What can replace "The" church for Christians?

For most Christians in recorded history (although not in the Gospels) being-a-Christian is the same thing as being an observant member of "The" church. 

But, of course, the identity of that The as it is applied to church; has varied in often incompatible and hostile - even lethal, and frequently evil - ways; since very early in recorded church history. 

Since the minds of Men and (therefore) society have both changed, Christians now choose The church for themselves, and choose which faction within that The which they are to be observant to. 

However; Christians then typically forget or deny that their own choices are rooted in personal assumptions - and usually pretend (for they are being untruthful) that their-"The" church is objectively, and evidentially, the-"The" church. 

So; for Men here-and-now churches cannot be, therefore they are not, what they were. 

Churches cannot be "The"; and cannot provide what they once (often) provided - and especially no church can be regarded as The in that way which was natural and spontaneous for so many centuries.  

What, then, can - or should - replace what The church once used to be? 

The first answer is nothing, there can be no replacement; because churches are all institutions, and all institutions are changed. 

All institutions are substantially and motivationally totalitarian-bureaucracy-assimilated; and have lost their distinctive purposes and the life-meanings that flowed from them - churches are now fundamentally, as well as in-practice, this-worldly. 

But perhaps what the churches used-to provide can be divided between spiritual and social? 

If so, the spiritual provision used to be external; mediated by symbolic, language and ritual; quasi-objective; and to-be-obeyed. 

This is exactly what has gone, and therefore this cannot be replaced for modern minds. At least; it cannot be replaced effectively and with sufficient motivational power. 

Churches as spiritual sources are self-subverted, hence relatively ineffectual - and so are church people. 

Instead, spiritual sustenance needs to come from direct participation with the divine - and all Christians therefore need to become mystics, in a certain sense. All Christians need themselves to communicate with (of know) the divine and the Beings of this world. All Christians need to be clear that their ultimate evaluations Just Are individual - and should work on making these as valid as possible. 

What of the social aspects of church? 

The social side of what churches once were cannot be replaced either; because society has transformed in its structures, laws, traditions, evaluations - and so forth. There is no longer an old-style church niche. 

Furthermore, with people as they now are; social support, inspiration etc is not, and cannot be, generically prescribed. First because generic provision is not wanted, not needed, and indeed actively abhorrent. 

But also because social provision (by whatever is The chosen-church) is so scanty, incomplete, crude, intermittent, insufficiently-sustaining... and basically unsatisfactory. 

We are long-since at a point (and this can, surely, only increase) where each individual Christian needs to seek for the social support he needs - search for wherever he can find it; in whatever form he can tolerate; and social support provides what he most needs; and in whatever way works-best for himself.

(Although that "best" is itself almost sure to be both short-term and insufficient.)

My conclusion is that the model of "Christianity" based upon The church is either dead and gone, or already-feeble, mis-matched, and dying.  

The alternatives to The church are not replacements but substitutes; and all substitutes rely upon an acknowledgement of the validity (as well as the necessity) of individual discernment, choice and validation. 

As see this as a plain fact - and IMO Christians ought to be honest enough to acknowledge plain facts. 

Censorship, Excuses, Value-Inversion: Why suppression of truth is Not defeated by true information - The example of "genocide"

There is a very strong tendency among anti-Establishment radicals (and indeed among Establishment-supporting radicals - the legions of deluded Leftists) - that true information can, and shall, defeat the distortions of censorship and untruthful propaganda. 

That is the theory, but you may have noticed that this does not actually happen!  

Some fact or facts are being suppressed by those with power, and it is claimed that "if only" these were made publicly and widely available - then the real (and evil) nature of those is power would be revealed, people would cease to believe and support them - and a stop would be put to this kind of wrongdoing. 

But mostly this does not happen. 

"Real facts" get revealed, or something more like facts than previously was the case - but the desired outcome goes not happen, as revealed by "genocide". 

"Genocide" could roughly be defined as the i.e. purposive annihilation - e.g. death or/and exclusion/ displacement (e.g. "ethnic cleansing") - of a culture and a people. 

And (whether or not this is correct) genocide is widely agreed to be The Worst evil of all; but in practice especially when "genocide" was done (or alleged to have been done) to left-approved groups and categories. 

It is the (supposed) prevention of genocidal cultural exclusion/ annihilation that is regarded as a bottom line justification for several of the major leftist strategies of recent decades - e.g. antiracism, feminism, and sexual-orientation radicalism. 

(Yet?) Genocide is - of course - a core activity of the dominating Atheist-Left-West Establishment leadership class; in the past, recently, and at present. 

The explicit and multiple examples of so-called "regime change" imposed all around the world, and attempted far more widely; are often the tip of an iceberg of longer-term - and often highly successful - strategy of cultural annihilation and absorption. 

This is culturally- and spiritually- "genocidal" - although this may not become physical annihilation unless the genocide-absorption is resisted.

(e.g. The threat of physical genocide coerces the imposition of cultural genocide.) 

So what are the lines of defence of evils such as "genocide"?

1. Censorship - there is no evil

2. Excuses - the evil is real but justified, expedient for some greater good

3. Value-inversion - evil becomes good 

1. Censorship

The first line of defence for genocidal activity is "censorship", cover-up, suppression of evidence, a denial that it has happened, and still is happening - and is deliberate, strategic, top-down, and mandatory.  

But in spiritual terms, a wholly successful denial is almost worthless. Because what people do not know, they do not excuse or support - and people may remain good-orientated, but merely ignorant. 

Therefore, the more spiritually-orientated forms of strategic evil will ensure that "the truth" gets-out, somehow, somewhere...

Such that some kind of "evidence" for genocide having-happened or ongoing, will "leak", or be discovered by some investigator - and this evidence will be (less- or more-widely) enabled to spread. 

2. Excuses

The second line of defence - when people discover, and are at least somewhat convinced by - evidence of "our side" committing some evil such as genocide, is to excuse it. 

To say "Yes, this is evil; but it is necessary".

For instance to acknowledge that "we" are doing evil - even genocidal evil - but that this is necessary for some larger, more vital, and positively moral purpose. 

Perhaps that "we" have been compelled to do it by circumstances (out of our control) - perhaps it needs to be done in retaliation for greater evils (perhaps of the same kind) done to us by them? 

The idea is tha tevil can - and should - but used against evil: the Boromir Strategy.

But - whatever the excuse and how it is done - this excusing of evil is a step on the road to spiritual corruption and distortion of values. 

3. Value-inversion

The "end-stage" of value-inversion - when that which was regarded as the greatest evil, is now instead understood to be "a good thing"; has been reached in at least two instances known to me recently.  

This has been evident from government officials and the mass media "bragging" about genocidal activities and intent, and positive reporting of strategies to continue and extend this. 

As another common example; filmed evidence of the doing of sadistic atrocities has been disseminated by the people who did them. 

And the loop of evil is closed by a positive public reaction to such communications. 

In other words, what was a negative value - indeed for many people The Most negative value - has been inverted into a positively approved and morally-admirable action.  

So, the idea that overcoming apparent suppression and censorship by revealing "evidence and "facts" - actually achieves the extremity of moral corruption in those (apparently many people, often a significant majority) for whom partisan loyalty to a cause, ideology, or religion - is more powerful than their understanding, discernment and basis for choosing between good and evil.   

This applies across the broad range of moral issues - from war and war crimes; to social categories of sex, race, religion; to particular behaviours of particular people in such areas of sex, violence, theft, fraud, bribery, nepotism - or whatever. 

Our society in The West is already so deeply corrupted, so completely un-moored from any strong basis in values; that revelations of evil and wrong-doing are usually, in practice, spiritually counter-productive. 

"AI" and the propaganda of abstracting-isolation: how to explain away evil purposes

A post by Francis Berger brought into focus a common propaganda tactic to which I must invent a term "abstracting isolation". 

The basic idea is that some-Thing harmful being introduced, some new and bad policy, or some strategic plan of evil... is explained-away...

Is talked into neutrality or insignificance - and this is achieved by the tactic of drawing a line around it: thereby abstracting it from the actual situation and process in which it is encountered.

I have repeatedly seen this at every level of life. 

In the University workplace, management (on instruction from government) would introduce some bureaucratic change that Always took power from academics and transferred it to management. yet another in the unending stream of schemes for monitoring and control of academics and students...

The latest step in a successful strategy pursued over many years, a strategy of of incremental managerial bureaucratic takeover. 

But; this latest change was always abstracted from the strategy and from the big picture. In effect, a line was drawn around the new task or policy. We were made to consider the change as if it was an isolated entity - coming from nowhere except the earnest desire for functional improvement that we all know characterizes management; and going nowhere in particular - and especially not any kind of power-grab! 

(Only a delusional nut-job could imagine such a ludicrous notion as a planned government-management take-over.)

As such the New Thing always seemed neutral, trivial - nothing to get "upset" about, nothing to make a fuss about (unless you are neurotic, or paranoid?)... 

And yet at the same time this neutral, trivial, nothing was also - somehow - essential, important, and (bottom line) mandatory: we had to do it... or else. 

And because we had to do it or else; then we "might as well" make the best of it: indeed, we might as well pretend that this is A Good Thing...

Or, at least, a Thing with great potential for Good, if only people would stop wasting their time complaining about the inevitable; and instead take a positive and constructive attitude about using The Thing (whatever it happened to be) in the best possible way. 

At the end of this line of rhetoric; the trivial, isolated, neutral policy or technology, has become a boon - with the help of well-motivated staff who (instead of moaning and dragging their feet) will rise to the challenge of this new opportunity...

Who will, by their optimistic attitudes and hard work, ensure that the best possible outcomes will happen, and any problems will be solved. 

If only people would give This Thing the benefit of the doubt; then it could become a great gift, a tool with vast potential for those with goodwill to use in generating all kinds of positive possibilities.

Whew! 

All this from an abstractly-isolated neutral technological tool! All this "merely" from its being implemented by people of goodwill and positive intent to do good - as we can, of course, assume it will be implemented - the leadership positions of the world being almost exclusively inhabited by such Saints. 

Luckily, we almost never see technologies actually, in the real world, mega-exploited almost exclusively for their worst capabilities - so we needn't concern ourselves with that sort of difficulty! 

This with "AI"; what is actually emanating as an incremental change from a top-down, tera-dollar-funded, decades-long globalist totalitarian strategy; aiming at bureaucratic omni-surveillance and micro-control of mass thought and behaviour; aiming at the imposition of a materialist perspective and assuming the irrelevance and insignificance of God, Jesus Christ and the spiritual...

By a simple act of abstracting-isolation "AI" has been transformed into a vital tool that shall be used (mostly) for the betterment of humankind and this world - to stand in the path of which outcome, is both futile and misguided (if not worse). 

The spiritual harm of "AI" is this pretending, and convincing oneself, that purposive evil is good, and indeed ought-to-be regarded as good simply because we cannot (or will not) resist it... 

If you really Think About It: Evil can be Good!... If only we regard it with a calm, reasonable, properly-informed, and nuanced attitude. 

Such is one of the greatest and most effective Big Lies of our era. And, like all effective lies, it contains an element of truth...

Which is that within a vast strategy for generic-evil, there is indeed potential to go against the current (to some extent, and for a while but not permanently) - and do some particular-Good.  

True. But that truth does not affect the purposively evil nature of the general strategy. 

Discernment is vital for Christians; to know evil in order that we may affiliate to Good. 

It is all quite simple to know, difficult/impossible to do in the material world, but always possible to hold-fast-onto as our spiritual intention:

Our possibilities for doing Good despite evil, should never lead us to choosing allegiance with the strategies of evil. 

Warning: Proceed With Caution. Joining a Christian church is joining The Totalitarian System

Someone who is on the side of God the Creator, and who desires to attain the salvation of Jesus Christ, must Proceed With Caution when it comes to joining any formal organization. 

This is because we inhabit a totalitarian system; meaning that all formal institutions in our society are connected by a multitude of bureaucratic linkages - as was evident in 2020. 

Both totalitarianism and bureaucracy are intrinsically evil - which means that all formal institutions (politics, government service, law, medicine, corporations, charities, mass media, police, military, science, the arts, teaching etc... all of the social institutions) are (and must be) overall-aligned with the purposes of evil. 

  

This situation is a real and present danger: a spiritual hazard. 

The unwary shall be led-astray. 

And the warning applies as much to religions, churches, and specifically-Christian churches - as to all the other institutions; so that a Christian who joins a church is in spiritual Danger, and needs to Proceed With Caution. 

This does not mean that a Christian ought to avoid all churches - far from it*. 

For many people, a church is necessary; and for others a particular church (when available and accessible) is positively beneficial to sustaining faith.  

But it does mean that - just as a Christian chooses his church with discernment; he must not set-aside that discernment after joining that church. 

In a totalitarian world, no institution should be trusted; because none are worthy of trust. 

"Christian" must not, therefore, be striving to serve and obey any actually-existing church, nor even that particular sub-section of a church which Christian has chosen from the contending factions. 

(Service and obedience to any totalitarian-aligned organization will lead the individual towards evil - later if not sooner.) 

Instead; he ought to be ready and willing to continue evaluating all aspects of the church; including whatever the church teaches, instructs, or demands.  And proceeding (to the best of his ability) on the basis of these evaluations. 

It is a matter not so much of every Christian "taking responsibility" for selecting and implementing his faith - everybody already does that - but of acknowledging the fact that he is responsible: like it, or like it not.  

*After all, many people must work therefore have a job, and will mostly work for an organization or several; everyone will have multiple dealings with government and large corporations; indeed people must join all sorts of institutions. We must join the totalitarian system. Opting-out of The System is not an option. You may try to ignore The Matrix, but The Matrix will not ignore you. 

So what's the special problem with a church? None unless you forget that the church is a part of The System, and think of it as something qualitatively apart. 

Yes, I know about the "Spiritual Church" within the "institutional church", and the SC is - of course - what you want, as a Christian. 

The trouble is that the church will try to insist upon the institution, while leaving the spiritual stuff as... well, nice but optional. Spiritual disobedience is tolerated, even encouraged (plenty of bishops and archbishops who don't believe that Jesus was divine, or don't believe in Satan or hell) - but institutional disobedience? That is what gets priests defrocked and laity excommunicated.   

Yes, post-mortal Heaven... But what should we Do Here and Now?

Christian faith is - or should be - focused on resurrected eternal life in post-mortal Heaven... So, not this moral life, not this earth and universe. 

But what should we Do Here and Now? 

The answer could be - Do what you evaluate as best: and start now. 

...BUT - don't expect to make a system from it. 

Do not try to create a formula for world-saving, nor even for world-improvement. 

Your answer as to what to do, now; the best answer you can diligently and honestly discover and devise; is something about which you cannot persuade others - therefore you should not try. 

You should not wait until after persuading enough others, and launching a movement before you do it. 

It is (nearly-) all about your discernment, your insight, your actions in your life. 

And what happens to most people, or even the few people that surround you; is something you cannot control. 

And it is actually "control" of others that motivates most supposed world-bettering and evangelism. 

Give-up control fantasies, if you can. 

Work from love, not from systems - and where there is no love from you; there you can do no Good. 

AI-dolatry is an Antichrist phenomenon, because the Antichrist is The System

I just stumbled across a post of mine from 2018 on the (now stale) subject of Jordan Peterson; in which I described him as an Antichrist figure. 

The idea of an Antichrist is not really of any general and public use for discernment, because of the mass and institutional breakdown in truthful consensus. 

Nonetheless it is a subject to which I find I recur, because so many individual people remain spiritually wedded to external authority, and in a totalitarian "System-" world, that means that almost all self-identified Christians are following Antichrists. 

The question I ask is: will such people follow their Antichrist to self-chosen damnation, or at what point will they realize what is happening to them?

(Luckily for Mankind, by my understanding; this point of recognition and repentance can be post-mortal.)

The current AI-dolatry (i.e. the positive embrace, and in-practice promotion, of the "AI"-agenda) is evidently motivated by evil-intent when advocated by mainstream left-materialist ideologues; but the phenomenon takes-on an Antichrist role and quality when found among self-identified Christians. 

What I see is Christians who support (and spiritually I am inferring an inner support) an actually overall- and net-evil strategy; on the basis that they see in such a strategy the possibilities for a selective, partial, "if-only" possibility of Good.  

IMO, this rationale is how people justify to themselves an inner subordination to external authority.

Because when all actual external authorities (all formal and public institutions; including all the churches) are actually integrated-within the System of global totalitarianism - then this just-is the Antichrist phenomenon, as I understand it.

I mean; people choose to subordinate themselves spiritually (and therefore psychologically) to a powerful and influential entity (i.e. The System), even when that entity is net-evil; by an argument that there are aspects of The System that may be turned to good... 

Which "may" be good understanding, then gets transformed to an assertion that it "will" be good... in my hands, the way that I will use it...   

So the world is (apparently) full of Christians who support one or more of the primary agenda items of global totalitarianism (such as "AI", a foreign war, the Birdemic-Peck, CO2-climatology, sexual revolution...); because they have convinced themselves that they have nuanced these strategies into specific pro-Christian activities.

From overall-evil intent, they finesse particular Good Works, "Christian" works; of one kind or another. And claim that this particulars are then the main thing: that they personally can nuance the particular Goods, without spiritual-complicity in the overall evils.     

The reason why this kind of reasoning has become so massively-dominant is exactly that The System is everywhere, and inescapable - we are all sustained-by-it and work-for-it.   

Therefore - in this-worldly terms - as a brute fact we are all of us deeply-complicit in strategic evil, in this-world. 

Which means that - to do good works in this world, to be "practical"; we can only work with The System: we can only "make this world a better place" (including better for ourselves, and those about whom we care) by accepting The System in some overall fashion, and despite specific dissent.

This brute fact of a self-identified Christian - in-practice and inescapably - supporting the large-scale demonic agenda; becomes a potentially agonizing "cognitive dissonance" insofar as Christianity is regarded as a this-worldly religion - i.e. a religion that "makes this world a better place". 

It is to avoid this cognitive dissonance, indeed stark contradiction! - that so many Christians end by choosing spiritual-subordination to the the ubiquity of global totalitarianism, while asserting an officially-propagated false and virtual understanding of the world. 

Thus, most Christians - including serious Christians - are engaged in whitewashing the actuality of global totalitarian evil: either they deny its reality as an existing fact, or else they falsely construct a fantasy of the fundamental, coherent, and purposive evil of The System of global totalitarianism - as if it were instead a drama of good versus evil Establishment people and institutions. 

As if minor distinctions between greater and lesser evil purposes somehow included the operations of purposive good; as if a mass of competing negations could eventuate in positive values...  

Things have come to a point; compromise is no longer validly possible; we are compelled to choose between clear and distinct alternatives of evil and Good. 

It is not a matter of what we do but what is our faith. If we base our ultimate faith in-this-world, we shall become of-this-world.  

Either we recognize that Christianity is, and (deep down) always was; a next-worldly and individual religion - i.e. a faith that does not depend on practical obedience to the authority of any specific institution/s - or else we will be following one or another of the many Antichrist phenomena that constitute The System. 

Either we are rooted in this-world, in which case we shall be in truth supporters of "The Antichrist; or else we locate our faith and hope in post-mortal resurrected eternal life, in Heaven. 

Miles Mathis on art forgeries and fakes

After having been well taught artistic discernment (not ability!) by my father - who had been an art teacher and was a decent landscape watercolourist; I have recently learned a great deal from reading Miles W Mathis on the subject of forgeries and fakes in Fine Art, such the B. Awful Not-Leonardo  depicted above. 

Or the much more famous and quite pleasant looking, but modern and mediocre, Not-Vermeer below:

It is well worth reading these articles, and following their references - and looking more widely at MWM's reflections on the almost-unbelievably corrupt and incompetent world of Fine Art auctioneers, academics, critics, and galleries. 

The idiocy and ugliness of Art over the past several generations is so extreme and unrepentant; that it is explicable only on the basis that the activity is not about art any more. 

It is Not Even Trying to do art; nor to teach, display or reward art. 

But instead it's about such anti-artistic activities as managed investment, subsidy-grubbing, money-laundering, political activism, and the exchange of bribes.  

I don't think there is any great art being done nowadays; just as there is no great classical music being composed or poetry being written. 

This is not a golden age for human creativity - nor even a silver one. The major creative geniuses are a thing of the past.  

But there are good paintings and portraits done by serious artists - I have bought some over the years, and been gifted others.

Such violation of quality by a perverse and inverted system of incentives; is yet another symptom of the advanced phase of our civilization's collapse. 

And the way in which this situation is officially rationalized and defended - even more so.   

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anthony Duncan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, having been convinced - what then?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Distinguishing Etheric and Astral

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

Ego - Astral - Etheric - Physical*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Etheric "field"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Astral "realm"

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

The astral is the realm of dreams. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"AI"-dolatry = Birdemic

Just as in the 2020 Birdemic - when utterly wild and deeply ignorant claims of lethal-danger emanating from serial manipulators and liars; were taken seriously, made into policies, and enforced upon the world; we are now seeing the same with "predictions" about "AI": and the endemicpandemic that is "AI"-dolatry.

There is an environment in which people can claim... anything about "AI" - its abilities and potentials -and be taken with equal seriousness by those who think all this SciFi invention is a Great Thing and desire to Bring It On ASAP; and also those who respond with a chronic panic attack, futile gestures, and personal despair. 

Just as with the Birdemic; people cannot grasp that the major crises, policies, and programs of the modern West are purely manipulative - and may be based upon almost-nothing factual. 

Little or nothing substantive, but a truly immense amount of re-labelling, hype, spin, invention, and inverted reportage. 

Whatever facts there were behind the Birdemic - if anything - they were trivial and insignificant compared with the truly colossal consequences of the coordinated totalitarian global response. 

Likewise, whatever computational breakthrough - if any - was behind the late-November 2022 global propaganda avalanche concerning the claimed qualitative and positively socially transformative breakthroughs of "AI" was and is trivial and insignificant compared with the truly colossal expenditure, impositions and implementation by the global totalitarian System. 

With "AI", as with the Birdemic, the unconstrained and universal claims over all domains of human life and functioning; sit upon little or nothing substantive, but a truly immense amount of re-labelling, hype, spin, invention, and inverted reportage.

"AI"-dolatry equals the Birdemic; for the clear and obvious reason that both emanate from the same sources, use exactly analogous methods of social and psychological manipulation, and both share the same strategically-evil aims. 

Both are operate as tests of our spiritual discernment because the success of both depend on dishonesties and errors at the very roots of our metaphysical assumptions. 

The mass vulnerability of Christians and mainstream people alike to both the Birdemic and "AI" PSYOPS; is evidence of deep wrongness in our understanding of reality, and the purpose of our mortal lives. 

To put it bluntly; insofar as we do not immediately see through these and like deceptions and instantly discern their grossly evil motivations - to that extent our basic life stance is defective; and needs to be examined and revised on pain of self-chosen damnation. 

Is that clear enough? 

**

Note added: To further the analogy; consider the way that during the Birdemic, the scale of health problems was incrementally amplified, month by month, and some orders of magnitude; through unprecedented and immeasurable global expenditures on pseudo-medical technologies and harmful societal transformations - topped by systematic misrepresentation and lies in the controlled-media... All of which was attributed to the progression of the Birdemic entity. We are seeing almost exactly the same phenomenon with the media reportage of the progress of "AI": unprecedented and immeasurable global expenditures on technologies and harmful societal transformations, with alleged (systematic misrepresentation and lies) orders of magnitude incremental improvement, reported month by month in the controlled-media - all of which are attributed to progress of the "AI" entity.

A big danger is that we will "find" whatever we "seek"

There seems to be a fundamental problem in life, that while passive, assimilative compliance leads (in our society and world) to disaster and damnation -- on the other hand, there is a very big problem when we consciously and conscientiously seek a specific thing. 

This both in physical material terms (as when people pursue a career plan, or a plan to find a lover or spouse) - and also spiritually. 

It seems that many people (including some of the greatest spiritual exemplars) have deceived themselves and fallen into error by exerting their considerable powers by devising strategies to discover and attain some very particular thing. 

Many people seek specific knowledge - and seek it by long-term efforts: the long monastic training by prayer, liturgy, meditation, labour; years of ascetic striving by desert-dwelling hermits; the prolonged initiation of mystery religions, spiritual science, ritual magic (alchemy, astrology, divinations etc). 

The resulting gross divergence in outcomes, results, beliefs, dogmas, rules and laws, practices and compulsions - is evidence that the process was one originating in the defective wilfulness of fundamentally-incapable beings. 

The big problem of all such spiritual effort; is that people do find what they seek - yet what they seek is something that has been decided by their conscious personality-mind, and implemented by the mundane will-power. 

Such people think they know what they need, and they suppose that they know what is good for "other people" and for "the world"...

And mostly by the transformations of themselves that happen because of their sustained and willed efforts; they find... what they seek, only only what they seek... Find this by various combinations of enhanced abilities, diminished intuitive discernment... of actual-finding with self-deception. 

Ultimately Life (at least for a follower of Jesus) ought to be about loving relationships with other people, other beings, with God and Jesus and others... and the creativity that arises from such loving relationships. 

Life is therefore, ultimately, NOT about changing other people for (what we regard as) the better - that is attempted manipulation - which is a psychopathic and selfish thing, even when justified by altruistic theories. 

Relationships are ultimately NOT about us knowing just what others most need, nor about planning other people's lives (For Their Own Good) - whether materially or spiritually. 

Life is ultimately NOT about making a better world for everybody by knowledge, skill and determination exercised over time... 

Because we really have no idea of what that better world actually is - and the attempt to devise and impose a better world lead to propaganda and coercion - justified by "the common good" (and always by "the end justifies the means" thinking). 

The fact that this stuff is inevitable (and to a significant extent) in our mortal world, is because this is not Heaven; and our world is permeated with evil and undercut by entropy. 

But even if inevitable to a degree, this kind of will-directed strategizing should not be our ideal - yet it is, unfortunately, presented as the ideal by most religions and spiritual systems! 

We cannot know what is good in any degree of specific detail; even less can we know how to act and arrange things to "make" good.

To pretend otherwise leads to great and general harm, including (and primarily) harm to Our-Selves. 

But we do know enough of such matters to be able to live well-enough to develop spiritually and attain salvation - after which, as eternal resurrected beings in Heaven; we can get on with participating in the world of divine creation. 

But not before. 

We cannot have it by wanting it; because:

What we want (in our mortal selves and world) is not really IT.    

Atheist materialism versus Church religion - only one winner, unless...

Atheist materialism - the mainstream ideology of the West, that monopolizes the entirety of public discourse - is a system of reasoning that claims to be wholly based on "evidence"; it claims to make no metaphysical assumptions regarding the ultimate or basic nature of reality. 

Atheist materialism therefore operates wholly at the superficial level of evidence and logic - as defined by its won denied assumptions of what constitutes valid evidence and logic. 

This is achieved by taking its own metaphysics for granted (and denying it exists) and keeping all discourse confined within its own assumptions; and declaring everything else to be meaningless, or merely arbitrary personal opinion (which amounts to the same thing). 

Church religions are deeper than atheistic materialism, because churches declare specifically their own fundamental metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality - and that these assumptions are shared by the religion's adherents.

Church religion is superior to atheistic materialism because it knows and admits that it has metaphysical assumptions, which it then sets-out explicitly - whereas atheistic materialism falsely denies that it makes any metaphysical assumptions.  

However, these fundamental religious assumptions differ between religions.  

Each religion defends its own assumptions by trying to prove them: either prove them from evidence: such as the claimed observable consequences of belief and unbelief in terms of individual psychology, or perhaps societal functioning. 

Or else religions try to prove their fundamental assumptions using rational logic - religions try to prove that their assumptions Must Be as they are, or else things would be incoherent or incomplete. 

However; to the atheist materialist, the variety of Church religions metaphysical assumptions is regarded as conclusive evidence that their assumptions are arbitrary - just made-up.

And the atheist materialist regards attempts by religions to prove that their own particular metaphysical assumptions must be true, whether the attempted proof is by observations or by logic, as being dependent on already accepting the religious assumptions. i.e. Church proofs are seen merely as circular reasoning. 

Atheist materialism has alternative and non-religious explanations for all church attempts to prove all possible systems of religious metaphysics. 

To atheist materialism there is thus "zero evidence" for anything religious; and the assumptions of all religions are seen as arbitrary and just "made-up". 

Atheist materialism (nearly-)always wins disputes with church religions, because atheist materialism is much more powerful... very-nearly all-powerful, at the Western civilizational level.  

The metaphysical assumptions of atheist materialism are immune to social refutation because they never discussed as being "beliefs" - and are denied to be assumptions at all. 

This rhetoric is effective and "works" because the metaphysics has been built-into every type and level of the functioning of modern society; and inculcated such as to become habitual during socialization. 

Atheist materialism is the default for modern Men. 

Church religion continues to lose this debate with atheist materialism, because the dominant public metaphysics depends on power, and church religion gets weaker and weaker. 

Also because church religion has assimilated more and ever-more of the assumptions of atheistic materialism such that it has conceded all the most fundamental ground in advance of discussion. 

Therefore, attempts to prove any religious metaphysics in publicly acceptable or socially effective ways in our society as it actually is; merely lead-back into atheistic materialism. 

Church religion is consequently stuck and doomed; because insofar as a religion has power, cohesion, effective-influence, wealth, organization etc; that religion is itself a part of the atheist materialist civilization, and its already-existing assumptions.  

From such a society, with such basic and habitual assumptions as we actually have; there can only arise various kinds of atheist materialist conclusions.

 

The way forward is therefore down - down to considering the metaphysical assumptions of religion as what they are - which is as assumptions, not evidence-derived...

And therefore religions need to stop pretending to derive our metaphysical assumptions from consensus definitions evidence and logic - because the modern consensus of what constitutes valid evidence and logic necessarily sustains atheistic materialism. 

If we (you and I) continue to rely-upon societal and consensus (including church society and consensus) definitions and understandings of valid metaphysics; we will be trapped by atheistic materialism.

Only by using our own personal discernment to discover what it is that we really belive about the ultimate and basic nature of reality can we escape atheist materialism. 

Only by coming to know our own personal and deepest metaphysical convictions can we move forward to a positive, sustaining, and motivating, and fundamentally different system of understanding. 

And, only if reality is objectively real - and if that ultimate reality is set-up such that we each, as individuals, can attain to sufficient true understanding of reality - could this be possible. 

That is the necessary faith: the faith that it is indeed possible and achievable for each one of us who desires it and consciously chooses to do it; to gain a sufficient understanding of the fundamental nature of reality for ourselves.

Why do people still have faith in inverted institutions? (Such as churches?)

Why do people still have faith in inverted institutions?

Why, that is, do people still assume - and live on the basis that - institutions/ organizations/ corporations/ nations of 2026; retain the same basic motivations and nature as they did 100 - or even fifty - years ago? 

Why don't people realize (and operate on the basis that) these institutions are (in almost all cases) long since subverted, corrupted, and substantially inverted in their basic quality? 

My own experience of this reluctance to recognize fundamental change was that - due both to upbringing and ideals - I had a faith and hope in universities and science (among other types of institution I "believed-in" - but these were perhaps the main ones). 

It took a long time before I recognized that these had changed their nature, ceased to strive for what they used-to strive-for; and were not going to reform - because the large majority people in them - and virtually all the leadership - did not want to reform. The large majority preferred the institutions to be corrupt; that is - to be subsidiaries of the single, generic totalitarian-left bureaucracy that controls the UK (and all other "Western" ex-nations).  

The original functionally-motivated people who pursued scientific truth and scholarship had been replaced by bureaucrats and careerists - and the politically-motivated. 

But for quite a while I carried on "believing" in the institutions; even though I realized that it was only me (and, at most, a handful of others - a tiny minority) who were carrying what I regarded as the spirit of the "true" institutions: the spirit of science, the spirit of universities. 

At first I had a quasi-magical belief, and hope, that my own faithfulness to the older nature and motives was keeping-alive the - otherwise lost, otherwise actually opposed - spirit of the ancient and original institutions of science and universities. 

Here, I don't intend "quasi-magical" to be utterly dismissive, but to recognize that mine was a covert recognition that in the material realm the institutions was lost, was gone - and that the "spirit" of the institution was now something that lived only in the mind; and only in the minds of a relatively very-few persons... 

And then I realized that - this being the case - the actual material institutions of science and universities - the professional career and educational structures, building, money, writings, conferences... the bureaucratic systems - all of these had become obsolete, unnecessary - in fact hostile to the ideal. 

In sum; the act of recognising a distinction between the spiritual and physical institutions - which was necessary in order to believe-in them - implied the irrelevance and counter-productive nature of the actually-existing 2026 institutions. 

To be true to "the spirit" and to resist short-termism, materialism, subordination to alien and hostile agendas; I needed to rely on my own discernment in choosing goals, selecting evidence and proof, in evaluating quality. 

I needed to rely on myself (and the sources I had chosen) in determining what and who was true to the spirit - and what or who was indifferent or hostile. 

Yet; if I, as an individual, could locate and sustain the spirit of science or academia - and if, indeed, it needed me as an individual to do so in the face of at first institutional indifference, then active institutional hostility...

Then the institution itself - actual universities, the actual structures of science - had become first obsolete, then irrelevant, then an enemy of the ideals they had once (albeit imperfectly) incorporated. 

Because of corruption and inversion, a wedge needed to be driven between myself and the institution; and that wedge drove the person and the institution ever-further apart. 

What applied to universities and science applies also, and more importantly, to Christian churches. 

Insofar as we depend upon our-selves to sustain the true spirit of Christianity against the indifference/ hostility of an actual church; insofar as we must divide the actual church into a material-organizational corrupt part on one side, and a spiritual-mystical "true" part on the other side.

Then exactly this activity and necessity implies - indeed entails - that we as individuals (and not any actual church) have become discerners, discoverers, and carriers of Christian truth. 

Churches have become first feeble, then irrelevant, now mostly hostile to the reality of Christianity. 

So it is up to us - each of us - as individuals; or many small handfuls of the like-minded.

The age of "good" institutions is dead and gone - and this inversion has been (by the majority) unlamented and indeed even celebrated.

It's about time, overdue, that Christians ceased evasive optimism and recognized the actuality.  

"AI"-Christianity and other unfortunate predictions for 2026...

My prediction for 2026 is that "AI" will continue to subvert self-identified Christians (as well as everybody else); in particular that:

"AI" outputs will increasingly be cited as authority, evidence, or proof. 

This has, of course, already begun; but I am predicting that "AI" outputs will become put forward as publicly "official"; as the bottom-line reason why we should (or should not) believe, think, or obey X... 

This is the latest step in a long-term trend by which all forms of public knowledge - including Christian knowledge - have been:

1. First (a long time ago) made a matter of consensus (of some kind) - a "majority vote" kind of discernment. 

Then:

2. Consensus-formation was absorbed into bureaucracy. 

And up-coming:

3. Bureaucratic procedures will be (or at least this will be claimed) made objective and computerized - by the post-2022 version of globalist-generated "AI".

This is why Christians are failing the "AI" Litmus Tests; because most Christians have externalized their acknowledged source and nature of authority (e.g. in a church, or in a scripture, or in a theology); and all forms of external authority have been, are being, will increasingly be... sucked-into the consensus, bureaucratic, "AI" System. 

This means that mainstream church-orientated/ scripture-faithful Christians; will (step by step, but swiftly) soon find themselves believing one or another "AI"-Christianity. 

And "AI"-Christianity will be destructive to the possibility of that individual person actually following the real Jesus Christ...

Because "AI" is - by design and implementation, overall and overwhelmingly - an instrument of damnation.  

A sub- but related-prediction is that there will be a greater use of attempted, threatened, and actual physical-coercion in implementing public policy (including the "decisions" of "AI"). 

This will be "necessary" because the ruling class agenda is ever more obviously destructive and evil; and the propaganda/ education mechanisms for ensuring adequate brain-washed compliance of the masses, are breaking-down rapidly. 

Also because the "Agents of Chaos" party among the Western rulers wants there to be more violence, everywhere - so physical coercion and human suffering are, for Them, self-justifying. 

"Cool" has replaced necessary functionality

Because we live in a materialist and incoherent society; from the nihilistic despair of which we crave temporary alleviation - we are continually seeking enjoyable distraction, which is what people seem to mean by "cool". 

So if anything is enjoyably distracting it can be termed cool, and this "coolness" is not merely a justification - but actually that which is most-desired, by most people, most of the time. 

This applies to our discernment regarding current top-down funded, propagandized, subsidized (perhaps mandatory) societal trends. 

It is sufficient justification if we regard as cool phenomena such as Electric Vehicles; a Them-paid-for festival or building art-installation or landscape feature; an "AI" application; a provision or service or activity - or whatever.

It is also cool if some social or organizational change (typically enforced upon us by the totalitarian system, and incentivized for its adoption) offers us a reasonable chance of short-medium term enhanced personal earnings, status, or leisure...

Even when we know that the long-term effect will be destructive of all these... 

(After all, people reason; who really knows what the future holds? Maybe everything will be OK? And in the long term we are all dead anyway.) 

Coolness evaluations are possible and dominant because very few people nowadays are engaged in any kind of primary-functional activity like raising a child, growing-food, or making/ building/ transporting something genuinely valuable or necessary. 

New stuff (discoveries, inventions, technologies, media etc) is therefore judged by very subjective and easily-influenced criteria - and most of the most powerful influences, nowadays, are top-down emanations of the totalitarian system. 

So - as well as innovations being top-down devised and imposed; judgements of these innovations are also top-down controlled. 

New stuff therefore comes to people pre-packaged as useful and life-enhancing - or even pushed as civilizationally-vital* - on the vaguest of grounds.

(*To which opposition is idiotic or retrograde) 

When actually the new stuff is merely cool... at best!

Keeping children safe? - Oh yeah, sure...

I need not bother to provide evidence of how little the Establishment cares about the safety of children in the UK. 

All their favourite strategic policies tormented, harmed and killed children on a truly colossal scale; and then condoned and concealed this - directly, and indirectly. 

So when there is legislation that purports to be motivated by concern for the "safety of children", we should immediately know that this is a lie - and the motivation is certainly quite other.

And know too that the real motivation is certain to be evil - or else it would not systematically, and by saturation and coordination, have been lied-about.

(And also, we know with certainty it is evil because, everything that our Western leadership class is pursuing seriously over the long-term - is strategically and intentionally evil; and I mean Every Single Thing.)  

It seems that the access to media is already more explicitly and aggressively restricted in the UK than any other Western nation - especially after geopolitical events in early 2020, and then again from early 2022. 

A lot of stuff that can be read online from the US, Commonwealth and Europe; has been blocked in the UK for the past three-to-five years.

You didn't realise? 

Well that is significant - one way or the other.    

Q: What kind of stuff is blocked? 

A; Stuff critical of the major programs of UK Establishment policy, of course!

Those Litmus Test issues I linked early. 

So far this past week I have noticed several blog posts blocked by a message stating that the problem with content is child safety - when actually the content is related to some kind of analysis of (privileged and powerful) social and ethnic groups. 

Would-be readers are sometimes asked to provide "age verification" (i.e. to create an account and explicitly identify themselves), in order to read this anti-Establishment material.  

Well, I expected nothing else - the West is now, after all, a fully-totalitarian society, just closing a few remaining loopholes of un-restricted discourse.

And They are only interested in doing things to Us; and not-at-all in what We want; and it has been like this for many years.

As always, the truly vital thing is is that we:

1.Recognize the situation.

2. Recognize it for what it is - i.e. They are lying in order to harm us - physically, but mainly spiritually.

3. Recognize the net-evil strategic motivations of our leadership class - whether institutional, national, and global leadership. 

4. Realize that therefore the worst spiritual harm comes from Our consenting to the validity of Their imposed world-view and motivations; and from consenting to Their authority to control Our world-view and motivations. 

5. Be confident that They cannot spiritually harm Us... unless we invite Them into our hearts. 

But that is exactly what So Many people do in excusing Them as having naïve good intentions, or being merely selfish and greedy, or being merely stupid and ignorant and short-sighted. 

Things are much worse than that. 

In truth; Our leaders do bad things to Us, for bad reasons. 

What we need to do is be clear and explicit in our own minds as to what is going on and why; and then to reject it as evil*!

Too many people jump to advocating effective organized opposition... Not that this ever actually-happens! - but that does not stop people calling for it, automatically; like a speak-your-weight machine. 

But opposition as such is futile and indeed counter-productive, especially when opposition is itself motivated by some strategically net-evil programme, inevitably rooted in the hedonic materialism of all public discourse. 

Corrective and good social action may or may not be possible in practice; but whether possible or not, good action cannot possibly happen without a prior and sustained inner act of discernment, responsibility and courage. 

While of course we should strive not to cooperate or support evil; organized opposition will be futile or counter-productive unless genuinely motivated at every level; because to evil does not lead to good, unless there is motivation to good.  

And at the bottom line, as this process expands and envelops, we should recall that, in net-effect; mass/social media do vastly more harm than good.

All restrictions on mass media will almost-inevitably make it less popular overall, less engaging, less addictive**.

So that, by pursuing short-term expediency, evil is (to a significant extent) thwarting its own long term success.  

After all; to be denied some particular external inputs, and to be thrown-back upon our own personal experiences, evaluations, personal contacts, and individual reasoning - is probably just what we most need. 

In our civilization and nation; things probably need to get worse before they can get better - but they will get better only if we first understand enough of what is going-on.  

*That is what is required of Christians for salvation - it is indeed, all that is required of us, in a negative sense. Of course, the reality is that to move on to resurrected eternal Heavenly life, we must commit eternally to live only by love - and the rejecting of evil is really just a means to that end.

** This also applies to the "AI"-slop that is flooding mass and social media. Since this (as with all aspects of "AI") is backed by subsidies and amplified by corrupt boosting into displacing appealing content; such a trend can only diminish the long-term influence, impact and appeal of mass and social media. 

Review of: Strange - Paranormal realities in the everyday world (2025), by Andy Thomas

Andy Thomas. Strange: Paranormal realities in the everyday world. Watkins: London, 2025. pp 288.

When it comes to the paranormal - as with science, medicine and everything else important - I regard the source of purported information, of reported observations, to be vitally significant. 

In practice, this means that I only take seriously (which does not mean believe!) information from those few people who I have reason to believe are capable and motivated to provide the best information they can.   

Andy Thomas is one of these people; being something of a penfriend, and someone whose lecture presentations I have watched on video, and some of whose books I have read. I have formed the judgment that he is an honest and well-informed chap, who is usually worth listening to!

I have read quite a few books on "paranormal" stuff over the years, especially those by Colin Wilson (also much more widely). But a problem with Colin Wilson is that his sources on paranormal/ occult matters are mostly (more or less) well known people, mostly writers - and I tend to regard their reports as having a literary and contrived flavour. 

What Andy has done here is something that not many could do; because of his experience. For several decades he has travelled around Britain giving lectures on many subjects to all sorts of audiences, often in intimate venues. As an author and conference organizer, he is also very "well-connected" in the more "professional" world of the paranormal. 

So it would be plausible to suppose that Andy Thomas is probably in the best possible position to provide a representative overview of paranormal matters in Britain today.   

In particular, Andy has personally met and spoken with probably thousands of people, of many kinds, including many "ordinary" people; by which I mean, not people who make a living or work professionally with paranormal matters, nor professional communicators such as journalists or authors. And he has talked with these people on many paranormal themes. 

Of course Andy's contacts are not a "random" sample of the UK - which would be impossible since many people would not go to lectures of any kind, nor would they speak of paranormal matters to any stranger - but it's probably as good a cross-section of the nation as is viable. 

So, what makes Strange unique; is that it is a book about paranormal matters that consists substantially of the results of these many person-to-person meetings and communications with ordinary people -  people who have approached Andy in various ways to tell him of "something strange that happened to me". 

Apparently, he says; this happens a lot. 

After every talk mentioning paranormal matters he gives, there are those who speak from the audience and others who stay behind to share some experience; as if the subject matter of the lecture has jogged a memory, and "given permission" to speak or write. 

So one basic thesis of this book is that "Strange" is normal - or relatively so. 

In other words; a high proportion of ordinary modern people have had some kind of experience that they regard as "paranormal". 

What does Andy Thomas mean by paranormal? He describes some of the commonest themes, in approximate order of frequency:

1. Ghosts and poltergeists

2. UFOs

3. Out of body and near death experiences

4. Psychic phenomena (such as telepathy)

5. Premonitions 

6. Synchronicities

7. Crop circle events 

8. Prehistoric-site events (stone circles etc)

9. Sighting of "cryptids" or anomalous creatures

Reports arranged in a similar thematic way form the structure of the book; interspersed with reflections, analysis, and summaries from the author. 

Thomas's assumption throughout is that paranormal phenomena are real; but on the question of what they actually are, how they're caused, and what they mean he is usually "agnostic" - presenting various theories but mostly without choosing between them. 

He does not rule-out religious or simple-spiritual explanations - and mentions them; but generally he seems to exhibit a preference for materialist/ scientific explanations. For example, he several times mentions "quantum entanglement" as a putative cause of instant interaction over a distance. 

I mention this because I regard t as an example of a practice I have commented on before; by which writers on difficult-to-understand strange phenomena "explain" them by means of some idea (usually derived from physics) which is itself nigh impossible to understand! Colin Wilson's Faculty X, or Rupert Sheldrake's morphic fields and resonances, are other examples. 

My own preference is instead imaginatively to try look at such things in the simplest and most instinctive way possible: that which would probably occur to a young child or tribal person. 

In other words; I favour an explanation that is usually animistic/ anthropomorphic - and relates to the relationships between living beings. 

From such a perspective there simply is not a problem in "explaining" many paranormal phenomena - since they are naturally and spontaneously taken-for-granted. 

Most of these "problems" arise from the recent models of modern science and materialism, and modern cultural ideas of what is supposedly impossible. 

So that (for instance) from an "animistic" perspective; ghosts, communications with the dead, telepathy, psychometry, out of body experiences and the like; all become something expected and normal. They need no further explanation - although they may benefit from further clarification. 

Having appreciated the range of reports in Strange - and accepting that the subject is real and worth investigation and consideration; the question arises as to the implications. 

What does it mean? How should we react to such a range of paranormal accounts?

The way I would proceed is the same as I did when I was active in theoretical science; which was carefully to distinguish the "provenance" (i.e. the sources and lineage) of proposed information; with the aim of including only those sources who were evaluated to be honest and competent.  

This means, in practice, ignoring most sources, most people - because most reports from most people cannot positively be established to be both honest and competent. 

Thus I would take seriously Andy's own reports; but most of the other reports I would not include in my analyses; because I simply don't know whether I personally would regard Andy's secondary sources as valid. 

Then, even after excluding most (in usual practice almost all) of the putative information; I would need to distinguish between, on the one hand; the "appearances" of what that person had experienced (e.g. what they had seen) - which may be generalizable...

And, on the other hand; the theoretical explanations of these experiences (the identity and behaviours of what they had seen) - which may well distort what has been perceived*.   

This isn't easy to achieve, and there is no standard method for doing it. It is a matter of judgment. 

Nonetheless such discernment needs to be done in order to cope with the many contradictions between accounts - even among accounts by those who are competent and honest. 

And finally, or rather before this process has even begun! - we need to sort out our own ultimate metaphysical assumptions concerning the basic nature of reality. 

This means that it is not really possible to be agnostic on this or any other matter; since every person actually and inevitably interprets reality from some perspective that is ultimately rooted, not in evidence, but in assumptions. 

And if we don't already know our own primary assumptions concerning reality - these will need to be discovered, made explicit, and evaluated. 

Such are my reflections provoked by reading Andy Thomas's Strange.

*Note: An interesting example of the way that our assumptions affect our understanding of perceptions related to the mythical "scarecrow shells" of World War II. RAF aircrew had been officially informed that the Germans had developed demoralizing anti-aircraft shells that exploded to simulate the destruction of a British bomber. Such shells did not exist. The actual cause of such explosions was probably RAF bombers destroyed by Luftwaffe night-fighters approaching from below with upward-firing cannon. But many expert and competent aircrew were absolutely sure that they had observed scarecrow shells.  

"AI" is the reductio ad absurdum and revenge of "Truth is Out There"

There is a fundamental, integral, by-assumption incoherence of Western thinking; that was described by Rudolf Steiner in The Philosophy of Freedom (1894); then further elucidated by Owen Barfield in Saving the Appearances (1957). 

These deep errors have not been acknowledged so could neither be analysed* nor be reformed, therefore have remained; and now are wreaking their revenge in the strategically destructive nonsense that is the post-November 2022 totalitarian global project of "AI". 

Such metaphysical assumptions have led Western civilization to the apparently-inevitable conclusion that, since truth has nothing to do with the active thinking of living, conscious, purposive beings (such as human beings); "therefore" truth can be more efficiently and impartially "discovered and done" by computers.

For the AI-dolaters; Truth is something that can be built-into a logical system; and it is the job of rational humans to submit to... whatever that logical system tells us is true. 

For AI-dolaters - "AI" is just a mechanical tool for discovering, and perhaps implementing, those self-explaining and objective truths - "truths" which are implicitly regarded as floating around "out there", waiting to be discovered and used...

For the Truth Out There gang; Truths are like pre-cut diamonds mixed into a vast heap of useless rubble - and they regard AI as merely a machine for sifting through trash and extracting the valuable elements.  

There is widespread acceptance (among the managerial and intellectual class) of the false mantra of "Truth is Out There", objective, independent of what we think about it; with its implication that rational men therefore ought to submit to that external truth...

And because this nonsensical assumption is integral to the functioning of bureaucracy and functional discourse; the demon-serving powers-that-should-not-be - most of the middling people of Western society have ended-up supporting (by word and deed, even when there are vague mental reservations) an insanely-dysfunctional but mandatory project to "replace" human consciousness with machine algorithms in as many kinds of socio-economic activity as possible. 

This happens because it is lazily assumed that the only alternative to the fake reasonableness of Truth is Out There is the solipsism of Truth is in My Mind.*

Such vague ideas of the subjectivity of truth have been floating around the counter-culture for many decades, indeed a few centuries: e.g. "my truth" notions such that ultimate truth is wholly-subjective, is whatever I currently assert it to be. 

Such subjectivist "relativism" is just as incoherent as "Truth is Out There" - but in addition it is upfront socially subversive and destructive. 

So it seems that mainstream "responsible" opinion - which cannot/will-not reject the exclusive dichotomy of conception; it has doubled-down on Truth is Out There. 

Consequently; it is routinely pretended (but aggressively!) that real truths are objective, independent of minds and consciousness; and have nothing to do with what humans (or anyone else) thinks...

It is important to recognize that "external truth" assumptions, are shared across the divide between mainstream materialist-atheism and mainstream-church-Christianity.

Therefore; the totalitarian assumption that it is the duty of individuals to submit to external truth - is also shared by totalitarians of secular and Christian types. 

This, I suggest, is why the "Truth is Out There" Christians have so often embraced and celebrated the totalitarian AI Project. 

Church-rooted, or "systemic", Christianity on the one hand, and materialist-secular-atheism on the other hand; are in this respect two sides of the same coin of "Truth is Out There"-ism. 

And this explains their analogous failure to discern the fraudulent and evil-motivated nature of current "AI". 

The main difference between church-Christian and secular AI-dolaters, seems to be that the Christians want their AI systems to be "trained" on a somewhat different data set. 

Other than that; church-Christians seem to be eagerly anticipating a system of AI-religion - a fusion of bureaucracy and computers - that they hope will become objectively valid, and to which they believe we ought then to submit obediently.   

*Note added: the reason for the apparently exclusive dichotomy of truth as either wholly subjective or wholly objective; is that Western philosophy has assumed this separation and division into place - then finds that it cannot be bridged. Most who realize that the result is a choice of two incoherent possibilities then assert some version of Oneness spirituality - which also does not make sense, since it provides no basis for creation or human existence; and there is no basis in it for any distinction or discernment of life. The only coherent basis I have found is to assume that the fundamental reality is of pre-existent/ eternal living beings, and this is the basis of true distinction and discernment. We start with Beings. And divine creation is a matter of developing relationships and creating cooperation between such Beings. This means that the baseline is that all knowledge is a product of the relationships between conscious Beings - so that detached subjectivity and objectivity are alike meaningless. 

Why politics has become negative - loss of the unconscious, spontaneous, naturalness of communal values

If the verities of our spiritual life are things like our-selves and God and divine creation; then by contrast politics is ultimately arbitrary. In the world as it is now, and ourselves as we are now; wherever and however we draw boundaries around our categories, there is a strong element of arbitrary imposition. 

Nothing is now obvious and spontaneous; everything is contested and a matter of choice. Hence ideology has displaced nature. 

What was once unconscious and happened naturally - isn't any more. 

In the past we found-ourselves and grew up immersed in a communal situation - which became primary. 

Our values were inculcated by mechanisms that were unconscious, spontaneous, natural - this was almost unavoidable. 

Not Any More.

At least from adolescence, if not before - we experience our-selves as individuals in a world of many options. Nothing is "given" because everything can be (and sooner or later is) brought to awareness, consciousness - so that we find ourselves standing outside of questions; questions that once were simply the-way-it-is.  

The problem with all politics as-is; is that it is based upon arbitrary - ideological - categories. 

However we cut-up reality in order to discuss it and make plans - we are confronted with the need for conscious choices about what is valid, what is good, what ought to be the aim. 

Hence ideology; which imposes these top-down, consciously; and then claims that doing-this has been necessary and real. 

Consider the apparently sensible maxim that it is better for us to "mind our own business" and not to meddle in the business of others.

Once we move from the business of our own spiritual life in the context of the everything, we are confronted by intermediate levels of analysis - and questions. 

Is our family our business? Is our street, village city, nation, region, civilization our business? There are arguments for each of these levels as genuinely impacting on our own business - so why stop at our civilization - why not include the world, the planet, the universe? 

Soon it seems that either everything is our business - or else nothing but our selves... and maybe our self isn't primarily our business; since plenty of people assert that our business is to "serve" other-people (or God). 

We might therefore conclude that we our-selves have no business at all; or else that our business is everything - or we may conclude that our business is our race, nation, or ideology!   

My point is that this matter of categories, drawing lines, making qualitative distinctions Just Is a matter requiring discernment, choices, commitments - such that in 2025 and the West the categories can no longer serve as the basis or justification for values...

So, it used to be possible to have one's clan or tribe or (small) nation as the basis for values - but it isn't any more; since before we can be "a nationalist" (or whatever) we have had to decide to make this our business. 

And this also applies to our religion.  

Yet in the past it certainly seems like these categories (clan, place, religion) really did have a primary reality - they were that from-which we argued, from-which our values emerged. 

Indeed; if we assume that our primary loyalties used-to-be unconscious, spontaneous, natural and communal - nowadays, for many people, this is lost - and the opposite is true!

Politics (in its many manifestations) is a reality, but a negative reality. 

In the past xenophobia was unconscious, spontaneous, natural - and (apparently) a necessary part of our natural and unavoidable positive affiliations to peoples, places, religions...

But nowadays xenophilia - love of the "other" is more common, more valued, and apparently more influential. 

And indeed difficult to avoid! Nearly everybody, me included, has a tendency to "idealize" some or another "foreign and hearsay kind of place, religion, grouping... (And often something about which we have only superficial or hearsay knowledge.) 

So; instead of the unconscious and spontaneous values of human history; we find-ourselves in a situation of multiple-choices and chosen-ideologies. 

We therefore ought to embrace and make-the-best-of the inevitable!

We should choose, take responsibility for our choices, and remain aware that we have chosen. 

Good politics is impossible in such situations - since all possible politics entails dishonesty about the nature and implications of its conclusions and assertions; it entails hiding and denying its own roots.  

It is therefore up to each of us, as individuals, to make these choices in the best possible way that we can envisage and attain; or else - since good politics is become impossible - we shall be the ones who suffer the consequences.