The Synoptic Gospels are actually Apocryphal

If it is agreed that the Fourth Gospel is of primary validity; then the other three "Synoptic" Gospels (Mathhew, Mark, and Luke) should be categorized as Apocryphal scriptures - which is, indeed, the way I think of them. 

The Synoptics are also Apocryphal in the sense that they are later, non-eye-witness, collected and compiled accounts of Jesus's life and teachings. 

Added to which; Luke, and Matthew - especially, seem to be written with a distinct added-theme relating to the prophesied Messiah - to such an extent that Jesus is deemed to have failed in his ministry to such an extent that he must needs return (at some point) to complete his work of salvation (i.e. the Second Coming). 

So; the Fourth Gospel should really be regarded as the only "canonical" source about Jesus; and the other Books of the New Testament are Apocryphal to various degrees - Mark, probably the least apocryphal, and Revelation/ Apocalypse the most.  

Defending the indefensible: an unfortunate - and almost unavoidable - hazard of being a serious traditional-orthodox church-obedient Christian

What I am trying to explain in this post; is how it is that so many serious Christians end-up expending so much energy on defending and asserting the most "indefensible" aspects of Christianity (past and present) - to the point that their program of life and society becomes all-but indistinguishable from that of orthodox Judaism or traditional Islam. 

In other words; by a series of steps they come to advocate and double-down upon a very hard-line, top-down, hierarchical, patriarchal, law-and-practice based system of society - with little or no space for individuality, freedom, or creativity. 

I am also suggesting that - given their baseline assumptions - this convergence of Christianity is extremely difficult to avoid, no matter which particular church or denomination to which that person subscribes. 

**

Most self-identified Christians are church-obedient; by which I mean that they regard external authority to be primary when it comes to being a Christian; and they further believe that external authority to be rooted either in the structure and practice of an institutional church, and/ or in a church-mandated selection and interpretation of scripture.

Most church-obedient Christians are are a liberal or modern persuasion, that operates in conformity to the prime directives of Left-Liberal values as expressed in the leadership of current "Western" civilization. These are not "serious" Christians, because their primary values are indistinguishable - in practice - from those of atheism and materialism. 

A minority of church-obedient Christians are what I am calling traditional-orthodox ("trad-ortho") because they dissent from the mainstream values, and try to adhere to "pre-modern" (conservative, indeed "reactionary") core teachings and practices of their church or denomination. 

These trad-ortho Christians are a type of serious Christian. 

In effect, a trad-ortho, church-obedient Christian has done a comparison of two systems of belief/ values/ practices etc: one system being that of their favoured church, and the other system being that of the Modern West. 

From this historical perspective, and given the integrated and inter-dependent nature of both rival systems; they have (not unreasonably) concluded that the reality of the situation is a case of all-or-nothing.  

It is seen as an either-or choice; a choice of one or the other.  

And, having decided (quite reasonably) that given this forced-choice between the two alternatives; their evaluation is that the church-system is evidently overall superior to mainstream modern atheist-materialism Leftism. 

Consequently; they then feel compelled (from honesty) to affirm the entirety of their version of the trad-orthodox scheme. 

This is, I think, more-or-less how it is that the trad-orthodox position comes to converge on an obedience-dominant model; and their hard-line, top-down, hierarchical, patriarchal, law-and-practice based system of society. 

When coming into conflict with mainstream atheistic modernism; this way of thinking is pretty-much compelled to deny any value or virtues in the modern critique of trad-orthodox society. 

So that trad-orthodox position is compelled to confront modernity on its strongest ground; especially some of the ways in which most modern people spontaneously, and often with a strong conviction, experience and feel most strongly - I mean issues relating superficially to matters of sex and lifestyle; and much more fundamentally to individuality, freedom, and creativity. 

In effect; trad-orthodox often end-up expending much of their effort in first defending, then actually asserting, the faults, defects, limitations - and indeed evils - of the churches and denominations of the past.  

Because of the nature of modern society and modern people; this situation seems almost unavoidable - at any rate it seems to happen to serious and church-obedient Christians of all kinds: Eastern and Western Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Nonconformist Protestants, Mormons - and all other kinds and flavours. 

The more serious the church-obedient Christian, the more extremely this phenomenon is observable.

In practice, this situation seems to be unavoidable; at least so long as the real situation is regarded as one of a forced choice between two integrated and systematic options - both alternatives assuming that ultimate authority is located externally, and therefore that the highest personal virtue is obedience to that authority. 

The weakening effect of metaphysical mismatch (when you *know* something, but cannot explain it)

There are many situations in the modern world where people are in a situation that they know something, but cannot explain it; they cannot justify this "knowing" in terms of their underlying assumptions - their "metaphysics". 

In such situations, their knowing is weakened to the point that it is usually overcome easily, and the person is unable to resist the corrupting effect of immediate and chronic societal and personal pressures. 

Such a mismatch between metaphysical assumptions and intuition is one of the most significantly malign factors in the world today. It therefore ought to lead to an examination of the assumptions, but it almost never does - for a variety of reasons. 

To clarify; I mean the situation when a thing is asserted or proposed, and initially we experience a clear and deep (and true!) intuition that X is wrong. 

But then we find that our scheme of explanation fails to provide us with sufficient understanding of why or how X is wrong. 

And the consequence is that we assume that X must be okay after all... we go along with X; and maybe end by supporting X - if that is expedient. 

It works the other way around too, and with just as bad results. 

Someone or some-thing that our hearts - at first - tell us is of great and profound positive value* is challenged, is threatened... We would tend to defend this vehemently. 

But then we discover that our basic assumptions do not allow us to explain or grasp why this has such extreme importance. We realize that cannot justify its importance on the basis of fundamental metaphysics! 

*(A clear example is music, visual art and architecture. People may love some piece of music, greatly value a picture, building, landscape - or they may viscerally be morally-revolted or aesthetically-repelled - but they cannot find any fundamental reason why even such strong positive or negative feelings should be regarded as important.)

Lacking fundamental understanding; therefore our defence is enfeebled, at best; and often we are are crippled from defending that we value - even to ourselves! 

The threatened Good Thing is allowed to disappear without dissent, without resistant, without a fight...

 

Modern Man was thoroughly set-up for this situation by mainstream modern atheistic materialism; which inculcated the idea that metaphysics (the examination of fundamental assumptions) was meaningless nonsense. 

Instead our beliefs ought to be based on "evidence" and pragmatism - what is "helpful" and what "works"... 

This is a thoughtless, stupid or dishonest philosophical assertion; because what counts as valid or compelling evidence - what is regarded as helpful or working-well - are concepts embedded in fundamental assumptions. 

And this should be evident when people with different metaphysical convictions argue; the same "fact" means something different to each, because interpreted differently. 

But such is the ignorance-of, prejudice-against, or incompetence-at metaphysical reasoning; that such fundamental differences in assumptions are instead interpreted as moral differences (as in "anyone who disagrees with me must do so because he is a fool, insane, or a bad person"). 

Sometimes, especially in the past, such a mismatch did not matter too much; in the sense that people could recognize and defend goodness (and vice versa) despite the lack of metaphysical foundations. 

But, as CS Lewis said, what characterizes this current era is that "things are coming to a point", or, more exactly, this has already-happened. 

And one consequence is that metaphysical mismatches are now being exposed and probed as never before. And (by no coincidence) at just the time when we are less capable of metaphysical reasoning than ever before. 

This has fundamental Christian implications - implications which are generally denied, precisely because of our modern tendency to be ignorant of, or denigrate, or be unable to examine and analyse our fundamental assumptions. 

The most important of these is in relation to Jesus Christ, and why he is essential. 

In the past, justifying and explaining this did not seem so pressing; and the fact that classical theology cannot provide a clear and direct answer did not seem to matter - Christians were simply absorbed in the demanding and complex business of obeying their church and being-a-Christian (as defined by their particular church) to "bother" about metaphysics. Leave that to the experts! 

Consequently, yet astonishingly; the failure to explain metaphysically why Jesus is essential persisted through the Great Schism, the Reformation and the Mormon Restoration and up to now!   

But to the modern mind, a failure to explain simply and clearly why Jesus is necessary means that Jesus is not necessary, is inessential; hence Jesus is seen as ultimately disposable. 

This is one deep reason why so many modern people see nothing distinctive or definitive about Christianity, and no essential difference between the major religions. 

Another, for Catholics, is related to Mary, Mother of Jesus. 

In many times and places of the past, and especially Medieval England, Mary was venerated at the core of Christian practice - but not of Christian theology. 

Yet, in the past the inessential nature of Mary to theology, demonstrably comfortably coexisted with her centrality to devotional practice.  

But nowadays this just will not work. Nowadays it seems clear that if Mary is fundamentally inessential to theology, then this means she is optional: which boils down to Mary being no-more-than a personal lifestyle preference. 

Quite a change and come-down from the last days of Constantinople! When Mary united Eastern and Western Christians; and was the motivation for thousands of men courageously to fight to the death in defence of the city. 

With Mary; I mention a Catholic example, because intellectual Catholics are so devoted to logic. But there are innumerable other examples. 

The point is that there are many and vital instances where our intuitive knowledge is contradicted by our fundamental metaphysical assumptions: when we know but cannot explain. 

I regard it as imperative that we, each of us as individuals, are able to support our fundamental heartfelt convictions with deep metaphysical reasoning. 

This is a must because without the underpinning of a fundamental understanding and ability to explain-to-ourselves; all our convictions are built upon sand, and shall be swept away by the next flood of Establishment propaganda and public pressure or immediate expediency - as became all-too-obvious in 2020.  

And unless these mismatches are sorted-out - by discovering and analysing the validity of our assumptions, and bringing intuition into harmony with metaphysics - then we shall continue fatally to be enfeebled, and controlled by malign powers.  

The important (vital?) insight that "inevitable" does Not mean Good

One of the deepest and (it seems to me) most important insights from Jesus, is that what is inevitable in this mortal life, is not for that reason Good.

Many things in this life may be unavoidable - including our own natures, work, and taxes, but also many others - and therefore we should make the best of them; but these same things may nonetheless be evils, or indeed sins.

My impression is that few people are prepared to acknowledge this reality; and instead they tend to assume that that which is unavoidable, or that which has always been an aspect of life throughout known history - are therefore either positively Good, or else neutral. 

Yet this point seems to be fundamental to Christianity (at least, as I understand Christianity); because if it were otherwise, then there would be no necessity for salvation, and Jesus would be optional at best.   

Or, to say the same thing in an opposite way: Jesus is necessary and our hope lies in salvation exactly because much that is universal, pervasive, inescapable in our own (or any other) mortal life is fundamentally wrong and/or adverse.

In a word, mortal life does not, cannot, and never shall, suffice. 

And this is why salvation (with resurrection into Heaven coming after this mortal life) is the only true hope. 

This divine creation - the primary creation of this mortal life, world, universe - is not good enough. 

The opportunity to follow Jesus is needed if we want better; and the Second Creation of Heaven is our only genuine possibility of attaining that better life and world. 

Not a war to win, but a war to destroy

Long-term (six year plus) readers will know of my recurrent "obsession" with the subject of evil; and the nature and definition of evil. 

This is because I believe that the nigh-universal lack of understanding of evil has rendered almost-everybody helpless in the face of a very powerful class of persons who have successfully engaged the hearts and minds of a very high proportion of the population of The West, and many other places. 

Bluntly; lack of understanding of evil has led many hundreds of millions of people (at least) into supporting strategic evil - and with a clear conscience, because they regard that evil as actually "good".

In other words, the inability to understand the nature of evil has led to moral inversion: what is really and intentionally evil is regarded as good, and vice versa.  

And people are not (as they may once have been) merely victims of manipulation - because it is of the nature of evil that once embraced it increases (evil feeds-upon itself).   

Thus we find that the nicest people are, on average, the most deluded; the most likely to be most powerfully supportive of the strategies of evil. 

This is particularly stark when the strategy being supported is a deliberately maximally-destructive war. 

And a war intended to embrace in destruction its supporters - themselves, their families and friends, their homeland, their ideology and passionate convictions - all that they superficially suppose that that they hold most dear. 

A world war is openly being planned - with full public declaration, before our eyes, in the mass media - in the West: in the UK and Commonwealth, EU nations, the USA, and beyond. 

Indeed this war is becoming the only game in town: as a long term strategy war is displacing all the other evil-motivated plans/ "good causes" such as I term the Litmus Tests: socialism/ leftism, CO2 climate environmentalism, birdemic-healthism, antiracism and feminism, the sexual revolution etc. 

All are being wound-down, and preparations for war are building-up.  

What is worse - or rather worst - is that this war (which is, in part, intended to be an expansion of the war that has been going in Eastern Europe over the past four-plus years, and in the Middle East more recently, and incipiently in East Asia) is not a war to win; but a war intended to destroy.

What is already afoot and expanding in Europe, is war of a kind seldom or never seen before in human history. In this actual and coming war; although one side does indeed want to win, and wants an end to the war (or begins that way); those who control the the other side want this war to continue, to expand, to increase in intensity - without end-point.

This happens because those who control one side are not of that side, but are instead (successfully and without being detected) using that side primarily and ultimately to pursue all-round destructive purposes.

This is happening, the strategy is working; things are much worse than almost anyone - including the experts - realize; exactly because almost nobody in the West understands evil; and especially they do not understand the sheer negativity of evil.

War analysts (of all sides) consistently assume that war is about seeking benefit, a negative means towards positive goals; and will end when that benefit has been attained. 

But when a war has been created, and is being sustained and expanded, in order to destroy; and ultimately in order that the participants come to support that goal of destruction - then this is a very different matter. 

The developing war situation is one that cannot necessarily be stopped or reversed - even if there was a general and effective will to stop it - which there is not. 

Evil has such an easy time in the modern world because there are so very few people (and none with power) who are strongly on the side of God and Good.

The mass of people cannot and do not support Good because they do not believe Good exists, or has any objective meaning. Their vague notion of good is something that exists (temporarily) only psychologically; as culturally-contingent notions in the heads of themselves, and people like them. 

The idea that The Good is a part of Reality, or The Universe; is literally meaningless to mainstream modern people - it is not so much denied as something that simply does not make sense. 

But we need to recall that the war of this world is always and ultimately a spiritual war; so this is no exception. 

This is a ultimately war to induce people - as many as possible people, on all sides - to align with spiteful destruction as a spiritual goal.

And this happens by value-inversion; by inducing people to regard evil as good and vice versa; and this is easiest when evil is not understood. 

And this failure to understand evil becomes inevitable when people do not believe-in or understand Good. 

And this failure to understand goodness is inevitable because so many people have assimilated the official and culturally-mainstream fundamental assumptions - e.g. that there is no God, no spirit, no salvation: no possibility of external and objective purpose and meaning in the universe.  

The ongoing and accelerating war of destruction is a consequence of these deep and multi-generational cultural trends. 

This stuff is not some hypothetical future scenario; on the contrary this state of deep incomprehension and value-inversion describes where we are now, culturally. 

And where we are stuck; because it can be seen that the problems run very deep, and have many layers. 

Which is presumably why we are all marching blandly and blindly towards a vastly destructive and intentionally-endless war that nearly-everyone supports indirectly with sadistic vehemence. 

Note: those who publicly oppose the ongoing-upcoming war are also (very nearly always) part of the fundamental problem that has led to the war, and share the same war-generating fundamental assumptions. They do not oppose the war for Good reasons. 

From Birdemic to "AI": Strategic sequencing in the grand strategy for global totalitarianism

There is a grand strategy for global totalitarianism than can be inferred or "reverse engineered" from linking-up the primary Litmus test issues. Also; the totalitarian objectives have been described variously and explicitly - for example The Great Reset, and Agenda 2030, writings on the need for mass depopulation, and "15 minute cities".

The origins go back many decades; but we can see the way that things work by looking at the past few years - beginning with the Birdemic lockdown.  

This can serve as an example of the strategic sequencing we see all over the place. 

1. c. March 2020. The Birdemic was the rationale for a global lockdown and "social distancing. 

2. When people were confined to their houses, and workplaces were shut during the enforced lockdowns -- employers were compelled to summarize their functioning in terms of online work programs; and employees were compelled to reduce their skills to protocols. 

3. c. November 2022. The introduction of novel kinds of "AI" began the process of replacing as much as possible of the human element in the economy. So; the work programs and protocols prepared during the enforced workplace closures were then handed-over to computers, fulfilling the plan to replace humans. 

In retrospect it seems that one of the reasons why the totalitarian overlords decided to lockdown the world (on the excuse of the Birdemic); was to accelerate their plans to replace people with machines. 

And this was successful: to the extent that many of those who saw-through and opposed the Birdemic lockdowns etc., now embrace and promote "AI"!  

That is exactly why They go to the considerable trouble of strategic sequencing. If the Tera-Billion Dollar top-down project of "AI" had been introduced before 2020; it would have been seen more clearly for what it is. 

But coming after the changes from international lockdown, the (in fact) coercively-enforced/ massively-subsidized totalitarian global "AI" strategy has been regarded as if it were a "natural and inevitable development"; and thereby won many influential hearts and minds...

Thus the globalists achieved the consent of influential people who - at the same time as supporting the single most significant and pervasive intended-instrument of micro-surveillance and centralized control - simultaneously self-identify themselves as radical opponents of the aims of "Clown World"!  

+++

And what next? 

Well, these measures seem to be preparatory to the attempt massive shrinkage of the workforce; with total exclusion of a large majority of people from economic activity and political power. 

At some point; They will decide that the masses are now demonstrably "useless eaters" and "toxic-carbon-emitters"; and the situation will be deemed ripe for mass depopulation - for the sake of sustainability, to save The Planet. 

And no doubt They have prepared a façade of excuses to conceal their purposive intent to kill; just as the strategic intent of mass harm by "The Peck" was hidden behind a faked pretence of promoting health and saving lives.  

Proof of resurrection?

Many Christians (and the official doctrine of many churches) assert that resurrection does not come soon after death on an individual basis; but is delayed - perhaps waiting until some version of a judgment day, when resurrection happens "communally", for everyone all at once - albeit individuals are "judged" individually. 

However...

The Fourth Gospel does not include a "second coming" or "day of judgment"; and its narrative is consistent with resurrection happening as an individual process, and happening soon after each person's death - with its examples of Lazarus and Jesus himself, both resurrected within days. 

Jesus also seems to describe rapid individual resurrection - for example, as I understand the following two passages: 

4: 31 - In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. 

I understand this to be Jesus talking (poetically, metaphorically as we regard it) of how he is finishing the work of "him that sent me" - meaning both that this work was incomplete, and that Jesus has - here and now, not at some future point - finished it. 

Everything has been done, everything is ready.

No need for delays. 

5: 21 - For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. ... Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. ... 

I understand this to be stating that those who believe and follow Jesus will have everlasting life - i.e. resurrection - and will pass from death into life, will pass through death into resurrection. 

No delay. 

Further, that this benefit also applies to those who died before the advent of Jesus. 

"Christianity" ought to be much clearer on this subject; and more focused upon the promise of resurrected eternal life; and that this shall come to each to wants it and follows Jesus, and "soon" after death. 

No delay, no waiting for indefinite periods until a day of judgment. 

This also means that there are many of the dead who have resurrected already. 

And therefore, in principle, these living resurrected people are a potential source of direct personal evidence for the reality of resurrection, available to living people now.    

In other words; we are not necessarily dependent, ultimately, on second-hand sources such as theology, scripture, or the teaching of religious authorities. 

Because there is a possible "proof" of the truth of Jesus's promise - a proof that might be accessed by many people, here-and-now.

This assuming that there can be contact between individual living mortal Men such as you and me; and at least one or more of those who have died and been resurrected. 

So Western Civilization is ending for sure. But is this part of a predictable historical cycle or pendulum swing, with recovery inevitable?

There is some kind of a consensus - especially among Christians - that Western Civilization is ending, and that this multi-stage collapse is substantially self-inflicted - partly suicidal due to hedonic materialism and cowardice of the unreligious-aspiritual masses; and partly the outcome of deliberate contrivance among the Western/ Globalist leadership class. 

Where opinions differ, is related to what happens afterwards. 

Many people apparently have the assumption that human history is either cyclical, or like a pendulum; and that Western Civilization is therefore destined to dwindle but (sooner or later) recover and be "reborn". 

And such people take hope from this - or at least they claim to.  

This cyclical/ pendulum assumption is popular even among Christians, which I find quite strange - given that pretty much everything that the New Testament says about human history states explicitly that it is destined to be linear, unidirectional, ending with the End Times. 

Some of the New Testament links the End Times with a "second coming", a return of Jesus Christ;  although the premier authority, and earliest secondhand, Gospels sources do not describe a second coming of Jesus.

I mean the Gospel called "John", which is an eyewitness account from a beloved disciple and (Chapters 1-20) was composed shortly after the events described; ; and "Mark" which is the first recorded of the second-hand, post-ascension Gospels). 

However, whether or not the End Times are also regarded as a Second Coming; the point is that for the New Testament the path of human history is linear. 

Linear and not repetitive. 

The Christian conception of history is therefore not primarily cyclical, nor a matter of pendulum swings - and if apparent recurrences do occur, then these can only be approximate; because they are  subordinate to an overall and basic linearity. 

And this, of course, fits with the pattern of human history as it appears spontaneously to the simple observer. 

My conclusion is that when (not if) Western Civilization begins to collapse quickly and undeniably; there will be no coherent "Christian" reason to expect that Western Civilization will ever re-develop. 

But even if there was, I find it very hard to believe that people who take consolation and derive hope from cyclical/ pendulum theories of history are being sincere! 

I mean: I find it hard to believe that they really do derive genuine consolation and real hope from their assumption that - although we shall collapse soon; nonetheless some future, unknown and unrelated, persons shall experience a return of something-like Western Civ.  

This is so feeble and remote an expectation that I strongly suspect it serves merely as an excuse for here-and-now mental laziness and cowardice; for current dishonesty and evasiveness. 

Anyway; that's how the stuff about cycles and pendulum swings strikes me; as yet another instance of clutching at fake straws. 

Why do I find so few blogs worth reading? Disengagment and its rationale.

In the past few months, I have begun to limit my reading of blogs more and more - including those I have been reading a long time. This was not a strategy, was not intentional - but something that I realize has crept-up on me. 

If I try to explain or justify this, I think the answer has to do with the continuing phenomenon I have often called "things coming to a point" - which I understand to be something that happens when the world is getting spiritually worse over time. 

When the world is getting worse, then the spontaneous default is for "everything" to get worse; which implies that if we personally do not want to share in the corruption, then we must spiritually detach from more, and yet more, of "the world".

And the process is ongoing, because the world keeps worsening. 

Insofar as we fail to do this, we will join ourselves to the increasing corruption of the world. 

And this corruption will reveal itself - both passively, in terms of what we go along with; but also actively in terms of what we explicitly support. 

I think this latter, for me, is the critical aspect: I mean, what people actively support; and more especially what I infer to be their motives for doing so.

We all differ in our specific tolerances; and I personally have a particularly strong aversion for spitefulness and Schadenfreude - and these seem to be stronger and stronger motivations behind more and more online writing. 

It is this, more than anything, that has driven me away from one after another blog; a sense that the ideas, ideology or religion is in fact serving primarily as an excuse for indulging in the expression and advocacy of spite and sadism. 

Like most sin; once defended and apologized, such a writer gets to enjoy his revenge and retribution fantasies - until they undercut or swamp the good-motivated stuff. 

The ideas - including the expressed Christian beliefs - have become a rationale for negative values; the negative values induce a dominant orientation on enemies and what should or shall happen to them. 

In my experience, people in the grip of such demonic passions are hopeless and unreachable - and indeed are fed by any form of engagement: they thrive on opposition, and they thrive on constructive and empathic approaches. 

(This may also be seen in the extraordinary and escalating levels of braggadocio and self-aggrandisement among far too many bloggers; which provoke in me a mixture of irritation and embarrassment - much as when observing the antics of an kindergarten kid having a tantrum!)   

So disengagement is the proper strategy - as it is with the demon-dominated, psychopath-mediated, world of public policy and discourse. 

Disengagement (with lapses, alas) is therefore exactly what I have been spontaneously engaged-in, actively trying to do; and, to an increasing degree, actually doing. 

Becoming a Christian is not the answer

People seem to think that becoming a Christian is an answer: the answer. 

They think; if they can only become the right kind of Christian - i.e. join the right church and believe and do what it says - then they will have the answers.

(Not all the answers, but all the most important answers.) 

Because people think that being a Christian is itself the answer, then they make-it-so - or try to make-it-so. 

If they succeed in making being-a-Christian the answer - then from-that-point-onwards, they hand-over responsibility for ultimate values to... whatever they consider to be Christianity. 

From-that-point-onwards their job is to understand and obey.  

They regard becoming a Christian as arriving, coming home: as the end. 

If, however, they fail to make-it-so, and discover that becoming a Christian is not the answer - then they stop being a Christian. 

However, I would say that becoming a Christian is Not the answer. 

Instead; becoming a Christian is to ask the right question.

I would say that becoming a Christian is not the end, but instead the beginning. 

 

"AI ethics" scaremongering is part of the totalitarian PSYOP

The global Establishment "AI" project began almost exactly three years ago - with the multi-national, multi-pronged, coordinated mega-launch on 30th November 2022.

The "AI" project has, of course - like all such*, tried to capture both of the side of the "debate" - by using some portion of its multi-trillion dollar budget to fund courses, qualifications, conferences, books, and jobs; that purport to discuss the "ethics" of this technology. 

Some of these "AI"-employees are techno-utopian apologists for "AI"; while others have the task of scaremongering.

"AI" scaremongering is done in such a way that the realities of this vast totalitarian project are obscured; and the categorically false assertions of "AI" are instead simply being-assumed to be true - by being used as the basis for the scaremongering!

In other words; the discourse variously called "AI ethics" (like the related field of "AI governance") is part of the PSYOPS that attempts (and successfully, it seems) to manipulate the masses into a state of bemused, terrified, passive and resigned acceptance of... whatever bad things "AI" brings. 

Some of the "ethicists" base their "concern" on evaluations of what is coming - very soon! 

These include assumptions that are smuggled in covertly, because they form the taken-for-granted basis of the ethical hand-wringing: 

1. Inevitability

2. Takeover from humans

3. Destruction caused by the technology

The assumption of "inevitability" hides the unimaginable trillions of tax dollars confiscated from the masses to fund the "AI" project - its massive computational infrastructure, the massive energy consumption, the countless reallocated and recruited "AI"-personnel in innumerable organizations...

And to bribe/force compliance upon all the major social institutions and corporations by a vast and coordinated program.

The assumption that "AI" will "takeover" from humans; hides that all actual decisions to (allegedly) "replace" people with computers, are made by humans.

Yet the background-assumption is that this planned takeover of human activities by "AI" technologies will - somehow - happen because of the technologies innate alleged-"power". 

The simple fact is that people make the decision; and when these humans decisions lead to "AI" takeover, this is because that human choice has been heavily propagandized, incentivized (by subsidies, tax-breaks etc), driven by legislation changes - and so forth. 

If "AI" is in any sense "inevitable" - then that inevitability is merely because enough people will respond to the enormous pressures and incentives that have been created via the colossal funding of the project and the compliance of the leadership class.  

Destruction: Software is stated to be the cause of the inevitable (i.e. planned) personal and social damage confidently-predicted to result from the "takeover" of "AI".

This tries to hide that the whole process of "AI"-replacing has been driven and enforced, top to bottom, by people.

And this includes the common appeal to "market forces" and geopolitical competition, that supposedly compel corporations and governments to implement "AI" technology - or else be overwhelmed by those who adopt "AI"...

This assumes what is false: that "AI" really does or soon-will replace humans more efficiently and effectively in significant functional roles. 

It also takes no account that the "market" for "AI" has been deliberately and artificially constructed by totalitarian fiat using coercively-confiscated resources. 

If the marketplace had instead been orientated towards effectiveness and efficiency in achieving real-world outcomes; then it would not, indeed could not, have led to "AI". 

So; the "AI" project serves to conceal and deny a vast program of (yes - inevitable! if the totalitarian Establishment get Their way) planned personal and societal harm; under cover that all this has been done "by the AI" - and in a way that is unstoppable and impersonal.

In a way that is nobody's fault. 

No person or group is to blame for anything!

It All Just Happened..

(And "how sad", say the AIethicists...)

The lie is that this is not really people who are doing the destroying by means of a colossal organized and resourced international strategy; but instead it is the software that is doing this to us humans!

(When we suffer or die; we are meant to cry out from our hearts: "Woe is me, my heart bleeds! But what can mere Men do against such impersonal necessity?")

Behind the advertised ethical "concern" lies a raft of made-up, dishonest and propagandistic assertions about the functional efficiency and effectiveness of (post-November 2022) "AI". 

The truth of these assertions is another thing which is assumed, in the face of a complete lack of serious and honest evidence; and fundamentally rooted in the categorical impossibility of the claims.

  

My point here is clarify that those who are put-forward in mainstream discourse as "ethically concerned" by the "implications" of "AI" - including those who scaremonger on the basis of false assumptions concerning the technology's effectiveness and impersonal-inevitability - are themselves part of the coordinated AI-PSYOPS. 

+++

*It seems that "AI" project (in all its facets) has been the primary - single largest and most sustained - strategy of the globalist leadership class over the past three years. 

"AI" is the current main mechanism of progressing Ahrimanic evil; those in the leadership class who desire a wholly materialist society of omni-surveillance and micro-control. 

Meanwhile, since early 2022, the "Agents of Chaos" (who pursue the spiteful and destructive agenda of Sorathic Evil); have been focussing their efforts on escalating everywhere-wars abroad plus intra-national violence at home. 

Although these two types of evil are increasingly in conflict among the leadership class of the world; they seem to have reached an uneasy truce on the subject of "AI"; based on opposite understandings of what "AI" will actually do. 

The totalitarians (falsely) believe that AI can be the basis of a world-administering bureaucracy that is both cheaper and more controllable than the current armies of managers and clerks.

On the other side, the Agents of Chaos (correctly) realize that "AI" cannot - therefore will not - perform this functional job; but will instead destroy social functioning, generate mass misery and death, and collapse civilization into that disorder they crave.

So, at present; both sides of the Global Establishment have reasons to continue to facilitate, fund, and propagandize the ongoing "AI" takeover - which is why you never hear an Establishment voice that is critical of "AI" for the right reasons and from the right assumptions. 

AI-dolatry among Christians is the flip-side of fundamentally anti-personal metaphysical assumptions

I have commented before about my dismay at AI-dolatry among so many self-identified Christians - specifically their failure to recognise and grasp that the current iteration of "Artificial Intelligence" (which was top-down launched nearly three years ago, at the end of November 2022) is primarily a totalitarian - hence evil - strategy; designed for the accelerating corruption and damnation of Men. 

But vulnerability to AI-dolatry is the other side of a coin which in practice asserts and assumes the abstract impersonality of God and created reality - despite that Christians are supposed to recognize God as a person, as our Father, and we his children. 

That this is "in practice" and almost indifferent to theological theory, is evident from the official Mormon church's positive response to AI, describing it as: "a rapidly developing technology that has significant potential to assist the Church in accomplishing God’s work of salvation and exaltation." 

This despite that the CJCLDS officially regards God as an exalted and embodied Man; indeed as two Men - a Heavenly Father and Mother; which is an explicitly non-abstract primary understanding of the creator and creation that, one might have supposed, should have protected Mormons from AI-dolatry. 

But no. 

The fact is that modern Christians get their fundamental metaphysical assumptions from mainstream society, not from their religion; and our society is bureaucratic hence fundamentally anti-personal, anti-human. 

We have, for many decades, denigrated individuals and their personal judgments and evaluations; and instead given primary moral authority to the impersonal: to system; laws and regulations; process and procedures; voting and committees. 

(And all churches operate internally by these same assumptions; all churches are bureaucratic, procedural, deploy committees and voting at their fundamental levels of decision-making etc. - which of course affects their evaluations.)

It has been a "natural" extension of this abstract-impersonal way of thinking; that the human element ought ideally to be minimized or eliminated - such that computers, robots, "AI" are by their nature potentially superior to humans... 

Supposedly superior because less prone to corruption, error, variation; and (by our false but common mainstream understanding of these terms) more informed, more knowledgeable, more intelligent - hence wiser and authoritative; than any possible human or combination of humans.  

In short: the assertion is that "AI" is potentially superior because (and insofar as) it is not human.      

In theory, Christians ought to be immune to such self-destructive and deluded foolishness - but in practice they are qualitatively as bad as everyone else! (ie. Any measured differences between modern Christians and the mainstream - e.g. in surveys - are merely quantitative, and insufficient to make a qualitative difference.) 

My understanding of this, is that Christians are now reaping the consequences of ancient errors in their metaphysics - in particular of rejecting our spontaneous knowledge that reality is plural and animated: in other words that the ultimate reality includes many living, conscious, purposive and eternal beings - and these are the basis with which divine creation has worked. 

(That is; God created from and by-means-of many pre-existent Beings.)

There was, very early, a capture of the Christianity of Jesus Christ; by a metaphysics of oneness (hence monotheism) - and the adoption of multiple abstract assumptions (which became dogmas) such as: creation from nothing; omnipotence/ omniscience, omnipresence; and the conceptualization of God's creation as including unalive/ non-living aspects such as minerals...

This metaphysics imposed itself upon the simple teachings of Jesus (essentially, the promise of resurrected eternal life in Heaven to those who followed Him) to make a complex systemic religion of this-world and its institutions - in which the essential teaching became obscured, distorted... 

(And indeed all-but denied at times and in some places, such that salvation became so complex and contingent-upon-this-world, as to be regarded as actually impossible for some/ many people.).  

Many centuries downstream; and in the unique and unprecedented actual conditions of our modern society; these have led to underpinning assumptions that dominate (often unconsciously) most Christians - and almost everybody else. 

We see physics or mathematics as the primary reality, and the unalive as existing prior to (what we regard as) living beings - and as life and consciousness as having been made-from and/or added-to dead materials.   

In a nutshell; even those who believe in creation imagine God as starting with non-living materials; then making plants, animal, then Men by adding life, movement, consciousness etc. 

Whereas we ought instead to imagine everything created as alive (and outside it, only incomprehensible chaos); spirit as coming before matter; with matter "condensing" from spirit - so that spiritual life and consciousness are basic, have always-been - and always shall be. 

I think this is how we spontaneously (but mostly unconsciously) come into this world understanding things; and that young children still think this way. And I think the reason for this is that God implanted such knowledge in us, as innate knowledge which we (nearly always) need in order to live well and attain salvation. 

The discarding of our innate animism and pluralism did not matter much when Men spontaneously retained "participation" through into adulthood. 

Because in effect these Men (e.g. in the Classical and Medieval times) continued - but unconsciously and unavoidably - to perceive the world in the same way as young children, or could return to this way of thinking via the methods of religion (ritual, symbol, scripture etc). 

But now we all become alienated through adolescence; becoming cut-off from this innate knowledge and the spontaneous sense of being part of a living world - and from this state of alienation; modern Men therefore consciously need to choose to return to our innate knowledge and understanding. 

And we need to do this conscious act of return for-ourselves, because there are no institutions - not even churches - that will teach or encourage us to do so. 

Not just for-ourselves; but from-ourselves; because it is actually contradicted by many of the actual, here-and-now dominant and mandatory, Christian church teachings. 

And therefore church-orientated Christians (those who regard a church, or any external source, as having primary authority over Christian understanding) are stuck in delusional materialism; including AI-dolatry... 

Which, unless identified and repented at some point, has the potential to lead to their self-chosen damnation.   

My take-home message here, is that anyone who hopes to escape their own self-chosen damnation - which will eventuate for those who follow external "authority" in this actual world, including church authority; would be wise to bring to consciousness, and reflect deeply upon, their most fundamental assumptions concerning the nature of reality. 

 

Giving-up on clear and effective communication - "Footway" bureaucratic notices

 

I noticed this on the (interminable, clearly maliciously-motivated) roadworks on the Great North Road; and I thought: 

"Who the dickens decided that "pavement" or "footpath" - terms that everybody from the youngest child to oldest codger understands - should instead be called a Footway?" 

But a moment's reflection was enough. 

The bureaucrats it is (together with their friends the politicians), who always and endlessly decide to rename things. 

Rename them without regard for clarity of communication or traditional associations* - and in accordance with their own incentive structures that reward institutional change - including change for the sake of change, or change for the worse (it does not matter which). 

That the purpose - the only proper purpose - of a sign is to communicate information, and that "Footway" fails to do this - is irrelevant to the bureaucrats/ politicians, and fellow travellers. 

 

I first noticed this more than 20 years ago when I saw that the road signs and marking in Hay-on-Wye (which straddles the border between England and Wales) had important instructional highway signage in a bilingual form - with Welsh coming first! 

Presumably this is for the benefit of the (non-existent) hordes of monoglot Welsh who could pass their driving tests only in Cymraeg.

The 99.99 (recurring) percent of road users who can only be distracted and delayed by the priority of a foreign phrase, and who need to read the English in order to obey the important and urgent traffic instruction; are irrelevant compared with the all-conquering bureaucratic imperative of making a point. 

*In 1974 the then "Conservative" government, gratuitously abolished or renamed many of the traditional counties of the UK. My then place of residence, Somerset; was renamed "Avon". Most egregious was the Scottish county of Clackmannanshire charmingly became... "Central Region". Some of these changes were later reverted by popular demand. 

Residual spontaneous enchantment that can be elicited by religion, and its dwindling

One conceptualization (derived from Barfield and Steiner) that I have found helpful; is that modern Man is emerging from a situation in which we had a significant (and powerful) residuum of spontaneous enchantment, by which our experience was of participation in the world around us - and when this spontaneous tendency lay dormant until triggered by symbols, rituals, and various "spiritual systems". 

This was the situation of Men in Classical and Medieval times - the times when institutional and formal religions emerged and dominated spiritual life.

But since around the advent of modernity - perhaps starting some 5000 years ago, but becoming dominant something like 2000 years ago in the Industrial Revolution era; we have been incrementally coming-into a situation when the spiritual systems with their symbols, rituals, texts etc are no longer able to evoke that latent enchantment (hence mass atheism) - or only weakly so (hence the feebleness of current religions - see 2020 for confirmation of this feebleness). 

Because formal religions and spiritual systems really did work in the past; then it is usually assumed that they are the only and proper way of evoking enchantment here-and-now...

And then it turns out that they actually don't release our latent capacity for enchantment because that latent capacity to become enchanted by symbol and ritual has dwindled, often to the point of disappearance... 

And Here We Are. 

The usual inferences are:

1. Give up on religion because it doesn't work. 

2. Hold fast to religion, even-though it doesn't work. 

But my inference is that religion - no matter how effective it really was at eliciting the experience of enchantment, in some places and times - was itself only ever a spiritual system, and religion never-was the spirit itself. 

Our task is to go behind religion and seek the spirit directly - with the expectation that strong, convincing, and motivating enchantment - shall reliably arise from such an encounter.

And this requires faith that personal seeking of direct spiritual experience is indeed what God wants from each of us, here-and-now. 

 

Reading mainstream Christian theology nowadays, I am amazed I converted!

I have just been reading an exposition of mainstream Christian theology - the theology common to Western and Eastern Catholics and the major Protestant denominations; and I am struck by how it nowadays strikes me as utterly unsatisfactory - being over-inclusive; and consequently incoherent, and evasive. 

It would really have repelled me from becoming a Christian, had I realized that I was signing-up to commit-to believe in such stuff.

From my current understanding, the deep problem seems to be at least twofold:

One is recurrently trying to fit Christianity into oneness philosophy - which leads to a recurrent compulsion to talk of unity as our aspiration and ultimate goal; and thereby to dissolve away individuality, freedom, evil, and indeed Time.  

The other is trying to make Christianity into a this-worldly religion, suitable for incorporation in a church, a method for improving human behaviour, and to serve as the basis for a nation. 

Part of this was making Christianity into an historical religion, provided with an arc either of spiritual decline or spiritual progress. And a this-worldly end-point - including a "second coming" of Jesus. 

   

By trying to provide for too much, Christian theology ends-up making itself into a species of abstract nonsense. 

Whereas Jesus's teaching (as seen in the IV Gospel) is actually very simple and clear; but it is next-worldly. 

The reality of Jesus's "religion" was neither about making better-people nor a better-world - either immediately or in the long term - so the fact that this evidently did not happen, and shows no sign of happening, is not a refutation.  

Jesus offered individual people the chance to follow him to resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

It is by resurrection (by being born again) that better people are made, and it is post-mortal Heaven that is the better world - the world which Jesus actually promised. 

So really, the Christianity of Jesus Christ was next-worldly, and its societal effects on this world, are derivative from the individual consequences of personal confidence in Jesus's promises about the next world.

 

But, unsurprisingly, most people want palliation and happiness now, they demand that their religion promises a better mortal life, an improved society and civilization, they want justice on earth far more than the promise of Heaven. 

And (apparently) from soon after Jesus ascended; the theologians and philosophers have made valiant attempts to construct a "Christianity" that provides what various people, at various times, have demanded of a this-worldly religion. 

By passing itself off as this-worldly when it actually is not; and by trying to satisfy people's demands for a better mortal life and a more congenial social situation - official Christianity became bloated, distorted, and non-sensical. 

Which is a terrible shame indeed, because all this is a significant obstacle to the intellectually honest. 

I was only able to become a Christian by persuading myself that I was not thereby committed to believing everything that people officially told me - any more than in my life as a scientist and academic I was bound to believe everything written in textbooks, or indeed everything said or written by even the best in the field.

Eventually, I did find the truth in Christianity, and only in Christianity; but the real truth is of a different kind - than the this-worldly promises which I - like most people - were seeking and hoping for...

Not that there is anything wrong with wanting to live a better life in a better world; but we need to be clear that at best this can only be a temporary and local palliation of the fundamental human condition. 

The lesson of Jesus Christ is that we really can have what our hearts most desire; but only on the other side of death, and only in Heaven but not on Earth.  

  

The success of Jesus? This world or the next? (Counter-productive Christian evangelism)

It seems to me that much Christian evangelism is counter-productive - putting people off becoming a Christian, rather than encouraging them; because of the Christian having a mistaken understanding of what Jesus did; and also because the Christian is incoherent about whether Jesus succeeded in his mission, or not. 

Many or most Christians seem to have the idea that Jesus made this a better world. That the life of Jesus was therefore an inflexion-point in history - Before Jesus, bad; after Jesus... getting better. 

Such Christians (and they seem to have been a large majority, at least among writers) seem to believe that after Jesus, life started started improving - especially for Christians. 

They assume Jesus made this world a better place. 

This kind of Christian usually believes that Jesus's core mission was to set up a church; and the church's mission was to make this a better world - and that this was actually done. 

Such Christians look at history and believe that the Christian societies were better than the others. They look at modern life and perceive to their satisfaction that the Christians are the best people - that conversion to Christianity improves people, that the Christian church is a force for good in the world. 

The first problem with this conceptualization of what Jesus did, is that there are plenty of people who disagree that the life of Jesus was an inflexion point after which the world began to get better - they just don't see this; they perceive many and terrible exceptions to it.

Some people would say that Jesus made no significant difference to the world - that the world carried on much as before. Some would say that the difference Jesus made was sometimes good, sometimes bad. And same with the Christian church/ churches - a mixed picture. 

There are plenty of people who don't see the founding of Christian churches as a net positive achievement, and who do no agree that any particular Christian church has been a force for good in the world.

In a nutshell - many people feel it is just wrong to claim that the life of Jesus made the world a better place; or that the Christian church has been and is a force for good in improving human life.   

They conclude that - if making a better world including better human lives is what Christianity is about, and the "evidence" for this is the history of the world and the nature of human society today; then Christianity cannot be true; and indeed might well be a force for harm. 

A further confusion is the Second Coming of Christ. 

Many Christians don't seem to realize what a weird and unconvincing idea this is! 

It means that Jesus's life was actually a failure, or else at best a very partial success; because the Second Coming predicts that despite Jesus, and the church he is supposed to have founded; this life will either stay bad, or get so bad, that Jesus will need to come again and "finish the job". 

("Finishing the job" means, pretty much, that Jesus (second time around) will make this life and world so much better that it is perfectly satisfying in every way.)

The need to finish the job; means either that Jesus did not wholly succeed - or that he actually failed. 

This idea is strange enough in itself to many people; I mean, why on earth would not the divine Jesus do everything that needed to be done in his first coming? Why would it be a good thing to delay the necessary by some indefinite (and now very long) period?

And then there is the problem of why the Second Coming has been delayed for two millennia? 

If life on earth can be made perfect, and if doing this really was Jesus's work and achievement - then surely it ought to be made perfect ASAP - rather than being delayed, and delayed? 

The many, various, and often complex explanations for the delay in the Second Coming are very seldom convincing; such that those who conclude that this was the way things work in Christianity, almost always become impatient for the Second Coming - or believe it to be imminent. 

So far many generations have so far been disappointed in this hope or expectation. 

 

The point I have been working towards is that the above are misunderstandings of what Jesus came to do, and what he did, and the nature of his success. 

Jesus did not come to make this world a better place, neither did Jesus come to found a church that would make this world a better place. 

So whether the world was made better or worse by the life of Jesus, or by Christian churches, is not relevant. 

That's not what Jesus was about. 

Jesus came to make possible, eternal resurrected life in Heaven: he came, in other words, to offer a new possibility of life everlasting to all Men - which we call "salvation". 

 And Jesus succeeded completely this aim, his real aim. 

...Which also means that the Church is not (and never has been) essential to the success of Jesus: a church may be helpful or unhelpful for a partiucar person in attaining salvation. 

But Jesus ensured that Men's achievement of salvation was possible (although not equally easy, because Men differ) for all Men, in every situation; in all religions and churches (or no religion nor church).  

I think Christians can be, and ought to be, quite clear and simple about this - for themselves, and in interacting with others... 

Jesus's life and work was not about improving this mortal life on earth. If it had been, then Jesus failed.

Jesus's life and work was about improving the next world, the world beyond death: and in this Jesus succeeded completely and first-time around. 

(No need for a Second Coming to "finish it off - it is already finished.). 

Jesus's work was done - is done.  

Now it is up-to-us, each of us; to choose or reject the possibility that Jesus has made available. 

The Celestine Prophecy and synchronicity revisited

"I've found a synchronicity!"

The Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield, was a self published book of the early 1990s, that went on to become a major best seller; and contributed to the sense of millennial anticipation among "New Age" spiritual seekers. 

On the one hand, the book was much read and discussed - on the other it had a reputation of being day dreamy, wishful, vague, and ineptly-written in the cynical and materialist mainstream.  

I encountered the CP about a decade after publication, and found it a rather charming and naive book, with a pleasant kind of atmosphere about it; and which helped make a significant step towards me becoming a Christian - although that is not the book's intent. 

A few days ago, I downloaded an audiobook copy from Archive.org, and found that I still responded to its earnest and positive tone, while at the same time seeing more clearly the self-imposed limitations that derive from its being a continuation of the idealistic sixties counter-culture. 

The main positive effect of the Celestine Prophecy (and I sampled some of Redfield's follow-up books as well) was to focus my attention on the importance of synchronicity - the idea that the remarkable and positive "coincidences" of life may have meaning, and point to a purpose. 

I reasoned that if synchronicity was a real phenomenon, then events must be arranged in accordance wit some plan or intention. To my mind, this must mean not just an ordered universe, or a transcendent deity, but a personal and loving God. 

Because otherwise reality would not arrange itself around individual people, around me and my destiny. An abstractly structured universe would have no reason to care about individuals or their fate in the world.  

For synchronicity to happen, and to have significance for the future; the events of an individual life must (I thought) be somehow "arranged" and therefore have a spiritual significance. 

In a nutshell; there must be a personal creator God, who loves me (and others) as individuals, and who is continuing to create for our ultimate spiritual benefit. 

Such was my eventual benefit from reading the CP back in the middle 2000s.

But re-listening to the CP, I see that the author's intentions are different. It is not Christian, not focused on resurrected eternal life; but instead hopes for a transformation of this life on earth so as to become a kind of blissful spiritualized paradise of peace, love, harmony - without pain or suffering. 

Indeed, CP asserts that this is happening, and will happen - it will happen to us; because of the direction of history and reality. People fail to see it, because immersed in survival and the seeking of possessions, status, thrills etc. But it will happen anyway, because it must.

Related to this is the vision of synchronicities as something that also happen to us, guideposts pointing at our better future, and which it is best if we follow.  

The prophecies are presented as "insights" - which are items of knowledge that need to be grasped, internalized, lived. 

The picture is of some higher reality that communicates to our senses pieces of information that are qualitatively and positively transformative for the people, and societies, that acknowledge them. 

These are precious insights which need to be preserved, disseminated, read, pondered and internalized. That is how things are meant to happen - and that is what is resisted by the regressive forces, the materialists, the power structures, the exploiters...

The Good Life of the CP is therefore one in which we are guided through the world and our lives by synchronicities, to attain sequential insights, towards a state of enlightenment that is also contageous - in a good way. 

The insights spread from person to person, and each is permanently transformed by each insight - so there is a ratcheting positive movement (albeit this may happen quickly, or else be delayed considerably by our faults and my malign meddling).  

 

In sum - I find the Celestine Prophecy to envisage a very passive form of spiritual life. The millennial New Age will happen to us, will be imposed from externally; and synchronicities likewise. Our job is to follow - and our reward is that these are for our own good - and to make a world where people can be qualitatively more spiritual and happier. 

From here-and-now, I regard these as fallacies, because I do not believe that goodness or spirituality can be imposed from externally. People cannot be made good, the world cannot be made good - good just isn't a top-down imposable thing; it must come from individual choices, from personal freedom, fro the good in individual beings.  

I do not believe, either, that there can be a paradise on earth - because entropy and evil are part of this world. Evil cannot be cured from externally, and entropy is the primal state "within" which creation is always being made. 

I think that evil and entropy can therefore only be escaped and left-behind by a new, Second Creation, which is Heaven, which is post-mortal. 

In sum; the New Age aspect of Celestine Prophecy, and its counter-culture origins and continuation, is seen in a this-worldly (and indeed leftist) vision of the desirable future - a coming Golden Age on earth as culmination of social changes that were the basis of 1960s radicalism. 

It was written more than thirty years ago when tens of millions of people in The West believed that this not only can happen, but would happen - irresistibly. That all people were changing, were being made more spiritual.

Due to some external and universal influence - sometimes called a higher frequency of consciousness, higher vibrational level, new energy or the like (invariably, some term derived from physics - it seemed). 

And that this did not come from the personal loving creator God of Christianity; but from a purposive movement within the whole of reality - a wholly immanent, discarnate, spiritualized idea of everything as ultimately one. 

The millennium was seen as a restoration of a harmony which was actually a unity. There was to be no pain or suffering, because there was no conflict or competition, because everything was one. 

And that is what humankind, and everything on earth and everywhere else, was irresistibly and necessarily moving-towards.  

Yet it did not happen. 

That was not how the millennium went for us. That does not describe the world, now. 

But, somehow, this not-happening hasn't dented the assumptions behind the New Age. Tens of millions of people still seem to live in optimism for the paradisal Golden Age, here on earth - and in line with sixties idealism - they still see this as actually happening. 

A further thing about synchronicity. It now strikes me as ultimately false to suppose that our lives are segmented such that particular bits of them count as synchronicities. 

In truth: our life is continuous, a living process - and while our consciousness may be detached and alienated - created reality is (and always has been) a kind of loving family of relationships. 

The reason why we cannot usually understand The Meaning of a synchronicity, is because in defining it, we thereby chop it out from this process and web of meaning.

We pull out a synchronicity from life, like Little Jack Horner extracting a plum from a pie; and examine it minutely - but cannot see from that one plum the pie itself, nor who made it, nor why it was baked... 

The synchronicity thereby becomes mysterious in its meaninglessness! 

Such are my thoughts from a brief re-engagement with the Celestine Prophecy

The reason why we ought Not to engage with "AI", is the same reason we ought not to engage with demons

Whatever you say or do: AI just keeps-on coming at you...

I don't know whether you have ever felt that somewhat despairing sense of the weariness of mortal Men, when engaged with simulated-human/ pseudo-intelligent "AI" programming - mechanisms that, very much like demons, do not fatigue, and always comes back-at-you -- again and again, with no end point...

This is what chess Grandmasters reported feeling, when they first engaged with powerful chess computers - a "Terminator"-like relentlessness; needing neither rest nor sleep.

We humans use-up attention, energy, motivation on these interactions - but AI does not. 

We cannot go on-and-on; but AI can and does. 

If we persist in engaging with AI; we shall sooner or later be worn-down and yield to it...

Perhaps inwardly acknowledging its "superiority", or (whether consciously or unconsciously) conforming to its mode of operating, its materialist and mechanical cognition. 

This is Of Course one of the primary reasons why we have had AI gratuitously inflicted upon us by the demon-affiliated Global Establishment, why AI is made to be addictive...

And why the spiritual-corruption of those human beings who gratuitously engage-with and write-about AI approvingly, is so very obvious and frighteningly rapid.

***

Note: On the other hand... 

Every single time we discern this demonic reality of AI, when we recognize the evil temptation, and inwardly reject it - we have learned a spiritual lesson; and we have made spiritual progress. 

So our current situation is not All bad!

Not if we take the opportunity to discern, and repent when needed, and learn-from experience. 

(Such is the nature of this mortal life... Unlike The Borg, our resistance to evil is not futile, because resistance is part of the point of this phase of existence.)

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. 

The current orgy of virtual Schadenfreude

The current online orgy of virtual Schadenfreude - triggered by media reports of the activities of the new US Presidential administration - is a dismaying spectacle in many ways, from my Christian perspective.

"Schadenfreude" describes the (spiteful) emotion of gratification at the (real or imagined) sufferings of others - typically of one's enemies. "Real or imagined" is relevant, since the current sufferings are substantially imagined, being learned-of via news-media reports and governmental/ bureaucratic announcements. 

That is why I inserted the word "virtual" - because the information on the sufferings is substantially indirect, secondhand, and obtained via mass/social media and from State sources. 

At least two things should be said about this online delight. 

The first is to clarify that reports of sufferings will almost certainly be misleading. 

The second, and more important, that the reported activities being celebrated are almost-wholly negative and destructive in nature - therefore not driven by any explicit and conscious, positive Christian motivation.

I have been deeply suspicious of claims of destruction of the managerial bureaucracy, since I had inside experience of such events about thirty years ago, within the UK National Health Service. 

The government of that era claimed to be determined to "cut red tape", including severely reducing the particular layer of bureaucracy within-which I was working. 

Official announcements from the specific layer of NHS bureaucracy also claimed (and complained) that it was being reduced severely. About 150 jobs were supposedly to be cut from a single office complex where I worked - and official returns to this effects were submitted. 

The news media duly reported the 150 jobs cut. 

Yet those on the inside knew that this was a kind of theatre for public consumption. 

In reality, hardly any jobs were cut - and these were almost exclusively among those who wanted to leave anyway and were grateful for severance pay. 

Nearly all of the 150 sacked/ let-go were redeployed within the larger organization; and/or rehired into almost the same jobs, shortly after the big announcement of cuts. 

The message is that, when you hear or read about job-cuts, layoffs, closures etc; all this kind of stuff may quite easily be faked - but faked in a way that is not detectable without detailed inside knowledge. 

The deeper problem with this current celebrations of destruction, is that of the underlying motivation. (Because the difference between virtue and sin, between good and evil, is essentially that of motivation - rather than specific action). 

A motivation for destruction as such, is anti-divine-creation, hence an evil motivation - and therefore leads to more and greater evil. 

And this applies pretty much for anything that might be destroyed - almost regardless of how useless or evil it is. 

An historical comparison could be the Dissolution of the Monasteries that happened in England under the rule of Henry the Eighth. 

The Roman Catholic Church itself, and its religious orders in particular - monasteries, friaries, priories, nunneries - owned a vast and still increasing proportion of the national wealth (from memory, something between a third and a half of the land). 

Church abuses were rife and widely experienced by the English population; there was a good deal of exploitation, luxury, self-indulgence, and political activity; and apparently much less (although certainly still a significant amount!) of asceticism, scholarship, piety, charity, and virtue. 

Therefore, there was no shortage of those among the English who celebrated (even when they did not personally benefit from) the truly colossal appropriation, violence and destruction that followed. 

My impression is that there was a good deal of tacit, if not active, public support for the Dissolution - as well as senior political, and a large segment of religious, leadership involvement. 

A great deal, therefore, of Schadenfreude was evident in the Dissolution. 

For instance; when the last major Abbey, in Glastonbury, was closed and demolished, and the greatest monastic library in England was destroyed; and its Abbot and two other senior clerics were publicly hung on top of Glastonbury Tor - it seems that the local population were pleased to observe their ex-landlords get "what was coming to them". 

Yet the Dissolution of the Monasteries was a national catastrophe, especially for the middle and poorer classes, from which it took England generations to recover - if indeed it ever did recover. More than a century of terribly destructive religious wars and exterminations were initiated. For many decades, there were almost no schools or hospitals, and no organized provision for relief of the poor.  

My simple point is that when goals are negative and destruction is the primary aim - and when this is unacknowledged, un-repented; spiritual disaster will surely ensue. Because this is, in effect, a celebration and endorsement of evil. 

No amount of negative action ever amounts to a positive strategy - and almost all current self-styled positive motivations are merely double-negative simulations. Or else, like Western "nationalism" as of 2025; almost wholly wishful, conjectural - hence in practice very secondary to other motives, and far too feeble to be effectual. 

With respect to the native populations of Western nations in 2025; any motivation that is truly good, positive, virtuous; absolutely needs to be consciously chosen and a grass-roots/ bottom-up phenomenon. 

Because, however differently things were in the past, good cannot now be done covertly nor in a top-down fashion. 

So that all fantasies of covert positive top-down agendas among the ruling elites are impossible, as well as unreal.   

  

In sum - the current orgy of online Schadenfreude may concern much that is merely virtual; and by its celebration of negative and destructive motivations, is very likely (from a Christian point of view) to prove multi-valently corrupting of those who engage in it. 

(As, indeed, seems to be the case.)