Carlisle Cathedral - East Window etc.

We had a very enjoyable visit to Carlisle Cathedral recently, not my first, or second - but I still feel there is a great deal more to discover about this marvellous building. 

There were only three cathedrals in the whole North of England in Medieval Times, after the Normans had wiped-out or impoverished most of the population - and of these Durham and York are by far the most famous architecturally, and indeed internationally. Nonetheless; Carlisle has all kinds of wonderful stuff, and a fascinating history - and should not be missed! 

Above is the East Window which is an enormous creation in the Decorated (middle-gothic, about 1350) style. It is perhaps the largest, most complex ancient stained glass window; and a great favourite among those who especially admire such things.  

More than any other similar window, this seems living and growing. 

Standing outside, we were fascinated by the extraordinarily organic - branching, curving, stone tracery - enclosing the stained glass; much of which is also medieval in its upper parts, having survived the iconoclastic eras of Edward VI and Cromwell - and misguided Victoria Restorers (albeit without the Victorian piety and energy, many of our oldest churches would have been lost altogether).  

There are many other delights such as (unrestored) Medieval wall paintings:

This is St Augustine and the devil, with some Middle English dialect doggerel verse:

One of the loveliest effects is produced by the Victorian barrel-vaulted Choir, with its starry painted ceiling. 

And in the choir stalls are many Chaucerian era, and Canterbury Tales-like themed, carved-oak misericord seats; such as a wife (of Bath?) beating her husband with a butter paddle:

And a mermaid with mirror, symbolic of Vanity:

 

The West end of the cathedral (which used to be the nave) is Norman, but got partially demolished by the Scots Presbytarians during the Civil war of the mid 1600s - but a fair bit survives. 

Many of the originally-semi-circular Romanesque arches are tremendously distorted by differential subsidence of adjacent pillars:

Here is a view through such a distorted Norman Arch of the 11th century; into the Early English, pointed-arches of the current aisles - from the 12th century:

Note: The photos aren't mine, but were pillaged from the interwebs. 

 

"Sin", "Justice" and the suffering of innocents?

It is common to regard the suffering (and death) of "innocents" such as young children, babies, unborn babies; as especially difficult for Christianity to explain or justify. This derives from the assumption that the suffering and death of the wicked is justified, in proportion to the degree of wickedness.

But, at least since Paul, much of official Christian doctrine emphasizes that there are no innocents, All Men are sinners - and this state is original and inescapable. 

Therefore, the argument goes; it is justifiable and expected that because all are guilty of sin, then everybody deserves to suffer and and die - and ought to expect this. 

This sees god the creator as essentially a judge - despite that this characterization removes a motive for creation in the first place! 

Justice works as a secondary means to some other end; but when accorded primacy, justice points towards annihilation as the only and final solution to a situation of endemic and intractable sin.

It seems to be natural and spontaneous to regard the demands of justice as the reason for inflicting suffering and death on transgressors; but commonsense falls to pieces when everybody dies, everybody suffers, and there is no strong or clear proportionality between degree of sin and of suffering. 

...For instance, when the chosen people or worshippers of the true-God are conquered or enslaved.

Also, when it is believed that everybody is a sinner and justifiably suffers and dies; and when this is combined with a dogma of god as omnipotent creator of everything from nothing... 

Then we get a god who created everything, and then found it Bad. 

Goodness - including truth and all values - are not given-by God, but arise from love-of-God

What follows is an attempt to explain that we are profoundly mistaken when we try to picture God's creation as an objective and unavoidable reality - because that is excluding the foundational role of love. Our picture of ultimate reality, needs to have love as the basis. This has many implications, including an inescapable role for each individual person. 

Matthew 22: 36. Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38. This is the first and great commandment. 39. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

I find this a very striking story (it also appears in the Gospel of Luke); because it seems to contain something profound - on the basis that it is not immediately apparent why all the "law and prophets" could depend on love of God and neighbour. 

How can law depend on love? They seem so unlike. 

And yet here it is stated, and the statement carries for me an innate authority, that love must come first - which I interpret to mean that without love there can be no "law". 

If therefore love must come first and as foundation; this has profound metaphysical implications. And some of these implications run counter to a great deal of Christian doctrine and practice. 

What I believe this means is that Goodness - including truth and all values - are not given by God, but arise from love-of-God.* 

Love is the basis for goodness, truth and all values. 

There can be no goodness/ truth/ values without love-of-God. 

If there is not first love-of-God, then divine creation and its purposes and methods are not evident. 

There is then no basis for persuading people that we inhabit a divine creation. 

Without the basis of love-of-God; other pictures of reality - such as the mainstream materialist-scientistic-atheist picture of reality as mostly-unalive, purposeless, meaningless, accidental - cannot be refuted. 

Gods creation - goodness, truth, values... These are coherent only for those who first love God and neighbour; and who themselves choose to affiliate with God: to join themselves with God in the work of creating. 

This is not enough to define Christianity - which also requires the essential intervention of Jesus Christ; but does form an essential basis.  

*I think that love of neighbour is intended to indicate that this love is not a matter of just our-selves and God only; but implies our endorsement that divine creation intentionally includes many other Beings, as well as our-selves. 

Note added: One consequence of the above is that arguments for the reality of God that take the general form of the Book of Job are futile! I mean, people cannot be persuaded of the reality of God by pointing at entities of power, magnificence, terror - nor at qualities such as beauty, goodness, moral-values - as if these were objectively present in the world. They are not. For beauty or morality to be real entails that we already acknowledge the reality of God - otherwise these are just arbitrary classifications. 

Of course; this analysis kicks-the-can on to how can, do, or should, people come to love God? Perhaps this is partly a matter of innate character or disposition (e.g. some people are more loving than others); but it is also a matter of what we choose to want-to-want; of where we place our priorities and ultimate hopes.  

And it is also a matter of how we conceptualize - or experience - God. IMO the God of the Old Testament (and of monotheism generally) is not loveable - but is instead fear-inducing; or else just too abstractly-defined (in terms of "attributes" like omnipotence and omniscience) to be genuinely personal - and only the personal is genuinely love-able. 

Then again, the loveable God must also be believable! But believability is largely a matter of fundamental assumptions. When these metaphysical foundations entail an unloveable God (e.g. because un-understandable, or "jealous" and tyrannical) - then naturally a Good and Personal God will seem too good to be true. 

For instance my God - Heavenly Parents who think of humans their divine children; children whom they hope will choose to develop their own natures in the direction of becoming more conscious, more divine, more actively-creative - may seem no more than a consoling delusion unless the metaphysical basis of reality is regarded as (roughly) animistic pluralism. 

Entropy is Not a part of evil - these are two separate problems

The problem of entropy is one that presses upon us the average mortal life perhaps more strongly than evil. 

By "entropy" I mean the universal tendency for beings to experience cumulative adverse change with time: dysfunction, degeneration, disease - and the ultimate manifestation of entropy is death. 

All of these are unavoidable, are universal. 

Traditional Christian theology usually conflates entropy with evil; indeed entropy/ death is usually subsumed within the concept and causes of evil. 

For example, the traditional interpretation of the Adam and Eve story is that they began as good and immortal beings; free from both evil and death. 

With The Fall they chose evil, and at the same time necessarily became mortal - subject to entropy and death. 

(In traditional theology) with the salvation from Jesus Christ we are allowed to return to the primal situation of Adam and Eve - saved from our self-caused punishment of both entropy and evil. 

After their fall; A & E and their descendants also needed to toil in order to live - in effect toil was needed to overcome entropy. 

Because (in effect) entropy meant that, over time, our minds and bodies and the environment are all against us: we must make efforts every day, we need to toil simply to remain alive and functional, but all such efforts are temporary palliative: will inevitably be overcome and will fail.

(In this sense, entropy is a more pervasive problem than evil.) 

And ultimately all of this bad stuff supposedly happens because of The Fall! 

Everything bad is down to an evil choice of ancestors, and its ramifications. 

This is very difficult to comprehend or believe. There seems a gross disproportion between the events described in Genesis, and thousands of years of billions of people's suffering and toil, disease and dying in fighting - and failing to defeat - entropy.   

Well, be that as it may; traditional theology regards evil as primary, entropy as a part of evil: evil is the ultimate cause of entropy. 

Therefore trad-theol has it that we overcome entropy by overcoming sin, where "sin" is understood to mean the manifestations of evil. 

That is; the repentance of evil/sins, leads also to the escape from entropy: leads to eternally healthy and vigorous - and happy - life in Heaven.

I have described elsewhere my understanding that entropy and evil can and should be distinguished, and that they have different causes. 

Entropy is intrinsic to this creation, the one we inhabit now; to the original or primary Creation by God - this creation that we are born-into. 

Heaven can be conceptualized as the answer to entropy; by a second and opt-into creation (i.e. the creation made possible by Jesus Christ) - with resurrection conceptualized as a voluntary re-making without entropy, as leaving-behind entropy. 

So, while traditional Christian theology regards entropy-death as secondary to evil - and regards Heaven as the answer to entropy-death because, in repenting moral sins and having the effect of sins removed by Jesus, we also and simultaneously eliminate entropy. 

But instead; I regard entropy and evil as ultimately distinct concepts: (in this creation) entropy is unavoidable, while evil is a choice. 

However, the confusion and conflation of entropy and evil among Christians seems to be a consequence of the fact that the answer to both entropy and evil is the same: i.e. resurrection and our "escape"/ progression-into eternal, wholly-good life in Heaven; by following Jesus Christ.

In a nutshell: entropy and evil are different problems with different causes in this-world, but both problems are cured by the same treatment: following Jesus Christ to Heaven.

And otherwise they are not cured. One who does Not follow Jesus to Heaven; has thereby chosen to continue to live with entropy and evil. 

 

Note Added: The difference is that:

Entropy is intrinsic to the nature of God's creation - the First creation. 

Evil is about a specific-Being's attitude towards creation: positive, or negative, affiliative or hostile. 

Becoming more divine? Poetry as an example of theosis

If, in a simplified way, if salvation is the purpose of this mortal life, then theosis is the meaning of it. In other words: theosis - i.e. becoming more divine - is what we are supposed to be doing on a daily basis. 

But what this means is far from clear. To say that Love is primary, and we should become more loving is true; but somehow too abstract - and in a way too "static": it doesn't provide much of an idea of what we ought to be trying to do now - this minute, in a few hours; and over the next days, months, years. 

I find that creativity is as aspect of love, an overflow of love - such that God's divine creation can be understood as a manifestation of God's love. 

But what is creativity as we know it and do it in mortal life? 

Well, there are serious problems with the way we think about creation. 

Two of these problems are that - first - we we regard creativity as associated with specific activities - especially the arts - which means that creativity is defined externally, by human institutions. 

Secondly (and linked to this); we regard this externally-defined creativity as needing a minimum threshold of ability and achievement.   

Take the example of poetry. Poetry has long been socially defined as a creative activity, intrinsically - we assume that "a poet" is creative. Traditionally, the status of being " a poet" must be conferred-upon a person. 

However this "poet" status requires some external and "objective" criteria to be satisfied...

Publication of your poetic work - perhaps specifically publication by a high status publisher, or attracting a paying audience to readings, or being employed as a teacher of poetry - are examples of how the claimed status of "a poet" is accredited. 

These are assumed to be measures of writing what is regarded as real poetry (e.g. a shopping list or a bureaucratic memo does not count as "a poem"), while also achieving the minimum necessary poetic ability. 

Thus (traditionally) "a poet" is one who has produced work of a type and standard worthy of being called poetry. 

This is because writing poetry is so easy and so common that otherwise the status (and it is a status, a socially sanctioned role) of "poet" could, and probably would, be claimed by something approaching the majority of the population! 

But this is to treat poetry as a social function and privilege - not as a spiritual activity. 

Insofar as poetry is treated as a profession, it is not a valid mode of theosis. 

However; the alternative to having external standards of definition for poetry and poets; would seem to be reducing the whole things to meaninglessness and futility. If poetry is "just" whatever-people-say it-is, and poets are whoever wants-to-claim-the-name, then the concept has no function. 

The answer seems to be that poetry as a creative spiritual activity needs to be removed from the external and public sphere of definitions and evaluations. 

And when this is done, poetry ceases to be regarded as an intrinsically-creative activity: such an understanding means that poetry is no more creative of-itself than any other activity a person might engage in - such as preparing food, gardening, or humming a tune.

The evaluations and definitions of spiritual creation then become a matter between the individual person and God - sidestepping society and institutions altogether. 

Of course, people can and will be dishonest with themselves, will fool themselves - but then this is subject to spiritual feedback. 

By pretending to be creating but not really doing it, people are only harming themselves - spiritually. 

If someone desires theosis, desires to participate in divine creation; then it is up to that individual - and nobody else - really to do just that; to the best of his knowledge and ability; calibrated by the most fundamental discernments of which that person is capable.

With spirituality and "this world" we cannot have it both ways. 

If poetry is being done for spiritual reasons, as an aspect of theosis; it ought to be kept separate from the social system that defines and evaluates poetry - and which allocates status on that basis.

The "spiritual poet" is engaged in activity related to participation in divine creation - and there are no external objective sources that have the authority to determine such matters over and superior to our own best evaluation of the matter. 

A spiritual poet is someone who finds that doing something he himself honestly regards as being rather like what-gets-called poetry, is a good way to pursue creativity and theosis. 

Such an activity will not be recognized or rewarded socially, nor will it be accorded a higher status than any other of the thousands of alternative ways in which a person might be creative.  

What then is the reward? 

The reward of creating is twofold: immediate and post-resurrection. 

The immediate reward is that creating is satisfying, profoundly satisfying, to a Christian - because by it he joins with God and Jesus Christ in the work of divine creation. 

But such rewards are temporary in this mortal life; so creating is not cumulative (or not necessarily, and seldom cumulative) during mortal life.

I mean that the benefits of theosis do not (or only seldom) accumulate incrementally during mortal life: we don't get more-and-more "divine" as mortal Men by our creativity.  

That is: Creative accumulation is spiritual, not material. 

What happens is that we do get a benefit from each and every creative activity, and it does build-up; but lasting benefit comes after death if/when we are resurrected.

The more creatively we have lived as mortals, the more divine shall be the form in which we are resurrected...

Just as it true for Loving - which is not separable from creating: the more loving our lives, the more divine we shall be as we commence eternal life in Heaven. 

Electricity as the medium of techno-spiritual enlightenment

Because spirit is primary: the material, the embodied, that which is perceived by the senses - is a kind of spirit. 

Incarnation is indeed a developed form of the spirit - which is why the timeline of creation manifested as physical beings, such as ourselves. 

And why the pre-mortal spirit of Jesus manifested as a mortal incarnated Man, and why Jesus resurrected as an eternal incarnated Man (rather than returning to the realm of immaterial spirits). 

The spirit is therefore inescapable, especially when it is being most vehemently denied; because the exclusion of the reality of the spiritual is actually a malign form of spiritual manipulation. 

The globalist-totalitarian overlords are engaged in a spiritual strategy aimed at inducing humans into spiritualizing the material. 

The mainstream and dominating materialist agenda; vast projects such as "AI", climate, Birdemic-peck-type healthism, the sexual revolution and many others - are "sold" as material mechanisms for "making this world a better place" and for "saving" lives, the "environment" - even the planet; but this agenda is continually being spiritualized under another name. 

My class of people - middle class "intelligentsia (the managers, professionals, artists, scientists, educators, lawyers etc) are deeply spiritualized now; believers in a complex and mutually-reinforcing ideology that they regard as ethically-imperative and factually-obvious. 

Whether such people regard themselves as Christians, or members/ adherents of any other religion or spirituality, is ever-less relevant. The actuality is a spiritual materialism in which approved themes and plans are regarded as spiritually-good. 

Their lives have an obvious public facet of adopting and advocating particular themes relating to carbon-climatism, the Fire Nation war, the Birdemic-Peck etc. But my point is that this now goes very deep, and has a primarily spiritual dimension. 

There is far more to electric vehicles, as an apparently trivial instance, than the matter of subsidized virtue-signalling - which has been abundantly critiqued. 

I mean the (to me) familiar phenomenon of a married couple with three cars - two internal combustion powered and the other an EV - is being superseded by a couple with a single (large, expensive) EV; whose wide-ranging (and strictly inessential) travel revolves around the location and timing of EV charging points. 

The more inconvenience suffered, the more spiritual they feel - to the point of ceasing to feel, and therefore denying, the inconvenience. 

Likewise; complicated and time-consuming rituals of "recycling" are not merely a pointless waste of time, not just a drag on the economy; nor merely a resource-consuming hypocrisy - nor are they strongly linked to a belief - or even the ideal - of their actions having any effect At All upon the environment... 

The reality of the problem ("climate change"), and the effectiveness of their approved answer, has long-since ceased to be the point. 

Just as we saw with the Birdemic; when people were indifferent to the actual effect of "face-coverings" on a supposed disease. The masking business rapidly took-on a spiritual dimension; in which the ritual humiliation and public abasement became a positive and personal spiritual action - akin to the simultaneous "taking-of-the-knee". 

Electricity has itself become the material manifestation of a spiritual ideal. 

These material-spiritual types love electricity to the point that it is the medium of enlightenment. 

The colossal electricity consumption of "AI" centres is felt as a form of spiritual power - analogous to the building of large, expensive temples and cathedrals - Good In Itself.  

Even internal combustion-engined vehicles have suddenly (in less than five years) become primarily and necessarily electrical in operation - such that for the only time in half a century, I cannot get into a car and drive it; but first must laboriously learn to serve the (continually changing) electric-computerized demon that has taken it over. 

Furthermore that great fetish vehicle the bicycle, except for weekend leisure/ sports activities, has (in the space of a handful of years!) been all-but replaced by (de facto) electric motorcycles of multiple types: which EVs now use the vast network of "cycle tracks" - originally advertised as facilitating the replace internal combustion cars and buses. 

In other words; because IRL bikes almost-never substituted for cars, but in practice replaced walking or were used by hobbyists; in practice now electricity-powered bikes have replaced leg-powered vehicles - or are used as motorbikes but with additional access to footpaths and cycle lanes. 

Yet, in the eyes of their class-advocates; electricity-consuming bikes retain the spiritual mantle of the intrinsically-good bicyclist.     

This is the tip of a very large iceberg that is sweeping through Western civilization, which is itself becoming Western civilization - not merely in practice, but as a spiritual goal. 

It is inside people's head, it is in their thoughts, it is the subject of their day-dreams. 

Something is afoot that is larger than the conventional modes of analysis and explanation. I feel that I am dwelling in a far less human, far more alien and abstract, world than anything experienced in human history thus far. 

For them, for its millions of enthusiastic and fanatical adherents; this is all of-a-piece; and none of the institutions, none of the churches, have even begun to understand - let alone resist! - what is going on. On the contrary they are all a part of it - even or especially when they pick on some tiny aspect for discussion or even resistance. 

More than ever those who desire the salvation of Jesus Christ need to be not of the world, even though we cannot escape living in the world. 

Which entails seeing the world as it is: that its very materialism is spiritual. That we ourselves and our neighbours are complicit - and some of them are not just consenting, nor merely willingly complicit - but are deeply affirming of an alien, un-biological, anti-life "techno-spirituality". 

It entails understanding that the spirituality of this world has already become inhuman/ antihuman and anti-Christian to an unprecedented degree; and in the most profound way. 

  

Gold *can* stay, but not in this world

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

I first encountered Robert Frost's beautiful and so-memorable miniature some forty-plus years ago, and at this time of the year; via SE Hinton's The Outsiders novel, and then through reading RF's selected poems - in what now seems like a dark and despairing era of my life. 

On that cusp of early, working, adulthood - as the enchanted state of childhood and early adolescence receded fast and very fully under pressure of day and night study and work as a doctor in a psychiatric hospital; the truth that "Nothing gold can stay" was evident and inescapable. 

Inescapable in terms of my fundamental assumptions concerning life. 

So much so, that the only optimistic future was one in which I simply did not think about this truth; in which I was so immersed in the business of living that "living" consumed all of my attention.  

As a means to this end, I sought a "niche" of pleasant living, of relative ease and comfort and stimulus... And this was (always implicitly and sometimes explicitly) my aim from then onward and for a decade, and somewhat more. 

This poem is an indelible insight into the fundamental tragedy of this world, which is death - or, more generally, what I nowadays conceptualize as entropy - a tragedy even more fundamental and all-pervading than evil. 

The fact that there is a new spring, and new "gold", each year is good; but (as Tolkien's longaevus elves knew) it also repeats and amplifies the tragedy. 

In this-world, creation does not, and cannot, solve the deep sadness of entropy: that nothing gold can stay. 

Our real and solid and sufficient hope, the only real hope, the only answer; is the Second Creation of Heaven, on the other side of death, for those who choose to follow Jesus there. Thus the tragedy remains but subsumed in a "Comedy" - a happy ending. 

Jesus Christ - Saviour from what and why? An imaginary conversation

Jesus Christ is our saviour. 

What is he saving us from? And don't say "our sins" because that doesn't make sense to me.

Jesus is saving us from death. 

But everybody dies, including Christians; and when we die we cease to exist...

It is about what happens after we die. Even without Jesus, everybody remains in existence, but not as themselves, just as demented "ghosts". With Jesus, we are restored and resurrected to become a qualitatively superior version of our-selves, the same "you" as here-and-now, still living, learning, doing - but all-good, and forever...

How better? Do you just mean that we will be made completely virtuous, like it or not? Because that doesn't sound particularly appealing.

The decision we need to make, is to live wholly from love. And love means between people (and other living-beings); and this love includes what we think of as creative activity. And it is not done-to us; because resurrection is cooperative: we have to want it, ask for it - and then Jesus is capable of making it happen.  

Sounds great, if it was true.  

You don't need to believe it is true: you do need to believe it is possible, and that you want it. 

But why do we need saving in the first place? I thought you Christians said that God loved us all and was all-knowing, all-powerful, and created everything. If so, your God is by-definition responsible for everything. How come things are such a mess and people are so mixed up, weak, and (often) wicked? 

That is a false understanding of God. The reality is that God is the creator; but creation is made up from all kinds of unique beings - a mixture of good and evil, and some beings are very evil. This world cannot be made wholly-good because the "ingredients" God works-with are not wholly-good. Such is the reason why Jesus Christ is needed to save us - if we want to be saved. And why we are saved in Heaven and on the other side of death; and can't be saved here and now. 

It seems to me that in order to be saved, I need to give up a lot of myself... 

True enough. You need to be prepared to give up everything about yourself that is not motivated by love. Only then can you become an eternal and good being, live in a Heaven of similar beings. You need to want that kind of Heaven.   

Okay... I think I would be prepared to do that, but what would I actually have to do to achieve it? Christianity seems like a package-deal holiday. To get to Heaven I am asked to sign-up to obey a bunch of dodgy bureaucrats; who insist on me believing and doing all sorts of dubious stuff. Frankly, I can't see any relationship between the end and the means. 

I understand, and agree. It is your soul, and your future that is at stake. 

I suggest that you sort things out for yourself, and to your own satisfaction, in whatever way ultimately has the potential to convince you.- 

Perhaps by going direct to source.

  

Explaining the origin of irredeemable, never-incarnated, demonic spirits

Following from yesterday's discussion; I shall put forward here an explanation for those beings who are traditionally regarded as demons in orthodox Christian theology:

The definition of which is that they are spirit-beings, that have never incarnated, and which are eternally committed to evil such that they cannot be redeemed or saved. 

There are several other kinds of being that might be termed "demons"* - and these might include currently-incarnated beings, or beings that have previously been incarnated and died (analogous to evil ghosts)...

But here I am focusing on beings that have always been spirits - and I am trying to understand and explain how any being might be outwith the scope of the salvation of Jesus Christ.   

I will first outline my metaphysical assumptions: those who want to cut straight to the explanation of demons will find this after the break: indicated +++

My metaphysical understanding of reality is that it comprises beings in relationships; and that beings have attributes such that they are alive, conscious (to some degree), purposive, self-sustaining and so forth. 

Beings are eternal, always have existed - including before creation.

All beings are unique: that is important. Some Christians (perhaps influenced by oneness spiritualty) assume that all Men are originally equal, and diverge - and then spiritually develop and converge towards becoming very similar, or even identical. 

But in contrast I assume that all beings began as unique (and un-cooperative) and God's plan of salvation is a matter of progressively achieving harmony. At first a partly-imposed and temporary harmony, but a process that is completed by the Second Creation, of Heaven; where each resurrected being has chosen to be remade such as to live wholly from-love, and harmony between unalike beings is then innate and spontaneous**.

That is: living-beings are the primary unit of reality; and "beings" include humans, animals, plants, as well as what are usually considered to be "mineral" entities and materials. 

Everything primary in reality is thus either itself a being, or part of a being. 

A further assumption is that all beings were originally spirits. 

Only later, and only for some beings, there may be incarnation into some material form. 

Many spirits have never been incarnated.  

Originally (before creation) beings may have been aware of each other, to varying degrees, and with varying attitudes - but each being is assumed to have been autonomous, separate, pursuing its own goals. 

Before creation, reality was a "chaos" of beings. 

Divine creation happened when God's love became the means of "coordinating" or harmonizing these already-existing beings. 

However, to become a part of divine creation, a being must first be capable of love; then secondly a being-capable-of-love must choose to live by, or from, this love.

(Because it is love that harmonizes the disparate beings, and this harmonization is creation.)

Hence the formulation "God is love", and the great commandments to love God and fellow Men - which can be interpreted to make the choice to embrace the loving purpose of God as ideal, and to aspire to live wholly from love of other beings. 

+++

Now I will explain the origin of demons:

All beings are unique. To participate in creation, a being must be capable of love; but not all beings are capable of love. 

A love-incapable being happens to be constituted that way. Such a being will not be part of creation, and cannot ever become a part of creation. 

Demons are here regarded as spirits that are incapable of love. 

For a being to be saved or redeemed includes death and resurrection such as to live entirely from love. 

It follows that any being constitutionally incapable of love, cannot undergo salvation, indeed, such a being cannot even want salvation.

Some love-incapable beings might remain passive, detached from creation. But demons are assumed to be those love-incapable beings who have chosen to oppose creation - for various motives. 

For instance; demons may aim to exploit creation, or may seek to destroy it. They may be motivated by their own pleasure, by negative resentment, or sheer spiteful desire to inflict suffering. Or mixture of motivation; and demonic motivations may change over time. 

But although capable of changing their behaviours; a love-incapable demon can never become part of creation, and can never seek or attain salvation through following Jesus Christ. 

The above scheme may explain the occurrence of those demons - traditionally-defined: demons that are spirits, have never incarnated, and are eternally outwith even the possibility of salvation. 

*(And some of these are capable of choosing salvation.)

**(An analogy is that the first creation is like a State ruled by a loving creator God with a mixture of coercion and consent; while the Second Creation is a perfectly loving family.) 

The fact of demons refutes that God can be both "Omni" and Good

What seems to me a very powerful argument against the mainstream orthodox Christian notion that God-the-creator is both Good and an Omni-God; is the theologically-assumed reality of demons - that is, of never-incarnated spirits who are irredeemably committed to evil, and who operate in this world.

In an ultimate sense, this is a just a subset of "the problem of evil" - and its existence At All; but most of the attempted explanations of the presence of evil in this world are focused upon human beings. Apparently; many mainstream Christians (although not me) are sufficiently satisfied by the traditional explanation that human evil is a consequence of 1. human free will (granted by God) and 2. The Fall; plus 3. that there is always a possibility that mortal humans may repent and accept salvation. 

It is this possibility that any human who is currently committed to evil may, nonetheless, repent and accept salvation that serves to explain why such humans are not annihilated or incarcerated somewhere where they can do no harm. 

So; most orthodox Christians believe that evil demons are real, and that they have a harmful effect on this world; but that they cannot ever repent. 

This creates a contradiction. 

It seems obvious (?) that any Good God who had the power to do so (as an Omni-god does, be definition); would decisively sequester such evil beings somewhere where they could not corrupt or damn human beings. 

That God does not do; and allows demons access to humans, implies either that God is not Good, or that God is not "Omni". 

[Note added: To clarify, here I am not trying to refute the orthodox explanation of the existence of demons in the first place. This, in traditional orthodoxy is usually a matter of angels being conceived as a separate creation from Men. Upon having been created, these angels then use their free will to choose evil - they become fallen-angels. This fall is then regarded a - according to the attributed nature of angelic beings - a permanent condition. What I am instead saying here is focused on the question of what God does about fallen-angels/ demons, after they have arisen.] 

Maybe this is why so many modern Christians who cleave to the definition of God as wholly Good and "Omni" tend to deny the reality of traditionally-understood demons. Instead they (seem to) regard demons ("if they really exist") as merely confused, misguided and "disturbed" spirits who might attain salvation; or in some other way as only-partly-evil, or reversibly-evil.   

Or else such Christians fall back on the "God's Goodness is total but un-understandable by Men" argument; which leaves the Christian "God-is-Good" deity indistinguishable from the Islamic concept of "Good is God".  

Such are the ways in which the stark contradiction of traditional Christian theology when it comes to demons is obscured; and concealed behind imprecision, and complexity of (only vaguely-understood) abstractions. 

NOTE: I intend to present an alternative metaphysics to explain permanently-evil demon-spirits and their continued operations in this world; in a soon-to-be-published post - which will be referenced back to the above argument.

Jesus is the divine creator of Heaven; but Not the same creator as his Father - and this is what makes Christianity "optional"

For Christians, Jesus is divine, and a creator: he created Heaven, and made it possible for us to resurrect to eternal life. 

But Jesus is not the same creator as created the reality that existed before Jesus.

The God-before-Jesus on the one hand, and Jesus himself on the other hand, are different individuals: different Beings. 

To claim that Jesus is the same divinity as that who created before Jesus, is to negate the significance and essential quality of Jesus. 

Christianity entails (surely) that Jesus changed the fundamental structure of reality, and that this change happened as a consequence of Jesus, therefore after a particular time. 

Christianity entails a before, and an after. 

For Christianity to be both true and distinctive; something about the birth/ life/ death/ resurrection/ ascension of Jesus must make a difference!

Because reality was already-created before the advent of Jesus - and (for example) many generations of humans had existed before Jesus, and many generations of not-Christians have existed since Jesus; this implies that the Second Creation of Jesus is "optional". 

Resurrection is a possibility, a choice - and not to choose is also possible - as happened while Jesus was alive, even among the disciples.  

And that choice is made in the context of, against the backdrop of, already-existing and continuing reality. 

Jesus came into already-creation; and offered new possibilities for those who desired to follow him - but the option remained open for people who did Not desire to follow Jesus, to continue to dwell in the already-existent First Creation. 

Christianity was and is opt-in. For this to be the case - it must be (and is) a viable option to decline the offer.  

Jesus's claim is that it is better to follow him, better for those who want what he offers - but Jesus does not claim that a failure to follow him would result in the end of reality, the end of all existence.

A real and created "reality" preceded Jesus, and has not stopped - and the majority who are ignorant-of, ignore, or reject Jesus - continue to inhabit that reality. 

I mean that these not-Christians orientate their lives to the First Creation; and choose Not to live in accordance with the expectation of eternal resurrected life in Heaven. 

All this is possible exactly because Jesus is not the same entity as the creator God whom Jesus is recorded as addressing as his Father. 

Religions and churches are analogous to Tolkien's Rings of Power

The Rings of Power - but especially the One Ring and the three Elven Rings, seem to describe something profound about reality. 

Sauron infuses much of his native power onto the One Ring; which gives him the ability to dominate the other Rings of Power - and, more generally, dominate the will to power of other beings. 

But, the transfer of power means that, when the One Ring is destroyed, Sauron cannot hold-himself-together anymore; he cannot sustain himself coherently as a functioning "self", but diffuses into a dark spirit of largely-passive malignancy. 

What is often missed by readers of The Lord of the Rings (but which was insightfully described by Paul Kocher more than fifty years ago); is that the Elves did something analogous with their three Rings, with analogous but inverted positive benefits; and similar negative consequences after their power was broken.  

The Elven Rings were made by a transfer of vitality from Elves-generally, into the Three Rings specifically. 

The Rings were apparently intended to focus and strengthen Elvish (or rather, specifically High Elven, Noldorian) characteristics - purity and the preservation of unstained beauty, in the case of Galadriel and Lothlorien; wisdom, learning, and healing, in the case of Elrond and Rivendell. 

(Gandalf's Elf Ring was given him by Cirdan, and thereby seemingly repurposed from its original intent.)

I infer that the Three Rings were made exactly because elvish vitality and power was already declining, as a consequence of prolonged residence in the mortal lands of Middle Earth (which was by will of Eru; who always intended that Elves gradually be replaced by Men). 

The Elven Rings were made, therefore, with the ambivalently-virtuous motivation of stopping the ongoing decline in Elvish vitality. 

And for so long as the One Ring was not being wielded; the Elf Rings worked well; and in Rivendell and Lothlorien, High Elven culture continued for thousands of years longer than anywhere else in Middle Earth - but at the price of being increasingly cut-off, encapsulated.  

But, when the Master Ring was destroyed, all the racial vitality of the Elves that had gone into the making of the Three Rings was dissipated and diffused, much like Sauron's beingness.  

Immediately; the special qualities of Elrond and Rivendell, Galadriel and Lothlorien, began to decline, dwindle, fade...

The High Elves could not longer remain High; but must revert towards the much lesser cultural and intellectual level of the "Silvan" or Wood Elves - or else migrate to the Undying Lands before this declining process could advance too far.  

*

I believe that Tolkien was here expressing a profound and general truth about the benefits and disadvantages of concentrating our innate vitality - our human qualities. 

I think that - across the large timescale of human history - there was a decline in the natural and spontaneous spirituality of humans; a decline in the immersive and passive awareness-of, and participation-in the divine.

In effect: there was an intent to stop this process of spiritual alienation; by concentrating and focusing our "spiritual vitality" into what is called religion: into religions and churches, into abstract systems of rituals and symbols. 

Religion is therefore a "Ring of Power". 

But, it turned-out that the Elven Rings, and church religion, did not stop the decline, but only delayed it. 

Outside of the increasingly encapsulated worlds of serious religion; the decline in human spirituality and Man's alienation from the divine continued... indeed it accelerated; given that the spirituality has been drained from it and poured into the churches. 

By this analogy; the various Christian revivals can be seen as the re-forging of further Rings of Power - further attempts to stop this decline by increasing the focusing and concentration.

These later Rings included (in general terms) greater demands for personal commitment, efforts at training of mental powers by new rituals or more frequent practice, increased exclusion of the secular from the sacred... etc. 

At the same time religions functioned like Rings of Power - achieving a sustained awareness and participation of the divine, in the cut-off context of "churches" and their activities - but at the cost of sucking spiritual vitality and divine awareness from the rest of life, and from humanity in general... 

An unintended cost of religion, was therefore the creation of "the secular" - what was not within the concentrated scope of religion, necessarily became secular. 

And as the underlying trend of human alienation continued; the secular realm expanded, while the divine and spiritual realm of religion shrank.

My main point is that when Man has created religion, and infused his churches with much of Man's native spiritual vitality - this means that when churches are destroyed, this focused and concentrated spiritual power is dissipated. 

Much as Sauron minus the One Ring was weaker than if the Ring had never been made; and as the Elves declined more suddenly and rapidly after the power of the Three Rings was lost than if the Elven Rings had never been...

So, Mankind's alienation from the spiritual and divine is more severe and intractable after the decline of church religion, than it would have been if we had not invested so much of our religious vitality into institutional, symbolic, and ritual forms. 

Thus; many modern people living after the (de facto) death of the churches and religions; experience this institutional loss as fatal to the divine and the spiritual - and without church, they feel that there is and can be no God, no creation. 

Post-religion; experienced-reality has been drained - abruptly and very fully - of purpose and meaning; and therefore of lasting personal significance. 

Although some churches/ religions sometimes did an effective job for many centuries in some places in sustaining contact with the divine and spiritual realms; because the spiritual and divine was thereby concentrated, focused, protected by the structures of church and formal religion - it now seems that when mankind's innate consciousness changed, and these social structures lost their power and integrity - then we are left worse-off than we would have been if churches had never existed. 

The churches functioned, therefore, analogously to the Elf Rings in their intent and effect; and in the consequences after the power of religion first declined and then was destroyed. 

It was to fix the inadequacy of this mortal life, that Jesus offered resurrection

Jesus's job was to fix the inadequate nature, the insufficiency, of this mortal life on earth. 

This was achieved such that the purpose of resurrected eternal life in Heaven is for there to be a real and accessible state and place, where the intractable and incurable problems (that currently wreck any possibility of a good life) are permanently eliminated.  

If this mortal life was sufficient, or even if mortal life was perfectible; then there would be little benefit in offering the chance of Resurrection after death - because it would obviously be better to have all the good stuff and fix the problems of this world without first needing to die. 

"Christianity" is therefore for those who realize that the core problems of this world and mortal life - i.e. entropy/ death and evil - cannot be solved inside this life and world - because they are of the nature of this creation. 

Because the core problems are insoluble within this creation; our only possible and real hope is for a second creation; for our-selves to look forward to a "second" life, in a world without death and without evil.

And such a world, as a matter of reality, can only exist on the other side of mortal death. 

So; Resurrection is not about "jam tomorrow" or "pie in the sky" - it is not a wish-fulfilment daydream...

Because the truly wishful daydreams are radical politics and utopian schemes - like socialism and "transhumanism" - ideologies that pretend to offer a future that solves the core problems of life... 

Ideologies that pretend to make possible a situation where Mankind (here and now, or soon) will have fulfilment and satisfaction, and escape from fear and suffering - where mortal life will suffice. 

Those who believe such claims are real and possible, are never interested by Jesus's offer of Resurrection into Heaven that is located on the other side of death.  

Also wishful are those religions (including Christianity, in many times and places) that promise a "millennium"... 

That promise their adherents Heaven on Earth, perfected Man, a world purged of evil and death; a second coming, an earthly-saviour - such promises are also in this wishful category. 

Yet, if such things really were possible; there would have been no need for Jesus, and what he offered would be redundant. 

After all; a chance of post-mortal Resurrection to post-mortal Heaven would be a shabby second best to Heaven on Earth accessible without dying.  

The commonly-expressed idea of Resurrection and Heaven as a reward for a Good Life is grossly to under-sell what is on offer. 

This is to downgrade Resurrection and Heaven to a delayed "earthly paradise"... a world and life that is quantitatively better than, but not qualitatively different from, what we already now have.

If quantitative improvement of this mortal life ASAP is that which is most strongly desired; then Resurrection and Heaven are of merely subordinate interest.    

Even worse is to explain Resurrection in terms of the double-negative theology of Resurrection and Heaven as an escape from the default of eternal torment in Hell! 

This bizarrely posits a God who purposively creates a mortal life so-often dominated by evil and entropy, and always terminated by death; after which everlasting pain and misery is the default destination of all...

And then the same God devises Resurrection and Heaven which constitute a delayed and selective escape route from horrors of His own devising. 

If such a creator-God existed, He is not the same Good God as known and described by Jesus. 

So, even before we decide whether we personally desire Resurrection and Heaven; and even before we decide whether Resurrection and Heaven are believable...

We first need to know our present situation, what R&H mean in context of our present situation, what R&H are for: and what they do. 

Unfortunately, the clarity and simplicity of what Jesus did and made possible; is by-now grossly obfuscated by millennia of misunderstanding, misrepresentation, disinformation - and deliberate lies. 

The only viable answer would seem to be for each creatively and actively to work it out for himself - from intuitive-experiential knowing; as it were from "first principles'. With the assurance that God and Jesus Christ will with certainty have made this possible for all Men... Possible if not now, or during mortal life, then for-sure post-mortally.  

ETs - the question of contact with Extra-Terrestrial humanoid life forms

Much as with UFOs; I have read a fair bit about ET contacts (and viewed documentaries or videos); and various of my penfriends have described their own ET contacts - so my attitude has been somewhat open to the reality of such things. 

But this openness-in-principle has been modified by an underlying lack of interest in the subject; which is itself a reaction against the enormous (sometimes cosmically vast and spiritual) claims of significance made by ET proponents; whether positive or negative. 

Furthermore, there is the problem that I don't believe most of the claims - or at least, I am not confident of their validity. 

Some reports seem to be lies, while other experiences seem to be self-deceptions due to illness or stupidity - while other people seem to reporting genuine spiritual or paranormal experiences, but may be misinterpreting other kinds of experiences as ET contacts. 

In particular, to believe ET reports requires for me a confidence in the discernment - including spiritual discernment - of the witness, and up-until-now I had not come across any ET reports that ticked all the necessary boxes. 

Anthony Duncan

This has changed since I read To Think Without Fear: the challenge of the extra-terrestrial (2015), by Anthony Duncan (1930-2003) - which has convinced me of the validity of his report of ET contacts happening to himself and family, in the middle 1990s in Northumberland, where he was an Anglican priest. 

Although, as a Church of England Vicar of several parishes; at times AD lived near to me and I walked past his churches frequently; I never met him and did know know about him (indeed, I did not become a Christian until after he had died). 

I came across Duncan rather vaguely at first through an interest in "Celtic Christianity" (a subject about which he wrote several books); but mainly through my reading of Gareth Knight. And esepcially Kiight's superb autobiography: I called it magic (2011).  

Duncan and Knight met when AD was curate at Tewksbury Abbey while GK lived in the town; and AD prepared Knight for confirmation into the CofE. They rapidly became friends and then complementary collaborators; ultimately leading AD to an interest in the Qabalah that eventually bore fruit in Duncan's The Christ, Psychotherapy and Magic (1969); which fed-into Knight's restoration of Christian ceremonial magic in Experience of the Inner Worlds (1975). 

Duncan was a natural, spontaneous, psychic and mystic - who had paranormal as well as supernatural experiences throughout his adult life' He was an officially-recognized exorcist in the Church of England - and became a Canon of Newcastle Cathedral. 

I read GK's memoir of AD (Christ and Qabalah - 2013) and then several of AD's books and a recorded lecture; before tackling To think without fear TTWF. So I already liked and respected Duncan, before reading the ET book. 

However, it needed two attempts to get-through TTWF; because of the rather unfortunate way it is structured. The key parts that actually convinced me of the validity of his interpretations of his experiences - the descriptions of his ET experiences; come at the very end of the volume, in the Appendices. 

...Before which I needed to wade through a great deal of complex, abstract, and (from my POV) theologically-unconvincing explanations and justifications of the reality of ETs from the context of mainstream-orthodox Anglican philosophy and doctrine (with various eclectic additions). 

There are, however, many important insights scattered throughout these rather turgid early parts - and the effort of penetrating these chapters surely prepared my receptivity for the simple and clear expositions that came at the end.   

Despite all its defects, what made this the only account to convince me of the reality of an ET experience was that background of already knowing and respecting Duncan; plus my confidence that he was able - from considerable experienced reflected-upon - to discern the provenance of strange experiences.  

In other words, Duncan, had throughout his adult Christian life, experienced many contacts and "communication" involving angels, demons, ghosts and the like - and therefore he was exceptionally well-placed and able to discern that these ETs were... what they "said" they were.

AD was also well-motivated, i.e. not trying to gain personal advantage from reporting ET contacts. Indeed he did not share the experiences described in this book outside the circles of his friends: and this book was not published until a decade after his death. 

In brief; the nature of the ET contacts (confirmed by two other people) was a non-visual but definite sense of presences (various numbers, and of various types of personage); and a direct, usually non-verbal, mind-to-mind telepathic (back-and-forth, Q&A type) understanding.

So, having been convinced - what then?

For me, nothing much more than an expansion of metaphysical possibility: I remain largely uninterested by such contacts - and have no significant desire to share them. 

The claims variously made in other books etc of a strategic importance of ETs for Mankind, material and or spiritual, seem to me to have been refuted by the passage of decades. Such discussion is contaminated by "geopolitical" forms of thinking about civilizational purposes, clashes, alliances and the like. 

I think the real significance (and this seems to be the opinion of AD) is interpersonal. The significant depends on the actual parties involved - the specific human and the specific ET (who seem to vary in kind and motivation) - and the quality of what happens between them. 

Contact with ETs is therefore as important, or as trivial, as contact with other kinds of living Beings - whether living or dead, material or spiritual. 

That is to say - genuinely loving contact between Beings (if this develops) is eternally-significant and of positive value to divine creation...

Whereas contacts that have an instrumental purpose (in which one or both parties are attempting to use the other for some benefit, or from mere curiosity, or operating under orders) are net-harmful interactions; but usually just insignificant, in the wider scheme.  

Romantic *and* Christian - Both are needed for sufficient motivation, requisite courage

Romantic and Christian - both are needed. 

Christianity comes first, because it is the structure of reality. But without Romanticism... well, "Christianity" does not involve us, each, personally, powerfully. 

Without the Romantic and personal involvement, then Christianity is just theory and/or just a social institutions. And, as of here-and-now - such a Not-Romantic Christianity Will Not motivate us sufficiently to resist the pervasive and otherwise-overwhelming evil of our civilization. 

On-paper, or legal, or social religion (including Christianity) has been demonstrated to be radically insufficient. Its adherents - no matter how strident! - are actually engaging in mainstream atheist-materialist cultural activities... 

Whatever they spout or assert (and no matter of what they have convinced themselves); they Actually Are doing nothing-more than socializing, doing politics, seeking status, or an economic niche, or survival - or pursuing some-other of those things that everybody does, and is encouraged to do, in the mainstream of ideology.  

Such theoretically/ legalistic/ institutional Not-Romantic Christianity is literally irrelevant; it is spiritually-indistinguishable from the atheism, agnosticism or anything-but-Christianity spirituality. 

Not-Romantic Christianity is no-better than the prevalent values of our society. 

And, what this means in practice; is that Non-Romantic Christians will not choose the actuality of salvation after their mortal lives; for the simple reason that there are other things they want more than salvation. 

And because they have assimilated the value-inversions and anti-creation values of the actual Western Civilization into-which their churches are thoroughly assimilated. 

To recognize this fact, we need to understand that things really were different in the past, because people were intrinsically different. 

Romanticism - the need for a personal and passionate engagement with Life; was not really "a thing" at all, until the late 1700s, and did not spread at all widely for another century. 

In the more remote past - especially in the Medieval era and before - all religion was "social" in nature; and for Men of that era it was potentially very powerfully motivating. Personal engagement, motivation... these things just-happened, spontaneously - or by passive-acceptance. 

Indeed; such religion with such people was for centuries (millennia) the single most powerful motivator in life, such that individuals were extremely courageous in loyalty to their church (in many religions) - men would risk and indeed sacrifice much in adherence to the Christian church. 

Even monarchs (certainly not the best of Men!) could be remarkably courageous! 

While Henry VIII was a monster of pride, lust and spite; his children (Mary, Elizabeth, Edward VI) all displayed tremendous individual courage and tenacity in pursuit of their religious convictions...

Even when (especially in the case of Mary and Elizabeth) they found themselves isolated, their lives in danger, and with all the powers of the state and institutional church ranged against them - each continued to be loyal to (and risked everything for) what he or she regarded as the true church.  

Such motivation is now gone, and long gone; such courage in loyalty to a religious vision is now a thing of the past. 

What was an automatic, passive, spontaneous involvement in Christianity - must now actively be sought as a personal necessity, a lifelong quest. 

This is necessary if a Christian is to find the motivation necessary to transcend the endemic evils of Western Civilization, 2026.

2020 - The year of the double global revolution; the year of two successful international coups

2020 was the year when there was a completely successful coup in which global-totalitarianism took-over all the nations of the world; conclusive evidence for which was that the various previous governance procedures of nations were displaced by diktat - and under such a system the peoples of the whole world were "locked down". 

Early 2020 was an extraordinary moment in history! 

Not least because (it seemed at the time) hardly anybody noticed or recognized that it had happened - a perfect, silent takeover had been accomplished; under cover of fake-necessity concealed by the stalking horse that was the Birdemic. 

So... A silent coup, an unopposed takeover, and therefore almost entirely un-noticed at the time - and indeed hardly acknowledged since. 

By the early summer of 2020; the world was (almost literally) under-the-thumb of the totalitarian leadership class: confined to quarters, mentally terrorized into compliance, physically separated, masked and anonymized - utterly pacified! 

And the expectation was that this was only the start of such-things, and the situation would surely be made complete and permanent... 

Allowable public debate was confined to discussing whether all this was enough to make people "safe", or else whether conditions should be made more restrictive. 

The expectation was for "more of the same" - a world under a single authority; a world of omni-surveillance and micro-control. 

Then, quite rapidly in the high summer of 2020, and even less recognized then and since: a second coup! 

Into this situation of triumphant totalitarian control, of top-down pacification, was injected the phenomenon of race war. 

Suddenly, the world's unity and obedience was severed by mandatory antiracism...

Hostile groups were created, encouraged, subsidised, given legal immunity - and very swiftly, what had been a distinctively American species of mutual destruction; was spread across most of the world, and bureaucratically-incorporated into all the major social institutions (officialdom, mass media, law, religions, education, science etc. - and even sports, even cricket!...)

The divisive chaos of a manufactured US race war was deliberately imposed on the world; by that same new-formed, centrally-controlled, bureaucratic-media system that had been created and enforced by the Birdemic.  

Evidently - as so often happens in revolutions - the first and successful coup had been co-opted by a second revolution - with different aims. 

Whereas the first Birdemic coup of early 2020 was aiming at a totalitarian controlled world of order; the second antiracism revolution was aimed at dis-order. 

Whereas the first revolution had used centralized power to make all the nations and the peoples of the world one for the first and only time in human history! One in their obedient docility...

The second revolution seized the new-forged instruments of surveillance and coercion and encouraged division, mutual hostility, break-up, violence...

And the same centre of globalist totalitarianism (but now "under new management") began to kindle resentments and fears that had been almost wholly suppressed by the Birdemic-coup.

They have since fanned into flames the embers of those many and highly lethal post-2020 inter-national, inter-ethnic, inter-religious conflicts, gratuitous wars - with multiple provocations, escalations, fake pennant events - and so forth. 

Because the second revolution was silent, unnoticed, unacknowledged - it has not only been able to present its own plans for destructive chaos as if they were part of the first revolutions program; but also to subvert and invert the established plans for totalitarian surveillance and control. 

The biggest and best example is the phenomenon of "AI" - which is regarded by the advocates of the first, Birdemic, revolution as a tool for surveillance and control; but which is actually an agent of socially-destructive chaos. 

2020 was indeed a watershed year in which "everything changed": the year of two silent and invisible and imperceptible international coups; the year of successful double global revolution: first the making of a system for world control; and then the seizing and usage of this system to induce global chaos... which continues and increases, on a daily basis.

 

Note: The ultimate, and causal, reality behind these proximate political phenomena was spiritual. It was an evolutionary change from the ascendancy of one form of evil to another. Evil is "progressive" - unless repented, it feeds upon itself and gets more-evil. As the "Ahrimanic" evil seeking power reached its apex of success; it began to be displaced by the more advanced and purer "Sorathic" evil that spitefully sought the suffering and eventual destruction of all that is of-God, Good - of divine creation and its aspects of Men and other Beings, of Nature... eventually everything. 

Distinguishing Etheric and Astral

In my reading of Rudolf Steiner I came across a fourfold division of Beings into what he called "bodies" but which might better be understood as "levels". 

Ego - Astral - Etheric - Physical*

The first and last are easy to grasp - Ego is me-my real-self which is eternal; and Physical is the mortal material body. 

But although there seems to me to be some validity to Steiner's posited in-between levels of Etheric and Astral, I have found it difficult to understand, distinguish and grasp these - especially when I see how the terms sometimes get used in practice.

For instance Steiner sometimes tries to draw a bright-line between the levels, and use them to divide and separate discrete categories of minerals, plants, animals and humans - on the basis that the etheric plane corresponds to "life"; the astral to "consciousness", and the ego to something-like "will". 

For Steiner (in some of his writings) plants are minerals plus the etheric; animals are plants plus the astral; humans are animals plus the ego. 

However; I believe that all Beings have all these attributes, but to widely varying degrees...

Such that we are talking about distinctions, not divisions; levels not planes or "bodies". 

So; to make coherent sense from these "planes" I think it must be acknowledged that all Beings (mineral, plant and animal) have all these planes of reality to some degree, but in widely varying degrees.

It could reasonably be decided to merge etheric and astral, to regard them as a continuum bridging the spiritual qualities in-between our mortal physical bodies and the eternal true-self. 

And this must be true in an ultimate sense. Nonetheless, the fact that these levels are often distinguished suggests that individual consideration may have value. 

Here are some thoughts on distinguishing Etheric and Astral that seem broadly valid:

The Etheric "field"

This realm is localized, and surrounds the physical body - extending into the surroundings but falling off rapidly with distance.  

The etheric can be understood as rather like a "field" surrounding the body - it is both sensory and imposes itself. For example, the etheric field is what enables people to realize that another person, or large animal, is near; or if we are being watched. 

We can reach-out with our etheric field to explore our surroundings, so it operates as a sixth sense - in addition what is perceptible to "the five senses". 

Charisma and sexual "chemistry" operate mostly at the etheric level - and so do "gut feelings" of fear, and the perception of threat from others. 

In such situations, our own etheric field interacts-with another person's etheric field; in a way that is qualitatively distinguishable from the five senses. 

It is by etheric communications that we may feel comfortable and happy to sit in silence beside those we love; and feel uncomfortable and miserable when we are nearby those whom we regard as hostile or manipulating. 

By etheric interaction we may be aware, and we may influence - and etheric interactions may be spontaneous and passive; or they may be active and willed.

Someone may project their dominance or their sex appeal etherically - entering the room and all attention is upon them. Or people may project the opposite. 

Or even withdraw their etheric field; to the point of a kind of willed etheric-invisibility, so they tend to pass un-noticed. 

The etheric level is also that of ghosts and the like: localized spirits, spirits tied to a place or situation; spirits that may be detected by our etheric awareness, and many interact directly with physical bodies. 

The Astral "realm"

The astral is de-localized, it is more like a realm than a field - a realm that we may enter and explore; and in which distance is irrelevant, and past and present are both experienced.

The astral is the realm of dreams. 

In dreaming we (mostly) leave-behind our everyday physical bodies and our etheric awareness - the dreamer lying on the bed asleep; and our egos instead travel in astral realms, equipped with astral "simulations" of the body and etheric field. 

In the astral realm of dreaming we may interact with other Beings using five physical sense plus the etheric - but in the astral realm these are "virtual" communications, all-but detached from the sleeping person's physical self, who is mostly cut-off from his surroundings. 

Since Beings are eternal and not localized - the astral realm potentially extends across all reality. 

In the astral realm we can therefore interact with those who have died, and those from far away - from anywhere and from past or present; in an as-if fashion, communicating by quasi-sensory virtual-versions of vision, language, touch etc.  

[In the Astral we are not "in" the past, not re-living it; but instead may experience here-and-now the past of our own earlier experience (including our pre-mortal experience as spirits), and also here-and-now experience the past as has been experienced by the other Beings we encounter.] 

But the astral is a realm that includes all Beings - to some degree. 

Therefore we should not suppose that the astral is wholly, or even mostly, "good". It is not a realm exclusively for wish-fulfilment and pleasure. 

Since we inhabit primary creation, and since the astral is a realm in this mortal world, the astral is potentially open to all manner of Beings; although the ego remains conscious and always retains a measure of control - and of responsibility. 

The evil we encounter and do in the astral realm, is some kind of reality, for which we bear some kind of responsibility - which is why dreams are important. 

But the astral realm is not only a matter of dreaming; it is always present to some degree; and may be substantially or (almost) fully entered in other circumstances: for instance in meditation or trance states, in intoxication and delirium states.  

When we are aware of a kind of inner pressure to think, travel, read or otherwise do something; this may be a matter of communications from other Beings operating at the astral level. 

Astrally-communicating Beings may be good and loving (perhaps benign ancestors, or our beloved who have died, or those who love from their books or music or suchlike). However, just as in this mortal world; among these well-meaning benign Beings, none are infallible, and some are much wiser than others. 

But the astral Beings trying to influence us may instead be hostile. The thoughts and activities that these Beings encourage will be intended to harm us, spiritually.  

In other words (amongst others) the astral realm is that in which we are most likely to encounter both angels and demons; and our guide must be a combination of our own discernment with the guidance of the Holy Ghost - which guidance is above and independent from the astral realm. 

The astral realm is a realm of indirect communication; in which our interactions are symbolic and perceptual (even the etheric is a kind of perception) and require interpretation. 

While the level "above" the astral is that of the Ego, the real, ultimate, divine Beings that populate creation. 

And at this level where there is direct and unmediated - Being to Being - knowing. 

*My understanding is that this division - or at least this formulation of it - originated in Theosophy, and with Helena Blavatsky. Steiner began as a Theosophist. The idea therefore spread far beyond Steiner, and both in the West and the East (Gandhi was a Theosophist in his early adulthood, thus Theosophy influenced modern Hinduism. Several Theosophical concepts - such as Atlantis - have been widely incorporated into the New Age. So the etheric and astral are discussed all over the place. 

How to deal with the "infinite and expanding" quantity of disinformation

Disinformation is deliberately-wrong information; and it is a far more significant problem (here-and-now) than either censorship or information deliberately designed to manipulate in a particular direction.

The phenomenon has been growing for several generations to a vast size. But the post-November 2022 "AI" phenomenon is a case in point. "AI" is now not only the source of a qualitatively-increased volume of disinformation; but "AI" (its nature and scope) is itself the subject of a massive and sustained campaign of disinformation. 

How should we deal with the fact that nearly of of what is said by and about everything significant (such as "AI", climate, geopolitics, race, health...) is deliberately wrong, and that there is such an incredible quantity of this wrongness?

From an individual's perspective; disinformation is already "infinite" and still increasing!

It is nonsense to say we should trust only trustworthy sources; because in the ocean of disinformation we cannot discern these - and even honest and competent sources are themselves fed by a great deal of disinformation. Therefore, so far as we can know: there are zero trustworthy sources. 

The answer is that we first need to accept the reality of the situation.

We need to by-pass the whole ever-expanding edifice of deliberate falseness; and decide what is what for ourselves and from our direct knowledge and intuition.

And we, therefore, need to accept that our own judgment on things cannot be publicly justified by arguing from a basis of common evidential ground, we cannot argue using publicly-available information information of accepted validity. 

We must, therefore, be contented with our own judgment, for our own purposes. 

This does not mean we need to keep our judgment private; but that in making our inferences explicit we should not expect to succeed in persuading those others who are accepting the truth of (one or another set of) deliberate lies. 

If we are atheist materialists - this is a counsel of despair: it is a "black-pill". 

But if we are a Romantic Christian, who believes in the primacy of the spiritual and God as creator; then we are convinced that our own personal knowledge-of and adherence-to truth has a direct and positive effect on total reality - by its incorporation into ongoing divine creation.

And that ought to be enough.

Was Jesus mainly providing information and teaching; or was Jesus a new creator?

One of the major difficulties that Christians now have* is in trying to explain clearly, simply, concisely: who Jesus was, what Jesus did - and, in particular, why Jesus was indispensable. 

(i.e. "Indispensable" to those who want what Jesus offers.) 

Jesus might be conceptualized in two main ways: either as someone who was a Teacher and Preacher of The Truth; or as a Creator who changed the universe - and thereby the possibilities for Men. 

Information

Historically, Jesus has been regarded mainly as a T&P who provided Information. 

This information was also backed-up by divine power - but the main thing (people assumed) was "the information". 

In order that this information be learned, understood, and acted-upon in future generations; it was assumed that Jesus constituted a Church (naturally, several/ many have claimed to be "the" Church that Jesus intended). 

In sum: To varying degrees and in various ways, the true information derived from Jesus and provided by this Church, would be backed-up by divine power. 

The Church's "essential" job was to discover, preserve, develop the information from Jesus; then to disseminate it, persuade people of its validity, make and enforce rules of conduct derived from this information. Ultimately, the Church would supervise construction of a human society that embodied, was built-upon, the information provided by Jesus.  

(The "essential" nature of Jesus was therefore bound to the "essential" nature of "the" Church that was the true repository of "the information" that Jesus provided. That is; Jesus was essential because of his information; therefore Jesus was essential insofar as "the" Church was essential to the knowledge, understanding, implementation etc. of this information.)

  

Creation

I suggest an  alternative understanding of "What Jesus did" is that he was a New Divine Creator ...

"New" because Jesus did not exist as a divine Man before his incarnation on earth; and "divine" because he was creating additional possibilities; he was creating an extension to pre-existing creation. 

"Primary " divine creation already existed before Jesus; and Jesus was born-into this creation and became divine in the context of that first creation. 

What Jesus did (the primary thing); was to make possible new a different future, a new option, than was possible before Jesus. 

This, I believe, is the truth about Jesus - it is the proper primary conceptualization of who he was and what he did, and its consequences. 

But. 

This (I would say true) way of understanding Jesus as a new creator of new possibilities is blocked by theological-philosophical assumptions, which were actually pre-conceptions (i.e. they were pre-Jesus ways of understanding); which have been (I believe) retroactively imposed-upon who Jesus was and what Jesus did. 

For instance:

Jesus's nature as a divine Man, incarnated into mortal life on earth, who creatively-transformed the possibilities of existence from his life onwards...

Was obscured and rendered incoherent by also insisting that Jesus The One God, who was eternal omniscient, omnipotent and unchangeable, impassible.

Nobody can explain (clearly, simply, concisely) how Jesus can be a mortal incarnate Man and also The One God - therefore this is made A Mystery. 

So the person trying to understand why and how This Man Jesus who lived and dies 2000 years ago is necessary to salvation now; is immediately told: It's a mystery.  

(Not a good start, I suggest.) 

The fact that therefore Jesus made-a-necessary difference, did something new, brought something to the world that did not exist before the time of Jesus...

Was terminally-confused by insisting that Jesus was always the One God, from eternity from forever-before his birth/ life/ death/ ascension; and (because of his "omni"-attributes) Jesus operated outside of time. 

Such that Jesus somehow always was, as well as always-is, and always shall be... 

Such that the explanatory sequence of creation before Jesus and then creation after Jesus; was said to be ultimately a kind-of mortal and earthly illusion...

Because in real-reality, outside of Time/ where Time-is-not, where the One God (including Jesus) existed... creation Just Was: Eternally and Perfect...

So the understanding of Jesus as a new creator that I regard to be true; was-and-is theologically regarded as false by prior philosophical assumption; because it was assumed that could be no ultimate change in creation; neither before nor after, no addition to creation. 

(After all, how could Jesus add-to or improve something that was already and forever perfect?)   

The consequences include that Jesus is nowadays, almost universally (among self-identified Christians as well as not), regarded as primarily a teacher, preacher, prophet... Jesus is seen as a provider of information. 

Christian debate therefore focuses mainly on "the information" - on the validity of its sources, whether the sources are being understood accurately, whether or what difference is made by societal changes; and the various claims by Churches or secular experts over the authority to decide these matters of information.   

Among self-identified Christians; debate also concerns the nature and scope of that divine power which (it is envisaged) backs-up and pushes "the information". 

Questions such as: What does God really want to happen to us - will reform be imposed, or perhaps our destruction? Is the divine power restricted to a particular Church, or particular parts of the earthly-institutional instantiation of "the" Church? 

Does divine power to impose information apply to all humans in the same way? Is divine power irresistible by humans, or does it depend on voluntary human cooperation?

Questions regarding Church authority; how it arose and how it was preserved and transmitted across many generations.   

Such are the kinds of question that concern many self-identified Christians: questions of information.    

Alternatively: It seems to me that when Jesus is understood as a divine Man whose work was essentially that of Creator operating in sequential Time; the story and sequence become clearer and easier to understand (and explain). 

It is realized that for Jesus the teaching and preaching and prophecy were an "optional extra" - information was secondary to his main work and achievement. 

In an ultimate sense, when understood as a Creator; if Jesus had lived and died in utter obscurity, and left no records or memories in earthly society - then his essential work of creation could still have been accomplished.

The new-created possibilities Jesus made, would still exist; and would still be available to all who desired them.  

+++

*Aside from the fact that modern Men have been trained, multi-generationally, to find the claims of religion incredible and ridiculous; while uncritically gulping-down endless drafts of incoherent/ self-contradicting nonsense from the Establishment media-conduit.