Christian theologians misunderstanding the Ancient Philosophers: Ultimately, fundamentally - "purpose" really means desires of living Beings

I talk a good deal on this blog about purpose, and how important it is - yet purpose is an abstraction, hence not really real, but just a symbol for reality.

(The reality is the personal desires of living Beings.)  

For most theologically-minded people, the abstract nature of purpose is important; because theologians want purpose to be detachable from individual persons - such that it can be implanted or put-into a Being - for example by God.

The currently-dominant half-baked philosophies of "AI" are also dependent on this abstraction; since they assert that purpose is something that can be built-into computer, robots and the like - inserted by external entities such as computer programmers and engineers, and their paymasters. 

But - if I am rigorous, and manage to escape the bad habits of my socialized 21st century metaphysics - then I acknowledge that purpose is ultimately the desires, the "wantings", of Beings. 

In a nutshell - purpose is an attribute of particular (living, conscious, eternal, spiritual) Beings.

A major difficulty of classical traditional theologians in the 21st century (and indeed for several centuries already, albeit increasing) is that inherited Christian theology implicitly incorporates the Ancient Greek (Platonic, Aristotelian - and also scholastic Aquinas-derived) sense of purpose as an attribute of a Being. 

(e.g. When Aristotle, apparently, explains the motion of things - such as gravity - in terms of where entities want to be; or when Aquinas describes the stars and planets as being angels.) 

The ancients knew, from their personal daily experience - but unconsciously and implicitly, that they inhabited a living universe. This formed an unspoken background structure, a matrix, for all their philosophizing.  

Those in the past were developing their abstract logical arguments on the unconscious, implicit - yet vital - assumption of a living universe of Beings with desires. 

But modern theologians - who expound (as they suppose) ancient or medieval theology and philosophy have (almost invariably) lost this implicit assumption - at least since their adolescence - and have not restored it by conscious choice... 

The consequence is that the bottom line assumption of modern classical-theologians is of the divinely-entailed validity of an abstracted version of Greek-Medieval logic; operating in an originally-dead universe. 

(And this originally-dead-universe mind-set has been inherited by nearly-all post-reformation theology; and the atheist traditions of philosophy including science, and also and more obviously the "rationality" that underpins and regulates the modern System of governance, corporations, media etc.)  

In sum: modern (post-medieval) theology is rooted in pure abstraction - which is why it is experienced as dry, quibbling; irrelevant to me-here-now - why it Does Not Convince. 

In order to follow the reasoning of such philosophers - we are compelled to think from a stance in which abstract logic is the primary reality - operating in an otherwise life-less reality. 

So that human beings, you and me, are being regarded very much as-if we were (bottom line, ultimately) nothing-but the product of logic! 

We are excluded from the assumptions; and, consequently, the conclusions. 

Into this assumed-dead universe, God then "puts" souls - souls that he has made from nothing. 

God puts into these inserted-souls other attributes - such as purpose, and freedom.

And this kind of abstract stuff is what we are invited to imagine, invited to believe!... Nay instructed that we Must believe; about our-selves, everybody else, the world and universe!

To put it starkly - classic traditional theology of the 21st century pictures a kind of zombie universe; dead but animated by some kind of insertion of properties. 

However, this isn't what people believed 2000 or even 1000 years ago - because it leaves-out their spontaneous animism - their implicit and unconscious knowing that ultimately reality consisted of living Beings, and the properties and attributes of these Beings emerged from this living nature. 

No matter what the ancients said and wrote: this animism lay behind it; which was why the abstract logical scholastic philosophy was not - to them, then - dry and quibbling and irrelevant in the way it is to us, now. 

The history of human consciousness, and therefore of philosophy and theology; is one of emergence from spontaneous innate animism - to the present state when animism is no longer spontaneous, but is denied and ridiculed...

Consequently our ultimate metaphysical philosophy is either/ both incoherent and/or consists of irrelevant autonomous syllogisms.  

But we need consciously and by choice, to recover the implicit and (mostly) unconscious animism of the past - if we are really to understand-by-experience the nature of reality. 

Therefore we must beware of the delusions of abstractions understood in a way that did not apply to Aristotle and Aquinas - whose minds included the built-in assumption of living Beings as a "given"...

And this built-in assumption underlay everything they thought and wrote. 

*

Note: The above insight is heavily indebted to the work of Owen Barfield (eg. Saving the Appearances) and Rudolf Steiner (eg. The Riddles of Philosophy). 

On the appreciation of beautiful experiences, truth-telling, or moral-acts... Doing Good is not necessarily "a good thing"...

A problem we have - a real problem! - is that "doing good" does not mean that good is done. 

Of course, in practice, this was usually only a loose-ish connection. But overall it made sense to talk in terms of virtuous or moral actions, of beautiful artistic products and performances, of truths (from science, philosophy, history etc) that were valuable of themselves.  

But nowadays there is a very substantial disconnect - up to and including opposition between Doing Good, and being good. 

To be blunt; a lot of the generally-accepted "good stuff" in life (especially the stuff that we get to hear about) is nowadays produced by people who are actively on the side of evil. 

This Is A Problem - and one that challenges the usual ways of thinking; not least because it often means that the bits of good which are done, are often/usually used for net-evil purposes. 

Such has always been the most effective form of propaganda - e.g. is the elements of truth within propaganda that make the lies believable. It is the experience of beauty that makes the ugliness of the message seem appealing and convincing.

Yet, at the same time; when the System/ Matrix/ Black Iron Prison mixes Good with its evil, truth with lies, beauty with vileness, virtue with manipulation; it also thereby somewhat undermines itself. So the combination is unstable. 

On the other hand, at the level of institutions; things have becoming more evil for long enough to show that this is not enough to cause self-correction. 

There has been no pendulum-swing back towards net-Good motivations. There are no grounds for complacency! - and it seems entirely likely/ possible that things will continue to get worse, as the underlying motivations of more and more participants continue to get worse.   

And when the civilization is totalitarian (as ours is) then any aspects of truth, beauty or virtue that require resources or organization, anything involving publicity or media - will normally and mostly be harnessed to the agenda of evil. 

Thus, in the spiritual war of this world, Doing Good (in an obvious and public way) is nearly-all on the side against God; and that which is truly motivated by Good tends to be invisible and unappreciated at a cultural level - maybe known only among the circle of family or friendship.

The situation is that there is still a sense in which truth/ beauty/ virtue are as real as ever they were; yet there is also a sense in which they have - in practice - been weaponized against God and Divine Creation. 

For this Not to happen, and for public-Good again to evoke inner-good; we moderns of 2025 must become more consciously aware of the situation, we must make discernments and choices. 

We need to be able to know what is good, and distinguish the good from the evil uses being made of it. 

Our thinking needs to be active and purposive; not passive, not dreamy-drifting. 

Returning to my recent experience of choral evensong... 

To give ourselves up to a contemplative-appreciative state of immersion in external "Good" - on the basis that external Good can-must-and-shall "do us good"; is actually, in practice, to open-our-selves to manipulation and exploitation by the system of evil. 

If, instead, we yield to the overall experience like floating in a warm bath, half-asleep, with eyes closed; we will be absorbing toxin through our dilated pores, even as our minds are beguiled! 

It is a matter of spiritual trust, and who can or should be trusted here-and-now. So long as there is a likelihood that the "provider" of Good experiences is on the wrong side in the spiritual war; for so long we must aim to exercise continual discernment. And be ready to repent when (as inevitably happens, sometimes) we fail to do so.  

Is BRICS the backlash of Lawful Evil?

As The West continues its path of (in Dungeons and Dragons terms) Chaotic Evil  - or what I would term spite-driven Sorathic self-and-other destruction; it seems to me that Lawful Evil (i.e. the Ahrimanic - control-motivated, hence totalitarian and bureaucratic type of evil) is making an attempt at comeback via the now world-dominant BRICS grouping. 

In other words The System ("the Matrix") is doomed to inwardly-driven (and actively-desired) self-destruction, and is already collapsing, in The West; therefore the powers of evil whose strategy is to impose a material mechanism for spiritual damnation, are shifting attention from The West to The Rest. 

Geopolitics is always evil, no matter its explicit purpose. 

While, from the POV of the dominant countries of the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom, BRICS seems to be a means towards the end of national sovereignty and the cultural autonomy in face of a monolithic globalism; the very facts and necessities of any multi-national compromise coalition, continue to push the existing and emerging alliance towards the nature of Lawful Evil. 

This is evidenced by several of the many recent statements of BRICS policy and strategy; which favour UN-type organizations to formulate and enforce "international regulation". 

It therefore seem like the demons of Lawful Evil have abandoned "The West" to the ministrations of Chaotic Evil, and are increasingly directing their main efforts towards "The Rest". 

From a Christian perspective, we are dealing with greater versus lesser evils (at best); therefore there is again the pitfall opening of inducing people actively to support that which is actually-evil, on the basis that it is a different, and maybe less extreme, kind of evil than that which preceded it.  

The danger is that Christians are actively supporting Lawful Evil on the basis that it is possible to be optimistic about its prospects in this-world, here-and-now. 

I suggest that Christians need to be much clearer than they currently seem to be, about the necessity actively to support only that which is Good by motivation and methods - no matter how weak that Good may be in this-worldly terms; and no matter how pessimistic the prospects of Good seem, with things as they currently are.

On the material and earthly level, Christians will inevitably lose - sooner or later; and it is on the spiritual level that are there solid grounds for realistic optimism. 

The grounds of our hope are sure, but Not Of This World. 

Once we have grasped this; then (but only then) can we see and know how such a spiritual and next-worldly expectation, can and will improve things in this mortal life. 

In D&D terms we should eschew not just evil, but the categories of lawful and chaotic, and pursue that which is creative. 

The current hedonism

The raw hedonism of the Western populations is very striking - I mean the way in which people are self-blinded to depth; and explicitly dedicate their lives to having (what is generally accepted to be) fun and doing (what the cool people think is) cool stuff - then telling other people about it (humbly bragging). 

This is not something really new - but has become not just public (via social media, and the 24/7 connectivity to mass media) but the basis of life, for great masses of people of all ages and classes. 

What makes it so stark is that in the 2020s there are no remotely plausible social channels for people to practice virtue while gaining life-satisfaction. 

Half a century ago there were many niches - jobs, social institutions, churches, the arts and crafts - which were generally believed to be Good. And within-which there was (apparently) opportunity to build a viable life.  

This meant that many people could do these things, join these groupings, practice these activities - and feel that they were doing something that was worthwhile in some large albeit vague sense - while still (implicitly, covertly) being hedonic. 

It seems that people don't believe this now - except maybe briefly, in adolescence. 

And even if they do believe that some thing (such as "climate activism" say) is intrinsically worthwhile; they will very soon either be disillusioned; or else must consent to enter the web of lies and self-deceptions that characterises public discourse in our era. 

Such is the consequence of living under totalitarianism - there is allowed no autonomy of social institutions: all is brought under centralized surveillance and control - civil society is co-opted, regulated, emptied of agency, and squeezed towards extinction. 

In secular terms, and in the mainstream of life; the available choice is between honest disillusionment, nihilism, and isolated alienation on the one hand -- or immersion in The Matrix... with an attitude of quasi-compensatory pseudo-rebellion in the form of seeking the hedonic option. 

In other words; the dedication to hedonism is self-perceived as a stance of rebellion and dissent against the totalitarian system.

It isn't rebellion or dissent, of course - and there are, of course, other options...

There are other options... 

But only via developing explicit awareness of having been trapped by one's own metaphysical assumptions; by examining, critiquing, and revising the prevalent assumptions. 

And that development is something which can only happen by the active decision of each individual; by an inner quest that the great mass of Westerners absolutely refuse even to consider embarking upon.   

  

The Birdemic-Peck as a case study in how the-agenda-of-destruction manipulates totalitarian-evil into implementing its plans

What follows can be considered a small exemplar of the destructive programme of the globalist and Western top-leadership class; and how they get the world's "middle managers" to go along with it. 

By the world's middle managers, I mean those who most people regard as the ultimate leaders: e.g. national political and governmental leaders, large corporation leaders, mass media moguls, the executives of all large institutions such as the military and police, science, education, law, the arts, and churches. 

What these globalist-middle-managers instruct, in obedience to the real world-leadership class, is then obediently implemented by the administrative myrmidons - that vast class of the professional and managerial middle class who dominate everyday life. 

So when it comes to global implementation of the Peck, as a supposed response to the Birdemic; we can see how this played-out. 

At the low level of implementation which most people perceive; we saw a united-front from public health professionals, doctors and researchers; being referenced as conclusive evidence by politicians, managers and the mass media. 

Yet there was zero rational case for using The Peck at all, at any level - let alone a multi-billion global level. 

Why? Because the Peck was unnecessary, ineffective and harmful. 

In other words, mass pecking should not even have been considered. But if it had been considered honestly; it totally failed to satisfy standard, consensus epidemiological benefit-risk criteria (which I was taught as a public health medic in the early 1990s). 

So the consensus that global mass pecking was necessary and good was clear evidence that the visible leadership class and their "justifiers" and "implementers" was simply "obeying orders". 

Orders which I infer were emanating from the invisible world real-leadership class. 

We need to ask why these personages regarded it as the single major global priority to peck everybody in the world with an agent that could only do net harm? 

And then a rigorous consideration will lead to the answer that this imperative was destructive in its aim: it could not be otherwise? 

Whatever the actual outcome of Giga-pecking (and given the gross corruption of data collection and science and the media - I don't believe this can accurately be known), the destructive motivation is evident. 

My point here is that we can understand the global peck campaign as motivated by Sorathic-destructive evil; but implemented by the Ahrimanic-totalitarian believers in a global Matrix-System of micro-surveillance and omni-control. 

Thus, the motivators and the implementers of mass-pecking each have a different agenda. 

Therefore; both hyper-organization and general-destruction are simultaneously being-pursued. 

Which prevails? 

At first glance the totalitarians are far more numerous and known, and seem likely to prevail; but that is not the case.

Because 1. destruction and disorder is so much easier than construction and order; and 2. the globalist totalitarians are obedient to the top-level Sorathic beings. 

In practice - as with the Peck - the vast apparatus of totalitarianism, merely serves to rationalize and implement the agenda of destruction. The totalitarians do what they are told; which includes dishonestly "explaining" why the Peck is not just necessary but safe, not just safe but beneficial. 

This is how the agenda of destruction is pursued. 

It applies to the Birdemic itself, and the Peck. It applies to the Climate stuff, the antiracism stuff, the feminism and transagenda, to the Fire Nation and Arrakis wars, indeed to all of the major and long-term policies of the real rulers of this mortal world that I have termed the Litmus Tests. 

 

You are a dangerously confused victim of profound self-mistrust: If you don't trust yourself then who, and why?

In this weirdly inverted world, most people spend several hours per day "informing" themselves about what it going on in the world by means of the mass and social media, supplemented by face-to-face gossip... mostly about the agenda established by mass/  social media. 

 

But people neither remember not think about this stuff. They do not even try to make connections, to draw inferences - to make the effort to remember whether their sources proved to be honest and reliable. They don't even try to check whether what is being said makes sense!

In a profound way, people do not trust themselves to understand the world; and therefore open their minds wide to... well, to whatever the world is currently deciding to pour-into their heads. 

This self-mistrust is reinforced by several decades worth of widely disseminated propaganda that there is no free will, that we live in a simulation (or Matrix). 

 ...And that we are fed a diet of lies by those who desire only to exploit us. 

 

In other words; we are supposed to believe the self-confessed liars who desire to exploit us are telling the truth, when they tell us that they are liars who desire to exploit us! 

Clearly, this "Cretan Liar" strategy - telling people not to trust themselves and of liars repeatedly telling you they are lying - has mind-warping consequences if not transcended. 

It is a PSYOPS; the consequences of which are a kind of numbed passivity; motivation becoming little more than moment-by-moment "coping". 

This experience, which we all share, can be regarded as a colossal life-lesson; from which we can and should learn that we ourselves are ultimately the only trust-worthy source. And it then becomes our task to understand how this can be. 

Thus, to avoid chronic despair; we are forced, eventually, into recognizing that we must assume that our personal judgment is the only possible basis of any kind of knowledge - and then to develop an understanding which explains how this situation arose. 

How do we find ourselves in a world where we simply must derive our ultimate beliefs by some kind of intuitive act; and how can we expect that this will potentially lead to reality - to true knowledge...

What are the pre-requisites for such a system of knowing? How can it operate?  

These are questions to which we need to find answers in order to function - yet the externally-provided sources are all telling us (repeatedly) that they cannot provide such answers.

 

Such questions seem to me to lead to a very different set of assumptions that those we started-out with, or which are available from the literature. So very different that Men of the past would regard it as crazy - after all, how can one person overturn, or rather transcend, the wisdom of ages... 

Well, it might seem like crazy if it was not for the extreme and unrelenting craziness of the mainstream, of The Normal, of the way that most people think, talk and behave for most of the time - of the incoherences that they assert; and of the psychological consequences of this situation of endemic self-contradiction. 

We cannot ignore the craziness, and it affects us badly - and if we desire to escape this torment-trap we are compelled to take total responsibility. 

 

So, it can be seen that God is probably allowing this situation of official and mandatory insanity with some valid purpose: in order that we are strongly encouraged to do, that which it is most important that we do. 

 

There is a way out-and-up, and we can each discover it; but we can only each discover it for himself. 

The Red Pill is a Blue Pill when foreign wars are concerned

The Red Pill is, both in the Matrix movie and in real life, in truth just another Blue Pill. 

This is because the depicted Red Pill, and also the supposed Red Pills of a vast amount of pseudo-anti-left stuff on the internet over the past twenty-something years; is just more politics, more sociology, more psychology... Just another variant of the usual materialist (spirit-excluding) public discourse.

The real-reality behind the fake-reality of mass mainstream official discourse concerning wars/ climate/ racism/ the birdemic/ inequity etc - is that the spiritual is primary, and all this is a manifestation of spiritual war. 

Any valid Red Pill should clarify that we are the beloved children of that God whose creation we all inhabit - and anything short of this is a dangerously partial distortion of real-reality. 

Fictional or factual depictions of the masses as mind-controlled, exploited and enslaved, tormented creatures etc - are Blue Pills unless they include that the motivating purpose of this is spiritual; totalitarianism is a means to spiritual ends.     

Socio-political discourse is nearly-always a Blue Pill; because it neglects, excludes and denies that we inhabit A Divine Creation; and that this creation - including the souls of Men - is under continual attack from demonic and demon-affiliated powers.  

Almost-all the Red Pill discourse I have encountered (whether using the Pill terminology or simply socio-political ideology masquerading as revelations of reality) functions as indirect propaganda for the exclusive reality of the material world. 

Exposes of merely political underlying structures and mechanisms are tacit denials that the material is only a part of the spiritual; they constitute an implicit exclusion of the reality that our mortal life and this earth are (if we so choose) a temporary and transitional stage leading to the eternity of resurrected Heavenly life.  

Thus (as a topical instance) the real Red-Pill reality includes that the current Fire Nation or Arrakis wars are (in their different ways) spiritual wars - ultimately these are conflicts over the souls of Men and the future of God's creation. 

Ultimately; as far as you and I are concerned, these primarily spiritual wars are only very indirectly related to whatever might (or might not) be happening materially in these wars. Material war (i.e what actually happens 'on the ground') are, spiritually speaking, almost (but not quite) irrelevant to the spiritual war currently afoot in your soul and mine. 

(Rather than being, as usually considered, the proper subject matter of Red Pill reality.)   

That is the true and spiritual framework within-which these and other wars are happening, here and now, and in the way that they being presented and conducted. 

And it is just-another Blue Pill to pretend otherwise.  

Doctors, academics and scientists have objectively ceased to exist in the UK - we are all generic bureaucratic functionaries now

The three professions of which I was member have, in reality, long since ceased to exist; but this can now be seen objectively since they are perpetually "on strike".

Striking means hurting the general public (i.e. patients and students - because nearly all scientists are employed by educational establishments) - ostensibly as a (stupid, self-destructive) way of trying to persuade monopoly employers to give them more pay and better conditions. But in actuality, most as a futile way of venting general frustration at their meaningless and purposeless existence.  

Professionals don't go on strike because it hurts the people who they (supposedly) exist to serve. 

So that the endemic state of strike demonstrates that doctors and academics/ scientists no longer think of themselves as professionals - and are making a public demonstration of that established fact. They think of themselves as they actually are: bureaucratic functionaries whose core responsibility is to improve their position within their particular bureaucracy...

Current 'industrial action' is invariably directed against the public, rather than the managers! The strikers always cooperate, never resist and refuse, whatever bureaucratic nonsense the managers currently are imposing. While patients and students suffer; these medical/ academic/ scientific employees don't really want to hurt the managers, or alienate them - because it is managerial favour they are seeking.  

And the particular bureaucracies of the National Health Service and UK universities are merely sub-departments of the single, cross-linked global-bureaucracy - The System, The Matrix - so most people are in exactly the same situation, and behave with identical servile, short-termist, stupid selfishness as the ex-professionals - so lets not hear any arguing from assumed superiority! Whatever apparent superiority currently exists in other jobs is merely temporary and situational.

 

In other words - because of multiple laws and regulations relating to employment, taxes, subsidies, 'safety', racism/ feminism/ sexual-stuff/ disability, sanctions, 'climate'-drivel and so on, and on, and ever-increasing; all large employers are de facto a single employer; and all those who work for them are generic functionaries - whose job is to do: whatever the managers tell them. 

Therefore, except temporarily, there is no difference between a doctor and anyone else who works for the NHS (nurse, therapist, cleaner, porter, shop assistant etc); and no difference between someone who works for the NHS and someone who works for any other large government department, multinational corporation, NGO - or whatever. 

And therefore the doctors 'job' is to do - whatever his bosses currently tell him is his job. Same with academics: same with scientists. 

There is no essence to their work - only obedience. 

Very-nearly-all of the ex-professions that I was a member of, now actually do jobs that have almost (or actually) zero overlap with what these professions did fifty years ago. 

They are all doing different things; because they are doing what managers tell them to do.

And the managers do what the politicians (and media moguls) tell them to do; and the politicians do what the real rulers tell them.

This is how the world wags...

    

Such is life - such it has been for a couple of decades at least - and, although officially denied, such reality is becoming clearer with each passing year. 

Transtemporal Secret Christians versus "the Empire that never ended" (aka. the Black Iron Prison) - the Exegesis of Philip K Dick

Edited slightly (cuts, punctuation, expanding abbreviations) from from Exegesis by Philip K Dick

[18:84] I state: the passage of time since “Acts of the Apostles” is spurious. That is it. That is the premise derived from empirical experience. Whatever our senses tell us means nothing. Circular time, not linear time, is involved. 

When St. Sophia (Christ) returns it will be in apostolic times, as promised. The 1,900 intervening years are a spurious interpolation by the Black Iron Prison (BIP)... 

[18:86] What a realization! Transtemporal-constant secret Christians, originating in apostolic times, and lying within humans in succeeding generations — reactivated by external disinhibiting stimuli (but before this or without this can covertly direct the persons they inhabit, like the way Thomas secretly masterminded my writing). Hot dog! 

But this is exactly what I’m not supposed to talk about! These underlying, co-habitating, secretly still living apostolic Christians want to stay secret! 

What I must concentrate on is not the irreality of our world or worlds plural, but the absolute transtemporal-constant: the apostolic secret Christians still alive and at work. 

This fits-in with my flash of insight [in February 1974] upon seeing the golden fish sign: I saw the secret early Christians hurrying about their business. 

Then the answer is: Thomas is an immortal apostolic Christian, and Rome c. A.D. 45 is the real present world, and Thomas co-inhabits my head, locked into the real world. 

“Acts” is not a past world — v. Tears, it is the noumenal matrix of this world. We are not dealing with either the past or a past life and personality, but the urwelt lying under the Dokos. Thomas and his world is here and now, and he knows it. [. . .] 

So I am, so to speak, a front — a face — for an immortal, transtemporal secret early Christian who is operating — undoubtedly in conjunction with others like him — in contemporary history. 

This is behind-the-scenes stuff, thrilling and scary. I certainly see Thomas’ hand or mind in my writing. Yes indeed, he is with me, not is me — in my head. But “living in another century.”

**

In this exciting sequence of insights; Philip K Dick is looking-back, after several years, to his religious experiences of February and March 1974  ("2-3-74"). He has long since concluded that these experiences led him to realize that the Roman Empire, conceptualized as a Black Iron Prison of bureaucratic totalitarianism, never ended; but persisted through transformations and translocations to the USA - for PKD the Nixon administration in particular, and the civilized world more generally. 

In some way (he tried-out many theories) PKD believed that he had some kind of direct and experiential relationship with the time around AD 45, and the places of Acts of the Apostles; perhaps (in some way) via an alter ego-type person called Thomas who might be one of the named Apostles - or someone else. 

At that time and place (according to PKD's visions); the early Christians constituted a small, secretive and indomitable sect. These kept alive faith in Jesus Christ in their hearts, and (in some rather vague way) also operated cooperatively as a covert resistance against the Empire. 

(PKD's visions had been triggered, or his latent understanding disinhibited, by seeing a golden ICHTHYS fish-pendant catching the sunlight; and being told by the girl who was wearing it, that this was a symbol of the early Christians; a sign by which, PKD inferred, they recognized each other.) 

PKD regarded this basic situation as a continuing one: secret Christians versus the Empire (a hostile Empire who acted constantly to assimilate and neutralize, or else annihilate, the Christians). 

For Dick; the secret early Christians were, and are, the real Christians; the other kind being sometimes more-, sometimes less-, corrupted and assimilated to the Empire agenda of the Black Iron Prison. 

As Dick comments; this way of understanding is indeed both "thrilling and scary"! But, maybe, in some kind of overall and exact but approximate way; PKD was here expressing an essential truth for Christians; which is broadly as he states it. 

Real Christians always have been ("transtemporally") in something-like this situation - few, secret, seldom meeting, sustained by direct experience and knowledge; always opposed by The System, and most of the self-identified official Christians. 

Recognizing each other only by signs that flash-out briefly and intermittently; and reveal something they have always known. 

      

Note added: Of course; regular readers will have guessed that I am here thinking that PKD's vision, or fantasy, of the secret Christians; in its essence, matches the conceptual basis (if not so much the metaphysics or theology) of Romantic Christianity.  

A theory of Romanticism - Yes, it's needed (but we must frame our question properly)

It was the summer of 1976 that I first read Robert M Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM), and first came-across what he described as the Classic versus Romantic division in world-views. 

The Classic was Pirsig's term for what was already termed The System (i.e. The Matrix, the Single-Global-Bureaucracy/ Mediaplex), or what I have here sometimes termed the Ahrimanic form of evil. The Romantic was the instinctive, impulsive, 

In ZAMM; Pirsig's proposed solution to the division was Quality; and I certainly gave Quality my best shot over the next years, and for a couple of decades. 

Quality did not work as a solution; and in practice was just a part of the Romantic side of the divide: inevitably Quality got overwhelmed, and over-written, by the Classic-System-Bureaucratic imperatives that were so much stronger and more persistent through the late-twentieth century onwards.  

Part of the problem was that Quality in ZAMM was tied to oneness metaphysics; (deriving from oneness). 

Another part of the problem was that Quality was pre-thinking thus non-thinking (so that as soon as one thought about Quality, Quality had gone...).

And part of the problem was that the Romantic was defined in Classic terms, such that the Romantic was made a time-less and abstracted set of defining attributes - and so, Quality was immediately captured by the Classic - where it could be enslaved (as in "Quality" management) and then killed with what the Classic mind regards as overwhelming reason (as in 2020, and by the Litmus Test imperatives generally). 

A further and decisive problem in ZAMM was the detachment of Romanticism from its Christian origins. Indeed; already from the early 19th century, and much more later, there was a turning of Romanticism against Christianity. 

But the Romantic can, and should, be seen as a phenomenon in time, in human history and in the lives of Men. 

Thus, Romanticism arose in the later 1700s and peaked over the following decades. 

Romanticism is usually described as having arisen as a reaction-against the rationalism and empiricism of the new era of science, epitomized by Newton, Descartes etc. Then; Romanticism is seen as re-emerging through the following centuries in response to new phases of increasing social organization, bureaucracy, state propaganda etc. 

For instance, there was a major resurgence of Romanticism in the 1950s (existentialism and the Beat Generation) increasing through the 1960s counter-culture; in response to the post-WW II Western social trends. 

And the Romantic phase of many individual Men, is likewise usually described as a reaction-against the pressures during adolescence to become absorbed into The System.

But Romanticism can be regarded as more than a reaction - and can instead be regarded as the emergence of something that ought-to-have-been the proper path of development - of society and of Men; something which keeps re-emerging (exactly because it was and is Man's proper destiny) but which keeps getting defeated, for various reasons.  

Thus, Romanticism is always time-related. It should therefore be seen as dynamic and developmental - a part of the life of people and peoples; and therefore we ought to resist trying to capture it in timeless and abstract definitions; which must distort and fatally weaken Romanticism, and will ensure it is again defeated. 

My ideas for saving and strengthening Romanticism - including a robust understanding of Quality, and restoring what I regard as the proper line of Man's developments - include:

1. Restoring the primarily Christian basis of Romanticism.

2. Putting Romanticism into a context of a pluralist (not oneness) metaphysics.

3. Always understanding Romanticism as 'in time', as a dynamic and developmental thing.

4. Making thinking (with increased - not diminished - consciousness, alertness, freedom - a stronger sense of the self) a focus of what is aimed-at in the Romantic experience. In other words: the archetypal Romantic 'religious experience' should be actively creative, and not passively contemplative.  

Do They (the Global Establishment) possess secret advanced technology?

I have noticed that there are a lot of people who believe that They possess secret advanced technology (e.g. ultra-advanced aircraft and weaponry; but also 'free' energy, space travel, time travel). 

These are, overall, the same group of people who regard AI as being actually artificial intelligence, as having massively advanced recently, and as now poised to take-over from humans because it is better than humans. 

I don't! I believe that real science is dead, major geniuses are essentially extinct, the international bureaucracy has partly caused but massively exacerbated both of these problems; and the overall capability of mankind has therefore been declining for some decades. 

I believe that AI is not intelligent At All, and takes over from humans because this is in line with the demonic agenda and expedient from the managerial class; and takes over despite its gross functional inferiority.   

I have also noticed that those who 'believe-in' ultra-advanced technology and AI capability; also tend to believe that this world (and maybe ourselves) is some kind of simulation, a Matrix-like world of energetic projections and images - or something.

I don't. I believe this mortal life and earthly world is absolutely real, albeit temporary; and functionally intended to be an intermediate phase between our pre-mortal life as spirits, and the possibility (if we choose it) of eternal resurrected life.  

We seem to have two different metaphysical systems here; that is, different fundamental assumptions regarding the nature of reality. 

Both can't be right; but the distinction cannot be established by 'evidence' because there is no agreement of what constitutes 'evidence'. Nor can scientific (or other) theories help us; because the truth of such theories is what is at issue.  

As so often; by the normal methods of argument, we are compelled either to ignore the problem, or else address it via useless rhetorical clashes. 

The valid alternative is to expose to awareness our own fundamental but unexamined metaphysical assumptions - and then evaluate with the deepest possible intuition whether we really-do believe these once tacit assumptions; and whether indeed we want to believe them!

(I have written previously on the specific subjects referenced above - if you want to know what I think more exactly; then you might do relevant-word searches using the search-box in the top left-hand corner of this page.)

Why is it that we cannot escape the Matrix? (Because it is our own distorted consciousness that is making it.)

I am fascinated - and, in general terms - convinced-by Rudolf Steiner's Zurich prophecy of 1918. 

Steiner said, in essence, that if Mankind continued to hold-to 'materialism', and to reject the reality and primacy of the spiritual; then this would distort human consciousness. Until, by about 2000AD, the process would lead to the great evils of value-inversion: in other words, evil done with belief that it is good. 

Steiner's prophecies have been fulfilled - most obviously in terms of the sexual revolution. 

And it seems to me that the prophecies have come true for the reason that Steiner predicted: that, by rejecting our destiny to overcome materialism (by voluntarily choosing to become more consciously spiritual), modern Man's distorted consciousness has distorted the whole world. 

This happens because Man's consciousness participates in the creation of reality; thus Men co-create reality. 

When our consciousness becomes evilly-distorted, so does the world. So, the origin of the Matrix/ The System/ the totalitarian world-order is in the minds of Men; and the Matrix arises from the collusive choices of Men - including our-selves. 

This is why the Matrix is now world-wide and penetrates through all social institutions; and why we cannot escape it whatever the location, and whoever we mix-with: because it is our own distorted consciousness that is making it. 

We - collectively - bring the Matrix with us, wherever we go.  

And the only escape is by development of consciousness in the direction that is ordained for us: towards conscious awareness and choice of the spiritual in life and reality. 

But, as yet, Mankind does not want this, wants instead the Matrix - and our hopes and efforts are directed merely towards amelioration of the excesses and incoherencies of the Matrix. 

Only when we are ready to take the first steps, in our own minds, outside the Matrix and into the domain of spirit; will it begin to cease to dominate the world. 

Right Metaphysics is crucial yet negative

[Note added, see below*.]

I spend a lot of time here talking about how vital it is, Now, to have the right metaphysics; especially to realize that this is a created, animated, living, conscious, purposive universe.

And this is very difficult to achieve.

But even at best, even if this is indeed achieved, then right metaphysics is just a mould into which we must ourselves pour right thinking (and right other actions).

Metaphysics is a frame, assumptions; and then we must do stuff: do the Right Stuff.

Metaphysics is negative, doing (including thinking) is the positive.

Thus we are, as usual, always at least Two steps away from effective action, or right understanding. 

If it were just One step, we would stumble on the right, randomly. If it was easy, it would be common instead of very rare. But because it is Two, the change must be purposive.

And because change must be purposive and Good; in a world of pervasive institutional evil, positive, purposive change must come from our-selves.

Which means Right Metaphysics...

As usual - what's needed is simple, but difficult.

*Note added: The need for two, or more, simultaneous changes contradicts most self-help spiritual or religious advice. Typically, it is said that we need to convert to Christianity, or look at the world from some radially different perspective... Be religious, practice X: be spiritual, meditate; Start This, or stop doing That... But the fact is that no Single thing does any significant good in the world as it is now. From where we now are, any one thing will just heal-over - and we will still be in thrall to the Matrix. No plan of actions will lead us anywhere but back, no metaphysical radicalism will reshape our lived experience. That's why It is so difficult, why success is so rare and evanescent.

The agnostic Matrix versus real-reality and truth: The world versus You and Me

There has been a long-term (multigenerational) Establishment-backed strategy of convincing 'the masses' (i.e. as many people as possible) that this world is some kind of simulation, hologram, a un-rooted surface, virtual world, a fake - the Matrix. 

This goes with the idea that there is no truth - or that the truth is inaccessible to the human senses, mind and thinking; and the only dangerous people are those who believe there is a truth and that they can know it. 

There is a dominant ethic which has it that agnosticism is the highest virtue; that not knowing and knowing that one does not know, is the only really valid basis for life; that doubt is a higher state that knowing -- and, again, that the only really dangerous people are those who decide, take responsibility for their decisions, and act upon them. 

("Fundamentalists" - in other words, to use the jargon.)

Of course it can with equal truth be shown that the Establishment also desire that the masses should believe absolutely and do obediently... whatever the Establishment are telling them, today. 

And that this "today's truth" and today's "must-do morality" are absolute and permanently valid - because the fact they differ from last year, and may be reversed next week - does not affect the overwhelming factuality and ethical imperative of the present moment. 

This is our world. 

But such a world, in its own reality - perfectly complements the prevalent, "living in a simulation'', know-nothing agnosticism. 

As soon as any subject or 'issue' has been raised, there can be no knowledge vacuum - raising the subject (and the frame in-which it is raised) itself intrinsically assumes prior knowledge and values. Thought has content, and content assumes its own external reality and conceptual interpretation. Neutrality is incoherent because concepts always include values. 

Hence what is being asked of the masses (non-judgment, eternal doubt) is strictly impossible: therefore it does not happen. 

And that is why the Matrix says one thing ("believe nothing!"), but people do the opposite (i.e. believe everything the Matrix says, currently) - and that is exactly what the Matrix intends! The Matrix-masses combine maximum cynicism, and total obedience!  

The Matrix is experientially the world we live-in; and we also are told - by the Matrix itself; sometimes explicitly, and in a thousand indirect ways - as well as in hundreds of analogical and hypothetical ways (by 'fictions' in TV, movies, novels...) - that the Matrix is the world we live-in. 

But why, how, did this Matrix happen? 

Well, there can be no 'because' in agnostic Matrix world; therefore the Matrix Just Happened - just goes-on happening, under its own internal logic - aiming... nowhere in particular; because a Matrix can have no purpose.  

Thus, a further very popular, heavily propagandized back-up theory is that Matrix-manipulators do not exist because... stuff just happens due to 'emergence', the market, chaos-theory, forces and laws, historical cycles, progression or degenerations, and so forth. 

There is no covert purpose, no hidden hand, no intent of evil...

Ultimately "because" randomness. 

The only permissible and high-brow spirituality is oneness. This claim labels the Matrix as a this-world, temporary - because Time-bound, fake and illusory reality - As contrasted with a claimed knowledge derived from standing outside the Matrix, in an ultimate, eternal, changeless, unity. 

Oneness spirituality - supposedly derived from Hinduism, Buddhism and the Mystic East - feeds this agnostic Matrix view of reality, because every-thing is actually the same thing, good and evil are illusions, as are truth and lies, innocence or blame. 

For oneness; this life is all illusion and no truth; the enlightened Man realizes that he knows nothing; his thoughts are deceptions, his discernments are just ego; his self is actually not a self but just a minuscule part of the one - our hope should be that our self should cease to be differentiated from that one - then illusion will fall away - including the illusion of our own suffering...

Oneness says: cheer up! You are not really miserable - because you are too brief, insignificant and deluded for "your" "misery" to mean anything!   

So much for the negatives...

Then we must ask:

If Not; Then What? 

If not the agnostic Matrix - what else is possible, or better?

We can only legitimately recognize the evil of the Matrix from some other place that is Not a part of the Matrix world; just as we can only recognize agnosticism from having-made decisions about what assumptions are correct. 

Indeed, the whole Matrix operates - all the time - by creating and dissolving temporary and Matrix-expedient rules, truths, values, assumptions - and everything else positive. 

Or else - there is nothing, nihil, nihil-ism, and ultimate despair.

From where we are here-and-now; it does not work to wall-off some part of the Matrix, in hope that it will then operate on different lines. 

The Matrix covered the world in 2020, for all to see; and has neither been repented nor repudiated anywhere - not even in its essentials, let alone wholly. No nation has escaped the Matrix; no nation has clearly said they even want to escape: no nation, nor even any institution of size and power enough to be able to do it. 

Meanwhile here we are, you and me. 

We surely can't wait for 'other people' - whether a nation, a region, a locality, a church - to create a real world that we can inhabit.

Life goes on - and must be lived with some purpose, or else it will be as futile as the oneness-Matrixites tell us!

Death approaches... 

Therefore; we must find reality and truth for ourselves; starting from what we know we know; and ignoring the secondary and separate question of whether we can convince others, whether we can create a community of like-minded others... 

Ignoring; because we very probably cannot and will-not be able to share our truths - the world being what it is.   

And this is where Christian faith comes in. 

And it must be Christian faith. 

Because only the Christian God is creator, good, and our loving Father - so can be depended-upon and able to make possible whatever is necessary for our salvation, and to make our continued mortal life worthwhile from an eternal perspective - and only Jesus can guarantee that eternity to those who genuinely want it.   

The Matrix is everywhere and very powerful. But we can nonetheless, on our own, you and me; confidently defy the vast fake world of the Matrix; can discern and think our way to a sufficiently-solid basis of correct information, positive values, and therefore true knowledge. 

The alternative?

Well, living in the agnostic Matrix is worse than living in the Matrix of the movies - because, unlike there, the masses of the world in 2023 know that they live in a fake reality. The masses know this because, unlike in the movie, the Establishment who operate the Matrix tell people they are living in the Matrix; tell them over and again! 

And that is the other crucial difference between the movie and this life. In the movie, the masses are being exploited as sources of energy; therefore it is better they are kept in ignorance. 

But here and now, in this world, the purpose of the Matrix is damnation of Men's souls. It is therefore valuable that the masses inhabit the Matrix, and are aware of the fact - thus Men may be induced to despair. 

And despair is the surest of all paths to damnation. 

When men inhabit the Matrix, and when they also know that the Matrix is what they inhabit - they are consenting to the Matrix. 

And when the Matrix is evil by intent and design; then Men are consenting to evil. 

This is what the Matrix manipulators need to happen. Need, because of the work of Jesus Christ means that it is only when Men consent to evil that they will refuse salvation and are damned. 

(Jesus came to save sinners, and sinning is no bar to salvation - so long as sin is acknowledged as such; and the Man desires the resurrection offered by Christ.) 

This is, ultimately, why the Establishment make sure that We know what They are doing to Us; and then try to ensure that We accept it - accept, that is, that what-They-do is for-the-best. 

How does the blanket mind-control system work?

A thread over at Project Avalon made me return, yet again, to the question of how the blanket mind-control system works nowadays? 

On the one hand, there was a decades-long strategic preparation of the masses - and especially the intellectual-managerial classes - to be ready to receive the control system. 

On the other hand, there are tactical and immediate mechanisms by which the control is directed at specific attitudes and beliefs. 

Also there is an underlying spiritual - or anti-spiritual - aspect to this system of control; on the other hand, it is instantiated by material means. 

And the system must be simple-enough to be fast and reliable; while complex enough to be not-too-obvious, and to have fall-back or back-up aspects such that a simple denial or specifci resitance does not allow anybody to escape the Matrix. 

There must also be sufficient complexity that the individual seems to see the same message, wherever he turns (rather than emanating from one locatable direction). 

So - does anyone want to make a try at encapsulating, with reasonable brevity, the nature and workings of our blanket mind-control system, as it is in 2023?

 

How oneness spirituality is supportive of mainstream materialist-atheist-leftism: traditional mysticism versus the 'primary thinking' of Rudolf Steiner

I regard Rudolf Steiner as having first made explicit one of the core tasks of modern Western Man: which is to become conscious of the thinking of our real-divine selves, and to make this the basis of a modern and unprecedented kind of 'spirituality' (or, by a new definition: mysticism). 

Or, in other words, our task is each to develop a spirituality of conscious thinking (which I have termed 'primary thinking'). 

Steiner's was a complete break with, almost a reversal of, the traditional and ancient aim of 'mysticism' - which was directed against thinking; against consciousness and 'the self' or 'ego'. 

Both traditional mysticism and Steiner are united in deploring the mundane and meaningless materialism of modern consciousness; but their suggested answers to the problem are almost opposites; and their interaction with materialism is also in stark contrast - with mysticism de facto sustaining, but Steiner's spirituality opposing, materialism. 

The traditional mystic attempts to return to the ancient state (and early childhood experience) of ceasing to be dominated by thoughts, ceasing to entertain 'ideas', discarding the self, losing individuality: ultimately immersing oneself unconsciously in life/ the divine - without separation, restoring primal oneness. 

At the end of his life; Steiner wrote a biography in which he attempted to reconstruct the movement of his thinking through the 1890s, when he realized that the revival of traditional mysticism would be mistaken. 

Steiner was convinced that the fullest and broadest possible awareness of the world of our ideas, of what is here termed the 'ideal' world could be the basis of a new spirituality or mysticism. In this passage 'ideal' thus means of the nature of 'ideas'

(I have somewhat edited this passage, hoping to enhance brevity and clarity.)  

**

At the close of this first stage of my life it became a question of inner necessity for me to attain a clearly defined position in relation to mysticism. 

As I considered the various epochs in the evolution of humanity - in Oriental Wisdom, in Neo-Platonism, in the Christian Middle Ages, in the endeavours of the Kabalists - it was only with the greatest difficulty that I, with my different temper of mind, could establish any relationship to it. 

The mystic seemed to me to be a man who failed to come into right relation to the world of ideas, in which for me the spiritual has its existence. I felt that it was a deficiency in real spirituality when, in order to attain satisfaction in one's ideas, one plunges into an inner world void of all ideas. In this I could see no road to light, but rather a way to spiritual darkness. 

The mystics desire living contact with the sources of human existence. And yet it was also clear to me that one arrives at the same kind of inner experience when one sinks down into the depths of the soul accompanied by the full and clear content of the ideal world, instead of stripping off this content when thus sinking into one's depths. 

By contrast; I desired to carry the light of the ideal world into the warmth of the inner experience. 

The mystic seemed to me to be a man who cannot perceive the spirit in ideas and who is therefore inwardly chilled by ideas. The coldness which he feels in ideas drives him to seek through an escape from ideas for the warmth of which the soul has need. 

As for myself, the warmth of my soul's experience increased in proportion as I shaped into definite ideas the previously indefinite experience of the spiritual world. 

I often said to myself: “How these mystics fail to understand the warmth, the mental intimacy, which one experiences when one lives in association with ideas permeated by the spiritual!” 

The mystics seemed to me to strengthen the position of the materialistically minded observer of nature instead of weakening it. 

The materialist objects to the observation of the spiritual world, either because he does not admit the existence of such a world, or else because he considers human understanding adapted to the physically visible one. He sets up boundaries of knowledge at that point where lie the boundaries of the physically perceptible. 

Yet the ordinary mystic is of the same opinion as the materialist as regards human ideal knowledge. He maintains that ideas do not extend to the spiritual, and therefore that in ideal knowledge man must always remain outside the spiritual. Since, however, he desires to attain to the spirit, he turns to an inner experience void of ideas. 

If anyone enters into the interior of his own soul without taking ideas with him, he thus arrives at the inner region of mere feeling. Such a person then says that the spiritual cannot be reached by a way which is called in ordinary life a way of knowledge, but that one must sink down from the sphere of knowledge into the sphere of the feelings in order to experience the spiritual. 

With such a view a materialistic observer of nature can declare himself in perfect agreement. He then sees in his system of ideas directed toward the things of sense the only justifiable basis for knowledge. For the materialist, the mystical relationship of man to the spirit is something merely personal, to which one is either inclined or not inclined according to one's temperament, but of which one can never speak in the same way as one speaks of the content of a “positive knowledge.” 

For the materialist, therefore; Man's relation to the spiritual should be relegated entirely to the sphere of “subjective feelings.” 

While I held this before my mind the forces within my soul which stood in opposition to the mystic grew steadily stronger. The perception of the spiritual in inner mental experience was to me far more certain than the perception of the things of sense; to place boundaries of knowledge before this mental experience was to me quite impossible. 

I objected with all positiveness to mere feeling as a way into the spiritual. 

I sought association with the spirit by means of spirit-illuminated ideas, whereas as the mystic seeks the spirit through association with the non-ideal. I also could say that my view rests upon “mystical” ideal experience.

**

My note:

Here we can see that Rudolf Steiner, writing about himself 130 years ago, was already aware that traditional (oneness-type) mysticism was compatible-with - indeed complementary to - the materialism of modern life. 

We can nowadays see that the 'oneness' spirituality of the kind extracted by Westerners from Eastern Religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism (known to Steiner from Theosophy) - and as now espoused by by New Age gurus, 'Perennialist' philosophers, and the 'mindfulness' trainers of corporate bureaucracy - comfortably goes-with and supports modern atheist-materialist-leftism. The 

Thus, on one side, the oneness spiritual people are nearly-all leftists who fail the Litmus Tests and thus support major strategies of the totalitarian-evil agenda... 

While on the other side; the leadership class of the leftist globalist totalitarians quite often espouse mystical/ oneness forms of "feeling but non-thinking" spirituality (King Charles being a prime, and topical, example).   

Therefore, Steiner enables us to understand how it is that generic 'spirituality' is insufficient either to resist, or to provide a positive alternative to, the crushing bureaucratic-media Matrix of these times. 

Indeed, it actually makes matters worse!  

The imperative to 'belong'

Belonging is an imperative - we must belong.

But what-it-is to which we belong varies through life, and by choice.  

As young children we belong in a larger world, we are part-of-things; and that belonging is the family. The family is centre of our belonging; which stretches-out from family to the world. 

As young children, we are not aware of 'communications' that need to be interpreted - rather, knowledge comes to us direct. Rather the knowledge is already-there: we just know all kinds of stuff about all kinds of things. 

We know we belong, but implicitly, passively - belonging is given to us.  

Spirits are real, dreams are real, we know the thoughts of others and they know our thoughts. The world may vary between benign and hostile - but our background knowledge is that we are not alone, we are part of the world.  

Adolescence brings - eventually - a complete separation from that passive immersion in the family and world. 

We find that we now longer experience Just Knowing but must choose from our-selves; and we become aware that we dwell in an ocean of communications: messages, images, sounds and human relationships.

We must belong - and there is a choice of what we belong-to. 

Usually that is the 'peer group'. In traditional society, the peer group is a given, and there is no choice about whether to join it or something else; but in modern society there is a variety of potential peer groups, and allegiance is chosen. 

Thus, from adolescence, we relate to the world via chosen peer groups - and until recent generations this meant that the belonging of a stereotypical doctor was different from that of a farm worker, this-village was different from that-town; churches were different 'peer groups' - because there provided a distinct peer groups via which an individual belonged to the wider world. 

What has happened over recent decades could be termed a convergence of peer groups into a single System.  

Peer groups are chosen; but whatever chosen peer group you relate to the world via - whether that be a local circle of relatives or friends, a school or college, a 'profession' such as law or medicine, or the bureaucracy of a corporation of state institution... Whatever your choice, as of no all peer groups are linked hierarchically and horizontally, have converged-into a single and global ideology and power structure.

Nearly all peer groups - and nearly all families, which are nowadays also consciously chosen - are therefore parts of one system: The System (the 'Matrix'). Not all peer groups are equally a part of the system, some have greater partial and relative distinction from The System - but ultimately all are linked-into-one.

Therefore we find our existential situation is that we must belong - belonging is an imperative; yet all possible peer groups that might give a sense of belonging are part of The System. 

Thus, apparently, we must belong to The System! - There seems to be no alternative, if we are to belong.

And we must belong. 

The above is, I think, the mechanism of compliance and obedience; the mechanism by which the great mass of people choose to opt-in and self-police their own subordination. 

People must belong - and there is only one entity to which they can belong; therefore, people willingly want, think and do whatever it takes to belong to The System.   

This means that people believe - they Must believe - System-communications; because it is these with which they belong. 

If any incoming communication clashes with System-communications - if it dissents; if it tends to push the individual out from The System (if expulsion is what he experiences on encountering that communication) - then that 'anti-System' communication will be regarded as invalid, and threatening, and excluded. 

My point is that - especially since early 2020 and the successful global totalitarian coup, there is but one world, one system - and all social belonging based upon 'normal' communications is increasingly (and more-and-more obviously) a part of that System. 

Since each Man must belong, there seems only the choice of belonging to The System, since there is -  apparently - nothing else to belong-to. 

Anyone who tries to choose a different peer group (eg. a particular church) is finding that that peer group is also being absorbed-into The Single System. 

All the interpersonal and within organization communications are becoming System-aligned - all potential contradictions are being eliminated. 

If the material world of communications, the 'public world' is the only world; and if a Man must belong; then it makes sense that all men simply believe whatever The System is telling them today, do whatever The System is telling them to do today, hold whatever attitudes that best sustain The System...

And this is what we find. 

If it really is The System or not-belonging - then there is no choice but to join The System; and do... whatever-it-takes to stay within The System. 

Such is the primary question of these times: When 'everybody' (and it may actually be everybody, so far as we know) believes that the only choice is System versus not-belonging; and on that basis has chosen The System - then each Man finds himself compelled to confront that core question of human existence: God or Man. 

In other words; when Man has chosen The System - and The System excludes God; then to choose God instead of System means to reject what the mainstream person regards as every-thing.  

And, for the one who chooses God, the imperative to belong remains. The God-believer must belong - yet perhaps all the worldly-world of communications rejects him! 

His belonging can only be to the divine, to the spiritual, to the other-worldly: and this belonging he absolutely Must Have since belonging is imperative.  

This 'not-of-this-world' path used to be the preserve of a tiny minority of 'mystics'! Yet I am saying here that what was the preserve of mystics, must be the path of everyone who wants to choose God instead of System. 

To believe in God - here and now - it seems that we must personally know, and 'belong' in - on an everyday basis, 'the Company of Heaven'. We must belong, therefore our daily lives must substantially be among that company. 

It seems a Huge ask; yet if it Must, then Must it is... 

And since our God is our loving creator and parent - if it must be, it must be possible: and possible for Every-One.  

Unity = joining-with evil

Members of Christian churches may have noticed that, just as 'obedience' nowadays means compliance with the agenda of evil; 'unity' now means joining with the alliance of evil: joining the evil side in the spiritual war. 

This effect of striving to gain or maintain unity has eaten like a cancer at all forms of institution and organization; and seems to present two harmful alternatives. Either unity is a priority and the institution assimilates with the global totalitarian Establishment Plan. Or else, unity is sacrificed to Good - and the institution fractures and disperses.  

What seems actually to be happening is that all formal organizations are by-this-time either already on the side of evil - or else are moving in that direction. In order for a formal organization to continue to exist, it must engage with the major bureaucratic systems - and thereby conform to the overall motivations and objectives of these systems - which are evil. 

Since early 2020; the whole public sphere, all over the world, has been captured by the demonic intelligences that are pursuing an agenda of damnation.   

We are moving into a very stark world where the whole public sphere - including, of course, all formally-organized churches - is more-and-more evil: polarizing away-from The Good - and the process is perceptibly accelerating. 

What once were Christian virtues - such as obedience to the church and desire for church unity - have become pathways to damnation.

The only 'groups' exempt from this inexorable corruption (made inexorable by its being invisible and/or denied), are those based upon love rather than system: marriage, the family and friendship relationships based around shared Christian goals. Only these are not 'institutions'; only these are outside The System, The Matrix.  

It should be unsurprising that to recognize these facts in oneself is not a cause of misery but a liberation and grounds for hope. Truth is joyful. 

We can disengage from futile battles to 'save' institutions that are already (and willingly) lost; and focus our efforts on the real war, with real allies.

And, whatever happens in mortal life on earth (and that outcome cannot be predicted, so long as some Men consciously live from their freedom, and some of these choose to be agents of God); sure and certain knowledge of the resurrected life everlasting to come, means that those who choose the side of Good (rather than 'unity') will win: ultimately and finally.  

Note added: Actually, there is a possibility by which an institution or organization might theoretically continue to exist on the side for God; and that is for its necessarily-corrupting interactions with The World to be conducted with full awareness of their sinfulness; and explicitly recognizing and repenting these sins. Such an institution would need to be conscious that its survival entailed sinning; and to decide that it wanted or needed to survive nonetheless; but conscious that this survival entailed deliberate continuation in sinning.

And this is precisely what the large majority of (self-styled) Christian churches should have done, but did not do. 

To some significant (and increasing) extent, this is the analogous situation in which every Christian finds himself in the world, now. If it has not already arrived; a time may soon come when the choice is to continue living - or to accept death. And in such a situation some will - rightly - choose to continue living (e.g. parents of young children).

This has been the situation for innumerable Christian slaves through history - sin in obedience to the slave master, or die. 

It is still possible to be a Christian and stay alive under such conditions; because the repentance of Jesus Christ is essentially to acknowledge that we have sinned and to acknowledge that Christ is our forgiveness. Repentance is not (fortunately for the world, because it is impossible) to cease from sinning. 

Jesus came to save sinners - like us - not perfected Men. But we must know our-selves as sinners, and know the answer to sin.    

Afghanistan - Arhimanic mistake or Sorathic strategy? And so what?

The recent business in Afghanistan is something most of us know only via the mass media; which means that the meaning of the events has been distorted in order to manipulate us, and key facts are also certain to have been changed or omitted. 

In what follows I am therefore making the assumption that it is true that the Western powers recently withdrew from Afghanistan in something like the disastrous manner reported (i.e. with extremely rapid collapse of the West funded/ trained state military, uncontrollably overrun by the insurgents, leaving behind significant numbers of US citizens, with colossal capture of US (at least) military materiel, and with a mass population transfer of Afghans (mostly men of military age and experience) into The West.

This has been almost universally regarded as a disaster for the Leadership of the Western Powers, a sudden and catastrophic loss of status as a global power, evidence of a collapse in military effectiveness etc. And ushering in a new period of global 'instability'.

The assumption seems to be that all this happened (assuming it did) against the wishes of the Global Establishment. On those grounds, some Christians regard it as A Good Thing. 

This is what I doubt. Good is not an 'emergent property' from evil motivations!

I see the events as further evidence for the ascendancy of a Sorathic tendency of deliberate destruction, of encouraging chaos; and that this 'strategy' is rapidly taking-over from the Ahrimanic strategy of making the whole world into a 'high-tech', Matrix-like, atheist-leftist-totalitarian media-bureaucratic super-state; where the masses are maintained under close and continual surveillance, and subjected to detailed behavioural control. 

I see this as a further step in the breakdown of the high point of global coordination and consensus which was reached early in 2020, and an increase in the evilness of evil from the domination of 'lawful evil' to more and more 'chaotic' evil of the escalating war of each against all.  

In sum; this 'catastrophe' may indeed both be a genuine catastrophe (i.e. an increase in the domination of evil), and yet it may also be a intended outcome of decisions from within the Western powers to whom the events are 'a catastrophe'. 

As always; even this is (for Christians) no reason at all for increased fear - because fear is a sin, and very obviously what They (the demonic powers) want from us. Nor is it a reason for despair; because Christian hope is indestructible and lies beyond this world and mortal life - and is eternal. 

They also want us to 'think globally', to be deeply interested-in and concerned-by 'foreign policy' and geopolitics; to identify-with nations, large abstract 'humanitarian' causes and commit to ideologies. All these are traps for a Christian. 

Our business is (primarily) with our salvation and theosis, with the love of God then our 'neighbour' which means actual humans beings to whom we have a genuine personal commitment. 

In practice, we cannot help but 'have an opinion' on these mass media 'talking points'; but we need to keep reminding ourselves that all of these (and everything we think we know about them) are primarily attempts to manipulate us in ways that benefit the agendas of one or other of the factions among the evil-serving leadership.   

So - although the above is my interpretation of what has happened, I am not wedded to these conclusions, and my main effort is not to 'care' about matters which I can only be concerned with be falling-into ways of thinking that are specifically designed to corrupt me onto the side of Satan and against God.

My faith should be that God - as the creator - can and will always ensure that I can know from personal experience, by my own discernment and the direct guidance of the Holy Ghost, what I need to know for my task in this mortal life.  

When our faith is solid, we need not deny or defend ourselves against pessimistic projections about what might happen if. 

(Those 'might-happens' picked-out and pushed at us from among the boundless and incalculable possibilities of 'might-happens.)

Our task is with what does happen - All this kind of stuff - as it impinges-upon-us is a challenge from which it is intended we may learn. 

But this learning should be directed at eternal resurrected life; and if it is Not in that context, then we will indeed live in fear and despair, and at the mercies of the worldly-powers. 

The future? No idea (except that the end is coming)

I am absolutely unable to predict the future in any specific way at present - except that I am sure that these are the end times, and the end is accelerating. 

I am not very sure what The End actually means; but Christians will know it when it happens. 

It is not the second coming - because that is not a real thing - by my understanding. Certainly our civilization is ending - from multiple causes: biological, psychological, socio-political - but 'our civilization' now encompasses the world (especially since early 2020) so that the end of civilization will affect every person on the planet. 

But in materialist terms everybody dies, all nations and civilizations end, and the planet will sooner or later become uninhabitable for one reason or another; so that is certain. 

However; at the primary, spiritual intuitive level is where the significant end is hastening. 

To anyone with Christian discernment, it is clear and explicit that the Establishment, the authorities, are actively destroying all that is Good - all that is part of God's creation. Virtue, beauty and truth are under accelerating attack; and anything that is natural, spontaneous, created likewise. They are even beginning to destroy The System, The Matrix upon which their own collective power depends...

This is a very comprehensive strategy of destruction. 

What convinces me that this is the end, is that this attack by the powers of purposive evil is broadly celebrated - indeed, destruction of God, creation and The Good has become the core of the mainstream and 'normal' morality - enforced by law, taught in schools, propagated in the arts and mass media and by all major institutions (including churches).

Value inversion is our value system - already overall, and ever more comprehensively. 

This, I take it, is distinctive of the end of things. 

Thus, materially speaking there is nothing constructive to be done. Any material opposition to the plans, will merely be from supporting one lesser evil part of The System and directing it against a greater evil. At best, this will only delay.

Materially reasoned; there are no grounds for optimism - and in deed no realistic grounds for hope. 

For hope we must turn to the spiritual realm, and take advantage of Mankind's recent capacity for each individual to stand spiritually alone against the world. 

At present, this ability is being used to stand alone against God - and to affiliate with Satan's agenda; but this same human capacity can be deployed on the side of God. 

It is simple and instant. 

But what use is it? Is it any use at all? 

From a materialist perspective, of course not. By mainstream metaphysics: What I think in 'my brain' has no affect outside of my body.  

But what if it does have an effect; what if my thinking has a tremendous effect - but spiritually, not materially. 

What if, for those relatively-brief and transient moments when my thinking is truly aligned with God's purposes and harmonized by love of God (and fellow Men)?... 

What if this thinking is then taken-up by God and amplified and disseminated with astonishing efficiency and strength - to produce positive spiritual effects where possible (where the hearts of others are open to it) and necessary (where the effects will do the most Good) - and by a 'process' not confined by proximity in space or by physical contact?...

I personally would be unlikely to know anything about this - at least not in any detailed or comprehensive fashion - yet I might know that it was happening, or had happened. 

Think of it in terms of causation versus motivation. 

Causation is a materialist concept - cause and effect, billiard balls colliding, chemical equations and the like... It relates to dead things without consciousness or will. 

But if 'things' are really alive, conscious and have purposes - then they don't work on each other by cause and effect; but by means such as motivations, and by acceptance (or rejection)... 

If our divinely-harmonious thinking is motivational it affects other Beings like a personal relationship; and these Beings can choose whether or not to welcome this, and be affected by it -- much as we might accept or reject the love of another person. 

Indeed love is the key. If love is welcomed then it generates more love; amplifying the love. This is a way of picturing how our divine thinking may spread and be amplified in effect; and may do Good in the spiritual realm.  

But the spiritual realm is not cut-off from the material - rather, the material is a sub-set of the wider spiritual world. So the material world will be affected by what we think. And potentially affected for the better. 

There is no need for us to have a strategy - to predict the future: God has the strategy. We 'merely' need to help God with his future. 

Of course, this is an active process of discovery, and of discernment and thinking. But we will learn about where things are going from doing it, from participation - not from material analysis of 'the facts', not from logic/ maths/ models.

These are the end times, but that has long been the case; for many generations. The end is accelerating towards us - but still we do not know what it will entail nor when exactly it will come. Nonetheless - we know what to do.