angel), or the Holy Ghost? 

My only answer, and I think the only real and relevant answer, is that this depends on our motivations and intentions and general stance with respect to God and divine creation.  

If (for instance) we are really seeking answers for selfish purposes; or if we a really aligned with Satan and against God; then such motives and stances are bound to distort and subvert the answers we get.  

The only conclusion is to strive for thorough honesty; and a vital part of honesty is to try and be as conscious as possible of our real assumptions, motives etc; and then as clear and explicit as possible in describing these to our-selves. 

Can we be misled and wrong? Yes of course! There is no recipe for being right. 

Should be strive to be absolutely certain, with no possibility of wrongness, doubt or change of mind? No!

In this mortal world we operate from very distorting circumstances, such that being ultimately and universally absolutely correct in all significant respects surely cannot be the most important thing from God's perspective.

What typically matters is that we personally get things sufficiently right in the situation in which we now find ourselves. 

Other problems will arise, situations will change, we ourselves will change - but that is all uncertain, indeed it is (because of the agency of beings) profoundly contingent. 

What we must deal with in our mortal lives occurs as some primary issue, here-and-now... And Christians will have faith* that sufficient personal capability and external guidance is always available for everybody to accomplish this adequately - albeit never "perfectly."

+++

*Note: Will have faith, because we can be confident that God-the-creator is also our loving Father (or our parents, as I believe); who therefore has individual concern for the salvation and spiritual development of each-and-all of his children. So we-ourselves and our circumstances have-been and are-being created that way. Since this loving God is creating all the time, we know that our situation always has an attainable positive path forwards - for as long as our lives are sustained.

The needs of the early Christian Church

The simple, personal and next-worldly offer of Jesus Christ - for resurrected eternal Heavenly life to those who followed him - had-to-be, and was, fitted-into a scheme that:

1. Required a Church. 

2. Operated at a group-level - because, in that time and place, individuals we groupish in consciousness, and could not conceptualize themselves as autonomous, agentic, individuals*

3. Prescribed a complex and detailed set of this-worldly behaviours. 

But now that Men have a different consciousness; 

one in which much that was spontaneous and unconscious is conscious and must be chosen;

a mode of consciousness that is spontaneously autonomous, alienated; and both able- and compelled- to be free...

We can, and probably must - sooner or later - recognize that The Creator has (because he loves us each as individual persons) arranged this creation such that we can all - as individuals, and whatever our nature and circumstances - avail ourselves of Jesus's gift and offer. 

After all; why would a good and loving God do otherwise? 

Why would such a God make salvation indirect, mediated, circumstantial, contingent upon social factors and individual personalities? 

The answer is He Would Not!

We now can realize what Jesus did and said, from the beginning; but only recently have we been able to know and act upon it. 

First Creation salvation is groupish - Second Creation salvation is individual

The contrast can be seen between the Old and New Testaments. 

In the Old Testament, the salvation hoped-for (e.g. from the Messiah) is groupish - of Israel, the nation.

It is not individual - the individual is mortal, disposable, and will die; and after death his depersonalized remnant will be go to the shadowy, ghost-filled, underworld of Sheol. 

Only the group - Israel - is potentially everlasting.

(If it pleases God; if Israel is obedient to God). 

In the New Testament (most authoritatively and clearly in the Fourth Gospel), the salvation offered by Jesus Christ is personal, individual; it is a choice/ decision/ action of each specific person. 

 

The First Creation is groupish; but the Second Creation is individual. 

Why have "pilgrimages" become popular?

In the UK, at least, "pilgrimages" (including to "Recognized" Christian sites) have in recent decades become popular among churchy people and the secular-intellectual middle class more generally, and are often depicted in the mass media. 

Since Christianity continues its steep decline and top-down destruction; this phenomenon could only be happening if pilgrimages were - or, at least, were expected to be - "a bad thing" and to do spiritual harm. 

And indeed, this largely seems to be the case. 

For a start; modern people are simply incapable of responding to symbolic phenomena such as pilgrimages, with the kind of spirituality-sustaining and motivating power that was possible (indeed apparently usual) in medieval times. 

For instance, the premier healing pilgrimage site of Lourdes was closed during the Birdemic; so clearly real belief in the power of place and pilgrimage thereto was absent. 

Indeed, nearly all Holy Places (including all churches) were locked-down and the public excluded; with the expressed approval of the pious - evidently, there is nowadays negligible actual lived-experience of a Holiness linked with place and artefact.   

So modern pilgrimages (whether by the explicitly materialist-secular majority, or by the minority of self-identified Christians) are inevitably more of the nature of a holiday/ lifestyle-thing than anything resembling a real pilgrimage. 

This is evidenced by the give-away of recording and depicting pilgrimage photographically and "sharing" these images and narratives on social media - whether serially "as it happens", or "curated" retrospectively. 

It is obvious that extremely few "pilgrimages" would happen if the participants were forbidden to record and later boast... I mean talk - about their "experience". 

In sum, modern pilgrimage is more like a do-it-yourself form of that populist literary genre "travel writing", than they are a sign of anything in the remotest degree "spiritual". 

Insofar as pilgrimages do "work" - that is, insofar as they actually have a positively transformative spiritual effect; then this is nothing to do with official, recognized, popular, fashionable, photogenic pilgrimage sites; but a matter of individual significance. 

It is most likely that nowadays a special place of pilgrimage would be almost unique to a person or a few people; as a consequence of sharing an unusually similar outlook and experiences. 

And, even when a pilgrimage "works" spiritually in the desired and intended fashion; there is still a hazard to the fact of linking the experience to a place. 

Life away from the place is perhaps thereby devalued; or else if the pilgrim was to relocate and move to dwell in the place of pilgrimage - then would occur the problem of over-familiarity, habituation; of building-up "tolerance" to the spiritual benefit.

In a nutshell: even a spiritually-successful pilgrimage may be alienating - that is, the mediating role of place may distance us (temporally and spatially) from a direct apprehension of the divine in life.  

In sum; it seems to me that, in our era, pilgrimage should be regarded as at best providing a spiritual clue, perhaps an epiphany; and an effective pilgrimage needs to be used as a kick-start towards something else that comes after; rather than leading to the more usual pilgrimage-addiction, or the recycling of the primary act of pilgrimage - whether in discourse, memory, or in practice.