The Play of William Arkle

The Seeker by William Arkle

Foreword by William Arkle for his web site billarkle.co.uk

(These web pages were created by Michael Perry in consultation with Arkle, about twenty years ago shortly before Arkle died; and for many years this was the only significant web presence of William Arkle - and it was the source of my own informed engagement with Arkle from 2008. Sadly the site is now gone.)

**

I very nearly called this web site 'The Play of William Arkle', and then I felt that it would sound rather too casual for most people and even an insult to the endeavour that is brought to the resolving of the mysteries of life.

The reason that the word 'play' suggested itself is that the journey of understanding seems to lead from the level of human survival as a personality in this world, through to a spiritual view that takes survival of our spiritual self for granted; and then on again into the appreciation of the all-encompassing smile of our Divine Creator.

This Divine Smile says a very simple thing, which is that the everlasting nature of its Spirit can have only two options: either it remains in its Absolute condition of Blissful non-action; or it can engage in action through the creation of play-grounds. This means creating theatres of time, space and lots of things - from a condition of no action or time or space or things.

Our Creator felt that the first choice of 'no action' could becoming boring because there was no adventure, surprise or growth involved. The livingness of The Spirit felt itself to be in need of such adventure as an expression of joyful love and fun. So the second choice came about purely for the exercise of joy and love and fun.

The only word I could find to cover the activity of joy and love and fun was the word play, but unless it is approached in the right way the word does not carry the correct significance. And thus the whole of this web site is a journey into the understanding of The Creator's view of the word play.

You will find that my own earlier understandings moved gradually into this way of talking about our reality. It seemed to become more and more light-hearted while being able to sympathise with all the conditions of growth which can feel to be the conditions of fear and anxiety. Thus the big game of life at play has conditions within it which can descend to the very opposites of its initial intention.

These opposite conditions are the result of our Creator deciding to give us the Gift of being able to become real players in our own right at this adventure which is being undertaken. This is why the picture book was called The Great Gift and why the writings in it referred to God as being our friend in this one life endeavour. Later on this was changed to the expression God, The Player Friend.

As for me, I have kept the name William Arkle. I like the name because it implies that my Will is doing its best to be a small expression of the Ark of Life, The Heart of the Creator Friend.

However my close associates now find me calling myself Billy The Kid.

**

Here Arkle is saying that the first and deepest question about divine creation is why did God do it? Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is there action rather than stasis?

And Arkle is saying that this is to do with the nature of God, the kind of person that God is. Like a young child; God has an enjoyment of play.

(With 'play' Arkle, very typically, chooses a simple and 'childish' word for the most profound of his metaphysical beliefs - 'friend' would be another example.) 

As a child's favourite activity is to-play - rather than do-nothing; so with God.


So God made things happen. For a while, perhaps, God 'entertained himself'; and thus will presumably soon have discovered that solo make-believe does not satisfy for long (too predictable) - and soon one craves 'playmates', people like oneself to play with.

Play needs other-people. In this instance, other gods. Thus the whole purpose of creation.  


Of course a child does not want to play always; and wants to eat, rest and sleep from time to time - but these are mainly in order to prepare for more play.

The same with our reality, this creation. There are some persons (and some religions or ideologies) that focus upon 'eating' (sensual gratification - e.g. sexual gratification, euphoria), and others that focus on the hope for rest/ peace/ sleep (Nirvana).

But for most people, most of the time; play is the primary thing - if, by play, we ultimately mean the only endlessly rewarding 'play' which is the divine work of loving-creation in heaven: the Great Gift of Jesus.

(Which we sample and approximate in mortality in the life of loving families; and in the life of human creativity (experiencing, learning, doing, making) in its multitude of individual types - games, sports, pastimes, hobbies, arts and crafts...)


Arkle - shortly before he died, tells us here that called himself Billy the Kid. Why?

My guess: because a free, conscious, chosen return to the basic situation of the child is the purpose of life. Life is a cycle, but not a recapitulation.

To become again As a child (which Jesus is said to have commanded us); 'as' a child means not to be a child, but to live as grown-ups, as a child live (and as we ourselves once did).

For instance: a child cannot plan - adolescents plan with obsessive self-consciousness - the spiritually mature human adult chooses Not to plan; but again to live spontaneously and as improvisation.

And in perfect love (which casteth out fear).


(And, thereby, at the last moment - unpredictably, unstoppably - to thwart all plans and schemes of evil! Evil is beaten by Not plotting-against evil, but by doing Good; as a child.)

The all encompassing smile of our divine creator - analysing the last words of William Arkle

 A late painting by William Arkle including his favourite subject matter of the divine smiling face

Throughout his life (1925-2000) the spiritual philosopher and artist William Arkle developed and lived by a type of esoteric Christianity which has become one of the great influences on my life. His last published words are therefore of particular interest.

But not only the words. What was special about Arkle is that he lived by his beliefs. Colin Wilson described him as one of the half dozen most remarkable men he had met; precisely because of the harmony between his ideals and his lived consciousness. I have confirmed this by discussions with several people who knew him, including his son Nick.

In some ways Arkle's beliefs were stable from the 1950s through to his death in 2000; and this stability can be seen both in the writings from his first pamphlet (The Hand of God, in 1960) via his two books (A Geography of Consciousness, 1974 and The Great Gift, 1977) to the last writings published on the internet; and by the themes, and recurrent symbolism, of his mature paintings (despite many varieties of style).

In the paintings; as well as sea shores, mountains, skies, rivers and the like; there are specific distinctive subjects - such as teapots and cups, or small boats. But most characteristic is the large smiling divine face - hovering above the picture, implicitly unseen by most people - sometimes with nurturing arms and hands, but most often variations on the theme of of that enigmatically-smiling face.

I regard William Arkle as a genuinely advanced spiritual soul; and therefore it was a fact that he was trying to communicate his vision across a great gulf to reach the rest of us - aspiring perhaps, but ourselves not very far along that path. 

This, I think, is the core reason why his paintings and words both tend to strike people (at least initially) as simplistic and naive: too much 'sweetness and light' and too little of that corruption and darkness which modern materialist Man seems to want in his art and literature.

Arkle was perfectly aware of this, but would not compromise on what he saw as the truth about reality. And through his life into old age, his 'vision' became more and more positive, optimistic and serene.

Anyway, in Arkle's 'last words' - published as the Foreword to a large web site made for him by Michael Perry (no longer available); he wrote a characteristic short essay that - as so often - implies a great deal more than seems.

I analyse the whole thing below. My comments are in italics:


I very nearly called this web site 'The Play of William Arkle', and then I felt that it would sound rather too casual for most people and even an insult to the endeavour that is brought to the resolving of the mysteries of life.

The reason that the word 'play' suggested itself is that the journey of understanding seems to lead from the level of human survival as a personality in this world, through to a spiritual view that takes survival of our spiritual self for granted; and then on again into the appreciation of the all-encompassing smile of our Divine Creator.

Arkle describes a three-step progression: 

1. Human survival as a personality in this incarnate, material world.
2.  A 'spiritual' view that takes for granted that the 'soul' survives death, and makes this a solid basis, a metaphysical framework, for living. 
3. An interwoven understanding of the 'all encompassing smile' of the divine creator; 'our' creator because we are true children of the divine creator. 

In other words; after we cease to push-away knowledge of our own soul, and the pervasive presence of our creator, we can begin to understand the implications and begin to live by them.

This Divine Smile says a very simple thing, which is that the everlasting nature of its Spirit can have only two options: either it remains in its Absolute condition of Blissful non-action; or it can engage in action through the creation of play-grounds. This means creating theatres of time, space and lots of things - from a condition of no action or time or space or things.

The divine smile - in its divinity, and its love for us as men and as individuals - gives us two positive options; plus a negative alternative which Arkle only obliquely implies. What is important is that these two options were the same as confronted the creator. The first in a path of pure 'static' contemplation in a state of bliss. (That is, the state of Nirvana.) The second is the one which God actually took; which is to engage in loving, creative action: creation of The World, of reality - with its time, space, matter and differentiation into many entities including persons. 

Our Creator felt that the first choice of 'no action' could becoming boring because there was no adventure, surprise or growth involved. The livingness of The Spirit felt itself to be in need of such adventure as an expression of joyful love and fun. So the second choice came about purely for the exercise of joy and love and fun.

This explains why God made the choice of action and creation. Arkle intuits that it was the preference for change, including unpredictability. This is a statement regarding the deep and intrinsic nature of God as a person. The fact is stated in a typically down-to-earth way ('boring', adventure', 'fun' etc. and 'play' coming up next) that is shocking, or banal, according to taste; and which I regard as expressive of the difficulty of communicating across a spiritual gulf - because there really is no way we can fully understand what is being said unless and until we our-selves attain such an intuitive and direct knowledge of the nature of God, as a real and living person.  

The only word I could find to cover the activity of joy and love and fun was the word play, but unless it is approached in the right way the word does not carry the correct significance. And thus the whole of this web site is a journey into the understanding of The Creator's view of the word play.

You will find that my own earlier understandings moved gradually into this way of talking about our reality. It seemed to become more and more light-hearted while being able to sympathise with all the conditions of growth which can feel to be the conditions of fear and anxiety. Thus the big game of life at play has conditions within it which can descend to the very opposites of its initial intention.

God has taken the second option of action and creation; but we - as agent persons - are free to disagree with God's choice. There are two possible ways of disagreeing - the first is to reject personhood and prefer the bliss of Nirvana - to return to the immersive static-state of absorption in which everything began. 

But it is the second freedom to which Arkle refers when he mentions 'the opposites of the initial intention'. We are also free to disagree wit the whole scheme of creation and of love between persons. We are thus free to be anti-creation, anti-love: instead of creating in harmony with divine creation we can destroy-creation, and instead of living by love for the divine plan and other persons we can live from-and-for our-selves in fear and resentment of other persons - the state called 'pride'...

When we understand that God's disliked loneliness and boredom and sought 'fun' and 'friends' with whom to share creativity; we may regard this either as generous sharing; or we may regard it as selfish and exploitative of God. The latter inference is what leads to the many of the aspects of the world in opposition to the intention of God.       

These opposite conditions are the result of our Creator deciding to give us the Gift of being able to become real players in our own right at this adventure which is being undertaken. This is why the picture book was called The Great Gift and why the writings in it referred to God as being our friend in this one life endeavour. Later on this was changed to the expression God, The Player Friend.

We are 'real players' in the 'adventure' of mortal incarnate living. Within creation, there are those who are free to regard loving creation as wrong, and to work against it. It is part of the plan that those who decide to favour option one (Nirvana) or to oppose option two (to act against love and creation) are allowed to do this, and to 'put their case' to others. For God's hoped-for friends to be real they must positively understand and agree to the divine plan; including that they need to understand and reject the alternatives. 

Such a situation is allowed-to work-itself-out in the world for the simple reason that it is the only way that the ultimate aim can be achieved. Nobody is compelled. Indeed, the nature of love and creation is such that nobody can be compelled.  

Arkle's concept of 'play' is the experience from-which we may learn; but what we learn is up-to each individual. All options are 'on the table'. The possibilities are known, and competing - even fighting. 

We must and will, all of us, take sides - because there is no neutral ground. We may change our minds during mortal incarnate life, and perhaps after - but at any given moment we are on one side, and not on the other two sides. This is the nature and purpose of the play of our lives.

As for me, I have kept the name William Arkle. I like the name because it implies that my Will is doing its best to be a small expression of the Ark of Life, The Heart of the Creator Friend.

However my close associates now find me calling myself Billy The Kid.

Thus Arkle closes his valedictory with a modest and whimsical set of puns...

William Arkle´s Foreword to billarkle.co.uk

I very nearly called this web site 'The Play of William Arkle', and then I felt that it would sound rather too casual for most people and even an insult to the endeavour that is brought to the resolving of the mysteries of life.

The reason that the word 'play' suggested itself is that the journey of understanding seems to lead from the level of human survival as a personality in this world, through to a spiritual view that takes survival of our spiritual self for granted and then on again into the appreciation of the all encompassing smile of our Divine Creator.

This Divine Smile says a very simple thing, which is that the everlasting nature of its Spirit can have only two options, either it remains in its Absolute condition of Blissful non-action or it can engage in action through the creation of play grounds. This means creating theatres of time, space and lots of things from a condition of no action or time or space or things.

Our Creator felt that the first choice of no action could becoming boring because there was no adventure, surprise or growth involved. The livingness of The Spirit felt itself to be in need of such adventure as an expression of joyful love and fun. So the second choice came about purely for the exercise of joy and love and fun.

The only word I could find to cover the activity of joy and love and fun was the word play, but unless it is approached in the right way the word does not carry the correct significance. And thus the whole of this web site is a journey into the understanding of The Creators view of the word play.

You will find that my own earlier understandings moved gradually into this way of talking about our reality. It seemed to become more and more light hearted while being able to sympathise with all the conditions of growth which can feel to be the conditions of fear and anxiety. Thus the big game of life at play has conditions within it which can descend to the very opposites of its initial intention.

These opposite conditions are the result of our Creator deciding to give us the Gift of being able to become real players in our own right at this adventure which is being undertaken. This is why the picture book was called The Great Gift and why the writings in it referred to God as being our friend in this one life endeavour. Later on this was changed to the expression God, The Player Friend'.

As for me, I have kept the name William Arkle. I like the name because it implies that my will is doing its best to be a small expression of the Ark of Life, The Heart of the Creator Friend. However my close associates now find me calling myself Billy The Kid.

http://www.billarkle.co.uk/billintro.html

The above short piece was written a few months before William Arkle died at the age of  about 76. It is an extraordinarily luminous, joyous, and apparently naive piece of writing - life-affirming and without a trace of bitterness.

How many people who have lived to 76, in the twentieth century - serving in the 39-45 war - and who have worked as an obscure and almost unknown artist, philosopher, painter and a religious visionary and teacher - could write in such an uncompromising fashion at the end of their lives? I have read many biographies and autobiographies and I cannot think of any other example.

At the end of his life the commonplace word ´play´has - for Arkle - become charged with such a depth of meaning that it has become central; earlier the same thing happened for ´friend´ (becoming a friend of the creator as the ultimate goal not just of mortal life but the principle for the organization of the universe and all reality).

Arkle makes little concession to the prevalent pessimism and despair. He all but laughs in the face of horror and suffering.

We have much to learn from him.

What is God like? What does God want from creation?

I have had the privilege of reading in manuscript a collection from letters from William Arkle to a young friend and spiritual-disciple/ -colleague; spanning from the middle 1980s to near the end of Arkle's life (in 2000).  

These have provoked all kinds of thoughts on that vital matter which Arkle 'made his own': questions on the nature of God, and God's hopes and aims in creation. 

 

For all Christians; God is (or should be) a person, not an abstraction. 

We are God's children (that is related-to, descended-from God); and God loves us. 

Beyond this, there are differences of understanding; and there is indeed a difference in my understanding and that of Arkle. More precisely, in his early work, Arkle described what I believe is true: God is a dyad, Father and Mother in Heaven: God is our Heavenly Parents. 

This is also the understanding of Mormon thelogy; and it natually goes-with an understanding of each Human Being as - in his or her eternal primordial essence, and eternally in future - either a man, or a woman (never neither, nor both). 

This metaphysical reality does not necessarily map-onto what may happen to an individual man or woman in terms of biological sex and/or sexuality during this mortal, earthly incarnation - which has the nature of a temporary experience for us to learn-from. My understanding is that - whatever happens 'superficially' in mortal life - each of us eternally has been, and eternally will be, essentially (by the nature of our true and divine self) a man or a woman eternally. 

 

But by the 1980s, Arkle had apparently moved to a view of God as primarily both man and woman simultaneously (a He/ She); and this goes-with an idea of sex as relatively superficial to the essence of Human Being - and with reincarnation as potentially alternating (as 'required') between the sexes; neither being the essence of a Human Being. Or with sex (and marriage, and procreation) being 'discarded' when a Human Being has reached Heaven

(Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield also share this understanding of sex. And it also goes-with an understanding of spirit-form as both the past and future of Man: Man was a spirit, will become a spirit; and physical incarnation is an intermediate stage, for experience and learning only.)

Whereas by contrast; my view (and the Mormon view) is that physical incarnation is higher than spirit life: bodies are better. Including that God is embodied - i.e. God is physically-bounded and in the same as human form (or rather, causally vice versa); God is not an omnipresent spirit. 

So, for me, God is embodied, and indeed two bodies: God is a dyad: Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother.

This matter of "what God is like", whether God is One or Two, is a vital to our metaphysics; because it decides our understanding of why God embarked on creation. Our inferred motivation of a unitary, solo God is very different from that of two Heavenly Parents, distinct but united by their mutual love. 

 

(Traditional Christian theology has it that God was utterly self-sufficient, and without needs (or desires). Trinitarian theology makes the love of this unitary God also be (somehow) sub-divided into the mutual love of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. But either way, the creation of Men and everything-else by God is an ultimately gratuitous act - and Not a matter of God seeking greater satisfaction, Not a matter of God needing, wanting, desiring or yearning. I personally reject this line of reasoning on the basis that God is a person, like our-selves in an ultimate sense; and that God does have passions, wishes. In particular I regard Love as the primary passion of God, and I regard Love as having in its nature many aspects such as needing, wanting, desiring and yearning.) 

Arkle's inference, based on his understanding of God as unity and a real person - is that God before creation must have been lonely and bored. God's greatest need was for things to do, and people to do-things-with. 

From this, Arkle derives an understanding that creation is essentially a matter of overcoming loneliness and boredom; of creating Beings who can develop to become like himself, and of creating many other things 'for fun'. 

Arkle encapsulates this in the ideas that in making Men who can evolve towards full-deity God is literally Making Friends; creating Beings who - it is hoped - will become 'friends' at the same divine level as God. And secondly that all the other Beings of Creation are made as a kind of ultimate 'play'. So that for Arkle life is - at its highest, most divine - created life is about play with and among friends.  

It should be noted - and this comes through repeatedly in these late Arkle letters, that loneliness and boredom are negative motivations - therefore creation is a kind of cosmic therapy for the unitary God.  

My own view, based on God as the loving-dyad of celestial husband and wife, of Heavenly Parents; is that creation is a natural consequence of the existential nature of Love. Creation is the positively-motivated overflow and expansion of spousal love. 

This is nothing esoteric, but a motivation that has been experienced (albeit perhaps partially and temporarily, as is the nature of mortal life) by countless husbands and wives through Man's history. Parental love seeks its own increase through children; and through a creative attitude to life and living.

In different words, the spontaneous expression (consequence) of parental love; is to co-create (in harmony with God's already in-progress creating) an open-ended, expanding-and-harmonious world; in which the family lives creatively. 

In a nutshell, God is like the perfection of married love, and what God wants from creation is analogous to what a loving husband and wife want, given a husband and wife who are themselves members of loving families. 

Thus (in an eternal persepctive) God wants children, and loving-developing family relations; wants new family and friends (i.e. permanent friends, maintained in harmony by analogously-familial love); wants a whole created-world of other (increasingly creative) Beings of many kinds, natures, motivations - but (ideally, and in actuality in Heaven) all maintained in Harmony by their mutual love. 

 

God does Not want beautiful, obedient children - just sitting around, waiting to be told what to do... William Arkle and the Prodigal Son

It’s the friction between the things we love and the things which vitiate against those things which enables us to actually grasp the value of the things we love. 

Without an ability to grasp the significance of these values we could never grow up to be as God is, to become ‘Prodigal Sons’. We would only remain beautiful, obedient children who would continually be sitting around saying: ‘Now what do you want me to do next?’ 

But what God wants is somebody out there to say: ‘ Come on God, let’s go and do this for a bit!’ 

And God would say: ‘That’s an idea! I never thought of doing that before!’ 

I know that’s looking ahead, and we haven’t got to that stage yet; but I think that’s what we’re working towards.

Commentary: The above striking paragraph is transcribed and slightly paraphrased from a recorded talk given by William Arkle - perhaps in the middle 1980s. 

Arkle is trying to explain why in this mortal life we experience vices as well as virtues, misery as well as joy, evil as well as Good. And he explains this in terms of what God is hoping for from us ultimately; what God is hoping we will eventually become. 

 

God is hoping, and planning, that eventually at least some Men will become grown-up gods; original sub-creators on-a-level-with God the primary creator of this reality. 

Arkle illustrates this by interpreting the Prodigal Son story as a parable of God and mortal Men.   The father in the story represents God, the prodigal son represents us men who choose to be incarnated into mortal life, while the other son represents the pre-mortal spirit-men who declined incarnation on earth remained in Heaven bathed in divine beauty and exemplary in obedience. 

The interpretation suggested is that the prodigal son has, through learning from his experiences - which were bad, as well as good - 'grown-up' and become closer to what his father hoped for than has the other son. 

The other son has experienced only good things, and therefore does not know their true value. The other son has always obeyed and knows no other, and has not overcome the temptation of pride. The other son never left his father ('God') and so never chose freely to return.

It is the other son who Arkle lightheartedly caricatures as: beautiful, obedient children who would continually be sitting around saying: ‘Now what do you want me to do next?’  And the picture evoked helps make clear why this would not be a plausible goal for God to design for Man. After all; what would be the point of God creating such merely-ornamental self-reflections as these beautiful, obedient children?   

God instead created disobedient children, and a world full of temptations and sufferings; in hope that some of his children would choose to dwell in it, and would then learn from their experiences: good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant - and return to occupy a higher place in Heaven than would otherwise have been possible. 

Such grown-up children - if we choose to return to the divine plan, to embrace resurrection into Heaven; there to live and work alongside God - have the knowledge and uniqueness that they (we!) could eventually become original generative agents. 

Grown-up Sons and Daughters of God. 

And then we would be able to make contributions to divine and eternal on-going creation that could surprise and delight God. So he might say: ‘That’s an idea! I never thought of doing that before!’ 

Added Note: Perhaps William Arkle's greatest contribution to my understanding comes from his trying to understand God's motivations as creator. Arkle recognizes that, as well as the deepest explanation that God creates from an abundance of love; we can also consider what God as a divine person (or persons) would want from creation - and that is 'other divine persons' not just to love but also to work-with and 'play'-with. Arkle indeed focuses on play to a rather extreme extent at times! - but it seems an important and perhaps unique insight that (across the span of eternity) God would want not just immature children in his Heavenly family, but also grown-up children to interact with; ideally children who have developed to a level with himself. And we can immediately infer that Jesus Christ was the first of these, but that it would be hoped he is not the last.  

Is God's motivation for creation 'play' or 'love'?

If the primal reality of God is imagined before the beginning of creation, and if God is single and personal; then creation can be understood as God's 'play'.

This is made simple and explicit in God, the Player Friend; a rare 42 page booklet self-published by William Arkle in 1993, which I only discovered-about a couple of weeks ago, and which I am currently reading.


Typically (and valuably) Arkle boils it down to God alone becoming bored with a world in which everything was caused by himself; and from this dissatisfaction manifesting creation so that divine 'Friends' - that is, fully-developed men and women - could gradually evolve, and become genuinely independent sources of surprise and innovation.

As so often, much hinges upon the primary assumptions; and here Arkle makes the primary assumption that the beginning of everything - God - is a unity. When this is the assumption, then I think it is 'inevitable' that there is an 'arbitrary' quality of 'play' about everything in creation.

Reality is because creation is more 'fun' than no reality; as Arkle sometimes put it.


When creation is driven by something negative like boredom, and negativity is cured by the independent play of other agents or actors; then we get this kind of double-negative theology which I always regard as secondary.

Yet, if creation is dynamic, expansile (as I believe) then it must indeed be motivated by some kind of (negatively) discontent, or (positively) yearning.


My own understanding is different from Arkles, and is pretty-much the Mormon Christian theology; which is that 'in the beginning' God was two, a dyad, man and woman, Heavenly Father and Mother.

By this understanding there never was 'unity' - unless the unity is regarded as being divided in twain. The 'unity' comes from Love: love between our Heavenly Parents, which eternally 'binds' them (in a 'celestial marriage'). That is my primal reality.

The primal reality is therefore one that is dynamic, as love is dynamic; and it is one of yearning, as love contains yearning. By my understanding, then, creation is the result of an overflow of this yearning love; so that there be more autonomous, agent, independently-creative persons to love.

This is a familiar motivation arising between a loving husband and wife: the positive desire for children to expand the scope and possibility of love. The married couple's aspiration for pro-creation (and also to create a home, a family, ideally one that is ever-growing and inter-linking - with all that entails in terms of the context for such growth) is thus seen of a microcosm of the divine impulse to creation. 


The classical 'Trinitarian' formulation of Christian theology 'has it both ways' in asserting that God is both undivided-unity (with no sex) and hence of its nature static and self-sufficient; and also a triad of Father, Son and Holy Ghost (with no sex) - who are different enough to be bound together by love, hence dynamic and motivated to grow.

By this classical account; sexuality is secondary, temporary, inessential; whereas for Mormon theology sexuality is primary and causal; deriving from the nature of God - our Heavenly Parents. 

I can make no rational sense of classical Trinitarianism; but as a form of words, it covers all the bases!

However, for me, God must be either one or more-than-one; and my understanding is that God is (or rather was, primally) two. And these two were a man and a woman. And their love was the fount of creation.

What shall I do today? (William Arkle)

Monsieur Hulot serves in the game of life...

What shall I do to-day? What will to-day do with me? What will I do to to-day? What will we do to each other?

Hello, play-friend day, here we are so wonderfully arranged, each on our own side of the tennis net of life, neither of us concerned to win but only to be the best companion in the game. 

...Play is play and one thing leads to another, but there are times when I wish that your fever of dominant self-wilfulness would subside, with all its contrary forms of unplayful activity, for these confuse you and you don't realise that life is meant to be an opportunity for you to live out your best joys with as much definition as possible...

From A Cup of Day by William Arkle 

Arkle wrote the above shortly before his death at the age of seventy six. It seems to be about that feeling which we often get at the beginning of each day. Of course, the day may be filled with work and chores, and we may feel we have no scope for exerting any control upon it. Or - even at weekends, day's off, or during holidays - we may have pre-filled our day with a busy-list of fun activities; so that there is neither time nor energy to ask 'What shall I do today?'...

Nonetheless, it is a real question. And - contrary to appearances - each day is unique, and brings us unprecedented experiences - our personal interaction with the world is never repeated nor is it repeatable (even when we try to make it repeat).

And - since God, as well as our personal agency, is ultimately responsible for each day - we may assume that each day is an interaction, a 'tennis match' between us and God.

Perhaps the 'game' of the day begins with God serving-up some stimulus - some event, stress, good news - for us to respond to; so we return it across the net as best we can. Perhaps we make the serve, and begin with some act or thought or intervention in the world; and God smashes or lobs it back to us...

The metaphor breaks-down if we regard tennis as merely a means to the end of determining a winner; because the game of life is not a competition but a training. It is a learning experience; and because no two bouts are identical, there is always something to learn.

This means that - in an ultimate sense - we can relax and enjoy the day's game, however it turns-out. The only total failure would be a failure to learn from the day's play.

And this insight leaves us free to play the game of life joyfully. 

The music of creation, and our part in it - from William Arkle

The writer is our Father in Heaven addressing us, his children, by means of an imaginary letter ...

Another question you would surely like to ask me, is why I should need so many children around about me in this creative scheme of mine. Why would not, say, twenty or fifty be enough?

To begin with you do not yet know the depth of my nature. You do not yet know just how much I have to give. If what I had to give were just a simple thing it would not require an elaborate situation to give it in, but what I have to give is most elaborate, and so, to create the necessary width of understanding, I need to find expression for all my qualities, and lay them all out for you to see.

As many of these qualities have to be lived, so I need many different children to live amongst one another.

My plan of creation is vast in your sight because my being is vast also, but do not let that be a cause to think that any of you do not matter to me; you matter to me all as individual children and also as players in my play. If you do not play your part, who is to do it for you? No one can, and it thus leaves a gap.

You are all players in my orchestra, and I cannot make the sounds I had hoped for if any of you are unable to play the individual parts that make up the whole piece of music.

But my orchestra is not like yours. In my orchestra no two parts are the same but they are all needed to make up the true beauty of the sound I have visioned.

I need a large family because I need to express a large number of characters, so do not think only of rushing to my heaven, for it is not necessarily in heaven that you will be able to learn the part you have to play.

When you think of my music, try to remember that it is a continuous creation and not a single piece that is to be repeated. I have no desire to repeat my music, rather do I spin it newly all the while, so what you add to it now, and at any other time, is continually affecting the performance.

You and I are making this music now, and each of your sounds is valuable to the effect, and I am the one who all the time gathers them in and weaves them together into a whole of constantly changing music.

Thus I even make use of the discordant sounds since they all express in some way the reality of the complete situation.

Not that I would have you think that I sit back and coldly 'conduct' this music, or feel any pleasure from discordant notes. I am doing many things at the same time in ways that you would not yet understand, and each discordant note pulls at my heart and my sympathy.

My music is not made to entertain, it is the expression of our endeavour, and effort, and suffering, woven together with the beauty of the beginning and the end.

It is this very music that I use to order and adapt my school of living to the needs that I sense in it. The music reports to my sensitive ear the exact condition of my whole work and my nature responds to its beauty and its needs.

Edited from Letter from a Father (1973) by William Arkle:
http://williamarkle.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/letter-from-father-by-william-arkle.html

The channeling phenomenon of the twentieth century

Throughout the twentieth century orientated towards the millennium, and spilling over somewhat up until the 2012 'delayed millennium', there was a significant sub-culture of 'channeling' among spiritual-but-not-religious people - those who from the 1980s were gathered under the New Age label. 

The phenomenon was essentially a development of the spiritualist mediums from the 19th century; but instead of focusing on contact with the deceased on behalf of their surviving spouses and relative, the mediums of channeling purported to be contacting what might be termed 'spiritual teachers'. 

These channeled-teachers were of a wide range; from God and Jesus Christ, through angels, down to 'ascended Masters', prophets, and famous people of the past - or sometimes named, but imperfectly identified, spiritual authorities. Others were quoting from spiritually perceived sources (e.g. "The Akashic Records").   

I would regard Madame Blavatsky (Theosophy - late 19th century) then Rudolf Steiner (from about 1900 - Theosophy, then Anthroposophy) as probably the major precursors and originators of New Age style channelers. Steiner, in particular, exemplifies both the possibilities and pitfalls of the business. 

I have been investigating the literature on channeling for about 8 years - since I became engaged with the work of William Arkle and the circles he moved in. In his later years, Arkle took a serious interest in several of the channeled books which came out from the early twentieth century, and which were especially abundant in the 1980s and 1990s (Arkle died in 2000). 

Since I respect Arkle, and have learned so much from him, I thought this phenomenon was worth a look; even though Arkle's best work (in my opinion) comes from the period before his late-life engagement with the New Age and channeling.  

I got-hold-of - or took a serious look-at - all the books Arkle mentioned; including his particular favourite from 1931, an anonymous production called The Book of El Daoud, the Father-King, Which is the Gospel of Simplicity given unto his own. 

Others books included a series from 'Lord Mikaal' (i.e. St Michael) including Winds of Truth (from 1950s onward); The Only Planet of Choice from Phyllis V Schlemmer; MAPP to Aquarius by Nada Yolanda; Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsh - still ongoing. 

I also listened-to/ watched some famous channelers in audio or video.    

To keep matters brief; I was overall very much un-interested and un-impressed by the authority and accuracy of channeling; as a way of gathering objective spiritual information for the benefit of Mankind.

There were - of course - some bits and pieces of what seemed like valid and helpful perspectives, usually of a very general (indeed obvious) nature. And there was also some indication that the process may have been somewhat helpful to some of the people involved - at first. 

But overall, teaching-channeling seemed like a net-harmful activity - especially over the longer term, and the prophecies - especially relating to the millennium - were wrong both in general and in detail. 

In particular; in the 1980s-90s; it apparently became normal in New Age circles to expect a millennial raising of human consciousness - often described as a raising of vibrations or frequency - which would raise-up the entirely of mankind; or at least those would would accept it. 

The process was primarily something done-to (rather than done-by) humans - it involved varying degrees of eagerness or acquiescence - but was envisaged as an external intervention (sometimes from extra-terrestrials, who - in this kind of scheme - took on many of the traditional qualities of angels). 

Included was a general idea of the expectation increased 'spiritual help' such as paranormal activity (or awareness of paranormal events) such as UFOs, Crop Circles, channeling itself, synchronicities etc. 

And also an increased presence-of (and contact-with) helpful spiritual beings of various kinds including ETs, angels, Masters; and the birth of a new generation of especially spiritual children (sometimes called 'indigo' children - or some other colours). At its most mainstream - in 2008; plenty of people believed that Barack Obama was an elevated spiritual guide called a Light Worker - who would lead the world into the New Age. 

In the event; none of this stuff happened but the opposite. Especially after the deferred millennium of 2012 (supposedly the end of the Mayan calendar and a new astrological cycle.  

The New Age dwindled, and Men got much less spiritual and more materialistic, this-worldly and nihilistic. 

And (especially since social media) the masses have handed-over their minds to the Global Establishment, rather than to spiritual authorities. 

So - is channeling completely bogus? No - because I know of at least one valid example; which is William Wildblood's experiences, described especially in his book Meeting the Masters. 

A comparison with the mainstream New channeling shows why. Wildblood's experiences were personal and private, and not revealed until log afterwards. The teachings were personally directed - tailored to the young Wildblood's needs and development. The teachings were also relatively low volume, and simple.   

This contrasts with the (more or less) famous channelers - who address 'the world', make everything public ASAP; and generate a large amount of highly detailed 'information' on... every subject under the sun! There is also a strong flavour of pandering to the audience about these messages - they say what will play well with the kind of soft-leftists who make-up nearly all of the New Agers. 

Furthermore, the New Age channelers/ mediums (or their sponsors) adopt a 'careerist' moeny/ status. publicity-seeking stance - and some of them also espouse and practice sexual 'liberation'/ promiscuity/ revolution.  

In conclusion; I regard channeling as probably a real thing, a kind of spiritual experience, that happened to some people in the 20th/ early 21st century; and was probably related to that particular phase in the development of human consciousness. 

But it was meant to be a personal and private type of communication and intended to be understood in a Christian context. 

Channeling was Not a kind of objective information, nor a quasi-scientific form of 'knowledge'; understandable, learnable and applicable for adoption by 'the world'. 

To return to Steiner; in his early years, and intermittently thereafter; Steiner made major contributions to understanding our situation in the world. 

But in becoming a professional, addressing 'the world', building a movement, and channeling a vast body of quasi-objective Spiritual Science (which has since been learned and - mostly - applied like cook-book recipes by his followers); Steiner became mostly (but never wholly) a producer of pseudo-knowledge - as did the later channelers. 

(Indeed; a great deal of Steiner's purported Anthroposophical cosmology, history and prophecy comes from Blavatsky's Theosophy, or is modified ad re-shaped from her - naturally, as Steiner was an official Theosophical leader for many years.) 

William Arkle - on the other hand - never seemed to go all this way. 

He was apparently misled, by the consensus of channelers, into a false spiritual optimism - and his hard prediction of a massive enhancement of human spiritual consciousness around the millennium did not happen. 

But his reading and understanding of channeled sources was so selective and idiosyncratic, that mostly it functioned as a confirmation of ideas he had already arrived-at himself - from personal and private intuition/ direct-knowing. He kept his 'teaching' simple, stuck closely to what he had tested and affirmed; and therefore it was largely valid.  

In a nutshell; I think the main value of the channeling phenomenon - as evidence by William Wildblood, was insofar as it was a direct and experiential confirmation of the reality of the spiritual. 

By experiencing genuine channeling either at first or secondhand; some people were lastingly convinced that there was more to the world than the material.  

Thus, true-channeling is probably more a matter of form than content; therefore it is best regarded as properly a transitional spiritual phase, or step towards Romantic Christianity. 

Why does God want so many of us to become divine, like him? The play and music of creation - From Arkle's Letter from a Father

...Another question you would like to ask me is why I should need so many children around about me in this scheme of mine. Why would not twenty or fifty be enough?

To begin with you do not yet know the depth of my nature. You do not yet know just how much I have to give. If what I had to give were just a simple thing it would not require an elaborate situation to give it in, but what I have to give is most elaborate, and so, to create the necessary width of understanding, I need to find expression for all my qualities, and lay them all out for you to see.

As many of these qualities have to be lived, so I need many different children to live amongst one another. My plan was vast in your sight because my being is vast also, but do not let that be a cause to think that any of you do not matter to me; you matter to me all as individual children and also as players in my play.

If you do not play your part, who is to do it for you? No one can, and it thus leaves a gap in my book. As my book is a long one it needs many words and you are both my children and my words to one another.

You are all players in my orchestra, and I cannot make the sounds I had hoped for if any of you are unable to play the individual parts that make up the whole piece of music. My orchestra is not like yours. In my orchestra no two parts are the same but they are all needed to make up the true beauty of the sound I have visioned...

I need a large family because I need to express a large number of characters, so do not think only of rushing to my heaven, for it is not necessarily in heaven that you will be able to learn the part you have to play. Remember that where character is concerned it is the hardest experiences that stamp the deepest patterns, and, when you think of my music, try to remember that it is a continuous creation and not a single piece that is to be repeated.

I have no desire to repeat my music, rather do I spin it newly all the while, so what you add to it now, and at any other time, is continually affecting the performance. You and I are making this music now, and each of your sounds is valuable to the effect, and I am the one who all the time gathers them in and weaves them together into a whole of constantly changing music. Thus I even make use of the discordant sounds since they all express in some way the reality of the complete situation.

Not that I would have you think that I sit back and coldly conduct this music, or feel any pleasure from discordant notes. I am doing many things at the same time in ways that you would not yet understand, and each discordant note pulls at my heart and my sympathy.

My music is not made to entertain, it is the expression of our endeavour, and effort, and suffering, woven together with the beauty of the beginning and the end. It is the sound of the whole book as it is being read by you all. It is this very music that I use to order and adapt my school to the needs that I sense in it. It reports to my sensitive ear the exact condition of my whole work and my nature responds to its beauty and its needs.


http://billarkle.co.uk/prose/letterfromafather4.html

Ultimate justifications for eternal living

One of the great contributions made by William Arkle to my own philosophy of living is to bring to the centre of concern, the question of what we would want to do forever, for eternity - The question of what could possibly satisfy us everlastingly? 

In his writing (and art) Arkle conjures a friendly and accessible God who is a real Father (and Mother) to us, and creates with our best long-term - indeed eternal - interests in his heart. 

Arkle therefore invites us to make the thought experiment of such a divine parent who wants his children to be motivated and fulfilled in an eternal life; and to consider what kind of life that might be - what kind of life is divine creation aiming-at? 

When I make this thought experiment, my conclusion is that there are significant differences in what people want in their mortal life; and that there are also differences in what people seem to want for eternity.  

Some people have what seems like a very deep sense of fatigue about living; and seem to want an eternity of 'rest' - much like being dreamlessly-asleep - an eternity when nothing happens. 

Others seem to want an eternity of joyous contemplation; a continuous state of gratitude, worship; a perpetuation of that aesthetic arrest when we fall in love, experience great good fortune, or encounter something of overwhelming beauty... We just want to stay in exactly this state, forever. 

So both of these want an eternal state to be unchanging - although the first wants to be unconscious, unaware (or barely aware) of his own existence; while the second want to be consciously aware of his own existence - but continuously and without-fading immersed in happiness, appreciation, gratitude. 

But among those who want an active eternity; the answer probably depends on their time horizon, and their capacity for anticipating what things would actually be like. Some desire a 'paradise'-life in which they repeatedly-and-forever do the kind of thing they most enjoy on earth - e.g. eating, sex, or something sinful - but without ever getting used to it, without experiencing the 'habituation' or 'tolerance' that makes repetition so unsatisfactory in mortal life. 

This, then, paradise is an eternal present - and eternity without memory; where each 'day' (or cycle) is started afresh and unfading. 

In paradise there could be no sense of 'self', and no developmental progression; because that depends on linear continuity hence memory; so what is desired is an 'arrested development' - to be fixed as a certain type of person at a certain stage in life (child, adolescent, young adult etc), doing a certain type of pleasurable activity, again and again - forever.. but not to know that this is what is happening. It is rather like being reborn every day - but reborn as the kind of person one wants to be. 

Paradise is a life of continual play; in which the situation is one in which we and the situation are set-up such that we never get fed-up of playing - but it remains maximally satisfying.  

 

But none of the above constitute the idea of Heaven as I understand it. In Heaven, eternity is for creating; and creating is distinguished from 'playing' because creation comes from love. So the set-up of Heaven is one in which there are many people, and they are bound together by love; and this love overflows into creating. 

This vision of eternity comes from people (such as myself) who feel that the most profound experiences of life, which would never ever fail to satisfy, are those experiences of creating - in which that which is created is appreciated by those we love and those who love what we love.

'Creation' (in this sense) ranges very widely indeed, from more obvious things like creating new appreciations, understandings and insights; to making things and performing arts; to the creating involved in a continuing marriage, or in playing games with one's children... 

There is no limit to the kinds of things this involves - but in mortal life such creating is contaminated with mad motives (seeking status, power, to manipulate etc), and by the fatigue and entropy of our condition. For creating to become eternal we would need purity of loving motivation and endlessly-renewed energies from love (not from other, lower, sources) - so, it is these which must distinguish a creative-Heaven from this mortal life. 

Such thought experiments may be of great value, if one can persist with them to keep asking 'and what then?' after each answer you give yourself. 

Eventually you may work down through superficial half-answers to reach the solid ground of what would be eternally satisfying to you, personally. 

And then explore the consequences of that.     

The (apparent) wastefulness of Life... Steiner and Arkle

It is important to realize that much of what may appear unnecessary in a human being for outer life, nevertheless, plays an important part — similar to the way we see outer nature. 

Just compare the infinite number of herring eggs, distributed all over the seas, with the number of herrings actually born , and you could easily reproach nature for being tremendously wasteful. 

However, this could only be the opinion of those who do not know of the powerful spiritual effects the dead herring eggs have on the growing herrings. A certain number of eggs have to die so that a certain number of eggs may thrive. 

These things are all interconnected. 

Rudolf Steiner.
https://www.rsarchive.org/Download/Childs_Changing_Consciousness-Rudolf_Steiner-306.pdf

GOD: You simply cannot do everything all of the time. Experiment and waste go together and lead to discovery, so don't become anxious about results. 

Try to enjoy the process itself which allows for lateral thinking and lateral diversions. The new things are not found where you expect them to be. We can't live "new beginnings" without letting go of the "old beginnings" and allowing them to slip away. All that is really valuable will come back to you when it is needed. 

This is part of The Game of life which requires forgetting and letting go with good grace and a sense of non-importance of ones valuable Self. 

Do not fear to waste your time and energy, you will never run out of them and the "Crisis" in the World is only solved by those who follow the best instincts of their Spiritual Nature. 

As these work out all together, so each one of you finds yourself holding and demonstrating a bit of the necessary jig-saw puzzle of life coming into a new and better expression of itself, Myself-Ourself. 

Be with the big, fearless love which smiles on everything from its sense of Everlastingness and the Completeness that lies behind all Living Reality. For Reality is complete in one sense although it strives to play at Itself in another sense. 

Life Games are set up for playfulness and not because our being nature is frightened of losing anything. We think we can lose but we can't. There are safety nets around everything since all comes from perfect Love, Joy, Fun, Bliss, Wisdom and Humour! 

What you see as misery in the World is what you see in your child as it lives from crisis to crisis each hour of the day with each one being "the end of the world" in severity. Your world is like this child, it is the way young things grow...only the scale is different. They will both grow out of it.

William Arkle.
http://williamarkle.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/late-prose.html

 

Getting beyond embarrassment, and pretentiousness...

It is my impression that many who have communicated their philosophy of life, have been more or less seriously impaired in this work by a kind of embarrassment: a fear of damaging their social status and self esteem because of saying or doing something.

This embarrassment leads to an attitude of guardedness, defensiveness - the embarrassed Man develops a continual self-filtering of communications to try and avoid spontaneously revealing something that might be used against him, or might lead to him being rejected. 

Such embarrassment can blend with attempts to impress others - with pretentiousness; but it can also be found in an almost purely negative form by a sense of inhibition. 

This is so common as to be normal - yet when it comes to the communication of matters of the greatest depth, embarrassment can provide a formidable barrier to generating what ought to be as clear and comprehensible as possible - or else it probably will not be understood.

When I consider some of the influencers and 'mentors' who led to my Romantic Christian perspective; I can see that William Blake was a Man who was free from embarrassment, and who communicated in a spontaneous and bold fashion - apparently without caution against being misunderstood, or mocked.

Another of this ilk was William Arkle; who seems unconcerned about making an impression, who seems unguarded in his attitude - and whose communications appear to flow without going-through a filter of caution. 

A third 'William' of this type, is Bill Ryan of Project Avalon; who is unembarrassed about revealing and discussing his strange experiences with ETs - and many other unusual subjects - without regard for how such comments will strike other people. 

Bill Ryan (although not a Romantic Christian) is helpful in understanding this, because I knew him some forty-seven years ago; and can therefore recognize that his candid spontaneity seems to have been characterological, innate - a gift of nature. Yet a gift he still retains at the age of seventy. 

And I think the same applies to Blake and Arkle - they were 'made this way', from childhood, presumably from birth - yet also they 'stayed this way', throughout the stresses and temptations of their long lives. 

Therefore; the achievement of the Three Williams has the quality of retaining that which was, in origin, a natural confident unguardedness.

There are far more examples of writers whose work is hampered by - greater or lesser - degrees of embarrassment. 

One is CG Jung; who was mostly a confident and bold thinker; but who would (again and again, as he approached his conclusions) back-away-from the direction of his reasoning and the implications of his thinking; exactly as if he had suddenly become embarrassed, and feared the effect of his words. 

For Jung; this negative tendency to take away with one hand what had just been given by the other, was exacerbated by a positive desire to impress people, a pretentiousness. He would back-away from clarity and honesty, partly so as to impress others, and gain the rewards of higher status. 

But embarrassment can impair communication even among those who are wholly lacking in any pretentiousness; such as Owen Barfield. 

By all accounts, and confirmed in his writings, Owen Barfield was a very modest man - although with a great inner strength that was generated by intellectual mastery, deep thought, and inner confidence. 

Yet I find that Barfield's ability to communicate clearly is impaired by what seems like embarrassment - a diffidence at expressing anything that might seem like boasting, a reluctance to speak simply about the deepest matters of his understandings - such as the nature of God, God's nature and purposes. 

Just as Barfield approaches his conclusions, again and again he veers off into defensive abstraction - or excessive brevity - so that his argument is set out with meticulous clarity, but the final 'answer' is ambiguous, unclear, difficult to understand.  

The writer Charles Williams was someone who was remarkably unembarrassed in all social situations - even when mixing with the rich, prestigious, and famous; but also one who pretentiously desired to impress people. 

His life and work were both impaired by this pretentiousness: because it led to a strong element of play-acting, and indeed dishonesty, in his social relationships.

While in Williams's poetry, theology and novels there is a strong element of deliberate obfuscation and obscurity - a striving to appear profound.

Well, we are what we are - at least to begin with; and only a few of us have been blessed with unselfconsciousness. 

But character is a beginning only - and innate disposition can either be corrupted by choices made and habits developed; or it can (to some extent) be overcome by effort and practice. 

For myself; I had an original disposition somewhat the opposite of Owen Barfield and more like that of Charles Williams; in that I did not suffer much from embarrassment (i.e. negatively, I did not much care about how other people might react in a negative sense); but I tended towards pretentiousness - (i.e. I positively wanted to impress people - or, at least, some people). 

This was an obstacle to communication - because anything is an obstacle to communication that interferes with the primary desire to communicate. 

On the one hand, we cannot help the way we are; but on the other hand we are here (in this mortal life) to learn. Part of this is learning about ourselves. 

Often, our strengths are the obverse of weaknesses; but by recognition and striving we can move in the right direction. 

Conversely, by failing to recognize and acknowledge our defects; the modern world has a strong and pervasive tendency to corrupt people, to encourage people to ignore their deficits and instead regard them as strengths. 

Thus (as we sadly observe among family, colleagues, acquaintances and friends), however they start-out, most people get worse.

And these applies even to those who are innately and naturally Good. 

Thus the originally confident and unembarrassed child becomes a self-conscious and peer-group dominated adolescent - and never goes beyond this... 

While the 'show-off' child becomes the pretentious adult; more concerned about the impression created and rewards obtained than making actual achievements.   

These are among the lessons of life that we need to learn - and we can learn them from our own experience, and also by sympathetic yet honest understanding and critique of the lives of others.

Wasting time worrying about wasting time

ME "My cup runneth over" and I am concerned to catch the valuable life experience and not allow it to go to waste doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. There are so many possibilities to choose from in my creative play.

GOD You simply cannot do everything all of the time. Experiment and waste go together and lead to discovery, so don't become anxious about results. Try to enjoy the process itself which allows for lateral thinking and lateral diversions.

The new things are not found where you expect them to be. We can't live "new beginnings" without letting go of the "old beginnings" and allowing them to slip away. All that is really valuable will come back to you when it is needed. This is part of The Game of life which requires forgetting and letting go with good grace and a sense of non-importance of ones valuable Self.

Do not fear to waste your time and energy, you will never run out of them and the "Crisis" in the World is only solved by those who follow the best instincts of their Spiritual Nature. As these work out all together, so each one of you finds yourself holding and demonstrating a bit of the necessary jig-saw puzzle of life...

By William Arkle - written in the last few weeks of his life. 
http://www.billarkle.co.uk/prose/enjoytheprocess.html 

For as long back as I remember I have had frequent periods - usually in the afternoons, when I worried about wasting time worrying instead of getting on with ... something important.

I neither seem to enjoy the freedom of this time, nor yet actually 'do something useful' with it (such as what I ought to do, or might help other people) but witter and fritter.

There have been vast changes in my life across the decades - yet this characteristic endures.

So, the words of William Arkle, the final distillation of a lifetime of spiritual enquiry and insight, are something I find reassuring and inspiring. In particular, they encourage me not to make matters worse by adding futile and ineffectual worry to the situation.

It is even a genuine possibility that (up to a point) the waste of time is not - but some kind of deep preparation, or even growth - and that the busy efficient productive spells have been the real waste.

God does not 'need' Man, but has a definite purpose in creating Man - from William Arkle

My own understanding is that the Creator, who is also God, is self sufficient in a sense. That is to imply that, although we need God, in every meaning of that term, God does not need us in the same way.

Against this we have to set the understanding that if God didn’t have a purpose which included us, no doubt He would not have gone to all this trouble of bringing us into existence. But to have a purpose in which we can play some part is quite a different thing from having an absolute need of us in the way that we have an absolute need of God.

In the way that a child needs its mother and father, we need God for sustenance and support of our own reality because our own reality rests upon the reality of God, and all our sustenance comes from that reality. But in quite a different way, I believe, our God wishes us to come to life, to come to a full expression of our potential, our Divine reality, and that must be for a purpose which is not essential to the Being of the Creator, but which may be essential to a particular longing and delight in the heart of the understanding of that Creator.

In simple words, I think that the Creator wishes to have other individual divine Beings who can be His friends with whom He can share the content of His own reality, with whom He can enter into conversation, understanding and discussion about possible experiments in living, in trying to go beyond the understanding that God has already, which to us, at our stage of development, seems infinite, but this is obviously only a relative term, and is not infinite to the Creator’s possible understanding.

Therefore we can suggest that it is within our understanding that the Creator wishes to go beyond His own highest qualities. It is not outside the bounds of possibility that this is a fact, and the Creator is aware of His desire, of His longing, not only to share His understanding with friends, but also to enter into life and living experiments with those friends, in such a way that their collective understanding can go beyond the qualities which the Creator has within His understanding already; qualities of beauty, of virtue, of character, which the Creator already knows about but which, in the depth of His spirit, He will never be satisfied to rest in.

An extract from the essay The Nature of God, from The Great Gift by William Arkle, 1977 

Why did God create Men? Thoughts from William Arkle

*
http://www.billarkle.co.uk/greatgift/text/thenatureofgod.html

From The Great Gift - 1976.

*

My own understanding is that the Creator, who is also God, is self sufficient in a sense. That is to imply that, although we need God, in every meaning of that term, God does not need us in the same way.

Against this we have to set the understanding that if God didn’t have a purpose which included us, no doubt He would not have gone to all this trouble of bringing us into existence.

But to have a purpose in which we can play some part is quite a different thing from having an absolute need of us in the way that we have an absolute need of God.

*

In the way that a child needs its mother and father, we need God for sustenance and support of our own reality because our own reality rests upon the reality of God, and all our sustenance comes from that reality.

But in quite a different way, I believe, our God wishes us to come to life, to come to a full expression of our potential, our Divine reality, and that must be for a purpose which is not essential to the Being of the Creator, but which may be essential to a particular longing and delight in the heart of the understanding of that Creator.

*

In simple words, I think that the Creator wishes to have other individual divine Beings who can be His friends with whom He can share the content of His own reality, with whom He can enter into conversation, understanding and discussion about possible experiments in living, in trying to go beyond the understanding that God has already, which to us, at our stage of development, seems infinite, but this is obviously only a relative term, and is not infinite to the Creator’s possible understanding.

(...) 

I believe that it is in the nature of all healthy spirits, all healthy individuals, to want to achieve spiritual goals. And those goals, when we look at them closely, are always goals which are impossibly difficult to reach.

They are goals which are endless goals; they are goals which are concerned with the ultimate perception of the most valuable and beautiful things which, when we reach them, will only incline us to look for more beautiful and more valuable things...

Therefore I think the Creator wishes to have friends, not only to share the delights of friendship with, but also friends who will help Him with the sort of exploration, the sort of experimental living out of life, which will enable us all to stumble upon new potentialities within that reality which we call the Absolute Divine Nature.

*

We can suggest that the Creator is aware that there are potentialities in nature which have not yet been fully actualised.

He also realises that He needs other beings to help Him to permutate, as it were, all the possibilities of the potentialities in that nature.

That is why He wishes to share His nature with us, and give us a nature similar to His own as an outright gift for us to use in our own way; so that each of us actualises it in a uniquely different way.

**


Note added: 

My feeling is that Bill Arkle was making an extremely important point here. Something of potentially great value to all Christians - but perhaps especially Mormons.

That while on the one had God does not need for there to be Men, he very much wants for there to be Men; and that this desire is partly the desire for Children, and beyond that the desire for (adult) friends; and even beyond that - that Men have the potential actually to assist in the divine plan: that God can achieve things with the help of Men that could not be achieved (so well ) otherwise. 

This implies that the creation and salvation of Man was not a gratuitous act; but part of a plan - a multi-phase and indeed infinite plan which is, in its bottom-line and ultimate nature - about society, about relationships, about love.

*

Ultimate reality is a personal-y thing; not a physics-y thing. 

*

Understanding and accepting the human condition by the thought experiment of imagining ourselves as the Creator

The ideas of William Arkle are based upon his imaginative identification with, intuitive understanding of, and (I believe) direct mystical revelation concerning the purpose of God, the Creator in manifesting this world. All his work is an exploration of this theme, in its many ramifications.

 

I have edited the following from a little, self-published booklet called Equations of Being: notes on the nature of love - originating from Arkle's home in Backwell (the village in Somerset, England where I spent all my school years) - which seems to date from about 1980. 

 

I would advise copy, pasting and printing-out the excerpt below; if you want to get the most from it. 

 

**

 

By trying to put ourselves in the position of the Creator whose nature is love and spiritedness, we may be able to draw conclusions which help us to understand and accept the situation on Earth as we find it at the present time. 

 

We may come to realise that the difficulties of life, while often painful, are also extremely valuable if we can view them as a part of the process of making us into real and responsible individual spirits who can become companions of the endless life in which the Creative Source wishes us to meet Him.

I wish to suggest that we put ourselves in the position of this Creative Source, the God of what we love, and begin to see things from the position we would be in if we were about to make the plans for this scheme of manifestation of which our worlds are a part.

 

*

When we put ourselves in the position of this Creator, it is then that we have to look more closely at the nature of love, and try to understand the principles which it contains. Unless we can do this we cannot begin our designing, for we will not be clear about what we are trying to achieve.

 

We might, for instance, try to design a scheme which would be like a continuous, perfect, summer holiday situation. We would begin with the idea of ease and happiness in mind. We would find that our schemes did not contain responsibility or difficulty. 

 

I think we would find that our plans would take for granted that it was easy to include other people in our perfect world; but we would make up a perfect and easy world where everyone was like ourselves; and where all the things that really mattered to us were simply put into the picture, ready made.

 

All our schemes would contain other people, for none of us would want to be lonely, and all of us would sooner or later begin to realise that other people were an integral part of all that we enjoyed about ourselves.

But we would rapidly discover that a sort of mythical ‘deckchair on golden deserted sands’ situation was a trap. A little would be pleasant, but only because it is what we are most short of in our experience of life as it is on Earth. Even if we allowed ourselves a companion, or even a family, we would find that there was still a lot wrong. The family who sat about with us would soon get restless - as we would.

 

*

 

So we would want to explore a bit, go for a walk, see something new. We may go for a swim. Swimming and short walks, on a perfect beach in perfect weather, with all our loved ones about us; such might be a beginning...

 

But the walks would have to get longer and the swimming would have to include diving. The diving would lead to exploring the seabed and the walks would become voyages of discovery. We would wish to feel that family or friends were on the sands for us to come back to, but we would want to feel free to explore, we would want to feel free to experiment with different sorts of walking and swimming, different combinations of walking, swimming and sitting in the sun...

 

We would wish to talk to our companions, we would wish to enjoy their company. We would wish to laugh and have a bit of fun. And we would need for them to be real in their own right, so that the laughter and fun was real and full of surprise and the unexpected. 

 

(Because if we had programmed the other people to be just like ourselves, we would find it very difficult to keep up the pretence of enjoying their company, their fun and their affection. For pretence it would have to be, since we were merely entertaining ourself in other guises.)

 

*

 

If we looked into the matter further, we would discover, if we play with this problem, that whatever form we take and whatever environment we take it in there are certain basic requirements which stem from the nature of love itself. 

 

Our sense of loving to explore and experiment is as real as our love of basking in sunny happiness. And our sense of love needs other people to do these things with. We require fun and delight with other people's company, and these other people need to be just as real as we are. 

 

So, a big problem is that any idea of existence requires us to people our world with beings who are different from ourselves, who most certainly must not have been programmed or brainwashed by us in any way. In fact we find that other people who are as real and independent as we are, is something we cannot do without.

 

So we face this situation that when we start the scheme off, we have to accept that other people might wish to do things that did not appeal to us. We would have to learn to accept one another’s different approaches and the fact that although we may have designed the scheme, we would have to give to others the same rights as we have. We would have to hand over the control and outcome to other people.

 

*

 

Against this argument is the realisation that a creative scheme has to ensure that the freedom which is allowed to the other individuals who live in it is handed to them gradually as their responsibility grows and is able to bear it safely. 

Because although we need to give to our friends, those with whom we wish to live in our designed creation, the freedom and independence which makes them real to us and therefore makes the experience of their company completely valid; we would not wish to reach a stage at which we ourselves were over-ruled by them.

 

So, when we begin to imagine ways of bringing our companions into our creative scheme in such a way that we can give to them their own reality, and give it to them in such a way that we do not dominate them, we realise what a subtle thing this process will have to be...

 

Such companions will eventually have to be given the same creative reality as ourself, the creator, but they will begin their lives in a condition of great potentiality - a potentiality which will be entirely unrealised by them.

 

So our scheme of creation will have to be largely educational to start with; before our friends will have grown-up enough to enter into its delightful creative purpose with their own unique individual ways of looking at things and doing things, and with the responsibility which will ensure that their desire is to enhance all things and not to destroy or diminish.

 

*

 

We will need to help our friends to come to themselves gradually, and take the gift of their own reality upon themselves deliberately, by their own choices.

 

We will have to discover ways of showing them why the good and the beautiful qualities are considered by us, the creator, to be good and beautiful. And the only way we can do this, is by giving them a taste of the opposite qualities in order that they can knowingly say to themselves: ‘I have experienced beautiful and good attitudes which seek to enhance all things; and I have experienced ugly and evil attitudes which seek to diminish and enslave all things, and I chose the good and the beautiful and will always resist the opposite’. 

This is our world. 

 

*

In conclusion, when each of us, now, is considering our situation in life, we need to consider whether we would prefer to be given a very full and thorough education, in which difficulties acted upon us to strengthen all our characteristics which we feel to be valuable - because this is the situation of our actual world.  

 

Or would we have preferred an easy form of education in which we could obtain a token reality for ourselves in circumstances which required little effort on our part?

 

Or, again, would we have preferred to have been created with all our individuality ready-made and programmed into us? In which case we would not need education, for we would simply respond with the conditioning already at work in our nature, effortless and automatic and not within our power to change. 

 

In the long run I think we realise that the difficult and thorough way - the way of our actual lives in this world - was what we most wanted; because, above all, we wish to be real.

 

We want to be valuably real, and we do not want to be artificially valuable. 

 

 

http://www.billarkle.co.uk/prose/equations/index.html