The successful totalitarian global coup of 2020 has been breaking-up since - but world politics is still totalitarian

In 2020 those with the ability to perceive and learn, realized that we inhabited a totalitarian world: which means an evil world. 

In other words, our world is rooted in atheist, materialist, leftist assumptions; where all significant social institutions are interlinked and bureaucratically-subordinate to this ideology. 

This is why so many people have "politics" as their fundamental value; and why so many people behave as if everything is (at root) "politics". 

By "politics" they means the System of totalitarianism - "everything is politics" means that, bottom-line, everything in the public realm - discourse and behaviours, communications and actions - is part of this totalitarian system.

Since 2020, this unified world government has broken-up into two or more increasingly hostile factions; but the components are still totalitarian in their nature. 

This does not mean that all the totalitarian units are as bad as each other - they aren't, some (e.g. ours) are purposively worse than others. Some have hope of becoming better, more socially-Christian to be exact - while still ultimately totalitarian. Other factions are actively hostile to Christianity and its legacy. 

But all factions are bad in the way that totalitarianism is bad - which is a modern way (post 19th century): totalitarianism is only possible in a post-religious society, with highly developed and pervasive bureaucracy and mass media.  

What this means for religion is that all churches are part of the totalitarian system, therefore - insofar as churches are this-worldly institutions - churches are net atheist, materialist, leftist - and overall part-of-the-problem of institutional evil.

This implies that church-led "Christianity" will, overall and by net-effect, be totalitarian hence anti-Christian.

And so will church-rooted Christian people.    

Against this, and because of the nature of evil and its progression, there is an accelerating trend for the ubiquitous totalitarian societies strategically to self-destruct. 

The most evil parts of totalitarianism are those that are most pervasively and strategically orientated towards destruction in many forms - such as destroying nature ("the environment"), functionality (within and between social systems - i.e. destroying science, law, education, etc), agriculture, the health and lives of masses of people - and so on and so forth, right across the board. 

Destruction is not an explicit goal, however (except, presumably, at the power level above global totalitarianism); but instead totalitarian sub-groups are manipulated into mutual and internal destruction by their ideologies of opposition/ negation and value-inversion. 

The totalitarians are therefore induced by their ideological assumptions into incoherent sub-strategies, that accomplish the opposite of stated goals, and lead always to accelerated destruction. 

So, we find ourselves in a world where politics is everything, hence everything is politics; yet/ consequently politics is all evil - and political discourse is a clash between totalitarianisms.

It is extremely tempting to be drawn into politics, precisely because it is all-pervasive in functional discourse. This ubiquity makes it seem that politics (debate, analysis, choice, action etc) is fundamental and necessary.  

From inside The System anyone who refuses to share the assumption that "politics is primary and everything" is seen as shirking ultimate responsibility. 

Therefore we find, on the one hand, an expressed cynicism at politics; on the other hand - in practice - politics matters more to most people than anything else... 

Politics usually forms the basis of a person's world-view; and typically shapes all their other convictions and choices - including religious... 

Under totalitarianism, religion becomes primarily and mandatorily political - both in the mainstream and in dissenting groups.

Thus, subjectively; my life, my self, seem inescapably captured by The System - and the only way out seems to be political: a politics to end all politics, perhaps? 

My point is that we default to "political" discourse and convictions - under totalitarianism politics seems more important than anything, and more important than ever. 

But there is No Hope in this.

Spiritually, we must break out from the loop, which means we first need to disengage sufficiently to understand the nature of our situation: this understanding of our situation is the first and necessary step; and it is spiritually valuable in itself. 

What happens after understanding, is mainly a choice of affiliation; and when all the options in this world are evil-by-nature; then a Christian affiliation must be outwith this world.   

To me, this seems the only Good way to escape-from and subordinate the totalitarianism of "politics is everything". 

Corrupt the word associations: The best way to subvert Tolkien?

People often talk about how recent "adaptations" of JRR Tolkien's works and his world, seem to be attempting to divert or subvert his message into something qualitatively different; with devices such as Mary-Sue Girl-Bosses, nasty "hobbits", and sympathetic orcs. 

But probably a more potent subversion is less recognized: which is the use of Tolkien's names to label "tech companies" - corporations whose mission and activities are inversions of JRR Tolkien's personal values (and this applies whether it is good or evil names that are being deployed). 

In so far as such corporations achieve high visibility, this must have an effect of weakening and tainting, if not actually usurping, the nomenclature, when it is encountered in Tolkien's works.  

Is this just deranged fanboys cashing-in? Is the inevitable harm to JRRT an accident? Or maybe the corruption is intentional; because Tolkien is a threat to the corporate totalitarians? 

Well, make up your own mind. 

When it comes to phenomena like search engines and AI; we are being *strategically* manipulated - and this has major life-implications

What I find extremely important about things like search engines from the 1990s onward, social media from the mid 2000s, and AI currently; is that, from a high level, we are being manipulated strategically. 

By strategically; I mean over a timescale of many years. 

For this to be possible, the manipulation must be done by persons that have access to very large amounts of money. 

Money and other resources - including the ability to manipulate laws to permit - whatever they want to do, to reshape national/ multi-national policies, and to prevent competition.

For instance, the development of the best search engine/s was colossally funded and subsidized, for many years, by invisible (presumably military and intelligence) sources... Many years in which the technology cost a great deal of money, and made - no money at all. 

This is simply not possible without very long-term backing from very wealthy patrons. 

Then the unique status and power of this search engine was protected by laws and (presumably) other means - so that no superior competitor could emerge or was allowed. 

Regulations were shaped to allow exemption from all kinds of restrictions that applied to written material; and immunity to laws that had regulated publishers. 

Income without visible sources. Power without responsibility. 

And there is a closely analogous situation with respect to social media platforms; and with post-November 2022 "AI" systems. 

There was again colossal financial backing and investment for many years, from unknown sources, without visible or remotely commensurate sources of income adequate income. This transcends any "market". The consumers are not customers.  

With AI; laws have been changed (or tacitly side-lined) to allow industrial scale plagiarism with immunity from prosecution. The entire electricity generation system of the USA, and energy policy generally, has been re-shaped to accommodate AI. 

And all this must have been known and guaranteed up-front, in advance of implementation.  

So - someone, somewhere, with vast money resources that are not derived from customers; and having the power to make and break laws; is working across a timescale of more than a decade to provide these "tools" such as search engines, social media platforms and now AI. 

We don't know who these people are, we don't explicitly know what is their real motivation. 

But the motivation does not seem to be money; at least not primarily; because these technologies take unimaginably vast amounts of money to develop across long periods before there is any possibility of beginning to recoup expenses (and by then, there will be another, similarly vast project afoot).

At the very least, such giga-investors must be sure - i.e. totally confident - that they can reshape the laws, national strategies, and media coverage so as to ensure the success of whatever technologies may (or may not) eventually emerge. 

And this means that the investors in search engines/ social media/ AI; essentially Rule The World, already.   

My inference is that they indeed already rule the world, substantially - insofar as it can be ruled; and these technologies are (or were) therefore strategically intended to monitor and control the world...

But maybe now the investors are being hoodwinked, and there is a higher level of strategy than this - and that strategy is to destroy the world. 

**

H/T to a comment by NLR for triggering this post. 

Oxtail soup, Steak and Kidney Pie, Tapioca Pudding, Sardines

What did they do with the rest of the ox? 

Why do I get to eat its tail?

Several of the common and everyday foods of my childhood - things I would be served almost every week, like it or not - have all-but disappeared. 

These are many; and include canned oxtail soup, steak and kidney pies, tapioca pudding and tins of sardines. 

I'm not sorry to see the back of any of these. The flavour of oxtail soup always seemed a bit odd to me - with an unpleasant aftertaste. I never could understand why anyone would want to ruin a steak pie with bits of rubbery, urinous, kidney. Tapioca pudding was bland belly-timber. Sardines were okay, as small fish go (certainly better than the vile pilchards) but I never really miss them. 

I classify all of these as wartime foods; which were imposed on British people by the shortages and distortions created by totalitarianism: i.e. the combination of a U-Boat blockade, and the ignorant tyranny of the Ministry of Agriculture. 

I think the bad reputation of British food came from this era. The socialistic national government, then the ruling Labour Part, loved being able to control food production and distribution, and dictating what people could eat. 

The damage to food quantity and quality took many years to repair, indeed rationing was continued for a decade post-war, and the Min of Ag never gave up the reins of power (later enthusiastically embracing the most extreme lunacies of the European Economic Community/ EU). 

This cast a long shadow on the national diet, which extended into the middle 1980s; an attitude that mass institutional food would be to be mediocre, at best; and we ought not to expect otherwise (despite whatever we experienced in other countries). 

The best of English cooking was domestic, in those days; especially roasted meats, baked foods, and puddings. Foreigners seldom experienced this because it was essentially private - and, of course, it depended on the specific woman doing the cooking.  

So I presume that the reason I was fed so much animal offcuts and offal - like ox tails and tongues; hearts, livers, and kidneys - all of which I hated; and flavourless calories such as tapioca and semolina; and little fish in tins - was a communistic mind-set that instinctively regarded food as something that was sustenance and fuel for the proletariat; rather than potentially one of the good things in life. 

And of course the question arises: what was happening to all the good cuts of meat, to the great cuts of an animal's muscles rather than its organs and peripheries? Where was all that going; who was eating all the good stuff?  

As nearly-always with socialism and Leftism generally - the rules and restrictions were for the Little People; not for the communist leaders themselves; most of whom have always self-righteous and hypocritical toffs.

Of course, things have now gone too far the other way. It is boring, wasteful, and life-distorting to regard every meal as An Event; to be planned, discussed, photographed and shared online. 

There is a place for regarding food as routine belly-timber. I am happy enough with that...

Just so long as my belly timber is not offal.

   

Why do pre-mortal spirits - such as you and me - choose to incarnate mortally? Why don't we stay as spirit-Beings?

From the metaphysical assumptions of many religious conceptualizations, it is hard to imagine why anyone would want to incarnate as a mortal (for example, an embodied human being) - given all the intrinsic problems, as well as the possible risks? 

Why wouldn't spirits want to stay as spirits? 

Stay safe and sound?...

But if entropy is an inescapable reality in God's First Creation - then the alternative to incarnation is inevitable decay; the inexorable loss of whatever we gain in terms of memories, of learning from experiences.  

It seems that spirit Beings change more slowly than incarnated mortals; but presumably they do change - and in Primary Creation there is no escape.

So spirits are not really "safe and sound" - at least not in terms of staying "who they are".  

Spirit Beings are immortal, and divine creation will continually give life, vitality, healing, growth and so forth. But this cannot be cumulative, all created spirit Beings will continually be "losing themselves", even as they are being remade.

(Just as things are for us now, here on earth.)  

I understand incarnation to be a concentration. 

The spiritual is primary, and all the material/ physical world is spiritual - yet an embodied Being is like a concentrated-spirit, one in which things are more focused, change more rapid; and most importantly where the self is more bounded, hence more free. 

Incarnated Beings are more themselves (for better and worse) than the same Beings as a spirit - we are more differentiated from other Beings than are spirits; hence we can (in principle) understand more clearly, make personal choices, and see the basis for personal responsibility. 

So, if you are a pre-mortal spirit, you are faced with a prospect of inevitable change and loss of self; or else you can choose to take the risk and incarnate in hope that you will choose to move on to the Second Creation - to resurrected eternal life, or heaven; as described by Jesus Christ; a place and state where entropy is permanently escaped. 

(This happens, I have argued, because entropy arises from incomplete love between Beings; in the Second creation we permanently commit to live by love.) 

Tis mortal incarnated life is intrinsically an adventure, where we can succeed or fail, but where success or failure is a matter of free choice.

It seems that some people who have incarnated as mortal Men, most people perhaps; take a look at the Second Creation, think about it, and then reject it - preferring something else.

But whatever "something else" is preferred to Heaven, and whatever its advantages in the short term; it will entail continual loss-of-self. 

The Being that inhabits somewhere-other-than-Heaven will, over the long term, lose memory, lose the effects of experiences, lose its distinctive identity - will fade. 

Outwith Heaven; Beings do not die, because Beings are eternal; but they will always be tending to revert to that primal chaos of indifference - of simply "existing". 

Yet to escape this fate; to have everlasting, cumulative personal life as our-selves, entails living wholly by love; and it seems that only some people want to live forever on those terms.   

  

"AI" is strategically about destruction, not control - Francis Berger's post, Laeth's comment

Following an insightful post on "AI" by Francis Berger; in the comments, Laeth produced a simple and convincing re-conceptualization of what lies behind this global strategy 

I have edited this excerpt. 

Ahrimanic refers to a type of totalitarian/ bureaucratic/ systemic evil, that is materialistic in assumptions and seeks omni-surveillance and thought control. Sorathic refers to a more advanced, negative, and purely-destructive evil; that is motivated a spiteful hatred of humans, life, and all manifestations of divine creation.

**

(Laeth's comment, edited)...

When all this started my intuition was that the diabolic element here was mostly Ahrimanic, that is, the objective was pure control. 

But more and more I think I was wrong about this (even if Ahrimanic forces were channelled to bring it to fruition). 

It seems more likely to me now that 'AI' is actually pure Sorathic envious evil. A big fraud at all levels that won't really even be useful for control, only to debase and destroy everything - from its enormous consumption of earthly energy for its functioning to the consumption of human energy from the engagement of people. An all consuming strategy, really. 

I try to avoid even seeing anything of AI or about it. I even try to avoid speaking too much against it, because I fear that too is me being sucked into its web. But it's now impossible to not find it: it's everywhere. Even normal, (and older) people, have started to talk about it (and in the exact terms the system wants them to). 

Yet even my tangential acquaintance with AI is enough to see that it's terrible at its purported higher objectives. It will just jumble up things with no direction, no purpose and no coherence - and any minimally intelligent person can understand that it's all nonsense. it cannot 'manage' anything. 

If given any power to manage a system, AI will just run it to the ground'; and I see now that that it its goal. To destroy any possibility of management, while consuming every possible resource that could be used to correct it. 

I think Ahriman was tricked too, in other words. Full Sorathic destruction is its only route and possibility of it.

**

My Comment: This immediately struck me as correct. 

The globalist totalitarian Establishment who sustain "The System" is being lied-to and tricked-into the Trillions-Dollar-Project of AI, by demonic beings whose purpose includes the destruction of The System. 

Once pointed-out (but it needed pointing out!), the strategy seems clear. 

Because (given the actuality of AI, of what it is, of how it works) this is the only possible outcome of widespread usage of, and therefore inevitable dependence upon, so-called AI. 

AI is a kind of mind virus that has been introduced into the consciousness of managers, at almost every level - from national and multi-national leaders down to the multitudes of middling-myrmidons. 

In the immediate short-term, all the institutional incentives are lined-up to focus upon introducing and developing and expanding AI - regardless of its effect on institutional functionality. 

But in the medium to long term; AI will destroy management itself, in a very direct fashion; along with institutional functionality. 

So the mind virus of AI functions like an addictive drug that rewards its user by short-term euphoria, at the cost of actively killing the user. 

My reading of Western social trends is that the Sorathic agenda has been gaining ground since the summer of 2020; when the Ahrimanic-totalitarian global triumph of the Birdemic coup (with its international lockdowns); began to yield to the intrinsically socially destructive policies of combining multivalent institutional antiracism with a renewal and acceleration of mass immigration. 

Since 2020; the Sorathic destructive agenda has been doubled-down-on by those who control the Western leadership class. Especially, it has caused/ sustained/ escalated war in Eastern Europe; then rolled-out to the Middle East; now (being attempted) in South Asia (also elsewhere). 

All this gratuitous and self-annihilating destruction (eg "sanctions" that damage the sanctioner more than the sanctioned!) is "sold" to the managerial classes of the world as assisting their globalist totalitarian goals (Great Reset, Agenda 2030 etc.). 

They are told that inducing societal chaos will create a desire for order, and thereby facilitate a further coup (on-top-of the successful early-2020 Birdemic coup) to enable a stable and lasting dictatorship of the Left.

Yet this was never possible; because the materialist Leftist ideology of the totalitarians is intrinsically negative, oppositional, hence destructive. 

Even in its earliest and partly-good manifestations; Leftism always had Sorathic evil as its Secret Master. This canker of the heart was evident in that, whenever totalitarian control was (briefly) established, it was inevitably followed by accelerating disorder and destruction.      

 

While there is an almost irresistible Schadenfreude induced by watching the managerial state enthusiastically implementing that self-destruct button which is AI; observers need to be mindful that evil does not cancel-out. 

As totalitarianism is destroyed by spiteful sadism, the process yields no increase in net-good in the world. 

Good comes from recognizing what is going on in the spiritual war of this world; rejecting it inwardly (i.e. repenting our complicity); and then spiritually affiliating to God and divine creation - by following Jesus Christ to that salvation which is resurrected eternal Heavenly Life. 

The Left is winning, where it matters: Right triumphalism misunderstands the very nature of the Left

People who regard themselves as of the Right are displaying an insane and blinkered optimism that they are winning, and rolling-back Leftism. 

This is because they do not understand what the Left is, in its fundamental nature. 

If they did understand, those who proclaim themselves of the Right would realize that they are merely functioning as a subtype of the Left. 

The political Right supposes that the Left is an ideology rooted in some principles. They believe that the Left IS these policies that I call the Litmus Tests: I mean things like socialism, feminism, antiracism, anti-antisemitism, the Climate Agenda. 

In general terms, the self-identified Right define the Left in terms of Political Correctness, SJWs, Wokeness - and their manifestations in the mass media, law, employment regulations etc. 

Because they suppose that the Left is an ideology of "Wokeness" the Right imagine that reversals of specific social practices and regulations represent a rolling-back of Leftism in their nation, or in the world.

When the Right sees such laws, fundings, rhetoric being undone; they think the Left is being defeated. 

But this is completely wrong; because the Left is a negative ideology, an ideology of opposition, and none of the Litmus Tests are core features of Leftism - they might all, in principle, be undone and the Left still be as strong as ever.    

All the Left ideologies are negative in form: the Left is (in various times and places) against many things (capitalism, the bourgeoisie, inequality, patriarchy, European people, Christians) - but is not in favour of any state of affairs as an ultimate and real goal.  

In other words the Left is protean in nature, fluid, adapting - it is continually discarding old ideologies and taking up new ones. 

The Left used to be in favour of economic communism - but not any more; in favour of native-born male industrial workers  (the working class) - but not any more; in favour of equality of opportunities and unequal outcomes - but not any more. 

Leftism can and does discard anything that is currently inexpedient; because there are an endless number of alternatives.

And there is in fact no coherent thing as "the Right"; because the Right is merely opposition to the various Leftist oppositions. 

Leftist ideology is double-negative (i.e. against what they currently regard as bad things), the "the Right" is a triple negation (i.e. against those who are against what the Left currently calls bad things).

No wonder those endless essays striving to define the Right never gets anywhere!  

This is why the Right is so wrong about the rolling back of Leftism. It supposes that the Left abandoning some of its recent woke agenda represents some kind of a defeat, but it is just the usual slippery shape-shifting of Leftism; which now has other priorities - especially war. 

Since Leftism is fundamentally oppositional and negative - Leftism is essentially destructive. 

War is very destructive; hence world war is perhaps an ultimate expression of Leftism. 

(And it matters nothing that pacifism, anti-war, anti-violence; was one of the original roots of Leftism - from more than 200 years ago.) 

War can give Leftism everything and more of whatever losses it may suffer from dropping a few strands of political correctness.  

Just look at what the Leaders of Western nations are actually doing, where they are putting most of their effort - they are in practice (not in what they say, but in what they do over time) angling for more war. 

Not to win a war, but for the maximizing the destruction of war: destruction of economies, societies, trade, positive national identities, of nature (aka "the environment") - expansion of such negations as lies, resentment, and despair. 

We are - and have been for a few years - seeing more and more wars, and what war brings. expanding and escalating the already existing World War with its multiple fronts - but especially in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

We can see the globalist totalitarian leadership class at work engineering wars all over the place; recently on the Asian Subcontinent. This isn't easy to do, there are plenty of people who don't want war - for obvious reasons. But that is what "They" are serious about.  

Ultimately, of course, politics is downstream of the spiritual war of this world; Leftism is a tool of evil in its opposition to God and Divine Creation.

Yes, the sexual revolution was and is a deadly tool of corruption; but a self-righteous and hate-driven war of each against all would be deadlier still. 

When the Right celebrates a few small "victories" (many of which turn out to mere words, and no substantive change; they miss that the Left now has bigger fish to fry, and other things it care much more about. 

The woke agenda might be "forgotten" as thoroughly as the days (a century ago) when white European men were the Left's heroes! - but the Left is continuing to win, and win where it matters most. 

And this will continue until those on the Right recognize that they are part of the problem, and repent. 

  

Since Google's 2K search engine was far superior to any so-called AI; then why are people in 2025 so awed and submissive about AI?

Since Google's 2K search engine was far superior to any so-called AI; then why are people in 2025 so awed and submissive about AI?

It's an interesting question. 

There was certainly a vast degree of hype about The Internet in the 1990s, as well as many serious and thoughtful attempts to predict its consequences (which were spectacularly wrong in almost every instance!); and people who used search engines recognized that Google was a qualitative improvement on what had existed before (I recall that Altavista was the best engine just before Google emerged in 1997). 

And indeed the Google search engine rapidly became a superb tool; far superior to anything that has existed since around 2010. Google has almost completely destroyed its own search value, and nothing significantly superior has emerged - or, probably, nothing superior has been allowed to emerge.

But there was never anything like the quasi-worship and sheer mental derangement that is at present rampant on the subject of AI; where people I would have (until recently) regarded as sensible and decent, are spouting incoherent-impossible nonsense about what AI can/ should/ will be used for, and apparently being taken seriously.

Worst of all - they are looking forward to it! This reminds me of the 2020 totalitarian globalist who said that in his future we will "own nothing - and be happy" - but even worse: this time we shall instead (or as well) "be ruled, monitored and controlled by robot computers - and be happy".    

I take this as strong and solid evidence of the astonishing degree of spiritual corruption to which people in general have sunk. Not just the rulers, who have led and managed the avalanche of nihilism; but the masses as well. 

Common sense has gone. Simple two-step reasoning has gone. And the reason is that almost everybody, including almost all self-identified religious or spiritual people, has adopted the pervasive assumptions of inhabiting a purpose-less, meaning-less world from-which we are alienated, and with which we engage only materially. 

Inside people there is, apparently... nothing - a void; continuously filled up from externally by the media and institutions and superficial "cause and effect" interactions of "social life". 

And it turns-out that is makes no significant difference whether this inner void is filled by political ideology or church doctrine and guidance - these are all substantially converged, and it all comes to the same in the end.  

Of course there is not really a void inside us, but an eternal self; which is a part of God's living creation. 

But we have chosen to deny, disbelieve and ignore this in favour of mechanism, passivity, and ultimate, existential irresponsibility.   

That's why people are so very impressed by the real-world-useless, destructive, literally soul-destroying toy-master that is called AI. 

If ultimate reality is physics, mathematics, geometry... Re-reading The Place of the Lion, by Charles Williams

I have been re-reading (after many previous readings) my favourite work by Charles Williams - The Place of the Lion (1931)  a book that, I believed, profoundly influenced the writing of both JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, as well as being of unfailing fascination to me. 

But every time I read it, it feels almost like I am reading another and different book! 

I've shared a few reflections after the most recent encounter, over at my Notion Club Papers blog.

Disney Peter Pan (1953): one of the most perfect movies

Captain Hook - with his lantern jaw, five o'clock shadow, and double-cigar holder! 

Yesterday, I re-watched (maybe the fourth time?) Walt Disney's 1953 animated movie Peter Pan; and again it struck me as one of the very best of the Disney full length cartoons (running at about 75 minutes). 

Of course the source material of this adaptation is one of the great modern myths; which certainly helps. But what makes the movie so good is the script, pacing, and characterisation. 

The screenplay is coherent, sometimes very funny, and overall poignant and enchanting. It is objectively very fast paced, packed with variety and incident, and highly varied in tone, hence continually interesting. Nothing goes for nothing - there is zero padding. 

Yet this is achieved without the slightest sense of being rushed, all the important aspects are given full weight - the editing and pacing are immaculate. 

To my mind; Hans Conried's voicing of Hook (and Mr Darling) is maybe the greatest characterization of the dubbing-era toons (since Disney's Aladdin, modern toons animate the picture around the voice). The emotional range of Hook, displayed on such a small "canvas" is stunning. 

Peter Pan himself is shown with the complex moral ambiguity of the original - perhaps even more so. And Mr Smee is a tremendous, Dickensian, comic creation. Even such a minor character as Tiger Lily (who doesn't speak) jumps-out as a strongly-defined personality, simply from her facial expressions.  

The animation is less beautiful than - say - Snow White - and there is a degree of simplification evident in the basic pictures. Nonetheless the animation is impressively fluid (e.g. consider Tiger Lily's sinuous dancing), especially in the fast comedy sequences (the Smee slapstick is particularly well done), and the always inventive fight sequences. 

And whoever came up with, and executed, the "stuck record" interrupted scream of Hook as his final "words" of the movie; was some kind of genius. 

The economy and clarity achieved by the movie story is perhaps an improvement on the original, especially in its wistful and suggestive ending; I personally find the original Peter Pan ending to be rather messy, as if the author couldn't make up his mind, and wanted to cover all bases. 

Anyway, if you haven't yet watched the Disney Pan - or watched it inattentively - you are in for a treat!

Donald Trump and the latest Pope (for example): People grossly underestimate How Bad Things Are

As a solid and nearly universal generalization: "People" grossly underestimate how bad things are. 

We see this almost everywhere, including among those who regard themselves as radical, uncompromising, anti-Establishment, Christian-motivated - or whatever. 

Think of the past US elections, and the way that so many people really seemed to believe that the situation in the USA was such that DT might make (or would make, or indeed already has made!) a significant difference for the better! 

I can only shake my head in amazement. Do they really believe that the nature of the deepening and widening problems could possibly be reversed by DT? 

Do they honestly suppose that this was, or is, the genuine intention? 

The expressed level of enthusiasm and indeed hope (!) engendered among some Christians by Trump's early announcements was frankly embarrassing, when it was not merely ridiculous. And it is (to say the least) dismaying to realize that the observable fact of regime-continuity, and the failure of any positive overall US or world change to manifest, and the continuation of malignity in core strategies of the US-led West; are so easily and eagerly explained-away.  

Because - with things as bad as they are and worsening long-term; unless the trends were not just slowed or stopped but reversed - decisively and unambiguously reversed (and not in words but in observable overall results) - then any potential variation of "politics as usual" is utterly futile. 

So why discuss it? - discuss it frequently and endlessly, and with all appearances of regarding oneself as saying something fundamental? 

Or the new Pope. It's all "probably some improvement", "wait and see", "something to be said on both sides"; or "give the bloke a chance", "benefit of the doubt" kind of stuff. 

As if a (?) slightly-better Pope than Francis, would have the slightest benefit in a Roman Catholic Church that is collapsing like an avalanche, and putrescent with pervasive corruption and incremental apostasy at every level!  

If the new Pope does Not have what it takes, and that is 100% for sure; then why be so diffident and nuanced about stating the fact!

Clutching at fake straws, wherever you look. 

It really ought to be blazingly obvious that things are very bad indeed and have been continually getting worse for a long time, and with no hint of an upturn. 

This insight isn't exactly rocket surgery. 

When someone doesn't start with that level of recognition, then their discourse is revealed as merely compulsive gossip - whatever their pretentions of depth and seriousness.  

Vivaldi, Oboe, Holliger, I Musici - simply beautiful

A little treat for lovers of the baroque oboe - slow movement from a concerto by Vivaldi; played by the greatest oboist of whom I know - Heinz Holliger - and the lyrical and resonant strings of I Musici. The continuo harpsichordist is also improvising some lovely things. 

The melody is very simple and the orchestral accompaniment likewise; but Vivaldi was a master of string textures, and the deployment of occasional unexpected harmonic shifts. 

The writing for oboe offers tremendous scope for such a fine and creative soloist to generate a continuous melodic line, and introduce subtle decorations and dynamics (changes of volume). 

It's about as structurally-simple as classical music can be; and (in this performance) very beautiful to my ear. 

A charming collection of letters by CS Lewis's brother "Warnie" to Blanche Biggs, a medical missionary

I review this interesting and enjoyable volume over at my Notion Club Papers blog. 

Gerald Coetzee: the fast bowler among fast bowlers

 

What's not to love about South African fast bowler Gerald Coetzee; currently playing for the Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League? 

Uncomplicated in operation; but no doubt affected by the living-torment that it is to be a fast bowler - always injured, often out of action, always having to push past the pain barrier; each wicket a product of sweat and tears. 

He runs in hard, bowls very fast - and if he gets a wicket... He roars with every fibre of his being. A "celebration" that expresses, in microcosm, the very nature and essence of what it is to be a fast bowler. 

His eyes literally bulge from their sockets, the veins on his head very nearly burst, his fists pump convulsively... 

His Mother must worry every time she watches him play. Naturally she would want him to do well, but when he does... 

Goodness only knows what happens to his blood pressure! If he ever gets five quick wickets; he would surely need to be stretchered-off with apoplexy. 

Alternatively; I half expect him to turn green, grow to gigantic size, burst out of his clothes (leaving only a pair of ragged shorts), to rampage and to smash. 

Literally my Bete Noire

 

That's Literally my Bête Noire. 

(I forget, now, why I decided to call him Literally.)

AI-dolatry - by which Men "worship the works of their own hands"

In private correspondence I came-up with the term AI-dolatry which William James Tychonievich has seized upon and elaborated thus: 

Idolatry is exactly what it is: taking something we ourselves have made -- human-created software mindlessly plagiarizing and imitating human-created content -- and treating it as some font of wisdom. 

When [a fellow Christian blogger] wrote that he was "pretty spooked" [by the apparent quality of "AI"-produced content], I couldn't help but think of that comment of Nietzsche's about painting a scary face and then being scared by it. 

He has since expanded upon the analysis: Read the whole thing... 

The Celestine Prophecy and synchronicity revisited

"I've found a synchronicity!"

The Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield, was a self published book of the early 1990s, that went on to become a major best seller; and contributed to the sense of millennial anticipation among "New Age" spiritual seekers. 

On the one hand, the book was much read and discussed - on the other it had a reputation of being day dreamy, wishful, vague, and ineptly-written in the cynical and materialist mainstream.  

I encountered the CP about a decade after publication, and found it a rather charming and naive book, with a pleasant kind of atmosphere about it; and which helped make a significant step towards me becoming a Christian - although that is not the book's intent. 

A few days ago, I downloaded an audiobook copy from Archive.org, and found that I still responded to its earnest and positive tone, while at the same time seeing more clearly the self-imposed limitations that derive from its being a continuation of the idealistic sixties counter-culture. 

The main positive effect of the Celestine Prophecy (and I sampled some of Redfield's follow-up books as well) was to focus my attention on the importance of synchronicity - the idea that the remarkable and positive "coincidences" of life may have meaning, and point to a purpose. 

I reasoned that if synchronicity was a real phenomenon, then events must be arranged in accordance wit some plan or intention. To my mind, this must mean not just an ordered universe, or a transcendent deity, but a personal and loving God. 

Because otherwise reality would not arrange itself around individual people, around me and my destiny. An abstractly structured universe would have no reason to care about individuals or their fate in the world.  

For synchronicity to happen, and to have significance for the future; the events of an individual life must (I thought) be somehow "arranged" and therefore have a spiritual significance. 

In a nutshell; there must be a personal creator God, who loves me (and others) as individuals, and who is continuing to create for our ultimate spiritual benefit. 

Such was my eventual benefit from reading the CP back in the middle 2000s.

But re-listening to the CP, I see that the author's intentions are different. It is not Christian, not focused on resurrected eternal life; but instead hopes for a transformation of this life on earth so as to become a kind of blissful spiritualized paradise of peace, love, harmony - without pain or suffering. 

Indeed, CP asserts that this is happening, and will happen - it will happen to us; because of the direction of history and reality. People fail to see it, because immersed in survival and the seeking of possessions, status, thrills etc. But it will happen anyway, because it must.

Related to this is the vision of synchronicities as something that also happen to us, guideposts pointing at our better future, and which it is best if we follow.  

The prophecies are presented as "insights" - which are items of knowledge that need to be grasped, internalized, lived. 

The picture is of some higher reality that communicates to our senses pieces of information that are qualitatively and positively transformative for the people, and societies, that acknowledge them. 

These are precious insights which need to be preserved, disseminated, read, pondered and internalized. That is how things are meant to happen - and that is what is resisted by the regressive forces, the materialists, the power structures, the exploiters...

The Good Life of the CP is therefore one in which we are guided through the world and our lives by synchronicities, to attain sequential insights, towards a state of enlightenment that is also contageous - in a good way. 

The insights spread from person to person, and each is permanently transformed by each insight - so there is a ratcheting positive movement (albeit this may happen quickly, or else be delayed considerably by our faults and my malign meddling).  

 

In sum - I find the Celestine Prophecy to envisage a very passive form of spiritual life. The millennial New Age will happen to us, will be imposed from externally; and synchronicities likewise. Our job is to follow - and our reward is that these are for our own good - and to make a world where people can be qualitatively more spiritual and happier. 

From here-and-now, I regard these as fallacies, because I do not believe that goodness or spirituality can be imposed from externally. People cannot be made good, the world cannot be made good - good just isn't a top-down imposable thing; it must come from individual choices, from personal freedom, fro the good in individual beings.  

I do not believe, either, that there can be a paradise on earth - because entropy and evil are part of this world. Evil cannot be cured from externally, and entropy is the primal state "within" which creation is always being made. 

I think that evil and entropy can therefore only be escaped and left-behind by a new, Second Creation, which is Heaven, which is post-mortal. 

In sum; the New Age aspect of Celestine Prophecy, and its counter-culture origins and continuation, is seen in a this-worldly (and indeed leftist) vision of the desirable future - a coming Golden Age on earth as culmination of social changes that were the basis of 1960s radicalism. 

It was written more than thirty years ago when tens of millions of people in The West believed that this not only can happen, but would happen - irresistibly. That all people were changing, were being made more spiritual.

Due to some external and universal influence - sometimes called a higher frequency of consciousness, higher vibrational level, new energy or the like (invariably, some term derived from physics - it seemed). 

And that this did not come from the personal loving creator God of Christianity; but from a purposive movement within the whole of reality - a wholly immanent, discarnate, spiritualized idea of everything as ultimately one. 

The millennium was seen as a restoration of a harmony which was actually a unity. There was to be no pain or suffering, because there was no conflict or competition, because everything was one. 

And that is what humankind, and everything on earth and everywhere else, was irresistibly and necessarily moving-towards.  

Yet it did not happen. 

That was not how the millennium went for us. That does not describe the world, now. 

But, somehow, this not-happening hasn't dented the assumptions behind the New Age. Tens of millions of people still seem to live in optimism for the paradisal Golden Age, here on earth - and in line with sixties idealism - they still see this as actually happening. 

A further thing about synchronicity. It now strikes me as ultimately false to suppose that our lives are segmented such that particular bits of them count as synchronicities. 

In truth: our life is continuous, a living process - and while our consciousness may be detached and alienated - created reality is (and always has been) a kind of loving family of relationships. 

The reason why we cannot usually understand The Meaning of a synchronicity, is because in defining it, we thereby chop it out from this process and web of meaning.

We pull out a synchronicity from life, like Little Jack Horner extracting a plum from a pie; and examine it minutely - but cannot see from that one plum the pie itself, nor who made it, nor why it was baked... 

The synchronicity thereby becomes mysterious in its meaninglessness! 

Such are my thoughts from a brief re-engagement with the Celestine Prophecy

Self-styled AI: "At enormous cost of electricity and manpower, people are being given something worse than a 1998 search engine."

An excellent comment from NLR expresses a valid insight concerning current "AI":

It feels weird reading machine produced writing (and I try to avoid it) because I know it's just words strung together with no understanding. 

I'd rather read a well-written article by a human. Old search engines were good at finding those, even the old pages of links were helpful for that. 

At enormous cost of electricity and manpower, people are being given something worse than a 1998 search engine. And yet we're supposed to believe that we're now more advanced and smarter than ever.

**

Few people realize - or perhaps they can't remember, or don't believe - how incredibly powerful and useful search engines were twenty years ago. 

I was editing the journal Medical Hypotheses at that time, a job that entailed a great deal of web searching, and could find almost anybody or anything, on any subject - with that information's source and provenance; updated with newly posted material (if necessary) more than once a minute. The Google search engine, in particular, was then a superb tool. 

It strikes me that the truly colossal degradation of search engines over the past 15 years - to the current point of near uselessness - may have been part of a strategy preparing for the top-down imposition of current "AI". 

If top-down evil is true and significant in this world... Why ever-more Christians fail the accumulating Litmus Tests

If it is acknowledged (or believed) that top-down evil - purposive evil originating global, multinational, and national institutional level ("The Establishment") - is a real and significant phenomenon - then various implications follow. 

But it is clear that not many people, including not many Christians, really believe in top-down evil. 

Or else regard it as insignificant - otherwise they would not think, speak, write and behave in the ways they do - all of which assume that the most powerful, wealthy, influential and high status levels of society are basically well-intended. 

This is why the Litmus Tests mostly work as a method of discernment, and why they cluster - so that failure in one Test (including emerging Tests; such as the Birdemic, the peck, "AI") is associated with - and leads to - failure in other Tests. 

My opinion is that the weakness in Christians, their cumulative proneness to fail Litmus Tests as they emanate from The Establishment; is related to their faith being primarily in their church as an institution - in the 2025 context of a totalitarian world where all institutions are strongly inter-linked.  

What is "The" story of Jesus? There are actually Two stories

People talk as if there is "the" story of Jesus Christ - as told in "The Gospels"; but there isn't really one story but two stories; unless you make certain prior assumptions. 

These prior assumptions are either 

1. That all the Gospels are all telling the same story...

2. Or that Matthew, Mark, and Luke ("Luke" including Acts, by the same author and continuing the narrative) are telling "the" story; and John is a kind of optional-extra commentary or supplement to the three "Synoptics". 

But Mark does not tell a story; so can be excluded from this consideration. 

And if you do not make these assumptions but instead regard the remaining three narrative Gospels as separate entities, then there is a broad narrative common to Matthew and Luke; but John is an almost completely different story (although sharing some of the same names and approximate events - albeit with apparently different meanings). 

Luke and John present Jesus as The Messiah as miraculously born of an anointed and noble ancestry, a much prophesied and long-awaited savour of the Jewish nation. 

However Jesus did not accomplish the Messiah's promises during his mortal lifespan, and also included non-Jews in the scope of those to be saved. 

Thus, the main "take home message" of Matthew and Luke is that Jesus will in future return to save his people - here on earth; and the gospels describe the setting-up of a new priesthood based on the disciples, whose job is to preach to the nations and set up a church. 

So, Matthew and Luke describe a Jesus emerging from the Ancient Hebrew religion and people; a future based in the Second Coming and some kind of Heaven-on-Earth; and the centrality of a new, single, and (intentionally) universal church.   

Whereas the Gospel called John describes Jesus only from age thirty to thirty-three; and in relation to his baptism and recognition as Messiah by John the Baptist. 

But this "Messiah" is one who brings the possibility of eternal resurrected life in Heaven, after death, and for all those who follow him. 

In essence, John's Gospel is as simple as that.

Differences from Matthew-Luke include that in the Gospel called John; Jesus completed his task - therefore there is neither need nor mention of a Second Coming. 

And the promised Heaven comes after our death, not on earth. 

And there is no setting up of an institutional church or organized priesthood - these are apparently not required. 

To my mind, comparing Matthew-Luke with John, these are significantly different stories; so there is no "the" Christian story - but at least two, and these two are different.  

Conclusion...

We need to choose. 

We might potentially reject both stories - and devise/discover another story (as did Rudolf Steiner, for instance); or reject both stories and choose to believe none of the Gospels. Which latter is, of course, what most people in the world have done. But I shall not further consider these possible options here.

But if we believe that the Gospels in some way contain the true story of Jesus Christ, then...

Either: 1. There are two - essentially incompatible - stories of Jesus in the Gospels; and we should acknowledge this, and either make a choice between them. 

This is my choice: to believe that "John" the Fourth Gospel story tells the true story of Jesus Christ.  

Or: 2. We essentially consign the Gospel called John to secondary and subordinate status - to be interpreted in light of the Synoptic Gospels (and other parts of the Bible, especially perhaps the Epistles).

This has been the choice of the Christian churches throughout history: i.e. that Matthew-Luke-Acts (supplemented by Paul) tell the true story of Jesus Christ - and John gets interpreted so as to fit-in, as required. 

 

The next Pope, and the cycle of corruption in the Roman Catholic Church

There is a cycle of corruption: 

A corrupt leader will corrupt an institution. 

And a corrupt institution will choose a corrupt leader. 

So, whatever the original source of corruption, it tends to be self-perpetuating - indeed, self-amplifying.

But if the leader is being chosen from outside an institution; then a good leader might be put in charge of a corrupt institution. And might be able to make that institution less corrupt - more-good. 

 

Pope Francis was a corrupt leader, who corrupted the Roman Catholic Church; and Francis was elected because the Roman Catholic Church was corrupt. 

In the normal course of events for human institutions; the next Pope chosen by the RCC will be corrupt - and more-corrupt than the previous one. 

That is what has happened in other human institutions, organizations, corporations, nations... especially over the past fifty years or so - increased corruption leading to the choice of more-corrupt leaders who then accelerate the corruption.   

The only reasonable grounds for optimism are if the next leader is chosen from outside of the circle and web of corruption; only then might he be a good leader.  

The Roman Catholic Church, like many other churches, has a strong tendency to assert that its leaders are chosen by God. 

Well, it all depends on whether you really believe that God works that way. Such assertions are easy to say, but do not seem to affect people's behaviour...

Probably because such fatalism is inconsistent with the reality of the human condition, and human free agency. 

"God wills it" is (in practice) used far more often as an excuse, than it is a true life-motivator. 

Furthermore, there is the fact that people understand the world through their assumptions. 

And these assumptions often deny the possibility of corrupt leadership, or the corruption of a specific leader. For some Catholics (and Orthodox, Anglicans, Protestants, Mormons) it is axiomatic that their leader was chosen by God and is good. 

For such persons it is facile, indeed inevitable, that all possible signs of corruption from their leader will instead be regarded as having other causes, or even be seen as evidence of goodness. 

So the question - for those of us who are not Roman Catholic, and do not share the above assumptions, but who hope for a strong and good Catholic church: 

Will the RCC continue the cycle of corruption, as is most probable?

Or could the improbable, the unlikely, happen: will the church break out from the cycle? 

And, if so; who are the human agents through-which God may work in order to make it happen?