The mind-to-mind contact of primary thinking is always mutual, shared; involving two (or more) beings

For some years I have been trying to understand the distinction between what might be termed primary thinking and mundane thinking...

In which primary thinking is assumed to come from our real/ eternal/ divine selves and is objectively real (primary thinking affects reality, and does so in a direct way - i.e. without needing physical modes of communication)...

While mundane thinking is the ordinary subjective stuff that grinds-away (sometimes unconsciously, sometimes as the stream of consciousness) in response to memories, outer perceptions, external manipulations etc; and in accordance with psychological mechanisms. 

Mundane thinking is "merely" subjective in the sense that it is inner, personal, cut-off; and (of itself) does not directly influence any other beings or the world in general. 

For me; this is a matter of absolutely core interest and concern - fundamental to my life and its purpose. It's a subject I cannot leave alone, nor do I want to neglect it 

Following-on; I have often explored why primary thinking is so difficult, so rare, so hard to initiate and continue. 

Yesterday it struck me that the answer may be implied by the fact (or assumption) that primary thinking is not private and subjective; but that primary thinking, on the contrary is linked-with, actively participates-in, ongoing divine creation.

This implies that we are not doing primary thinking unless we are in direct contact with another Being. 

Put negatively; we cannot do primary thinking unless our thinking is being-shared with another being. 

Or, positively expressed, we are thinking primarily when we are in a situation that I've sometimes called direct knowing. 

What is meant by "direct" is that there is no intermediary. Normal mundane knowing works by communication - by a message being sent, received, interpreted etc - but there is (indeed there must be, for there to be any knowing at all) potential for a direct, mind-to-mind way of sharing thinking, of simultaneous thinking. 

But it wasn't until yesterday that I realized this implies, or rather it entails, that primary thinking can only be done "in collaboration". 

We cannot do primary thinking on our own ("in our own heads"), which is perhaps why primary thinking so often seems impossible  no matter hard we strive for it... 

Indeed the striving for it often seems to block primary thinking; presumably because it merely intensifies the cut-off and subjective nature of mundane thinking. 

What I'm saying is that primary thinking happens, and only happens, when we are in "mind to mind" and direct contact with another being - which might be a living human being, or some other kind of being.

This "other kind of being" could be almost any kind of being; e.g. a deceased and resurrected human, animal, an angelic spirit, the Holy Ghost...

But (as I've said elsewhere) primary thinking is intrinsically good in the sense that it is a participation in divine creation. 

So, the "other kind of being" could not be an evil-affiliated being; at least not while such a being, is currently-actively rejecting-of or hostile-to God and divine creation. 

In sum, primary thinking is a dyadic activity at minimum - or could involve more than two beings that are actively, currently, in real time - actually sharing thinking directly and without mediation. 

To do primary thinking we must first be aligned with God's creative will, and secondarily must mutually be participating in thinking with another God-aligned being. 

(I'm not sure; but it might even be that primary thinking is only possible when there is some degree of a love relationship between beings.)

This could explain why primary thinking is rare and tends to be brief; but also suggests how it might become more frequent and sustained - in that our striving should be aimed toward discovering the right kind of "contact" with the right kind of other beings - and this contact essentially needs to happen at a spiritual (not material) level. 

I'm not suggesting "a recipe for primary thinking", and I don't possess one...

Indeed, since I am saying that primary thinking is rooted in fundamental mutuality, harmony with divine creation, and indeed perhaps love; it cannot be attained by any standard method or procedure! It is another kind of thing altogether. 

But maybe this "dyadic" perspective will stop me from pursuing futile and counter-productive efforts; and perhaps point me in the right direction. 

The mystery of soul mates - Awareness, Interest, Attraction, Love

Soul mates may be found in life - the special and unique relationship found perhaps with a best friend, a spouse, a favourite author; and in other areas of life. 

(Of course, soul mates that emerge within an existing family seem less of a mystery, although a mystery remains. Consider, for instance (as a public example), the special relationship between JRR Tolkien and his third son, Christopher - about which JRRT commented in several letters.)

There is a mystery about soul mates and how it happens. 

Any formula of "how" to seek a soul mate, "what" to seek in a soul mate, methods to "identify" a potential soul mate and the like; will very probably lead to disaster. Because such check-lists, algorithms and the like always place abstract models above the personal; and a soul mate is rooted in relationship between persons. 

(I assume that the personal is primary, and relations between persons are the "mechanism" - so abstractions are, at best, secondary and descriptive models of this reality.)  

There have been many (and, to me, unconvincing!), ideas around, about how soul mates discover each other, and happen. 

I think it actually, in practice, typically works something like this (bearing in mind that this is an abstract and categorical summary of a seamless development):

Awareness, Interest, Attraction, Love

This ripening must, of course, be mutual; must happen on both sides - although not necessarily "equally" nor "simultaneously" - whatever these terms might mean... Even complementarity doesn't capture it. 

The point is - at some level - soul mates exemplify a dyadic relationship that is a New Thing; qualitatively different from the sum of, or any selection from, its parts. 

If you have ever had a soul mate relationship (and these may not last all our lives, given the nature of this mixed and mortal world, permeated as it is with entropy and evil) you may perhaps recognise this progression. And how the relationship may build in this kind of way. 

(The building towards soul mates may be more or less rapid or slow - but there must, it seems, be this linear/ sequential quality to the development. Soul mates are, in this respect, an opposite to notions of "Love at First Sight". Awareness and interest may happen at first sight - but love must develop afterwards.)

"Soul mating" is - like most of life - much more like the development and maturation of a living being, than it is like the fulfilment of a blueprint. And that continues after the soul mate relationship is established - much more like an organic growth, than it resembles "following a plan". 

There needs to be preparedness on both sides - or it won't happen; yet the specifics relationships is not sought. There is a sense of destiny, but always needing personal choices and motivations.

The model I think best captures the phenomenon of soul mates for me, begins with two beings in a sea of other beings. And a chain of accumulating choices that begins when these two first become aware of each other. And it is easy for me to imagine how God the creator might initiate that first possibility of awareness. 

Perhaps a womanly and procreative aspect of God is necessary for a solid belief in eternal life?

I am re-reading Geoffrey Ashe's fascinating study The Virgin (1976), which is focused on Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ (Ashe was a Roman Catholic) - but takes in the broader perspective of goddesses throughout history, in a non-hostile - indeed sympathetic - fashion. 

He makes the stimulating suggestion that a Goddess was primal in ancient spirituality, because she was the assumed basis of the procreative hence creative; and that some form of female deity is needed for Men really to believe in a life beyond life. 

The idea is that a supreme male deity cannot sustain belief in a full life beyond life. So that when the ruling Goddess goes; the afterlife becomes very partial, ghostly, and all-but irrelevant. 

Male deities could never bestow life of their own nature as the Mother had done. Zeus and his colleagues were immortal, but they did not transmit that quality to their human subjects... 

Through most civilized and semi-civilized lands... death ceased to be a passage to a future life... the dead were no longer pictured as significantly existing. They were reduced to feeble, bloodless shades in a gloomy underworld. For the Greeks this was Hades...

With the fading of the Eternal-Womanly, with her cutting-down or anathematisation, [for the vast majority, with extremely few exceptions] death had become the end with no prospect of rebirth. 

Israel's shift was similar... The Old Testament has no doctrine of survival or return... the dead become shades. They do down to an underworld called Sheol, The Grave.

The sole Israelite immortality is collective... God's chosen community...  

I think it likely that Ashe is "on to something" here. 

In the book; Ashe is preparing the ground for an attempted explanation of the rise of Mary the mother of Jesus as a more and more important focus of Christian faith - recognizing that this phenomenon cannot be accounted for by Scripture, or by the practices of the earlier generations of Christians. 

With Mariolatry (Ashe says) we seem to be dealing with some kind of deep and direct apprehension of spiritual reality, probably coming from grassroots, bottom-up, the "masses". Christian leaders and theologians seem merely to have been trying to explain and validate theoretically something that already was beginning to become important in practice. 

From my own experience; I find it striking that Mormonism included a very strong element of the "Eternal-Womanly" with its dyadic deity composed of Father and Mother in Heaven. 

And - perhaps in consequence? - the "Mormon culture of salvation" was (at least until fairly recently) probably the most vividly lived and believed-in form of Christian afterlife among the major Christian churches. 

The spiritually unsatisfactory and unconvincing nature of one-sidedly masculine, Christianity is something I find very striking. I mean the monochrome hardness, negativity, heartlessness, legalism and this-worldliness of Mary-rejecting forms of Protestantism is something I feel is very evident. It is one reason why England ceased to be "Merrie" with the reformation.

But there is something of this in all of Christianity. 

(And this defect has not-at-all been ameliorated, let alone cured, by the dominant trend towards secular materialism in all the Christian churches, which comes-in on the back of leftist ideology. Spiritual problems can only be made worse by "liberalization" - which is actually and always covert apostasy.) 

Insisting upon the non-sexual nature of God does not work either - this is just an attempt to escape contradictions absences and by raising abstractions; which has the effect of confusing people - and thereby impairing motivations.

Furthermore, the idea and ideals of ultimate transcendence of sexuality point away from Christianity (rooted in Jesus, the divine incarnate mortal Man) and towards Oneness spirituality, where (eventually) every-thing merges with everything else - in a timeless stasis.   

The problem is that it does not really make deep theoretical and theological sense to insert Mary alongside the (masculine) Trinity; and she is therefore always accorded an ultimately secondary and intercessionary" role in creation - no matter how central is her position in everyday worship (eg. devotion to the Rosary, or Marian icons). 

But even worthwhile degrees of habitual lifestyle and provision of psychological comfort are insufficient motivations in a world so dominated by evil-affiliated institutions. 

In our unavoidably self-conscious era; these inner contradictions about Mary have become nigh-lethal to strong Christian faith - as is evident all around us.

 

This is why I regard Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Mariolatry as "on the right lines" but ultimately insufficient and unsatisfactory. 

And, as Ashe described , this requisite kind of development can only come from directly apprehended knowledge - it is not already existent. 

To emphasize: what is required is not something that can honestly be derived from existing Scripture, theology or history.

Furthermore it needs to arise bottom-up; which means from individuals, not institutions.  

If modern Men are to grasp and retain the needful structuring-focus on resurrected eternal life; if we are to live-by knowledge of Heaven; then we will need explicitly to discover and embrace what will be new truths of eternal verities concerning women in relation to creation and salvation. 

"Masculinity" and "femininity" versus the actual person of Mother in Heaven

While I assume that God is Dyadic (a Heavenly Father and Mother) - this is something I have not really grasped, not does it correspond much with daily experience. 

Partly this may be because we Christians are intended to relate primarily to Jesus, rather than the primary creator; but partly it is because I tend to get "hung-up" on inaccurate and unhelpful assumptions relating to principles, rather than persons. 

An example of an unhelpful/ misleading conceptualization would be that of Coleridge's "polarity" between "two contrary forces, the one of which tends to expand infinitely ["masculine], while the other strives to apprehend or find itself in this infinity [feminine]". 

One such assumption is that habit of thinking of male and female in terms of being specific exemplifications of those abstractions: "masculinity" and "femininity"... Abstractions that are somehow floating unattached beyond time and space, and sort-of imposing-themselves-upon Beings (as it were to make them men, or women)...! 

Really; things must be otherwise. 

Our Heavenly Parents are those two Beings who (in actuality, not by any prior necessity) first committed to eternal love; and on that basis began divine creation. 

It is their two natures, originating as two Beings, that ramify through all of creation since.  

Thus male and female both structure and power creation; but in this personal way - derived from actual living, conscious, developing Beings; and not therefore in terms of abstract metaphysical forces or fields or tendencies. 

As (always?) with metaphysical realities, it is not possible to derive the metaphysics from empirical specifics (such as actual men and women) - nor is it possible to derive any particular empirical specifics from the metaphysical assumptions. 

If the universe truly is derived from a dyadic God; then that universe includes everything that exists, has existed, or could exist - and this reality (this Primary Creation) in which we dwell; includes not just divine creation, but also entropy/death and purposive evil. 

What this seems to mean - among many other things! - is that our experience of Mother in Heaven ought not to be pre-conceptualized in terms of an ideal earthly-mortal Mother, nor any other archetypal female conceptualization. 

Of course, if that is what we have decided in advance that we will find, then that is what we will find - and any female archetype really is there; but only as a selective, hence distorted, part of the reality. 

This stricture applies both to Goddess conceptualizations; and to the Blessed Virgin Mary - whom I regard as ultimately a selective and distorted representation of the reality of the actual person of Mother in Heaven.

(Albeit the veneration/worship of the Mary, Mother of Jesus has - in some times and places - been very valuable as such; and IMO far preferable overall to an exclusively "masculine" conceptualization of God.)

I think the difficulties of you and I experiencing the person of Mother in Heaven are therefore partly due to the nature of God the Creator - who is not personal in this world, in the way that Jesus Christ is personal; partly it is due to the ultimately-dyadic nature of God (and the consequent difficulty of disambiguating Father and Mother, who are necessarily participating-in each-other); and partly due to our usually false expectations concerning what She is like.   

So, what is She like? 

The best answer is: She is like who-She-is. 

...Which can be known - as here on earth - by personal experience, by getting-to-know a person. 

But She is not to be known in terms of exemplifying a list of supposed-female attributes, nor can any list of attributes validly communicate her reality.

The Dyadic Holy Ghost

Since I regard God the Creator as dyadic, our Heavenly Parents, Father and Mother (actual, and presumably eternally incarnate, persons)...

And since I regard Jesus Christ's marriage to Mary of Bethany (Mary Magdalene) as a vital and transformative aspect of His work of the Second Creation...

Then it seems to follow - and has a intuitive rightness - that the Holy Ghost is also dyadic, and a consequence of the eternal commitment of Jesus and Mary in love (their "celestial marriage"). 

I think this is necessary because ultimate creativity comes from the eternal dyadic love of our Heavenly Parents (that is, the concept of creation includes (and/or arises from) love, as it includes freedom and agency - as distinguishable but inseparable aspects).  

Thus the Holy Ghost is both guide and teacher, and comforter; and it may be that these aspects reflect Jesus Christ the man and Mary Magdalene the woman; after their death, resurrection and ascension. 

In other words (bearing in mind these are emphases, not separate domains), the main theme of Jesus Christ in the Holy Ghost is to contribute discernment and purpose in a long-term, strategic way; while Mary contributes immediate help, here and now, in a tactical way. 

Jesus shows us the path, Mary keeps us upon it. 

Of course this cannot (even in principle!) be proved from the Gospels; yet the account of Mary in the Fourth Gospel strikes me as compatible by what I have just said - and from other traditions in Christianity. 

By my understanding, Mary Magdalene makes five appearances in the The Fourth Gospel: 1, implicitly in Jesus's Marriage at Cana (a passage that seems clearly tampered-with, including by deletions), in the resurrection of Lazarus (Mary's brother), the episode of the ointment on Jesus's feet in Bethany, at the foot of the cross and after Jesus's resurrection. 

Mary's concerns in the latter four episodes are very immediate, supportive, "caring" - and indeed it seems possible that Mary had a role in the resurrection of Jesus in a way analogous to John the Baptist's role in the divine but mortal transformation of the pre-baptism Jesus into Jesus Christ*. 

I get this from the hints contained in the reported conversation between the resurrected Jesus, and Mary, when she was the first to meet Jesus after his death, thus.

John 20: 14... she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. [15] Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. [16] Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. [17] Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.  

It strikes me that Jesus may here be talking of their future eternal union - to include the spiritual emanation of the Holy Ghost, available to all who follow Jesus - to happen (only) after Mary's death and resurrection. 

In very general terms - to include Mary Magdalene/ of Bethany in the Holy Ghost is a further development and explication of the deadly rejection of the feminine that afflicted Christianity from early-on (and which I blame of the monotheist philosophers who captures and continue to torment Christin theology!)

The progressively increasing emphasis on Mary the mother of Jesus in Catholic practice, I take to be a theologically-distorted - but nonetheless spiritually very valuable - manifestation of the reality of Heavenly Mother, and the wife of Jesus Christ. 

The fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary is mainly called-upon for aid and comfort in the difficulties of everyday living, fits with my understanding of the role of the divine feminine in general, and Mary Magdalene in her marriage-into the Holy Ghost specifically.   

Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, rediscovered the Christian feminine in God; but the CJCLDS have since neglected and suppressed this aspect of Joseph's revelation - and have chosen not to develop it, while never denying it. 

I am strongly of the view that an explicit inclusion of Heavenly Mother in the fundamental concept of God; and probably too a personal womanly aspect of the Holy Ghost; has (belatedly) become an all-but essential quest or project - for us, here and now. 

This is not something Christians can get off-the-peg or from any external source; but something each needs to work-through for himself - by the usual external and internal means of spiritual guidance. 

*Note added: This is easily (negatively or positively) misinterpreted in terms of divided stereotypical sex roles. I mean much more and almost the opposite; which is that the dyad of a man and woman eternally co-committed in love, can do something that neither can do alone - or, at least, one person can do less, and less well. That is something like a harmony of strategic purposive wisdom with immediate help. By analogy (very approximate) it is a bit like the benefit of being loved and looked-after by two people, a man and a woman, each with distinctive perspectives and capacities, eternally combined in love; who completely share divine purposes and method. This would be better than any conceivable single person, with only a single perspective and vision. That this is two persons creates and sustains a dynamic and growing aspect to the situation - whereas a single person would tend towards inertia and stasis. That this is two persons, rather than more than two, should be seen as an extra gift and potentiality added to the situation of single person - rather than a limitation.   

The marvellous originality and profundity of the Mormon theology of eternal marriage

I have given-up on trying to persuade others of the wonders of Mormon theology! Instead, I will here merely vent some of my enthusiasm. 

Even Mormons regard their theology as very-much subordinate to specifics of this world practice in the CJCLDS. 

And hardly anybody else outside the CJCLDS (although, a few!) is sufficiently interested even to engage with the subject - often because of ineradicable ignorant hostile prejudice. 

But for me, I don't know that I have come across any richer source of metaphysical originality and genius across the span of Christendom, as in Mormon theology*. 

One of the greatest insights of Mormon theology was that God (The Creator) is the eternal and loving marriage of Father in Heaven and Mother in Heaven; in other words God is a dyad, not one. 

Properly understood and explored; this can be an astonishingly rich insight into the fundamental nature of reality - transcending centuries, indeed millennia, of false antitheses between monotheism and polytheism. 

The Mormon concept of God can be the basis of a positive metaphysical concept in its own right (not some combination or compromise of pre-existing concepts); as such, it needs to be understood in its own right. 

The Mormon church (the CJCLDS) has confused and distorted matters - in this as in several other ways - by claiming that such eternal "sealed" marriage is possible among mortal men and women, here on earth; and restricted to the administration and approval of the CJCLDS. 

This is understandable, perhaps it is and was inevitable - yet we must distinguish the reality and truth of things, as separable from the compromises and practicalities of organizing and maintaining A Church, in this world. 

But this is not merely something that demonstrably fails in practice (since many sealed marriages have ended in divorce); but is clearly impossible in theory, due to the basic nature of human beings and our life in this entropic and evil world. 

The basic nature of this mortal life cannot be transcended by mortal Men - and the fact of Men organizing into churches. 

Making claims of the church's transcendent power, or that church rules for living are mapped onto post-mortal and heavenly realities, are simply false - because they contradict the nature of this-world; and contradict too the whole rationale of Christianity as entailing death and resurrection. 

We cannot make Heaven on earth - else there would be no need for Heaven.

(And Jesus Christ insisted that there was need for Heaven, and by his work showed why and how.) 

We cannot replicate the eternal realities of Heaven with our mortal minds and bodies - and claiming that we can, acts against the core realities of what Jesus did and why. 

Churches - and their rules and rituals - do not control our access to Heaven; and indeed, the behaviours of church members (since 2020, especially) demonstrates that nobody really believes that they do. 

(They are merely too concerned at the implications of acknowledging they don't believe - which double-negative is not the same as - and much weaker than - positive belief. )

So, to understand the profound truth of the Mormon theology of God, requires that Mormons (as well as other Christians) set-aside the confusions related to how such spiritual realities are crystallized into material and mortal terms here in our lives on earth. 

Yet, our aspirations can and should be heavenly and spiritual - even as we acknowledge that their practice is mortal and corruptible (not just corruptible, but actually inevitably corrupt-ed - to some degree, sooner or later - by entropy and death - even when not by evil). 

(Thus the desire and aspiration towards eternal marriage in the Mormon sense is a new (as of 1830) beautiful and life-enhancing one - and a vital corrective to the destructive (indeed nihilistic) "mainstream" Christian doctrine that marriage is necessarily a temporary expedient that is dissolved by death, combined with the assertion that "there is no marrying in Heaven".) 

This aspiration is true and good; although eternal marriage cannot be actually attained until after we are resurrected and have become wholly and eternally committed to live by love. 

It requires resurrection to be able to make eternal commitments; for the reason that resurrection is itself the foundational eternal commitment - i.e. to live wholly by live (and leave-behind sin). 

Earthly marriage, and the innate desires and motivations we have in relation to it - even when we may be unable to find it during this mortal existence, provide the basis for understanding the reality of Heavenly marriage; and of the original, originative, creative nature of God (originating, that is, in love - with creation, including but not restricted to procreation, understood as a manifestation of love.)

When Joseph Smith had his vision of the dyadic nature of God, he was both a prophet and a philosopher of genius; but when he tried to make this vision a concrete reality among the members of the new Mormon church, he was merely a gifted and able leader, a kind of "king and judge" perhaps. 

Furthermore, the nature of God as from a Heavenly marriage need not be, and I think is not, a template for every man and woman - past, present and future. 

Christianity is for individual persons, and entails that each individual person affiliates to divine creation; I don't see that this entails that everybody ultimately wants the same thing - indeed that would seem vanishingly unlikely. Since each is unique - surely there will "always" be genuine exceptions? 

(As well as those making excuses to justify special treatment!) 

And what we be the point of a creation consisting of everybody doing the same thing! Multiplicity would then have no function or reason!

Another of Joseph Smith's great prophetic insights was that Heaven was A Family, in a literal as well as metaphorical sense. And a loving family - even here on earth - can and often does incorporate many kinds of life-motivations and self-chosen roles, among its loving members. 

Resurrected and eternal individual men and women will develop what is distinctive in their original and innate nature - and this may or may not lead them into eternal marriage of a kind analogous to that of God, our Heavenly Parents and the Primary Creators, and thence to procreating spiritual children - in the way that Joseph Smith seemed to regard as the proper goal of all people. 

I include this, not because I am necessarily correct in contradicting this particular aspect of Joseph Smith's revelations - but as example fo how we ought to engage with them, as realities.

Realities we may know-about now, and experience temporarily and partially in mortal life; but realities that are only do-able in resurrected post-mortal life    

 

*For all its essential insights (at least, they have been essential for me) there are significant deficiencies in Mormon theology. Two of the most important are an incoherent and double-negative understanding of Jesus's real vital importance and the true nature of his work, which error was (apparently) inherited from mainstream Protestant theology. Another mistake - I believe - is also inherited; which is to regard the Holy Ghost as a separate personage from Jesus Christ - which (as with mainstream Christianity) makes the HG into a nebulous abstract entity with no clear provenance or role. 

Some Romantic Christian "don'ts" about courtship and marriage

I find the "manosphere" - including the "Christian" sub-type - always and increasingly wrong-headed - and indeed harmful. 

So I thought I'd add my two-penn'orth in a way that is intended to be a negative corrective to some of the most blatantly false attitudes and aims. 

(I do not feel it would be right - would indeed be absurd! - for me to offer positive advice of a "what to do" kind; and indeed that would be counter-productive to the desired attitudes and aims.)

This is from a broadly Romantic Christian perspective (implicit in everything that follows) - which means it is rooted in my own intuition and experience for which I take personal responsibility; which implies that I will not "defend" my convictions, nor argue with those who disagree - because public "facts" and "evidence" depend on prior assumptions; and all logic and reason can do is infer the consequences of assumptions. 

One assumption, behind all this, ought not to need stating to Christians - but, of course, does (we are all sinners); and this is that Love is By Far the most important thing in marriage; as it is in this mortal life and in Heaven. 

(And Love is dyadic - as I have recently tried to explain.) 

If Love is not the underpinning of marriage, then we will be dealing with a public institution; and that means - in The West, now - marriage will be subject to a System that is evil overall and by intent. 

(Context: There are no guarantees in this mortal life; and your life is probably not "about" what you currently suppose it is about. We live in a divine creation - therefore (over the timescale of mortality - which is seldom in the immediate short-term) probabilities are not relevant to those fundamental matters crucial to the real purpose of your life; I mean, concerning matters where God would be expected to "intervene". In short; God will make happen what needs to happen.) 

Courtship begins with adolescence, and - as of this time and place - we all start-out from an adolescence characterized by intense self-consciousness and alienated consciousness: a situation of bad faith, hypocrisy and fantasy. 

We are hyper-aware of our-selves - but that "self" is compounded largely of fantasy (what we think we would like to be, what we want other people to be like). It is very seldom our real or true "primal self" indeed it is often an opposition or even inversion of that real self. 

We need to learn from this original situation, and work towards something better; which is:

Making our public persona a genuine manifestation of our real self. 

The other characteristic of modern adolescence, is also a consequence of our alienation. This is our conscious experience of being cut-off from spontaneous participation in the consciousness of other people; which means we tend to experience others (including women) in an un-real fashion - rather like characters in a novel, movie or play. 

Too often; because our the standard modern set-up of consciousness and culture: we engage our own fantasies our our-selves, with other-people's own fantasies of themselves (including women); and this must be overcome as much as possible. 

Furthermore; the above leads to the familiar situation in which relationships are reduced to a hypocritical war of attempted manipulations. 

(e.g. We attempt to project our fantasy persona (of what we think we want to be like) to manipulate a woman who may be doing the same: the "winner" is the one who succeeds in fooling the other into accepting the projected persona, and thereby successfully manipulating him or her. Meanwhile, the primal self is cut out-of-the-loop altogether.) 

For a Christian to accept that adolescent and alienated situation and work with it, rather than against it - and to claim this as Christian; is in bad faith - as well as hypocritical, dishonest, psychopathic (i.e objectivizing others and attempting to use them for gratification). 

It also prevents us learning from the experience of our actual situation in this mortal life. 

More explicitly, a marriage built on projection and manipulations is a marriage based on a lie. Furthermore, the lie intrinsic to a projected persona will tend to attract a woman who is attracted to that persona - which is not our real self: any resulting marriage will probably be rooted in dishonesty and deception.  

One very small positive suggestion to round-off: if you succeed in making your public persona a genuine manifestation of your primal self; then a woman (and you are only seeking one woman, a single wife) who is attracted to marry you on that basis (or something near to it, tending towards it) - will be more likely to love you for your real nature. 

If you hope for that marriage to be strong, lasting, loving - a basis in truth is surely for the best?

Note: To any new readers; check-out the guide to would-be commenters in the sidebar. 

The Law of Direct Knowing: or, why book recommendations are (mostly) useless and best-friends non-transferable

Have you ever noticed, as I did even in my teens, that your best-friend's other best friends were usually people you found to be distinctly... underwhelming. Sometimes, I even disliked them. And my own best friends often did not get-along very well - lacking any genuine affinity. 

This might be supposed to be due to jealousy, or that that each friend represented a different aspect in me; but I think the reason runs deeper.

Something similar applies with authors that I regard as mentors; my absolute favourite writers: those with whom I had a strong relationship, and whose influence on me has been significant. 

It is natural to seek further such mentors by tackling those who my favorite author regarded as his favourite authors... 

Yet this was typically a blind alley. No matter how deeply I admired and empathized with writer X; I nearly always discovered writer X's favourite, most significant, influences were disappointing; and often completely unappealing.

Furthermore, books recommended me by friends who liked the same things as I did, were often duds; and my own recommendations of the "you will love this" type, typically fell upon stony ground. 

The same applies with classical music, and indeed folk music - an exploration of the "influences" behind my favourite artistes and composers was almost uniformly unsatisfying.     

Such instances can be put-together; and a lesson drawn from them to make a kind of law: The Law of Direct Knowing.  

This is: We can only truly-know a person or personage in a direct and dyadic fashion.

We can - in other words - only truly know in terms of a meeting of just-two minds; and this applies whether in everyday-life or in our intense imaginative thinking-life. 

Thus; friendship and influence must alike be directly inter-personal - without any degrees of separation. 

Indeed; it strikes me that with the Law of Direct Knowing we are perhaps confronted here by a fundamental principle of divine creation - because (as I understand it) creation is rooted in love: and, more exactly, in dyadic love - love between "twos".

Love is both what holds-creation-together; and what gives creation its dynamism: its motivation and direction. 

Creation originated (I believe) in the love of our Heavenly Parents to constitute that which we term God; and divine creation began with God's love of all the Beings of reality - each individually relating back to God, via love, in a dyadic fashion. 

Creation then proceeds by multiple (and overlapping, interlocking) instances of dyadic love between the Beings of divine creation - to make the whole of creation bound and motivated by many mutual links.

What this means is that our evanescent mundane love/ relationships are -- in their partial and often temporary ways; and while continually being un-done by the depredations of entropy and the motivations of evil -- instances of that "power of love" which make creation. 

This mortal world is therefore a dynamic equilibrium - which may be strengthening or else falling-apart, at various scales - between the binding and creative powers of love - and that-which opposes love.  

And (at least, for Christians) Heaven can be understood as the place where such dyadic relations are permanent and pure in their nature - such that creation becomes wholly positive and progressive...

So that more-and-more of Heaven, is always being bound more-and-more strongly, by the direct knowing of dyadic love. 

 

Heavenly Parents and the dyadic/ one-creator God - an update

As I have often written, but not recently, I believe that God is dyadic - consisting of a Heavenly Father and Mother, a man and woman who are (in some sense) incarnate and not spirits. 

This is the Mormon understanding, and reading about Mormon theology was where I first came across it. 

I am not trying to persuade other people that I am right; but I shall here consider why I personally believe this, and what it is that I believe. 

In the first place it is due to what might be termed intuition; in the sense that when I first encountered this idea, my heart seemed to jump and warm; as if I was discovering something true, good and with great possibilities of more-good. 

There was an immediate and positive sense... not so much that this was true, but that I wanted this to be true - this came before my conviction that it was true.  

Following this I read more about Mormon theology, and realized that the dyadic, man-woman nature of our Heavenly parents was just part of an entire metaphysical understanding of creation (including procreation - the creation of beings including people) as something dynamic, interactive, developing, evolutionary, open-ended, and expanding. 

In other words, that creation itself was creative (and therefore creation was not, as I had previously assumed, a done-thing, a closed accomplishment, a finished totality - once-and-for-always.) 

I then began to explore the implications of these ideas for myself; using concepts I got from William Arkle (and his reflections on God's motivations for creation); and Owen Barfield, including Barfield's accounts of the 'polar' philosophy of ST Coleridge. 

I was also building on a longer-term fascination with 'animism' - with the (apparently innate and spontaneous) tendency to regard the world (the universe) as consisting primarily of beings - all of whom were alive, purposive, conscious - albeit in different ways, at different scales and timescales etc.

The motivation for creation, and why God should have created this kind of creation, was something I had found difficult to grasp (none of the usual explanations made much sense to me). But when I conceptualized God as the loving dyad of a man and woman, then it seemed obvious why such a combination would have wanted to create - including others who might eventually become like themselves.   

Furthermore, it did not seem possible that creation had arisen from any state of oneness of self-sufficiency, since this would make creation arbitrary; nor could creation arise from a tendency towards differentiation, because that would lead to meaningless-purposeless chaos. 

There must (I felt) have been some kind of original 'polarity' - in abstract and physics-like terminology, there would need to be at-least two different kinds of 'force', the interaction of which would be creation. Coleridge (also Barfield and Arkle) saw this in terms of a 'masculine'-tendency for expansion and differentiation; and a 'feminine'-tendency for one-ness and integration.  

But in terms of my (non-abstract) preferred metaphysics of beings and animistic assumptions; 'masculine' and 'feminine' simplifies to just a primordial man and a primordial woman; this would mean two complementary, unlike-but-of-the-same-kind, beings; the love of whom would lead to a desire for creation.  

(In the same kind of way that - in this mortal life - love of man and woman usually leads to a desire for procreation.)

At some point I validated this understanding by means of meditative prayer; by refining and asking a simple question, feeling that this question had 'got-through', and receiving a clear inner response.  

In summary; the above account is something-like the sequence by which I desired, concluded, became-convinced-by, the metaphysical assumption of God as Heavenly parents; by some such mixture of feelings, reasoning, and 'feedback'. 

All this happened a good while ago (about a decade); since when I have been interpreting things on the basis of this framework, and it seems to 'work', so far.

What the real-life, this world, implications are; include a reinforcement of the idea that the family is (and ought to be) the primary social structure; on earth as it is in Heaven; and a clarification of the nature of creation - starting with the primary creation by Heavenly parents and also including the secondary creation of beings (such as men and women) within primary creation. 

This metaphysics has further helped me understand both why and how love is the primary value of Christianity; i.e. because love made possible creation in the first place, and is the proper basis of 'coordinating' the subcreative activities of all the beings of creation.  

And it helped me understand how creation can be open-ended and expansile, without degenerating into chaos; because it is love that makes the difference.

Also, it helped me to understand the nature of evil; and how evil is related either to the incapacity for love or its rejection. Without love, the innate creativity of individual beings is going to be selfish and hostile to that of other beings: non-loving attitudes, thinking, and actions by beings, will tend to destroy the harmony of creation.  

I don't talk much about this understanding, and I often use the generic term 'God'; because it is difficult to explain briefly and clearly that the dyadic God of our Heavenly parents serves as a single and 'coherently unified' source of creation

But God is two, not one, because only a dyad can create, and creation must-be dyadic. 

And the dyadic just-is the one-ness of God the primal creator.  

Note added: It may be said, correctly, that the above does not depend on the Bible; but then neither does the metaphysics of orthodox-classical theology depend on scripture. We can find resonances and consistencies within the Bible - but assumptions such as: strict monotheism - creation ex nihilo (from nothing) by a God outside of creation and Time, the Athanasian Creed descriptions of the Trinity, God's omnipotence and omniscience, original sin... These are ideas that would not be derived-from a reading of scripture - the most that can be said is that someone who already ideas can find Biblical references that can be interpreted as consistent-with these assumptions. They are (apparently) products of philosophically sophisticated theologians who brought these ideas to Christianity from earlier and mostly pagan (Greek and Roman) sources. Also, these kinds of metaphysical assumption are theistic - to do with a personal god - but not specifically Christian. The salvific work of Jesus Christ (principally: making possible resurrected life everlasting in Heaven) was done within already-existing creation, and Christianity is not therefore an explanation of creation-as-such.   

What is the ultimate role of 'the feminine' in divine creation?

Many writers on theology (in many religions, including Christianity) believe that the masculine principle is primary in divine creation; the feminine being secondary, or perhaps inessential.  

Or else, they believe that such sexual differentiation is superficial, and that primarily/ originally there is no sex, no masculine or feminine - but a single creative principle that includes both. 

Others believe that sex is merely an earthly and mortal accident or expedient; and that the highest form of after-life entails loss of sexual differentiation (either as spirit, or as resurrected Man). 

But I regard God as a loving dyad of man and woman, masculine and feminine; and that original divine creation comes from this creative love. 

This dyadic quality is not a matter of 'equality' - it is simply that both man and woman are the actual basis of this divine creation that we all inhabit. 

A man and woman, who are coherent on the basis of love, were and are the true spiritual 'unit' of both divine and human creativity: thus God (the prime creator) is a Heavenly Father and Mother - both. 

The destiny of individual mortal men and women is a different question. Each person's mortal and resurrected destiny is unique - and we are not supposed to conform to a template, not be poured-into a standard human (or male, or female) mould. Love of God first, and fellow Man second, is mandatory for salvation - because only such persons want Heaven. 

Thus woman/ the feminine is Not subordinate to man/ masculine - both are absolutely spiritually necessary; just as (by analogy) both have been necessary for reproduction in this mortal life. 

We were not originally, nor will we ultimately become, de-sexed or a single sex. The dyad goes 'all the way down' to before creation; because dyadic love was what made creation possible. 

Ultimately; in absence of both - there cannot be love, therefore no real creation nor creativity. 

How do I 'know' this? Simply by having formulated the question; after which it 'answered itself' as these things do. I other words by 'intuition', by direct knowing. 

By contrast, when I asked other questions, when I formulated my understanding in other ways; I came up with answers that did not suffice - as became clear after a while.

This is not the kind of thing that anyone should accept from external sources - not from me, nor anybody else, nor institutions. 

We are supposed-to discern such matter for ourselves - and there is no substitute for this conscious choice. 

(Probably, it was not always thus - at times and among some peoples, it was right that Men be ruled spiritually by their environment or society or church - but here-and-now we must choose consciously.)

To know-for-ourselves, from experience, the nature and motivation of God is perhaps the primary task of Man here and now; given that almost-all external sources of such 'information' are deeply corrupted. 

At the very least, we need to exercise experiential direct personal discernment in relation to the external sources that we choose to accept as authoritative; for instance, choosing a denomination and church; and then choosing-between the conflicting views emanating from denominations and churches. The requirement for each individual person to discern is unavoidable. 

Having gone through this process of discernment - rooted in formulating a question such that the answer is coherently self-validating in ones actual and examined life - I don't really care what 'other people' say about the problem - and certainly will not abandon my direct knowledge of such matters on the basis of people pointing at 'authorities' whose authority to determine my spiritual life I do not acknowledge!

Others should do likewise. 

And what if/ when they come up with 'a different answer? What then?

What then depends upon each individual for himself or herself. Group-orientated policies and behavioural/ belief compulsions can have nothing to do with such matters. 

But whatever happens in each mortal life, we certainly should not attempt to avoid personal responsibility for deciding upon such matters. Salvation is between each Man and God (God would not have it otherwise!); and 'my' salvation depends on 'me' discerning the nature and motivation of God. 

Why was the Marriage at Cana the situation for Jesus's first miracle?

The Fourth Gospel tells us that the Marriage at Cana, changing water into wine, was the first miracle of Jesus; which raises the question of - why then?

By my understanding; Jesus's miracles should primarily be understood as evidence of his primary creative power; that Jesus was divine and shared in God's creative power. 

I also understood Jesus's baptism by John to be the moment when the Holy Spirit descended onto him and stayed; so that Jesus 'knew who he was' and also became divine (i.e. fully and permanently aligned with  God's will)... 

But if that was the whole story, then the question arises: why the 'gap' between the baptism and the first miracle? 

The answer - I now believe - is that it was Jesus's marriage to Mary (Magdalene) at Cana which made possible the miracles. 

The background to this can be found in my theological writings over the past years - and in particular my mini-online-book about the Fourth Gospel. 

There can be found the arguments as to why this is the primary source on Jesus's life and teachings (qualitatively superior to any other source - whether Old testament, Gospel, Epistle, Revelation or otherwise). 

Once this is acknowledged, it may readily be seen that we are clearly being told by the Fourth Gospel that Jesus married Mary at Cana; that 'this Mary' was the same as Lazarus's sister (Mary of Bethany) and Mary Magdalene; and that the resurrected Lazarus was author of the Fourth Gospel - Chapters 1-20 of which were written shortly after the ascension of Jesus (and, presumably, Mary his wife). 

The other necessary understanding is of the nature of God and creation. I understand 'God' to be the dyad of Heavenly Parents - of the prime, divine man and woman; and creation to be the manifestation of their Love. 

Taken together, this implies (although it does not entail) that the divine creativity of Jesus, as shown by his miracles, also required to be completed by a dyadic love between a man and a woman; which was made possible by the eternal/ celestial/ divine marriage of Jesus with Mary.

Until that point - Jesus could not perform miracles of divine creation; and this is why Lazarus took care to inform us in his Gospel that Cana was Jesus's first miracle. 

Try and see it from God's point of view...

That we should try and understand creation from God's point of view was a recurrent theme in the work of William Arkle - and one of the valuable things I got from reading him. 

In particular, I found it useful to consider why God created in the first place - what was God trying to achieve by it? 

But the imaginative exercise also highlights several vital metaphysical assumptions that must be made prior to the procedure. 

For instance; Christians know (or ought to know) that we are like God and God like us in some very fundamental ways - for instance, because Jesus (a Man) was fully divine, and because Men are described as Sons of God. 

It is this sameness of kind that makes it a valid exercise. 

If, on the other hand, we regard God as qualitatively different from us - than the exercise must be misleading. But then, it seems not to be Christian to insist on absolute difference. 

 

When we identify with God before creation, in broad terms God's motivator seems to be something-like loneliness; and God's overarching purpose seems to be to make companions... 

And the best possible companions are similar but not identical, free and agent 'divine friends' who are bound-together by love and a common (overall) purpose - for which we have the earthly-mortal analogy of the best kind of human family.

That is, 'creation' is about making individuals and situations, the-result-of-which is intended to be: more Beings of the same kind, and at 'the same level', as God. 

Also, we need to decide whether or not God was single and utterly alone before creation. 

And if not alone, then with whom? Another god or gods, presumably - by which I mean, others who are different/distinct Beings of the same kind and level.  

This is especially relevant because if God was a solitary god before creation; then He could not actually love until after he had created. 

This makes a big difference - because if God was initially alone, then embarking on creation seems likely to be necessarily of a self-gratifying, gratuitous, 'playful' and indeed experimental act - indeed this was how Arkle eventually seemed to regard it.  

(Arkle regarded god as initially one - then dividing into Heavenly Parents, and then further to procreate Jesus Christ, who contained both the male and female aspects.)

I have not thought-through the implications of multiple god; but my own conviction is that God's original situation was dyadic: a Heavenly Father and Mother. And it was from their mutual love that creation originated.  

In other words, before creation there was both the loneliness of Heavenly Parents as the only divine Beings; and also the experience hence knowledge of love, which pointed the way ahead to a creation of more-and-more divine Beings living (and creating) in a harmony rooted in love. 

A creation rooted in the experience of love is not gratuitous, nor a game; and is 'experimental' only in terms of creation being a trying-out of various means towards a known end.  

And such a creation is understood to be open-ended (endlessly expansible); because the more loving divine companions that eventuate: the better. Each - being different - adds to the totality ad potential of creation. 

Yet because all such divine companion Beings are harmonized by love; then there is no limit to how many can be integrated in the 'project' of creation. The more the better!

The Good Place (Netflix TV) finale - analysis and review

A couple of years ago, I wrote about the Netflix comedy series The Good Place. There were eventually four series and the last episode has now been shown. 

The first two series were really excellent: the cleverest and most consistently surprising, very-funny, tightly-written sit-com I have ever seen. But series three and four were much less good, apart from the occassional episode at the old standard; and lasped into cheap politically correct and topical references.

However, the final double-length episode was a remarkable tour de force. It was very funny at times, but also as serious as the makers could make it; because it was about the meaning of life, the possibilities of death, and the question of purpose in reality.

***Spoiler Alert***

The Good Place deserves serious consideration as an unusally honest and rigorous (also funny and enjoyable) attempt to show in detail the consequences of modern mainstream Leftist morality.

As befits a mainstream media production, The Good Place was (or attempted to be) post-Christian. It was also non-theistic. The setting was a universe without God, a reality not-created, but merely administered (the supreme being was a 'judge' who applied a modern kind of emotivist morality). Every-thing Just Was.

Therefore there was never any possibility of genuine purpose in reality or the lives of the participants - and the plot was honest enough not to pretend otherwise.


In such a reality, the only possibility of morality is based around 'feelings' - a 'hedonic' ethical system; one based on trying to maximise pleasure and minimise suffering. For the 'evil' people/ demons it was 'my' pleasure being maximised, and/ or other-individuals suffering being taken-pleasure-in. Low level demons just maximised here and now pleasure, high level demons were strategically maximising a longer trerm.

For the 'good' characters, there was the 'altruistic' attempt to devise a system (of laws) that would maximise 'everybody's' pleasure and minimise suffering for all - but why this was 'good' had no in-show rationale. (At one point the philosopher John Rawls was mentioned - his view of goodness was pretty much that of the show.) In The Good Place, as with mainstream modern life, the desirability of altruism was simply asserted, when convenient - and the principle was ignored at other times.

The final episode was about the new 'paradise' that had been created by the protagonists. Entry to it was by modern mainstream standards of 'doing good' - and the people who went there were the  kind of people of whom upper middle class, Establishment people approve.

The implication was that the 'deplorables' - of the kind identified by mainstream mass media, and for that kind of reasons - continued to go to 'The Bad Place' (hell) and rightly so. For example, at one point Plato went to hell because he 'defended slavery'.I other words, those who violated current 'New York Times' views of good behaviour, were Bad People.


So The Good Place became a kind of perfected college campus of unlimited time and opportunities to learn, create, and enjoy the fun things in life - forever. Complete hedonism without harm to others, and no suffering. Life as a perpetual ideal holiday...

But the writers were honest enough to admit that this did not really suffice; that people would sooner or later become sated, bored, satisfied... And then they voluntarily went through a door to leave TGP and enter a state of (what was in effect) Nirvana: they would lose their self, and be re-absorbed back into the universe from which they originally came, and to which they rightly belonged.

In other words, reality was essentially Buddhist, with (as with Buddhism) tinges of Hinduism in the cyclical nature of reality.


The further question of why they had separated from the totality of reality in the first place? (why we did not just stay with the totality in the first place; instead of bothering to become mortal people, live and die, and go to paradise before becoming reabsorbed?) was not addressed - as it is not addressed by Buddhism or Hinduism.

The implication is that this is just How Things Happen. The metaphor used was that we are each a wave: a wave forms, it crashes ashore, the wave resturns to the ocean - then another wave reforms. This is Just What Happens.

This is not irrational as a belief. After all, all beliefs come down to the asuumption of It Just Is sooner or later.


But it is a metaphysics of pointlessness, and the rational human attitude is a kind of passive resignation: there is no reason to be loving, or creative, or to live rather than die.

It is, indeed, an religious view that regards death (non-being) as the ideal. And that is - pretty much - the final decision and implication of The Good Place.

This fits with the idea that Hinduism/ Buddhism is (more or less) what you get from human intelligence operating upon purely this-worldly phenomena, on what we observe for ourselves: it is a kind of natural paganism made abstract.

And therefore Nirvana is a natural end-point for an honest a rigorous modern materialist - amounting to a more thoughtful version of the absolute annihilation that materialists (whose understanding Is incoherent) assume to be the fate of all living beings, including Men.


What is an alternative to such a Paradise-Nirvana scenario?

Well, for me it is the vision of Heaven that was made lucid by Mormon (CJCLDS) theology with some help from William Arkle - that is  heaven of men and women who are en route to becoming gods (on a level with, and within the prior universe of, God the creator); gods whose motivations are harmonised by love and who are participating in the primary work of creation.

Heaven consisting of men and women who live in families - extended families, cross-linked by ('celestial' = everlasting, dyadic) marriage.


I did not realise until after the show had finished - but the Paradise of The Good Place had no children: none at all. The protagonists had parents, but no children. Get that? No Children.

After aeons of cohabiting life in this Paradise; a women still described herself as the 'girlfriend' of a man - there was no marriage. Their life was a perpetual holiday of visiting 'cool' places, partying, eating good food, having more elaborate sex... Modern 'dating', but without limit.

Relationships were just as contingent as upon earth, whether it was currently enjoyable - or not. Continuation was based upon each individual's appetite for more life of this kind - whether there was anything 'yet to do' that they still wanted to do (in one case; literally a written list of accomplishments, ticked-off as accomplished).

Thus all relationships and participation in Paradise likewise; at any time, anybody might decide they we ready to go through the door to Nirvana.

Sooner or later, everybody would decide this.
 

No children, no families, no commitments... Paradise was exactly like the modern 'singles' life of students, young professionals, media people, most of the most popular TV shows and movies, a social media lifestyle... shared, presumably, by most of the people responsible for putting together the show.

Implicitly, marriage, family, children - all these are evanescent pleasures (or pains), just like any other pleasure - but in practice inferior to personal growth, fun parties, sex, travel, good living... And then annihilation.


So, here it is. The Good Place describes accurately the best that can be offered by the mainstream, modern, media view of life.

It - without even comment - excludes precisely what I personally regard as The most important things in life. And ultimately; this exclusion comes about inevitably because there is assumed to be no creator, no God, and no divine purpose; no possibility of permanent committments; no eternal marriage and no eternal families.

Subtract all these: and The Good Place is a fair, honest, worked-through picture of what remains.

Reality is a duality - not unity; the duality is personal, not abstract

Is primary, first, reality single, a unity, undivided - yet containing everything: abstract, static, unchanging, no time nor movement; a bit like nothing, a circle, a universal sphere (one God - monotheism, without body, parts or passions)...

Or is reality two-fold, interactive, generative, dyadic, and dynamic; happening in-Time - two forces, a polarity; and abstract: like the yin-yang... 

Or is the primary reality two-fold like the above (interactive, generative, dyadic, and dynamic); but personal, Beings - a man and a woman (Heavenly Parents)...

This is metaphysics, one of the very first assumptions about reality: is ultimate truth one, or more-than-one; is it impersonal-abstract or personal?

Each metaphysical assumption sets-up a different reality, a different starting-point; with different problems and strengths, and tendencies.

Deciding which is a very important decision; and one that each person should make - explicitly.

The trans agenda as a metaphysical challenge to Christians ('things coming to a point', again)

Regular readers will know that I have embraced CS Lewis's term and concept of 'things coming to a point' as characteristic of these times in The West. In general terms, this means that the challenges of the mainstream, dominant mandatory atheistic Leftism have created a situation in which good and evil are separated further apart and with clear water between them.

Discernment is, in a sense, easier than ever before; nonetheless the majority have already embraced evil, and this time in a situation where evil entails value inversion - the reversal of good and evil.

One way this happens, is that the corrosive scepticism of modern thinking (sooner or later) strips all issues down to the level of fundamental metaphysical assumptions; and ruthlessly reveals any incoherence or lack a full conscious endorsement of the assumptions upon which we base our living.

In practice this means that most people are deeply uncertain about their convictions, such that they lack the motivation and will to resist the corruption that is imposed upon them as carrots and sticks, as inducements and punishments, as feel-good attitudes and harsh coercion.


The trans agenda is perhaps the major current example. The situation now (and this developed rapidly over just a few years) is that adherence to the trans orthodoxies about sexual identity has become a litmus test of social status, and enforced by the weight of government, the law, the media and a licensed mob sustained by these.

Now, the claims of the trans agenda fly in the face of both common sense and personal experience (of the overwhelming majority of human beings throughout history and across the world) - but that makes no difference. The trans agenda wins.

The claims of the trans agenda are refuted by a vast mass of biological, medical and psychological science, over many decades - but that makes no difference. The trans agenda wins.


The issue of the difference between a man and a woman has therefore been driven all the way down to the level of fundamental conviction - that is of metaphysics. And, at this level, most people, including most Christians, find themselves confused and uncertain - or else in agreement with the trans agenda. At the metaphysical level, most people are weak, unsure, malleable when it comes to men and women being different.

This arises mostly because metaphysical assumptions are unconscious, denied or misunderstood by nearly everyone. Therefore most people are helpless in the face of false metaphysics when it is backed-up by overwhelming social pressure; by propaganda and force.

Most people in this situation reach for 'evidence' only to find that any and all possible evidence falls to pieces in face of assumptions that deny the validity of evidence as such. This happens because it is the metaphysical assumptions that determine what counts as evidence and shape what strength evidence is allowed - so that when assumptions are contradicted by evidence, it is the evidence which gives way.


Yet even among Christians who are aware of their own metaphysical assumptions, and endorse them - the discovery is often that the trans agenda is consistent with the ultimate beliefs derived from their theological understanding of the human condition.

Because mainstream Christians do not really regard sexual differentiation into men and women as a fundamental aspect of reality. It is of mortal significance only; and in the infinity of time after mortal life, as resurrected Men in Heaven - for the mainstream Christian sex has essential no role or significance - it is mostly a matter of memories of our mortal life.


In my opinion, the trans agenda strips reality down and back to the dichotomy where sex (the distinction between man and woman) is either regarded as 1. a fundamental attribute of ultimate reality - or else 2. sexual identity is ultimately unfounded.


Among churches, I think only the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) have a theology that takes the position that the distinction between men and women goes all the way down; begins with an eternity before mortal life and continues through the etermity of post-mortal life.

(Roughly) We began as primordial intelligences of two kinds, and this continues through becoming children of God, incarnation, death and resurrection (or whatever comes instead for those who cannot or will not love, or otherwise reject Heaven).

Sexuality - the division between man and woman - is an ultimate fact of existence.


For Mormons, Man is dyadic - the unit of full-personhood is a man and women - potentially (among those with highest spiritual development) bound for eternity in celestial marriage by love, but always as a two - never separated and never fused - like a binary star.

If not in detail, then in essence something like this Mormon view is - I infer - the only alternative to an ultimate and eventual spiritual capitulation to the trans agenda in all its incoherent and evil extremity.


And as such, here we have an example of the way that modernity is acting upon Christians like a refiners fire, burning away all that used to be fudged or held on superficial grounds (such as 'evidence' from science or common sense, or by obedience to external authority).

We are forced into a situation in which we either make a self-aware statement of fundamental belief - or else (by our lack of conviction, our confusion, our cognitive dissonance) we get swept along by the modern agenda - which is the agenda of satanic evil.

We are her in this mortal life to learn from our experiences; and this is one of many ways in which God has used evil triumphant to provide experiences that may - if people are honest and chose well - lead to growth towards a higher divinity.

Two irreconcilable concepts of Heaven - Platonic and Pluralistic

The traditional, orthodox concept of Heaven derives from ancient Greek philosophy - I shall call it Platonic - this can be summarised:

God - Creation - Beings

The first thing is God, alone - who does Creation - and late in Creation God makes Beings, including Man.  

For Christians; God is a God of Love, whose creation is a kind of gratuitous overflow of love: so we get

God-Love - Creation - Beings


By contrast, what I will call the Pluralist concept of Heaven - which is the one I believe to be true - can be summarised:

Beings - Love - Creation

The primordial situation is of many Beings, of whom two are are Heavenly Parents - Father and Mother.

Thus God is Dyadic, irreducibly Two and not a unity (or, the unity is of two always-distinct aspects, permanently-made a unity by Love); and it is from the Love between our Heavenly Parents that Creation comes into existence (Love, being the coherence and purpose of Creation; Love harmonising the diverse elements of Creation). So we get:

Beings-God - Love - Creation


The Platonic Heaven seems to be associated with a wish for absolute, abstract, infinite perfection - and God is defined in such terms - including that God is undivided unity, of infinite power and presence (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent).

And this primal God creates everything else (everything other than God) from nothing (ex nihilo) instantaneously, in zero-Time (first Nothing, then Something... there can be no graduation or graduality) - including Beings, including Men.

In a Platonic Heaven, therefore, Creation remains entirely God's business, and nothing/ nobody else can contribute to primary Creation (only to secondary details within Creation). Also Heaven is perfect, so there is nothing for Men to contribute to it. Also primary Creation happens in zero-Time.

The Platonic Heaven is essentially contemplative: Man has nothing necessary or useful to Do. Man enjoys heaven, but does not add to it (because it is perfect). In Platonic Heaven; we may express gratitude, worship, may do many things - but none of them are necessary, none make any qualitative difference to Heaven.

In sum, the Platonic Heaven, is a state not a 'process'. It is a state of being, a state of communion with God, of bliss... but essentially it is static - there is no dynamic to Platonic Heaven - because movement comes from difference, from desire, from deficit... and this cannot be because the Platonic Heaven is perfection.   


In distinction, the Pluralistic Heaven in a world of Love, but not of perfection. Love is understood as itself dynamic ('in' Time: Time is a part of primary reality), between Beings; and therefore Heaven is a continuation of Creation - and for Christians it is a Heaven of active, personal participation in Creation.

This happens because Christians will be resurrected into Heaven, and resurrection is understood as becoming divine - immortal, indestructible, grown-up children of God. The actuality of God's primary Creation is opened-to the contributions of resurrected Men.

Part of pluralism is the uniqueness of each being, including of each man. Each resurrected Man brings to Heaven something unique, that did not previously exist in heaven. Every single individual Man who enters heaven therefore brings something irreplaceable to the ongoing Creation.

In sum everybody who is capable of Love and who chooses to follow Jesus, may be resurrected into heaven; and each such person has something unique and irreplaceable to contribute to God's ongoing work of Creation.

The Pluralistic Heaven is not only-contemplative (although contemplation is surely possible, and part of things) - but is active dynamic and open-endedly creative: a growing Heaven. And this Creation of Men is included in the primary and divine Creation.

Man's unique and individual contribution is woven-into Creation permanently, forever. And this is made possible by Love.

It is Love that harmonises God's creation with the contributions of many individual and unique Men - resurrected Men joining in increasing numbers with time.


The Pluralistic Heaven is not perfect, it is not closed, it is not complete, it is not outside Time... on the contrary Time (sequential, continuous, linear) is an assumed part of reality. The Pluralistic Heaven is, therefore, developing, open-ended, growing... Heaven is in-movement, is changing, has a past and a future; and changing, expanding personnel - each with an unique contribution to make to the whole. 


So, we can see that the Platonic Heaven and the Pluralistic Heaven are very different places. While one may be contained within the other - only one or the other (or neither) could ultimately be true - since they each have extremely different ultimate metaphysical assumptions. 

Jesus before he was born

At this time of year, it is natural for me to think about the birth of Jesus; and that leads back to Jesus before he was born, in his pre-mortal spirit life.

As I understand things; Jesus was the only pre-mortal Man who was wholly-aligned with the will of God. Why this should be, I don't know - and it may not have an explanation. The idea is that Jesus was (in some sense, presumably including - but not confined to - the literal) the first-born of the children of God; but that in itself does not tell us why he was unique.

What is it that makes a person's will aligned with that of God? The answer is love - so we can infer that Jesus loved God such that there was an absolute harmony between them - and that no other pre-mortal Man did so; and no other could be Saviour.


Hence Jesus, and only Jesus, was co-creator of this world (as described in the early verses of the Fourth Gospel). Co-creation is only possible when love ensures a harmony; only in that way may two or many parties may contribute to a single (harmonious) creation - genuine independence of self-creation is made compatible with the coherence of all that which is created.

(Sin is lack of love, lack of alignment; such that this harmony is prevented; sin is also the state of labile mortality - and full co-creation is only possible between immortal persons, whose love is everlasting - not mortal.)

The Messiah was both co-creator, and future Saviour - by 'saviour' was meant that he was the only means by which other Men could attain to resurrected everlasting life; and full divinity.


Yet, although co-creator, the pre-mortal Jesus was nonetheless in a vital sense incomplete because immature - he lacked that final development which was provided by his incarnation, death and resurrection; and only after this completion could Jesus ascend to Heaven and take up full divinity.

When Jesus was born, this was his history. At birth and for (apparently) thirty years, Jesus was unique in his love of God, but otherwise an ordinary Man - except for his covert destiny. It was only after the baptism by John that the incarnated Jesus assumed divine power - fully divine in power but a mortal Man.

At this point, I think Jesus had done his work of salvation for Men - as evidenced by the resurrection of Lazarus. And the completion of Jesus's development - to immortality and full divinity - was attained via his own death and resurrection.

Thus Jesus became as his Father; a full creator, capable of making worlds and procreating spirit children.


Note: For simplicity, above I have left-out the role of celestial marriage and the dyadic love between man and woman which was the basis of the creation by our Heavenly Parents (i.e. God); and that the resurrected Jesus would likewise marry an eternal resurrected woman in order to attain full creative divinity - the first stage being enacted during his mortality, with Mary Magdalene (of Bethany) as described in the Fourth Gospel.

Evangelism in an officially-evil world: the Fourth Gospel perspective continues to unfold...

I find that I cannot stop the incremental process of restructuring that was initiated by my reading the Fourth Gospel as the primary and most authoritative source of revelation on Jesus Christ. In particular, the implications that Jesus brought resurrection to eternal life - specifically resurrection. I feel that resurrection is much more important, and much simpler (child-like) than I have been aware.

That, for another day perhaps.

In a strange way, the function of the Fourth Gospel has been to clarify that the work of Christ did not depend upon any gospel; his work was primarily to make possible our resurrection to life eternal. The work was done, it was done well - and in a vital sense nothing more needed to be done.

From that point, it was up to each individual person to make the choice of whether to follow Jesus. That is, to love, trust, have faith in - and also literally follow Jesus through death to resurrection into life eternal, in Heaven, as members of the divine family.

For this decision, revelation is not necessary since we all know Jesus from our pre-mortal spirit lives - so that when we have died (biologically) we will know (recall) what it means to follow him, and will then choose.

This was and is a necessary part of the plan, since salvation could not be made to depend upon contingencies such as date or place of birth or parents. God will ensure that each gets what is needed for this decision, but cannot (because of the absolute nature of freedom) assure that the revelation and scriptures, teachings and authorities, are correct and correctly-motivated.

Which is just as well! Because - from a Fourth Gospel perspective - major errors and distortions were built into the Christian denominations, theology and churches from as far back as is known. If men were reliant upon the validity of teaching, ritual and scriptures, and the validity of their own ability and motivation to interpret these, salvation would resemble a lottery with very poor odds.

And a lottery with poor odds is Not the kind of world that would be made for us, by a loving God who is our Father, and is also the creator of this world.

For Christians this world must (surely?) be fit-for-purpose - yes?


This world is God's creation, and it is well designed for its core purpose. From each person's individual perspective, that purpose is to give us experiences from which we can learn in ways that will benefit us in the coming life eternal (if we choose it). What happens during this mortal life is (from God's perspective) therefore about theosis - the process of becoming more divine, living more divinely - this world is Not primarily about salvation.

That is (ultimately) why we do not remember our pre-mortal lives - for theosis we must live this life with full realism; not as a temporary prelude to eternity. We need to be separated from immersion in the divine in order to choose, freely, our own future - do we choose loving creation, or do we reject it? 

It is the demonic powers who try to make this mortal life about salvation, by trying to induce people to reject Jesus.

Some will do this naturally, spontaneously (some demons have always been evil, since eternity); but some individuals have a choice. Up to that last decision whether or not to accept or reject Jesus's gift to dwell in Heaven in a life of creativity and love; anyone can decide for Jesus (this is what repentance is about, and its absolute power).

To induce such people to reject Jesus is difficult, because it entails them embracing an inversion of values - such that good and evil, virtue and sin, beauty and ugliness, truth and lies become inverted. However, we can see that this is possible, because mainstream modern Western society is already 'officially' and extremely value-inverted society.

All that modern people have to do is go along with the mainstream moral, aesthetic and bureaucratic practises; and they will quite 'naturally' choose hell in preference to Heaven, having decided that Hell is the 'real' Heaven, and Heaven is 'really' a place of evil (full of judgemental, hypocritical 'haters').

However, getting the mass of people to reach this inverted state has been a long, multi-generational, delicate process of subversion. The main (not the only, but the major) weapon has been the sexual revolution - such that the demands of sex and (now) sexuality have gradually weakened, demolished and replaced the entirety of the innate, natural and spontaneous value system of humankind.

So, that is the current situation - made possible by the decisions of millions of individuals to reject the gift of Jesus Christ, for all kinds of reasons - and the effect that such has had upon modern Western society.


But - Nothing Has Gone Wrong with what Jesus did 2000 years ago. The Plan has not been sabotaged or anything of that sort - although the mix of personnel has changed, although the nature of social pressures has changed; the ultimate situation is the same now as it was from the time of Jesus's ministry and death, resurrection and ascension.

Each of us still has exactly the same chance of accepting the gift of Jesus; about which we already know from pre-mortal life, and which we will recall after death. I am not saying that each person has exactly the same odds of making such an acceptance, because in the first place these are incalculable, and secondly that is the wrong way to regard our situation.

We need to get used to regarding our situation in a very personal and responsible fashion. This is a great advantage of this modern, Western era. The pervasive evil of our society means that any honest and virtuous person will distrust external authority, and will realise that external authority is arbitrary and labile at best - and over the long term is evil in motivation.

This means that we are each being all-but compelled to take explicitly direct and personal responsibility for our life choices, for our understanding of our situation, for our salvation. This has, in fact, always been the true situation - but in the past a passive, externally-regulated person could go through life without being confronted by the stark fact of it - and this was itself an extremely spiritually hazardous situation, since the ultimate choice was unavoidably personal.


What does this imply for Christian teaching and evangelism. Does it mean that it is unnecessary or futile?

No, it does not. We should learn from the current vast and pervasive environment of evil propaganda that personal choice can be influenced. We are each a part of the environment for 'other people'. Recalling that all this operates at a strictly individual level - what we personally say and do, how we personally think and behave, is a part of the environment that God can use to help other people in their theosis. We are part of the experience of others.

Some people are solidly evil, have made their choices; some would find Heaven intolerable, some are dedicated to the destruction of creation. It would indeed be futile to evangelise such people - even if, as is possible, they are a large majority of the population in the West.

But other individuals are evil because they have been induced into inversion and have chosen that which will make them miserable (even though many people will double-down on that which makes them miserable). These are the people who are open to a change of heart.

A person who is well-motivated - that is motivated (at that particular moment) by truth, beauty and virtue - may make a positive difference... of course! We know this from our own experience, don't we?

The best and most powerful motivation is love - and I believe it is operative post-mortem and at the actual moment of choice for or against Heaven. But effective love is essentially dyadic, and can't be compelled or made; and saving love has a narrow range. The 'benign altruism' kind of love espoused by preachers and edifying writers (such as myself!) is a very different and much weaker thing than real interpersonal love. 

So, evangelism is (as everyone already knows) something that all Christians should do at some level - that hasn't changed, ever; and that level ought to be personal - not systematic (not necessarily systematic). If done once, for one person - and it hits home, and if it helps towards a change of heart...

Well... given what is at stake, that of itself would be a cosmically vast achievement.