Review of The Occult Battle of Britain - by Paul Weston (2019)

For the last couple of weeks, I have been reading a fascinating book called The Occult Battle of Britain - History, Magic, Mythology from the 19th century to 1946, by Paul Weston and originally published in 2019. 

The book can be considered as an extensive background to the similarly titled The Magical Battle of Britain, by Dion Fortune and edited by Gareth Knight, which I've previously mentioned. 

Dion Fortune (a woman I both like and admire, and who I regard as a genius) is perhaps the central character. 

The climax is the magical activity in which she was engaged before and during the Battle of Britain - and the timeline ends with her death in 1946. In broad terms the book is about the intersection of occult thinking with the rise of National Socialism in Germany, and its opposition from within Britain - culminating in the Battle of Britain and its aftermath. 

The method is chronological. Starting in the late 19th century, with the international spread of spiritualism; then HP Blavatsky and the (extraordinarily influential) rise of Theosophy; and the Golden Dawn and similar revivals of ritual magic (magic both white and black in nature) - Weston notes some of the main characters involved, and what was happening in Germany and in England - but especially in relation to Glastonbury and its "Avalonians". 

As well as Fortune; Avalonians Wellesley Tudor Pole and Ronald Heaver are followed; since they had a complementary role to play in the occult side of events of 1940. Also; both TP and Heaver were long-term involved in military intelligence; as were many others from both sides of that apparent divide. 

Heaver was heavily involved in the (seemingly) utterly bizarre British Israelite movement - about which I previously knew almost nothing - and it has now disappeared from public consciousness. Yet, although the assumptions and goals of the BIs strike me as almost incomprehensibly strange and misguided; this was clearly a strong movement within the British ruling class - including intelligence services - up to a high level, and had a role to play in global geopolitics.   

With the notable (and noble!) exception of Dion Fortune herself; it seems that the occult-military nexus was so common as to be normal. On the "darker side" of things; Aleister Crowley and Dennis Wheatley were also spooks. 

But some of the most significant British military people were also occultists - most notably Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, head of Fighter Command up to and during the Battle of Britain, the architect of the integrated home defence radar system - and very plausibly the saviour of his nation. 

Dowding was heavily involved with spiritualism (publishing articles and a major book on the subject) and other esoteric subjects - e.g. he regarded fairies as a real and important influence on human life. 

The other side of the book charts the development of the spiritual side of national Socialism from its 19th century origins, and which reached a formalization with Himmler and the SS, and their cathedral like castle of Wewelsburg. But much of this requires to be disentangled from the distortions and fictions that have been widely propagated by early books such as The Morning of the Magicians (1960), and The Spear of Destiny (1972). 

Nonetheless, after the falsehoods have been set aside there seems little doubt of the fact and significance of occultism in National Socialism - and that there was indeed a Battle of Britain which operated purposively at this occult level - whether this phenomenon is interpreted spiritually or materialistically in terms of psychology. 

What is, for me, an open question - is the nature of the military-occult synthesis that Weston describes; not just for WWII, but extending back to encompass aspects of the First World War. 

There was surely a large element of intentional PSYOPS about the manipulations of public opinion (some very successful, both for good and ill) of British intelligence - yet there were also many instances of (apparently) sincere occult belief and activity among a surprisingly high number of very important personnel of both sides. 

The 21st century mind (from its assumption of innate moral superiority and greater insight) is spontaneously inclined to explain-away all this; as merely a mixture of cynical manipulation with the stupidity (and evil) of those unenlightened (sexist, racist etc) people of the past. 

And if this attitude is taken, there is nothing more to be said! But it is all based on assumptions about "our" modern superiority to every previous generation: assumptions that are arbitrary and without any coherent objective basis.  

Much of the fascination of this book is in the range of information provided, including aspects either neglected or passed-over by conventional histories. 

I was especially interested by the accounts of the Phoney War period from September 1939-May 1940 - and the ways that the British people were "prepared" for war. From Weston's account; the mood of the nation at this time (officially partly-feared, partly-seeded and encouraged) was very different in some respects from how it is usually portrayed - with a rampant paranoia concerning spies (leading to executions of the innocent), and wholly-imaginary fifth columnist activities by saboteurs, paratroopers, and sleeper agents. 

I was also impressed by Weston's discernments in relation to the side of the Allies. He is scrupulous about taking into account alternative interpretations - e.g. of the role of Winston Churchill, and the significance of the Battle of Britain. The he makes his decision among possibilities and explains his own assumptions. 

Therefore, Weston regards the "mythology" of the Battle of Britain as basically true, and that it was indeed a battle - spiritual as well as military - between good and evil. Consequently, after the Battle was won, there was a recognition of spiritual growth and commitment to the side of Good; and sincere hopes for a better world - spiritually better that is - to follow the war. 

Yet, Weston also feels that the purity of motive that Britain achieved in 1940, was significantly dissipated and corrupted throughout the course of the war. The alliance with the USSR was a significant downward step (Churchill explicitly likened it to a Faustian pact with the devil, yet embraced it nonetheless). 

The scale, priorities, purposes, and methods of Bomber Command (under the genuinely-delusional Arthur "Bomber" Harris) was another massive military error (a colossal misapplication of resources, causing gross neglect of more necessary and effective strategies); the whole increasingly fuelled by dark, sometimes evil, motives. 

Weston also notes that the strategic destruction of British and European geopolitical power was a sub-theme of US involvement. As was the in-practice building-up of the USSR as a world power, including by open-ended and unconditional "free gift" provision of materiel (in contrast to the sales and loans to the UK, with the consequential crippling war debt entailed). 

In some respects; by the end of the war there was a change of sides by the Allies - so that as the war progressed, not just Britain but also the real victors (ie the USSR and the USA) were spiritually, overall, also on the wrong side. 

And Dion Fortune's hoped-for beneficial spiritual outcomes of the Magical Battle of Britain... therefore didn't happen.    

The Occult Battle of Britain is not an easy read, and I spent many hours reading it; but this was mainly because I found I didn't want to miss anything. I found it to be original, gripping, and very stimulating - with implications that I need to think about much further. 

Whatever happened to the power of Public Opinion? The dwindling of the Group Mind

It has often been noticed in recent years - since the 1960s at least, and ever-increasingly - that the ruling class of Britain (and other Western nations) almost-completely ignore mass public opinion. 

There are many instances, of rulers completely ignoring what the public think - indeed it is so normal that any exceptions are astonishing and short-lived. A couple of big examples are that the death penalty was abolished despite large majority support; while mass immigration was introduced, escalated hugely, and still continues to grow - despite large majority opposition. 

As a strong generalization - it doesn't matter what ordinary people think: the ruling class do whatever they want to do; and when met by any significant disagreement - mass opposition is strategically and rapidly neutralized (indeed demonized) by media propaganda; and coordinated totalitarian action of all major organizations, corporations and other social institutions.  

But reading sources from the past it is clear that Public Opinion was a used to be (eg. in the 18th and 19th centuries) real and strong factor in government; to the point that the ruling class took it into account in their governance. 

They apparently felt that they had to. 

Public Opinion was indeed a much stronger factor in government before mass voting (aka "democracy") than since. 

My explanation is that this is a consequence of the change in human consciousness - i.e. the transformation from a groupish mode of consciousness, in which there existed a "group mind" - diminishing towards the alienated separation of consciousness of people today. 

In other worlds, Public Opinion was referencing the Group Mind of the nation; and the leadership class, to some significant degree, in the past themselves participated in this Group Mind. 

This meant that the governance of Britain was influenced by the Group Mind, in ways that were spontaneous and often unconscious. 

Nowadays, after the Group Mind has withered to feebleness or indeed absence, the masses are no longer unconsciously united; and the ruling class are psychologically (and spiritually) completely detached from Public Opinion...

To the extent that they either regard it as unreal nonsense - or else they understand Public Opinion merely to be a product of the ruling classes own totalitarian psychological manipulations. 

What I think has happened is that Public Opinion has ceased to be spontaneous and unconscious; but a Group Mind can (in principle) be recreated consciously, voluntarily and by choice. 

The Ruling Class have, indeed, done this by means of their ideology of atheist/ materialist/ leftism - which is to say; by the ruling class having united in taking the side of purposive spiritual evil in this world...

Which is a negative agenda of destruction: of persons, nations, nature, and ultimately the aimed-at destruction of divine creation in all its manifestations. 

This choice of evil provides a "spiritual linkage" between individuals of the ruling class - that lends them cohesion and strength of motivation. 

A significant source of the strength of the Ruling Class is indeed this Group Mind on the side of supernatural evil. 

If the masses are to oppose this Group Mind of evil; they (we) need consciously, voluntarily and by choice to choose the side of Good, of Divine Creation: of God and the salvation of Jesus Christ. 

Insofar as this can be done - even by as few as "two or three" (who do not even need to be geographically "gathered together") - then the ruling class Group Mind in service to Satan may effectively and spiritually be opposed by both individual and group minds who are committed to the side of God and Creation. 

The killing-curse of Mundane Thinking; versus living life in a strengthened, deepened, reality-connected thinking

The thinking of typical modern Man, and indeed of everyone here-and-now for most of the time; is a mundane business - a shallow, superficial, and malign affair. 

Mundane Thinking consists of little more than semi-automatic processing of materials given us from externally (eg from mass and social media, or some other form of totalitarian propaganda) in accordance with theories and ideologies given us from these same sources. 

Mundane Thinking persists relentlessly to fill our consciousness because it is easy, because it is what fits into the nature of public discourse - and from some mixture of sheer habit with addiction.

But Mundane Thinking is a curse - a killing-curse of modern Man; all the worse for having become largely spontaneous as well as imposed by the conditions of officialdom. workplaces, and friendship groups alike.  

If offers us nothing substantive, it cuts us off from people the world, and matters of the spiritual and the divine. 

We moderns "live in our thoughts"... but these thoughts offer - at best - transitory stimulation or palliative therapy from fears and despair; but without even the possibility of profound fulfilment or hope. 

Mundane thinking is, indeed, a kind of living-death, or death amidst Life. 

Consequently, there is a powerful urge to escape Mundane Thinking - somehow. But mistakenly or with deliberate intent to subvert, mundane thinking gets equated with thinking-as-such. 

Therefore; most of modern spirituality is concerned with getting rid of thinking - the escape route of stopping thinking-as-such; one way or another. 

At its highest, the method is to practice some kind of oneness spirituality by rigorous meditational training - this derived from Hinduism, Sufism, Buddhism or the negative theology type of Christian mysticism. 

The goal is to Stop Thinking and Just Be; to stop the relentless internal chatter of everyday matters; to reduce responsively- and attachment-to external stimuli...

Also to reduce awareness of the Self -- to seek silence, peace, contemplation, passive immersion in reality, or assimilation to "the divine" when the divine is conceptualized as everything-that-is.     

But I regard the ideal of stopping thinking as itself an evil. It is to seek a kind of suicide, or not-being. 

It is to go against what I understand to be God's primary creative will, of creating children of God and enabling these children spiritually to grow us to God's level of loving goodness and consciousness, by following Jesus Christ to salvation.  

So that anyone who personally desires to follow Jesus Christ to post-mortal resurrected eternal life in Heaven, cannot do so by the suppression then elimination of thinking. 

But given the nigh-intolerable horribleness of Mundane Thinking - what can instead be done? 

If Not not-thinking - then What?

The answer (first discerned by Rudolf Steiner, I think) is that we accept our destiny to live in our thinking - but seek to to transform that thinking...

To strengthen our thinking so that it become deeper; more powerfully motivating and emotionally evocative...

To recognize that this thinking is connected directly with other people, other Beings of many kinds; including connected with divine creation itself. (Because creation consists of many living and conscious Beings, with whom we can connect in thinking.) 

Connecting in our thinking with Jesus Christ/ the Holy Ghost.

To conclude: In recognizing the intolerability of a life spent trapped in Mundane Thinking; instead of trying to escape thinking altogether, we ought to accept and embrace that thinking is basically Good. 

Thinking is Good in the sense that we modern people are destined to live in our thinking.

God wants this from us, in this time and place, and has set-up our situation thus. 

Our goal ought therefore be to work on our thinking: which means better to understand what thinking can be and should be; and then to work on the nature of our thinking in hope of making it align with God's creative intentions and our intent of salvation.

Including a conscious relationship with reality - a relationship that happens in our thoughts.

Primarily; to live in our thoughts: and make those thoughts worth living-in. 

What are the causes of the developmental change ("evolution") in human consciousness throughout history?

A clear statement description of the way that human consciousness has changed throughout recorded history (and inferred from pre-history) is something I associate with Rudolf Steiner and his later follower Owen Barfield; who both explained it in terms of each human being having undergone multiple reincarnations. The changing nature of consciousness was therefore assumed to be caused by the accumulated experience and learning - hence maturity - of the reincarnating spirit. 

Ultimately, the underlying cause of these assumed multi-reincarnational changes was tacitly assumed to be the divine will; which sought to provide multiple and additive experiences to spirits. 

This was supposed to operate by a process that starts with pure (immaterial) spirit beings, leads down into denser and denser incarnations (such as ourselves), and ultimately (as its highest goal) leads back up to purely spiritual existence. 

But I do not share these assumptions about reincarnation. 

More importantly I regard Jesus Christ as having provided Man with the opportunity of resurrected human life in Heaven - which is a permanent state of embodied incarnation. 

In short: as of 2025 (and for nearly 2000 years) God does not want us to reincarnate after death - but instead to follow Jesus Christ to resurrected eternal life in heaven. 

Thus, for me, the objective of spiritual development is not a "spiritual being"; but instead a resurrected and embodied Man, of which the model was the resurrected Jesus.    

However, since I regard the evolutionary development of Mankind as a reality, but reject the Steiner/ Barfield explanation; I feel a need to explain this in terms of causality. I believe that there are several interacting causes, working at different levels. What follows is my current understanding. 

1. God's plan

At the deepest level of causation; I believe that God (our Heavenly Parents) desires that divine creation should lead first to divine children, and then towards the idea of "divine adults" - God seeks to encourage childlike children to develop into grown-up friends. 

(Much as it is usual (but with significant exceptions) to expect and hope that our own mortal children will not remain immature and childlike; but will grow-up to make the choice to become "best friends" with their parents.) 

In other words; divine creation is structured towards the generation of God's children - such as we now are; and that we children should be enabled and encouraged to "grow up" further, in order to mature towards becoming beings of the same kind and level as our Heavenly Parents. 

In yet other words; God desires that we would (through time) choose to develop towards becoming fully divine, fully loving, creators - and then to participate in the eternal work of divine creation. It was Jesus Christ who first achieved this, and who made it possible for others to follow Him in this. 

The goal is that our Heavenly Parents should cease to be the only beings at their level of divinity, but should build a continually growing family of grown-up children of God (together with the extended family of those beloved children who - whether by spiritual nature or current-choice - remain spiritually "immature": i.e. not full-creators.  

2. Incarnation of progressively more mature spirits

One of the ways that God influences the direction of creation, is through the nature of pre-mortal spirits that are incarnated into mortal life on earth. 

My impression is that when the earliest-known Men were first incarnated, their consciousness was more like that of young children. And incrementally throughout history, progressively more-grown-up spirits were incarnated; who tended to mature towards what we would now recognize as more adult modes of consciousness. 

So, at present and overall, spirits are incarnated that spontaneously mature to a kind of spiritual adolescence - beyond which further maturation depends on various individual factors, including personal will and choices. 

(I suspect that while spiritual maturation from childhood to adolescence is mostly spontaneous and involuntary; maturation beyond spiritual adolescence can only ever be attained by active alignment with God's nature and creative will, and by personal choice - the choice to live only by love.)

Maturity is most obviously revealed in terms of thinking and self-awareness... Modern Men are aware of our-selves and the distinction from the world and others; and we live subjectively in our stream of conscious thoughts - in ways that did not happen (or only in rare individuals) in the past. 

3. Metaphysical assumptions and ideology

Due to the nature of the human society into-which modern humans are born (which is partly a consequence of past and present choices by other people; under the influence of demonic beings) - modern Men assume that ultimate reality is dead (unalive), material (not spiritual); and operates solely by physical-mechanical causes or non-causally/ chaotically (ie. "randomly").  

I believe that these bottom-line assumptions concerning reality have a profound and malign effect on modern Man's consciousness.

What this typical modern metaphysics does to our consciousness; is to transform self-awareness into a false conviction of inescapable existential alienation - the implicit yet wrong belief that we are alone in our thinking, which is merely subjective: detached from reality. 

And this leads onto the typically modern mind-set of existential despair; variously countered by the attempt to overwhelm it with hedonism, and/or to obliterate thinking by such means as constant distraction by powerful stimuli, strong emotions, intoxication, and the like. 

In sum: an element in the changing of consciousness is the prevalent ideology of our times. And in more general terms, it would be expected that metaphysics, theology, and ideology would often (although not necessarily) tend to shape human consciousness in particular directions - which is, of course, exploited as much as possible by the purposive powers of supernatural evil. 

4. Direct spiritual contact between people, and other beings

I believe that there is potentially a direct (mind-to-mind, as it were) contact between living people, between the living and some of those who have died, and other beings. 

Insofar as this happens (for instance, among those people in mutually-loving relationships) among people whose consciousness's are changing for the reasons described above; this is the basis for shaping, perhaps amplifying or instead reversing, changes in consciousness that may be directional through time.

Put differently; we each inhabit a very selective thought-world - one that changes throughout our lives, and includes new, different, other-minds (alive, dead, or potentially not human). 

This, then, is another reason for changes in consciousness.  

5. The comfort and guidance of the Holy Ghost

The Holy Ghost is a potential source of comfort and guidance for those who follow Jesus, and this contact naturally affects a human consciousness and its development through time. 

Such interaction with the Holy Ghost has the nature of a chosen, mutual, and specific relationship between one spiritual Being and another. 

Which means that I disagree with those who conceptualize the Holy Ghost as providing some kind of blanket effect on Mankind, or any particular group of people. 

(I also disagree with those who regard the evolution of consciousness as driven by any kind of quasi-physics-like influence on the planet and its inhabitants... I mean those who see the maturation of consciousness as driven by an externally-applied influence - such as increasing frequency or vibrational level; or some kind of transformation of spiritual force, or an increase in spiritual energy; or indeed by astrological change.)

  

 

As a general comment - I think it is probably necessary to emphasize (to myself, if not other others!) that the causal mechanisms that contribute to the developmental evolution of human consciousness, are all aimed at the individual human spirit. 

I am increasingly sure that God does not, and never has, operated primarily at the level of human groups. 

We ought therefore to try and stop thinking habitually about Men In The Mass; when it comes to understanding fundamental spiritual matters.

 

The false-impression that God is concerned primarily with the salvation of particular tribes or particular churches; was I think an (inevitable) artefact of an earlier stage of human consciousness; among Men who (inevitably - but with some few exceptions) experienced reality in this groupish way.

That is to say: The earlier we go in history, the more groupish was human consciousness - and individuals were not, and did not feel nor aspire to be, detached from the "group mind". 

But as of Now - things are very different. From adolescence onward, modern people are spontaneously detached from the group mind, and must therefore be influence and controlled ("micro-managed") by multiple and constantly-applied external and perceptual inputs - laws, rules, propaganda etc.)  

Nowadays, such groupishness in considering Christian theology is simply an error - but no longer an inevitable error; being instead the consequence of (for example) false metaphysics, wishful thinking, despair, dreadful fear - or a simple paucity of alternative ideas.  

Therefore; we should understand the evolution of consciousness as the averaged outcome of our innate (inborn) spiritual-nature; with a multitude of individual human choices; concerning the outcomes of individually-tailored ("bespoke") interactions between each individual person with God and the Holy Ghost. 

 

Why are so many people (including Christians) so committed to totalitarianism?

Given that it is intrinsically evil; why are so many people so keen on totalitarianism; being actively supportive in practice, if not necessarily in theory? 

I think the answer is related to the unacknowledged reality of changes in human consciousness. 

Changes in human nature have led to mass alienation - with the loss of that largely-unconscious "groupishness" of human consciousness which used to be a spontaneous source of social cohesion and inter-personal consensus. 

Through most of history until recent generations; people did not experiences themselves as wholly-separate individuals. Everybody (even, to an extent, rulers) was part-of "public opinion". 

There was a Group Mind, operating at a spiritual level. 

Because the group and the individual were not wholly separate, group norms did not need to be - and were not - experienced as having been imposed on individuals in a one-way fashion. 

When an individual experiences life as part of a group, he is himself a part of all group aims and decisions - the individual participates in the group as a matter of spiritual reality. 

In other words, in the past (to a significant, although not complete, extent) aims and decisions arose from the Group Mind; in which all individuals participated. 

 

But that spontaneous and unconscious groupishness has now all-but gone.

Individuals no longer participate spiritually in group aims and choices. Leaders do not feel themselves a part of, and in service to, a real "public opinion". 

Aims and decisions typically arise from the most powerful level of the social system - without participation of "the masses" - and these aims and decision are imposed-upon the lower levels. 

Top-down power has replaced the Group mind.   

This loss of participation has generated a visceral (and significantly valid) fear of the consequences of untrammelled individual agency. It has also enabled the one-sided manipulation of the masses by elites - with such phenomena as pervasive dishonesty, top-down propaganda, PSYOPS, and the use of terror, hatred and induced-despair as instruments of social control. 

Social cohesion nowadays must be totalitarian: material, procedural and enforced. The dangerous consequences of individualism are a problem that must be combatted. 

This is done by the integration of all human institutions, of all society (politics, churches, economics, media, law, military, police, education, science, arts etc); all social institutions are mandatorily-united under a single and all-pervasive ideology - with any opt-out regarded as actively hostile. 

The difference between modern totalitarianism and ancient theocracy is that totalitarianism is an ideology, not a religion; atheist not deist nor theist; materialist not spiritual. 

While theocracy explicitly purports to derive authority from transcendental sources (e.g. God or the gods); totalitarianism instead (but implicitly) regards goodness as impersonal, an abstraction - ideological. 

For totalitarianism; implicitly, goodness is a consequence of the system itself - a product of bureaucracy, committees, and procedures such as voting - and, especially, totalitarian goodness arises from those parts of the-one-system that are concerned with strategy, planning, long-term aims. 

So, under totalitarianism; goodness (as understood by mainstream modern people) is to be found near the top of the bureaucratic system, where it inheres abstractly; independently of the actual people involved.

And therefore this ideological faith is invulnerable to the high levels of selfish nastiness and many types of corruption of the actual people involved; invulnerable too to even extreme degrees of failure, counter-productive activity, or atrocities done by the higher bureaucracy.

For example "democracy" - which is a form of bureaucratic procedure - is regarded as good; whoever are the people involved, whatever their character or behaviour, and despite the outcomes. 

Goodness has become wholly abstract - detached from people and actuality.  

Thus for many mainstream totalitarians, goodness flows from top-level bureaucratic institutions downwards; and therefore the highest moral authority of this world inheres in strategic organizations such as the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the European Union, the Supreme Courts, and the various Courts of "Human Rights", or Truth, or Reconciliation; large charities and NGOs, the most wealthy and prestigious universities and "think tanks"... and so forth. 

For Christian totalitarians; their church is simply one of these high-level bureaucracies, organizations that both respond-to and contribute-to the ruling consensus that is enforced upon individuals by the propaganda of mass media, regulations of corporations, and laws of the lands. 

The totalitarian conceptualization is that Men are good only to the extent that they are made good by these top-down and procedural influences; and Men cohere and have common purpose only to the extent that they are part of the vast and interlinked System. 

Christian totalitarians accept the inevitability and indeed basic virtue of this model of human life and society; but desire to place the church (i.e. their church) at the pinnacle of the bureaucratic institutions. 

They envisage a world that is still totalitarian, and the individual is still to be manipulated and controlled; but they imagine a totalitarianism in which their church stands atop the UN, EU, SCOTUS, major mass media, the legal system, universities - so that church-originated ideas, rules, laws etc. will permeate all the major social institutions - and thus human life will cohere and have purpose.  

However... If totalitarianism truly is intrinsically evil (as I believe), then any such vision or hope for society cannot actually be Christian. 

It can only simulate Christianity - can only use Christian terminology to "justify" what are actually totalitarian (hence evil - i.e. on the side that is against God and creation) procedures and goals.  

For many people - insofar as they think about it at all - there is a sense that totalitarianism is inevitable; and therefore the only genuine value-choice is between a secular or a religious totalitarianism. 

The Big Question is whether this is a real choice - or whether, instead, religious/church and atheistic/ ideological totalitarianism are not, in truth, variations on The Same Thing. 

My personal understanding is that totalitarianism is indeed evil in all its forms and variants; so Christianity can only exist outwith The System -- in individuals primarily; and only in such non-institutional groups as cohere from love* primarily.

*By which I mean the kind of inter-personal and mutual love found in the best families, marriages, and friendships - at their best.

Was Mozart's Magic Flute that rarest of birds: a *successful* revisionist subversion of audience expectations

I've often said that Mozart's opera The Magic Flute is perhaps my favourite piece of music, and an opus I regard as one of the greatest achievements of Man. So in my mind there is no doubt that - weird hybrid that it is - Flute is a supremely successful work of art. 

But when you know a work well, it is easy to forget first impressions and to neglect the obvious - and there is no doubt that on first viewing The Magic Flute sets-up character expectations in its early parts, that are inverted by the story's later development. 

What I had not noticed before is that these expectations are reinforced by the voice types - which tend to support the false expectations created by the story. 

There is a broad correlation across most operas between the altitude of the voice and positive morality; such that the virtuous, heroes and heroines, are usually the highest males and female voices - tenor and soprano; while the wicked characters tend to have the deepest voices - bass and contralto. 

In the Magic Flute, as it begins, we have the usual heroic tenor, who is enlisted by the Queen of the Night - a very high soprano - to rescue her kidnapped daughter from the demonic Sarastro - who is a deep bass. 

At first; the pitch of the voices tends to confirm our expectation of who is a goodie and who a baddie. 

But later discoveries and developments invert our expectations: the Queen of the Night turns-out to be cruel, dishonest, and power-crazed; while Sarastro is noble and virtuous. 

In terms of vocal range, and unexpectedly: highest is most evil, and lowest is goodest. 

This is the kind of subversion of audience expectations that has nowadays, and for the past few decades, become a tedious cliché of movies and TV shows. 

Stereotypes are inverted more often than confirmed. Revisionism is so common that people have forgotten what is being revised. 

Way back in 1791, Mozart had already done it - but, unlike his modern imitators: Mozart Made It Work. 

 

Modern materialists *cannot* believe in Heaven

Once someone has absorbed the assumptions of mainstream modern materialism, he cannot believe in Heaven - and, much worse, he does not even want it to be true!

That is a Big Difference between recent generations, and people of the past. In the past, people might not believe resurrected eternal life in Heaven was true... They might think it was wishful thinking, a made-up story to manipulate people... 

But, if they could be sure that Heaven was real and true, Of Course most people would want it for themselves; of course they would prefer eternal life is annihilation, reincarnation, or the dissolution of the self into deity.     

But our modern materialist assumptions spill forwards into our conceptualization of Heaven. People cannot escape the underlying conviction that eternal life is just more-of-the-same - it can only be a continuation.

The modern mind cannot, for instance, see any end-point difference between the imagined technological life-extension of transhumanism, and resurrected life everlasting... except that transhumanism is clearly superior, because it does not lie on the other side of death: you don't have to die to get it. 

What I'm getting at, is that our perspective is now so deeply rooted in this-mortal-life and the pervasive assumption that the material is all; that all our theories about the future carry these "realities" with them - our strong imaginations - what seems really-real - are always based on what seems really-real to us, here-and-now.     

My understanding is that we can only grasp the significance of what Jesus Christ did, and what he offers; if we can make a mental leap from this mortal life forward. 

We need to be able to imagine, and to assume, that "It Is All True" - that resurrected eternal life in Heaven is a possibility, and to experience that possibility imaginatively, and from that experience of Heaven to look back on this mortal life. 

That seems to be the only way that we can grasp the real significance of Christianity. 

Christianity has become something that cannot be explained! Well, we can of course say the words - but for modern materialistic people these descriptive and explanatory words will be distorted into this-worldly and material meanings: the words, the explanations, the meanings; will be seen from this-side (mortal life), and shall not therefore be understood. 

To understand Christianity is therefore a considerable challenge to the modern person. For a start, he must really want to understand it! - and that is very rare. 

It seems, instead, that a large majority of self-identified modern Christians want to "use" Christianity as an ideology to achieve this-worldly goals (strength, peace, prosperity, functionality, social justice etc). They are looking at Christianity, at Heaven, from this-side. 

For such people (and they are many!) Christianity is the basis of the kind of society, the kind of this-world, that they most desire - and such people are Very resistant to any other and "next-worldly" conceptualization.  

It is strange how something that used to be so simple, spontaneous and easily achieved as wanting everlasting eternal life in Heaven; has become something so qualitatively difficult that even the most devout and active "Christians" are utterly unable/ unwilling to comprehend it! 

Such "Christians" cannot comprehend Heaven in the sense that they cannot think Heaven; they cannot inhabit that perspective. Therefore their understanding of Heaven is necessarily false and/or unreal. 

Because they do not "get" Heaven; they cannot want it - and want something else instead. And therefore, of course, such "Christians" have not even begun actually to Do... whatever it actually takes to achieve Heaven.  

Our modern paradox is that we must first already know Heaven, in order to want and get Heaven. 

And our fundamental assumptions concerning the nature of reality (i.e. our materialist metaphysics; shared by nearly-all Christians, as well as nearly-everyone else) make Heaven unknowable. 

Such is the nature of our condition. 

Compulsive self-justification is lethal to honesty

The work of some insightful people, even some geniuses, is lethally flawed by their compulsive need to justify themselves -- past, present, and future. 

And this compulsion works like a cancer on integrity and honesty; until it has subverted then destroyed a person's ability to make a positive and valuable contribution. 

In other words, no matter how able you may be; if you are a Right Man - that is, a man who is compelled to prove, by everything he says and writes, that he was always ultimately right about everything. 

(Or, on those rare occasion that he was "wrong", this was somebody else's fault!)...

Then, no matter that you have produced good work you will first become a tedious bore, and later end-up by ruining your own legacy of good work. 

All you did that was worthwhile, gets buried deep under a sediment of self-aggrandizing rationalizations and exculpatory explanations. 

And by insisting that everything you ever thought, said, or did was actually part of an elaborate and perfect scheme and strategy - you will merely ensure that anyone who cannot accept your infallibility lock, stock and barrel; will be compelled to discard the baby of valid truth you originated. 

The baby goes does the drain; because of the necessity to throw-out a vast reservoir-full of tendentious, defensive, ego-promoting, dirty-bathwater.  

 

Groups (including churches) don't work - they are either ineffectual, or else tend to the side of evil

My insight against groups - i.e. the fundamental nature and potential of human groups* as of 2025 - is solidifying. 

Until not many years ago, I desired to be part of a good group, perhaps especially a church - but if not that then some other kind of fellowship; but I have gradually firmed my sense that - here-and-now, and if they are to be both good and helpful - groups can and should be secondary. 

What is primary ought to be the sense of individual responsibility for the understanding, choices, and commitments that are a consequence of our actual state of freedom. Groups are good insofar as they support us in this - but if the group comes to displace, shape, or dominate our intuitive understanding... Well, the outcome can only be bad. 

The thing is... we are (most of us) nostalgic for the preceding era of human consciousness, in which groups were primary; and our individuality was expressed within the bounds set by the group. This nostalgia for immersion in a group ethos can be so powerful as to amount to a desperation, a craving. 

Nostalgia is also amplified by what seems to be pragmatism, or even what is perceived as necessity. As when people conclude that the dominant Systemic (bureaucratic-media-political) evil of 2025 can only be resisted and fought by establishing an alternative System - groups/ institutions/ organizations/ corporations that are (supposedly) aligned to God and The Good and which operate in opposition to the mainstream Satanically-allied groupings. 

But groupism entails that a group be set-up and sustained in face of society as it actually is - which is totalitarian. And - more importantly - sustained in the face of human consciousness as it actually is.

This means that (here-and-now) all groups are fatally compromised by the demands of their own survival - and dually compromised by the nature of people and the nature of society.   

The nature of people is what makes groupism feebly motivating - feeble relative to the other influences of society in 2025; the nature of society is what makes groupism corrupting - since to survive the group will be linked to totalitarianism. 

Therefore a group will both fail to provide the kind of immersive sustenance that our nostalgia desires; while at the same time the compromises/ corruptions of any viable and sustaining group will draw its members towards the ruling Globalist-Western ideology of modern, mainstream, totalitarian leftism. 

For the simultaneous futility and malignity of groupism to be appreciated depends on recognizing that Men and Society as of 2025, are qualitatively different from Men and Society of 1925 - and what was possible and good a century ago is no longer either possible or good. 

Still, we are left with our nostalgia, and our cravings...

And this is why I think it has become so essential to go back to our deepest, our most fundamental and basic assumptions regarding the nature of God, creation, and Mankind - and our personal relationship to these great facts.

**

*Note: By "groups" I mean to include the whole range of organized and formal-or semi-formal grouping; such as churches and esoteric organizations (masonic, magical etc.), institutions, corporations and businesses, political groups such as nations and their subdivisions, locality-based groups, function-related groups (professions and the like), and so forth. But I do not include families, marriages, friendships - that are based on mutual and individual love - these are, I believe, of a qualitatively different nature from the kind of groups I am discussing.  here.  

Another Juniper - Gryphon

Following on from my earlier Juniper meditations; here is Juniper Suite from the first album of the 1970s medieval-folk band Gryphon. 

It's an unusual (and quite brief) example of the kind of "concept" music that was popular at the time; (according to the sleeve notes) meant to be illustrative of a bit of countryside of which the group were fond. 

Crossing a threshold into a New Age of consciousness at the Millennium - its unexpected fulfilment

I continue to cycle back to consider that the New Age of human consciousness, so eagerly anticipated by "spiritual" people of the late 20th century to be coming-upon Mankind at about the millennium - and by which we would cross a kind of threshold into a qualitatively different relationship with reality... actually happened; yet not-at-all in the manner hoped-for. 

There has been a transformation of consciousness, but it hasn't been of the kind that was so optimistically envisaged. 

People are not more spiritual; alienation, egoism, and awareness of separateness are stronger than ever. There is not a spontaneous sense of oneness, nor of attunement with the universe. 

The change did not make us better people, nor has it made us happier, nor has it led to a kinder human society with diminished suffering. 

Neither do people in general have either a closer relationship with nature, or a closer sense of personal involvement with ultimate reality. 

So much for what didn't happen - but if I believe there was a millennial transformation, then what did happen; and why did it go so wrong? Or at least, so very differently from what was envisaged? 

What happened was pretty much as predicted by Rudolf Steiner and confirmed by Owen Barfield - in that the changes of the past several centuries reached a threshold after which we were each required consciously to choose the basic assumptions on the basis of which we would understand our lives. 

The residues of innate, unconscious, spontaneous spirituality; that had been dwindling for centuries, finally became so weak and feeble that they ceased to operate. The progressive "disenchantment" became so extreme that social life ceased to be humanized, personalized and sweetened by it. 

Everything became materialistic and mundane; explicit, procedural, bureaucratic. Experience divided into the subjective and the objective - and the objective was impersonal - a realm of entertainment and exploitation, and exploitative entertainment - it became "politicized" and systemic. 

And - because we are alienated, nowadays we all know this; and insofar as we regard the public/ institutional, social realm as objectively real - then this is the reality we have chosen. 

Meanwhile, everything else, is regarded as subjective hence arbitrary - and relevant only to our private emotions*.  

21st century Man has chosen his assumptions, then chosen to assert that these assumptions are inescapable reality; and painted himself into this corner of purposelessness, meaninglessness and hopelessness. 

 

That is the nature of the millennial threshold and the New Age. 

Yet... if this can be understood, and if we choose to take ultimate and personal responsibility for what we regard as the nature of ultimate reality - instead of assuming that this is "a given" to which we can only submit passively...

Then we may consciously choose another path by which we each-and-all may individually participate in divine creation; and each bring to it something unique and irreplaceable. 

And that would be the threshold to a New Age, a new consciousness, which is worth living.  

**

* Note: I should also record that there is also an assertion of subjectivism - that because it is only in the subjective and personal that we can find purpose, meaning and enchantment, we ought therefore to regard the subjective as reality. Well, this is "easy to say" - but I have never come across anybody who remotely does it: either in their speech, or observable actions! Such a recommendation is (whatever its merits in an ideal sense) un-real and un-motivating, even to those who most vehemently espouse it. 

The self-chosen false dilemma of 21st century Man is therefore between an objective public discourse that is death and despair; and a subjective personal world that is experienced as unreal and unmotivating.

The (obvious?) conclusion is apparently a case of "back to the drawing board" to discover on what basis these (supposedly exclusive) alternatives were formulated. 

And, it turns-out, that means going back a very long way down - deeper than almost anybody else has been or is prepared to go...

Which is, in a nutshell, the reason for our current situation. 

  

We demand blueprints for living; yet we don't believe in blueprints

Yes but what shall we do about it? 

People are so eager to jump onto this question of what should we do, that we routinely demand action without understanding. 

For people of 2025; "doing" means: "Give me a blueprint!" 

Doing apparently begins with a blueprint, and happens via a blueprint. 

Advice and instruction is demanded in the form of such blueprint-variants as a plan, bullet points, a check-list, a flow-chart... 

A blueprint of instructions labelled with stuff like: How to save the Planet, How to save the West, How to be happy, How to stop racism/ sexism, How to get girls (or How to get married). 

And yet it is a stale truism that modern people no longer believe in blueprints. 

Unlike Men of a century and more ago - we of 2025 no longer accept the validity of categorical descriptions... 

The categories seem arbitrary - so many are the exceptions and overlaps. The stereotypes don't seem to fit ourselves or those we know. We don't believe in the possibility of any utopian state. The actuality of mundane life is impervious to our dreams and aspirations. 

So we demand blueprints - only blueprints are real and serious. But we compulsively ridicule, subvert and dissect any and all blueprints. 

Indeed, anyone who actually hands us the kind of blueprint that we crave; is assumed to be manipulating us for his own benefit - or else as an agent of The System. 

   

Such are the roots of our endemic demotivation. We assume that we ought to be motivated by some blueprint for  life; depicting life's purpose, meaning, and our future within it... We seek and seek for such a blueprint. Yet any actual blueprint is soon regarded as obviously invalid and inadequate. 

Such is a world rooted in negations, in negative values - a world where we know what we do not want, but haven't a clue what we do want - or else where our desires are in stark contradiction each wit hthe others, hence unattainable even in theory. 

We want a blueprint because it can - in principle - be shared - can be made policy, can be implemented...

And because anything less objective than a blueprint will (apparently) be just for our-selves. 

In sum: we know what we want, but we cannot have it. 

The answer must be to go back and go deep; and discover the nature of blueprints, the assumptions that lie behind them, our craving for them; to discover whether we really want what we so insistently demand - and so inevitably reject. 

Only then might we discover some alternative that might motivate us.  

"Buckle up!" - What a lame phrase...

A personal peeve is that phrase "buckle up!" - as prefacing something metaphorical like "We're in for a wild ride!"* 

This always strikes me as lame; in the same way as those signs in dull offices that say: "You don't have to be mad to work here - but it helps!"

The same kind of pseudo-jollity and false bonhomie; which, in practice, always seems to be affected by those most conspicuously lacking in either. 

*Or, in an earlier incarnation: "Fasten your seatbelts..!"

Resentment is almost unavoidable as a motivation - unless there is a stronger positive goal

I have often written about our age's besetting-sin or "master sin" of resentment; including how negative resentment is the basis of the mainstream dominating socio-political ideology of "leftism". 

(Where leftism is understood to include all types of secular materialism with some variant of an hedonic ethical basis - including conservatism, Republicans, libertarians, nationalists etc.) 

Thus the pseudo-goals of leftism (taken up and discarded expediently) such as equality, feminism, antiracism, anti-anti-semitism, climate environmentalism - are all negative, all oppositional in their nature, all against some-thing. 

...With the purported "utilitarian" justification that this negation will lead to greater human "happiness" of some group or all people - in which happiness is (in recent generations) equated, bottom line, with diminished-suffering. 

(And where suffering is itself conceptualized as a departure-from some implicit and imagined state of not-suffering.)  

The negations are indeed multiple, since to be against some presumed cause of suffering is already a triple-negation - or is it quadruple!... At any rate, in modern leftism there is no serious or would-be-coherent vision of an utopian, happy-state, of society. 

Thus we have the negative ideology of diminishing suffering; while lacking any reference state of a happy world and people. 

How did this happen? Because surely Man cannot and should-not live by negations alone? 

Not by accident; but not wholly imposed top-down either. 

Of course, nowadays the top-down structural political encouragements and inducements (the propaganda in education systems and the mass media, the subsidies and legal exemptions, the careerism) are all very evident. 

But there is another side to things - which is that, after the decline and end of spontaneous religiosity; there were no sufficiently-strong positive motivators.  

Nationalism is a good example; since in several societies it was the first attempted replacement for religion as a basis for social cohesion. Typically, nationalist movements start with considerable emphasis on positive national characteristics and "spirit", and national destiny... 

But always this proves to be too feeble to motivate, and the positive national destiny turns-out either to be a minority aspiration - and/or generally inadequate to provide a basis for national cohesion and direction. 

The nationalism invariably degenerates into double-negativity: into opposition to some source of presumed (or real) harm. For instance; the nationalism of resentment of some particular other-nation or group becomes the main theme, the main source of cohesion, the main basis of the main policies. 

This has been the fate of every nationalist movement of which I am aware: such Germany, Ireland, Scotland and... fill-in the gaps. 

A similar tale could be told of socialism degenerating into class war; feminism into sex war, pro-natural world environmentalism into a negative and destructive crusade against "carbon", antiracism into racism etc. 

The dominance of resentment is therefore a secondary consequence of the feebleness of positive motivators in a post-religious world. 

Resentment provides (at least in the short term) a basis for cohesion against a common "enemy"; and a basis for strategies to deal with this threat. 

But in the long-term, all these negations purposively destroy society - and this is inevitable unless resentment is superseded.  

  

What about individual persons? Why are we (nearly all of us) so helplessly vulnerable to pro-resentment propaganda that strives to turn us, each-and-all, into a self-perceived victim of somebody or something; a seething cauldron of entitlement, fears, anger, spitefulness? 

The ultimate cause is the same - which is the feebleness of our positive motivations. 

Of course it is facile to spout positive slogans, or pretend to be driven by positive goals about some future of enhanced achievement, creation, beauty, love... 

But actual behaviour (e.g. what people think, speak and write about; media and bureaucratic productions; laws, policies and behaviours) suggests that these are gross exaggerations that serve merely as dishonest excuses to hide the endemic negativity of core motivators. And we get the observable socio-cultural-psychological dominance of resentment as a core motivator. 

The only good answer; the only spiritual solution to the sin, is to recognize and repent it. 

This is an essential first step. 

Yet, if we desire to defeat a particular resentment in ourselves that is dominating and distorting our lives - and if we do not want simply to replace one sin by another: such as resentment replaced by self-aggrandisement (a common sight on the internet)...

Then we need to discover a genuinely positive and strong positive motivator that can press-down-upon and net-over-ride resentment; and this motivator must be religious. 

Because only religion is a stronger long-term motivator with sufficient potential for coherence and direction. 

And so we circle back to the problem of discovering a positive and personally-motivating and good religion in the 21st century - which is our only hope for genuine betterment. 

Juniper, Hexhamshire

This appeared in the Hexham Courant newspaper 1-4-2010: 

A Hexhamshire hamlet is changing its name in order to cash in on the millions of a sixties superstar. The tiny community of Juniper will in future be known as Jennifer Juniper, following a request from hippy Hero Donovan. Cash-strapped Northumberland County Council is understood to have agreed to the name change in return for a £5 million donation to council coffers. The denim-decked singer made a fortune in the 1960s from songs like Catch the wind, Universal Soldier, Mellow Yellow and Sunshine Superman, but his personal favourite was always Jennifer Juniper. He took a tour of Tynedale whilst staying at Slaley Hall and fell in love with the quaint hamlet of Juniper. He spotted a dappled mare grazing in a field and just wanted to be part of the place. Villagers have reported being offered large wads of cash for their properties but no-one was prepared to move out of the close-knit community. A consultation exercise on the name change is being carried out by the county council, but comments had to be in by noon yesterday.

(NB: Check the date.)

Juniper is a charming village in the scenic Hexhamshire region of Northumberland, south of Hexham; this was for centuries under the administration of the Archbishop of York, rather than the Bishop of Durham whose territory surrounded it by a wide margin.

(There were also, until the early 1800s, three "islands" of Durham County within the borders of Northumberland.) 

This absent landlordism meant that Hexhamshire was outwith the rule of law, and the area became notorious as a den of bandits and other ruffians - a place they could retreat with impunity, after wrongdoing elsewhere.  

Something of this danger still seems to cling to the region, if my experience is any guide; because over the decades we have been surrounded by a pack of farm dogs (until called-off at the last minute), actively attacked by an insane stallion (rearing and trying to smash down with his hooves - I somehow cleared a four foot barbed wire fence to escape); most recently menaced from behind a flimsy fence by an angry (?) mastiff and his mates when walking along a busy public footpath. 

This looks like the place of the dog pack... We stood on a stile, surrounded; fighting them off with sticks

Interesting location, altogether.

There is also an unusual and appealing (syncopated) folk song called the Hexhamshire Lass - here done by Fairport Convention.   

Social transformation or Personal transformation? Two historical ways of misunderstanding Jesus's work and aim

If it can be assumed that the Fourth Gospel is correct, and that Jesus Christ's aim and (successful) work was to offer those who followed him eternal resurrected life, in a second creation (i.e. another and new world) that is Heaven...

Then I think we can perceive two major directions of historical misunderstanding (or, perhaps, mis-appropriation) whereby Jesus was instead assumed to be instituting a new religion of this-world: one was making this-world a better place; the other was making ourselves better people...

Such that Jesus was mistakenly believed either to be offering:

1. Social transformation; or

2. Personal transformation.

Social transformation was assumed to be accomplished by social methods - aimed at the adoptive-"tribe" of Christians. 

This would be accomplished by building a new social religion, that is a new priesthood and church-organization; so that the life of all Men in that society would be changed. 

This actually happened; especially with the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity. Through history there have been several societies that have been transformed, by several kinds of Christian church. 

The idea is that Men would be improved as individuals secondarily, by the primary means of making their social world a better place. 

Personal transformation was assumed to be accomplished by the already-ancient and still present methods of mystery religion (eg. in Mithraism): by selection, initiations, training of the mind in accordance with the will.

This also actually happened. The methods of personal transformation were variously adopted for the priesthood (and later for the religious orders) of the social religion. The goal of personal transformation also led to what-gets-called the "Gnostic" strand of Christianity.

The idea was that individual Men would be made better primarily (albeit in an esoteric setting); and such Men would secondarily, as a consequence, "leaven the lump" and make this world a better place. 

       

But if Christianity is not really about making this world a better place - and if Jesus is understood as having said that - ultimately, spiritually - this world cannot by its nature be made a significantly better place... 

Then this means that social and personal transformation - while both possible - will not have the effect of betterment. 

If, in fact, Jesus taught that personal transformation does not make better men, and social transformation does not make better societies - then the major emphases of the actual Christian religion through history have been wrong. 

(Whether or not Jesus is understood to have asserted or implied that social and personal transformation cannot - by the nature of this mortal and earthly reality - make the needful difference to the human condition; it can nonetheless be argued that his core and essential teaching was about the next-world, not his-world; and the post-mortal state, not about making people or societies better.) 

It is perfectly understandable that everyone will want a positive transformation of this mortal life: both personally and socially (even if they have different ideas about which ought to, or must, come first). 

In is perfectly understandable that people should hope and want that their religion will make them better people during their lives on earth, and make this this world a better place ASAP.

All this is understandable and indeed apparently inevitable...

For example: In our post-religious society; the atheist-materialist ideologies are focused on optimistic schemes aimed at positively-transforming our-mortal-selves and this-world. Indeed; everything else is excluded by assumption. 

But if, in fact, Jesus's essential and core work was aimed-at transforming our post-death and next-world state - and thus not at transforming this mortal life; then Christianity ought to have been - and ought now to be - a very different kind of religion than it actually has been and is. 

Appeals to moderation are always futile

When someone is "extreme", in whatever direction; then appeals to be moderate, to take a "middle path", are futile. 

Think about it: there are an infinite number of possible points between extremes. On what principle should we choose that point at which we are moderate? Presumably it isn't always necessarily half-way between extremes - but even if it was, what does that actually mean? 

Some kind of dilution of each extreme, somehow combined? Or some kind of 50:50 alternation between the extremes? Or what?  

In practice, the appeal for moderation is a negative recognition that neither option on-offer (by "extremists" is desirable - but no alternative principle is being suggested. 

The appeal to moderation is therefore an acceptance of the theoretical framework of the extremes; which is why it is always futile. 

And why - insofar as anyone really is motivated by moderation: their motivation is always weak. (There is no such thing as "a courageous moderate".)

So long as the theoretical framework is intact, then the extremes will carry the greatest authority - and no matter how well-motivated, moderation will be understood as an unprincipled and incoherent, hence  feeble and pragmatic, compromise. 

The real answer is never moderation or a middle way - but some higher principle; some framework that stands above, transcends, and contains the world-views of the extremes. 

Occult and Esoteric - what do they mean? How to approach them?

Occult means hidden, and often refers to hidden knowledge. Typically, this is knowledge that has been kept secret (e.g. by being sustained in a closed society) - or perhaps knowledge encoded, so that only those who know the code can discover it. 

But hidden knowledge may instead be clear and simple, not secret but instead "hidden in plain sight" - not encoded but simply ignored by the majority. 

Ignored perhaps because it is no interest, in some way unwelcome (opening a "can of worms" they'd rather not deal with); or indeed so clear and so simple, that most people regard it as necessarily wrong, because the knowledge strikes them as embarrassingly childish and simplistic. 

Esoteric means "for the few" - and mostly refers to groups to human societies. The term often refers to exclusive groups characterized by rigorous selection and prolonged training; and typically includes groups that claim to posses secret occult knowledge or the keys to understand encoded occult knowledge. 

But, analogously with the possible meanings of occult; esoteric groups "for the few" as such are not confined to the holders of occult knowledge; but characterize almost many types of functional human institution - such as some universities or colleges, and legal and medical professions - and these also implicitly claim to possess occult knowledge which is not understandable except by those who are trained, and have the "keys".

More significantly; there is the question of why some groups are "for the few" - which might be because only few regard the matter as real and important, or who have an active interest. An esoteric grouping may happen (or be attempted) because "the many" are indifferent or hostile to the subject. 

When the majority believe that which is false, and are evil-affiliated; then the possibility of allying with good is necessarily restricted to "the few" - or even to a single person.   

When it comes to evaluating occult knowledge or esoteric groups, it seems evident that the terms are descriptive rather than intrinsically evaluative. 

As usual; the valuation depends primarily on matters such as purposes and motivations, and whether these are on the side of God and creation - or against them. 

Whether the real and underlying motivation is for this-worldly power, wealth, sex, success and the like - or to manipulate others and nature? Or instead to seek potentially good-aligned goals such as self-knowledge, experiential understanding of reality, encouragement in pursuit of salvation etc.  

It seems to me that (as of 2025, in The West) most of the people who are explicitly involved in esoteric groups and engaged with occult knowledge are badly-motivated: they are on the wrong side of the spiritual war of this-world. 

But the same applies to most Christians; and to most Christians in any particular church or denominations: they are badly-motivated. That is most self-identified Christians are (overall) on the side that opposes God in the spiritual war. 

In this mixed world, by its very nature; all Men are sinners, all groups are corrupted and all knowledge is impure. 

It is not our task to attempt the impossible of redeeming, or even reforming, The World; but to navigate our way though our life by discernment and in accordance with our intuition and divine guidance; as we desire and commit to following Jesus Christ.

This may (and it seems likely, given the nature of the world, en masse, here and now) lead us at some point to some degree of engagement with explicit or implicitly occult knowledge and the esoteric: 

So be it.  

**

Note: The above was stimulated by re-reading Gareth Knight's biography of his great friend the Reverend Canon Fr. Anthony Duncan: Christ and Qabalah: or, The Mind in the Heart (2013).

One Heaven, many hells

There is one Heaven; the Second Creation that we inhabit by following Jesus Christ through resurrection to eternal life. 

But it is not a homogenous Heaven - almost the opposite. 

Heaven is "unified" by love - every "inhabitant" lives only by love. 

That means that Heaven contains as much variety as there are inhabitants. Every new person who ascends to Heaven adds to its variety. 

Some people - including Mormons - conceptualize Heaven as subdivided, or having "many mansions". 

That's not it; because it implies restrictions upon the saved, among the resurrected. 

And it is wrong insofar as it implies any homogeneity among the inhabitants of Heaven's supposed subdivisions. 

But there are many hells - in fact, they can't really be numbered. 

Hell is not a place, but wherever there is anyone (or any group) who oppose divine creation.

Only insofar as there is cooperation among those who oppose divine creation could there be said to be "one" hell; however; members of hell are unified only by their hatred of God; what they want is selfish - so there is endemic latent conflict within and between all hells. 

Hells are all in "this world"; all in the primary creation that you and I currently inhabit. 

Those "in Heaven" can go where they please, including this world, and any of the hells in it. 

Heaven is barred against all inhabitants of hell - unless they repent, and follow Jesus to resurrected eternal life. If they can't or won't repent and love, they will not experience Heaven. 

Only those who have made an eternal commitment to live only by love, can be "in Heaven". 

And that is one Heaven.

We can think of Heaven as like an ideal extended-family - every member is different in abilities and interests, and are at different stages of maturity; and indeed members each have personal preferences among the family. 

But just one family.   

Evidence depends on theory, theory depends on assumptions

If this is how it all began - then purpose, meaning and personal significance are merely trivial "optional extras"

Evidence depends on theory, theory depends on assumptions.

So; he who controls our fundamental assumptions concerning the nature of reality - controls everything that ultimately matters.

(Just a reformulation of an old thought.)

We live in a world of public discourse that pretends to be determined by evidence; but evidence is not determinative - and cannot be.  

Because what counts as evidence, and what an item of evidence means, is dependent on theory. 

And all theories depend on assumptions concerning the nature of reality. 

So that our assumptions concerning the nature of reality - i.e. metaphysics - determine all knowledge. 

And this is why totalitarian, materialist, atheism rules the world of public discourse, why all "evidence" seems to support it, and why there seems to be no evidence to support the spirit and the divine. 

It is why all "serious" theories acknowledged in public discourse lead in circles back to themselves; why "there is no alternative" and "resistance is futile".

It is why all discussion of purpose, meaning and personal significance seem arbitrary and feeble - and why hedonism, nihilism and despair are the pervasive moods of modernity...

Purpose, meaning, and the significance of the individual person are all excluded from the accepted and propagated picture of the nature of reality in this life and universe. 

For us; the ultimate assumptions of real-reality are of abstract impersonal particles, forces, processes, fields, energies, randomness... operating unknown and mechanically, algorithmically, in a world without consciousness, or life.   

These assumptions are built-into our public life, our pubic institutions; and from such ultimate metaphysical assumptions, any purpose, meaning, personal significance is arbitrary.  

Even for the self-identified religious; the purposeless, meaningless universe - indifferent to life and Men; is the real picture - much realer than that of God. 

Indeed God is regarded as having primarily created such a dead and futile world, without values: only later inserting some living beings, and finally humans. 

So, according to the mainstream and institutional reality; the purposeless, meaningless, impersonal world came first, and existed without our consciousness; by this we know which is most fundamental, which is most important - and is is not us.     

Thus the assumptions of our underlying metaphysical picture combine to rule-out the primacy and seriousness of  purpose, meaning, personal significance, and values in the universe and in our societies and individual lives. 

These are not regarded as fundamental, but merely "optional extras" - even for the religious. 

Public debate and discussions about evidence or theories relating to God, creation, good and evil etc. are all rendered necessarily trivial. 

Our motivations are poisoned at source. 

Those who controls our fundamental assumptions - control everything that ultimately matters.

This is one reason why the "alternative" internet makes no substantive difference; why those political animals who regard themselves as opposed to mainstream leftism make no difference; why even the most serious types of institutional religion make no difference.

Dig down; and they share the same deep assumptions as the globalist totalitarians - such that dissent is merely superficial, and ultimately irrelevant.

"Soft" totalitarianism in the Third Reich: or, How many Germans did it take to control three million Danes?

During WWII, the Third Reich invaded and occupied Denmark; and for the first few years (c. 1940 into 43) this was a classic example of what people nowadays call "soft" totalitarianism - meaning, totalitarianism imposed without use of violent coercion. 

Denmark had a population of about three million - so how many Germans do you think were needed to control this population?

The answer from military historian Rowland White's recent book (Mosquito: the extraordinary true story of the legendary RAF aircraft...) is... eighty-nine. That is 89. 

Averaging one German to administer more than 30,000 Danes.  

I found this very interesting; given that the Third Reich has (for obvious reasons) become a bye-word for the most purposively-aggressive and physical form of totalitarianism. 

Of course, the handful of Germans were backed by the threat of German military might and the rest of it; yet the numbers tell us that the imposition of totalitarian rule - even during a world war! - can be and was accomplished by "soft" methods...

Presumably some mixture of factors such as effective ideological propaganda, tacit support of the regime, and the calculations of fear and expediency in a situation where "there is no alternative" and "resistance is futile". 

The value of this insight is that most people doubt that we of The West inhabit a totalitarian system of governance, because we do not see the apparatus of violent physical coercion that we have been taught is a necessary feature of such politics. 

Yet, the example of Denmark proves that rigorous and efficient "soft" totalitarian rule is possible, and effective (at least, for a few years) by a tiny number of alien controllers; combined with the cooperation (or "collaboration") of sufficient natives of the national leadership class, and the tacit consent of the bulk of the remainder.

It also seems to prove that totalitarianism works best when it is "soft" - when it deploys soft-ideas rather than hard-violence. 

How many "outsiders" does it take to rule a UK of 60 million? 

Does it just scale up proportionately to... a couple of thousand aliens? Or are the economies of scale and fewer than 2K aliens are needed. Or do the difficulties multiply exponentially and maybe... tens of thousands are needed? 

Either way, it is salutary to realize that a thoroughly totalitarian system need not deploy large numbers of external-rulers, nor physical coercion, to be a very complete and effective mechanism of mass control. 

And, of course, this is exactly what we find, here and now - could we but recognize it.

Note: Rowland White's books tells a story of how this peaceful state of soft totalitarianism was deliberately subverted by British military intelligence by developing a sabotage network, that eventually grew to provoke violent German reprisals, and "hard" totalitarianism - which led to much greater Danish resistance; and the intended transfer of many more German personnel and resources to control Denmark. This effective intervention by another alien power - i.e. the UK - is also a demonstration of how a very few people who want to destabilize a system by guerrilla methods, can do so. The whole narrative seems to me one of elite external powers manipulating the Danish masses for their own ends.   

The magic of human institutions: Now absent, once always present; but never wholly sufficient

For most of recorded history until recently; many human institutions (organizations, formal groupings) were magical * - to some degree. 

The further back we go, the more magical they could be. The earlier in our life we go, the more likely that we would ourselves experience this magic. 

However, there were also not-magical groupings; and, no matter how magical the institution - there have always been those people who do not participate in it; being either immune to that magic, or susceptible but reject it. 

Furthermore, the innate magic of pre-adolescent childhood; means that - even now - groupings of such children often have a strongly magical ambience. 

The big difference across the generations relates to adult institutions - which used often to have a significant magical quality - but now are likely to be (almost entirely) soulless, dead, mechanical - and indeed purposively anti-magical... Zealous in their active destruction of any such qualities - typically by means of abstract and generic systems of bureaucracy and computerization. 

For instance; many educational institutions used to be strongly magical in their nature. This applied especially to small and localized institutions, or those with a mutually-selective character (i.e. both selected and selecting). 

Through my adult life I experienced educational institutions with considerable variations in the magical qualities; although I was also aware that most people were not consciously aware of such differences even when they spontaneously responded to them. 

Most people would speak against the reality and significance of such institutional aspects; and would cheerfully erode or eliminate magical aspects whenever this seemed expedient, from abstract ideology; or sometimes from sheer resentment-driven spite. 

Looking back; I could see that this institutional magic had, overall, been both more pervasive and common, and stronger (at least potentially stronger), the further back one went. 

Yet institutional enchantment was never complete. Human life was always and for everybody to some degree - marred by the "mundane" - this being the nature of our mortal state. 

The magic of institutions was therefore at its height (as I understand it) probably the major source of enchantment in human existence; while at the same time the very nature of institutions (plus the human beings who constitute them) meant that this magical quality was always both incomplete and contradicted.

 

And, through may adult life (from the 1980s) I could also see that this magic was innately ebbing - while also being purposively-expunged - from the educational institutions of which I knew. 

The difference across the decades was extreme. In my childhood and early adulthood the magical quality of (for instance) universities was (to me) palpable. By the time I retired from academia, the magic had been very-completely destroyed. 

Perhaps most evident when a soul-less, and indeed actively soul-destroying - institution, would attempt to cloak itself in the enchanted mantle of earlier generations. 

This would dishonestly be attempted using the mind-manipulating procedures of modern advertising and public relations; and would therefore fail to attain magic, but reduce enchantment to ideology, false promises of hedonism, fashion, and covert-appeals to status snobbery.  

While I devoted considerable energy to fighting this anti-magical trend, I now believe that a decline of that kind of spontaneous, largely unconscious, institutional magic was inevitable - due to the innate developments of human consciousness. 

When the human beings of an institution themselves come to lack spontaneous and unconscious magic; then enchantment is bound to wane from all institutions. 

The analogy with adolescence (nowadays) is close. Many children are spontaneously and unconsciously susceptible to enchantment; but the innate process of adolescence will abolish this; after which the capacity to know and live magically, must be the consequence of a conscious choice.  

In the later twentieth century, Western adults reached an "adolescence" of consciousness, so that spontaneous and unconscious magic receded - and if we were to continue to live any kind of enchanted life in our institutions; magic would need explicitly to be acknowledged as good, and purposively pursued.  

In sum: as we approached the millennium, magic needed to become self-conscious and consciously valued; or else there would soon be no magic.      

We know by now which of these happened! So complete has become the disenchantment of institutions, that (it seems) most people deny that things ever were otherwise! Most people assume that all institutions were always as they are now: spiritually-dead, exploitatively manipulative, habitually dishonest...

But such retrospective denigration is projection of our evil onto others; as can be seen if historical sources are experienced sympathetically. 

From where we actually-are; I find it hard even to imagine how institutions can be re-enchanted; because there is neither recognition of the problem, nor will to solve it. 

Furthermore; I am pretty sure that (from here, from now) institutional re-enchantment can happen only on the basis of Jesus Christ. 

Yet this needs to happen in a context where the churches are themselves very-thoroughly disenchanted - including by assimilation into the ideological materialism of totalitarian bureaucracy. 

This means that any future source of enchantment must primarily (i.e. as a first step) be sought outwith the Christian church institutions - and Christianity (plus/ minus specific churches) regenerated from that basis. 

From the spiritual place we now inhabit and the people we actually are; I cannot see any way that a Christianity rooted primarily in institutional affiliation (to any kind of institution, no matter how idealized) can succeed in doing what needs to be done.

On the other side; the attempt to do without enchantment; to construct a religion that operates at the level of institutional power, rooted in the mundane, rational, functional (e.g. a religion designed to implement a particular kind of society) - well, this will surely fail. 

Fail because it will inevitably assimilate to the existing mundane, pseudo-rational, quasi-functionality of that system of totalitarianism that characterizes our civilization. With Men as we are; any possible church-based, institutionally-rooted Christianity will be secular and materialistic, totalitarian and political, and spiritually dead.  

The only path ahead, is the right path ahead. 

**

*"Magic" does not mean Good - since there is black magic (intended to manipulate people and creation), as well as white (in harmony with God and creation). But magic is, of itself, good; in the sense that it recognizes the reality of our participation in creation; and by enchantment we are aware of this participation. Whereas the exclusion or elimination of magic is intrinsically an evil because rooted in falsehood, and the intent to cause spiritual harm.   

Bullied by Bullocks

Bullocks with attitude 

(Or maybe bulls? I can't tell.)

Bullocks are what we Brits call castrated male cattle, bred for beef. They may lack gonads, but they seem to have a good deal more testosterone than the females of the species.

I am not afraid of cattle as such, since I was raised in a dairy farming area; so I got used to repelling Frisians, when they were in my way. As a rule, a confident shout and waving the arms is easily adequate to disperse herds of cows. 

But bullocks are a different matter. They resist intimidation until one is almost on top of them, and even then glare at you, and only step back a couple of reluctant paces. After which they work together, and crowd around, with apparent intent to...

Well, I don't really know what bullocks are trying to do. I have never hung around to find out. 

They clearly want to surround - but to what purpose, exactly? 

They, after all, are herbivores; so presumably it isn't to devour; but maybe to stampede into pulp? 

So far, I have managed to get to a gate in time; unlike a friend of mine who was corralled by bullocks into a stream with steep banks in order to escape their attention. But as he stood shivering, up to his thighs in cold water; the evil beasts just continued to loom over him, refusing to go away. He was eventually compelled to wade half a mile downstream in search of a fenced-off field that would be safe. 

*

This is topical, because yesterday we were menaced by black bullocks, twice - when in Northumberland en route to the site of Stagshaw Bank Fair.

This once famous festival was founded in Anglo Saxon times, and for many years it was the largest fair in Britain; with people coming from all around the north of England and south of Scotland to sell livestock, have a wild time, and make an incredible mess. 

So that "like Stagshaw Fair" became a local term for anything in a state of chaos. The event was eventually closed down by the British government in the 1920s, after about a millennium of drunken disorder.

But now, like Shelley's Ozymandias, nothing much remains, except a bleak, tussocky wasteland, boundless and bare, stretching far away; enlivened only by some electrical pylons.

Not really worth the risk of death by hooves. 

   

Note: To the right of the pylon, you can see a whitish line - which is a shallow bog consisting of farmyard slurry (liquid manure mixed with urine), laced with diesel oil contamination. Our path consisted of large stone slabs, carefully laid a few inches under the surface of this poisonous morass (despite being an official public right-of-way). That was when I discovered that my waterproof walking boots had sprung several leaks.