Like many British people, I am "a bit obsessed" with the Battle of Britain; in that I never tire of reading and viewing media about those months of 1940.
Part of this is a boyish fascination with the aircraft, the pilots, the air services, the nation's mood and response etc. On any given day, I am more likely than not to be reading a pilot's memoir, or another historical study of this time.
But, unlike most people, I am also prone to think about the spiritual or inner side of the BoB. This was, I believe, crucial to the success of the defence - in context esepcially of the counter-example of France and its stunningly fast capitulation, in which resistance was undermined by a national mood of confusion, incoherence, and despair.
I regard the Battle of Britain as the last time that the group mind of the British people was powerfully and positively motivated.
Since 1940, the group mind has sometimes been positive and feeble, sometimes powerful and negative - but never both good and strong in the way of the BoB.
And I do not believe it ever shall be again - indeed the group mind has all-but disintegrated; as is inevitable when overwhelmingly-most people (including most religious people) are materialist by their fundamental assumptions.
Even when people believe in God; God's role is relegated to materialist goals and methods (socio-politics); even when people believe in the spiritual, the spirit is seen in terms of its physical effects (this-worldly benefits and harms).
Yet I do experience a good and positive group mind of Britain (or Britain's spiriual basis - Albion); and since this is not coming from the mass of people, from the mortal Men of the nation; my assumption is that instead this group mind is located in the resurrected Dead; and also in the non-human beings of the nation - in the consciousness of some of the animals, plants, and landscapes.
So people here-and-now can be inspired, energized, and motivated by the group mind of Albion - even now; but on an individual level, and by means of direct contact with other minds that are not living mortal humans.
This superficially seems weird, but it also seems experientially true.
2 comments:
That is a brilliant insight: that in virtue of their mutual incorporation – their living coinherence – all the living souls, all the spirits, who ever partook it, whether or not we might meet them here on Earth, constitute and maintain the life of their nation; and that we who do now live on Earth can be inspired by our communion with the whole company of such compatriot spirits, can participate with them in our nation, and so contribute to the life of the nation something of our own lives. It is a tremendously reassuring thought.
That is an extension and generalization of the ecclesial doctrine of the Mystical Body of the Church, “which is the blessed company of all faithful people,” both now living on Earth and forever living in Heaven. That Mystical Body is the Communion of Saints, and includes the angels; so that the preface of the Sanctus invites the congregation to join with the choirs of angels in singing that hymn:
"And so, with Angels and Archangels, with Thrones and Dominions, and with all the hosts and Powers of heaven, we sing the hymn of your glory, as without end we acclaim: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth; pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua; Hosanna in excelsis."
Chesterton was working in the same spirit when in chapter 4 of his Orthodoxy he wrote of Tradition as the democracy of the dead:
"Tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record. ... Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father."
@Kristor - Glad you liked it!
Yes, it seems quite in harmony with Catholic understanding; although the Evangelical side of Protestantism has usually been adamant that there can be no relationship between the still living and the dead, such that prayers for the dead are not featured in church, and discouraged in private.
This seems to derive from Paul's description of the deceased who have been saved apparently lying in an inert sleep until the judgement day and second coming. This is given more weight than the scriptural references such as the Good Thief, or Jesus himself, where resurrection seems to follow immediately after death. Protestants tend in practice to regard Paul as the highest theological authority.
My own conviction is that resurrection can (if the dead so choose, as I intend to!) follow "immediately" after death, and that the (some of the) resurrected dead and the living can be in direct and unmediated contact. I think that the main reason and method of this is mutual love - and that love can also develop post-mortally, between living and "dead".
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