The esoteric occult focus: From Far East, through Middle East, to Celtic

The Occult Revival in the West (esepcially the UK, spreading to Europe and the USA) began with Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society in the late 1800s which led to the Golden Dawn magical societies. 

This regarded the fount of secret wisdom and magical power to lie in the Far East of India, China, Japan - but especially India in the early 20th century. 

Theosophy also gave a structural emphasis to the Qabalah/ Kabbalah; with its Hebrew origins in the Middle East, and a fascination with Ancient Egypt. 

The favoured religions were Hinduism, and later Buddhism and (Islamic) Sufism - with a selective and much-subordinate interest in mystical Christianity from the Neo-Platonic tradition. A uniting feature was belief in progressive reincarnation towards deity.  

The second phase, which regarded itself as "Western" is most associated with Rudolf Steiner and later Dion Fortune, and was most active in the early decades but especially the era between WWI and WWII.  - but their idea of the West was relative. 

They discarded the Far East focus, but retained a basis in the Qabalah; instead were interested by Egypt and the Middle East of Palestine. Steiner was much interested by the specifics of native European "folk souls" but Anthroposophy never developed an explicit magical practice, nor was it regional in practice or aspiration - being much focused on the power centre of the HQ in Dornach, Switzerland. 

This era of magic is Christian, or at least pro-Christian (depending on interpretation) - at any rate, many of them (including Steiner and Dion Fortune) regarded themselves as strongly Christian in essence. However, progressive reincarnation (rather than salvation and resurrection) remained at its heart. 

From the post WWII era (e.g. Robert Graves's The White Goddess) but especially from the 1960s and 1970s; the magical tradition began to focus on genuinely Western sources, and especially on the (supposed) Celtic aspects of Britain and Ireland before the Roman conquest. 

This led to the various manifestations of Neo-Paganism such as extremely popular Witches/ Wiccans, Druids; and the modern magical societies and groups (including much of the broad "chaos magic" tradition.  

Modern occultism and esoteric actuiivity has retained the idea of progressive reincarnation towards divinity. 

However, in contrast with the early 20th century occultism of Steiner and Dion Fortune; post millenial occultism is, and increasingly, essentially anti-Christian/ "anything-but-Christianity" - usually actively and vehemently so. 

Indeed, 21st century occultism typically embraces the Christianity-inverted values of mainstream Western culture - especially with respect to morality; which among Neo-Pagans is often explicitly and deliberately transgressional in its ideals and actuality. 

Fascinated by "magic"... But only a small bit of it

I have been reading magical fiction and fantasy since discovering Tolkien in 1972, and continued with a (partly academic) study of animism and shamanism in the early 2000s; but I began reading about 20th century magic at the start of 2020. 

In this I was, belatedly, following-up a recommendation by William Wildblood to read The Magical Battle of Britain by Dion Fortune edited by Gareth Knight. 

Since then I have read, and often re-read, scores of such books - nearly-all by Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight, and their close associates.

This; despite that I have near-zero interest in practicing ritual magic of any kind, and even less in participating in the kind of formal, initiating magical group that DF then GK were trained-in and led - this sustained interest in magic is strange, even to me.

Indeed, I soon concluded that this kind of ritual magical society has become nigh impossible nowadays - or, at least, it is now very weak in the pursuit of positive spiritual development, whether of individuals or (even more) of society. 

Clearly, I have got, am getting, significant satisfaction from at least some of this reading. 

But what? I would characterize it as a kind of enchantment that (sometimes) comes over me while I am reading - of a similar nature to that when reading a good fantasy novel, when encountering elves or entering faerie.

However, it is significant that DF and GK were both explicitly self-identified Christian - albeit of a very different kind than me (but then that applies to almost everybody, anyway). 

Even during the active lives of DF, and even more so GK, there were relatively few ritual magicians who considered themselves Christian. 

Nowadays; it seems that those who practice magic are almost all "neo-pagans" of one sort or another; and those that I have encountered express "anything but Christianity" at best, but are mostly (and often vehemently) anti-Christian.

(This opposition usually boils-down-to an opposition to the constraints that Christian churches have placed on sex and sexuality - i.e. they hate what they regard as Christianity "because" they support some aspect of the sexual revolution of which they desire to avail themselves.) 

While several neo-pagan magical writers seem like decent people in themselves, and surely no worse overall than many/most devout Christian church-members; I cannot shake off a solid awareness of a kind of shadow that lies behind, motivates, and tends to corrupt neo-paganism - whether magical or any other kind.

Consequently I have little interest in the present day practitioners of ritual magic - and very seldom find myself "enchanted" by their work -- indeed more often I experience the opposite: a repulsion.

So my conclusion is rather like Sturgeon's Law: probably 99% of Ritual Magic is crap - but then 99% of all actual Christian Churches (including the best) is crap. In this actual world, here-and-now, 100% of most institutions is crap. If we find something that contains even one percent that is good; then we should cleave to that tiny proportion, and set-aside the rest. 

But experiencing such repulsion when sensing the deep motivations of modern people is actually the norm for me. 

And, on the other side, I find the underlying personal character of both Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight to be very appealing and indeed inspiring; even when I regard them as mistaken or on the wrong track in many specifics.

I find that I am less and less impressed by superficial agreements or disagreements with those who I read; more and more my discernments of good and not-good people, seem to be rooted-in (what I infer to be) some much deeper level of character and attitude. 

This is yet another way in which I find myself at odds with traditional, group-based, external-authority-rooted ways of understanding the purpose and meaning of life; and of the Christian Life specifically. 

It seems to me that anybody - including those corrupted, or even of of deeply evil nature - can make public affirmations or rejections of whatever checklist of doctrines or dogmas will get them accepted by some kind of institution or social group. 

This kind of stuff (which is 99% of "religions") is nowadays (it was not always so) just about gatekeeping, boundaries, gang-membership - in short: attempts to increase this-worldly power. 

And therefore it already-is, or soon-becomes, assimilated to the aims and methods of the ruling totalitarian System; which is why in 2026 all institutions (including all churches) are converged or converging with the evil-strategies of atheistic-materialism.  

On the other side; I am both interested and grateful when I encounter a person (alive or dead) whose motivates are genuinely good; and who is working, in his inner life, for positive and spiritual goals.

I believe these to be the truest followers of Jesus; in the sense that such people are much the most likely to desire, accept, and embrace Christ's offer of post-mortal, resurrected eternal life in Heaven.  

And with such rare people, I will take them where I find them and enjoy the experience, and try to learn from it - whether such individuals are located in or out-of the institutions of ritual magic, or elsewhere.    

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.  

Which animals are magical?

There are individual exceptions either way; but for an animal to be magical or not, doesn't correlate with whether that beast is good or not. 

While magic (as such) is A Good Thing in the sense of being better than life lived at a mundane, everyday, non-experiential and alienated fashion - there is plenty of magic in the world that is malign in intent and/or effect. 

Nonetheless, some kinds of animal are magical, while others are not - and this helps explain people's attitudes to them. 

It can work positively or negatively, for some people like and seek magical experience; while others hate, fear, and avoid it. 

So we can start by stating that cats are magical creatures, but dogs are not - and this has much to do with the well-known pattern of human types that are often divided between cat or dog lovers. 

Sheep and especially goats are magical; but cows are not - and neither are pigs (despite that oracular pigs feature in The Mabinogion!). 

Owls are magical - and so are corvids (especially ravens and magpies), swallows and swifts; but pigeons are not, neither are most songbirds, nor are ducks. 

Bears are magical, and so are hares, badgers, red squirrels, and moles; but shrews, mice and rates are not magical. 

And so on. Discuss among yourselves. 

Tolkien's elves compared with those of Folklore

Faery by John T Kruse - 2020

Over at The Notion Club Papers blog; I discuss how very different were JRR Tolkien's elves from those of folklore, such as described by John T Kruse in his 2020 compendium Faery: a guide to the lore, magic and world of the Good Folk. 

Yet how, in late and unpublished writings; Tolkien endeavoured to bridge that gap; and to explain how the noble and virtuous elves of Lord of the Rings became transformed in nature and behaviour to those Beings which British people are recorded as having encountered in the past (and indeed, up to the present).  

A future for pagan religion? Laeth insights

 As a complement to William Wildblood's reflections on the potential value for Christians in what might be termed pagan-ism; Laeth makes an interesting point about the possibility of a future pagan religion in The West (edited): 

Jupiter stopped answering the Romans, and Jesus stopped answering the Christians. This is obvious. 

There is no power or magic left in the churches... 

Lots of people may say: "but my church is wonderful, we do this and do that, and so on". But that doesn’t change the fact that the spirit going through your local, or even home, church is not infecting and affecting the world the way Christianity as a whole thing did...

The fact is, no religion moves the West (and beyond) anymore. 

But it obviously did, as any look into history will show. 

Look around: the remnants of that incredibly strong motivation are still here. We like to visit such places. But we don’t do there what our ancestors did; and even when we do, we don’t feel like they did doing it.

C. S. Lewis, I think, once said that this was doubly true for paganism; that if we are removed from Christianity, we are even more so from paganism. 

But now I think it’s pretty much the same. That "gap" has been closed. 

The more a body decomposes, the more it looks like the one next to it.

That point about the "gap" between Christianity and pagan religions having closed strikes me as a genuine insight from Laeth. 

It is probably what underpins such pagan revivalism as has been evident over the past half century or so: Wiccan witchcraft; Druidism; Shamanism; and revivals of neo-Celtic, -Norse, or -Anglo-Saxon polytheistic rituals and symbolism - and the like.

This has been possible because - experientially - such invented neo-paganism is overall, pretty much, just as motivating and powerful as Christianity... 

The trouble is that this level power and motivation is Not Enough - in either case.

So that Christianity and the varieties of paganism are way too feeble to overcome pre-existing political beliefs.

So that both Christianity and paganisms now operate at the level of lifestyle, hobbies, fandoms - and do not do what religion historically "obviously did". 

From such a recognition we may look back into history and recognize that - in terms of theosis (i.e. learning and developing spiritually during mortal life) and salvation (resurrection into Heaven after death) - None Of This Matters. 

Christianity was essentially not/ never supposed-to-be a socio-economic state programme. 

And it was supposed to be possible for all individuals who wanted what Jesus offered; regardless of their time, place, or personal circumstances. 

The re-enchantment of the world - a matter of direct spiritual contacts

Since the emergence of Romanticism in the late 1700s, the "disenchantment" of our modern world has been a constant cultural theme; and there have been may analyses of its cause; and suggestions concerning the possibilities for re-enchantment. 

I have, over the past half century, read many books and essays on this theme; and I observe that more continue to be published. 

In recent years I have expanded my explorations to include the tradition of Christian ceremonial magic, in particular the works of Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight. Knight, in particular, confronts this issue head-on, especially in his autobiography "I called it magic" (2011) - which describes the (almost) life-long quest for re-enchantment of his life. 

What follows derives from such considerations; and takes the form of notes-to-myself, as a kind of aide memoire concerning a partial crystallization of ideas. 

++

In our world, here and now, the proper aim of magical activity is to establish the greatest possible range of loving contacts. 

By which I mean, in particular, direct inter-Being contacts of a spiritual kind. 

By "direct" contacts I mean mind-to-mind - therefore unmediated; not-perceptual, not symbolic nor linguistic.  

By "Beings" I mean any of the primary units of reality - because I regard reality as consisting of eternally existing and developing, Beings: that are alive, purposive, and (to some extent) conscious.

Therefore; re-enchantment is not about abstractions or atmospheres; nor particular qualities of consciousness or thinking. 

Re-enchantment is concrete and specific - like the interpersonal relationships with those we love.  

Re-enchantment is about an expanded awareness-of and interaction-with many Beings of many kinds; and especially awareness of those entities that are (by mainstream modern ideas and ideologies) considered to be imaginary, not to exist, to be unalive/ dead, or not-to-be-Beings/ never-alive.  

Re-enchantment is piecemeal and quantitative; because expanded awareness could include so many contacts with so many Beings of so many kinds. 

Here is an incomplete list of the kind of contacts that constitute re-enchantment.:

Telepathy with living human beings.

So-called dead people - resurrected Men

Pre-mortal spirit humans

Animals, plants, and mineral-beings

Nature spirits

Fairies

Divine beings (including the Holy Ghost)

Planets and stars

The scope of "magical" contacts, is as wide as the nature of Beings. 

To simplify somewhat; these contacts are what is missing from the alienated, materialistic and mundane life of Modern men; and a person who lived in continuous contact with all these kinds of Beings (and other Beings) would be living the "enchanted" life.  

But more needs to be said, and that includes that the contacts be of the right quality; which is to say loving. 

The point is Not (as so often has been sought) to make contact with Beings in order to "use" them to seek power/ wealth/ sex/ status; nor to get information from them; nor to be healed by them; nor to get guidance from them...

If other Beings are regarded as means to an end, any relationship will be dis-enchanted. 

An enchanted relationship cannot be instrumental. 

The "point" of these contacts is the value of loving relationships in and of themselves.

The point of these contacts is expanded awareness.  

However, contacts are not static nor merely contemplative; because contacts are two-way, they are dynamic, developmental. 

Beings in a loving relationship therefore aspire to a active relationship. 

The interaction of Beings - their mutual influencing - is the context of creativity. 

Creation (for an individual) is actively participating in the "web" of his relationships - by this activity he "makes a difference" to divine creation. 

In sum: Contemplation is a passive participation in relationships on one side; however, Creativity is active participation on both sides. 

Re-enchanting the world is thus about restoring and gaining the fullest range of contacts. 

And, for the seeking of loving-contacts to be a meaningful activity in our actual lives (not to be regarded as trivial, nor explained-away in materialistic terms); we need to be able to explain to ourselves how this really happens, and why it is really significant in terms of eternal creation. 

The magic of Big Money in overcoming common sense

The biggest frauds of recent decades have all involved Big Money overcoming common sense. 

Enough Big Money and, it is clear, people will believe what they know to be impossible - indeed they are positively eager and zealous to believe what they know to be impossible. 

A clear and uncontroversial example is the Theranos Fraud. 

I watched a speech by the alleged-CEO (but possibly just a puppet-front?) claiming they would develop a way of removing blood from veins without breaking the skin. 

This is obviously impossible - but most of the talk was about what enormous advantages there would be from such a breakthrough - how marvellous it would be if you could get blood out from blood vessels without needing to make a hole. 

The reported fact that "so many" people invested loads of money into this scheme (albeit mostly other peoples' money) - plus liberal helpings of pseudo-scientific gobbledegook - made people overcome what was obvious common sense, and assume that the impossible was actually possible.   

But Theranos was a negligible sideshow - one country and hundreds of millions of dollars, compared with the global fraud of hundreds of trillions due to the CO2 Climate scam, and the "AI" scam.

(Both actually occult parasitic totalitarian social engineering.) 

Yet, if it wasn't for the mind-distorting effect of Giga-dollar-money (and the vast forces of personnel and propaganda that it buys); both the CO2-Climate and "AI" claims would have very obviously failed the test of common sense.  

But when it comes to Climate and "AI"; the Bigness of the Money combines with the Bigness of the claims stuns people into a passive state of bewildered and gullible acceptance...

(i.e. A species of PSYOP.)

Surely (people infer) "they" couldn't be making such unimaginably, indeed un-believably, immense claims; if there was not a solid basis for them? 

Well, yes "they" have-done, can, and still-do Exactly That - and indeed the process has become routine.

"Business" as usual...

Enough money and resources - and people will believe... Anything.

The magic of analogue electronic technology

Similar to, but not the same as, my radio circa 1972

There was a magic to analogue technology, that is objectively absent from the digital. As an obvious example (that many discovered from themselves after many years of denial): an analogue-recorded vinyl LP record captures that which is recorded in a more complete and emotionally-engaging fashion, than does a digitally-recorded CD. 

Similarly, the old dial-tuned radio sets (short wave/ medium wave/ long-wave) had a magical quality about them, for those susceptible to such enchantment - something that was almost independent of whatever was being listened-to. 

An indelible and evocative memory of my early teen years was playing with the switches and dials of my black, vinyl-cased Philips transistor radio with earplug while lying on or in bed, just prior to sleep.

It had to be night; because at night, the atmospheric conditions favoured long-distance transmission of radio signals.  

What I most remember was scanning the short-wave and long-wave bands, seeking foreign voices from unknown places. 

For some reason, I most liked to listen to German speakers; although what I assumed to be Russian was also an exotic attraction - bringing a frisson that "the authorities" would disapprove, and I probably "ought not" to be listening to it*. 

Sometimes, somehow, messages would drift across the Atlantic, and I might hear snatches of American or Canadian accents. 

*Some things don't change, and now the UK blocks digital media from that nation. It was a further advantage of analogue radio that such top-down control could not easily be achieved. 

With short-wave, there was the phenomenon of the signal waxing and waning; so that I would hear a snatch of speaking, then it would fade - and I could almost never find that same source twice. With long-wave there was a steady signal, but a lot of background interference. 

I was also fascinated by the strange sounds, sometimes high pitched and morse-code-like. But I especially liked a low-pitched buzzing that was modulating in its quality; because someone had once told me that one such sound (on the SW frequency) was the planet Jupiter... 

(This was not necessarily completely fanciful.) 

I was forever half listening for this particular sound, and if I found it (or something sufficiently similar) - I would listen for minutes, as if trying to understand what the planet was telling me or "the world".

And, such is the nature of these things that I would always forget where on the dial I had found this Jupiter sound; so I couldn't ever go back again the next night, but would have to start my search afresh.  

Something about the simpler analogue technology made this experience possible - partly because the dodgy quality of the audio created space for the imagination, but partly also because the experience was very direct. 

The signal made hundreds or thousands of miles away, came directly to the little device in my bed - maybe bouncing off the ionosphere en route? - so there was an almost person-to-person quality in the experience.

And the wave movements generated by the person speaking into a microphone were translated into the movements of the diaphragm in my earpiece; again in a very direct fashion. 

I never had a "crystal set" radio of my own, and they were unsuited to bedtime, under blankets, usage - but these were even simpler, more miraculous and magical than my little transistor radio; because they did not even require a battery! 

Somehow, the power of the radio waves, generated so far away, and sleeting through us all, all of the time - was by itself and without an amplifier, enough to move the diaphragm when intercepted by the "diode"! 

It strikes me that all this stuff could be elaborated into a metaphor for what has changed and been lost over the past fifty-plus years - a microcosm of societal and technological change and its effect on the human imagination: but I shall leave that to you!

Note: A few years ago, I got another small analogue radio with a variety of SW bands; but this doesn't seem to work as it once did. Almost everything is drowned in crackles; perhaps due to interference from the many electronic devices, light bulbs, etc. around the house, and indeed everywhere else. Where once we had faint but meaningful voices, we now have a choice between curated and processed digital media, or electromagnetic chaos. 

Further Note: A friend of my father's (a dentist) was a Radio Ham. He had his own radio transmitter in an office at home, and a personal fifty foot aerial outside the house (plus the requisite official permissions needed for these). We visited one afternoon, and he demonstrated the equipment, and how he could converse with other Hams around the world. I found the whole thing intensely exciting, and firmly resolved to do the same myself as soon as could afford the kit. But, of course, never did. 

Why do "global leaders" have so many in-person, face-to-face "conferences"?

I have often wondered why - despite three decades of the internet; "global leaders" have so many in-person, face-to-face conferences. 

The answer, I believe, is that the public aspects - speeches, lectures, symposia, workshops, seminars etc. are insufficient to account for the conference phenomena - acting as an only slightly relevant camouflage. 

The Real Reason so many (often) ancient/ unhealthy/ unfit individuals, go to such extreme lengths to be mutually-present in such numbers in particular places at specific times at a high frequency; is participation in black ritual magic, of various kinds. 

Magical Ritual serves a dual function, directed both inward and outward: 

The inward function is generating and enforcing group cohesion and loyalty - something which is otherwise difficult to achieve among such extremely self-seeking individuals. 

The outward function is attempting to influence (subvert, destroy, invert) institutional, national and world affairs by direct spiritual interventions.

Does it work? 

Well... They believe it works - so it probably works sometimes, and for enough people to make it worth the enormous effort.

(And after all; They also use a multitude of material methods of control and chaos, as well as dark magical ceremonial.)  

Note added: If you think what I am saying is false, then consider first whether you actually know what methods are used in ritual magic, and why. 

Once you do understand the nature of ritual magic, then you simply need to pay attention to what is being done To You. You may also discover that this is what They are telling us and showing us, over and again, all over the place. 

The trouble is that we are also being trained not to notice, and glibly to explain-away the obvious; being simultaneously distracted, confused, and gaslighted with dis-information; and inculcated via multiple official channels with a numbskull atheistic materialism that keeps us wilfully ignorant of fundamental spiritual matters that we were all born innately-knowing.   

Totalitarian PSYOPS are literally black ritual magic

PSYOPS are regarded as top-down mass psychological/ sociological manipulations; and they are all evil by nature; because they are not motivated by love - not in harmony with divine creation. 

Also, since they aim to change "other peoples" behaviour in pre-determined ways, PSYOPS are intrinsically evil in that they are strategically un-truthful. 

In practice; all large scale top-down PSYOPS are also intentionally evil - even if/when those human-tools who implement the PSYOPS (the bureaucrats, managers, professionals, labourers) are ignorant of this evil purpose. 

In 2026 our lives are full of PSYOPS, and have been for decades, accumulating. 

These include the highly prevalent, major totalitarian strategies that I call Litmus Tests - such as class and inter-sex warfare, climatism, antiracism, the Birdemic, and currently "AI"-dolatry.   

There are no good PSYOPS. Supposed good intentions are fake excuses for evil. 

PSYOPS are like The One Ring, a tool of The Enemy, that and cannot be used to fight The Enemy. So, when PSYOPS are used purportedly for "altruistic" purposes - such as Health Promotion or Public Health - supposedly to "help people" in a scientific and medical spirit; if followed through they result in strongly net evil outcomes. 

But to what extent are PSYOPS actual ritual magical practices, performed by black magic techniques? 

In other words, are the methods and intended effects of PSYOPS all operating at the cause-and-effect level of human behaviour and thinking, using quasi-scientific models?

Or, are there spiritual methods at work, with intended spiritually harmful consequences?

Yes, there is a spiritual agenda. Despite that the masses of modern people deny and are ignorant of the spiritual world; nonetheless those at very very top of the totalitarian system are spiritual operatives. 

At the top of the power systems; the ultimate and primary agenda is spiritual warfare; and naturally spiritual methods are deployed - ritual, symbol, charged language, music, "modern" architecture and art, ... the works. 

The phenomenon termed "gaslighting" is pure spiritual warfare: it prepares the way for the necessary invitation for evil to enter the soul. 

Gaslighting induces people - by systemic methods - legal, economic, religious, social, physical (coercion) etc. - to espouse/ support/ propagate/ endorse false assumptions, false logic, stark contradictions, nonsense, paradox... 

Meaninglessness is made to be treated as interesting, amusing, wise; destruction is celebrated as creation; resentment and Schadenfreude are praised as morally exemplary. 

All these are ways by which people are brought to voluntarily open their souls and invite external corruption, occupation - ultimately to hand-over control of the soul to external spiritual authorities.

Black magic is not effective unless it is - to some extent - invited-in. 

Once inside a receptive environment; entities of evil tend to become self-amplifying, by a positive feedback process. 

Therefore spiritual PSYOPS are not effective, unless the masses welcome them... 

However it is apparent that they/we do welcome them! 

Every major new PSYOP has been (at least, to all appearances) - and continues to be eagerly welcomed by large swathes of the Western population. 

People are controlled partly by acknowledged psychological-material techniques; but also - and more effectively - by magical-spiritual methods that harness and direct the malign will of those at high levels of strategic influence. 

It is difficult to resist materialist manipulations, but these are very resource intensive, and limited in effectiveness when they go against human nature. 

By contrast; magical-spiritual manipulations need to be met by open souls, and received with positivity; but when this offer and response happens; black magic is a highly  efficient and powerful malign influence on human behaviour, thinking and feelings. 

 

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.    

Why is seven *the* magical/ mystical/ mythical number? Geoffrey Ashe's answer...

I have previously written about the strange way that things fall into sevens; but it is also well known that seven is usually primary in a most (although not all) magical, mystical and mythical contexts - dating back to Medieval times, and far more anciently. 

Seven has some interesting properties arithmetically, and is notoriously difficult for children to handle, when it comes to times-tables and mental arithmetic - but these aspect of the number are hardly mystical. 

And the psychological origins of this primacy of seven is very difficult to explain, because there aren't any very obvious sevens in nature. 

Indeed, the seven-ness of things is often attributed rather than actual - as with the (supposedly, but not really) seven stars in the Pleiades, the colours of the rainbow, and the "planets"*...

(*To make seven planets required leaving-out the earth, and instead including the sun and moon; until, eventually, Uranus was discovered.)  

Furthermore, there are exceptions to the primacy of seven - so that any explanation of its role must take these into account. 

A few weeks ago I discovered a book that tackled this seven business head-on, analysed the phenomenon in great detail; and offered a plausible and coherent explanation: it is The Ancient Wisdom by Geoffrey Ashe (1977). 

Ashe's answer (as some will have guessed from the illustration) is that the number seven derives its importance from the stars of the most obvious and recognizable of all constellations of the Northern Hemisphere; known at the Plough, Big Dipper, Great Bear and Arthur's Wain - which has been used for a long time** to find the North Star - Polaris. 

(**If you go back far enough, Polaris was not always close enough to true north to be a useful guide; and it will not always remain where it now is - axial precession.)

Geoffrey Ashe's argument is too long, complex, and nuanced to summarize - but it convinced me! 

If you are interested in the origins of magic seven - you now know where to look. 

The "magical scientist": Ceremonial Magic and Science

From the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game

I am re-reading Wizards: a history, by Peter G Maxwell-Stuart (2004); and reflecting on the use of ceremonial magic throughout recorded history; including in the Bible itself, and other early Christian texts where the magic attributions were sometimes vastly amplified.

It all seems to confirm my strong impression that magic and science were pretty much the same thing through most of history, and constituted part of the "this worldly" and social aspect of religions. 

So how and why did they separate - or is science still actually a kind of magic? Maybe...

The virtue (or otherwise) of magic was mainly a matter of the (genuine) motivations of the magician - whether, for instance, these were selfish or spiteful; or else altruistic and intended to benefit good causes. 

And to a lesser extent, the quality of magic was influenced by the good, neutral, or evil nature; of spiritual beings that were contacted and summoned, and whose cooperation or aid was sought. 

But mostly magic was regarded as method; a way of getting things done; such as a means to learn information or accomplish a desired goal. As are science and technology nowadays. 

 

Therefore the main question about any particular usage of ceremonial magic* was - does it work?

And the answer seems to be - Yes! Magic did work... 

Which is to say that magical ceremonies worked sometimes - magic sometimes did what it was intended to do. 

But magic typically worked (it seems to me) partially; by which I mean that although effective, the effects were achieved with great effort on someone's part, sometimes achieved only slowly; sometimes the magic only partially solved the problem. 

And the outcomes were often controversial - accepted by some, denied by others. 

And the explanation of any specific magical effect was also controversial; as we see in relation to Jesus in the New Testament. 

We see differing views of miracles. Was the "magic" done by Jesus himself (as a divine being); by God via Jesus; by angels or demons Jesus had enlisted; was there a natural explanation; or was the miracle some kind of illusion, trick or fraud? 

Much the same could be asked of any magician - since some magicians claimed (or were asserted to be, by followers) divine avatars or emanations (i.e. themselves a god), or to have assimilated to the divine. 

 

Therefore, although it can be said that magic "worked"; there remains the deep question of what it means that magic works; and (in sum) it is evident that any evaluation of any kind of "working" cannot be made wholly objective and impersonal. 

That is: different people, different societies, different social contexts - all affect evaluations of whether a procedure is "working", and to what extent. 

But it is possible to regard modern science (say, from the 1600s onwards) as a systematic and communal attempt to make magic work more reliably by diminishing the personal and contextual. 

Such that a given scientific procedure can be counted-upon to produce a given result, to a greater extent than was the case with ancient magic. 

And this goal was pursued, over several generations of scientists, even when the results were more modest, less spectacular, than the results claimed for magic.

The point was that scientific results could be relied-upon in a way that was less dependent on the qualities of the scientist and the specific situation, than was the case with magicians. 

Science required much less training and knowledge than magic; and the accepted societal applications of science became much wider than achieved by magicians - indeed, science became almost universal. 

"Less" dependent - but still dependent to a degree; because any reflective and critically-minded real-scientist would know that the results of science still depend on many of the aspects of ceremonial magic: the knowledge and skills of the scientist, elaborate procedures and equipment etc. 

My conclusion is that the magical elements of science were never eliminated, and science could still, therefore, be regarded as a type of magic. 

However; the successful attempt to reduce the magical aspects in science came at a cost; because the trend led, incrementally, to the eventual elimination of the divine and spiritual from scientific discourse... 

The point at which the spiritual and divine were altogether eliminated from scientific thinking (in the later 20th century); was the point at which science ceased to be real and became, instead, merely a branch of the totalitarian bureaucracy; and scientists merely a species of research bureaucrat.  

In sum: Real science is a sub-branch of magic built-upon those areas of life where the desired effects can most reliably, and more completely, be achieved...

Which also means that many aspects of life are ignored by real-science because outcomes are unpredictable; or depend too much on individual persons and circumstances. 

*By "ceremonial" magic; I mean that requiring some combination of knowledge or scholarship; training and practice; and using some kind of (more or less complex) physical procedure, actions, words, and/or material artefacts.  

"AI" is a "Magic 8-Ball" (i.e. obfuscated dice-roll or coin-flip)

The current primary global strategy for replacing people with "AI" programs; amounts to the substitution of a "Magic 8 Ball" for human judgment. 

This statement is hardly an exaggeration!

The Magic 8 Ball is actually a yes-no dice* with a verbal output, which is indeed just an elaborated coin-flip. 

To set-up the analogy with "AI"; here are three aspects of the Magic 8 Ball mechanism:

1. Functionally; M8B is an obscuration and complication of a simple device for generating positive and negative responses. A child does not realize that the (relative) complexity of operation, functions to confuse the user about what would otherwise be obvious. And the verbal nature of responses (e.g. "As I see it, yes", "Don't count on it") merely provide a more human-like output than would numbers or symbols. 

2. The other point of the 8 Ball is that it is supposed to be "magic". In other words; the M8B user has had the idea planted that the ball is (something like) sentient, conscious, has innate wisdom, and even predictive power. 

3. Finally; the complexity of the structure enables much more money to be charged for the device; than if it was a die, or a coin. 

The analogy between the Magic 8 Ball and the global totalitarian "AI" project is very close:

1. The colossal computational complexity of "AI" obscures that it does not understand anything - any more than does an M8B. And "AI" in its post-November 30th-2022 iteration, has been specifically-engineered to generate pseudo-relevant, human-like verbal outputs. 

2. By means of a vast propaganda PSYOP - "AI" has been attributed with "magical" powers of intelligence, wisdom, creativity etc; so that people are inclined to treat its output as having (or very soon about to have) literally superhuman capabilities.  

3. Nobody would pay much for dice; but the global establishment have spent many trillions of dollars (of "our" money) in "AI" technologies and its infrastructure (which, functionally, merely amounts to an eight ball on steroids with plastic surgery); of which most has gone into the pockets of pseudo-"investors"; with significant sums spread among their managers, propagandists and minions.  

The question arises as to what will happen if or when significant decision making is taken from humans and given to the output of a Giga-Magic Eight Ball? 

The answer depends on whether the real decision makers (i.e. the ones who chose to develop the obfuscation in the first place, and who oversee its implementation) take any notice of the "AI" decisions, or just make their own decisions as usual, but pretend that the "AI" was responsible...

This seems the likely intended scenario. 

But maybe, instead, many people really will believe their own propaganda (it surely looks like it!); and the M8B will actually, in real life, be used to generate decisions that humans will then obey!

And maybe the leadership class of the world will allow or encourage this to happen - probably from motivations such as spite, sadism and destructive zeal - and will them will "sit back" in their secure and provisioned shelters, cackling at having so grossly fooled so many people; to "enjoy the show" of what eventuates. 

In which case civilization will crumble and collapse... and more rapidly than would otherwise be the case.  

 

*Magic 8 Ball is a 20-sided dice suspended in fluid, which is shaken, and then provides ten "Yes" and five "No" themed verbal answers - the other five answers are essentially "roll again". All of which ultimately reduces to a die with only yes/ no responses (in this case; double the proportion of "yes" than "no" answers) which could further be reduced to coin-flips. 

Are traditionalist-orthodox Christians contented Not To Know how salvation works for the massive majority of (outside of the church) foetuses, children, non-Christians?

I am much more confident of the goodness of God the Creator; than I am of any theology; such that it seems obvious that Christians ought to fit theology around the goodness of God, and not vice versa. 

I am also much more confident that Jesus was the Son of God, God was his Father, spoke with God person to person; and taught that we can and do know God by knowing Jesus - than I am confident about metaphysical assumptions regarding the nature and operations of "the Trinity". 

Put together: I am much more confident that God the Creator's goodness is fundamentally like Jesus's goodness, and like the goodness of Men (when we are good) - much more confident of this recognition and knowledge of God's goodness; than I am confident of the theological explanations that posit a God whose "goodness" is alien and incomprehensible to me, and therefore a God whose "goodness" has the human appearances of evil. 

(Thus I solidly believe that God is good; not that good is God.) 

From this perspective I perceive that most Christian theologians have always seen things the other way around to myself. 

They insist on trying (and failing) to explain the goodness of God in terms of (what seem to be prior and extra-Christian concepts of) monotheistic oneness, and dogmas concerning the "omni" attributes of the Creator.  

And consequently, they insist upon their inference of the utter unbridgeable difference between God and Men, and the unknowable nature of so infinitely-different a being as their God is from ourselves. 

This, I believe, lies behind the problem of the possibility of salvation "outside of the church" - which has apparently plagued thoughtful orthodox Christians as far back as there are records, and still does. 

On the one hand; strict orthodox-mainstream Christian church theology typically excludes the possibility of salvation from those outside of the church, and/or those who die unrepentant (e.g. the Protestant idea of "as the tree falls, there it shall lie" - meaning it is the state of mind at the moment of death that determines our eternal future).  

Both of these ideas seem to imply that the mass majority of humankind through history and still today are doomed to damnation. 

Yet those who assert salvation-for-all ("universalists") deny the reality of freedom, of agency, of choice* - and/or make this mortal life a needless hazard to salvation. 

Caught between the monstrous idea that most of humankind are doomed to damnation by an inscrutable God (He must be inscrutable, because he is Not  understandably good and loving) - and the robotic- determinism of universal salvation - most Christians will affect ignorance.  

They will say some version of "we do not know, because we have not been told" (meaning told dogmatically by their church, or the Bible as interpreted by their church) what happens to that (I say it again!) massive majority of Men throughout history who died in the womb, or as young children, or in places and times when there was no Christian church. 

This affectation of ignorance concerning such a colossal question strikes me a grotesque if sincere, and wicked if insincere. 

How could so many self-identified Christians be contented Not to know what happens to most people alive or who ever have lived?

Are they really only concerned about the magic circle of people within their own chosen church or denomination? 

My point is that this is an extremely important matter, and Christians ought not to allow themselves to profess ignorance on such a vital matter. 

They need (are duty-bound) to find a coherent answer that accords with their fundamental understanding God, Jesus and what it is to be saved. 

And this further means, that they ought carefully to examine whatever answer they come-up-with and commit-to; to ensure that their answer is essentially coherent with what needs to be affirmed for Christians.

Because... most of what most churches/ denominations say on this extremely important subject is very obviously incoherent. 

* Salvation must freely be chosen, it is opt-in. This means that the Mormon idea that all children before eight years old, the year from which they regard baptism as valid, will be saved - is also incoherent. 

Giants and Albion (the British)

Nightmare fuel for kids

I have already posted on the subject of historical Giants in relation to the British Isles - according to some classical authors Giants seem to have been the original (or first recorded) inhabitants of this island. 

I found another piece of evidence that might be taken to support this assumption; in that (according to some notes in John Rateliff's excellent History of The Hobbit) the only two fairy tales that are considered to be probably native to England; are Jack the Giant Killer, and Jack and the Beanstalk (which also has a Giant as the baddie). 

I decided I owed myself a chance to read these stories in their earliest and definitive versions; which I found in Classic Fairy Tales by Iona and Peter Opie. 

My impression of these Jack stories, especially of "the Giant Killer", was of crude and shallow narratives without any detectable trace of that faery enchantment, which is (for me) the only magic really worth reading about.   

The Giants existed only to be stupid, ridiculous, repulsive, and terrifying; their fate only to be tricked, laughed-at, tormented, and slaughtered. 

I conclude that these tales are likely to be exact examples which Tolkien referred as "impoverished chapbook stuff" in one of his letters:

"I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own, not of the quality that I sought, and found in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish, but nothing English, save impoverished chapbook stuff."

The Giant Killer seemed to encourage nothing more virtuous than greed and Schadenfreude; while the Beanstalk Jack larded on some unconvincing moralizing about his later repentance and reform of character.  

All I can say in defence of these un-enchanted and uniquely English Fairy Stories is that I find a similar deficit of enchantment in most other tales from other nations - such a the courtly French stories of Perrault, or the sentimentality of Hans Christian Anderson. 

It is really only the German forest stories of the Brothers' Grimm - such Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White - where I find enchantment of the kind I like...

A sense of faery; that parallel and uncanny, perilous, eerily-beautiful world of magic; just off the path or waiting outside of the woodland clearing. 

Magical duels between early Christian missionaries and Druids of the British Isles

Saint Patrick magically duels a Druid

In the Roman and post-Roman era; the early Christian missionaries to the British Isles were highly successful at converting the Druidic pagans. 

This may suggest a basic religious compatibility; such that Christianity may have seemed like a natural extension or complement of the Druidic religion. 

For instance; according to Julius Caesar, the Celts of Gaul and Britain seem to have been exceptionally courageous in battle because they did not fear death; being convinced that they would personally survive death in some mode of reincarnation back into this mortal life. 

In a context where personal survival was already an established conviction; the Christian missionaries promise of resurrected eternal life in a Heaven, rather than merely returning to re-live "more-of-the-same", may have been regarded as a significantly better prospect. 

But, even if the post-mortal Christian outcome was better than what Druids could offer; there was the problem of establishing the missionary's authority to promise it. 

After all; why should a Celtic tribal King believe the word of some foreign priest who turned-up at his hall telling a story about the afterlife?  

A Christian missionary would therefore need to establish his own divine authority; and this would usually (it seems) be done by performing "wonders" with divine aid: wonders such as miracles, and also defeating the existing priesthood in trials of spiritual-strength.

This was done to prove the new God was stronger than the old ones, and prove that the new kind of priest spoke with divine authority.   

One such trial of spiritual strength was some variation of the magical duel - analogous to that in the Old Testament (Exodus 7: 8-13) between Aaron and the Pharoah's magical priests - the episode of the magical staffs and the snakes. 

It is important to recognize that the magic of Pharoah's wise Men is depicted as real; but weaker than the magic of Aaron and Moses.

Much the same things were reported in the evangelization of the British Isles, as John Michell summarizes in his 1990 book New light on the ancient mystery of Glastonbury ( pp103-4: I have condensed this passage):   

The great mystery behind early Christianity in Britain is how the first missionaries managed to persuade the chiefs, nobles and Druids to lead their people in converting to the new faith of Christ. Certainly there was opposition, but there is no record of violence or bloodshed. 

Contests between the rival men of religion took place on a professional level, as trials between rival magicians. We only hear about those engagements where Christians won, but it appears that their magic was generally superior to that of their opponents. 

Thus St Patrick prevailed over the Druids of Tara, St Columba defeated the Druids of Bruidh, and St David won a contest with the magician Boia. 

In times when the outcomes of battles were largely determined by the powers of the Druids on each side, a compelling inducement to accept Christianity was that Christian magic proved more effective than that of the pagans.  

The arts of ancient magic are no longer known and it is impossible to say by what combinations of psychology, conjuring, weather control, and elemental invocation; prehistoric battles were conducted. 

It is clear, however, that (unlike Christian magic) the magic of tribal shamans was ineffectual against outsiders of a different religion.

My understanding is that in ancient times magic was real and powerful, and could (in some civilizations) reliably be deployed as required (for instance, to build the pyramids). 

Nowadays, I think magic is still real, still happens; but evidently it is weaker and much less reliable than in the past. Thus; magic cannot nowadays be commanded in ways that seem to have been normal (at least for suitable gifted and trained persons) in Biblical times, or in the early centuries AD.

Nonetheless; it seems only honest to recognize that (bowdlerisations aside) early Christians used magic, as well as other types of miracle, to establish their credentials as speaking with authority on behalf of Jesus. 

Indeed; the remarkable effectiveness of early British missionaries (including those who later became Saints) was sometimes due precisely to the greater effectiveness of the new Christian magic, as compared with the old magic of rival pagan priests.  

 

Meaningful places are objectively real to me - but why?

For me, there have always been only a few and specific "meaningful places" and I feel more-or-less out of it and adrift anywhere else. 

Where I live now and the surrounding area is meaningful; and also where I used to live in the South West - Devon (although I haven't visited there for a very long time) and Somerset.

Outside these, not many. London, the South East, and pretty much all of the Midlands - except the Welsh border counties (eg Herefordshire, Shropshire) - leave me decidedly cool. 

I find parts of the Scottish side of the Borders to be very magical, and I used to find Edinburgh meaningful, but not for a long time now. And I never found Glasgow meaningful, which was why my time living there made so little an impression. 

Keswick is a favourite meaningful place, and Stratford upon Avon another. 

The first time I went to Norwich I was very taken by it; but later visits did not confirm this. However, I was very taken by Ely (I've been three times, now) and much of rural fenland Cambridgeshire - but not Cambridge itself. 

Oxford, I used to find meaningful, and visited many times across 50 years - but I also found that the magic of the place was progressively fading with every repeat visit. I shall be revisiting soon, and will be curious to see how it is faring...

The point of all this - is that experience has taught me that there is something objective about whether a place or area is meaningful to me. It's not something I can "manufacture" by will power. 

Places that are "theoretically right" for me, and which I strove to find meaningful - can stubbornly resist; and remain disenchanted (Glasgow, Cambridge, for instance). 

While, on the other side, I have also been surprised at how some places grabbed me - Stratford, for instance, I fully expected to find too much of a "tourist trap" yet I was actually bowled-over, and have had many holidays there.

The reason and significance? 

I think it has something to do with our personal destiny.... 

For reasons we probably will never know, I think we get some kind of inner spiritual guidance - subtle, but decisive and strong - about where we ought to be spending our time - and where Not. 

The desire for spiritual power...

Once one has acknowledged the reality and primacy of the spiritual world, comes the question of what to do about it; and since we dwell in this world then it seems inevitable we shall hope that spiritual power will be used to improve this world in ways that we desire. 

This motivation is often ascribed particularly to those who practice magic in its various forms; but is equally common among the religious - including Christians. 

Most of what Christians hope-for and work-for is focused on improving mortal life in this world - albeit sometimes this improvement is conceptualized in terms of providing a better environment for the encouragement of conversion and spiritual development. 

Yet, I suppose that most Christians would acknowledge that their primary efforts ought to be devoted towards eternal life beyond this mortal life - to whatever is the form of spiritual preparation for Heavenly existence that they personally regard as most necessary and desirable. 

This, then, seems to be our situation. The way we are made and the way of the world dictates that we cannot help but focus on the material and physical conditions of this mortal life, and from our own perspective. 

While at the same time Christians know that this ought-to-be secondary to regarding the spirit as primary and post-mortal life as the priority. 

In this respect, the situation resembles the rest of life: we know better than we can actually live-by, and often by a large margin; and therefore repentance rather than reform is the only sure answer. 

Nonetheless, most people make matters much worse than they need to be, by their chosen commitments to this-worldly engagements; and then they are led-into choosing to make this-worldly considerations (usually political in nature) not just their consuming interest - but their bottom-line morality: that upon which they are most motivated, most intransigent.   

Unfortunately, the Christian churches encourage exactly this; in that they operate in terms of self-definition, inclusions and exclusion, primarily in terms of various this-life and this-worldly stances... As is almost inevitable for any institution in today's totalitarian environment. 

In conclusion; the most important thing is that we can and do, as individuals and in our personal conviction, stand apart from this-worldly concerns; and refuse to be manipulated sufficiently to keep a clear head and heart about what is primary...

Get clear on what ought-to-be most important.

And what ought-to-be our bottom-line, no compromise, motivating convictions. 

...This will not be found in the realm of public discourse; which is the domain of Satan. 

Apparently very few people, very few Christians, are able to accomplish this basic spiritual task at present.

As is evident from their passionately-expressed concerns about an event mega-reported as top news in the mainstream mainstream over the past couple of days.

This is, in other words, another Litmus Test - and, as usual, most self-identified Christians who have expressed their "opinion" (i.e. adopted a pre-allocated role in the totalitarian narrative) have - so far - failed it spectacularly.