"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. 

A big problem with spiritual interventions such as prayer/ meditation, especially in groups

I have been very un-impressed by what I know of the "results" of group prayer, or meditation - especially when groups are arranged to pray "for" something or another. 

Such things seem recurrently popular - among Christians, and also in the New Age and occult world. Those involved in group prayer/meditation/ ritual almost-invariably seem to be emotionally satisfied by their activities - yet, as so often, anyone outside of the magic circle of participants sees only a kind of self-fulfilling psychology at work. 

In principle, this could be because the change is at an imperceptible spiritual level of things; or it could be that actually nothing valuable has happened - but worse; I suspect that such attempts to do good by prayer or meditation often do actual harm. 

This is because people nearly always seem to be asking for the wrong things. 

Either they are asking for some outcome that is inferred from distorted or false information derived from the mass media-globalist bureaucracy; or else they are asking for something abstract that itself is an evil-motivated concept... 

I mean something like "peace", "justice", "healing", "safety" ;or the triumph of some particular side in some dispute. 

When it comes to matters outside of our direct experience, we are on shaky ground when we engage in attempted spiritual machinations. 

It is more important to pray or meditate for the discernment to know what is needed; than to try and achieve by consciously-willed spiritual-force some particular outcome; concerning situations for which our understanding is derivative and insecure (the significance of which is often externally dictated)... Situations when we personally don't really know what is happening, nor what would be a better thing to happen. 

The problem is not so much that group-prayer meditation does not work as that it does actual harm - because the harm of asking for wrong things is amplified by the "group dynamics" of the situation.  

There is no such thing as value neutrality. When we are not working to sustain the side of God and the good; we will very probably be lending spiritual aid to the side of evil - and/or opening our-selves to demonic influence: inviting it in. 

Note added: As so often, I think this problem is a modern one. In earlier eras of human consciousness, Men were (to a much greater extent than now) spontaneously immersed in both the group consciousness, and the spirit world of the divine. But one aspect of modern consciousness is that this is no longer the case: our freedom and individuality comes with the flip-side that we don't have a natural (and largely unconscious) connection with group, angels or God. We must make a conscious personal choice to attain knowledge of The Good - and positive groupishness tends to be rare and evanescent. 

The Empire Strikes Back! The current Ahrimanic (globalist) backlash in the United Nations

(For once!) I seem to have been correct in my prediction that the current Arrakis war is being exploited (and, very likely has been set-up) as a way of re-asserting globalist totalitarian bureaucratic control, especially via their long-favoured tool of the United Nations. 

The current quasi-legal proceedings against CHOAM is being accepted as A Good Thing by many supposedly awakened and skeptical radicals who, a mere few months ago, would have recognized the UN as an agent of Ahrimanic evil; an institution designed to be a prime agent of the intended internationalist tyranny of a System of mass omni-surveillance and micro-control. 

But now; this same UN is being regarded as a beacon of impartial law, defender of the weak and innocent, wielded against a rogue-state; and its powerful, wealthy, reckless and cruel Western backers*...

(*Although the worst that can be said against The West and CHOAM is true; on the one hand this was made so by those same powers who are now shrouding themselves in the mantle of Justice; while on the other hand the solution on-offer is as evil - in its different mode - as the problem it affects to address.)

To me, the situation has, very obviously, been manipulated into being by the Empire (that is, the Empire that never ended, the Black Iron Prison); who are fighting back against the chaos-loving, war-mongering, destructive Sorathic factions (arising within the Empire itself) who delight in human suffering and death for its own sake - and even at the cost of weakening or breaking The System; and who have are waxing ascendant in the ruling classes of The West since at least the summer of 2020^.

(^This may need clarification. My understanding is that The Empire is an Ahrimanic project; but that Sorathic individuals arise within it as a kind of psychopathic and parasitic element, and these individuals form a faction who band together expediently to indulge their purposively destructive agenda. This can be seen, perhaps, in US politics where a small but powerful faction within the leadership - successfully cooperate to create and amplify torture, war, famine, mass death - and other forms of chaotic destruction.) 

The Ahrimanic agenda includes the discrediting and elimination of all nations, especially those with power or who display any desire for autonomy. There is zero national loyalty among the totalitarian bureaucrats - although they are happy to allow and encourage nationalism insofar as it can be manipulated towards that destructive end. Which is precisely what is afoot. 

They are very keen to destroy all the Western nations, who are all very keen to be destroyed; and even keener to destroy any nations such as CHOAM (and the Fire Nation) who desire to survive. This is attempted by trying to reshape nationalism into resentment, and transform the desire to survive into the desire for revenge - both of which will be likely to lead to reckless and self destructive behaviour. 

So far this has failed in the Fire Nation, but succeeded spectacularly in CHOAM, which is behaving in ways almost guaranteed to lead to its own utter annihilation. 

So - the situation is set-up in which there is apparently a forced-choice between (Ahrimanic) global totalitarianism, and (Sorathic) global war; that is - between tyranny and death. 

(Indeed, in an ultimate sense, the choice between chosen slavery to Satan, and indirect suicide.) 

And, as always with evil - the choice is real in the sense that (to be spiritually effective) we need to consent to evil: to invite evil into our hearts. For example, by enthusiastically regarding as our saviour and supporting the UN... with all that implies+.  

In such a situation; the only escape from embracing one or another of the twin evils of worldly expediency, and thereby taking the side of evil; is a perspective that is Not of This World. 

As seems more and more often the case: the age of neutrality is passed, things have come to a point; we are being corralled into making an ultimate existential choice for God and Heaven - or actively enlisting against them.

  

+Note added: I do not think that this current Ahrimanic backlash will be effective in reversing the progression towards Sorathic destruction; partly because this trajectory is the inevitable direction of those who are allied to evil; and partly because reckless destruction is so much easier and more rapid than making and sustaining a System of global totalitarianism. 

The pseudo-dilemma of being forced/ encouraged to take a side between evils; when we are being-manipulated by false-delineation of the sides

As I have often said; it seems to me that the Ahrimanic Sorathic struggle is very evident in the Arrakis war - with the Sorathic-demon servers current triggering extraordinary acts of nihilistic (and indeed suicidal) provocation; while Ahrimanic affiliates are trying to maintain control of the envelope, and daily re-applying veneers of geopolitical pseudo-logic. 

This is exactly the kind of characteristically "End Times" danger that I was brooding about a few years ago; when there are only two allowed options in public discourse - chaotic destructiveness or globalist-bureaucratic totalitarianism. 

It superficially seems obvious positively​ to take the side of Systemic evil - e.g. of favouring more "peace" instead of uncontrollable war - and then one too easily finds oneself, for example, pinning hopes on that deeply evil-motivated organization the UN!

I'm sure this kind of pseudo-dilemma (ie. trying to induce us to take one of two sides, both of which are ultimately evil in motivation and methods) is something deliberately planned and sustained.

One of "Their" tricks is to mis-describe the sides: to falsely delineate who is actually fighting whom. 

For example the Fire Nation is fighting the globalist West - and the West is merely using the nation that is the venue of conflict: using them to the point of annihilation and (currently) beyond. 

This is obscured by the suicidal complicity of those being-used; yet this is not a surprise because self-destructiveness is a standard feature of modern, Not Religious, Man. Self-destruction is the inevitable ultimate consequence of unrepented sin; and resentment is maybe the most powerful and common of unrepented sins of this era. 

False delineation of sides is also evident in the Arrakis war (where there are no good sides, and the Western Establishment is unequally split - and supports both of them). 

As in the Fire Nation war; the actual venue of conflict is not one of the two real "sides"; but is merely the location of a war between much larger powers - and thereby is currently, rapidly, being-annihilated. 

And, as with the FN war; the Western side is motivated by powerful, long-term, unrepented - indeed celebrated - resentments - fuelled by fear, which is itself deliberately fuelled. 

Something somewhat analogous applies to the other side - so that the desired outcome on both sides is annihilation of the other - but the most probable outcome is de facto annihilation of both sides: which is why I regard this as ultimately a Sorathic war. 

My point about the need for accurate delineation of sides is that the mainstream, official and media sources persistently misrepresent these conflicts as being "about" the smaller, venue-nations; whereas in reality the venue nations are actually victims (albeit, to a variable but significant extent, complicit victims) of external manipulation . 

"In a rational world" we would not personally be concerned by the doings of remote places; yet because of Western complicity, funding, intervention, geopolitical strategizing - we Just Are involved. 

Not having an opinion is hardly possible with mainstream mas and social media and official saturation coverage; as it was hardly possible with the birdemic-peck, or the antiracism of "MLB". No opinion, "neutrality" or a balanced-view is always - in practice - treated as taking a side.  

Therefore in practice; we must take a view. 

But we ought not to take a side in situations where both sides are evil (albeit evil of different types and motivations); when the choice of sides amounts to a choice between inwardly supporting either demonic chaos or demonic control - because that is precisely what They are attempting to manipulate us into doing. 

The dilemma is not, in reality, "di" - and there are other options and alternatives. By making it a choice of evils; the attempt is strategically-distraction from what we, as Christians and as dyadic direct-knowers, ought to be committing our-selves to. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is our world. 

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

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

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

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

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

But why, how, did this Matrix happen? 

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

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

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

Ultimately "because" randomness. 

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

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

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

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

So much for the negatives...

Then we must ask:

If Not; Then What? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile here we are, you and me. 

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

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

Death approaches... 

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

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

And this is where Christian faith comes in. 

And it must be Christian faith. 

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

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

The alternative?

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

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

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

And despair is the surest of all paths to damnation. 

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

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

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

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

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

All in The West must take the side of evil (Nobody is allowed to be neutral - not even a bit)

True neutrality with respect to any question concerning values is not a possibility, and never has been; yet degrees of 'official' neutrality used to be conceded, and commonplace - as pragmatic realities in public life. 

While every person and nation will almost-inevitably take sides over any particular question - at least overall, and to some degree - it used to be allowed that people and nations could stand-apart from conflicts, and remain un-declared. 

Even during the massive conflict of World War II, there were several neutral counties in the heart of the conflict (Switzerland) or on its border (Spain, Sweden). 

And, as recently as a couple of decades ago; it used to be quite normal for people or nations to opt-out of taking sides on questions of value in public life. 

This is no longer allowed in The West; because the powers on the side of evil are now dominant, their evil is more advanced; and They have forbidden neutrality. 

Each and every person (with no allowed exceptions) must now - publicly and with a display of enthusiasm - actively participate in celebration and promotion of Litmus Test issues relating to sex, sexuality, antiracism and so forth. 

All must take the side of evil (called good, in the official system of Western inverted-values) - or be attacked as an enemy. 

Anyone - any single individual - who opts-out and tries to be neutral in any of the Litmus Test issues; may be punished by the full force of global media and public opinion mobilized against them; exclusion from work, removal of financial services, demonization of status - and many other possible punishments (officially imposed, and unoffically allowed and encouraged), without limit to severity or duration.  

We are seeing the same phenomenon in relation to the Fire Nation* war. No Western nation has been allowed to remain neutral on this issue - even Switzerland and Sweden have been compelled to abandon long term principles of neutrality. 

Furthermore, active participation in the war is also being compelled - until recently by participation in war-sanctions. And currently by mandatory military participation through sending weapons to the battlefront. 

And this military participation must be done publicly, proudly; and backed with explicit aggressive statements. 

Presumably the next step will be sending military personnel from all nations - with no opt-out allowed. 

This is not about military effectiveness - because from such a perspective it makes no sense. It is about ideological - hence spiritual - allegiance. 

Western nations are being compelled into active support for an open-ended campaign aimed at existential annihilation of the Fire Nation; either its destruction, fragmentation, or vassalage. 

Nations are being forced (by their puppet-'leaders') into making themselves existential enemies - not only of the FN, but of an alliance that (increasing month by month) includes the two most populous nations in the world, and indeed most of the world's population and land mass. 

Those who do not paint a target on their own backs by choice (like the UK did thanks to its cravenly-servile US-obedient leadership); will have it done for them, at the point of a sword.

In other words; the ideology of annihilation of the Fire Nation serves as yet-another factor in the suicidal self-destruction of The West - and all its (compelled-) allies, such as the North East Asian vassal-states of the USA, who are now actively and rapidly being prepared to operate as agents of their own destruction. 

In sum, underneath the cover of fake Geopolitical reasoning and led by the dominant Western power; the whole world is being set-up for an all-inclusive world war - the first ever - which will be sustained for as long as possible, and with as much all-round destruction as possible. 

Such a war will (if it happens) serve the dual purpose of lethally damaging Western civilization, and doing something similar to all those who - in any way - dissent from the Western-leftist-atheist-materialist ideology of the globalists. 

 

For a Christian; the vital matter is to recognize and remember that this is primarily 'just' the latest and biggest material manifestation of the long-established spiritual war; and that we need to discern and understand what is really going-on in terms of ultimate spiritual values. 

Not, therefore, to become distracted by merely proximate, materialist explanations of the war in terms of Geopolitics, economics, or even of ideology. 

These are merely means to an end; because evil is about damnation, that is about spiritual and eternal death - therefore not only, nor mostly, about physical death.

Note: Anyone confused by any of the terminology I use, here or elsewhere, should do a word-search on this blog (i.e. using the Search box on the upper left extreme corner).  

Barfield misunderstanding Barfield...

One of the difficulties about understanding Owen Barfield, is that he did not really understand himself! 

I mean that Barfield did not really understand the nature of his own philosophical work; and thereby said some misleading things about it. 

Barfield's major work was Saving the Appearances; and in his introduction to the 1988 edition of this book (which are Barfield's first published, and framing, words in the reprinted editions since then), Barfield tries to provide a helpful framework to avoid what he terms a misunderstanding, and a difficulty. 

What Barfield regards as the 'misunderstanding' is that "some readers have treating the work as claiming to provide a complete metaphysical theory of the nature of reality. Not so". 

(Leaving aside the weasel word "complete" - because nothing finite ever is complete...) 

But Of Course Barfield is exactly providing a metaphysical 'theory' of reality! Metaphysics is that philosophy which deals in the fundamental nature of reality; and Barfield is claiming in StA that reality is inextricably consequential of both 'chaos' and consciousness; because chaos is meaningless and unknowable without consciousness. 

Also, Barfield asserts that consciousness has changed through time; and therefore (says Barfield) reality itself (and not just perception of reality) has changed through time: "Nature itself [has] changed in the course of time in a mode not covered by the doctrines of biological evolution".

Furthermore; without consciousness (says Barfield) - there is no knowable reality - only chaos. 

So that from Barfield's assumptions: it is incoherent to theorize about a world without consciousness. 

Thus, a cosmology which - like both Big Bang and Steady State theories - speculates on the formation of a non-alive universe in the absence of consciousness is not so much mistaken as simply incoherent; as are similar speculations on the formation and evolution of an inorganic earth before the advent of Life.  

Barfield's (drawing heavily upon Rudolf Steiner's - albeit not identical-with Steiner) is indeed a fundamentally different understanding of reality than anything in the Western or Eastern mainstream of philosophy or theology. 

Therefore, whether Barfield acknowledges it or not: in StA he is indeed "doing metaphysics", and proposing a particular metaphysical description. 

Barfield claims he "tried to preserve neutrality towards all such [metaphysical] speculations, by referring to objective reality (that is to say, reality insofar as it is independent of our awareness of it)... sometimes as 'the particles' and sometimes as 'the unrepresented'. 

But this is not neutrality - because neutrality in metaphysics is impossible. 

Barfield's conceptualization of 'objective' as 'unrepresented'/ 'particles' is itself a metaphysical division and definition.  

Barfield then says: "The subject of this book is not the nature of reality; it is the evolution of consciousness". 

This translates as Barfield saying he is not doing metaphysics, but is (implicitly) doing a kind-of 'science' that he claims to be independent of ('neutral' about) metaphysical assumptions. 

So, Barfield's detailed account of the way that word-meanings have changed through human history; is claimed to be (in effect) 'empirical' and independent of metaphysical assumptions. 

But this is false, because Barfield's understanding of the implications of meaning change being located in consciousness; and consciousness being inextricably a part of reality; are excluded by the implicit and unconscious metaphysics of mainstream linguistic history. 

The changes of word meaning through history are interpreted using a very different and incommensurable significance than that which Barfield proposes - and the mainstream linguists would regard Barfield's interpretation as bizarre and obvious nonsense. 

Likewise, astro- and geo-physicists would regard Barfield's assertion that their theories of the formation of the universe and of earth were incoherent - because excluding any "observing consciousness" from such theories - to be absurd nonsense. 

Such physicists would almost certainly assert that their theories 'work' empirically, have been cross-checked by multiple mathematical analyses and physical observations - and that there is just No Problem.  

The difference between Barfield and the physicists is precisely metaphysics: each is arguing from different basic assumptions concerning the nature of reality. 

 

My understanding of Barfield is that he was Just plain wrong about what he was doing; just as Rudolf Steiner was wrong in The Philosophy of Freedom. 

Barfield claimed to be doing 'science' and Steiner claimed to be doing epistemology; but in fact both were doing metaphysics: both were (in these works) putting forward a different way of describing ultimate reality from that which was mainstream. 

This wrongness had an unfortunate effect in terms of obscuring the reader's understanding; because a convinced reader is given the false impression that Barfield and Steiner have 'proved' their arguments in a neutral fashion (which ought to be universally acceptable); rather than having provided a radically different framework for the structuring of arguments. 

Furthermore, by failing to notice that they themselves are 'doing metaphysics'; Barfield and Steiner both leave out God as a primary explanation for their understandings of reality. 

I have said before that it would be Much easier for the reader to understand Saving the Experiences if Barfield had set-out at the beginning that the 'evolution of consciousness' which Barfield describes is a divine plan, which aims at the incremental divinization of Man towards the level of God as creator.

Lacking this structuring and explanatory reference to God; Barfield's attempted-neutral description of the evolution of consciousness sounds like he is proposing a kind of 'law of nature' - a biological principle that sounds like a rival theory of the same kind as mainstream biological evolution by natural selection.   

I believe the consequences of this confusion can be seen in most of mainstream Barfield scholarship since the 1960s; and this has been exacerbated by a failure to engage with the work of Rudolf Steiner. Yet, if we begin by stating Barfield's metaphysical assumptions as such, including the presence and role of God; it really is not difficult to understand - because then its validity does not hinge on understanding and following complex, multi-step arguments or evidence. 

The Fire Nation Litmus Test: Negativism and the Mass Media revisited

From the Introduction to Avatar: The Last Airbender: "Water, Earth, Fire, Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked."

A decade ago I suggested that negativism was the proper attitude towards the Mass Media when it came to the major 'stories' - and this just becomes truer and truer, by the month. 

The idea of negativism is that it is not sufficient to 'disbelieve' the Mass Media - because nature abhors a vacuum, and one must believe something.

The idea of negativism is based upon the following:

The major output of the modern international Mass Media is always value-inverted by intent; and consists of only four categories:

1. Good presented as bad 

2. Bad presented as Good 

(That is to say simple inversion) 

3. Good presented as Good for a bad reason 

4. Bad presented as bad for a bad reason 

(That is to say explanatory inversion)

Therefore, while the entire Western global and public world is God-excluding and therefore evil; we can be sure that anything actively promoted by the Mass Media will be a greater-evil; and anything opposed that is systematically ignored, demonized or suppressed will be a lesser-evil. 

This becomes more obvious as the Mass Media becomes more unified, and as it excludes dissenting views more effectively and aggressively. 

From two years ago; there was an international totalitarian coup by means of which the global Mass Media achieved an unprecedented uniformity and censorship with respect to the fake-emergency of the birdemic - this time propagandizing the inversion of a monomaniacal view of healthism. 

(Totalitarianism - capture and coordination of all major social systems - was necessary to give the media extra dimensions of physical enforcement; such as the many types of deplatforming, defunding, exclusion from services; as well as legal and police compulsion and sactions based on catch-all/ selectively-enforced concepts such as 'hate crime', 'workplace hostility', 'terrorism' and other deliberately-vague 'isms'/ 'hates'/ 'phobias'.)

This uniformity and aggression has since been ramped-up by stages to include all the core Global Establishment policies and strategies while ignoring the fact of the international totalitarian coup and systematic destruction of the world economy and civilization.

We had extra waves of control implemented successfully for the 'MLB' antiracism scam, then the birdemic-peck fake, and continual ramping-up of narrative-control with respect to climate and the transagenda (and the decade's long sexual revolution which it currently spearheads).      

 

We can see the results from a few weeks ago after everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.  

There has never been anything to approach the degree of uniformity and extremity of propaganda that was mobilized by the global totalitarian system immediately after the Fire Nation attacked. 

The Mass Media now completely eclipses what happened with the birdemic - if you can cast you mind back across those two long years. At the time the international coordination of Media was obvious and unprecedented; but it was measured, gradual and diverse compared with what happened when the Fire Nation attacked on 24/2. 

With our experience of wave after wave of propaganda for evil over the past two years; one might have supposed that this astonishing rapidity, uniformity and extremity of the Mass Media response to the Fire Nation would have made it very obvious which was the greater, and which the lesser, evil.

And maybe that is exactly what it did...

Maybe this new Fire Nation Litmus Test is just that; I mean, not of-itself a cause of transferring Men's allegiance from God to the demonic; but instead simply a 'test' or indicator that reveals the truth about each Man. 

Because anyone who knows that the world is ruled by evil Men in league with Satan (and if they don't recognize this fact by-now, then no proof will ever be sufficient) - who then sees in the Mass Media all of these evil Men (without exception) advocating a particular narrative - then knows that that view, that agenda must itself be evil by motivation. And more evil than the views which they oppose, suppress, demonize and punish (in a characteristically demonic frenzy - without limit or restraint). 

Therefore we should not strive for neutrality - which is, anyway, impossible; but may quickly and simply make a choice to reject the greater evil. And indifference may also be impossible; in face of a expansile totalitarian (thus pan-social-system) campaign to make this Litmus Test issue unavoidable in public discourse and life.  

But we should not, in our hearts, lose our grip upon what is, in fact, a facile discrimination.   

That does Not mean that we ought to support the lesser evil; because that too is a demonic snare. Yet it does mean being clear about the greater and lesser evils; which is part of avoiding getting sucked-into value-inversion - which is a primary tool of Christian subversion and mass damnation. 

Peace-ifism - Establishment-weaponized pacifism

Leftism (conceived as a long-term Satanic plan directed against God, divine creation and The Good; and aiming at - pretty much - exactly where the world is now) was originally defined by its opposition to Christianity.

More subtly it was framed as anti-'clericalism' directed at the 'abuses' (real or imputed) of whatever specific church was dominant in some place. 

But when Leftism began to become more strategic; and began its highly successful efforts to infiltrate, subvert, invert and (now) substantially co-opt Christianity - it started to advocate (apparently) Christian-compatible 'single-issue' doctrines such as the abolition of slavery and pacifism. 

Both apparently emanated from Nonconformist Protestants in Britain, especially the Quakers - who included many wealthy and successful businessmen (and who were, moreover, probably the best employers of their day - i.e. providing the best remuneration, housing and conditions for their workers). 

Leaving aside abolition; pacifism has remained a constant and strongly supported ideology ever since - and it re-emerges whenever there are a significant section of The Establishment who oppose a particular war; or as now when the entire Establishment takes one side in a war. 

But since The Establishment certainly are Not pacifists (are, indeed, exactly the opposite!) - pacifism takes the more subtle form of 'Peace-ifism'; with concerted demands for 'peace' from the right hand - accompanied by left-hand actions that directly aim to maximize innocent civilian casualties. 

In practice, peace-ifism is always one-sided. 

It means that the side disapproved-of should give-up, surrender, retreat - and face whatever punishment The Establishment choose to inflict upon them.

(And especially their leaders; who can expect to be scapegoated and punished severely up to and including execution - whether judicially or by mob.)

Peace-ifism is not, therefore, about peace!

Under the New Leftism of perpetual revolution - peace is not on-offer from our Global Establishment; but instead perpetual-revolution.

From the Establishment we get multiple sources of violence as excuses for ever more repression, monitoring and control; all being positively-propagandized, organized, funded, encouraged and legally-allowed.

Anti-peaceful riots and lootings, destruction, violence - operating with impunity under whatever Leftist banner is currently being deployed: birdemic-peck, antiracism, climate emergency, compulsory mass immigration/ refugee crisis... Whatever.     

Thus, peace-ifism shares the soft-and-cuddly, wouldn't-harm-a-fly vibe, feel-good/ virtue-signaling attributes of pacifism; yet is in practice (and by intent) also integral-to and accompanied-by (deniable but deliberate) encouragement of severe physical punishment, violence and killing. 

In other words; peace-ifism is just-another morally-corrupting manipulation of the masses by The Establishment. 

And when all The Establishment institutions (which includes the major Western Christian churches) are united in propagating peace-ifism; and when this evil manipulation (with its obviously evil provenance!) is blotted-up and regurgitated by our docile, cowardly, unthinking and uncritical masses - as currently... 

Well, it makes for a profoundly unedifying spectacle! 

Note added: 

Another way of conceptualizing peace-ifism is that it is net-evil - evil overall - because it is intrinsically dishonest, deceptive and manipulative.

Peace-ifism pretends to neutrality ("all we want is peace!) yet always and necessarily it takes one of the sides - and yet denies the fact. 

There is no neutrality in peace-ifism: firstly because there is no such thing as neutrality; and secondly because when you analyze any specific case you will find this to be so. 

I have recently been studying the American Civil War; which was a horrible and destructive business - and if ever there was a candidate for peace-ifism, surely this was one of the strongest? 

Yet there was no neutral way of imposing peace - one side or the other was bound to be the loser. If we assume that the South wanted to retain its agrarian life based on slavery; then this was not possible so long as the USA remained unified. 

For slavery to continue, the abolitionist North would need to enforce slavery laws (such as capturing and returning escaped slaves) and thereby be complicit in a practice they found abhorrent - and the North would lose. 

Yet if slavery was to be abolished, the South would lose their way of life (as actually happened when they lost). 

The obvious solution - that the South separate from the North, was exactly what the North would not allow - and this was indeed the original cause of the war. 

Yet the South was smaller, poorer, and much less industrialized - so if the South did not separate, then the South would lose (as actually happened). 

In sum, there could be no peace without losers; so peace-ifism was just taking one side or the other - but pretending not to by calling vaguely for 'peace'. 

As then, so now: All calls for peace, when made concrete and implemented, are always a matter of taking sides. 

To take sides but dishonestly pretend to neutrality, is intrinsically sinful. 

And if you really cannot decide which side is the less-evil (a discernment that is nowadays made easy by noticing the provenance of propaganda) then you should neither have nor express any opinion. 

A word of advice to Traditionalist, Latin Mass, Roman Catholics

As someone who wishes you well and to see you prevail - since you seem to contain most of the real Christains in the RCC; I suggest that you ought to argue positively for what you really believe: that the Tridentine Latin Mass is superior to the vernacular Novus Ordo Mass. 

This does not mean that the vernacular Mass should be forbidden altogether - nor that those who want the Vernacular/ New Order should not be able to have it; but that its inferiority ought to be officially recognized - and the Novus Ordo should be 'tolerated' rather than approved. 

I say this because I have too-often seen supporters of the Latin Mass using the same kind of 'negative' (indeed liberal) arguments used by supporters of 'free speech'.

In other words, Latin Mass advocates too-often try to be value-neutral about the two forms of the Mass.  

They try to avoid stating that either form is superior - and try to to take a line that says both Masses are equivalent, and ought to be 'equally' tolerated. 

Such an argument is wrong; because decades of experience has demonstrated (if it was ever in doubt) that there can be no such thing as value-neutrality: things are either good or bad; and if there are two different forms one must (and will, in practice!) be acknowledged as better than the other. 

So to argue negatively, from a statement of value-neutrality is both inaccurate, and ineffective. 

Therefore, the Tridentine Latin Mass should be supported as explicitly the superior and preferable form. 

No such thing as Neutrality: Either everything is political (for the Left); or else everything is spiritual (for Christians)

Sensible and decent people have spent the last five or six decades complaining that the Left makes everything political; and have thereby mostly-destroyed marriage, family, science, education, law, churches... whatever... everything... 

But indeed this process of politicization stretches back several centuries, and can be seen in the French Revolution; and later abolitionist, socialist, communist, nationalist and other secular Left movements. 

That every-thing is primarily political, is termed 'ideology' - and ideology is intrinsically totalitarian and evil. Because ideology assumes primarily and fundamentally a this-worldly and utilitarian perceptive, which is itself intrinsically anti-moral; and also because it assumes an anti-Good and inverted value-system (now in place and increasing all over the world). 

Leftist political ideology is thus oppositional-to - and has by now substantially displaced - Christian faith. 

It is this oppositional nature that leads to value-inversion: to the current mainstream and coercive assertion of lies, ugliness, sin and chaos; the hatred against that which is Good. 

But for the Christian (by aspiration and hope) everything is spiritual - not political; and the ultimate Christian perspective is beyond and after 'this world' - in Heaven; and relates to eternal spiritual dispositions and situations; rather than to temporal pleasures and pains. 

During recent decades, as a consequence both of materialistic assumptions permeating more and more of life, and in response to the ratcheting pressures of the Left and fear of 'fundamentalist' religiosity; resistance to totalitarian convergence has often asserted the importance of Neutrality.

Neutrality would entail the separation and autonomy of functional social systems from the prevalent politicization. For examples, that science, literature, law, education, the media should Not be explicitly Leftist - and should Not be subject to any other ideology or faith. This neutrality was approximated during the middle of the twentieth century in The West. 

Another aspect of this Neutrality aspiration is Free Speech - which seems to have begun as as a demand from functional specialists (including the arts and sciences, especially) to be independent of church constraints in their professional (as well as personal) lives, but later was expanded to meet the escalating attacks from the Left. 

The demand for Neutral areas and subjects therefore has its roots in an earlier phase of the materialist, leftist, ideological takeover; which is probably why it has been so utterly ineffective at resisting the movement further left - towards a single global, totalitarian ideology. 

More than this, Neutrality is itself an undesirable ideal for a Christian; since it is rooted in the idea that only some aspects of life are Christian - while others are outside of Christianity; only some aspects of life are spiritually important - while other aspects are unspiritual. 

Any plausibility in such assertions derives from the false idea that 'facts' are independent of metaphysical assumptions. The idea that there can and should be agreed facts - and agreed concepts by-which facts are interpreted - that are outside of our fundamental (metaphysical) assumptions regarding the nature of reality. 

But Neutrality is untrue philosophically - since it is metaphysical assumptions that enable us to know what is a fact and what counts as an explanation. 

In any public argument between Leftism and Neutrality; the Leftists always win! Why? 

First; because their basic understanding is correct: the basic framing understanding that there is no such thing as Neutrality. That every-thing depends on the overall and fundamental 'ideology'...

Except that 'Leftist ideology' is not a positive and substantive description of metaphysical reality - but itself merely a demonic inversion of Christian spirituality. 

Thus Leftist ideology 'encompasses everything' in the same kind of way that Christian spirituality does (or should do) - because we live in a reality created by God. 

But Leftist ideology is rooted in the choice of chaos instead of creation; and chaos has no meaning, purpose or explanatory power. 

Secondly; Neutrality is also untrue 'empirically' in that if you have (as I have, many times!) tried to argue with an ideological Leftist from a position of Neutrality; you will rapidly discover that there is no agreement as to what are he relevant facts and appropriate concepts. 

Furthermore, in such actual arguments; all facts and concepts are subordinated to Leftist values and morals - such that even personal observations and logic which seem to conflict with the ideology are described in terms of being merely 'symptoms' of anti-Leftist motivations. 

Trying to argue from a Neutral perspective against a Leftist, it is therefore empirically apparent that there is no non-ideological ground from which the Neutral argument can be made. The Leftist ideologue can expand his assumptions - instantly, easily - to encompass whatever grounds are offered by the Neutral proponent. 

The Leftist will thereby 'prove' that Neutrality is Not Truly Neutral - but itself depends on multiple value-assumptions; and thereby defeat the Neutrality arguments.  

Overall, it now seems clear that the era of Neutrality was merely a transitional phase between Christian Church religiosity and Leftist ideology. Of itself Neutrality (including 'free speech') has no metaphysical coherence. 

Therefore our proper choice excludes Neutrality; and lies between explaining everything (everything) in terms of the purpose and meanings of divine creation; or 'explaining' everything by destroying (i.e. fake-explaining, non-explaining, destroying the possibility of explanation) all that is of God, is Good, and naturally-created... by means of Leftist ideology. 

It is the choice between two 'projects' - the divine and the demonic. 

It is the taking of one side or another: God or Satan. 

How to make this discernment in relation to any particular 'thing' in modern life (of which there are zillions) used to be so difficult that it was convenient to pretend some things were Neutral. 

But not any more. The global triumph of the side of Satan, evil, chaos - has meant that more-and-more of the things they approve of - the things that will advance Their agenda - are being grouped-together ideologically. 

Leftist ideology is now a Package - what is 'in' and what is out-with that Package is being made very clear to everyone on the planet when it comes to what They regard as vitally important to Their agenda. 

Our discernment is therefore easy! We know the Package, and what is in it; because that is made crystal clear, approved, propagandized and coerced - thoroughly and globally; officially, by mass media, in education, science, law etc. 

Our personal choice is Very Simply to accept or reject the Package; and the only place that the Package can coherently be rejected from is, apparently, Christian spirituality. 

When They make some thing a part of the ideological Package, and say that it is Good; we know that it is part of the package of chaos, and that it is evil. 

How that specific Thing fits into the divine creative agenda may not be clear - indeed, it may Not fit into the divine agenda! But we can easily know to reject it, even when we can't explain in detail why*; simply because it is a core part of the ideological Package of totalitarian Leftism.  

*Note there will be explanations why Package contents - either individually or together - are indeed advancing the evil agenda; but (at any given point in time and space) we personally may not know these reasons, perhaps due to lack of relevant information or capability to understand it. Nonetheless, we do not need to know these reasons in order to recognize and reject what comes as a core part of the ideological Package emanating from the powers of evil. God is the creator and our loving Father, and will always make it possible for us to discern evil when this threatens our salvation or theosis. But we can ignore such obvious grounds for discernment; we can refuse God's help - that is our choice. Each Man's choice - and no others.  

From other Romantic Christians

William Wildblood has provided a characteristically lucid explanation of why 'neutrality' with respect to the spiritual war between evil and those who have chosen to follow Jesus Christ is no longer an option. 

Francis Berger gives a detailed, and personal, analysis of the shift from a world in 'lockdown' to a world of 'lockout' - where it is planned that those who do not comply will (incrementally) be excluded from society. 

WmJas Tychonievich takes-up one of my posts about Antichrist from a few days ago, re-explains it more clearly - and develops an ingenious and witty analogy with the shift from the heliocentric (Sun-centred - God-centred), to the geocentric (earth-centred - this-worldly) to the current moon-centred 'lunacy' of the birdemic-peck plan. 

Why is there So Much evil in the world today? - Much more than ever before?

The inevitable accumulation of evil through history leading to the End Times, seems to have been something that was apparent to various prophets of the past. 

It does seem very evident here and now; in that we are alive in the most evil time in history, and things are getting more evil by the month. This, I think, is a fact - not an opinion.

There are far more people alive now than ever before - now more than seven billion when the world population was less than a billion through history up until the early 1800s. Since early 2020, the whole world is clearly run as a single polity - and this polity has a global leadership and all social institutions that incorporate increasingly inverted value-systems in the realms of truth, beauty and virtue. 

So, our unprecedented state is that the entire world has a vast population who are mostly-and increasingly living by an increasingly inverted system where evil is regarded as good; and good as evil; and this demonic reversal is (by revealed preference) substantially supported by the masses.  

Therefore I conclude that there is a really tremendous amount of evil in the world today, and that this evil has the upper hand - and evil has been able to overturn not only all traditional religious practices (including where differing religions overlap - such as core aspects of sexuality and sexual identity) - but even personal experience and common sense understanding and reasoning. 

Thus we live in an insane world that lives by Evil Lies. 

It is interesting to consider why this should be; and immediately there seems to be several important reasons - and many more that I do not mention; which suggests a convergence of multiple evil phenomena, that things are coming to a point. 

In an overall sense, I think the End Times have been prophesied for so long because evil is accumulative. It gets added to, incrementally. 

Why? I would suppose that much of this relates to the fate of demons and damned souls. That demons (fallen angelic spirits) are in some sense confined to earth - also that damned souls become likewise spirits who are - in some way - bound to the earth. This would explain that the spiritual presence of evil increases. 

Then, what about the mortal Men who are incarnated in this age? Why are they (we) so prone to evil that we are unable to discern the starkest inversions and unable to discern even the grossest lies? Unable or unwilling to respond to knowledge of evil...

Such gross incapacity as has become normal and average is a consequence of Man's denial of (or total indifference to) divine, creation and the realms of soul and spirit...

In other words, as well as the vast apparatus of top-down evil; there seems to be a matching evil among great masses of people on earth - which suggests that there is 'something wrong' with many of the billions of individuals who have been incarnated in recent generations - and (apparently) continuing. 

Why would God allow such a situation to occur - given that God is creator and also loves us each and individually as His children? 

The overall answer must be some combination of this being the nature of this world, and that the situation is 'for our own good' - given that this mortal life is a temporary state whose function is primarily (but not entirely) to prepare us for eternal resurrected life.

I think we must presume that - although God works at the level of individual persons, and the world as a whole is merely a sum of these individual situations; this evil world is the kind of world that is best suited to the needs of kind of people who have actually been born into it (including you and me). 

In a broad sense; it is comprehensible that a world full of evil spirits and damned souls is the kind of world in which mortal Men who have a nature that is grossly insensitive to evil might have the best possible chance of learning what evil is, and deciding to reject it. 

Since this world is built for those who choose to accept Christ's gift of Heavenly resurrected life - the purpose of this very evil world is to bring naturally-evil people to a realization of the consequences of their choice to reject Jesus. 

There are increasingly only the two choices of Jesus Christ, or evil. There is no neutrality and no other viable options - because all other options are collapsing into convergence with obvious and explicit evil. 

Good and evil have become more distinct and ever-further separated. The situation is unprecedented in clarity and simplicity. Clear and simple enough for even the most tainted of souls to know what it is that they are choosing. 

Men may (of course) still choose to reject Jesus Christ and join the side of evil - it is each person's individual choice and cannot be compelled; but they will know very exactly what they are doing.  

So there is a how so much evil accumulated? And there is a why so much evil? And there are reasonable answers compatible with the loving nature of God and the needs of his children - especially the kind of children that make up a majority.   

After which we need to step back and remember that this is ultimately a 'bespoke world', individually-tailored, so each person and situation is unique - and my job is mainly to learn from my situation. 

"Freedom" and "Protest" here-and-now = criminalization of Christianity

From my book Addicted to Distraction (2014) - In the global totalitarian world from 2020; what applies to the Mass Media applies equally to government, corporations, and all bureaucratic institutions (including the main Christian Churches); and all large-scale public campaigns and demonstrations (including those that self-present as oppositional and dissenting): 

The modern Mass Media only unleashes hype for bad things – for things destructive of traditional values (of truth, beauty or – especially – virtue). 

From the Mass Media perspective, therefore, that which is traditionally Good is re-presented as bad; and vice versa. 

People and events presented by the media as Good are always in reality bad; and people or events presented by the media as bad are usually (but not always) Good* – and when bad people or events are not presented as Good, then they are condemned as bad for the wrong reasons. 

Also, if genuinely Good things happen to be presented as Good by the Mass Media; then it will invariably be the case that they also are said to be Good for the wrong reasons. 

Thus, the major output of the modern international Mass Media consists of only four categories: 

1. Good presented as bad 

2. Bad presented as Good (That is to say simple inversion) 

3. Good presented as Good for a bad reason 

4. Bad presented as bad for a bad reason (That is to say explanatory inversion) 

These four categories, which can be summarized as either simple or explanatory inversion, account for all sustained and high impact modern major Mass Media stories without any exceptions.

The one I wish to draw attention to is: 3. Good presented as Good for a bad reason 

This I would apply to any movement advocating Freedom, Free Speech and Free Expression; and to any and all groupings with a negative agenda of 'anti', 'protest' and 'resistance'. 

The simple reason is that there is no neutrality in the modern world; so there is no freedom - and in The West there is only the choice to follow, or to oppose, Jesus Christ. 

Any-thing which says it just opposes 'evil'; which presents itself as a neutral Good - any-thing which presents itself as merely-permissive (asking for generic freedom, human rights, for universal allowing) - any-thing which is supposedly just common sense, or pragmatism, or 'decent'...

Any and all such will in practice, for sure, (whether immediately or soon) be differentially interpreted and differentially enforced against Christians; and Christians-only.   

So, unless a group or movement or any-thing is explicitly really-Christian and also explicitly repents and rejects all Leftist projects - including all the litmus tests of birdemic/peck, antiracism, climate-environmentalism, social/femin-ism and the sexual revolution...

Unless this, we can be sure that the institution, group, movement, demonstration, protest is actually serving the Enemy agenda, the demonic agenda - and is actually opposed to God, the creation and The Good. 

(It was not always thus, but as of 2021 it is thus.) 

*Note added: I have changed my view on this since 2014; because I now believe there are no Good people in public life (indeed there seem to be extremely few people allied with God and creation at all anywhere; nearly-everybody is on the other side whether explicitly or passively. The totality of public life is secular, leftist and demonically-motivated - variations are just a matter of degree). In other words, things have either become a lot worse in the past 7 years, and/or the evilness of public people has become more obvious. Yet 'public people' are often attacked in the media and elsewhere. Good/ God-aligned people may well be attacked - but statistically nearly-all of the people attacked are themselves evil - merely a different type of evil than the attackers. This reality needs to be understood as just one aspect of the evil plan; with concepts such as 'office politics' inside the one ruling party-bureaucracy, controlled-opposition, distraction, PSYOPS etc. Things nowadays are Very Simple.  

Are there *really* No Good Men?

A couple of days ago I stated that there are No Good Men. 

Yes, I meant it: there are none.

As I explained: No Good Men in high positions of wealth, social status, power, or influence.

But to comprehend this simple fact you have to understand what is a Good Man.

By Good Men, I mean simply Men on the side of Good - Men on God's side in the spiritual war. 

This is not a matter of behaving well - either at peak or on average. It is not a matter of being free from sin - absolutely or relatively. It has nothing necessarily to do with a person's behaviour. 

Being Good or Bad is a matter of taking sides. 

(And there are only two sides. In 2021 neutrality is impossible, the middle ground has gone, once grey areas have a bright-line through-them. Claiming neutrality is merely to take the side of evil, dishonestly.)

Bad Men are Men who are on the side against God: men who have taken the side of the devil - who are working against God, the Good and divine creation; against truth, beauty and virtue --- Men who agree-with and advocate value-inversion - lies presented as truth, ugliness as beauty, vice as virtue. 

Bad Men may be well-behaved, nice, kind, generous, hard-working, intelligent, creative... They may have any or many such behavioural virtues; but if they have taken the side against God then they are Not Good Men. 

(Indeed, their behavioural virtues merely make them more effective in pursuit of evil purposes.) 

By such criteria, and as of 2021, there are - pretty obviously - No Good Men that are high in wealth, social status, power, or influence. 

It is time to acknowledge the fact; and to act accordingly. 

Defence against evil: negating the spiritual power of the Big Lie

The Big Lie (e.g. the birdemic, antiracism, CO2 global warming)  is usually analysed in terms of its practical benefits - i.e. that lying is instrumental, that dishonesty assists the attainment of certain goals. But the Big Lie is primarily and ultimately spiritual - regardless of whether or not it is strategically helpful*. 

It has become vital consciously to know the Big Lies as lies... And because the lies are conscious; so muct the knowledge of their falsehood be conscious.

(Instinctive resistance to lies, based on unconscious urges, is spiritually insufficient.) 

 

A lie is a sin and a Big Lie is a fundamental sin by which a person (a civilization) may be overthrown and self-damned. Satan was called the father of Lies for this reason. The Big Lie is a temptation.  

If we focus only on the practical (e.g. sociopolitical or psychological) effects of the Big Lies, we will neglect or forget the spiritual dimension - which is primary. 

And if we are (in practice) unable to resist the material roll-out of the Lies, then we will be tempted to give-up on resistance altogether - to go-along-with the lie spiritually as well as practically - and that may well lead onto spiritual acquiescence to the lie. 

 

But the reality is that Thoughts Have Power: spiritual power first, and thence practical power. 

Thoughts indeed have ultimate power: Conscious knowledge of a Big Lie is a power against Satan, demons and supernatural purposive evil; and consequently power against what they plan to do.  

(Totalitarianism aims to be total for exactly this reason. There must be No Dissent - because each dissenter wields a spiritual weapon.)

 

There is a limitation of evil, to do with its needing the consent of those whom evil intends to corrupt. 

(This limitation has to do with the primacy of God and creation; and that evil is negative, hence secondary: Evil is opposition to already-existent Good.)   

This limitation is symbolised in mythical terms by such phenomena as the assertion that a vampire must be invited to cross the threshold of a house; or that the super-villain must 'monologue' his plans to the superhero, before he can execute them... People need to be told what evil intends, before evil can do it. 

The reality behind such myths is, of course, spiritual not verbal. The reality is that when evil is known as such and rejected, then it is ineffectual - it has no power to fulfil its wishes. 

Victims must therefore (spiritually) agree to the evil done to them: victims of evil must become complicit with their spiritual corruption.

(Although, of course, victims may physically be corrupted despite spiritual resistance - since mortal life is about learning directed towards Heavenly eternal life - and experiences of this life happen for this reason. Yet even the physical and this-worldly practical evil is - to some extent, for reasons perhaps not known - repelled or thwarted by spiritual refusal; since the physical is secondary.) 

In resisting the Big Lie we are often up-against established habit, and habit may lead us unthinkingly (un-consciously) to go-along-with the practical implementation of evil. Nonetheless, direct divine intervention will (sooner or later) alert us to the reality; and then each person will be brought to the point at which he must agree consciously to evil - or reject it. 

(Consciously to 'delay' making that decision is In Fact to agree to evil, here and now, and to advance its corruption in oneself. Repentance has infinite power, but is binary. There is no neutrality about evil.)

And it is never too late to repent, therefore never too late to resist evil. 

Better late than never is a true saying - when better has an ultimate and spiritual sense; and 'better' is true however the practicalities of this-world evil implementation work-out. 

Any individual person that consciously knows evil - who knows the reality behind a Big Lie - is thereby weilding a real spiritual effect upon the power of evil: a power to resist evil - including a power against the practical implementation of evil strategy.

Which is why many, many bad things that might have happened - that were planned to happen - in fact have not happened!

*Note added: This is why the mass media always lie, even when They don't need to; in the major, headline news stories.

How to fight (and beat) The System (Ahrimanic bureaucracy)

What follows is a train of thought, of reasoning. It was stimulated by watching a fantasy TV program in which the hero fought demons, that is Luciferic evil embodied in actual personal beings that wanted to enslave, torture and murder. The fight was to contain or kill such beings.

It was difficult - for the hero; but the evil was locatable and understandable - the difficulty was in beating the demons.

Then I reflected that the evil we mostly encounter in this, our modern lives, is Ahrimanic - which means it is The System (the Matrix) - which is bureaucracy, which is impersonal, which is dispersed - behind every bureaucracy lies another. There are (it seems) "bureaucracies all-the-way-down"...


But then I realised: this is not so.

Ultimate metaphsyical reality is of beings and their relationships. The ultimate spiritual reality of modern evil is of actual Ahrimanic beings; that is persons, who have motivations and seek satisfactions in a way exactly analogous to the more familiar Luciferic demons. The Ahrimanic demons are motivated, living, conscious beings of a different kind, different nature; that is all.

So, ultimately The System, the bureaucracies are merely a mask, a disguise, a distraction from the reality of purposive evil pursuing its purposes.

What, then, can I actually do about all this? The answer became clear (or so it still seems).


I need to bear in mind - actively, deliberately - that nothing is dead, all is alive.  Consciousness is universal - motivation is everywhere.

The ultimate truth is that everything real is personal. There are no coincidences, no accidents - all has meaning - and there is no neutrality.


No neutrality means that the officials, the drones, the myrmidons, the petty agents of bureaucracy that we see all around (and our-selves very probably: aye, there's the rub!) are actually personal, purposive agents.

The minor implementors of The System - the slaves, serfs, servants - the clerks, managers, security guards, people who deliver... all of them (of us) are active participants in Ahrimanic evil - all have chosen to regard themselves as non-persons, all seek to avoid ultimate responsibility by sharing in the Ahrimanic assertion that 'nobody is to blame' - which means that in The System we are not persons - we are dead, lack consciosuness and purpose...

This is what must not be accepted - must be brought to conscious knowing, and refuted.


Primitive or psychotic paranoia - in which each person understands himself to be the centre of the universe, with life organised around-himself; is basically correct factually; but is wrong insofar as it is regarded as a passive situation - regarded as unavoidable. (The typical paranoid regards himself as a passive victim of external realities. He sees reality as outside himself.)

We are all and each actually at the centre of the universe; because we are co-creating that reality We are never passive (or, insofar as we are, then that is an evil choice: false, a pretence, a shirking of good, a service to evil).

We don't know everything here-and-now (of course!); but everything is potentially know-able - by each of us - in principle; and that 'in principle' makes All The Difference.

(About this Rudolf Steiner, in Truth and Knowledge and Philosophy of Freedom was profoundly and vitally correct).


How to fight demons? With 'magic' - obviously! But what kind of magic?

We know (from fantasy TV, movies and books) how magically to fight Luciferic demons... How then magically to fight the Ahrimanic demons that stand-behind The System; or rather hide behind The System? And use The System magically to make each of us Ahrimanic too. That is to make each of us choose to regard ourselves as material, non-personal, non-responsible - 'functional units' of that System.


The magic of fighting the Ahrimanic demons is knowing; and the effects of knowing. And victory is possible because the Ahrimanic beings assume their own passivity; that is their basic assumption, their metaphysical world picture.

When we are (or become) active and participating knowers; then They are defeated. But they do not realise how They have been defeated. Such is unknowable to Them.

The Ahrimanic magic is to induce people to regard the world passively, with detachment (as if meaning was out-there); to induce people passively to serve this machine, to deny their participation in the construction of this machine. 

Our magical challenge is therefore to see beyond the self-presentation of our world as dead, abstract, impersonal, mechanical, unconscious -- and to know the world as it really is.

The Ahrimanic magic is to make us believe the world is merely material; our counter-spell is to (our-selves) regard that world as also spiritual: more exactly the magic happens when we personally actually consciously experience the world as alive, of-beings; and embrace that experience as valid. 


This good magic will work when we know the servants of Ahriman (including our-selves) as deluded, self-suppressed, evil in avoidance of knowledge - hence respobsility for this vast structure of evil.

Good magic unmasks the beings behind the machine, unmasks the choices behind the obedience, unmasks the active promotion of evil behind the fear and despair.

A day at the office, a visit to the shops then becomes the front-line in the battlefield of spiritual warfare.

Our magic against Theirs.

Motivation is (almost) everything

One of the great teachings of Jesus was that motivation counts for more than action. The Pharisee who did everything right was a vile sinner unless his behaviour was properly-motivated; the sinfully-behaving tax-collector/ collaborator might be well-motivated. The affectation of virtue was actually worse (according to Jesus's condemnation) than bad behaviour, confessed.

Salvation is by repentance, which is about motivation - about what we acknowledge to be Good and True: what we try to do. Salvation is not about what we succeed in doing...

So with the birdemic-response-crisis. What we currently do in and with our lives is less under-our-control than it has been for several generations. The contrast with what motivates us becomes ever-starker.


To live well is primarily about what motivates us in that living. Secondarily it is about our discernment concerning the motivation of others - which is a matter of judgement, of intuitive knowing (and not a matter of 'evidence'). As social beings, our discernment is an essential part of living: there can be no genuine neutrality or agnosticism in inferring motivation; any more than they can be concerning the reality of God.

Despite the cant about 'not being judgemental' (often parroted by self-styled Christians) the need for discerning the motivations of others is necessary and good, as well as unavoidable. We therefore need to discern whether the current situation has Godly-motivations, or evil. Has the totalitarian-takeover been done from altruism, or from the desire for power... We must each decide - an affected refusal to decide is, in fact, a decision.

And then, our own motivations - in this situation where we find-ourselves - need to be well-motivated. That is, to be well motivated, we each need to be motivated in alignment with God's creation and God's hopes and wishes (which also we must discern).  


There are innumerable official and media pressures to do this or that, to be seen to do this or that - and then there are own motivations for compliance or rebellion with these rules.

It matters less whether a person complies or rebels than that they are honest (with themselves) about this motivation.  One who complies due to cowardice, but who acknowledges and repent this; is a better person than one who rebels for short-termist, selfish reasons - and vice versa.

The Biblical hypocrite (and hypocrisy is a sin) is one who pretends Godly motivations for that which is done for other reasons - status, power, wealth, expedience... This is essentially identical with 'virtue-signalling' - except that the virtue-signalling hypocrite is typically advertising his support of a inverted-good=sinful behaviour or policy.


Bringing this together; I regard our current situation as arising due to evil motivations. I can see that I and other people are reacting in various ways - and some behaviours are better some worse. But I need to remind myself that it is the motivations behind these reactions that matters, in the spiritual sense that matters ultimately.

Only when our response is motivated towards God and aligned with God, and when this comes from-within from our agency - and is consciously chosen, can the response be spiritually valuable.

All the rest is just at the level of people passively responding to external pressures in specific situations; acting passively according to upbringing, social conditioning and innate disposition. Spiritually, this is equivalent to behaving like the automatic output of a computer program.

Because the sitation has been created with evil motivations - to behave passively is to serve evil.


(And this is why it is essential that we discern the motivations of those who rule, inform and advise us: politicans, officials, lawyers, 'scientists', doctors... and the mass media.)

A Text for our Time - "He that is not with me is against me" - William Wildblood explains

There are many ideas put forward as solutions to the crisis of the modern world (not Covid 19, that's just an element, albeit an important one, of something much larger), political, ideological, even spiritual of sundry sorts. But they all lack overall coherence. However, there is something that stands above them all which reconciles any good there might be in them at a higher level without including the dross, illusion and bad qualities they all contain without this thing. It can be summed up in a sentence.

That sentence is Matthew 12:30. "He that is not with me is against me". This pithy injunction means if you are not actively for the truth of Christ, you are against it. Not passively against it, actively so. According to this saying, there is no middle ground. If you are not for Christ, you oppose him. Neutrality is not an option. 

 This might seem unreasonable. Why, if you don't accept Christ, does that mean you are the enemy of Christ? Why can you not be a good, upstanding, morally decent person without acknowledging Christ? 

You can't because Christ is the embodiment of truth and if you don't recognise that then you don't recognise truth in which case you will be on the outside of truth, working against it whether that be in a greater or lesser sense. Christ is like magnetic north. If the lodestone of your being does not point to him then it is broken. You are broken. Your soul is sick.

Read the whole thing...

William goes on to say that, although this sounds harsh, it is true. It is indeed a harsh text; and harshness is appropriate. Because life is for learning from our experiences - looking towards life everlasting. Life is not meant to be unrelieved niceness. 

This applies with especial force when our society is set on a determined course to be ever-more value-inverted, shallow, smug, hedonistic and cowardly than the low-water-mark we have already achieved. And now we - as a society - are about to experience the consequences of generations of dishonesty, evasion and hypocrisy.

Our coming challenge is to meet a catastrophic situation without bitterness, fear, resentment or despair - and with that trusting confidence that comes from faith in the loving God who is our Father; looking-ahead with indestructible hope for that eternal Heavenly life promised by Jesus to any and all who choose to follow him through the transformation that is death.

Another text from Matthew that should guide us in the days, weeks and months ahead:

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

Addiction is evil

There is a lot of addiction around - and I used the expression myself in the title of a book about the Mass Media.

Addiction could be defined as a psychological response to captivity, by which the captive ends-up desiring and serving that which holds him captive.

(Somewhat, although not exactly - and from a different cause, like Stockholm Syndrome among kidnap victims.)


Addiction is an actual evil, because it is a choice. 

An addict is not just dishonest about his basic situation; but because dishonest he actively endorses and advocates his dependence as a good. An addict is morally-inverted and a systematic liar.

As when a heroin junkie extols the benefits of the drug (there have been several example in literature), and organises his life around the drug, and his primary aim becomes enhancing the experience of fixes - this justifying dishonesty, theft, violence, prostitution, even murder. 

A real addict does not want to be free of his dependence. And it is this quality which I seem to see all around me in the modern West - it is indeed characteristic of the modern West.


The typical modern is truly addicted to the Mass Media and Social Media - his life is organised by and around these.  He does not want to be free of this dependence, but will justify and advocate his state. He will expend tremendous time, money and other resources to enhancing these experiences.

And media addiction exhibits the classic signs both of craving and escalating dosage.When temporarily prevented from using media, there is mounting agitation - and the user takes a fix as soon as possible - immediately after the restriction or prohibition has been lifted.


More broadly, modern Man has become addicted to mainstream modernity itself. Many examples could be picked - addiction to politics, bureaucracy, fashion, and of course - sex. Modernity is literally and extremely addicted to sex.

Not, mostly, to doing sex - but thinking about it. Sexual reference and stimulus, sexual identity and preference, sexual advertisement and craving is everywhere, almost all the time, and escalating - but instead of acknowledging their dependence, and wishing to be free from it; moderns embrace their state of dependence.


There is no such thing as neutrality on any significant issue in Life; and when something is not regarded as bad it will be regarded as good.

When dependence is not repented, it will be celebrated: it will become addiction, and thus a sin.