Giving-up on clear and effective communication - "Footway" bureaucratic notices

 

I noticed this on the (interminable, clearly maliciously-motivated) roadworks on the Great North Road; and I thought: 

"Who the dickens decided that "pavement" or "footpath" - terms that everybody from the youngest child to oldest codger understands - should instead be called a Footway?" 

But a moment's reflection was enough. 

The bureaucrats it is (together with their friends the politicians), who always and endlessly decide to rename things. 

Rename them without regard for clarity of communication or traditional associations* - and in accordance with their own incentive structures that reward institutional change - including change for the sake of change, or change for the worse (it does not matter which). 

That the purpose - the only proper purpose - of a sign is to communicate information, and that "Footway" fails to do this - is irrelevant to the bureaucrats/ politicians, and fellow travellers. 

 

I first noticed this more than 20 years ago when I saw that the road signs and marking in Hay-on-Wye (which straddles the border between England and Wales) had important instructional highway signage in a bilingual form - with Welsh coming first! 

Presumably this is for the benefit of the (non-existent) hordes of monoglot Welsh who could pass their driving tests only in Cymraeg.

The 99.99 (recurring) percent of road users who can only be distracted and delayed by the priority of a foreign phrase, and who need to read the English in order to obey the important and urgent traffic instruction; are irrelevant compared with the all-conquering bureaucratic imperative of making a point. 

*In 1974 the then "Conservative" government, gratuitously abolished or renamed many of the traditional counties of the UK. My then place of residence, Somerset; was renamed "Avon". Most egregious was the Scottish county of Clackmannanshire charmingly became... "Central Region". Some of these changes were later reverted by popular demand. 

Totalitarianism and/or Chaos: Ahrimanic backlash and/or Sorathic escalation in response to the latest global Litmus Test

The latest global Litmus Test (aka the most recent Establishment agenda theme) is playing-out negatively and for evil - as any change must, when not motivated by positive good. 

Whatever the original intent of the event and its propagation may have been, the existing Establishment power blocs are competing over what it implies.

Competing, often within different parts of the same media outlet! - as would be expected when there is a genuine schism and "civil war" within the Establishment.  

We need to be clear that in this war, both sides are of evil intent; but different types of evil. 

On one side, and this includes the political "Right" (actually, part of the Left); and this also includes the nationalistic "Christian Right" - there are the Ahrimanic totalitarians. 

These desire - first and foremost - an efficient and effective international System... A coherent political-bureaucracy-media complex. 

And the Ahrimanic totalitarians are trying to escalate and use the new Establishment agenda to make the System work better, mainly so-far by undoing some of the more egregious consequences of political correctness. 

This is the true nature of whatever is real in the "anti-woke" backlash assiduously reported by the mainstream sources. 

What motivates these System-reformers is a materialistic and this-worldly desire for a more comfortable, prosperous, and secure life (first and especially for themselves, and those of whom they approve). To be done by means of working-towards an effective and efficient System. 

This is why there is such a strong enthusiasm among such people, for ruthless coercion of individuals justified by "rational" objectives and "the common good." In other words: "enemies" are to be made to conform to the new rules of a better System.

For a truly Ahrimanic totalitarian, this coercion of conformity is done impersonally, without sadism - because it is the result of "objective" calculation of System necessity.  

In sum: For mainstream Establishment totalitarians; it is the individual person's role, whether voluntarily or coerced, to serve the System...

The only difference between the "Political Right" and the "Christian Right", is that the System to be ruthlessly imposed is intended to be one that is explicitly Christian in its forms: a Church System*. 

(Insofar as any totalitarian bureaucracy can really be Christian when it is intrinsically evil!)

Consequently; our old friend The Boromir Strategy is very much in evidence! 

The Political/ Christian Right advocate using the "weapons" of the enemy, including the psychological motivations of leftist materialism - rationalized by the excuse that this is the most effective way to win... 

Under the assumption that "our System winning" (by whatever means are judged to be expedient) is the same thing as "Good". 

In sum: For Christian totalitarians; it is the individual person's role, whether voluntarily or coerced, to serve the Church System...

Mixed-in with totalitarianism (of various stripes) - and sometimes dominant - is explicit expression (across the board, including the "Right", including among self-identified-Christians) of the characteristically "sadistic" emotions of spiteful Schadenfreude. 

In other words, we see the fingerprints of strengthening Sorathic Chaotic Evil.

This is motivated mainly by personal gratification at the sufferings and destruction of "enemies"; or, at first enemies... 

Instead of the impersonal and calculating Ahrimanic justification of coercive imposition for reasons of Systemic-necessity; the Sorathic "Right" will characteristically express positive pleasure in the "need" for imposing suffering on their enemies. 

They typically express delight at the prospect of the misery and destruction of those who will not conform to the new programme. 

...But later, as evil feeds-upon-itself, they will go on to enjoy the suffering and destructions of anybody and anything that opposes or ignores our personal interests and enjoyments.

(And finally the ultimately nihilistic destruction of divine creation - and at last, the suicidal annihilation of their own self; as something created by God.)  

In other words - because people are currently riled-up and feel free to express their dark and usually-secret motivations - we can currently observe the inevitable waxing of evil that happens when both "sides" are actually rival factions of the spiritual war that opposes God and Divine Creation. 

Both totalitarian and chaotic evil are, in their different but overlapping ways, de facto working towards the self-chosen damnation of self-righteous sinners. 

In other words, all varieties of evil are working towards an increase of the self-exclusion of the unrepentant from Heaven; which self-exclusion includes those unrepentant for whom this-worldly expediency is affirmed as primary...

Those for whom their superficial assertion of wanting a more-Christian world and future Heaven, has become an insincere excuse for advocating and doing More Evil Now.

**

*NOTE ADDED: I would like to clarify that I intend the term Church System - which I judge to be the large (or at least vociferous!) majority of Christians who identify with "the Right" or nationalism - to refer to those whose priority is System. here-and-now, in This World - and starting from where we actually are. I mean those many who, at worst (explicitly or covertly), regard their favoured Christian Church as the best or only means to what they really and most deeply want: which is an effective, efficient and "us"-orientated social System. 

(Looking back some 15-plus years; I can see that I was one of these at the time I converted to Christianity. I wanted what I hoped the right Church might do for society during my mortal life and those I love; more than I wanted to follow Jesus to Heaven.) 

I also mean the term Church Systematists to include others, less culpable perhaps, who - sincerely and without covertly-pursued primary self-interest - regard System as a necessary materialistic means to the salvific and next-worldly and spiritual end, of what the uncorrupted Christian Churches advocate. That is to say the Church System totalitarians include those who want System-reform first, to be followed (some unspecified time later) by top-down and imposed Christianization, made possible by the attainment of power (i.e. the Boromir Strategy). These are blind or foolish (if sincere), but not so strategically-bad as those who merely desire to use the Churches for material ends  

But I do Not mean to include in the Church System category, those real Christians who retain loyalty to the spiritual goals of their Church in its ideal form - those who, by discernment and personal evaluation, seek and follow the Christian Truth among the lies and expediencies of the totalitarian-affiliated human institutions of the actual Churches of 2025.  

Some Christian Churches yet retain the capacity to help individuals in their Christian Faith; with political considerations as secondary and derivative consequences of this primary faith. 

Belief in the Hereafter: Glenn Gould

This passage is  quoted in 32 Short Films about Glenn Gould - and also Glenn Gould. Hereafter.

ELYSE MACH: I’d like to ask: Do you believe in the afterlife? 

Glenn Gould: Well, I was brought up as a Presbyterian, though I did stop being a church goer, ohh, about the age of 18 … but I always have had a tremendously strong sense that there is, indeed, a hereafter … that we all must reckon with, and lead our lives according to, this belief that there is, inevitably, a transformation of the spirit. As a consequence, I find all ‘here-and-now’ philosophies quite repellent … lax, if you will. I do recognize, however, that it is a great temptation to try and formulate a comfortable theory of eternal life, so as to reconcile oneself to the inevitability of death. But I’d like to think that’s not what I’m doing—I honestly don’t think that I’m creating a deliberate self-reassuring process. For me, it intuitively seems right … I’ve never had to work at convincing myself of a life hereafter. After all, don’t you think it seems infinitely more plausible than its opposite … oblivion?

 

There is surely a direct relationship between Gould's conviction of the reality of a personal afterlife, and the extraordinary and unique spiritual dimension he brought to the best of his life and performances. 

When I am able to grasp the fact of it; I am absolutely staggered at the perfection of the gift of Jesus: I mean resurrected eternal life in Heaven. It is so absolutely and exactly what I would most have wanted!

Yet most people, most of the time (almost everybody, almost always) are utterly insensible to this extraordinary thing. I know, because for most of my life I was one of them. 

I know how - in the particular and peculiar environment of this modern era - it seems natural (as well as adult and intelligent) to adopt a flippant attitude to this most important of all questions. I know the arguments - from the inside - about how eternal life, resurrection, Heaven etc - don't really make any difference to the wise Man of true values; how these are childish panderings to the weakness and vanity of... etc. etc...

Consequently we do not allow ourselves even to begin to grasp what is actually on offer; and oscillate back and forth between regarding the astonishing gift of Jesus as too-good-to-be-true, and then of-no-interest at all - or (somehow) hold both beliefs at the same time...

One common, and stunningly wrong, attitude is that the reality of eternal life makes no difference to this life! I have felt this myself. It is so incredibly, stupidly and obviously wrong, that such an attitude is itself a key to much of the pathology of modern thinking. I mean; the fact that I and others can and do think this way, is a revelation of a profound (i.e. deep rooted) incapacity to reason that is near universal.

I realise that Jesus's offer does not appeal to everyone. Which is presumably why only Christianity (and only some understandings of Christianity) 'offer' this destination after death. But I think there are plenty who, like me, want nothing different from what Jesus offers - and it ought to be a simple matter for us to get past the first step of acknowledging "Yes, that's what I most want"; and (but only) then move on to the question: "Is it true?"

Step one: do we want what Jesus offers? Step two: is the offer true? 

And, as Gould said, evaluating the truth of Jesus's offer is a matter of intuition. 

No 'evidence' is of relevance. But intuition must have something to intuit! An idea must be grasped with the fullness of imaginative understanding before it can be tested by intuition. 

And that is exactly where most modern people go so fatally wrong: they/we cannot imaginatively grasp the reality of resurrected, eternal Heavenly life (or, we do not allow ourselves to do this); therefore we cannot intuitively evaluate its truth. 

We cannot get past step one. 

Note: This post seems significant to me. It is re-blogged from September of 2020, at which it passed without apparent notice. 

Christian theology ought to build-upon our innate, spontaneous, natural assumptions - not subvert them

Since the creator is a personal and good God who loves us; it seems to make sense that we would be born into this world with the kind of assumptions (hence understanding) that is supportive (or, at least, compatible with) our salvation. 

I regard this as a deep truth; and that the "animistic" consciousness of young childhood - the assumption of inhabiting a living universe of other Beings - is therefore a true understanding of reality.

Truth about reality is therefore something originally inside us, within us, something we do not need to look for elsewhere, or to "other people", to find.  

In other words - if truth about reality is inborn, within, divinely implanted - then it is something we can know for ourselves, from our-selves - and therefore be sure about. 

This means that much of Christian theology is false when it asserts that ultimate realities are impersonal and/or abstract in nature - or too complex to comprehend. 

This is a lethal objection to Christian theology when it is asserted to be something that need to be derived second-hand, from other people or other places - a kind of hearsay - that we are supposed to obey: uncomprehendingly if necessary. 

From this perspective it is also clear that "mainstream modern materialism" (which inculcates and permeates assumptions that ultimate reality is a dead, purposeless, meaningless - a matter of physical and chemical processes) is false. 

(And, insofar as Christian theology tries to incorporate materialism, then to that extent it makes itself incoherent, self-subverting.) 

What modern materialism and mainstream Christian theology both do to a person, is inculcate the assumption that he must get his understanding from outside himself - because both replace our innate childhood world-view, with some-other world view that we must find somewhere in our culture. 

When people are looking around to "other people" or social systems to understand the world - then Satan holds most of the cards; and the Christian truth becomes just another option among many-more - lost among a much larger and constantly-changing mass of alternatives.

Even when people become Christian under such circumstances and with such an "external-seeking" mind-set - then it becomes very difficult to have strong faith - i.e. difficult to have sureness and confidence in the rightness of our particular world-view...

Once we leave behind the innate - and God given! - perspective that the true understanding has been  built-into us; then any and every world-view that comes from outside is a threat to our present conviction. 

In a world where truth is not-innate, where truth is said to be (or may be) external, abstract, impersonal, hyper-complex - then we find ourselves trying to cling to a particular and second-hand/ adopted understanding...

And constantly being offered alternative external views: constantly under attack from external world views: constantly needing to defend and justify our specific choices.  

No wonder Christian faith is so feeble! - when we have built it under the assumption that our childhood knowledge is something that is merely immature, and needs to be set-aside; such that we Must derive Truth about Reality from sources outside ourselves, from among the many, Many alternative offered by people and by culture! 

We can never really believe "other people" sufficiently to have a strong faith - unless, perhaps, all of those other-people are saying the same thing - which nowadays they certainly never are; not even within the strictest of churches! 

 

All too often - Christianity succeeds in subverting our natural childhood assumptions with abstract and complex theological dogmas - and succeeds only in enfeebling the consequent faith.

As was made blazingly evident in 2020. 

I conclude that (from here-and-now) the truth of Christianity "must" (if Christian faith is to be strong) therefore be such that it can simply be added-onto the innate and spontaneous assumptions about reality with which God provided us on entering incarnation; and with which we are (apparently) all born. 

Traditional Christianity - in practice a New Age type of "radical traditionalism"?

I often dip-into the writings of John Michell - who had a truly delightful ability to evoke an imaginative and romantic vision of the past; especially of past societies and places. 

Michell sometimes defined himself a radical traditionalist - in that his lifestyle, methods and society were radical, countercultural and New Age. He is, indeed, regarded as a founder of New Age in Britain, with a delightfully inspiring 1969 book called The View Over Atlantis. A very modern kind of chap, then; eccentric, eclectic, a magpie-collector of lost perspectives and knowledge... 

But Michell consistently advocated traditionalism. His greatest hero was Plato, or more exactly the Neoplatonic (perrenialist) tradition that is said to date back at least to Pythagoras; and sees abstract and ideal numbers and geometry, as the basis of created reality. 

Michell wrote and spoke eloquently about the ideal civilization as one of perfect unity, balance and form; a society that was served by its people - who were united and found their deepest satisfaction by their love of divine harmony, and whose life was spent in sustaining that harmony. 

In spite of his many neo-pagan followers; Michell publicly identified himself as a Christian, in the Catholic tradition of the Church of England; and his vision was a distinctly deistic version of the kind of society most closely approached here during the "Merrie England" era of the Middle Ages. 

  

It struck me that even the most ardent and sincere traditionalists among current Christians, are much more like John Michell than they are like the denizens of Medieval-type societies of the kind they hope shall return. 

In other words, like it or not (and they would not embrace the label like John Michel did) they are essentially "New Age Traditionalists" - who are inspired in the present by contemplating an imaginative vision of the past.

More exactly; I regard New Age spirituality as (approximately) an individual centred seeking after participation of consciousness - a personal quest for alleviation of modern alienation; often by discovering "technologies" by which their own consciousness may be manipulated in the desired direction. 

And the bottom line is "whatever works for me". 

Traditionalist Christians are typically also doing this: they have discovered a religious system, with characteristic ritual, symbolism and sacred books and activities - that "work for them" in inducing the desired spiritual state. 

But in most of New Age, this quest may be hedonic, may be wholly here-and-now and this-worldly...

While for traditionalist Christians, such effects, while usually present (I mean, joy, or at least pleasure, from living and participating in church-endorsed activities) is subordinated to other-worldly goals; perhaps including the transformation of this-world into a specifically-Christian version of Michell's more generic ideal structure and forms.  

 What I am getting-at is that the modern attitude to traditional and (more-or-less) ideal-modelled societies - whether actual and historical or potential and aspired-to - is contemplative and imaginative (at best) - and because of the actuality of our consciousness; it nearly-always takes (as with John Michell) a modern, New Age, and indeed "radical" form. 

In sum, traditionalism cannot help but be a radical traditionalism; and this includes individualistic and New Age discernments and evaluations. 

No matter how viscerally a traditional Christian may despise New Age spirituality - his own religious life shares essentially the same generic aims and methods. 

 

No matter how earnestly someone may seek to become a traditionalist like those of the past; our whole attitude and method will be "radical" - not least because we need actually to be modern society nonconformists and rejecters - that is radicals; in pursuit of becoming (it is hoped, at some point in the future) obedient traditional society acceptors. 

I regard this as an inevitable constraint - a product of the way that we now are, and the way that our consciousness is set-up - individualist and agentic, spontaneously-alienated, inescapably fated to make personal discernments and evaluations. 

For a Christian truth is never just "my" truth; but for a modern Christian, strong and motivating saving-truth needs also to be "my" truth - in a way that was not the case in the past.  

Thus the spiritually-effective Christian life will inevitably share some version of the New Age "Seeking" quest, and will be calibrated by means of a spiritual-responsivity that may well be individually-distinctive, or else rare among the mass of people.  

In theology, it impresses me to find evidence of active thinking - rather than defensive parroting

Its a sad, but inevitable, fact that almost all of Christian theology - is merely defensive parroting. 

Which is to say that the discourse is just people expounding arguments and evidences they have learned from sources approved by the church to which they have chosen to affiliate. 

It is awareness of this parroting quality (on one or both sides) that may produce that sense of frustration at lack of engagement, of unseriousness, of insincerity - or even cowardice; which has been so off-putting to so many modern people who are considering becoming Christians, or who are expressing genuine (not merely expedient) doubts about aspects of their church or Christianity generally.

I suppose there must have been some people who were actively thinking about Jesus Christ and Christianity at some point in history! Indeed, I suppose that the letters of Paul are evidence of this kind of grappling. 

But there has been in Christianity, and very early, and for most (not all) of subsequent history - probably as in most other religions - a strong tendency to draw a line under this thinking for oneself - and a switch to stating (dogmatically) that this primary engagement has been done, the results are in - and the answers are as follows...

From which point the idea is that good Christians need to understand and believe, to learn and rehearse, and to parrot. 

At which point there is no point in talking to them! Arguments are futile! Debate is simulated!

Unless - that is - you are merely curious about such people; or if your goal is to become like them, and be guided in all your fundamental life understandings, motivations and choices - by an institution. Which is, evidently, still a popular aspiration - although almost-never actually achieved.   

  **

Further Note: I have often myself engaged in this defensive parroting! So I know it by inner experience. 

For instance, in medicine, doctors explanations are of this kind, because the doctor has never himself been through the background to medical facts and claims, but is merely repeating what he has been taught or otherwise learned. 

And, of course, most enquiries and dissenting directed at doctors is (almost inevitably) itself shallow and ignorant, or selfish or manipulative... and is not motivated by a genuine desire for discovering truth. 

But Not Always! And then it is maddening to have one's one direct enjoyment met with parroting merely!

At other times, after becoming a Christian, I sometimes found myself in the same situation. I accepted the truth of some external claim - but did not really know it for myself or from primary experience - and indeed such experience tended to refute the external claim, but I deferred to authority on the basis that cleverer and better informed people than myself had been deemed to have sorted-this-out long ago. 

It was really when I - almost against my will - was nigh-compelled to dig deeper and deeper towards the most fundamental aspects of Christianity; that I began to find it ever more obvious that this would Not be how God would set-things-up! 

I mean; I began to feel clear and sure that God would Not create us and the world; such that we were supposed to pick some particular social institution (a church), then adopt an attitude of obedient service and trusting credulity to that institution. 

That would be an absurdly unreliable, fragile, contingent way to plan a system for the salvation of Mankind!  

At around this point, I began to notice when I was parroting about Christianity, and to dislike myself for doing it; and instead felt a necessity to discover the truths by my own thinking and spiritual experience.

And to regard such personal engagement as the bottom line for my understanding of reality - rather than regarding Christian faith as deference-to and parroting-of any particular external source. 

*

Another Note: Why has it become necessary (at least, I would say so) for us actively to think about theology; when in the past it seemed to be not just adequate but often desirable to parrot good authorities? 

My short answer is that we Now live in a totalitarian atheist-materialist world, where all institutions (including all churches) are part of a multi-linked-bureaucratic system that is intrinsically evil: by which I mean intrinsically in-opposition-to God, divine creation and salvation. This was Not the case in the past; and churches were (at least, in some times and places) overall in-harmony-with The Good; such that obedience to the church was sufficient - and probably the safest path.

(Furthermore, In the past nearly-all Men were communal, and substantially lived in a group-consciousness; such that individual and agentic thinking was rare and difficult; whereas now it is the spontaneous default - and indeed difficult to escape, even when we desire to immerse in a shared consciousness.)   

Why is "pride" often considered the worst sin?

The sin of pride is especially insidious and perhaps ineradicable, and an absolute barrier to salvation: because it is the ultimate complacency that "I am good enough as I am".

Salvation is resurrection, and resurrection is a remaking such that we become wholly good, wholly motivated by love...

This includes our recognition that we need remaking, that we need to reject and leave-behind that of us which is dissonant with the euphony of divine creation.

But if we are spiritually-proud, we see no reason why we need to be remade to be fitted for Heaven. 

The proud Man wants, instead, that Heaven be fitted around himself as-is.

Such pride seems very common and normal, and is found among the despised, weak, poor and sick - as also (more obviously) among the strong, arrogant and famous.

**

Note: Of course, pride is not the only blockage to salvation. Self hatred is another, because it is our-self who is resurrected. If we hate our self, we will not desire to be resurrected.

The latest massive-global Litmus Test

The most recent global Litmus Test from the totalitarian Establishment has been very successful. 

Almost everybody I have sampled online has failed it.

Which is to say, people have taken sides - when both sides are ultimately evil - as intended; such that the (Sorathic) agenda of chaotic evil has been advanced.

The last Test on this scale was the Arrakis war (CHOAM versus the Fremen) which was two years ago, so there has been plenty of time to plan this latest.

These Tests are clever, they aren't easy; they're designed to fascinate, shock, induce fear and anger, dupe, misdirect specifically those who have passed the earlier Tests successfully - and this has been achieved.

The lesson of the Litmus Tests, taken together and so-far, has been that Christians cannot allow the totalitarian Establishment to set (and therefore control) the agenda, our moral focus, our life-values, our bottom-line principles for discernment.

Because if we do allow this, by adopting an assigned role, joining a "group" - we are thereby consenting to be enlisted into a project of The Enemy.

We may never know the exact nature of this evil project, indeed there will probably be more than one purpose.

But whenever there is a top-down disseminated global frenzy and we feel the pressure to adopt A Position; we should recognize what is going-on.

Meaningful places are objectively real to me - but why?

For me, there have always been only a few and specific "meaningful places" and I feel more-or-less out of it and adrift anywhere else. 

Where I live now and the surrounding area is meaningful; and also where I used to live in the South West - Devon (although I haven't visited there for a very long time) and Somerset.

Outside these, not many. London, the South East, and pretty much all of the Midlands - except the Welsh border counties (eg Herefordshire, Shropshire) - leave me decidedly cool. 

I find parts of the Scottish side of the Borders to be very magical, and I used to find Edinburgh meaningful, but not for a long time now. And I never found Glasgow meaningful, which was why my time living there made so little an impression. 

Keswick is a favourite meaningful place, and Stratford upon Avon another. 

The first time I went to Norwich I was very taken by it; but later visits did not confirm this. However, I was very taken by Ely (I've been three times, now) and much of rural fenland Cambridgeshire - but not Cambridge itself. 

Oxford, I used to find meaningful, and visited many times across 50 years - but I also found that the magic of the place was progressively fading with every repeat visit. I shall be revisiting soon, and will be curious to see how it is faring...

The point of all this - is that experience has taught me that there is something objective about whether a place or area is meaningful to me. It's not something I can "manufacture" by will power. 

Places that are "theoretically right" for me, and which I strove to find meaningful - can stubbornly resist; and remain disenchanted (Glasgow, Cambridge, for instance). 

While, on the other side, I have also been surprised at how some places grabbed me - Stratford, for instance, I fully expected to find too much of a "tourist trap" yet I was actually bowled-over, and have had many holidays there.

The reason and significance? 

I think it has something to do with our personal destiny.... 

For reasons we probably will never know, I think we get some kind of inner spiritual guidance - subtle, but decisive and strong - about where we ought to be spending our time - and where Not. 

The Good Thief and instant conversion

And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. 

Luke 23: 39-43

I have long been fascinated and inspired by the Biblical examples of people becoming an "instant Christian". 

Whether these narrated events actually happened is, for me, secondary to the fact that I understand the Gospel writers reported them as things that could have happened - and therefore (presumably) instant Christianity was consistent with early Christian practice. 

A particularly beautiful story is that of the "Good" or "Penitent" thief (later dubbed Dysmas by Apocryphal sources). 

What I get from this is that becoming a Christian was a simple and quick matter, in the beginning. 

It can, as here, be reduced to two main requirements, encapsulated in the sentences: Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom and To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

In reverse order I take this to imply: 

1. That Dysmas wanted that which Jesus promised - resurrection into Heaven, which I extrapolate from "with me in Paradise". 

2. That Dysmas recognized Jesus for what he claimed to be ("Lord"), and as following him to be The Way for Men to attain resurrection into Heaven. This, I see as consistent with "remember me" - meaning that salvation is by a personal relationship with Jesus.

Of course, I don't claim that these brief and narrative Bible versus entail the truths of salvation! But I find that they resonate with these truths; and that the felt-message is one of hope and joy for all Men, who are all (and always shall be) ultimately "sinners" - that is we are never, ever, fully-aligned with God's creative will. 

The Good Thief demonstrates that this is not a barrier to our attaining Paradise - so long as we desire to become fully-aligned. 

And that the transformation of our future state is but the work of a moment. 

I, Claudius/ the God and 4-Dimensional Chess in politics

I wonder if it was Robert Graves's massively-influential two-part pseudo-autobiographical novel I, Claudius (or "Clavdivs" as it was written on the cover of the version I read - and which my Granny noticed and read-out phonetically, leading to a continuing family pronunciation-trope) and Claudius the God; that popularized the 4-Dimensional Chess understanding of political leaders - so evident among the self-styled "Right" in the US today. 

Before Graves's books, it seems that Claudius was regarded as a mediocre and weak Emperor, who came in-between the two ultra-evil (hence much more interesting) Emperors: Caligula and Nero. 

Of course, Claudius Caesar was also the Emperor who successfully conquered England - so for us there is an inclination to assume that there "must have" been something more positive to him; since he succeeded in beating "us" where the great Julius had failed (twice). 

At any rate; Graves decided to depict Claudius as a good, clever, and sympathetic man; whose underlying desire and purpose - unspoken, kept in his secret heart - was to abolish the position of Emperor and restore the Roman Republic...

Who nonetheless, by a series of accidents, ended-up becoming the Emperor instead!

This assumption I found convincing in I, Claudius, which covers the time before he became Emperor; but becomes increasingly untenable as we progress through all the corruptions and evils of Claudius's actual reign, and his final decision to allow himself to be poisoned, and Nero to become his successor. 

Yet Graves sticks with the idea that Claudius always aimed at good; and manages this by attributing all sorts of 4-D chess attributes. Including the final desperate master-stroke of ensuring that Claudius himself would be followed by the worst possible successor - in the (as it turned-out, mistaken) belief that after Nero, the situation of Rome would become so very-bad that (surely?) the Republic would be restored.  

This did not convince me at the time I first read C the G (aged 14) - and it does not convince me now. 

Nor am I convinced by attempts to depict current (or recent) mainstream political figures - who advocate-promote-and-do, many or most of the usual mainstream-evil things; to depict such characters  as being - in their secret hearts - agents for good... 

Biding their time, taking the long view; (like Saruman) regretting that the ultimate end unfortunately entails implementing malignant means, here-and-now... 

But with a Master Plan to ensure the restoration of common sense and decency in public life; by means of a covert strategy far beyond the comprehension of us ordinary mortals - yet working behind-the-scenes, always and tirelessly, for our betterment. 

It's important to recognize how very bad things actually are - civilizationally

A recurrent source of disagreement I have with nearly everybody, and going back to about 2008; is that I am acutely aware that our civilization is in a really, really bad way - much, much worse than almost almost-anybody is prepared even to entertain as a possibility. 

This seems to me very obvious! And also that the problems are as deep as such problems can be - problems of false fundamental assumptions concerning reality, and problems that the strongest human motivations in this life are disordered...

The problem of habitual and compulsive dishonesty (including, most damagingly, with oneself), and the problem of being unable or unwilling to learn from repeated experiences. 

...To mention only some of the fundamental problems. 

I suppose one reason that this conviction of mine is hardly shared, is that people evaluate civilization first in terms of how they personally are feeling, here-and-now - and if they are feeling OK or happy, they infer that nothing can be seriously wrong. 

Or that people evaluate civilization in terms of sheer abstract survival and continuity. SO that as long as things haven't actually collapsed, or can - at least - be imaged as rebounding or self-correcting (even over multigenerational timescales) then nothing can be seriously wrong. 

And under this is the truth that matters of civilization aren't our concern, really. Civilizations are not as product of human will and planning - and neither is their continuation. They are a kind of unavoidable backdrop and essential sustenance - and (evidently) a colossal influence in spiritual aspirations, beliefs,  perceptions - and yet these matters cannot be positively influenced in an overall or top-down fashion (although they can be negatively affected). 

In the end, spiritually speaking; we are individual persons and agents - no matter how much we try to elude this; and our primary social concern is with loving relationships - which are the only like that "society" has to the great dramas of spiritual learning and salvation. 

Therefore I am not-at-all saying that we ought to recognize how very bad things actually are because this might help us to make them better! 

What I am saying here; is that - unless we recognize how bad things actually are - then we Will Not Actually pursue the real business of our lives - i.e. the great dramas of spiritual learning and salvation.  

While some may argue that we don't need to acknowledge the evil nature of the Big Picture in order our-selves to be good; this seems decisively to be refuted by experience. Unless people feel themselves spiritually detached from our civilization in a profound metaphysical and motivational way; then for so long they will be aligned with the agenda of evil - and at a deep level of affiliation that subverts surface declarations and practices.   

In other words: observation of what happens when not; brings me to the conviction that we need (yes need) to sense, know, acknowledge, take-account of; just how very bad things really are civilizationally - if we our-selves are to be able to become clear about this mortal life - and make Christian personal discernments and choices. 

To be free to choose to follow Jesus, and to learn from our actual lives; entails that we know the nature of our spiritual situation in this world.  

Anything less just doesn't cut it. 

***

NOTE ADDED: I would like to emphasize that the fullest recognition of how very bad things are; is, or can be, in its effect a great and immediate liberation. 

By it we are freed from futile engagement with that utterly vast, and impossibly complicated, web of distortions and manipulations that is the realm of public discourse. 

Positively: we become true agents; with both authority and need to stand on our own evaluations.

And thereby we become primarily responsible for understanding our place in this world, and deciding our desired destination beyond it. 

The desire for spiritual power...

Once one has acknowledged the reality and primacy of the spiritual world, comes the question of what to do about it; and since we dwell in this world then it seems inevitable we shall hope that spiritual power will be used to improve this world in ways that we desire. 

This motivation is often ascribed particularly to those who practice magic in its various forms; but is equally common among the religious - including Christians. 

Most of what Christians hope-for and work-for is focused on improving mortal life in this world - albeit sometimes this improvement is conceptualized in terms of providing a better environment for the encouragement of conversion and spiritual development. 

Yet, I suppose that most Christians would acknowledge that their primary efforts ought to be devoted towards eternal life beyond this mortal life - to whatever is the form of spiritual preparation for Heavenly existence that they personally regard as most necessary and desirable. 

This, then, seems to be our situation. The way we are made and the way of the world dictates that we cannot help but focus on the material and physical conditions of this mortal life, and from our own perspective. 

While at the same time Christians know that this ought-to-be secondary to regarding the spirit as primary and post-mortal life as the priority. 

In this respect, the situation resembles the rest of life: we know better than we can actually live-by, and often by a large margin; and therefore repentance rather than reform is the only sure answer. 

Nonetheless, most people make matters much worse than they need to be, by their chosen commitments to this-worldly engagements; and then they are led-into choosing to make this-worldly considerations (usually political in nature) not just their consuming interest - but their bottom-line morality: that upon which they are most motivated, most intransigent.   

Unfortunately, the Christian churches encourage exactly this; in that they operate in terms of self-definition, inclusions and exclusion, primarily in terms of various this-life and this-worldly stances... As is almost inevitable for any institution in today's totalitarian environment. 

In conclusion; the most important thing is that we can and do, as individuals and in our personal conviction, stand apart from this-worldly concerns; and refuse to be manipulated sufficiently to keep a clear head and heart about what is primary...

Get clear on what ought-to-be most important.

And what ought-to-be our bottom-line, no compromise, motivating convictions. 

...This will not be found in the realm of public discourse; which is the domain of Satan. 

Apparently very few people, very few Christians, are able to accomplish this basic spiritual task at present.

As is evident from their passionately-expressed concerns about an event mega-reported as top news in the mainstream mainstream over the past couple of days.

This is, in other words, another Litmus Test - and, as usual, most self-identified Christians who have expressed their "opinion" (i.e. adopted a pre-allocated role in the totalitarian narrative) have - so far - failed it spectacularly.  

Residual spontaneous enchantment that can be elicited by religion, and its dwindling

One conceptualization (derived from Barfield and Steiner) that I have found helpful; is that modern Man is emerging from a situation in which we had a significant (and powerful) residuum of spontaneous enchantment, by which our experience was of participation in the world around us - and when this spontaneous tendency lay dormant until triggered by symbols, rituals, and various "spiritual systems". 

This was the situation of Men in Classical and Medieval times - the times when institutional and formal religions emerged and dominated spiritual life.

But since around the advent of modernity - perhaps starting some 5000 years ago, but becoming dominant something like 2000 years ago in the Industrial Revolution era; we have been incrementally coming-into a situation when the spiritual systems with their symbols, rituals, texts etc are no longer able to evoke that latent enchantment (hence mass atheism) - or only weakly so (hence the feebleness of current religions - see 2020 for confirmation of this feebleness). 

Because formal religions and spiritual systems really did work in the past; then it is usually assumed that they are the only and proper way of evoking enchantment here-and-now...

And then it turns out that they actually don't release our latent capacity for enchantment because that latent capacity to become enchanted by symbol and ritual has dwindled, often to the point of disappearance... 

And Here We Are. 

The usual inferences are:

1. Give up on religion because it doesn't work. 

2. Hold fast to religion, even-though it doesn't work. 

But my inference is that religion - no matter how effective it really was at eliciting the experience of enchantment, in some places and times - was itself only ever a spiritual system, and religion never-was the spirit itself. 

Our task is to go behind religion and seek the spirit directly - with the expectation that strong, convincing, and motivating enchantment - shall reliably arise from such an encounter.

And this requires faith that personal seeking of direct spiritual experience is indeed what God wants from each of us, here-and-now. 

 

Notice: The movie Greyhound, 2020

I have just re-watched the movie Greyhound (2020) written by and starring Tom Hanks; which focuses on the Captain of a destroyer (from which the film is named) escorting a convoy from the US to Liverpool in early 1942. 

It is the Captain's first escort mission; and the movie is seen from his perspective - its subject is really the responsibility of command in a life and death situation; and the depictions of anti-submarine war are exciting, and (given that there is a lot of CGI, inevitably) involving and convincing. 

Overall Greyhound is a very good movie - which is well structured, paced, and framed - and avoids the usual tedious war movie tropes. Only c.90 minutes long (like most of the best movies!), it is never hurried, but nonetheless packs-in a deal of detailed incident.

The Captain's devout Christian faith is presented sympathetically and as integral to his admirable character. I found the service in which he presided as three sailors were buried at sea (in a brief gap in the combat) moved me to tears.

After watching it for the first time, I read the CS Forester book - The Good Shepherd - from which Greyhound was derived; and would also recommend that as excellent. 

One difficulty is that Greyhound was sold to TV's Apple plus during the Birdemic - so that it never got a cinema release, and was never properly distributed. How to watch it without subscribing to yet another streaming service is a problem; for which those interested will need to seek a solution.   

The evil propaganda of metaphysical personal insignificance

When looking back across what is known of human history; it is notable that whatever was the official and established religion of the past, and whatever is the atheistic materialism of the present - almost all of them share a fundamental, metaphysical, assumption that individual people are insignificant in the context of total reality. 

All these systems of religion or ideology seem to be united in an insistence that individual human beings cannot make any difference to the Big Picture in the Long Term.

Nonetheless, despite that individuals make no difference whatever they think/ say/ do - the conclusion is drawn that it is a sin, or dumb, or an insane delusion - but certainly a Bad Thing - if or when an individual believes that he does or can make a difference to eternal reality. 

What is recommended of each individual is always to recognize and accept his own ultimate insignificance; and therefore to strive for something like humility, servitude, obedience, self-abnegation. 

Despite vast differences between religions, and between religion and no-religion, and between ideologies - it is striking how they all nearly-always converge on this same assertion: 

"Ultimately, you don't matter. You need to accept this as a fact, and live accordingly."

So many millennia of anti-individual propaganda, hammering down on us throughout our lives, is indirect evidence that we have contrary innate, spontaneous, and instinctual conviction that we are personally significant, and we do matter as individuals; and that what we think, say and do, can make a difference to the Big Picture - and permanently. 

And that this difference may be positive. 

There is, I suggest, an inbuilt assumption that we, each of us personally, and alone; can potentially make total-reality Better. 

I don't think we need persuading of this, because it is a given. 

But we do need some kind of metaphysical explanation of how this could be true...*

(i.e. An explanation of just how I personally could contribute something unique, irreplaceable, and positive; to eternal reality.)

We need this especially; given that "all" the society-wide and available metaphysical explanations of history, seem to be dedicated to explaining how we personally are necessarily insignificant, and therefore cannot make any difference to reality...

(Or - maybe - explaining that, by believing in our personal significance and trying to contribute positively; we will necessarily be doing wrong, and making matters worse.)

Therefore, as so often; we need to seek an explanation for ourselves and to our own satisfaction - rather than seeking it ready made, from external sources, or to the satisfaction of social authorities. 

* An explanation of how it is true that we personally and alone can potentially contribute something positive, unique and eternal to divine creation; is a thing that my partly-self-developed metaphysical assumptions and Christian theology intends to accomplish: to my personal satisfaction, at least!

Note added: I would also state that I've noticed that some highly individualistic, eccentric, and creative people are among the most ardent advocates of standard/ off-the-peg/ incoherent metaphysical monism. I tend to assume that there is a psychological explanation for this - that it is a consequence of guilt. And perhaps also of trying to provide "cover" for that person's many violations of the metaphysical consequences of his supposedly fundamental beliefs - in a situation when that person cannot adequately explain his own nature and choices in terms of his own assumptions. What is instead needed is for such people really to examine the nature and basis of their metaphysical assumptions - but these are often dogmatically insisted-upon by the authorities that he most respects. In the end, something gives - as it must... 

The World War II Bomber Mafia nearly lost the war for Britain - an early instance of parasitic bureaucratic delusion

The West in 2025 is replete with parasitic bureaucratic delusions - such as the CO2 climate psychosis, antiracism and xenophilia, feminism, pseudo-healthism and so on - which each weaken, and together will probably destroy, our nations and civilization.  

An early example of the parasitic bureaucratic delusion phenomenon was the Bomber Doctrine which led to the Bomber Mafia - which in World War II dominated the thinking of Winston Churchill and those with strategic control of the UK military. 

In brief; the Bomber Doctrine was that long-range bombing could win a major war, by destroying the enemy's capacity to wage war and creating a state of national chaos - after which the Army could simply "walk in" and take-over. The Navy was consigned to a very minor role altogether. 

This hypothesis (it was hardly even that - more of a story, scenario, set-of-assertions) was warmly received after the years of mass-slaughterous infantry stalemate in the First World War; and the Bomber Doctrine became the basis for the continued-existence and expansion of the RAF. 

Unless you have read some of the things said in the years leading up to WWII and even during that war, you probably could not believe the extent to which it was seriously argued that strategic bombing was, by itself, sufficient to win the war with Germany. 

Arguing that, for instance, Fighter Command was not necessary - was indeed a waste of resources that should be directed into building more and bigger bombers. 

If it had not been for the foresight, ability, character and intransigence of Hugh Dowding (in charge of Fighter Command leading up to the war); Britain would undoubtedly have lost the Battle of Britain.  

Bomber Command even regarded the 1944 invasion of France and Western Europe as a needless waste of resources that they could better have used - and strongly opposed D-Day, tried not to cooperate with planning - but were eventually compelled into reluctant cooperation. 

The appeal of the Bomber Doctrine in WWII Britain, especially in the early half of the war - was that it clamed and promised (and the word promise is literally true) that Strategic Bombing would win the war, without need for an invasion of Europe, on its own, and despite Britain's Army being outmatched by the German Army - if only the bombing could become large enough in scale.

Therefore the Bomber Doctrine had an apparently irresistible appeal to those who were determined that Britain could and should destroy Germany and retake Europe - from its position of besieged isolation. 

The consequence was that - in practice - everything possible should be sacrificed to the bombing imperative. Whatever the national emergency or military crisis, for believers in the Doctrine and their supporters; the answer was always the same: more bombers, more strategic bombing. 

The Bomber Mafia fought, with considerable success - to suck resources from all the other branches of the RAF; and from the Army and Navy in general. 

Indeed it has been estimated (it is hard to be exact, but this is not implausible) that the total resources consumed by RAF Bomber Command during WWII were greater than the entirety of the rest of the armed forces put-together - i.e. greater than the British Army, Royal Navy, RAF Fighter Command, and RAF Coastal Command, combined. 

And that this was largely responsible for the national debt that delayed UK recovery from the war for so much longer than anywhere else.    

As it was, Britain very nearly lost the war in early 1943 by severance of the absolutely vital ship-borne supplies - ie. defeat by the U-Boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. It seems that the nation came very close to collapse - it was a real emergency, for those not blinded by the Doctrine*.  

What is horrifying to me is that this near-loss was preventable; and had been caused by the domination and intransigence of the Bomber Mafia, and the psychological hold the Bomber Doctrine had on Churchill - and those responsible for the allocation of resources and priorities between the various competing demands of the war effort.  

With the escalating U-Boat threat; air cover was essential to successfully defending naval convoys. This was perfectly possible - but until late in 1943, Coastal Command was starved of resources and aircraft by the insatiable maw of Bomber Command - which took nearly-all of the suitable escort and anti-submarine aircraft, and all of the best aircraft. 

What was needed was a very long range four-engined aircraft that could provide air-cover across the whole Atlantic; and it was well within technological capabilities to provide such machines quickly and in large numbers; and thereby protect the vital convoys. 

But the Bomber Mafia fought bitterly and tirelessly to keep all such aircraft for its own allegedly war-winning effort - and were, overall, supported in this by Churchill. 

(Eventually Coastal Command got sufficient Very Long Range Liberator aircraft to provide full air-cover, hunt and destroy the U-Boats, and win the Battle of the Atlantic.) 

My point here is that the very-nearly war-losing and delusionally-false Bomber Doctrine was never more than a purely-hypothetical, un-tested and un-evidenced, dreamed-up narrative.

But it was a make-believe tale that was adopted and sustained by a powerful bureaucracy - which "sold" the idea to those who wanted it to be true - for whatever various reasons of their own. 

Once the Bomber Doctrine was established and psychologically-accepted, and the Bomber Mafia had become entrenched and powerful - then logic, evidence, even the imminence of national collapse - could not dent it. 

The Bomber Doctrine was a psychosis, that fuelled a parasite (the Bomber Mafia), which all-but annihilated the nation that hosted it. 

The Bomber Doctrine was, then, a literal psychosis - and one that (at least) twice very-nearly lost Britain the war - and by bankrupting the nation, lost us the peace that followed - but this made literally zero difference to its proponents... Except to increase their fanatical zeal.

The analogy with our present situation is obvious. 

Nothing short of the actual collapse of the nation and civilization will stop the delusional bureaucratic parasites from their work of destruction. 

And looking-out from the ruins, upon the chaos they helped cause - still they will never admit that they were wrong all along.

*Bomber Command seemed unable to grasp even that they themselves needed to win the Battle of the Atlantic in order to function. Britain imported all her oil and petrol by ship, without which bombers would - obviously - be unable to fly! Yet such was the delusional nature of their thinking that simple self-interest could not overcome it... Again this psychotic incoherence is something seen in analogous bureaucratic situations, here-and-now. 

  

The problem of self-justifying ethical systems

It is a matter of frequent observation that during the era of modernity - i.e. for the past several hundred years - that there has been a continual pressure to change ("reform") generally-applicable religious moral systems in ways that conform to a need for people to justify their own personal and specific desires and pleasures.

Most often the impulse is sexual. 

I could not count the number of twentieth century political figures, intellectuals, and authors; whose anti-Christian atheism has been (more or less explicitly) motivated by their desire to have systemic-justification for their own sexual desires. 

(The same applies to other, non-sexual, preferences. It is quite normal and unremarked, for people to argue from their own preferences to the conclusion that everybody and everything be organized-around their gratification. But sex and sexuality is the commonest and most obvious example.)

At first this was a desire for extra-marital sex, then for (a lot of) promiscuous sex, later for same sex relationship, then for changing sex and all the rest of it. But whatever the personal desire happened to be in an individual - this was linked to a general demand that social/ civilizational ethical codes and moral values be altered to endorse it positively. 

This kind of systemic self-justifying morality is so "normal" in our era, that it seems (somehow) admirable to the modern mind (as well as supposedly inevitable) that people will advocate and propagandize to encourage society to allow/ encourage/ subsidize their personal sexual aspirations. 

This powerful desire for societal - indeed civilizational- ethical systems to permit/ approve/ enforce one's personal sexual (or other) preferences has become the almost unquestioned basis for a good deal of organized radical politics for many decades. 

And yet; such an attitude is both very unusual in world historical terms. 

It is also, and  would have thought very obviously, an incoherent and unsustainable way of developing social ethical frameworks! 

In the past it seems to have been normal for those who devised societal ethical systems to construct them on the basis of what they supposed to be "the general good" - albeit that the "general" was typically restrictively defined, to almost entirely the ruling class, priestly class, or whoever had greatest influence on societal morality. 

Individual desires were (at least among the powerful) accommodated by "hypocrisy" - in other words, those who gratified desires deemed unethical by the general system; nonetheless supported the general system - on the simple basis that: the general morality was best for most of the people (i.e. people who mattered) for most of the time and over the longer run.  

But here-and-now, it is usual and normative for an individual person - but particularly the intellectual class - to reason that because he personally has a particular sexual desire; therefore society ought to be restructured to accommodate and enforce the fulfilment of that desire. 

Personal preference is projected into the demand for social norms to be built-around it. 

This goes with a fanatical hatred of hypocrisy, regarded as The Worst of ethical transgressions - which increasingly permeates literature and the arts from the late 19th century. 

Such that it is now regarded as much better for someone to be openly and explicitly cynical, selfish, even evil - and explicitly to advocate a low standard (or even inverted) morality; than to express belief in the rightness of high moral values, but then fail to achieve them. 

Consequently the anti-hero, a selfish, cynical (but charismatic) villain who does whatever he desires and takes whatever he fancies - is the admired character in modern cultural productions. 

Whereas anyone who espouses high moral standards (higher standards than he personally can achieve) will be portrayed as boring, coercively-authoritarian, coldly cruel - and he invariably gets exposed as a vile hypocrite before the end. 

Such has been the inversional-denouement of most mainstream, popular, and (especially) critically-admired TV, movies and novels for several generations. 

It is a bizarre but stark reality of Western Civilization here-and-now that the primacy of general morality over personal gratification has become so very enfeebled as to be almost ineffectual. 

And instead the dominant societal ethic has become one in which it is explicitly argued that gratification of individual sexual desires (of one sort or another) ought necessarily and always to be the basis for general, societal, ethical systems*. 

However... Does it really need to be pointed-out that maximizing a multitude of selfish short-termist sexual desires is - and surely obviously? - a reliable recipe for social annihilation?  

Self-justifying ethical systems are clearly a blueprint for cumulative moral destruction. 

Yet it is remarkable how seldom that surely-destructive consequences of self-justifying ethical systems have been noticed or acknowledged by the most influential commentators of the past few generations...

On the other hand; sex is very far from being the only example when obviously and necessarily destructive consequences of their moral projects are invisible to mainstream intellectuals!  

Which facts tell me that the the mass of the most prestigious and powerful intellectuals of The West, have been (for a long time, and continuing) actively promoting degenerative social destruction, and are therefore (whether witting or unwitting) allies and servants of the demonic party.

This blind or wilful mass servitude to the agenda against God, Divine Creation and The Good; is something we ought continually to bear in mind when we consume the outputs of officialdom, mass media, news, science, the arts, education - and everywhere else that intellectuals are employed.

Especially whenever we suspect that general moral systems are being pushed on the basis of self-justification. 

Because I think the problem lies with a rather specific moral weakness of intellectuals as a class; which is a burning desire for ethical self-justification - at almost any cost.  

*I am here pointing out the evil of self-justifying ethical systems. But this destructive fallacy would not have arisen to dominate had it altogether lacked moral appeal; had there not been significant and oppressive evils in the previously-existing justifications and implementations of group morality - sufficient that these could seem intolerable. 

Such that a return from where-we-now-are to pre-modern morality is not just unattainable but undesirable. 

As so often; both alternatives presented by modern culture for our choice are bad; although the pre-modern is certainly the lesser evil. 

My inference is therefore that we are each required to discover a third - and genuinely good - alternative; and I observe that society does not offer us any genuine alternative ready-made. 

Therefore; moral exploration and discernment is something that each must do for himself. 

Saturday music: Some Irish reels on flute, by Kevin Crawford

I have a particular fondness for Irish reels* and jigs played on the flute; and this is an exceptionally good example of the genre - played by Kevin Crawford and backed by Bodhran (drum) and Guitar: the tunes are Dillon's Fancy, Maids in the Meadow & Toss the Feathers. 

I find Crawford's playing here to be irresistible; almost miraculous in its rapidity and accuracy, the decorations and emphasis - and the way that the necessary breathing is integrated into the rhythm - usually as off-beats which add a kind of syncopation. 

The flute tone is also rich and pleasing - especially the low notes.  

*A reel is a fast folk tune, in 4/4 time with lots of quavers, originally for dancing - but nowadays more often for listening (hence played even faster than when for dancing).

Is Everything a Total Fake?

It is an interesting and significant fact, that major-controlling institutions in our totalitarian Western society often tolerate - and indeed fund and publicise - books, TV, movies, and social commentary; the arguments of which categorically assert that Everything in public discourse is a Fake - and, in the most uncompromising versions - always has been a Fake, through history.

The expounded idea is that official and mass media narratives are (in general) pure illusion, based on nothing at all; an eggshell of false narrative enclosing a void of real life content. 

At the most extreme level, the "Everything a Fake" people seem to be saying that "nothing ever happened" - at least nothing that was said officially to have happened. They are suggesting that public discourse has always been pure illusion.  

With individual exceptions - this is not generally true, especially not as we go further back into eras in which the mass media and state propaganda systems were smaller and less effective.

I feel confident that "Everything has always been a Fake" is not true, from the big changes in increasing fakery that I have experienced through my lifespan, and by the obvious acceleration of such trends through the 1990s and into the 21st century. 

If Fakery has got so much worse in living memory, then clearly things were less faked in the past. 

Also, we know that Total Fakery isn't the norm from the huge efforts that The System invests to make things happen. 

This would not be the case if it was normal and expected to manufacture significant fakes from zilch. Important fakes aren't built on nothing, for the obvious reason that then they would be less effective. 

We all know that lies mixed with facts are much more convincing than complete fabrications. 

 

When fakery incorporates real aspects of actual events; fakes are far more difficult to disentangle and thereby disprove outright - hence far more convincing to the credulous and inattentive majority. 

What (in general) happened in the past was that underlying events were essentially real (albeit much more often contrived by the authorities than realized at the time); but the truth of reality was exaggerated, or twisted by fakery, in order to manipulate public opinion. 

The incremental trend (especially over the past several generations) was both for fakery to become more dominant; and for the underlying real events to become more top-down contrived. 

For instance, the 2020 Birdemic was very nearly a Total Fake; in that it was invented, planned, and implemented top-down - and some "evidential" aspects were Total Fakes (e.g. things that had not happen were theatrically staged and filmed). 

But as a total phenomenon; the Birdemic incorporated many real world actions and events - and the consequences of pseudo-therapeutic interventions (e.g. extra deaths caused by supposedly anti-Birdemic medico-social changes) - into its pre-determined narrative. 

Eventually; there resulted a hyper-complex and deliberately-confused mass of many inventions, illusions and lies - built-upon and mixed-with a few factual realities. 

Consequently; we know for sure that the official narratives are all false and deliberately misleading; but it can never be known what actually happened minus the Fakery. 

The lesson is that although some small things are indeed a Total Fake, most important lies will interweave real facts and events. 

Which does not, of course, mean that there is "some truth" in (for instance) the Birdemic, the CO2 Climate narrative, or the current top-down imposition of AI; because events and facts are not truth. 

We must learn to distinguish between facts and truth: facts only have meaning when interpreted by theory. 

Thus, when theory is false and dishonest, then "real facts" can only serve to sustain a false and dishonest understanding. 

In sum: all the major strategies of the global totalitarians are fundamentally and intentionally false - despite their not being total fakes; and despite whatever correct facts and real events are woven into them.

Total Fakery is not the real problem - which is why people are encouraged (officially!) to entertain the idea of Total Fakes at such length, and in such detail. 

It is intentional untruthfulness in service to evil intent, that is the real problem.         

 

Seeking an external, socio-political, cure for modern alienation

Like many people I began to feel alienated, cut-off, "trapped inside my head", from other people and from nature, at the onset of adolescence. 

And I sought some, at least theoretical, way of relieving this chronic state of dysphoria. Something better situation that I could look forward to. 

Up to the age of about nineteen, I pinned my hopes on socio-political change. 

It was Karl Marx who seemed to have popularized this idea of alienation as a socio-political phenomenon; due, ultimately, to class economic disempowerment. And the idea that alienation both could and should be cured by wholesale communist revolutionary societal change.  

As an adolescent; I implicitly agreed with this basic analysis. I saw the problem in The World (not myself). However, I was never a revolutionary communist. 

Nonetheless I saw the answer in socialism: either in a gradualistic Fabian socialism that would free everyone by abolishing poverty and providing universally decent and stimulating conditions. Or, more deeply, in a socialism of the William Morris type - a medievalism that fitted with my yearnings for Middle Earth, and what seemed like the paradisal societies there depicted. 

In sum - I looked outside myself and to society at large for the answer to my personal alienation. My implicit idea was that if society in general could be set right, then I personally would feel engaged with "the world" in the ways that I most hoped for. 

My impression is that this external and socio-political solution is where most people stand on the issue of alienation, most of the time; in so far as they are at all aware of it in themselves.

(This is, indeed, a deep reason why so many people are so engaged by politics; why for so many politics provides their bottom-line motivation; why ideology has replaced religion in The West. People are not just seeking different social arrangements, but more profoundly there is a hope that such arrangements will alleviate their post-adolescent estrangement and assuage their yearnings to participate in reality.) 

I mean that most people never get further than seeking a cure for their inner malaise in some hoped-for societal reform or revolution. 

But aged nineteen I changed my perspective; and changed it to one that saw the answer in terms of my own consciousness; my attitude to the world; how I understood reality, framed it, my aspirations and attitudes. 

This perspective I adopted is one that seems to have been initiated partly by the failure of politics; and then by reading several key books -- including Michael Tippet's Moving into Aquarius (which led onto CG Jung), Colin Wilson's The Outsider, and the early few chapters (written or much influenced by Wilson) of William Arkle's A Geography of Consciousness. 

Over the following years this led onto all sorts of other books of a very broadly "New Age" kind - but it is important to note that I remained an atheist (as I had been since age six); or at most perhaps an abstract kind of pantheist. 

In particular, I did not believe this reality was created - and especially not by a personal God. 

So, in practice, my perspective throughout "young" adult life was - at its bottom line - psychological; in other words the desired change of consciousness was something that needed to come from physical/ material changes in the minds and brains of myself and (plus/minus) other human beings.  

In sum, and in terms of an answer to alienation; aged about nineteen, I moved from seeking a bottom-line societal, to seeking a bottom-line psychological answer to this problem. 

And the answer was necessarily understood in terms of improving my own "happiness" primarily, the happiness of others I cared about secondarily, within the span of this mortal life - because mortal life was all that really-is.  

After a few years of approaching and circling the matter; it was only at the age of forty-nine that I fully began to seek the answer to alienation in spiritual and other-worldly terms; made possible after becoming convinced that reality was created by a personal God. 

In seeking a cure for alienation in the assumption of an individually-relevant purpose and meaning in life; I came to see that this made objective sense (that is a sense that rises above the subjective level of wishful thinking or delusion) - in a universe created by a personal and loving God. 

It is within that context I now sought a cure for alienation - and eventually found it in the resurrection promise of Jesus Christ. 

My current understanding is (ultimately) neither socio-political nor psychological but instead spiritual. 

I believe that alienation is part of the human condition in this mortal life; which life God intends to be a transitional and learning stage of our eternal existence, a phase en route to Heaven. 

We cannot escape this-worldly alienation in this mortal life, except partially and temporarily, because this is the primary creation in which entropy and evil are mixed, and permeate our-selves.

In that sense this mortal life on earth is by its nature (and considered alone, as if free-standing) something of a tragedy, that cannot be cured within its own limits. And that is why decades of seeking and striving failed to fin an answer. The was no answer to be had. 

But because I regard mortal life as a temporary phase; I can confidently look forward to a complete answer to my alienation - which answer is that full, active and conscious participation in the divine work, in context of mutual love untainted by death and evil - on the other side of death; in the Second Creation of Jesus Christ. 

Reading mainstream Christian theology nowadays, I am amazed I converted!

I have just been reading an exposition of mainstream Christian theology - the theology common to Western and Eastern Catholics and the major Protestant denominations; and I am struck by how it nowadays strikes me as utterly unsatisfactory - being over-inclusive; and consequently incoherent, and evasive. 

It would really have repelled me from becoming a Christian, had I realized that I was signing-up to commit-to believe in such stuff.

From my current understanding, the deep problem seems to be at least twofold:

One is recurrently trying to fit Christianity into oneness philosophy - which leads to a recurrent compulsion to talk of unity as our aspiration and ultimate goal; and thereby to dissolve away individuality, freedom, evil, and indeed Time.  

The other is trying to make Christianity into a this-worldly religion, suitable for incorporation in a church, a method for improving human behaviour, and to serve as the basis for a nation. 

Part of this was making Christianity into an historical religion, provided with an arc either of spiritual decline or spiritual progress. And a this-worldly end-point - including a "second coming" of Jesus. 

   

By trying to provide for too much, Christian theology ends-up making itself into a species of abstract nonsense. 

Whereas Jesus's teaching (as seen in the IV Gospel) is actually very simple and clear; but it is next-worldly. 

The reality of Jesus's "religion" was neither about making better-people nor a better-world - either immediately or in the long term - so the fact that this evidently did not happen, and shows no sign of happening, is not a refutation.  

Jesus offered individual people the chance to follow him to resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

It is by resurrection (by being born again) that better people are made, and it is post-mortal Heaven that is the better world - the world which Jesus actually promised. 

So really, the Christianity of Jesus Christ was next-worldly, and its societal effects on this world, are derivative from the individual consequences of personal confidence in Jesus's promises about the next world.

 

But, unsurprisingly, most people want palliation and happiness now, they demand that their religion promises a better mortal life, an improved society and civilization, they want justice on earth far more than the promise of Heaven. 

And (apparently) from soon after Jesus ascended; the theologians and philosophers have made valiant attempts to construct a "Christianity" that provides what various people, at various times, have demanded of a this-worldly religion. 

By passing itself off as this-worldly when it actually is not; and by trying to satisfy people's demands for a better mortal life and a more congenial social situation - official Christianity became bloated, distorted, and non-sensical. 

Which is a terrible shame indeed, because all this is a significant obstacle to the intellectually honest. 

I was only able to become a Christian by persuading myself that I was not thereby committed to believing everything that people officially told me - any more than in my life as a scientist and academic I was bound to believe everything written in textbooks, or indeed everything said or written by even the best in the field.

Eventually, I did find the truth in Christianity, and only in Christianity; but the real truth is of a different kind - than the this-worldly promises which I - like most people - were seeking and hoping for...

Not that there is anything wrong with wanting to live a better life in a better world; but we need to be clear that at best this can only be a temporary and local palliation of the fundamental human condition. 

The lesson of Jesus Christ is that we really can have what our hearts most desire; but only on the other side of death, and only in Heaven but not on Earth.  

  

Owen Barfield's concept of participation provides the basis of what is needed for Christians, as of 2025

Owen Barfield's concept of participation provides the basis of what is needed for Christians, as of 2025 and going forward. 

Barfield assumes that participation in Divine Creation is both our nature as created beings; and also the proper aim of created beings. 

Creation is in the direction of developing participation in the direction of freely creating in greater consciousness. 

More exactly, that this is our proper aim as Christian beings who have chosen to live by love and therefore in harmony with God's creative will. 

The reason why participation is so centrally and vitally important to Christians, is that it is by participation that there is creation in the first place. 

Creation is itself (if properly understood) a matter of participation; because creation is (as all Christians acknowledge) primarily a matter of love. 

For there to be love in this "relational" and personal Christian sense; there must be distinct beings each with the capacity for loving - and then love needs to be mutually chosen.

The cohesion of divine creation should therefore be understood as an ongoing process of harmonizing the motivations of beings; harmonization through the love between beings. 

In different words; divine creation is (partly) a matter of once indifferent beings, coming to participate-in the creative direction of God's loving nature; through loving God and loving one-another. 

It is this love between Beings that is the basis of the harmony that is creation.

But divine creation is also living, dynamic, continuing, increasing... And by the Christian understanding it is God's intention that Men become fully (and divine) Sons of God; share in the work of creation, and who each contribute something unique (because from themselves), new, and additional-to creation. 

Therefore, the direction of creation is towards greater consciousness and choice among beings - towards an increasingly-active participation - which change must be freely-chosen by each being. 

That is to say; there is a change through time from a mostly passive, mostly unconscious, harmony of creation in which individuals largely serve the divine will and each does not bring much new and additional to the whole...

And towards what must necessarily be a more collegial participation in the work of creation; by which every single being that chooses to live by love, is consciously enabled to contribute that which is unique in himself and which he learns to the totality of creation.